Back to Unity

BACK TO UNITY THE MosT REvEREND THE ARCHBtSHOP oF YoRK 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 public- an 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 seent, 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 1 THE UNIV~RSITY QF TORQNrQ QUARTERLY adopted , which is too narrow in scope for some group of · Impulses, there is-an outbreak in the name of Liberty. Yet Liberty itself requires Order as its guarantee,-and is only precious so far as Purpose makes use of it. In Europe the primitive chaos was reduced to order by the Roman Empire- that great and. determining influence by reference to which in the last resort all modern problems are to be understood. The Roman Empire imposed upon Western Europe, apart from its Baltic fringe but including England though not Scotland, a sense of public order and a respect for law which became instinctive. In many parts, and in England among the11;1, the effects of the Roman occupation were to a great extent wiped out by the barbarian invasions; but later on, when order was re-established, .some impulse of response due to the Roman influence was found still. to exist. Ireland, Highland Scotland, Scandinavia, and Prussia, never felt this influence. And while it may quite reasonably be held that the Scandinavian countries are now the best of existing nations and the most successful in coping with the problems of modern life, many would be prepared to trace in what appear to be characteristic defects in the political life of the other three, the result of a lack which Rome could have supplied. Be that as it may, the unity and order which reached their climax in the period of. the Antonines were·broken by the incursion of barbarians an and the spiritual belied its own character in order to coerce the political. Above all, we must recognize that the emphasis laid by Luther and Descartes on personal 7 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY integrity in apprehension of, and witness to, truth was pure gain. We cannot go behind that. Yet the world is feeling its way back to·unity. Medical men are deploring the effect of specialization in preventing students from acquiring any understanding of, or insight into, the physiological organism as a whole. Psychologists and pastors are coming together in mutually supplementary co-operation. Students of science are driven back into the region proper to metaphysic. It is enough to mention the names of MacDonagh, Jeans, and Whitehead in illustration of these points. It is too early as yet to say whether Art is escaping from its limitless individualism, but when...