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[Page 293]

WORLD UNITY

C. F. ANSLEY W. W. ArwOOD MARY AUSTIN

A Monthly Magazine for those who seek the world outlook upon present developments of philosophy, science, religion, ethics and the arts

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, Editor HORACE HOLLEY, Managing Editor HELEN B. MACMILLAN, Business Manager

A. MENDELSOHN BARTHOLDY BARON BAUDRAN L. F. DE BEAUFORT GERRIT A. BENEKER PIERRE BOVET HARRY CHARLESWORTH No POON CHEW RUDOLPH I. COFFEE GEORGES DUHAMEL ANNA B. ECKSTEIN HAVELOCK ELLIS AUGUSTE FOREL C. F. GATES V. SCHULZE GÄVERNITZ HELLMUTH VON GERLACH HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS KAHLIL GIBRAN CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN JOHN W. GRAHAM

Contributing Editors

MARJA GRUNDMANN-KOSCIENSKA KARIN MICHAELIS FRANK H. HANKINS WILL HAYES YAMATO ICHICHASHI RUPUS M. JONES MORDECAI W. JOHNSON DAVID STARR JORDAN SAMUEL LUCAS JOSHI ERNEST JUDET VLADIMIR KARAPETOPP P. W. Kuo RICHARD LEB HARRY LEVI ALAIN LOCKE GEORGE DE LUKACS LOUIS L. MANN SIR JAMES MARCHANT VICTOR MARGUERITTTE R. H. MARKHAM ALFRED W. MARTIN F. S. MARVIN KIRTLEY F. MATHER LUCIA AMES MEAD HERBERT A. MILLER FRED MERRIFIELD DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI IDA MÜLLER HARRY ALLEN OVERSTREET DEXTER PERKINS JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, JR. CHARLES RICHET FORREST RIED TH. RUYSSEN WILLIAM R. SHEPHERD MARY SIEGRIST ABBA HILLEL SILVER ISIDOR SINGER AUGUSTUS O. THOMAS GILBERT THOMAS RUSTUM VAMBÉRY WALTER WALSH HANS WEHBERG M. P. WILLCOCKS FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Editorial Office:-4 East 12th Street, New York City

WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE is published by WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION, 4 East 12th Street, New York City: MARY RUMSEY MOVIUS, president; HORACE HOLLEY, vice-president; FLORENCE MORTON, treasurer; JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, secretary. Published monthly, 35 cents a copy, $3.50 a year in the United States, $4.00 in Canada and $4.50 in all other countries (postage included). THE WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION and its editors do not invite unsolicited manu- scripts and art material, but welcome correspondence on articles related to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Contents copyrighted 1928 by WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION. [Page 294]

Races, Nations and Classes

THE individual, according to the theory maintained in this study, brings to the group a predisposition to identify himself with it, and its influence on him arises from his own nature. By nature he is adapted to the group. In the evolution of the human species and in most prehuman species, no individual survived except as a member of a group. In fact, the individual survival has been much more dependent on the survival of the group than on any possible extension which the individual could make on his isolated behalf. The result has been that both the normal instinct and its half-conscious enhancement by imagination, custom, and tradition have made the individual value his own personal existence less than that of his group. “It is sweet to die for one’s country,” because the survival of one’s country is actually more significant to one than the survival of one’s individual self. Such a driving emotion could only be felt as the fulfilment of a basic impulse, never derived from abstract reasoning. Each individual unconsciously postulates his own existence in the continuity of his group, because in the struggle for survival there was no other possibility of existence.

In view of the interpretation of the nature of the group and the instinctive relation to it of the individual, we must try to understand the individual otherwise than we would if he did not have this almost organic relationship. An individual is never an isolated being psychologically, not only because of the effect of others as stimuli on him, but because of his very nature which makes it impossible for him to exist or to fulfil himself except as a member of a group. The group is of the most vital importance to him, because of his own nature. Rationality has no meaning if it does not involve an individual functioning as part of a group. The intellectualist mode of thinking was accepted under the delusion that the individual was the unit of thought. The prevalence of this mode, however, has been so general that it seems to be actually immoral to substitute a more factual explanation for its absolute dogma.

HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER [Page 295]

RELIGIOUS IMPERIALISM

FOUR recent events have served to bring home to laymen the fact that established religion is responding but slowly and reluctantly to the spirit of the new age. These events are: the rise of the Ku Klux Klan; the crisis in the Church of England over the revision of the Prayer Book; the difficulties encountered by the World Conference on Faith and Order held at Lausanne; and the Papal Encyclical which officially separates the Roman Catholic Church from so-called' Pan-Christian' movements.

However distinct these occurrences are with respect to their historical background and the religious personalities and groups immediately concerned, their total effect upon the secular mind is to confirm the impression that the worldwide moral leadership wielded by Woodrow Wilson during the greatest crisis of civilization is truly indicative of the victory which the spirit of religion has won over its outer form.

As this impression deepens, the consequence can only be to quicken the tendency on the part of free, yet responsible souls to seek a basis for collective action in some new experience open to others of like nature on terms preserving the self-respect of all, uncontrolled by the traditions of any sect or creed.

The essential fact to consider is this insistence upon religious imperialism-this struggle for what may be termed psychological empire at a time when the precisely similar ideal long held by political and economic bodies is being voluntarily abandoned for the sake of a larger, more inclusive and more useful ideal. The subjective error in the doctrine of political sovereignty is simpler and more easily comprehensible than the subjective error corrupting [Page 296]the corresponding doctrine of religious sovereignty, but it must be remembered that erroneous doctrines are never overthrown by logic and reason until they have first been discredited by the facts of everyday life.

From the point of view of World Unity, the reaffirmation of the principle of exclusive religious sovereignty is a public disaster of the most sinister kind. In actual application it means that the statesman or financier seeking grounds for cooperative engagements between his group and any other group, after realizing and admitting the factors of mutuality involved in the external situation, is compelled, if he be a member of such a religious body, to repudiate all members of the other group in the very area of experience where self-respect and reverence are born. What international treaty and what economic arrangement can be expected to endure without the foundation of all the moral resources available on both sides? Until there can be a treaty of spiritual peace between religions, how can governments covenant together to keep the material peace?

Much light is thrown upon the present status of formal religion by those students of history who have recently shown the stages of evolution through which each civilization seems to pass, the final stage being that when culture has crystallized into rigid forms—the stage of utmost material power coinciding with the decay of the creative spirit and the approach of final dissolution. However inevitable religious sovereignty may be regarded in terms of tradition, this doctrine cannot, even today, be justified in terms of tomorrow’s humanity and tomorrow’s recreated world.

The alternative to the doctrine of exclusive Revelation is a fellowship of liberal spirits voluntarily pledging their loyalty to the God of all mankind. Impossible as a world religion may appear under present conditions, the very act of seeking and furthering mutual cooperation and understanding stimulates the heroic, the self-sacrificing qualities of men. If the exclusive religions breed the negative virtues, and the hope of brotherhood produces the positive virtues, this may be the method by which evolution solves the present apparent impasse. [Page 297]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

by VLADIMIR KARAPETOFF College of Engineering, Cornell University

THE subject of religion and world peace may be discussed either objectively or emotionally. Emotionally or intuitively, I should like to see all the civilized and semi-civilized nations on earth living at peace, each working out its own destiny in accordance with its inborn traits, beliefs, climate, etc. Emotionally, I feel God in me and in the rest of the universe and intuitively I know that He wills that I should live an unselfish spiritual life of service and confidence.

Were I to address* an audience of persons who believe in these things as strongly as I do, I should simply have to exhort them to cling steadfastly to their ideals, tell them of my own (subjective) experiences, play on their emotions by gestures and intonation, and they would go home firmer in their beliefs than they ever were. However, a skeptic in the audience would probably go home more skeptical than ever, saying to himself that I had not presented any objective arguments, that he could have urged atheism and the law of the jungle with equal force before a group of kindred fellow-skeptics.

So I have learned by experience to keep my emotional beliefs to myself and to cherish them and try to live up to them to the best of my ability and understanding, at the same time constantly verifying and improving them the best I can. Like many others, I have learned that we can best help others not by urging our intuitive tenets upon them but by living our lives in accordance with our beliefs and by demonstrating to them objective facts and factors which have led us to our point of view.

\*The ideas here presented have been used by the writer in his talks before several World Unity Conferences. [Page 298]So this article is not an emotional partisan appeal, nor even an argumentative presentation of the subject of religion and world peace. It is simply a brief account of certain facts, observations, and reasoning, mostly not original with me, that may be of assistance and interest to those who care to think upon the subject and to arrive at their own conclusions.

At the outset we must agree to recognize certain facts, whether we like them or not. Such is, for example, the incontrovertible fact that from immemorial times warfare, hatred, and distrust have been the usual mode of living of human communities. Another fact is that at all stages of civilization, the principle of war has been approved, or at least tolerated, by the gods of every nation. Even during the last Great War, ministers of the Gospel, in military uniforms, invoked Divine help for victory. A hide-bound intuitionist would say: "What are these facts to me? I know that God within me demands peace and love at all costs." To such a one, the modern scientific method has nothing to offer, for another intuitionist might with equal force claim that the god within him demands bloodshed and poisonous gases. We simply have to tell them that thinking that elephants are yellow does not make them so. At the same time, the existence of such simon-pure intuitionists is also a curious scientific fact, which we must not disregard, but add to our array of facts to be properly correlated and scientifically interpreted.

Thus, we shall limit our circle of readers to those who recognize at least some objective validity of facts, as recorded by our external senses, in building up our set of beliefs and rules of behavior. Any desires or ideals, such as a longing for universal peace, or a belief in a God of Love, as well as purely intellectual conclusions from observed facts, must also be included in our data. And to be altogether modern and broadminded, we must include the will to act in a certain way, subconsciously or consciously, among our "biological material", to be analyzed and explained. However, every laboratory worker must recognize certain limitations in the precision and range of the instruments which he is using, and so from the outset we must recognize that [Page 299]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

whatever conclusions we may reach will be limited by the modes of working of our minds, by the "will to believe", and by that intangible though all-powerful "initial attitude" which, like a piece of colored glass, determines the starting point of view and gives us a Plato, a Descartes or a Schopenhauer.

When we actually decide to base our beliefs and mode of action upon a biological foundation, in other words, when we decide to derive our conclusions from an almost infinite array of jumbled-up and often unclassified data of various natural sciences, we are at once confronted with the formidable obstacle that it is an impossibility for one person to have a firm foundation and extensive knowledge of zoology, botany, geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, history, anthropology, psychology, physiology, economic laws, logic, metaphysics, etc. Aristotle probably knew most of what was known in his time; Herbert Spencer made a heroic attempt to synthesize the nineteenth-century knowledge, but most searchers for truth have to get their data second-hand.

In this age of cooperation, with individual physicians combining into clinics and small shops and stores combining into gigantic factories, department stores, and chain stores, may we not hope for a cooperative working out of a system of philosophy wherein leading scientific spirits would furnish the supreme generalizations to which their respective sciences are capable, and experts in philosophy and logic would unify the generalizations of the individual sciences into still more general statements comprising two or more sciences? While this may sound like a factory-made system of philosophy, yet I believe that in grandeur and convincing comprehensiveness it would surpass anything yet attempted by the greatest individual minds.

While we are not yet in a position to undertake such all-embracing synthesis, we can at least observe some fairly definite indications of the effect of a faithful study of some one department of nature upon a devoted scientist. Having lived most of my life among natural scientists, I recently made a composite picture of scientists' attitude toward life and its fundamental problems.

The gods of seafaring peoples ride on waves, and the gods of [Page 300]mountaineers live on crags and hurl rocks down the precipices. An atheist’s god is on his vacation, and a scientist’s god wears a laboratory apron and shakes gigantic test tubes. We not only create our gods in our own image and likeness, but we could not do otherwise. Now and then it dawns upon some of us that while our conception of God may be all right as far as it goes, it does not go more than an inch in a million miles. Then we see that other folks’ gods aren’t wrong either, but are other little inches in the same million miles.

My life has been spent mostly among natural scientists, mathematicians, and engineers of various kinds and among books and articles written by them. So I shall attempt to lay before you some of the philosophy of life that comes as a result of living the unnatural live of a natural scientist. It is immaterial whether or not I personally subscribe to all these views. They are meant to be collective views of those persons who have tried to draw general conclusions beyond their narrow scientific specialty, although based on it.

Most of us do not go so far, and while convinced of the fact that immutable laws rule for the particular kind of fishes which we are studying, continue to believe in hocus-pocus in everything else. So never mind if the picture which I am about to draw does not agree with professors whom you know. I have in mind a chemically pure scientist who exists only in the imagination.

1. A scientific attitude is one of extreme humility, both as to facts and their interpretation. The man in the street sees many things in nature to make him bow his head in reverence, but for every fact or phenomenon that he is able to appreciate, a scientist sees thousands of facts and relations which become more and more wonderful as one dissects and analyzes them. So even if the god whom he worships is but a narrow and one-sided deity, it is a part of true and infinite God nevertheless, just as much as that of a seer or religious enthusiast is.

2. A scientific attitude is highly unselfish and disinterested An investigator is inspired by the ideal of truth, no matter where it may lead him and with whose interests it might conflict. He has [Page 301]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

the courage of his convictions, and, because of being absorbed in his problem, cares but little about worldly power, material riches, pleasures of senses, or even general fame. He is satisfied to be favorably known among his fellow workers.

