Quotes from Arthur Keith

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms.

The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.

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

There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution.

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.

I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority.

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.

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

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

Under no stretch of imagination can war be regarded as an ethical process yet war, force, terror, and propaganda were the evolutionary means employed to weld the German people into a tribal whole.

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.

I am a rank individualist.

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

The main force used in the evolving world of humanity has hitherto been applied in the form of war.

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.

Before the discovery of agriculture mankind was everywhere so divided, the size of each group being determined by the natural fertility of its locality.

Under no stretch of imagination can war be regarded as an ethical process; yet war, force, terror, and propaganda were the evolutionary means employed to weld the German people into a tribal whole.

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.