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World Order

SPRING 1969

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

William S. Hatcher

MY QUEST FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF HINDUISM

S. P. Raman

FLOWERS AND INSECTS

Jay and Constance Conrader

EARTH’S HOLOCAUST

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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World Order

A BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE • VOLUME 3 NUMBER 3 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

WORLD ORDER is intended to stimulate, inspire and serve thinking people in their search to find relationships between contemporary life and contemporary religious teachings and philosophy

Editorial Board:

FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH

BETTY FISHER

HOWARD GAREY

ROBERT HAYDEN

GLENFORD E. MITCHELL

Art Consultants:

GEORGE NEUZIL

LORI NEUZIL

Subscriber Service:

PRISCILLA CHUNOWITZ

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly, October, January, April, and July, at 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091. Subscriber and business correspondence should be sent to this address. Manuscripts and other editorial correspondence should be addressed to 2011 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts and suggestions for articles and subjects to be treated editorially will be welcomed and acknowledged by the editors.

Subscription: Regular mail USA, $3.50; Foreign, $4.00. Single copy, $1.00.

Copyright © 1969, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, World Rights Reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

IN THIS ISSUE

1 Today’s Generation Gap

Editorial

4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

7 Science and Religion

by William S. Hatcher

20 My Quest for the Fulfillment of Hinduism

by S. P. Raman

29 In the Wrong Ghetto

A Poem by Gayle D. LeTourneau

30 Flowers and Insects

by Jay and Constance Conrader

39 A Step toward an International Monetary System

by Vergil L. Williams and Mary Fish

45 Earth’s Holocaust by Nathaniel Hawthorne

with an introduction by Allan L. Ward

60 Authors and Artists

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Today’s Generation Gap

EDITORIAL

IT IS NOT SURPRISING that there is today a generation gap which is different in kind from the conflicts which have always made communication difficult between parents and children. The barrier to communication has been getting ever denser as history stumbles from one disaster to the next. Our bland optimism of the last two hundred years that if business and politics are left to themselves everything will turn out all right has received little confirmation recently. Our mad rush to the abyss seems, in fact, to be accelerating. Yet, super-planning by totalitarian states has had disastrous results. The materialism, nationalism, rationalism, imperialism, totalitarianism of the fathers and grandfathers of today’s youth have hardly inspired respect and emulation in their hearts.

What we are witnessing today is no ordinary youthful rebellion. In the past, children were impatient to grow up and accede to the freedom, power, and pleasure they believed their elders enjoyed. Now they reject their elders’ entire way of life. They want two things: To live, first of all; not to be destroyed, whether by ultimate weapons or by the irresponsible destruction of nature in the quest for profits; secondly, to live in a spiritual world in which sincerity reigns and freedom is at its maximum. Hypocrisy and greed are their prime foes.

Having rejected the moral maps of the past, they find themselves in a desert. In their rejection of history, they reject the knowledge of past errors committed in the quest of the same goals espoused by youth today. Anarchism was as seriously promoted at the turn of the century as it is now, and the error of attempting to create a society without direction or organization, hence without defense against greed and malice, has since been demonstrated. The radical destruction of old values has been, in many instances, followed by a system as least as oppressive as the one it replaced.

A NEW DEVELOPMENT is the rejection of Reason by many youth. Reason, they contend, is a favorite tool of evil; it only serves to confuse the innocent and the sincere. Both dropouts and activists, opposite poles of today’s generation, seek inner certainty and autonomy: the ones in an “expanded consciousness” of introspective rejection of the outside world (aided by drugs perhaps), the others in the imposition by force of their certainty of what is right.

[Page 2] If we examine the attack on Reason in the light of the Bahá’í teachings, we can see that there is an approach to the problem, as we have sketched it, which can not only restore communication between the generations but also establish communication between races and cultures and nations and bring a healthful unity (not uniformity) to the world. What should be under attack is not Reason, but Rationalism, a belief or attitude —really, a delusion—that what cannot be put into words and reasoned about does not really exist. Our existence, our awareness, whether verbalized or not, is still colored and given character and identity by all that lies below consciousness. That part of us which finally achieves verbal expression is the merest iceberg tip. Besides the subconscious, there is the superconscious, the awareness, hard if not impossible to put into words, of the cosmic environment of our souls. The subconscious has had its Freuds, the superconscious its mystics. But does the existence of these two realms rule out the realm in between? Logic, science, reason refer to this intermediate world, which with the other two constitutes a whole.

The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of this whole. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has referred to religion and science (and also to the material and the spiritual) as the two wings of a bird. Bahá’u’lláh makes a clear reference to sterile verbalism as that which begins “in mere words and end[s] in mere words.” The Bahá’í Faith spells out in detail the synthesis of the material and spiritual realms, and teaches us how to live in both worlds with freedom and order. Thus, while recognizing the insufficiency of the rational alone, and the validity and importance of the non-rational, it does not make the error of giving free rein to the irrational.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

THE LINGERING VIGNETTES which punctuate the rhythm of bringing an issue of WORLD ORDER to fruition are especially rich this time: Firuz Kazemzadeh sitting cross-legged on the floor, in Bermuda shorts and sandals, on a hot New Haven night, ecstatically reading Allan Ward’s literary “find” to the other editors; Howard Garey’s euphoric satisfaction in working with the article on Reason in religion and Faith in science; Betty Fisher’s delight in a WORLD ORDER first—a lucid excursion into international monetary schemes which suggests that economics, too, is a science which is ultimately in harmony with religion; the pleasure in the independent investigation which led a former Hindu to the Bahá’í Faith; the unanimous awe before the simple profundity of Mr. and Mrs. Conrader’s article and the intricate simplicity of Mr. Hatcher’s essay; in short, the excitement of seeing five very different facets of the New World Order coalesce to form one issue.

• • •

Interrelatedness—humbling, thought provoking, challenging—is the theme of two of our Spring contributions. Constance and Jay Conrader, through words and drawings, take us into the world of flowers and insects to illuminate the wondrous complexity and reciprocity of these two worlds. But the Conraders do not stop with the academic. Man is shown, on the one hand, to be part of a universal order—the human, the plant, and the insect all forming integral units of the whole. But man is also “the only creature able to see into the meaning of nature.” Thus the gauntlet is thrown down. Man can “overleap the bounds of moderation”. He can plot the destruction of “pests” now at the risk of damaging Nature’s time scheme for the future. He can make himself the loser. Or man can plumb “the wonders of His boundless grace.” He can be still and listen, with insight, to the rhythms of the universe. He can protect the bounties of God’s creation. He can, by using patience and discretion now, win time in which to probe the patterns of the natural environment on which his physical existence depends.

Another team, Mary Fish and Vergil L. Williams, delve into the mysteries of international monetary systems, again with the purpose of challenging man to acknowledge that he exists as a part of a larger scheme. The centuries-old system of trade, they point out, based on gold as a standard of value and medium of exchange no longer suits the intricacies of international trade. Nationalism has become passé. and total national sovereignty is impossible. Whether we wish to call it that or not, we do live in a world commonwealth. And that world commonwealth does require international money controlled by an international institution. Even since this article came to the editors of WORLD ORDER in September 1968 the world has been shaken by a financial crisis in France which has demonstrated once again that the need for an international monetary system is not an academic question.

• • •

In the Winter issue of WORLD ORDER, Allan Ward brought us a provocative reexamination of the popular nineteenth- century classic Frankenstein. In this issue, he returns—this time to have us reassess a lesser-known nineteenth-century short [Page 5] story, Hawthorne’s “Earth’s Holocaust”, which the editors reprint together with Mr. Ward’s critical introduction. As the Bahá’í Faith has to do with conclusions and beginnings—the end of the Prophetic Cycle and the beginning of the Cycle of Fulfillment—so does Hawthorne’s story treat of similar themes. In the story the accumulations and trappings of the centuries —especially the social and religious accumulations—are cast into a huge bonfire which purifies the truths by destroying the dross and human imperfections. But like Bahá’u’lláh, Hawthorne probes deeper to mark man’s heart as the center from which all cleansing and purification must proceed. The date of composition which contributes to the excitement of Mr. Ward’s reassessment? The demarcation which concluded the Adamic Cycle and commenced the Bahá’í era—1844.

• • •

S. P. Raman provides an exciting drama on another—individual—scale, as he comes to terms with the events springing from 1844. Born in India and raised as a Hindu, he was drawn to the visions of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda for making Hinduism a relevant answer to India’s modern problems, but came to recognize the gap between promise and reality. Working from the Hindu belief in the unity of existence (thus, India’s problems are a microcosm of the world’s problems), in the coming of a universal religion, and in the appearance of divine spiritual leaders at critical junctures in human history, he was led to investigate Bahá’u’lláh's claims by Tolstoy’s assertion that the Bahá’í writings “present us with the highest and purest form of religious teachings.” Dr. Raman’s challenge to the spiritually-awakened Hindu is ultimately a challenge to the spiritually alert of all religions: investigate the claims of Bahá’u’lláh, that perchance you may find the fulfillment of your individual religious visions and aspirations and thus you, and an ever-increasing portion of the world, may experience the transforming power of God’s latest Messenger.

• • •

William Hatcher’s article on science and religion dispels many misconceptions about the scientific process. It explains why the Bahá’í Faith “enjoins a scientific outlook on life as being essential” and how much, ultimately, modern scientific thinking and Bahá’í religious investigation have in common. When you finish this article, “faith” and “religion” and “science” don’t have exactly their same old meanings. Faith must be rational, but reason operates within the context of faith.

• • •

To the Editor

GIFT OF WORDS

As of today I have been a Bahá’í for one month. Each dawn brings me new evidence of the wonderful gift Bahá’u’lláh has given me, and of the inability of any human tongue to voice adequate thanks and praise for such glory. Nonetheless I must try to thank you and your staff, for it was through an issue of your magazine that He chose to send me the first words of His loving message. Many things and people helped guide to my Declaration, but WORLD ORDER was one of the most important. For this I will be eternally grateful.

PHILIP R. CHRISTENSEN

Lexington, Massachusetts

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Science and Religion

By WILLIAM S. HATCHER

“The revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, his followers believe, is . . . scientific in its method . . . religious truth is not absolute but relative . . . .”

—Shoghi Effendi

A CARDINAL PRINCIPLE of the Bahá’í Faith is that science and religion must be in agreement and harmony. In view of the conflict and confusion which have long existed on this subject, one might think that this principle would be a great rallying-point, attracring large numbers of scientists and religionists to examine deeply the tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. Except in individual cases, however, this has not been true. What has been true is that those people who already felt deeply the need for some reconciliation of science and religion and who chanced to examine the Bahá’í Faith were pleased to find this principle an essential part of the Bahá’í teachings.

The situation is, I feel, quite analogous to another age-long conflict, the conflict between established religious orthodoxies. The relevant Bahá’í principle here is the essential oneness of religion. Yet there has not been any marked tendency on the part of established religious authorities to look with favor on this basic Bahá’í teaching. Because each orthodoxy has been adamant in its claim to superiority over other orthodoxies, there has been no common willingness to accede to the “leveling” belief that a de facto unity underlies the various great religious systems. Of course, there is a contradiction between the various rites and rituals, dogmas and creeds to be found in the present form of these religious orthodoxies. What the Bahá’í Faith teaches is that these rites, creeds, and dogmas are largely irrelevant to the essential purpose and meaning of religion. These teachings have, without exception, enjoined such constants as humility, love, compassion, tolerance. Fanatics can find no sanction for their fanaticism in the recorded teachings of their founder. Present-day religious arrogance is thus seen to be a partly deliberate, partly unwitting perversion of the viewpoint which the venerated founder had originally hoped to engender in his followers. Add to this the further observation that these founders were largely venerated only after the fact and were the object of scorn, hatred, and rejection in their day, and we have a thumbnail sketch of religious history.

I have chosen the conflict between orthodoxies as an analogy to the religion-science conflict because I suspect that it is closer than either religionists or scientists would like to admit. Orthodox religionists would dislike the analogy because they have been forced to admit the value of science after an initial resistance, and the idea that they may one day be forced to capitulate in a similar manner before the pervasive value of another religion which they initially misjudged—this [Page 8] would be painful. Scientists would resist the analogy in that it tends to compare science to the dogma of a religious orthodoxy, a comparison which they would regard as invidious. For if anyone is “winning” the so-called religion-science conflict, it is clearly science. Yet, it is not a novel observation that scientists are increasingly assuming the function and role played by priests in earlier societies. They are the initiated, those who explain the great mysteries no the unwashed masses.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to work in a scientific field knows how easy it is to embellish serious scientific achievement with a liberal amount of sham and wordplay. If these are not rituals designed to charm the masses (and one’s Dean or the National Science Foundation) they come uncomfortably close to it.

Of course, a scientist would object that all of this is not true science. This, he would say, is the concession which the true seeker after scientific truth must make to the ultrapragmatic world-at-large. The many exigencies of life in the political and social market place force the scientist, as an individual, into compromises, subtle and not so subtle, with the basic principles of scientific inquiry. But, one might contend, this does not compromise science itself, for anyone can plainly see that its principles are pure and lead to excellent results when applied correctly.

Does not all this sound strangely like the well-worn apology for the failures of religious institutions? “Our institution is divine,” we are told, “but you must not judge it by the ‘human element’ within it or by the corruption of individual exponents who may be weak and unredeemed.”

The point is that both science and religion are human, social activities. As such, they cannot claim to be purer or more exalted than their ultimate influence on society. This does not mean that such activities do not draw on invisible sources of inspiration and power to produce their effect. It means only that the evidence for the existence of such hidden well-springs of creativity can only be measured by the ultimate, realizable effect which these activities or institutions do indeed produce.

The outline of the Bahá’í approach to the religion-science conflict now heaves more clearly into view. It is that, when the true purpose and nature of science are understood and when the true purpose and nature of religion are understood, then there is, de facto, no conflict. An essential unity is discovered, a unity which was there all along but which was hidden by the aberrations in the articulation of the two viewpoints. Just as Bahá’ís make no attempt to reconcile the confusing and contradictory dogmas of different religions orthodoxies, so they make no attempt to reconcile narrow-minded pronouncements by dogmatic would-be apologists for either science or religion.

A notable feature of the religion-science controversy as it has actually existed in our recent history is this: new science came into conflict with old religion. This fact must be borne in mind by anyone honestly seeking to understand the dynamics of the problem. Modern science is, indeed, new in any historical sense of the term. Even to date it from the Renaissance is a mistake. The chief features of contemporary science appear only in the nineteenth century. Of course, its roots go deep into the past, indeed to the dawn of human intellectual endeavor. But this is true of everything. What is certain is that such a profound transformation of science was effected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that one can properly speak of a revolution. however revolutionary the original sixteenth-century advances may appear with respect to their prehistory.

Of course, even to date the “scientific revolution” from the Renaissance does not obscure the glaring fact that the religion with which it came into conflict was already past its prime, atrophied, and sterile. Even though it possessed strong political and social prerogatives, religion had long since assumed a position as champion of the status quo, a disbeliever in the possibility of genuine social [Page 9] evolution and progress in this life. No wonder that “religion” seems to have been so much on the defensive and so easy an adversary to discredit in the eyes of thinking men. Such men simply had no example of a religion which was a dynamic, creative, evolutionary force. There was nothing in their immediate experience, no analogy or example, which could easily allow them to view religion in any light other than that in which its most volatile exponents chose to present it: a reactionary social force.

