SOURCE: Babbitt, Irving. “Humanism: An Essay at Definition.” In Humanism and America: Essays on the Outlook of Modern Civilization, edited by Norman Foerster, pp. 25-51. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1930.

In the following essay, Babbitt explicates the major tenets of humanism.

I

The art of defining is so indispensable that one needs to define the limits of definition itself. A very eminent humanist, Erasmus, showed his awareness of these limits when he complained of the attempts of the theologians of the Reformation to formulate deity that every definition was a disaster. Though the humanist does not seek to define God and is in general chary of ultimates, he is wont in more mundane matters to put the utmost emphasis on definition. This Socratic emphasis would seem especially needed at a time like the present which has probably surpassed all previous epochs in its loose and irresponsible use of...