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WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
Volume XIV, August, 1934
Religion and World Order ..... - Porace Holley World Unity Questionnaire on Peace A Biological Attitude Toward
Human Affairs « « « «© 2 ee © we Viadimir Karapetoff Segment and Circle .... ++ +e W. W. Willard Ethical Values as the Confucian-
ists Saw Them. ..%*<« «4s @ s Frank Rawlinson
The Oriental Students’ Congress
and the Third Convention of
the Indian Students in Europe:
Rome, 1933 . «6 es ee we wes Amiyanath Sakar World Advance ... 2... ee see e Oscar Newfang Book Notes ....+-+-e««- . . . . Joseph S. Roucek
257-258 259-278
279-283 284-290
291-300
301-304
305-314
315-319
�[Page 257]RELIGION AND WORLD ORDER
by
Horac—E HOLLeEy
1. THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION
thinking that man, with the animals and plants, inhabited a
world composed of “dead” matter. Life was conceived to be
that which could think, feel, move or at least which could grow and reproduce.
As the notion of “life” has become extended until it includes all matter, all substance, and every ingredient and constituent of substance, so has the notion of religion developed until it applies to the whole of man. No longer is religion confined, like a small island in a great sea, to that little area of belief and practice specialized under the influence of a formal creed. It is the entire human life, its conscious and unconscious elements, its personal and social relationships, its affirmations and denials, its triumphs and defeats, its hidden as well as its revealed awareness and action, its unrealized possibility along with its recognized, admitted frustration and impotence.
With difficulty and burden maintaining “life” in an appar- ently lifeless universe, people came to the point of recognizing at last that there could be no dead matter, since all matter had some evidence of life, if only the evidence of motion, and moreover since men themselves are composed of those very elernents which had previously been held devoid of life.
The zeal aim of the physical sciences is fulfilled in knowledge of man. The physical and chemical principles discovered in the world have meaning only as they are principles of human life.
257
I: was only a few generations ago when the people ceased
�[Page 258]258 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
Man himself is the universe in miniature. Physical science thus becomes part of a larger science of biology, and biological science in turn becomes a chapter in the greater volume of the human science, psychology.
A man’s whole life, and not merely his conscious creedal practice, is his religion. His highest love is conditioned by his profoundest hate; his supreme sacrifice is limited by his uncon- scious selfishness; his ideals and his daily life are a single reality, one and inseparable.
The social sciences likewise are dependent for their validity on human psychology. When a science calling itself “economics” gives official sanction for cruel indifference; when a science’ call- ing itself “politics” finds imperatives for armed frontiers, this lack of agreement between these social sciences and the sanctions of the separate department of human life called “religion” does not mean that men live in three separate worlds, obeying three mutually exclusive ‘‘laws’’—it means simply that a general failure in the realm of motive and understanding has projected itself out- ward into society, and this failure men try to conceal from them- selves and each other by labeling the anti-religious actions one or another “‘science.”
But just as these evasions and attempts at concealment in per- sonal life sooner or later come to a balance of accounts with every other element of the personality, so the elaborate myth called “civilization” has now become rent to fragments as the social “sciences” and the formal creeds alike eventuate ia a society which as a whole does not know how to survive. It matters not which element of the whole result is made the scapegoat—whether for- mal “religion” or “economics” or ‘‘politics’—the truth is that man himself has failed in his social relationships, and this failure in turn rests upon failure in his relationship to himself. The fictitious separation of life into formal departments, each with an exclusive label, has been unconscious evasion of reality the final result of which was inevitable from the beginning.
On no other basis can we erect a spiritual knowledge preserv-
ing the responsibility on which integrity depends.
�[Page 259]WORLD UNITY QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE
Part II
A N Analysis and Summary was published in the July issue,
reporting the results of the Questionnaire on the Present Attitude toward the Question of World Peace.
The following titles of books represent answers replied to Question Number thirty-one: In your opinion what book writ- ten since 1918 most clearly shows the way out from the prevalent international problems?
Angel, Unseen Assassins; Beard, The Idea of National Interest; Call, Our Country and World Peace; Chase, New Deal; Cole, Guide Through World Chaos; The Covenant of the League of Nations; Dickinson, The International Anarchy; Douglas, Economic Democracy; Fisher, Alias Uncle Shylock; Guerard, Beyond Hatred; Hocking, The Spirit of World Politics; Karapetoff, A Biological Attitude Toward Human Affairs; Keynes, Economic Peace; King, Dawn of the Awakened Mind; Mathews, World Tides in the Far East; Moor, An Appeal to Reason; Morrison, The Outlawing of War; New Russia’s Primer; Newfang, The United States of the World; Page, National Defense; Paish, The Road to Prosperity; Pope Benedict XV, Encyclical Letter “Pacem”; Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno; Rogers, America Weighs Her Gold; Salter, The Framework of an Ordered Society; Salter, Recovery; Schuman, International Politics; Shoghi Effendi, The Goal of a New World Order; Strachey, The Coming Struggle for Power; Thomas, America’s Way Out; Thomas, As I See It; Thomas, The Choice Betore Us; Thomas, Perhaps; Thomas, The Way Out; Umano, A Positive Science of Government; Wells, Outline of History; Wells, Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind; Williams, International Changes and International Peace.
259
�[Page 260]260 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
Part III The following statements were furnished in reply to Question number thirty-two: It you could write fifty words on the subject of world peace which would be read by every man and woman in the United States, what would your message be?
CHARLES L. HYDE
There could be no more war, if all could know of the reality and continuance of all life; not as the religious fanatic thinks he knows but as the greatest minds of science, like Lodge, Crooks, Longfellow, Tennyson, Greely, Doyle, Barrett, Chambers, Wal- lace, Coues, Hare, Zollner, Gibier, Hyslop, Gully, Tuttle, Davis, Fichte, Meyers, Edmunds, and thousands of other great minds who have seriously investigated this subject, know of it.
ARTHUR D. CALL “If we would keep men and nations at peace, we must remove the causes of their discontent, elevate their moral sentiments, in- culcate a spirit of Justice and toleration, and compose and settle their differences.” John Bassett Moore.
FRANK H> HANKINS
The dream of world peace is an idealistic escape from present realities. Peace will become an actuality only when it is the in- evitable outcome of all the forces involved in international rela- tions. Just as religious wars ceased only when other interests be- came more important in group life, so international wars will cease only when nationalism ceases to be the dominant politico-econom- ic force in world affairs.
PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON
Peace, as a great human vision, can be progressively realized as the acquisitive impulses of man become disciplined by a higher cooperative rationale. It can be attained only when the emotional drives of human action are guided by the reflective powers of the human mind.
C. J. BUSHNELL
Let us believe and insist that the way of world peace can and
will be found through the increasing international organizations
�[Page 261]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 261
and agreements, especially in the reform of our basic economic system in the direction of larger equality of opportunity for all through better team work for the common good. H. F, MaCNAIR Consider the cause and results of the World War 1914-1918- 1934. ALAIN LOCKE We cannot maintain the esssential advances of civilization while using four-fifths of our governmental resources paying for past wars and preparing for future ones. It is a choice now between civilization and collective suicide.
SIDNEY L, GULICK
The building of a world peace system is the most important, the most difficult, the most urgent and the most fateful issue be- fore the American people and also before the entire human race. It is an issue in which every individual has a stake involved and also a part to play.
JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM
Every interest of humanity, moral, cultural, social, spiritual, economic, demands world peace. To put one’s country above hu- manity is to dishonor both.
EDWIN L, TROXELL The way to prevent war is to get at its causes: they might be envy, ambition, selfishness, etc. But more concretely we might pin it down to the practices of munitions manufacturers and others who directly profit when wars come.
HELEN S. EATON The 1914-1918 war cost a total of billions of dollars. Did vou get your money’s worth out of it? The United States cannot keep out of any future war any more than it could out of the last. Would you expect to get any benefit from another war?
CHARLES E, MARTIN
The ideal of world peace is as strong or as weak as our coven-
ants and institutions for its maintenance. We are a covenanting
society: without covenants of restraint and self-denial, and without
�[Page 262]262 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
institutions to preserve them, we could still be in a “state of nature,” with might and not right at the test of control. Even though in some respects faulty, to have no pacts of peace is not to profess it, and to have no institutions for their preservation is to leave world peace to chance. ORLO J. PRICE
As law and order do not wait until the! —_ persor ‘n the com- munity is moved by good will, so world peace cannot tarry until the last nation has outgrown the infantilism of war. World ad- herence to justice and law is sufficient it rightly organized to banish the test of brute force.
CHESTER H. ROWELL Peace is not a war that the United States keeps out of, but the absence of any war for it to get into. Unless we can end war we will end civilization. But we cannot end war except by substituting other means to secure national, class and racial rights.
L. A. HAWKINS
To achieve the highest good demands always sacrifice and often risk. To achieve for the world its highest good, shared by all nations—world peace—we must sacrifice some independence of national action and dare to do our part in mankind’s greatest undertaking.
MRS. EDGARTON PARSONS
No nation ever wins a war. Every nation always loses. The United States has been losing the Great War since 1929 when the depression began. Who knows how much longer?
RHEA M. SMITH Sincerity, tolerance, generosity, service—these are the virtues that must be triumphant for complete accord with a neighbor— either domestic or foreign. Abolish secret diplomacy, propaganda, intervention in private affairs, the lust for economic power, and sub- stitute honesty, an impartial press, understanding, and social re- sponsibility—and world peace is possible.
W. L. HARDIN
1. Honesty, integrity and a spirit of cooperation on the part of
�[Page 263]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 263
public officials and citizens.
National economic and industrial planning and control.
International planning for control of international business and
commerce.
4. Tariffs to be adjusted by consent between individual nations as often as conditions warrant.
5. A League of Nations embracing a World Court to settle politi- cal questions.
2» bo
ROYAL WILBUR FRANCE The basis of world peace is a complete and unqualified recog- nition of the common humanity of all men without regard to race or nationality and the planning of the economic life of the world to make its resources open to all with the aim of realizing justice, security and brotherhood.
JOSEPH ROBERT WILSON World peace can only rest upon a spiritual foundation. The World War demonstrated the futility of all else. Future effort must radiate from that center, with the elimination of selfish mo- tives, the Golden Rule as the creed, an international brotherhood, the goal. This is the only road to world peace. Political and social economy will then naturally assume their proper form.
LYDIA G, WENTWORTH I advise every person 18 years of age or more to join the War Resisters League. This group believes that human life is sacred, that war is a crime against humanity, and that allegiance to right- eous principle is paramount to loyalty to a government so unright- cous as to support warfare.
EDWIN BORCHARD
Try the reconciliation and appeasement of peoples. Stop the
talk about collective security through sanctions. That guarantees
war,
HERMAN J, HAHN
The power machine of industry has carried the race out of eco-
nomic scarcity into abundance. Let us abolish national and class
exploitation—a defense mechanism of scarcity—and transform the
�[Page 264]264 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
good earth into the common home of all humans, with one supreme function: the service of man.
KIRTLEY F. MATHER The ideai of peace on earth is not created by idealists; it is discovered by them. That ideal is established for man by condi- tions and forces over which he has no control. Unless he accepts it as his goal, he will go into oblivion like the dinosaurs of old.
GORHAM MUNSON Competition for foreign markets is the main economic cause of war. This competition is engendered by the fact that under orthodox finance no nation can buy its total production. An eco- nomic remedy which would equate domestic consumption to do- mestic production would relieve the necessity for foreign trade.
PARKER THOMAS MOON
We may not have war this month or next; but we are drifting toward it. We have a chance to escape it, and to give millions of growing boys and girls, not the fear of ruined lives and shattered bodies, but the confident security of peace. To seize the chance requires courage, intelligence and goodwill.“ We must sacrifice some prejudices and many of the sly calculations of short-sighted selfishness, national or individual. We must be prepared to take our rightful part in the League of Nations, the World Court, and international economic cooperation. If we are unwilling to pay the price of peace, we shall pay the ghastly costs of war.
