Racial Hatred

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 36, 6 November 1933, Page 11

Racial Hatred

Sir —In "The Dominion” of this date Mr. W. W. Markland says: “If your correspondent can tell us how to do away with racial hatred, greed, ■ ■ • the .1”?,“' Icnr of war will be solved.' That 1S very thing my letter tried to do. lhe ancient philosophies long ago solved the problem. They united vast civilisations by directing man to high ideals created b'v a long series of seer-poet-prophet-imilosophers; by will force they directed these to high purpose. The only other power necessary to attune them to the evolving discoveries of new truth was the national thought which Greece offered. It is the aim toward these ideals that unites individuals and nations. Where you find peoples with similar aims and ideals you find peace and unity. The letter asks if your correspondent can tell us how ... to enthrone reason in place of hatred, etc. Reason acts not in the void. My letter tried to show how philosophy had cast away the substance reason needs, and made the creation ot new ones "impossible by burdening reason with that task for which reason has nocapacity. The consciousness of the individual is the sole reality. It is a unity containing a trinity Of powers, (1) imagination. the sole creative and greatest power we know, (2) will, the only purposive and directive power, (o) reason, that judges, orders, arranges. Atom and ■ universe, idea and world of intellect, arc created, marked, branded, directed, ordered by these powers of consciousness. Modern philosophy, by trying to make reason do all the work of consciousness, has rendered her product empty of rea.itv and of relation to the aims of humanity. Does anyone for a moment imagine that there can be a reality which ignores such master powers as imagination, love, soul, spirit, or jumbles them all in that confusion of thought which philosophy calls “mind”? Just because she excludes the unifying power of our ideals and aspirations did I say that upon philosophy rests the dreadful onus of modern war i Our ideals and aspirations are created’’ by reason and. since reason is not creative, the theories, however rational, are empty of reality. She can offer an infinity of theory, but what we need ’s the simple translation of this one particular code, of the particular arrangement of dots aiyl dashes which constitute our particular world around. Surely the fa - that she lost her throne and empire the moment she accepted the amazing power of reasons, calls for drastic investigation. For to-day she has a place neither in home, national nor world affairs. whereas, anciently, her empire was world civilisation. It is reality creates theory, not theory reality. Because the blind have led the blind both have fallen into the ditch of chaos and war. Seer and poet have vision of the world of nature ae perfect model of the world of intellect. .Science has shown that life built itself upon that model. Have these insights no messages _ fm philosophy? Do they not argue both worlds akin, where we know that one is evolved by the free powers of :consciousness, created by imagination, directed by will, ordered by reason? And does it not follow that the smirk of life, denuded of content in the fires of the nebula, tried bv the exceeding cold of space, comes direct from the Creator nnd is iniU 'Then let philosophy, of her utmost ef- | fort, create her ideal of reality, direct it i to highest and clearest purpose, _ that reason mav have a basis which it 16 eminently 'capable of attuning to . every ' discovery, to every law of the universe, | to those aims and ideals which eliminate discord and unite humanity, drawing the soul to love, the spirit to nobler endeavour. the mind to abler power; so that th character may build to higher destiny. | leaving behind all mean and petty things, toiling nnd rejoicing to newer evolution. Thns will nrt and literature. poetry, music and philosophy take, on a now splendour and a nobler evolution. If you believe in reality this can be done, and the world liftetl out of the morass ot chaos and war. If you do not. it is the | business of philosophy to make you And in that she will never succeed till she resumes her ancient power of vision, and with that her, throne and world empire.— I am. etc., guALTER. Wellington, November 2. J