" MAN -----THE UNKNOWN ", By Ron McVan

" MAN -----THE UNKNOWN ", By Ron McVan

"A radical change is indispensable." ............Alexis Carrel

The French biologist, surgeon and sociologist Dr. Alexis Carrel possessed hot only a brilliant and stimulating mind, but was also a man with total concern and commitment for the advancement of his race, the Aryan race, and its culture. Dr. Carrel's scientific accomplishments earned him the Noble prize in 1912. Later in 1935 his controversial book "Man ---The Unknown" was something of an overnight sensation and national best-seller. To read this book one could easily assume that it was written in this 21st century rather than back in 1935. Dr. Carrel's close friendship with Charles Lindbergh, who considered Carrel his mentor, would, with his own firmly established public recognition, add even more light to an already fascinating individual and exceptional mind of his time. Dr. Carrel gives an insightful and brutally honest overview of the desparities of modern man, society and the world of which we must walk the tightrope into our precarious and uncertain future.

The following writings of Alexis Carrel are a sample of some of his unexpurgated thoughts that he expressed in his book "Man---The Unknown" as compiled by the "Sons Of Albion".

Modern civilization seems to be incapable of producing people endowed with imagination, intelligence, and courage. In practically every country there is a decrease in intellectual and moral caliber of those who carry the responsibility of public affairs. The financial, industrial, and commercial organizations have reached a gigantic size. They are influenced not only by the conditions of the country where they are established, but also by the state of the neighboring countries and the entire world. In all nations, economic and social conditions undergo extremely rapid changes. Nearly everywhere the existing form of government is again under discussion. The great democracies find themselves face to face with formidable problems---problems concerning their very existence and demanding an immediate solution. And we realize that, despite the immense hopes which humanity has placed in modern civilization, such a civilization has failed in developing men of sufficient intelligence and audacity to guide it along the dangerous road on which it is stumbling. Human beings have not grown so rapidly as the institutions sprung from their brain. It is chiefly the intellectual and moral deficiencies of the political leaders, and their ignorance, which endanger modern nations. The environment born of our inventions is adjusted neither to our stature nor to our shape. We are unhappy. We degenerate morally and mentally.

Modern civilization finds itself in a difficult position because it does not suit us. It has been erected without any knowledge of our real nature. It was born from the whims of scientific discoveries, from the appitites of men, their illusions, their theories, and their desires. Although constructed by our efforts it is not adjusted to our size and shape.

Obviously, science follows no plan. It develops at random. Its progress depends on fortuitous conditions such as the birth of men of genius, the form of their mind, the direction taken by their curiosity. It is not at all actuated by a desire to improve the state of the human being. The discoveries responsible for industrial civilization were brought forth at the fancy of the scientists' institutions and of the more or less casual circumstances of their careers. If Galileo, Newton, or Lavoisier had applied their intellectual powers to the study of body and consciousness, our world probably would be different today. Men of science do not know where they are going. They are guided by chance, by subtle reasoning, by a sort of clairvoyance. Each one of them is a world apart, goverened by his own laws from time to time, things obscure to others become clear to him. In general, discoveries are developed without any prevision of their consequences. These consequences, however, have revolutionized the world and made our civilization what it is.

Most civilized men manifest an elementary from of consciousness. They are capable of the easy work which, in modern society, insures the survival of the indivdual. They produce, they consume, they satisfy their physiological appetites. They also take pleasure in watching, among great crowds, athletic spectacles, in seeing childish and vulgar moving pictures, in being rapidly transported without effort, or in looking at swiftly moving objects. They are soft, sentimental, lascivious, and violent. They have no moral, esthetic, or religious sense. They are extremely numerous. They have engendered a vast herd of children whose intelligence remains rudimentary. They constitute a part of the population of the three million criminals living in freedom. Of those feeble-minded, the morons, the insane, who overflow from asylums and specialized hospitals.

Those who discern good and evil, who are industrious and provident, remain poor and are looked upon as morons. The woman who has several children, who devotes herself to their education, instead of to her own career, is considered weak-minded. If a man saves a little money for his wife and the education of his children, this money is stolen from him by enterprizing financiers. Or taken by the government and distributed to those who have been reduced to want by their own improvidence and the short-sightedness of manufacturers, bankers, and economists. Artists and men of science supply the community with beauty, health and wealth. They live and die in poverty. Robbers enjoy prosperity in peace. Gangsters are protected by polititions and respected by judges. They are the heroes whom children admire at the cinema and imitate in their games. A rich man has every right. He may discard his aging wife, abandon his old mother to penury, rob those who have entrusted their money to him, without losing the consideration of his friends. Homosexuality flourishes. Sexual morals have been cast aside. Psychoanalysts supervise men and women in their conjugal relations. There is no difference between wrong and right, just and unjust. Criminals thrive at liberty among the rest of the population. No one makes any objection to their presence. Ministers have rationalized religion. They have destroyed its mystical basis. But they do not succeed in attracting modern men. In their half-empty churches they vainly preach a weak morality. They are content with the part of policemen, helping in the interest of the wealthy to preserve the framework of present society. Or, like politicians, they flatter the appetites of the crowd.

Modern civilization, with the help of hygiene, comfort, good food, soft living, hospitals, physicians, and nurses, has kept alive many human beings of poor quality. These weaklings and their descendants contribute, in a large measure, to the enfeeblement of the White races. We should perhaps renounce this artificial form of health and exclusively pursue natural health which results from the excellence of the adaptive functions and from the inherent resistance to disease. Man is the hardiest of all animals and the White races, builders of our civilization, the hardiest of all races.