MARIE K, PAGE Let the “Sermon on the Mount’”’ be the basis of all education.
MAURICE C, HALL World peace requires the safeguard of representative govern- ment, selection of all governing groups on a basis of established qualifications, and an economic system under which production and distribution are equa! and rational, and war offers profit to no one; a better ethic will follow from these things.
DEVERE ALLEN
Supplant the chase of capitalism by socialism, world-wide;
�[Page 265]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 265
enlighten socialism by true religion; base religion on fact and the poetry of aspiration. EDWARD A. ROSS
Every government arms in the name of “national defense’ while its action is regarded as a threat by all others, so that ‘‘security”’ is never arrived at. The power to destroy is outrunning the power to ward off destruction. The end of the path is reciprocal anni- hilation.
QUINCY WRIGHT
The world must be organized to maintain a dynamic equilib- tium between nationalism and internationalism. For this the League of Nations should be made universal, its positive sanctions elimin- ated, and its support in public opinion augmented.
IRVING FISHER
We must either compete with the rest of the world in arma- ment and war or combine with the rest of the world in disarmament and peace.
R. M. MACIVER
In the modern world war can no longer be controlled to serve any human ends. It has become the senseless ravage of all the things for which men and nations strive.
WM. G, AURELIO The ideas and the form of such a message must needs depend upon the fitness of the reader to understand them, and upon the ideas which we wish to displace. No statement could be made that would produce one effect upon “every man and woman in the United States.” If we are to teach we must adapt our words to our
readers, H. C, BEDFORD “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Neighbor—the one in need.
C, F, LOOMIS
The Sermon on the Mount.
FLETCHER S. BROCKMAN
Peace is not the product of a wish. It requires the weaving
�[Page 266]266 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
of good will into the whole fabric of human relations. Force is futi'e to give or guard peace, for greed, its arch-enemy, can not be destroyed with guns. The secret of peace is love. A nation which loves all men can rule the world.
JOSEPH S, ROUCEK
World Peace will come if the people of the world will realize that it is not a political or economic or legal institution—but a state of mind.
S, R. LOGAN
The maintenance of peace depends upon the extension of machinery for political and economic cooperation, and upon the extension of international law and court adjudication. Also upon elimination of profit in munitions and minimizing the profit mo- tive generally.
ALICE WILSON
In the last war 20,000,000 were killed—the Youth of the World. Is that the future we plan for our children? Have they no right to live their own lives?
A, R. NYKL Suggest that we establish in the U. S. a model country governed by the principles of the New Testament, and to this devote all our endeavor. Once we show the whole world what we can do in our country in the way of peace, the whole world will follow our ex- ample. Verba movent, exempla trahunt!
WILL IRWIN
War had once its social uses. It has outworn them. At th same time ad~ances in the science of killing have rendered it an immi- nent danger to civilization itself. An individual in an orderly so- ciety must make concessions to his fellows. So must a nation in an ordered world.
WALTER W. HYDE
The way to disarm is to disarm—each nation separately and
beginning with the United States and Russia—the rest would fol-
low. Militarism causes war and not peace, that is its history. Arms
conferences to regulate the size of armies and navies are useless.
�[Page 267]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 267
Let the U. S. take the lead—we have the freest hands as we are protected by two great oceans. In case of European war let the U. S. refuse to sell belligerents any war materials.
ALBERT W. PALMER Make the Kellogg Pact personal! Let the church call on people individually to sign and lay upon the altar a personal non-aggression pledge: ‘We will not cross any national boundary to kill and de- stroy, Nor support any government in doing so.” Thus make un- necessary national defense and its fear psychology.
T. KALIJARVI Learn to know other people. Be ger ous in your views to- wards them. Insist upon the right of thos’ who must fight to de- termine by vote whether their country should go to war or not. Take munitions manufacturing out of private hands.
WM. C, COVERT The price of real world progress is real world peace achieved through that mutual trust and understanding whose source is funda- mental morality and the Christian ideals of human brotherhood.
LUCIA AMES MEAD International peace depends on adequate world organization. Peace was achieved in cities, between cities, in states, between states by organization. Never counfound force of rival armies with non-rival police who take felons to court. Abolish conscription, armament interests’ profits. Distrust military technicians posing as statesmen or prophets.
ARTHUR J. BROWN It is inconsistent for Americans to talk peace while projecting huge sums for armaments and refusing to join the only world agencies for preserving peace—the League and World Court. It is absurd for Americans to weaken the League by standing aloof from it, and at the same time criticize it for a weakness for which America’s abstention is the chief cause.
A, RUSSELL BOWIE
A world of recurrent wars means under modern conditions a
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civilization doomed to destruction. In the effort for safeguarded international cooperation and consequent world peace the stakes are life and death. The human race has to face the question as to whether it can reveal in this matter sufficient intellectual and moral resources to be fit to survive.
CHARLES E. JEFFERSON There must be a World Court and we must be in it. There must be a League of Nations and we must tell the wor!d what sort of a League we are willing to enter.
HENRY WYNANS JESSUP Until Jesus Christ is King, after Armegeddon, and all men are his subjects, world peace is a receding goal.
WM. W. ROCKWELL War is the greatest of preventable evils. It is systematically fostered by some munition makers. Chemical warfare does not respect women and children. War grows more and more costly and terrible. Wars must be nipped in the bud by appropriate legis- lation and treaties and by a stronger League.
SAMUEL A. ELIOT “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” for we are “‘all members one of another.”
CHARLES S, MACFARLAND
The basis of peace is the personal cultivation of go d-wiii, un- selfishness, the sense of brotherhood, applied to home, society, na- tions and world relations.
F, B, CLARK
Let every nation surrender the right to make war. Then throw the burden of competition in armaments on how little rather than how much each should contribute in the direction of maintaining world peace.
WM. P. MERRILL
World peace is not a “thing in itself.” It is a by product of
(1) social and economic justice; (2) world organization; (3) prev-
alent goodwill. The important matter is not to ‘‘demonstrate”
�[Page 269]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 269
against war and for peace, but to ‘‘follow’after the things that make for peace,” and get after the things that make for war.
V, KARAPETOFF
World peace as a biological evolutionary idea is inescapable. With broadening human experiences the peace idea has grown from one extending only to a few primitive families to one comprising at times several large continents. To a realist, the security of peace is in direct proportion to its tangible advantages clearly understood by the masses. Therefore, from among various peace activities I have chosen for myself to work towards a removal of actual irritat- ing situations, such as bitter commercial rivalries, offensive high tariffs, oppression of racial minorities, old territorial disputes, co- veted natural resources, and overcrowded populations.
HORACE D, CRAWFORD
Permanent international peace requires the intelligent aboli- tion of the causes of war. Statesmanship, to achieve the ideal of universal peace cherished so deeply by Woodrow Wilson, must at- tract leadership that serves humanity rather than nationalistic poli- tics. Civilization’s progress depends on the establishment of a satisfactory system of economic distribution. International amity must be strengthened by enlightening citizens and interchanging cultures.
BERTHOLD LAUFER
What the world needs is not a restoration of prosperity, which is a meaningless slogan, but a restoration of a high sense of honor, honesty, sincerity, and mutual trust, and a constant reminder of Christ’s saying that those who take to the sword will perish by the sword. |
MORTON M. BERMAN
World peace will come when we recognize the sacredness of
every human personality. B. O, CLAUSON
The great responsibility of the United States is to guard its
own peace. Interference with foreign affairs is futile and I con-
sider the League of Nations, etc, as the breeding spot of new war.
�[Page 270]270 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
WM. E. GILROY
Effects come only from adequate causes. We shall attain and ensure world peace only as we think peace, plan peace and prac- tice peace. Above all we must be prepared to accept such risks and sacrifices in behalf of peace as men have hitherto accepted in war and stiife.
ANNE SEESHOLTZ
If the peaceable individuals and groups of peace-minded and peace-acting persons now in the U. S. A. could be persuaded to respect their own integrity of purpose and if each peace maker would willingly die to secure peaceful relations, beginning in his own home, church, and community, we should have in this our day, “Peace on earth and goodwill among men.”
S, A, COURTIS
National and international peace is everywhere disrupted be- cause the structure of government and of political relationships is no longer adequate to the demands of life. Evolution has carried man, without his realizing it, into relationships of interdependence and greitly increased the differences between individuals. Remedies:
1. Restore power to the people by the invention of a new system of democratic representation based upon scientific deter- mination of fitness of candidates and representation by groups hav- ing Common purposes.
2. Enlarge our concepts of democracy to include individual and national self-realization through participation in cooperative group activities.
3. Substitute the creative rewards of recognition and oppor- tunity for possessive rewards.
4. Give intelligent, democratic consideration to the problem of how to deal with the problems of immatutity and incapacity without exploitation.
GRACE ALBERT DETWILER
The means by which peace can be accomplished are, first,
economic security for individuals and nations; second, the right
�[Page 271]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 271
of the people by direct vote to determine their entrance into war, rather than by the will of their representatives; third, the manu- facture and ownership of all instruments and materials of war- fare by one central organization such as a world army; fourth, education and legislation in birth control so that only the fit are increased and dependency eliminated; fifth, by the teachings of the principles of the brotherhood of man—"love thy neighbor as thy-
self.” GEORGE NICHOLSON
Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.
JACOB E. GROSS
Enduring world peace is a world problem requiring the good will and cooperation of every nation. The United States should do its part by joining the League of Nations and its Court. We, as a nation, are safe and strong only to the extent we become united with the world.
HERBERT A. MILLER
The world is composed of people potentially alike, but differ- ent by the accident of cultures. Recognition of this fact is the be- ginning of peace. All of them want a fuller human life. We know it is possible to secure it. That is the basis of faith.
M. E, CURTI Before supporting in any way the war system find out what class profits from it most, and what class suffers from it most. Help build a society in which the causes of war, especially the economic causes, are relatively few. Mobilize your efforts for peace, particu- larly in mass demonstrations. Be especially aware of plausible arguments designed to make you believe that the next war is an ex-
ceptional war. PHILIP NASH
It would probably be impossible for the United States to keep out of another World War. The only way to prevent such a war is for the U. S. to join the other nations in organizing the whole world for peace, probably through the League of Nations.
VICTOR J, CLARK
Sympathetic, unforced, unsentimental study of other peoples,
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through the best in their own literature, past and contemporary, and if possible of travel and personal contact.
FREDERICK ALBERT MILITOR People of the world (except China) are born with the same certain instincts, especially “manhood” which includes sex instinct and therefore protection of his women, children and estates. To protect these elemental instincts of the human race world peace is impossible to obtain for generations.
CARL A. ROSS World peace implies plenty and opportunity. Democracy has a capacity for world plenty and opportunity as soon as world democracy gains control of world distribution. World citizenship gives democracy control of world distribution and leaves the peace- ful enjoyment of plenty to domestic habits.
DAVID M, EDWARDS To achieve world peace, to build a world in which war is im- probable, is the one single objective of greatest desirability. If it be achieved the well-being of humanity will be assured. If it be not accomplished civilization is doomed. Complete abandonment of self for the realization of this ideal is the greatest consecration of life possible.
FRIEDA L, LAZARUS The only way to peace and security is by disarmament. The only way to disarmament is to disarm. This means a complete and thorough scrapping of the entire war machinery, both offensive and defensive. We need total disarmament. Now.
JOSEPH H. DAY Let us, in the United States, begin now, through political pres- sure and through our various churches and every other suitable groyip to agitate the necessity for lowering all tariff barriers, strict control of munitions manufacture and sale, and agitate interna- tional cooperation. National isolation is productive of war.
LEVI T. PENNINGTON
Civilization must destroy war or war will destroy civilization.
