Arthur Keith Quotations

The discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life.

There are the further difficulties of building a population out of a diversity of races, each at a different stage of cultural evolution, some in need of restraint, many in need of protection; everywhere a bewildering Babel of tongues.

Man is by nature competitive, combative, ambitious, jealous, envious, and vengeful.

No tribe unites with another of its own free will.

Whichever theory we adopt to give a rational explanation of human existence, that theory must take into account and explain the mental nature we see at work in all modern communities.

Good men, whether they be Christians or rationalists, do not desire to discriminate between races, but the distinctions implanted by Nature are too conspicuous to escape the observation of our senses.

Tolerance is held to be a condition of mind which is encouraged by, and is necessary for, civilization.

Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool.

A drunkard is one thing, and a temperate man is quite another.

Civilization, we shall find, like Universalism and Christianity, is anti evolutionary in its effects; it works against the laws and conditions which regulated the earlier stages of man's ascent.

Before the discovery of agriculture mankind was everywhere so divided, the size of each group being determined by the natural fertility of its locality.

Under no stretch of imagination can war be regarded as an ethical process; yet war, force, terror, and propaganda were the evolutionary means employed to weld the German people into a tribal whole.

In a tribal organization, even in time of peace, service to tribe or state predominates over all self seeking; in war, service for the tribe or state becomes supreme, and personal liberty is suspended.

The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.

Reason has not tamed desire: it is as strong as ever.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

Civilization never stands still; if in one country it is falling back, in another it is changing, evolving, becoming more complicated, bringing fresh experience to body and mind, breeding new desires, and exploiting Nature's cupboard for their satisfaction.

We shall never understand the ethical system taught by Jesus unless we realize that he was a Jew, not only by birth, but that he lived and taught as a Jew; the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to his distracted fellow nationals.

In every man there is an instinctive and passionate reaction if his person or liberty is attacked.

The main force used in the evolving world of humanity has hitherto been applied in the form of war.

Universalism as an ideal is as old as nay, is probably much more ancient than the Christian ideal.

Tribal life comes automatically to an end when a primitive people begins to live in a town or a city, for sooner or later a tribal organization is found to be incompatible with life in a city.

I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority.

It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms.

Nowhere is Universalism welcomed and encouraged by a people; everywhere governments have forced and are forcing Universalism upon unwilling and resistant subjects.

There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution.

Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consistently sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.

Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?

I am a rank individualist.

No tempting form of error is without some latent charm derived from truth.

This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot.

As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs.

Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.

The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but what takes place in our hearts.

Thus I hold that individual liberties, so long as they do not endanger the unity and welfare of the community or tribe, have an evolutionary value.

A man of science is responsible for the accuracy of his observations and of his inferences, not for the results which may follow therefrom.

Force and fear are the driving power behind this regional kind of Universalism. Love and brotherhood have had no part in its spread.

Civilization seeks to suppress all those primitive instincts in man which formed the main part of the machinery of his evolution in earlier times.