598 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



stages. We have already spoken of the change taking place 

 in the war-idea. Let us note how it fits into the foregoing 

 description. Before the Great War there was a tolerably 

 widespread feeling against the mutual slaughter of men. 

 Conferences on peace had been held with a fair degree of 

 frequency. Nevertheless, despite the growing sentiment of 

 humaneness, the Great War swept us into its horrors. 

 What is significant about practically all post-war peace 

 talk is that it insists upon one or another experiment being 

 made in the art of hving together internationally. The 

 outstanding experiment is the League of Nations, conceived 

 in the mind of a constructively thinking individual. The 

 average person is as yet hardly aware of what is happening in 

 Geneva. But so, in hke manner, the average person in Italy 

 or Germany or England was quite unaware of the profoundly 

 reconstructive event that was happening in Pisa. It is 

 probably true, however, that as, in the international atmos- 

 phere of Geneva, case after case of poHtical conflict is 

 resolved, a new habit of mind will develop among the 

 citizens of the world, the habit of expecting reasonable dis- 

 cussion before a resort to arms. War will doubtless disappear 

 when the new idea-system becomes so firmly formed in us 

 that the older idea-system will vanish by reason of its utter 

 absurdity. 



Another reshaping seems also to be in its early stages. 

 Who the individual was who first caught the idea we do not 

 know. But at the present time, a large number of individuals 

 are possessed of the idea that the habit of straight and 

 responsible thinking in matters that still lie outside the 

 range of exact science can best be developed by the process 

 of discussion among adults. At the present time, discussion- 

 groups are being formed all over the world. In these groups — 

 experiments in thinking together — the essential intent is to 

 overcome the one-sidedness and the intolerant finality of 

 the kind of thinking that considers no point of view save its 

 .own. 



One may safely predict, I think, that a new behavior 

 pattern is here in process of being formed. As it takes shape, 

 many things will change, for example, the habit of reading 

 only one partian newspaper, of being content to make 



