# Most Great Peace, The: A New Phase of Human Thought

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Marion Holley, Most Great Peace, The: A New Phase of Human Thought, New York: Bahá'ı́ Publishing Committee, 1935/1937, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> THE
> ((MOST GREAT PEACE"
> A NEW PHASE OF HUMAN THOUGHT
> 
> by
> MARION HOLLEY
> 
> ''The world's equilibrium hath been
> upset through the vibrating influence
> of this most great, this new World
> Order. Mankind's ordered life hath
> been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous
> System - t11e like of which mortal
> eyes have never witnessed."
> BAHA' U'LLAH
> 
> BAHA'. f PUBLISHING COMMITTEE
> P. 0. Box 348 Grand Central Annex
> New York, N. Y.
> THE BAHA'I FAITH
> 
> The Revelation proclaimed by Baha'u'llah,
> His followers believe, is divine in origin, allembracing in scope, broad in its outlook, scientific in its method, humanitarian in its principles
> and dynamic in the influence it exerts on the
> hearts and minds of men.
> The Baha'i Faith recognizes the unity of
> God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle
> of an unfettered search after trut!i, condemns
> all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches
> that the fundamental purpose of religion is to
> promote concord and harmony, that it must
> go hand-in-hand with science, ~nd that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful,
> and ordered and progressive society. It inculcates
> the principle of equal opportunity, rights and
> privileges for both sexes, exalts work performed
> in the spirit of service to the rank of worship,
> recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary
> agencies for the establishment and safeguarding
> of a permanent and universal peace.
> Shoghi Effendi.
> 
> "'\VT
> WAR is the most preventable accident!" said 'Abdu'l-Baha,
> the exemplar of the Baha'i Faith.
> His words, which even twenty years
> ago seemed quite improbable, carry
> to modern ears an inescapable and
> terrible conviction. We recognize in
> them no less than a profound indictment of the nations of the world.
> The history of these last years has
> been dominated by two tendencies
> intimately affecting the future of
> war. First, there has come such an
> expansion in the possibilities of
> human intercourse, such intensification of et onomic dependence, together with a wider sympathy for
> the habits and ideals of alien groups,
> that for the first time the sons of
> earth are drawn close enough to conceive and aspire after forms of relationship other than violence. To
> this new-felt need-actually an opportunity to substitute for the cruel
> and gross processes of war a more
> civilized inter-action-has been added, secondly, a fatal necessity in the
> guise of an "armament revolution."
> Until the end of the 19th century the
> methods of war had "remained stagnant and unprogressive for hundreds
> of years." 1 But the conflict of 1914
> brought to perfection new devices for
> mass murder-poison gas, air raids,
> tanks, heavy artillery-techniques so
> efficient that in four years' time, more
> than twice as many men were killed
> as in 123 years of warfare preceding
> 1914. The costs of war are now so
> staggering that statesmen like Mr.
> Baldwin are impelled to ask: "Who
> in Europe does not know that one
> more war in the West apd the civilization of the ages will fall with
> as great a shock as that of Rome?" 2
> Modern war is not only a preventable accident; it is a dreadful scourge,
> more to be feared than the Black
> Death.
> This has not been true in every
> time. The benefits of war have often
> cancelled out its evils, have actually
> advanced the course of human evolu-
> 1-Daltoc, Hugh, T oward the Peace of Natio11s, p. 2.
> 2-Quoted by Dalton, p. 1.
> tion. For example, otherwise isolated groups used to meet upon the
> battle-field; and long after physical
> combat had ceased, the cultural ferment induced by such contact altered
> and enriched the customs of the
> hostile peoples. With the impact of
> Islam upon Europe during the Crusades, the structure of the Dark Ages
> was shattered and the western world
> entered a new phase. By revealing
> unsuspected horizons, war has undoubtedly speeded the progress of
> civilization.
> More()ver, it has served to breed
> hardy and vigorous men, inspiring
> in them the will to enterprise and
> action. Discipline, cooperation, inventiveness-these, as well as death,
> sorrow, waste, have beeen by-products of an activity which the modern
> world must now condemn. For the
> costs have finally overtaken the profits. Today, "we see war no longer
> as a tragic necessity in human life,
> but as a horrible arrest in development. "3
> 3-Wells, World of William C/issold, quoted by
> Dalton, p. 276.