But the new science also suffered from the decline of religion. Because men were socially and morally atrophied in so many respects, society tended to use science for prejudicial, unscientific, and irrational ends. Science tended to become a tool to obtain desired (but not necessarily justified) social ends, rather than an attitude toward life as a whole which, from the Bahá’í viewpoint, it should have been. Thus, we now see the specter of scientific achievements being used to destroy nations, render the earth uninhabitable, effect mass murder, disgorge a cornucopia of often useless gadgets, and even to bolster dogmatic and puerile political-social or philosophical points of view about life. As examples of the latter, one might cite the attempt by some modern-day Marxists to use science to establish a religion of “scientific atheism” complete with dogma, rituals, and the rest, or the pseudo-philosophy of logical positivism whose inadequacy had not lessened efforts to popularize it.

Scientific Method

WE NOW TURN to a more substantive task of elaborating just how the basic unity of science, and of science and religion, is viewed in the light of the Bahá’í teachings. Our theses are, quite simply: (1) that the basic unity of science lies in its method of inquiry or epistemology, and (2) that the Bahá’í Faith consciously accepts this epistemology as its own, accepting in its wake whatever redefinitions of the terms “religion” and “faith” are consequent to it.

What, in the final analysis, is science anyway? To begin with, science is a collection of statements or affirmations which are taken as truths about reality. The reader should be wary of any tendency to see a reductionism in this. Science is not “just” a collection of statements, but it is “at least” a collection of statements. The statements which comprise science (or a given scientific discipline) are subjeCt to highly complex interrelationships. These interrelationships serve to make some statements in the collection much more important than others. The two statements “this paper is white” and the highly pregnant “e = mc²” are both equally true statements of physics, but these statements are not of equal importance. Let us try to make all of this a bit more precise.

The statements of science have two components, an experiential (or empirical) one and a logical or theoretical one. Statements may vary with regard to their empirical and theoretical components. The theoretical component of a statement results primarily from the linguistic structuring of the statement and of the terms which make up the statement. The terms, such as “velocity”, “light”, “mass”, and “energy” which make up the statement “e = mc²” are complex when their mathematical definitions are spelled out. In fact, the pregnant statement “e = mc²” has such a high theoretical component that it takes years of concentrated effort to assimilate its meaning. This statement is far removed from simple, direct physical observations like the whiteness of paper. On the other hand, “this paper is white” has such a simple linguistic structure that its meaning might even be conveyed by the one word “white” accompanied with appropriate gestures toward the physical object in question. It is inconceivable to think of conveying the meaning of a highly theoretical statement in this manner.

Of course, even a statement like “this paper is white” has some theoretical content. It involves abstractions which are not innately given to us and which develop in normal [Page 10] children only after several years of life experience. Also, a highly theoretical statement has some empirical component. When all of the abstractions and definitions hidden in “e = mc²” are spelled out, the result will be an affirmation which says something about human experience on some level. We should thus be careful to view the experiential and theoretical components of statements as being a matter of degree.

Often, but not always, the important statements of science are statements with a high theoretical component. However, what makes a statement important is not only its internal structure and meaning, but its relationship to other statements. The basic relationship between statements is that of “implication”, which means that if certain statements are admitted as true, then certain other statements must also be admitted as true, these latter being “logically implied” by the former. The nature of the necessity (the “must”) involved in implication has received detailed analysis. Avoiding such details as being beyond the scope of this article, let us say that the necessity involved results primarily from the way in which we use words. To take a traditional example, we say that the two statements “all men are mortal” and “Socrates is a man” together imply that “Socrates is mortal”. We mean by this that the very signification of the first two statements is such that the last statement is true if the first two are. Another way of expressing this would be to say that the single statement “if all men are mortal and if Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal” is logically valid. This statement has a sort of general form: “If all A is B and if X is an A, then X must also be a B.” We would call this a logically valid form meaning that no matter what names we might substitute for A, B, and X in the form, the resulting sentence would turn out to be true. For example we would accept as true the statement “if all dogs are cats, and if Descartes is a dog, then Descartes is a cat.” Notice, dogs are not cats and Descartes is neither a dog nor a cat, but rather what the statement asserts is that if certain conditions are fulfilled, then certain other conditions follow, and this total statement is true. The truth of this whole statement, then, depends essentially on the way we use words like “if..., then...”, “and”, etc. The structure of a sentence in terms of these and other such logical words determines whether or not a sentence has a logically valid form.

Beyond this cursory analysis, we will have to trust the reader’s intuitive understanding of the notion that a statement or statements may logically imply another statement (or statements).

Now, the complex interrelationships between the statements of a science result precisely from the fact that the truth of a given statement may logically imply the truth of other statements. A given statement is thus related to many other statements, both statements which the given statement implies, and statements by which the given statement is implied. The totality of this relationship determines the “position” or “importance” of the statement in the total context of science.

We might try to define the weight of a statement in the following way: The weight of a given statement of our science is the number of other statements now accepted to be true but which would be in doubt if we ceased to accept our given statement as true. Thus, if we dropped “e = mc²” from our list of truths, many statements come into doubt; but if we drop “this paper is white” from our truths, then few statements, if any, are affected (depending, of course, on the reason for our initial misstatement concerning the color of the paper).

Generally speaking, statements with great weight are important statements of science.

There is one further point worth making here. In all of our discussion. we have treated the individual statement as if it were an independent, meaning-bearing entity. Actually this is an oversimplification. A statement, just like a word or phrase, depends on the [Page 11] total context of its usage for its complete meaning. It is wrong to think of a statement as having a meaning in isolation from the context of its usage and its relationship to other statements.

As sketchy as this analysis admittedly is, we have gotten some idea of why some statements of a science are much more important than others. Generally speaking, statements with a high theoretical component and statements with high weight are more important than statements with a low theoretical component and with low weight. (Nething excludes the possibility that a statement could have a low theoretical component and still have high weight.)

Although it may seem surprising at first, it is quite possible for one statement to imply another statement without our being aware of it. This means that we actually discover relationships of implication by a process of examining the logical connections between statements. It also means that, contrary to popular conception, observation and experimentation are not the only processes involved in discovering scientific truth. We often discover new truths by discovering that a previously doubtful statement is implied by some of our known and accepted truths. Often this discovery takes place not as a result of any direct or immediate observation of the world but as a result of our intuition and subsequent proof of the existence of a relationship of implication.

It follows that it is wrong to consider that science is a “collection of facts”, though this is a frequently expressed popular view. We have already noted that “factual” statements are simply statements with a low theoretical component and these comprise only part of our scientific statements, and sometimes the least important part.

We can also see from our preceding analysis that scientific truth is relative. Scientific inquiry brings into play a host of human faculties such as reason, intuition, and experience, and these on different levels of profundity and objectivity. One cannot, however, explain in any simple manner the way in which these faculties interact to produce a given statement of science. The statements of science are arrived at by a process of repeated application of these human faculties, and by many different human beings. Years of experimentation (organized experience), theorizing (conscious reasoning and intuition), and discussion lie behind the one Statement “e = mc²”.

It would be a mistake to say that we hold such a statement to be true because of reason, or because of intuition, or because of experience. In the final analysis, we hold something as true only because of everything else which we accept as true, that is, because this something is consistent with our experience and understanding of life as a whole. No statement can be held to be absolutely true, for no statement is independent of other statements and facts which may come to our attention at some future date. Nor is it independent of the meaning of other statements, a meaning which may be altered either by subtle shifts in the way we use words or by a change in explicit conventions and definitions. A combination of such factors can result in a change in the implication relation and thus a change in the truth value of some statements. Our knowledge, then, is relative. It is relative not only to time but to the whole body of our present knowledge which forms the context in which the statement has meaning in the first place.

In short, no scientific statement can ever be held to be immune from possible revision, forever beyond the possibility of modification. Insufficient appreciation by logical positivism of this fact has been one cause of the [Page 12] lack of acceptance by the scientific community of this pseudo-epistemology. A classic example is the case of Newton’s laws of mechanics and his theory of gravitation which were in fact considerably modified in later centuries. One of the confirmations of the modification came as a result of experiences (experiments with sub-atomic particles) which Newton could not possibly have induced in his lifetime. This simple but dramatic example should serve as an object lesson to anyone disinclined to take seriously the relative nature of scientific knowledge which we have described above.

Because statements have meaning only in the total context of their usage, there is a residue of subjectivity inherent in any statement. Though parts of the total context of science may involve highly articulated objectifications, the ultimate roots of understanding are always collective human subjectivity and so there is always “room for argument”. Total objectivity is not possible. Suppose, for example, that we try to eliminate the subjective element of the notion “red” by agreeing that the term shall be applied only to those objects which give a reading of thus-and-so on a spectroscope. Once this agreement is made, we may still argue sometimes about whether or not the needle really is quite on thus-and-so, and the unbeliever will go away saying that the definition was all wrong in the first place.

Our analysis of the nature of science and scientific statement has allowed us to appreciate several aspects of scientific knowledge. We have seen that science is much more than a “collection of facts” or an amassing of factual statements. We have seen that scientific knowledge is relative. And we have seen that total objectivity is impossible since man, the subject, is after all the developer of science.

Knowledge, in short, is human knowledge. because it is human beings who are the knowers. All of our discussion should be understood with this in mind. I emphasize this seemingly trivial point here, because failure to understand it often leads to some unfortunate emotional reactions to the other. wise clear points which we have summarized above. Some people feel that to assert that knowledge is rooted in human subjectivity or that knowledge is relative is to argue that the world “out there” is unreal or perhaps a figment of our imagination. There is, however, no such implication. Nothing we have said implies that there is no reality which operates independently of our will and our subjectivity. We have pointed out only that our understanding of this objective reality (whatever it ultimately turns out to be) is relative because we are relative.

“But how,” one might ask, “does a statement come to be accepted as true in view of this incredibly complex situation you have sketched out for us?” Let us say that something like the following is involved: our subjectivity is bombarded with stimuli. In order to make sense out of this experience, we begin to make certain simplifying assumptions. These assumptions, if they are made unconsciously and without reflection, become embodied in what we call “common sense”. The child “knows” that getting hit by a car will hurt, because he has fallen down before and experienced the effects of sudden acceleration. This is clearly a learned and not an innate response. But the child cannot articulate any principles of acceleration or velocity and “prove” that he will be hurt.

Now if, on the other hand, our simplifying assumptions are made explicitly and consciously (or if we make explicit those assumptions which were previoasly unconscious) then we have the beginnings of science. We continue to build the science by examining the logical relations between our assumptions and their consequences (mathematics, theorizing) and testing our assumptions (experimentation, i.e., the willful bringing about of experience). This leads us ultimately to a well-organized “body of knowledge” which describes a “model” of reality. The collection of statements which make up this body of knowledge are the [Page 13] statements which make up our science. As we have already noted, the model described by these statements will be continually revised in the light of new experiences and newly- discovered logical relationships.

Simply put, it is the conscious, explicit organization of knowledge which makes it scientific. Science is organized knowledge. Or, to paraphrase the words of W. V. Quine, “science is common sense which has become self-conscious.” When we begin to organize our experience (experimentation), rather than simply profiting from fortuitous experiences, to direct our reasoning (mathematics and logic), rather than being satisfied with common-sense deduction, and to train our intuition (reflection and meditation), rather than relying on occasional flashes of insight—then we are engaging in scientific inquiry as opposed to common sense or unscientific (or, perhaps, prescientific) inquiry.

Notice that it is this conscious direction and organization of our inquiry which alone enables us to generate truths of high weight, that is, important statements. Science is not just a matter of discovering true statements, for every human being knows an unbounded number of trivially true statements: grass is green, fire burns, etc. In sum, human thought is bound to go on in any case, and human thought is bound to evolve (change as a function of time). Science, as a positive value, intervenes by giving certain directional principles so that we may profit more effectively from this evolution.

At bottom, the criterion for truth in science is essentially pragmatic. “Does it work the way it says it will?” is the question to be answered. If the theory says that such and such a thing must happen, then does it happen? It is by repeated application of this pragmatic criterion, interlaced with intervening theory, that we gradually build up our model of reality, our collection of true statements.

In closing this discussion, we might try to formulate a general criterion of scientific truth in somewhat the following manner: We have a right to accept a statement as true when we have rendered that statement considerably more acceptable than its negation. Proof, in scientific terms, means nothing more than the total process by which we render a statement acceptable by this criterion. The possibility, even the notion, of “absolute proof” of anything is simply not within the domain of scientific method (again, contradictory to popular notions).

Knowledge and Conviction

THE READER who may be reflecting on these things for the first time might well have an immediate reaction of the following sort: “If knowledge really is relative, as you say, then where does the sense of certitude which I possess come from?” The fact is that we do have seemingly deep-seated “feelings” of certitude about many things. In particular, the sense of our own exiStence or self-identity, and the sense of the objective reality of the physical world are two feelings which seem to be quite universal. Yet, the mentally ill frequently lose their sense of identity and existence. Even normal people have moments in which they have a sense of “unreality” about things. After all, we really could be dreaming and the world may be a monstrous illusion. The belief in the unreality of our existence or of the physical world is unscientific since scientific inquiry has led us to feel that the assumption of the reality of these things is considerably more acceptable than the contrary. Yet, if we are honest, we cannot rule out the possibility of having to revise our assessment in the future. How far it is from our everyday common-sense experience of matter (from which our sense of physical reality is largely derived) to the rational and scientific view of matter as energy, protons, electrons, etc.!

Thus, the “feeling” of certitude which we have is a psychological state. Our convictions may not really be as deep as we perceive them to be, and we may lose them in the future even though such a thing be inconceivable [Page 14] to us at the present moment. The feeling of certitude is not equivalent to knowledge, for knowledge is the process we have described in some detail above, but a sense of certitude can be had even when there is no knowledge.

I think that we can say something like the following concerning the relationship between knowledge and conviction: If our intellect accepts a concept as true, then our emotions begin to organize themselves around the idea, focusing on it, and “depending” on it. When this happens, the concept ceases to be a mere intellectual hypothesis or assumption. It becomes part of the way we live and expect things to behave.

Of course, an intellectual concept may be new or it may be an explication of a principle previously assumed on an unconscious level. Thus, there may already be considerable emotional orientation around a principle before we are able to make the principle explicit even to ourselves. Progress in knowledge frequently occurs when unconsciously assumed hypotheses are made explicit.

For example, our experience of the world from infancy leads us to expect unsupported objects to fall. This common expectation which we make in a more or less unconscious way can be explicitly formulated in the theory of gravitation. But the purely intellectual part of this theory does not express the emotional upset we would feel if suddenly it happened that an unsupported object did not fall. It would be only the most objective scientist who, observing an instance in which a dropped object did not fall to earth, could overcome his natural emotional reaction to the event and consider it as an intriguing counterexample to the present theory of gravitation.

There is nothing unscientific about this emotional and subjective dependence on our assumptions. Psychologists have shown this dependence to be so great that even a slight physical environmental change, such as being plunged into total darkness, can result in psychotic behavior in a short period of time. We are so constructed that dependence on our assumptions is an inextricable part of our make-up. Our freedom lies in being able, through independent inquiry, to obtain knowledge and thus modify our conceptions and ultimately our emotional orientation. The very depth of this emotional attachment to our concepts serves as a pressure to force us to keep our concepts as close as possible to reality, because we are in for emotional shocks if our expectations are not fulfilled.

