The New Reason.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 June 1901, Page 683

The New Reason.

By R. H. H

WlflfC) gauge the mental ballast, motive 111P Pi power and equipment of the newlyJq, I Jp* launched century might indeed have tried the acumen of the philosophic observer, had not the inner activity of the Nineteenth Century perceptibly lulled towards its close. We are now experiencing a moment of comparative equilibrium, of relaxed strenuousness, due, apart from natural reaction, to the passing-out of so many of the great figures round whom the currents of thought swirled in not distant years of hot partizanship and controversy. It is a time of fallow in the production of giants, but the very absence of great figures allows of a clearer general outlook. Thus viewed, the signs of the times indicate that the twentieth centui-y has dawned on a new age of reason — a widespread reason estimating the phases, problems, and situations of life at their true value, and bringing with it that mental balance denned by .Emerson as the true " culture." In the year 1901 we see the dogmas of material science crumbling away no less than the dogmas of theology. The tendency of the age is towards consolidation of religious beliefs, leading ultimately to a universal religion based on the broadest principles. Towards this end, paradoxical as it may seem, our foreign missions are helping by mingling Western light with the truth underlying the great Oriental religions. The dross will fall away from both systems, and truth remain. The undoubted renewal of vitality of the churches — a century-end phenomenon which has puzzled many thinkers — cannot be ascribed to a strengthening of creeds. Rather is it due to the churches bringing themselves gradually abreast of current thought, to their unconsciously following the vanguard pioneers, and remodelling with the times. This fact may not be very

marked in the letter. It is in tho spirit that the change has chiefly taken place. The truth is obscured less and less by accretions, and lo! the churches rejuvenate; the gradual transformation of dogma fills the religious edifices. On the other lv.nd, the purging by science of her proud dogmas, in the last decade of the nineteenth contury, is but another phase of the new reason. The iconoclasts of the so-called atheistic typo had their function, and performed it right bravely, but theirs is not the new century. Materialistic dogma is heavily discounted in 11)01. The Godthirst in man has broken the newer bonds as it did the old. The opposite extreme — modern spiritualism — after filling its counterpart, is now being more correctly estimated. The cult, of the disembodied spirit steadily gives way to a broader psychical Hcienee which recognises that spirit intercourse and " phonomena " havo but scant bearing on the rise of the individual and the nation here and now. The embodied spirit, strong in his consciousness, yields nothing to tho disembodied. Evolution in all aspects triumphs in 1901. Economic ovolution is nowhero. Tho enlightened social reformer has, too, dropped some of his dogmas. " Surplus value," an a fettish, is dead, aud social salvation by legislative enactment is no louger preached as a panacea. It is increasingly recognised that disease of the body corporate, manifesting itself by eruptions and goneral ugliness, cannot be radically cured by skin treatment, but only from within outwards. The paralysing theory of heredity, as evolved by latter-day material science, loses its terrors in face of tho recognition of the creative and constructive essence of the life principle in man, whereby the individual moulds his own conditions and environment.

Herein Bocial science touches cosmic law, and thus may be united the seeminglyopposed "isms" — socialism and individualism. This way lies the ideal democracy of the future — material wellbeing advancing step by step with the mental growth of the people. In present-day social economics the "trust" looms large as the leading evolutionary feature — the forerunner of nationalised industry. The young giants grow in spite of all well-meaning but short-sighted attempts at suppression. Meantime the State, with more or less spontaneity, extends its functions steadily and surely, and in another direction claims more and more of unearned increment. The "sex question," a phase of thought which fluttered abnormally in the last decade, has now regained a rational equilibrium, with better understanding and respect between the sexes, woman on her part recognising that emancipation and motherhood are not incompatible. In other direction the voice of the doctrinaire is hushed. The republicans of the sixties and seventies, and other theoretical adherents of the same school, are fain to admit that their ideal, where translated into concrete form at our present stage of progress, is but an ointment cankered with flies. Again, the peace-at-any-price doctrine is hard-hit. The ■enlightened humanitarian of to-day recognises

that the evil passions of a strained peace may generate far more lasting world-harm than an appeal to arms. The new reason is eliminating the curse of bitterness and fanaticism in matters spiritual and social. The mentally wellbalanced citizen of to-day recognises that he and his fellows all around are in different stages of growth, and that the same food is unsuited to all such stages. He does not attempt to force his consciousness on his neighbour. Where he sees error he preaches moi'e by the force of example and the contact of elevating thought. Hs recognises that all stages of growth enter into the upbuilding of the social organism. Even the "philistine" plays his part in the drama. A nation of Bohemians would be impossible, not to say intolerable. " 1 hings as they are " thus become invested with a new significance. Pessimism may have its vogue, but having no root in the eternal verities, it cannot endure. The new reason is fundamentally optimistic, but it recognises the need for more earnestness, better citizenship, and the elimination of manifold national weaknesses before a more rapid progress can be effected. As yet perhaps scarcely formulated, the verity underlying the New Reason of 1901 is this : That the individual can, must, and will work out his own salvation, thereby, conjointly with his fellows, carrying the race to a glorious destiny.