World Unity/Volume 13/Issue 2/Text

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WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Volume XIII, November, 1933

World Unity is World Faith ..... Editorial While Armies Grow. ......e0e6- Stanley A. Coblentz World Advance ...... 2. ee eee Oscar Newfang Albert Schweitzer: Christian

Superman... 1 1 ew ee ee ww Robert M. Bartlett World Citizenship ........e.. Carl A. Ross Is There a Cyclic Rise and Fall

in History? ...+st*tt ew w @ Hans Kohn The Line of the New World ...... Edlington Moat World of Reality .........-. Ruhi Afnan

Notes on the Present Issue

65- 68 69- 8] 82- 88

89- 97 98-107

108-114 115-119 120-127 128 �[Page 65]WORLD UNITY IS WORLD FAITH

EDITORIAL

1. The Interpreter of Human Values

HE existing condition of the world may be likened to the | meeting of a nuinber of people come together for the trans- action of matters of vital importance, and for lack of a common language utterly unable to proceed. First one, then another endeavors to bring order out of the confusion but their words of appeal, of suggestion, of warning are uttered in vain. Under the compuision of mutual necessity the meeting, though sterile, dare not disperse. Without capacity to organize under any definite procedure, recognizing no chairman and possess- ing no agenda, the gathering of isolated individuals moves more and more restlessly to break down the barrier of complete separa- tion that seems as fragile as tissue but resists every effort with the strength of steel.

Meanwhile upon each participant the feeling of impotence in the face of grave necessity presses like a grievous burden, a burden growing heavier each moment but a burden which none can lay down. Anxiety sharpens to fear; the very urgency of the need for unified action magnifies their inability to act. The meeting, instead of serving as a channel for the powerful stream of mutual agree- ment and decision, becomes a dam behind which the pressure of Necessity acquires ominous force. It lacks but little to transform this blind and futile groping into the destructive explosion of a maddened mob.

The comparison, alas, is no mere cynical reflection upon the course of world affairs since 1918.

What we have acclaimed as modern civilization has brought into physical meeting the peoples of all races and all lands. It has provided the means of contact. It has produced the political and

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economic problems that must be solved if humanity would survive. But that civilization of material achievement has by this very inter- national contact and meeting sharply emphasized the inner isola- tion dividing into separate masses the body of mankind.

The nations, races, classes and creeds so long dwelling apart in_determined isolation have indeed at last met face to face. All have come to this meeting conscious that the question of world unity holds the alternative between life and death. A mysterious fatality, however, nullifies their effort and mocks their intention, for the expression each makes of its own needs, no matter how sincerely felt, is a language untranslatable in terms of the needs of the other groups. Their contributions to the debate all alike reflect fundamental differences of condition, and these differences of condition produce the same result of foreignness as if each par- ticipant spoke in an unknown tongue.

How is this Babel of unknown tongues to find an interpreter? How shall a divided world translate the soul of the West to the East, the soul of the East to the West? What common language exists having mutual terms and values for those most alien of races, the rich and the poor? Where is the bridge of comprehension to throw across the abyss between Christianity and Islam? Who can render into the medium of simple human experience the urges, the hopes, the necessities that now speak the diverse languages of capitalism and communism? Farther apart stand the separate ex- periences of these great historic communities than a gathering of strangers who find that each speaks a different tongue.

For all its massive instruments of material power the modern world is impotent to determine its own future destiny. The mys- terious secret of unity eludes our grasp, and the post-war effort to achieve peace by mere formal legislation and treaty without basis in human unity has vastly multiplied the very problem it attempted to solve. Behind each pact and treaty the pressure of social unrest steadily gathers weight, a powerful stream of readjustment stopped by an artificial dam. Before our very eyes, in the full daylight of this civilization, one of the great nations of the world has been �[Page 67]INTERPRETER OF HUMAN VALUES 67

driven into the utter extremity of revolution; and this historic tragedy is presented as a final justification of the policy of peace founded on material force.

While the nations augment their power, humanity is betrayed and its future security undermined.

How long can we continue to ignore the sacredness of human life, the spiritual character of humanity and the laws and principles of the ethical realm denied and contradicted by political and eco- nomic enactments? Can society flourish upon a humanity trampled into the bloody earth?

These spiritually isolated communities, shaken with anxiety and

ing fear, need above all an interpreter each to the other, one whose knowledge draws from the whole of which they are but fragmentary parts. Without an embodiment of that hu- manity from which we are all fatally divided, nothing can prevent final disaster overwhelming this first contact and meeting of the sundered groups of mankind.

As an embodiment of humanity ‘Abdu’l-Baha came to this modern age at its early dawn. Throughout a life of seventy-seven years, more than fifty of which were spent in exile and imprison- ment, he asserted with superb and indomitable strength the sacred claims of humanity against the blind, partisan interests of race, class, nation and creed. If any human being ever fulfilled a mission created by providence, ‘Abdu’l-Baha stands with those few who have been fully conscious of a consecrated task. His life established a degree of human reality, an intensity of brotherhood, which never existed upon earth. He became a perfect exemplar of the spiritual quality of existence manifested by the prophets. Amid a divided humanity he gave substance to that most vital but most misunderstood of concepts—man.

‘Abdu’l-Baha was and is the first victory achieved in the name of universal peace. Within himself he reconciled the opposites which have arisen in society between East and West, between white, brown, yellow and black races, between rich and poor— opposites reflecting the profounder division of humanity into �[Page 68]68 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

saint, philosopher, scientist, executive. The record of his written and spoken words, charged as they are with a wisdom combining utter devotion and clearest insight, offers the one firm bridge across which individuals and communities can pass to attain inner sym- pathy with the other individuals and communities, their fellows in the one mankind. As unmoral concentrations of social power dis- close their inherent weakness; as revolutions foster on suffering and unrest; as new weapons of destruction are forged by a science divorced from essential truth; as a mighty wave of atheism gathers to overwhelm the few sanctions of recognized decency holding the desperate masses in check, the significance of that profound victory won by ‘Abdu’l-Baha for the bewildered conscience of a troubled age may be understood as it was not understood in those years of fatal immaturity which released the powers of war and revolution across the earth.

“Until the heavenly civilization is founded,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahé said to a public audience in America during 1912, “no result will be forthcoming from material civilization, even as you perceive. See what catastrophes overwhelm mankind. Consider the wars which disturb the world. Consider the enmity and hatred. The existence of these wars and (evil) conditions prove that the heav- enly civilization has not yet been established. If the civilization of the Kingdom be spread to all the nations, this dust of disagree- ment will be dispelled, these clouds will pass away and the Sun of Reality in its greatest effulgence and glory will shine upon mankind.”

Humble to the degree of nothingness in himself, ‘Abdu’l-Baha stood firm as rock in the conviction of the power of the will of God, and from that conviction strove to educate his fellowmen in the principles of human being which contain the very spirit of peace.

H. H. �[Page 69]WHILE ARMIES GROW by

STANTON A. COBLENTZ Author of “Marching Men,”’ etc.

VER since the summer of 1914, there have been few voices FE: deny that the most crucial problem confronting mankind

is that of mass murders, euphemistically known as warfare.

Here and there some pessimist has proclaimed the evil to be inherent and ineradicable; here and there some optimist has proposed some remedy centering about political or social reforms; and the main practical measures—which have been ineffective to check the growth of armies and of a warlike spirit—have centered about international conventions and organizations in which the old-time statecraft and diplomacy and international economics have been the guiding factors.

All this, of course, is generally recognized; but what is not generally recognized, and what is perhaps of dominating impor- tance, is that the world’s efforts and attention have been turned °.. the wrong direction. So, at least, it appears to me on the basis of a study of the history of warfare. To understand how to eliminate conflicts, assuming that conflicts can be eliminated, we must under- stand how they originally arose; and we must then remove the forces that brought them into being along with the forces that sus- tained and encouraged them. This is assuredly not a simple problem, nor one that can be solved with a word; yet I am convinced that careful research will show that the primary factors behind warfare are not economic nor biological but psychological; that organized conflicts did not arise until a comparatively advanced stage in human history; that they were due in the main not to a pugnacious instinct but to artificially cultivated emotions of jealousy, hatred, terror, covetousness, pride or mere imitativeness, and that in every war-

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like race from the Zulu to the Nordic we will observe the deliber- ate and systematic stimulation of that psychology without which combat could not exist.

Within the limits of an ordinary-sized article, it is not pos- sible to illustrate fully this thesis; it is only possible to present a few examples indicating its essential truth, and pointing to the con- clusion that the one realizable method of averting future conflicts lies in the cultivation of a world psychology unfavorable to con- flict, instead of—as at present—a psychology that tolerates fighting as desirable or inevitable.

It may be remarked, to begin with, that were fighting normal- ly either desirable or inevitable, it would not have been necessary for military leaders throughout history to resort to all manner of artificial incentives to warfare—one does not have to put a cat through a special course of training before it will chase the mice. But the fact is that a majority of men in all lands and ages have fought not so much because of the fighting itself as for some ul- terior object—and it is this ulterior object that military leaders have had to dangle before their followers like the bait before a reluctant fish.

In general, one will find five main motives for warfare among peoples both civilized and uncivilized: the blood-feud; the relig- ious, ceremonial or traditional incentive; the desire for slaves, land or booty; the quest for personal honors or renown; and the hatred, jealousy, suspicion or fear of some powerful opposing fac- tion. Let us, therefore, inquire into each of these five sources of conflict, and try to observe whether the primary forces behind it appear to be inevitable impulses or merely a cultivated psychology.

Turning first to the blood-feud, we find a phenomenon large- ly confined to primitive peoples or to peoples living amid primi- tive surroundings, although it is obvious that we have here one of the ancestors of modern warfare. And what are. the character- istics of the blood-feud? Is it built upon blind and ungovernable passions? Is it a thing that social usage could not affect or banish? Does it follow the necessary laws of human nature? Its origin, to �[Page 71]WHILE ARMIES GROW 71

be sure, is usually in resentment at some injury or fancied injury; but is such resentment allowed to take a natural course? An answer is to be found among the Negritos of the Adaman Islands, who are content to revenge a murdered clansman by killing some one on the opposite side, even though the murderer escapes unscathed; or among those New Guinea savages whose feuds are mathematical affairs, since they fight until each side suffers the same number of casualties; or among the Easter Islanders, who would have to pre-— pare for war upon the call of the nearest of kin to the murdered person, and who fought until the slayer was slain, after which they engaged in a sociable banquet on the bodies of the fallen. Not less significant are those vendetta which arise from the dual organiz- ation of communities, and which continue after the original cause is no longer remembered or understood; while the part played by custom and tradition and an artificially developed hatred will be equally apparent from numerous other cases-—for instance, that of the Iroquois Indians, who for generations fought as toes of the French, thanks to the error of Champlain in attacking a party of their chiefs; or that of the Patagonians, who conceived an un- quenchable hostility to the white man because of the crime of Magellan in kidnapping several of their tribe, and who remem- bered the abuse so well that their descendants attacked Sir Francis Drake upon his arrival three generations later.

The second great motives for warfare—the religious—has existed not only among savage peoples but among the civilized, and has had its roots in those same inflamed emotions that have been responsible for most other forms of religious hysteria. Only a few examples need be given, though a voluminous work might be devoted to the psychology behind the religious wars of Europe alone. Even among early or half-civilized races, religion has been one of the forces making most strongly for warfare; among the head-hunters of the South Seas it has sometimes been powerful, owing to the belief that it was necessary to have a few alien heads at the funerals of chiefs, or to propitiate the agricultural gods, or to insure good fortune after they were planted beneath the foundations �[Page 72]72 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

of a new building; while among those ferocious fighters, the Az- tecs, “the great object of war”. . . according to Prescott, “was quite as much to gather victims for their sacrifices as to extend their empire.” In none of these cases, surely, will any one claim that there was any fundamental human instinct making warfare either desirable or necessary.

But probably the climax of the artificial cultivation of a re- ligious psychology of war is to be seen among the sword-bearers of early Islam. Here, underlying one of the fiercest waves of con- quest the world has ever witnessed, we see the cunning and de- liberate fomenting of a psychology of battle through a skillful manipulation of the prejudices, greed and sensual desires of the masses of men. The most obvious inducement—the inducement of tiches—was offered by the rules regarding the distribution of booty; the spoils of conflict were to be divided among the com- batants and among the non-combatants by a gr .ed system, in which each person was to be awarded according to his rank and even those of low degree and women were not to be overlooked. Thus was laid the basis for an enduring military aristocracy; and thus the military spirit was perpetuated, since the national income was dependent upon successful warfare and all persons alike had a direct pecuniary interest in the outcome.