We need a good word to sum up this process of organizing our emotions around our assumptions, and religion has provided us with the word: faith. We can define an individual’s faith to be his total emotional and psychological orientation resulting from the body of assumptions about reality which he has made (consciously or unconsciously). Of course, his faith may change as a function of time as he has new experiences and modifies his concepts.

We can see from this analysis that faith is not some vague thing possessed only by a few religious mystics. Every human being has faith just as surely as he has a mind and a body. We are not free to choose not to have a faith any more than we can choose whether to be born. However, the quality of men’s faiths differs considerably depending on the degree to which the basic assumptions on which a given faith is based are justified. Faith is the process of organizing our emotional life around our assumptions, and so the quality of faith is directly proportional to the validity of the assumptions (again, conscious or unconscious) on which faith is based. We can see, now, why the Bahá’í Faith enjoins a scientific outlook on life as being [Page 15] essential. The scientific approach does not guarantee us absolute knowledge, this being beyond the possibilities of man in any case, but it does guarantee that our concepts will be as functional and as close to reality as possible.

We have already indicated that change and reappraisal characterize knowledge and faith. But what is also true is that we seem to be more suited to gradual, even, smooth transitions than to sudden, violent, cataclysmic ones. The latter tend to overstimulate us to the point of shock, rendering a new and pragmatic response difficult. This is to say that living is basically a serious business, and that it behooves us always to maintain a certain alertness in order to be able to modify our conceptions gradually, thus avoiding rude awakenings where we find that our faith has been totally blind and misguided.

In short, when our concepts are grossly unscientific, our faith becomes blind and unreal. We come to expect the wrong things and to be upset when they do not happen as we wish. We become hardened and adamant in our faith. Even when presented with clear contradictions in our conceptions we resist change, for we sense that even though the purely intellectual effort necessary to reconstitute our thought may be small, the emotional reorientation necessary to assimilate the new truth will be great. Thus, we may be led, by our emotions, to act against our own interest. How scientifically did Jesus say, “As a man thinketh, so is he,” and how scientifically did Paul say, “The good I would do I do not.” The more we persist in our blind faith the greater the inertia against acceptance of a truer picture of reality, and the greater the pain when the larger conception forces itself upon us and we can avoid it no longer.

Our discussion here touches upon yet another common misconception about science and its relationship to religion. This is the idea that there is an intrinsic opposition between faith and reason. Rather than being in opposition, the two are part of the same process of knowing and living, as we have seen. Faith must be rational, and reason always operates within the context of our basic assumptions, that is, our faith. Our assumptions, when made explicit, are the purely intellectual component of our total faith.

I wish to close this section with two brief comments. The first is for the philosophically minded individual who may feel he sees a contradiction in that I make an absolute principle of the relativity of truth. This, I do not do. The reason for accepting scientific method is that it works. The statement “the scientific method is a good one” is to be evaluated by the same pragmatic criterion as any other Statement. I admit the possibility that later experience may force me to revise my evaluation even of that statement. I thus do not make an absolute out of relativity.

The second comment is this: Though the nature of knowledge and of man’s own limitations makes relativity an essential feature of knowledge, it may be that in practice most statements can be rendered either very acceptable or very unacceptable, thus reducing the existential component of “undecidability”. The theoretical uncertainty remains even with the surest of statements, but it is our explicit awareness of this uncertainty which is our greatest asset in adapting to our human situation. Once we accept humbly the limitations imposed on us, it becomes practically possible to resolve a good many issues and to make real progress in formulating a meaningful and practical understanding of reality.

The Phenomenon of Revelation

SUPPOSE THAT A CERTAIN phenomenon occurs in our corner of the universe precisely every two billion years. What is the chance that we will ever discover the rational basis for this phenomenon and the principles which govern its occurrence? Clearly the chance is small, almost non-existent. If we happen to be the generation which observes the phenomenon, then it will appear to us as a miracle since we will have no record of its [Page 16] having occurred in the lifetime of any man in our recorded history. We will be able to do no more than record the phenomenon ourselves. If our record survives for two billion years until the nexc occurrence, then perhaps some scientific genius will begin to see some relationship and even intuit an answer to the question. But more than likely the tendency will be to doubt the validity of a two-billion-year-old record. Moreover, we ourselves, as observers of the phenomenon, will probably begin to doubt that it ever happened. Since the infrequency of the phenomenon will not allow us to incorporate it easily into our existing rational and scientific framework, our natural tendency will be to attempt to explain away or to discredit the phenomenon. Of course, if this recalcitrant phenomenon is itself the cause of other important phenomena, then we will have to find some way to integrate it into our model of reality or we will fail to be scientific in our approach.

There is one physical science which is actually in this position to some extent. This is astrophysics. Of all the physical sciences, astrophysics is perhaps the most dependent on records kept by scientists two or three hundred years ago, for the observations of the planetary motions which can be made within one generation or by one man may not suffice to observe certain important tendencies.

Though the original example of an occurrence of period two billion years was hypothetical, it is quite possible that there are certain important phenomena which occur in regular ways at long intervals and whose pattern we have not succeeded in understanding.

If we consider the great religious systems of which there still exists some extant manifestation or some historical record, we will see that each has been founded by an historical figure, a unique personage. Islam was founded by Muḥammad, Buddhism by Buddha, Christianity by Christ, Judaism (in its definitive form) by Moses, Zoroastrianism by Zoroaster, and so on. These religious systems have all followed quite similar patterns of development. There is a nucleus of followers gathered around the follower during his lifetime. The founder lays down certain teachings which constitute the principles of the religions. Moreover, each of these founders has made the same claim, the claim that the inspiration for his teachings and his influence was due to God and not to human learning or human devices. Each of these founders claims to be the exponent on earth of an invisible, superhuman, personal God of unlimited power, the creator of the universe. After the death of the founder, an early community is formed and the teachings of the founder are incorporated into a book (if no book was written by the founder). And finally a great civilization grows up based on the religious system, a civilization which lasts for many centuries.

All of the statements in the above paragraph are statements with high empirical content and low theoretical content. These are a few facts about religious history. Of course, these facts are based on records and observations of past generations. One can try to dispute these records if one chooses, but we must be scientific in our approach. In particular, the records of the older religions are of validity equal to any other record of comparable date. If, for example, we refuse to believe that Jesus lived, we must also deny that Socrates lived for we have evidence of precisely the same validity for the existence of both men. The records of Muḥammad’s life are much more valid than these, and are probably beyond serious dispute. Moreover, if we choose to posit the unreality of the figures whose names are recorded and to whom various teachings and influence are attributed, we must, at the same time, give an alternative explanation of the influence which these religious systems, elaborated in the name of these founders, have had. This is more difficult than one may be inclined to believe at first.

The major civilizations of history have [Page 17] been associated with the major prophetic religious systems. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the “glory of ancient Persia”, the Persia that conquered Babylon, Palestine, Egypt, and the Greek city-states. Judaism was the basis of the great Hebrew culture which some philosophers, such as Jaspers, regard as the greatest in history. Moreover, Jewish law has formed the basis of common law and jurisprudence in countries all over the world. (It seemed very hard for a Russian to answer when I asked why they closed some shops on Sunday. Certainly, I surmised, they did not believe in the nomadic stutterer named Moses who proclaimed the principle three thousand five hundred years ago to a bunch of ignorant wanderers in a desert.) Western culture, until the rise of modern science, was dominated by Christianity. The great Muslim culture invented algebra and preserved and developed the Hellenistic heritage. It was the greatest culture the world had seen until the rise of the industrial revolution began to transform Western culture.

We are, however, very much in the same position with respect to past revelations as we would be with regard to our phenomenon of period two billion years. We were not there to observe Jesus or Muḥammad in action. The contemporaries of these people were certainly impressed by them, but these observations were made years ago and are liable, we feel, to embellishments. Even though it may be unscientific to try to explain away the influence of these religious figures, there is still a certain desire to do so. We are put off by certain obvious interpolations, and we are not sure just what to accept and what to reject.

The Bahá’í Faith offers the hypothesis that man’s social evolution is due to the periodic intervention in human affairs of the creative force of the universe. This intervention occurs by means of the religious founders or Manifestations. What is most significant is that the Bahá’í Faith offers fresh empirical evidence, in the person of its own founder, that such a phenomenon has occurred. Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892) claimed to be one of these Manifestations and He reaffirmed the validity of the past revelations (though not necessarily the accuracy of the details recorded in the ancient books). Here is a figure who walked the earth in recent times and whose history is documented by thousands of records and witnesses. There are, at the time of this writing, persons living who knew Bahá’u’lláh. Of course, even the death of these people will not make the historicity of Bahá’u’lláh less certain. Moreover, the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are preserved in His manuscripts and so we are faced with a record of recent date and one of which there can be no serious doubt.

The only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh’s fascinating hypothesis that social evolution is due to the influence of the Manifestations is the way we judge any proposition: scientific method. This is the only way we can judge Bahá’u’lláh’s claim to be one of these Manifestations. We must see if these assumptions are consistent with our knowledge of life as a whole. We must see if we can render these assertions considerably more acceptable than their negations. In the case of Bahá’u’lláh, we have many things which we can test empirically. Bahá’u’lláh made predictions. Did they come true? Bahá’u’lláh claimed Divine inspiration. Did He receive formal schooling and did he exhibit power or knowledge not easily attributable to human sources? He insisted on moral purity. Did He lead a life of moral purity? In His teachings are found statements concerning the nature of the physical world. Has science validated these? He also makes assertions concerning human psychology and subjectivity and invites individuals to test these. Do they work? He engaged in extensive analysis of the nature of man’s organized social life. Does His analysis accord with our own scientific observations of the same phenomena? The possibilities are unlimited.

Of course, the same criteria can be applied to other Manifestations, but the known facts are so much less authenticated and so restricted [Page 18] in number that much direct testing is not possible. This does not disturb Bahá’ís because they believe that, essentially, there is only one religion and that each of the successive revelations is a stage in the development of this one religion. The Bahá’í Faith is thus the contemporary form of religion and we should not be surprised that it is so accessible to the method of contemporary science. Christianity and Islam were probably just as accessible to the scientific methods of their day as the Bahá’í Faith is to modern scientific method.

Each religious system has been founded on the faith in the reality of the phenomenon of revelation, and those people associated with the phenomenon felt fully justified in their faith. But as the influence of religion declined and the facts of revelation receded into history, the sense of conviction of the truth of the phenomenon subsided, and this was only natural as we have seen. It is therefore important to realize that the Bahá’í Faith offers much more than new arguments about the old evidence for the phenomenon of revelation. It offers empirical evidence for the phenomenon and it is frank to base itself on this evidence and to apply the scientific method in understanding this evidence. So much is this so, that I would unhesitatingly say that the residue of subjectivity in the faith of a Bahá’í is no greater than the residue of subjectivity in the faith one has in any well-validated scientific theory.

Exponents of traditional religions have tried to coexist with modern science not by admitting the validity of scientific method in the approach to religion, but rather by contending that religious experience is so subjective, mystic, private, and incommunicable as to be “beyond” scientific method. The philosophy of religion based on these views is known as existentialism. In its modern form, existentialism was partly formulated in reaction to logical positivism. This latter philosophy insisted on “public verifiability” as an essential feature of scientific method. Without much thought, religionists accepted the positivistic analysis of scientific method, while applying existentialism to religion, and thus helped popularize the view that religion was hopelessly immersed in subjectivity, forever beyond the reach of scientific method. This has, in turn, led to a wide-scale rejection of religion by thinking people from all backgrounds. In closing my own discussion of these questions, I would like to correct this unfortunate view of religion.

Let us begin with an example. A biologist looks through a microscope in his laboratory, sees a certain configuration, and exclaims: “Aha, at last I have the evidence that my theory is correct!” Question: How many people in the world are capable of looking at the configuration and verifying the findings of the biologist? Answer: Very few, almost none, probably only a few specialists in his field. The fact is that the biologist will publish his findings, and a few other qualified individuals will test his results, and if they seem confirmed, the scientific world at large will accept the theory as verified. The positivist might concede this but say; “But if an individual did go through the years of training necessary to understand everything the biologist knows, then the individual could verify the statement. Thus, I admit the statement is not practically verifiable by the public, but it IS theoretically verifiable”. But even this is not enough. The fact is that the positivist will be constrained to admit that a great many people may be unable, through lack of intelligence or mental proclivity. ever, in theory, to validate the result. The fact is that the findings are not immediately accessible to the public at all. The findings can be verified only by individuals capable of assuming and willing to assume the point of view of the researcher.

Of course, statements with high empirical content and low theoretical content are those most directly accessible to the public. But we have already seen that a science comprises many statements with a high theoretical component and these are not so accessible to the public. Moreover. many important statements [Page 19] of a science are to be found among these theoretical statements.

The moral of all of this is that the objectivity of science does not reside in the public accessibility of the majority of scientific statements. Science is not primarily a collection of facts or factual statements. Such statements taken in isolation are useless. Empirical statements are useful primarily for the relationships and models about reality that they suggest, i.e., in the theories that they tend to affirm or deny. The objectivity of science resides in the method we have described, for this method is what allows for the continual reassessment of our faith (our assumptions) which is so necessary to maintaining a functional view of reality.

Thus when I say that the Bahá’í Faith accepts the scientific method and that the faith of a Bahá’í has no greater residue of subjectivity than any other scientific theory, I mean just that. The empirical facts concerning the Bahá’í Faith are just as publicly verifiable as any empirical facts. And the deeper, theoretical truths are subject to the same degree of verification: Any individual capable of assuming and willing to assume the point of view of a Bahá’í can verify the findings of a Bahá’í.

Conclusion

WORKING SCIENTISTS have tended to be skeptical of religion because they have examined only the older religions where, as I have suggested, facts are few and theory is perverted by years of unscientific thinking. Few such scientists have undertaken an objective study of the Bahá’í Faith. They cannot, therefore, presume that they would not validate the findings of Bahá’ís until they have examined this most recent evidence for the phenomenon of revelation. A modern scientist would ridicule someone who judged modern science by studying the science of 500 or 2000 years ago. Yet these same scientists judge all religions without examining the modern form of religion which is the counterpart of modern science.

The truth is that scientists are men and that men, even scientists, can suffer from subtle but disastrous prejudices. When great scientists such as Albert Einstein and Julian Huxley have undertaken to write about scientific religion, they have been scorned by the scientific community. Most biologists began to regard Huxley as a senile old man when he undertook to write in this vein. Yet, Huxley’s thoughts on the subject are not only profound but they also constitute the true culmination of his scientific career. We, as individuals, can do nothing more than to apply the scientific method in our own life and to maintain a scientific faith. We must not allow false conceptions about science to mar the beauty of scientific method any more than we let false conceptions of religion mar the beauty of religion.

