The Sleep of Reason

by Derek Jarrett

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060160497
• ISBN13: 9780060160494
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 233 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

This book is deeper than deep

Derek Jarrett, a longtime professor of history at Oxford, in his amazing little book The Sleep of Reason: Fantasy and Reality from the Vic torian Age to the First World War, wrote about the decline of the power of reason (including in that term natural law, civility, and conscience) to advance our quest for Godly compatibility and peace prior to WWI. This is a book to be read and re-read countless times. I approach it with trepidation as the writing suggests a mind so fertile, so profound, and so true to the facts that one is totally floored. I feel very unworthy when I read this book insofar as it penetrates reality so deeply. I wish Prof. Jarrett were alive today so I might write to him, and personally tell him how, after reading this book, I understood the impact of WWI on Western civilization as never before even though I had been teaching about 30 years when I read it. He reveals how disillusioned the entire civilization became including some of its greatest minds. The hope in reason and the intimate connection with God seemed to be broken on a big scale (believe me, I am oversimplifying this book -- it is a great writing that cannot really be reduced to a two sentence summary). What should we think when we realize that WWII has destroyed the hope in reason and faith for so many millions and millions of people? To me this shows that our view of God prior to WWI was superficial. We need a more absolutist view, if you will, of God's grace, His commands, and His purpose. In this sense, the Puritans of Massachusetts were correct,although they were too oblivious to the rights of others. We need to right the balance in the direction of restored Judeo-Christian values. At the same time, we also need to incorporate freedom which is also God-given and God-driven ("the truth will set you free" John 8:32). Thus we need again to see ourselves more as sinful man in need of redemption, a redemption which only the Cross of Christ can give, yet,at the same time, challenged to retain a sense of universal human dignity which freedom implies. Really, freedom is the other side of the same coin along with servanthood in Christ. Our entire dignity consists in this complementarity.