ALBERT SCHWEITZER AND "THE PHILOSOPHY OF CIVILIZATION"

"The Philosophy of Civilization" is the most important book I have read during my long life.  It helped me to find a positive solution to a problem that had been a thorn in my mind since childhood and had grown more acute as my factual knowledge of life and the world increased.  Schweitzer's "Quest for the Historic Jesus"' affirmed, beyond any reasonable doubts what I did not and could not believe, what I no longer could even dimly hope to believe. This confronted me with the necessity of finding answers to such questions as:  What can you believe?  If you can no longer even hope to believe the basic assumptions of the Christian supernatural world and life view, what can you believe that will provide you with a world and life view that can justify and sustain our believable religious conviction that the invisible love reality of human life is the ultimate ethical authority by which to judge and be judged?  For some years I had been asking myself such questions.  So far I had no satisfying answers.  My deepest and most believable religious convictions had no rational world and life view to support them, not until I had read and studied Schweitzer's "Philosophy of Civilization".
   
As I understand and interpret the life and thought of Schweitzer, his "Quest for the Historic Jesus" left him where it left me - without any rational assumptions to justify the belief in the ethical authority of the kind of love he knew to be a reality of his own being and had been so clearly described and its demands defined in the sayings of Jesus.

Schweitzer was a disciple of the Age of Enlightenment and believed in its optimistic world and life view. He was also convinced there was no justification for believing in such a world and life view unless there were rational assumptions supporting love as the supreme ethical authority in human affairs; that without the prevailing influence of love any progress inspired by such a life and world view would, in time, make for worse wars, more debasing poverty and injustice than were produced under the old pessimistic world and life view.
   
When he had finished his study of the ethical thought of the human world he had explored many noble attempts to establish a sound rational foundation to support and justify believing in the ethical authority of love.  However, all of them, in the end, had to admit they had failed.  The nature philosophers, for whom Schweitzer had great respect, wanted to believe and tried to find such an authority for love in the study of the ways of nature.  But that, too, turned out to be a dead end effort,  like all the others his long search had found.
   
Now that the basic assumptions of the Christian supernatural world and life view were no longer believable, Schweitzer realized the people of the 20th century were without any supernatural or rational support for an optimistic and ethical world and life view.  Schweitzer believed both the optimistic and the ethical elements of which were essential assumptions if any purpose was to be given to the human effort to perfect one's self and human society.  It was only after more years of study and thinking, in the jungles of Africa as a medical doctor, that Schweitzer reached and published the rational assumptions which he believed could support, and make believable, an optimistic and ethical world and life view.  One may find those conclusions and rational arguments by which he justifies them in his "philosophy of Civilization".  It was in that book that I found the help I needed to answer the question - "W can you believe"?
   
A word here for any who may be prompted to read Schweitzer's important books for themselves.  If you have never read any of his books I suggest you begin with his "Memoirs of Childhood and Youth". This small book owes its existence to a long delay during a train trip.  Schweitzer was in Europe on one of his rare visits from his jungle home in Africa.  Due to missing a connection, or something else, Schweitzer found himself with a five or six hour lay over.  It so happened that a close friend lived in this town and knew when Schweitzer's train would arrive.  He went to the station hoping for a short visit when Schweitzer changed trains.  On learning of the long delay he invited Schweitzer to his home.  He suggested that Schweitzer stretch out on the couch and rest himself.  As luck would have it Schweitzer's friend was a shorthand expert. While Schweitzer was resting his host asked if he would tell him something about his childhood and youth. As Schweitzer talked his friend took it all down in shorthand.  Later he typed it and sent it to Schweitzer.  I assume he must have made some changes and maybe added a little and had it published.
   
That little book is important in that it reveals that his mature beliefs, recorded in his "Philosophy of Civilization", had their beginnings in the life and thought of a very sensitive and intelligent youth.  However, it is in his "Philosophy of Civilization" where one will find the basic assumptions of the man and the intelligent thinking by which he reached and justified them.  Unless you are far more knowledgeable of the world of human thought than I was when I first read the book, you will find it necessary to read it more than once to give your mind some time to digest it.

Schweitzer wrote some other important books.  "The Quest for the Historic Jesus" is a very helpful book for those in need of an intelligent and sensitive affirmation of their doubts concerning the basic assumptions of the Christian supernatural world and life view.  "Indian Thought and its Development"  is a storehouse of knowledge and intelligent observations of  pessimistic world and life views.   In his earlier books, written before his "Philosophy of Civilization", Schweitzer was still trying to dress his thoughts and beliefs in some kind of garb of Christian verbiage or terms of religion.  Later, I believe, Schweitzer would have agreed with the suggestion that one should interpret some of those terms by those he used in "The Philosophy of Civilization". In "The Philosophy of Civilization" one will find his most sacred beliefs and religious affirmations.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF SCHWEITZER'S WORLD AND LIFE VIEW

Many times, during the last thirty-eight years, I have, in various ways tried to share with others what I learned from Schweitzer through the study of his "Philosophy of Civilization".  All such attempts were unsatisfying, even to me.  I have decided that the only way I could come close to sharing all I have learned from that book would be to give you a copy on your solemn pledge to read it thoughtfully not less than four times, within one years time.  However, I am tempted again to try to do such sharing in a way that will be easier for you but much less rewarding.  I am going to try a method I have never tried before.  I am going to state each of his basic assumptions, as briefly as possible and then try to tell you what I learned by following his thinking through his world of knowledge, by which he reaches and justifies each assumption.  It has been six months or more, maybe a year, since I last read the book.  I am going to do this by memory.  In stating an assumption, quotations marks will be used if I am certain it is stated in Schweitzer's own words.  If quotation marks are not used that means I am not sure that it is stated in the exact words of Schweitzer.