�[Page 273]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 273
We must find the path to peace or we must perish. War has be- come so terrible and peace so imperative that we should be as ready to die for peace as heroes have ever been to die in war.
BAYARD DODGE The nations of the world can only learn to keep peace, as common interests and impro ing methods of transport slowly bring them together. Let us start patiently by cooperating in simple ways, that slowly but surely mankind may learn how to bear the preat responsibilities of national life in unison and peace.
GEORGE S. COLEMAN No man has the right to claim to oppose war until he is ready to support a positive substitute in some way that would tend to make it normally effective.
RALPH J, WESTLAKE Life is fellowship; isolation is death. If we are to progress barriers must go. We are drops in ocean’s boundless tide; atoms of a moment’s span; eternal comrades ii: death. Why, then, do we deny that Man is one—that cooperation, equal rights and unity are essential to permanent progress?
MRS. J. B. JONES Peace should be the keystone of every nation. Our children should be instructed in one public and church schools in terms of world friendship, and the blessings to be derived by all nations through peace-loving people.
C. W. YOUNG International relations are like those of a savage community, when every one may act as he chooses, while settling disputes by personal attack. Peace can come only by a Federation of Nations, ending international anarchy and precluding nations from judging their own case or enforcing the judgment by wholesale slaughter.
R. E. WOLSESLEY Efforts for world peace are futile until there is economic peace.
D. M. CLINTON
There can be no true world peace until the nations are truly
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won to international friendship and good will. Peace can never be won until the nations become one in spirit and motivated by the teachings of Jesus Christ.
HERBERT W. GATES There is no new basis for Peace on Earth. It is still Goodwill among Men. Honest desire for human weifare and willingness to share the risks, costs and privileges of Human Brotherhood are the only things that can make treaties valid.
JESSE M. MaCcKNIGHT Feel the emotion; seek the way; imbibe the knowledge; spread the idea; demand political action; and strive always to develop the concept to its extreme.
ROBERT WHITAKER A definite, decisive expropriation of all privileged classes, and a unified world economy under the control of an industrial order is indispensable to world peace.
F. S, J. STEMAN Peace-making must become the business of every man, woman and youth of America or every other business will become war- making. OSCAR NEWFANG The minimum organization adequate to achieve world peace isa World Federation, formed through development of the League of Nations, adding a second chamber with proportionate represen- tation, establishing majority rule, giving the World Court original, compulsory jurisdiction in international disputes, giving the Coun- cil forces to command compliance.
WALTER J. BARTNETT
The World Center City of Communication and the institu-
tions to be located therein, proposed by Hendrik Christian Ander-
sen, is onc of the most effective measures proposed for the establish-
ment of World Peace. Unlimited benefits will accrue to all nations
and peoples, spiritually, economically and morally, by the estab-
lishment of this City.
�[Page 275]QUESTIONNAIRE ON PEACE 275
J. L. SELIGMAN As long as human nature is constituted as at present World Peace cannot ever be attained in my opinion.
FRED I, KENT World peace can never be accomplished through political, national or economic agreements unless accompanied by interna- tional goodwill. But international goodwill can only be attained as men succeed in controlling those baser passions in themselves which breed unfair criticism and unjustified resentment of others. Only better men can create world peace.
JOHN J. ESCH Make alive, Peace on earth good will to men.
WENONAH STEVENS ABBOTT We must turn our thoughts and use our influence to bring right understanding and harmony between the unlike people of the earth as well as between those of our own race and kind, so shall we forget the controversies which divide our Father’s children.
JESSE R. WILSON The individual is the unit in any society. The character of its units determines the character of any society. Only peace-lov- ing, peace-making citizens will make peace-loving, peace-making nations. Intelligent, faithful discipleship to the Prince of Peace produces such citizens. The way to world peace is to multiply his disciples. VIDA D, SCUDDER World peace is impossible while economic conflict continues and the profit-motive is the driving-force in economic and social organization.
ARNOLD DRESDEN
World peace is a condition necessary for the growth of the
finest qualities of man. Every important human undertaking is
conditioned by the maintenance of world peace. Even with world
peace there would still be room for improvement—without it there
is no reason for it.
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MAYNARD SHIPLEY World peace can be brought about only when the system of production for profit is superseded by a system of production for use. ALBERT GUERARD Not until America is ready to shoulder her full responsibilities will disarmament, justice and peace be pos.ible.
CLAUD NELSON Secretary Dern says nobody wins any modern war. Prepared- ness failed to prevent and helped to precipitate the World War. The United States could without danger independently renounce fighting on foreign soil or waters. Increased peace probability would compensate strategic loss. Failing such action citizens should refuse service beyond our borders.
PHILIP LEONARD GREEN Peace efforts have largely failed because the approaches used have been unscientific. Any world association worthy of the name must be preceded by regional groupings of nations having com- mon backgrounds and interests. A League of American Nations, for instance, would encourage the world immeasurably.
H. L, LATHAM
Human happiness and world peace are wholly dependent on a surrender of individual and national desires that are inconsistent with cooperation.
S, RALPH HARLOW
War is self-defeating of any moral or social aim. It is man’s most stupid exploitation of his fellows and the greatest destroyer of material values and spiritual realities thus far discovered. The war to end war will not be fought with guns, yet it calls for all the courage of a cavalry charge.
STANTON A, COBLENTZ
World peace will not be assured until it is generally recog-
nized that war is due to psychological forces: that it is not economi-
cally necessary, morally defensible or socially desirable, but is due
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to the artificial stimulation of brute passions. ‘‘Peace on earth, to men of goodwill.” ANONYMOUS I.
“The world is my country, humanity my countryman.” ‘“Na- tionalism’” breeds chaos. ‘‘Inter-Nationalism’” is impossible. Hu- man oneness means uniformity in mass production, all for each and each for all just as it does for a single human family.
Culturally, the beauty of human oneness is in differences just as the beauty of the landscape is in variation of light, shade, per- spective and color.
a.
“One is your Master even Christ and all ye are brethren”. If the nominally Christian nations,—or even professing Christians— really believed ‘‘iat, it would bring them closer to a settlement of the war question. Even the most militaristic amongst us could not be expected to enjoy killing his brothers. They just don’t believe these words of Jesus. Or else place their own restricted interpreta- tion on them. Would God we could learn international friendship and good will before it is too late.
3.
The greatest calamity that could happen to the world would be the disintegration of the British Empire. This statement is made by a one hundred per cent American. The British Empire has more trained men than any other State and has more trained men to carry into effect anything that is agreed upon and has never abused any power placed in its hands. The world needs leadership more than anything else and the British Empire has the basis for this leader- ship and is stronger today than any other State.
4.
World Peace means lower taxes; greater mental security; an end to legalized murder; less economic unrest from destruction of war; an end to ruin of lives by all that goes with war; an end to glorifying by Christians what Christians can’t logically glorify.
Peace only possible when profit taken out of war, when capi-
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talism, with its resulting underconsumption and trade rivalries is replaced by an economic and political system which, by using our resources for the good of all instead of the profit of the few, re- moves the economic cause of war.
6.
World peace is essential to world welfare. World organiza- tion as history amply demonstrates, is essential to the maintenance of world peace.
7
Because you are a living cell in the social-political body of to- day’s World Life, your share in the general health demands your intelligent cooperation and wise selection constantly. No cc.. lives for itself alone! Of one Flesh are all the races of mankind. Injury to one part is injury to all. The death of all we cherish is averted only by Mutual Aid.
8.
Human life, even of the most humble person, is the most valu-
able thing on this earth. Next to it is happy family life and the ties
of love and friendship growing out of the home as a center for
family and friends. Nothing is important enough to be allowed to
crush and destroy all of these. To preserve and protect them, war,
their greatest enemy, must be annihilated.
�[Page 279]A BIOLOGICAL ATTITUDE TOWARD
HUMAN AFFAIRS
by
VLADIMIR KARAPETOFF
Cornell University
Il (Continued)
War Amon g Nations
‘HEN a naturalist, interested in the struggle for exist- W ence, watches a war between two colonies of ants, he does not care which one wins, but studies the causes
and effects impartially, in order to derive new laws of
behavior or to apply previously known deductions to the case at hand. He may put a few small sized fish in a pond which did not contain that particular species, and observe day after day the result upon the other animals and plants. It matters not to him whether the former equilibrium is preserved or profoundly disturbed by the newcomers. All he wants to know are the facts and their proper correlation. Armaments and wars among civilized nations should be considered similarly from an impartial and objective point of view, if we are to learn that truth which shall ultimately free us of war. Let us start with the proposition that war and preparation for war, even among the most civilized nations, is a deeply seated bio- logical phenomenon, something which has existed from time im- memorial, and the causes oi which we have not yet eliminated in a scientific manner. Therefore, war is a feature of our life whose atrophy within the next few generatiors is quite improbable. An Alexander of Macedonia or a Napoleon may have accelerated a conflict and given the needed impetus and slogan, but is it not childish to ascribe war in general to random individual wills or ambitions? Gambling resorts and houses of prostitution do not owe
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their existence to gamblers and prostitutes, but to a large number of persons willing to patronize them. An ambitious general may inspire his army, but the young men who constitute it already have the fighting spirit and the primitive lust of blood and adventure in them. Nor is this war-like spirit among men necessarily a sur- vival of the earlier stages of civilization. No, the present civiliza- tion is also based on aggression, conquest, and adequate defence. Perhaps this should not be so, but then a biologist is concerned primarily with what is, and he is willing to recognize some new conditions only on the basis of observation and natural laws, not of pious wishes. The statement ‘‘Thinking elephants to be yellow does not make them so” ought to be quoted oftener than it is.
From the biological point of view, the history of the white race, say for the last two hundred years, is not divided into periods of war and of peaceful relations, as if they were opposites of each other. Latent war is continuous, but in acc ordance with the law of dynamic equilibrium the natural advantages of some nations are counteracted by alliances of others so as to keep a sensitive, unstable balance most of the time. Again, it is a case of several large op- posing forces giving a small resultant. Then some one government happens to be too slow or too impatient, the equilibrium is dis- turbed, the forces are no longer nicely balanced, and we have a war. As usual, the pendulum swings too far, but the acquired mo- mentum is exhausted by friction, and gradually a new equilibrium is established, just as dynamic, just as unstable. The primitive man also has his longings for peace, and like ourselves he does not know how to make peace secure and permanent. We may know theoreti- cally, but we have not acquired the practical technique.
It is not necessary to describe in detail the nature of the forces
_constituting this unstable international system so easily deranged
into a war. Need for food, excess population, valuable mining de-
posits, navigable rivers, colonies, spheres of commercial influence,
desire for racial unity, access to an ocean, fear or distrust of a neigh-
bor—who does not see all these factors constantly discussed in
the daily press, as well as in more technical publications? The
recipe for more permanent peace, in terms of the law of dynamic
�[Page 281]BIOLOGICAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS HUMAN AFFAIRS 283
equilibrium, may be stated thus: Reduce the individual forces and endeavor to combine them so that their resultant remains small even after one of the forces has been somewhat disturbed. This is really the underlying idea behind the League of Nations, the Hague Tri- bunal, and various international conferences held from time to time. An engineer will readily recognize this statement as an analogy of the method of virtual displacements used in the study of equil- ibrium of bridges and machinery.
Real progress in accordance with this precept must of necessity be very slow because of the magnitude of the task and of the untold millions of sluggish human minds to be correlated. Yet, the only procedure which can lead in the future to tangible results, is one based upon a correct biological analysis of the situation. Hand in hand with such a wise international policy should go the efforts to make life within each country less brutal, less competitive, less based upon selfish individual endeavor, and more upon a widely interwoven cooperation of the groups of population, with leaders socially minded. If I must fight my friend and neighbor to keep myself and iny family from starving, what consideration woul’ ' be expected to have toward a strange race across the sea that may interfere with my food supply?
