MORALS IN THE WEST
The glaring division and dissatisfaction of modern civilization must be patent to the merest dunce. The inventions and discoveries made to ease life and advance civilization fail to ease man’s disillusion and disquiet of mind. Social difficulties and dangerous crises may have been averted, but this has not sufficed to confer happiness and joy on the generality of mankind.
Over and above his varied physical needs, man has a moral urge and a spiritual yearning. The attraction of physical delights is no greater than the pull of ethical impulses and intellectual quests. To confine men’s minds within the four walls of materialism is an unforgivable sin.
“The pursuit of happiness” is rightly included with “life and liberty” among “man’s inalienable rights.” The first step towards happiness involves preoccupation with the perfecting of personality, and not of the material environment alone.
Parallel with his astounding advances in industrial and scientific technology, man must equally advance his inner resources, his spiritual powers and his force of soul. These have been allowed to fall behind. There can be no true human perfection without equilibrium in life’s inner and outer aspects – both. If they are in imbalance, “civilization” offers no base for hundred per cent happiness.
Modern ethical and social shortcomings demonstrate that the factors, which produce human perfection, have not been allowed the attention factors of happiness and well being.
Such virtues may be approached from different angles and practiced on different grounds. The West’s moral capital has been removed from the Bank of Faith where it belongs. Divorced from its source in religion, it depreciates both in intrinsic value and in interest returns. Where the prevailing motive is profit, righteousness and goodness are judged by their material profitability. Small wonders that they decline in the West!
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