> The figures of losses sustained by
> the fighting nations in the Great
> War, appalling as they are-ten
> million wounded, a total money cost
> of $337,846,000,000- actually indicate but a small portion of the destruction. The costs of war, indeed,
> cannot be estimated, but their significance may be glimpsed when it is
> remembered that, as a biologist has
> written, "The war question is essentially a problem in human ecology.
> Just as the plants and animals in
> an aquarium, pond, or forest constitute a delicately balanced e:omplex,
> so human society is a complicated
> organism. War, therefore, does not
> affect merely the armies engaged,
> but the civil populations as well, not
> only of the belligerent nations but
> also of remote neutrals." 4
> Thus the Great War distorted
> every phase of modern life. Six
> million people were wiped out by
> Spanish influenza. "Nearly all Polish
> children under six are said to have
> died from starvation.'' 5 The fatalities
> 4-Hunt, Some Biological Aspects of War, p. 3.
> 5-Ibid .• p. 2.
> among Armenians, Syrians, Jews,
> Greeks, Roumanians, Austrians, Serbians, Russians, Belgians, due to
> starvation and disease, were enormous. Nations jeopardized even
> their future health to feed this terror
> which coveted only the fittest human
> specimens. In the United States,
> "about 83 per cent of the drafted
> men who possessed defects of a probably more or less hereditary character
> were rejected," to return to their
> homes and father a generation. 6
> 
> AT the same time, the economic equilibrium of the world col·
> lapsed. Factories and industries,
> growing up to fulfill war needs,
> caused dislocation and overproduction after the war. Political instability interfered with trade. High and
> oppressive taxation cut down the
> purchasing power of the public and
> lowered the standard of living by ten
> per cent. In the light of subsequent
> developments, it is interesting to
> read a post-war prophecy that "the
> 6-Ibid., p. 83
> 
> f
> very breakdown of modern economic
> society might be the price exacted." 7
> Yet the physical consequencesbiologic and economic, together with
> the political disturbances created by
> the Versailles Treaty-were overshadowed, if possible, by the havoc
> worked upon the character of public
> ethics and private morals. No appraisal could exaggerate these factors, which in their totality form the
> damning evidence of "man's inhumanity to man," and predict in grim
> accents the terms upon which another
> war shall be fought. One of the
> strangest attitudes of our day is the
> nonchalance with which the common
> man watches his government prepare
> for suicidal conflict. Like blithe
> children the nations of the world
> seek arms for a tourney with Death,
> apparently unconscious of the merciless intent of their opponent.
> There are, to be sure, thousands
> of persons who, through the bitter
> years of the Great War, acquired an
> aching thirst for peace, and many
> 7- Bogart, Direct and l ndirect Costs rrf the Great
> World War, p. 299.
> of these have since devoted their
> lives to this ideal. Moreover, it is
> now the opinion of an imposing
> number of statesmen and leaders that
> war and human society have come to
> the parting of the ways. Diverse
> projects exist for the consummation
> of this process, sustained by as many
> explanations of the causes and cures
> of war as there are fields of human
> activity. After fifteen years of faithful application, however, some people
> are questioning whether success does
> not wait upon the coordination of
> these separate enterprises.
> 
> Now no plan, it is safe to
> say, so unites every contributory
> movement, so richly harmonizes the
> impulses and efforts of men towards
> the superb goal-world peace-as
> does the Baha'i Faith. 'Abdu'l-Bahi
> wrote, "The scope of Universal Peace
> must be such that all the communities and religions may find their highest wish realized in it." 8 Comprehensive in analysis, all-embracing in
> 8- Baha' I Peace Program, p. 19.
> 
> scope, inviting the cooperation of
> every forward-looking individual and
> group, the Baha'i Faith not only
> conforms with fact, but is enabled
> to enlist and conserve every authentic interest in the quest for that
> "durable peace" which, as President
> Roosevelt has said, "is the only goal
> worthy of our best efforts."