Assumption One:     

"The fact of all facts is this, we are surrounded by mystery".  There is much we do not know and in all probability we never will.  It may be said that everybody knows that is true.  Maybe so, but how many of us let that fact seriously influence our religious, philosophical and ethical thinking and believing?   Here we are on a tiny ball of dirt and water, in a universe of billions of galaxies and trillions of stars with their planets whose numbers are more, perhaps, than our wildest guess.  All of which are scattered out over billions of light years of space, spinning through a span of time, the beginning of which and the end of which, lie beyond the reach of our imagination. Yet we know many things about the universe around us, of which we are a part.  We know enough about its size to know that it is immensely big, and very old.  We know it is made of many parts varying in size, from huge galaxies to the minute particles that make up the universe of the atom.  We know a good bit about the chemical makeup of its various parts that come within the reach of our observation.  Yet, all the facts we know about the material universe around us is little compared with what we do not know about it.

Our knowledge reveals no certain facts as to when and where the universe began, if it had a beginning.  Our knowledge leaves us equally ignorant of when and where the universe will end, if it has an end.  All we know tells us nothing of the purpose, if any, served by the existence of the universe.  Our knowledge describes in many details the activities of the various parts of the universe.  But it tells us nothing of the role, if any, we were designed to play in those varied activities.  If our activities and the activities of all the other parts of the universe serve some cosmic purpose, all we know about the universe gives us no clue as to what that purpose might be.  What we know about our sun as it spins through the milky way, with our rotating earth spinning around it, reveals that the sun and the earth spin and rotate in a very orderly and predictable fashion along the same courses at the same average speed year after year, so much so that we set our clocks by their coming and going.  However, is our knowledge of the stars and their planets due to some cosmic designer who set them all in motion on their courses at a given speed, to serve some universal purpose?   Are the activities of the minute particles within an atom, as far as our knowledge reveals, the results of a cosmic accident that set them spinning in space and they are held in their orbits simply by their attraction and repulsion to each other?

All our knowledge of the universe around us reveals no conscious, rational or ethical intention or purpose amid the manifold activities of its parts.  Concerning such matters our knowledge of the universe leaves us in "circumambient darkness".  As Schweitzer said it, "The fact of all facts is this, we are surrounded by mystery". For Schweitzer the beginning of wisdom is to be humbled by that fact.

Assumption Two:

"All there is is will to live".  That is Schweitzer's answer to the question: "What is the universe"?  When all we know and don't know about the universe has been carefully evaluated, that is the most rational assumption about the essence of the universe that our knowledge can justify.  The assumption may be translated to read, "All there is is Life".  Don't overlook the significance of the first word "All"

Not too many years ago we thought in terms of animate and inanimate matter.  Today the chemical biologists no longer use those terms.  In their study of life in its simpler and smaller forms those terms simply cannot properly describe the matter they are studying.  On the level of existence, where they are exploring, life and non-life appear to be brothers and sisters, if not identical twins.  What we have wanted to identify as animate and inanimate matter seems to be just different forms of the same mystery.  Our poets were dimly aware of that fact long before our scientists discovered it.  In his poem, "Pleasures of Hope", Thomas Campbell observed:

"Who hail thee, Man the pilgrim of a day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay".

In Genesis 3:19 we read, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return".

The scientists tell us that we are made of the same stuff as the stars of the heavens and the soil of the earth. Since we are 63 percent oxygen and ten percent hydrogen we are, actually, more brothers ad sisters to a rain drop than to a clod of dirt or the twinkle of a star.

Out of respect for what we know and don't know Schweitzer came to believe that life as such is the universe; that life, will-to-live, is the mystery that accounts for all parts of the universe and their activities, however blind and thoughtless that will-to-live may be. Schweitzer's assumption, that life is the essential nature of all there is, provides us a foundation for thought that may, if followed to its logical conclusion, lead us into an ethical relationship with everything, a conscious relationship that can justify the poet's contention:

"I'm a child of the universe,
I have a right to be here".

Assumption Three:

Life as such is the supreme reality we have to deal with. This third basic assumption grows logically from the second assumption: "All there is is will-to-live".  What life as such is we do not know.  We do know we are manifestations of it, just as all things in the universe are manifestations of it.