Here, of course, we are verging upon a third of the motives for warfare, the “raids for booty”—a motive so closely interconnected with most of the others that it is impossible to avoid an occasion- al overlapping. We see the religious impulse more clearly in various tricks and stimulants the Moslems employed to engender a warlike state of mind. There was, for example, the time when a strong wind blew out the fires of Mohammed's foes, and when the prophet tayght his people that Allah had intervened; there was, again, the occasion when, following the assassination of Othman, the governor of Syria flaunted the bloody garment of the murdered man and called upon his people to draw their swords in vengeance. But perhaps the culminating inducement was the promise of reward for the courageous warrior—reward not only in the Here, but in �[Page 73]WHILE ARMIES GROW 73

the Hereafter. Just as the slain Indian fighter would be trans- ported to the Happy Hunting Grounds, and just as the Viking would be borne aloft to feast and battle in the great hall of Val- halla, so the faithful follower of Islam would pass through the gates of Paradise, and would these spend his days in voluptuous indolence amid the seductions of women and wine. ‘Fight valiant- ly, and care not what happens!” was in effect the message thundered into the ears of the devout. “If you live, you will have gain and pleasure in this world; if you die, your pleasures will be never- ending in the next. Spread the faith of Allah and of his prophet to the furthest corners of the earth; plunge your swords into the hearts of the non-believers, for thus will you gain the crown of perpetual delight!”

Is it any wonder if, beneath the prod of such fanaticism, the Moslems developed an irresistible fighting organization and won some of the most startling triumphs in history?

When we turn from the religious to the more obviously pre- datory motives, the raids for booty, land or slaves, we are con- fronted with phenomena responsible for no little difference of opinion; for while all will admit the conspicuous part that the de- sire for spoils or conquest has played in warfare throughout the ages, some will hold that that desire is not only inevitable but must inevitably give rise to combat regardless of anything in the de- veloped psychology of man. This point of view, however, is not seconded by the facts. There is evidence, as I have already stated, that organized conflicts did not arise until a comparatively advanced stage in human history; and this evidence is based upon many con- verging lines of inquiry, such as the absence of any sign of battle in the cave-drawings and relics of Paleolithic times, and the more direct testimonials of the megaliths and other monuments of the Bronze Age, which point to the view that there existed an archaic peaceful European civilization which was disrupted upon the spread of agriculture and the discovery of metals. In conformity with this conclusion we have evidences that early Egypt and Crete- were both essentially unwarlike; while even more striking is the �[Page 74]74 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

fact that there are some recent primitive peoples whose vocabularies boast no word corresponding to ‘“‘war.” Thus we have the state- ment of Nansen that, to the Greenland Eskimos, warfare is ‘‘incom- prehensible and repulsive,” and that soldiers are regarded as “mere butchers;” while various other peoples in widely scattered parts of the earth, from Lapland to the Phillipines and from Tierra del Fuego to Ceylon, from the Bushman of South Africa to the Negrito of the Congo, the Punan of Borneo and the Kubu of Sumatra, have not yet evolved to the state of fighting. It must be admitted that these non-combatant tribes, to whom mass cruelty and violence are unknown, are among the crudest of savages; it must be admitted that they have none of the arts and graces of civilization, and have not developed even to the point of tilling the soil. Communism is the general rule among them; in other words, private property as a source of dissention has not yet arisen, and we are therefore led toward the conclusion that the rise of property and the growth of warfare were simultaneous.

This conclusion, which is supported by a wide variety of evi- dence, is not to be taken to indicate that the rise of property made warfare unavoidable. But it did make warfare advantageous to some and alluring to others; and it did bring into being a large number of conflicting interests which were likely to give birth to conflicting aims and desires and hence to conflicting arms. But the source of the danger was exclusively in the psychology of man, and mainly in a psychology of individual greed, a psychology more like that of two women competing for the gaudiest bonnets than of men contending for the crust without which they could not exist. An examination of savage warfare—as of a more advanced war- fare—will show the contests are not often for the essentials of life, not often to satisfy that hunger whose neglect would mean group extinction. Rather, it is the secondary things, the means of transpor- tation, the man-made implements and articles of exchange, which are the objects of raids for booty, as among the Kenya tribes of Africa, whose wars are merely cattle-stealing expeditions in which men are seldom attacked unless they attempt to defend their prop- �[Page 75]WHILE ARMIES GROW 75

erty; or as among the Indians of the North American plains, who would engage in wars that were nothing more than systematic horse-thievery, and whose object was to steal their enemies’ steeds and to avoid their enemies. In such cases it would be ridiculous to as- sert that a pugnacious instinct is at work; rather, it is the acquisitive impulse that dominates; and since the acquisitive impulse develops only with civilization and with artificial standards and valuations, it is apparent that we have here a force that is neither unavoidable nor ineradicable, but that has its roots in a cultivated psychology.

What may be said about primitive races may be said even more emphatically of advanced peoples. It is known how, through- out ancient times, the warrior was tempted to fight less by the actual zest of combat than by the thought of the goods to be won; how the Assyrian, for example, would be lured by the expectation of vast booty and of a seven days’ regal feast in case of victory; and how the Romans would engage in organized plundering after the conquest of a city, so that, according to Polybius, “half of the army disperse to pillage and the other half keep their ranks and afford them protection.” Warfare thus meant little more than a form of sanctioned robbery, of state-protected brigandage; it remained true to its ancestry in cattle thefts and raids for booty; while by develop- ing and inflaming the cupidity of the average man, by spreading a veil of respect about that cupidity and rewarding it with fabulous gifts in case of victory, it favored a psychology that made wide- spread combat possible and yet had as little relat:on to a combative instinct as have the aims of the professional safecracker.

That wars for conquest are an occupation of civilized or semi- civilized but never of primitive peoples; that no true economic end has been served by the so-called “economic” wars of history; that the peoples most successful in capturing foreign land and the prop- erty have been the most speedy in precipitating their own doom; that it has not been any instinctive need but rather an artificially perverted psychology that has been responsible for all or virtually all of the wars for propezty—are propositions for which the evi- �[Page 76]76 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

dence is voluminous, but which we must pass over in order to con- sider the next of the great forces behind conflict.

Military leaders, as I have indicated, have never trusted to the fighting instinct as a sufficient spur for the rank and file of men, but have always been careful to bring various psychological forces to their aid. Two of these, the greed of gain and the religious in- centive, we have just touched upon; another is the promise of some such sensual reward as the early Moslems made when they gave their soldiers permission to take as slaves as many women of the con- quered territory as they wished; still another is the power of fear, which has been efficacious even in modern times, when soldiers have been threatened with monstrous penalties for trivial breaches of military regulations, evidently according to the theory that they will fight only when compelled to fight. Beyond this, I might men- tion the sheer spirit of imitativeness, of submission, of docility which has permitted millions to be enlisted in defiance of their desires of their will; while, turning to an even more important motive, we will observe how largely the vanity of men and their longing for honor, glory or personal distinction have been played upon in order to make good fighters of those who would ordinarily have fought but poorly, or fighters of those who would not ordinarily have fought at all.

In the background of every successful military system the world has ever known, we will notice a dangling and flaunting of trinkets and badges, of titles and various gauds and insignia of merit—the sweets held out to entice the reluctant or the war-weary fighter. What the gold stars of honor and favorable “report cards” are to a child at school; what flung garlands are to an actor or the plaudits of the press to a public speaker; what the shouts of the multitude and the pins and cups of victory are to a successful athlete; what the flaunted pennant is to the leading baseball team or a gold medal to the hero of some life-saving feat—all this and more the tributes and awards of valor have been to the triumphant warrior. For it has been the object of military leaders to focus the gaze of their followers not upon the fighting itself or upon the �[Page 77]WHILE ARMIES GROW 77

direct or ostensible aim of fighting, but rather upon some ulterior goal glamorous with haze of personal glory or renown. ‘Fight well, and the coffers of your commanders will be filled!”; or “Fight well, and your Captain will rise to leadership of the State!”; or “Fight well, and you will serve as an efficient cog in the military machine!” would all be appeals that, whatever their truthfulness, would in- spire but little zest for battle; but “Fight well, and your glory will be paraded before your envious fellows!” is a plea that has often served to raise men to the last pitch of endeavor.

Let us notice in passing some of the specific awards or honors offered by various military peoples. Among the Aztecs, for ex- ample, there were several military orders, each with their distinc- tive privileges and insignia; and in addition there was a “sort of knighthood of inferior degree,” which, as Prescott drily re- marks, ‘‘was the cheapest reward of martial prowess.” Among the Zulus, as among the Hiung-nu of the Mongolian plains, the privi- lege of official admission to manhood was reserved for those alone who had taken human life; among the North American Indians, those who could first reach and scalp their fallen enemies were the most honored, and the competition to be foremost in this accom- plishment often took on something of the spirit of a game; among the Banyoro of East Central Africa, the princes of the royal house were permitted to fight among each other for the honor of the throne after the king had been driven to suicide; among the As- syrians, the heads cut off by each warrior would be systematically registered by the scribes, and each soldier expected a reward pro- portionate to the number of his victims; among the ancient Persians, the youths were trained in all sorts of military competitions from the age of five years, and could expect honors commensurate with their prowess; among the early Greeks, the armored warrior strode forth for popular approval and applause much as does the football hero of today; among the Romans, there was a graded system of decora- tions for courage or distinguished service, the higher officers re- ceiving wreaths and a sort of spear, basta pura, and the privates and Non-commissioned officers being granted necklets, bracelets, and

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medals which were little more than large round metallic plates.

It would be possible to,continue indefinitely, and to cite ex- amples of honor awarded the successful among the sumurai of Japan, the Janissaries of Turkey, the knights of Medieval Europe, and the common soldiers of every army from those of ancient times to those of Napoleon, of modern Prussia, and of the World War. It would also be possible, on the reverse side, to cite examples of. the red terrorism that has been universally brandished to cow the unwilling or the insubordinate; of the Aztec death penalty for the disobedience of orders, of the Zulu practice of killing the “cow- ards” in the ranks after each battle, of the Roman system of gradated punishments, which extended even to the decimation of whole companies or regiments, and of the Mongol penalty of instant and wholesale execution ‘ un, ~.fense o: {).:.ci offense, so that if two or three out of a division of ten horsemen were seen to turn and flee on the day of battle, the remaining seven or eight could expect to be put to death. Enough has already been stated, however, to indicate that man’s natural love of recognition and reward, no less than his natural dread of humiliating or death-dealing penalties, has been generally employed as a tool to make fighting possible when armies might otherwise be incliied to disband.

The last—and in modern times perhaps the most important of the psychological forces making for warfare—has been an arti- ficially cultivated jealousy, suspicion, hatred or fear of an impor- tant neighbor or rival, which is to be considered in connection with a sense of national fame, glory or renown that is likewise artificial- ly cultivated. We all know how easily the emotions of men can be played upon to produce an unreasonable aversion to an individual or a group; we all know how simple it is to throw open the door to prejudice, particularly in connection with things foreign or not easily understood; we will recall, for example, how Catu the Cer: sor, with his insistent propaganda, “Carthage must be destroyed! Carthage must be destroyed!” was largely instrumental in pre cipitating the Third Punic War; and we will remember how simi- lar propaganda has been employed more recently to drive whole �[Page 79]WHILE ARMIES GROW 79

peoples to that fever-point at which they were as little capable of calm reasoning as a bull charging a red flag. It will not be necessary to dwell upon any remote historical examples, for no more apt illustration could be cited than that of the recent World War, during which the masses of the people were as pliable in the hands of their leaders as trained dogs in the hands of circus performers. By means both negative and positive the rulers set about to inflame popular emotioris and to turn them in the desired direction; neg- ative, by the distortion of truth or the suppression of information, by the hounding of conscientious objectors and by the tyranny of censorship, which asked of every bit of news not “Is it truth?” but “Is it propaganda?” and which muzzled even the acknowledged intellectual leaders of the nations, so that men so distinguished as Liebknecht in Germany, Bertrand Russell in England and Romain Rolland in France suffered persecution, imprisonment, or forcible silencing in the face of the grim censor of views.

Even more striking were the positive methods—the methods of propaganda—which the heads of the nations employed to arouse a warlike psychology. The means were obvious yet effective: preachers fulminated from their pulpits, and “‘four-minute” speakers delivered their lightning denunciation; political orators haran- gued, newspapers launched inflammatory editorials, and cartoon- ists drew provoking pictures; pedagogues pleaded for the “Defense of home and country,” trained writers painted the foreign wolf in the act of devouring the domestic lamb, army leaders iterated and feiterated the duty of enlisting and the shame of shirking; prom- inently displayed posters represented the joy and the glory of com- bat, indicated the delight and the exhiliration of “going over the top,” and portrayed the soldier as a knight rescuing imperiled in- nocence from a vulture or a gorilla, reports of enemy atrocities were carefully circulated, accounts of native atrocities were dis- creetly suppressed, a reason-drowning frenzy of resentment was aroused; while public opinion was kindled to such heat that he who would not endorse the war by wora and by action was scowled �[Page 80]Ro WORLD UNITY MAt AZINE

upon, was virtually ostracized, and he who would win favor and applause had no course but to how! with the multitude.

