A Popular Prospective

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 10

A Popular Prospective

IS HISTORY MERELY A RECORDING OF FACT OK IS IT AN APPEAL TO CQN-

SCIENCE ?

INTELLIGENCE SERVES TO TEACH,

BUT ONLY CONSCIENCE CAN GUIDE WISELY.

These are as necessary to man as wings are to bird. It is true that Icarus was provided with two wings, yet came to grief in that port of the Aegean which bears his name; but his wings were fastened to him with wax, which melted with the heat of the sun and left him to his doom. Intelligence and conscience are not external appendages, but the very warp and woof of the owner. Without them lie “is not man as yet.” It is as an intellectual and moral being that he ranks higher than all other animals, anti is only a little; lower than Ihe angels. When we speak of a person as being intelligent we mean that he has made acquaintance with facts, knows something of (.heir relationships, is able to co-ordinate them, appraise their value, and bend them to his purposes. Speaking more broadly, intelligence is really what is often spoken of as common sense, the fatuity of seeing the obvious and knowing what to do. There is implied in this a considerable acquaintance with, history, which is generally regarded as a record of facts Henry Ford says sweeping!;/ that history is “ bunk,” and we know what be means. He docs not assert that the fall of the Roman Empire did not take place, or that the battle of Waterloo is fiction. What his forceful term expresses is his conviction that the facts are not always correctly stated, the causes not always accurately diagnosed, and the inference frequently wrong. While he may be near the truth in regard to some points, we are all agreed that an acquaintance vYith facts is an essential part of our intellectual equipment, and especially to those who aspire to public leadership. “ Against stupidity even the Kods arc helpless.” It was said of a certain person that he had only one idea, and it was a wrong one. Nobody has a right to be called intelligent who does not possess a fair acquaintance with hu ! man nature. One may be a- “ bookful blockhead,” as Pope said, or, as Burns put it, go into college a “ stick ” and come out an “ ass.” The man of intelligence can take a conjunct view of the world and affairs.

Something more is neeedd. A merely intellectual discipline has high value, but the human will is always in advance of the intelligence, and requires restraint and direction. When we put it that a man needs conscience as well as ability we do not com;m;it ourselves to the old idea of a supernatural faculty by which we instantly discern good and evil. Modern phraseology prefers to speak of the moral judgment and our sense of “ oughtness.”' The moment a man says “ I ought ” he classes himself as more than an animal. He has heard a .-bugle-call from celestial battlements, and something within him leaps up and stands at attention. For convenience we speak of conscience as if it were a principle of honour. We do not stay to analyse its origin and development and authority. We know that things have a moral aspect, and that what we call character is the sum total of our moral qualities, but “ thou shalt ” and “ thou shalt not ” are there in our mbke-up, and refuse to budge. Conscience, according to Shakespeare, makes cowards of us all; but that is only half the truth. It also makes heroes of us. “ Ich kann nicht anders,” said Martin Luther ( I cannot do otherwise), and the rest of us when at our best find the same noble phrase flashing into memory and forcing itself from our lips. Motorists are constantly being warned of the danger of neglecting their brakes. Something analagous is found in our own constitution. Our moral sense has an arresting power. It pulls us up. It is a voice from out the center of the universe, and has the thunders and lightnings of Sinai for its accompaniment. Mr Ramsay MacDonald in his recent visit to his constituency at Sealiam announced that when he could no longer serve his constituents with his intelligence and conscience he would come and tell them. There spake a man. His course was to be dictated not by any body of men in Britain, but by his own sense of duty self-interpreted. Like Morley, he refulsed to be a representative “on sufferance. A magnificent principle for politicians and for all men !

The logician fond of splitting hairs may interject that the lower animals have intelligence and conscience. Ihe onus of proof lies on him. I hat they have a degree of intelligence and what unthinking persons may label conscience is all that can be said, but conscience in that connection is no more than a connection set up in the animal’s mind between a certain action and its painful consequences. A .Russian scientist made experiments lately upon mice with a view to discovering how long they would take to respond to the ringing of a bell

Across. 1. Screw. 7. Lilac. 12. Tour. 13. Are. 15. Dish. 16. Ride. 17. Lea. 18. Aria. 19. Ale. 20. Silence. 23. Ear. 25. Refer. 27. Abet. 29. Ryot. 31. House. 33. Pewit.

INTELLIGENCE AND CONSCIENCE,

as a signal that food awaited them. H look 700 calls to teach them. A Scottish scientist tried the same ex-

periment, and 000 lessons were sufficient. Presumably the Scottish mice, especially if Aberdeen-bred, were more intelligent than their relatives in Russia, but there the matter rests U It is a far cry from responding to a summons for food to that infinitely higher thing called a sense of duity, and especially when duty means danger and possible death. Here we come upon the “ aloneness ” of man, his dignity and responsibilities; his essential God-likeness. The inference is that without intelligence and conscience no human being is his true self. He has not arrived, and cannot be truly eligible for high office, and, properly speaking, has not the qualifications for the franchise. One has often been tempted to regret that man has not been built upon some of the lines of a motor bar, especially in the matter of gauges. There is no quick, mechanical means of testing intelligence and conscience. We cannot put an instrument to his head and note the readings registered. There would need to he a gauge for the intellect and another for the conscience, for some men have ample powers of reason hut arc destitute of the moral sense, and there are legions of men with conscience but, confessedly, without the intelligence needed

for leadership. Intelligence without conscience will provide a man fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Conscience without intelligence, however useful in the broad walks of life, leaves us among the less gifted but none the less useful members of the race, and certainly the seconcj-class people form the vast majority. With all our getting we are summoned to get understanding, which means tbai without intelligence rand consdiemf’ no nation can prosper. The powers of the universe have so decreed.