WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:05.599 Chapter nine A of Anticipations. This is a LibriVox recording. 2 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:09.080 All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more 3 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:14.839 information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording 4 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:22.879 by Christopher Taylor Anticipations by H. G. Wells, Chapter nine A. 5 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:28.079 The Faith, morals, and public Policy of the New Republic. 6 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:33.079 If the surmise of a developing new Republic, a republic 7 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:36.799 that must ultimately become a world's state of capable rational men, 8 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:40.359 developing avidst the fading contours and colors of our existing 9 00:00:40.439 --> 00:00:43.759 nations and institutions, be indeed no idle dream, but an 10 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:46.840 attainable possibility in the future. And to that end it 11 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:50.159 is that the preceding anticipations have been mainly written. It 12 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:53.560 becomes a speculation of very great interest to forecast something 13 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:56.840 of the general shape, and something even of certain details, 14 00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.520 of that common body of opinion, which the New Republic, 15 00:00:59.560 --> 00:01:02.759 when it was last it discovers and declares itself will possess. 16 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:06.040 Since we have supposed this new Republic will already be 17 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:09.480 consciously and pretty freely controlling the general affairs of humanity 18 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:13.239 before the century closes, its broad principles and opinions must 19 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:17.000 necessarily shape and determine that still ampler future, of which 20 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:20.200 the coming hundred years is but the opening phase. There 21 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:23.560 are many processes, many aspects of things that are now, 22 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:26.200 as it were, in the domain of natural laws and 23 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:30.840 outside human control or controlled unintelligently and superstitiously, that in 24 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:33.239 the future, in the days of the coming New Republic, 25 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:35.920 will be definitely taken in hand as part of the 26 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:39.159 general work of humanity. As indeed, already since the beginning 27 00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:42.040 of the nineteenth century the control of pestilences has been 28 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:45.280 taken in hand. And in particular there are certain broad 29 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.439 questions much under discussion, to which thus far I have 30 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:53.840 purposefully given a value disproportionately small. While the New Republic 31 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:57.120 is gathering itself together and becoming aware of itself, that 32 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:00.359 other great element, which I have called the people of 33 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.359 the Abyss, will also have followed out its destiny for 34 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.959 many decades. That development will be largely or entirely out 35 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:11.319 of all human control. To the multiplying rejected of the 36 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:14.120 white and yellow civilizations, there will have been added a 37 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:17.560 vast proportion of the black and brown races, and collectively 38 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:21.000 those masses will propound the general question what will you 39 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.479 do with us, we hundreds of millions who cannot keep 40 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:27.919 pace with you. If the New Republic emerges at all, 41 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.840 it will emerge by grappling with this riddle. It must 42 00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:33.960 come into existence by the passes this sphinx will guard 43 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:38.800 moreover the necessary results of the reaction of irresponsible wealth 44 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:42.520 upon that infirm and dangerous thing, the human will. The 45 00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.680 spreading moral rot of gambling, which is associated with irresponsible wealth, 46 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:49.840 will have been working out and will continue to work out, 47 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:53.080 so long as there is such a thing as irresponsible 48 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.319 wealth pervading the social body, That too, the New Republic must, 49 00:02:57.319 --> 00:03:01.000 in its very development overcome. In the Procesading chapter, it 50 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:04.240 is clearly implicit that I believe that the New Republic, 51 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:08.719 as its consciousness and influence developed together, will meet, check 52 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:12.199 and control these things. But the broad principles upon which 53 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:15.039 the control will go, the nature of the methods employed, 54 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:18.319 still remain to be deduced. And to make that deduction, 55 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.319 it is necessary that the primary conception of life, the 56 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:25.560 fundamental religious and moral ideas of these