Hence the World War demonstrated how populations of scores of millions, most of whom originally did not desire to fight and felt no hatred of the enemy, might be trained almost at a mo- ment’s notice not only to tolerate the conflict but to participate actively and even vehemently. It demonstrated, moreover, how the actions of men in a state of artificially fanned excitement violate not only the restraints of reason and the demands of normal self- interest and desire but the very dictates of elemental humanity. That the German scholars should have taken up arms against the scholars of France is recognized as a crime which no amount of nationali § propaganda will ever expiate; that the . ive of Tokio shouid have exchanged shots with the native of Berlin, or the citizen of Vancouver with the citizen of Constantinople, or the denizen of the Indian jungle with the resident of Vienna, is a fact which no natural antagonism of interest or contact can explain. One can only conclude, therefore, that there was no natural an- tagonism, and that, had the psychological training been reversed, each of the warriors would have fought with equal zest on the opposite side.

Or, had the psychological training been different in kind rather than in direction, they would not have been willing to fight at all. Were fighting taboo, as it is, for example, among respectable citizens at a fashionable dinner-party, the masses would not lightly have broken the restraints of custom and education, but would look upon the warrior with that loathing with which they look today upon the bank robber or the murderer. Instead, however, of being frowned upon by tradition and public opinion and pre- sented as the thing of bleeding horror that it actually is, warfare is surrounded with a veil of glamour that makes it alluring to the modern man from the moment he leaves his cradle. As a child he has his drums, his toy pistols, his airguns, his tin soldiers; as a youth in college or even as a boy in High School he is likely to be compelled to engage in military drill; as a man, even if he does �[Page 81]WHILE ARMIES GROW 81

not dwell in one of those countries where universal service is com- pulsory, he will find that the government offers him the oppor- tunity of “military summer camps,” and in time of war he will find that it requires a rare type of bravery to defy the hysteria of the mob and remain away from the army. And all the while, no matter where he dwell, no matter whether or not a conflagration be reddening the horizon, he will be heir to the century-old military tradition of the West, which tends to exalt the things of the battle- field, which tends to make it more heroic to destroy than to create, which hides the terror and brutality of the carnage beneath blue veils of forgetfulness and stirs the spirit of youth with a frenzy irrational as the booming of the martial drums and the flaunting of banners and flags.

Equally potent is the belief, which is instilled in us in child- hood along with the faith in the infinite goodness of God, that wars are inevitable as the lightning or the tidal wave; that they always have been, always will be, and cannot be prevented by human effort. This fallacy, which has arisen almost to the status of a world-wide superstition, is as vicious as it is prevalent, for it does not require any profound consideration to convince us that wars, unlike the tidal wave and the lightning, are originated by the hand and the will of man and can be averted by the forces that produce them. In this there is nothing recondite or metaphysical but the merest common sense; yet the general unreasoning view is charged with a mixture of fatalism and mystical resignation, as though we were dealing with some inhuman and elemental force that cannot be curbed or repressed. And so long as this point of view predominates; so long as men falsely assume that wars obey a biological compulsion, that they have always existed and hence always must exist, so long may one expect the war-god to harass and blacken our planet. �[Page 82]WORLD ADVANCE A Monthly International Review

by Oscar NEWFANG

Author of ‘The Road te World Peace,” etc.

WORLD RECOVERY

HE sun is beginning to break through the clouds. Reports | from many countries of the world indicate that the world-

wide gloom of depression, unemployment and want, the

final aftermath and consequence of the terrible orgy of wholesale murder and destruction of the World War, is being slowly dispelled. Even so conservative a body as the Economic Commission of the League of Nations, in its report to the recent session of the Assembly, declared that conditions throughout the member states were better this Fall than they had been a year pre viously. While the first definite signs of world recovery are visible, however, the economic seas are still running high, and there are still a number of fundamental improvements that must be made before the world may expect again to enjoy an assured and con tinuous period of prosperity.

The Upsurge of Hope

The first condition necessary for world recovery is undoubted- ly the restoration of confidence, and there is increasing evidence that this condition is being es.ablished in the United States, in Great Britain, in France, in Germany, and in other countries. In the United States the transition from the deepest gloom, pessimism and paralysis of courage which prevailed at the close of the ad-

ministration of President Hoover to the bouyancy, the courage, 82 �[Page 83]WORLD ADVANCB 83

and the will to conquer adverse conditions existing at this time is nothing short of marvelous. In Germany, whatever one may think of some of the policies of the Hitler regime, it is clearly evident that there has been a rebirth of the national spirit of self-confi- dence, of courage, and of determination to make that country again one of the leaders among well-ordered and prosperous nations. In Britain, while the national temperament does not permit the exuberance of younger nations, the gradual return of confidence in the future and the growth of a dogged determination to see it through are apparent in the public prints and the utterances of public men. France, owing to the better balance between manu- factures and agriculture in her economic life, was not so deeply affected by the world crisis as most other countries, and her con- fidence in the restoration of her economic prosperity has therefore never been very seriously shaken. Mussolini has inspired Italy by the vision of the grandeur of ancient Rome and by his determina- tion to restore that greatness. Russia has just harvested the most bountiful crop that she has had in many years, and this has re- moved the danger of serious food shortage in that country for the time being and has enabled her to push forward her industrializa- tion with renewed confidence.

The Reduction of Unemployment

Undoubtedly the most important condition for the restoration of prosperity in ali countries is the removal of the heavy load of unemployment. At the deepest point of the depression there were estimated to be about thirteen millions of unemployed in the United States, about six millions in Germany, over two millions in Great Britain, considerable numbers in Italy and even a moderate number in France. Here, also, the vicious downward spiral has been stopped and has been reversed. Until the early part of the present year the continuous and rapid fall of prices caused the constant curtailment of manufacture and the constant decrease of employment. The increase of the numbers of the unemployed fur- �[Page 84]84 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

ther restricted the buying power of the masses, depressed prices further, curtailed manufacturing still further, and so again in- creased the ranks of the unemployed.

Principally through the heroic efforts of President Roosevelt this vicious tailspin of industry was stopped, we have come out of it and have again begun to climb. The policies adopted by the American President have, it is estimated, within a few months’ time reduced unemployment in the United States by almost three millions, and as these policies come into fuller operation it is con- fidently expected that they will result in the further absorption of several million more unemployed. If this result is realized, the return of these five or six million workers to earning power and consuming power will itself tend to absorb the remaining half of the unemployed and so fully restore the prosperous conditions in which every willing worker can find work. The spiral has been reversed and it is now an upward spiral.

This herculean feat has been accomplished by the American administration through one of the boldest economic measures of recent times, the National Recovery Act. Seeing that about one third of the workers of the United States were out of work, the administration, with the aid of Congress, established a code in each industry under which the weekly hours of labor are on the average reduced about one third, in order to take up the slack of employ- ment; and at the same time a provision was made that the weekly wage on the average should not be reduced, but rather increased equally by an entire industry, thus largely increasing the purchas- ing power of the masses of workers. While such a burden placed upon a single company would be unbearable, when placed equally upon all the companies in an entire industry it left them all equally capable of meeting competition within the country. It may be necessary temporarily to increase protection against unfair com- petition from ‘vithout the country.

In Germany, while it is difficult at present to obtain accurate statistics, it has been claimed that unemployment has recently been reduced by two and a quarter million. There has, however, �[Page 85]WORLD ADVANCE 85

hardly been time enough since the Hitler regime took hold to frame a complete plan for absorbing the unemployed and to carry it into ation.

From England, also, reports state that the amount of unem- ployment has decreased some 700,000 men within the last few months. France has not been troubled with an unmanageable amount of unemployment. In Italy Mussolini has been putting the unemployed at work in reclaiming marsh lands, in beautifying Rome, etc., and it is believed that the problem of the unemployed there, also, is gradually being solved.

The Steadying of Currencies and Revival of World Trade

While the next condition for world recovery, the stabilization of currencies and the revival of world trade, has not yet been met, the course of events has resulted in steadying the dollar and the pound in relation to each other, and it is probable that the problem of their stabilization will not much longer be shirked. If these two principal cucrencies used in world trade can be reduced to a stable felation to each other and to gold, the revival of world trade, which is even now beginning with their diminishing fluctuations, will be gteatly hastened, with a beneficial effect that will be felt in the economic life of all nations.

Representatives of the British Treasury have recently arrived at Washington for the purpose of discussing the war debt, and it is altogether likely that with this question there will be concurrent discussion of the desirability and the methods of achieving currency stabilization of the two principal world-trade currencies.

While it is to be hoped that these two great nations may bring their currencies back to a stable gold basis without repudiation of part of their contract obligations, such as occurred in continental countries; still, if this cannot be done, it would seem better to sta- bilize at two-thirds of their former gold values than not to stabilize at all. �[Page 86]86 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE Removal of War Debts

The third condition for world recovery is the removal of the inter-governmental war debts, which have made it impossible for Great Britain to maintain the gold standard, and which have been an unbearable burden on the continental countries. World-wide prosperity can hardly be restored while the gold reserves of the debtor countries are subject every six months to the heavy with- drawals necessary to meet war debt payments to America, pay- ments in gold being necessary because American tariff policy will not permit payment in goods. These gold shipments not only un- balance the budgets and destroy the national credit of the debtor countries, but each shipment of gold necessitates a tenfold contrac- tion in the credit structure of the remitting country, thus strangling its business life and preventing the return of prosperity.

The problem of war debts, however, is well on the way to final settlement. At Lausanne the payment of German reparations was finally closed by the distributed payment of $715,000,000, as against the original demand of the allies for over thirty billion dol- lars. ‘This settlement was contingent upon a like reduction of the allied indebtedness to America which has not been formally ef- fected. Unless i‘ .s effected, however, the result will probably be the default of Germany to the allied countries and the default of the allied governments to America. England has paid only about 10% of her latest instalment to the United States, and Italy and other nations following her lead have made even smaller “token” payments. France has paid nothing, and the countries following her leaa have also refused further payments.

While the total, outright cancellation of all war debts would cost America only about 3% or 4% in the total tax burden (na- tional, state and local) of the American citizen, and while the re- sulting benefits in the restoration of America’s export trade would doubtless compensate this sacrifice many times over; still, it must be admitted, the temper of the American Congress on this question �[Page 87]WORLD ADVANCE 87

is such that it would be very difficult to obtain ratification of any negotiations to cancel the allied debts at this time.

Under these circumstances a very ingenious plan for the handling of the debts due America is being discussed in Europe, by which the periodical payments would be made by the debtors to the Bank for International Settlements and by that bank imme- diately invested for a period of five years in loans to the same debtor countries that made the payments in the same amounts that each country has paid. If this practical waiving of debt payments for five years should result in such a world recovery that American foreign trade approached the peak figures of 1929, which were $5,496,000,000, then this demonstration of the overwhelming bene- fits of allied debt cancellation would automatically cause their can- cellation; but if this beneficial result did not follow, the loans made by the Bank for International Settlements in the debtor coun- tries would remain valid, and America’s claim to them would likewise remain valid.

It is contemplated that the loans made to the debtor countries should be used in public works, in order to reduce unemployment and restore prosperity in each country, and also that on such public works the forty-hour week should prevail, in order to absorb as many of the unemployed as possible. It will be seen that this plan is practically an extension of the N.R.A. to the world at large, precisely along the lines that the American delegation to the Lon- don Economic Conference contended would be necessary in order to make the Recovery Act successful in the United States. The whole plan would be a kind of World Recovery Act: a bold ex- periment, but probably the best way to muddle through a bad situation.

Progress Toward World Unity

While the measures thus far discussed will probably lead to a temporary world recovery of economic welfare, the achievement of permanent world recovery will be exactly in proportion to the abandonment of isolation by thé countries of the world and their �[Page 88]88 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

approach to world unity. The greatest single policy that is strang- ling world trade and world prosperity in all countries is the policy of placing ever greater restrictions upon trade and commerce by means of tariffs, preferences, quotas and embargoes. Just in pro- portion as this policy of strangling trade is stopped and reversed will be the permanent recovery of the world’s economic welfare. As Premier MacDonald of Britain has said, the world is an eco- nomic unit and in proportion as it becomes possible to treat it as such will be the benefit derived by every country from the ex- changes of commodities and of raw materials.

The world cannot be treated as an economic unit until it has first been organized as a political unit. While the League of Nations has made the first effort in the history of the world toward this grand objective of uniting the entire world of nations into an orderly political organization for the establishment of international justice and the maintenance of international peace, a much closer approach to world unity will have to be made in the League’s structure and powers before the nations can feel that full assurance against military attack which will enable them to reduce and to remove their economic armaments of tariffs and embargoes.

The League of Nations must be so developed that its rulings will be accepted throughout the world as international law, and so strengthened that its decrees will command peaceful obedience by every nation and every group of nations. The course of the League’s development must follow the historical development of the cantons of Switzerland, the states of Germany, the states of America, the provinces of Canada, the ancient communes of France, the three kingdoms of Britain. A properly proportionate representation must be established in the Assembly, the League must be equipped with air and naval forces sufficient to command compliance with its decrees, and it must be financed independently. of any requisitions made upon the states members which it has been’ organized to control and to pacify.