3. A scientific attitude is that of one who rejoices in tribulations, knowing that they work patience and experience. Many a worthy scientific discovery or generalization has been made because of disturbing or secondary factors. Moreover, every student of science knows that it sometimes takes years and even centuries to correlate a group of facts into a general law, and he therefore patiently adds his mite of honest information to lighten the burden of a future co-worker.

4. A scientific attitude satisfies one's sense of symmetry, harmony, completeness and beauty! In a rainbow, in the orbits of celestial bodies, in a rose, or in a graceful feline, knowing details, reasons, laws, or scientific terms, enhances the admiration a thousandfold and adds the joy of a naturalist to that of a poet.

5. A scientific attitude is one of being clearly conscious of a lofty though unknown purpose in things and animals which have nothing to do with man and his puny welfare. A scientist understands the beautiful allegory of the command to Noah to take with him into the ark males and females of all living things and not only of those useful to him. So a naturalist's sympathy and compassion is of the broadest kind, and is not limited by ignorant politics, economic struggle, excuse of creeds, or natural fear and abhorrence. Nor is his sympathy confined to words only. To him the whole world is a majestic temple; a laboratory and a city of God at the same time. With his expert knowledge, he agitates for sanctuaries for wild beasts and plans for merciful killing of fur-bearing animals, and for the preservation of forests and the purity of streams.

6. A scientific attitude towards human affairs, future destinies, and past history of humanity is based upon a firm biological point of view. A scientist knows that hidden forces are at play which are infinitely greater than armies, treaties, individual ambitions, or deluded mobs. After the excitement and the smoke of the battle [Page 302]are over, human events resume their regular course, and the principal results are usually of a kind entirely unpremeditated and unforeseen. A scientist sees a struggle for existence among nations and among groups within a nation, as a biological phenomenon or law, but he also sees that with an increase in knowledge and understanding, armed conflicts will become more and more avoidable and will be replaced by a peaceful international cooperation, such as he is actually enjoying with kindred scientists of other nations. Until then he sorrowfully steps aside, not swayed either by hysterical threats or by mushy sentimentality.

7. A scientific attitude is one of confidence and repose, because of a clearly perceived organic unity and perennial balance in the universe. In a jungle, before man comes with his cruel axe and ugly green paint, thousands of species live and propagate, kill and eat each other without malice or envy and all continue to exist in a wonderful dynamic equilibrium through many hundreds of thousands of years. He sees the racial problem and its real menacing aspects perhaps more clearly than a kukluxer does, because he knows that an inter-penetration by hemmed-in (and therefore more aggressive) races is inevitable. But his biological instinct and broader sympathies dictate an attitude and a solution entirely different from one prompted by animal fear and impatience

8. A scientific attitude is one of working hypothesis and open mind. A dogmatic final solution, into which all future facts and laws simply must fit or be rejected, is entirely foreign to a scientific mind.

As in philosophy, so in natural sciences, the net result of a painstaking search of over 2,000 years for a general expression or interpretation of the underlying realities of life, has been mainly negative. We know that God does not speak to us in Hebrew from a cloud; that the earth with its conceited passengers is not the center of the universe; and that right or wrong is mainly determined by what has been found to be beneficial to a people in the past. However, these negative results have been of tremendous value in keeping up a feverish, unceasing search for something more refined, more embracing, and more satisfying and majestic. With [Page 303]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

Spencer, we worship the Unknowable, and at the same time are irresistibly driven to know more about it.

For the sake of explanation, assume that man is not the highest species on earth, but that there is a species X which considerably exceeds humanity in intellectual powers, in kindness, in will power, etc. By studying this species, as well as the behavior of lower animals, our scientists could definitely place us on the scale of development, tell the evolutionary tendencies in us, and lay down a set of ideals to live up to, in order to approach the species X at as rapid a rate as possible. But we know of no species X, so that scientists can only guess at the direction in which humanity is moving and improving. It is for this reason that ideals of universal love, peace, etc., must for the present be considered hypotheses, in the scientific sense. Of course, humanity has produced Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, Gandhi, the founder of the Bahá’í movement, and many others, who may almost be considered as representatives of a higher race, and I personally believe that several important points on which these men have agreed constitute the highest truths known to humanity. Nevertheless, I could not prove this statement with the same objective convincingness as the Pythagoras theorem or the law of gravitation, and therefore am not trying to urge this belief on others.

No great naturalist, familiar with the scientific method, would claim that humanity should live according to the law of the jungle, simply because lower animals obey this law. It is more correct to say that there is some unknown general law or tendency for behavior which in a specific case of lower animals is manifested as the familiar struggle for existence, individual and collective, but which in civilized humanity begins to acquire a more complex and noble aspect. We still compete with each other and have wars of aggression, but we also have powerful tendencies in the opposite direction which make us ashamed of our fear and selfishness. I consider these tendencies to be the first embryonic workings of a powerful law which exists in the world in a potential form and which will be working with full force within the span of a few generations to come. In fact, I am so fully convinced of the [Page 304]allpotent tendency towards universal peace and federative unity of humanity, that I am ready to throw my whole enthusiasm in this direction, in spite of feverish preparations for a new war. Yet, I could not prove my faith, so it must remain an intuition or a working hypothesis; in my case it is both, and I do not urge it on others.

Let me give two examples: A sphere is a specific simple case of an ellipsoid, and a small portion of a plane may be considered to be a part of a large sphere. From the properties of a plane we cannot generalize to those of a sphere, nor from the properties of a sphere to those of an ellipsoid. Valid conclusions are only possible from more general to less general. A geometer who knows the properties of an ellipsoid, can immediately formulate the simplified theorems which apply to the sphere; similarly, from the properties of a spherical triangle those of a plane triangle follow as simplified relationships.

To take another example: Man can create new conditions which apparently never existed before; yet Nature instantly and without hesitation causes its laws to apply to the new conditions as though she had them in readiness. In modern physical, chemical and biological laboratories, such conditions have enabled us to perceive formerly deduced laws as particular cases of more general laws. Similarly, keeping in mind the complex social and economic structure of modern civilized humanity, laws deduced from observations on primitive peoples should appear as very specific cases. Prohibition of liquor has led to bootlegging, hi-jacking, and other phenomena which could hardly have been foreseen, showing the existence of a powerful though mysterious dynamic equilibrium. The lasting effects of the Great War in many respects have proved to be just the opposite of those expected by the victors and the vanquished alike. For these reasons, while fully respecting the lessons of the past, I do not hesitate to throw myself into the task of upbuilding universal peace. In the longing of many persons for it, I see the workings of a more general law of which family, tribal, and national ties and unity have been only partial manifestations. [Page 305]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

Strife among human groups has been a universal state of affairs, but so has been also a gathering of groups into larger friendly aggregates, with demarcation lines gradually obliterated. So, rather than to look upon the law of the jungle as a general immutable law, I prefer to look upon it as a specific case of the law of temporary crust which may be formulated thus: On each stage of cultural development there is the best size and form of human group, for fostering the completion of that particular development. For this purpose, the group creates a crust (a coccoon) around itself, both for protective and for aggressive purposes. After a time, this crust is dropped and replaced by a larger crust comprising several groups, etc.

We have seen the size of this coccoon grow from the family to the League of Nations, but everywhere the characteristics are strikingly alike. The members constituting the unit hardly ever look upon its necessity or advantages from a correct biological point of view. They are mutually hypnotized from childhood until death by pleasant phrases like "our family is the nicest," "the greatest State in the Union," "our country right or wrong," "we are the greatest people on earth," "the sun never sets on our dominions," etc. This, of course, is nature's foresight, to make sure that a useful arrangement is not left to the judgment of individuals. It is for the same reason that certain pleasure is associated with eating and sex intercourse.

A federation of states, such as exists in this country, in the British Empire, among Soviet Republics, and to some extent in Germany, provides, so to say, a soft shell for each component state, and a hard shell for the federation as a whole. The next endeavor should be to thin down the soft shells to a mere gossamer, to change the hard shells to soft shells, and we shall have the next step towards world unity. A hard shell may be needed for a time to protect a federation of civilized countries against backward or barbaric races.

This softening of national shells has to be gradual and spontaneous, but there is no reason why it could not be helped by gentle means. That is, while the consciousness of numerous [Page 306]individuals of each nation is changing from within, causing them to place more and more value on world unity, and less and less value on racial or political isolation, bristling bayonets, and distrust of neighbors, we can advocate this unity orally and by printed word, make definite reciprocity offers, and establish new ties, cultural, commercial, social, religious, sportive, etc.

I am willing to grant that many a confirmed atheist is a perfect internationalist and is working unselfishly towards world unity. In fact, all present endeavors towards making the League of Nations a powerful agency for world unity are based (at least officially) on non-religious foundations. If I am bringing religion in this essay at all, it is because personally I cannot think of world unity or work towards it on a purely human foundation. For me, there is something mystical, almost a miracle, in this growth of the idea of unity, a manifestation of a higher law of which we have not been previously aware, except through our noblest representatives whom we killed just because they told us of it. To me, every step towards peace and unity among nations is also a step toward a better understanding of the Supreme Intellect and Love, which governs the world. Jesus understood this when he said that a man could not love God, whom he has not seen, and hate his neighbor whom he has seen. Only in proportion as we learn to love our brothers and serve them, can we become conscious of the presence of a living God within us.

I am saying this so as to bring out another great generalization derived from observation on nature, namely that of dynamic equilibrium. When we put, say, a chunk of steel on one pan of the scales and balance it by weights on the other pan, the resulting equilibrium is static or stationary. When, however, two armies try to break through each other's lines day after day, advancing and receding in turn a few yards here and there, the equilibrium may be called dynamic. In the organic world all equilibrium is dynamic. Witness our political or economicstruggle. The resulting conditions may remain stationary over considerable periods of time, but they remain so only because of a continued struggle for supremacy on the part of the component forces. [Page 307]

NATURE AND THE LAW OF LOVE

This should be a lesson to those dreamy reformers who see (as the final ideal) the lions and the lambs lying together, in an everlasting siesta, and electricity doing all the disagreeable chores. This would be death and annihilation. No, in our future state, comprising all the civilized countries on earth, there will be a strong and healthy political life, struggles, accusations, martyrs, temporary set-backs, reforms, etc. All we should hope to abolish within reasonable time is armed conflicts and continuous preparation for them. Our United States do not have armed conflicts among themselves, nor do they prepare themselves for such.

We have heard much about international arbitration and an international court of justice to decide disputes between nations. I am not opposed to such, only I am afraid that undue importance is attached to such a court by those who wish to see nations and races knit closer together. Compare a family which is held together by the father's severity and sense of duty with one tied into a unit by mutual love and desire to help and to serve.

Divine Love is the greatest power of earth, and no world federation can be safely built on any other foundation, be it mutual advantages, fear, existence of an international court, or what not. A family, a fraternal organization, or a state, is truly strong only in the proportion in which its members love each other, and not in the proportion in which they are afraid of each other or of consequences of wrongdoing. Love may be emotional, it may be intellectual, it may be volitional; all kinds are good. Let us strive for more love among men, and then treaties, parliaments, courts of justice, etc., will readily take care of themselves.

However, love does not consist in a nice feeling akin to that experienced by one after a good meal, sitting in a comfortable armchair. Jesus, Socrates, Bahá’u’lláh, Debs, Gandhi, and their like, loved men and were ready at any time to demonstrate this love by action. In fact, they could not have done otherwise than they did, because for them life consisted in helping others and forgetting themselves. The universal law that "love means sacrifice" has been known even to many species of animals in the form of mother love. Leaders of humanity have merely extended the [Page 308]meaning of the word "mother" from a biological to a sociological sense. In other words, the real law seems to be as follows: "In a group of living beings, an advanced individual (a leader) will naturally act for the benefit and continuity of the group, even though such actions should be against his or her personal welfare as understood by the lower individuals of the group. Therefore, the lower individuals call it a sacrifice."

A mother-bird who flies in the face of a stronger enemy, and a reformer who allows his body to be burned, act in accordance with this law. The next step in the application of this law ought to be more general collective sacrifice, because the percentage of intelligent leaders in a group is increasing with culture. History witnessed such collective sacrifice on the part of Christians in the Roman Empire, on the part of the Quakers in the Colony of Massachusetts, etc. Also, when this country joined the allies in the Great War, certain of our citizens (conscientious objectors) refused to be drafted; others openly preached against the war. They were imprisoned and even subjected to tortures. This was a collective sacrifice on the part of self-appointed leaders (mothers, in the foregoing sense) who saw things as they will be instead of seeing them as they appeared at the time.

Before a federation of civilized countries becomes a reality, more sacrifice will be required. A new and potent form of collective sacrifice will be a refusal on the part of a stronger or more favorably situated country, like ours, to be benefited by these advantages, and voluntary steps taken towards sharing them with others, first of all with the Latin-American Republics. Another form will be a sacrifice of national honor for the sake of the honor of mankind. Individuals have done it, why not groups of individuals or their representative governments?

