University of Virginia Library

Forty Pieces

What he writes has, of
course, been written before.
His perspective, though, is well
worth examining. Mr. Gellhorn
has a way of being profound
without being pretentious.
Several times the book comes
close to sloshing over into the
sweet sea of sentimentality,
but it never makes it, always
saved by his sense of humor
that, "requires maturity, wide
experience, and the ability,
even after a long life of
dedicated work, to take neither
life nor oneself too
seriously."

The book contains close to
forty "little pieces", some on
"God and the World", some on
love, some on science, and
some simply called "For
Children and Those Young At
Heart". Certainly no one
theme runs through all the
stories, yet when the book is
finished, the material digested,
one lays back and can't lose
the feeling that Ernst Gellhorn
is trying to make a point.

"If I understand the
problem correctly, paradise is a
state of mind. To me it means
fulfillment through one's own
efforts, not unearned bliss
through the bounty of the
lord."

"...the main task is still to be
done. To complete the cycle of
creation by making the earth a

paradise through man's own
efforts."

"...Immortality as taught by
the orthodox Western religions
assumes existence without
change through eternity. This
state of being is characteristic
for inorganic matter but not
for life as we know it with its
joys and sorrows, achievements
and failures, memories and
dreams."

"(our finite life) may even
arouse the envy of the gods
who must realize that eternal
life deprives them of the
ecstasy which is conveyed to
human life through the
knowledge of its temporal
limitations."

Yes, Mr. Gellhorn is very
secular, very rational, and very
humanistic, as he has the faith
and hope that man can
"immanentize the eschaton"
and create heaven on earth. At
times his secular rationality
resembles the preaching of the
most fundamental of
fundamentalists, and all those
readers who are either
Christians, mystics, gurus, of
somehow involved in that
other world, may find his work
somewhat less than palatable.