�[Page 89]ALBERT SCHWEITZER: CHRISTIAN SUPERMAN by

ROBERT MERRILL BARTLETT The First Church of Christ, Longmeadow, Mass,

NE of the momentous decisions of modern history was

de when Albert Schweitzer turned from the university

halls and cathedral organs of Europe and went out to Lam-

barene in French Equatorial Africa. For eighteen years

the philosopher-organist has toiled as a doctor of medicine to re-

lieve the most primitive and neglected of his brothers. The wizard

of books and art has become a mighty humanitarian. His spirit is a trumpet call that quickens the souls of millions.

Schweitzer as a man of letters is a colossal figure. His two- volume life of Bach, his “Quest of the Historical Jesus,” the two profound volumes that grew out of his Oxford lectures, ‘The De- cay and Restoration of Civilization” and “Civilization and Ethics,” ‘the striking lectures on “Christianity and the Religions of the World” given at Selly Oak Colleges, his “Paul and His Inter- preters,” and now his new work, on which he has labored for thirty years, ““The Mysticism of St. Paul” give some indication of the genius of this titan. But the man Schweitzer is to be found in the series of biographical books which reveal in humble, vivid narrative the spirit of a mahatma. The first two of these books made him a world figure and added the missionary to the incom- plete portrait which had presented him as artist and scholar. “On the Edge of the Primeval Forest” and “Memoirs of Childhood and Youth” describe what lay back of the Africa decision and the hospital work from 1913 to 1917. “The Hospital at Lambarene,” just published by Henry Holt, carries the story to 1927. Another book has recently been translated into English by C. T. Campion from the autobiography, ‘‘Selbstdarstellung.” �[Page 90]go WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

If we could enter his hospital today in the African forest we should find this “Alsatian giant, a lion who laughs,” to take a phase that Romain Rolland used in describing to me his much- beloved fellow musician, toiling with his artist’s hands to relieve the sufferings of the black race. Our souls would be stirred as we looked into the gentle and compassionate face. We should see lines of care written there by the nineteen years of herculean effort to redeem Africa.

At the age of thirty-four, Dr. Schweitzer began his study of medicine. He was determined to demonstrate that the ideal of brotherhood could bring understanding among races and nations. After four years of preparation, he and his wife turned from a comfortable income and international recognition to « nore radi- cal form of human service. They went out alone to what they felt was the most neglected sphere of human need. It was a titanic undertaking to go without salary or any resources except their own savings. They made it a venture of faith. When funds were exhausted they would go back to Europe for lectures and organ recitals. The project was so daring that in three years the world was watching them with keen interest.

The doctor tells me in a letter of last year how he began in 1913. His first operation was performed in a white-washed chicken house. Natives flocked to him and he was overwhelmed. He and his wife struggled to meet the challenge and soon gathered helpers and built a haven of mercy in the jungle. In 1917 they came back to Europe, both of them shattered in health. Doctors said they could never go back. Unable to get out of Africa because of the war, Schweitzer had kept the hospital going by borrowing money.

He was heart-broken to see the two nations he loved wrecked by the World War. His mother was killed and his father gave the last years of his ministry seeking to help the people of suffering Alsace. Dr. Schweitzer lifted his voice against the war and pled with men to outgrow their limited. national loyalties. His hospital was destroyed by native troops and had it not been for the Presi- dent of France he and Mrs. Schweitzer would have been killed. �[Page 91]CHRISTIAN SUPERMAN gI

He set to work to rebuild his hospital and combat the destruction of the war, saying, “I regard this war, all this hatred and confusion, only as a passing cloud. . . It is only another proof that this world is not yet the Kingdom of God, and it is all the more incumbent on us who believe in the Kingdom of God to labor for it.”

His recent autobiography, “Out of My Life and Times,” car- ries a record of his war time experiences. “As soon as it became known that of the white men who used to live on the Ogowe ten had already fallen, an old savage remarked: “What, so many men killed already in this war! Why don’t their tribes meet to talk out the palaver? How can they ever pay for all these dead men?’ For in native warfare those who fall, whether among the conquerors or the conquered, have to be paid for by the opposite side. This same savage expressed the criticism that Europeans kill each other merely out of cruelty, because of course they don’t want to eat the dead.

“When I was forbidden to work in the Hospital, I thought at first that I would proceed to the completion of my book on St. Paul. But another subject at once forced itself upon me, one which I had had in my mind for years, and which the war was now mak- ing a real live issue: the problem of our civilization. So on the second day of my internment, still quite amazed at being able to sit down at my writing-table carly in the morning as in the days before I took up medicine, I set to work on the Philosophy of Civilization.”

With determined effort the doctor began to analyze modern civilization seeking to find some ideal on which to rebuild its tot- tering structure. After weeks of study there flashed upon his mind, “unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, ‘Reverence for Life.’ The iron door had yielded and the path in the thicket had become visible. Now I had found my way to the idea in which world— and life—affirmation and ethics are contained side by side!”

“Without haste I put on paper, one after another, rough drafts in which I collected and sifted the material without reference to the structure of the treatise already planned. Along with iuat I began to write out single sections in full. I felt it every day to be �[Page 92]92 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

a great mercy that while others had to be killing, I could not only save life but even work as well to bring nearer the coming of the Era of Peace.”

In the fall of 1917 Dr. and Madam Schweitzer were carried from Africa to Bordeaux as prisoners of war. While quartered in the Caserne de Passage at Bordeaux, Dr. Schweitzer fell seriously sick with dysentery. After a time they were removed to the great Internment Camp at Garaison in the Pyrenees. He taxed his strength here trying to relieve the suffering of his fellow prisoners and by strenuous work on his “Philosophy of Civilization.” They were removed after several months to a camp at S. Remy de Pro- vence where they both suffered from illness. At length they were exchanged in the summer of 1918 and sent through Switzerland to Alsace. As Dr. Schweitzer tried to locate his father he saw his old time home ravaged by war. “So this was the peaceful valley to which I had bidden farewell on Good Friday 1913! There were dull roars from guns on the mountains. On the roads one walked between lines of wire-netting packed with straw, as between high walls. These were intended to hide the traffic in the valley from the enemy batteries on the crest of the Vosges. Everywhere there were brick emplacements for machine guns! Houses ruined by gun-fire! Hills which I remembered covered with woods now stood bare. The shell-fire had left only a few stumps here and there. In the villages one saw posted up the order that everyone must always carry a gas-mask with him.”

Following the Armistice, Schweitzer served as doctor in the Strassburg Municipal Hospital and as curate of S. Nicholas’ Church, working valiantly for the relief of all war-sufferers. The operation of the Lambarene hospital had gotten him hopelessly in debt. In spite of his poor health he started to raise monev to meet his bills. He traveled over Central Europe, Scandinavia and Eng- land, playing the organ and lecturing on philosophy, religion and medicine. Everywhere his magnificent mind, his humble and gentle nature and his contagious enthusiasm won him new followers. He made a tremendous impression. But his health was bad; he could �[Page 93]CHRISTIAN SUPERMAN 93

not yet return to Africa. He threw himself into the creation of his monumental work on philosophy and gathered up new workers —doctors, nurses and helpers—and accumulated drugs and equip- ment. At length after this long exile in Europe, he set sail for the jungle. His wife and daughter were too frail to go with him, but they willingly met the sacrifice in order that the hospital should be kept going.

On his return he found the hospital overgrown with jungle gtass. A corps of workers had tried to keep the institution under way, but without money and with the ever-hostile brush, the place had fallen into a state of ruin. There was no place to store new supplies; the roofs were full of holes. The whole burden of the institution and its work was again upon him!

He found hospital patients dying as the result of chills because the rain came through the faulty roofs and drenched their beds. After a frantic effort he got a few carpenter helpers, but these men soon quit because they had an offer of more money cutting timber. The doctor therefore had to assemble his convalescent patients and set them to work. Every morning it was the same task; “routing the natives from behind their cooking-pots, flattering them, promising them food and presents, forcing the tools into their hands; and in the evening, seeing that all the axes, hatchets, bush-knives, and all unused material have been brought back. Sometimes I have half-a-dozen workers, sometimes a couple; often when I come down in the morning I cannot find a single one. They have gone fishing, or have left to visit their village and get a supply of food, or they had to go to take part in a great palaver. Then the work is at a standstill for days. The zeal of my colored folk to provide for those who will come after them better quarters than they have themselves is very small; they do not work for those they do not know.”

The kindly giant toils with patience in the midst of over- whelming odds. Again and again he was accused of taking the lives of his patients. Some elderly person with severe heart com- plaint would be brought in the last extremity of disease. The doc- �[Page 94]94 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

tor would sit up all night beside the sick man, trying to save him by means of injecting caffein, ether and camphor. If the man died his relatives might go out and say, “We saw them take our friend into the hospital in the evening, and he was alive. Then came the doctor, and was alone with him the whole night. In the morning they brought him out dead. The doctor killed him. He is a human leopard.”

The doctor has become a titan of courage in the Ogowe dis- trict. Unflinchingly, he welcomes all sufferers. Children come, their bodies plastered with the ugly sores of framboesia. Laborers come from the forests, their feet masses of ulcers. Old people are brought by their families, dying, and left naked, with neither blanket nor mosquito net, before the doctor’s door. He never turns them away; he is not afraid of their maladies, and is ever willing to assume the burden of their care. He keeps his courage up and exclaims: ‘Anyone who wants to do good under our African con- ditions must fight against any tendency to let his nervcs and temper be upset by all the big and little difficulties of daily life, and must retain his full joy in his work.”

From early dawn he is consumed with his crowded hospital. At noon he must administer rations to the patients and families who are cooking their meals on the grounds. He must expect to find some roof swept off by storm or the poultry house fallen in. He must hobble about as a cripple for weeks because he has been forced to work in the jungle and gotten ulcers on his feet. For the first year after his return to the run-down hospital he did not take a day off. “The burden of Africa is ever with me,” he writes me in a letter of September. “We are almost drowned in work here. I cannot come to my writing-table these days for all the toil of Africa.”

In 1925 the old, patched hospital became so crowded that Dr. Schweitzer determined on a daring change. Dysentery and famine suggested a move to a higher and more commodious site. Three doctors had been caring for 120 patients in two small rooms thit- teen feet square. There was no money available, but he believed

�[Page 95]CHRISTIAN SUPERMAN 95

that his enthusiasm would provide it. Therefore, he set to work to build a complete hospital. The jungle had to be cut down and materials prepared by hand. He enlisted the labor of all convales- cents. He went each morning with a boatload of them to the new site, put axes in their hands and encouraged them to begin clearing the woods. All day long they had to be coached and comforted. Without even the help of a carpenter, Schweitzer laid out plans for the new institution.

The artist, who might have been playing in the courts of Europe, laid each one of the piles for these buildings with his own hands. These sensitive hands, that had often played famous or- gans, handled the rough poles and struggled to set them into their foundations. It is a haunting picture of this great soul toiling in the jungle heat, tugging at these poles, bare-handed, with ulcers on his feet, worried each day over the care of some 150 patients, striving singlehanded to raise the capital and build a hospital which could care adequately for his black brothers!

One day, while lifting beams for one of the new buildings, he saw a Negro in a white suit sitting by a patient he had come to visit. “Hullo, friend,” cried the doctor, “won’t you lend us a hand?” “I’m an intellectual and don’t drag wood about,” came the answer. “You're lucky,” replied the great man. “I, too, wanted to be an intellectual, but I didn’t succeed.”

Here is a philosopher who shows us the relation between cul- ture and work. He believes that civilization begins with manual labor. Where workers are absent progress is impossible. Religion is to him only words until we roll up our sleeves and plunge into work to make conditions what they ought to be. He enrolls him- self among the toilers, and keeps his soul alive by hours with his piano, organ and his books. In 1927 his new hospital was success- fully functioning. ‘For the first time,” he says, ‘‘since I came to Africa my patients are housed as human beings should be.” Help- ers came from all parts of Europe in spontaneous response to this man’s sacrifice. Many have become financially interested in the Lambarene mission. The hospital can now care for about three �[Page 96]96 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

hundred patients, but the buildings and equipment are very in- adequate. The heroic doctor has been in Europe for the past year and a half seeking to perfect his plans for Africa.

Dr. Schweitzer’s international views are given in these quota- tions from his writings: —‘‘We crossed the threshold of the twen- tieth century with an unshakable conceit of ourselves and whatever was written at that time about our civilization only confirmed us in our ingenuous belief in its high value. Anyone who expressed doubt was regarded with astonishment. Many, indeed, who were on the road to error, stopped and returned to the main road again because they were afraid of the path which led off to the side. Others continued along the main road, but in silence; the under- standing and insight which were at work in them only condemned them to isolation. It is clear now to everyone that the suicide of civilization is in progtess. What yet remains of it is no longer safe. It is still standing, indeed, because it was not exposed to the de- structive pressure which overwhelmed the rest, but, like the rest, is built upon rubble, and the next landslide will very likely carry it away.”

“Civilization, put quite simply, consists in our giving our- selves, as human beings, to the effort to attain the perfecting of the human race and the actualization of progress of every sort in the circumstances of humanity and of the objective world.”

“The future of civilization depends on our overcomi: the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the tl hts and convictions of men today, and reaching a state of f' ope and fresh determination. The root-idea of my theory of the universe is that my relation to my own being and to the objective world is determined by reverence for life.”

