VII The ‘Religion’ of the Modern Age

No one single individual has mastery over all these sciences. It is highly desirable that certain individuals should rise to this task and having acquired a profound knowledge of all the subjects, should utilize the science scattered in books in a unified and integrated manner. Dr. Carrel goes on to say: But is it possible for a single brain to assimilate such a gigantic amount of knowledge? Can any individual master anatomy, physiology, biology, chemistry, psychology, metaphysics, pathology, medicine, and also have a thorough acquaintance with genetics, nutrition, development, pedagogy, aesthetics, morals, religion, sociology, and economics? It seems that such an accomplishment is not impossible. In about twenty-five years of uninterrupted study one could learn these sciences. At the age of fifty, those who have submitted themselves to this discipline could effectively direct the construction of the human being and of a civilization based on his true nature. The making of man requires the development of Institutions wherein body and mind can be formed according to natural laws. The already existing organizations have to undergo important changes in order to become fitted for the work of human renovation. They must, for instance, eliminate the remnants of the narrow mechanisticism of the last century, and understand the imperativeness of a clarification of the concepts used in biology, of a reintegration of the parts into the whole, and of the formation of true scholars, as well as of scientific workers. The direction of the institutions of learning, and of those which apply to man the results of the special sciences, from biological chemistry to political economy, should not be given to specialists, because specialists are exaggeratedly interested in the progress of their own particular studies, but to individuals capable of embracing all sciences. The specialists must be only the tools of a synthetic mind. They will be utilized by him in the same way as the professor of medicine of a great university utilizes the services of pathologists, bacteriologists,