predominant men of 57 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:30.479 the new times, should first be considered. Now quite inevitably, 58 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:34.759 these men will be religious men, being themselves as by 59 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:37.000 the nature of the forces that have selected them. They 60 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:40.360 will certainly be men of will and purpose. They will 61 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:43.879 be disposed to find, and consequently they will find an 62 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:47.400 effect of purpose in the totality of things. Either one 63 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:50.520 must believe the universe to be one and systematic, and 64 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.960 held together by some omnipresent quality, or one must believe 65 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:57.800 it to be a casual aggregation and incoherent accumulation, with 66 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:01.280 no unity whatsoever outside the unity of the personality. Regarding 67 00:04:01.319 --> 00:04:05.919 it all, science in most modern religious systems presuppose the former, 68 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:08.879 and to believe the former is to anyone not too 69 00:04:08.919 --> 00:04:12.479 anxious to quibble to believe in God. But I believe 70 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.280 these prevailing men of the future, like many of the 71 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:19.160 saner men of today, having so formulated their fundamental belief, 72 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:22.639 will presume to no knowledge whatever were presumed to no 73 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.959 possibility of knowledge of the real being of God. They 74 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:29.160 will have no positive definition of God at all. They 75 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:32.839 will certainly not indulge in that something not ourselves that 76 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:37.439 makes for righteousness, not defined, or any defective claptrap of 77 00:04:37.439 --> 00:04:41.319 that sort. They will content themselves with denying the self 78 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:49.319 contradictory absurdities of an obstinately anthropomorphic theology. Footnote as for example, 79 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:52.720 that God is an omniscient mind. This is the last 80 00:04:52.839 --> 00:04:56.279 vestige of that barbaric theology, which regarded God as a 81 00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:00.120 vigorous but uncertain, old gentleman with a beard and an 82 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:04.639 inordinate lust for praise and propitiation. The modern idea is 83 00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:08.759 indeed scarcely more reasonable than what it is replaced. A 84 00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:13.120 mind thinks and feels and wills, it passes from phase 85 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:16.120 to phase. Thinking and willing are a succession of mental 86 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:20.120 states which follow and replace one another. But omniscience is 87 00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:23.199 a complete knowledge not only of the present state, but 88 00:05:23.279 --> 00:05:26.120 of all past and future states. Since it is all 89 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:29.399 there at any moment, it cannot conceivably pass from phase 90 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:33.920 to phase. It is stagnant, infinite, and eternal. An omniscient 91 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:38.560 mind is as impossible. Therefore, as an ominipresent moving body, 92 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:42.399 God is outside our mental scope. Only by faith can 93 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:45.720 we attain him. Our most lucid moments serve only to 94 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:50.120 render clearer his inaccessibility to our intelligence. We stand a 95 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:52.600 little way up in a scale of existences that may 96 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:56.480 indeed point towards him, but can never bring him to 97 00:05:56.519 --> 00:06:00.000 our scope. As the fullness of the conscious mental existence 98 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.959 distance of a man stands to the subconscious activities of 99 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:06.199 an amoeba or of a visceral ganglion cell. So our 100 00:06:06.279 --> 00:06:10.399 reason forces us to admit other possible mental existences may 101 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:14.600 stand to us. But such an existence, inconceivably great as 102 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:17.079 it would be to us, would be scarcely nearer that 103 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.759 transcendental God in whom the serious men of the future 104 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:25.000 will as a class believe end footnote. They will regard 105 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:28.120 the whole of being within themselves in without as a 106 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.959 sufficient revelation of God to their souls, and they will 107 00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:34.759 set themselves simply to that revelation, seeking its meaning towards 108 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:39.360 themselves faithfully and courageously manifestly. The essential being of man 109 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:43.000 in this life is his will. He exists consciously only 110 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:45.879 to do. His main interest in life is the choice 111 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.319 between alternatives, and since he moves through space and time 112 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:52.519 to effects and consequences, a general purpose in space and 113 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:55.600 time is the limit of his understanding. He can know 114 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:59.120 God only