“There has been created a social mentality which discourages humanity in individuals. Our society has also ceased to allow to all men, as such, a human value and a human dignity; many sec- tions of the human race have become raw material and property in human form.”

“In the education and the school books of today the duty of �[Page 97]CHRISTIAN SUPERMAN 97

humanity is relegated to an obscure corner, as though it were no longer true that it is the thing necessary in the training of person- ality, and as if it were not a matter of great importance to main- tain it as a strong influence in our human race against the influence of outer circumstances. Spiritual freedom, then, we shall recover only when the majority of individuals become once more spirit- ually independent and self-reliant, and discover their natural and proper relation to those organizations in which their souls have been entangled. Today the task is to get the mass of individuals to work themselves out of the condition of spiritual weakness and dependence to which they have brought themselves. Could there be a harder task?”

“Civilization originates when men become inspired by a strong and clear determination to attain progress, and consecrate them- selves, as a result of this determination, to the service of life and of the world.”

“The human race must be converted to a fresh mental atti- tude, if it is not to suffer extinction.” “A new renaissance, much gteater than that in which we emerged from the Middle Ages, is absolutely esséntial.” “All these hindrances stand in the path of the will to civilization. A dull despair hovers over us. How well we now understand the men of the Greco-Roman decadence, who stood before events incapable of resistance, and, leaving the world to its fate, withdrew upon their inner selves!”

“Are we going to draw from the spirit strength to create new conditions and turn our faces again to civilization, or are we going to continue to draw our spirit from our surroundings and go down with it to ruin?”

As for Schweitzer, he answers with a life of Christian enthu- siasm: ‘Those who have felt the discipline of suffering must enter the Fellowship of Pain and seek to deliver others from the fetters of sorrow!” .... “It is my desire to be a forerunner, preparing the way for this renaissance, and to fling my faith in a new humanity like a burning fire-brand into the gloomy darkness of our times!”

The thirty-cixth article in the series of ‘“‘Apostiles of World Unity” begun in October, 1927. �[Page 98]WORLD CITIZENSHIP

by

Cart A. Ross Lewyev

Iv. An Historical Remedy for the Depression: Exchange—Gold—Prices

(Continued)

O further illustrate how our political economy is me.ely a

study of the reactions within sixty odd national unit systems

of doing the world’s business, let us consider the current

problem of gold and gold reserves as presented by another

eminent authority. Sir Arthur Salter, in his recent book “Recov- » Says:

“Since gold has gone out of circulation as coins nearly every- where, the real function of gold reserves now is, not to meet the demands for internal use but to adjust foreign payments, so that, as the MacMillan Committee in England has pointed out, the basis upon which reserves are fixed now needs re-examination.”

From our present point of view the question seems to be whether we should re-examine the basis upon which our sixty na- tional reserves are now fixed or should we unify the sixty gold reserves? This problem is constantly coming up and some thi our supply of gold is too small and give appealing reasons for their position; while others argue that we have plenty of gold only it is not properly distributed and give appealing reasons for their posi- tion; still others advocate other theories, but all alike cling to the task of providing and maintaining sixty national currencies on the gold basis or on some other basis that makes use of our gold sup- ply; but we argue, why retain our sixty gold reserves when few people deny that the world today is one economic unit, one trading unit?

98 �[Page 99]WORLD CITIZENSHIP 99

Coming back to Salter, let us assume that the MacMillan Com- mittee is correct in its conclusion that “the real function of gold is... to adjust foreign payments.” This is easy to believe if we look at the way ocean ships have been switching gold back and forth across the High Seas during recent years to maintain national reserves from collapse. When the capacity of ships has been ex- ceeded we have seen gold “earmarked” for shipment as soon as ship capacity should be available; then it has happened that trade has changed so rapidly that “earmarked” gold in United States vaults was released before a ship was available to carry it to Europe and almost simultaneously other gold in bank vaults in Europe was “earmarked” for the United States. These violent fluctuations in gold movements have corresponded with fluctuations of simiiar violence in national currencies and exchange and these conditions,

ing our domestic trade, are brought about by our foreign trade, by our feeble and futile attempts to harmonize and stabilize sixty conflicting and competing national budgets, to minimize and stabilize the constant hopping “off” and hopping “on” the gold standard, a pastime indulged in by the majority of these sixty na- tions since the war. Surely these happenings throw a heavy duty on gold, a largely increased duty that cannot be evaded so long as we cling to our sixty national currency systems. The enormity of this duty of gold of adjusting foreign payments between sixty na- tions eagerly seeking sufficient gold to sustain their foreign trade and national currency on the gold standard, is shown by the in- crease in the volume of foreign trade since 1900, from twenty billions to sixty-seven billions (according to Roorbach, Foreign Affairs, October 1932) and by the decline in 1932 to around thirty billions. Is it any wonder that gold broke down in “adjusting foreign payments” under such conditions? For those who say we merely need more gold, so let us add silver, we would reply; ad- mitting that the sixty seven billion trade of 1929 needed more gold, how much more did it require, does anyone know? And supposing this gold had been supplied in 1929 would our boom have continued? Does anyone know? If the boom had not con- �[Page 100]100 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

tinued, what would you do with this gold in 1933 with less than half the trade? We do not advocate any attempt to find sufficient gold to “adjust foreign payments” under our sixty national gold reserves dependent on sixty budgets of sixty nations, many of them weak but competing in ta Geapueem foc werid nde We believe there is no need for so doing. We believe the time has come to do away with the sixty national gold reserves now so necessary to adjust foreign trade and to induce the sixty nations to join in one ace Id reserve and thus free gold from the

and ohn task of “adjusting foreign payments,” teniog gold the simple task for which it seems best fitted, namely, the redemption of one currency.

• * &

Approaching our gold problem again from another

that of prices of commodities and national price levels, we observe that our world depression is coincident with a fall in land and commodity prices spreading to all countries alike and, as a corol- lary, an equal rise in the commodity value of gold, irrespective of whether any country is “on” or “off” the gold standard. From this economic point of view, gold is always standard. Internation- al trade always accepts gold to balance trade, bullion gold, on the commodity basis of 23.22 grains of pure gold to the dollar, all else being discounted to this basis. After a country is “off” the gold standard its banks do not sell its gold holdings to the junk- man to enter the industrial arts, rather the banks appreciate their gold holdings in terms of their depreciated corrency to the old basis, in the United States to 23.22 grains of pure gold to the dol- lar. If all countries went off the gold standard, still the banks in all countries would cling to gold, we believe, inventorying it on the old basis. The clamor is now for higher prices of land and commodities and for lower prices of gold, so inflation is recom mended by many as the cure. But how much shall we inflate? The demand seems to be for enough inflation in the United States so that we can compete with the other of the sixty nations which �[Page 101]WORLD CITIZENSHIP ror

have already inflated. Very well, if we inflate does it remove the conditions that caused them to inflate? Will they not inflate stil more? It seems too much like an international race to see which of the sixty nations can inflate its currency to take advantage of the others; even if we assume that inflationists are right in claiming it will help their national commodity prices. The experience of Great Britain since 1931 does not argue that higher commodity prices follow inflation. How can national inflation or national managed inflation be practical for each of sixty monetary systems competing with one another for the lion’s share of world trade by this infla- tion? Surely under sixty such competing systems national inflation does not have a fair chance, we must do away with the sixty nation- al systems and adopt a joint currency backed by gold before infla- tion can have a chance to demonstrate its effectiveness. We do not mean to imply that we favor trying inflation since we see other basic objections to inflation that even a joint currency would not cure. The chief evil is pointed out by Slichter and Fisher in the following quotation:

“Suppose, Professor Fisher has suggested, that in 1896 you had put $100 into the savings bank and that you had allowed it to accumulate at 3% compound interest until 1920. You would then have had a little more than $200. You withdrew the money to spend it. Things cost at retail about three times as much as in 1896. When you spent your money, you found that you could not obtain as much for it as you could have obtained for your $100 back in 1896. You had waited twenty-five years. You had carefully saved the interest on your money during all that time. And finally, due to the rise in the price level, you found that you had less than when you started out.”

Even if we admit that inflation would bring commodity prices back to 1929, here is a weakness that would remain and one that illustrates how the common citizen with a small savings bank ac- count has as much need as any one of stable money conditions. If you answer that since 1929 this inflation has disappeared, the de- pression has squeezed out all inflation, so that now the common �[Page 102]ICc2z WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

citizen’s savings of $200 would buy double what his $100 would in 1896, this may be granted, but we note that many seek the in- flated prices of 1929; besides, why should this common citizen be forced to await a depression of great severity in order to get a return of his savings with interest? Must our financial system remain a “hazardous speculation,” must we gamble on what the price is to be when we need our money? Approach our depression from al- most any angle and sooner or later, by way cf exchange rates, na- tional budgets, gold reserves, prices, and the like, you encounter Currencies, our sixty crazy patchwork currencies, all of them suffer- ing from inflation, more or less serious, and threatened with fur- ther ravages from the epidemic disease. Slichter supports our position.

“The most urgent economic problem of Europe at the end of the war was the stabilizing of its currencies. When the war ended, no budget in Europe had balanced for a number of years. The ina- bility of most countries to meet their expenses either by taxation or by borrowing had compelled them to inflate the currency. (Inflation took various forms. In some instances the governments simply issued paper money; in others, the government sold treas- ury notes to the central banks in return for credits from the banks.) Even after the war had ceased, most nations were unable to balance their budgets and thus inflation continued.”

Again we would ask if the reader would not prefer to switch to a World Union with only one budget to balance and inflation uniform when, as and if, inflation is tried; and abandon the sixty national budgets and currencies we now have with inflation com- petitive and epidemic and grown to advanced stages in some na- tions but wholly out of control by sister nations?

Taxpayers today (and we are all taxpayers) are said to be on the point of revolution and the popular relief seems to be a mora- torium or a cancellation of numerous obligations, public and pri- vate, the claim being that they cannot be paid, that debtors cannot get income enough to pay their taxes; and there is a further de mand for aid, ‘we must help the farmer, we must help the laborer, �[Page 103]WORLD CITIZENSHIP 103

we must help the debtor,” and this aid always appears in the form of inflation by way of issuing more obligations of the govern- ment to provide this “aid,” whether public or private aid. This leads us to ask what better chance have these new obligations of being paid than those obligations which are to be cancelled or held under a moratorium? Also, if we admit these new obligations will be paid in due course, what relief is the taxpayer receiving? It is taxes anyway we turn and “aid” invariably means further or higher taxes. No, we do not advocate this procedure. We reaf- firm our belief that our trouble is due to a breakdown of credit; that public credit or government credit is basic and must be restored first; that our United States history shows that a World Union, by refunding operations, could put the public war debt—including reparations—on a sound basis; that in so doing it could effect great reductions in armaments and other government expenses, including interest on the pubic debt, and so reduce taxes to a point where they could be borne and paid by substantially all citizens be- cause our three reforms would restore credit. With credit restored the cash needed to liquidate all private obligations could be secured and no obligation be cancelled and no currency inflated. How could this be accomplished? Well, it is common knowledge that less than ten per cent of our business is now on a strictly coin-cash basis. If we doubled our coin-cash by inflation we would have only a ten per cent increase and few people would inflate our currency to double its amount. Can we expect a ten per cent increase to be effective? If we are to gain anything more the increase must come in the other ninety per cent of credit-cash; credit must be restored, and if credit is restored we do not need to double our coin-cash. Credit dollars are over ninety per cent of our bank cash and if this ninety per cent is restored and gold relieved of its duty of “ad- justing foreign payments,” our gold supply will be found suf- ficient for reserves for joint currency redemption till our volume of world business increases largely over that of 1929. Slichter clearly explains this process of making credit dollars, of making over ninety per cent of the “cash” we have used for many years, dol- �[Page 104]104 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

lars that are just as good and sound as our banking system; these credit dollars are the best kind of dollars so long as our financial and banking system is organized on a sound unitary basis and operated with reasonable efficiency and honesty.

“When a bank lends on a promissory note or a bill of ex- change, it does not usually advance cash. It is more convenient to both bank and borrower for the bank to give credit on its books in the form of a deposit account against which the borrower can draw checks. From his standpoint, of course, a checking account is equivalent to cash.... Far overshadowing all other results of the practice of giving checking accounts in exchange for promis- sory notes and bills of exchange, is its effect upon the volume of currency. If banks simply lent the money deposited with them by their customers, the extension of credit would not increase the number of dollars in circulation. But when banks grant credit by creating or adding to deposits subject to check, more is involved than a transfer of dollars already in existence. New dollars are created. Suppose, for example, that a number of banks possess a total of $1,000,000 in cash. If every borrower insisted upon taking with him the money which he borrowed, it would obviously be impos- sible for the loans of these banks to exceed $1,000,000. But if borrowers are willing to accept checking accounts instead of cash, the way is paved for the banks to lend more than they possess. As- sume that the banks lend $5,000,000, giving the borrowers check- ing accounts for that amount and keeping their $1,000,000 in reserve to meet demands for cash. Evidently there has been a net increase of 4,000,000 in the number of dollars. It is true that the new dollars are not stamped out of gold. They are credit dollars and they are created by the stroke of the pen rather than by dies and stamping machines, but their purchasing power is no less than that of the dollars coined at the government mint. In other words, the principal way in which dollars are created in modern economic society is by borrowing....To illustrate how the disbursement of cash is avoided, let us suppose that A borrows $1,000 from his bank and receives, as a result, a credit for that amount on its �[Page 105]WORLD CITIZENSHIP 105

books. He draws a check to pay a debt of $1,000 which he owes B. B happens to have his account at the same bank. He deposits the check which A gave him, the bank debits A on its books for $1,000 and credits B with the same amount. Simply by entries in the books, A has been able to use his loan to pay his debt, and the bank has not been compelled to advance a cent of cash. The process is essentially the same if A and B keep their money in different banks.”

