nd
the possessors of insight, the most excellent and praiseworthy of all
things, but always on condition that its center of emanation should be
reason and knowledge and its base should be true moderation. Were the
implications of this subject to be developed as they deserve the work
would grow too long and our main theme would be lost to view.

All the peoples of Europe, notwithstanding their vaunted civilization,
sink and drown in this terrifying sea of passion and desire, and this is
why all the phenomena of their culture come to nothing. Let no one wonder
at this statement or deplore it. The primary purpose, the basic objective,
in laying down powerful laws and setting up great principles and
institutions dealing with every aspect of civilization, is human
happiness; and human happiness consists only in drawing closer to the
Threshold of Almighty God, and in securing the peace and well-being of
every individual member, high and low alike, of the human race; and the
supreme agencies for accomplishing these two objectives are the excellent
qualities with which humanity has been endowed.

A superficial culture, unsupported by a cultivated morality, is as "a
confused medley of dreams,"(38) and

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external lustre without inner perfection is "like a vapor in the desert
which the thirsty dreameth to be water."(39) For results which would win
the good pleasure of God and secure the peace and well-being of man, could
never be fully achieved in a merely external civilization.

The peoples of Europe have not advanced to the higher planes of moral
civilization, as their opinions and behavior clearly demonstrate. Notice,
for example, how the supreme desire of European governments and peoples
today is to conquer and crush one another, and how, while harboring the
greatest secret repulsion, they spend their time exchanging expressions of
neighborly affection, friendship and harmony.

There is the well-known case of the ruler who is fostering peace and
tranquillity and at the same time devoting more energy than the warmongers
to the accumulation of weapons and the building up of a larger army, on
the grounds that peace and harmony can only be brought about by force.
Peace is the pretext, and night and day they are all straining every nerve
to pile up more weapons of war, and to pay for this their wretched people
must sacrifice most of whatever they are able to earn by their sweat and
toil. How many thous