HUMANITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19660, 11 June 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

HUMANITY.

Bl' GEORGE GORDON.

IS IT MAKING PROGRESS?

A broad study of men, and the affairs of men, confirms the conviction that on every side—mental, moral, spiritual, physical, and political—humanity is stuck on a dead centre. Tho wheeling circle of monotonous days shows no real advance in any direction. True, on the sensory side there appears to bo some gain. We can travel faster and faster; we can hear further and further ; there is some talk of educating the smell to appreciate new odours; and sight has been extended to alternately stare at the asteroid and the atom. But has thinking been improved? Not one iota! And, in the absence of anything to improve the quality of mankind, what is the use of these childish baubles, the aeroplane, the microscope ,tho wireless set, the telescope ? Has humanity reached its maximum ? In the realm of true progress have we nothing But vacancy absorbing space. And fixedness—without a place; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute and motionless ? There may be another side to the picture, but glance at the evidence against it. Problems of Politics. In tho realm of politics there is nothing going on except the refighting of old wars. Trades unionism at Home, after half a century of apparent advance and consolidating its position, is again on trial. If it loses, we are where we were. If it gains, we were where we are. The same thing has been fought over hundreds of times before, and the result — whatever it is—holds out no promise of general betterment. On the international side there appears to be nothing better in view than a realignment for the purpose of preparing for old battles. Whether the Soviet shall or shall not be diplomatically acknowledged appears to matter as much to trading relationships as that other vital problem, shall you, or shall you not, lift your hat to a lady ? But in all this, with the war in China, and unrest in India thrown in, what sign is there of a general advance which shall place humanity on a higher niche of development ? Out here, where international problems worry us very little, we show the same signs of harking back instead of pressing forward. Tho arbitration system, after two decades of active operation, is again up for trial at the court of reason and economics. If it loses the verdict, we circle back to the start of this century and quest off in another direction—equally uncertain as to final result. If it wins, strikes and rumours of strikes will no more vanish than in the' past. There is no hope for human improvement along this line either; it is merely a dialectical dispute over " the flaccid tissues of longdead issues "—leading nowhere. Education's Recession. In education the idea seems to be that we should now drop back a bit. Too many are gaining the doubtful advantage of secondary education, cluttering up whatever brains they have with a useless smattering of a multitude of subjects from geometry to Greek. Continued on the same tiasis for another two generations, there was no reason why every single child should not attain to the modest mediocrity of the matriculation standard. The mechanisation of methods, textbooks atid examination papers made this result a final certainty. But there was a rod light at the crossing. With everyone fitted to enter the professions, who would be left to do the common kinds of hard work 1 And if any undertook it, what qualifications would they have? So we must back-pedal twenty years or so to the pre-freo-place era, and start off again on some vocational system which was old ere the pyramids were built. With all this " damnable iteration " going on, some say: "For heaven's sake, let there be research!" Along this course, again, however, the question " Has humanity reached its maximum ?" must be asked. By the time the seeker after new knowledge has learnt all that has already been learnt on his chosen subject, he is too old, or too "set in his ways" to devise anything new. If he will not wait to find out everything already known about the business, but plunges ahead without' full knowledge, he repeats the errors of those who have already missed the way, and lands in the morass of exploded theoriesWhere is the Advantage? Specialisation itself is a furtive acknowledgment that humanity is limited in capacity. The old family doctor who knew a little about every part of the human body is replaced by an army of ear, nose, heart, or too specialists, but the deathrate is not much improved. Or, if it is, the thinking capacity of those kept alive for this longer time shows no corresponding increase in quality. So where is the advantage? In mathematics, Pythagoras discovered the relation between tho square and the hypotenuse and the gquarcs on the sides containing the right angle. Has any one of the thousands of present day mathematicians discovered anything of equal importance ? Have the whole combined body of them discovered a single new fact among the laws in which they dabble ? Among writers tho same blight of limited faculty, repetition, and inability to think of any new thing, or to hold out hopes for the betterment of mankind, is found in its most virulent form. If they were to read everything that has already been said on any subject, they would have no time to write about it. Not reading up their subject thoroughly they fall into all kinds of errors, which—if they gain any kind of fame—are repeated by their admirers and echoers to the third and fourth generation or reverberation. Had all printing ceased fifty years ago, humanity would have been every bit as far advanced in everything that counts toward the development of humanity as it is to-dav. On tho spiritual side, can tho seanco be considered as an advance on the covenanting conventicle or the gatherings of Christians in the catacombs of Rome? Hero we see the tendency of humanity to swing full circle round to the days of the witch-doctor, the astrologer and tho necromancer. There is probably as much real superstition as ever, although the majority arc more ashamed to own up to it. After this brief review, the question re mains, is humanity moving 111 a circle, and alreadv past its highest point, or are we on an inclined plane, travelling boldly and safely, forward and upward into tho vast unknown? The writer's view the circle.