In the light of the law of dynamic equilibrium, purely senti- mental efforts to abolish war are futile, because of their being un- sound from the biological point of view. In fact, look over the list of sponsors of almost any gathering (national or international) to resist war and preparedness for war, and you will find persons with biological training conspicuous by their absence. The moving spirits are well meaning men and women with humanistic educa- tion, guided by the loftiest ideals of love for humanity and spiritual progress, and yet the lasting net result in the most hopeful case can only be nil. Thinking that elephants are yellow does not make them so!
The Jewish Problem
Symbiosis (life together) is defined in biology as the consort-
ism of dissimilar organisms, each dependent on the other, the part-
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nership understood to be mutually beneficial. Parasitism, on the other hand, is defined as a one-sided nutritive relation between two organisms (or groups) or different kinds, a relation which is more or less injurious to the host and which relieves the parasite from most of the struggle associated with procuring food. Sometimes parasitism is called “antagonistic symbiosis.” It may be stated in passing that in biology the term parasitism does not carry with it the opprobrium attached to the word in common parlance. A flea or a plant louse cannot live in any other way than it does, and each plays its part in the great mysterious pageant of nature just the same as the king of beasts or a stately palm.
To complete the needed terminology, I shall introduce two new terms which may prove useful in future studies of interpenetra- tion of races. One is co-racination, or the tendency to utilize the existing roots. Any gardener surely has observed roots of smaller plants (usually weeds) growing not only near larger plants, but actually in contact with them, apparently utilizing the advantages of such close contact for their own moisture and food. Similarly, a human race which migrates to a territory already occupied by aborigines naturally follows the activities and channels of the earlier comers (co-racination), thus saving itself the hardships of pioneering. The other proposed term is opuntism, taken from Opuntia, a generic name for the cacti to which the prickly-pear belongs. The latter has found such favorable conditions for growth in some regions of Australia and South Africa that it has literally taken the ground away from other plants and even from man. Such extraordinary aggressiveness certainly deserves to be immor- tilized by the term opuntism in general biology! We shall use the term opuntism to characterize a race which, having settled in the midst of another, crowds the latter out because of purely biological traits of greater aggressiveness, vitality, adaptability, etc.
In most Eurer_an countries the Jews after numerous genera-
tions have remained quite distinct from the dominant population.
We therefore have here biologically a case of symbiosis, sometimes
recognized as mutually beneficial, sometimes merely tolerated, and
now and then adjudged by the ruling race to be antagonistic to its
�[Page 283]BIOLOGICAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS HUMAN AFFAIRS 283
best interests, and treated as parasitism. This is a historical fact. However, just because the masses of population in a country at a particular time are sympathetic toward the Jews or are aroused against them, it does not necessarily mean that the historian of the future, and so much more so the biologist, will necessarily agree with the contemporary opinion in their ultimate judgment. Never- theless, a resentful attitude toward the Jews in several countries, over considerable periods of time, in itself is an important factor in formulating the nature of the present problem. This resentment is a force of reaction in that system of forces which are in an un- stable dynamic equilibrium. But a force of reaction presupposes an almost equal action, and so we are naturally led to investigate the forces which the Jews themselves exert upon the balance of the
population, forces which lead to the above reaction.
(To be concluded)
�[Page 284]SEGMENT AND CIRCLE
THE FALLACY OF ABSTRACTION by W. W. WILLaRD
“The groaning and travailing of the universe is never aim-
less or resultless. Its profound labors mean new creation,
the slow, painful birth of new wholes, and the slow but painful realization of the Good which all the wholes in the universe in their various grades dimly strive and yearn for.”
Press, pulpit, platform and thinking people everywhere are seeking to interpret the times—to give a rational explanation of the plight of covilization. Over-production, under-consumption, capi- talism, lawlessness, secularism, the acquisitive instinct and sin have each in turn been declared to be the prima causa of the world’s ills.
It is the thesis of this article that the fundamental cause of our trouble is resistance to the deep instinctive urge, everywhere apparent in the universe, making for unity. Or, to put it in another way, our trouble results from the fallacy of abstraction, the devo- tion to parts in disregard of wholes which alone give to parts significance.
This distinction between parts and wholes is rooted in the deepest problem of life—the problem of the Many and the One. Thus it is in its implications profoundly metaphysical and infinitely practical. And, indeed, it is at our peril that we separate the two. Unless the practical concerns of our work-a-day life are rooted in an unseen world of ultimate truth we are destined to endless confu- sion and frustration.
284
ex SMUTS in his book ““Holoism and Evolution” says:
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This article assumes the unity of the world and that the end of all our human striving is to attain unity of the self and unity with one’s world. Life presents us with a Fact on the basis of which it challenges us to pursue a flying Goal. The Fact is a living uni- verse; the Goal, which lures but must forever elude because it is infinite, is an ever-expanding unity as the self becomes unified within itself and increasingly integrated with the great Whole of which it is a part.
I.
Man is a unity in multiplicity and to emphasize any one aspect of the self to the neglect of others is not only to cripple the self but to dislocate its relation to the universe. “At the present time,” says L. P. Jacks, “we are suffering from a plague of patchwork con- ceptions of human nature. Our minds are haunted by a host of false abstractions, so numerous, so insistent and so deeply imbeded in common speech that only with great difficulty can we work our way to the whole man whom these abstractions have dismembered.”
An ever-increasing fallacy that dogs humanity is that when the intellect has reached a conclusion, the self has acted. This fallacy accounts for sterility in religion, for ineffectiveness in persons otherwise highly endowed and for widespread futility in human life,
Of course thought, feeling and willing can never be entirely divorced; all are present in each one. The old “faculty psychology” is forever gone; the mind does not function in compartments. Nevertheless the practical, executive side of human personality may be so little in evidence as to be almost negligible. Amiel the Swiss philosopher and theologian who has left us his immortal “Journal Intime,” bemoaned to his dying day the practical paralysis of the executive side of his nature and his friends lamented his failure to fulfill the early promise of his life.
This was a tare instance in which intellectual depth and bril-
liance seem to have been compensatcry. The man’s life counted
in spite of what is generally a fatal defect—-the failure to act as
well as to think. In Amiel’s case the trouble was not an unwilling-
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ness to act but an ingrained inhibition of his nature of which he was keenly conscious and against which he seemed to be helpless. Perhaps by a certain law of transmutation of energy the force which failed of vent in outward ways functioned more intensely in way of inner penetration.
A fallacy of abstration equally fatal to that of thought apart from action is reflected in the substitution of feeling for action. This fallacy finds ready illustration on every plane of life. We go to the the theatre, we listen to great music, we hear challenging sermon— in each case we are emotionally stirred but that is apt to be the end of it—we do not re-act. Or, rather, it is not the end of it, for, by an inexorable law of the mind, every failure to act in response to the challenge of an emotion deadens sensibility and impairs personality.
To substitute thought or feeling for action is a fatal fallacy of abstraction, taking a part for the whole, mistaking a segment for the circle. The circle is a symbol of wholeness and only in action do thought and feeling come to completion. Listen to Carlyle, rugged prophet of the soul, in Sartor Resartus, as he pronounces an apostrophe to his own soul and to the soul of every man:
Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even a Worldkin. Pro- duce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest fraction of a product, produce it in God’s name! "Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today; for the night cometh when no man can work.
rn. |
We are parts of a living universe and as such are closely akin to Nature; man is a product of Nature and we ate members of the Living System of Things. The noble mysticism implied in this view has been voiced by our greatest poets and has been reflected in the experience of the spiritual seers of every age. Man is organic to the universe; he is the “off-spring of the stars.” The immeasur- able implications of this thought do not at first appear, so ingrained is our idea of the essential dualism of man and Nature.
Nevertheless it is true that man apart from Nature is an ab-
straction. We h + emerged from Nature and are as organically
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related to it as the oak rooted in the soil or the rose that climbs our garden trellis. “Mother Earth” is no mere fanciful conceit. Indeed Gustav Fechner, founder of modern psychology, taught not only that the earth is alive but that every heavenly body is a center of psychic energy. The idea of a Living Universe grows with every deepening insight of science into the nature of the world around us. Says L. P. Jacks:
The saying of the Gospel—‘God is not a God of the dead but of the living’—I take as covering everything in space and time, all that the astronomer can tell us of what is going on in the un- imaginable depth of space, all that the historian can tell us of what has gone on in the unimaginable depths of time. All is alive and it is one life, plainly an immortal life, that animates the whole.
Under this conception mechanism becomes not a major but a minor factor in the sum total of things. An anatomist may anal- yze the mechanical adjustments of a human skeleton but in so doing he is not dealing with the living pulsing personality. Mechanism is a frame, not a picture; a foundation, not the radiant temple on which it rests.
For utilitarian purposes and in the interest of departmental knowledge science may analyze but in so doing she is frankly deal- ing in abstractions. Synthesis alone can give us living wholes. The petals of a rose are interesting as botanical material and may be utilized in the manufacture of perfumes but taken alone they are only dead parts of what was a living whole—the rose. Everywhere parts exist for wholes and lesser wholes for larger wholes until we reach the inclusive Whole which the human spirit, following a primal instinct, has called God. Such a conception pulses with the deepest meanings which the human spirit is capable of entertaining.
II.
Man must not only achieve unity in himself and unity with
Nature—he must become alive to his unity with humanity. Apart
from mankind man is an abstraction. The practical deniai of human
solidarity is bringing the world to the brink of ruin. The time has
come for breaking down al! the barriers that separate man from
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man, be they political, economic, cultural or religious. Race preju- dice must at last be seen for what it is, an insane sense of inherent superiority with no basis in fact that only degrades the soul that harbors it. The man that today is not willing to look in the face the representatives of all the races of the earth and claim them as kin should be an anachronism. The most deadly foe to the growing sense of human solidarity is just this failure to recognize the uni- versally human in all types of people.
Human solidarity is the corner stone of the New Society that is even now forming under our eyes. We may be blind to it but in “dim prefigurement” a new social order is already assuming form. In every race are to be found the forerunners of a world order radi- cally different from anything in the past—men who have transcended in thought their national barriers and are seeing in imagination a new world wherein the particularities of race and creed have given way to the universal elements that constitute humanity a unity. The circle, symbol of inclusiveness, is slowly gaining ascendency over the segment, symbol of disunity and exclusion.
Right here is the battle line and the conflict is precipitated in concrete form on the arena of world politics and economics. Here is today’s Armaggedon. Here the principles of exclusion and inclu- sion are in death grapple with the forces of exclusion for the time being triumphant. The spirit of nationalism is wrecking the world. Corporate greed and a system that puts a premium on acquisitive- ness is bringing the economic order of the world to ruin. The world is being split into fragments of warring groups each animated by the insane delusion that it can best serve its own interest in separation from the whole.
What this means is every day becoming clearer save to those
who are blind or will not see. We are facing an alternative that
is inexorable. Bratt has voiced it in his book ‘That Next War.”
His words carry a note of tragic finality—‘“World organization or
world annihilation—neither more nor less.” H. G. Wells’ alter-
native “Education or catastrophe”, though true enough, suggests
a process, while the situation calls for action, now, and on a world
scale.
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Everywhere we are face to face with fragmentary policies that have no reference'to wholes. Whether it be domestic policies or policies having to do with international relations, segmentary in- terests are sure to prevail over interests that are all-inclusive. ~« That the world is one and that the only possible road to social
salvation is the practical recognition of this fact should be axio- matic to every thinking 1 mind.
Whither this axiom must lead in the world of events can be readily stated, though the devising of methods, may be fraught with infinite difficulty. The goai must be a jpolitico-economic federation of the worl’, Anything less is to disregard the logic of history, the tragic situation of the world as it is today, and the inexorable demand of the human spirit at its best.
