It is precisely at this point, in this focus of change, that the creative, organizing intelligence of men can be substituted for blind chance. It is here that mastery can take the place of drift, that a consciously planned control can shape and mould the operation of natural forces. What we need supremely at this time, therefore, is something of the synthetic vision of Aristotle, an ability to break over the boundaries of parochialism and think in world terms, a willingness to plan constructively on the basis of larger loyalties. This is the only road to salvation. This is where the judgment and common sense of the race would lead us. It may be said that we have given an exaggerated picture of the power of intelligence to effect results. "Humanity is moved by its emotions," it will be claimed, "and the springs of action lie deep in the hearts of men. What is wanted is not a programme but a motive power to put it into effect-a new interpretation of religion which shall sweep the world and snatch us out of our devotion to self and our narrow class interests.' There is no quarrel with this view. It has un doubted merit. But it would seem as if first of all we needed a vision, a synthesis, a programme conceived in terms of the common good, behind which we might marshal the driving force of an awakened world. The curse of man has been his aimlessness, his paucity of ideas in regard to his own career, his disbelief in his own powers to shape his future. Let us have a plan, a chart, an objective. Let us determine where we want to go and the best methods of advance. Let the surveyors and engineers stake out the boundaries of the new homestead and map the roads. And then, with the promise of the new land beckoning ahead, humanity can strike its tents and once more take up the march. Four hundred years ago Galileo shook the world with a question that could well be the watchword of our own generation: "Who is willing to set limits to the human intellect?" All about us today the world is astir. The air is filled with movement and change. Man is breaking out of the bleak wilderness of age-long isolation. He is riding forth to win his right to inherit the earth. He has challenged the blind forces of nature with the organizing power of his own intelligence. Who is willing to set limits to his accomplishment? Chapter VII THE NEW TECHNIQUE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS "There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation that He is -RUSKIN. ON a recent day in April, the New York Wholesale market received, among other supplies of the kind, 800 crates of honeydew melons from South Africa, 4,000 crates of vegetables and a shipment of lima beans from Cuba, 10,000 packages of vegetables and 1,700 barrels of potatoes from Bermuda, 4,000 crates of onions from Chile, and 18,000 bags of onions from Egypt. In a single year, the United States imported 7,000,000 pounds of butter from Denmark, 4,000,000 pounds from New Zealand, and 3,000,000 pounds each from Argentina and Canada. It is items like these, appearing casually on the market pages of our newspapers, that drive home the fact, so little understood, that we are living in an utterly new world. Our grandfathers did not import butter or vegetables. What butter they used they made themselves, and their vegetables were home grown. In 1786, a citizen of Massachusetts wrote a pamphlet telling just how he supported his family. With the wheat and corn that grew in his fields he furnished the family bread. The chickens, pigs, sheep, and an occasional cow that he slaughtered furnished the meat. His garden provided all his vegetables and his orchard all his fruits, many of which were dried for winter use. His sugar came from the maple trees. For clothing, his wife spun the wool which he sheared from the sheep; and the flax that grew in the corner of the field was made into linen. The skin of his cattle was tanned and made into the family's shoes. The trees from his wood lot furnished the boards to build his house, the logs for his fire, and the rails for his fences. He had his own forge where he made his tools and nails. Only a few things were needed from the outside world, such as salt, pepper, a little lead and gunpowder, and iron for his forge. These outside products cost him altogether ten dollars a year, permitting him to save $150 out of the $160 received for the wheat and cattle that he sold.1 But those days have passed into the limbo of forgotten things. The world in which we now live, thanks to the contributions of modern science, is a world of specialized and dependent parts knit together in a common unity. Although some of our political leaders do not seem to know it, the era of American isolation was definitely ended when the era of machinery was born. From the time an American citizen rises in the morning until he goes to bed at night he is surrounded with the products of foreign countries. His linen comes from Ireland, his necktie from Japan, his suit of Australasian wool is padded with jute from India. The buttons on his clothes come from South America, France, or the Philippine Islands. The bristles of his hairbrush are from China, his toothbrush is from Japan. He cannot even wash his hands without calling on help from abroad. He sits down to a breakfast of grapefruit, coffee, sugar, and perhaps sausages-all of which are, in whole or in part, the products of foreign countries. His newspaper is made of Canadian wood pulp. He puts on a felt hat that comes from an Austra |