THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 13 



common hardships of daily life, the cruel pressure of economic forces, 

 the withholding of freedom and of equal opportunity, are unnecessary 

 and intolerable. Man now knows that disease may be cured, that life 

 may be prolonged, that much human suffering may be prevented. The 

 control over natural processes given by science, the control over human 

 happiness given us by modern medicine, he is now convinced must be 

 matched by a control even over destiny itself. Man has not yet reached 

 this mastery, but he has reached the belief in its possibility. He is no 

 longer willing to bow down to fate or to resign himself to all of the tragic 

 elements in life, as did the ancients ; rather he is demanding deliverance 

 through the researches of economic science and through the understand- 

 ing of history. The World War has taught him that the great power 

 over the processes of nature may be used quite as well for his destruc- 

 tion as for his advancement. The New Philosophy that produces a 

 thousand tons of poison gas in a day and tens of thousands of machines 

 and aeroplanes to discharge it, is not a philosophy that of itself will 

 lead men to better things. The New Philosophy suddenly finds itself 

 challenged, and doubted, and questioned as never before in the three 

 hundred years of its history. A prayer goes up for a new principle and 

 for a new pilot to serve as the guide of life. Perhaps the world must 

 await a new Francis Bacon with a new message of deliverance. Per- 

 haps only an old-fashioned philosophy and old-fashoned standards are 

 needed. But in any case a fundamental regeneration of spiritual forces 

 must be set in action. The new philosophy of Bacon is fast becoming 

 an old philosophy. The scientific revolution has advanced man further 

 in his control over nature than in his control over himself. When mil- 

 lions of lives may be obliterated by a chemical formula, there is required 

 a subjugation of human selfishness, such as never before was demanded. 

 But poison gases are not the only compounds that threaten society. 

 Modern business methods and the modern system of industrial devel- 

 opment, contain poisons and explosives, more destructive, perhaps, 

 than material reagents. If we can establish no control over the selfish- 

 ness of men, these powers must tend to become more threatening and 

 more ruthless until civilization itself will be in danger. An essential 

 truth of the New Philosophy must be this: That the law of the jungle, 

 that the law of the tooth and claw, must be replaced for the human 

 species by a higher law; that humanity can only realize its ideals 

 through the reign of unselfishness. This, of course, is, nothing but the 

 fundamental altruism of Christianity, one of the oldest of truths but 

 the hardest to believe. The manner of establishing this axiom in human 

 affairs is still a great task of the future. The power-creating sciences 

 have outrun the power-controlling sciences. The danger lies in the 

 difficulty of stimulating progress in the power-controlling sciences. A 

 thoughtful economist has said that "There is danger that the Natural 



