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diff --git a/79404-0.txt b/79404-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c7d6e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/79404-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3890 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79404 *** + + + + + _The International Crisis in its Ethical and Psychological Aspects_ + + + LECTURES + + DELIVERED IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH 1915 + + BY + + ELEANOR M. SIDGWICK + GILBERT MURRAY + A. C. BRADLEY + L. P. JACKS + G. F. STOUT + B. BOSANQUET + + UNDER THE SCHEME FOR IMPERIAL STUDIES IN + THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON + AT + BEDFORD COLLEGE FOR WOMEN + + HUMPHREY MILFORD + OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK + TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY + 1915 + + + PRINTED IN ENGLAND + AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + ELEANOR M. SIDGWICK + I. THE MORALITY OF STRIFE IN RELATION TO THE WAR 1 + + GILBERT MURRAY + II. HERD INSTINCT AND THE WAR 22 + + A. C. BRADLEY + III. INTERNATIONAL MORALITY: THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE 46 + + L. P. JACKS + IV. THE CHANGING MIND OF A NATION AT WAR 78 + + G. F. STOUT + V. WAR AND HATRED 103 + + B. BOSANQUET + VI. PATRIOTISM IN THE PERFECT STATE 132 + + + + + I + THE MORALITY OF STRIFE IN RELATION TO THE WAR + + BY ELEANOR M. SIDGWICK + + +I must begin by confessing that I am so entirely without such special +knowledge on any subject connected with ‘the International Crisis in its +Ethical and Psychological Aspects’ as would enable me to speak about it +with authority, or otherwise than as an ordinary member of the general +public, that it was only after much hesitation that I accepted the +invitation to give this lecture. I reflected, however, that in a crisis +like this there is a general desire to exchange views. We all have views +whether we are experts or not. We all have our minds fixed on the +crisis, and have all made them up, with more or less definiteness, on +such questions as the rightness of the war and what our attitude towards +it and matters connected with it, as a nation and as individuals, should +be. But with most of us, in this as in other matters about which we have +to judge, the more or less definiteness is apt to be less. Or perhaps I +should say that definite conclusions are based on vague and hazy +premisses leading to confusion and contradiction and doubt—vagueness and +confusion which can only be cleared away by resolute effort and a +determination to try to see things in their proper proportion. In this +process any of us who will sincerely try to think out and express his +own views may help others whose minds are dwelling on the same things, +and this not so much by compelling agreement as by offering points round +which the thoughts of each of us may crystallize. I hope that anything I +have to say will be received in this spirit, and that I shall be +regarded not as expressing any original views or speaking from any +standpoint of superior knowledge, but merely with the knowledge at the +disposal of all of us endeavouring to make out what we do think and +feel, and what we ought to think and feel, about our duty as a nation +and as individuals concerning war and especially this present war. + +But before I go on to the main subject I must note that one reason given +for inviting me to lecture was that I am a woman and it was desired that +at least one lecture in the series should be given by a woman. I do not +know whether this desire was prompted by any idea that the point of view +of women as such might be different from that of men and that I might +represent it and speak as a woman. I should be very willing to do so if +I could, and indeed, if there is a difference, my point of view must of +course be the feminine one. But I am quite unaware of any such +difference, and do not see how in a great national crisis women can have +a special point of view—the whole thing is above differences of sex. In +many of the details of national affairs—chiefly practical affairs of +daily life and legislation affecting them—the different experience of +men and of women necessarily places them at somewhat different points of +view, and the nation generally would, I think, gain by having both +represented. But in the really big things, in things in which our action +here and now irrevocably affects the whole future of our country, and +(in the present case) the progress in civilization of the whole world as +well—in a crisis, in short, like that through which we are passing—it +seems to me that if the men and women of the country as such felt +differently from each other the country would be rotten at the core, and +would be doomed to defeat and decay. + +I know there are people who assume that there is a difference, and that +according as one or other sex managed the affairs of the world there +would be less or more war. But their arguments, so far as I have seen +them, seem to take a very superficial view of the causes and +consequences of great wars. I may mention two of these arguments. The +first is expressed in a pamphlet written by a woman which was sent to me +the other day. She maintains among other things that while the larger +share of the suffering which war produces falls on the women, the honour +and glory of fighting is exclusively enjoyed by the men, who in her view +are thereby tempted to make wars which women would prevent. The other +argument I will mention, and which is, I think, a commoner one, is +almost in contradiction to the first. It is, if I understand it rightly, +that as the labour and hardship and personal risk of the actual fighting +must be borne by men, it is for the men—that is, I suppose, the young +men of fighting age—to decide whether the fighting is worth while or +not. + +Neither of these considerations seems to have much weight unless war be +regarded as a kind of game played between opposing armies—dangerous no +doubt, but still a game played for its own sake. The first argument +dwells on the danger the game causes to the general public, such as +might come, for instance, from playing hockey in a crowded street, the +other on the risks to the players themselves; but neither argument looks +beyond the war itself. But wars are hardly ever fought like games, +simply for their own sake. Even a Prussian militarist party does not do +that. It fights to gain some supposed advantage for its country. Even if +the perfection of its war machine makes it long to use it, it does not +do so without some ulterior object in view. And the ulterior object for +which each side fights, whether it be legitimate or illegitimate, honest +or dishonest, right or wrong, concerns the whole country, not only the +fighting men. It concerns not only the men or only the women, not one +class or section or another class or section, but the whole nation, and +if it be a right cause and an important cause the whole nation must be +prepared to suffer if need be and each man and each woman to contribute +what he or she can and to sacrifice all that is required to secure +success in the struggle. That cannot be done in a grudging spirit. So +far as sacrifices can be measured, those who sacrifice most must get +their reward in being proud of it. + +Our young men are in an enviable position, for it is they who have the +chance of translating their patriotism into action in the most direct +way. It is on their courage and endurance and self-sacrifice in the +field that success largely depends. It is on them that the brunt of +physical effort and physical hardship first falls. And in fact of course +war could not be carried on without them. Our soldiers and sailors have +been splendid, as we always knew they would be, and we may be proud of +the way our young men have under the voluntary service system come +forward and shown themselves willing to suffer and die for their +country. + +But they are not the only people called on to give active service of one +kind or another, and they are not the only people who suffer and will +suffer. This is so in our own country, and we see it yet more in Belgium +and the north of France. A war like this is a horrible thing. It brings +sorrow and suffering to almost every home in the countries engaged in +it; it impoverishes victors and vanquished and brings poverty and misery +in its wake more widespread than the belligerent countries. It no doubt +draws out some virtues—courage and valour, and, more important still, +ardent ‘self-sacrifice for duty and the common good’—and we must not +underrate these. But it also tends to stimulate evil feelings, +brutality, bitterness, and hate, and to increase national selfishness +and mutual distrust among nations. + +War is an awful calamity, and it is no wonder that some ask themselves +whether all war is not wrong. No wonder that many more think there must +be some way of securing perpetual peace. But it is of no use discussing +the general question whether war is wrong. Any particular war is usually +wrong if we consider both sides together—that is to say, it is usually +due to wrongdoing on one side or the other or both. But the question +that is important for each particular State is whether it is itself +right to fight. And whether on any given occasion it is its duty to do +so may often be a question by no means easy to answer. I hope that my +opening words have not suggested to any one that I intend to be so rash +as to attempt any general answer myself. To give such an answer would +require far more knowledge than I possess, and far more space than I +have at my disposal, and in the end discussion would probably lead to +the conclusion that circumstances vary so much that rules are scarcely +possible, and each case must be decided on its merits. Fortunately the +present case is perfectly clear, and barely admits of difference of +opinion, for we are fighting for freedom and independent national +existence, and we are fighting in fulfilment of obligations deliberately +undertaken. + +There are, I take it, few people in the world who would uncompromisingly +advocate peace at any price. Few would not grant that a State when +attacked must defend itself, just as in a country with no settled +government a man must defend himself and his family from those who try +to injure him, whether they be men or wild beasts. Few would deny (at +least in any country but Germany) that a State must fight in support of +pledges solemnly undertaken, like the guarantee by France, Prussia, and +England of Belgium’s neutrality. A strong State cannot sit by with +folded arms while what it has guaranteed is violated by another, any +more than a man who has promised to help his neighbour in case of attack +can shut himself up in his own house when the attack is made. It would +be admitted, in fact, by almost all, that there are circumstances for +nations, as there are for individuals, when they must fight for their +life and liberty and that of others. And these circumstances have arisen +for us in the present case. + +Is there, then, any possibility of preventing such circumstances +arising? Can we hope that war will ever cease? I am perhaps a sanguine +person, but I do think we may hope that it will at any rate greatly +diminish in frequency. I am not, however, sanguine about the possibility +of devising schemes for international government which shall of +themselves secure us from wars. + +The first of such schemes is arbitration—and it is a good scheme as far +as it goes. Given an arbitration court in which both sides feel +confidence, and given on both sides a desire to avoid quarrelling, a +good many disputes between States might be settled by arbitration. And +as a matter of fact a good many have been so settled of recent years. +But arbitration is necessarily limited in its application. Generally +speaking, questions that can be settled by arbitration are either +questions like those which in private life can be settled as civil cases +in the law courts—questions of fact, or rights, or of interpretation of +conventions, or of damage done which is capable of being compensated, +and so forth. Or they must at least be questions, like those involved in +most trade disputes, about which each side can put forward a more or +less plausible case, the one comparable with the other. + +But even when arbitration is possible, it is only useful if both sides +prefer peace to war, and cases that would lend themselves to arbitration +are perhaps more often the occasion—the pretext—for war than its real +cause, at least where great countries are concerned. However, we should +none of us deny that arbitration may help materially in maintaining +peace and should be used to the utmost. + +Still more should every favourable opportunity be made use of by States, +while at peace, to remove by negotiation causes of irritation and +friction which might lead to quarrels. Negotiation has over arbitration +the advantage that the nations concerned are more likely through it to +come to understand one another, to realize each other’s attitude and +point of view; and are therefore more likely to trust each other +afterwards than if they leave all that to the external arbitrator before +whom each merely advocates his own cause. We in England have endeavoured +for many years past to promote both these things—arbitration and +negotiation about difficulties—to the utmost of our ability. And France, +too, has worked with us of late, with the _Entente Cordiale_ as a +result. I wish we could say the same of Germany; but Germany has for +years managed to give the impression of thinking it her interest to +prevent the sore places of the world—the danger spots—from being healed, +and even of working to create new ones. + +But it is clear that there are some causes of war that neither +arbitration nor negotiation can touch. Neither can, for instance, +prevent wars of pure aggression. There is nothing to arbitrate about +when practically the whole contention of one side is that Might makes +Right and that therefore it proposes to secure what it would like to +have by force. There is a proverb that it takes two to make a quarrel. +There is some truth in this—enough to remind us, both in private life +and in international affairs, that if we say and do irritating things we +are responsible for the irritation produced. But it is much more true +that it takes two to keep the peace. A nation that is determined to +fight _will_ fight, and will have no difficulty in finding, or making, +the occasion for it. Nothing can prevent it except the conviction that +those it desires to fight against are too strong to be overcome. + +Wanton aggression for the sake of gaining power or territory or wealth +is not the only cause of war which cannot be arbitrated about. Another +cause which we have seen in operation within the life of many of us is +the conflict of incompatible principles. The American Civil War was a +war for principles. And we may observe that there was no militarism +there—no perfecting of the war machine in long preparation to attack or +defend. And, moreover, another of the plans for securing European peace, +a federation of States for the purpose, failed here, for the antagonists +were knit in a federation far closer than any we can conceive as taking +place among the European nations. + +We need not infer that such a federation in Europe would be useless. It +would be very difficult to arrange, but if satisfactorily arranged it +might have some effect in preventing aggression, just as the fact that +England, France, Germany, and Belgium were bound by treaty to preserve +Belgian neutrality may very well have saved Belgium from attacks for all +these years till now. But no such federation could be a complete +guarantee of peace; for what would there be to prevent the federated +nations—even if we assume them all to be actuated by good +intentions—from disagreeing on questions as to how their function of +guardians of the peace was in any particular case to be carried out, or +whether some particular action of some particular State constituted a +breach of the convention or not? Would there not here be as much danger +of war as now? The only sanction behind the rules of such a federation +would be the threat of armed intervention against an offending State, +and if there were disagreement so that the federation were divided into +parties, armed intervention would mean a European war. + +One method suggested for the prevention of war is an agreed reduction of +armaments. Of course in this country we should all like reduction of +armaments, and so would our Allies. It would, to say the least, save +much wasteful expenditure, and if we fight this war to a finish and win, +we may well hope that it will come about. But if it were carried out all +round I doubt if it would in itself have much effect in promoting peace, +for all would still be in the same relative strength. And if it were +carried out only partially it would leave those who refused to reduce, +who would certainly include those who wished to attack their neighbours, +in a specially advantageous position for doing so. + +I have dwelt rather long on the difficulty, if not impossibility, as it +seems to me, of really securing international peace by any scheme of +international arrangement. But though I do not think the ingenuity of +man has yet devised a way of doing this, I am nevertheless hopeful that +progress in the direction of reduction of war is being made and will +continue. It is on general improvement in the moral tone of the world +that I build my hopes. Progress is slow; but although of course this +shocking and surprising return of Germany to mediaeval barbarism is +rather disconcerting to one’s optimism, the world still seems to me to +be a better world than it was; by which I mean that it is tending on the +whole to become less selfish and more just and sympathetic, without on +the whole losing its energy and virility. + +Then another hopeful sign is that, except in Germany and in places like +the Central American Republics, there is in these days no chronic desire +to fight either in governments or in people. The desire may be kindled +under the influence of angry passions, or in consequence of oppression, +or by other causes, but it is not there all the time, and in most places +it takes a good deal of kindling. Most European nations have tasted the +sweets of peace, some of them know the horrors of war, and almost all +wish for opportunity to develop their internal resources. Neither we nor +any of our Allies in this war had any desire for the war. Neither the +people nor the governments had. We have only to read the diplomatic +correspondence that preceded it to feel sure of this. France, Russia, +Belgium, England, simply wanted to be let alone. Serbia went great +lengths for the sake of peace in yielding to Austria’s demands. The +desire for revenge which the tearing from France of Alsace and Lorraine +left in the breasts of Frenchmen for many years had practically died. +They may have hoped that a change in the position of Alsace might +somehow be brought about, but not by war. As one of their writers, M. +Paul Sabatier, said in 1911,[1] + +‘La France veut la paix avec l’Allemagne parce qu’une guerre est une +explosion de haine, et qu’elle ne se sent pas plus de haine pour nos +voisins de l’Est que pour les autres. Elle sent sa solidarité avec eux.’ + +But he goes on: + +‘Si le malheur voulait que ces sentiments ne fussent pas compris, et +qu’après nous avoir représentés pendant plus de quarante ans comme ceux +qui menacent la paix de l’Europe, on nous attaquât, oh! alors, nous nous +élancerions avec l’enthousiasme de citoyens qui défendent non seulement +le sol de leur patrie, mais qui portent une idée, qui par leurs efforts, +leur martyre s’il le faut, fera son entrée dans le monde.’ + +There are many States in Europe which for many decades have had no +warlike impulses and have only desired to be let alone to develop +themselves in their own way. If only, therefore, the moral perversion of +Germany could be cured, and some perennial sources of friction, e.g. in +the Balkan States and parts of Austria-Hungary, removed, the prospects +of peace, if we are victorious in this war, would for a long time be +very good. It is, then, these two things, the development of +international morality and the removal of causes of friction, that those +who desire a peaceful world must seek. + +What, then, is wrong with Germany? How comes prosperous Germany to bring +the calamity of war on us all? + +Germany won too easily in her previous wars; and since 1870 has suffered +from what our American cousins call swelled head. She applies to nations +an idea which has, I understand, proved attractive to her in theoretical +social psychology and in art—the idea of a superman who in virtue of his +strength, physical and intellectual, is above all moral law, and has the +right as well as the power to work his will on his fellow men. However +much he may be admired in theory, we may be sure that the superman, if +he appeared in real life and used his strength so as to annoy his +neighbours, would in Germany, as in any other well-governed country +where slavery is not allowed, be dealt with by the police. But when the +idea is carried into international relations, and it is deliberately +maintained by a powerful State that Might makes Right, that a nation is +a law to itself, and not only has no duties to other nations but is +bound to aim solely at what it conceives to be its own interests +irrespective of all considerations of justice, veracity, and good +faith—when a State holds this it is obvious that trouble is bound to +come. + +Leading Germans have taught this Neo-Machiavellianism for many years. It +is not only Treitschke and Bernhardi, of whom we in England have lately +heard so much—it is not only they who have preached it; it has been +widespread in Germany for half a century or more. Perhaps you will allow +me to read a passage which brings out this fact from an essay on ‘Public +Morality’, written in 1897 by the late Henry Sidgwick[2]. The immorality +of Machiavellianism begins, he says: + +‘when the interest of a particular State is taken as the ultimate and +paramount end justifying the employment of any means whatever to attain +it, whatever the consequences of such action may be to the rest of the +human race. And this “national egoism” is, I think, the essence of the +Neo-Machiavellianism, which,—though views somewhat similar have +frequently found expression from the sixteenth century onwards,—has been +especially prominent in the political thought of the last forty years, +and as I have said has found the most unreserved and meditated +expression in the writings of Germans. I may give as an example the +statements of an able and moderate writer who is by no means an admirer +of Machiavelli. “The State”, says Rümelin,[3] “is self-sufficient.” +“Self-regard is its appointed duty; the maintenance and development of +its own power and well-being,—egoism, if you like to call this +egoism,—is the supreme principle of politics.” “The State can only have +regard to the interest of any other State so far as this can be +identified with its own interest.” “Self-devotion is the principle for +the individual, self-assertion for the State.” “The maintenance of the +State justifies every sacrifice, and is superior to every moral rule.”’ + +The practical aim in affirming national egoism, Mr. Sidgwick further +says, of the writers to whom he refers, + +‘is almost always expressly to emancipate the public action of statesmen +from the restraints of private morality.’ + +It is this want of international morality—the absence of a moral code, +not merely the failure to live up to one—in one of the leading States of +the world which has more than anything else, and for many years, +endangered the peace of Europe and has now plunged us into this ghastly +war. It is the theory held in Germany that envy, hatred, and malice are +not vices in a nation whatever they may be in individuals; that justice, +veracity, and good faith are not virtues which a powerful nation should +foster in its relations with other nations, however admirable they may +be in individuals—it is this theory which threatens to wreck western +civilization, and which has already shown us that the progress we were +fain to hope had been attained in the humane conduct of war was largely +illusory, and that international treaties are, for nations with +Germany’s views, scraps of paper. + +Till this immoral theory is abandoned there is little hope of lasting +peace. Have we, then, we must ask, any reason for believing that it ever +will be abandoned by Germany? I may be optimistic, but I think we have +reason to hope it. I think we may very reasonably look forward to +Germany’s conversion, at least if we win. In the first place, the +temptation to hold such a theory is much greater when a nation feels +itself to be stronger than all its neighbours. As its might becomes to +itself more doubtful, the disadvantages of the theory that Might makes +Right become more obvious. + +Then, secondly, I do not think that Germans in general—whatever their +statesmen may do—I do not think that Germany as a nation holds the +theory quite single-heartedly now. I infer this from the fact that +Germany tries to explain away her actions. If to attack is the right of +the strong, why are Germany’s statesmen concerned to make out, when +their case is so miserably poor, that she was not the attacking party +but the attacked? If strong States are justified in ignoring treaty +obligations when they think it their interest to do so, why, with such +miserable arguments to produce, do they try to convince a wondering +world that Belgium and France—not Germany—violated Belgium’s neutrality? +It may be said that these arguments are addressed to neutral States, +that Germany is aware that she has not got international public opinion +with her, and is not strong enough—no one is—to be willing to do +without. But so far as I can judge from the statements from German +sources I have seen, it is not only to impress outsiders that these +arguments are used, but to satisfy the conscience of Germany’s own +people. + +Then, thirdly, there is probably an ideal element mixed up in German +motives which is not purely selfish. All nations—including +Germany—believe in their own _Kultur_. We each believe in our national +way of looking at things, our national methods of administration, our +own way of advancing civilization, our own plans of family life, and so +forth. I do not, of course, mean that we do not regard them as capable +of improvement—progressive nations are always trying to improve +them—but, taken as a whole, we prefer our own way of doing things to +other peoples’. Germany, which is, I think, deficient in sympathy and in +the power of understanding other people, probably goes further and +sincerely believes that her own _Kultur_ is necessarily the best for all +the world, and that all humanity would gain in the long run by being +Germanized—by force or otherwise. I think it is probable, too, for all +her apparent substitution of Odin for the Christian God, that her +visions of conquest include visions of future world-wide peace under her +own domination. These benevolent plans for the world are mistaken, but +the fact that they are benevolent at all, affords a hope for something +beyond national egoism. + +There is yet another reason for expecting a change in the views of the +German people. Although they are evidently very docile—very ready to +think what they are told to think—still the opinions inculcated in them +by their Government have been supported by false or misleading +information conveyed largely through a manipulated press, manipulated in +the way so successfully developed by Bismarck. But this is a dangerous +expedient, for, easy as it is for us all to see things as we wish to see +them, in the end the truth comes at least partially to light. As a +result of the war—if we win—the scales are likely to fall from German +eyes, the German nation will see things that have been hidden from it as +a nation for many years, and with new premisses new conclusions may be +hoped for. + +Do not let us, then, despair of Germany. On the contrary, let us look +forward to a day when her many excellent qualities—her industry, her +thoroughness, her methodicalness, her discipline, her patriotism—may +under a freer and more independent habit of thought, and a less egoistic +system of international morality, be an important part of the forces +making for human progress, not only physically and intellectually, but +morally. + +This can only happen, of course, through German public opinion, which is +made up, as all public opinion is, of individual opinions and feelings +acting and reacting on each other. And this brings me to some things I +want to say about our duties as individuals in this crisis. The duty of +patriotism, of helping in every way we can the cause for which we are +fighting, I need not dwell on. We are fighting for our life as a free +nation, and the help of every individual counts. The active help we can +render varies of course much—for some of us it is necessarily almost +non-existent. But what I may call the spiritual help—the help through +thought and feeling, both as individuals and as contributing to public +opinion—which we can all render, is important, and it is incumbent on +all of us to see if we are helping as we should. + +There are two of the duties in this region on which I should like to +dwell a little. The first is the duty of not hating the Germans. We may, +and as I think must, judge Germany as having committed a terrible crime, +but let us condemn her as a judge would, impartially and without hate or +rancour; remembering, too, that if all who do wrong are to be hated, few +in this world would escape. This war may be called a holy war if there +ever was one. We and our Allies are not only fighting, as I have said, +for our own national existence, we are not only fighting for the rights +of small States, or for the liberty to develop each in our own way. We +are fighting not only for these things, but against the principle of +which I have spoken—the principle that Might makes Right, that there is +no sense in the idea of justice and good faith as between nations, and +that envy and hatred between them is natural and right. Do not let us, +then, indulge on our side in the very vices we are condemning. How can +we hope to diminish hatred in the world if we allow ourselves to feel +it? How can we hope to have any influence in restoring or increasing +peace and good will if we ourselves are full of hatred? Hatred is not, +except in a very limited way, a source of strength but a source of +weakness, and if we depend on hatred to enable us to win we shall lose. +We must be absolutely firm. We must fight to the utmost of our strength +and as long as necessary in the cause of justice. We must see that +Germany pays the debts she has incurred (they are very heavy debts to +Belgium and France and Poland and Serbia). And we must help to make +arrangements which, by giving satisfaction so far as possible to the +inhabitants of all the provinces affected by them, may give hope of a +durable peace. But desire for retaliation—that is, to inflict on Germany +the injuries she has inflicted on our Allies or on ourselves; or the +desire to humiliate Germany because we think she would like to humiliate +us, or indeed for any other reason—these things are unworthy of the +spirit in which this war should be fought on our side. + +The second duty I want to insist on is that of not being afraid. I do +not of course mean that we are to be reckless, or that we are to shut +our eyes to difficulties and dangers, or that we are to say that things +are well when they are not well. On the contrary, we must face the task +before us, keeping steadily in view that it is a very difficult one and +needs every effort we can make, as a nation and as individuals, to carry +it through. But when we have done and are continuing to do all that is +in our power to ensure success, then whatever we have to bear (and +remember so far we in England have had nothing to bear like Belgium and +France and Poland and Serbia), whatever we have to face, fear should +have no place in our hearts. For fear is weakness. The task before us is +hard and we may have anxious times to go through; as indeed we have had +already in this war, and as we had in those other wars when England +helped to save Europe from the domination of ambitious nations or +individuals. But we are going to win now as we did in the end; then and +even those of us who can contribute no active service can help to bring +about victory by courage and hope. + + + + + II + HERD INSTINCT AND THE WAR + + BY GILBERT MURRAY + + +At the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, close to the entrance, +you can buy for the sum of fourpence a most fascinating little book on +_The Fossil Remains of Man_. It is official and, I presume, +authoritative. And it tells how, in very remote times, before there was +any South Kensington Museum, or any England, or, I believe, in the +strict sense, any Europe, there lived in swampy forests in various parts +of the world, troops of little lemur-like tree-dwellers. They were, I +suppose, rather like small monkeys, but much prettier. They had nice +fur, good prehensile tails, and effective teeth. Then there fell upon +them, or some of them, a momentous change, a hypertrophy or +over-development of one part of the body. This kind of special increase, +the author tells us, seldom stops till it becomes excessive. With the +lemurs it was the brain which began to grow. It grew and grew, both in +size and in complexity. The rest of the body suffered in consequence. +The fur became mangy and disappeared. The prehensile tails wasted away. +The teeth ceased to be useful as weapons. And in the end, Ladies and +Gentlemen, after incalculable ages, here we are! + +Now these lemurs had certain instincts and habits of life. Let us define +our terms. By an instinct I mean, following the exposition of Dr. +McDougall, an innate psycho-physical disposition to notice objects of a +certain class, to feel about them in certain ways and to act +correspondingly. They would notice an enemy, hate him and spit at him; +notice an object that was good to eat, desire it and eat it. They made +love, they protected their young, they defended their group against +other groups. And primitive man inherited, with modifications, their +instincts, and we have similarly inherited his. Some of them were +generally desirable, and are consequently admitted and encouraged; +others were generally undesirable, and have been habitually denied and +suppressed in our conscious life, only to break out in dreams, in fits +of insanity or passion, or more subtly in self-deception. But, +suppressed or unsuppressed, man’s instincts form the normal motive force +in his life, though the direction of that force may from time to time be +controlled by conscious reason. + + +From this point of view, I wish to consider what has happened to us in +England since August 4, 1914. For that something has happened is quite +clear. There is an inward change, which some people praise and some +blame. There is a greater seriousness in life, less complaining, less +obvious selfishness, and more hardihood. There is a universal power of +self-sacrifice whose existence we never suspected before: on every side +young men are ready to go and face death for their country, and parents +are ready to let them go. There is more brotherhood and more real +democracy; and at the same time, a quality of which we stood in much +need, far more discipline and obedience. + +This makes a very strong case on the good side. Yet, on the other, you +will find generally that reformers and idealists are disheartened. +Friends of peace, of women’s causes, of legal reform, of the mitigation +of cruelty to animals, are all reduced to something like impotence. One +hears the statement that ‘there is no Christianity left’. The very +increase of power and devotion which has occurred is directed, so some +say, to the service of evil. The same process has taken place in +Germany, and has there apparently reached a higher degree of intensity. +To leave aside its more insane manifestations, a Danish friend sends me +the following quotation from a German religious poet, much admired in +evangelical circles: ‘We have become the nation of wrath.... We +accomplish the almighty will of God, and will vengefully wreak the +demands of His righteousness on the godless, filled with sacred fury.... +We are bound together like a scourge of punishment whose name is War. We +flame like lightning. Our wounds blossom like rose-gardens at the gate +of heaven. Thanks be to Thee, God Almighty! Thy wrathful awakening does +away with our sins. As the iron in Thy hand we smite all our enemies on +the cheekbone.’ Another poet, a clergyman, prays that the Germans may +not fall into the temptation of carrying out the judgements of God’s +wrath with too great mildness. Now the state of mind which these poems +reveal—and I dare say they could be paralleled or nearly paralleled in +England—is compatible with great self-sacrifice and heroism, but it is +certainly not what one would call wholesome. + + +In order to understand this change as a whole, it is necessary to +analyse it; and I would venture to suggest that, in the main, it +consists simply in an immense stimulation of the Herd or Group +Instincts, though of course other instincts are also involved. For the +present, let us neither praise nor blame, but simply analyse. At the end +we may have some conclusion to draw. + + +Man is by nature a gregarious animal and is swayed by Herd Instincts, as +a gregarious animal must be; but of course they are greatly modified. +Outside mankind we find these instincts in various grades of +development. They show strongest in ants and bees, with their communal +life of utter self-sacrifice, utter ruthlessness. I see that Professor +Julian Huxley, in his book on _The Individual in the Animal Kingdom_, +doubts whether among ants the single ant or the whole ant-heap is really +the individual. I remember a traveller in northern Australia narrating +how he once saw a procession of white ants making towards his camp, and, +to head them off, sprinkled across their line of advance a train of +bluestone, or sulphate of copper. And instead of turning aside, each ant +as he came up threw himself on the horribly corrosive stuff and devoured +it till he fell dead; and presently the main army marched on over a line +consisting no longer of bluestone, but of dead ants. + +The instinct is less overpowering in cattle, horses, wolves, &c. Certain +wild cattle in South Africa are taken by Galton as types of it. In +ordinary herd life they show no interest in each other, much less any +mutual affection. But if one is taken out of the herd and put by himself +he pines, and when he is taken back to the herd he shoves and nozzles to +the very centre of it. Wolves, again, will fight for their pack, but not +from mutual affection. If the pack is not threatened they will readily +fight and kill one another. A dog in domesticated conditions is +especially interesting. He has been taken away from his pack, but he +retains his fundamental habits. He barks to call his mates on every +emergency, even if barking frightens his prey away. He sniffs at +everything when he is out walking, because he has wanted so long to +smell his way home to the lost pack. His real pack is now artificial, +grouped round his master. It will take in his master’s friends and +house-companions, including quite possibly various animals such as cats +and rabbits. Meantime he rejects the strange man and cheerfully kills +the strange cat or rabbit. His delightful friendliness and sympathy are +of course due to his herd habits. A cat has no herd. She has always +‘walked alone’. + +Now Man satisfies his Herd Instinct by many groups, mainly artificial. +Like the dog, he may take in other animals. In ordinary life the group +of which he is most conscious is his social class, especially if it is +threatened in any way. Clergymen, land-owners, teachers, coal-miners +tend, as the phrase is, to hang together. They have the same material +interests and the same habits of life. Again, there may be local groups, +counties or villages; or groups dependent on ideas and beliefs, a +church, a party in politics, a clique in art. But of all groups, far the +strongest when it is once roused is the Nation, and it is the Nation +that is roused now. + +Normally men of science form a group, so do theologians. But now they +feel no longer as men of science or theologians, they feel as Englishmen +or Germans. I see that the Archbishop of Munich has expressed a doubt +whether ‘any appreciable number of Belgian priests’ have been +‘irregularly killed’ by German soldiers. There is an absence of class +feeling about this remark which few clergymen could attain in peace +time. I see that even the German Jesuits are sharply differing from the +rest of the Jesuits, an Order famous throughout history for its extreme +cohesion and discipline. The only bodies that have at all asserted +themselves against the main current of feeling in the various nations +have been a few isolated Intellectuals and some small groups of +International Socialists. It was easier for these last, since with them +Internationalism was not only a principle but a habit, and besides they +were accustomed in ordinary life to be against their own government and +to differ from their neighbours. + +In the main, what has happened is very simple. In all wild herds we find +that the strength of this instinct depends upon the need for it. As soon +as the Herd is in danger, the Herd Instinct flames up in passion to +defend it. The members of the Herd first gather together, and then fight +or fly. This is what has happened to us. Our Herd is in danger, and our +natural Herd Instinct is aflame. Let us notice certain different ways in +which it operates. + +First, the Herd unites. Wolves who are quarrelling cease when menaced by +a common enemy. Cattle and horses draw together. We in England find +ourselves a band of brothers; and the same of course occurs in Germany. +Indeed, it probably occurs even more strongly there, since all herd +emotions there tend to be passionately expressed and officially +encouraged. Those who are ordinarily separate have drawn together. +Canada, Australia, India, even Crown colonies like Fiji, seem to be +feeling a common emotion. A year or so ago one might see in the +advertisements of employment in Canadian newspapers the words ‘No +English need apply’. You would not find them now. Even the United States +have drawn close to us. Of course in part this is due to the goodness of +our cause, to sympathy with the wrongs of Belgium, and the like. Most +neutrals are somewhat on our side. But Herd Instinct is clearly present; +or why do the German-Americans side with the Germans? + +Even those who are ordinarily at strife have drawn together. Before the +war our whole people seemed at strife with itself, how far from natural +causes and how far from definite intrigue on the part of Germany history +will doubtless show. We had the Militant Suffragists, we had an utterly +abnormal number of strikes and a great deal of rebellion against Trade +Union leaders, we had trouble in India, terrific threats in Ireland. +And, on the whole, these various enemies have now ‘made it up’. Of +course it was much harder for them than for those who were merely +separated by distance. There were serious obstacles in the way; habits +of anger, habits of suspicion; often the mere routine of party attack +which comes natural to small groups in strong opposition to a +government. As a journalist said to me: ‘I mostly keep the truce all +right; but sometimes, when one is tired and has nothing particular to +say, one drops into abusing McKenna.’ + +The chief problem that arises in this general drawing together is the +problem of fidelity to the Lesser Herd. Sometimes there is no clash +between the lesser and the greater. A man’s emotion towards his family, +his associates, his native district, causes as a rule no clash. On the +contrary, it is usually kindled and strengthened by some sort of analogy +or some emotional infection. The emotions of loyalty, of love to one’s +neighbours and surroundings, are all stirred; and the family emotions in +particular, being themselves very ancient and deep-rooted in our +instinctive nature, have grown stronger together with those of the Herd. + +But often there is a clash. For instance, an individual who has recently +been in Germany and made close friends there, will, out of loyalty to +this friendship, rebel against the current anti-German passion, and so +become ‘pro-German’. I mean by ‘pro-German’, not one who wishes the +Germans to win—I know of none such—but one who habitually interprets +doubtful questions in a way sympathetic to Germany. Again, there are a +few people who, on one ground or another, disapproved of the declaration +of war. They are attacked and maligned: their friends naturally stand by +them. The whole group hits back angrily and becomes, in the same sense, +pro-German. Then there are people who are influenced by a peculiar form +of pugnacity which is often miscalled ‘love of justice.’ It is really a +habit of irritation at excess which finds vent not in justice but in +counter-excess. ‘So-and-so is overpraised; for Heaven’s sake let us +bring him down a peg!’ ‘Every fool I meet is emotionalized about the +German treatment of Belgium; can we not somehow show that no harm was +done, or that Belgium deserved it, or at least that it was all the fault +of some one the fools admire?’ People of these types and others, some +generous and some perverse, form, both here and in Germany, a protesting +small Herd in reaction against the great Herd. Thus the Herd draws +together, though lesser and protesting herds within it may do the same. + + +Secondly, in time of danger the Individual subordinates himself to the +Herd. He ceases to make claims upon it, he desires passionately to serve +it. He is miserable and unsatisfied if there is no public work found for +him. Discipline consequently becomes easy and automatic. I know of one +case where a number of recruits in a certain new regiment were drawn +from a local trade union of pugnacious traditions. One of them was +punished for something or other. The rest instinctively proposed to +strike, but even as they proposed it found themselves in the grip of a +stronger instinct. They hesitated for an instant and then obeyed orders. +Again, I seem to have noticed that there is in most people an active +desire to be ordered about. We like a drill-sergeant to speak to us +severely, much as you speak to a dog which has not yet been naughty but +looks as if he meant to be. In ordinary life, when a man has to obey and +submit, he feels small. The action is accompanied by what Mr. McDougall +calls ‘negative self-feeling’. But now, it seems, we actually have a +sense of pride when we are ordered about. It makes us feel that we are +really serving. + +We may notice here a curious side-movement, a counter-action to the main +stream making for union. Such counter-actions are of course always to be +expected and need cause no surprise. Why is it that, among these great +steady forces of union and mutual trust, we have sudden flashes of the +very opposite, especially of wild suspicions of the Herd-leaders? I do +not mean mere spy-mania. That is simple enough, a morbid excess of a +perfectly natural feeling directed against the common enemy. You desire +passionately to capture a real German spy; and, since you cannot find +one, you make up a bogus one and capture him. I mean a similar mania, +though much weaker and rarer, directed against the Herd itself: the +semi-insane suspicions of Prince Louis of Battenberg, of Lord Haldane, +and of persons even more exalted. Partly these impulses are merely the +remains of old quarrels in feeble minds. But partly they have a real +biological origin. For while, in ordinary dangers, the safety of the +future race depends on the individuals serving and trusting their Herd, +there are moments when the only chance of safety lies in their deserting +and rejecting it. If once the Herd is really conquered and in the power +of the enemy, then the cry must be ‘_sauve qui peut_’, and the panic +which is generally disastrous is now a protection. Thus these small +cases of panic, though practically unimportant, are psychologically +interesting and have their proper evolutional explanation. + +So far we have found, first, that the Herd draws together, and next, +that the individual subordinates himself to the Herd. Thirdly, it seems +clear that this closer Herd union has an effect upon the emotions, and a +twofold effect. As all readers of psychology know, Herd-union +intensifies all the emotions which are felt in common. The effect is so +strong and so striking that some writers have treated it as a kind of +mystery and described it in language that is almost mythological. But +there does not seem to be anything inexplicable in the matter. Emotion +is infectious. Each member of a Herd which is in the grasp of some +emotion is himself in a ‘suggestible’ state and is also exerting +‘suggestion’ upon his neighbours. They are all directly stimulating his +emotion and he theirs. And doubtless we should also remember that, +Herd-emotion being itself a very old and deep-rooted animal affection, +its stimulation has probably a sympathetic effect on all kinds of +similar disturbances, such as fear and anger and animal desires of +various sorts. + +Furthermore, Herd-union often gives the suppressed subconscious forces +their chance of satisfaction. Hence come the atrocities committed by +crowds. Some dormant desire, existing in your nature but normally +suppressed, is suddenly encouraged by suggestion. You see a look in your +neighbour’s face, and he in yours; and in a flash you both know what +that look means. You dare to own a feeling which, in your normal +condition, you would have strangled unborn. Suppressed instinct calls to +instinct across the gulf of personality, and the infamous thing is half +done. For the Herd, besides tempting you, also offers you a road of +impunity. You can repudiate responsibility afterwards. It is never +exactly you that really did the thing. It is the crowd that did it, and +the crowd has now ceased to exist. M. Lenôtre, in his studies of the +French Revolution, has commented on the somewhat ghastly fact that in +moments of Herd-excitement people on the verge of lunacy, people touched +by persecution-mania, by suspicion-mania, by actual homicidal-mania, are +apt to become leaders and inspire confidence. The same phenomenon has +been noticed in certain revolutionary movements in Russia. + +In England, fortunately, there has been so far almost no field for this +kind of dangerous Herd-excitement. There has been of course some +ferocity in speech, a comparatively harmless safety-valve for bad +feelings, and in some persons a preferable alternative to apoplexy; but +no violent actions and, I think, among decent people, extraordinarily +little vindictiveness. + +But Herd-union does not intensify all emotions. It intensifies those +which are felt in common, but it actually deadens and shuts down those +which are only felt by the individual. The Herd is, as a matter of fact, +habitually callous toward the sufferings of its individual members, and +it infects each member with its own callousness. To take a trifling +instance, a friend writes to me thus: ‘I discovered one day on a march +that my boot was hurting me; after an hour or so it became obvious that +my foot was bleeding. In ordinary times I should have made a fuss and +insisted on sympathy, and certainly not gone on walking for several +miles. But as it was, moving in a steady mass of people who were +uninterested in my boots, and I in theirs, I marched on without making +any remark or even feeling much.’ + +The ramifications of this Herd-callousness are very curious and +intricate. It acts even with Fear, that most contagious of emotions. The +Herd deadens the fears of the individual as long as they do not become +real Herd-fears. Untrained troops will advance in close masses. It needs +good troops to advance individually in open order. The close masses are +much more dangerous and the open order less so, but in the close mass +the Herd is all round you, buttressing you and warming you, and it +deadens your private fear. It may also be that there is here some +hereditary instinct at work, derived from a time when the act of +huddling together was a real protection, as it is with sheep and cattle +attacked by wolves. + +If this Herd-callousness acts with fear, it acts of course far more with +scruples or pities. The first scruple or ruth or criticism of the Herd +must rise in the breast of some individual. If, by good luck, at the +same moment it occurs to some dozen other men, it has a chance of +asserting itself. Otherwise there is only the single unit standing up, +in his infinite weakness, against the great Herd. The scruple is +silenced and dies. + +Of course in actual warfare this callousness is immensely increased by +the nature of the work which the combatants are doing, and the immense +change in their habitual standard of expectation. You cannot always be +pitying people, or you would never get on with your business. A friend +of mine, a clever and kindly man, told me how he and his men, after a +long spell in the trenches, utterly tired and chilled and dropping with +sleep, had at last got into their billets—a sort of warm cellar where +they could just squeeze in. They heard the scream of shrapnel sweeping +the street outside, and some soldiers of another regiment and +nationality ran up to the door begging for admittance and shelter. With +one voice, so my friend said, he and his men growled at them and slammed +the door in their faces. It was their own cellar, and these people were +intruders. And they shut them out into the shrapnel much as, in ordinary +circumstances, they would perhaps have felt justified in shutting them +out into the rain. The strangest development of all is perhaps the +disregard of the Herd for its wounded, and the readiness of the wounded +themselves to be so disregarded. Of course there are abundant cases of +the opposite sort, where individuals show the utmost regard for the +wounded, risk their lives for them, and count no labour too hard for +their sake. But I have certainly met with well-authenticated stories, +notably of incidents in the German and Japanese and Turkish armies, +which seem to take one back to some rather primitive instincts. The true +animal Herd hates its wounded and kills them; cattle, wolves, porpoises, +every herd of gregarious animals does the same. Of course it hates them. +They not only tend to hamper its movements, but they present vividly to +its eyes and senses the very thing that it most loathes—its own blood +and pain. And one finds also curious instances where the wounded man +himself is so absorbed in the general Herd-emotion that he insists, even +angrily, on being left alone. + +Thus under the influence of Herd-union common emotions are intensified, +individual emotions deadened. + +Now thought, unlike emotion, is markedly individual and personal. It is +not infectious. It is communicated by articulate language. The Herd +growls, cries, sobs, sometimes laughs; but it finds speech very +difficult. Again, thought is critical, and the Herd wants unanimity, not +criticism. Consequently Herd-union deadens thought. + +True, the herd-leader must think and plan, and the Herd will obey him. +In an organized army, where discipline and organization powerfully +counteract many of the normal herd characteristics, thought sits +enthroned and directs the whole mass. But it is a special kind of +thought, under central control and devoted simply to attaining the +purposes of the Herd. Other thought is inhibited. + +For instance, if the Herd is angry it is quite simply angry with another +Herd. This state of mind is normal among savages and primitive men. Some +one belonging to a tribe over the river has speared one of our cows, +therefore we catch some other person belonging to a different tribe over +the river and club him on the head. Herd justice is satisfied. It only +sees things in Herds. ‘The Germans’ did so-and-so; therefore punish ‘the +Germans’: ‘the English’ did so-and-so; therefore punish ‘the English’. +Whenever a Herd is offended by some action it is made happy by punishing +as dramatically as possible several people who did not do it. Collective +anger, collective punishment, are always opposed to Justice, because +Justice only applies to individuals. And again, the more angry a Herd +is, the less evidence it needs that there is due cause for its anger. +Accuse a man of some irregularity in his accounts and the Herd will +expect to have the charge duly proven. But accuse him of having drenched +little girls in paraffin and set fire to them, and the Herd will very +likely tear him—or some one else—to pieces at once without further +evidence. + +By this process of killing out thought the Herd sinks all its members in +itself and assimilates them to an average. And this average is in some +ways above but in most considerably below that of the average man in +normal life. For it is that of the average man not thinking but merely +feeling. Only the leader has the function of thinking; hence his +enormous and uncanny power. + + +Lastly, let us consider the effect of this Herd-union on religion. At +first sight the answer would seem simple. Religion is a network of +primitive collective emotions, and any stimulus which works upon such +emotions is likely, by force of sympathy, to rouse religious emotion at +the same time. At any rate some of the causes which have recently roused +Herd-emotion in Europe are just the causes on which religious emotion is +often said to be based. Man has been made to feel the presence of +terrific forces over which he has no control. He has been taught, +crudely and violently, his dependence on the unknown. On this line of +reasoning, the religious life of the world should be greatly +intensified. Yet there are serious considerations leading to the +opposite conclusion. A world so mad and evil, however terrific, can +hardly seem like the mirror in which to see God. I remember a dreadful +incident in one of the Consular reports of the Armenian massacres of +1895. At that time the universal dread and horror throughout Armenia +sent most people praying day and night in the churches. But the report +tells of one woman who sat by the road and refused to pray. ‘Do you not +see what has happened?’ she said. ‘God has gone mad. It is no use to +pray to Him.’ I have myself talked on different days to two soldiers who +gave vivid accounts of the hideous proceedings of the war in Flanders +and of their own feelings of terror. Their accounts agreed, but the +conclusions they drew were different. One man ended by saying with a +sort of gasp: ‘It made you believe in God, I can tell you.’ The other, a +more thoughtful man, said: ‘It made you doubt the existence of God.’ I +think that the effect of this year of history will be to discourage the +higher kind of religion and immensely strengthen the lower. + +Let me try to analyse this conclusion more closely, and see what we mean +in this context by ‘higher’ and ‘lower’. I hope that most of my hearers +will agree with me, or at least not disagree violently, in assuming that +the attributes which a man ascribes to his God are conditioned by his +own mind, its limitations and its direction. I could, if necessary, +quote at least one Father of the Church in support of such a view. Thus +the God whom a man worships is in some form a projection of his own +personality. The respective Gods of a seventeenth-century Puritan, a +Quaker, an Arab, a South Sea Islander, will all differ as their +worshippers differ, and the human qualities attributed to each will be +projections of the emotions of the worshipper. Thus the lower, and often +the more passionate, religion will be directed towards a God who is a +projection of the worshipper’s own terrors and angers and desires and +selfishness. The higher religion weaves its conception of God more out +of its duties and its aspirations. To one of those soldiers whom I +mentioned above God was evidently a Being of pure terror, fitly mirrored +by the action of a host of high-explosive shells. To many people in +great oppression, again, God is almost an incarnation of their desire +for revenge: let those who doubt it read the history of persecution. To +others, an incarnation of Self. Some of you will have seen Mr. Dyson’s +finely tragic cartoon entitled ‘Alone with his God’. It represents the +Kaiser kneeling, a devout and fully armed figure, before another Kaiser +exactly the same in dress and feature, but gigantic, august, enthroned +amid the incense of ruined towns and burning churches, blindly staring +and inexpressibly sad. It is a picture to ponder on. + +All these emotions, the self-worship, the hate, the revenge, the terror, +will be stimulated, and so will the kind of religion that depends on +them. The higher religion, of which it is less easy to speak, which +expresses itself in the love of righteousness, in the sense of one’s own +imperfection, in the aspiration after a better life and a world with +more love in it ... that sort of religion, I fear, will chiefly come in +reaction. It cannot be the main flood. There is too much reflection in +it, too much inhibition. The main flood of Herd-emotion will sweep over +it for the time being, but it will not die. There is a strange life in +the things of the spirit. + + +I suggested at the beginning of this very rough and sketchy analysis +that perhaps at the end we might be able to pass some definite moral +judgement on the change which has taken place in us, and say whether it +is a good or a bad change. But I fear that the suggestion has not been +realized. Herd-instinct in itself is neither good nor bad. It is simply +part of the stuff of life, an immense store of vitality out of which +both good and evil, extreme good and extreme evil, can spring. + +Thus it is impossible to say without qualification that we ought to +rejoice in this stimulation of our herd-instincts or that we ought +rigorously to master and reject it. Neither alternative is sufficient. +We must do this and not leave the other undone. We must accept gladly +the quickened pulse, the new strength and courage, the sense of +brotherhood, the spirit of discipline and self-sacrifice. All these +things make life a finer thing. It is nothing against a particular +emotion that mankind shares it with the ape and the tiger. Gorillas are +famous for their family life, and tigresses are, up to their lights, +exemplary mothers. As regards herd-feeling in particular, we should +realize that even in its most unthinking forms it generally makes a man +kinder and more trustworthy towards his immediate neighbours and daily +associates; the evil side of it comes into play much more rarely, since +it is directed against the far-off alien herd which is seldom met or +seen. And lastly, we should remember one piece of certain knowledge +which is both immensely important and very difficult to apply: that +thwarted instincts act like poison in human nature, and a normal and +temperate satisfaction of instinct is what keeps it sweet and sane. At +the present time, for instance, the people whose minds have turned sour +and vicious are almost always those who can neither fight nor serve. The +fighters and doctors and nurses and public servants—as a rule their +herd-desire is satisfied, and they do their work with fervour and +without bitterness. + + +Yet after all we are thinking beings. If we acknowledge our instincts we +need not worship them. Thinking itself is both an instinct and a form of +public service, and it is our business to watch ourselves. We must see +to it that this fresh force which we feel within us is not wrongly +directed, and that the higher and gentler elements of life are not +swamped by this new strong wine. Millions of men throughout Europe are, +without stint or question, offering all that is in them to the service +of their countries and the command of their leaders. We must see, as far +as lies in our power, that we do not abuse that heroic blindness. And, +among us who remain at home, we must see as far as possible that the +normal texture of life is not lowered or coarsened. + +There has been current in England of recent years a reaction against +reason, an avowed worship of instinct and tradition and even prejudice. +The doctrines of this reaction are in themselves fascinating, and they +have been preached by fascinating writers. The way of instinct and old +habit is so full of ease, so facile and strong and untroubled. Look at +the faces of men who are wrapped up in some natural and instinctive +purpose. Look at a dog chasing his prey, a lover pursuing his beloved, a +band of vigorous men advancing to battle, a crowd of friends drinking +and laughing. That shows us, say the writers aforesaid, what life can be +and what it ought to be. ‘Let us not think and question,’ they say. ‘Let +us be healthy and direct, and not fret against the main current of +instinctive feeling and tradition.’ + +In matters of art such a habit of mind may be valuable; in matters of +truth or of conduct it is, I believe, as disastrous as it is alluring. +True, the way of instinct is pleasant. I happened once to be waiting at +a railway station on a summer afternoon. There were several railwaymen +about, rather wearily engaged on work of one sort or another, when +suddenly something happened which made them look alert and cheerful and +put a kindly smile on their faces. One of them had seen some small +animal—I think, a rat—and a little crowd of them ran blithely and pelted +it to death. One would have seen the same kindly and happy smile, the +same healthy vigour, in the people who amid other circumstances let +loose their hunting instincts on runaway slaves or heretics or Jews. And +the man among them who should feel a qualm, who should check himself and +try to think whether such hunting was really a pleasant and praiseworthy +action, would, I have little doubt, have looked guilty and uneasy and +tongue-tied. His face would have condemned him. ‘Why should he trouble +himself with thinking and criticizing?’ people may say. ‘Why not enjoy +himself with his mates! Thought is just as likely to lead you wrong as +feeling is.’ + +The answer of mankind to such pleadings should be firm and clear. Human +reason is very far from infallible, but the only remedy for bad thinking +is to think better. The question was really settled for us, thousands +and thousands of years ago, by those little lemurs in the marshy +forests. They took not the path of ease but the path of hard brain-work, +and we their children must go on with it. That is the way of life and +the bettering of life, to think and labour and build up; not to glide +with the current. We of the human race have our work in the scheme of +things; and to do our work we must use all our powers, especially our +greatest powers, those of thinking and judging. And even if we +deliberately set our faces in the other direction, if we yield to the +stream of instinct and let scruples and doubts and inhibitions be swept +away, we shall not really find life easier. At least not for long. For +the powers to which we yield will only demand more and more. + +There is one character in Shakespeare, who is often taken as a type—a +very unflattering type, I admit—of the follower of the mere instincts; +who feels the release, the joy, the sense of revelation which they +bring, and thinks that they will lead him to glory. And I suspect that +some modern adorers of instinct as against reason will in the end awake +to disillusion like that of Caliban: + + What a thrice-double ass + Was I, to take this drunkard for a God, + And worship this dull fool! + + + + + III + INTERNATIONAL MORALITY: + THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE + + BY A. C. BRADLEY + + +When I was invited to give a lecture in a series dealing with the +present crisis in its ethical and philosophical aspects, I had been +endeavouring to clear my own mind as to the basis of international +morality, and also as to some proposals aimed at the diminution of war; +and I thought that this endeavour might perhaps be of some use to +others.[4] I say the ‘basis’ of international morality; not the question +what in particular the duties of states to one another are, but the +question whether states are moral agents at all, and, if so, in what +sense. This question runs back into that of the nature of the state, and +cannot help being more or less a philosophical one; but I aim only at +the outline of an answer and at being intelligible rather than precisely +accurate; and, the subject being large, I intend, without reference to +opposing views, merely to expound, at any rate at first, a view that is +mine only in the sense that long since it got into my head out of other +peoples’, and to expound it without adding to every sentence the words +‘so far as I can see’. Perhaps you will be kind enough to supply them. + +My second subject is not itself philosophical. Judgement on proposals +for diminishing war requires good sense, some knowledge of the past and +present, and some capacity for faith and hope about the future. These +things are not philosophy; and yet one of them, good sense, might be +called philosophy pretending not to know herself; and, in any case, +reflection on the nature of the state may help one in estimating +concrete schemes which cannot succeed unless they correspond fairly well +with that nature. + +I must begin with some prefatory explanations suggested by the phrase +just used. First, the nature of the state appears, of course, in a +variety of forms; and a city-state such as Athens is very unlike a +nation-state such as France, and both are unlike a state, such as +Austria-Hungary, which is not based on nationality, or, again, a federal +union such as the United States of America. But, to save time, I propose +to ignore these differences and to take a national state as typical. +Next, the full nature of the state is realized but partially in any +individual state, and very feebly in some; and therefore, when I say +that the state is or does this or that, you may truly make the comment +that _our_ state, or any other, is or does this in a very poor degree. +And, lastly, I must point to what seems at first a curious fact. A state +rests on, and, in a sense, only exists in, the minds and wills of its +members, so that, if mind and will in all Frenchmen could suddenly +vanish, the French state would do so too. And, further, the improvement +of this state depends on the ideas of its members, and their will to +make their ideas good. And yet what we call the ‘nature’ of the state +does not depend on their thinking this or that, and if they think and +will what conflicts with that nature they will not succeed. They will +succeed only by developing further so much of that nature as is already +developed in France or elsewhere. On the other hand, there can be no +more fatal error than simply to identify the nature of the state with +any development of it that has hitherto appeared. It only lives in +realizing capacities still unfolded, and a state that does not advance +goes back and, apart from any external violence, may even die. + +If now we ask what the state is, we may say that it is the nation +considered as an organized whole or individual. You have some millions +of people, inhabiting a definite piece or pieces of the earth, and, for +the most part, so united by blood, language, customs, traditions, and +history, that they have a special character and so can more fully +understand and count on one another, and can live together more easily +and happily, than any chance collection of human beings could. Further, +they are not a mere collection or aggregate, but form an organized +whole, performing a multitude of different functions, which should, and +more or less do, so complement and play into one another that they make +a common life and produce a common good—a good shared by the members in +degrees necessarily different, though not, one hopes, of necessity so +very different as they everywhere now are. Finally (for so far we have +not, strictly speaking, a state) the common life, mind, or will +expresses itself formally in laws binding on all the members, and in +acts explicitly done on behalf of the whole and in its name. It is in +these laws, and still more in these acts, that the whole appears most +plainly as individual or a single agent, over against its members taken +severally, and over against other states. Hence we often identify the +state with the particular organ through which it acts in this way, +asking, for example, indifferently whether the state, or whether +government, ought to own the railways. And this usage, though it leads +to confusion if we forget that the state is the whole, points to the +fact that it does not act _as_ the state except through the organ called +(in a wide sense) the government. + +Is the state then a moral agent? It can hardly be so with reference to +other states, unless it is so with reference to itself; so that we may +safely consider it at first as if it stood alone in the world. + +What is the end or object for which the state exists—its reason to be? +Aristotle, after his manner, replied in two words, ‘Good life’. We may +expand a little and say ‘The best possible life of its members’, or ‘The +fullest possible development in them of the forces and faculties of man’ +(a Mazzinian formula), or ‘To make of human nature in them all that it +has in it to become’ (which is more like Green’s language). These are +various ways of expressing what is substantially the same idea. Suppose +it true; then what has _morality_ to do with this end, the best life or +the fullest realization of human capacities? + +Morality, or moral goodness, is, in the first place, a large part of +this best life. To be self-controlled in regard to your desires and +fears, to be just and generous and the like; to do your part as well as +you can in the common life, in your functions, say, as a son, a +neighbour, a friend, a carpenter, or a poet; and to do this, not merely +because you happen to like it or because it pays you, but because it is +right and good to do it:—something like this is to be morally good. And +to be so is not a mere means to an end beyond it, but a great _part_ of +the end, or best life, or realization of human nature. + +It is not, however, the whole. To discover or re-discover truth, for +example, and to make or re-make beauty, are certainly elements in the +best life; and truth and beauty are not morality, nor yet mere means to +it; they have an intrinsic value of their own. Moral goodness, +therefore, though a large part of the best life, is not the whole. No: +but it is the condition, the _sine qua non_, of these other parts. To +discover truth, for example, is not a mere matter of natural gifts—it +requires will, and a moral will. The investigator must undergo fatigue, +renounce many pleasant things, sacrifice his pre-conceived ideas and his +secret wish to reach a particular conclusion; and all this is morality, +whether in other respects he is moral or not. And these are only +examples. The same thing holds good over the whole of life, wherever +there is action, inward or outward. + +Thus it appears, first, that morality is a large part of the good life; +and, secondly, that all those activities which in their special natures +are not moral still fall within the moral sphere so far as will and +character are concerned in them; and they cannot help being so +concerned. But, if so, the end of the state, the best life, is a moral +end, and the state a moral agent. + +I said I would ignore objections; but there is an objection to this view +so obvious and so dangerous that I dare not pass it by. ‘If the state +had a moral end,’ it may be said, ‘it would not merely protect the life +and property of the citizen, and then leave him free to live well or ill +at his pleasure: it would enforce morality, or at any rate promote it by +rewards and punishments. But it neither does this, nor do most of us +think that it ought.’ Now even in England the state does much more than +this objection supposes; but, leaving that alone, we may answer thus. +The state, though its end is moral, does not enforce morality because it +cannot. It can enforce actions _outwardly_ the same as moral actions; +but to force a man to do them morally, to do them not because he must +but because he approves them or thinks them his duty, is beyond the +power, not only of the state, but of the whole universe. Moral action, +like immoral, is free action; and to talk of enforcing it is to talk of +a square circle. And, in the second place, the reason why, on the whole, +the state abstains, so far as possible, from enforcing or promoting +actions outwardly like moral ones, is itself a moral reason. To force or +bribe a man to do what he ought to do freely and morally, tends in some +degree to interfere with his doing it freely and morally. The state +cannot help taking this risk to some extent; for it must maintain the +necessary pre-requisites of good life, e. g. security of life and +property. But it limits its compulsive action, not in order that people +may freely live as badly as they please, but in order that they may +freely live as well as they can.[5] + +We have now reached the conclusion that, as regards itself or (it is the +same thing) its members in their organic unity, the state is a moral +agent. But is it one in the further sense that it has duties to other +states, such duties that these other states have a moral right to their +performance? Almost all of us, probably, will be disposed to answer Yes; +yet, as soon as we begin to think about the question, we meet with facts +and considerations that perplex us. Not three centuries ago a great +philosopher could say that states are by nature enemies.[6] Bacon is +often called our great English moralist; and Bacon, writing of the +dealings of kings with their neighbours, tells us that only one general +rule can be given in the matter, but ‘one that ever holdeth; which is, +that Princes do keep due sentinel that none of their neighbours do +overgrow so ... as they become more able to annoy them than they +were’.[7] We may reassure ourselves by remembering that Bacon lived a +long time ago and had studied Machiavelli to some purpose; yet we, in +our own day, are not surprised if a subject of dispute between other +nations is dismissed by our Government in the phrase, ‘It does not +affect British interests’, a phrase which may _seem_ to imply that the +duty of a state is simply and solely to itself. What it does imply, a +moment’s thought will show us, is only that the state’s primary duty is +that; and this inoffensive implication we may be ready to accept. And +yet if a man saw two other men quarrelling in the street in a manner +that threatened bloodshed, we should hardly think it moral in him to +pass on with the remark, ‘It does not affect my interests’; we should +think he ought at any rate to look for a policeman. This difficulty, +again, we may remove by the just reflection that no policeman can be +found for states, and in general that we cannot safely argue from the +duties of a citizen to those of a nation. But then where will this +reflection lead us? Citizens, perhaps we shall say, have duties to one +another and to the state, and the state has duties to them, because they +are members of this one community and share its one life, will, and +good; but this moral community is the largest and highest that exists in +the visible or actual world, what we call mankind being evidently not an +organized whole but a mere scattered aggregate. Thus we may feel driven +after all to conclude that the state is its own absolute end and has no +duty except to itself. And if this conclusion still troubles us, we may +consider that, at any rate, the state has a duty to itself in respect of +its behaviour to other states; and we may even suspect that we are +vexing ourselves with a mere question of words, since in any case a +moral agent cannot have a duty to another which is not also a duty to +itself. + +However this may be, we shall find it worth while to dwell for a minute +on the idea that the state has duties only to itself. If this idea were +fully carried out it would lead, I believe, to just the same result as +the view that states have duties to each other. For, as we have seen, +the end of the state, and therefore the state’s own ‘interest’,[8] is +nothing short of the best possible life of its members. Its independence +is necessary to that life; power is necessary to it; wealth is +necessary; even high spirit and a certain pride may be so; and times may +come when a resolute assertion of its rights even by war is necessary. +But the best possible life, including, permanently or on occasion, all +these things, is much wider than any or all of them. None of them has +value apart from it. Those of them which, like wealth and power, exist +only in this or that degree, are of value only in the degree in which +they really contribute to the best life, and in that life the goods of +the soul rank, in value, first. An action of the state, therefore, which +increases its wealth or power to the detriment of the character of its +citizens cannot be in its interest, but is, on the contrary, a violation +of its duty to itself. And so is any breach of promise to another state, +any intentional injury to another, or any war upon another, which is +inconsistent with that best life of its own citizens which is their one +and only absolute interest. Hence we may say that a state can do no +wrong to another which is not equally, or even more, a wrong to itself; +that, if it rightly understands its duty to itself, it need consider +nothing else; and that patriotism, in the true and complete meaning of +the word, is the final and all-inclusive virtue. And if this view of the +matter could really become the inspiration of a nation’s life, it would +certainly have great advantages. It would make the nation realize that, +next to the primary duty of maintaining the pre-requisites of its life, +its main business is not to improve others—least of all by conquest—but +to improve itself; and that to be grasping, inconsiderate, irritable, +and meddlesome is no part of the best life. Or imagine for a moment +that, when peace returns to England, we could retain undiminished that +sense of unity and that self-devotion which have been evoked by war, and +could use them wisely in all their strength, if only for ten years, to +make England, morally and socially, all that it might be. Why, it might +become, for itself, almost what Shakespeare called it, a ‘second Eden’, +and, for others, a light to lighten the nations. + +Thus the doctrine that a state has duties only to itself, if taken in +its full sense, is far from being selfish or degrading. But then it is +fatally easy to take it in its more obvious and its untrue sense; and we +know too well how ideas, innocent and just in themselves, may be twisted +into shapes that affront any unsophisticated conscience. Besides, this +formula, even rightly construed, does not appear to suffice. To say that +the so-called duty of a state to another is simply its duty to itself in +respect of that other, would be satisfactory if that other were a tree +or a lion; because my having a duty to another implies, in strictness, +that this other has or may have a duty to me; and a tree or a lion, not +being a rational agent, is incapable of duty, and, for the same reason, +cannot be a member of a moral community. But the other state, like my +own, is a rational being. The two have the same nature and the same end, +the best possible life. That is common to them; and though it is by no +means enough to make them members of an actual community in which the +good of one is, in some degree, the good of another and of all, it +surely is enough to give them, so far as they come in contact, and apart +from obligations arising out of treaties between them, duties to one +another and moral rights against one another. Indeed this seems to hold +of all human beings, whether they belong to states or to lower forms of +society. Slavery, for example, is now among civilized peoples +universally admitted to be wrong, and states forbid their citizens to +practise it. To whom then is it a wrong? To the enslaver himself, no +doubt, but surely also to the slave. He—a negro, perhaps—is, like the +enslaver, a rational being with a capacity for a best life. He proves it +by his membership in a tribe, in which he has what, in effect, are +rights and duties. His tribal morality differs from our civic morality; +but what of that? It is enough to give him a claim against us to be left +free to live as well as he can, and enough to make it our duty to him, +if not to aid him, at least to leave him free.[9] + +The duties which, on this showing, all men have to one another may now +be few and elementary; and this may be said even of the duties of states +to one another (over and above the unquestionable obligations arising +from their treaties). But these duties are bound to grow in number and +complexity, and the day perhaps may come when ‘mankind’ or ‘humanity’ +will be no mere scattered aggregate, but an all-embracing organized +community of members—if not states, still corporate bodies of some +kind—united in pursuit of a common end, the best life of man. This life +would be different in each body, a harmony, not a monotone; and the +difference in each would be its special contribution to the whole. The +members of each would still be more closely united with one another than +with those of other bodies, and have duties to their own body that they +had not to others; and these bodies, being human, could hardly fail +sometimes to disagree. But none of them would dream of regarding itself +as its sole or absolute end, and one may surely believe that they would +not need to settle their differences by war. This community, at the +best, must be far distant; but to keep it in view and, so far as +possible, to feel and act as though it were already here, is, even in +warring, to live inwardly in peace with your enemy, and, it may be, to +lessen the distance by an hour or even a day.[10] And at least the +pre-requisite of such a community—I mean the closer contact of +mankind—is undeniably and rapidly being realized. Our own country makes +itself a huge far-extending Empire. In the East Japan starts into sudden +greatness. Africa is parcelled out among the states of Europe. The +states of the world are bound together more and more by trade. There is +another side, no doubt, to all these changes. In our Empire-making we +did things we cannot justify, and the Empire made becomes an object of +envy and a cause of war. The rise of Japan at once brings war in the +East, and alarm and enmity in the Western hemisphere. The parcelling of +Africa means the horrors of the Congo; and states bound together by +trade fight one another with tariffs. Nevertheless these changes do +visibly tend in one direction. Is it vain to hope that they move +invisibly to one goal, moving there neither by accident nor mainly by +the conscious purpose of men? + +Meanwhile already we have in Europe a number of states, connected by +almost perpetual contact, sharing to some extent a single type of +civilization and morality, yet possessed of such distinct characters, +and developing this type in such individual forms, that each of them +brings to the common stock a contribution which no other can bring and +which it is essential to preserve. What further duties they have to one +another beyond that contribution I cannot discuss: I have to dwell on a +different point. That these duties may be more extensive and positive +than they are now generally recognized to be, one can well imagine; but +I find it difficult to imagine that the primary and main duty of a state +to other states can cease to be the contribution of its own best life. +Yet to many minds this appears a selfish view. Openly or unconsciously +they seem to demand that states should behave to one another like good +men, or even like friends, or even like brothers. And the flagrant +contradiction between such demands and the actual behaviour of states +causes not only painful disappointment but an injurious dismay. Yet what +is in fault here, perhaps, is not only, or even mainly, the behaviour of +states, but something unreasonable in the demand. + +I have not read General Bernhardi’s book since it first appeared, but I +understand he says in it that the morality of a state cannot be the same +as that of an individual. This assertion, if one may judge from a poem +by Mr. Noyes and an article in one of our best weekly papers, is +considered almost diabolical; and very likely the author draws from it +false and immoral conclusions—one would expect him to. But surely the +statement itself is perfectly sound. All moralities, of course, are the +same, in the sense that they _are_ morality, or a doing of duty: but +what acts in particular are the duties of a moral agent must depend on +the nature of the agent and the position he occupies. The duty of my +brother to help me, if need be, with his money, or to tell me that I am +disgracing the family, does not therefore belong to every one here +present. It may be of use to point out some differences between a state +and an individual, which prevent them from having the same duties and +even account for their sometimes doing what two reasonable men, +practically speaking, never do—fighting one another. + +If A and B, two reasonable Englishmen, cannot agree in interpreting +their contract, they do not fall to blows, they go to arbitration or a +court of law. If A vilifies B, the latter, if he thinks it of +importance, can take A into court. If A tries to pick B’s pocket or +assaults him, B may indeed use such force as is immediately necessary to +protect his person or property, but no more; it is the business of the +law to protect him and to punish A. This power, the law, has three +obvious characteristics. It purports to be, and in a good state is, the +expression of that reason and right will which is common to A and B, as +distinguished from their personal feelings and passions. It is perfectly +impartial in regard to A and B. And, lastly, it is a power, against +which they are powerless. Whatever they may think of its decision, it +will enforce it. + +But if A and B are states, how do they stand? If they differ in +interpreting their treaty, or in fixing what sum A should pay to B for +an unintentional injury, they, like citizens, can go, in one way or +another, to arbitration. The arbiter, it is true, has no power to +enforce his decision, but that need not matter much, since A and B would +hardly have gone to him if they did not mean to abide by it. This, +however, is a narrow field. When the question concerns an assault of A +on B, or what they call their vital interests or even their honour +(which is not merely their private feeling but their repute and weight +in the world), where will they find an embodied reason with its perfect +impartiality? Seldom, if ever, in other states, either severally or +combined, when each of these others has its likes and dislikes to A and +B, and vital interests of its own, connected positively or negatively +with theirs. And even if this problem were surmounted and the impartial +arbiter found, his decision, so far from having overwhelming force +behind it, has or may have none at all except that of public opinion. Of +course it does not follow that B’s duty must be war, but it does follow +that you cannot find his duty by examining the duties of an individual. + +Take a second difference. You, an individual citizen, have interests in +a special sense your own. But you may well think it your duty to injure +some of them; to be poor when you might be well off; to leave many of +your capacities undeveloped that you may do good through the +disproportionate growth of one or two; even to weaken your health and +shorten your life for some worthy object; nay, if need be, to risk it or +throw it away for the life of another. Asked to justify your conduct, +you might answer perhaps that your life is but one of forty million +English lives, that what you lose others gain, and that there are plenty +to take your place. But England, your state, _is_ forty million lives. +For it to surrender _its_ interest, to make itself poor, weak, or +maimed, is to do that to forty millions, many of them children. How then +can it have the same duty that you have; and how can its normal primary +duty help being its duty to itself? Nor is this all. It, your country, +is not merely these forty millions, any more than an oak is the leaves +of this year. Your country’s span of life is not a little threescore +years and ten. Its honour is the honour of its countless dead, and both +its honour and its welfare are those of its innumerable sons and +daughters yet to be. How can it, the state of this year, a mere trustee, +have the same right and duty to sacrifice that welfare that you have to +sacrifice yours? And even this, again, is not all. You can sacrifice +yours, for you are but one of forty millions. But how many states are +there in the world? Not a hundred, I imagine.[11] And, out of these, how +many whose value to mankind is equal to the value of your state? Let us +be modest and say ‘six’. Well, but if your country had only a hundred +inhabitants, and only six of them were as useful as you, your right and +duty to injure or risk your life would undergo a prodigious change. I do +not say it would vanish, nor that a state cannot have such a duty; but +the question whether such a duty has arisen cannot be settled by +comparison with the duties of a citizen. + +I trust I have not seemed to be championing either national +selfishness[12] or war. No one can be more convinced that it is +sometimes the duty of a state to forgo an advantage, to run a risk, and +even to injure itself in some degree, in order to help another actively +or allow another to develop itself, if (I must add) it is satisfied that +this is to the advantage of mankind. And, as to war, I should like to +say briefly how I regard it (which it would be absurd to do if I thought +this view a merely personal one). Certainly I believe that a war may be +right and therefore a duty; and I do not see how to maintain that an +offensive war can _never_ be so. Nor could I for a moment admit—what is +often taken for granted—that peace is an unconditional good. Nothing is +so except the best possible life; and peace, though it is the normal +foundation of that, is no more. Hence, when I ask myself whether I wish +for the total disappearance of war, I answer ‘Yes, if, or when, +uninterrupted peace can perform the office and generate the good of +war’. There are wars almost entirely evil; but war, on the whole, may +roughly be compared with tragedy—I mean the tragic actions and +sufferings portrayed by great poets. If things had to be classed roughly +as good and evil, war and tragedy would be placed among the evils. But +if the disappearance of either meant the disappearance, or even a +lowering, of those noble and glorious energies of the soul which appear +in both and are in part the cause of both, the life of perpetual peace +would be a poor thing, superficially less terrible perhaps than the +present life, but much less great and good. Nor, if I may say so, do I +understand how this view can seem heathenish to any one who believes +that suffering, and even wrong, have some meaning in the world. + +But those who think thus about war are not therefore champions of war. +They may believe that it does lie in man’s power slowly by degrees to +gain in peace all the good of war; that it is monstrous to call war an +end in itself, or even, if we speak strictly, one of the purposes of the +state; that many wars, perhaps most, have been, so far as we can see, +needless and therefore, in their origin, wholly wrong; and that the +diminution of war is assuredly to be desired and pursued. And so I +hasten to a few remarks on the second subject of the lecture. + + +This subject is not the conditions of the peace to which we are looking +forward—no safe matter for public discussion even by persons more +competent than I. And, further, the proposals, or rather the one +proposal of which there is time to speak, belong—in my view at least—to +a future more or less distant, and in any case subsequent to the period +when, as we trust, the feelings produced by this war will be dying away. +For we surely cannot imagine that any ambitious scheme can work unless +it has behind it positive goodwill as well as a desire to avoid the +evils of war. + +Let us assume, and so dismiss, as a thing which seems clearly coming to +be in principle admitted, the duty of states to observe international +law,[13] and to refer to arbitration in some form such matters as may +safely be so referred; and I will merely remind the despondent that the +progress towards that admission during the last fifty or even twenty +years has been nothing less than immense. Even in this matter, no doubt, +much remains to be done; but what is desired is much more than this. It +is an arrangement or institution likely to diminish the chances of war +about the more difficult and dangerous questions: for example the +question, not of the complicity of Serbian officials in the murder of +the Archduke, but whether Serbia was pursuing a policy, or encouraging a +movement, aimed at the integrity of Austria-Hungary; a question which, I +imagine, neither state would have cared to submit to a court unless it +had been pretty sure what the decision would be. And, if we recall the +differences pointed out between an individual and a state, it seems +clear that what is wanted is something like that state-law which stands +above individuals, something which, at its best, is an embodiment of +reason, perfectly impartial, and possessed of overwhelming force. + +The idea of a United States, or Confederation, of Europe has been mooted +for some centuries.[14] Kant took it up a hundred and twenty years ago, +and drew the outline of a scheme in his essay on _Perpetual Peace_. It +was a favourite idea with Mazzini. And it is now coming into the +foreground in various shapes, of which the following is perhaps the most +definite. The states of Europe, by federation or without it, would form +a permanent council to decide all international differences, arbitrable +or other, and, if necessary, to carry out the decision through an armed +force, to which in some agreed way their several armies would +contribute. But, considering the overwhelming power of the Union as +compared with that of a recalcitrant state, this necessity, it is +thought, would never, or at any rate very rarely, arise. + +Just because this idea is so attractive and appears so hopeful, I +propose to pass by its obvious advantages and to touch on some of its +difficulties and dangers; but I must first mention a variation in the +scheme, due to a sense of one of these dangers. Seeley, soon after the +Franco-German War (_Macmillan’s Magazine_, March, 1871), considered the +United States idea, with results which may be thus condensed. (1) The +Union must be a federation, and a close one, as close as that of the +United States of America. (2) No state must possess an armed force of +its own: the only army would be that of the Federation. (3) Existing +states would never consent to this provision; but a long and unremitting +propaganda among all the populations (for it is to _them_ that peace is +all-important) might quite possibly compel their governments to adopt +the scheme. ‘Possibly’, I say to myself, ‘it might, but nothing else +would; and if the populations ever acquired so unanimous and resolute a +will for peace, surely the need of a Union would have disappeared, and, +with states remaining as separate as they are now, the chances of war +would be as much diminished as they can be.’ Therefore, without +discussing the feasibility of Seeley’s plan, or its desirability (which +is far from indubitable), I go on to some remarks on the unmodified +scheme. + +1. Since the Union would deal with all disputes, and not only with what +may be called legal ones, could all its states have equal voices in the +council? Where vital interests are concerned, can one ask or expect that +a fifty-million state should have no more votes than a five-million one? +Surely not. In any case, whatever the voting-arrangements of the council +might be, it seems wellnigh certain that these disputes would in effect +be settled, I do not say in the interest of the Great Powers, but by +them. + +2. When a decree unfavourable to a powerful state (or more than one) was +felt by it to touch deeply its honour or interests, there would always +be danger of its trying to elude the requirements laid on it, and an +equal danger that other states would shut their eyes to this attempt +rather than enforce the decree at the cost of all the evils of war. It +is vain to imagine that states would constantly put their duty to Europe +in front of their duty to their own people. + +3. There would always be danger of secret combinations of individual +states in pursuit of what they thought their common interests over +against the interests of the rest; a danger therefore that things would +either drift back to their present position or else lead to civil war in +the Union. Some people appear to have forgotten that there was ever +civil war in the American Union; but ugly facts do not vanish by being +ignored, and we have to remember too that the European Union would +consist of states differing in race or nationality far more than the +American states. + +4. Europe is not the world. There is, for example, a western hemisphere. +Would the American Union be willing to join the European, and so to +entangle itself in our disputes? And, if it were, would many European +states care to give it the chance? Scarcely, unless it became what some +writers apparently imagine it to be already, an eminently peace-loving, +self-sacrificing, and scrupulous Power. + +Let us suppose, then, that it stayed outside. In that case, war between +it and one or more of the European states would not, presumably, be held +to involve the rest. And yet the success of the European Union would +depend a good deal on the growth of a special European feeling which +does not now exist; and, just as the growth of national feeling has +brought great dangers with it, so, though doubtless in smaller measure, +would the growth of that European feeling. And in the West, we must +remember, we have not only the United States but the Monroe doctrine. +The possibility I am pointing to is a frightful one, and, some will say, +too frightful to be realized. And so they said, a year ago, of a +possibility which at this moment is an appalling fact. + +It should be needless to refer to similar risks arising from the +greatness of Japan, a possible revival of China, the facts that Russia +extends into Asia and that the other great European Powers have colonies +or dependencies outside Europe. When the idea of a European Union was +first broached, the dangers of which I have lately been speaking were +not yet in sight. + +5. There is still another, and a very grave one. History is a continual +change, and, as we all hope and some of us believe, the change is, in +the main, a progress. But is it not probable, to say the least, that to +a European Union the easiest and the most tempting course would +generally be to discourage change and maintain the _status quo_? And if +its first or chief object were peace, would it not seem right in doing +this? Yet if such a Union had been formed a century ago, and had not +soon been broken by the secession of England and France, would it not +certainly have discouraged and even resisted most of the changes that we +now think good—changes, let us remember, made largely by insurrection +and war? We know what the Holy Alliance actually did and wanted to do. +Well, we may feel fairly secure that the European Union would not +resemble it in supporting mere ‘legitimacy’, but can we feel secure +that, in the very interest of law and peace, it would never ‘haply be +found fighting against God’; or, if that phrase is objected to, let us +say ‘fighting against changes that are necessary for the progress of +mankind’?[15] + +The difficulties and dangers now mentioned (and there may well be +others) are formidable. To meet and surmount them would tax, no doubt, +the foresight and skill of statesmen, and the goodwill of populations +which cannot be expected to have foresight and skill. But they do not +appear to be more than dangers and difficulties, nor does the ideal of a +United States (not necessarily a federation) seem to conflict with +anything fundamental in the nature of the state; while both the course +of history and the minds of men do seem to have been moving for some +time in this direction. On the other hand, as has been suggested +already, any attempt to realize that ideal in the immediate future would +almost certainly be vain and, if vain, highly dangerous; and there are +reasons not yet mentioned for fearing that the time when it could +succeed must be distant. Must we not accept what Mazzini used to say of +such an ideal—that it could not be made real until two pre-requisites +had been attained?[16] + +The map of Europe must first be re-drawn, he said, so that the divisions +of states correspond with those of nationality. A deliverance like this +must be taken somewhat loosely. It did not mean for Mazzini that the +Union of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland must be dissolved, or +that the German Empire must cease to exist; and we are told that there +are ethnical unities in the south-east of Europe which are +geographically so distributed that they could not form single states. +But, any really necessary qualification being admitted, the general +statement appears sound. The sentiment of nationality has unquestionably +been one of the chief causes of unrest and war in Europe ever since the +Powers established in 1815 a system based on legitimacy. And this +sentiment, which is not a sentiment but a passion and almost a religious +faith, shows not the slightest sign of dying away. It has wellnigh +destroyed the Turkish Empire in Europe, in Mazzini’s view one of the two +main obstacles to progress. The other was the Austrian Empire; and the +working of that same passion in Serbia may have initiated the +dissolution of that Empire too. + +According to Mazzini, the second pre-requisite of a United States was +that all the states concerned should have become democratic. Kant, using +another terminology, had said the same thing. What is in question here +is, surely, not chiefly the ‘democratization’ of foreign policy and +diplomacy, about which much nonsense is being written just now, and some +good sense.[17] When we call a state democratic, and when we use the +word in a strictly political sense, we mean, roughly speaking, that it +has a very large electorate, and that the power which acts for the state +really represents, and is responsible to, this electorate. And, though +we may feel less confident than Mazzini was, that democracies would +always be friendly and never more pugnacious than nobles or kings, most +of us perhaps will agree that the prospects of peace will not be greatly +improved so long as the power to make war rests, openly or otherwise, +either with an autocrat, wise and good or foolish and ill-willed, as +chance may determine, or with representatives of sectional interests, +social, military, bureaucratic, or financial, all of which, though in +varying degrees, are separable from national interests and provide +motives for unnecessary wars. Only it must be remembered that a state is +not democratic merely because its government fairly represents the +nation. In this war, for example, the German Government appears to +represent the German people as fully as our Government does ours. Yet +Germany is in no sense democratic, and England, politically, is.[18] + + +This brings me to a last word. Perhaps some of my hearers, listening to +the earlier part of this lecture, may have said to themselves: ‘Why this +theorizing about the nature of the state and its exalted mission? It is +just what has brought the Germans to worship force and to glorify to +themselves their desire for domination.’ This particular charge against +German philosophy is in the fashion, and, although a proper discussion +of it is out of the question here, I should like to refer to it. + +Even if it had much truth, we English are not Germans, and intoxication +by ideas is not exactly a failing of the English—nor even of the Scotch, +who do reverence intellect. But the truth in this charge is not great. +What has led, apparently, a large number of Germans to the strange, +perverted state of mind we witness, is surely not, in the main, ideas, +philosophical or other, but first and foremost what has happened to +Germany. After being for long years, even for centuries, a ‘Hamlet among +the nations’; great, that is to say, in the purely spiritual spheres of +religion, philosophy, music, poetry, but, to all appearance, incapable +in the world of political action, she found herself on a sudden, +five-and-forty years ago, the most powerful state in Europe. She owed +this, too, in the main, not to a long and arduous effort of her peoples +(for that would have had a different effect), but to a merely military +force enlarged and perfected by the unconstitutional action of a +statesman and a king. And on the success of this military force and of a +Machiavellian diplomacy in creating the Empire there followed (what also +was to a large extent new) an immense increase in industrial and +commercial activity, in wealth, and in population. It would be no great +wonder, I think, if any people’s head were turned by such a change. + +Next to this chief cause comes the fact (as, on the testimony of others, +I suppose it to be) that the views and feelings thus generated +concerning the greatness and the future of Germany have been for years +assiduously fostered in the people through an admirably efficient system +of university and school education.[19] + +Now what has philosophy had to do with the ideas so instilled, and with +other ideas that have gone to produce a perverted ideal and state of +mind? Something, no doubt, but of that something very little belongs to +the great philosophers. A leading German historian, I am told, +criticizes Plato and Aristotle because they say almost nothing about the +state’s being essentially _might_. Perhaps they thought this undeniable +fact too obvious to need emphasis; but in any case the same criticism +might be passed on Kant and Hegel. It is true that in Hegel’s +_Rechtsphilosophie_ there are a few expressions which, taken in +isolation and exaggerated as a philosopher’s ideas are apt to be, might +do harm; but in all its pages, while there is much about will and the +will for good, there is little enough about force.[20] Germany’s +greatest philosopher since Hegel, I suppose, is Lotze, a teacher about +as likely as Mill or Green to encourage the worship of force. Indeed, so +far as I know, the only philosopher who is, in a degree worth notice, +responsible for that worship is Nietzsche, who was neither an admirer of +the Prussian state nor by any means a great philosopher. He was, +however, a man of genius, with a poetic imagination and an admirable +style; and in Germany that is a thing rarer than a philosopher and, to +the mass of readers, much more dangerous. If he could have written as +Kant wrote he would scarcely have done much mischief. Nobody could bear +to read Kant who was not bent on finding truth, but truth is not the +quarry that Nietzsche’s thousands of readers hunt. + +If Germany were doomed to win this war, she might continue—for how long, +we cannot tell—to be the victim of a perverse ideal. But any Englishman +who reveres and loves that soul of her which speaks in her music, +philosophy, and poetry, must desire her total defeat for her own sake as +well as for his country’s and the world’s. It is incredible that that +soul is dead, and that anguish would not wake it from its evil dream. + + + + + IV + THE CHANGING MIND OF A NATION AT WAR + + BY L. P. JACKS + + +I owe you a word of explanation for the seeming audacity displayed in +the title of my lecture. What right have I, what right has any one, to +speak for the mind of the nation? Surely the most that one can do is to +describe the changes of his own mind. The mind of the nation is beyond +him. + +I do not believe this. There is one mind in all of us at the present +moment—and it is the mind of the nation. The mind of the nation has +become, to a greater degree than ever before, the mind of the individual +citizen. That is the greatest of all the changes which have taken place +since the war began. The national mind is no longer a mere theme for +speculation. It has entered, in some measure, into every one of us. It +has become an active principle of our consciousness. It has brought +great thoughts and great resolutions to multitudes. It has both +amplified and simplified our lives. It has wakened powers that +slumbered; it has revived great memories that were half forgotten; it +has linked us together and made us one. + +Under these circumstances there is no audacity in speaking of the mind +of the nation. The distinction between our own thoughts and the nation’s +thoughts is being obliterated. Ask the first honest man you meet to tell +you what he is thinking, and if he answers faithfully, he will tell you +something of what the nation is thinking. + + + I + +Never, in my memory, has intercourse with thoughtful men been as +suggestive and stimulating as it has been since the war broke out. It is +hardly possible, to-day, to enter into conversation with an educated +person without noting the emergence of some new point of view. Under the +strain and pressure of the time mens’ minds are yielding ideas and +making discoveries. There is in consequence a certain vividness in the +intellectual life of the country which relieves, to some extent, the +moral distress. In the presence of danger our intelligence, our +imagination, our will, are unusually wide awake. We begin to perceive +the limits of accepted forms of thought, the inadequacy of the standards +by which we have been accustomed to pass judgement on life and on +history, and the partial nature of truths we had regarded as final and +complete. A great disturbance, like that of an earthquake, is passing +beneath our life, and the elements of that life are rearranging +themselves in new perspectives. We are virtually living in another world +compared with that in which we were alive eight months ago. + +The world before the war was comparatively _safe_; the world of to-day +is _threatened_. Eight months ago we looked out into a future which +seemed assured. We were laying out plans, buying, selling, building, +marrying and giving in marriage, like the men of old before the Lord +rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Our sons were growing up and we were +arranging their peaceful careers. To-day our sons are in arms, and under +orders for the front, and as they gather round us for the parting feast, +we thank God that we cannot raise the veil of the future. Our most +intimate ties are threatened with possibilities of which we dare not +think. Thus at the very centre of our life the earthquake begins, and it +runs outward until every idea, every habit of mind, every interest, +every conviction, has received some share of the shock. But the shock, +far from paralysing the nation’s mind, serves rather to liberate its +reserves of intellectual vitality. The new world in which we find +ourselves is not terrible only; it is full of challenge to our thinking +faculties. It provides a daily stimulus to spiritual curiosity. Thus the +intercourse of thoughtful men grows more vivid, and it becomes easy to +understand how, from conditions like these, new births of the soul have +come to nations; times of danger and calamity being often followed by +times of creativeness in all the arts of life. + +Ladies and gentlemen, are we not all _thinking more_ than we did before +the war began—thinking more deeply, more earnestly, more constantly? +There is a new thoughtfulness in the air which is raising the level of +intelligence in all classes of the community. The matters we are +thinking about are big and terrible and splendid, all at the same time. +We are asking questions which it is an education to ask, even though for +the time being we cannot answer them. Because the questions are great +questions they are giving us a juster sense of proportion. We are +thinking a little more about our duties and a little less about our +rights. ‘Business’ still goes on; but not quite as usual, for something +more important than business is in our minds. We are measuring ourselves +by higher standards. The heroism of the forces, the daily spectacle of +our young men going to the war, reminds us of ethical truths we had half +forgotten. Great questions about society and civilization are +challenging our minds and compelling us to look at them from new angles +of vision. It is good for us to be ‘brought up sharp’ by these things. +Still better, that we should be forced to think of them not as mere +academic questions, but as questions of life and death. And best of all, +when the whole people is forced to think about them _at the same time_. +We are coming _together_ into the presence of these problems. That makes +an enormous difference. One reason why the great concerns of life are +not better cared for is that in normal times the interest taken in them +is piecemeal. You think of them to-day and I think of them to-morrow, +with the result that I am hot while you are cold, and I am critical +while you are enthusiastic. But the new thoughtfulness is not of that +broken, interrupted kind. It is simultaneous and widespread. We are all +in it at once. You remember what Emerson says about the strange things +that may happen when God lets loose a thinker on this planet. But this +time a thinking community has been let loose. Momentous results are +bound to follow. + +I am inclined to believe that the mind of the nation was never in a more +hopeful frame. I cannot go to the length of a writer in one of the daily +papers who says that England was never so happy. The tragedy is too deep +for that. But I do think that England was never so promising. What will +come from her awakened thoughtfulness no man can predict. But if it +should turn out to be better than the best we have ever hoped for, there +would be no cause for surprise. + + + II + +And here we come to a strange and paradoxical thing. One of the first +effects of this awakened intelligence is to raise a doubt as to whether +the minds of nations are as intelligent as we thought them to be. For a +long time past a kind of humanism has been current which took the form +of an enthusiastic faith in the ‘march of mind’. Appearances seemed to +warrant the belief that men, organized in modern societies, were +becoming far more reasonable than their fathers. But look at this war! +What comment does it suggest on the ‘march of mind’? Think not of this +nation or of that, dismiss the question of whose diplomacy was right or +wrong, and view the war as though it were, what indeed it is, a single +action performed by civilization. What is our impression? Do we feel +ourselves in presence of some masterpiece of wisdom? Speaking for +myself, I can only say that the war, viewed as a single action, appears +to be the kind of action that could only be performed by a fool. I +cannot get away from the feeling that I am in the presence of some +colossal stupidity. Since history began to record the deeds of men, has +there ever been seen such an exhibition of limited intelligence? Who in +his sane senses would do such a thing? + +Just think what has happened. For generations past the general level of +intelligence in Western Europe has been rising. The individual is better +educated. Millions of these better educated individuals are combined +into societies more or less democratic. But what has become of this vast +aggregate of intelligence? Has it all gone into the common stock? Is it +all employed for the common good? Does the intelligence of every citizen +reinforce the intelligence of every other citizen, so that States become +endowed with the sum total of all the wisdom in all of their members? +Apparently not. Most of this intelligence seems to be wasted away in +mutual criticism, in the war of minds, before the State can get +possession of what remains. Does it not seem as though there were some +process of inner opposition at work by which a multitude of minds will +often neutralize each other’s intelligence; so that States, instead of +being wiser than individuals, often perpetrate follies of which the +least intelligent of their members would be heartily ashamed? + +I am inclined to think, therefore, that we shall emerge from the war +with a chastened confidence in the mere ‘march of mind’. We shall think +more, we are already thinking more, of those other qualities, such as +the plain sense of right and wrong, with which the march of mind needs +to be blended before it can do its work. Many disillusions of this kind +are on the way. There is a feeling abroad which is not quite articulate +as yet, that the war has somehow brought us into contact with Reality, +and that our ideas must be modified accordingly. ‘We are up against the +real thing’ is a phrase you must often have heard. It is frequently used +in soldiers’ letters written from the front; I have encountered it in +sermons, political speeches, and newspaper articles, in conversations +with working men; and in the comments of distinguished philosophers. + +Now I will not attempt to define what the ‘real thing’ is. I am not +quite sure that I know. But I think I can point out one of its +characteristics. The ‘real thing’ as we are now feeling its presence is +not a mere subject for _study_: it is something we have to _obey_. It is +a command, a summons, a trumpet note. In ordinary times Reality shows us +its _interesting_ side. Just now it is showing its _imperative_ side. In +ordinary times we talk about it. Just now it is talking to us. I can +almost imagine that Reality is paying off an old score it had against +us. We had been writing philosophical essays about it, treating it as +‘our subject’, as though we had it in the hollow of our hand; and +perhaps Reality was getting a little tired of hearing itself defined and +discussed. Anyhow the real thing is no longer passive. It has become +intensely active. It has given us a shock, it has roused us to our duty +and put a constraint upon our wills. The consequence is that a good deal +of nonsense is being knocked out of us. Let us hope it will not return! +We were much too comfortable, much too complacent, much too selfish, +before the war. And we were hardly prepared for so sudden a change of +behaviour on the part of the real thing. + + + III + +One effect of this shock has been to change our attitude towards the +State, and to make us think differently of the rights and duties of the +State. + +For many years past, there had been a tendency among us to look to the +State as an omnipotent power whose function and duty were to gratify our +desires and do our bidding. Whatever we wanted, better trade, higher +wages, easier conditions of life, schoolrooms, playgrounds, libraries, +art galleries, food for our children, provision for our old age—and so +on through an endless list—whatever it was, we exploited the State. And +the State, like an indulgent mother, gave in to us all round. Now this +one had his turn, and now that; and there was a good deal of quarrelling +among us as to whose turn came next. There seemed no limit to what the +State could do for us, and no limit either to what we had the right to +demand. It was a demoralizing business—demoralizing to us who got our +way, demoralizing to the State which gave us our way. But it went on +merrily and the wildest expectations were abroad of vast favours yet to +come. A few more teasings, a few more pistols held at the head of the +State, and a ‘scheme’ would be forthcoming which would render us all +happy and good in spite of ourselves. + +Then, one fine morning last August, there came a rude awakening. We got +a message from the State couched in language we had never heard before. +‘I require you,’ said the State, ‘to place your property and your lives +at my service. Now and for some time to come, I give nothing but ask +everything. Arm yourselves for my defence. Give me your sons and be +willing that they should die for me. Repay what you owe me. _My_ turn +has come.’ + +That is how the Real Thing talks to men when it uses the State as its +mouthpiece. Considering how strange and unaccustomed the language was, I +think the response the nation made was to its credit. No sooner did the +State turn its imperative side towards us than an instant peace fell +upon our warring factions. We had all been waiting for that word of +command to make us one—waiting but not knowing what we waited for. Our +demands on the State had been for different things: the State’s demand +on us was for the same thing—for uttermost self-sacrifice. It brought us +together as nothing else could have done. This was the first result of +our contact with the Real Thing. + + + IV + +This awakening of a sense of duty to the State is leading to a more +thorough understanding of the particular State to which we happen to +belong—I mean of course the British Empire. This is another and a very +promising change in the national mind. During the last few months a new +vision has come to many of us of what the British Empire really is. + +Speaking of Britons in general, I am afraid it must be confessed that +our knowledge of the Empire, our grasp of its significance, have been +inadequate to the immense human issues, and to the corresponding +responsibilities, which the Empire involves. We have been proud of this +vast heritage, we have complacently enjoyed the advantages which come to +all of us from its possession, we have talked vaguely and largely about +imperialism, but we have hardly taken our imperial duties to heart. Some +of us may have done so, but not the nation as a whole. To the majority +of the electorate the Empire has been a side issue, or a thing that +might be left to look after itself. It seemed too big and too broadly +based to be in danger of disturbance. Few of us gave much thought to it; +few of us allowed our imaginations to play round its meaning; still +fewer took the trouble to study its history. Had we done so we should +have realized, as I am afraid not many did realize, that a day would +dawn when our right to possess this Empire would be put to the proof, +when we should be challenged before the world to show that our +intelligence and our valour were equal to the vast imperial enterprise +on which we had engaged. + +But let us not forget that the British Empire, in its present extent and +organization, is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In size, in wealth, +in the civilization of its component parts and their close relations +with one another, its characteristics are so different from what they +were a century ago that we can draw no parallel with the Napoleonic era. +And now, for the first time in its history, this Greater Britain is +being attacked—and attacked with unexampled vehemence and resolution. It +is a new experience, and like all new experiences it is compelling a +readjustment of thought. + +This is a war of the Empire, by the Empire, for the Empire—and by the +Empire I mean all for which the Empire stands, its ideals as well as its +actualities. The Colonies and India are fighting for us and we are +fighting for them. Our fellow subjects in India are represented by a +great army of fine warriors, who have helped to check the would-be +invaders of our shores. Gurkhas, Sikhs, and Pathans have shed their +blood that London might be safe. Mohammedan, Hindu, and Christian have +fallen side by side in defence of the liberties of our race. This, I +say, is a new thing in our history. We feel a deepened intimacy with +these widely sundered races; the dominions over the seas seem no further +off than the next county. The Germans predicted that the outbreak of war +would split the Empire into fragments. It has given the Empire a +splendid solidarity such as it never before possessed. It has made us a +greater nation, not in the sense that it has added to our dominions, but +in the deeper sense that it has caused our political consciousness to +dilate to the imperial scale. The political organization of the Empire +is acquiring a corporate mind, just as the mother country after the +defeat of the Spanish Armada awoke to a new consciousness of her +national individuality and began to know herself for what she was. + +The parallel is profoundly interesting. It took the English people many +centuries to discover their own country. The English in the reign of +Henry VIII had a vaguer notion of England than we have of Canada (very +few had seen a map of England); of Scotland than we have of Ceylon; of +Ireland than we have of Central Africa. But just as these vague +conceptions gave place in course of time to vision and realization and +patriotic love for England, so now we British are beginning to think of +the Empire as something more than a confused extension of our national +boundaries, or as a group of appendages to our national home. The Empire +is becoming _our country_, an inheritance of which we have to prove +ourselves worthy, and we are becoming its citizens in heart as well as +in name. Not that the change is already complete or even very far +advanced. But no close observer of present tendencies will doubt that +the movement of the national mind is in the direction of which I speak. +Our imperial soul is beginning to germinate. If the change continues its +ethical and spiritual consequences will be very great. + + + V + +In connexion with this extension of our national consciousness one may +note at the present time some curious questionings among thoughtful men +as to the bearing of democratic theory on our imperial obligations. We +call ourselves a democracy; but there are moments, even in the course of +dealing with domestic problems, when we find it hard to reconcile the +facts with the theory. And the difficulty becomes greater in proportion +as we extend our thoughts to the imperial scale. According to the +democratic theory the people are to be consulted as to all that concerns +their interests. Well, there is nothing that concerns our interests +quite so deeply as the existence of the Empire. But when has the people +been consulted in the matter? Proud as the British may be of possessing +an empire on which the sun never sets, it is certain that the people as +a whole have never been asked whether they wished to possess such an +empire or not. They have never been asked how large they wished the +Empire to be; or whether they would or would not be content with +something less or greater. In an age when all things political are +supposed to be determined by voting it is a curious circumstance that +this, the greatest of political questions, has never been voted on at +all. Nay more. So far as I know, the British people have never said to +themselves, as the Germans have recently been saying, ‘Go to, now; +world-dominion shall be ours.’ It would tax the historian to fix the +period when the design for a world-wide empire became a definite +ambition of the British people. True, there have been statesmen like the +late Lord Beaconsfield, or Lord Chatham in an earlier age, who made +plans for increasing the dominions of the Crown. But the popular will +did not originate these designs, much as it may have applauded them when +they had been carried out—though even this has not always been the case. +Moreover, the control exercised even by statesmen over the process of +imperial expansion has been of a distinctly piecemeal character. As one +annexation followed another none of our ministers has foreseen where the +process would end. None of them has had a vision in advance of the +Empire as it exists to-day—in extent, in population, and in wealth. As +Seeley long ago pointed out, we have conquered half the world in a fit +of absence of mind. Indeed it would be extremely hard to fix +responsibility for the existence of the Empire, in its present +character, on any group or series of statesmen, or on any particular +generation of Britons—to say nothing of individual men. A province here, +a frontier there, an island somewhere else might be correctly set down +to an assignable wave of public opinion or to the diplomacy of a +particular minister. But the total growth seems to have escaped from +human control altogether. Certainly nothing would be more untrue than to +treat the existence of the Empire as though it corresponded to the +expressed will of the living generation. We have not _willed_ it into +being. We have found it there—like so many of the financial +obligations—e.g. the National Debt—which have been inherited from the +past, and have to be accepted whether we like them or not, in spite of +the maxim which is said to be the corner-stone of the constitution—‘No +taxation without representation’. + +Our new vision of the Empire is teaching us another thing. We are +learning to understand more clearly the influence of the past on the +present. We begin to see that we inherit from the past something more +than the monuments of the mighty dead. We inherit the very form and +pressure of our national life; the range, significance and general +direction of our imperial duties. We inherit not our social problems +only; but the courage to attack them, and much of the wisdom which +guides us to their solution. These in all their essential features have +been determined not _by_ us but _for_ us by the action of forces which +did their work before we came into existence. We are therefore in no +mood to respond to the lines of the well-known hymn which bid us ‘give +the past unto the wind’. A past which has bequeathed to us our national +status and the broad outline of our imperial responsibilities, a past +which has given us our political idealism and our love of liberty, +cannot be ‘given to the wind’ without a degree of treachery of which the +fiercest anarchist in our midst is not capable. Without distinction we +feel ourselves bound to ‘carry on’; and what we are ‘carrying on’ is the +work of our fathers from the most distant ages to the present day. We +are learning the great truth of which Burke was the prophet—the +immortality of the State. The past is throbbing in our veins. The cause +we are fighting for is a thousand years old. Patriots and martyrs for +liberty are no longer mere names in the book of history; they are living +forces in our midst. The buried generations are with us. We are members +of a community which is continuous in time and has millions of members, +vast clouds of witnesses from every age, whose work is waiting for our +loyalty to make it complete. + + + VI + +Ladies and gentlemen, all the changes I have described run together into +one and lead our minds in the same direction. They are driving the +thoughts of the nation to the roots of things. They are forcing us to +question the whole basis of our civilization. With the war before our +eyes we are prepared to find that there is something _radically_ wrong. +We are beginning to suspect that the mischief is deep-seated. It is true +that these suspicions had often been roused before this war broke out. A +visit to the slums will rouse them any day. But the war has made this +difference: it has brought us _all together_ into a suspicious frame of +mind; so that if anybody could make clear to us what the driving forces +of civilization really are, the mind of the nation would at once +challenge these forces to give an account of themselves and hold them +under suspicion until they could prove their innocence. + +Now there are two great forces which as everybody knows have been +mightily at work in European history for the last hundred years. One is +militarism, the other is industrialism. The mind of the nation is +thinking deeply about both of them. Militarism we have always suspected: +industrialism has borne a better character, though some of us have had +our doubts. But recently there have been signs—and they have been +especially prominent in Germany—that these two forces are much more +intimately connected than once seemed possible. What have militarism and +industrialism to do with one another? How are they related? The war has +thrown a new light on that question and I will try to express some of +our thoughts. + +On a superficial view we are tempted to describe the relation of +industrialism to militarism as one of antagonism. The two principles are +simply opposed the one to the other. Industrialism, we think, makes for +peace; militarism for war. Whence follows the simple conclusion that the +destruction of militarism will leave the peace-making principle in +control of civilization and fighting will be at an end. + +I believe that thoughtful people are becoming more and more dissatisfied +with this simple account of the matter. + +To begin with, there is the fact staring us in the face that an age +which is saturated with industrialism has given birth to the bloodiest +and most destructive war the world has ever seen. We have no need, at +this point, to assert the disputable proposition that industrialism has +caused the war. Let us content ourselves with the indisputable +proposition that industrialism has not prevented the war. + +If industrialism were essentially pacific this failure to prevent the +war would be hard to understand. As the dominant interest of nations and +individuals, and as making always for peace, how has it come to pass, we +may well ask, that industrialism has been unable to restrain the forces +which make for war, and for war on the most stupendous scale? We had +flattered ourselves that commerce by multiplying and strengthening the +ties between nations, would make it impossible for these to tear +themselves asunder and engage in mutual destruction. The event has +proved we were in error. + +Reflecting more deeply on its failure to keep the peace, a suspicion +gains ground that industrialism when unchecked by other forces may be a +positive cause of war. By increasing the wealth, the ostentation, and +the pride of the peoples, does it not serve to accentuate their +rivalries, to deepen their jealousies, and to inflame their predatory +passions? Is it not true that wherever great treasure-chests exist, +there will robbers be found also; and is the treasure less provocative +of covetousness when gained by commerce, than when extorted from the +labour of slaves or exacted by the ransom of conquered cities? Are two +nations, rich and happy in the sort of happiness that comes from riches, +more likely to be friends than two poor nations each possessing nothing +which tempts the cupidity of the other? + +For example, is not one of the chief causes of the present hostility +between Germany and Great Britain to be found in the fact that both of +them, as we say, ‘have done so well in business’? Is it of no +significance that war broke out at the very time when each was ‘doing +better than ever’? Eliminate, from the complex of conditions out of +which the war arose, the circumstance that industry had made both these +nations rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and may we not say without +hesitation that war between them would not have taken place? + +What answer shall we give to these questions? Shall we take refuge in +the argument that industrialism shows these baleful tendencies only +because it is imperfectly developed, and has not yet become truly +international in character? Shall we plead for a finer articulation of +the commercial tie, and for more industrialism rather than less? Will +our dream of the millennium be the conversion of the whole human race +into a Universal Joint Stock Company? Are we, in a word, to content +ourselves with the suppression of militarism and trust the weal of the +race to the working out of the industrial principle, unhampered by the +interference of its military yoke-fellow? + +Such answers show, I cannot help thinking, that we are legislating for +mankind without reckoning with man, as we so often fail to do. They +leave untouched the tap-root of war—that primitive instinct which the +old legislation sought to restrain by the command ‘Thou shalt not +covet’. + +Let us assume the extreme case and suppose that on the conclusion of the +war the nations of Europe, convinced of their folly and wickedness, +abandon every form of armament and determine for the future to spend not +one farthing of the national wealth on armies or fortresses or fleets. +What would follow? + +The immediate result would be the liberation of an enormous amount of +wealth hitherto set aside for military purposes. The greater part of +this wealth would flow into industrial channels. It is fair to assume +that industrialism would be the gainer annually to the extent of five +hundred million sterling and of a labour force represented by twenty +millions of men. This is a prospect that ought to make the mouths water +of those who think that industrial wealth is the foundation of human +good. + +Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, the United States—to speak of no +others—rich as they now are, would then grow enormously richer. The +natural resources of the earth would be exploited to an extent of which +the present economic development, vast as it is, affords no measure. The +mere circumstance that each nation might pursue its gains undisturbed by +the risk of aggression from the others would bring a vast accession of +confidence, and therefore of efficiency, to the labour and capital +employed. The total population of the earth would grow by leaps and +bounds. And under any fairly equitable scheme of distribution there +would be enough wealth in the world to render every member of the human +race well-off. + +But would there be _peace_? + +Long before the pleasing process we have imagined could work itself out +every one of the great communities would be torn to pieces by civil +wars. This, I mean, is what would assuredly happen if we suppose the +economic process to go on without some fundamental change in the ethos +of mankind. + +The peace of nations depends only in part on the suppression of +militarism. In yet larger measure it depends on the absence of +disruptive tendencies in the nations themselves. + +What these disruptive tendencies can do, or at least what they can +threaten, was made sufficiently clear in Great Britain during the few +months which preceded the outbreak of war. Nor were we alone in this +danger. I need not enter into particulars, for the facts are well known. +France, Germany, Austria, Russia—even the United States—were seething +with discontent. I recall the remark made to me by an American statesman +in 1912. Speaking of the prevalent social unrest he said, ‘We are on the +eve of a greater crisis than that of our Civil War.’ + +Internal disruption is the inevitable fate of every nation whose ethos, +or ideal, rests upon a purely industrial creed. The larger the scope for +pure industrialism and the fewer the checks which hold it in restraint, +the more rapidly do the disruptive tendencies gather head and the more +destructive do they become. It is not the poorest nations which reveal +the maximum of social discontent. It is the richest. And the prime cause +of this does not lie in the sense of inequality between individuals who +have more and individuals who have less; that, no doubt, is a cause, but +secondary. The root evil is, that a community which makes wealth its +object, and pursues it on the terms laid down by the economic machine, +is living under conditions which satisfy nobody and against which all +men are, by the higher human nature, born rebels. From this point of +view success in the economic enterprise is even worse for a nation than +failure. The greater the accumulation of wealth the more dissatisfied do +men become with the conditions of a merely economic life. Industrial +communities are always more restless when trade is good than when trade +is bad, as though the rottenness of the system could only be revealed by +its triumph. Seldom, however, does the restless spirit penetrate to the +true cause of the trouble. Unaware that the trouble comes from the +original vice of the whole enterprise on which we are engaged, we throw +upon our fellow victims the blame for the common lot, thinking that +because these suffer less than ourselves therefore they are responsible +for our sufferings—like the emigrants in the sinking ship who in the +blindness of their despair fell upon the first-class passengers and tore +them to pieces. + +In short, the common pursuit of wealth is not a _human_ bond. It leads +to the invention of schemes and machinery of every kind—material, +political, and social; but, of itself, it can never lead to the vital +organization of mankind. Nay rather, in spite of all that has been said +of its unifying tendency, we cannot doubt that its final working is to +disintegrate the community. Seekers of buried treasure invariably +quarrel among themselves, for reasons which are manifest to a child. +They may arrange the most equitable scheme for the division of the +spoils, and seal their mutual loyalty with fearful oaths, but before the +voyage is over the captain will be at the yardarm and the deck will be +slippery with the blood of half the crew. Whether they sail under the +Jolly Roger, or under the red ensign of industrial civilization, makes +little difference. Whether the spoil be buried in a pirate’s cavern or +in the unexploited resources of the earth, it all comes to the same +thing. + +Nor must we forget that the disruptive tendencies of pure industrialism +have hitherto been largely held in check by militarism itself. There can +hardly be a doubt that for many years past the common fear of foreign +aggression and the common need of being prepared for it have played a +very considerable part, against contrary forces working from within, in +maintaining the cohesion of every one of the great States now at war. +And if the question were raised, in which of the great communities of +the modern world have the signs of economic disruption been most +abundant, should we not have to point for answer to that country which +is at once the wealthiest and the least menaced by foreign war, and +where all classes have the largest share of this world’s goods—the +United States? + +By this time we are all agreed about one thing: militarism—I mean the +kind of militarism in which Germany has set the example—must go. Whether +a nobler militarism may arise hereafter is a question: but of this kind +we have had enough and more than enough. But let us be under no delusion +as to the sequel. When militarism goes the check will be removed which +has so far prevented industrialism from producing its bitterest fruits. +If, therefore, the war merely yields the negative result of destroying +militarism, we may lay our account with the certainty that there are yet +greater troubles in store for the world. + +But there is ground for hope in the very magnitude of the present +calamity. Let me remind you of something I have already mentioned in +another connexion: I mean the way in which the lessons of the war are +coming simultaneously to vast multitudes of persons. Apply that to the +mind of Europe as a whole. All the nations involved in the struggle are +learning the same lesson _at the same time_. All are engaged _together_ +in the bitter but salutary process of discovering their souls. A +piecemeal repentance of the nations, following a series of partial +conflicts, might effect very little; a simultaneous repentance, imposed +by a world-war, may effect a great deal. + +Whatever new wisdom, whatever vision of the weak spot in civilization +are coming to ourselves as a result of the war, we may be very sure that +the same wisdom, the same vision, are coming, in the same way, to our +allies and to our enemies. Realizing this, may we not believe that +beneath the fierce and bloody oppositions of the hour a profound +principle of unity is at work? + + + + + V + WAR AND HATRED[21] + + BY G. F. STOUT + + +What is the real attitude of those who call themselves Christians and +profess to accept the teaching of the New Testament towards the Sermon +on the Mount and especially towards such precepts as ‘Love your +enemies’? That there is here a huge and startling divergence between +theory and practice seems undeniable. It is equally clear that the +divergence is not merely of the kind which unavoidably separates moral +ideals from the actual conduct of imperfect human beings. For this only +means that, because of the frailty of human nature, we cannot, even with +our best endeavours, live up to the level of the moral ideal; it does +not mean that we refuse sincerely to recognize the ideal as a practical +guide—as a standard to which good men will endeavour to conform their +actions as far as lies in their power. But the precept ‘Love your +enemies’ does not seem to be generally recognized in this way as a +practical guide amid the stress and strain of daily life. It is not even +generally appealed to as a standard for approving or condemning the +ordinary behaviour of men. It is not effectively sanctioned by public +opinion and sentiment. If we inquire why this is so, there appear to be +two answers, vaguely and confusedly underlying the position of common +sense. The first is that any sustained effort to pursue the ideal under +the actual conditions of human life is so impossible that it is useless +to attempt it. The second is that if we did succeed in loving our +enemies and in acting as if we loved them, the result would be +disastrous; the good would be exposed without defence to the forces of +evil and life would no longer be worth living. For one or both of these +reasons it seems to be tacitly assumed that in practice we are justified +in setting aside the precept ‘Love your enemies’ and in substituting for +it the precept ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies’. At the same +time it is generally granted that under conditions different from ours +the rule of love would be universally applicable. But this concession +turns out on examination to mean very little. For the state of things +contemplated under which we might be reasonably expected to love our +enemies seems to be one under which our enemies would be prepared to +love us or might easily be induced to love us, and this almost amounts +to saying that we can only be reasonably required to love our enemies +when there are no enemies for us to love. + +This conflict between theory and practice remains for the most part +inarticulate and subconscious. There is latent uneasiness; but the +problem is not definitely faced even by thoughtful men. To bring it into +clear consciousness a special crisis is required. For many of us the +present war with its painful incidents and complications has had this +effect. Nor is it difficult to see why this should be so. In war, or, at +any rate, in such a war as this, we devote all our energies to the task +of inflicting hurt, loss, and destruction on the enemy, and he in his +turn devotes all his energies to the task of inflicting hurt, loss, and +destruction on us. Neither side, it would seem, can do this efficiently +without being sustained by strong and enduring feeling. But this feeling +can scarcely partake of the nature of love. It must, it would seem, be +an emotion the reverse of this. Whether and in what sense there can be +an emotion opposed to love which is yet not identified with hate, is a +question which I shall have to discuss later on. In any case, it will +scarcely be denied that the actual feeling generated even in good and +well-meaning men by such conditions as those of the present war are to a +large extent to be classed as feelings of hatred. When the enemy is held +to have been guilty of cruel and inhuman conduct contrary to the +recognized usage of civilized warfare, it seems to be still more +impossible to make any pretence of loving the enemy or of doing anything +but hate the enemy. How can we love the authors and perpetrators of the +Belgian atrocities? Not only is this attitude regarded as inevitable in +war but it is also felt to be justifiable in a special way by the +special conditions. It is taken to be justifiable for reasons which are +not in general applicable to similar relations between private +individuals. One reason is