Repository: UIHistories Project: Convocation - 1930 [PAGE 6]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

theory of relativity and have ^iven US ^haf are cali ]

••time-space" relati as or dimensions. In the political field, dem racy as a ha been challenged by Fascism, dictatorship and mob racy. Within dome icj itself not all the changes hav b m

altogether advantageous. It seems to me that some of them, like the primary system, and popular electi n of titers, and certain constitutional trends, have not brought the benefits anticipated. The rapid material and scientific advance has pr duced what I may describe as a state of exaltation in th human mind that has led to sundry extravagances, as they appear to me. in our literature, our ethics, our so-called "social sciences." and in general in those things that make up the culture of a people. Material advance and new pronouncements about the physical world have led careless thinkers to believe, or to act as if they believed, that human life itself is merely a manifestation of physical action and consequently that there are no principles of morality, religion. or culture that need anv longer be observed. Some tell us that science has abolished soul, mind and God. To these people we humans are "just meat, and pretty coarse meat at that/' To my mind, their reasoning is illogical and their conclusions are false. As I see it, I know no reasoning more superficial than that which characterize the theories of psychologists who think they have banished the human soul or those so-called philosophers who have ab bed God and substituted trial marriage for a morality above their own comprehension or culture. Our new knowledge does make nec« -try new statements of our conception oi God and man's relation i H n and the universe but it does not abolish Him lithe soul, or render necessary the destructi I of a moral v and culture that arc the product < \ -long strivin We have been oin through a period of 1 ense, Weareliviri! in an age of casuistry. I will not attempt to compete with 1 !\v;u Rcllai J or H G. Wells as a prophet of the future. Xevertheh it i not inopj tune to 1. k forward a few years a well a w

{ 6 }