the belief in which I had been reared. But neither my personal indifference to the issue nor the fact that I had previously given it no attention served to prevent an angry resentment. This spontaneous and loyal support of our preconceptions this process of finding "good" reasons to justify our routine beliefs is known to modern psychologists as "rationalizing," clearly only a new name of a very ancient thing. Our "good" reasons ordinarily have no value in promoting honest enlightenment because they are urged, not in any sincere attempt to examine the soundness of our belief, but in order to justify ourselves for continuing to believe what we already do. I do not mean, of course, that the "real" reasons, even if they could be come at, would have any greater weight than the "good" ones, but by showing up the origins of our beliefs and how they have been transmitted from generation to generation to the present day, they would give us the opportunity to try at least to arrive at sounder conclusions. The "good" reasons make an appeal to accepted standards and current logic; they are supposed to show the "soundness" of a belief. The "real" reasons, explaining how it is we happen to hold a particular belief, are chiefly historical. Our most important opinions-those, for example, having to do with tradi tional, religious, and moral convic tions, property rights, patriotism, national honor, the state and indeed all the assumed foundations of society are, as I have already sug gested, rarely the result of reasoned consideration, but of unthinking abscrption from the social environment in which we live. Consequently they have about them a quality of "elemental certitude," and we resent the doubt or criticism cast upon them. So long, however, as our emotions thus dominate our beliefs, we are obviously unable to examine them dispassionately and to consider to what extent they are suited to the novel conditions and social exigencies in which we find ourselves to-day. by making clear their origins and history, can do much to dissipate this emotional blockade and rid us of our prejudices and preconceptions. Once this is done and we come critically to examine our tradi tional beliefs, we may well find some honest reasoning, while others must of them sustained by experience and be revised to meet new conditions and our more extended knowledge. But only after we have undertaken such a critical examination in the light of experience and modern knowledge, freed from any feeling of The "real reasons for our beliefs. th we claim Such a critical examination of our fundamental beliefs and opinions is all the more important because of the general bewilderment in which thoughtful men find themselves today. When they contemplate the shocking derangement of human affairs which now prevails in most civilized countries, including our own, even the best minds are puzzled and uncertain in their attempts to grasp the situation. The world seems to demand a moral and economic regeneration which it is dangerous to postpone, but as yet impossible to understand and direct. The preliminary intellectual regeneration which would put our leaders in a position to determine and control the course of affairs has not taken place. We have unprecedented conditions to deal with and novel adjustments to make there can be no doubt of that. But we also have a great stock of scientific knowledge unknown to our grandfathers with which to operate. So novel are the conditions, so copious the knowledge, that we must undertake the arduous task of reconsidering a great part of the opinions about man and his relations to his fellow-men which have been handed down to us by previous generations, who lived in far other conditions and possessed far less information about the world and themselves. We have, however, first to create an unprecedented attitude of mind to cope with unprecedented conditions and to utilize unprecedented knowledge. This is the preliminary and most difficult step to be taken far more difficult than one would suspect who fails to realize that in order to take it we must overcome inveterate natural tendencies and artificial habits of long standing. How are we to put ourselves in a position to come to think of things that we not only never thought of before, but are most reluctant to question? In short, how are we to open our minds and rid ourselves of current prejudices? As a historical student who for a ly engaged in coming to think how good many years has been especialwe happen to have the ideas and convictions about mankind and human relations which now prevail, the writer has reached the conclusion that history can at least shed a great deal of light on our present predicaments and bepuzzlement. I do not mean by history that conventional chronicle of remote and irrelevant events which embittered the youthful years of many of us, but rather a study of how man has come to be NEW OUTLOOK This conflict that I call Myself, this blend -Kay Arnoll Justice Rules The World LAW, IN THE SENSE commonly called natural law, is inviolable, unchangeable, eternal, but not everyone realizes that this is true of all the worlds in which man lives, mental and emotional as well as physical. Therefore cause and effect are ever operative wherever the forms or vehicles through which life manifests may exist, regardless of how subtle or refined the matter may be of which those forms are made. Every energy released by man in cvery world in which he manifests is a cause, and every cause must inevitably produce its due effect. Somewhere, some time, the balance must be adjusted. Thoughts and feelings as well as actions all play their proper part in forming the destiny of every man, and the final result is always exact and unfailing JUSTICE. Neither philosophy nor science could have a firm foundation with out resting upon unchanging law, which in its very nature is synonomous with JUSTICE. All great re ligions teach that natural law is God's law and that the law is just. If all this be true, and common sense and reason alike demand that it be true, and all so-called authority confirms it, then all possible reasons for worry have no validity, and fear, man's greatest enemy, disappears entirely. The man who understands the LAW, relies on it, rests in it, flows with the stream of life in perfect harmony with the law. He has no regret for the past and no anxiety for the future. He lives in the Eternal Now. He knows that what is his will inevitably come to him in time, and that naught can truly come to him which is not his. Therefore he can truthfully say every day of his life, “I thank Thee, Lord, for everything that happens to me." He sees in every event of his life that which he most needs, that from which he can learn what he most needs to learn. Thus his life becomes poised, balanced, serene, reverent, joyous, happy. —THE ROAD TO HEAVEN, George H. Hall NEW OUTLOOK Toward World Unity DURING THE LAST eight months of my stay in the United States as the accredited representative of the Government of India to your great country, it has been my good fortune to visit a number of universities and colleges, so far mainly on the Atlantic seaboard and recently, in some of the mid-Western States. When the authorities of your University kindly invited me to participate in the Annual International Week I knew that this was a "must" and could not be declined. The University of Michigan attracts a large number of foreign students and this was so long before the present influx of foreign students into American educational institutions, I believe this University has had many foreign students, even as far back as the beginning of the century. If I may be pardoned for a personal reference, I recall a member of my own family having been a student here nearly twenty-five years ago. You, in the University of Michigan, have demonstrated over half a century that students from different countries can live in complete harmony in search of knowledge, experience and wisdom. We are, per G. L. Mehta haps, apt to forget that the three cardinal principles immortalized by the French Revolution included not only Liberty but also Equality and not, the least, Fraternity. And Fraternity covers those outside one's country as well as those inside. It embodies the aspiration for world brotherhood. It was Benjamin Frank lin who said, "God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thor ough knowledge of the Rights of Man may pervade all the nations of the earth so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say "This is my country"." Today, I am told there are about thirty-five thousand students on the soil of the United States. This single factor alone, even apart from many others, is an indication of the enor mous power and influence of the United States. This should be a matter of pride to the patriotic citizen, but to those who are conscious of the responsibilities of leadership, it is also a matter of grave concern. An address by the Ambassador of India, to the United States at Annual International Week, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 13, 1953. I |