under the semblance of a pervading purpose of 115 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.879 which his own individual freedom of will is a part. 116 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:05.079 But he can understand that the purpose that exists in 117 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:08.360 space and time is no more God than a voice 118 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:12.639 calling out from impenetrable darkness is a man. To men 119 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:15.439 of the kinetic type, belief in God so manifests his 120 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:19.399 purpose is irresistible. And to all lucid minds, the being 121 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:23.319 of God, save as that general atmosphere of imperfectly apprehended 122 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:28.079 purpose in which our individual wills operate, is incomprehensible to 123 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:31.399 cling to any belief more detailed than this. To define 124 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:33.800 and limit God in order to take hold of him, 125 00:07:33.959 --> 00:07:36.800 To detach one's self in parts of the universe, from 126 00:07:36.839 --> 00:07:40.160 God in some mysterious way, in order to reduce life 127 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:45.639 to a dramatic antagonism is not faith but infirmity. Excessive 128 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:50.319 strenuous belief is not faith. By faith, we disbelieve. And 129 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:53.279 it is the drowning man and not the strong swimmer 130 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:56.360 who clutches at the floating straw. It is in the 131 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:58.800 nature of man. It is in the present purpose of 132 00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:01.279 things that the real world world of our experience and 133 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:04.079 will should appear to us not only as a progressive 134 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:06.959 existence in space and time, but as a scheme of 135 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:12.040 good and evil, but choice the antagonism of good and evil. 136 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:14.480 Just as much as the formulation of things in space 137 00:08:14.519 --> 00:08:18.279 and time is merely a limiting condition of human being, 138 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:21.120 and in the thought of God as we conceive of 139 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:25.879 him in the light of faith, this antagonism vanishes. God 140 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:30.199 is no moralist, God is no partisan. He comprehends and 141 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:34.000 cannot be comprehended. And our business is only with so 142 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:37.320 much of His purpose as centers on our individual wills. 143 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:42.679 So or in some such phrases, I believe these men 144 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.159 of the New Republic will formulate the relationship to God. 145 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:48.600 They will live to serve this purpose that presents Him 146 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:52.840 without presumption and without fear, for the same spacious faith 147 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.600 that will render the idea of erring their egotisms in 148 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:59.600 God's presence through prayer, or of any such quite personal, 149 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:05.039 intimate absurd, will render the idea of rascible, impunitive deity 150 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:10.240 ridiculous and incredible. The men of the New Republic will 151 00:09:10.279 --> 00:09:13.039 hold and understand quite clearly the doctrine that in the 152 00:09:13.039 --> 00:09:16.919 real world of man's experience there is free will. They 153 00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:20.799 will understand that constantly, as a very condition of his existence, 154 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:24.759 man is exercising choice between alternatives, and that a conflict 155 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:28.960 between motives that have different moral values constantly arises. That 156 00:09:29.159 --> 00:09:33.399 conflict between predestination and free will, which is so puzzling 157 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:37.240 to untrained minds, will not exist for them. They will 158 00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:40.360 know that in the real world of sensory experience, will 159 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:44.399 is free, just as new sprung grass is green, wood hard, 160 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:49.000 ice cold, and toothache painful. In the abstract world of 161 00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:52.240 reasoning science, there is no grain, no color at all, 162 00:09:52.399 --> 00:09:56.120 but certain lengths of vibration, no hardness but a certain 163 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:59.759 reaction in molecules, no cold, and no pain, but c 164 00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:04.159 molecular consequences in the nerves that reach the misinterpreting mind. 165 00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:08.519 In the abstract world of reasoning science. Moreover, there is 166 00:10:08.559 --> 00:10:12.080 a rigid and inevitable sequence of cause and effect. Every 167 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:15.080 act of man could be foretold to its uttermost detail, 168 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:18.440 if only we knew him and all his circumstances fully. 