THE R. P. A. ANNUAL : 1917 



RELIGION AFTER THE WAR 



BY ARNOLD BENNETT 



THE war has proved that the European races are as 

 capable of heroism as ever they were in the past. The 

 physical courage of mankind has been most brilliantly 

 demonstrated afresh. The war has also proved that the 

 consciousness of national danger can still re-vitalize patriotism 

 and make it a genuine virtue inspiring the patriot to great 

 sacrifices. Further, it has shown that sloth may be turned 

 into industry, and industry doubled where industry already 

 was. But I doubt whether it has done much else to glorify 

 humanity. The wonder is that it has done so much, seeing 

 the outrageous idiocy of modern warfare ; for those nations 

 who are forced into it must suffer morally from its deleterious 

 and shameful contacts as well as those who bring it about. 



Some people, however, claim that war has an improving 

 effect on the intelligence, and that in especial it destroys 

 illusions and bestows the sense of reality. If it did, it would 

 perhaps be worth its price. But it does not. This particular 

 war may have destroyed a particular British illusion about a 

 particular foreign country, and it may have given to a large 

 number of people a new sense of the reality of those ancient 

 institutions death, pain, and hunger ; but on the general 

 body of illusion the war has had no effect save perhaps to 

 enlarge it, and assuredly the sense of reality has not as a 

 whole been sharpened. Every nation involved in the war 

 has patently and admittedly lived in the grossest illusions 

 about the war, and no nation has showed a keen desire to 

 envisage realities. 



What a light is thrown on the national frame of mind by 

 a certain phrase which has been current even in the best 

 British journalism since the war began. That phrase is : 

 There is no harm in admitting now , and it will still be 



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