Arthur Keith Quotes

Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.

The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but what takes place in our hearts.

The discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.

Civilization, we shall find, like Universalism and Christianity, is anti evolutionary in its effects; it works against the laws and conditions which regulated the earlier stages of man's ascent.

We shall never understand the ethical system taught by Jesus unless we realize that he was a Jew, not only by birth, but that he lived and taught as a Jew; the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to his distracted fellow nationals.

In a tribal organization, even in time of peace, service to tribe or state predominates over all self seeking; in war, service for the tribe or state becomes supreme, and personal liberty is suspended.

In every man there is an instinctive and passionate reaction if his person or liberty is attacked.

Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?

There are the further difficulties of building a population out of a diversity of races, each at a different stage of cultural evolution, some in need of restraint, many in need of protection; everywhere a bewildering Babel of tongues.

Reason has not tamed desire: it is as strong as ever.

Nowhere is Universalism welcomed and encouraged by a people; everywhere governments have forced and are forcing Universalism upon unwilling and resistant subjects.

I am a rank individualist.

Civilization never stands still; if in one country it is falling back, in another it is changing, evolving, becoming more complicated, bringing fresh experience to body and mind, breeding new desires, and exploiting Nature's cupboard for their satisfaction.

Tolerance is held to be a condition of mind which is encouraged by, and is necessary for, civilization.

As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs.

Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool.

Good men, whether they be Christians or rationalists, do not desire to discriminate between races, but the distinctions implanted by Nature are too conspicuous to escape the observation of our senses.

Whichever theory we adopt to give a rational explanation of human existence, that theory must take into account and explain the mental nature we see at work in all modern communities.

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consistently sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.

A drunkard is one thing, and a temperate man is quite another.

Man is by nature competitive, combative, ambitious, jealous, envious, and vengeful.

This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot.

Tribal life comes automatically to an end when a primitive people begins to live in a town or a city, for sooner or later a tribal organization is found to be incompatible with life in a city.