MILITARISM AND PARTY-POLITICS 



The appalling catastrophe of the present almost universal war 

 has suddenly fallen upon us just when man, in the pride of 

 his ever-increasing knowledge and the humility of his ever- 

 increasing morality, was beginning to think that he had out- 

 grown the possibility of such crimes. Within a few months 

 the highest civilisation ever reached by humanity has fallen 

 back toward a condition of barbarism which has scarcely existed 

 since the time of the Huns. And the greater the height the 

 worse the fall ; for deeds which may be forgiven in wild beasts 

 and savages who performed them in ignorance or out of the 

 impulsions of their nature become iniquitous in those who 

 should know better. Is it for this that the great men of the 

 past have taught and led us by their thoughts, their deeds, 

 their example, and their martyrdoms ? We have called our- 

 selves the heirs of all the ages ; but how have we not 

 squandered our patrimony? Is it for this that the great men 

 of science have laid stone upon stone to build the temple of 

 knowledge which we all entered into when we were born ; or 

 the great poets have figured the wonders of the world ; or the 

 musicians have created their exquisite art of pure emotion ; or 

 explorers have visited every part of the earth ; or Buddha, 

 Bruno, and Galilei have suffered, or Christ and Socrates have 

 died ? How after this shall the spirit of humanity, now proved 

 so ignoble, dare to face those spirits of their great bene- 

 factors ? One of them said to us, " By this shall all men know 

 that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." We 

 all call ourselves His disciples, but we are destroying one 

 another like wolves. And in this antithesis the mass of hu- 

 manity must face two alternative accusations — that it possesses 

 either the heart of the tiger or the brain of the fool. For the 

 average mind-point of humanity lies between its extremes — 

 midway between the god and the brute. 



To what madness was the catastrophe due ? War is a 

 phenomenon of nature, which, like other phenomena, should be 

 studied by men of science in the impartial way which they find is 

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