Civilisation at the Cross Roads — Page 2
witnessing the inaugu. ration of a new epoch. Of a\l the manifold and almost limitless possibilities of progress, of beneficence, of the promot1ou of human welfare, of the alleviation of pain, in short, of the enrichment of life on earth, that are opening out before us we can to-day form bllt a vague. concept. The prospect should, however, inspire us with hope and fill our hearts with eagerness to scale new heights, to penetrate freah mysteries, to master new secrets, to harness an ever multiplying volume of forces and powl!rs to the. service of man. Our dominant feeling should be of joy and jubilation. On the contrary, as I have said, it is one of fear and anxiety, amounting sometimes to terror. It is strange and bewildering that this should be so. Every increase of knowledge, every accession of human capacity, constitutes a widening of. horizons, a· broadening of the fields of endeavour and achievement. It is a Divine bounty; it is a mark of Divine approval of man's increasing exercise of the talents bestowed upon him by his Ma~ It should foster human happiness; be a perpetual source of joy. Then why is it that recent revolutionary advances in certain domains of science and technology hav. e incited and augmented fear and anxiety and intensified a sense of doom, rather than stimulated an upsurge of happiness derived from a sense of achievement, an anticipation of uiuch higher standards of human welfare? Is it because the scientific revolution has outpaced man's slow advance in other domains ? Is it because a rift hlls appeared between man's rapidly increasing capacity and power for good or _ill, on the one hand, and his standards of good and evil and. his capacity for fostering good and restraining evil, on· the other ? May it not be that the spectacle of this ever-widening rift and the contemplation of the awful catastrophe that must overtake mankind if this rift should become unbridgeable are the true causes of our fear and anxiety? If this is so, should not our effort be directed towards searching for the means of integration between all aspects of human life, so that life should become a co-ordinated whole or unity, and cease to be at conflict with itself 'I H. •an society, starting with the family, bas progressed through the tribe to the nation and is now seeking to take on 2