169 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:22.720 In the abstract world of reason science, all things exist now, 170 00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:26.559 potentially down to the last moment of infinite time. But 171 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:29.840 the human will does not exist in this abstract world 172 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:33.559 of reason science, in the world of atoms and vibrations 173 00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:37.679 that rigidly predestinate scheme of things in space and time. 174 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:41.519 The human will exists in this world of men and women, 175 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:45.120 in this world where the grass is green and desire beckons, 176 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.200 and the choice is often so wide and clear between 177 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:51.039 the sense of what is desirable and what is more 178 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:55.399 widely and remotely right. In this world of sense of 179 00:10:55.480 --> 00:10:59.240 the daily life, these men will believe with an absolute 180 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:03.240 conviction that there is free will and a personal moral 181 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:07.960 responsibility in relation to that indistinctly seeing purpose, which is 182 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.919 the sufficient revelation of God to them. So far as 183 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:15.320 this sphere of being goes, the conception they will have 184 00:11:15.399 --> 00:11:19.320 of that purpose will necessarily determine their ethical scheme. It 185 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:23.320 follows manifestly that if we do really believe in Almighty God, 186 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:27.279 the more strenuously and successfully we seek in ourselves and 187 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:30.759 his world to understand the order and progress of things, 188 00:11:30.919 --> 00:11:34.480 and the more clearly we apprehend His purpose, the more 189 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:40.240 assured and systematic will our ethical basis become. If, like Huxley, 190 00:11:40.440 --> 00:11:43.399 we do not positively believe in God, then we may 191 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:46.200 still cling to an ethical system which has become an 192 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:49.279 organic part of our lives and habits, and finding it 193 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:52.679 manifestly in conflict with the purpose of things. Speak of 194 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:56.279 the non ethical order of the universe. But to any 195 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:59.240 one whose mind is pervaded by faith in God, a 196 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:03.519 non ethical universe in conflict with the incomprehensibly ethical soul 197 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:07.320 of the agnostic is as incredible as a black horned devil, 198 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:11.679 an active material anti god with hoofs, tail, pitchfork, and 199 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.919 dunstan scorched nose. Complete. To believe completely in God is 200 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:18.960 to believe in the final rightness of all being. The 201 00:12:19.039 --> 00:12:22.000 ethical system that condemns the ways of life is wrong 202 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:25.440 or points to the ways of death is right. That continances. 203 00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:28.919 What the scheme of things condemns and condemns the general 204 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.440 purpose in things as it is now revealed to us, 205 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:34.679 must prepare to follow the theological edifice upon which it 206 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:38.200 was originally based. If the universe is non ethical by 207 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.960 our present standards, we must reconsider these standards and reconstruct 208 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:45.519 our ethics. To hesitate to do so, however severe the 209 00:12:45.559 --> 00:12:48.519 conflict with old habits and traditions and sentiments may be, 210 00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:53.039 is to fall short of faith. Now so far as 211 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:56.000 the intellectual life of the world goes, this present time 212 00:12:56.080 --> 00:13:00.080 is essentially the opening phase of a period of ethical reconstruction, 213 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:02.759 a reconstruction of which the New Republic will possess a 214 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:06.279 matured result. Throughout the nineteenth century there has been such 215 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.159 a shattering and recasting of fundamental ideas of the preliminaries 216 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:13.679 to ethical propositions as the world has never seen before. 217 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:17.159 This breaking down and routing out of almost all the 218 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:20.159 cardinal assumptions on which the minds of the eighteenth century 219 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:23.799 dwelt securely is a process akin to, but independent of, 220 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:28.200 the development of mechanism, whose consequences we have traced. It 221 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:30.840 is a part of that process of vigorous and fearless 222 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:33.600 criticism which is the reality of science, and of which 223 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:36.679 the development of mechanism and all that revolution in physical 224 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:39.519 and social conditions we have been tracing, is merely the 225 00:13:39.639 --> 00:13:45.720 vast imposing material byproduct at present. Indeed, its more obvious 226 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:49.279 aspect on the moral and ethical side is destruction. Anyone 227 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:51.759 could see the chips flying, but it still demands a 228 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:54.799 certain faith and patience to see the form that ensues. 