DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 118, 9 August 1927, Page 16

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

HUMANITY’S TAPE MEASURE (Copyright, 1927. J JN Italy a project is under way to recover two galleys which lie two hundred feet below the surface of the clear water of Lake Nemi. On these galleys it is believed Tiberius worshipped in the days of ancient Rome. To measure the real advance of the world in the past two thousand years, compare the superstitious Roman Emperor making sacrifices to appease angry, vengeful gods, and the attitude to-day of enlightened men toward the Supreme Deity. The real progress in the world is religious progress. For man’s superiority over animals lies not in keener senses greater cunning, or stronger sinews, but in being a religious animal. A bee can see ultra-violet rays that are invisible to human eyes. An ant has a keener sense of smell than has a man. It is not in these things that man is superior. In many respects he is inferior to ants and bees. His essential difference from all animals and his mark of superiority, are his sensing of the religious. No animal has, to human knowledge, displayed any evidence of religious life, nor has any animal ever done anything that might be interpreted as a preparation for a life beyond death. But in the whole history of mankind there has never been a tribe or a race without some form of religion. The tape measure of humanity’s real progress is found in Its progress in matters of the spirit, its advance in religious ideas.