NATURALISTIC HUMANISM

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I hope you will grant me the space to amplify certain details in your news item of May 6 relative to my proposal in the current Alumni Bulletin to establish a Chair of Naturalistic Humanism at the Divinity School.

Some Humanists are agnostics; others, like myself, are atheists. But this tells as little about Humanim as would be learned about Christianity merely from the information that Christians are theists. As Christianity comprises far more than theism, so Humanism, although based upon the naturalistic outlook of agnosticism and atheism, extends far beyond that premise. Humanism assimilates the spirit and substance of modern science and democracy, and incorporates the dynamic aspects of our civilization. In its concern for mankind, it equals, if indeed it does not surpass, the highest ethical level which any traditional religion has yet reached.

When a Protestant minister enters upon his ministry, he will be confronted with two main streams of thought other than his own--Roman Catholicism and Humanism. He will not even have to leave his own church to encounter Humanism, because it is no secret that many persons remain in the churches because of family or social connections, yet in belief and action they are Humanists in all but name. Divinity students will now have the advantage of learning about Roman Catholicism from their new Chair; they should be accorded equal facilities for learning about Humanism.

Until a Chair can be founded, there is a wealth of talent possible as guest lecturers in Naturalistic Humanism. If foreign sources are drawn upon, there are in England such men as Dr. Julian Huxley, biologist, formerly Director General of UNESCO, and Lord Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and first Director General of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization; and in Canada Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, formerly Director General of the U.N. World Health Organization. In this country, in addition to Dr. Corliss Lamont '24, of the philosophical faculty of Columbia Univ., to whom I referred previously, there are--to mention only a few--such men as Dr. Hermann J. Muller, professor of zoology at the Univ. of Indiana, Nobel Laureate in medicine (genetics), now president of the American Humanist Association (A.H.A.); Dr. Chauncey D. Leake, Ass't Dean of the Medical School at Ohio State University, now vice-president of the A.H.A.; Dr. George Axtelle, professor of education at New York University; Dr. Harold A. Larrabee, professor of philosophy at Union College; and the Rev. Edwin H. Wilson, pioneer in the organizational development of Humanism, now Executive Director of the A.H.A.

I have named several men who are officers of the American Humanist Association. For those unfamiliar with the A.H.A. it can be stated that it is the national organization of Humanists, with headquarters at Yellow Springs, Ohio, which corresponds in the field of Humanism to our other national societies in the respective fields of the several arts and sciences. Membership in the A.H.A. is open to all in sympathy with its viewpoint and objectives, and its strong representation in academic and professional circles constitutes impressive evidence of the important position which Naturalistic Humanism has attained in contemporary American thought. Harold R. Rafton '10