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate my belief that a study of nature and of primitive races, far from leading to materialism skepticism, or the law of the jungle confirms the highest religious and ethical aspirations of civilized humanity, felt intuitively Natural biological laws may be stated in a form which includes both the lower animals and the noblest specimens of humanity [Page 309]

V — Romain Rolland

by ALBERT LÉON GUÉRARD Department of Literature, Stanford University

APOSTLES are not all cast in the same mould; nor is it even necessary that each individual apostle should be single-minded and consistent. Some, like Tolstoy, rush fearlessly ahead; others, like Léon Bourgeois, follow with determined but cautious steps their narrow shaft of clear light; others again grope blindly, torn between hope and despair. Romain Rolland is like unto none of these. He speaks with assurance, nay with fervor, but his gospel is not clear. He is never so weak as when he strives to be forcible. He is the noble servant of conflicting ideals: his worship of Art and his Tolstoyan love of the people could never be brought into harmony. The greatest perhaps of near-geniuses and half-successes in our time, he is unimpeachable and irritating. But if we forget for a moment his "message", at once confused and lofty—if we reach the man himself, his bewilderment, his very weakness, make him human and lovable. He is striving to be a good European: and a good European in this age must needs be a creature of many minds and moods. He is the symbol of all our perplexities. Two great and positive services, however, he has rendered. Before the war he hacked mightily at the chief root of international misunderstanding, the tragic and stupid enmity between Germany and France. During the war, he dared to stand, awkwardly perhaps, tactlessly if you please, courageously at any rate, "above the strife". A haphazard philosopher, an incomplete artist, he is none the less the very embodiment of good will and only through men of good will shall peace descend upon earth. [Page 310]Romain Rolland springs from that provincial bourgeoisie which, from time immemorial, has been the backbone of France. He was born at Clamecy (Burgundy) in 1866. From 1886 to 1889, he attended the glorious Rue d'Ulm Normal School, an institution without a parallel in the English-speaking world. Recruited through the stiffest competitive examination, Rue d'Ulm possesses an atmosphere, a tradition, an 'esprit de corps', which are lacking in the mob-ridden Sorbonne. It would be gross ingratitude for a Rue d'Ulm alumnus, a Normalien, not to thank the Lord day and night that he is not like other men. Rolland has remained a Normalien to this day.

These years of Rolland's young maturity were for France a moment of disillusionment and almost of despair. The scientific ideal, cherished for nearly forty years, had been declared bankrupt. The Revolutionary ideal, after so many failures, had lost its magic glow. The patriotic ideal, associated with the vainglorious talk of Revanche, had been vulgarized by the tawdry adventurer Boulanger. The cleverest in the land were toying prettily with the thought of decadence. Out of these spiritual marshes, Rolland found two ways of salvation: music and Tolstoy. To music he had been devoted from his childhood; Tolstoy was revealed to him at the Rue d'Ulm school. But his two gods clashed: Tolstoy denounced modern music, and in particular Wagner's, as sophisticated and meretricious. This early discord was never resolved. Throughout his career, Rolland remained a devotee of Art, in its most learned, esoteric and supercilious form; and at the same time he wanted with Tolstoy, to go to the people, to serve the people, to become one of the people. So he always speaks with two voices his simplicity, when he is simple, bears the mark of strain; his charity is streaked with disdain.

In the French School of Rome, where he spent the next two years, he became truly a cosmopolitan. This he owed to a large extent to Malwida von Meysenburg. This admirable woman, then seventy-two years of age, was, in the Bismarckian era, a survivor of idealistic Germany—that Germany of the Francfort Parliament which we still believe arose from its grave in 1918, and unfurled [Page 311]

ROMAIN ROLLAND

once more the black, red and gold banner of 1848. Through Fräulein von Meysenburg, Rolland was prepared to hear the music in the German soul, in spite of the rattle of Hohenzollern iron-mongery.

For many years Romain Rolland was a professor of musical esthetics and the history of music. He dreamed also of a literature "for the people", of an art "for the people". The "people", scenting the subtle blight of condescension in these well-meant efforts, remained indifferent. The Dreyfus crisis broke out: Rolland was already!"above the strife".

From 1904 to 1912 he published in seventeen instalments of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine (Fortnightly Notebooks) his great cycle of Jean-Christophe. It was a ten-volume hymn to Music; a hymn-wistful rather than triumphant-to all-conquering Energy; the biography of an artist from the cradle to the grave; the interpretation of two cultures. With the literary merits of this massive work, we are not here concerned. The author was not glaringly unequal to the magnitude of his theme: this alone would suffice to place Jean-Christophe far above best sellers, prize winners, and the clever concoctions lauded by the cliques. No one denies it a place, and a very honorable one, in contemporary world literature.

For our purpose, what is chiefly significant is that, in the stormy days of Agadir, a Frenchman should strive to understand Germany. Rolland is no slavish admirer of German thoroughness and Kultur: such excesses were reserved for a few American professors of a generation now vanishing. What he did was to renew the great tradition of mutual respect, which had honored the élite of the two countries before the era of wilful and blatant chauvinism. Madame de Staël had studied-and perhaps idealized Germany in her epoch-making book. Victor Cousin, the tsar of French philosophy, went to Germany as to a fountain head. Michelet and Hugo spoke with loving reverence of Germania Mater. When Renan discovered the philosophical and religious genius of Germany, he felt "as tho' he were entering a temple." And Rolland knew also the tributes of affectionate admiration paid by the greatest Germans to the exquisite and fearless spirit [Page 312]of France. In the gathering storm he wrote these words which should have been taught in every school 'from Königsberg to Bayonne':

"Who knows, in France, the force of sympathy which urges towards France so many generous hearts in the neighboring nation? So many loyal hands stretched out toward us, and which are not responsible for the crimes of politics! And do you not see us either, you our German brothers, to whom we say: Here are our hands. In spite of lies and hatreds, we can not be separated. We need you, you need us, for the greatness of our spirits and of our races. We are the two wings of the West. Break one, and the flight of the other will be broken. War may come: but it will not unclasp our hands, nor sever the fraternal flights of our souls."

War did come. Rolland was too old to be conscripted and he spurned the facile show of volunteering in which Anatole France indulged. He served suffering humanity, obscurely and well, in a Swiss agency for the welfare and exchange of prisoners.

Especially in the days when war hysteria had become a religion, he dared to remain a good European, still nursing the unconquerable hope of reconciliation. The result was a storm of obloquy such as seldom assailed a quiet, well-meaning writer.

To be sure, Rolland gave his enemies an excellent opening. In some of his papers, his extolling of Art at the expense of living men seemed inhuman; he cared more for the stones of Rheims than for the blood of his countrymen. Maurice Barrès’s quivering sympathy for the humblest of the Poilus shone in comparison. Rolland’s Europeanism had too narrow a basis: he thought in terms of a self-conscious, exclusive aristocracy of culture. The vast generosity that burned in Jaurès was lacking in him; and also the intellectual keenness which was soon to reassert itself in Anatole France. The very title Above the Strife was pharisaical and offensive.

Still, with all these restrictions, Above the Strife remains a noble book. It strikes us at present, not as Pro-German, not even as coldly neutral, but as decidedly pro-French. France weakened her cause in refusing to accept him as her spokesman. But already the "War to End War" had relapsed into . . . just another war. Ten years were to drag their disheartening course before, in sheer lassitude, Europe could find her way to Locarno. Rolland’s spirit had lived at Locarno all the time. [Page 313]

ROMAIN ROLLAND

Uncertain in tone like all his utterances, at the same time forced and tremulous, Rolland's book, on the whole, was generous and wise. It was one of the few witnesses that saved the French soul from falling into chauvinism pure and simple. It was not the only one: personally, we prize much higher the crusade led by Jaurès, and so tragically cut short, or the testimonies of Barbusse and Duhamel. But Rolland's was the most effective beyond the frontiers of France. It made the saner elements in Germany realize that French sanity was not dead. After the November Revolution in particular, Romain Rolland found himself a great man east of the Rhine. He knew for the first time the sweets of popular triumph. His dramas of the French Revolution, which in Paris had attracted little attention, were performed in Germany before enthusiastic crowds. The Berlin public, roused out of its tor por by the apocalyptic hopes and fears of the hour, imparted to these somewhat bookish productions some of its own feverish heat.

Rolland devoted several other books to the war problem. Not one reached the heights of Jean-Christophe, nor did any one achieve the notoriety of Above the Strife. Clerambault, in which it is difficult not to detect an autobiographical note, is weak and unlovable compared with our old friend Mr. Britling. Pierre et Luce, a Parisian idyl brutally ended by a shell from Big Bertha, added nothing to its author's fame. Liluli, a savage denunciation of chauvinistic illusions in the form of an Aristophanesque phantasy, is cleverer and more profound; the sketch of the "good old God" who passes back and forth with bland equanimity from the Gallipoulets to the Hurluberloches, is a pungent satire. The chapters on war psychology in the latest volume of his new cycle, The Soul Enchanted, are not deficient in penetration and power.

The common fault of all these writings, however, is that their tone is disagreeable. This criticism may sound odd: it is not expected that pacifism should be made palatable to the militarists -or vice versa. But Rolland seldom attempts to understand his opponents. In their so-called 'heroism' he will see nought but stupidity and cowardice. He never says out of a truly loving heart: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." In rebuking [Page 314]these enraged men, insanely torturing one another, he cannot unbend from his "holier than thou" attitude. Through some inner flaw, his culture, his artistic gifts, his generosity, never work in perfect coordination. We have in him a composite picture of the Sage, the Poet, the Prophet, in which the different lineaments fail to coincide, and produce a blurred impression.

These faults reveal, we believe, an essential weakness in Romain Rolland. But they are also the inevitable and heavy price that he had to pay for attempting to think as a European in a disintegrated Europe. That he should have dared, and not failed altogether, ought to suffice to his glory. Others, we trust, will rise in days of greater spiritual unity. Their thought will be firmer, their voice clearer, their temper sweeter than Romain Rolland's. But let them not forget the forerunner who picked his way, stumbling many times, across the slime and the barbed wire entanglement of international hatred. [Page 315]

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

Men live less and less in geographical and more and more in spiritual communities. The involuntary elements of existence tend to be limited to the regional area, the voluntary elements find increasing opportunity of self-expression through association of likeminded people selected out of the entire population by identity of interests and ideals. In this department, World Unity Magazine will publish each month a brief description of some important modern movement, voluntary in character and humanitarian in aim, believing that knowledge of these activities is not only essential to the world outlook, but also offers the true remedy for the sense of isolation and loneliness which has followed the breakdown of the traditional local neighborhood.

THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION

by CONSTANCE MORLEY Of the International Bureau

RESPONDING to the need of an international clearing house on educational matters, this Bureau was founded at Geneva in December, 1925. It was given its impetus by the Institut J. J. Rousseau, an institution of educational science connected with the University of Geneva, and particularly fitted to sponsor a new international organization, having itself former pupils now occupying responsible positions in forty different countries, and considerable material already collected on all subjects relating to education.

Geneva, the seat of the League of Nations, a city daily becoming more cosmopolitan and possessing ancient educational traditions, is undoubtedly the most appropriate home for such an organization, working as it does in a scientific spirit and preserving absolute neutrality on all national, political, philosophical and religious viewpoints.

If the world is to move ahead, it must do so as a whole. How is it to establish its unity, except through education? How are educationalists to work together without the help of a central organization to coordinate and spread their work? Through personal correspondence, interviews and advice of experts, and a large documentation furnished by other educational bodies, the Bureau is trying to link together the educators of the world, to [Page 316]put at their disposal the knowledge of what methods the ablest men are applying in other countries.

Notwithstanding its short life, it already numbers over three hundred members and one hundred and sixty correspondents in fifty-five countries. This is one invaluable source of its own information, and also a very important means of disseminating, through the Bulletin published quarterly, the educational news which it collects. It responds with reliable data to all sorts of questions relating to primary or secondary education, questions coming to it by letters or visitors from all over the world. During this last summer, alone, it received four hundred visitors and wrote fifteen hundred letters. There is no lack of variety in the questions it receives:

"What is the Dalton Laboratory plan and how does it differ from the Winnetka system?"

"We wish to erect a secondary school for girls in Algeria can you furnish us with the plans of a few good modern buildings?"

"What has been done, in Switzerland for instance, to foster the children's love of the soil and teach them the elements of agricultural work?"

"How is moral education imparted in the French non-religious schools?"

"How does the system of 'visiting teachers' work in the U.S.?"

Progress in experimental psychology has gradually modified the old methods of teaching; it is imperative that the alert educator in every land keep in touch with what other countries are doing. To this end, the Bureau has already made a survey of international correspondence between school children and reported on it. It has organized an exhibit of history and geography text-books, and pamphlets on the teaching of world citizenship and the League of Nations. A bibliography of these books has been widely circulated in English, French and German. It also started an inquiry on patriotism and one on auto-educative material. Last summer, for teachers travelling in Europe, a little guide-book to characteristic schools was published, which proved itself most useful. [Page 317]

THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION

In April, 1927, the Bureau called a conference at Prague on "What the School can do for Peace," in which four hundred and fifty educationalists from eighteen different countries took part. It had a signal success, and lovely and interesting discussions were a feature. The delegates went back to their own lands with many new and practical ideas based on the recommendations passed by the conference. It was agreed that everything possible be done to further international school correspondence, study tours for teachers, exchange of teachers and children, the establishment of homes for students, international camps, and the calling of international student conferences.

Plans are already afoot for the convening of another conference on the very special question of bilingualism. People who live in a country where another language is infrequently heard are not apt to realize the tremendous problem confronting populations of comparatively small areas where children must learn and study in a language not their own. The Bureau of Education wishes to lift this problem out of the fog usually thrown around it by political issues, to the impartial realm of science, and have it studied by experts solely in its bearing upon the development of the children.