There is hardly a fraction of a number small enough to indicate how few of all the manifestations of life that we will ever see, hear or touch.  Yet in every sprig of being that we see, feel or touch - regardless of its form - we are confronted with a manifestation of the most important reality that we can help or hurt by what we do and say.  The mystery Schweitzer calls "life as such" is the essence of the universe, the essence of all there is.  Without it there would be nothing, nothing save a still and silent void.  We, like everything else, are manifestations of the essence of the universe.

Once you have reached, by rational thought, these assumptions about "life", as Schweitzer uses the term, you realize that what is most sacred is not an abstract idea to which the mind has given a sacred name and place in heaven or somewhere else.  It is rather the essence of your own being and of all other forms of being around you, with whom you have to deal, do business with, fairly or unfairly, to whom you can be kind or unkind.

Harlow Shapley was, for a long time, the director of the Harvard observatory and professor of astronomy at that university.  Shapley was more than a great astronomical technician.  He tried to comprehend and to express, in ethical and philosophical terms, the significance of the great body of scientific facts he knew. You may find his attempt to do that in two of his books, "On Stars and Man", and "The View From a Distant Star".  Both are well worth reading. His sense of the sacred had much in common with that of Schweitzer. However, by a thing or two he said, I don't think Shapley knew that.

In the preface of a book he edited, "Science Ponders Religion", he asked: "Is the reverence for life (Schweitzer) a cramped vision of humility and reverence a cramped idea in view of what we now know about the emergence of life out of the lifeless? These facts make logical an equal reverence for the inanimate and animate.  Would it not be more reasonable to be humble before the phenomenon of total existence rather than only before a biochemical digression or before a display of atoms and stars"?
   
Those questions and observation tell us one fact about Shapley.  He never read Schweitzer's "Philosophy of Civilization".  No person with Shipley's intellect, knowledge and sensitivity would have made that statement after reading that book.  Had Shapley read it he would have immediately comprehended the significance of the first three assumptions of Schweitzer's world and life view and agreed with them. Shapley could not have missed Schweitzer's contention that his object of reverence included the "inanimate" and the "animate", the "biochemical" "digression" and the "display" of atoms and stars.  Yes, "total" "existence" was Schweitzer's object of reverence.   It is too bad that Shapley did not better know the life and thought of Schweitzer.  They could have been great spiritual companions, complementing each other in their efforts to find and affirm believable truths of great significance.

I use Shapley's ignorant statement about Schweitzer's position in hopes it will emphasize the importance of understanding what Schweitzer includes in the word "life" in the phrase "reverence for life".  All there is is will-to-live",. And "life as such"  is the sacred thing we have to deal with. Those are two of the cornerstones of Schweitzer's thoughts and convictions.

I thought I was crossing the wilderness of theology and philosophy at a narrow place.  It now appears there is no narrow place.  So hang in.  Be patient.  You might learn something, or at least get an idea. Remember, "The Philosophy of Civilization" is the result of Schweitzer's long search to locate, by rational thought, the ultimate, or absolute, source of ethics - ethics that can justify an optimistic view of life by its results. Before we proceed we should define some of the terms in the last sentence, as they are being used here.
   
"Rational thought" is guided by known facts. "Optimistic view" is belief in progress - the conviction that human beings, by their efforts, can make a difference and can improve the quality of the personal and collective life in this world.  "Ethics", as used here, are the kinds of motives, purposes and attitudes that will make the end results of optimistic efforts rewarding, that is, what is done will actually reduce the pain and increase the joy of human existence.  If what is done is ethical it will make progress in the improvement of the quality of our personal and collective life.  In the next paragraphs I shall try to indicate the relationship between an optimistic view and ethics and their interdependence.

I have already made note of the fact that the optimistic view of life came into its own during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period of our history known as the age of reason or enlightenment.  I also named some of the things that gave birth to and nurtured the optimistic life view to its maturity.  A study of the youthful decades of the optimistic view shows that progress was made.  Actual improvement in the quality of life was achieved for many.  One thing was accomplished that made it possible for the "downtrodden" to hope, at least in the long run, for a life of less pain and more joy - legal slavery was abolished throughout the world.
   
However, the overall activities, inspired by the optimistic view, did not make for true progress.  While great progress was made in developing the means know how to produce the "goodies" that could reduce the pain and increase the joy of existence, the vast majority of human beings benefited little, if any, by that progress. The total progress being made fell far short of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  Worse than that, the enormous power that was being discovered in gas, coal, oil and electricity and hitched to the wagon of progress was also being hitched to the chariots of war, compounding the destructiveness of war activities and ever increasing the horrors of wars, wars that would increase the pain and decrease the joy of life for all.
   
Schweitzer was writing "The Philosophy of Civilization" during the years of  World War One.  The failure to prevent that war was one of the major events that convinced Schweitzer that humanity did not have the ethical resources to manage the activities of an optimistic life view and channel them in courses of action that would produce true progress. That is, to improve in every way, the quality of life for all who might have a life to live.
   