229 00:13:55.360 --> 00:13:58.879 But it is not destruction anymore that a sculptor's work 230 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:02.919 is stone breaking. The first chapter in the history of 231 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:07.519 this intellectual development, its definite and formal opening, coincides with 232 00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:09.919 the opening of the nineteenth century, in the publication of 233 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:14.519 Malthus's Essay on Population. Malthus is one of those cardinal 234 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:18.000 figures in intellectual history, who state definitely for all time 235 00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:22.879 things apparent enough after their formulation, but never effectively conceded before. 236 00:14:23.639 --> 00:14:27.399 He brought clearly and emphatically into the sphere of discussion 237 00:14:27.399 --> 00:14:30.960 a fatally important issue that has always been shirked and tabooed. 238 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.519 Heretofore the fundamental fact that the main mass of the 239 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:40.200 business of human life centers about reproduction. He stated in clear, hard, decent, 240 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:44.440 and unavoidable argument, what presently Schopenhauer was to discover and 241 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:48.960 proclaim in language. At times it would seem quite unfitted 242 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:53.480 for translation into English. And having made a statement, Malthus 243 00:14:53.559 --> 00:14:58.480 left it in contact with its immediate results. Probably no 244 00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:01.799 more shattering book than the Essay on Population has ever been, 245 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:05.159 or ever will be written. It was aimed at the 246 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:09.519 facile liberalism of the deists and atheists of the eighteenth century. 247 00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:12.360 It made as clear as daylight that all forms of 248 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:16.960 social reconstruction, all dreams of earthly golden ages, must be 249 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:21.080 either futile or insincere, or both, until the problems of 250 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:25.639 human increase were manfully faced. It proffered no suggestions for 251 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:29.720 facing them. In spite of the unpleasant associations of Malthus's name. 252 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.720 It aims simply to wither the rationalistic utopias of the time, 253 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:38.480 and by anticipation, all the communisms, socialisms, and earthly paradise 254 00:15:38.559 --> 00:15:41.919 movements that have since been so abundantly audible in the world. 255 00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:45.720 That was its aim and its immediate effect. Incidentally, it 256 00:15:45.799 --> 00:15:50.000 must have been a torturing soul trap for innumerable idealistic 257 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:54.399 but intelligent souls. Its indirect effects have been altogether greater. 258 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:58.720 Aiming at unorthodox dreamers, it has set forces in motion 259 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:03.120 as have destroyed the very root ideas of orthodox righteousness 260 00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:07.960 in the Western world. Impinging on geological discovery, it awakened, 261 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.279 almost simultaneously in the minds of Darwin and Wallace, that 262 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:14.679 train of thought that found expression and demonstration at last 263 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:18.200 in the theory of natural selection. As that theory has 264 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:21.279 been more and more thoroughly assimilated and understood by the 265 00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:26.000 general mind, it has destroyed quietly but entirely the belief 266 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:30.000 in human equality which is implicit in all the liberalizing 267 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.519 movements of the world. In the place of an essential 268 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:37.440 equality distorted only by tradition and early training, by the 269 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:42.200 artifices of those devils of the liberal cosmogony, king craft 270 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:45.879 and priest craft, and equality as little affected by color 271 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:48.399 as the equality of a black chest pond and a 272 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.559 white We discover that all been are individual and unique, 273 00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:56.080 and through long ranges of comparison, superior and inferior upon 274 00:16:56.200 --> 00:17:00.519 countless scores. It has become apparent that whole masses of 275 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:04.480 human population are as a whole inferior in their claim 276 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:08.279 upon the future to other masses, that they cannot be 277 00:17:08.319 --> 00:17:12.440 given opportunities or trusted with power as the superior peoples 278 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:17.160 are trusted, that their characteristic weaknesses are contagious and detrimental 279 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:20.240 to the civilizing fabric, and that the range of incapacity 280 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:25.039 tempts and demoralizes the strong. To give them equality is 281 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:27.799 to sink to their level. To protect and cherish them 282 00:17:28.039 --> 00:17:31.200 is to be swamped in their fecundity. The confident and 283 00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:35.240 optimistic radicalism of the earlier nineteenth century and the humanitarian, 284 00:17:35.279 --> 00:17:39.519 philanthropic type of liberalism have bogged themselves beyond hope. In 285 00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:43.400 these realizations, the socialist has shirked them as he shirked 286 00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:47.440 