[Page 20]

My Quest for the Fulfillment of Hinduism

By S. P. RAMAN

TO SAY THAT WE LIVE in an age of crisis,” wrote a Yale University historian, “is to utter a platitude. Hundreds of books, thousands of articles, speeches, sermons, and lectures play endless variations of this frightening theme. . . . There is remarkable agreement that the world is sick, that ‘something went wrong’ with Western civilization at the moment when it was about to become a world civilization. . . . However, there is little agreement about the causes of the crisis and none about the necessary cure.” Pre-eminent Western minds such as Schweitzer, Toynbee, and Sorokin have diagnosed the root cause of this crisis as a spiritual sickness: modern man lacks a vital system of basic values and ethics; and earnest Christians are convinced that the only hope for spiritual rejuvenation and the reconstruction of human society lies in an individual and a collective way of life once again motivated by the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, Western, Christian society witnesses with perplexity and dismay the shocking and phenomenal breakdown of its very elements and the impotence of its religious leaders and statesmen to ban war, abolish economic exploitation and racial disparity, and establish universal peace and brotherhood.

Loss of ethical values and signs of moral decay are not unique to Christian society; they are, in fact, characteristic of all existing socio-religious systems. Hindu society has, for centuries, been in a state of decrepitude and exhaustion, and no unbiased student of Hinduism will deny that ever since the fall of the [Page 21] Ashokan Empire it has ceased to contribute significantly to the social progress of the subcontinent. The eternal truths and universal concepts enshrined in the religion of the Vedas (the Vedanta), with the nobility and indestructibility of the human soul and the unity of all existence as its greatest principles, and with its twin ideals of renunciation and service, lie imprisoned in the termite- eaten pages of its scriptures. They furnish an excellent pastime for erudite scholars engaged in metaphysical speculation, but are not applied to solve the enormous problems of the society. The average Hindu is convinced of the imperative need of these principles and ideals which form the very core of Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Religion of the Vedas) and which alone, he is certain, will lead ultimately to the establishment of an everlasting and flourishing civilization. But he is utterly frustrated by the seeming impossibility of transforming his inner conviction and subjective faith into positive, cooperative action to produce a viable, progressive society. As long as this goal remains unachieved, the ideals and aspirations of Hinduism cannot be said to have been fulfilled. This is the bane and scourge of Indian society. Little wonder that, in the wake of this frustration, there has emerged, over the centuries, an increasing number of obscure cults with evasive philosophies and superstitious doctrines, intensifying the confusion of the simple and disillusioned masses.

Hinduism in Crisis

THOUGH THEY DID NOT become a way of life, the precepts of Sanatana Dharma were not entirely forgotten; and from time to time great saints and seers, like Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya, and Nanak, appeared to reillumine their value and usefulness by the sublimity of their teachings and their own exemplary lives. Nevertheless, the neglect of the Vedantic principles continued, eroding the vitals of Hindu society and ultimately precipitating a social crisis.

Not until the advent, in the second half of the last century, of two of the greatest spiritual giants in the living memory of the present-day Hindus, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, was this crisis brought to a sharp focus. They are the Mozart and Beethoven of the eternal symphony of the Vedas, reinterpreting it once again from Dakshineswar, near Calcutta. Out of the spiritual experiences of Sri Ramakrishna [Page 22] came a set of teachings which constitute the finest and most authoritative exposition of the ideals of Hinduism. Romain Rolland found him to be the embodiment of the Hindu Faith, and described him as “the consummation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three hundred million people.” Narendranath Dutt, a young intellectual and former adherent of the progressive movement Brahmo Samaj, who under the name of Swami Vivekananda, was to become the chief “evangelist” of the gospel of Ramakrishna, was completely transformed and his inner being totally galvanized by the great spiritual power of Sri Ramakrishna. Mastering the essentials of Hinduism at the feet of Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda during his short span of life—thirty-nine years——in soul- stirring speeches left a dynamic message which indeed is a priceless and unique spiritual legacy. His teachings not only nourished the spiritually destitute of his generation, but continue to serve as a fundamental guideline for the realization of the ideal of the Universal Religion.

He had a glorious vision of a completely rejuvenated India, and tirelessly searched for ways to uplift her teeming millions, victims of poverty, ignorance, and tyranny. He realized that religion was the backbone of the Indian people, and warned that if India gave up her spirituality she would surely perish. Contrary to those Western critics who held that her religion was the cause of her downfall, he rather blamed the falsehood, priestcraft, superstition, and hypocrisy that had supplanted religion. He was convinced that if her national life could somehow be organized and intensified through the channels of the Sanatana Dharma, social progress would be assured. His all-pervading concern and aspiration was to see the spirit of the Vedanta become a constructive way of life for the home, school, community, and nation. He called for full spiritual manhood on the part of every Indian; one of his most poignant remarks was that the very moment the word mleccha (untouchable) was invented by the Hindus, India’s doom was sealed. His master, Sri Ramakrishna, himself used to clean the homes of the untouchables to remove from his own mind the last trace of arrogance of the high Brahmin caste into which he was born. His strong advocacy of intermarriage between castes and sub-castes to promote unity and of a radical change in the Hindu dietary habits, made him very unpopular among the orthodox. The Swami’s call for a politically independent India, freed from colonial domination and exploitation, so that it could take a rightful place in the family of nations, inspired many a Gandhi, Nehru, Tilak, and Mukherjee to dedicate their lives completely to the achievement of this end. He realized that the help of the Western nations with their scientific knowledge und technology was indispensable to raise the masses, and satisfy their pressing material needs, for his watchword was “Religion and metaphysics are not for empty bellies.”

At the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 Swami Vivekananda expounded in clear and simple terms the Vedanta system of philosophy. “ . . . if there is ever to be a universal religion,” so he addressed the congress assembled there, “it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners, alike; which will not be Brahmanical or Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage, not far [Page 23] removed from the brute, to the highest man, towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own, true divine nature.” He expressed confidence that if such a religion were offered, all nations would follow it. During his travels in America he called for a cooperative effort in educating and helping the multitudes of India in establishing a society on the pattern of western democracies, but permeated by the spirit of the Vedanta, so that India could realize her spiritual destiny and contribute to world peace and brotherhood.

Thus, the message of Swami Vivekananda —to whose era we stand too close to evaluate properly and appreciate his contribution to the reconstruction and reawakening of India —was chiefly designed to set a new direction and lend a fresh impulse to the evaluation of the spiritually impoverished, colonially dominated, caste-ridden society, to a new and much higher level of consciousness. This plane of consciousness is indispensable to India’s proper understanding of the eternal values of her religion as rediscovered by Sri Ramakrishna, and vitally necessary for the realization of her heritage and the role she has to play in the spiritual evolution of mankind.

Sixty-six years have elapsed since the passing of this most illustrious son of India, and today, though the long-sought political freedom has been achieved, the complexity and magnitude of the problems facing that nation cannot be fathomed. Never indeed have there been such wide-spread and basic upheavals in the social, political, and economic spheres of human activity as those now rampant in that sub-continent. Never have there been so many varied sources of danger as those now threatening the very foundations of that society. Countless measures to correct the economic and social maladjustments that strangulate her national will and purpose have been carefully devised and meticulously executed by sincere statesmen and dedicated civil servants, and constant attempts to unify people of diverse language, creed, and caste have been painstakingly made. And yet crisis has succeeded crisis, accelerating the rate of decline of political and social institutions designed to establish a welfare state. The unabated swelling of an already vast population, with its army of unemployed and underemployed, with its crushing burden on the inflated economy and demoralizing influence on the Government and people, has created many problems of catastrophic proportions. These in turn have thrown India into a vortex of confusion, confounding the ingenuity of not only its own economic and social planners but also those of the highly developed countries. Desperation is replacing the disappointment of the multitudes, appallingly undernourished, impotent to procure for themselves the bare necessities of life while a large portion of its national budget is spent on acquiring sophisticated armaments. Witnessing on all sides the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of turmoil and corruption at every level of life, serious-minded men and women are beginning to doubt whether the society as it is now organized can, through unaided efforts, extricate itself from the quicksand of despair into which it seems to be steadily sinking. Even if the affluent nations would all rally around and bestow their resources, purely on humanitarian grounds and with no political strings attached, one seriously wonders whether such [Page 24] help could be effectively canalized and immediately utilized because of the total lack of a well-coordinated and disciplined central institution with authority, power, and integrity. Little wonder if even the ardent and zealous band of workers of the Ramakrishna Mission have before their eyes only a dimmed vision of that glorious future for India which Swami Vivekananda unfolded. Sorely tried and disillusioned, the society, having lost its orientation, seems to be drifting without purpose.

In the face of such adversities, one may well inquire if this is the Will and Purpose of the Eternal Brahman spoken of in the Upanishads, and whether He has abandoned society to its fate and sealed its doom irrevocably. Should then the time-honored. long- cherished ideals of Sanatana Dharma, the social import of the teachings of the Gita, and the Gospel of Ramakrishna be relegated to the limbo of obsolescent doctrines?

Has Hinduism Itself Failed?

IN OTHER, HARSHER WORDS, has the Eternal Religion turned out to be a mere passing fancy and has Hinduism itself failed, utterly? To the sincere Hindu, these are agonizing questions indeed, raising an urgent call for a serious, rational, and candid inquiry into the meaning of Ultimate Reality in relation to human affairs; for only through such an inquiry—such a quest rather—could he aspire ever to ascertain whether Hinduism was doomed to perish or destined to be gloriously fulfilled. In my own life there came a moment when this call became too insistent to be ignored any longer—hence my quest. In this venture, which was from the outset fraught with the usual dangers of cultural and intellectual subjectivity, I was very fortunate in proceeding from the broad base of the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.

From the Vedantic viewpoint, which emphasizes the unity of all existence, it is only sane and logical to conclude that the advantage of any part is to be reached and achieved by the advantage of the whole. And viewed objectively, in a world contracted and transformed into a single complex organism, it would be the height of narrow-mindedness to consider only the problems of a particular part of the globe or nation, however grave they might seem, or to concentrate exclusively on the spiritual and social redemption of this or that society.

The present-day crisis in India is but a foretaste for humanity of the convulsion that is latent on the face of this planet. Its inhabitants, whether they live in democracies or under dictatorships, be they capitalists or wage earners, whether Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, atheists or agnostics, white or colored, are all consciously or unconsciously involved now in a titanic upheaval.

What the world needs today is not a mere palliative or ad hoc remedy consisting of superficial adjustments, but something that cuts deeply into the social and spiritual malady and brings about a fundamental and far-reaching change, involving primarily the social and spiritual nature of man, something which no human agency will ever achieve however much it may yearn and strive for it. The futility of man in the face of world-wide convulsions and catastrophes should not be blamed on his intellect, but rather to the improper channeling of his emotions, and only a master emotion can control his emotions. Sri Ramakrishna has repeatedly emphasized that only the Cosmic Force, the transcendental aspect of which is the undifferentiated Eternal Brahman, can beneficially govern, control, and direct the emotions of human beings en masse and harness them into spiritual cultural unities. In such critical moments that have punctuated the history of man in the past, world reformers like the Buddha, Christ, and Muḥammad have appeared, through whose human temples [Page 25] the Cosmic Force was channeled and “in whom the spiritual and moral urges and loyalties of the age were focused. They are the embodiment of its spiritual dynamics. Such a Savior, or the Avatara, unlike ordinary saints and seers, is not a static lighthouse. He, in the words of Shri Ramakrishna, is a large-sized ship capable of carrying thousands of people across the waters of life. He appears on the world scene to establish Dharma (justice and righteousness) in the word of Shri Krishna; and he sets in motion the wheel of Dharma, says the Lord Buddha in the first sermon. . . . The Avatara as understood in India is an epoch-maker, a spiritual dynamo from which man-making and nation-making forces emanate—to accelerate the process of the spiritual evolution of humanity. He is a world transformer and in him an idea becomes yoked to will, purpose and endeavor. He is the dominating spiritual hero of an epoch which functions as a dynamic source of a creative social process, and the sustenance and guide of an equalitarian social order.”

We can mock and disparage everything except time. Seven thousand years of written history is an open book before modern man to verify these truths and the true station and role of these world transformers. When confronted with their greatness even time stops short, nay, often retraces its steps.

Toward the “Tenth Avatar”

THESE ETERNAL spiritual truths, enshrined in the Gospel of Ramakrishna, indispensable lodestar in this era of conflicting and distracting ideologies, led me to the realization of the advent, in the last century, of a Universal Manifestation of the Cosmic Force in the human temple of Bahá’u’lláh. He is the Promised One of all ages mentioned in the holy books of all major religions and His advent signalizes the appearance of the Universal Manifestation of Lord Vishnu as the “Tenth Avatar” (Kalki) for the Hindus, and the fulfillment once again in this age of the Covenant of Sri Krishna:

In every age I come back

To deliver the holy

To destroy the sin of the sinner

To re-establish righteousness

Through Him has been revealed the immutable purpose and will of the undifferentiated Eternal Brahman for this age. His supreme mission is to achieve the organic and spiritual unit of mankind in its entire body of nations, races, and peoples. An unmistakably clear admission by Tolstoy as to the pristine quality of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh motivated me to investigate seriously the claims of Bahá’u’lláh and examine critically His teachings. None could be a greater doubter than I. The cautionary note of Sri Krishna in His Gita, “The deluded despise me, clad in human body, not knowing My higher nature as the Lord of All Existence”, flashed through my mind. The focal center of my life suddenly shifted to a new but most perturbing axis, because for the first time I was reading an unmutilated version of the Will of God revealed through His latest authentic spokesman. To doubt the spirit behind the writings, I was convinced, would be to doubt the sanity of all the prophets, saints, and seers of the past and to question the very basis of the spiritual realizations and convictions of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. Once the human mind has been opened to the only genuine path it would be intellectually dishonest to shut one’s eyes deliberately to it. An intellectual acceptance became an inner conviction, thus ending the first and most arduous phase [Page 26] of the journey from head to heart. To quote an ex-Unitarian minister whose remarks echo my feelings, “If this is not of God, then there is no foundation for faith in God. I would rather be wrong with this great Faith than seemingly right with all the doubters and cavillers in the world.”

“ . . . practical Advaitism”, wrote Swami Vivekananda in his letter to a Muslim gentleman, “which looks upon and behaves towards all mankind as one’s own soul, is yet to be developed among the Hindus universally. . . . Therefore we are firmly persuaded that without the help of practical Islam. the theories of Vedantism, however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely valueless to the vast mass of mankind. We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran. . . . For our own motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam—Vedantic brain and Islamic body—is the only hope. I see in my mind’s eye the future of perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife glorious and invincible, with Vedantic brain and Islamic body.”

This spiritual insight, prophetic vision, and keenness of intellect of Swami Vivekananda leaves none of us guessing and speculating about the method by which the masses of India will be raised, and a civilization with Vedantic ideals will be ushered in. It is evident that this synthetic harmonization of the Bible, Vedas, and Koran cannot be achieved by human institutions, no matter how liberal, conciliatory, and willing be they in their compromises to appease the confiicting loyalties of the adherents of these systems, because any “agreement” is bound to be

void of the necessary spiritual force, authority, and power. This harmony is exactly what the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has the power to achieve. The spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh into this world has already ushered in the Universal Religion, which, rooted in its Most Great Law of the reality of the Oneness of Mankind, apart from fulfilling every criterion for such a religion as propounded by Swami Vivekananda in his Chicago address, is destined, in the fullness of its time, to establish a Divine Civilization for the entire planet “with Vedantic brain and Islamic body.” Bahá’u’lláh has not merely enunciated certain basic universal spiritual principles and ideals that will inevitably lead mankind to its destined goal, but has provided the channels and perfected the means and instruments for the practical realization of these ideals.

