WILL CHRISTIANITY SURVIVE THE WAR? 21 



Whatever upspring of the primeval sense of the over- 

 riding " not ourselves " may be brought about by the war, 

 whatever comfort in the thought of following a superhuman 

 example of self-sacrifice for an ideal and for the safety of those 

 we love, it seems clear that, to a critical intelligence, the 

 intelligible basis of current theology has crumbled away. 



Ill 

 BY J. A. HOBSON 



I DO not think that the experiences of the war will be directly 

 favourable to Rationalism. Alike for the fighting men and 

 for the spectators, war is an orgy of unreason. Whereas the 

 ordinary life of peace presented, even to the less educated and 

 less thoughtful mind, a general and an ever-increasing preva- 

 lence of order, in which most things that mattered were fairly 

 regular and calculable, and the chapter of accidents was a 

 relatively small part of life's volume, in war-time a sudden 

 transformation takes place. A few scientific soldiers may be 

 able to trace here and there a long streak of connected cause 

 and effect, a rationale of events. But, for the overwhelming 

 majority, the events form avast chaotic kaleidoscope in which 

 the accidental and the mysterious prevail, and in which one's 

 calculation and personal will play a negligible part. The 

 minor regularities and discipline of an army are mostly 

 imposed by an authority which makes little appeal to the 

 reason. " Theirs not to reason why " is a sufficient com- 

 mentary on the soldier life. The major happenings, both to 

 the individual, the army, and the nation, flash out sensationally 

 from a world of chance. In other words, war is a return to 

 an age of miracles, without even a clear sense of the person- 

 ality of the miracle-monger to give them a connective tissue. 

 Add to this the return to " the herd mind " which the 

 feeling of collective peril brings about. Not only emotional, 

 but intellectual, self-control is seriously damaged. The indi- 

 vidual ceases to think and to feel for himself. He abandons 

 himself to the passionate suggestions of the herd. Even 

 when a nation is said to organize for war, the process is little 

 more than a complex improvised huddle not a clear-sighted 

 rational plan of co-operation. How far this criticism is 

 applicable to military arrangements I cannot tell ; but, bearing 

 in mind the fact that at the opening of the war preparations 



