Page:The Kingdom of Man - Ralph Vary Chamberlin 1938.djvu/29

Rh Error, or Science and Religion—it has been a continuation of the age-old conflict between Rationalism and Irrationalism. Each step forward has been taken through a corresponding measure of liberation from the authority of traditional belief and the power it serves. For the social tradition not only brings to us as a legacy the cumulative experiences and achievements of intelligence, it likewise transmits the fruits of human effort to out-reach intelligence. The racial heritage is thus not only a priceless storehouse of knowledge and experience; error and superstition are likewise embedded in the tradition. Great as the natural disabilities of the intelligence are, and great as are the natural difficulties of its tasks, they are slight beside these obstacles of man's own creation. In the age-long struggle for the freedom of the human spirit, the greatest issue has derived from interests which have deliberately placed blocks in the way of the free operation of intelligence.

The outcome of this conflict in behalf of rationalism and freedom of thought is significant, and has been "fought out in the bitterest, most cruel and most protracted struggle that the human spirit has ever undergone." It is too much to say that the reign of reason is at hand, for most of us are still primitive, and do little sustained thinking; but the number is growing year by year, and there is ground for the hope that the rational is henceforth destined to displace the irrational in the command of the motive forces of conscious conduct.

Science is concerned today over the present world-wide threat to democracy, which is on what I believe to be a temporary defensive. Science is the natural ally of democracy. It has fostered the growth of the democratic ideal; and democracy offers the type of government which is a necessity to its free development. It is opposed to repression and to dictatorships, under whatever name or guise. In Germany, where Hitler claims complete power over every phase of the citizens' lives and yet tells them he has given them "a beautiful democracy," merely count the distinguished scholars who once brought fame to her and to her universities and how few remain there, if you would know to what condition her once great and free educational centers have been reduced. As President Conant has said, "Liberty is the life-blood of those who are in the quest of truth, and liberty has vanished. So in Russia it vanished nearly a generation ago. In these countries the advancement of science is permitted, but within strict bounds; a free inquiry on any subject is, to say the least, hazardous."

The liberal tradition cannot survive in a climate unfavorable to free inquiry and expression. For those who really care about freedom, choice of government can lie between two forms only, democracy and dictatorship. Totalitarian government undoubtedly makes for a temporary efficiency in the achievement of known objectives, as in the case of war, but that efficiency is effected by the