The divinely ordained, infallible blueprint consisting of the essential features of an impeccable Administrative Order with explicit directions and authenticated safeguards from internal schisms, for raising a New World Civilization out of the welter and chaos around us, has been meticulously penned by Bahá’u’lláh Himself in His Writings, with which, in my view, every alert world citizen should be thoroughly acquainted. They are not mere passing essays for bedtime reading, but the only refuge for this tottering civilization, and straight guidelines for unborn generations in fulfilling their spiritual destiny in the great drama of man’s evolution. Far from wishing to add to the number of existing religious systems, whose conflicting loyalties have, for many generations, disturbed the peace of mankind, the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh enables everyone to obtain a clearer and fuller understanding of his own religion and its role and purpose in the spiritual evolution of mankind. The teachings are emotionally satisfying and intellectually and rationally convincing. The principles of the Administrative [Page 27] Order are unambiguous and simple, and even the least educated can understand and function effectively within the framework.

“Let there be no misgivings”, writes Shoghi Effendi, the late Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, “as to the animating purpose of the world-wide Law of Bahá’u’lláh. Far from aiming at the subversion of the existing foundations of society, it seeks to broaden its basis, to remold its institutions in a manner consonant with the needs of an ever-changing world. . . . It does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. . . . The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot around which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve—is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. . . . Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. . . . It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. . . . It represents the consummation of human evolution. . . .”

Achieving Organic Unity

GOD’S WHEELS grind slowly but finely and ever since the Divine Plan was unfolded by Bahá’u’lláh, the Universal Manifestation of God for this cycle, the affairs of all men and women on this planet have been consciously or unconsciously molded and directed towards the achievement of the Organic Unity of Mankind—an inevitable goal towards which the whole world is moving—a world unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its spiritual aspiration, its political machinery, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet remaining infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units. Mighty empires and crowns that sought to abort the Divine Plan have toppled, suffering sudden, complete, and ignominious defeat; and in the current global upheaval humanity is experiencing nothing but the birth-pangs of the New World Order of Bahá’u’lláh with concomitant tearing down of the antiquated barriers set up to block its emergence by leaders of our present- day institutions tenaciously clinging to fatuous policies based on pernicious social and political philosophies.

Bahá’ís all over the world who have recognized the source of the spirit behind the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh are striving, out of their own volition, day and night, with undimmed vision, unperturbed by the dangers the international political, social, and economic situation may present, to execute the Master Plan, and erect the perfect framework of the Administrative Order which is destined to be the pattern for the future civilization. Wherever they toil and labor, the Bahá’ís have before them in clear, unequivocal, and emphatic language the laws, the regulations, the principles, the institutions, and the guidance required for prosecution and consummation of their task. An orderly world-wide community exists now on the face of the planet, in more than an embryonic form, drawn from all races, creeds, and classes, whose members are experiencing the great force of love, unity, and spirit of regeneration and reconciliation.

“Every truth”, said Schopenhauer, “passes through three Stages before it is recognized. [Page 28] In the first stage it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, and in the third stage it is regarded as self-evident.” Needless to say at what stage stands the truth behind the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh in the eyes of an unbelieving world. Bahá’u’lláh has not asked people to follow Him blindly, but only after investigating with an unbiased mind the truth of His revelation, for every man has been endowed with the gift of understanding and with a mind that should be operated as a torch to guide him to the truth in all things.

It behooves those spiritually-minded and socially-conscious inhabitants of India, be they politicians, leaders, scientists, intellectuals, or students, and those ardent and sincere monks and workers of the Ramakrishna Mission who passionately strive for the fulfillment of the ideals of Hinduism, as envisioned by Swami Vivekananda, to delve into the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, realize the station of its Author, experience its transforming power, and embrace its salutary truth.

At the very least, the pressure of historical circumstances and the crisis in every aspect of life besetting that nation in particular and humanity in general should persuade them to have a close look at the message of Bahá’u’lláh, to estimate its value in the light of contemporary problems, even if they have, through apathy and complacency, ignored it at first. For to the degree that the peoples and nations of the world accept the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and work through the channels and institutions provided by Him for the unification of mankind, to that degree will they be able to reconsrtuct their own societies, and contribute substantially to the coming Divine World Civilization which is the ideal and fulfillment of Sanatana Dharma.

[Page 29]29

In the Wrong Ghetto

As I lock my front door

(wheretofore I didn’t think of

it)

and walk down the side-

walk

stares penetrate

not my back

but my

face

my

eyes

directly demanding to know

what

I

am doing

here

and I can’t

answer.

Alone in my evening living-

room (thinking it no different

than previous

ones)

I am reminded of

my presence

here

by the solitary contralto

or bass

occasionally wandering by

outside

free in its

unwhitened soul to be

beautiful and

self-sufficient

not asking me

why

I am here—

indifferent

that I am.

GAYLE D. LETOURNEAU

[Page 30]

FLOWERS AND INSECTS

A Study in Interdependence

By JAY and CONSTANCE CONRADER

FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of years life lay in the matrix of the earth, potential but unrevealed, while mighty forces shaped the planet, cooling its molten surface, blending and distributing its elements, preparing it for the birth of life. Then for hundreds of millions of years longer life lay revealed in its simplest form: single-celled creatures rehearsing the drama of life and death through unknown periods of time before the earth was ready to support more complex beings.

No one knows just when the first living forms appeared on our planet, for their traces are lost in the misty past. Nor will any man ever know exactly how the Creator brought living organisms out of inorganic matter. However, we are assured that all life on earth—the same as every inanimate and animate being in the universe—has “come into existence from one laboratory of might under one natural system, and one universal law.” A characteristic of this natural system is the evolution from simple to complex: [Page 31] from simple elements, to combined inorganic molecules, to large and complex protein molecules; from non-living molecules, to organized single-celled living creatures, to highly integrated advanced plant and animal bodies; from barren uninhabited earth, to undiversified habitats of ancient seas populated by a limited number of species, to the manifold habitats of the present world supporting living creatures in marvelous diversity and complex interdependence.

During the slow turning of the ages there has always been close interaction of creatures with their environment and with each other; and there has been a continual testing of life, with success the reward of those creatures having the capacity to adjust to new conditions in the unfolding plan of the universe. Science calls this process mutation and natural selection. Religion calls it the plan of God. Both are right. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá verifies the concept of evolution as God’s method of bringing beings into existence. He has written:

All beings, whether large or small, were created perfect and complete from the first, but their perfections appear in them by degrees. The organisation of God is one: the evolution of existence is one: the divine system is one. Whether they be small or great beings, all are subject to one law and system. . . .

. . . The terrestrial globe from the beginning was created with all its elements, substances, minerals, atoms, and organisms; but these only appeared by degrees: first the mineral, then the plant, afterwards the animal, and finally man.

And He emphasizes the role of interdependence in the plan of evolution:

There is no doubt that this perfection which is in all beings, is caused by the creation of God from the composing elements, by their appropriate mingling and proportionate quantities, the mode of their composition, and the influence of other beings. For all beings are connected together like a chain, and reciprocal help, assistance, and influence belonging to the properties of things, are the causes of the existence, development, and growth of created beings.

The relationship between insects and flowers is one of the most striking examples in nature of reciprocal influence bringing about development of species. Hand in hand these two forms of life have moved up their evolutionary pathways to bring into existence the splendid, colorful floral mosaic that covers the earth today. One with spiritual insight recognizes the perfection of the plan of creation in the intricacy of the design and the relationship of each of the parts to the beauty of the whole; and in such an everyday phenomenon as a bee on a goldenrod, as he looks through the lens of scientific knowledge with the eye of spirit, he sees that bee and flower are not alien beings remote from himself, but rather are intimately connected with him in an interaction essential to his own existence.

Modern insects and flowers are the gayest pieces in nature’s design, and they are near at hand for everyone to enjoy. In both there is astonishing diversity. Flowers appear in every hue of the rainbow, in textures sparkling or velvety, waxy or fragile. Their design may be simple and open, or gracefully bisymmetrical. The petals may be distinct, fused into bells or trumpets, drawn into spurs, or inflated into pouches. The blooms may be solitary or clustered, upright or nodding. The majority have petals variously spotted or streaked, and some are elegantly adorned with golden beards. Some have many golden stamens prominently displayed, others have few stamens concealed in a tube or beneath a hood, while still others appear to have no stamens at all. Many are sweet-smelling, but a few have unpleasant odors, and some are [Page 32] without noticeable scent; and while most give off their scents during the day, some become fragrant only at dusk.

AT FIRST GLANCE, this great diversity among flower species might seem prodigal and without reason, except that man finds aesthetic value in the different floral qualities. But close observation reveals that most of the variations and peculiarities are related to the insects that visit the flowers, and that the flowers can be grouped according to the adaptations that serve their insect pollinators.

Specialized adaptations, however, came late in time. In the beginning, the association of insects with plants was very simple and generalized. The first traces of direct insect pollination can be seen in fossils about 150 million years old. As early as the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic era, nature tested the plan with beetles and some species of cycads and cycadeoids. Yet the evolution of a new kind of plant and a new kind of pollen were needed before the association could become firmly established.

The cycads, cycadeoids, ginkgo trees, and other gymnosperm plants of the early Mesozoic world gave way to sequoias and bald cypress, and for millions of years these magnificent gymnosperm trees were the dominant plants over great areas of the earth. Like all conifers, they shed copious pollen which was wafted about by the wind. We can scarcely imagine the quantity of pollen that must have rained in golden showers in the vast Mesozoic forests, to come to rest at random where insects wandered. Such and available food must—whether by accident of by choice —have been picked up by some of the plant- eating beetles which were common at that time, to become a supplement to their usual plant fare. In pollen, nature has produced a nearly perfect food, rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. Since good nutrition is important to successful reproduction, those beetles that fed on pollen must have gained a slight advantage. But because wind-borne pollen is light and dry, with no tendency to cling to insect bodies, the advantage in the Mesozoic forests would have been almost entirely on the side of the insects; for under the existing conditions the insects could not have been effective pollinating agents for the conifer trees.

In the meantime, however, evolutionary forces were gradually bringing into existence not only the ancestors of modern conifers, but also an altogether new kind of tree—the angiosperm tree. Tulip trees and magnolias, sycamores, birches, and other catkin-bearing trees—these were among the first swells preceding the great wave of encased-seed plants that was to break over the earth in the Cenozoic era, to bring color and fragrance to the land.

Though most of these trees continued to be wind-pollinated, in some species an innovation in the pollen appeared. A slightly sticky coating on the pollen grains caused them to clump together. The fact that wind is an ineffective carrier for this kind of pollen might have been the downfall of the modified plants, save for another simultaneous innovation. The oily adhesive which coated the pollen grains, and caused them to cling to each other, bore a scent that was attractive to beetles. Now the insects were drawn directly to a source of food; and clumps of the new-type sticky pollen could cling to their bodies to be carried about and left incidentally on nearly pistils as the insects moved from one pollen source to another.

FROM SUCH A SIMPLE BEGINNING, certain insects and flowers gradually became linked in an association of mutual benefit, the insects gaining nutritious food, the flowering plants gaining a more efficient method of cross-pollination. As these two forms of life passed their adaptations to their progeny through the process of natural selection, following the tendencies determined by the master plan of creation, they became firmly set upon the long road that has led to today’s multitude of complex flowers and highly [Page 33]

[Page 34] specialized pollinating insects.

Magnolia may have been the first true flower to become securely linked with insects as pollinating agents. This ancient flower- insect tie has come almost unchanged from the Mesozoic era into our modern world, as if nature were retaining a primordial standard with which to measure advances in pollinating relationships. Magnolia’s primitive form is typical of beetle-pollinated flowers. In these flowers of simple radial symmetry, a central pistil or group of pistils is ringed by many stamens and a corolla of showy petals. A sticky sugar solution secreted by the stigmas catches pollen from the beetles as they move about over the stamens. The pollen may come from the same flower, but often the beetle has carried it from a different flower, thereby effecting cross-pollination.

The group of beetle-pollinated flowers contains some of the most fragrant and showy of all flowers (and, in a few cases, some of the most fetid). They are commonly of two types: one with large solitary blooms, such as wild rose, waterlily, mayapple, and single peony; the other with clusters of small blossoms, such as elder and dogwood. All these beetle flowers are open to any insect attracted by their fragrance, abundant pollen, and sweet stigmas; but their primitive open structure is suited to the primitive beetles whose mouth parts are not specialized for reaching hidden food.

Some plants have evolved unusual flowers specially adapted to the peculiarities of scavenging insects. Flowers of this type simulate the colors and odors of humus or various fermenting or decaying organisms, thus drawing scavengers to them to serve as their pollen-bearers. They are dull red, brown, or greenish in color, often mottled or striped with white, and most of them have odors that must be called offensive by even the most sympathetic flower lover. The large tropical snakeleaf and the Mediterranean dragon lily, for example, have overpowering carrion odors attractive to many species of carrion beetles. A number of other malodorous flowers, such as the African stapelias, are pollinated by flies whose larvae are scavengers; and the adult flies are drawn to the flowers in lieu of sites for their eggs.

In temperate regions the odors of scavenger fly flowers are mild, in many instances almost imperceptible to the human nose. They usually are found in moist, shady woodlands; many hold their flowers close to the humus, and bloom in early spring when the first insects—the flies—are abroad. Skunk cabbage, wild ginger, and Jack-in-the- pulpit are familiar examples of this kind of fly flower.

Jack-in-the-pulpit demonstrates a rather complex adaptation for pollination, holding its pollinators in temporary captivity. The lower half of the leafy spathe (the pulpit) is wrapped like a cloak around the slim spadix (the Jack) just loosely enough to allow tiny flies and gnats, attracted by the flower’s odor, to crawl or drop down inside the spathe. But the fit is too snug, and the surfaces too slippery and vertical, for them to fly or crawl up to freedom. In any case, the flies have little tendency to go upward, for a zone of light at the very bottom of the spathe keeps the phototropic insects attracted to that region. Here they come in contact with the fertile florets clustered on the lower part of the spadix, exchanging pollen as they move about. Sooner or later they discover a small exit hole at the bottom of the spathe’s seam. None the worse for the experience, and drawn by the irresistible attraction of odor, the flies are soon trapped in another plant. Transfer of pollen from plant to plant is thereby assured. Though a few individuals of Jack-in-the-pulpit have mature male and female flowers on the same spadix, in most cases one or the other sex is undeveloped, so that only one kind of flower comes to maturity on a single plant. The Jack-in-the- pulpit seems to be developing toward total dependence on insects for pollination. Only time will tell.

Other kinds of fly flowers are more classic in form, color, and odor. Those of simple [Page 35] radial symmetry like marsh marigold and buttercup, those with clusters of flowers like the members of the parsley family, and others of more complex structure are attended by many kinds of flies. Soldier flies, thick-headed flies, beeflies, and Syrphids (the earth’s largest family of flies, the so-called flower flies and hover flies), all are specially adapted for cross-pollination, and are among the most valuable pollinators. When fields of meadow towers and their insects were still a common sight, even in cities and towns, these flies in spectrum colors—fuzzy red, vivid orange, golden yellow, iridescent green or blue, banded black and white—danced constant attention over Queen Anne’s lace, Indian puccoon, blazing star, daisies, goldenrod, and countless other wildflowers.

