We are at one of the most decisive moments in the life of mankind. At no other period of human history were so many people bearing such impossible burdens or suffering such agonising persecution and anguish of heart. We are living in a world in which tragedy is universal. There is a startling relaxing of traditions, of restraints and of established law and order.

Ideas which until yesterday were regarded as inseparable from social decency and justice, which were able to direct and discipline conduct for centuries, are swept away. The world is rent by misunderstandings, bitterness and strife. The atmosphere is charged with suspicion, uncertainly and much fear for the future.

The growing distresses of our race, the deepening economic misery, wars on an unprecedented scale, the divided counsels in high places and the inertia of those in power and authority, who wish to preserve the collapsing order and save the crippled civilisation at any cost, 1 are rousing, the world over, a spirit which is, in essence, revolutionary. The term revolution’ need not always imply mobviolence and massacre of ruling classes. Any urgent desire for intense and drastic change of the foundations of civilised life is a revolutionary desire.

The word is used in two senses : (i) a sudden and violent uprising resulting in a coup such as the French or the Bolshevik Revolution ; (ii) a gradual transition spread over a period of time from one system of social relations to another as, for example, the British Industrial Revolution. What makes a period revolutionary is not the fact of change, which is always present in history, but the pace of change. The present age is revolutionary because the rate of change is very rapid. Everywhere round about us we hear the sound of things breaking, of changes in the social, in the political and economic institutions, in the dominant beliefs and ideas, in the fundamental categories of the human mind. Men of intelligence, sensitiveness and enterprise are convinced that there is something radically wrong with the present arrangements and institutions in regard to politics, economics and industry, and that we must get rid of them if we are to save humanity.

Scientists tell us of the various ways in which the earth may perish. It may be destroyed by the approaching moon at some remote time or by the cooling of the sun. A comet may strike the earth or a poisonous gas exude from the earth itself. But all these are remote possibilities, while the probabilities are that the human race may perish by its own deliberate acts, by the stupidity and selfishness which are strongly enthroned in human nature. It is tragic that, in a world which is there for us to enjoy and which might be made full of happiness for everyone, if only we are prepared to spend a fraction of the energies which are now given to the perfection of war machinery, 1 we let death and destruction go on. A blind impulse to destroy seems to have taken possession of mankind, and, if there is no check to it, we will take a long stride towards final extinction and prepare for an era of intellectual darkness and ethical barbarism in which man’s noblest accomplishments of the past wouTd be laid waste. The tragedy of it oppresses us all with the weight of a physical burden, paining our minds and troubling our hearts. We live in a period of agonising strain, of grave anxiety, of manifold disillusionment. The world is in a condition of trance.

The witness of a few noble souls to a finer world is our hope for the future. In recent decades, we have had not only material development which is striking and visible to the eye, but also a definite growth in ethical sense and social passion. There is an increased desire to apply the results of science and invention to the improvement of the general conditions of life. In our ideas of the relations and obligations of man to man there is a very real advance. The crusade against child labour, factory legislation, old age pensions, compensations for accidents are a few illustrations of the growing sense of responsibility in the community towards every one of its members. Never before in the history of the world has there been such a deep desire for peace and such a widespread hatred of war. The unvindictive courage, the unpretentious selfsacrifice of millions in this war point to the growth of the moral sense and love of humanity.

What is happening today is something that far transcends the fate of any one country. It is a vast convulsion of society as a whole. It is not a mere war, but a world revolution of which the war is a phase, a major alteration in the entire thought and structure of civilisation, a crisis that goes to the very roots of our civilisation. History has launched our generation into such an epoch and we must try to guide the revolution to the service of proper ideals. We cannot reverse the course of the revolution. The old order, the order which is the parent of Hitlers, Mussolinis and Tojos, is doomed. Those who fight against them must realise that they are laying the foundations here and now of the new order of liberty. Our enemies are to be put down simply because they still cling to the old and do not help us to clear the path for the new. The cowardly inertness of the human mind must be checked if we wish to win the peace and prevent planting seeds of future disasters. To secure an enduring peace, we must eliminate the conditions which make for wars and be earnest about a new way of life which will mean the sacrifice of cherished idols. So far as we can, we must make sure that we do not allow the fury of combat, the strain of suffering, ttie resentment at aggression, to warp our just judgment about our foes. We must learn to observe humanity even towards the inhumane, keep our mind on the distant future and not cloud its prospects by insensate hatred.