Events in the human world since World War One have multiplied many times evidence of the ethical poverty of humanity.  World War One was followed by ten years of the wildest kind of speculation and exploitation of human labor and natural resources - the objective being to produce any and everything for monetary wealth and power, rather than for the improvement of the quality of life.  The result was a world wide depression of ten years, which left millions stranded in poverty and want amid potential plenty.

So lacking in ethical resources we tried to solve the depression problem by dumping fruit and other food stuff into the ocean, plowing up crops already planted, and killing baby livestock, while millions stood in bread lines across the land.  We were in such a state of ethical weakness that what we did produced World War Two.  That was followed by the "Cold War" that continues still, which produced the Korean and Viet Nam wars and other military confrontations around the world.  But overshadowing everything else is the thirty-five year old atomic arms race that continues, in this country alone, at the expensive tune of more than three hundred billion dollars a year.  The byproduct of all such ruthless activity is a plundered planet with its poisoned water, land and air.
   
What became clear to Schweitzer during World War One should be more than clear to all of us today.   We still have a kind of optimistic view of life but, unfortunately, a pessimistic ethical view of ourselves.   A few evenings back I watched the tail end of the Miss America Pageant.  The master of ceremonies put the five finalists in a sound proof coop, taking one out at a time to ask each of them the following question. "If you become Miss America you will represent the United States in the Miss Universe Pageant later this summer. If you could tell the contestants from the other countries only one thing about the United States, what would you tell them"?   There was no exception. Each of them said, in substance, "I would tell them that here in the United States the sky is the limit.  In the United States you are free to set your own goals, whatever they are, and have the opportunity to reach them".
   
Never mind how true or false their information may be, there is among us a kind of boundless optimistic view of what individuals can do in this land and what we can do as a nation.  We dared to believe we could create a weapon that could blow the world apart, and we did.  We dared to believe we could send people on round trips to the moon, and we did.  We dared to believe we could create machines that could do most of the hard work,  and we did.  We dared to believe we could produce an abundance of any and everything that could be sold at a profit,  and we did.
   
How would you, as a father or mother, or as a grandparent, answer this question?  Do you believe we have the ethical resources to create and maintain a society that will be as good to every child that is born as you hoped society would be to your children when you first held them in your arms and looked into their faces? Young and old, do you believe human beings have the ethical ability to create and maintain a society that can free human kind from war and the fear of want?  Do you believe we have the ethical capacity to give everyone the opportunity to work and play, to cultivate a quality of life that will make living a satisfying and joyful experience?  Those questions suggest no more than what we hope the society we bequeath to our children will offer them.  Yet, how many of us can answer those questions with a "Yes"?  Our negative answers to those questions reflect the state of our ethical poverty.  We are trying to make do with an optimistic view of life with a pessimistic ethical view of ourselves. That is the broad road to hell, here, not hereafter.

In "The Philosophy of Civilization", published more than sixty years ago, Schweitzer tells the story of his search for a source of ethics that would give us the ethical confidence in ourselves to do what has to be done, and can be done,  to make for true progress - progress that will actually decrease the pain and increase joy, "not just for some but for everyone".   He also tells us where he found the fountain of ethics which he believes, if fully exploited and universally shared, will give us an optimistic view of ourselves - a view we must have if what we do is to enrich rather than impoverish human existence.

Some of you, perhaps, have a question that goes like this: "You are talking about what Schweitzer wrote more than sixty years ago. If his generation did not take Schweitzer's ethical findings seriously, and if the generation after the Second World War, exposed to the life and thought of Schweitzer, did not take him seriously, why do you think we, at the tail end of the twentieth century, should take Schweitzer seriously, and, in so doing, find the ethical resources we need for an optimistic ethical view of life"?
   
That's a good question.  Unfortunately it reminds us of a tragic fact: and is evidence of how ethically poor we really are.   It's true the people of the world, during the last sixty years, have ignored Schweitzer's ethical search and findings.  They kindly dismissed him as a dreamer, a poet, who had nothing practical to suggest.  Such ignoring of Schweitzer painfully tells us how ethically pessimistic we are about ourselves. We are so ethically pessimistic about ourselves that we cannot believe it worth the effort to try to find out and understand what anyone has to say, who claims to have found a source of ethics that might make us ethically fit to cope with life on the human level.

Why then do I insist that we ought to take Schweitzer seriously?  My answer is this.  If there be any ethical resources that can save us, I believe Schweitzer was digging, with the proper tools, in the right place to find it.  If it be proven he did not find it, if it is ever found, we will have to start digging for it where Schweitzer left off.
   
I had to lead you around in a small circle to give myself time to preach the short sermon recorded in the last few paragraphs. I justify the sermon on two accounts. One!  I was a preacher for more than forty years.  It's unfair for anyone to expect me to beak completely such an old habit.  Anyway, a little preaching never hurt anyone, especially if it is good preaching.  The other justification I have for the sermon is that I was trying to say something that might encourage you to take Schweitzer seriously.  If the sermon failed to do that it will not be the first one of my sermons that amounted to no more than pouring water on a duck's back.  I'm now ready to continue our wandering through the wilderness.

