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Progress and Spiritual Values1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

The catchwords of our age, evolution and progress, sound very attractive so long as we do not pause to inquire into their significance. They are the delight of the sophist and the despair of the thinker. When we speak of progress we have in mind the human species. It is not easy to define what exactly the goal of human progress is. Even the leaders of the federation of progressive societies will find it difficult to give an adequate answer to the question of the end towards which we are actually progressing. They will find it more difficult to frame an ideal of human evolution which will be equally acceptable to, say, the monks of Mount Athos, Christian

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1937

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References

page 262 Note 1 viii. 6–7. There is a passage in the Burial Service of the Church of England which reads thus: “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.”

page 262 Note 2 Sir James Jeans writes: “The general principle known as the second law of thermodynamics predicts that there can be but one end to the universe— a ‘heat death’ in which the total energy of the universe is uniformly distributed and all the substance of the universe is at the same temperature. This temperature will be so low as to make life impossible. The end of the journey cannot be other than universal death."—The Mysterious Universe, p. 13.Google Scholar

page 263 Note 1 The New Twilight of the Gods(1932), p. 16.

page 265 Note 1 Purusamātrasambandhibhih.

page 265 Note 2 Philippians ii. 5.

page 265 Note 3 1 John iii. 2.

page 265 Note 4 Mamasādhannyamagatah, xiv. 2.

page 267 Note 1 Mithilāyām pradīptāyām na me dahyati kiñcana.—Bhāgavata, xii, 176, 56.

page 268 Note 1 Cf. Kālo vā kārānam rājño rājā vā kālakāranam, iti te samśayo mābhud rājā, kālasya kāranam.

page 271 Note 1 An American Life Insurance Company recently advertised as follows: “Buddha, who was a born prince, gave up his name, succession, and heritage to attain security. But…we do not have to give up the world; we have only to see a life insurance agent who can sell us security for the future, the most direct step to serenity of mind,” quoted in Babbitt: The Dhammapada (1936), pp. 114–15.

page 275 Note1 Rock Edict XIII. See Smith, Vincent A.: The Edicts of Asoka(1909), p. 19.Google Scholar