TASK OF 20TH. CENTURY

Taranaki Daily News, 24 April 1930, Page 11

TASK OF 20TH. CENTURY

LEARNING USE OF POWER SLOW EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RACE PROFESSOR HUNTER’S LECTURE. “Evolution—Man and His Task,” was the subject of an address given by Professor T. A. Hunter, M.A., of Victoria University College, under the auspices of the W.E.A., in New Plymouth last evening. The Mayor (Mr. H. V. S. Griffiths) presided over a large attend-, ance. . In the dark centuries of the past, said Professor Hunter, man had spent his life developing himself and seeking the use of power. Now, in the last century, he had gained control of the foices of nature ana found power. The problem of to-day was, how was he going to use that power? Beneath his highly cultivated intelligence he still had the primitive instincts of his forefathers. The consequence was a world of intense and disastrous competition. The .task of the 20th century was to train and direct those primitive instincts along the lines of social welfare and to replace competition by co-operation. .. . “The gist of what I hope will be in your minds when I have finished,” said .Professor Hunter, “is summed up in the words of H. G. Wells who, in one sense at least is a prophet of the age: ‘The coming hundred years will mark a re-, volution in human efforts altogether more profound than that merely -material revolution of which our grand-' fathers saw the beginnings.”’ Anyone looking at the world to-day might reasonably be depressed, said the professor. Nation was arrayed against nation and individual against individual. It was true that the competitive system was never more intense than it was to-day. The reason for this, he. believed, was that people were living in an age of transition. Deep investigation showed that the world was passing into a new province of life. The revolution of the last hundred years had been wholly a material revolution. Man’s growing control of the forces of nature & had left him with tremendous responsibilities. What was man going to do with that power? At the present, time he was wasting it and frequently abusing it.CONTROL OF FORCES.

“To be what we are we must suffer what we do,” said the professor. “There are people who imagine that, while it was possible for other civilisations to cease to exist it is impossible for ours to cease. That is wrong. But what man. did in controlling the material forces in the 19th century it is quite possible, for us to do in this 20th century in controlling the mental and social forces of to-day.” To obtain that control over mental and social forces man must have knowledge of himself and insight. Man must have insight into the economic, social and national problems. He had to understand that the social forces were just as much governed by laws as the material forces.

Man differed from the other animals in having the capacity to shape his environment and control the physical forces so as to be able to live life more or less as he wished to. A great many wrontr ideas came from a mistaken conception of what man was. Man was an animal. He bore the marks of his past in his physical, physiological, nervous, mental and social structure. The condition of affairs to-day was the result of a long process of the development of man°from his more primitive ancestors.

Two problems were raised; Man’s place in the animal series-, and what marked man off from the other animals. It was a long time back that a Swedish scientist had first suggested that man should be placed among the primates. The chief physiological feature which marked man T from the animals was the size, weight and complexity of the brain, especially the development of the cerebral hemispheres. Even in weight alone an average man’s brain was 50 ounces, while the brain of the nearest related ape, the gorilla, weighed only 20 ounces. The cranial capacity of a man’s brain was, on the average, 55 c.c. No ape had half that cranial capacity. The development of the .brain had ite effect* on the physical structure of man. It had made sight more important than smell. It had freed man’s forelegs and thus made him a tool-using animal. The angle of, the face had changed and man had lost his receding forehead. THE PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS. Along with these physiological differences there were tremendous psychological differences. Compare man’s primary instincts with those of the animal and there was a very close relation indeed. But compare his intelligence arid his sense of conduct with that of the animal and the difference was very wide. It was perfectly true that the old Adam was there, that the primitive instincts still existed. Anyone who faced the situation realised that in times of extreme stress, in, say, great famine, man tended to revert to his primitive instincts. One of the greatest things to be said for man was that he had been able to develop social habits and not only keep his primary instincts in check, but use them to his advantage. In a series of excellent lantern slides, Professor Hunter then traced what he said was the development of man from the ape family, his physical and mental development, and his gradual possession of power. “The task of man,’’ he concluded, is this: When we compare ourselves with this more primitive type of man wo find we live in an age in which wc have the power. The problem of the early man was to get the power. Our problem is to re-model our institutions and reorganise our social structure to use that power wisely. As far as our control of physical forces goes a very few experts suffice, but for the control of the social forces the whole community must take part. “We have to remember that behind our highly developed intelligence is man’s primitive brain, and wo must learn how to direct those primitive forces. It U impossible to suppress them entirely, Wo have to develop a form of society in which they will be directed along a path of social welfare. This, I believe, is the task of the 20th century.”

A lecture on “Human Nature and the Social Onler” was given by Professor Hunter under the auspices of the W.E.A. at Hawera on Tuesday evening. The Mayor (Mr. E. A. Pacey) presided. I