There is nothing the trouble with this process as applied to 1933, except that lack of confidence has declared a moratorium on credit-dollars. When over ninety-per cent of our business is done on this credit basis so aptly expounded by Slichter, and less than ten per cent on the coin-cash basis, why should we stress relief on an increase in the ten per cent and neglect the ninety per cent? This is especially true of the United States today since we have such a large proportion of the world’s gold, over $4,000,000,000, back of the dollar as against about $700,000,000 which England holds back of the pound sterling. Increasing this swollen ten per cent item does not result in improving the ninety per cent item. This can be improved only by making our existing debts sound. By paying them confidence and credit, the ninety per cent item, will return; by cancelling our debts confidence and credit will further diminish the ninety per cent item. Our three reforms will enable us—as well as all other nations in the World Union—to pay our debts by new debts in the nature of refunding them at lower interest tates and under easier tax conditions; while if we follow the sixty national currency systems to cancellation and inflation, we shall cause acute hardships and grave injuries by cancellation and by inflation we shall create augmented debts at higher intexest rates and under more onerous tax conditions, whereby taxes will be increased and the future hold even less promise than the present.

Conditions, including values of commodities and gold, are bound to become more unstable by cancellation and inflation and stable values of commodities and of gold are what all people and especially our millions of savings bank depositors need. Un- �[Page 106]106 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINB

stable values are a necessary incident to our sixty national system basis and Slichter pictures this lack of equilibrium:

“It should be noted that the price level in the United States does not necessarily tend to be the same as price levels in other countries, because tariffs, the cost of transportation, and the impos- sibility of exporting or importing many articles or services pre vent that. But the relationship between prices here and prices abroad tends to be such that gold is neither exported nor imported. Moreover, it must not be supposed that a state of equilibrium be- tween price levels usually prevails and that periods of gold im- ports or exports are exceptional. Asa matter of fact, it is the state of equilibrium which is exceptional; it is constantly being ap- proached, but, before it is attained, conditions often change, and the price level which was below the point of equilibrium is now above it.”

This picture of price equilibrium vibrating between the United States and the fifty-nine other nations throws in relief our delicate and complicated economic machinery. Are we not beginning to see the weak parts, the parts that need redesigning? Is it not the financial features of cr economic system that break down under the strain of our new industrialism? Can we move to the left, will some form of socialism or radicalism give us the new financial pattern we need? How could socialism accomplish the internation- al exchange of basic commodities necessary to the attainment of a higher general standard of living? Can we be sure that socialism will even produce the goods needed for a general rise in the stan- dard of living? The Soviet experiment to date throws serious doubt on this, so let us hold fast to capitalism till communism proves that it can produce the needed wheat, beef, cotton, lumber, coal, oil, steel, houses, roads, autos, radios, refrigerators, bath tubs and other products of capitalism and not only produce them but also distribute them to the large majority of its people. In the mean- time, let us encourage the Soviet experiment so long as it is con- fined to Soviet territory, but let us stick to the system which has proved its capacity to invent and produce these blessings now �[Page 107]WORLD CITIZENSHIP 107

sought by all socialists and confine our efforts to affecting an equit- able distribution of these blessings by correcting and bringing up to date that part of capitalism that has broken down, let us re- design the financial system which fails to distribute the goods we know we can produce. This leads us primarily to currency, the medium of exchange, an institution that the socialists are unable to discard. Can anyone defend sixty currencies for one business community, such as the world now 1s? Especially when these cur- rencies are dependent on sixty nationa! budgets and on the stability of sixty local governments?

We have found that the divided allegiance of World Citi- zenship permits this world coramunity to unite in exterritorial af- fairs and at the same time preserve their separate “cultures, local institutions and local patriotisms.” Now we are contending that it will also make practical the adoption of three reforms that will permit us to retain the known capacity of capitalism to produce and effect a more equitable distribution of this wealth produced. We know capitalism can not only produce, but that it can pay high wages to its workers and thus effect a fair distribution of those blessings to all workers, but capitalism lacks stability, prices fluc- tuate violently and we are learning that when the fluctuation is downwards in all nations, confidence in capitalism is shaken in spite of its acknowledged capacity to invent and produce. If prices had remained stable, had not gone so high and suddenly dropped so low, times would still be good. Our economists, looking at this debacle, generally are agreed that our financial set-up is responsible for our ills. Having confidence that capitalism can produce, that it can pay high living wages, and knowing that its weakness lies in its delicate and complicated financial machinery, whereby prices fluctu- ate violently because of conditions that can be remedied, and knowing the remedy history points out, why do we hesitate to adopt such innocuous a reform as a single currency under World Citi- zenship principles? �[Page 108]IS THERE A CYCLIC RISE AND FALLIN HISTORY? by Hans KOHN

Author of “A History of Nationalism in the East,” etc.

HE history of the human race as far as we can trace it by | documents and by monuments of known origin, covers a period of some five thousand years. But the conception of human history as a coherent development erabracing all parts of the human race and stretching out through the whole time from its first beginning until its end is much younger. it is founded on two fundamental conceptions: (1) on the conception of unity, of a unique force which has created the Universe and which is sustaining and guiding it, uniting thus the apparently unconnected incidents of human activity and human passion into a whole fraught with meaning; and (2) on the conceptior: of Time as the active and dominating force of all life, as the everflowing stream which in its flow bears all the incessant changes of nature.

For primitive mankind both these conceptions were beyond its ken. Primitive men were appalled at the ever-growing diversity of phenomena, at the strangeness of life beyond their everyday reach, and, as soon as their mental forces grew, at the continuous and nevertheless monotonous turn of day and night and of the seasons of the year. Nature—and human life at that stage of the development of human thought formed an indissoluble and indis- cernible part of Nature—seemed full of demoniac forces sinistet and inexplicable. The most gifted races of antiquity, the Chinese and the Indian, overcame by a gradual development of mental faculties this panic-stricken helplessness before the phenomena of the outer world. The conception of Unity was the vehicle of this great victory. The diffuse, meaningless and contradictory mani- festations of experience were worked into a connection as manifes- tation of one force, called Tao or Brahman. But Lao Tse, the teach-

108 �[Page 109]CYCLIC RISE AND FALL 109

ets of the Upanishads and Buddha were still far from the recog- nition of human history as a continuous sequetice, as a march on a thousand roads to a common goal. With Lao Tse man formed part of Nature and had to adapt himself to its rhythm, to sink him- self entirely into its womb. In Lao Tse’s philosophy there was no room for the History of Man. Indian mentality never became reconciled to the Maya of History. In the fathomless depths of Indian philosophy all forms and all changes evaporated into an entirely formless and changeless Unity. Time was not the great driving force of human destiny. It was the enemy to be overcome. The salvation was a flight beyond all time, not into Eternity as the fullness of time, but into Timelessness. The hero of India was the man who broke the circle of History, who stepped out of Time. The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, who always stressed the conformity of his philosophy with the teachings of India, found no place in his system for history and became thus the great op- ponent of Hegel who, at the same time, proclaimed history the basis of philosophy.

Hegel’s conception of history derived from Christian theology as it had found its expression in Augustine’s De Civitate De. But the roots of this belief rest in the visions of the Jewish prophets who proclaimed not only the Unity of the Universe created by One God, but who saw God’s principal revelations in the history of his people and of all nations. God has been elsewhere a God of Nature or of the Soul. Here he became a God of History working from the beginning of time, his creation, to its fullness at its end, men and nations being the instruments of his plan. There was not only Unity: unity of mankind and unity of purpose; Time gained its full meaning as the formative principle of the life of the Uni- verse. Human history became the battleground of the decisive forces of Good and Evil. It was no illusion; no source of deep woe; it was the reality. Although God’s ways remain unknown and although history be full of contraditions, regressions and set-backs, nevertheless the belief prevailed that human history as a whole, seen not from the narrow outlook of man, but from the height of �[Page 110]I1io WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

God, was a continuous progress towards a definite goal, towards the Kingdom of God.

It did not matter whether men called this Kingdom of God by its religious name inherited from the religious traditions of Judaism and primitive Christendom, or by the name of a reign of justice and freedom as the liberal thinkers of the period of un- lightenment did, or by the name of the “‘classless society,” as Karl Marx did. Every revolution, even if undertaken under the banner of atheism, is a deeply religious phenomenon bearing as its core the hope of the coming of the Kingdom of God, of a new order of peace and justice, of a deep sense of history as the instrument for mankind’s advancement. The belief in a slow, but permanent progress in Human History cannot be proven by reasoning. It is even a paradoxical belief, as the belief in equality or fraternity is. What we see in history and in our time is always only a complete

of men both as regards their nature, intellectual and moral faculties, as well as their social status. Nowhere do we meet fraternity of men on a large scale. Nowhere do we see in history a real progress in all domains of social and personal life. Who can proclaim the superiority of our age of world wars, licen- tiousness and truculent nationalism over the period of Pericles in Greece, over the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages, over Chinese life 2000 years ago or over Asoka’s rule in India? The American “Babbitt” has today a ridiculous superiority-complex and he believes his standards of hygiene, plumbing and social morality to be the eternal standard of value for all civilizations. Miss Mayo’s book on India may best be explained by this unsophisticated belief and by the corresponding lack of insight into the relativity of those standards if applied to other periods of history or other civiliza- tions and into the intrinsic values of ways of life foreign and there fore often repugnant to us. Experience does not prove to us a Com- tinuous rise in human history even if we view it over long periods.

But neither does experience prove a cyclic rise and fall in human history. We witness, no doubt, the rise and fall of civiliza- tions in history. Civilizations (and we prefer to speak of civilize �[Page 111]CYCLIC RISE AND FALL Il!

tions rather than of nations, for until the last one hundred years, or a little more in the case of Western Europe, nations and nation- alism did not play any réle in history, whereas even today it is the civilization and not the political nationality which is of any impor- tance to humanity) rise and fall, blossom and decay, but who has penetrated the causes and the rhythm of this up and down? Strong military empires have broken down and disappeared completely, whereas pacifist people like the Chinese, the Indians and the later Jews have preserved their civilizations undiluted for many cen- turies. There seems to be a passive force of resistance, a soul-force, stronger than all mighty, expansive forces. The civilization of medieval times, the civilization of poor and primitive people, fol- lowed upon the breakdown of the splendor of Graeco-Roman civilization without any distinct connecting link; but the more it developed, the more it accepted certain basic principles of Graco- Roman civilization. Notwithstanding the differences and peculiar- ities of the successive civilizations in Europe, they can all be under- stood as the heirs of Judea, Greece and Rome, as blossoms and fruits arising from the same roots. But we do not wish to pretend that they form a unity, an unbroken chain of human history.

We see before us a plurality of kindred civilizations, one arising out of the other, developing often in its midst, but coming out into its own life, replacing the former civilization and being in its turn later replaced by another. Every civilization, every com- plex of social and historical phenomena has to fulfil its function and bears the germ of its decay within itself. No principle of civil- ization is eternal.

In the present time Nationalism seems the dominating form of political and social life everywhere. It exercises such an influ- ence upon human thought and action that it is thought a sacrosanct basic element of historical development. Men are singing odes to the praise of their nation. ‘Chey sacrifice their lives and more often their sound judgment and impartiality for their father or mother-lands. They are driven by the forces of nationalist mys- ticism to believe the freedom of a nation to be an absolute value, �[Page 112]I12z WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the highest good. But Nationalism as a political force is of very recent growth. It was unknown in Central or Eastern Europe a couple of centuries ago and in the East a few decades ago. And it is certain that in a not very distant future the civilization of Nationalism will perish and the period of national struggles and wars will appear to our grandchildren as remote as does the period of religious strife and wars to the present-day European; new forces will arise and will form their civilizations, a new page in human history will be written.

Not only in human history, but even in the history of every historical group is there a constant rise and fall. There is no cyclic thythm to determine the ebb and flow of this unfathomable sea. The keen explorer, however, going out into it, wishes to discover an instrument guiding him through the apparently meaningless flood of waves at the mercy of the winds. Man looking at history wishes to systematize the multitude of countless events, to under- stand them, to find a meaning in their changes and fluctuations, a regulating principle. He may believe in a continuous progress of human history or he may believe in a cyclic rise and fall in human history. These theories will help him to see his way in the wild ocean, to discover a meaning and a rhythm in the rushing on of men, groups and events, but they cannot be proven. They are ar- ticles of faith, not propositions of exact science. But men want them out of desire to justify their life, to make this short space of time between birth and death full of meaning, to continue their existence, at least in a very spiritualized form, into the future. Nietzsche proclaimed the tenet of the eternal recurrence of all his- tory. Given a limited number of elements of the world, and there- fore of historical situations, all historical events must occur again and again. Every minute of our life gains thus a great and awful importance, for it will recur over and over again. Our life in reality will never end. It stretches out into the most remote future. Such faith is certainly of religious importance, but it will not help us to explain history.

