as unnecessary.
The technical branches of science have been strongly backed and generally
supported by those to whom they have brought direct profit; and so they
have had better opportunities for development.

Ethics in the stifling grip of myth and legalism is not convincing enough
to exercise controlling influence. Such is the situation in which we find
ourselves. Being still in our childhood and thinking like savages, we
looked upon the World War as a personal creation of a "war-lord," because
those interested in it told us so. We neglected to use our common sense
and look deeper into its origins; to perform for ourselves the duty which
political philosophy did not perform for us--the duty of thinking in terms
of facts and not in terms of metaphysical speculations. Knowledge of facts
would have told us that the war lords were only the representatives of the
ruling classes. A system of social and economic order built exclusively on
selfishness, greed, "survival of the fittest," and ruthless competition,
must cease to exist, or exist by means of war. The representatives of this
system determined to continue to exist, and so war was the consequence.
The ruling classes carried the whole system under which they lived to its
logical conclusion and natural issue, which is "grab what you can." This
motto is not peculiar to any one country; it is the motto of our whole
civilization and is the inevitable outcome of our stupid philosophy
regarding the characteristic nature of man and the proper potentialities
of human life. Where are we to find the true doctrines? Where the true
philosophy? If we go back over the history of civilization, we find that
in all "sciences," except the exact ones, private opinions and theories
have shaped our beliefs, colored our mental processes and controlled our
destinies; we see, for example, pessimism opposed to optimism, materialism
to spiritualism, realism to idealism, capitalism to socialism, and so on
endlessly. Each of the disputatious systems has a large number of
followers and each faction looks upon the others as deprived of truth,
common sense and knowledge. All of them play with the words "natural law"
which they ignorantly presume to have as the basis and content of their
own particular doctrine.

It is the same in the realm of religions; there are approximately 291
million Confucianists, or Taoists, 261 million Roman Catholics, 211
million Mohammedans, 209 million Hindus, 177 million