Opium and the Romantic Imagination (review)

354 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY based upon very differentideological foundations. In Western Germany, democratically as well as conservativdy oricnted historians were obliged by the new constellation of realitiesto identify German politicalinterests with those of the Western democracies. According to the author, the fatal weakness of classical German historicism rested in itsaristocraticbias, its melhodological t~nesidedness, and its philosophy of value. He admits, however, that the classical German historians assumed rightly that freedom is meaningful only within an institutionalframework. Let us hope that the threatening anarchy will not engulf the historicalinstitutionsso that the traditional freedom can be preserved. Wc share the deep belief of the early representatives of the German historicist tradition that this is a moral world, that man possesses worth and dignity, and that an objective understanding of history and reality is possible. The book is especially recommended to all those who believe that the core of historieist outlook lies in the assumption that there is a fundamental difference between the phenomena of nature and those of history, which requires an approach in the social and cultural sciences fundamentally different from those of the natural sciences. For nature is the scene of phenomena devoid of conscious purpose while history comprises unique and unduplicable human acts, filled with volition and intent. MoRRIs Sxocao~er.a New York City Opium and the Romantic Imagination. By Alethea Hayter. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1968. Pp. 341. $7.50) Opium and the Romantic Imagination is an extremely interesting book. Its recent appearance is, of course, especially timely since there has probably never been a more appropriate time than the present for a thorough consideration of the relationship of drugs to the literary mind. Things that were only whispered about in the past have emerged into the public domain and can be discussed with increasing candor and objectivity. The whole question of drugs, though it continue-~ to vex us with its legal aspects, tends more and more to revolve around the actual effectsand consequences of taking various drugs, but even more to consideration of the social and psychological forces which make so many people prone to experiment with them. As the testimony of the users of drugs proliferates,we learn that they claim to find not just relief from the difficultiesof life,but joy and rich sensory experience which sometimes appears to transcend anything in their previous experience. People who have taken part in "pot" parties tell readily of the sensations which they have had. Music seems to have color, and musical notes are reported to be drawn out exquisitely; time seems peacefully endless. An observer who has not participated in smoking a "joint" may find those who have become extremely happy, even giggly, and seem to find everything that is said by themselves or others extremely witty and agreeable. People who have taken LSD report even richer sensory experience. They claim to have entered a world of such beauty and strangeness that in some cases they feel it has entirely changed their lives.There arc horror storiestoo; in his euphoria, or under the distorted, drug-induced perspeclive, the user may walk out of a window and to his death; he may die from an overdose of heroin or be overcome by "glue-sniffing." The contemporary phenomenon makes it much easier to attempt an objective look at a somewhat similar phenomenon of the past. For it is a fact that a number of major figures of the Romantic period were either addicted to or acquainted with at BOOK REVIEWS 355 least one of the major drugs, opium, a drug that has been known from mankind's earliest recorded history. For a number of reasons, some of which Miss Hayter deals with quite extensively, the eighteenth century was a time that was peculiarly associated with the use of opium. It had been known as a medicament as early as the sixteenth century, B.c. Laudanum, or tincture of opium, which was the most common form in the eighteenth century, had been compounded by Paracelsus in the early sixteenth century, and it was recommended by him for the treatment of an enormous variety of maladies. In 1700, a book called The Mysteries of Opium Reveard was published...