Other projects, other dreams spur us on. We dream of a national center for education in every country—a few countries already have them—linked together by the International Bureau. We want to publish an International Year Book of Education, giving in permanent and striking form the latest and most important contributions from all countries. We most urgently desire to establish closer cooperation between all educational movements, so that the work done shall not be duplicated and the various international organizations working for peace shall not overlap. Above all, we hope to aid in educating the younger generation in the ideas of peace and world brotherhood, to bring about through the youth of the world, that understanding between nations which alone can save our civilization. [Page 318]

THE INTERACTION OF EUROPE AND ASIA

by WILLIAM R. SHEPHERD Department of History, Columbia University

III. Western Thoughts in Eastern Minds

THE distances that have kept the several groups of mankind apart are not those set by geography alone. Intellectual and spiritual differences make the bounds of separation wider still. Both have been overcome in no slight degree during the past five hundred years by the genius, skill and enterprise of the European. Just as he has shortened time and space through the betterment of transportation and communication and the processes of commerce, so he has lessened mental and moral differences through the diffusion of his type of culture, even if heightening at times their contrasts.

Of the elements in the inner and personal life of mankind conveyed from West to East the one that has rendered the finest service is the thought of an essential unity of interest and effort. Before the peoples of the Orient were brought into systematic relationship with their fellows in Europe they had never risen to the concept in practical application of the distinctively cosmopolitan and humanitarian. Apart from philosophic abstractions expressive of it, they lacked the spirit of altruism, a concern for others as well as themselves, the desire and willingness for cooperation. The idea that, in addition to a sense of duty toward one's self, one's family and one's community, there is a higher and nobler duty that comprehends all mankind in its sweep of vision and action, formed little or no part of their consciousness.

It is precisely this thought that most distinguishes and makes commendable the work of Europeans in the East. In and because of their process of expansion they have devised, cherished and [Page 319]

WESTERN THOUGHTS IN EASTERN MINDS

applied the concept of the advantage of all peoples. From West to East have come aspiration and effort directed toward the general benefit of the human race, the establishment of great institutions of international service to humanity at large. Through them indissoluble bonds of community in thought have been created, which draw the members of mankind steadily closer toward the recognition of world unity.

Three agencies of action have made possible this outstanding achievement of the European in the transmission of his type of culture to the peoples of Asia. They have been furnished by language, religion and education. Upon the manner of their operation obviously depends the degree in which the consciousness of mutual understanding may prevail.

European languages have rechristened localities in the Orient, giving to native names a European spelling. Much less commonly they have called them after places in the homeland, events in its history, ideas associated with the Christian faith and impressions created or emotions kindled by the sight of new lands and peoples. Changes in Eastern tongues have been produced in a variety of ways by the transplantation of European forms of speech. Western expressions have been blended with native idioms so as to provide a general medium of intercourse, a "lingua franca".

Religion, the second of the instrumentalities for the spread of European thought, appears to have wielded an influence upon the Asiatic mind, less through doctrinal teachings than through the revelation it affords of Western intellectual processes. In this respect it has served primarily as a means of education, and not of actual conversion. Though of Eastern origin, like all other great faiths, Christianity has never appealed to the vast majority of Asiatics. It attracts neither the Mohammedans, who have their own founder and prophet, nor the Buddhists, with their redeemer in whom they would sink their future being, nor the Hindus, who crave annihilation in the hereafter, nor the Japanese whose only real god is their country, nor the Chinese, with their unreligious code of ethics, their veneration of ancestors and their general eclecticism in religious matters. [Page 320]Aside altogether from the religious aspects of their work, Christian missionaries have performed yeoman service in spreading Western thought in Eastern lands. Far more than any other class of foreigners, they have penetrated into the interior of the country, mingled with the people, lived as members of the local community, and hence come into close acquaintance with their fellow human beings. They have been a useful factor in social regeneration, cooperating with native leaders in the battle for improvement. It is they who have founded hospitals and dispensaries, giving shelter, comfort and peace to hundreds of thousands of the sick and suffering, and they who have established centers for the propagation of modern medical science. Granted that in communicating a knowledge of Christianity and of European civilization through a relief of physical ailments their work may have been regarded by the folk concerned as a sort of magic, this does not detract at all from the significance of what they have accomplished. These spiritual heralds of the West, moreover, have done inestimable service through their translation of European writings into Asiatic tongues. Together with their educational activities in the schools and colleges that they have erected, it has awakened among Orientals a widespread interest in the nature and importance of Western learning.

In addition to what has been achieved by the missionaries, Europeans and their American kinsmen have done much to familiarize themselves with Asiatic life and thought as well as to promote the spread of knowledge about the West. They have founded learned societies devoted to the study of Oriental civilizations. They have established schools, colleges and universities of the Western type. They have helped no less in providing opportunities for young Asiatics to study in Europe and the United States.

Education as such, however, is but one of the powerful agencies at work in diffusing Western thought through the Orient. Among them are newspapers, other periodicals and books in European languages, especially English, photographs, radio and above all, motion pictures. They have been quickening mental [Page 321]forces that have aroused and intensified curiosity almost everywhere in Asia about the Western world. They have caused Indians, Japanese, Chinese and Turks to start educating their own people by similar means. Governments, societies and individuals have cooperated vigorously in making use of every sort of instrumentality thus suggested which will serve to broaden intelligence among the masses and bring them up to the level of popular enlightenment in the West.

Orientals have founded educational institutions after European and American models. They are publishing news sheets, magazines and books both in European languages and in the vernacular. In them even the American cartoon has often a conspicuous place. Many a favorite "comic" from the United States has crept into Asiatic periodicals; and many an Oriental has had a chance to perceive something supposedly funny in the crude and childish drawings that they discover in old American newspapers used to wrap up goods.

This multiplication of materials in print has opened for the masses in the East new windows upon a world hitherto lying far beyond their mental horizon. Among them literacy is advancing apace. In centers of Islamic life the cry of the newsboy in the streets vies with the call of the muezzin from the minaret. There and elsewhere happenings at home and abroad are recorded in a native press that outbids the chatter of the bazaar and the market-place.

In many a seaport of the East the most popular literature may be a cheap translation of some Western story.

The spread of literacy through enlarged opportunities for studying in school and college, the publication of newspapers, magazines and books, the use of the radio and the dissemination of the motion picture thus are all operating to diffuse throughout the Orient a knowledge of Western modes of thinking. In Asia as elsewhere they are drawing the peoples of the earth toward a community of interest in the current affairs of life and producing a certain identity of concern for what affects human existence in its manifold forms. [Page 322]

INFLUENCE OF WESTERN MOTION PICTURES

So long as the folk of the East were confined to speech and print for the entry of knowledge and ideas, information about the West was slow to gain headway. Once dependent upon formal instruction or upon news dispatches, they are now availing themselves of an agency far more effective. This agency is the motion picture. What newspapers formerly had supplied is becoming a means rather to confirm or exemplify notions presented on the screen. No other source of information can compete with it in case of distribution, vividness, reality, and power to attract the multitude.

It is this invention of the Western mind which has enabled the peoples of the Orient as never before to behold those of the West face to face. In the films are depicted scenes and actions of which they had had little or no conception. Behind faces that are foreign and manners that are alien they perceive the play of passions and emotions akin to their own and yet in many ways different. These they can share no less than understand, for the motives at work are virtually identical in humanity wherever found. That which the West may admire, dread or hate, so may the East. Of all mechanisms devised by the European and given to the Asiatic the motion picture is the one that gratifies the love of novelty common to everybody-the "one touch of nature which "makes the whole world kin"!

The realism portrayed by the film has enabled the Oriental mind to gain an intimacy of acquaintance with the character and customs of the West to a degree wholly unimaginable a decade or two ago. What had been deemed strange or peculiar is becoming replaced by impressions suggestive of marked readjustments of attitude. Like those of other mechanical things from the West the effects are good and bad, but in this case with a decided preponderance on the latter.

What is thrown on the screen doubtless has conveyed to the spectators quite definite notions of restlessness, energy, enterprise, romance and other evidences of a power to achieve. Representation of these qualities may stimulate among Orientals [Page 323]latent forces of accomplishment. It may facilitate progress toward occupying in the modern world the post of importance to which the antiquity and worth of their civilization entitle them.

On the other hand, the motion picture threatens seriously to lessen the amount of influence and respect long held by the European, if not also to spread notions of communism and similar schemes for the subversion of society. It must be remembered that films exported to Asia from the United States, Germany, Italy and France consist mainly of those which have been commercial failures, and hence can be exhibited at low cost, or which on account of their moral unfitness are denied exhibition at home.

RISE OF NATIONALISM

A contribution of Western thought possessing still greater potentiality for good or evil in Asia is that which has engendered there the spirit and attitude called "nationalism". In no sense an outgrowth of Oriental conditions, it has sprung from the impact of European ideas. It is the inevitable reaction of peoples made conscious of themselves by the influence of the foreigner. Patriotism, its fellow sentiment, is something likewise unknown to Asiatics before the advent of the European. Their sense of loyalty took on personal, social or religious forms quite unrelated to the love of country as such.

Nationalism already instilled by precept and example through the introduction of Western languages, religion and education, became exalted into high fervor by knowledge of the impassioned cries and slogans accompanying the World War. These had declaimed loudly in favor of the principle of "self-determination", of the right of all peoples to have their own form of government and to live their own lives as they saw fit. The European propagators of them, to be sure, had in mind certain ethnic groups found within the territories of their immediate opponents. Unfortunately for the retention of Western political and economic hold upon the Orient, so general a principle has no geographical or racial bounds. Its content embraces all humanity. It appeals to Asiatics quite as much as it does to Europeans.

National self-determination, accordingly, this concept of [Page 324]Western origin, has become a creed among Orientals. It lies deep-rooted in the modern outlook of Turk and Persian, Egyptian and Arab, Indian and Chinese. Substantially every manifestation of unrest, dissatisfaction and hostility displayed in the East has proceeded from it. What Europeans have done and what they have said and written to exemplify nationalism at home have provoked the state of mind which finds vent in displays of antagonism against the French in Syria, against the British in India, against the foreigner at large in China. These outbursts of hostile sentiment are not directed against Europeans as individuals or even as a class. Neither political discontent arising out of subjection nor the fear of economic exploitation is sufficient to explain them. The basic cause is visible instead in the growth of a consciousness of nationalism for which European precedents are responsible. From the West it has come as part and parcel of the ideas and institutions of the homeland carried to the East. Though among the more vigorous groups of Asiatics Western dominance in idea and institution has intensified racial concepts clustering about particular countries or localities, this is not true of other communities. In certain areas, like Ceylon and to some extent also in Burma and Persia, a process of mental and spiritual uprooting appears to have taken place, which may presage a disintegration of society there. It would indicate that in proportion as European thought enters the Oriental mind the possessor of it shows evidence of losing his own soul. Intellectually he is disembodied; morally he becomes a nondescript.

Western ideas penetrating into the East would seem thus to have engendered a twofold consequence. They have bred racial and national sentiments provocative of social antipathies and religious intolerance. At the same time they have produced a measure of deracination which causes the very essence of self to vanish while the semblance of an alien culture is assumed. Influences of the sort tend to function in a vicious circle. The West may look upon Orientals as fanatical, sullen, insolent and altogether unreliable barbarians devoid of the qualities that make genuine nationality possible, or else may regard them as [Page 325]indeterminate creatures detached from their original culture by the impact of European modes of thought yet unable adequately to assimilate them for purposes of replacement. To hold either of these contradictory viewpoints is to confess that what both represent is a result of Western domination. So long, therefore, as a political or economic mastery be maintained by the European over the Asiatic, a mastery over the older by the younger type of civilization, just so long will these cross currents prevail. Only by effective cooperation between men of the West and the East, possessed of intelligence and character, appreciative of the significance to one another of their respective types of culture, disposed to work for approximation rather than displacement, desirous of bringing to the Orient the best that the intellect of the Occident affords, and offering it on the basis of a mutuality of respect, rights and obligations, can this confusion in mind and soul give way to the harmony of reciprocal understanding.

WESTERN THOUGHT IN THE NEAR EAST

Among the regions of Asia in which Western thought has gained headway the Near East is one where American influence has been conspicuous. In this respect it is second only to China.

The Near East has been for nearly a century the scene of American missionary endeavor represented in school, college and university. These educational impulses regularly have taken on a practical form. A region lacking professional men equipped with a knowledge of Western methods has been supplied with physicians, pharmacists, dentists, teachers, technicians and engineers. Although the instruction that they have received may not be thorough, and necessarily so when imparted to Orientals whose preparation is insufficient and whose patience for long continued study of things alien is even less, yet it has proved widely beneficial. The same is true of that given in industrial and commercial schools under American direction. These have sent forth many a capable farmer, merchant, commercial agent and other business representative whose services both to native communities and to Western interests have become increasingly valuable. [Page 326]

WESTERN THOUGHT IN INDIA

In India the impact of Western thought has been attended by consequences quite unforeseen. Whatever may be said, for example, of the utility of the English language as a medium of instruction, its establishment as the official tongue was not altogether the part of wisdom. Through their knowledge of it the intelligent classes among the Indians have learned much about European character, practices and ideals, about things evil and good, which they have turned to their own advantage. Widening familiarity with them and with certain phases of English history in particular has strengthened local reaction to British rule in fomenting the spirit of nationalism.

Christianity, on the other hand, has gained few adherents, and even then almost wholly among the least influential orders of society. So far as education for the masses is concerned, their European masters have done extremely little. Hardly twelve per cent of the males and barely two per cent of the females through- out the country are able to read and write any language whatever. Possibly one per cent understands English. For this situation of wholesale ignorance and illiteracy, insufficient financial provision and inappropriate methods of instruction are not alone responsible. An official attitude unfavorable to education of the people at large has much to do with it.

