appear 

 to critics 



The Days of a Man ^1918 



conceived by Hegel, popularized by Treitschke, and 

 actually established by Bismarck; and I closed with 

 an outlook on the world as a society of peoples in 

 which good will and community of interests should 

 take the place of armed force as the bond of union. ^ 

 iicjw I In reviewing the volume, Dr. Alvin Johnson, one 



of the editors of The New Republic, said that I was 

 "primarily not a pacifist but a democrat," a defini- 

 tion I readily accept, though I see little future for 

 democracy if its path is to be torn up at intervals by 

 war. By other critics I have been defined as a "con- 

 servative radical," a fairly descriptive appellation 

 taking the word in its legitimate use, as is also (I 

 trust) that of "an optimist with his eyes open." 

 Less friendly in intention is the more trenchant 

 phrase, "Apostle of the Obvious." This too I accept, 

 mysticism being to me only another name for error — 

 or at least haziness of vision — and clearness being 

 the first requisite of any thought or belief to be 

 woven into action. Whatever is true in human affairs 

 is also obvious — if not at once, certain to be so in 

 a century or two; and only the obvious can be long 

 foretold. 



Ferdi- In September of this year press despatches recorded 



that Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria had left Sofia and 

 that Malinof, the Social Democrat, had become 

 Prime Minister. Knowing Malinof's feeling toward 

 Ferdinand,- I ventured to predict that the latter 

 would never return, that Bulgaria would soon be 

 out of the war, then Turkey as well, in which case 



1 "Democracy and World Relations," with its critical analysis of Panger- 

 manism, has now (1920) been translated for publication in Stuttgart. 

 ^ See Chapter XLVii, page 576. 



c 754 :] 



nand's 

 fall 