> Perhaps the primary and most
> stimulating contribution of Baha'u' -
> llah (Father of 'Abdu'l-Baha and
> Founder of this Cause) was an affirmation in unequivocal terms that the
> case for peace would prosper. "Yet
> so it shall be; these fruitless strifes,
> these ruinous wars shall pass away,
> and the 'Most Great Peace' shall
> come." 9 His words challenge at the
> outset the threadbare theory that
> war is inevitable because human
> nature does not change, a brand of
> illogic which is both untenable and
> futile. Failing as it does to distinguish between the instincts of individuals and social institutions, it
> is unable to recognize that whereas
> 9-Quoted in Esslemont, Bahtl'n'llah and the
> New Era, p. 48.
> 
> human impulses may not change,
> their expression-forms can certainly
> be shaped and guided. Happily, the
> opinion of an eminent body of psychologists has been recorded: "War
> is not instinctive and ineradicable.
> By a vote of 346 to 10 the members
> of the American Psychological Association have registered their opposition to the doctrine that war is a part
> of human nature and cannot be
> stopped." 10
> War, actually more akin to politics
> than to biology, might be de.fined as
> "a comest by force between political
> groups." 11 Arising from the struggle
> for existence, it is not therefore a
> necessary conclusion, but rather the
> most obvious and brute-like solution
> of this competition for life. Menwho are endowed with intellecthave often replaced natural processes
> with reasoned ones, especially when
> their very existence has been found
> to depend upon the latter. As one
> Baha'i writer says, "Disillusion
> would only be justified if human
> 10-Science News Letter, August 6, 1932.
> 11-Davie, The Evolution of War, p. 46.
> 
> society could be successfully established on the war principle." 12 Those
> who are alert to historic necessities
> know that war is doomed; at the
> same time they are prepared for a
> sharp and long-drawn struggle to
> eradicate the principle which so in-                      .   l
> timately penetrates the fabric of
> modern life.
> 
> 'ABnu'L-BAHA has said:
> "War is not limited to one cause.
> There are many kinds of war and
> conflict going on: political war, commercial war, patriotic war and racial
> war. This is the very civilization of
> war." 13 Today economic causes seem
> the most significant, with our world
> a seething mass of economic stresses
> and strains. Unemployment, "the
> cancer of the body economic," was
> estimated in 1932 as affecting some                       . .J
> fifty millions of the world's popula-                         I
> tion, unquestionably a conservative
> figure. Another critical question is
> that of population pressure and it is
> said that whereas "in 1.8 00 there were
> 12-Holley, T he World E conomy of Ba/11i'u.'llah, p. 7.
> 13-Com.bi/ation, etc. , con cerning t he Most Great
> Peace , p. 41.
> 
> probably 600,000,000 or 700,000,000
> people in the world, today the number is perhaps 1,800,000,000." 14 Increasing complexity of economic life
> together with a breakdown of the
> system of production and distribution, (both of them problems grossly
> complicated by the Great War) ,
> these are the factors leading to friction and rivalries.
> But-and it is a consideration
> fraught with importance and hopeeconomic causes in themselves do not
> result in war. Conflict springs up
> only when political groups, in an
> effort "to support the economic interests of their citizens," 15 clash and
> resort to violence. With immigration
> laws, tariffs, harsh trade policies, raw
> material monopolies, and protection
> of foreign investments, governments
> attempt to underwrite prosperity,
> ever guided by the unhappy notion
> that one nation can prosper independently of other nations, even at their
> expense. As a matter of fact, the
> World Economic Conference of 1927
> 14-Patterson, The World's Economic Dilemma, p. 23.
> 15-Lamb, Economic Causes of War, p. 6.
> 
> disposed of this creed: "Any strictly
> nationalistic policy is harmful not
> only to the nation which practices it,
> but also to the others and therefore
> defeats its own ends." 16 This twentieth-century truth, still not universally known, stands as one of the
> basic premises of the World Order
> of Baha'u'llah.
> Economic irritants are not, however, the sole instigators of a war
> spirit, and seldom if ever are they
> formally acknowledged. It is far
> easier to address popular fury in
> terms of its emotional antipathies.
> In other words, human prejudices
> form the most fertile ground for the
> seeds of war-prejudices national,
> racial, religious, class and cultural.
> How carefully through the ages
> these provincialisms have been fostered, despite the fact that "the most
> important step from savagery to culure is the emancipation of the individual man from complete or temporary segregation or isolation." 17
> How tenaciously group-egotisms
> 16-Quoted in Lamb, p. 60.
> 17-Davie, p. 16, quoting Ratzel, History
> of Mankind.