Inadequate or unexpected as the cultural results appear to have been, there is no doubt that the transmission of Western thought has left a profound impression upon the Indian mind. No better evidence of it perhaps could be cited than utterances of that great spiritual leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Asked what the nations of the West might do in furthering the develop- ment of the East, and especially that of India, he replied: "From my observations of the West... I have learned two outstanding facts: first, cleanliness; second, energy. . . To a large extent it has been energy after things material. If the Indian people could have that same amount of energy, rightly directed, they would receive a great blessing." Answering a further question, as to the manner in which Christianity might aid India and other Eastern [Page 327]lands at a time when ideas of nationalism are so much to the fore, he said: "What we need most of all is sympathy. . . Many of the people who come out here to study my people only scratch the surface. If they would dig deep by means of sympathy, they would find a stream of life there, pure and clear."

In practice the principles advocated by Gandhi and his followers signify non-cooperation with the British in all respects: social, political and economic. Not only would they disobey existing laws and suffer the penalty for so doing, but they would withdraw Indians from every occupation in public and private life which might bring them into contact with their European rulers, even taking the children out of official and private schools conducted by them. They would refuse also to import or to use products of British manufacture. The extent to which this process of non-cooperation has reinforced or weakened the other manifestations of Indian nationalism obviously is a question not yet answerable.

WESTERN THOUGHT IN JAPAN

A very different picture of the bearings of Western thought upon the Oriental mind is furnished by Japan. Ever since the government and people of this Far Eastern land were made acquainted with European languages, religion and education, their attitude toward them has remained substantially unaltered. No matter what might be done to encourage the entry of Western ideas and usages, they should never be allowed to work anything like a transformation in the Japanese character as such. To this end the foreign teacher or models were to be retained no longer than might be necessary to realize certain specific objects. Whenever their usefulness in this respect ceased, they were promptly to be excluded. The communication of European thought by Europeans accordingly should be countenanced only up to the point where the Japanese themselves could be employed to advantage.

Although early contacts with representatives of various peoples from the West had introduced into the Japanese speech a number of words and expressions, English above all other European tongues is the one that has made the greatest advance. It [Page 328]has become indeed virtually the second language of the country. Without being as in India the official speech of a foreign ruler, it has been converted through voluntary adoption by the educated class into a medium of intercourse which has enabled the Japanese to acquire greater knowledge of the Western world than any of their fellows in the Orient.

Among Asiatic countries, moreover, Japan stands foremost in promoting the education of its people. Contrasted with the situation elsewhere in the East, the number of illiterates among them is much smaller even than in the United States. Japan also has introduced and developed all the devices of the West for the diffusion of knowledge and ideas on a scale far exceeding the efforts of any other Oriental folk. Newspapers, periodicals, books, radio and the motion picture are all so many instrumentalities of Western origin which serve to widen and deepen popular intelligence.

WESTERN THOUGHT IN CHINA

Unlike its island neighbor, which from the beginnings of contact with the West had a strong and firmly-rooted consciousness of its nationality, requiring no enhancement from abroad other than what might enable it better to resist foreign attempts at domination, China has been brought to a nascent realization of its place in the world by forces more or less directly imparted by Europe and the United States. Entry of the languages of foreigners, of their faith and of their modes of education have accomplished changes that bid fair to revolutionize the life and thought of a people who for untold centuries have held tenaciously to their type of civilization.

All this has contributed, albeit slowly and far from widely as yet, to the formation of a public opinion in China. The promoters of it have become imbued with a self-respect and a consciousness of nationhood as the West comprehends that term. From the United States, Europe and Europeanized Japan the idea of "China for the Chinese" has derived its initial impulses. Those most active in its diffusion are the so-called foreign 'students' who have learned abroad how modern nations are constituted and what [Page 329]

WESTERN THOUGHTS IN EASTERN MINDS

should be done to enable their native land to take its rightful place among them.

The group or community interest, formerly so dominant in China, thus is passing into a national consciousness moulded by democratic ideas spread sedulously among the masses of the population by every agency of publicity which the West has brought forth. Substantially all the courses of action recommended also are derivatives of Western experience. Some favor the employment of economic methods, like the mechanical betterment of transportation and communication. Others emphasize popular education to assure national advancement. Not a few look to military and political instrumentalities, such as the West has known how to utilize for the restoration of peace and the attainment of orderly progress. Still others regard the system adopted in Soviet Russia as one altogether worthy of imitation. The last of these expedients, however, is the one that seems the least likely to be followed.

Of the several phases of foreign influence operative upon the Chinese mind undoubtedly the most potent have proceeded from Great Britain and the United States. Yet neither the material benefits of British trade nor the mental values of American educational methods can be genuinely effective in helping the people of China to solve the mighty problems that the conversion of an ancient civilization into an embodiment of modern ideas calls forth unless and until the powers of the West abandon the special privileges that their nationals enjoy in Chinese territory. So far, moreover, as lessons drawn from Western experience have shaped a growing sense of democracy there, they have not been conducive to the sort of nationhood most suitable for the Chinese people. Western education implanted among them should be directed rather to preparing the youth of China to become patriotic-minded, and not mere imitators and adapters of what is foreign. For it would bode ill not alone to that vast country but to humanity the world over, were Western thought to control utterly the Chinese mind, and the Chinese soul thereby be lost. [Page 330]

THE NEW HUMANITY

"Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades."

Edited by MARY SIEGRIST Author of "You that Come After", etc.

JHB creative listener finds his goal in that Great Service that Dante envisioned for himself: in becoming the Scribe of the Eternal Love. But how shall he find the larger rhythms unless all men become free? . . . He comes soon to understand that the stone which is borne to the temple is a many- faceted one, of many hues; that all religions have gateways leading into it.

In the searching spirit of the ancients he traces the very beginnings of the Spirit of Poetry-in that of the Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Egyptian, Indian. In this fourth dimen- sional world he perceives new spiritual identities. Putting aside prejudice, he sees the path of the poet through all religions. He rejoices in "penetrating the manifestation of life's complexities".

He is an Egyptian, worshipping the Nile, the gift of Amon Ra He is a Brahman, chanting hymns unto Varuna, Agni and Indra A Buddhist, seeking the Four Great Truths and to follow in the Noble Eightfold Path. A Brother of the Golden Rule laid down in China. A Christian, disciple of Jesus, lover of mankind, brother of all. The child of Allah, Lord of all the worlds. In every man he sees his brother's face. His religion, to follow "after the Great Companions". As poet, to belong to those "whose names are written in the Book of Love." [Page 331]

AFTER THE GREAT COMPANIONS!

I am a devotee of Zoroaster;

I

The Zend-Avesta thrills me as I read the words of him who spoke of purity; I strive to follow in his footsteps, taking care that every thought of mine be good. That every word be kind, and every deed a sacrament of love. Thus do I cleanse myself from sin and evil. For One there is whose Purity doth hold a lustre I desire to see in mine- Ahura-Mazda-Greatest and Best, Wisest and most Beautiful, Beyond Him is no other.

2

I am Egyptian graving hieroglyphs, The mystic symbols of a faith profound. I hail Him Lord of all the thrones of earth who sendeth forth the Nile; Yea, hail to thee, O Nile, the gift of Amon Ra to man That he may learn to give unto his brothers. So let me live whilst here on earth that when at last I come into the Hall of Truth, And stand before the One who reigneth there-Master of Truth, Mistress of Verity- I may not blush with shame at memory of my deeds, But say with truth and honesty that I did strive to live as in His sight. No act of mine shall make a brother fearful, poor, or wretched; I will not cause a sister dear to weep; Never by me shall watercourse aside be turned, From mouth of nursling never milk removed.

I am a Brahman,

3

And my hymns I chant unto Varuna, Agni, Indra, [Page 332]And unto the only God above the gods, pervading all yet all transcending, The Universal Spirit. He who moves, yet moves not, who is far yet near, The Self-existent. He in whom all creatures live, who lives in all, The World’s Protector, Lord of the Lord of Causes.

The man who understands That every creature exists in God alone, and thus perceives the Unity of being, is blest— And blesses, for no more can he regard another with contempt. Dwelling upon the sacred symbol, Om, he sees at last Divinity in all, And even to his enemy he turns with loving look and asks for fellowship, Whisp’ring the secret that shall make earth one: Tat twam asi—“Thou, too, art That.”

I am the Buddhist

Seeker of the way that leads to light from darkness— Follower of him who left the palace and the dream of power, put on the yellow robe, and thus became the friend of man. ’Tis my ambition, knowing the Four Great Truths, and all they mean to suffering human kind, To follow in the Noble Eightfold Path, Dreaming the dream of Dharma.

It is my aim to so live out my life, So fill it with the flowers of sweet compassion and the fruits of love That men may learn from me the might of gentleness. I would salvation seek, not for myself alone, but for all creatures throughout all the worlds; [Page 333]

THE NEW HUMANITY

That all at last be linked in friendliness- One common bond of righteousness and love- And then one peace-Nirvana-one glad rest.

I am a Brother of the Golden Rule laid down in China, Confucius is my Master, He who sought to know the truth, to love it, and to find delight in constant daily practice of its virtues. My God is Duty, and my worship quest of perfection; Self-culture my first task, for well I know its fruits in others—so powerful is example. One rule―The Master's rule-my guiding star in every walk of life: Do not to others that which thou wouldst not they should do to thee.

I am a Christian- A disciple I, of Jesus, lover of mankind, brother of all; I share with him the dream of bliss that led unto the Cross- A Kingdom here on earth! A Reign of Love! In hearts and lives a Kingdom-God's-and man's! My task is plain, my duty clear; In my own heart and life the love must rule that I would see in others; Only thus shall I, like Jesus, act my part in building up the Kingdom; Only thus shall I, like Jesus, do my Father's will. To raise the fallen and to lead the blind, To free the captive, and to the broken-hearted bring the soothing touch of pure affection, These are my aims; Not creeds but deeds, service not sacrifice, These my ideals. My watchword Love, my goal the Brotherhood of all Mankind. [Page 334]I am the child of Allah, And read the words He gave unto Mohammed. Holy Koran, telling of One-the only God-there is no God but He. To Him belongeth East and West-where'er I turn to pray, lo, there I see the face of God. Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds, Thee do I worship, unto Thee may I my ways submit, Guide Thou my right. I have no fear of death, for nought but good can come from Perfect Goodness, Yet wait I not for death to taste of heaven-here on earth I seek a Paradise.

My Country is the world, My Church-wherever I may be, All ground is holy and each day a Sabbath. My-brothers and my sisters all who dwell with me upon this earth. For all are journeying on the Open Road; One is our past and one our destiny; One then shall be our present aim whilst we are fellow-travellers. To bear each others' burdens-to stretch the helping hand. And this is my Religion- So to live that all may see that I have sat at feet of Masters, Men of olden time who walked with God, And men who since have followed in their footsteps, Morris, Mazzini, Whitman, Thoreau, Tolstoy and Tagore. After the Great Companions! Yes, and to belong to those who have their names inscribed in that great Book whose pages are the Hearts of Men. After the Great Companions! And to belong to those whose names are written in the Book of Love.

WILL HAYS [Page 335]

MIRACLES AND PRAYER IN A LAW-ABIDING UNIVERSE

by KIRTLEY F. MATHER Department of Geology, Harvard University

REASONING minds have found response in a rational universe; the day of magic is past. Science has given us a vivid impression of the law and order which characterize the world. The attributes of the universe, so far as known to us, are such as to make obvious and necessary the conclusion that its administration is orderly, that God is a God of Law. Our minds rejoice to find Him so; only thus is He worthy of our trust.

God is a God of Law, therefore trustworthy, therefore congenial to the scientific mind. But the new knowledge of God brings a real problem in its train. Most new knowledge introduces dilemma; as we enlarge the field of our understanding, the lifting of the horizon reveals pitfalls, bogs and swamps as well as fair vistas and rolling hills. If God is a God of Law, operating always and everywhere in the same way, how can He also be a God of Love, helping you and me in our time of need? We may grant, as most people do, that the regulations and arrangements of the universe are such as to make possible the collective prosperity of the particular species of creature to which we belong. We may concede that in the long run things presumably will come out all right, that the human race will somehow muddle through. But the human spirit yearns for something more than that. Our hearts demand a God who can do a retail business even though engaged in wholesale transactions, who can touch us individually, here and there, now and then, at our particular point of need. Is the demand unreasonable? Has modern science relegated to the limbo of untrustworthy jehovahs, the "Personal God" of the Christian? This is the outstanding problem in the minds of thoughtful [Page 336]college men and women today. It is approached from many angles, most commonly perhaps through the consideration of prayer and miracles. It frequently expresses itself in the closely related questions: does the modern expectation of orderly sequence in every department of nature consign miracles as well as magic, to the discard? Has prayer any function in a law-abiding universe? Probably there are few words in the English language more loosely used than the word, miracle. Its definitions are numerous and conflicting. "A miracle is something beyond the power of man to perform." Then, the movement of the stars through space, the rotation of the earth upon its axis, these and similar phenomena are miracles. Or again, a race between a train and an automobile to a grade crossing ends in a tie; the automobile is smashed to fragments, but the driver emerges unscathed from the wreck. As he tells the story, he will very likely say, "It was a miracle that I escaped alive." Neither of these definitions touches the real heart of the miraculous. From the religious point of view an event is a miracle only if it serves to reveal something concerning the nature and purposes of God. Thus, in the New Testament the words, sign and wonder, are frequently associated in references to the miraculous. A miracle is not merely an extraordinary event, an unusual or spectacular episode, a wonder; it is also an illuminating event, a means of revealing to man something of the character of God, a sign.

