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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
3 appeal to religions themselves, and 4 the cultivation of ahimsa (Universal Love).
Now let us deal with these separately to be able to estimate the true value of each of them.
The treaties of nations have again and again been proved to be worthless. They are really no better than mere scraps of paper, and will never be anything more than mere scraps of paper. We saw their true value during the last great war.
Perhaps we can form something like a voice of the nations of the world collectively. But we have seen how powerless the League of Nations has proved to avert war between great nations. It means nothing if it is able to influence the conduct of smaller political units, for it is the great powers that have proved to be the biggest law-breakers in the world. They only act on the formula might is right at all times, whatever they may say with their tongues.
Scientific education which is being imparted in our universities is the next item to be considered. But it is idle to
expect anything from it. Our boys and girls to-day only learn one thing nature is red in tooth and claw. Every day of their university career the lesson is brought home to them, in a thousand ways, that Life is characterized with a constant struggle, the struggle for existence; and there is only the survival of the fittest. This conviction is firmly rooted in their hearts. Outwardly the boys and girls are quite charming and amiable to look at and to talk to; but inwardly they have drunk deep of the poison of hatred, and the need for killing out the unfit, and will surely not hesitate to behave as men did in the last great war should they have occasion to do so. It is thus quite beyond the scope and the programme of modern education to secure world peace. On the contrary, it is constantly hardening men's hearts to the slaughter that they may have to accomplish to survive in the world.
The next item is religion. But we know how some religions have waged wars of aggression and persecution and
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