assume that my readers recognise some intelligent or spiritual direction of humanity.  I care not by what name they call that guiding Purpose….Some definite direction has led man from the stage of primeval man to that evolutionary point where a Plato, a Shakespeare, a da Vinci, a Beethoven can appear.  Some power has evoked man's capacity to formulate ideas, to produce systems of theology, of science and of government; some inner motivating power has given man the ability to create beauty, to discover the secrets of nature; some realisation of divine responsibility lies behind the philanthropy, the educational systems, and the welfare movements throughout the world.  The progress of the human spirit has been one of irresistible unfoldment, of a developing appreciation of reality, beauty and wisdom.  Instinct has developed into intellect; intellect is beginning to unfold into intuition.  The significance of God, the registering of man's divine potentialities, and the increasing capacity to understand and to share in the thought processes of others—all these indicate progress and unfoldment.
This picture of the beauty of the human spirit must be placed beside the earlier picture of man's selfishness and cruelty, of man's inhumanity to man. Both pictures are true, but only the one of beauty is eternal; the other is but transient. Man is a composite of higher and lower expressions, and behind all the wars and difficulties which accompany man's progress through the ages lies this major factor—an ancient persistent fight between man's spiritual aspiration and his material desires. This condition is today brought to a focus in the conflict raging between the totalitarian powers and the nations which are fighting for the rights of the human spirit and for the freedom of humanity.