The Moral And Religious Challenge Of Our Times PDF Download

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II The Moral And Religious Challenge Of Present External Conditions I: The New External Conditions And Their Individual Challenge Intelligent prevision of the future world civilization can only be based upon the discernment of present needs and trends, and of the larger trend of the centuries. From these we must infer the probable lines of future development. The consideration of present needs and trends would call for facing, particularly, the demands of the new external world, and of the new inner world of thought; and both require a review of certain somewhat familiar facts. The immense range and multiplicity of interests of the present day particularly demand such a thoughtful survey of the whole, if the inquiry is not to end in confusion, and in either vague enthusiasm or vague depression. Never before has it been so necessary to make one's survey of human conditions complete. We are to attempt, therefore, to study the problem of human development in its entirety, ? as a world problem. THE MAIN MOVEMENTS OF THE. TIME When one turns, in the first place, to a study of the changed external conditions of our present civilization, certain facts stand out unavoidably: the progressive conquest over the forces of nature; the resulting stupendous economic development; the world-wide economic solidarity; the consequent enormous increase of wealth; the extension of the policy of the national conservation and development of natural resources; the inevitable growth of great cities; the far finer division of labor; the indefinitely closer connections of men, the world over, through improved methods of transportation, commerce, communication, and the press; the resulting increasing association of the races; the rapidly extending application of scientific discoveries for ...