But history in our own time has shown us a development which �[Page 113]CYCLIC RISE AND FALL 113

could not be foreseen two hundred years ago. Until now we had no human history. There was a history of the Greco-Roman-European civilization, a history of India, a history of the Far East, besides several others which are less known to us or which have already disappeared. There was no unity between them, no cultural con- tact, no understanding. Indian or Chinese philosophy was unknown to Europe a few decades ago. The history and social structure of Europe or of ancient Greece were a secret to educated Chinamen or Japanese less than a century ago. Chinese scholars deeply rooted in an old civilization did not understand in the least European thought while Europeans stood equally amazed before the wonders of Indian social life or Indian psychology. There was no one Humanity, but several ones, all of them strange and dismal one to another. This is changing rapidly. Our humanity and, therefore, human history are becoming a reality in our days. There is no unknown spot, no unknown etl.nical groups left on the globe. Modern communications and economies have shattered age-long frontiers between civilization and nations. They meet and become acquainted. One learns from the other. The West has much to learn from the East and its ancient Wisdom, but in general the East is going West. East and West, only a century ago worlds asunder, do meet. The intellectual, political and social doctrines of the West are accepted more and more in the East and are form- ing the basis of the new free Nations of Asia, which soon will also be true of Africa. In America and in Russia new civilizations are being born and are rapidly spreading their influences through all continents. The earth has become larger.

This widening of the scene of human contact has had three consequences. Political and social organization has become more and more uniform. But beneath are the eternal questions and problems of life, of human conduct, of the meaning of the way men are treading through time. And it has been recognized that all the problems and all the answers in the wisdom of all civiliza- tions and of all epochs are essentially the same. The widening of the scene and the growing assimilation of the different nations have �[Page 114]114 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

brought with them new and more embittered conflicts. But unity of battleground—for the first time in history—unity of political and intellectual battleground means unity of meeting-place, means the possibility of a new united march of humanity on its path. The new situation has created, to repeat the closing words of my His- tory of Nationalism in the East, for the first time in history, some- thing approaching a uniform political and social outlook domi- nating the whole human race. Thence arises the possibility that all together may defeat present conditions and attain to a new human- ism of which free souls in all nations, whether in the East or in the West, have a presentiment today. Let us not look so much back to past history, but forward to the near horizon opening before a united humanity.

Reprinted from ‘‘The Aryan Path’’ by kind permission of the editor. �[Page 115]THE LINE OF THE NEW WORLD

The conspectus of a book ‘Towards Organic World Unity” in preparation by Foral Harmod

by EDLINGTON MoaT

‘ EPRESSION” has hit all of us more or less. It has all 1D the earmarks of an inexorable process—an iron trend and development. We feel it as an ever-increasing world-wide pressure, the screw tightening always more and more. We see everywhere about us attempts at escape through the adoption of more and more repressive measures, more “ protec- tive” if not actually recessive “ policies.” —What then is this thing that is happening? ... There must be achange! But what change? And the why and how of it?

Leading up to this depression, we find a process that has been going on for centuries and has now reached its climacteric. Its main feature has been a movement outward—an adver‘uring forth and a filling up and “conquering” of the earth: the “expansionist” period. And during this expansionist period, there is observable: —

1. The childhood of the race, with its romanticism, its be- liefs unsupported by science, its materialism and its egocentricity.

2. The dominance of the aggressive, enterprising type of man, with competitive self-seeking the principal incentive every- where.

3. “Isolationism”—separate settlements ... growths .. . sys- tems . . . nations, varying in language, manners, folkways; “for- eign” if not actually opposed to each other, not only as regards outlook, feelings, interests and evolutionary status, but as regards also geographic, climatic, economic, and other local and national conditions,

4. The industrial revolution; that is, the introduction (in more recent decades), of the power-tool driven by steam and elec-

115 �[Page 116]116 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

tricity; this machine acting as a determining and forcing factor, speeding up production and communication, rendering us more and more interdependent, and making imperative, finally, our present need for a change of direction and emphasis.

The change of direction called for is of the nature of “a re versal from the era of separating expansion to the era of unifying condensation.” The ever more limited area of virgin land to con- quer and the more and more threatening saturation point as to markets where we may dump our excess products at a profit pri- marily to ourselves, means simply that the choice is before us either of hanging on to what is fast losing its pertinence and validity, or of conquering the world in another dimension. The era of roomi- ness of the world as territory to set yourself up in regardless of “outsiders” having practically come to an end, we are being forced into togetherness whether we like it or not.

Now, along with this expansionist period with its sundering of tribes and peoples and theis self-sufficingness as isolated entities, there has gone a type of thinking and a characteristic viewpoint which, while adequate enough to deal with the condition and events of the expansionist period, is proving itself sadly defective so far as the requirements of the ready-to-emerge era of fusion is concerned. This type of thinking and characteristic viewpoint may be called the isolationist mentality and the egocentric outlook: The SELF seen as an island—separate, isolated, unrelated, having only itself to look after, with the rest of mankind a more or less remote consideration. Which type of thinking and egocentric outlook, by the way, prompts us to build tariff walls that will ultimately prove about as effective in protecting us against competition without, and the menace of unemployment, racketeering and piracy-in-high- places within, as the great Chinese wall now is in fencin~ off Japanese ‘nvaders. Indeed, the question is now posed for us how, being forced into togetherness, we are going to keep this mentality and outlook and the machine, and at the same time get along with- out killing each other off! Clearly it is required of us that we adapt ourselves to survive henceforth in a world-commonwealth under

�[Page 117]LINE OF THE NEW WORLD a on

a world-directorate; that is, under conditions in which integration will center, mot in the isolated group or in the individual intent on his own interests, but in the social aggregate. With universal ¢o- getherness as the grade we must negotiate, then apartness, woven into all our thought-patterns, becomes our most formidable ob- stacle. The “enemy” is really within.

Indubitably, the conditions are here that mark the turning- point—the beginning of a disappearance of something that has served its day, and the emergence of something else pregnant with the future.

The first “something” has already been touched upon, though it may be well here to list several of its major entailments: the passing of war and war-preparations; of imperialism with its con- quest and exploitation; of industrialism wit’ .s concomitants of private-profit seeking and concentration of wealth in a few hands; of the notion of fitness-to-survive as isolated self-fortification. “The forms, methods, necessities of the past lose their meaning, either to be abolished or take on new meaning.”

The second “something” is beyond Fascism and Communism, even beyond a League of Nations. It is the order of organic uni- versalismS—one and another working harmoniously together under the guidance of the highest of unifying principles: the good and welfare of the whole. And that implies a functional society—a society distinguishable from our present one as an artistically-land- scaped park is distinguishable from a jungle. Indeed, the “some- thing wrong somewhere which the world is now suffering from so pointedly can only be understood as the goad of nature driving tardy mankind on towards organic universalism.” Under this dis- pensation, cooperation takes the place of competition, right that of might and force, reason and science that of belief and emotion- alism. Diversity (many-ness) will not disappear, but be cleansed —perfected—made creative for the whole; the whole being the neutral and common third above the former two sides that always formed a competitive “game.” Differences (formerly isolated, in- �[Page 118]118 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

dependant entities) will become parts, functions, organs (serving instruments) for the whole.

Here then is the guiding principle—the symbol—under which that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation—togetherness—is to be achieved. Here indeed is ‘a new world to conquer.” Here is a way of looking at things that clarifies many of our complexities for us and affords us a solid ground on which to base our human re- lationships. “Universality demands that all men, without any dis- tinction of color, nativnality, creed, learning, work, age, or sex be included in the family of men as humanly, socially equal; organic demands that every man be included with the full preservation, application and responsibility of his creative, comp!ementary in- dividuality as functionally, socially different. Human-social equal- ity represents the right, functional-social difference the duty, both being in inseparable mutuality. This organic combine of equality and difference will assure to every man what he never really had: life-security and freedom. It will give to all mankind a new spirit and to every human being a new dignity; it will revolutionize hu- man society and renew the face of the earth.”

In the light of the foregoing interpretation, our inescapeable task is laid down for us; we must move forward from estrangement and provincialism to reconciliation and universalism—from world- anarchy and chaos to world-order and community. But from what angle are we to approach it, and how are we to proceed?

sit the first blush the task seems insuperable. The old forms persist, and the old mentalities are at the controls, to say nothing of “the massive oppositions of selfishness and unimaginative, self- protective conservatism.” And yet, while envisaging all this, our interpretation would have in it far less of hope if we overlooked the other side, namely, that organic universalism already finds its impetus in the subconsciousness of the race; and that the signs of this impetus are obvious enough in two oi the mightiest and most necessary promotive agencies now actually in existence and fully at work: “the opportune time with its irresistible urge, and a uni- versal suffering which punishes with inexorable consistency the �[Page 119]LINE OF THE NEW WORLD 119

neglect of the new. The first of the two agencies is represented by the obvious general trend of history and more palpably still by the contemporary phenomena we are already familiar with: Com- munism, Fascism, increased pacifism and militarism, world-move- ments, world-organizations, world-institutions and world-connect- ing inventions. The second agency is expressed by the stirring hard- ships of world-wide economic depression—insecurity, instability, unemployment, suicide,—with all their mental agony and thought- provoking symptoms. Furthermore, the springing up of cooper- atives here, there and everywhere; the demands in various quarters for a monetary system that will not lend itself to the abuses of the present one; the tremendous popular sentiment in favor of tech- nocracy or machine-control, may all be considered as currents in the depths—all more or less in line with the spread of the idea of organic universalism as the ultimate objective.

In the nature of things, however, the first conscious and pur- posive incision is to be made by the comparative few who see clearly whither this world-malaise, unchecked—or rather, uncon- trolled, is likely to carry us, and who, recognizing the essential one-ness and community of mankind, happen: to be ripe, so to speak, for the advent of world-wide organic unity. The application and the actual /iving of the underlying principles may first be looked for through the teaching and example of such as these who ate ready, willing and able to serve. Theirs will be the function of working to the end that all may see and acknowledge things as they really are and acquire the organic in place of the egocentric mentality as the first steps in the transition from the competitive to the cooperative order.

Small nuclei where these souls filled with the vision of the resplendent future may carry on most effectively should be the first move; and a foundation for experimental groups is in fact already taking shape—an institution that expects to see ‘‘Oases”’ established here and there, designed to further the freedom of individualism along with the order of collectivism and the helpfulness of co- operativism,—pioneer groups whose behavior is to be at one with the cause to which they are dedicated, that is, an organically united mankind. �[Page 120]WORLD OF REALITY by Ruut AFNAN

Y. THE CIRCLING COURSE OF THE DIVINE LIFE-PROCESS (Continued)

PURGATION

only the first stage in the long and arduous journey of the

pilgrim towards his true and final union with his Beloved

or his re-emersion into the Divine Essence. At this stage he merely becomes conscious of his separation and yearns for that glorious realm of which he merely possesses a memory. In his descent, his real being was joined to not-being which is the ma- terial environment and selfish desires. To attain his ancient form therefore, man has to throw away this unreal element and purify his spirit from these superimposed encumbrances. In fact this losing of the self forms a cardinal principle of mysticism and is the pivot upon which many other tenets revolve. To use the words of Nicholson (Mysticism of Islam, p. 59) “The whole of Sufism rests on the belief that when the individual self is lost, the uni- versal self is found, or, in religious language, that ecstasy affords the only means by which the soul can directly communicate and be- come united with God. Ascetism, purification, love, gnosis, saint- ship—all the leading ideas of Sufis—are developed from this car- dinal principle.”

Standing on the threshold of a new life and attracted by a deep love and longing for this supreme attainment, the pilgrim begins to prepare himself for the spiritual betrothal or illumination. In this stage of Purgation man sees his own illusions and limitations as well as the great distance he has to ttavetse before reaching the

120

(Corset or the awakening of the self, forms, however, J �[Page 121]THE WORLD OF REALITY 121

object of his quest. Therefore, he starts by eliminating these hin- drances, by overcoming these imperfections and tearing down these illusions. Seeing a sham world, he seeks to set it aside and work for reality.

This stage of purification of self which is termed Purgation, has according to Underhill (Mysticism, p. 247) both a negative and positive aspect. The negative aspect, which is called “detach- ment” or the state of ‘‘poverty” is to strip or purge the self from those encumbrances that hinder the spirit on its upward progress. The positive aspect termed ‘‘mortification” is to strengthen and purify those abiding elements that are indispensable. Poverty has two departments, chastity and obedience, Underhill says: (Mysti- cism, p. 247.)