There is a divine necessity upon us that is freedom. The basis of human optimism is that “the stars in their courses” fight with man in his struggle to achieve a social order that shall express the basic fact of human solidarity. Call it Providence, call it the immanent logic of history, call it elan*vit.l, call it the goal of an emergent evolution, call it what we | was it is the universal ground of hope wherever human souls are battling for a new and juster social order.
The present situation is without precedent. We are standing on the threshold both of a new epoch in the history of the human spirit and of the social order. And these two are organically re- lated. A deeper level of human consciousness is recreating the social order and a deepening social experience is profoundly changing the human spirit. Who shall say which is prior and which derived in this living reciprocal relation?
IV
Here then we face the fundamental fallacy and the essential conflict. The need of the hour cannot be doubted. It is not prim- atily a new economic order or a new political alignment. Both of these are of critical importance and without them the New Society cannot function. But the supreme need of the hour is a new attitude toward life; an attitude instinct with the spirit of the whole, a
te
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spiritual philosophy that sees and judges all things in terms of the Universal. This is essentially a religious attitude. The circle in ecclesiastical usage, the symbol of eternity, might well become the symbol of all who believe and act in the belief that the hope of the world is in its becoming controlled by the spirit of the Whole. As the segment has no meaning and no existence apart from the circle, so the particularities of human life derive their reality and signifi- cance from the eternal Background of which they are expressions. Segment and circle suggest at once the problem and the solution of the human problem.
It is the thesis of General Smuts in his widely-read book al- ready referred to that the fundamental purpose everywhere dis- coverable in the universe is the achievement of wholes and that the struggles and pains of creation are but necessary incidents in the realization of this purpose to which the universe in its deep- est nature is committed.
If there be a rational gri uid for optimism today it is because, to quote the closing words of this book:
The holoistic nisus which rises like a fountain from the very
depths of the universe is the guarantee that failure does not await
us, that the ideals of Wellbeing, Truth, Beauty and Goodness
are firmly grounded in the nature of things, and will not eventually
be endangered or lost.
�[Page 291]ETHICAL VALUES AS THE CONFUCIANISTS
SAW THEM
by
FRANK RAWLINSON Editor, The Chinese Recorder, Shanghai
HAT ate the ethical values of life as viewed in Con- WW txzie? Confucian ethics are, as a matter of fact,
difficult to analyze because no Chinese thinker of
note treats them in a systematic and analytic way ex- cept Hsiintzu. There is, it is true, a Chart of Ethics in existence of which neither the date of preparation nor the author are known though it is probably relatively recent. This chart analyzes the ethics of Confucianism very thoroughly but is not, I presume, particu- larly important as an authority of what is or is not Confucian ethics though it does give us a summary of the ethics of the Chinese in general.
Furthermore the Confucian system of ethics has, like all other systems of thought, undergone development and change. In Con- fucius and Mencius ethics center in human relationships with here and there hints at their cosmic significance. In the “Doctrine of the Mean” this cosmic significance of ethics is somewhat clearer, though this classic is also somewhat more prone to superstitious ideas. In it, however, man’s relation to more than human power is clearly brought out. Chu Hsi, one of the latest great expositors of Confucian ideas, plainly gives his ethics a cosmic ground, though for long he was thought of as mainly materialistic. This criticism has, I believe, been overdone.
My main purpose is to give what seem to be the main and common emphases and ethical ideals of Confucianism. There are at times definite religious implications closely connected with some of these. Chu Hsi’s concept of Jen, for instance, implies concepts
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of what might at least be called impersonalistic theism. But a discussion of these religious implications is not necessary to my present purpose.
At some place or other I should give a definition of what I understand by ethics. This is necessary in order to furnish a basis for mutual understanding. By ethical principles I understand those universal social or cosmic principles which should govern human conduct. They usually involve something that men ought to do as contrasted with what they may desire to do. In short whether so- cial only or also cosmic they are objective and not subjective alone. They usually have a foundation or justification outside the in- dividual which may be based either in society as a whole, the cos- mos or a supreme being. Morals, in contradistinction, are usually based entirely either in social customs or the social environment. Ethics may thus have its roots outside the social life; morals never, though an adequate moral system will, of course, be rooted in ethics in which event ethics will become the systematized univer- sal principle ot morality. Taking a hat off, for instance, or leaving it on when entering a house or a church has neither moral or ethi- cal significance in itself. Monogamy and polygamy, however, are social practises which have a moral sanction. To settle which is best it is mecessary, among other things, to ascertain the ethical principle involved—in this case, 1 think, the conservation of per- sonality on its highest level. In any event this is the type of social practice which must needs be settled on the basis of ethics as well as morals, which means, of course, that the ethical principles run through the social morality. This is what happens in China to a considerable extent.
The concept of Jen, so prominent in the Confucian philos-
ophy, is ethical because it is not something which is looked on as
confined to social experience alone. This is one of the concepts,
when translated as love, that is in most lands related to religious
as well as social experience. Tao, another prominent Confucian
concept, is, when viewed as fundamental principle of human of
cosmic activity, usually also ethical in significance. Ancestral
rites are a social custom externally viewed. Yet when considered
�[Page 293]AS CONFUCIANISTS SAW ETHICAL VALUES 2.93
in connection with the doctrine of filial piety fundamental ethical principles are closely interwoven therewith. That is probably what makes them so difficult to dispose of.
Let us note, first, the root, mainspring or universal basis of Confucian ethics. This is, generally viewed, the “nature” of man. Most Chinese thinkers look on it as “good”, though Hsiintzu a- verred it was bad. This latter critic did not, however, deflect much the general belief in its essential goodness. In consequence all Confucianists, including even Hsiintzu, agree that man is poten- tially capable of ethical effort and living. All agree, too, that man must be trained in good living.
The “nature” of man is similar to and derived from the nature of the universe (Tien). T’ien, sometimes conceived personally and sometimes impersonally, decreed or conferred man’s “nature”. Mencius put this clearly when he said, “To know our own minds is to know T’ien.&4T ien, in this case, probably being viewed im- personally. Now both in Mencius and the “Doctrine of the Mean” it is stated clearly that Jen is the chief characteristic of man. Chu Hsi says it means “‘man’’, probably meaning being a man. He also makes it the primary ¢haracteristic of the cosmos. Man, further- more, must aim to be like T’ien. The ‘Doctrine of the Mean’, for instance, declares that “Sincerity is the way of T’ien; to attain sin- cerity is the way of man”. All of which means that man’s funda- mental ethical obligation is rooted in the nature of the universe. This approaches somewhat Kant’s idea of the categorical imperative.
We may now draw a few inferences without taking time or space to develop them at length. (1) Confucians viewed the uni- verse mainly in ethical terms. (2) Moral law (usually “Tao’) is a primary characteristic of the universt. (3) Human ethical obligation is rooted in the nature or principle of the universe. (4) The universe moves in an ethical directior. (5) Man should aim to be good because his “nature” is prim«rily ethical.
Let us note, second, what is in Confucianism the supreme ethi-
cal law. Simply phrased it is, “What you do not like yourself do
not do or give to others.” Applied to society as distinguished by
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“inferiors” and “superiors” (functional rather than ethical usually) the Great Learning thus phrased it: “What a man dis- likes in his superiors let him not display in his treatment of his inferiors: what he dislikes in inferiors let him not display in the service of superiors”.
Is this approach purely negative? Verbally, Yes. It is, how- ever, often phrased positively. As advice to men to avoid imitat- ing those things in others which are objectionable to themselves it might be looked on as mainly prohibitory. Yet it is neither purely negative or prohibitory. It starts with one’s own feelings about what other persons do. Thus the activities of others rather than one’s own desires are in the focus of attention. Then one must select from the activities of others what one responds to favorably and do these things to others. The rule does not, there- fore, begin with self-love or self-regard as the guide of conduct. It is founded in the social rather than the individual aspects of life, though personal likes and dislikes are indicated as a guiding factor. By Confucius it is summed up in the term “Shu,” “mutual consideration”—a mutually positive attitude: the other regarding aspect of attention. Under this rule, furthermore, one must show consideration even if one does not receive it. That is a positive requirement that is fairly prominent in the Confucian system of ethics. This rule of “mutual consideration” is also an important expression of Jen which we may, in this connection, define as true manhood or real humanity. “Jen”, said Confucius, “is the denial of self and response to what is right and proper.” As a matter of fact, therefore, this rule of conduct goes back not only to one’s likes and dislikes but also to one’s affections. Confucius also said that Jen means “loving (showing personal affection towards) your fellowmen.” So that in the last analysis the great rule of conduct is to do to others that which accords with your affection for them. To avoid imitating the objectionable in others and treating them in accordance with your affection for them is a rule of life based on thoughts of others before yourself.
Third, what is, according to Confucian ethics, the supreme
value? In general Confucianists did not over-emphasize material
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goods neither did they ignore them. A ruler must, said the “Doc- trine of the Mean”, “make light of riches and give honor to vir- tue.” And since rulers were expected to be examples to their people this has general as well as special significance. “The man of Jen”, says Mencius, “loving (relational love) his brother desires him to be honored; loving (affectional love) him he desires him to be prosperous.” He also quotes with approval the dictum of Yang Ho, a somewhat disreputable politician, to the effect that, “He who seeks to be rich will not be Jen. He who wishes to be Jen will not be rich.” That is, the true man of Jen does not seek to amass things. Mencius also urges King Hwuy of Leang not to talk of profit for his kingdom but of Love and Righteousness.
What, then, is the chief human value indicated by Confucianist thinkers? Now while the term “personality” does not appear in their utterances yet it seems to me that their supreme value was what we mean by “personality,” even though the rigidity of some of their social customs might militate against it. We note, also, that the man of Jen, he in whom virtue was uppermost, was con- sistently exalted. Thus the virtuous or ethical aspects of personal- ities, ancestors and rulers was always kept to the forefront even though being human the Chinese rarely achieved their ideals. In- tellectual capacity is, of course, one aspect of personality. How Confucianists looked on the relationship of human goodness and intellectual capacity is well known. As a matter of fact these think- ers expected the two to correlate. Undoubtedly the ability to live the good life correlates to some extent with one’s ability to learn and think. However this may be, Confucianists did not try to determine man’s value in terms of possessions, and very often it was determined in terms of ethical characteristics alone.
We may, therefore, say that on its highest level Confucian
ethics puts ethical or virtuous personality as the first value in life.
Likewise it was its ethical significance which was uppermost in
mind when man’s “nature” was referred to. This was what Mencius
had in mind when he declared that the “natur.” of the sages and
that of other men does not differ, thus providing a natural basis
for the concept of human moral equality and even democratic rela-
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tionships. In other words man’s chief value has to do with his ethical worth and potentialities. To make that value primary is, it seems to me, essential to the creation of a worthwhile life anywhere.
We come, fourth, to the social thought-pattern, filial piety. This runs all through the Confucian ethics, though when it was origin- ally formulated we do not know. With the over-emphases and weaknesses connected with this thought-pattern, I need not deal. But I do want to indicate some of its underlying ethical significances.
In filial piety ethical principles are applied to and practiced in a natural celationship which should and does involve certain ob- ligations. Children should appreciate the part their parents played in their lives. They should, 1so, consider the effect of their conduct on their parents. Too much emphasis is laid, however, on mere biological seniority though the virtuous achievements of parents are always given a prominent if not the primary place in the thoughts of children about them.
This natural relationship is the norm for conduct in all re- lationships. As one is, for instance, dependent to some extent on parents so one is dependent for certain things on a government. Out of this arises the obligation to serve the government, to some extent, as one serves the parents. This natural relationship is, further- more, taken as the starting place for general application of ethical principles. ‘Love for men begins with family relationships and should be extended to all others. As one treats his own parents and children so should he treat the parents and children of others. Ethical attitudes are, or should be, specially cultivated in the family and then extended to others. As you practice the Golden Rule with- in the family so should it be practiced beyond the family. Many quotations might be cited to prove these points. One question must, however, be noted. Can the intimate emotional interest and atti- tudes towards the members of one’s own family be extended to all men? Confucian ethics seem to assume that it gan_though in a modified degree.
