The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-03
Breaking DoiU,I
The most strilink chsracssristie Of fhi. as'
sy n. FRASK cHANn,

The most striking characteristic of this as, is the breaking down of; partitions.
 The ancient mediaeval world lived in coms paftmenfs. The people thought, felt, worket and fought, each group in its little pigeon hole, ,knowing little and caring less for thost in other pigeon holes.
 Society was organized in classes Castf was universal. Rank was everything At the top was royalty, then the scale descended through the graded orders of nobility, unti it reached the merchant, and finally the mar with the hoe, who was lowest of all.
 Unconsciously men arranged their spiritua world the same way, ranging from the su I preme monarch-deity down through archan gels, angels, .ecclesiastics, plain men, sinner and devils
 The world of knowledge was also divide. into strictly separate boxes. Politics ha{ nothing to do with merchandising, astronomI had no relation to chemistry. history was no on speaking terms with logic or law. and government and religion had nothing in com mon with each other. \ Truth was in sections. Facts were iso lated, Knowledge, though abundant, was in coherent.
 Out of all this mass of unconnectedness the modern mind emerges with a sense of oneness. Nothing stands alone. Everything is related to everything else.
 has done much to bring this about. It has slown us the universe as a growing thing, like q tree, not mere heap of things, like pile
 This has a very farsreaehing effect upon all odr thoughts. All truths are kin, as the inhabitants of New England village. s Metehnikoff. Lister or Bergsen announces a law newly discovered, and it affects York, NebrASka, for a wagonload of books must be sent from the public library straightway to the second hand man. A monk in a city of the Rhine jnvents gunpowder, and immediately all Rhine castles become obsolete, all city walls useless. r
 There is line from the study to Broad way Edison devises the electric lamp, and the Great White Way changes its night orna- nents. M
 Theology alters landscapes. A monk of Ehrfurt nails his theses to the church door; hence America is dotted with schoolhouses instead of cathedrals.
 I remember, when was little boy of eleven, finding in my fathers library an old blue book, Miss Somerville's Correlation of the Physical Forces" and reading it, possibly because was supposed not to read it. and feeling this great law of world-unitv first rise upon nay fancy like a bewiidering sun.
 From any grain of sand on the beach at Narragansett runs thread to Arcturus When California is earquake-shaken Bootes trembles. From little bone found in prime Vhk sEVCh SulFck EOulu NCCVuStEuCI ,6 1fhhtOr don.
 When the Greek manuscripts from pilaged Athens were scattered in Florence, the Rem aisance fire was kindled.
 Truth is one, not many. Medicine, archi- lecture, painting, music, political economy. sanitation, business, eugenies, war, chemistry mathematics and religion are but one thing, seen at various angles.
 Geology interprets Genesis chemistry an- notates the miracles, philology criticizes the canon, the science of history affects the Old and New Testaments.
 And psychology puts its hand in every hu- man concern.
 Hence castes disappear. Kings one by one resign. Races mingle Nations are amalga- mated.
 Humanity becomes one. There are no mora foreigners, only men; no more flags, only the white flag.
 Competition vanishes with the imperfect, Bectionalized knowledge that created 1t. Go operation grows with the growth of the con viction that truth is one, conscience is one, art is one, prosperity is one, business is one, health is one, God is one, humanity is one
 Steam and electricity and democracy are weaving the rent and scattered world into one living fabric.
 The world of men is 'ceasing to be heter- ogeneous mass; it is becoming homogeneous organism. f.s.