THOUGHTS ON THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN SCOTT HALDANE 



Western and Eastern, and it seems to me unfortunate that Western 

 civilisation, with all the superficial advantages which the successful 

 study of physical science confers upon it, has come to stand in the 

 eyes of many in Eastern countries for little more than materialism. 

 But materialism forms no basis for honesty, charity, regard for truth, 

 loyalty, or art; and without these, real civilisation does not exist, and 

 any apparent civilisation is quite unstable. The real strength of both 

 Western and Eastern civilisations lies in their religions, and an under- 

 standing and respect for their religious ideas is essential for mutual 

 understanding." No, it was not sufficient for the need of 1936. Between 

 traditional metaphysical materialism and dialectical materialism no 

 distinction was made. Yet to many of us it seems that precisely 

 materialism is the best basis for honesty, charity, regard for truth, 

 loyalty and art. Honesty hitherto may have been founded on philo- 

 sophical idealism and the primacy of cognition or perception. But 

 honesty has also been an almost impossible virtue in bourgeois 

 civilisation, for the capitalist system of production is, and has always 

 been, essentially predatory and atomistic, not co-operative. It was no 

 coincidence that during the rise of capitalism at the Reformation and 

 in the sixteenth century, there should have been so great a return, as 

 represented in protestantism, to the Old Testament at the expense of 

 the New. Honesty might play a minor part in the relations between 

 merchants of the same town, but there were always Philistines or 

 Egyptians whose exploitation could hardly reasonably be considered 

 as displeasing to God. So much for honesty. Charity has become a 

 word of abuse, implying the erratic bounty of wealthy robbers 

 towards the poor and simple-hearted. Never will charity in its evan- 

 gelical sense of love become a reality until the spiritual wickedness 

 of class-distinctions is banished from the world. Regard for truth is 

 in our civilisation confined to a few scientists and philosophers; it is 

 not to be found in the realms of the patent medicine traffic, competitive 

 advertising, unscrupulous journalism, artistically false nitwit enter- 

 tainment and other like manifestations of the profit-making system. 

 Loyalty of course is possible anywhere, but its value surely stands in 

 proportion to the ideals which it serves. There is a loyalty of criminals 

 one towards another; there is the loyalty of men and women towards 

 their national flag, and at the other end of the scale there is the loyalty 

 of often isolated individuals to the future Civitas Dei^ the worldwide 

 union of socialist republics, in which national sovereignty and human 

 exploitation will seem as remote as the sacrifices of the Aztecs seem 



137 



