A Lesson of the Eclipse

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 295, 25 October 1922, Page 15

A Lesson of the Eclipse

One of tar- lessons taught by tlie ;-co-r:-; ; :t tfdi.;>-;e of Lhe sun is the poor v.-«>-' ia v;bieh !.lic social sciences have :)^nu; d compared with the vast r> .1 varies i.uade by the sciences whose subioi - :'. iiiatter is things-insentient. ! '"or:i i.je n;ie;;t'of beginnings and •"',!■■■• crh :-:;■■'.cat o; Ki:;?;-rstitions, astronomy :-:..:: ■ {:■:; a degree of exaet"f;vi ■.:.•?■ buiiiCK t:ie imagination to IT ■:••;!.venjy bodies, among , which our ov.-ii oar'ii is a ..cherts speck of dust of ue::M..',;.i;'e dinu-nsic-us, have been. me-:\:;.-:vod, weighed, and dissected to point: of refinement. contemplation of which lenves- t^-, sense of wonder sated and dazed. ■

Yut. side by side with a knowledge of the chemical .constituents of a blazing sun blliions of leagues away in space aud of speed and direction of its motion, man can boast—or ■blush for —nothing better in the way of a social ethic than practices that are miles behind, the primitive ' communism of the Australian aboriginal.

Able to foieteil an eclipse of the .sun or moon to a fraction of a second loi centuries to come, modern man, nevertheless, is really more backward in social manifestations of the fraternal. spirit than the Red Indian of the wilds or the blubber-eating Eskimo.

True, modern man can claim credit Cor having progressed somewhat ethically, compared with the Egyptian, Uabylonian, arrd other alleged civiliHα Lions of ancient times. But, peering back right into the prehistoric to the times when savagery was universal, a 'air weighing of the evidence will make it clear that the social institutions and practices of Christendom today, considered morally, aren't in it with the moral code observed within the tribes of the primitive races of the world. —"Queensland Worker."