NOTES 135 



torn up treaties and their plighted troth ; they have been 

 unnecessarily cruel ; and perhaps worst of all they have shown 

 mankind to be capable of the most foul and systematic lying 

 that has ever been heard upon the earth. But this does not 

 complete the story ; for on many sides mankind has witnessed 

 follies almost as iniquitous ; neglect of the warnings of the 

 wisest men ; lack of courage and duty in imposing the 

 necessary measures at the outset of the war — vacillation, want 

 of forethought, want of judgment, and, we fear, preference 

 of personal interests to those of country. In short, mankind 

 has not only seen into his own heart, but also into the heart 

 and the mind, or no mind, of his rulers. In both he has 

 often found crime, falsehood, or incompetence. 



How then has this monstrous thing happened ? To be brief, 

 because the whole of humanity lies to itself. We are not 

 willing to use the reason God has given to us. We go about 

 seeking the vain phantoms of our own imagination. We wor- 

 ship murderous molochs ; we throw them our children ; we 

 listen to the voice of the paid teachers of untruth ; we set up 

 dogmas like idols on our hearth ; and do those things which 

 the prophets of old warned the Israelites against doing. The 

 Lie always clothes herself in the white garments of Truth ; 

 and we mistake her for Truth because we have not the courage 

 to test her. Worse than this, we are indifferent to Truth, even 

 in our daily walks of life, and therefore much more so in the 

 great affairs of the world. Our politics, our sects, our fads, 

 are nothing but the monstrous diseases inflicted upon us by 

 the evil spirit whom we have been worshipping and whom we 

 have taken to be our guardian and physician . She has hideously 

 deformed us, covered us with sores, bent us with pains ; and 

 we now die for her. 



Read between these lines then. There is but one Truth — 

 that which always holds the balance between the arguments. 

 If we are men we must use the best faculty of man. Otherwise 

 surely we shall return to the brute. 



In a recent and admirable philosophical book 1 touching 

 upon the war it is argued in detail that the instincts of herds 

 of various kinds of animals still exist among nations of men 

 to-day — that the Germans exhibit the instincts of the wolf-pack 

 and that the British possess rather those of the hive. This is 



1 Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (see " Books Received," p. 188), 