the older Cruximalthus. Liberalism is a thing of the past. 287 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:50.960 It is no longer a doctrine, but a faction there 288 00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:56.240 must follow some new born thing, and as effectually has 289 00:17:56.319 --> 00:17:59.480 the mass of criticism that centers about Darwin destroyed the 290 00:17:59.559 --> 00:18:03.000 dogma the fall upon which the whole intellectual fabric of 291 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.440 Christianity rests. For without a fall, there is no redemption, 292 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:10.079 and the whole theory and meaning of the A Pauline 293 00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:14.480 system is vain. In conjunction with the wide vistas opened 294 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:19.160 by geological and astronomical discovery, the nineteenth century has indeed 295 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:21.799 lost the very habit of thought from which the belief 296 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:24.759 in a fall arose. It is as if a hand 297 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:27.200 had been put upon the head of the thoughtful man 298 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.839 and had turned his eyes about from the past to 299 00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:33.279 the future in matters of intelligence, at least, if not 300 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:36.720 yet in matters of ethics and conduct. This turning round 301 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:40.480 has occurred. In the past. Thought was legal in its spirit. 302 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:44.559 It deduced the present from pre existing prescription. It derived 303 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:48.160 everything from the offenses and promises of the dead. The 304 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:51.839 idea of a universe of expiation was the most natural 305 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:56.480 theory amidst such processes. The purpose the older theologians saw 306 00:18:56.519 --> 00:18:59.960 in the world was no more than the revenge accentuated 307 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:03.440 by the special treatment of a favored minority, of a 308 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:10.119 mysteriously incompetent deity exasperated by an unsatisfactory creation. But modern 309 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.960 thought is altogether too constructive and creative to tolerate such 310 00:19:13.960 --> 00:19:16.839 a conception. And in the vast past that is open 311 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:20.000 to us it can find neither of fence nor promise, 312 00:19:20.200 --> 00:19:24.799 only a spacious scheme of events, opening out, perpetually, opening 313 00:19:24.839 --> 00:19:28.359 out with a quality of final purpose, as irresistible to 314 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:32.640 most men's minds as it is incomprehensible, opening out with 315 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:36.359 all that inexplicable quality of design that, for example, some 316 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:41.200 great piece of music, some symphony of Beethoven's conveys we 317 00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:45.759 see future beyond future, and passed behind past. It has 318 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:49.039 been like the coming of dawn, at first, a colorless dawn, 319 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:53.240 clear and spacious, before which the mists whirl and fade, 320 00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:56.599 and there opens to our eyes, not the narrow passage, 321 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:59.880 the definite end we had imagined, but the rocky ill, 322 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:03.599 the fine path we follow high amidst this limitless prospect 323 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:06.720 of space and time. At first, the dawn is cold. 324 00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:10.279 There is at times a quality of terror, almost in 325 00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:14.000 the cold clearness of the morning twilight. But insensibly its 326 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:18.079 coldness passes, the sky is touched with fire, and presently 327 00:20:18.359 --> 00:20:20.559 up out of the day spring in the east, the 328 00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:23.119 sunlight will be pouring, and these men of the new 329 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:26.279 Republic will be going about in the daylight of things 330 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:32.279 assured and men's concern. Under this ampler view will no 331 00:20:32.319 --> 00:20:34.559 longer be to work out a system of penalties for 332 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:37.960 the sins of dead men, but to understand and participate 333 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:40.640 in this great development that now dawns on the human 334 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:46.400 understanding the insoluble problems of pain and death gaunt incomprehensible 335 00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:49.599 facts as they were fall into place in the gigantic 336 00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:53.240 order that evolution unfolds. All things are integral. In the 337 00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:57.119 mighty scheme. The slain builds up the slayer, the wolf 338 00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:00.480 grooms the horse into swiftness, and the tiger calls for 339 00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:04.000 wisdom and courage out of man. All things are integral. 