Nationally it is assumed that filial piety is a characteristic of the man of Jen. Sometimes, in fact, filial piety is made synonymous with Jen. Frequent mention is also made of affection and respect
�[Page 297]AS CONFUCIANISTS SAW ETHICAL VALUES 297
as the bases of filial piety and the ancestral rites which is one mode of expressing it.
In short, Confucian ethics make family relationships and atti- tude the basis of social life. In this they correlate with Christian ethics.
Fifth, there are also certain everyday working ethical princi- ples. These while necessary for all men some will understand bet- ter than the rest. Confucianism does not, however, make under- standing of these principles essential to personal achievement of them. Even the common man, says the “Doctrine of the Mean,” may know and live by them but not even the Sage may probe them to their ultimate depths or heights.
The first of these everyday principles is harmony with nature and man. The idea of harmony with nature fits in with scientific principles for it is only as we work in harmony with natural laws that we can utilize natural resources. The desire for harmony with men is sometimes identificd by superficial observers with willing- ness to compromise readily—under all circumstances. ‘Not so! It is rather the application of the rule of mutual concession. It is the logical outcome of the principle that self-satisfaction is not the end of man. It is the result of looking for the common weal as over against the personal weal. It is the natural fruit of Jen which begins with self-denial. As.a result of the application of this principle the Chinese are usually ready to discuss every issue, except those which violate fundamental righteousness according to their standards.
The second is the Golden Mean. Confucius said to exceed
what you ought to do is as bad as falling below it. If, for instance,
you are indifferent to what happens to those you claim you love, you
love them too little or not truly. If, however, you permit them out
of what you deem love for them to injure themselves because you
do not wish to thwart them you love them unwisely or perhaps too
much. The “Doctrine of the Means” says, “While there are ne- ,
stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow or joy the mind may be said
to be in a state of equilibrium. When these feelings have been
stirred and they act in due degree there ensues what may be called
a state of harmony.” This harmony of feelings acting in a due de-
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gree is apparently what is meant by the Golden Mean. lt means vital awareness without loss of self-control. It means, also, that one must act with due regard to circumstances and the duties of whatever station he finds himsc'f in. There is thus no rigid rule of conduct to fit all circumstances. Some would call this oppor- tunism. I do not so view it. For one is never left to act on the basis of his own feelings and desires alone. Each new situation, also, calls for a specific searching for the right thing to do in shat sit- uation. “To see the rizht and not to do it,” said Confucius “is cowardice.” He also enunciated another fine motto when he said, “I hear much, select the good and follow it.” The Golden Mean, therefore, never means, any end, any means. The means may vary, but the end is always the manifestation of Jen or righteousness.
Third, this involves self-control. Chu Hsi said, altruism (Jen) is self-mastery that is, self-denial. Thus does altruism arrive at its goal. Yet the man of Jen is always io be himself. That is never possible without self-restraint and self-control. Confucius said men were even to sacrifice their lives to be Jen. Only one master of himself can do that. To lose one’s temper, also, means that one has violated Jen.
Fourth, all the above necessitates self-examination. At this point Confucian ethics are very individualistic. Mencius makes this point quite plain. “If a man loves others and no (responsive) at- tachment is shown to him let him turn inwards and examine his own Jen.” That is, if you are not loved blame your own lack of real love. What should you do when you are treated in a perverse and unreasonable manner? ‘“Turn round upon yourself,” says Men- cius, ‘“‘and say, ‘I have been wanting in Jen; I must have been want- ing in propriety’.” One of the predecessors of Chu Hsi, Chang Tsai, pushed home this point when he said, “to blame ourselves as we blame others is to fulfill the moral law. To love others as we love ourselves is to perfect love.” To such heights did these ethi- cal seers sometime rise!
Fifth, there must also be self-rectification. The basic require-
ment in the Great Learning is the rectification of the individual.
The first essential for the state is the first duty of man—to see that
�[Page 299]AS CONFUCIANISTS SAW ETHICAL VALUES 299
he himself is right in any particular situation.
All these everyday working principles show that the chief end of man is moral rectitude in accordance with his own nature and the moral law of the universe. Not one of them can be performed by one man for another. Only the individual concerned can live up to them. Thus in the last analysis a man does not do the right thing ethically unless he does it voluntarily.
The last and sixth main question we have to answer is, What is the basis of authority? Do or should men, according to Confucian ethics, attempt to live virtuous life on the basis of inward compul- sion or outward pressure? Is this, in the last analysis, a voluntary and personal ethics or what we should call “‘authoritian” ethics? On this point there has been considerable difference of opinion arising at times to sharp controversy. There is general agreement that some men—sages—can of themselves or on the basis of their own voli- tion be and do what they ovght to. But there has been wide differ- ence of opinion when it comes to the question of the mass or gener- ality of peopie.
Hsiintzu—one school—held that men do not natu tally do good. They must, therefore, be educated and controlled to that end in various ways. In contrast to Mencius he did not hold that men are equal or have an equal right to satisfaction of their desires. ‘Thus they need to learn the distinction between inferior and superior. in this case the difference of degree to which one is able to satisfy his desires. Naturally he claimed that the inculcation »f appreciation of these social distinctions was one of the functions of the ancestral rites. He advocated frankly, therefore, authoritarian ethics. It should, of course, be noted that in the passage of time external pressure has become more prominent than internal compulsion though there is a decided change going o> in this regard in our day.
Nevertheless I do not think that authoritarian ethics prevail
in Confucianism, even though the earlier Confucianists did, to
some extent, support the views of Hsiintzu. Yet he has never been
popular. This, 1 am inclined to think, was due to his authoritarian-
ism. The prevailing view was that a man’s “nature” being ethical
he could and should direct his own ethical striving. Men cannot
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be made good by outside pressure or regulation alone or mainly. This is why the Great Learning makes everything depend upon personal rectification. Mencius also laid emphasis on retention of the “child heart’”—one’s original capacity to be good.
The aim of Confucian ethics is, therefore, to produce a moral individual who shall properly fit into his social relationships and meet his social obligations. He is sometimes viewed individually but usually in connection with his social relationships and obliga- tions. While the virtues he must strive for are individual the regu- lative principle of such striving is social. A man is good only when he is a good member of society. In their possibilities along this line all men are equal for they start out with the same “nature.”
In the main, too, this a positive system of ethics. It concerns itself little, if at all, with prohibition. It does not tell a man what he ought vot to do but what he ought to do and be. Here is a per- tinent instance. It is sometimes said that Confucianism makes no provision for the forgiveness of enemies. I do not recall any place where such a conjunction is actually uttered. Perhaps this over- sight may be traced to a too-easy optimism. For “Sages’’, says Men- cius, ‘‘will have no enemies.” The long exile of Confucius easily disproves that, of course. Yet the Chart of Ethics says, “Kindness must be repaid, but not injury.” That suggests that even if you do not forgive your enemy you must not take revenge upon him . What Confucian ethics really says is, ‘““Act so as not to make enemies.” That positive requirement is at le.st of equal importance with the injunction to forgive them.
Dr Rawlinson’s article in manuscript carried the Chinese characters for such terms as ‘“‘Jen,’’ “Shu,
etc., and also a number of citations to authorities, omitted in publication.—Editor.
�[Page 301]THE ORIENTAL STUDENTS’ CONGRESS AND THE
THIRD CONVENTION OF THE INDIAN
STUDENTS IN EUROPE: ROME, 1933
by
AMIYANATH SARKAR
|
| : | N the occasion of the inauguration of the Italian Institute for the Middle and the Far East, which owes its existence to the indefatigable efforts of Prof. Tucci, Senator Gen- tile, Consul Scarpa and Baron Ricciardi,—a Congress of the Oriental Students in Europe was invited at Rome during the last Christmas Week. Students from the different university towns of Europe representing Japan, China, Siam, India, Afghan- istan, Persia, Arabia (including Palestine, Syria, Leffanon) attend- ed the Congress and their number was six hundred in all, the Chinese alone were 150 in number including many girls. The number of Indian delegates were 86 and they came specially to attend the Third Convention of the Federation of Indian Students in Europe. More than 30 Indian Christian students attended the Congress from the Pope’s Propaganda College.
For the first time a Congress of this nature was organized and much credit is due to the Italian Students Association and the Hindusthan Association of Italy who jointly took the initiative in organizing the Congress. The Italian authorities granted second class return railway tickets to the delegates within the Italian frontiers and the delegates were the guests of the Italian Students’ Association of Rome.
The authorities were lavish in their hospitality towards the delegates. In successive days they were received by the Oriental Institute, the Rector of the University, University Fascist Group,
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His Holiness the Pope and some individuals. Moreover, visits to important places, exhibition, and opera had also been arranged. To crown everything, Signor Mussolini himself came down to address the Oriental students on the opening day of the Congress which was held in the historic Julius Caesar Hall on the Capitoline Hill.
Though unfortunately there was no mention in his speech about India and China, and more attention was given to the Med- iterranean Asia, a few lines quoted from Mussolini’s remarkable speech might help us to follow the trend of the whole speech as well as to understand Italy’s attitude towards the East. Mussolini in course of his speech said that he considered the trite saying
“East is East and West is West And never the twain shall meet.”
to be historically “‘nonsence.” He continued:
“Twenty centuries ago Rome achieved a union in the Med- iterranean between East and West which has been of tremendous importance in the world’s history. Rome colonized the West, but in the East—in Egypt, in Syria and in Persia, the relationship was one of mutual creative understanding. This union was the corner- stone of our entire history and it gave rise to European civilization. This must now become universal once more or else perish.”
“... the new currents of traffic, the increasing flow of gold, and the exploitation of rich and distant countries gave rise to cap- italism as the basis of a new civilization of a materialistic and ex- clusive character, with its seats far from the Mediterranean.
“It was then that all intercourse between East and West came
to be placed exclusively on a footing of mere subordination and
was restricted to a purely material sphere. Every spiritual link
tending to a creative collaboration came to cease and the belief
became widespread that Europe and Asia must be antagonists.
And the cause of all this was merely a type of mentality existing
in some parts of Europe which was incapable or unwilling to
understand Asia, which considered Asia as a market for produce
and as a fountainhead for raw materials.”
�[Page 303]THE ORIENTAL STUDENTS’ CONGRESS 303
At the close of Mussolini’s speech the President of the Con- gress spoke thanking the Duce and heartily reciprocated the sym- pathy for Asia expressed by him. He was followed by an Arab, M. El. Djabri, the Vice-President of the Congress, and then Sree- mati Bharati Sarabhai spoke on behalf of the Indian delegates.
The Congress had a successful session and it formed its Execu- tive Committee with two delegates from each nation and Mr. Kisan Jehanghiani, an Indian, was appointed Joint Secretary to the Congress. Before dispersing the Congress resolved to start a per- manent bureau in Rome for continuing the useful work done by the Congress for one week. An Indian student, Amiyanath Sarkar, and a Chinese girl student, Mlle. Suzanne Liao, were appointed Joint Secretaries to the Burcau of the Federation of Oriental Stu- dents. The Bureau has already started to function.
Simultaneously with the Oriental Students’ Congress was held the third Convention of the Federation of Indian Students in Europe. Sreejut Subhas Chandra Bose, who was invited to the inauguration of the Oriental Institute, was unanimously elected President of the Convention. Sj. Bose’s presence in Rome not only contributed very largely to the success of the Indian Students’ Con- vention but it also had a benign influence on the work of the Oriental Students’ Congress at moments of disagreement amongst the delegates of the different nations.
