Editorial June 7, 1947 Issue

The Governor of the Nations

Paul Stark Seeley

Judged by results, no human form of government has yet proved itself entirely adequate to the need of its people for the solution of the complex economic, social, and political problems that keep appearing. That honest efforts are being made, and sometimes with a measure of success, to solve these problems through the political systems now in vogue is apparent, as is also the fact that in many instances those efforts avail little.

A nation's life and government are the immediate outcome of the thought of its people. The importance then of knowing more about thought, its source, and the forces that control it becomes apparent. If the thought of the individuals who compose a nation can be improved, the nation's life and government can be improved and the world benefited.

The increasing willingness of men to think rightly accounts for the human progress already made and gives hope for the future. Consider the advance made in human thought since 1785 concerning the rights of labor. A popular clergyman of the Old World then wrote a book which was widely circulated. In it he voiced the commonly accepted view of his time that it was a "natural law" for the manual worker to receive no more than a bare subsistence for himself and his family. The poor he believed were to remain poor, to do the work of drudgery and so relieve their betters of that necessity. And said he, "When hunger is either felt or feared, the desire of obtaining bread will quietly dispose the mind to undergo the greatest hardships, and will sweeten the severest labor."

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