I didn't write anything yesterday. Instead I re-read Schweitzer's little book with the title, "The Teaching of "Reverence for Life". Published in 1965 and written after 1961.  It is a small book of only 63 pages.  I mention it here because ninety-five percent of it is Schweitzer's own little fingernail interpretation of his "Philosophy of Civilization".  If you be persuaded to become a new disciple of Schweitzer maybe it would be helpful, after reading "Memories of Childhood and Youth", for you to read this small book.  However, it is no substitute for "The Philosophy of Civilization".  You will rob yourself, and thereby sin against the world, if you try to make do with that little book alone.  To know and appreciate what Schweitzer was trying to say you must master the content of "The Philosophy of Civilization".  Now, if you have your mental and ethical tools unpacked and ready for use we will make a run for the forward side of the wilderness.

Assumption Four:

This assumption may be translated to read "Our worldview must be determined by our life view".  Another translation would read "Our conception of life must determine our theory of the universe".  The ethical resources we need to make true progress, on the human level, is to be found, if anywhere, in what we can know about life as it is manifested in us, rather than in what we can know about all the other forms of life that make up the rest of the universe, be those forms identified by us as "living" or "non-living".
   
As we proceed keep in mind the first assumption: "The fact of all facts is this, we are surrounded by mystery".  Our objective knowledge of the rest of the life in the world and our subjective knowledge of our human life is limited.  "We see through a glass darkly.  "We know only in part".  Without being humbled by these facts the ethics we need will never be found, regardless of where we look for it.  The ethics we need to make true progress must, as Schweitzer would contend, be able to "do without an infallible philosophical system".
   
The stories of religion and philosophy reveal that throughout recorded history human beings have felt the need of some kind of ethical guidelines by which to direct their activities, if civilized life was to be possible. The great religious systems of humankind preached the Golden Rule - the law of love to be the ground rule for human aspiration and conduct.  Some of the philosophical systems of thought also, more or less, adopted the Golden Rule as their basic principle of ethics, or right conduct for human beings.  All philosophical systems, to which I have been exposed, advance some kind of ethical principles by which to direct and judge human activities.  However, as Schweitzer's review of the history of ethical thought reveals, regardless of the religion or philosophy, it tried to justify its ethical teaching by a theory of the universe, or a world and life view, that found its ultimate source of ethics somewhere outside human beings.  Consider the Christian religion and nature philosophy.
   
The Christian worldview insisted on finding its ultimate authority for the ethical teaching in the will of the ethical personality of God, a supernatural being who created the heavens and the earth and all things therein, in charge of the universe and director of all the non-human activities in the universe.  God is proclaimed to be the perfect ethical model for human beings.  "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect", Matt. 5:48.

All we know about such human and non-human activities provide us with no evidence that they are under the control and direction of an ethically perfect heavenly father.  Take for examples, the activities of floods and droughts, cyclones and tornadoes, hailstorms and blizzards, earthquakes and volcanoes.  All we know about the forces that determine such activities of earth and sky compel us to believe they are blind thoughtless forces that care not and know not whom they kill or what they destroy.  Among their victims are both the good and the bad.  They make no distinction between the two.  Our knowledge cannot allow us to believe that such forces judge between their good and bad victims because they love or hate both equally, but because no love or hate is involved.  To the best of our knowledge the forces of nature are unconscious, thoughtless and blind, amoral forces.  Thinking that respects what we do know about the non-human forces of earth and sky.  We must be humbled by the fact that such forces know nothing of a supernatural being, or ethical personality. The truth is we have no supernatural ethical model by which to judge ourselves.

The nature philosophers try to find in the ways of the non-human life of the world an ethical model for humankind.  Here again our knowledge is limited by what we can learn from the outside.  We actually don't know what goes on in the mind of a horse or squirrel.  We do not know what kind, if any, worldview the non-human creatures may have, such as the tortoise, giraffe, housefly and turtledove.
   
Some nature philosophers want to find, in the ways of the non-human life of the world, a kind and benevolent ethical model for human beings. Other nature philosophers contend that non-human life forms operate according to the law of "the survival of the fittest".  They advise us that we should stop kidding ourselves that we can do any better.
   
Those two ethical models of the non-human life on earth, and any model in between, must be judged by the one fact we do know about the life drama in which humankind is also involved - the fact is that life on earth is a horrible drama for every form of life killing and eating some other form of life.  Life lives on life. The cow eats the grass.  We rob the cow of her milk and eat her children. That's the way it is. As Schweitzer would say,  "The drama of life feeding on life is the horror of existence."
   
We do not know how much, if any, non-human creatures are conscious of the horrible drama of life in which they are involved.  Movies, taken of non-human creatures in the wild, clearly reveal that most of them live in constant fear of being killed and eaten.  And rarely do creatures in the wild kill except out of necessity - to satisfy their hunger, or if they are lucky, kill in self-defense.  As far as I know no wild creature kills for sport. Whatever the motive or lack of motive, wild creatures find no pleasure in killing other forms of life. That is more than can be said of many human beings.