> have been transferred from the first
> primitive tribal unit, exalting itself
> with the name "Men" as if other
> tribes were not men, to the succeeding feudal, state and national organizations.
> Ethnocentrism, that loyalty which
> does good service in stabilizing each
> newly-created society, always in the
> end projects the social body into
> armed conflict. Today, disguised as
> nationalism, it is arousing passions
> which inevitably must hurtle us into
> another desperate struggle. Perhaps
> in no other school will men fi.nall y
> learn that: "All prejudices whether
> of religion, race, politics or nation,
> must be renounced, for these prejudices have caused the world's sickness. It is a grave malady which, unless arrested, is capable of causing
> the destruction of the whole human
> race. Every ruinous war with its
> terrible bloodshed and misery has
> been caused by one or another of
> these prejudices." 18
> These and many others are the
> 18-'Abdu'l-Baba, TN! Baha'i Magazine,
> February, 1934.
> 
> true causes of wars. But we must
> distinguish between causes and that
> basic condition of world society
> which makes war actually possible.
> For war is itself nothing but one
> method for settling disputes. It has
> already been dispensed with in the
> relations of individuals, families,
> states; only between nations does it
> remain the honored arbiter. Only
> between nations are there no effective
> definitions of law and government,
> no restraints to violence, no alternative courts of last appeal.
> 
> INTERNATIONAL relations,
> up to the Great War, were in a state
> of complete anarchy. Even today,
> after the efforts of the Versailles
> Treaty to establish a League of Nations, and in spite of subsequent
> pacts and agreements and the organized work of millions of interested people, international relations
> are still too chaotic to prevent the
> catastrophe which tempts us like a
> lurid shadow. Definitely, at least
> five institutions and processes for
> the prevention of war have been
> established: the League of Nations,
> the International Labor Office, the
> Permanent Court of International
> Justice at The Hague, the Locarno
> treaties and similar insurance treaties, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
> Actually, "every nation in the world
> has become signatory to some kind
> of a solemn pledge that it will settle
> its future difficulties by pacific
> means.'' 19
> Yet in 1935 we stand in more
> danger of war than at any time since
> 1914. The League of Nations, once
> seen as the hope of the world, has
> in the last year proved itself ineffectual. Indeed, it is in no true sense
> a League of Nations, since the United
> States, Germany and Japan-to name
> the most important-do not belong.
> And the League is powerless to stop
> them, it is powerless to interfere if
> Japan wishes to quarrel with China,
> it is wholly inadequate to prevent
> the next great conflict for which all
> 19-Tuttle, Alternatives to W ar, p. 2.
> 
> countries are preparing with illdisguised haste. The armaments race
> has at last been entered upon frankly although six years ago war was
> renounced "as an instrument of national policy." 20 It is a fact that the
> world spends enough on armaments
> in one year to support the total cost
> of the League for more than six
> centuries!
> In a world so enslaved by selfishness, so bestial in many of its impulses, so intent upon destroying
> the few world institutions which
> have been laboriously erected, what
> remains to a lover of peace? In what
> consolation may his soul find patience
> and what assurance will sustain him
> through the coming darkness? There
> is only one answer. Those who cling
> to the bright vision of a New World
> Order, whose thoughts continuously
> encircle it and whose actions faithfully contribute to its consummation
> - they shall wrest sanity from the
> world's insanity and peace from its
> bloodthirstiness.
> 20--Kellogg-Briand Pact, quoted in Tuttle, p, 152,
> 
> Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the
> Baha'i Faith, has written: "That the
> forces of a world catastrophe can
> alone precipitate such a new phase
> of human thought is, alas, becoming
> increasingly apparent. That nothing
> short of the fire of a severe ordeal,
> unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse
> and weld the discordant entities that
> constitute the elements of presentday civilization, into the integral
> components of the world commonwealth of the future, is a truth which
> future events will increasingly demonstrate."21
> The outlawry of war waits upon
> the awakening of man's intelligence
> and will. May humanity emerge at
> last from its blindness into the profound conviction that no less a foundation than that of undivided loyalty
> to a world society can ever support
> the structure of an enduring peace.
> 21-Goal of a New World Order, p. 26.
>
> — *Most Great Peace, The: A New Phase of Human Thought (Used by permission of the curator)*