FLIES, AS WELL As butterflies and moths, have mouth parts specially modified for the use of liquid food. Flowers which attract them must, therefore, provide fluids. This they do in the form of nectar. The secretion of sugar solution was an early advance in flower evolution, as noted in the primitive beetle flowers. But plants have developed innumerable modifications of this simple device. Nectar may collect in droplets or in satiny rings around the pistil in open flowers; it may be held in special little vase-like structures among the stamens; it may be concealed beneath nectar scales on the petals, or guarded by protective hairs in shallow corolla cups; it may gather in pools in deep corolla trumpets or floral spurs. In every case, the position of the nectar in relation to the stamens and pistil determines the mode of pollen transfer by the insects best adapted to that particular flower.

Since finding the nectar in a flower is the principal objective of a nectar-eating insect, and since pollination is the purpose served the flower by the insect’s visit, flowers have evolved special “nectar guides”—contrasting spots, streaks, fringes or bright beards— which have the very functional value of directing the insect to the nectar by a route that insures the efficient transfer of pollen from the stamens of one flower to the pistils of another. The intricate floral mechanisms by which this transfer is accomplished in higher flowers are sources of wonder, and are observable by anyone who takes the trouble to examine the flowers closely.

Short-tongued flies such as the bluebottle are limited to open flowers where the nectar is exposed on surface nectaries, and, as in beetle flowers, pollination is achieved in a rather casual way. But the more specialized flies, which closely resemble bees in both appearance and the length of their tongues, can reach the nectar hidden in deeper nectaries, and their size and shape enables them to serve more advanced flowers.

Butterflies and moths, by means of a long slender sucking tongue or proboscis, are able to reach the sweets hidden in the deepest cups. The flowers specially designed for these delightful creatures have petals fused into a bell or trumpet, as in honeysuckle, phlox, and petunia; or drawn backward into a slender spur, as in columbine, nasturtium, and many orchids. As would be expected, flowers that attract night-flying moths are white or pastel colored, and their sweet heavy fragrance is not released until dusk. Those that attract butterflies are generally colorful, and have more delicate scents since butterflies are drawn by color more than by scent. Sphinx moths and clearwing moths are the most efficient of all pollinators, surpassing even the famed bees. When hard at work, a Sphinx moth is capable of pollinating as many as sixty individual flowers in a minute. Butterflies are not so industrious. They flutter about and dally over any flower that offers nectar and a convenient foothold.

AS IMPORTANT AS all the other insect pollinators are, the championship goes to wild bees who are the stewards of the earth’s flora. They are the most dependable of all pollinators for higher plants. Though the word “bee” commonly brings to mind the honey bee, wild bees and bumblebees are many [Page 36] times more important both as pollinators of modern flowers and in their historic role in the evolution of modern floral diversity. The domesticated honey bee is industrious and locally abundant, but its body size and shape are not adapted for the same flowers as the smaller wild bees, and its shorter tongue prevents its functioning in bumblebee flowers.

Of the approximately two hundred thousand species of flowering plants on earth, eighty percent are dependent on cross-pollinating insects for the perpetuation of healthy, high quality plants; and fully fifty percent are dependent on bees as their principal or only means of pollination. Among these plants are many of the earth’s loveliest flowers: orchids, iris, penstemons, gentians, laurels, and others too numerous to name. Among them also are some of mankind’s finest food products: orchard fruits, oranges, mints and other herbs, the melon family, lima beans, and countless more. Of prime importance are the leguminous forage plants that feed our livestock, and the plants that build fertile soil: the clovers and alfalfa, composites, and other prairie species.

The extremely important, close, and often obligatory relationship between many flower species and their pollinating insects is not fortuitous. Both have evolved from ancient forms, through a plan of mutual influence and benefit, into today’s finely adapted, highly specialized forms—a superb example of progressive symbiosis.

Monkshood or aconite, for example, belongs to one of the oldest groups of flowering plants, the buttercup family. Yet, in its bilaterally symmetrical flower it has so far departed from the primitive, radially symmetrical, open flower of the buttercup that only a botanist would recognize the relationship. As the flower ascended its evolutionary pathway, leaving its ancestral form behind, its insect pollinators ascended with it. Now monkshood is so specialized that it cannot exist apart from bumblebees—the only insects that perfectly fit its pollinating mechanism —and it is not found outside their geographic range.

A similarly intimate relationship exists between native penstemons and certain families of solitary bees. Careful studies of different species, made by University of Wisconsin researchers at many separate sites throughout the penstemons’ continental range, have revealed that all but one species depend from eighty-eight to one hundred percent on bees for pollination; and one species depends entirely upon a single family of wild solitary bee. Like monkshood, penstemon range coincides with the range of its pollinators; and loss of the pollinator in an area means loss of the flower.

The implications in the loss of species, and the consequent impoverishment of the environment, must be viewed in the perspective of time. Though the effect may not be apparent immediately, an effect is inevitable, since all life is one; and the effect can reach to the roots of human existence. The loss of insect and flower species, for example, can lead to a serious loss of soil fertility.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOILS through the ages has been directly related to the kinds of plants growing on the land. This same kind of relationship can be seen today in the poor, infertile soils of conifer forest land, the better soils under hardwood trees, and the marvelously fertile prairie humus laid down by a natural balance of advanced prairie grasses and flowering herbs. These fertile soils are formed where there is a fairly constant ratio of about twenty percent grasses and eighty percent prairie flowers. Wind-pollinated grasses, not readily decomposed, help to maintain the physical structure of the soil. But insect-pollinated prairie plants provide [Page 37] the nutritive nitrogen that marks a fertile soil. Research scientist E. E. Leppik states that the most highly evolved plants have the most advanced chemical composition, and are therefore the best builders of soil fertility. In this way, he says:

nature achieves the highest possible fertility of soil for the growth of carefully selected higher plants that, in turn, provide superb food for higher animals and man. . . . The extermination of pollinating insects in a landscape, therefore, leads to a radical decrease of native soil-building plants and to the deterioration of soil fertility.

Insects not only keep the balance of flower species which perpetuate soil fertility, but they also are active agents of advancing evolution. In visiting a species, bees instinctively choose the individual flowers with the most nutritious pollen, the sweetest nectar, the finest fragrance, the most intense colors, and the most balanced symmetry—in other words, the flowers of the healthiest plants.

In seeking to understand the mysteries of flower form, colors, scents, and reproductive mechanisms, and the marvelous adaptations of the thousands of insect pollinators, and the reasons why certain flowers and insects have become so intimately associated, we are brought to realize the wondrous complexity of life. All the facts disclosed in the studies, no matter how interesting, are only academic unless we find in them some clue to the meaning of existence.

MAN IS THE ONLY creature able to see into the meaning of nature. With this capacity for knowledge goes the responsibility for applying the knowledge toward the advancement of life. Many people still think of advancement only in relation to the human species. Yet, we are but one species in an infinite universe. Every new piece we fit into the puzzle of life must increase our humility before the Creator, and convince us that our human advancement is related to the rest of creation, to even the least part of it.

In such a spirit of humility, man must now realize that his superior intellect does not give him the right to be ruthless with any species. “In this day,” Bahá’u’lláh promises, “the mysteries of this earth are unfolded and visible before the eyes. . . .” With the new knowledge available to him in this age, mankind can no longer excuse, on the grounds of ignorance, the kind of irresponsible destruction of other creatures that has marked his survival patterns in the past. Indeed, the contrary is true. His very survival today depends upon how quickly he makes a radical reformation of both his philosophy and his science. Nearly one hundred years ago, Bahá’u’lláh warned:

Members of the human race! . . .

Whoso cleaveth to justice, can, under no circumstances, transgress the limits of moderation. He discerneth the truth in all things, through the guidance of Him Who is the All-Seeing. The civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men. Thus warneth you He Who is the All-Knowing. If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation. Meditate on this, O people, and be not of them that wander distraught in the wilderness of error.

This warning has ecological as well as sociological applications. One of the greatest evils man has brought upon himself over the past few decades is the persistent, far-reaching [Page 38] effect of his immoderate use of chemical compounds to kill unwanted insects. Belatedly, scientists are beginning to assess the seriousness of this abuse of the earth and its innocent living mantle; and some ecologists view it as “the most devastating of all forms of environmental pollution.” The insidious tentacles of the persistent chemical pesticides have already crept into every area of the earth’s surface, into every measure of its waters, and into the cells of every creature thus far examined by scientists, from marine microorganisms to man himself. Nor is the end in sight, for these chemicals are still being used in appalling quantity by the uninformed and heedless.

Even without such awesome facts as these, contemplation of the indiscriminate use of insecticides should bring sobering thoughts. To date, some one million species of insects have been named. Estimates of the possible number of species actually on earth range from two to ten million. Of these millions of insect species, only an exceedingly small percentage—a few hundred species—pose any serious threat to human health or comfort. To protect man’s health and guard his crops from destructive insects is surely permissible, but we have a grave responsibility as to the methods we use. By present methods, for every harmful species we wish to control, we are threatening thousands of innocent and helpful insect species, and deranging the order of life on earth. One fact is now clear. After twenty-five years of experience with modern chemical biocides, every honest economic entomologist is obliged to admit that these chemicals destroy valuable species more readily than “pest” species, leaving ever more resistant strains of pests in a widening spiral of imbalance. In 1964, Robert L. Rudd wrote that more than 120 species of insects and mites had already developed resistance to chemical insecticides, and added:

This seemingly small fraction not only is increasing to include more species, but also it unfortunately represents most of the major insect pests and disease carriers. The phenomenon is not restricted. It occurs throughout the world in urban, crop, farm, and marsh environments.

Man must face the truth that the pollinating insects which have evolved for him, and maintain for him, the kind of environment essential to his own existence, are the very ones most vulnerable to his broad spectrum insecticides. It is to be hoped that more and more discerning people will promote the kind of gardens and natural sanctuaries where these insects can survive in sufficient number to repopulate the earth with their species after mankind has learned to live in wise harmony with his natural environment.

We may never fully understand the importance of the remarkable diversity of insects and flowering plants. Certainly we dare not question the wisdom of God Who ordained it. But it is plain to see that an earth crowded with people must still have room for wildflowers and butterflies, bumblebees and hover flies. Without the diversity of nature, the human race could not long survive. Such an everyday phenomenon as a bumblebee on an aster is a marvel of nature whose depth of meaning we have only begun to fathom. How tragic if, by our own hand, we should lose either bee or flower while we are yet probing the truths hidden within them.

How all-encompassing are the wonders of His boundless grace! Behold how they have pervaded the whole of creation. . . . So perfect and comprehensive in His creation that no mind nor heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures; . . . .

[Page 39]

A Step toward an International Monetary System

By VERGIL L. WILLIAMS and MARY FISH

BAHÁ’Í TEACHINGS ON ECONOMICS set forth principles that are necessary for a world commonwealth in which the planet’s resources are organized, developed, and freely traded. This world system will operate with an international currency acceptable in all nations. Bahá’ís know, as a general proposition, that the advent of a world currency will be a significant step toward a united world. Thus, recent developments on the international monetary scene are exciting and meaningful; for current crucial developments, delayed for years, may well herald a step toward a truly international monetary syStem, long awaited by Bahá’ís and propenents of world monetary reform.

In the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting of September 1967, in Rio de Janeiro, representatives of member nations unanimously agreed on a scheme to create a form of artificial monetary reserves known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR’s). Several member nations including the United States have already ratified the plan. SDR’s would have some characteristics of currency and some of credit. They would be a currency controlled by an international agency. This form of reserves would exist on the books of the IMF as a separate account and would be backed by pledges of contributions from members in their own currencies. SDR’s would regularly supply added international liquidity to member nations of the IMF.

A review of the events in history that have forced trading nations to develop new forms of international liquidity and tools to facilitate trade among nations is necessary in helping one to place the initiation of SDR’s in proper perspective and to see how the demand for increased monetary reserves, along with United States’ balance-of- payments problem, have generated a global awareness of the ultimate need to establish an international currency. In this historical setting one sees the manner in which an international monetary system is gradually evolving.

The Role of Gold in World Trade

INTERNATIONAL TRADE has been carried on for centuries by using gold as a standard of value and medium of exchange. However, gold is somewhat outside of the modern concept of money. It may be considered more properly a commodity. This implies that world trade has been conducted by resorting to an awkward form of barter. For example, men must toil to remove gold from some hole in the ground known as a goldmine; laboriously transport it to some other location; and, finally, store it in a different hole known as an underground vault. Standard weights of gold are assigned arbitrarily to currencies from different countries by the issuing governments. The values of national currencies are then assumed to stem from the amount of the commodity gold which a particular piece of currency will buy. Prior to the establishment of the IMF, nations computed the relationships among the various currencies of the world by using the ratios of gold for comparison. Now the IMF sets the exchange rates on the basis of the currency’s gold content.

Ultimately, accounts are settled among nations by transferring gold. The United [Page 40] States is the center for most of these transfers of gold among trading nations of the Western world. With the exception of France, most nations do not actually transport the gold back and forth across the oceans. The transfer takes place in the basement of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The basement has a series of wire cages which are marked with the names of different nations. Gold transfers are made by moving gold from cage to cage.

Of course, the objectives of world trade are the exchange of goods and services and not the exchange of gold.* As mentioned, the value of the currencies of different nations have ratios to gold which are set by the IMF. By the use of these ratios, the currency of any one nation is freely convertible into the currency of any other nation in the system. Exchange rates are not allowed to fluctuate more than one percent from declared parities by common agreement among participating nations. This arrangement eliminates the need for direct control over exchange rates and prevents wildly fluctuating exchange rates. If exchange rates were allowed to fluctuate freely, the damand for a nation’s currency would change with the vagaries in foreign trade. Nations would not have balance- of-payments problems because the value of their currencies would constantly adjust as their imports and exports began to disequilibrate. Price movements would solve balance- of-payments problems because, in effect, imports and exports would always balance: goods would trade against goods.

International monetary authorities have rejected the concept of freely fluctuating exchange rates because price changes would hamper the efficient administration of monetary affairs within nations. National monetary authorities would find it impossible to formulate the most prudent monetary policy for domestic affairs with the constant threat of volatile prices. For example, the United States has economic goals which include stable price levels and full employment. The foreign trade sector of the Gross National Product is an insignificant percentage of the total—insignificant in the sense that it would be folly to allow drastic price level changes and widespread unemployment domestically merely to balance the international accounts.

