science no less than upon religion. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá summorts the man of science to spiritual religion as He summons the man of religion to an appreciation of science. If in a laboratory, by means of certain elements, an important experiment could be carried out and thereby great human benefits obtained, what should we think of the person who, though refusing to enter the laboratory, nevertheless denied the possibility of the experiment? Yet modern science for the most part takes this very attitude towards religion. For the founders of all religions have indicated the elements and principles for the development of spirituality, and the people of science deny the essence of spirituality while refusing to enter the laboratory of the spirit of the infinite in their own souls.
As a matter of fact, while irrational religion and materialistic science seem outwardly opposed, inwardly they are equally conditions of being that manifest the absence of the Holy Spirit. Both are plants confined in darkness, and both are ships deprived of sails. Where the Holy Spirit obtains, all seeming antagonism between science and religion vanishes, for there is but one Reality, though this can be cognized by the several faculties on the several planes.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá has also expressed as an organic, universal principle the equality of man and woman — emphasizing again and again the fact that the solution of our spiritual as well as social problems is dependent on the attainment of this equality.
“Humanity,” He said, “has two wings, man and woman; when one wing only is available the bird cannot fly.”
As to those existing inequalities between the sexes , so deeply rooted in custom and also institutions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated that these were due not to inequalities of capacity but to inequalities of opportunity. Beginning with education, we may anticipate—not only for the West but also for the East — the irresistible progress of woman towards true equality with man, a progress whose milestones will be the abolition of militarism, poverty, ignorance and disease.
“All former religions,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stated on one occasion, “gave man a higher station than woman, but Bahá’u’lláh has declared that they are equal in all conditions and degrees.” The importance attributed to this principle in the Bahá’í Cause can be measured by another teaching, to the effect that parents who can afford to educate only one child should give preference to daughter over son, the reason being that mothers are the first educators of the race.
At the very dawn of the feminist movement it was a Bahá’í, in fact, the famous poetess Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, who first threw off the traditional veil of the Oriental woman, and entered that extraordinary career of public teaching which led to her martyrdom by the enemies of Bahá’u’lláh.
Another principle laid down by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is that of the solution of the economic problem. The solution of the economic problem ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has declared to be a distinctive characteristic of religion in its universal aspect; for no human power or alliance of powers hitherto has been able to work out a solution.
Now, by the fear that is based on the idea of poverty either actual or prospective, the human soul is ever turned downward into nature, where the predominant law is the struggle for existence; and becoming dominated by this law, and captive to it, the soul's struggles only the more heavily burden its own chains. For the struggle for existence sets off the powers of one soul against the powers of another, and this mutual division of powers means mutual defeat. Thus in this day the sciences and inventions which shadow forth a universal order, and dumbly signify the existence of a reality whose law is co-operation, have become, through perversion, the greatest menace to the very existence of mankind.
“The disease which afflicts the body of humanity is lack of love and absence of
