THE INVOLUTIONARY ASCENT 113 



life's essence is supra-individual, so that no system of 

 set beliefs may claim to be wholly right. 



" This fundamental truth has become clear once again 

 to the few reflective among those citizens of the belliger- 

 ent states who espoused the cause of their country un- 

 reservedly. They find that in doing so they have lost 

 themselves and are now nothing but cells in the body of 

 their nation, wholly ruled and controlled by forces and 

 motives supra-individual; that this has made them fit 

 to commit deeds (both bad and good) altogether alien 

 to their individual character ; and that, diminished though 

 they be as personalities, having lost in particular the 

 capacity of impartial thought, they live a life fuller 

 than ever before, because consciously sharing that of a 

 greater whole; they find last, and generally to their in- 

 tense surprise, that they deem perfectly right and natural 

 now the state and way of war. 



" The passive onlooker is, as a rule, unable to under- 

 stand this. According to him, war is a beastly business 

 all through, and no noble deeds of sacrifice and courage 

 can redeem the essential atrocity of manslaughter. But 

 then he judges as an individual, and war cannot be un- 

 derstood from that point of view, being, as it is, an ex- 

 pression of supra-individual necessity." 



HERMANN KEYSERLING: Atlantic 

 Monthly, February, 1916. 