Concerning every reported miracle, whether recorded in ancient scriptures or related as a current event, three questions ought to be asked in turn. First, did the episode actually occur as recorded or related? The first precaution of the scientist is to make certain that the facts are accurately and adequately in hand. Even cursory examination of the statements made by historians of ancient times indicates that the well-known fallibility of the modern representative of the press is not a new trait of human nature. Another reason why the records or reports of supposedly miraculous events are not historically accurate is traceable to the fact that the human mind naturally attempts to explain every occurrence which it notes. It is characteristic for a man who has [Page 337]

MIRACLES AND PRAYER IN A LAW-ABIDING UNIVERSE

been impressed by an incident to pass quickly from the statement of what occurred to an explanation of what occurred. First in the minds of his hearers and then in his own mind the explanation becomes so intimately intermingled with the description of the incident that they can scarcely be dissociated one from the other. Therefore, the explanation of the fact may be set forth as though it were the fact itself.

Biblical literature is liberally sprinkled with this sort of record. During the conquest of Canaan, a particular day of crisis was so filled with soul-stirring incidents, the clash of arms, the final victory for the soldiers under the banner of Joshua, that it seemed to have been an unusually long day. And for those who experienced the incidents of that day, it was uniquely long; never for them was there a day like that, before or since. Promptly their minds jumped from the experience to the explanation. How did that particular day happen to be so long? To people who thought the earth was flat, who believed that the sun actually climbed in the castern heavens to the apex of the vaulted firmament and then descended to the west, the obvious explanation was that the sun had stood still for a time in heaven. The explanation is recorded as though it were the fact.

The critical question concerning the accuracy of the record or the report must often be answered in the negative. Occasionally we can strip off the exaggeration and the explanation and discover the actual nature of the incident or the experience, but often it is impossible to do so and no definite answer to the question is forthcoming. In that case it is worthwhile to proceed to the next question only if we assume what the actual episode probably was. If we do that, we must always remember that the value of the miraculous event is no more certain than the assumptions which have been made concerning its nature.

The second question is the philosophical one. Having sifted the records critically, a residue of fact has been obtained. We believe that certain things happened. We inquire, can the event as thus related be explained so that we may understand how it occurred? Is it a wonder? It is to be expected that with advances in [Page 338]knowledge, events formerly quite beyond the pale of human understanding should become amenable to rational explanation. Incidents which formerly were beyond comprehension can now be explained. Many of the miracles of healing recorded in the Bible are now rather well understood because of modern knowledge of the laws of psychotherapy. In one sense of the word, the advance of science reduces the wonder with which man is impressed by the phenomena of nature. In another sense, the element of wonder is actually increased by scientific understanding. Is radio-telephony less wonderful to the electrical engineer than to the untutored savage of a tropical jungle?

Be that as it may, the third question is obviously the most important. It is the religious question. Of what is the event significant? What is its moral value? Is it a sign? Under the outworn deistic theory of the administration of the universe, the more inexplicable the event, the more significant it became. Overwhelmed by primitive wonder, brought face to face with that which transcended all understanding, man had witnessed the intervention of God in the affairs of nature. The abnormal event transpiring without reference to any controlling laws, with no necessary relations between causes and effects, was a sign that God had interfered to make an adjustment in the machinery, that He was communicating directly with men. Moral values were promptly assumed. Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed by the ashes of a volcanic eruption because not even ten righteous men could be found among the inhabitants of those cities. But to the theist, the significance of an event increases as it is rationalized. The more completely he understands how it occurred, the deeper is his insight into the character and purpose of God. In other words, it is quite impossible "to explain a miracle away". Probing into the methods of nature, reveals the real meaning of the natural world. As primitive 'wonder' is decreased by rational understanding, the significance of the event is deepened, its value as a 'sign' is increased.

To the man of science, all the world is now marvelous; every event is both wonderful and full of significance, a means of be- [Page 339]

MIRACLES AND PRAYER IN A LAW-ABIDING UNIVERSE

coming acquainted with the administration of the universe. Only as we succeed in following through the rational chain connecting cause with effect, can we hope to discover the meaning of life.

"Greater works" are now being accomplished than ever before in the history of man. Consider, for example, the establishment of a medical service which will within a few years rid India of leprosy. Something in the universe has worked through the minds of technically trained men so that they have been led to a discovery of the cause of that dread disease and thereby have learned how it may be prevented. Something in the universe, moving upon the hearts as well as the minds of the citizens of a great commonwealth, has impelled the British Parliament to appropriate large sums of money, not for the immediate benefit of the inhabitants of England, but for the people of a distant land. Such events are truly significant of the character of the world in which we live. A greater work is being accomplished than the healing of ten lepers among the hundreds on the shores of Galilee.

But, as might be expected, this expanded concept of the miraculous brings its attendant difficulty. If all the world is now miraculous, how may we recognize among the countless events of our lives those which reveal God in His true relations to mankind? Obviously, not every event which takes place is in perfect harmony with the finest possibilities inherent in the energy manifesting itself in the world of sense perception. Things which are unfortunate for the universe happen as well as those which are fortunate. By what standard may we judge these events? How may we discriminate between the temporary and individual tendencies on the one hand and the eternal and universal tendencies on the other? That of course is the problem of religion; it is beyond the pale of science. It is exactly the field in which religion is supreme, the field of values. Science describes the event, relates how it occurred, suggests its possible significance; but religion must determine its value.

For the Christian, the answer is clear, because the Christian has assumed that Jesus of Nazareth displayed the true character of the Administration of the Universe. The answer is analogous for [Page 340]adherents to any of the great religious sects, for every religion is built around a personality and in each a similar assumption is made. Allegiance is pledged to a particular personality because of the assumption that the individual life correctly portrays the qualities of the Supreme Personality. There is no way to prove the validity of this fundamental assumption except the method of science: try it and see. Having made this assumption, the Christian merely asks a fourth question to complete the series pertaining to the miraculous. Does the event, when rightly understood, promote or strengthen in men the type of character which may be seen in Christ? For this reason, Christ is the touchstone of Christianity; because of the importance of this question, we try to bring others to see him as he really was; as long as men ask this question, he will continue to be a living power in the world.

This view of miracles as perfectly natural phenomena rather than as supernatural manifestations, is welcomed by all who believe in the essential and underlying unity of the universe, but it of course presents from a new angle the problem of freedom. The inquiry concerning the freedom of the human will, the ability of the individual actually to make up his own mind, is matched by the problem of the freedom of God to devise and attain certain goals. Is the Administrative Personality supreme, if it is limited to expression only within the laws of nature?

The statement that God is omnipotent has proved to be a stumbling block for many thoughtful persons. Obviously, omnipotence should not imply that God can do anything and everything; no power can make a three-year-old horse in three minutes. Anyone can think of countless things which not even a Supreme Power could do; but this is very evidently pushing a truth to a ridiculous extreme. Rather is it in time that the Administrative Personality has all the power that there is, and in that sense only is God omnipotent. Omnipotence implies the ability to use all available power, rather than the capacity of accomplishing everything that any mind can possibly imagine would be desirable or interesting to accomplish.

But modern science gives us abundant reason for believing [Page 341]

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that all the forces operating in the universe are law-abiding. If therefore God the omnipotent is confined within the bounds of natural law, how can He be a "Heavenly Father" who answers the pleas of troubled humanity? The problem of the miraculous is thus intimately linked with the problem of prayer.

As we attack the two-fold problem from this angle, we must first of all get a clearer understanding of what is meant by natural law. A. S. Eddington, an eminent British physicist, has recently presented a very helpful analysis* of the scientist's understanding of the laws of nature, which he groups in three categories.

There are, first, the "identical laws" such as the law of gravitation, the law of conservation of mass and energy, and the laws of electric and magnetic force. These are commonly cited as typical instances of natural law and are the first to come to mind in any consideration of the immutability of law.

Second, there are the "statistical laws" which are obeyed by groups independently of the characteristics of the individuals composing the group. Among these are the laws of gases and of thermodynamics. The assemblage of molecules in a body of gas obeys the statistical laws regardless of the compositio.. of the gas. An expanding gas absorbs heat at a rate determined by its expansion, not by its constitution. Certain gas wells in Texas may be observed with the valves and pipes constantly encrusted with frost although exposed to the hot sun of a Texan summer, because of the release of pressure as the gas escapes from the ground into the enlarged pipes at the surface. The laws are the same, whether it is the natural gas from the ground, the sulphur dioxide of an electric refrigerating machine, or the pure oxygen of a laboratory experiment.

In the third category of natural laws are placed the "transcendental laws" of atomic structure and of the quantum process. These laws determine the association and movement of electrons and protons, the form and construction of the atom, the "flow" of energy. No one has yet succeeded in forming an intelligible

• Science, Religion and Reality, ed. Joseph Needham, published by Macmillan, New York, 1925, pp. 214-216,

[Page 342]conception of the quantum process, yet enough is known about it to indicate that it is a most amazing development of physical theory. Two notions concerning the nature of light have long been under consideration. One, the corpuscular theory, implies that light consists of separate, extremely small, but material bodies hurled, like a stream of drops from a high-pressure hose or a succession of bullets from a swift-firing machine-gun, at such tremendously high velocity as to enable them to penetrate any objects in their paths. The alternative theory of the nature of light is the vibration theory which postulates the existence of a mysterious medium, the ether, the vibrations of which constitute light. The quantum theory is in a certain sense a compromise between these two conflicting ideas. It implies that the energy vibrating through space consists of separate discrete particles, not of matter, but of energy; that energy "flows" not as a steady stream, but as a succession of swiftly consecutive impacts. The individual units of energy are the "quanta" which give the name to the process and theory.

These three kinds of natural law have interesting relationships to each other. In the first category are laws pertaining to processes that science can now both describe and explain. The laws in the second category pertain to processes which have been described but cannot yet be explained; whereas in the third category are laws pertaining to processes which have not as yet been either satisfactorily described or adequately explained.

Never in the experience of man has an identical law of nature been violated within the limits in which it has been discovered to operate. The law of gravity is an excellent illustration. It is frequently asserted to be a universal and inviolable law. Such it surely is, but only within certain limits. In our everyday experience there are frequent demonstrations of its limitations. The excess ink upon the letter paper is absorbed into the blotter placed above the writing pad; the liquid has risen in obedience to other identical laws which operate with utter disregard for the law of gravity. Oil rises in the wick of the kerosene lamp and keeps the flame burning steadily, because its movement is in a region beyond the [Page 343]

MIRACLES AND PRAYER IN A LAW-ABIDING UNIVERSE

limits of gravitation. Molecules of liquid in close contact with molecules of solid substances, such as the fibres of the blotting paper or the cotton wick, obey the laws of adhesion and cohesion rather than the law of gravity. It is not that the law of gravity has been violated; it is merely that the territory in which that law is supreme has been transcended. Under certain conditions the capillary forces are more powerful than the gravitational; each identical law is inviolable only within definite and generally recognizable limits. Much more must be learned about the limitations of the several laws of nature before we may assert that God and man have by them been robbed of freedom.

Even within their appropriate limits, the identical laws do not annihilate freedom; in one sense, they do not even restrict freedom. Give an artist a piece of blank paper and a crayon; tell him he is free to draw anything he wants, that no one will ever censor his artistic creation. Still is he bound; he cannot, for example, draw a circle the circumference of which is exactly six times its radius. To do that would be to violate the laws of nature, which manifesting themselves in the fundamental principles of Euclidean geometry decree that the circumference of every circle shall have the relationship 2Pi-R. But did an artist ever complain that his style was cramped, his freedom limited, that he could not express himself satisfactorily, because he could draw no other circle than this? That restriction, whatever it may mean, does not prevent him from giving expression by his art to his creative personality. Surely, if this be true for an individual human personality, the supreme administrative personality can similarly display its creativeness within law.

More important than this inference, however, is the fact that the identical laws are really not laws of governance; they are merely descriptions of what occurs. The law of gravity, for example, states that gravitation varies inversely as the square of the distance between two bodies and directly as their mass. This is merely a description of the behavior of the force of gravitation; it does not tell why gravity varies in this particular and peculiar manner. The laws which really govern the universe are the statistical [Page 344]and transcendental laws. Although these laws still baffle us, we have every reason for believing that they are rational and inviolable; that they are truly laws. These administrative regulations determine how "spirit with Spirit may meet," how a man may "make up his own mind"; they explain why there should be in living organisms a ceaseless urge to change, a "divine dissatisfaction" with the existing conditions. Because of them and through them, "ideas govern the world."

This presents the challenge of the moment: discover the nature of the transcendental laws, find out the regulations in accordance with which the universe is really governed. It is the most difficult task to which mankind is summoned, a task requiring breadth of vision as well as keenness of intellect, wisdom as well as knowledge. Fortunately, it is not necessary for us to complete the ultimate analysis of the structure of the atom before we can make use of transcendental laws. Gravitation was utilized by primitive man long before Sir Isaac Newton was born. Experience is the companion of observation among the scientist's tools. Interpretation of experiences is often more difficult and more valuable than the analysis of objective observations.

This challenge transfers the problem concerning prayer from the administrative to the operative end of the chain. Or from another point of view, it promotes mankind from the position of office boy to that of executive partner in the organization of the universe. Many persons are unwilling to pray because they are afraid they will ask God to do something which He cannot do; but the real difficulties are at this end, the human end of the avenue of prayer. Most assuredly we cannot expect that because of prayer, whether or not it be accompanied by the bribe of a burnt offering or a promise, whether or not it be couched in certain magic phrases, natural laws will be set aside. We cannot expect that the administration of the universe is sufficiently inconsistent to overturn one set of laws by any other. Each established law will continue to operate unchanged throughout the entire area of its individual dominion. But may it not be that prayer is one of the established laws of the universe, and as such has its appropriate [Page 345]

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position among the transcendental laws? Experience seems to indicate that wherever any human element enters into the problem, prayer is an essential part of the process of giving expression to the Supreme Personality. The reservoirs of spiritual power are full; the laws by which that power may enrich human life are established; the ability to use those laws is potentially present in man. But the flood is dammed at this end of its channel, not at its source. The barriers are erected by human nature, they are not inherent in the nature of the universe.

