If there is anything which this war has proved, it is the fact that the most important asset a nation or an individual can have, is the ability “to do things.”
“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow ...,” that is too true; they blow and they are strong and red. But the purpose of this writing is not the celebration of poetry, but the elucidation and right use of facts.
Normally, thousands of rabbits and guinea pigs are used and killed, in scientific laboratories, for experiments which yield great and tangible benefits to humanity. This war butchered millions of people and ruined the health and lives of tens of millions. Is this climax of the pre-war civilization to be passed unnoticed, except for the poetry and the manuring of the battle fields, that the “poppies blow” stronger and better fed? Or is the death of ten men on the battle field to be of as much worth in knowledge gained as is the life of one rabbit killed for experiment? Is the great sacrifice worth analysing? There can be only one answer—yes. But, if truth be desired, the analysis must be scientific.
In science, “opinions” are tolerated when and only when facts are lacking. In this case, we have all the facts necessary. We have only to collect them and analyse them, rejecting mere “opinions” as cheap and unworthy. Such as understand this lesson will know how to act for the benefit of all.
At present the future of mankind is dark. “Stop, look, and listen”—the prudent caution at railroad crossings—must be amended to read “stop, look, listen, and think”; not for the saving of a few lives in railroad accidents, but for the preservation of the life of humanity. Living organisms, of the lower and simpler types, in which the differentiation and the integration of the vital organs have not been carried far, can move about for a considerable time after being deprived of the appliances by which the life force is accumulated and transferred, but higher organisms are instantly killed by the removal of such appliances, or even by the injury of minor parts of them; even more easily destroyed are the more advanced and complicated social organizations.
The first question is: what are to be the scientific methods that will eliminate diverse opinions and creeds from an analysis of facts and ensure correct deductions based upon them? A short survey of facts concerning civilization will help to point the way.
Humanity, in its cradle, did not have science; it had only the faculties of observation and speculation. In the early days there was much speculative thinking, but it was without any sufficient basis of facts. Theology and philosophy flourished; their speculations were often very clever, but all their primitive notions about facts—such as the structure of the [pg 031] heavens, the form of the earth, mechanical principles, meteorological or physiological phenomena—were almost all of them wrong.
What is history? What is its significance for humanity? Dr. J. H. Robinson gives us a precise answer: “Man's abject dependence on the past gives rise to the continuity of history. Our convictions, opinions, prejudices, intellectual tastes; our knowledge, our methods of learning and of applying for information we owe, with slight exceptions, to the past—often to the remote past. History is an expansion of memory, and like memory it alone can explain the present and in this lies its most unmistakable value.”[2]
The savage regards every striking phenomenon or group of phenomena as caused by some personal agent, and from remotest antiquity the mode of thinking has changed only as fast as the relations among phenomena have been established.[3]
Human nature was always asking “why”? and not being able to answer why, they found their answer [pg 033] through another factor “who.” The unknown was called, Gods or God. But with the progress of science the “why” became more and more evident, and the question came to be “how.” From the early days of humanity, dogmatic theology, law, ethics, and science in its infancy, were the monopolies of one class and the source of their power.[4]