340 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.359 But it has been left for man to be consciously integral, 341 00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:10.759 to take at last a share in the process, to 342 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:13.720 have wills that have caught a harmony with the universal will. 343 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:16.799 As sand grains flash into splinter under the blaze of 344 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:19.640 the sun, there will be many who will never be 345 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:22.559 called to this religious conviction, who will lead their little 346 00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:26.240 lives like fools playing foolishly with religion and all the 347 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.680 great issues of life, or like the beasts that perish 348 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:34.039 having sense alone. But those who by character and intelligence 349 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:37.559 are predestinate to participate in the reality of life, will 350 00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.920 fearlessly shape all their ethical determinations and public policy anew 351 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:45.720 from a fearless study of themselves and an apparent purpose 352 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:49.720 that opens out before them. Very much of the cry 353 00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:53.359 for faith that sounds in contemporary life so loudly and 354 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:57.039 often with so distressing a note of sincerity comes from 355 00:21:57.079 --> 00:22:02.440 the unsatisfied egotisms of unemployed and therefore unhappy in craving people. 356 00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:05.039 But much is also due to the distress in the 357 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.359 minds of active and serious men, due to the conflict 358 00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:12.200 of inductive knowledge with conceptions of right and wrong deduced 359 00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:16.920 from unsound but uncriticized first principles, the old ethical principles, 360 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:21.240 the principle of equivalence or justice, the principle of self sacrifice, 361 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:25.519 the various vague and arbitrary ideas of purity, chastity, and 362 00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:29.000 sexual sin came like rays out of the theological and 363 00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:32.519 philosophical lanterns men carried in the darkness. The ray of 364 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:35.920 the lantern indicated and directed, and one followed it as 365 00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:38.759 one follows a path. But now there has come a 366 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:41.240 new view of man's place in the scheme of time 367 00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:45.720 and space, a new illumination dawn. The lantern rays fade 368 00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.640 in the growing brightness, and the lanterns that shone so 369 00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:51.880 brightly are becoming smoky and dim. To many men, this 370 00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:54.240 is no more than a waning of the lanterns, and 371 00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:56.519 they call for new ones, or a trimming of the old. 372 00:22:56.759 --> 00:22:59.480 They blame the day for putting out these flares, and 373 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:03.000 some go apart out of the glare of life, into 374 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.440 corners of obscurity, where the radiation of the lantern may 375 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:10.440 still be faintly traced. But indeed, with the new light, 376 00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:13.240 there has come the time for new methods, The time 377 00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:17.359 of lanterns, the time of deductions from arbitrary first principles, 378 00:23:17.400 --> 00:23:20.240 is over. The act of faith is no longer to 379 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:23.359 follow your lantern, but to put it down. We can 380 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:27.839 see about us, and by the landscape we must go Footnote. 381 00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:31.839 It is an interesting byway from our main thesis to 382 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:35.240 speculate on the spiritual pathology of the functionless, wealthy, the 383 00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:38.319 half educated, independent women, of the middle class and the 384 00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:42.200 people of the Abyss. While the segregating new middle class, 385 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:45.880 whose religious and moral development forms our main interest, is 386 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:50.480 developing its spacious and confident theism. There will, I imagine, 387 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:54.319 be a steady decay in the various Protestant congregations. They 388 00:23:54.319 --> 00:23:56.599 have played a noble part in the history of the world. 389 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:00.440 Their spirit will live forever, but their formulae and organanization 390 00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:04.720 wax old like a garment. Their moral austerity, that touch 391 00:24:04.759 --> 00:24:09.880 of contempt for the unsubstantial esthetic which has always distinguished Protestatism, 392 00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:14.039 is naturally repellent to the irresponsible rich and to artistic 393 00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.039 people of the weaker type. And the face of Protestatism 394 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:20.400 has ever been firm, even to hardness against the self indulgent, 395 00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:24.400 the idler, and the prolific, useless poor. The rich is 396 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:26.839 a class, and the people of the Abyss, so far 397 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:30.000 as they move towards any existing religious body, will be 398 00:24:30.039 --> 00:24:34.799 attracted by the moral kindliness, the picturesque organization, and venerable 399 00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:38.039 tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. We are only in 400 00:24:38.119 --> 00:24:41.759 the very beginning of a great Roman Catholic revival. The 401 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:44.920