Instead, nations hold international monetary reserves to maintain the market value of their currencies within one percent of parity and to help bridge the gap between payments and receipts. In short, nations buy and sell their own currencies to peg its price. These reserves allow a nation to have a temporary balance-of-payments problem: that is to say, a nation may owe another nation or group of nations goods and services. These international reserves are held in the form of gold and foreign exchange and are used to stabilize the exchange rate of currencies. The amount of reserves held by a nation is

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• The process bears little resemblance to the sophisticated monetary systems that the industrialized nations have developed for their domestic use. Imagine your local banker weighing and shifting little bars of gold in the basement of your hometown bank every time you write a check! Instead, his employees enter debits and credits in their bookkeeping systems to square the accounts at the end of the day. This is the essence of our domestic monetary system. Some ninety percent of our domestic money supply consists of those entries in bank ledgers. These dollar amounts are not backed by gold nor are they backed by stacks of bills tucked away in the vault. In the United States, the phenomenon that we all “money” is hardly more than a set of rules that we have agreed to abide by. The system is functional for the most part because of confidence and mutual trust. We are confident that our money has value because we are confident that we have a central banking authority that is competent to make and enforce prudent rules for the creation of money. Checkbook money is created and destroyed as bank loans are granted and repaid. When one is granted a loan, the banker merely adds the amount to the client’s account by writing the amount on his ledger. He does not lend money that belongs to someone else. As the borrower spends the money, it returns to other banks in the system as the recipients deposit it in their banks. Thus, we say that the banking system “creates” money because more money exists after someone has been granted a bank loan. We do not waste our labor in digging up gold and transporting it about the countryside. Yet, our system is efficient and bank deposits constitute “money” in the modern sense of the word. Domestic trade is carried on swiftly and smoothly.

[Page 41] allowed to fluctuate rather than allowing exchange rates to fluctuate.

The Problem of International Monetary Reserves

SINCE WORLD WAR II, nations in the Western World have been conducting more foreign trade as they have become more affluent. This has created a demand for more international monetary reserves, as has the establishment of new nations. The growth of international monetary reserves has been fed by two major sources: growth of monetary gold stocks and increased holdings of foreign exchange (national currencies) as reserves. This second source needs further elaboration. Holding a national currency as an international monetary reserve could mean that Denmark held part of its reserves in dollars instead of holding all of them in gold. Although under the law the United States will not redeem dollars domestically, it will convert dollars held by foreign governments and central banks to gold. Why would Denmark want to hold dollars especially if most of its trade was with nations other than the United States? The answer to this is found in the relative scarcity of gold. According to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, gold production has not been sufficient to satisfy the world’s increased demands for monetary reserves during the past decade. Denmark, in our hypothetical example, probably resorted to holding dollars simply because gold was not readily available in quantities to satisfy its demand for reserves. Furthermore, it is a bit easier to hold currency instead of gold bullion from a practical standpoint.

Increasingly, the holding of national currencies has been used to satisfy the growing demand for reserves. However, a nation that holds a national currency as reserves is particular about which currency it holds. It picks a national currency that appears to be stable, not one in imminent danger of devaluation. The initial impact of the devaluation of a national currency leaves the other trading nations holding money that will be converted to less gold than they could have obtained prior to the devaluation. Thus, if a foreign country seriously believed that the United States would raise the official price of gold, it would rush to convert its dollars to gold before incurring a loss. This type of situation has caused the gold runs and international financial crises of recent months.

The dollar and the pound sterling have been the only two national currencies that have served, to an important extent, as reserves for other countries. As Great Britain has suffered financial woes, confidence in the pound sterling has deteriorated, leaving the dollar as the only reserve currency in use to any large extent today. Furthermore, it has been easy for foreign nations to accumulate dollars since World War II, because the United States has faced heavy governmental commitments abroad and has exported considerable funds of private investors. Consequently, the reserve position of the United States has deteriorated while the reserve position of other nations in the trading block improved. In effect, the loss of monetary reserves by the United States has financed the expansion of international monetary reserves by other nations.

1968 International Liquidity Pressures

THE GOLD RUNS and international monetary crises in the early months of 1968 stemmed largely from weakening confidence in the stability of the dollar. Nations holding dollars as international reserves naturally try to exchange them for gold if it appears to them that the United States may devaluate the dollar to solve its balance-of-payments problems. The United States does not have enough gold to redeem all of the dollars held by foreign governments and central banks. Remember that the reason for these nations holding dollars in the first place was the shortage of gold! Yet, a prolonged gold run could force the United States to devaluate— to redeem dollars with smaller amounts of [Page 42] gold. In all likelihood, should this happen, it would set off a wave of devaluations and seriously disrupt world trade. These are the problems that have forced international monetary authorities a step closer to achieving a truly international currency.

Nations are under a great deal of pressure to solve these problems. The dollar can no longer serve as the world reserve currency. Eventually the United States will solve its balance-of-payments problem. It will stop losing monetary reserves and, thus, shut off this source of growth of international liquidity. Without some new provisions in the international monetary machinery, the supply of new reserves will be limited to new gold production which is already inadequate to supply international needs.

Solutions to the Inadequate Reserve Dilemma

WHY DOES THE WORLD not have an efficient mechanism for lubricating the exchange of goods? Why is world trade carried on under such primitive barter conditions when individual nations have the ability to construct and regulate an efficient type of money? In short, why don't we have international money now? These are the essential problems that we now wish to raise.

One might have formed, at this point, the impression that someone needs to come forth with a workable solution to this dilemma. This is not the case. Students of international finance can list dozens of monetary reform proposals ranging from the rather moderate ideas suggested by Robert Roosa, international financial expert, formerly with the Federal Reserve, to the drastic overhaul proposed by Robert Triffin, Professor of Economics at Yale. These proposals all differ in their technical aspects. They have all been made by scholars who have spent many years studying the subject. Most significantly, any one of the major reform proposals could be made to work. Most are sound and well conceived. The delay in instituting reforms has not been due to lack of knowledge. Rather, the delay has been caused by lack of agreement among nations considering the problem. This lack of agreement, to some extent, has roots in the jealously guarded sovereign rights of nations. Most, if not all, of the reform proposals call for increased cooperation among nations and the granting of additional power and authority to an international agency such as the International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund has operated on a limited scale, executing voluntary agreements among participating nations. These nations have not been willing to grant that agency any real authority over their internal affairs, nor have they been willing to depend on it to regulate an international currency. It has functioned primarily as an international clearing house for gold exchange operations. In effect, the world does not have an international currency because its sovereign nations are not willing to relinquish power to an international agency to administer a portion of their affairs.

This attitude has been changing in recent months. The problem of international monetary reserves has become so acute that trading nations have been forced toward greater trust and cooperation. They are willing to make concessions that they have not been willing to make before. SDR’s are a manifestation of this new unity.

One hears the SDR’s referred to as “paper gold.” Actually, they are neither paper nor gold. They will be accounting entries on the books of the IMF. All member nations will be allocated SDR’s in proportion to their IMF quotas. For example, a nation needing additional reserves for international trade could apply to the IMF for SDR’s. Should the application be granted, the Fund would credit the account of the applicant with the required amount, and the applicant would be able to draw foreign exchange on the basis of that bookkeeping credit. This is similar to the procedure used by bankers who make loans to individuals. Domestic money supplies grow as bankers make loans in this fashion [Page 43] and contract as these loans are repaid. Of course, domestic bankers do not have unlimited power to create this type of “checkbook” money. Ultimately, the central bank controls and regulates the amount of money that can be created in this manner, as is true with SDR’s.

The uniqueness of SDR’s stems from the similarity of this new international system to domestic systems. The system resembles the techniques used for domestic money supplies in that reserves are created and regulated by a central agency on the basis of world need. The nations of the world have used this type of monetary system for centuries; however, it has been used within nations so that no question of national sovereignty arises.

SDR’s are not remarkable as a concept. Professor Triffin has been advocating the establishment of a central world bank and currency for years. As Professor Triffin visualizes it, an expanded IMF would function as a central bank for the world, regulating a world money supply without the cumbersome use of gold or national currencies. SDR’s are remarkable because they indicate that the nations of the world are reaching new frontiers of cooperation and mutual trust by giving a new type of authority to an international agency. It is a small step, one much more modest than the Triffin Plan, because gold and reserve currencies will still play a major role in international trade. Nonetheless, SDR’s do add a third type of monetary asset to our standard items of gold and national currencies.

SDR’s will allow the total world supply of international monetary reserves to expand with the normal growth of world production and trade. Only thirty percent of issued SDR’S will need to be repaid. The remaining seventy percent will add to the stock of reserves permanently. In that respect, SDR’s are different from a loan. They assume some of the characteristics of “checkbook” money in that one is not merely transferring funds from savers to borrowers. But care is required in interpreting these new issues. It would hardly be accurate to classify the new SDR’s as an international currency. The details of the use of SDR’s have not been completely worked out. At this point, the success or failure of SDR’s is indeterminate. However, nothing like the SDR mechanism has ever been used in international finance. It may prove to be a giant step toward achieving a world currency by opening the door for bolder innovations.

Frederick L. Deming, United States Under- Secretary for Monetary Affairs, has indicated that the United States is receptive to consideration of further monetary reforms. Among items selected for further study is a plan suggested by Edward M. Bernstein. This plan would use a single reserve unit to replace gold, foreign exchange, and drawing rights. This reserve unit would be used by nations as currency for settling amounts among themselves, probably as a unit of account transferable on the books of the IMF.

Other proposals are still being discussed among scholars. The previously mentioned Triffin Plan is one of the most popular as well as one of the most controversial. The Radcliffe Committee Proposal. the Zolotas Plan, and the European Payments Union Plan are examples of other proposals that have merits and some faults. Undoubtedly additional plans are presently being developed. The need today is for implementation of the best proposals or series of proposals in order to solve the liquidity problem now and for future generations.

It appears that SDR’s will be used by nations in 1969 or 1970 and that other plans or new systems which offer an international currency are inevitable. The world can no longer operate with the old tools of trade. A world commonwealth requires an international money controlled by an international institution. It may well be that the embryonic plans developed within the last fifteen years will soon provide an answer to the international liquidity problem. The cooperation required to agree on the use of SDR’s is an exciting beginning.

[Page 44]

[Page 45]

EARTH’S HOLOCAUST

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

An Introduction

By ALLAN L. WARD

“EARTH’S HOLOCAUST” is a disturbingly contemporary tale that is one hundred twenty-five years old. It was written by one of the outstanding authors of the nineteenth century. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a college classmate of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the fourteenth President of the United States Franklin Pierce, a friend of Herman Melville, and a neighbor of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. This tale is nothing less than prophetic in its content and may well be considered as a unique statement of the world’s condition at the juncture of an old historic cycle and a new world order. Therein lies its distinctive appropriateness for being reprinted in a magazine concerned with the many facets of world order.

Hawthorne’s story describes mankind becoming aware of the need to clear itself of old trappings and vices, and groping for the cause and cure of the world’s ills. It tells how a great fire was kindled to consume all of the earth’s old debris and how the people of the world came to fling into the flames the adornments, among other things, of artificial social and religious systems.

Virtually obscured by Hawthorne’s other towering works, such as The House of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, and The Marble Faun, it may be that “Earth’s Holocaust” will eventually claim a place of importance far different from the others, enduring because of its historical insight. It may be regarded as the product of a mind attuned to the impulse of the time, sensing a spiritual truth and giving voice to it in this particular literary genre.

“Earth’s Holocaust” was published in a collection entitled Mosses from an Old Manse. The stately pre-revolutionary parsonage, the Old Manse, where Hawthorne lived at the time he wrote this collection, provided its title. Arlin Turner, in his study of Hawthorne, notes:

In his three years at the Old Manse following his marriage, Hawthorne published some twenty tales and sketches, half of which fall readily into a category characteristic particularly of this period in his career. They can barely be called tales, for each is a loose assemblage of materials illustrating some inclusive thought.

Although none was quite like “Earth’s Holocaust”, other still-familiar writing was being published during the same year: Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers and [Page 46] The Count of Monte Cristo were published in America; Charles Dickens had just completed A Christmas Carol; Edgar Allan Poe was completing The Raven; Ralph Waldo Emerson published his second series of Essays; Thoreau and Melville were also writing; and Stephen Foster published his first song. What was that memorable year?

The author of The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, after pages of painstaking calculations of Biblical prophecy concludes:

The momentous declaration made by the angel to Daniel, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days: then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” is now explained. . . . We have seen . . . that that long prophetic period which was to mark the beginning of this final work in the heavenly sanctuary, has met its termination. In 1844 the days ended. . . . Here we stand then, with the last, the greatest, and the most solemn crisis in the history of our race. . . .

The student of Christian scriptures should find it significant that “Earth’s Holocaust” was written in 1844, the year when it was prophesied that the “sanctuary” would be “cleansed”. Hawthorne describes, in a manner of speaking, the cleansing of the “sanctuary” of the whole earth.

Hawthorne describes the period of the story as “time past or time to come”. In a sense, the story began then and the symbolic bonfire has been burning ever since, burning through the ranks of monarchies, sacerdotal orders, vices, and the engines of war. He speaks of the destruction of the emblems of royalty: “there came another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at beSt. . . .” Likewise were brought the outward trappings of religions: “To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems, with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great act of faith.”

One onlooker of the fire thought “that the millennium was already come”; there are those who believe that in 1844 it did come. If the reader regards the tale as a foreshadowing of worldwide change and the fall of dynasties as described with such faithful accuracy in a book of contemporary religious history such as The Promised Day is Come, the parallel with the tale is obvious and remarkable. An hour’s meditation before an open fire, or a spirited group discussion comparing the two works, with their “before” and “after” aspects, might prove to provide a profitable evening.

In his tale, Hawthorne notes the mixed reactions to the destruction of the old encumbrances, yet he implies that the wave of change will not be kept back. It is greater than any of the individual observers and participants.

As the weaponry is destroyed, some take it “as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and eternal peace. . . .” Students of contemporary religion will see another striking parallel, in remembering the unprecedented American tour of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, sixty- eight years following “Earth’s Holocaust”, speaking before organizations and groups, indicating what individuals and nations must do to bring about the realization of unity and the oneness of mankind so that world order might be established. When his addresses had been compiled and were to be published, [Page 47] he wrote, “Name the book . . . The Promulgation of Universal Peace.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was born in 1844, the same year “Earth’s Holocaust” was written. Coincidentally, so was Hawthorne’s first daughter, whom he named Una, from the Latin root for one, oneness, and unity.

Hawthorne does not overlook the tendency of man, when once he destroys things useless, to also throw away or discard some things that are good, since he is so often unable to discern the difference, and so into the flames went even “the ponderous church Bible.” But an observer notes, “there is far less both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world might be willing to believe,” for “Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up at last.” Nor in the end did they find that even the Bible had burned, but only “the finger marks of human imperfection were purified away” along with “Certain marginal notes and commentaries” but “without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed from the pen of inspiration.”

But the author probed deeper, as Turner points out: “Hawthorne seems to have thought and to have said indirectly, that while the reformers were busy with the surface mainfestation [sic], he was probing, in his works, at the source of all crime and wrong and suffering.” Turner notes further that in “Earth’s Holocaust”, “he marshaled practically all of the items then engaging the efforts of reformers, and he set down the conviction he had been approaching—that man’s efforts to improve society will continue to accomplish nothing until the heart is purified.”

This tells us something more of Hawthorne, himself, as Edward Wagenknecht writes:

Hawthorne really did believe in Providence, and because he knew that God is wiser than men, he never made the mistake of imagining that men must do God’s work for Him while leaving their own undone. This often helped him to achieve a balance which we find it difficult or impossible to secure. . . . it . . . gave him the wisdom to perceive, as he proclaimed in “Earth’s Holocaust,” that there is no use casting human follies and vanities into the bonfire unless you are prepared to cast the human heart, which is their source, in after them.

