3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr If the views I have expressed be right, we can think of our civilization evolving with the growth of knowledge from small wandering tribes to large settled law.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2,000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr When the fabric of society is so rigid that it cannot change quickly enough, adjustments are achieved by social unrest and revolutions.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr Our civilization is now in the transition stage between the age of warring empires and a new age of world unity and peace.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr There can be no peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lack the necessities of life and believe that a change of the political and economic system will make them available. World peace must be based on world plenty.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr The increase of territory and power of empires by force of arms has been the policy of all great powers, and it has always been possible to get the approval of their state religion.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr Measured in time of transport and communication, the whole round globe is now smaller than a small European country was a hundred years ago.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr It is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. It may well be that a war neurosis stirred up by propaganda of fear and hatred is the prelude to destruction.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr Our civilization has evolved through the continuous adjustment of society to the stimulus of new knowledge.
3 December 2020 John Boyd Orr As I have tried to show, science, in producing the airplane and the wireless, has created a new international political environment to which governments must adjust their foreign policies.
