MUST LEARN LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE TO SOLVE PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS

Man's understanding of the laws of nature has been enormously increased during the last hundred years and that understanding has enormously increased man's power. I have lived for over eighty years; and the progress which man has made during those eighty years in scientific knowledge and therefore in power fills me with amazment whenever I reflect upon it.

But if man's knowledge of nature is amazing, his ignorance of himself and of his fellow men is not less amazing. He possesses a remarkable knowledge of the forces of nature; but his ignorance of the forces of human nature is equally remarkable. We can run across the continent fifty miles an hour and fly through the air more than a hundred miles an hour. But within the last few weeks we in America were in a tremor of anxiety lest this mouth in all our towns and cities we should be hungry for want of food and cold for want of fuel, because the men on whom the community depended for food and fuel were quarreling among themselves and proposed to stop our supplies. Germany showed a wonderful knowledge of material forces and used its knowledge to create poisonous gases and destructive bombs and a gun that could carry shells I know not how many miles; but it was so lamentably ignorant of human nature that it thought that it could violate women, enslave men, murder defenceless children, and make war on churches, libraries, and hospitals, in order to destroy a commercial rival, and that the civilized world would look on and see it done with only feeble and meaningless protests.

Must Know Human Nature

The Twentieth Century has inherited a wonderful knowledge of nature; but it has yet to acquire the beginnings of a knowledge of human nature. To be a good house-maid it is not enough to know how to wash dishes and make beds. If there is to be peace and comfort in the home the maid must know how to get along with a sometimes tired husband, a sometimes nervous wife, and some frequently obstreperous children. To be a good home-keeper it is not enough for the mistress to know how to market to the best advantage, she must understand enough of human nature to get along with an Irish maid one season, a Swedish maid a second season, and a Negro maid a third season. The preacher must know more than theology, he must know his congregation; the physician must know more than anatomy and physiology, he must know how to deal with the varying temperaments of his varying patients; the teacher must know more than his subject, he must know the minds of his pupils, for a Ph.D., does not suffice to make a successful teacher; the engineer must know more than iron and steel and how to handle them, he must also know how to handle Irishmen and Italians and Hungarians.

The laws of health are not imposed on the body by the doctors. They are the nature of the body and are discovered by the doctors. The laws of the social order are not imposed on society by Kings or Congress; they are the nature of the social order and are discovered there by statesmen. The greatest need of the world today is not a better knowledge of nature, that is science; it is a better knowledge of men that is morals. It is not more certain that water quenches thirst and fire expels cold than it is that selfishness separates men and good will unites them.

When I was in college seventy years ago, I was taught that labor is a commodity to be sold in the highest market and bought in the cheapest market; that the law of supply and demand would regulate the price of labor. In fact the laborers have united to boost prices of labor and the capitalists have united to keep the prices of labor down and the result is a disastrous labor war.

Labor is not a commodity; it is a service. The distinction is clear and is recognized by every housekeeper. If she buys a beefsteak the character of the butcher is a matter of economic indifference to her; all she wants to know is the character of the beefsteak; but if she hires a cook it is to her if the utmost importance to know the character of the cook--whether she is honest or a thief, industrious or idle, sober or intemperate. The employer and the employed are engaged in a co-operative industry and if that industry is to be successfully conducted they must know how to work together in promoting what is more or less of a common interest.

The problem which confronts the coming generation is not how can we get the best service for ourselves out of nature; but, how can we live together in such relations in our homes, our schools, our industries and our government as to make our lives peaceful and prosperous for ourselves and for each other. The domestic problem, the international problem, all require for their solution a knowledge of the laws of, the social order, that is, the laws of human nature. It is in this realm that the Morses and Edisons and Marconis of the coming generation must render their services and win their victories.