In the book, American Renaissance, Francis Matthiessen points out:

At the close of ‘Earth’s Holocaust’, written

when the activity of the Millerites had caused him to ponder how reforming zeal might bring to destruction all the age-old abuses and encumbrances of the world, he observed that “There’s one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire,” without which all their efforts for perfectibility would still remain futile: “What but the human heart itself? . . . . The heart, the heart,—there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types.” Then he added a concluding sentence in which he revealed his understanding that the act of regeneration must involve the whole man, and in what manner his conception of the heart included also the will: “Purify that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our [Page 48] whole accomplishment will be a dream.”

As Bahá’u’lláh was to write nineteen years after Hawthorne penned “Earth’s Holocaust”, “But, O my brother, when a true seeker determines to take the step of search in the path leading to the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse and purify his heart . . . from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy.”

It was at a moment when two historical epochs touched that Hawthorne wrote his simple and profound tale, and it may well find a very special place in the literary anthologies of the future.

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ONCE UPON A TIME—but whether in the time past or time to come is a matter of little or no moment—this wide world had become so overburdened with an accumulation of wornout trumpery that the inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundjty of moral truths heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment, however, there came foot travellers, women holding up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage wagons, and other vehicles, great and small, and from far and near laden with articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned.

“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a by-stander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the affair from beginning to end.

The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker on. He struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them. Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the kindling light of the fire.

“Oh, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to the purpose— no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last month’s magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.”

As he spoke some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s office—the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble as [Page 49] it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, too, were the medals of our own society of Cincinnati, by means of which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near being constituted out of the king quellers of the revolution. And besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the brand new parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the fair hand of Victoria.

At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a joyous shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to Heaven’s better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the blazing heap a grayhaired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat, from the breast of which a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was the demeanor, the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it questioned till that moment.

“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of stateliness—“people, what have you done? This fire is consuming all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off the poet, the painter, the sculptor—all the beautiful arts; for we were their patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they flourish. In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness—”

More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance.

“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same fire!” shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. “And henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment as his warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength of arm, well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his ancestors. That nonsense is done away.”

“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low voice, however, “if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at all events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life.”

There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of royalty, and the [Page 50] crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best, fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from the time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues, or perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates of Hindostan; and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had fallen in that sport and been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria’s mantle was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar of Russia’s sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames.

“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,” observed my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a royal wardrobe. “Let us get to windward and see what they are doing on the other side of the bonfire.”

We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians—as the votaries of temperance call themselves nowadays —accompanied by thousands of the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at their head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire—being nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the world, which they rolled before them across the prairie.

“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge of the fire, “one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor.”

Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to set the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the whole world’s stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions. Meantime numberless bottles of precious wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again will the insatiable thirst of the fire fiend be so pampered. Here were the treasures of famous bon vivants—liquors that had been tossed on ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and boarded long in the recesses of the earth—the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever vineyards were most delicate—the entire vintage of Tokay—all mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pothouse, and contributing to heighten the selfsame blaze. And while it rose in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the firmament and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance from the curse of ages.

But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. While the reformers were at work, I overheard muttered expostulations [Page 51] from several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where the fire is burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and boldly.

“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that we can never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold winds of this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him in exchange for the solace that you take away? How are old friends to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful glass between them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow’s living in, now that good fellowship is gone forever!”

This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof brandy that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket.

The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops and tobacco. These, being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The present sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any that they had hitherto witnessed.

“Well, they've put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman flinging it into the flames in a pet. “What is this world coming to? Everything rich and racy—all the spice of life—is to be condemned as useless. Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical reformers would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!”

“Be patient,” responded a stanch conservative; “it will come to that in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.”

From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turned to consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor fellow threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit or insolvable bank nates. Fashionable ladies threw in their last season’s bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and much other half- worn milliner’s ware, all of which proved even more evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers of both sexes—discarded maids or bachelors and couples mutually weary of one another —tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets. A hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith—having voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose— came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years old, in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his playthings; a college graduate his diploma; an apothecary, ruined by the spread of homoeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines; a physician his library; a parson his old sermons; and a fine gentleman of the old school his code of [Page 52] manners, which he had formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation. A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead husband’s miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American author, whose works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and paper into the bonfire, and betook himself to some less discouraging occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies, highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the manners, duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex.

What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half- delirious girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man, however, ran to her rescue.

“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew her back from the fierce embrace of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and abide Heaven’s will. So long as you possess a living soul, all may be restored to its first freshness. These things of matter and creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned when once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!”

“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk down into deep despondency—“yes and the sunshine is blotted out of it!”

It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire, with the exception of the world’s stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would disappear— these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for any length of time together.

Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long been the voice of battle—the artillery of the Armada, the battering trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and Wellington —were trundled into the midst of the fire. By the continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away like playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant marches, and flung in their muskets and swords. The standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all tattered with shot holes and inscribed with the names of victorious fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched them upward in its rush towards the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was left without a single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king’s arms and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our state armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no longer to won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the contention of the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, and caused infinite [Page 53] rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at the horror and absurdity of war.

But I saw a grim smile pass over the seated visage of a stately old commander— by his warworn figure and rich military dress, he might have been one of Napoleon’s famous marshals—who, with the rest of the world’s soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had been familiar to his right hand for half a century.

“Ay! ay!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they please; but in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for the armorers and cannon founders.”

“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine that the human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness as to weld another sword or cast another cannon?”

“There will be no need,” observed, with a snear, one who neither felt benevolence nor had faith in it. “When Cain wished to slay his brother, he was at no loss for a weapon.”

“We shall see.” replied the veteran commander. “If I am mistaken, so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law court for the settlement of national difficulties? The battlefield is the only court where such suits can be tried.”

“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced stage of civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just such a tribunal as is requisite.”

“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as he limped away.

The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto been considered of even greater importance to the well being of society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery by which the different nations were accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of itself was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old implements of cruelty; those horrible monsters of mechanism; those inventions which seemed to demand something worse than man’s natural heart to contrive, and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of terror-stricken legend—were now brought forth to view. Headsmen’s axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of the guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had borne it from one to another of the blood-stained streets of Paris. But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of the triumph of the earth’s redemption, when the gallows made its appearance. An ill- looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and, putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsel,. and fought with brute fury to stay their progress.

It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by which he himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their death; but it deserved special note that men of a far different sphere—even of that consecrated class in whose guardianship the world is apt to trust its benevolence—were found to take the hangman’s view of the question.

“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled by a false philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and desolation!”

[Page 54] “Onward! onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into the flames with the accursed instrument of man’s blood policy! How can human law inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the world will be redeemed from its greatest error.”

A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent their assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes.

“That was well done!” exclaimed I.

“Yes, it was well done,” replied, but with less enthusiasm than I expected, the thoughtful observer who was still at my side; “well done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however, is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition between the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection which perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment should now be tried.”

“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent leader in this triumph. “Let the heart have its voice here as well as the intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any given period, it has attained the perception of; and surely that thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed.”

I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether the good people around the bonfire were really growing more enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company. For instance, some threw their marriage certificates into the flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the birth of time under the form of the connubial tie.

Others hastened to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich—all of which were open to the first comer on this fated occasion —and brought entire bales of paper money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, was to be the golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the bankers and speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly fainting fit. A few men of business burned their daybooks and ledgers, the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other evidences of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of any uncomfortable recollection of their own indebtment. There was then a cry that the period was arrived when the title deeds of landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole soil of the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals. Another party demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of government, legislative acts, statute books, and everything else on which human invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free as the man first created.

Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these propositions is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly.

“See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a fellow, who did not seem to [Page 55] be a lover of literature. “Now we shall have a glorious blaze!”

“That’s just the thing!” said a modern philosopher. “Now we shall get rid of the weight of dead men’s thought, which has hitherto pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world indeed!”

“But what is to become of the trade?” cried a frantic bookseller.

“Oh, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise.” coolly observed an author. “It will be a noble funeral pile!”

The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever dreamed of that it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly a thorough and searching investigation had swept the booksellers’ shops, hawkers’ stands, public, and private libraries, and even the little book-shelf by the country fireside, and had brought the world’s entire mass of printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the labors of lexicographers, commentators and encyclopedists, were flung in, and falling among the embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes like a rotten wood. The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and little jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of party-colored fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel, generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other material of the pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor that men shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor even when the works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is blazing as fervidly as ever.

“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.”

“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, or at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps at the sun or stars.”

“If they can reach so high,” said I; “but that task requires a giant, who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. It is not every one that can steal the fire from heaven like Prometheus; but, when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths were kindled by it.”

It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion between the physical mass of any given author and the property of brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance, there was not a quarto volume of the last century—nor, indeed, of the present —that could compete in that particular with a child’s little gilt-covered book, containing Mother Goose’s Melodies. The Life and Death of Tom Thumb outlasted the biography of Marlborough. An epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes before the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of anything better than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some nameless bard—perchance in the corner of a newspaper —soared up among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of the [Page 56] properties of flame, methought Shelley’s poetry emitted a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning pastil.

I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to speak the truth, there were certain portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several writers, native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze, or even smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a manner that proved them to be ice.

If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in vain. Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the evening.

“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking gentleman in green spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing to live for any longer. The business of my life is snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or money!”

“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm—one of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for him?”

“My dear sir,” said I to the desperate bookworm, “is not Nature better than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system of philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal truth.”

“Oh, my books, my books, my precious printed books!” reiterated the forlorn bookworm. “My only reality was a bound volume; and now they will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!”

In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of letters—an enviable field for the authors of the next generation.

“Well, and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I somewhat anxiously. “Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform to any farther point.”

“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer. “Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the addition of fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a willing hand thus far.”

Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a philosopher threw his theory into [Page 57] the flames—a sacrifice which, by those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, was by no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a moment’s ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was mere byplay.

“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion.

To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems, with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of centuries, passing in long array beneath the lofty towers, had not looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which infants were consecrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence piety received the hallowed draught, were given to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion tables and undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of St. Peter’s had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew their deep significance.

“All is well,” said I, cheerfully. “The woodpaths shall be the aisles of our cathedral —the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers? Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that even the holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in its simplicity.”

“True,” said my companion; “but will they pause here?”

The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense, was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation—angel or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting both characters——at first shaking down only the old and rotten shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened to define their faith within a form of words, or to limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at were now but a fable of the world’s infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages, was but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and wornout truth—things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased to need, or had grown childishly weary of—fell the ponderous church Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion of the pulpit, and whence the pastor’s solemn voice had given holy utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his children—in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer shade of trees— and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom [Page 58] of generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that has been the soul’s friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took courage, whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both in the strong assurance of immortality.

All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as if it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of heaven’s sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the spectators.

“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my cheek grew pale, and seeing a like change in the visages about me.

“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had so often spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer. “Be of good courage nor yet exult too much; for there is far less both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world might be willing to believe.”

“How can that be?” exclaimed I, impatiently. “Has it not consumed everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us tomorrow morning better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?”

“Assuredly there will,” said my grave friend. “Come hither tomorrow morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile shall be quite burned out, and you will find among the ashes everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames. Trust me, the world of tomorrow will again enrich itself with the gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today. Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up at last.”

This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the finger marks of human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed from the pen of inspiration.

“Yes; there is the proof of what you say,” answered I, turning to the observer; “but if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether the world’s expectation of benefit would be realized by it.”

“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in front of the blazing pile; “possibly they may teach you something useful without intending it.”

The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows—the hangman, in short—together with the last thief and the last murderer, all three of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney.

“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that, as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer.”

“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark- complexioned personage, who now joined the group—his complexion was indeed fearfully [Page 59] dark, and his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; “be not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. There’s one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth itself to a cinder.”

“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer.

“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with a portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery—the same old shapes or worse ones —which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. Oh, take my word for it, it will be the old world yet!”

This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart, the heart—there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong, of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of my own brain.

1844

Mosses from an Old Manse

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Authors and Artists

WILLIAM S. HATCHER. Our veteran readers will recognize Mr. Hatcher’s name from the second issue of WORLD ORDER, Winter 1966. He has written on mathematics and theology; after becoming a Bahá’í, he served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Switzerland. Since his return to North America he has taught at the University of Toledo, Ohio, and is now Professeur Agrégé at Laval University, Quebec, where he teaches mathematics. Mr. Hatcher has recently published Foundations of Mathematics (Saunders), a comparative study of axiomatic foundational systems of mathematics.

S. P. RAMAN was born in a South-Indian Brahmin family and received his early schooling in the Ramakrishna Mission High School in Madras. After taking his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Calcutta, he came to North America in 1960 and is presently employed by a Montreal pharmaceutical firm in its research department.

GAYLE D. LETOURNEAU, a journalist and housewife residing in Nashville, Tennessee, has decided to devote more and more of her time to writing poetry.

JAY and CONSTANCE CONRADER have collaborated on the writing and illustration of many magazine articles on natural history. Mr. Conrader, a graduate of Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin, taught biology for twenty years and is now a free-lance writer and photographer. His photographs have appeared in encyclopedias, textbooks, and magazines. Mrs. Conrader, besides being a librarian and a writer, has, as an artist, specialized in biological illustration and naturalistic portrayal of plants and animals. She is the author of Blue Wampum, a historical novel for young people.

VERGIL L. WILLIAMS is a doctoral student and a teaching fellow in the Finance Department at the University of Alabama.

MARY FISH, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Alabama, is no stranger to the readers of WORLD ORDER. Her earlier article, “All Children Will Have Shoes”, appeared in the Winter 1967-68 issue.

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ALLAN L. WARD is Dean of Instruction at Philander- Smith College, Arkansas. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Oklahoma, his Ph.D., in English, at Ohio University.

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ART CREDITS: P. 3, “Bunchberry”, photo by Jay Conrader; p. 6, “Tree of After Sunset”, lithograph by Sue Shappert; p. 20, drawing by Cecil G. Trew, from a private collection; p. 28, “Bloodroot”, photo by Jay Conrader; pp. 30, 33, 36, “Prairie Clover”, “Spiral of Advancing Flower and Insect Life”, “Columbine and Bumblebee”, respectively, portraits by Constance Conrader; p. 44, ink and watercolor drawing by George Neuzil; p. 59, portrait by Constance Conrader; back cover, “Spinulose Woodfern”, photo by Jay Conrader.

SUE SHAPPERT took up residence in Australia after her recent graduation from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee as a printmaker.

GEORGE NEUZIL, a painter, is an art consultant to WORLD ORDER.

MONROE MICHELS—In Memoriam

SHORTLY AFTER HIS RETIREMENT to Mexico from the rigors of business (a longstanding and eventually indispensable position with Parents Magazine Enterprises) and of the managing editorship of WORLD ORDER, our beloved friend and colleague, Monroe Michels, died of cancer, on September 21, 1968. Monroe, single- handed and in his spare time, performed the prodigious task of producing WORLD ORDER in its material aspect, while helping Muriel, his wife, take care of the enormous job of receiving subscriptions and mailing our copies from their home in Old Greenwich, Conn. Their selfless and cheerful devotion to the task was in the Bahá’í tradition of work performed in the spirit of service. Monroe taught the editors of WORLD ORDER the elements of the magazine business and helped them to maintain the greatest amount of simplicity and directness possible in the service of lofty goals. The editors of WORLD ORDER express their deepest sympathy to Muriel.

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