“By ‘Poverty’ the mystic means an utter self-stripping, the casting off of immaterial as well as material wealth, a complete de- tachment from all finite things. By ‘chastity’ he means an extreme and limpid purity of soul, virgin to all but God; by ‘obedience’ that abnegation of selfhood, that mortification of the will which fesults in a complete humility, a ‘holy indifference’ to the accidents of life. These three aspects of perfection are really one; linked together as irrevocably as the three aspects of the self. Their com- mon pe is this: they tend to make the subject regard itself, not as asi isolated and irteresting individual possessing de- sires and rights, but as a scrap of the cosmos, an ordinary bit of the universal life, only important as a part of the All, an expression of the ‘Divine.. Detachment and purity go hand in hand, for purity is but detachment of the heart; and where these are present they bring with them that humble spirit of obedience which ex- presses detachment of the will. We may therefore treat them as three manifestations of one thing: which thing is Inwatd Poverty.”

There are two elements in man (1) his reality, the abiding and permanent element which is essentially divine, and (2) a crust of unreality, his ephemeral self, which is his physical nature as well as bis sensuous and selfish desires. The object of mortification is to strengthen the first, while the purpose of detachment is ‘to �[Page 122]122 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

eliminate the latter. It is only when man’s spirit is developed and also the cage that hinders its flight broken that it can soar to its real abode and attain a true state of illumination.

Inasmuch as the goal of spiritual progress in the Baha’i teach- ings is different, its idea of purgation is substantially different. The object of detachment in the writings of Baha’u’llah is not to make man “a scrap of the cosmos, an ordinary bit of the universal life,” but to cleanse his heart and mind from all prejudices and idle imaginings that may hinder him from knowing and accepting the Prophets of God when They appear in the world. In the Seven Valleys Baha’u'llah says:

“First is the Valley of Search and its steed is patience. In this journey, without patience, the traveller will never reach his des- tination, nor ever attain his goal... . It is incumbent upon such men to cleanse their heart, which is the treasurehouse of God, from all imaginings and imitations which are traces left by their fore- bears. They should close the door of love and hate towards all the people of the world. .. . The seeker will never attain this goal ex- cept by sacrificing all that exists, that is, all that he has seen, or heard or learned.”

Asked concerning the true meaning of detachment Baha'u'llah answered in one of His Tablets saying: “You asked concerning de- tachment. It is evident to your honour that the purpose of detach- ment is the severance of self from all save God; that is he should raise himself to such an exalted station that nothing between the heavens and the earth bar him from the Truth. The love of an object should not detain him from the love and praise of God. ... In short the purpose of detachment has never been prodigality and wastefulness of wealth.”

The knowledge of God referred to so often in the sacred writings, means, according to Baha'u'llah, the knowledge of His Manifestations who are His Representatives upon the earth. True detachment is therefore severance from all things that prejudice our mind and detain us from appreciating the mission of the Prophets when They appear in the world. Wealth becomes an �[Page 123]THE WORLD OF REALITY 123

evil only when it detains us from acknowledging the truth of the Divine Manifestations and hinders us from arising to serve Their Cause. Otherwise wealth is a gift from God, a certain additional power capable of being used for the good of society, and a further opportunity to its possessor for expressing his humanitarian and spiritual qualities.

Medieval conceptions of true religion might have justified the act of St. Francis of Assisi in giving away all his possessions and living in a state of absolute poverty, it might have been right for the early Franciscans to secure their means of livelihood by beg- ging, but this is contrary to the teaching of Bahd’u’lla4h who has brought to the world new standards of detachment and a new con- ception of what constitutes the true spiritual life. In the Book of Aqdas “Ie definitely states that “it is forbidden to ask, and should a person be asked it is forbidden unto him to give. It is incumbent upon every person to possess an occupation” and should a person be incapable of work it is the duty of the state to maintain him and his famiiy. He permits us to be clothed in the best of attire and to use silver and gold implements if we can possibly afford to have them. Even the desire of possessing wealth is not an evil if that does not hinder us from knowing the Prophets and obeying their commands,

As the mystics conceived true detachment to be the elimination of that crust of unreality that envelopes our spirit and fetters its growth, they often took recourse to an ascetic life and subjected their body to severe chastisement. The hermit life often formed an indispensable stage of the Purgative Way and the renunciation of the world formed an essential element in acquiring spirituality. In this connection Baha’u’llah says in the “Besharat’”: ‘The acts of the hermits and priests of the people of Christ—upon Him be God’s praise and glory—are accepted in the sight of God. Today, however, they should forsake their solitude, and coming among the public, busy themselves with whatsoever profits them and is also useful to humanity. We have also permitted them to marry.” �[Page 124]124 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

It is not however sufficient that this temporary physical crust be eliminated. Poverty does not constitute the sole element of the Purgative Way. That spiritual and abiding reality has to be en- hanced through mortification which is “The positive aspect of purification: the re-making in relation to reality of the permanent elements of character. These elements, so far, have subserved the interests of the old self, worked for it in the world of sense. Now they must be adjusted to the needs of the new self, the lower centre of consciousness; and the object of mortification is to kill that old self, remove that lower centre, in order that the higher centre, the new man, may live and breathe.” (Mysticism by Un- derhill, p. 261.)

Many of the practices used by the mystics in this stage of their spiritual development are to bring about that passing away of the self which is essential to the process of mortification. The Sufi “dhikr” or recollection, and constant prayer and reading of the Quran are considered indispensable for achieving the ascendancy of that abiding reality in man. Abu Said ibn Abi’l-Khayr, one of the great mystics of Islam, recounts his acts of mortification as follows:

“I abandoned my studies and came home to Mahana and re- tired into the niche of the chapel in my own house. There I sat for seven years, saying continually, “Allah! Allah! Allah!” When- ever drowsiness or inattention arising from the weakness of human nature come over me, a soldier with a fiery spear—the most terrible and alarming figure that can possibly be imagined—appeared in front of the niche and shouted at me, saying, “O Abii Sa’id, say Allah!” The dread of that apparition used to keep me burning and trembling for whole days and nights, so that every atom of me began to cry aloud, “Allah! Allah! Allah!”

Nicholson remarks on this practice saying: “As regards the perpetual iteration of the name Allah, I need hardly remind my readers that this is a method everywhere practised by Moslem mystics for bringing about fané, #.e., the passing away from self.” (Studies in Islamic Mysticism, p. 8-9) �[Page 125]THE WORLD OF REALITY 125

In another connection Abit Sa’id also says: “When I was a novice, I bound myself to do eighteen things: I fasted continually; I abstained from unlawful food; I practised recollection uninter- ruptedly; I kept awake at night; I never reclined on the ground; I never slept but in a sitting posture... . Every four and twenty hours I completed a recitation of the Koran... .” (Studies in Islamic Mysticism, p. 15.)

In the Book of Aqdas Baha’uiléh says: “Let not the excess of reading and practices in day and night tempt you. If a person should read one verse of the Scriptures with sincerity and devotion it is preferable for him than if he were to read wearily all the books of God, the Powerful, the Supreme. Read the Divine verses to the extent that would not weary and depress you. Do not impose upon the spirit what will weary and weigh down upon it; nay rather feed it with what will make it lighter, so that it may soar with the wings of verses to the dawning-place of proofs. This is nearer to God if only you should think.”

The true purpose of the spiritual life, according to Baha’u’Llah, is not to lose our self or individuality that separates us from the Divine Essence, and thus to merge into that Infinite Ocean; nay rather, it is to enhance the development of our soul which starts on its journey in the physical plane and begins to grow as an indi- vidual to a fuller reflection of the Divine Attributes. Prayer and the reading of the Holy Scriptures render, therefore, a two-fold service. On the one hand they remind us of our true calling and prescribe for us the way to attain it and on the other they feed and stimulate our spirit to better face the battle and more nobly achieve that progress. They therefore fulfill their purpose only to the ex- tent that they influence our behavior, shape our life, arouse us to nobler deeds, and imbue us with the spirit of serving our fellow men and of withstanding the difficulties and surmounting the ob- stacles we find on our way of spiritual progress and attainment of our goal. A single act done in the spirit of service, a single verse read with a full determination to follow its purport, is, therefore, far superior to constant devotional acts and hours of prayer and �[Page 126]126 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

meditation. The true criterion for the efficacy of prayer or a certain devotional act is therefore, not the measure to which we pass away from the self, but the extent to which we come under the power of the Holy Spirit, or under the light of those moral teachings radi- ated by the Prophets; who are the creators of our ethical and spir- itual life, for it is through the light of their guidance that our highest spiritual progress is attained.

ILLUMINATION OF THE SELF

“When by purgation the Self has become detached from the ‘things of sense,’ and acquired the ‘ornaments of the spiritual mar- riage,’ its joyful consciousness of the Transcendent Order returns in an enhanced form. Like the prisoners in Plato’s ‘Cave of Illusion,’ it has awakened to knowledge of Reality, has struggled up the hard and difficult path to the mouth of the cave. Now it looks upon the sun. This is illumination: a state which includes in itself many of the stages of contemplation, ‘degrees of orison,’ visions and ad- ventures of the soul described by St. Teresa and other mystical writers... .” (Mysticism, by E. Underhill, p. 205)

When through the process of purgation the spiritual reality of man becomes purified and freed from the trammels of self he starts to enter the state of illumination, not only his intui- tive powers are heightened, but also he comes to obtain a true and direct contact with the Absolute. The senses whose object is to make contact with the physical world encumber man’s spiritual vision and bar him from a true understanding of Reality. The purgative way with its many practices tends to eliminate that re- tarding influence of the senses and enhances the inherent powers of the spirit. In the state of illumination the Spark of the Soul can stand with a clear vision before the Absolute, of which it is a parti- cle, and contemplate its beauty. Having become God-like it can comprehend God, and feel a sense of the Divine Presence.

We should, from the start, bear in mind the basic difference be.ween the state of illumination and the final stage of Union �[Page 127]THE WORLD OF REALITY 127

which is awarded to only the few mystics who have traversed the mystic path to its very end. To use the word of E. Underhill, “The real distinction between the illuminative and the Unitive Life is that in Illumination the individuality of the subject — however profound his spiritual consciousness, however close his communion with the Infinite—remains separate and intact. His heightened ap- prehension of reality governs rather than obliterates the rest of his life: and may even increase his power of dealing adequately with the accidents of normal existence.” (Mysticism, p. 295.) Many of the experiences that pertain to this stage of mystic development are common among poets and artists, but none save the true mystics who have traversed the path and fully acquired spiritual ascendency attain real union with the Absolute. To use mystic symbolic language, Illumination is the stage of betrothal while Union is the final spiritual marriage. In the first, the Lover obtains a glance of his Beloved, in the latter, they are united in an eternal bond and they find the consumation of all their ardent love and longing.

According to Underhill three categories of experiences can be mentioned under Illumination: “(1) A joyous apprehension of the Absolute: that which many ascetic writers cal! ‘the practice of the Presence of God’”’..... (2) This clarity of vision may also be enjoyed in regard to the phenomenal world. The actual physical perceptions are strangely heightened, so that the self perceives an added significance and reality in all natural things: is often con- vinced that it knows at last ‘the secret of the world’..... (3) Along with this two-fold extension of consciousness, the energy of the individual or transcendental self is enormously increased. The psychic upheavals of the Purgative Way have tended to make it central for life: to eliminate from the character all those elements which checked its activity. Now it seizes upon the ordinary chan- nels of expression; and frequently shows itself in such forms as (a) auditions, (b) dialogues between the surface consciousness and another intelligence which purports to be divine, (c) in auto- matic writing..... : �[Page 128]NOTES ON THE PRESENT ISSUE

Stanton A. Coblenz, one of millions who have watched ‘while armies grow,” reduces this terrible social phenomenon to its root in the human will, degraded and made impotent by a civilization whose greatest influences have sought to render human will captive to the impossible dilemma raised by the division of loyalty between church and state.

The larger swing of evolution, to which most of us still appear utterly blind, is vividly pictured by Edlington Moat’s summary of a work approaching publication over the pen name ‘“Foral Har- mod.” Even so brief a summary indicates that the author, apparent- ly a worker unknown to the public, has intuitively placed himself near the center of the forces molding the new age.

The press of other material has crowded from the pages of World Unity a valuable series of articles on “Apostles of World Unity” begun with the sketch of the late Dr. David Starr Jord>~ published in the first issue, October, 1927. As life is more important than any idea of life, World Unity considers it one of its great- est privileges to convey even brief biographies of such heroic souls as Albert Schweitzer, the thirty-sixth portrait in our gallery of the great peace makers of the modern world. Material is on hand for a number of articles in the same series, which will henceforth appear without interruption.

The conviction of World Unity, that the conception of world federation is the true meeting place of practical action and moral idealism, increases from month to month as Carl A. Ross and Oscar Newfang continue their exposition of its application as the only fundamental solution of the worldwide social problem. The further weakening of the League of Nations raises very clearly the ques- tion whether the defenders of the League shall seize the opportun- ity to extend its scope toward federation, or whether further dis- integration is necessary before any considerable number of people can agree upon this comprehensive social plan. �