The Convention was inaugurated by H. E. Prof. Destefani, President of the Faculty of Political Science of the Rome Univer- sity and Member of the Fascist Grand Council, who welcomed the delegates in very cordial terms. The meeting was also ad- dressed by the Secretary of the University Fascist Group. Many useful resolutions, including one admiring the Congress for its work and another condoling the deaths of Sj. Sen-Gupta and Patel, were discussed and adopted. Mahatma Gandhi was elected the Honorary Life President and Sreejuts Jawaharlal Nehru and Sub- has Bose were elected the Honorary Vice-Presidents of the Federation.
It was decided to reorganize the central office of the Fed-
eration for this purpose and it was shifted from London to Vienna.
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It was also decided to hold the next Convention in Vienna.
In course of his presidential address in which Sj. Bose dealt at a great length with the various problems of Indian students and suggested some solutions requesting the Indian students to come to continental universities and industrial centres instead of crowding in particular countries. The continental universities are as good as those of any other country and they are producing re- markable men. He also said in connection with the student move- ment in India.
“The Student Movement in India is intimately connected with the larger national movement in the country. I have seen the same manifestation in Germany and in Italy. Nevertheless, the task of the Indian students is much harder than the task of students in other free countries, because our students do not get the support of their Government—I mean, of the Government of India.”
At the close of the Convention the delegates to the Indian Students’ Convention were entertained at a tea party by the Hin- dusthan Association of Italy and the function was attended by many Italian personalities. During tea, a debate was held under the presidency of Sj. Bose on the subject ‘““What Indian students have learnt in Europe.” The function was highly enjoyable and Sj. Bose wound up the debate with a nice little speech. Thereafter the newly formed Council of the Federation met and laid down the programine of work for the coming year.
It is very much hoped that this Congress of Rome will really bring together all the students of the East who by their mutual co- operation and camaraderie will advance the cause of the re-awake- ened East.
The forty-second modern movement presented in the department ‘‘The World We Live In.”
Reprinted from The Modern Review.
�[Page 305]WORLD ADVANCE
A Monthly International Review
by
OscaR NEWFANG Author of ‘The Road te World Peace,” etc.
Wuy DISARMAMENT FAILS
Y EcuriTy before disarmament,—that was the rock on which the Disarmament Conference was wrecked. The demand of France was logical. Thrice within the past century has her ter- ritory been invaded by Germany, which has a population of
sixty millions, against France’s population of only forty millions. At the close of the World War France tried to obtain assurance of safety against a further invasion by her aggressive neighbor through the guaranty of Britain and the United States. The guaran- tee was not given. Through the Covenant of the League of Nations France sought security by the assurance of Article X, in which all the members of the League pledge themselves to preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of every member. She also sought assurance through Article XVI, which promised that all the member states would blockade any aggressor. Great Britain used the failure of the United States to enter the League as an excuse to repudiate these solemn promises as far as any use of the British armed forces is concerned. In addition to this clear evidence of the danger of rely- ing upon mere paper promises, France saw the complete supineness of the League when Japan invaded the three Eastern Provinces of China. Is it any wonder that she demanded actual, tangible security against her powerful and warlike neighbor before she would con- sent to disarm?
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THE FAILURE OF THE DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE
The obligation of the nations engaged in the World War to disarm arises partly from the Covenant of the League of Nations and partly from the section of the Versailles Treaty prescribing the forced disarmament of Germany. Article VIII of the Covenant states that all of the members of the League “recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforce- ment by common action of international obligations. The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and the circumstances of each state, shall formulate plans for such reduction.”
The Treaty of Versailles, in disarming Germany, states that this disarmament is required to permit the Allies likewise to reduce their armaments. When Great Britain announced that she was not willing to aid in “the enforcement by common action of inter- national obligations”, and that she would not permit the use of her navy in a blockading sanction under Article XVI, for fear of running afoul of the United States navy, all prospect of success for the Disarmament Conference was destroyed. Germany mean- while, after waiting over ten years for the Allies to fulfill the im- plied promise given her at the time of her enforced disarmament, has announced that she intends to achieve equality of armament with the other great powers, and that, if they will not disarm, she will re-arm up to their level. And she is evidently doing just that. Under these conditions it w.~ idle to expect France to disarm.
THE ARMAMENT RACE IS ON
Great Britain has announced that she intends to increase her
air force to the point of equality with any other power within
striking distance of her shores. Since France has about sixteen
hundred war planes against about eight hundred possessed by
Britain, this practically means that the latter will double her air
force. Germany, under the defiant administration of Hitler, has
clearly indicated that she is bending every effort to re-arm to the
level of her ancient foe across the Rhine. Within the past few
�[Page 307]WORLD ADVANCE 307
weeks Great Britain has discussed with the United States her need of a much larger number of cruisers, in view of the far-flung loca- tion of her dominions and of her obligation to protect the com- merce of the Empire on the seven seas. Japan has given notice that, at the expiration of the Washington Treaty in 1935, she will no longer be satisfied with the 5-5-3 ratio of inferiority assigned to her, and that she intends to increase her naval strength relative to that of the United States and Great Britain. America, on her part, is rapidly increasing her naval strength to the full limit permitted by the Washington Treaty, with the evident purpose of not being left behind next year, when the naval race between Britain and Japan begins. Italy, as is well known, demands naval equality with France and is building up her navy to that end. Russia is feverishly equipping her enormous military forces,—probably the largest in Europe,—with modern guns, tanks, aircraft, etc. China has fully five million men under arms; and while she is at present busy in trying to achieve internal unity, after that has been attained she may easily become a power to be reckoned with. And so the armament race goes merrily on throughout the world.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF OBTAINING SECURITY THROUGH A GENERAL ARMAMENT RACE
In a race only one can be the leader. Just in the proportion
that one nation gains preponderance of armament and so achieves
a measure of security, it in an equal degree destroys the security
of all other nations. It is self-evident that not every nation can
have the strongest armament. Not only is it impossible, therefore,
to achieve general security among the great powers through an
armament race; but such a competition, if kept up long enough,
will almost inevitably lead to war. A nation that is being over-
taken in armament by a neighboring nation will find an almost
irresistable pressure from its military authorities, demanding im-
mediate war before the neighboring nation has fully reached or
surpassed the armament level of the home country. It was partly
because Germany felt able to challenge British supremacy upon
the sea that the German military authorities were not unwilling
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to see the Sarajevo incident precipitate the World War. Von Tirpitz evidently thought that ‘der Tag”,—the day for destroying the British navy—, had arrived. The recent objection by Japan to the arming of China through outside aid is a current illustration of the jealousy with which a heavily armed power regards the rise in military strength of a neighboring nation. Japan has given China ample cause for antagonism to her within the past fifty years; and if she sees the land and air forces of China in a measure approach- ing her own strength, there will doubtless be an almost irresistable demand on the part of the military group now so strong in the Japanese government to find a pretext for war with China before the latter is in a military position to’meet Japan on equal terms.
THE FRENCH DEMAND For SECURITY BEFORE DISARMAMENT
Here, then, is the dilemma. The nations do not dare disarm before they are assured of security against attack, and they do not trust the paper promises of the League for that indispensable security. On the other hand, general security for all can never be achieved through a general armament race. How then can the na- tions of the world achieve such assured security against invasion, that they will be willing to reduce their armaments and cut down the heavy burdens of taxation which they entail? The answer to this problem will appear, if we consider the historical development of political organization from the beginning.
When pioneers settle a new country every man must go armed to the teeth. When the “forty-niners” in America inaugurated the gold rush to the Pacific Coast, every man was obliged to carry a well-oiled six-shooter in his belt. Most of them carried two,— just in case they should be attacked from two sides. At the present day the inhabitants of California do not go about armed. How were they disarmed? They felt sufficient security to disarm only when the whole community organized an adequate armed police force to protect their lives and property.
In the Middle Ages every castle in Europe was an armed
fortress, and its baron and his vassals were completely armed a-
gainst attack by other barons. How were these feudal castles and
�[Page 309]WORLD ADVANCE 399
their inhabitants disarmed? They were disarmed only when the king or the whole country organized a national force sufficient to assure them against attack by any other feudal lord, and thus gave them the necessary security for life and property.
Up until the nineteenth century the separate Italian city repub- lics were each fully armed against attacks by the armed forces of any other Italian city. How were these city republics disarmed? They were not disarmed until a general national government was organized covering the whole Italian peninsula and equipped with a national force sufficient to make each of these cities feel secure against further attack from any other.
At the present day every sovereign state in the world is armed to the full extent of its financial and physical resources against attack by any other state. When we ask the question: How will these states be disarmed? Does not the entire history of political development shriek the answer, that disarmament will be possible when—and only when—a general world organization is equipped with a world force,—an international police force,—of sufficient power to give every nation a complete assurance of security a- gainst attack by any other nation?
DISARMAMENT AWAITS AN ADEQUATE LEAGUE FORCE
The world organization exists at present in the League of Na- tions. In order to give its member states the security which is neces- sary before they can safely disarm, the League must be equipped with an international police force of sufficient strength to prevent any attack by one member state pon another, or any attack upon a League member state by any power outside the League; a force that will be sufficiently strong, also, to compel the submission of every international dispute either to adjudication by the World Court, arbitration or conciliation by the League Council.
This international force, moreover, must be a force actually
in existence and at all times under the control of the League, not
a mere promise of mutual assistance in time of invasion, which
may or may not be fulfilled. Pioneers will not consent to lay a-
side their shooting irons until they see an armed police force which
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is to protect their lives right in their mining or pioneer settlement. The feudal barons and the small principalities of Europe would not disarm their vassals or disband their separate armies until the king or the general national organization actually had in existence and ready for the protection of their lives and their fortunes a force that their own eyes assured them was adequate for the pur- pose. And the state members of the League of Nations will never feel safe to disarm until they see in actual existence and ready for service an international police force of adequate strength to keep the peace of the world and to protect every member state against attack.
In view of the extent of the territory to be covered by a world force, military authorities like Major-General F. Maurice, of Great Britain, feel that a strong air force would be the best arm on which to place main reliance; although it seems that the sea also should be policed by a world naval] force; and there would have to be a certain strength of land forces in addition.
THE NECESSARY CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
What changes would be necessary in the structure of the Lea-
gue and in its Covenant to make possible the provision of this
security to all member states which would make them willing to
disarm? In the first place, the composition of "he international
authority which is to control the armed forces v ould have to be
satisfactory alike to great states and to small states. The great
states, which would have to bear the principal burden in preserv-
ing the peace of the world, would insist on representation in the
international authority proportionate to their population and im-
portance; while the small states would be fearful that a coalition of
a few of the large states could outvote them and oppress them. This
difficult problem was met and solved in the formation of the Ameri-
can union by establishing a double-chamber parliament, in one cham-
ber of which the states were represented according to population,
thus giving the large states the predominance which they felt was
due to them; and in the other chamber all states, great and small,
�[Page 311]were given equal representation, thus removing the fear on the part
of the small states of a coalition against them of a few large and
populous states This international authority, this revised Assembly
of the League, could be authorized to act finally by majority vote
of both chambers in all international matters. Whether a pending
measure is international in character can be safely left to the de-
cision of the second chamber, in which all states have equal vote.
The second change in the structure of the League of Nations which is necessary to render the organization adequate for the permanent establishment of international justice and peace is a compulsory jurisdiction for.the World Court in all international disputes whatever. A court that can take jurisdiction in a dispute which threatens to lead to war only when both parties to the dis- pute are willing to submit the dispute to the court is a totally im- potent organ for maintaining the peace of the world.
And the third and most important improvement required in the League structure to make it effective in keeping the peace of the world is the organization of an adequate international police force, placed under the general control of the international author- ity representing the member states, and acting under the immediate orders of the League Council as its Executive Cabinet. In order to accomplish the arming of the League and the disarming of the separate member states, the best method would seem to be a grad- ual transfer of a certain percentage of each member’s armament and military personnel to the League during each decade. This method would not only automatically disarm the member states in proportion to the progress of the arming of their League; but it would have the additional merit that the relative armed strength of each member state would remain constant during the process of arming the League and disarming the member states.