Whatever ethical model you think you have found, in the ways of the non-human life of the world, it is inadequate for human beings on two accounts.  One is that human beings, through thought, can increase their power to do good and evil.  Non-human life, through thought, cannot significantly, if at all, increase their power to do either.  As far as I know, no generation of rabbits, or whatever, has been able, through thought, to increase the power of rabbits to do anything different than the first rabbit family of Mr. and Mrs. Adam and Eve rabbit.  It is an obvious fact that human beings have increased their power, beyond previous generations, to do good and evil, to debase or improve the quality of life of the world, including the land, water and air.
   
Our modern weapons of war, our modern farm tools and our greatly improved agricultural know-how, our modern means of transportation, from the ten-speed bike to space ships are just a few reminders of how greatly, through thought, we have increased our power for good and evil. Our modern worldwide communication systems have greatly increased our power to know, to be aware of and sensitive to, how what we do as individuals and as groups may help or hurt babies and grownups around the world.
   
Through thought human beings of the 20th century have enormously increased their power for good and evil, over that of our grandparents who died before 1900, beyond what most of them could have dreamed.  Even the best ethical model that may be found in the activities of the non-human life of the world, could not provide the ethical wisdom we need if we are to be ethically fit to use, for the good, the enormous power the human mind places in our human hands.
   
The non-reflective and amoral model of non-human life is also inadequate for humans, because it is something less than what life, or will-to-live, in us expects of itself.   Recall Schweitzer's second assumption "All there is is will to live". Underscore the first word, "All".  Every form of existence, from the microscopic sub-elements of the atom to the largest galaxy of stars, is a manifestation of the mystery we call life, or in Schweitzer's term "will-to-live".  Here I need to quote Schweitzer's own conception of life, or will-to-live.
   
"I ask knowledge what it can tell me of life. Knowledge replies that what it can tell me is little, but immense. Whence this universe came, or whither it is bound, or how it happens to be at all, knowledge cannot tell me. Only this: that the will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. I do not need science to tell me this; but it cannot tell me anything more essential". (from "An Anthology, edited by Charles R. Joy, page 251) . . .

"The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature". (Joy's Anthology, page 250)
   
Any gardener may observe such striving in the weeds and grasses he has to contend with every day. Some of them are more determined than others, but all of them struggle to bloom and produce seed for the next generation.  In many weeds and grasses this "will to live" can only be delayed by cutting them down or pulling them up.  Those you cut down, some overnight, will start growing another stalk.  If just one sprig of root is left in the ground of those you pull up nature will nurture, from that one sprig of root,  another stalk to continue the struggle to perfect itself.
   
The only form of this will-to-live, whose struggle one can experience from the inside, is his own. When a person examines what he is from the inside, like Carl Sandburg, he will discover that he is a close relative of a whole zoo of creatures.  However, the most immediate fact of consciousness, Schweitzer contends, is this - "I am life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live". This is how a human being "conceives himself every moment he spends meditating on himself and the world around him".
   
This conscious fact that I am something that "wills to live" and that every other form of existence around me is also a manifestation of the same "wills to live", is the ultimate source for the ethics a human being needs to perfect his ideal of himself and of human society.  From this fact of consciousness flows the impulse to love my neighbor as I do myself, to treat others as I want to be treated.  It is by reflecting, or thinking, on my awareness of the hopes and dreams, the pains and joys of my own "will to live" that I am made conscious of the hopes and dreams, pains and joys of other wills to live around me. It is from this union of conscious feeling and thinking that sympathy, respect, love and reverence for others are born. This sympathy with other wills to live is what Sandburg called the "something else" he found in the zoo of his being.
  
Honest and sincere thought, that is, thinking that respects all the facts we know, and prompted by this "something else" of our human "will to live", ultimately leads one to the absolute principle of ethics, which Schweitzer sums up in this phrase "reverence for life", which is no more and no less than fellow-feeling, love, made universal.
   
Nothing less than "reverence for life" as such can nurture in us the ethical ability to do the good we now have the power to do. Without an intelligent and genuine reverence for one another and for the animal and plant life of the earth, and yes, an intelligent and genuine reverence for the land and air and water of the earth, we can and will, no doubt, sooner or later, destroy this living world. The plants, animals and humans, who may escape being killed through ill use or by our weapons of war, will die of thirst and starvation, because we will have so polluted the land, air and water that they no longer will be capable of nurturing and sustaining life, even their own.
   
Yet, in spite of our great need for the universal ethics of "reverence for life,"  most of the intellectuals, schools and professors have ignored Schweitzer, dismissing him as a kind old man, a poet or dreamer, with nothing practical to offer. The failure to take Schweitzer seriously, not to learn and understand what he has to say, is a great tragedy, a crime against future generations and ourselves.  I contend there is nothing to be found in all of human thought, past or present, that is more important or more practical than an understanding and wide practice of the ethics of "reverence for life," to which Schweitzer has given an intelligent and rational foundation.
   
The kind of thinking that Schweitzer invites one to follow does not try to establish a set of moral rules for every situation.  It is, instead, thinking that leads one up to "reverence for life,"  leaving you there to play it, henceforth, by ear, according to the dictates of "reverence for life," having the rational assurance that in so doing, you will keep step with the highest ideal of yourself that is given in your human will to live. 

