Back to Unity
T HE modern world has manifestly lost its way. Every department of life is infected with futility, except so far as it represents an interest isolated from the general concern of men. It is true that Science is pursuing its all conquering course, subjecting one observed phenomenon after another to its regnant hypotheses, and imposing upon the innocent publican ever more paradoxical interpretation of what had seemed to be simple experiences. Yet when all this triumphant knowledge is pressed into the service of human needs, it produces more chaos than order, and is more fruitful in making war appalling than in making peace enjoyable. Indeed, we have reached a stage of so called human progress in which we are likely to go to war because we are so much afraid of doing so and to become involved in universal poverty because it is so easy to produce abundant wealth. Few dispute the broad truth of such a picture of the contemporary world. Many physicians have diagnosed the disease and prescribed remedies appropriate to their diagnosis; I propose to join their number. The trouble began when Rene Descartes spent a day "shut up in a stove." This is not to blame Descartes. If he had not followed the false seen t, someone else would have done so. It had to be tried out) and our troubles are part of the trial. Human progress, such as it is, does not follow a straight course. Its path is a zig zag. And the limits of the side ways movements are our old friends the One and the Many. Order and Purpose involve some unification of life; Liberty and Impulse require absence of restraint. If an Order is improved) or, a ~urpose