Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography

Even in our cynical age, the legendary story of jungle doctor Albert Schweitzer, self-sacrificingly devoted to the service of humanity, inspires. Out of print since the early 1970s, his classic autobiography, first published in 1933, speaks directly to modern readers in its searching appraisal of this ``period of spiritual decline for mankind,'' an age in which science, technology and power seem divorced from ethical standards. In earnest prose Schweitzer discusses his research into primitive Christianity and his search for the historical Jesus; his love of Bach, ``poet and painter in sound''; his fancy for rebuilding old church organs. His philosophy, which he called ``Reverence for Life,'' blends mysticism and rationalism, with an impulse to release the ``active ethic'' he sees latent in Christianity. For this fluid new translation, Schweitzer's own corrections made between original publication and 1960 have been incorporated. Photos. (Oct.)