Article March 2, 1957 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Arnold Toynbee, George A. Whitman

Excerpt from a statement by Arnold Toynbee on "Voice of America" published in U. S. News & World Report Washington, D. C.

How is modern man going to fill the spiritual vacuum in his soul? This vacuum has been created by the rise of modern science. Science has expelled religion in its traditional forms; yet science, by itself, is incapable of filling the void.

Man today is like an adolescent armed with an adult's weapons—without having attained to an adult's state of mind. He will be a danger to his fellows, and still more to himself, till he grows up spiritually to match his now gigantic technological stature. But the way toward spiritual maturity runs not through science, but through religion. I therefore expect to see twentieth-century man set out on a quest for the recovery of religion. I believe that he will recover it.

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