POSITION IN THE WEST 155 



ideals which resulted in the world war of 1914 as 

 one of the most pathetic instances in the history of 

 mankind of colossal power misconceived and mis- 

 directed. But the full truth goes much further 

 than this. The Western mind has, in reality, almost 

 completely missed in every form the employment 

 in the service of civilization of the emotion of the 

 ideal. And where it has hitherto sought to employ 

 this illimitable cause it has hitherto only directed it 

 to some aim so essentially barbarous and monstrous 

 in conception that the effort has been fore-doomed 

 from the outset to failure. 



What is the explanation of this strange and 

 stupendous position in the West ? The emotion of 

 the ideal when directed by civilization is a cause 

 so potent to transform the world that there is 

 practically nothing which cannot be achieved 

 through it, even, as we have seen, to the complete 

 altering of the psychology of a people in a single 

 generation. It is the cause in the function of 

 which the whole social integration centres. Why 

 then has the mind of the West so completely missed 

 or misconceived this function ? Why should a 

 cultured mind of the East strike a note which rings 

 true in describing Western science as no more than 

 ignorant knowledge ? Why after centuries of in- 

 dustrial progress should we have still throughout 