In Schweitzer's books you will find many statements describing the nature and objectives of the ethics of "reverence for life."  Here I refer to just one of them. The ethics of "reverence for life" commits one to do all he can to increase the joy and decrease the pain of all who may have a life to live.  "Reverence for life" is the natural ethics of all human beings, however little they may rationally comprehend it or believe it is practical.  Even a child knows there is something given in her nature that says, "Yes" to such an ethical objective.
   
Some years ago I watched Mike Wallace interview a famous striptease artist, whose name I have forgotten. In the first part of the interview it was established that the artist was the daughter of a couple that was in show business, the low paying kind of show business that traveled from town to town, city to city, to entertain people who went to cheap theaters.  Being on the go with her parents, during the years of her childhood and youth, she seldom had a chance to go to school at one place for more than a few weeks or days.  Most of her education was the simple arts of reading, writing and arithmetic her parents taught her.  Somewhere along the way she learned to undress in a way that some people found entertaining to watch and were willing to pay to see her perform.  In time she became a famous "undresser" and was well paid by those who wanted to watch her do something that most women do at least once every day.  Here are some of the questions and answers of the interview:
   Question, "What do you think about as you take off your clothes, piece by piece"?
   Answer, "What I'm going to do next".
   Question, "Do you believe what you are doing is important or useful"?
   Answer, "No."
   Question "Then why do you do it"?
   Answer, "To make a living".
   By this time Wallace was more frustrated by her simple, straightforward answers than she was by his
    condescending questions.
   Question , in an irritated tone, "Do you go to church"?
   Answer, "No".
   Question, "You never went to church during your childhood and youth"?
   Answer, "No, My parents never took me to church".    
   Question, "Then what is your religion, or do you have any religion"?
   Answer, "Try not to hurt anyone".
   
From his reaction to that answer, it was obvious that Mr. Wallace was unaware of the great philosophical or religious significance of her answer "Try not to hurt anyone".
   
Here was a very simple and humble woman, very poorly educated.  No doubt she was totally ignorant of the bible, having never read a significant philosophical or religious book.  It would be safe to bet a million to one she had never heard of Schweitzer or his ethics of "reverence for life."  Yet, here she was, perhaps with no rational justification for doing so, trying to practice the ethics of "reverence for life" in response to an intangible reality of her being that was telling her the best she could hope to do to give meaning and purpose to her life was simply to try not to hurt anyone.
   
It would be a different world, a much better and happier one, if human beings would consciously and intelligently try to make all their personal and their collective activities in groups, their customs and value systems conform to the ethics or religion of that unassuming striptease artist "Try not to hurt anyone".
   
No, there is nothing new in the essential nature of the ethics of Schweitzer's "reverence for life." The important thing Schweitzer did is this - through thought, that respected all the facts of human knowledge he knew, which were immense, and with respect for the "something else" given in our human "will to live," Schweitzer advanced a philosophy of life or a world and life view, that rationally justified and makes believable the affirmation that the highest or most meaningful purpose that can be given to human existence, in this mysterious universe, is to be found in striving toward the goal or purpose of the ethics of conscious human love that has become aware of the fact that life, will to live",  is the sacred reality to be dealt with and now sees in every form of existence a manifestation of the most important or sacred thing one can help or hurt by what he does.
   
Now we have emerged from the philosophical wilderness, where, for many pages, we have been wondering as we wandered. If, in the meantime, you had done the thinking and wondering that Schweitzer invites you to do, you would have emerged from the wilderness with a religious profile like unto the one described by the affirmation in the last paragraph. You might do well to re-read it. Anyway, that affirmation expresses my religious faith that evolved during my study of the life and thought of Schweitzer, over a period of two or more years.

obvious that Mr. Wallace was unaware of the great philosophical or religious significance of her answer "Try not to hurt anyone".
   
Here was a very simple and humble woman, very poorly educated.  No doubt she was totally ignorant of the bible, having never read a significant philosophical or religious book.  It would be safe to bet a million to one she had never heard of Schweitzer or his ethics of "reverence for life."  Yet, here she was, perhaps with no rational justification for doing so, trying to practice the ethics of "reverence for life" in response to an intangible reality of her being that was telling her the best she could hope to do to give meaning and purpose to her life was simply to try not to hurt anyone.
   
It would be a different world, a much better and happier one, if human beings would consciously and intelligently try to make all their personal and their collective activities in groups, their customs and value systems conform to the ethics or religion of that unassuming striptease artist "Try not to hurt anyone".
   
No, there is nothing new in the essential nature of the ethics of Schweitzer's reverence for life. The important thing Schweitzer did is this - through thought, that respected all the facts of human knowledge he knew, which were immense, and respect for the "something else" given in our human "will to live," Schweitzer advanced a philosophy of life or a world and life view, that rationally justifies and makes believable the affirmation that the highest or most meaningful purpose that can be given to human existence, in this mysterious universe, is to be found in striving toward the goal or purpose of the ethics of conscious human love that has become aware of the fact that life, will to live",  is the sacred reality to be dealt with and now sees in every form of existence a manifestation of the most important or sacred thing one can help or hurt by what he does.
   
