The old tradition demands
that national loyalties and ancient belligerence should continue. The
new has produced means of communication that break down the pens and
separations of human life upon which nationalist emotion depends. The
old tradition insists upon its ancient blood-letting of war; the new
knowledge carries that war to undreamt of levels of destruction. The
ancient system needed an unrestricted breeding to meet the normal
waste of life through war, pestilence, and a multitude of hitherto
unpreventable diseases. The new knowledge sweeps away the venerable
checks of pestilence and disease, and confronts us with the congestions
and explosive dangers of an over-populated world. The old tradition
demands a special prolific class doomed to labor and subservience; the
new points to mechanism and to scientific organization as a means of
escape from this immemorial subjugation. Upon every main issue in life,
there is this quarrel between the method of submission and the method
of knowledge. More and more do men of science and intelligent people
generally realize the hopelessness of pouring new wine into old bottles.
More and more clearly do they grasp the significance of the Great
Teacher's parable.
The New Civilization is saying to the Old now: "We cannot go on making
power for you to spend upon international conflict. You must stop waving
flags and bandying insults. You must organize the Peace of the World;
you must subdue yourselves to the Federation of all mankind.
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