THE SECRET OF OUR STRENGTH. 
THK otiier day I came upon these words in an 
article in the Times Literary Supplement : 
" If we searcii our own hearts, in forgetfulncss 
of the Caucus and the intrigues of modern 
life, we cannot evade the truth that it is an im- 
possible thing that the State which is governed by its 
best citizens should be ill-governed." The writer of the 
article, after citing the authority of Aristotle, adds the 
following: " If only we could ensure the obedience of 
citizens to good laws, the problem of government would 
be solved for ever." 
If the reader desires to enter into the thoughts which 
are at the root of the present war, he cannot do better 
than consider the meaning of those sentences. The point 
of view of the writer is \cry intelligible and used, I 
believe, to be universally held. He claims that the value 
of a Government consists in the quality of the laws it 
turns out; it has no other use. Its own virtue and very 
right to exist are revealed in liie fruit it bears — that is 
to say, in its laws— just as the virtue of a plum-tree is 
revealed in its plums. By its laws ye shall judge it. 
The best government is that which yields the best laws, 
and if citizens would simply obey those laws they would 
get all the good out of government possible to get. 
I can only say that if this were so there would be no 
war to-day, for there would be nothing to fight about. 
We are not fighting about the quality of laws when 
made, but for the right to make them. Belgium and 
Serbia are not sacrificing themselves because they 
believe that German laws and Austrian laws are worse 
than Belgian and Serbian laws, but because they object 
to Germans and Austrians making laws for Belgians 
and Serbians. It is the making of the laws which counts 
in their eyes much more than the quality of the laws 
when they are made. 
Making of Laws. 
Now, let us see what is implied in this. The Times 
writer would, perhaps, maintain that this anxiety over^ 
the making of laws is due to our recognition of the fact 
that foreign-made, or tyrant-made, laws are usually bad 
as laws. But the explanation is inadequate, for every 
Englishman is aware that on no account, not if he were 
to be governed by an angel from heaven, would he sur- 
render that most sacred of all his rights, the right of 
making his own laws. Bad laws, or good laws, he 
might not know ; he might not care. But he would take 
care of one thing— that, bad or good, he would make 
them. He would not be an Englishman, he would not 
be able to look English fields and trees in the face, if he 
had parted with that right. 
There is, then, in the popular instinct and imagina- 
tion, something in the mere making of the laws, apart 
from their intrinsic value, which is of primary concern. 
And in this popular instinct shows its good sense. For 
what does the making of laws under a Constitutional 
Government mvolve? Let the reader consider the 
general tenor of the great series of Acts dealing with 
emancipation, education, and reform. Before these 
laws are passed they have to be voted for— that is to say 
they have to be laid before the country and explained 
to the country. They are analysed by newspapers, ex- 
plained by orators, and discussed at length and in detail 
tliroijghout every constituency in the land. The law 
which, as a result of all this arguing and discussing, 
cornes into being is the expression, as near as may be 
of the will of the people on that subject. It 
By L. March-Phillipps. 
pation all over the country, the slow and intricate pro- 
cess of the thinking of the people, the gleams of light 
shed in dark places, the recognition of trustworthy 
leaders and of those who speak with authority, the minda 
of a majoritv gradually convinced and made up, and 
the final determination that a group of fellow-citizens, 
however alien and suspect in religion, shall suffer 
spiritual injustice no longer— is all this of no account? 
A Moral Stimulus. 
Laws in themselves have never counted for much. 
There have been beneficent despots and wise lawgivers 
in all ages, who liave increased the prosperity and prob- 
ably the contentment and happiness of their subjects, 
but yet their government has not stimulated the moral 
and intellectual capacity latent in citizenship, or forti- 
fied its character or enlarged its understanding. The 
influence of those circumstances in which we passively 
acquiesce is not of this kind. It is by our own efforts, 
by the exercise of our own spiritual and intellectual 
faculties, that such results are achieved. Not God Him- 
self can help us save through our will to help ourselves. 
Khammurabi the Great was the wisest of the rulers of 
Assyria. Nothing could have been more far-seeing and 
sagacious than the laws he passed and the enterprises 
for the good of the country in which he engaged. But, 
wise as it was, his administration no more conduced to 
the spiritual and intellectual progress of the people than 
an extra supplv of fodder insures the spiritual and in- 
tellectual progress of an ox. The Assyrian nation re- 
mained sunk in the old groove of superstition and 
ignorance. Its good laws produced no interior effects. 
A'Vliy? Because they were imposed from without and 
did not involve any moral and mental effort (and there- 
fore any moral and mental growth) on the part of the 
people themselves. 
It is the same with all the old empires. Among the 
long line of Egyptian kings there is one who stands out 
not only as a beneficent ruler but as a great reformer, 
whose main object it was to liberate Egyptian life from 
its immemorial routine of superstition and intellectual 
apathy. Yet when this great reformer died nothing 
was found to be altered. The priests and professors re- 
sumed their sway and the old night of ignorance and 
animal worship settled down upon the nation. Why, 
we ask again ? And again comes the answer, because 
the proposed reforms were from without only, because 
they involved no effort on the people's part and there- 
fore no inward growth and development. There is 
more hope for the future of mankind in the least and 
faintest impulse towards self-help, self-realisation, self- 
redemption than in all the laws that Aristotle ever 
dreamt of. 
embodies 
' ^esMifT^W ''\T'^ J'i-""'^'. ^"^ '■" "'« '^^^' ■f-'^^'f f'le only 
h-ic it boln '1 f'''' ^""^ '^^*^" P'"^^'^^'>- th^ ^^^^ 
«; h n r Pr""^^"' }"'' ^ ^'■°"P "f °"'- " best citizens," 
■ °\% "", beneficent despot? Is the prolonged threshing 
. out of the rights of such a question is Catholic En'rcf 
16 
Profound Impulses. 
Considerations such as these, far from being vague 
and general, are intimately and most indissolubly 
bound up with the existing European situation. Who- 
ever would understand this war must understand, how- 
ever dimly and conjecturally, those profound instinctive 
impulses, so much deeper than mere reason or any con- 
scious motive, wiiich inspire the action of whole' races 
and populations. All the great movements and crises of 
history have been guided by inarticulate instinct. Men 
act in the gross as insects and animals and birds do in 
their evolutions and migrations, and their united action 
IS none the less infallible that not one of them could give 
a conscious account of it. Such impulses are operating 
at present. Among the nations of Europe the popular 
instinct IS overwhelmingly on the side of the Allies. 
{Contlinicd on pQge 18.) 