Now we have emerged from the philosophical wilderness, where, for many pages, we have been wondering as we wandered. If, in the meantime, you had done the thinking and wondering that Schweitzer invites you to do, you would have emerged from the wilderness with a religious profile like unto the one described by the affirmation in the last paragraph. You might do well to re-read it. Anyway, that affirmation expresses my religious faith that evolved during my study of the life and thought of Schweitzer, over a period of two or more years.

The ultimate source of the religion of "reverence for life" is the will to love, given in the human will to live. I now rationally conceive it to have been what shamed me for the way I treated the opossum that I encountered when only a child.  A young child can't rationally understand or justify such a notion.  She can, very easily recognize it, and respond to it, once she is aware of the hopes and dreams of other life around her.
   
When Rose Elien was five or six years old, she was standing by the driveway one day when I came home. She was holding a quart milk bottle, with one hand over its mouth. When I got out to open the garage door she said:   "Daddy, I have a lightning bug (firefly) in the bottle. I want to catch another one, but this one will crawl out if I take my hand off.  Will you keep him in while I get another"?
   
Stalling for time I asked her to wait until I put the car up.  While I was doing so, I said, "I suppose he doesn't like being cooped up in a bottle.  He probably wants to be free to fly in the twilight and let his little light shine. I imagine you would try to escape if some big person put you in a closet and tried to keep you there". 

When I returned from the garage she had the bottle bottom end up, trying to shake the bug out.  The bug, thinking the way out was up, was clinging to the inside bottom of the bottle, looking for a way out.
  
 "He won't come out", she said.
   
I suggested she turn the bottle right end up.  She did.  The bug crawled out and flew away, blinking, now and then, his small taillight, as he disappeared into the semi-darkness of the evening.  Without another word between us about the firefly, I took her hand and we went into the house.
  
In the last sermon I gave, at the Saxon Baptist Church, I tried to explain the religion of reverence for life.  Papa was visiting us that weekend.  It was the only time he ever heard me preach.  He could neither read nor write, except his name.  He had never heard of Schweitzer or his religion of reverence for life.  However, he was a very astute observer and listener of his world within and the world around him.  He was a storehouse of knowledge of the shapes, sounds and colors of everything that existed in his small world.  The creatures of his inner world were no strangers to him either. He could identify the voices of each of them, including the small voice of the one Sandburg called "something else".

During the sermon I related the following experience. I was watering the garden when a bumblebee flew in the spout of water coming out of the hose.  He fell near the plant I was watering.  There was a time, I confessed, that I might have flushed the bumblebee  by taking aim and intentionally doing what I had just done by accident.   Instead, out of pity, respect, and reverence for the life of the bumblebee, I turned the water off and found him clinging to a small stone under the plant.  I picked him up, stone and all, moved him to a safe place and then continued watering the garden.
   
After returning home from church Rose Elien, Mary Beth, my father and I were sitting out on the screened  in porch. So far my father had made no comment about the sermon.  Mary Beth came over and crawled up in my lap and asked, "Daddy, you did not really pick that bumblebee up, did you"?
  
"You remember", I answered, "I said I picked him up stone and all.  No, I did not touch that bumblebee.  I picked up the stone to which he was clinging and moved him with the stone".
   
Then my father spoke, "There is", he said, "a big black bug that if he gets turned over on his back in a clean place where one of his legs can't reach something beside him, he can't turn himself right side up.  He will just wiggle around and around, fanning the air with his legs until he dies.  I have no idea of how many times I have stopped and put my foot down beside one so he could grab it and flip himself over".
  
Rose Elien, in letting the firefly go, and my father, by taking time to save the lives of lowly black bugs, were obeying the ultimate source of ethics that's given in the human will to live.  It is Schweitzer's contention, if this inward source of ethics is ever to be allowed to play the role in our personal lives and in the collective life of our human world it needs to play and might play, it must be comprehended by thought.  That is, each individual by thinking, that respects the facts of reality, must come to understand its nature and its intention or purpose.
   
In his "Philosophy of Civilization", Schweitzer puts it this way: "we must make up our minds to leave our conceptions of life and of the world mutually independent of each other, and see that a straight forward understanding between the two is reached.  We have to admit that our conception of life is made up of convictions that are given in our will-to-live, but are not confirmed by knowledge of the world. Our will to live has to accommodate itself to the inconceivable truth that it is unable, with its valuable convictions, to discover itself again in the manifold will-to-live which is seen manifested in the world.  We wanted to form a philosophy of life for ourselves out of the items of knowledge gathered from the world.  But it is our destiny to live by means of convictions in which an inward necessity makes them a part of our thought. In the old rationalism reason undertook to investigate the world. In the new rationalism reason has to take as its tasks the attaining of clarity about the will-to-live that is in us"  - from "The Philosophy of Civilization", page 208.