"The powers of the mind remain virtual in the absence of
education and of an environment bearing the stamp of the
intellectual, moral, esthetic, and religious accomplishments
of our ancestors." .........................Alexis Carrel


Why should more years be added to the life of persons who are unhappy, selfish, stupid, and useless? The number of centenarians must not be augmented until we can prevent intellectual and moral decay, and also the lingering diseases of old age. The aging man should neither stop working nor retire, Inaction further impoverishes the content of time. Leisure is even more dangerous for old than for the young. To those whose forces are declining, appropriate work should be given. But not rest. Neither should physiological processes be stimulated at this moment. It is preferable to hide their slowness under a number of psychological events. If our days are filled with mental and spiritual adventures, they glide much less rapidly. They may even recover the plenitude of those of youth.

In our old age, we are surrounded by an escort of those we could have been, of all our aborted potentialities. Every man is a fluid that becomes solid, a treasure that grows poorer, a history that is being created. And our progress, or our disintegration depends on physical, chemical, and physiological factors, on viruses and bacteria, on psychological influences, and, finally, on our own will. We are constantly being made by our environment and by ourself. And duration is the very material of organic and mental life, as it means "invention, creation of forms, continual elaboration of the absolutely new."

"Despite the marvels of scientific civilization,
personality tends to dissolve."
......................Alexis Carrel

The neglect of individuality by our social institutions is, likewise, responsible for the atrophy of the adults. Man does not stand, without damage, the mode of existence and the uniform and stupid work imposed of factory and office workers, on all those who take part in mass production. In the immensity of modern cities he is isolated and as if lost. He is an economic abstraction, a unit of the herd. He gives up his individuality. He has neither responsibility nor dignity. Above the multitude stand out the rich men, the powerful politicians, the bandits. The others are only nameless grains of dust. On the contrary, the individual remains a man when he belongs to a small group, when he inhabits a village or a small town where his relative importance is greater, when he can hope to become, in his turn, an influential citizen. The contempt for individuality has brought about its factual disappearance.

Another error, due to the confusion of the concepts of human being and individual, is democratic equality. This dogma is now breaking down under the blows of the experience of the nations. It is, therefore, unnecessary to insist upon its falseness. But its success has been astonishingly long. How could humanity accept such faith for so many years? The democratic creed does not take account of the constitution of our body and of our consciousness. It does not apply to the concrete fact which the individual is. Indeed, human beings are equal. But individuals are not. The equality of their rights is an illusion. The feeble-minded and the man of genius should not be equal before the law. The stupid, the unintelligent, those who are dispersed, incapable of attention, of effort, have no right to a higher education. It is absurd to give them the same electorial power as the fully developed individuals. Sexes are not equal. To disregard all these inequalities is very dangerous. The democratic principle has contributed to the collapse of civilization in opposing the development of an elite. It is obvious that, on the contrary, individual inequalities must be respected. In modern society the great, the small, the average, and the mediocre are needed. But we should not attempt to develop the higher types by the same procedures as the lower. The standardization of men by the democratic ideal has already determined the predominance of the weak. Everywhere, the weak are preferred to the strong. They are aided and protected, often admired. Like the invalid, the criminal, and the insane, they attract the sympathy of the public. The myth of equality, the love of the symbol, the contempt for the concrete fact, are, in a large measure, guilty of the collapse of individuality. As it was impossible to raise the inferior types, the only means of producing democratic equality among men was to bring all to the lowest level. Thus vanished personality.

Not only has the concept of the individual been confused with that of the human being, but the latter has been adulterated by the introduction of foreign elements. We have applied to man concepts belonging to the mechanical world. We have neglected thought, morale, suffering, sacrifice, beauty, and peace. We have treated the individual as a chemical substance, a machine, or a part of a machine. We have amputated his moral esthetic, and religious functions. We have also ignored certain aspects of his physiological activities. We have not only asked how tissues and consciousness would accommodate themselves to the changes in the mode of life imposed upon us. We have totally forgotten the important role of the adaptive functions and the momentous consequences of their enforced rest. Our present weakness comes both from our unappreciation of individuality and from ignorance of the constitution of the human being.

We have been living under the delusion that democracies would survive through the weak and short-sighted efforts of the ignorant. We begin to understand that they are decaying. Problems involving the future of the great races demand a solution. It is now imperative to prepare for distant events, to mold young generations with a different ideal. The government of nations by men who estimate time and function of their own duration leads, as we well know, to confusion and failure. We have to stretch our temporal outlook beyond ourselves.

In order to keep his mental and organic balance, man must impose upon himself an inner rule. The state can thrust legality upon people by force, but not morality.

Intelligence, will power, and morality are very closely related. But moral sense is more important than intelligence. When it disappears from a nation the whole social structure crumbles.

The beauty of the universe will necessarily grow with the strength of our organic and psychological activities. Our destiny is in our hands. On the new road we must now go forward.

" LIFE PAGEANT "
All and ever, Boundless, reaching, Being, process, Point and time,
Pinions turning, Life unfolding, Past to present, And future combine.

Thought and form, Omnipresence, Mingle eternal, Body and soul,
All is number, Mind and matter, Throughout, The undivided whole.

Generations, Threads are spinning, Generations, Flesh and bone, Threads connecting, Shadow and substance, Weave a life-dream Metronome.

All in circles, Circles binding, In and out, The vital spark, Divinity
hovers, Beyond forever, In light and sound, In silence and dark.

................................Ron McVan


" SONS OF ALBION " P.O.Box 422 Butte, MT. 59703