It is my personal belief that prayer not only reacts psychologically to benefit the one who prays; it also puts at the disposal of the Transcendental Spirit a tool which, however weak or tiny it may be, is nevertheless indispensable in the project of creating a world which will be an adequate expression of the nature of God. I would suggest that in the healing of disease, medicine without prayer is just as foolish as prayer without medicine. On the other hand, in the present state of my knowledge concerning meteorology and my expectation concerning transcendental laws, I would not spend one moment of my time praying for rain or for the cessation of a storm at sea. I do not now see how the human element can possibly be involved in such affairs. In contrast, I would consider it a justifiable expenditure of energy to pray that the citizens of two unfriendly nations should dare to take a chance that human nature is much the same on both sides of the boundary line and should act on the belief that love is stronger than hate, brotherliness more powerful than battleships.

Prof. Mather’s article is the fifth in a series of six essays he has prepared for World Unity Magazine on Science and Religion. “The New World Revealed by Modern Science”, “Science and Religion: Are They Friends or Enemies?”, “The Search for God in a Scientific World”, and “Men, Machines and Mystics” were published in October, November, December and January. The sixth article in the series will appear in the March issue. [Page 346]

THE WISDOM OF THE AGES

Edited by ALFRED W. MARTIN Society for Ethical Culture, New York The Sacred Scriptures of Hinduism-Continued

THE UPANISHADS

NEXT to the Vedas the most important of all the Hindu scriptures are the Upanishads. What the New Testament is to the Christian that are the Upanishads to every educated Hindu. The word means "seances" or "mystic teachings" and is applied to a collection of 108 philosophic prose-poems. All have been translated into English, but special value attaches to Professor R. E. Hume's translation of "The Thirteen Principal Upanishads". The Upanishads reveal the Indian mind seeking to know the meaning of the world of nature and the world of man, searching with an eagerness never surpassed and rarely equalled. Here we see the Indian mind climbing from peak to peak of mental attainment, leaving each in turn without reluctance or regret, because of the promise of a summit higher still. And if, at times, their thought declines to what is commonplace, this is more than atoned for by their passion for the absolute truth and their sincere consciousness of not having attained it.

Moreover, in the Upanishads we see these truth-seekers carrying on their search in the sweetest spirit, exemplifying the precept in the epistle to the Ephesians with reference to "speaking the truth in love". Here in this noble literature, we find philosophical Hinduism even as in the Brahmanas we found ceremonial Hinduism and, in the Rig-Veda, lyrical devotional Hinduism.

The Upanishads are often called "the end of the Veda". This, in truth, they are as to the time of their composition and their place in the long line of Sruti, or revealed texts. "End of the [Page 347]

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES OF HINDUISM

"Veda" they also are in the higher sense that they present the finale of a development of religious and philosophical thought, the germ of which is in the Rig-Veda. No important form of modern Hindu thought but has its direct source in the Upanishads. The older of these antedate the teaching of Gautama, the Buddha, while the later ones presuppose Buddhism. The Upanishads contain no system of religious or philosophical thought, though they inspired each of the various forms of systematic Hindu philosophy. They are, in truth, compilations from different sources, recording the range of Hindu philosophic and religious thought between the eighth and sixth centuries before our era.

It is not so much the results reached in speculation as it is the originality, the splendid pluck and sweetness of spirit of the writers of the Upanishads that gives the latter their endearing and enduring quality. As Professor Bloomfield says: "We are captivated by the quality of the endeavor more than by the quality of the thing accomplished."

Schopenhauer, who was profoundly influenced by the monistic philosophy of the Upanishads and whose own philosophical system is largely based on ideas akin to those found in the Upanishads, said, referring to Du Perron's Latin translation: "Next to the original it is the most rewardful reading possible in the world: It has been the solace of my life; it will be the solace of my death." And he adds the reason for his faith in the Upanishads, namely, that their fundamental doctrine is what has always called for "the unceasing meditation of the wise"; the doctrine of an ultimate unity of reality, the metaphysical Absolute, Brahma.

Here is set forth a monism, the most uncompromising and perfervid to be found anywhere. According to this doctrine, all plurality is only apparent because the entire universe of things and of human beings is the manifestation of an immanent divine Reality, the absolute One, Brahma. We have already met with this monism in its incipiency in the Rig-Veda, witness for example the famous Creation-Hymn (R. V. X. 129) reproduced in the December number of this magazine. It derives the universe not from any god or gods but, treating these as of secondary origin, finds the first principle in Tad Ekam, That One; neuter gender, [Page 348]impersonal; uncharacterizable, indescribable, yet other than It there was nothing at all. And this monistic concept is one with the Brahma of the Upanishads only they carry the concept still further, holding not only that each individual human being is identical with this indwelling cosmic Soul, but also that the individual (atman) is the clue to the all-embracing World-Atman.

In the Rig-Veda, the term Brahma is used over two hundred times but never as signifying the Supreme Being, the ultimate Reality. This connotation of the term appears for the first time in the Upanishads and their central idea is that the whole world of things and of human beings is the manifestation of an immanent, divine, absolute, unitary Reality, called Brahma. In one of the early Upanishads we read:

"In the beginning, my dear, this world was just Being, one only without a second. To be sure, some people say, 'In the beginning this world was just Non-being, one only without a second; from that Non-being, Being was produced,' but, verily, my dear, whence could this be? How out of Non-being could Being be produced? On the contrary, my dear, in the beginning this world was Being, one only without a second. It bethought itself, 'Would that I were many! Let me procreate myself!' It emitted heat. (Similarly, the heat procreated water and the water food.)" Chandogya U. VI: 2

"As are the spokes held together in the hub and felly of the wheel, just so in this Soul, all things, all worlds, all breathing things, all selves, are held together." (Brihad II: 515.) But a final refinement of this idealistic conception of reality was yet to be worked out. It grew out of the distinction made between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, between "that which is sensuously perceived and that which can not be thus brought into consciousness but can only be thought." Hence the manifold sense world was abandoned as illusory (Maya) and its underlying basis seen to be the limitationless pure unity of being, the real Brahma. [Page 349]

THE SACRED SCRIPTURES OF HINDUISM

"This Brahma is without an earlier and without a later, Without an inside and without an outside, For him east and the other directions are not, Nor across, nor below, nor above . . . He is unlimited." Maitri VI: 17

"Brahma is He who, dwelling in all things, yet is other than all things, whom all things do not know, whose body all things are, who controls all things from within-He is your Soul, the Inner Controller, the Immortal."

"Brahma is He who, dwelling in the mind, yet is other than the mind, whom the mind does not know, whose body the mind is, who controls the mind from within.

"Brahma is the unseen Seer, the unheard Hearer, the un- thought Thinker. Other than Brahma there is no seer. Other than Brahma there is no hearer. Other than Brahma there is no thinker. Brahma is your Soul." Brihad U. II: 1

"Not by speech, not by mind, Not by sight can He be apprehended. How can He be comprehended Otherwise than by one's saying 'He is'?" Katha U. I: 13

This monism is charmingly expounded in the thirteenth section of the Chandogya Upanishad, the famous parable of the salt.

1. "The master said to his pupil, 'Place this salt in the water. In the morning come to me.' When he came, the Master said to him, 'That salt you placed in the water last evening—please bring it hither."

Then he grasped for it but did not find it, as it was completely dissolved.

2. 'Please take a sip of it from the top,' said he. 'How is it?' 'Salt.' Take a sip from the middle,' said he. 'How is it?' [Page 350]'Salt.'

'Take a sip from the bottom,' said he. 'How is it?'

'Salt.'

'Set it aside. Then come back to me.'

He did so, saying, 'It is always the same.'

Then He said to him, 'Verily indeed, my dear, you do not perceive Being here. Verily indeed it is here."

3. 'That which is the finest essence—this whole world has that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman (Soul). That art thou, my pupil.

THE ETHICS OF THE UPANISHADS IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR MONISM

Interspersed amid all the religio-philosophical speculation of the Upanishads we find many a moral maxim but no attempt to make the theoretical philosophy expounded a basis for morality. In- deed, the writers of the Upanishads seem to have regarded him who held the doctrine of the all-pervading Absolute, as thereby released from all sense of personal responsibility, because it is the deity who really acts in and through him, thus exculpating him from whatever wrong he seemingly has done. Indeed, in these scriptures it is contended that knowledge of the Absolute as the only Reality relieves one of any concern regarding the right or wrong of anything one does. As illustrating this relation of moral- ity to the monism of the Upanishads let the following quotations suffice.

"As water adheres not to the leaf of a lotus flower, so evil adheres not to him who knows" (that one's self is Brahma). Sacred Books of the East, I: 67

"He who knows (the identity of the finite human with the Infinite Ultimate) is not stained with evil, even though he con- sorts with evil people. He becomes pure, clean, the possessor of a pure world." S. B. E. I: 84

"As a rush-reed laid on a fire would be burned up, even so are burned up all the evils of him who knows" (the mystery of the identity of the self with the World-Soul). S. B. E. I: 91 [Page 351]"One who knows the bliss of Brahma—he fears nothing. He does not distress himself with the thoughts, 'Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is bad?' He who knows, frees himself from these thoughts. This is the mystic doctrine (Upanishad)." The reason for this entire self-exculpation is that it is no longer "I" that act, but the Brahma who dwelleth in me—he doeth the works. S. B. E. XVI: 63

"As a snake is freed from its skin, so is he (who knows these truths) free from sin." This is a glad tiding of salvation according to philosophic Hinduism; here is redemption, not merely from punishment for sin, but from the very responsibility for sin. S. B. E. XVI: 282

"He who knows this (doctrine of the metaphysical unity of all things in Brahma)—although he commits very much evil, he consumes it all, and becomes clean and pure."

Elsewhere we read: S. B. E. XVI: 199

"As a spider might come out with his thread, as small sparks come forth from the fire, even so from this Soul come forth all vital energies, all worlds, all beings." Brihad U. II: 1.20

Such is the cardinal Hindu monistic concept—opaque in the Rig-Veda, translucent in the Brahmanas, transparent in the Upanishads. From this monism, it was but a step to the pantheistic idea of Brahma as literally everything. The Real of the real; not only the source of all things but the essence of all things.

"Brahma indeed, Brahma before, Brahma behind, to right and to left, Stretched forth from below and above; Brahma indeed is the whole world, this widest extent." Mundaka U. II: 2.11

And since the highest object in the world of experience is the human spirit, the supreme Brahma must resemble spirit more than [Page 352]matter, and, correlated with man, the Ur-grund, or Ultimate, is conceived as Infinite Soul (Atman) with which the finite soul (atman) is one.

"Both he who is here, in a person, And he who is yonder in the sun, He is one." Taittiriya U. II: 8

"He who is yonder, yonder person I myself am he." Brihad U. 515

"His is that shining form which gives heat in yonder sun and which is the brilliant light in a smokeless fire, as also the fire in the stomach which cooks food. For thus has it been said: 'He who is in the fire, and He who is here in the heart, and He who is yonder in the sun-He is one.'" Maitri Upanishad

The directly known self (atman) is real and must therefore be a part of the Ur-grund of all-being, Brahma. So argued the ancient Vedantist in the Upanishads and henceforth the terms Brahma and Atman were used interchangeably. In the words of Professor Hume, "The two great conceptions-Brahma, reached first realistically, the unitary cosmic ground, with outreachings toward a cosmo-thropic ground; and Atman, the inner being of the self and the non-self, the great world-spirit-were joined, the former taking over to itself the latter conception and the two being henceforth to a considerable degree synonymous." Here the quest for the real, for the unity, for the diversified world, for the key to the universe, reached a goal. Thus the unity, searched for from the start of Hindu speculation, was found. [Page 353]

WORLD UNITY FORUM

Certain questions confronting thoughtful people today are not merely important-they are unescapable. If they are not solved rationally, they will solve themselves by the very pressure of events, good or ill. Perhaps the outstanding need of the times is something in the nature of an international forum in which minds of different countries, races and religions can meet on common ground for an exchange of views promoted for the sake of truth and the enrichment of experience. While civilization is gathering its forces together to produce new institutions based on mutual confidence and goodwill, every effort, however slight and unassuming, put forth as an appeal to the international mind, will have value at least for the individuals concerned. In this department the readers of World Unity Magazine are invited to express their opinions on matters which reflect the restless, experimental nature of the age.

WHAT CAN RELIGION DO?

HB last fifteen years have witnessed a profound development in the approach to the problem of universal peace. From the naïve expectation that an era without warfare could be ushered in by the edict of an international diplomacy somehow converted to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, we have traveled to the opposite extreme in the conviction held by many that any and all political action is impotent in its effect upon world affairs, since the reins of real authority are held by the leaders of industry and finance.

While this issue is clarifying itself, the larger forces making for peace are obscured by the inevitable cynicism which grips people who know that vital decisions are being made but feel themselves hopelessly in the dark as to the final outcome. At a deeper level also, there exists an entirely new degree of appreciation of the spiritual factors involved in the problem of true, enduring peace. According to this view, the relative influence of political and economic forces is secondary in comparison to the part that must be played by the spirit of understanding and cooperation among the world’s diverse groups.

What can religion do? What can religion do in the world of inner motive and aspiration to transform mass bewilderment, mass indifference into a positive power capable of realizing the programs developed by otherwise ineffective leaders? At what point are the spiritual resources of this dynamic age beginning to crystallize in religious expressions of a truly universal character? [Page 354]

THE RISING TIDE

Notes on current books possessing special significance in the light of the trend toward world unity.