REVISING THE LEAGUE COVENANT
Italy has made a formal demand for the revision of the Coven-
ant of the League of Nations. If this were made with a view to
carrying out the changes which have just been outlined, the re-
vision of the Covenant would have to be somewhat as follows.
�[Page 312]312 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
Article III would be revised to read: “The Assembly shall con- sist of two chambers, in one of which each member state shall have two representatives and two votes, and in the other of which each member state shall have one representative for each five million of its population or fraction thereof.” And the last paragraph of that article to read: “At meetings of the Assembly each chamber shall vote separately, a majority of each chamber being required to pass a bill, which thereupon becomes international law.”
Art. V: Omit the first paragraph regarding unanimity.
Art. VI: Add: “The expenses of the League and of its armed
force shall be met by taxation levied directly upon the citizens of the member states, in such manner as the Assembly shall decide.”
Art. VIII: Substitute for paragraphs 2, 3 and 4: “In order to thus reduce national armaments each member state shall trans- fer to the control of the League during each decade one tenth of its armament and military personnel, the first such transfer being made within a year of the adoption of this amendment. After six tenths of such armaments shall have been transferred to the Lea- gue, the Council shall decide whether further reduction of nation- al armaments is desirable and safe.”
Art. XIV: Change the second sentence on the competence of the World Court to read: “The Court shall have original, compulsory and final jurisdiction in all disputes between member states, between a member state and a citizen or citizens of another mernber state, and between citizens of different member states.”
Art. XV: Change the fourth paragraph regarding the report of the Council in the case of a dispute to read: “If the dispute is not thus settled, the Council shall by a majority vote make and publish a report containing a statement of the facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are deemed just and proper in re- gard thereto, which recommendations the Council shall forthwith enforce, using, if necessary, the armed forces of the League.”
Art. XVI: Substitute for the second paragraph: “It shall be
the duty of the Council in such case to use the League’s forces
to restore peace.”
�[Page 313]WORLD ADVANCE 313
COMMENT ON THE PROPOSED REVISIONS OF THE LEAGUE COVENANT
The reconstitution of the League Assembly is made necessary by the two facts, first, that the large nations would not consent to an international authority controlling an armed force, of which they would naturally be obliged to contribute the lie=’s sha.z, un- less they were given representation in that authority proportionate to their population and importance: they would not accept an in- ternational control of armed forces in which all states, great and small, should have merely an equal voice. On the other hand historical experience has proved, that small states will not accept an international authority armed to enforce its laws and court decisions, unless they are adequately safeguarded against the possi- bility of oppression and discrimination through a coalition of the large states with heavy voting power.
The simultaneous arming of the League and disarming of the member states, as proposed in the revision of Article VIII, is not only the fairest method by which an international police force can be organized; but, even after only the first transfer of one tenth of the armament of each member state of the League, the latter would possess an armament so powerful as to give pause to any state contemplating aggression; and, after the second such transfer, the League’s armament would be so overwhelmingly superior to that of any member state, that it would be sheer mad- ness for any state to attempt aggression in violation of the League’s decisions. The member states being thus given adequate, tangible security, would be all the more willing to make the further dis- armament transfers, so as to lighten their burdens of taxation.
Comment is hardly necessary on the revision of Article XIV, giving the World Court compulsory jurisdiction. Until this is done, the League will be merely a debating society, not an inter- national authority governing the relations of states to one another and compelling the keeping of the peace among them.
If, instead of submitting an international dispute to the adju-
dication of the Court, it is of such a nature as to require arbitration
�[Page 314]314 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
or investigation by the Council, it is evident that, if world peace is to be preserved, the award or the recommendation of the Coun- cil regarding such dispute must be enforced by the international police force; hence the revision suggested in Article XV of the Covenant.
This program for an effective method of disarmament among
the member states of the League is, of course, only rough-hewn-
and is here set forth only to provoke thought and discussion among
the sincere workers for world peace in English-speaking and other
countries.
�[Page 315]BOOK NOTES
by
JosEPH S. ROUCEK
Pennsylvania State Coliege
The Emotional Responses of Children to the Motion Picture Situation. By W.S. Dysinger and Christian A. Ruckmick. Pp. vi, 285. Motion Pictures and Standards of Morality. By Charles C. Peters. Pp. x, 122. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1933.
It is generally known that the motion pictures have a tremen- dous influence on their audiences by conditioning their attitudes on the various problems of the day. But before the publication of this book, no scientific work had appeared which would have analyzed systematically these influences. The first part of the work tries to discover the emotional effects produced by various types of inci- dents in the motion pictures on children and adults in a wide range of ages. Of equal importance is the analysis of Dr. Peters of the Pennsylvania State College of ‘the question of the amount of di- vergence of commercial motion pictures from current standards of morality in respect to the conduct exhibited in them.” Numerous points pertaining to international attitudes are ably discussed in this valuable presentation, which, although heavy reading, is a real contribution.
The Constitution. By Frank Abbott Magruder and Guy Shirk Claire. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1933. Pp, xii, 395. $2.50. There is no end to the fund of textbooks on the Amer- ican Constitution which are being published in this country. This one can be classed among the better, if not one of the best, of them. The authors present the text of the document clause by clause, with explanatory comment and decisions on important cases which have
315
�[Page 316]316 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
arisen under each clause. Both the legal and the non-legal factors are combined in the approach. Our readers will benefit especially by the section pertaining to the conduct of foreign relations by the Government of the United States. In addition, the book includes such recent material of importance as the decision handed down in the Scottsboro case.
Poland. By Roman Dyboski. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933. Pp. 443. $5.00. Under the editorship of H. A. L. Fisher, a famed English scholar, the Scribner’s Company is bring- ing out a series of books on individual countries of the world in “The Modern World Series.” There is strong justification for publishing this volume on Poland, a country which stands some- how in the centrum of all Central and East European disturbances. The author, Professor of English Literature in the University of Cracow, internationally known as historian, social scientist, inter- preter of Anglo-Saxon life and culture to Poland, and of Polish civilization to the English-speaking world, has written a splendid volume. It is true that Dr. Duboski writes as a Pole—and we must expect his pro-Polish leanings. But he does not hesitate to point out the weaknesses of his own nation. The book is closely printed, and contains an invaluable mass of material on Polish history and the present geographical aspects and administrative structure, mi- nority problems, economic life, education and research, literature and art, and a good critical bibliography. This is indeed an indis- pensable volume.
The World Since 1914. By Walter Consuelo Langsam, New
York: MacMillan, 1933. Pp. xiv. 723. Supplementary Chapter.
Pp. 658-742. 1933. For a concise, clear, and summarized ac-
count of the affairs of the world, chiefly in the political sphere, we
feel that Dr. Langsam’s is the peer among numerous other books.
We must admit, however, that the title is somewhat misleading,
because, for example, we find here no history of South America;
but the events of Europe the problem of the British Empire, Rus-
sia, Turkey, China and Japan, and the United States, are here pre-
sented in a form most readable and clarifying. Dr. Langsam not
�[Page 317]BOOK NOTES 317
only knows how to write, but he also knows his subject thoroughly, a commendable attribute rare among most authors of political sub- jects.
Speeches and Writings, by Mahatma Gandhi. Fourth Edition. G. A, Natesan & Co., Madras. 1933. Pp. xiii, xv, 1072, 6 sh. To average American citizens Gandhi is more interesting because of his sheet than because of the tremendous spiritual influence that he exerts over India. The reading of the present work should go a long way in reversing the process of interest. The new omnibus edition has the chapters divided so as to cover the Mahatma’s varied activities in different periods of life; the top notes set forth the time and circumstances of the writing or utterances. Select articles from his pen and excerpts from his writings and speeches are also taken from Young India and Navajivan—the Mahatma’s English and Gujarati weeklies—articles throwing light on the movement of his mind and forming a running commentary on the leading events of our time. Throughout the book we find portraits of the Mahatma at different stages of his life. The book is in no sense a penetrating work of social or political significance, but it provides an illuminating prelude to any study of present-day events in the East.
Ores and Industry in the Far East. The Influence of Key Miner- al Resources on the Development of Oriental Civilization. By H. Foster Bain. Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. 1933. Pp. xvi, 288. $3.00.
Agricultural Systems of Middle Europe. A Symposium. Edited by O. S. Morgan. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1933. Pp. ix, 405. $5.00.
The economic background of international relations must be
fully appreciated by every serious student. The recent events in
the Far East show repeatedly the importance of mineral and eco-
nomic resources to the nations of today. Thus the first book sur-
veys the varying resources of China, Japan, Eastern Siberia, Indo-
China, Siam, the Netherlands East Indies, the Federated Malay
�[Page 318]318 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
State, and the Philippines. The potentialities of these countries are analyzed in terms of coal, iron, petroleum, and other mineral wealth. Of special importance is a chapter on the mineral riches of Man- churia and Jehol. The study is packed with facts which are essential to our understanding of politics, based on economics, in the Far East.
Central and South-Eastern Europe is confronted with some- what different tasks, which are focussed around the problem of agriculture. Professor Morgan of Columbia University has gath- ered distinguished agricultural authorities in their respective states, who analyze the essential economic factors in the agricultural and commercial competition of Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, Roumania and Yugoslavia. The effects of excessive nationalism on agriculture are glaringly diagnosed, and recent con- structive ameliorative measures operating and projected are de scribed. Both authors (Mr. Bain was formerly Chief of the United States Bureau of Mines) have produced handbooks of information possessing vast stores of new material. The value and popularity of Bain’s volume is attested by the fact that his is now a revised second edition. Professor Morgan’s treatment deserves the same popularity. It is true that both publications make no concession to the running reader; but a careful reader will find here a reservoir of facts.
Williamstown Institute of Politics, Report of the Round Tables and General Conference at the Twelfth Session. Edited by John Bakeless. Published for the Institute of Politics by the Yale Univer. sity Press, New Haven, Conn., Pp. vit, 345.
The value of the meetings of the Williamstown Institute of
Politics for the promotion of international understanding was in-
calculable. Under the direction of Dr. Garfield here gathered year-
ly outstanding scholars of world-wide fame, who were able to
study the international problems of the world dispassionately and
under the quietening influence of the environment of Williams
College. This book provides a fine summary of what was going on
at the last conference, held in 1932, edited by Professor Bakeless of
�[Page 319]BOOK NOTES 319
Clark University. Compared to the previous reports, this one stands
out not only for the able editing but also for its fine binding and
printing. Special mention must be given to the reports on the con-
ferences led by the venerable director of the Institute of Inter-
national Education, Dr. Stephen P. Duggan, on the “Stimson Doc-
trine” and ‘Contrasts in Latin American Civilization,’ and also
to those on ““The Peace Treaties and the Map of Europe,” led by
Professor Bernadotte E. Schmitt, of the History Department of
Chicago University and editor of ‘Journal of Modern History.”
Other subjects were: Limitation of Armaments (presented by Dr.
R. L. Buell), The Disintegration of the Modern World Order (by
Professors Arnold J. Toynbee and Edwin F. Gay), Sino-Japanese
Relations in Eastern Asia (by Henry Kittredge Norton), American
Economic Foreign Policy (by Dr. W. W. Cumberland and Profes-
sor J. H. Williams), The Present Position of Credit and Monetary
Problems (by Professor T. E. Gregory), The St. Lawrence Water-
way (by Professor W. W. McLaren), and The Imperial Economic
Conference (by Dean P. E. Corbett). The syllabi and bibliographies
at the end of the volume are indeed helpful. We regret the inabil-
ity of Dr. Garfield and his advisors to arrange his Institute of 1933.
But as a record of the Jast conference this book is a fine account of
the work done by the Institute at its last session in 1932.
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