Edited by JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, JR. Department of Philosophy, Columbia University

The Unification of the Social Sciences

THE impartial observer of our present intellectual scene can hardly fail to be impressed by the evidences on every hand of a tendency toward the unification of knowledge. For at least a generation specialized investigation and experimentation have been amassing mountains of facts. The generalizing concepts and hypotheses that served to organize the world of our fathers have proved in almost every case too narrow and limited to serve as scientific tools in our own. The need for new synthetic concepts is driving men to search for the common foundations, not only of physics and chemistry, not only of the physical sciences and the sciences of life, but of the entire realm of human knowledge.

So far have facts outstripped the power of the older theories of physics to embrace them all and make them all intelligible, that physicists themselves have been forced to turn to startling new hypotheses. Such notions as the kinetic theory of matter and the biological theory of evolution, to which the 19th century had recourse when they became aware of the inadequacies of the older Newtonian science, are no longer sufficiently inclusive and all-embracing. Our present-day electrical world has outgrown even the concepts of Newtonian mechanics; analysis of natural phenomena into individual and unrelated atoms has broken down Scientists have had to bring the fundamental notion of time into physics, and have increasingly had to recognize the importance of [Page 355]

THE UNIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

organic systems of interrelations. One of the major enterprises of present-day philosophy has been to criticize and unify the basic principles of physical explanation.

The same necessity of unification and synthesis is finding expression in the social sciences. These sciences were first organized, on the model of mechanics, in the 18th century. The great critics of the Romantic period clearly pointed out the inadequacy of such a model; they maintained that society is more like a living organism than a machine, and that its history is of fundamental importance. Under such inspiration the social sciences were transformed and enlarged, and imposing new syntheses were put forth. When the biological notion of evolution became popular, evolutionary systems of social science had their day. But these syntheses, whether Hegelian, Comtian, or Spencerian, proved premature and constricting as more and more facts were brought to light. For over a generation now workers in psychology, anthropology, economics, politics, and sociology have been afraid of speculative systems; they have turned rather to the specialized investigation of fact, with most fruitful results. But today, just as in the physical sciences, there is the growing realization that further discovery is dependent on the unification of this large body of data by bringing it into one interrelated realm of knowledge and developing organizing hypotheses.

Several preliminary attempts at such a new synthetic effort have been recently made. They are all keenly aware that any unification of social knowledge today must grow out of the facts rather than precede them; they have learned the lesson of the failure of the evolutionary speculative systems. They have not been individual efforts, but have tried to organize the ideas of a number of men. They realize that a new synthesis of the social sciences must be a democratic and cooperative enterprise, the work of many thinkers aiming, each in his own way, at the same goal.

C. E. Merriam and H. E. Barnes attempted such a bringing together of the different social sciences in their History of Political Theories, Recent Times, in which political theory was made the organizing element. Barnes attempted a similar task in his New [Page 356]History and the Social Studies, using history as the uniting bond Barnes has also published The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences, in which ten collaborators trace the rather similar development of their particular fields, and point to the emergence of concepts common to them all. Last year E. C. Hayes edited a volume on Recent Developments in the Social Sciences. All these books are valuable efforts to sketch the picture of the social sciences as they exist today.

For the most part they emphasize the historical development of the different disciplines, and when they have tried to bring them together, the method has usually been to exhibit them in the light of their contributions to one field.

Now there has appeared a volume that carries this unification one step further. In The Social Sciences and their Interrelations edited by W. F. Ogburn and A. Goldenweiser, thirty-three experts deal each, not with one field, but with the relations between two allied fields. Thus John Dewey writes on Anthropology and Ethics, Franz Boas on Anthropology and Statistics, Roscoe Pound on Sociology and Law, and Morris Cohen on the Social Sciences and the Natural Sciences. The resulting picture is of a loosely unified body of knowledge in which all specialized parts are intimately bound to each other; the portrait of an organized social science emerges. Certainly no more impressive evidence of a synthetic tendency in modern thought has yet appeared.

The names of the two editors are in themselves significant Dr. Goldenweiser is an able representative of the most critical anthropological tendencies; and it is clear that a unification of the social studies will come in terms of the anthropologists' methods and concepts. The notion of culture and its elements has already come to be basic for all progressive students of society. Dr. Ogburn is familiar for his careful application of statistical methods to social problems; and it is obvious today that it is through statistics alone that we can hope for an exact social science. Both these facts are made explicit in the introductory essay by the editors on the field of the social sciences.

W. F. Ogburn and A. Goldenweiser, The Social Sciences and their Interrelations, Houghton Mi Company. viii+506 pp. [Page 357]

THE UNIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

There have been three major influences in the social field in the last two generations. The prestige of biology was first felt after 1859; the analogy of a biological organism, and the notion of a uniform evolutionary development, were controlling a generation ago. There followed the achievement of a critical method by anthropology, which today furnishes the fundamental concepts and the unifying orientation, as well as the most exact techniques, to the other branches. This basic position of anthropology today is well illustrated by the fact that the outstanding philosophy that has grown out of the social sciences, John Dewey's, views the world from the anthropologist's vantage point and generalizes his concepts. The influence of psychology has not yet been fully felt, for so far psychologists have been quarreling over one-sided and inadequate methods, and have not achieved a secure science.

The reaction against evolutionary speculation was a turning to the investigation of isolated facts. But "departmentalizing and specialization, while to a degree inevitable and conducive to highest achievement, are seen to have their attendant evils. Research, discovery, and invention, which are greatly encouraged by specialization, are also sufferers if the process of isolation goes too far. . . Specialization means refinement of method, thorough command of data, and detailed analysis; but intercommunication brings perspective, germination of new ideas, and synthesis."

However valuable specific studies may be, we are living in a unified culture. "The problems of living society do not range themselves so as to fit the artificial isolation forced upon the social sciences by differences of specific subject and method. These problems are as they are. If they are to be solved, whatever knowledge we possess about society must be called into service, wherever needed."

The editors conclude their survey with a statement of the generalizations that can already be made as preparatory to a new social synthesis. "The 'scientific' future of the social sciences depends upon their amenability to statistical methods. The theoretical unit of these sciences is not so much man the animal nor man the psychic being as man in society; and if sociology is defined [Page 358]as the study of the principles underlying man's social relations, then it follows that the natural meeting ground of the social sciences and the sphere par excellence of their interrelations are in their common sociological level. The social problems, finally, of a living society are no respecters of academic or methodological distinctions; however far, therefore, the social sciences may depart from each other in their conceptual specialization, they must ever be prepared for the call to pragmatic reunification and cooperation."

Thus the need for a unification of human effort is felt in the sciences of man as in the sciences of nature. If such a synthetic social science can be developed out of our multitudinous facts, there is at least the hope that it will serve as a potent instrument in the further unification of our discordant civilization.

Reading List of Current Books on World Unity

5. EDUCATION

EDUCATION AS WORLD-BUILDING, by THOMAS DAVIDSON (Harvard U. P.)

EDUCATION, by B. L. THORNDIKE (Macmillan)

THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by PAUL MONROE (Macmillan) The nature and development of the educational process.

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION, by JOHN DEWEY (Macmillan)

NEW SCHOOLS FOR OLD, by E. R. DEWEY (Dutton)

NEW SCHOOLS IN THE OLD WORLD, by WASHBURNE AND STEARNS (Day)

EDUCATION AND THE GOOD LIFE, by BERTRAND RUSSELL (Boni and Liveright) Modern educational currents.

THE HUMANIZING OF KNOWLEDGE, by JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON (Doran)

(Prof. Randall's list will be followed in later issues by similar lists on the subjects of Religion and Ideals of Life.)

NOTE-Books reviewed or advertised in this publication can be purchased by mail from World Unity Magazine for the publisher's list price plus postage. [Page 359]

NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Among the services which WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE hopes to render its readers in this department is the occasional publication of an Index of Current Magazine Articles on subjects reflecting the world outlook and deal of international peace. Some months ago, in fact, the editors brought this intention to the notice of leading periodicals published in the Orient and Europe as well as in the United States, requesting the cooperation of their editors in preparing the Index. Doubtless because the classification 'world unity' as yet carries with it no sharply definite impression, the returns have been altogether inadequate up to the present time.

Such an Index, however, seems valuable enough to justify further effort on our part, and we will welcome information from any reader about current articles which represent some contribution to the world unity ideal. It is one of the disasters of modern thought that so much of it must be committed to the fortunes not merely of one magazine but of one quickly passing date. It is in order to assist in extending the useful life of outstanding essays imbued with the new spirit, and in providing our readers with the widest possible contact with the most enlightened thought of the day, that the Index was originally planned.

Meanwhile we are happy to give at least passing mention to the following articles already brought to our attention: The Outlook for World Amity, by Gilbert Murray, in Yale Review for January, 1928; Woman’s War for Peace, by Lady Astor, M. P., in McCall’s Magazine for January, 1928; Recent Gains in the Quest for Peace, by Norman Thomas, in The World Tomorrow for January, 1928; An American Locarno, by James T. Shotwell, in The Rotarian for December, 1927; A Permanent Commission on Better Understanding, editorial in The American Hebrew for April 15, 1927; America and World Peace, a symposium in Christian Century for December 23, 1926; A Proposal for an American Doctrine of World Peace, by Henry W. Steed in Current History, December, 1927; Les Enseignments de l’Histoire et le Problème de la Paix, by James T. Shotwell, in L’Esprit International for October, 1927; and Restoration of the Reason, by Ernst Robert Curtius, in Monthly Criterion (London) for November, 1927 (quoted in The Living Age for January 1, 1928).

For many people, hope in the progress of the democratic ideal rests largely upon the emergence of the engineer type of public servant and the elimination of the lawyer politician. The social philosophy of men holding responsible positions in the scientific and technical fields is consequently an important factor. In view of this fact, Prof. Karapetoff’s Nature and the Law of Love carries substantial interest, since this article presents the attitude of one who combines the profession of university teacher with direct industrial application. Prof. Karapetoff, among other items of interest, is the successor of Steinmetz [Page 360]in the laboratories of the General Electric Company.

Among the interesting books received but not adapted to review in Prof. J. H. Randall's department is a portfolio of Industrial Paintings by Mr. Gerrit A. Beneker, A. P. Johnson Co., publishers, Grand Rapids, Mich. The portfolio contains fifteen full-color reproductions of Mr. Beneker's well known industrial paintings with accompanying interpretative editorials by the artist. Each illustration measures seven by eight and one-half inches.

Mr. Beneker seems to have been given the mission of redeeming modern industry from the crude brutality of its origin and bringing the factory and its worker into the human tradition of beauty and significance. This aspect of contemporary art is valuable in that it helps the worker to realize emotionally the connection between his job and the world. It is good to know that these portfolios have been taken up by schools and colleges where their educational value is appreciated.

We are reminded by a discriminating reader that world unity is not "a development to applaud but a problem to solve". If this publication so far has given the impression that it was established merely to watch from the side lines a thrilling game bound to be won by the favorite players, we hasten to correct it. The primary intention of the editors was to provide a vehicle for the expression of a definitely emerging state of mind-a state of mind recognizing no conventional boundaries in the world of reality which surrounds and must eventually prevail in the social world.

From this new state of mind there has already been born a conviction which is rapidly altering the outlook of science, religion and industry.

That collective mass of habit which determines the structural forms of society must follow and not accompany the intuitions of the more advanced individuals. We may assert that a given development is inevitable if the state of mind demanding it has actually been established among the leaders throughout the social group concerned. It is already justifiable to have faith that world unity will prevail, since the consciousness of world unity has already manifested itself among significant individuals among all races, nations, religions and classes. But there is nothing in the inner attitude worthy the name of faith to permit the assumption that those who believe in human solidarity expect it to come without agonies scaled to the sublimity of the vision. If we study the spread of every ancient religion which has attained vital life and influence, we perceive that its area of effective influence was predetermined by the boundaries of some common suffering and discipline. The suffering and discipline of humanity have become worldwide, therefore the next form of social integration can fill the same area. In transitional eras the backward looking people make the supreme mistake of considering as unimportant those who are least adapted to current standards of excellence because they are striving to attain excellence of a totally different kind. [Page 361]

THE WORLD UNITY CONFERENCES

'N the World Unity Conferences a new and distinctive type of public meeting has been established, one which strongly appeals to all who desire to come into contact with the forces making for universal unity yet prefer not to identify themselves with any formal organization through membership or dues.

A World Unity Conference consists of several consecutive meetings at which responsible leaders in the fields of education, science, philosophy, ethics and religion interpret those fundamental principles of human association capable of overcoming traditional prejudice and promoting the ideals of brotherhood and world peace.

Conferences are held at frequent intervals in cities throughout the United States and Canada. These meetings are open to all, without dues, admission ticket or collection. The committee will be pleased to receive correspondence from organizations and individuals willing to cooperate in the extension of this independent platform dedicated to the promotion of harmony and understanding among religions, races, nations and classes.

Program of Meetings-January-May, 1928

Philadelphia, Pa.-January 18 to 24 Washington, D. C.-February 19, 20, 21 Detroit, Mich.-March 20, 21, 22 Cincinnati, Ohio-March 27, 28, 29 Cleveland, Ohio-April 23, 24, 25 Portland, Maine-May 21, 22, 23

WORLD UNITY CONFERENCES, 4 BAST 12TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY

I am interested in the aims and purposes of the World Unity Conferences. Please send announcements □ I will cooperate locally □

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