that a private individual is in the main +protected against the grosser forms of injury by the social order of the +community to which he belongs, by its laws and institutions, and by +public opinion and sentiment; to this extent he has no need to take the +law into his own hands. In war this no longer holds good. We seem in war +to be reduced to the position of animals who having directly to repel +harm and aggression themselves, need for that end the primitive and +instinctive emotion of blind anger which impels them to hurt and destroy +indiscriminately the enemies who threaten their own destruction. It is +true that in war there is some protection against certain forms of +injury in what is called the established usage of civilized warfare. But +as we know by recent experience, this safeguard cannot be safely relied +on; and it is just when even this semi-legal protection fails, that we +tend to give full play to the feeling of hatred or analogous feelings, +with the sense that we are right in so doing. Another obvious reason why +we naturally regard hatred of our enemies as especially justified in the +case of war is that here it is not our own private injuries which we +resent but injuries done to the whole community of which we are members. +We are so much in the habit of connecting what is morally wrong with +selfishness that when there is no selfishness, we tend to assume that +there can be nothing wrong or at any rate nothing seriously wrong. +Further, a benevolent disposition towards the common enemy is felt as +disloyalty to our own people. It tends to awaken indignation or disgust +as revealing a want of patriotism. On the other hand, the most unsparing +hatred of the common enemy, though we may more or less condemn it on +other grounds, is at least approved as an expression of patriotism; and +patriotism is a virtue of all others most important and indispensable in +time of war. Hence even though we condemn all hatred as such, yet if we +cannot have the most intense and efficient patriotism without it we feel +justified in preferring the two together. + +Such considerations as these seem to make a strong case for regarding +hate, or at least some emotion essentially akin to it, as an attitude +which may be often both unavoidable and justifiable in dealing with our +enemies, and more especially with the enemies of our country in time of +war. None the less it remains true that this attitude is, prima facie, +very hard to reconcile with the spirit and tendency of Christian +morality, and particularly with such precepts as ‘Love your enemies; +bless them that curse you; do good to them that despitefully use you and +persecute you’. Hence all of us who, whatever may be our view of the +dogmas of Christian Theology, agree in accepting the moral teaching of +Christ as expressing the highest human ideal, are placed in a difficult +position. It looks like a mere evasion and not a solution of this +difficulty to content ourselves with saying that the Christian ideal, +though it is in itself the highest, cannot and ought not to be pursued +under the actual conditions of human life. There are not two relatively +independent and separate kinds of truth, the theoretical and the +practical. What is false in practice must, to that extent, be false in +theory also. The highest ideal is the ideal which we ought to endeavour +to pursue under all relevant conditions. There is evidence that this is +recognized by some Christians who entertain no misgiving as to the +righteousness of the present war, and who are convinced of the necessity +of prosecuting it with the utmost zeal and energy, and yet, at the same +time, feel that it is hard or impossible to do so while retaining for +the enemy anything akin to a Christian disposition. We have here, +perhaps, the most fundamental reason why some conscientious men who, in +general, believe in prayer and in the efficacy of prayer, none the less +shrink from praying for the defeat of the enemy in war. Other grounds +are put forward, but they seem valid in this particular case only if +they are valid against prayer in general. It is urged, for instance, +that God controls the course of events in accordance with His own wisdom +and goodness, and that it is therefore a futile impertinence to attempt +to direct His activity to what we erring mortals think best, however +sincere and well-meaning we may be. Any petition, it is said, which is +for our own ends is condemned in advance, in so far as our own ends are +not His ends; and in so far as they do coincide with His the petition is +superfluous. Taken strictly, this argument would cut at the root not +only of all prayer but of all human activity. For whatever ends we +pursue and by whatever means, it is always possible that our aim does +not coincide with the divine purpose. It would follow, if the argument +were sound, that the truly religious attitude would be to sit still with +our hands folded and let events take their course. The fallacy lies in +the assumption that what is best in matters which concern human beings +is determined independently of the thoughts and feelings of the human +beings themselves. In particular, it lies in the assumption that what is +best for us and for the world must be determined quite independently of +whether we pray for it or not. + +Another reason urged against praying for success in war is that good men +on the other side are praying for their own success and for our defeat +with a clear conscience and full belief in the righteousness of their +cause. What has been called ‘the spectacle of serious men in opposite +camps raising their competitive prayers to the one God’ may well appear +to reduce to an absurdity the prayers on both sides. Yet I do not see +that this consideration has any real weight. For it is not asserted that +good men ought to refrain from using _other_ ways of pursuing what they +are sincerely convinced is a good end, merely because other good men +with equal sincerity are opposed to them. I can find no cogent reason +for making an exception in the case of prayer. The use of prayer in a +proper spirit can, at least, do no harm. Further, it is to be remembered +that when prayer is offered in a right spirit, all special petitions +have behind them that general attitude of mind which is expressed in the +words ‘Thy Will be done’. So far as this is so the agreement is more +fundamental than the opposition. The real difficulty felt by tender +consciences in praying for success in war seems to me to be of a +different nature. What holds them back is their sense that they cannot +pray in that spirit which would alone make their prayers acceptable, and +that they cannot even prevail on themselves to make a sincere effort to +attain this spirit. They feel that they cannot appeal to God to be on +their side unless, in so far as lies in their power, they in the same +act endeavour to place themselves on the side of God, to conform their +will and their whole mental attitude to His will as directed to what is +highest and best. But how is this possible when they not only continue +to harbour in their heart fierce and embittered emotions, which appear +irreconcilable with the precept ‘Love your enemies’, but cling to them +in such a way that they cannot without hypocrisy pretend to try to lay +them aside or even pray for deliverance from them? They feel that under +such conditions they would be appealing not to the true God but to some +partisan deity such as the Kaiser must have had in view when he spoke of +God as ‘the constant ally of Prussia under the Great Elector and the +Great King’. + +Let it be fully understood that I am not here expressing any view +concerning the justification of prayer or the efficacy of prayer, or +concerning Christian doctrine or Christian morality. But if we leave +such questions entirely on one side, the conception of prayer at least +supplies us with a useful mode of approaching our present problem. For +no feelings can be right feelings which in the case of a man who really +believes in prayer would rightly debar him from seeking in his extreme +need the help of a Power whom he regards as all wise and all good. We +may, then, put our question thus: How far is it true that feelings of +hatred or feelings in any way akin to hatred ought to present a barrier +of this kind? It is true that what we gain by this mode of stating the +question is only a point of view which helps us to grapple with it +earnestly and thoroughly without indulging in weak and illogical +compromise. It does not directly bring us any nearer to a solution. For +in order to determine what is acceptable to God we must first determine +what is good. Our course would indeed be plain if we could take such +precepts as ‘Love your enemies’, so to speak at their face value and +treat them without further discussion or interpretation as finally +authoritative. But even theologians, as such, for the most part refuse +to do this. Still less is it admissible that I should do so. For I am +trying to deal with the problem on its own intrinsic merits without +appeal to authority. This being so I can proceed only in one way. I must +begin by asking what reasons there are for holding that hatred and +kindred emotions are evil; then in the light of these reasons I must +attempt to determine in what sense and without what limits, if there be +any limits, the general principle holds good. Here we may look for some +help to the great philosophers. For some of these have maintained, on +independent grounds, the Christian doctrine in its general spirit and +tendency. Plato, for instance, holds firmly that the maxim is entirely +wrong which bids us do good to our friends and harm to our enemies. The +righteous man, he insists, will in all cases aim only at doing good, +whether to enemies or friends. Spinoza, too, lays down the principle +that ‘all hatred is evil’, and even attempts to demonstrate it like a +proposition in Euclid. There is a Christian philosopher, Bishop Butler, +who has given us an admirable discussion of the whole subject on +rational grounds. + +At this point I must prepare the ground for further advance by +expressing more exactly the nature of the problem. So far, the question +I have raised is whether hatred and kindred emotions are in all cases +evil. But the tendency of ordinary language is to associate the very +word, hatred, with some form of bad feeling. From this point of view, to +ask the question, Can hatred ever be good? sounds like asking whether +what is bad can be good. But the real issue can easily be stated so as +to avoid this paradox. There is a certain primitive and instinctive +emotion called anger, common to man and animals; in animals, it tends to +be excited by such conditions as overt or threatened attack, painful +wounds or blows, and often by any kind of opposition or interference, or +by the threat of such opposition or interference, or even by the mere +presence of a natural enemy. The real or threatened injury may be either +to the animal itself or to its young or its mate, or, in the case of +gregarious animals, to the community of which it is a member. There is a +modified and restrained form of this passion which arises between +animals closely connected by social ties, as when the mother slaps her +young or the mother cat boxes the kitten’s ears. But where the emotion +is aroused by an outsider there is in general no such limitation. The +impulse is blindly and indiscriminately directed to damage and destroy. +By preference, of course, to damage and destroy the enemy, and in the +next place, whatever is in any way associated with the enemy, but also +beyond this there is a general destructive impulse which vents itself on +whatever may encounter it. Consider, for instance, the behaviour of a +raging bull or of a man who in his fury destroys furniture and breaks +crockery. Now, so far as animals are concerned, this passion is not the +subject either of moral approval or disapproval. It is simply a natural +endowment like the teeth and claws of the cat, or the venom of the +snake, or the malodorous secretion of the skunk. It has the biological +function of preserving the individual and the species in the struggle +for existence; but it has no moral significance. The same holds good +also for a man, so far as he merely reacts like an animal in a sudden +and trying situation which takes him by surprise. But it is quite +otherwise with complex human sentiments which are developed from the +primitive emotion of anger and remain to the end essentially akin to it. +In the animal, the emotion occurs as a transient reaction to a transient +situation. In human beings it passes into a variety of more or less +permanent dispositions or sentiments, which permeate and control complex +systems of thought and conduct. Indeed, in some instances, such a +disposition may be the mainspring of organized thought and action +throughout a lifetime, as we see in the case of Hannibal’s attitude to +the Romans. Now the question we have to deal with is this, Are all these +developed sentiments which have their root in the primitive emotion of +anger to be condemned as evil; and if not, on what principle are we to +draw a distinction? If by the word _hatred_ we agree to mean all bad +passions of this kind, then the question will be, Are all angry +sentiments and dispositions to be classed as forms of hatred? In dealing +with this problem we have especially to consider the state of things +generated by war. + +Our first step will be to examine the grounds for regarding hatred as +necessarily evil. We may then proceed to inquire whether these grounds +apply to all forms of angry emotion which compel us to hurt or destroy +our fellow men. The reasons for regarding hatred as evil seem all +capable of being brought under one head. Hatred is evil inasmuch as it +is blind, inasmuch as it perpetuates at a higher level the original +blind and undiscriminating character of the primitive emotion of animal +anger. So far as this is the case, it is incompatible with the +development of the higher nature of man as a rational being. The most +fundamental ground for this position is, perhaps, most clearly stated by +Spinoza. The supreme good for human beings, he asserts, is to be found +only in their union and co-operation with each other. ‘Nothing is more +useful to a man than a man.’ It is only with other men that a man can +enter on that sort of union which is necessary at once for his own +existence and development as a human being and for theirs. ‘Except man +we know of no particular thing in nature in whose Mind we can rejoice. +With nothing else can we unite in friendship or in any kind of social +life’ (_Eth._ V. 14, App. § 26). Hence there is a fundamental +distinction between our relation to human beings and to other things. In +the case of anything else, ‘A regard for our own welfare does not +require us to preserve it, but leads us either to preserve or destroy +it, or to adapt it to our wants in any way according to the varied uses +of which it admits’ (ibid.). It is otherwise in the case of human +beings. To seek to destroy them is virtually to seek to destroy +ourselves. But the passion of hatred blinds us to all this; it blinds us +to the fact that the essential good of man is to be sought in union with +his fellow men and impels us to maintain disunion with them and to seek +our highest good in hurting and destroying them. Nor is it only in its +consequences that hatred as such is evil. As contrary to the rational +nature of man, as blinding him to his true good, it works like a disease +or a cancerous growth in the soul of those who feel it. ‘Nothing can be +so good for a man as such a temper of mind as will unite him with’ his +fellow men and them with him; while nothing on the contrary can be so +bad for him or in him as that which sets him and them at variance. All +hatred, then, is evil and there can be no greater evil. + +All this applies to hatred of the enemy in war. Indeed the evil is the +greater because the hatred is between great and highly organized +communities instead of between individuals. There is, however, one fact +which tends to veil and disguise the evil of hatred in this case. War +disunites nations, but within each nation it strengthens union and +mutual co-operation. Now this in itself is good. But it is not good, if +and so far as the source of unity is participation in a common hatred. +To this extent the nation is in the position of the individual hater and +is blinded as he is to its own true good. Speaking broadly, just in so +far as war leads a nation to treat what is good for it as essentially +separate from and opposed to what is good for other nations and for +mankind in general, war does that nation harm. The history of Germany +illustrates this sufficiently. The root of the mischief is to be sought +far back in the horrible Thirty Years’ War. But subsequent wars have +served to keep it alive—the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic War, and +above all, that process of cementing the German Empire with blood and +iron which Bismarck artificially and violently substituted for the +natural development which was leading to the same result in a better +form. The Franco-Prussian War belongs to the same series. It is an +easily intelligible and even an excusable result of the course of German +history that national sentiment in Germany has come half-unconsciously +to treat even peace as if it were a state of suppressed and disguised +warfare, and to feel no security for its national existence and national +development unless the mailed fist is continually shaken in the face of +its enemies in the East and in the West, and unless it is continually +prepared to pounce on them before they can pounce on it. It has now +actually pounced in what is called a preventive war. The temper and +attitude which led to this result is essentially what I found some +thirty years ago generally diffused among the common people of Berlin +and especially among old soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War: men’s +minds were dwelling on the necessity of a reckoning with Russia, and of +a renewed humiliation of France; there was deep hostility to England +mingled with contempt for our ways of thinking and acting and with +jealousy of our undeserved riches and prosperity. This attitude of mind +has in one way had its reward. In the present struggle the Germans +started better prepared for war than their opponents. But for this +advantage they have paid and are likely to pay very dearly. You may be +inclined to say ‘Serve them right’. But if this is taken to imply that +the German people is much worse by nature in this respect than other +peoples I must disagree. I doubt whether under like historical +conditions any people would have done better. + +Hatred, we have said, is bad because it is blind; and fundamentally the +blindness consists in failure to recognize the true good of man in +mutual union and co-operation. But there are many other subordinate ways +in which its essential blindness is manifested. To hate is to view the +actions and characters of others through a medium which falsifies and +distorts. To quote Bishop Butler, ‘the whole character and behaviour of +those we hate is considered with an eye to that particular part which +has offended us, and the whole man appears monstrous without anything +right or human in him’. Hatred in fact seeks only its own appropriate +food and disregards or rejects whatever does not sustain its own life +and development. We can see this clearly enough in the attitude of our +enemies towards ourselves. We can see, for instance, how hard it is for +the German mind, at the present moment, to think anything that is good +of England and Englishmen; how hard, for instance, they find it to admit +that we are really patriotic, that our soldiers are anything but +hirelings, actuated by merely mercenary motives, or that they can fight +efficiently, or that even our fleet is anything but a pretentious sham. +But to the reflective observer it is plain enough that a similar +disposition prevails, though not, I hope, in the same degree, among +ourselves. Are we prepared to consider fairly the possibility that the +Germans in entering on the present war were actuated by motives which +were not wholly bad, or that they really feared and believed that the +neutrality of Belgium would be violated by France, or in general that +they feared and believed with what seemed to them good reason that +unless they took the initiative by a preventive war, they themselves +would be attacked and taken at a disadvantage? + +Hatred not only blinds us to what may be favourable to the enemy; it +also blinds us to whatever may be wrong in our own feelings and +behaviour towards them. It tends to place the blame all on one side. +This, as we know, is very rarely the case. It is very unlikely to be the +case in a war between great civilized nations. The present war is, I am +fully convinced, most just and necessary. Yet I also believe that faults +on our side have indirectly contributed in some degree to prepare the +way for it.[22] + +I shall mention only one more of the manifold ways in which hate leads +to blindness. It shrinks from any serious and impartial endeavour to +trace the evil which offends it to the conditions which may account for +it and render it intelligible. The impulse of hate is not to understand, +but to destroy. To inquire into conditions and to seek an explanation +would only divert and distract it. It prefers, therefore, to concentrate +itself on the persons hated as if they were the sole ultimate sources of +the evil, as if the evil were due merely to their intrinsic and +spontaneous badness. It is this attitude of mind which leads us to turn +away with impatience from any attempt to explain, for instance, the +Belgian atrocities so as to make it intelligible how they could be +committed or condoned by a people who in their original human nature are +not so very different from ourselves. The attempt to explain is treated +as an attempt to explain away, and resented as if it were a +justification or defence or denial of fact. + +My general position is that hatred is bad inasmuch as it is blind, and I +am unable to discover anything else which justifies us in treating it as +necessarily evil. The question is whether all sentiments and emotions +partaking of the nature of anger are to be condemned on this account. +Ought we to set before us, as our ideal, freedom from all such emotions +and sentiments, and the substitution of other motives for them? Let us +provisionally suppose that this is the ideal, and examine how it would +work if it were consistently followed. In the first place we must +consider how we should proceed in attempting to realize the ideal. It +may be suggested that we should follow invariably in all cases the rule +‘Overcome evil with good’. Now there may be a sense in which this rule +is universally applicable and ought to be universally applied. But in +the common and obvious interpretation of it, this is plainly untrue. As +commonly interpreted, it means that we ought not to hurt or destroy the +evildoer, and that instead of this we ought to appeal to his better +nature by showing goodwill and kindness towards him. This is, of course, +infinitely the best way where it can be followed effectively and +followed effectively without incurring greater evils than it has any +reasonable chance of curing. But these limiting conditions are very +important. They would clearly apply, for instance, in case of an attack +by scalp-hunting Red Indians on a family of peaceful settlers. In +general, the words ‘Overcome evil with good’ are to be taken as +qualified by the preceding words ‘Be not overcome of evil’. If and so +far as we can overcome evil without being overcome of evil, it is our +duty to do so, otherwise it is not. It may, however, still be maintained +that, though it is admittedly often right and necessary to inflict pain, +hurt, and destruction on evildoers, yet we ought not to do this in the +spirit of anger. We ought rather to act purely out of regard for the +highest attainable good, and we ought to inflict pain and damage on +evildoers only as a necessary means to this end and not out of any angry +emotion we may feel towards them. + +This is the general position of Spinoza when he asserts as a universal +principle that all ‘hatred is bad’. It may seem a lofty and noble +position. But it is not enough for a moral ideal to appear lofty and +noble when we contemplate it vaguely in the abstract. It must be in such +direct contact with the actual conditions of human life as to afford +constant practical guidance in dealing with these. Judged by this +standard the proposed principle seems to break down. It requires us in +dealing with the malevolence of human beings to be actuated merely by +love of good, not at all by resentment against the evildoer. Our mental +attitude ought, on this view, to be always that assumed by the Quaker in +_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ who pushed the slave-driver over the precipice and +explained his action by the words ‘Friend, thou art not wanted here’. +The fundamental objection to this is that love of anything implies and +includes a corresponding feeling of aversion to whatever is recognized +as opposed to what we love or destructive of what we love. The love of +health, for instance, implies and includes aversion to disease wherever +we meet disease and recognize it as such. It does not, of course, imply +that we must be angry with disease, but that is because we do not love +health in the same way as we love what is good in human beings and in +the personal relations of human beings to each other. Just as the +sentiment of love varies in its nature with the nature of its object, +there is a corresponding difference in the aversion which is its +counterpart. Where the evil is malevolence, where it is an evil will +directed to injustice, cruelty, and selfish aggression, the appropriate +correlate of love to the good is some form of anger with the evil. And +this must mean anger with the evildoer. It is not satisfactory to say +that we may feel aversion to what is evil in a man and only kindness +towards the man himself. This is to overlook the central fact that the +evil in this case is an expression of the man’s personal will and +character which cannot be separated from himself. Nor can we substitute +sorrow for anger. Sorrow is appropriate to misfortune, but intentional +injury is not merely a misfortune which happens to befall the person who +inflicts it. To feel towards it as if it were merely a misfortune is to +be more or less blind to its true nature. In consequence, when sorrow +takes the place of anger, it fails to give rise to efficient action; the +tendency is to mourn over the offender where rebuke and punishment are +required by the situation. + +In actual life, we find some who, owing either to their nature or to +their circumstances and education, are but little susceptible of angry +emotion; in such persons we find also a corresponding failure to +understand or believe in the malicious attitude of mind in which +intentional injuries have their source. They turn aside from the +evidence or interpret it in their own one-sided way. An extreme instance +is that of Charles Lamb’s friend, George Dyer, who, as Lamb tells us, +could find nothing more severe to say about the worst criminals than +that they must have been very eccentric. So far as I can make out, I +belong myself to this class, though not to the same extent as Lamb’s +friend. I naturally skip such passages in the newspapers as these which +describe German atrocities in Belgium. I refuse to read even official +reports. I put myself off by hoping that in the main they are not true, +or that they are greatly exaggerated, or that they can be explained so +as to cast another light on them. Yet I have been gradually forced to +believe in their reality by evidence which I cannot reasonably resist. +Persons of this type do very well so long as they live a sheltered life, +spent, for instance, in study. But they are unfit to grapple effectively +with certain forms of evil or really to appreciate their nature or fully +to recognize their existence. There are other men who, though they are +by nature fully susceptible of angry sentiments, suppress them on +principle, because they regard them as wrong and especially because they +are afraid of giving way to hatred. So far as concerns those whom they +recognize as their personal enemies or as the enemies of the society to +which they belong, their mental attitude and behaviour tends to resemble +more or less those of the type of men who are naturally deficient in +angry sentiments. But they are likely to differ from these in an +important respect. In their anxiety to be fair and benevolent to +enemies, they are likely to be unfair and harsh to their friends. In +opposing the natural tendency to regard the faults all on one side, that +of the enemy, they tend to run to the opposite extreme and to make out +that it is their own side which is wholly or mainly or at least equally +to blame in cases where an impartial consideration of the evidence would +show the contrary. Thus, with them natural sentiments of anger tend to +creep in, as it were, by a back door. The phrase ‘friends of every +country but their own’ is often most unfairly applied. But there are +cases in which it is more or less applicable; and it applies +appropriately to the type of persons I have described. + +My conclusion, then, is that some developed forms of the primitive +emotion of anger are necessary and right. But how are we to determine +what these are? How are we to draw the line between them and these forms +of angry passion which are condemned under the general head of hatred or +malevolence? After the previous discussion, there need be no difficulty +as regards the principle upon which we have to proceed. Hatred is bad +only because it is blind and in so far as it is blind, just as the +weakly amiable spirit is bad for the same reason. On the other hand, +what we call just resentment or righteous indignation, though it is akin +to hatred as being, like it, developed from the primitive emotion of +anger, is good inasmuch as it is enlightened—inasmuch as it is free from +the various forms of blindness which characterize hatred. Here, of +course, the fundamental blindness, which we must do all that in us lies +to avoid, is blindness to the highest good of humanity as consisting in +union and co-operation. Righteous indignation or just resentment, as +felt against the enemy of social order, ought to be merely the obverse +aspect, the necessary counterpart, of the spirit which pursues union and +co-operation as its supreme end. So far as we are willing and able to +follow this principle, we cannot go wrong. + +This does not imply that justifiable resentment is necessarily weaker or +less intense than hatred. The distinction is not one of degree. +Justifiable resentment is not a fainter form of hatred. It is not, so to +speak, hatred watered down. So long as it is not blind, there is no +general limit to its strength, persistence, or intensity. This must be +proportioned to the varying conditions. In any case, just resentment +will cease when it is no longer required by the actual situation. +Hatred, on the contrary, tends to persist blindly. + +The theoretical principle on which we must proceed may be defined in +this way. But its practical application is, of course, very difficult. +It is hard to ‘be angry and sin not’, to be righteously resentful and +yet to avoid the blindness of hate. Yet, however far we may be compelled +to fall short of our ideal, we should consistently endeavour to keep +this ideal in view as our supreme practical guide and as the measure of +our failure and success. Here a great help ought to be found in prayer +by those who believe in prayer and who realize that in prayer they are +approaching a Being who is completely good and wise. In any case we must +here, as elsewhere, be willing to take risks; and though the converse is +more usual, it may sometimes be better to run the risk of being actuated +by hatred than to run the alternative risk of not feeling due +resentment. + +Let us now turn to a question of fact. How far is it true that we hate +the Germans and that the Germans hate us? As regards the Germans there +would seem to be no room for doubt. They loudly tell us that they hate +us and make a parade of their hatred. But it is easy to attach too much +importance to this self-conscious and deliberate working up of an +emotion and theatrical display of it. The best comment is supplied by +the picture in _Punch_ of a German family practising hatred of England +before breakfast with appropriate attitudes and grimaces. The same holds +good for the song of hatred. It is a spirited composition. But I am not +inclined to take very seriously the kind of hatred which finds lyric +expression of this sort. In such manifestoes we come upon the +sentimentality so characteristic of the Germans, the romantic side of +the German character. The more serious forms of hatred are rather those +which do not fully examine and express themselves in this fashion. The +real question is, How far have our angry passions a blinding influence +in practice? Certainly there is abundant evidence that the Germans are +blinded in this way. The belief is widespread among them that the key to +our conduct is throughout to be sought in one master motive, the love of +gain. They charge us with pursuing our ignoble ends by sly and underhand +means, veiled under hypocritical pretence. They are convinced, for +instance, that our horror and resentment at the brutal attack on Belgium +was merely simulated, and that throughout we care for nothing but our +own self-interest. They also charge us as a nation with a failure in the +patriotic spirit which subordinates the interest of individuals and +parties and classes to the good of the whole. They find in us an +irresponsible frivolity and easy-going self-complacency which make us +entirely undeserving of the position which we claim among civilized +nations. On the other hand, they entertain no doubt that in all these +ways in which we come short, they themselves are very strong, and that +they, therefore, have a natural right to supplant us. Now I am far from +saying that there is no foundation for some at least of the bad things +which the Germans believe about us. But the sweeping and utterly +indiscriminate way in which they hold these beliefs is obviously due to +the blinding influence of hatred and kindred sentiments. That we on our +side are similarly blinded admits, I think, of no doubt. We are +convinced, for very cogent reasons, that our enemies deliberately +brought on this war when they might honourably and safely have +maintained peace. I do not believe that we are at all blind on this +point. But our natural resentment does, I think, tend to obscure our +view of the underlying motives for conduct which in any case cannot be +justified. No doubt, a spirit of aggression, fostered by the German +military system and by German traditions, was the most important factor. +But we are apt to overlook the fact that fear also was a strong motive, +fear of rival nations with antagonistic interests falling upon them and +taking them at a disadvantage. Another error to which we are naturally +prone is found in the assumption that what seems evident to us must be +evident to our opponents. To us it is clear that the aggression is on +their side. But the great body of the German people, including the best +men among them, are convinced that it is they who are the victims and we +who are the aggressors. Their natural leaders have assured them that +this is the case, and have so stated the facts as to make it appear so; +and this view found ready acceptance because of that attitude of +suspicious fear to which I have just alluded. The picture which we are +apt to make for ourselves of a whole people rushing to arms merely in +order to make an unprovoked onslaught on its neighbours is certainly a +false one, which we could not entertain unless we were more or less +blinded by hate. I find further evidence of the same blindness in much +of the current talk about the necessity of crushing Germany. So far as +this means that we ought to do our work so thoroughly that it will not +need to be done over again it is fully justified. But if the meaning is +that the best or the only way of effecting this is by destroying the +national existence of Germany, it seems to me that we are being misled +by our passions. However good our case may be in this quarrel, we shall +put ourselves in the wrong if we reduce our adversary to a position in +which it becomes his absolute duty to lose sight of all other +considerations in the bare struggle for existence. Again, I do not think +that we at all realize how much we should miss Germany if there were no +Germany. Omitting other most important considerations, it is very far +from clear that the political situation as regards the balance of power +in Europe would be at all improved by such a change. Besides this, we do +not sufficiently consider whether it lies in our power to crush Germany +in the way proposed, or, if it does, whether the attempt may not cost us +too dear. + +In another direction, the blindness of hate finds expression in the +present tendency to depreciate German literature, science, and +philosophy. Some of the things which are now being said on this topic I +largely agree with. I have long held that the value of the German +contribution to literature, science, and even philosophy has been +seriously over-estimated as compared with that of other nations. But +much of the current talk on this subject is hopelessly undiscriminating +and exaggerated. In any case, it is amusing to find men talking in this +vein who would never have thought of doing so if there had been no war. +Our being at war with Germany can scarcely make any difference, one +would think, to the greatness of Goethe or of Hegel. + + +In conclusion, let me go back to my starting-point. What are we to say +finally concerning the precept ‘Love your enemies’? Is there any sense +in which it is of universal application? I think there may be. It must +not, of course, be taken to mean that we are to love our enemies with +what Bishop Butler calls ‘a peculiar affection’. There are many who are +not our enemies for whom we can feel no peculiar affection. Besides, if +we love our enemies in this sense, what, as Confucius is said to have +inquired, are we to do in the case of our friends? But if we take the +meaning to be—Will good to your enemy rather than evil, the rule may, +under a certain condition, be regarded as universally applicable. If we +accept Plato’s doctrine that it is better for the evildoer himself that +he should suffer punishment than that he should go unpunished, it seems +possible, however difficult in practice, to inflict pain and hurt on him +while retaining goodwill towards him in the very act of doing so. From +this point of view, failure to feel just resentment and express it in +action is an injury to the evildoer himself as well as to others. But is +it always better for the evildoer himself to be punished? If it makes +him a better man, we may agree that this is so. But so far as we can +see, it sometimes has the reverse effect. If we are to justify the +principle in its widest generality, we must go beyond what we can see. +We must postulate a moral order or something equivalent to a moral order +in the universe according to which it is always in some way ultimately +better for the evildoer to be punished than to escape punishment. If +this is Christian doctrine, then Christianity may consistently maintain +the universal application of the maxim, ‘Love your enemies.’ + + + + + VI + PATRIOTISM IN THE PERFECT STATE + + BY B. BOSANQUET + + +The quality of patriotism is determined by what we desire for our +country, as the quality of friendship is determined by what we desire +for our friend. And this question—the question what it is that we desire +for our country—is of supreme moment to-day, because in the answer given +to it, whether by practice or in principle, are rooted the permanent +underlying conditions of war and peace. + +Assuming then that what is true of principles is true of the +corresponding practice, whether or no the actors understand what they +are doing, I will ask you to consider with me three typical ideas +expressive of what men desire for their country, each of them bearing a +distinctive relation to the causes and customs of war, and to the +permanent basis of peace. + +And in this consideration I hope that we shall also be elucidating an +interesting question in the history of recent thought. We shall see how +the splendid political philosophy of Germany a hundred years ago has +passed on the one hand into her intoxication of to-day, while on the +other hand, elsewhere, in face of a more liberal experience, it has +found a decisive completion in a human and democratic sense. The three +conceptions to which I refer have very much in common, and a great part +of the interest of our inquiry, and also perhaps a little practical +value which it might possess, depends on noticing very precisely the +points at which distinctions become blurred, and the ideas, mostly by +mere omission, are apt to slide into one another. + +Let us make a beginning, then, with Hegel’s political thought, the +German thought of a hundred years ago. At that time the idea of a man’s +country, as focussed in the state, was a glorious vision, stimulated +largely by Greek conceptions and drawing something from English +constitutional experience; while in the existing reality of the Prussian +system there was little to catch the eye, and little power, therefore, +to narrow the outlook. + +Now the essential point for us here to grasp firmly, if we wish to enter +into the truth of the matter and its adjacent fallacies, is that Hegel +means by the state, not the machine of government, but all that fulfils, +in the actual community, the individual’s mind and will. The individual +is supposed to see in it the form of life, and more than that, the +particular form of sentiment and volition, which his nation has so far +worked out for itself, and in which he, the private person, finds the +substance of his own mind, and what unites him with others. It includes, +of course, the ethical tradition of the society, with the observances +and institutions in which it is embodied and preserved; and more +especially it is identified with the general will as expressed in the +laws and the political constitution. The state, in short, is the ark in +which the whole treasure of the individual citizen’s head and heart is +preserved and guarded within a world which may be disorderly and +hostile. + +One may naturally ask, where then does humanity come in, and how +recognize the claims of other nations and persons? This is exceedingly +important, but not difficult. Your country is held to express the whole +form of life for which you stand, and therefore, within that, your moral +attitude to humanity and the world in general. If you are an Englishman, +you probably object to slavery. But that attitude is not a thing of +chance, in which you stand outside your age and country. It is part of +the outlook at which, on the whole, England had at a certain time +arrived, and which came to individual Englishmen through their +participation in the national mind. Here is a point at which a slide +into fallacy is too possible. That moral view of the world which you and +your state stand up for is one thing. A moral view which considers only +your own and your state’s immediate interests is quite another thing; +but it is very easy to confuse the two, both in practice and in +controversy. + +We have said enough to indicate the value which, according to such +ideas, the private individual, in theory or by practice, recognizes in +his state. Looked at in this way, our country, the state, is simply all +we have. Innumerable claims may come to us from outside, but they all +come through it and subject to it; just as they all come to us through +our own feelings and our own beliefs. Without the state we are nothing +and nobody. It is for us the vehicle of the value of the world. It +stands for our contribution to the general sum of what humanity has +achieved and what makes any life worth living. + +So far what we desire for our country, our view of its mission, is to +achieve the very best we all are capable of becoming. But there is +another side to this same set of ideas. + +Obviously, to fulfil this, its necessary mission, the state needs above +all things to be _strong_. Men who had lived through Napoleonic times +could have no doubt about that. Who indeed was to help a state if it +could not help itself? War, then, was the inevitable arbiter, and by the +test of war the state must stand or fall. Hegel is primarily appealing +to facts when he says that outside the several communities there is no +general will. As yet there could not be; for the general will _is_ the +will of a community, backed by its whole body, mind, and sentiment. +Thus, no one can possibly dictate into what demands separate states +shall throw their ultimate honour and self-assertion; and if in these +they conflict there is no ultimate solution but war. On one side, we +have seen, the state is akin to art, philosophy, and religion; it is +mind in a concentrated form. But between it and these other shapes of +mind there is the one fundamental distinction. The state is mind ‘in the +world’. It is not only our treasure, but it is the ark which carries our +treasure. ‘In the world’ right can only prevail through might. Strength +in war is therefore the first condition of the state’s fulfilment of its +function; and being the first condition, and a condition peculiar to the +state among the forms of mind, it is too easily taken as the aim and +whole upshot of the state. This again, as we shall see, is a point at +which one idea is apt to slide into another. + +Therefore, since as yet there can be, outside and above the several +states, no general will with a common heart and force, no +‘praetor’—judge representing power—but only at best an ‘arbitrator’, all +international laws, treaties, and usages are, at bottom, only agreements +of a number of particular wills, the wills of absolute independent +bodies. _So far_ nations are to one another, as older writers had said, +in a state of nature, like the supposed (but quite imaginary) +individuals before Society was invented. Hegel does not say that there +cannot be, and are not, humane usages, conventions, rules, and treaties. +The whole of international law rests on the principle that treaties are +to be observed. But behind all this there is the sheer fact of the +separate individual powers, each absolute in its limited area; so that, +at bottom, the whole fabric of international rules and customs is just +an agreement of separate wills, and not an expression of a single +general will. Ultimately, or fundamentally, each of these separate wills +is and must be determined by its own conception of its own welfare. This +is the difficulty I think in the way of leagues and federations in +favour of peace as suggested by Kant and by Norman Angell. They are +purely _de facto_. They do not rest upon the spirit of a solid +community; and every powerful league tends _ipso facto_ to raise up a +powerful counter-league against it, with grave risk of war. + +It follows from this that there is a fundamental distinction between the +moral position of the private individual who works out the detail of his +duty on the basis of recognized rights within a previously ordered and +organized society, and that of the state, which has ‘in the world’ to +provide and sustain, at all hazards, the organized society within which +the individual is to live. The tasks of morals and of international +politics are different in principle, though the end to which they +co-operate is the same. The immediate task of morals is to live a life, +that of international politics is to provide a world within which life +can be lived. + +The same distinction must be pushed beyond the difference of the tasks +into the difference of their possibility. For the private individual it +is fairly easy, in the main, at least to _know_ what he should do, and +what he should not. He lives within a scheme of recognized rights and +obligations; and, starting from his legal position and accepted duties, +he can tell whether he is behaving selfishly or generously, rudely or +courteously, kindly or unkindly. His lawyer will tell him his legal +rights; and it is for him to insist upon them or to surrender them. But +in principle the state has no such guide. It is not living out an +ordered life, within a recognized scheme. It cannot tell whether it is +being less than just, or merely just, or kind and generous. For it every +case is under altering conditions and new, and it is sole judge in its +own cause. A state may think that it is behaving with superhuman +generosity, while its antagonist may think it is behaving like a bandit. +There is no complete or detailed scheme and scale of conduct and +sentiment to operate as a norm of feeling and judgement. Of course this +language may seem exaggerated in face of the well-established usages of +international law, and the existence of treaties. But the difference we +have mentioned affects them all. _Ultimately_, to reiterate that +terrible adverb, which governs the whole argument, it is as we say. A +private person has the letter and spirit of his moral world to live up +to, and on the main lines and choices of life there is a wealth of +recognized obligations which, I do not say tell him what to do, but +certainly warn him what he is doing. A state is sailing a sea but +slightly charted, and what marks the charts do furnish are mostly recent +and depend on a revocable consent. As a supreme power, it has a +responsibility for every choice, of which no precedents nor external +recommendations can divest it. At every step it is making a new world. + +Thus, in such an idea of patriotism as we have been describing, the +attitude to war is favourable on the whole. There is, it suggests, an +element in the world which is transitory and accidental, the element of +temporal life and temporal goods. It is natural and necessary that +accident should prey upon the accidental, and that contingent values +should thus be distinguished from substantial. War is the fiery test of +reality, and the maker of nations. ‘In the world’ accident is necessary +and has its good. Here is a striking passage; not a complete survey of +the question, but, I think, requiring consideration, and showing the +conviction embodied in the attitude we have tried to portray: + +‘Of course, war brings insecurity of possessions, but this actual +insecurity is only a necessary movement. We hear from the pulpit so much +of the uncertainty, vanity, and fickleness of temporal things; but every +one thinks as he hears it, however touching may be the eloquence, “_I_ +shall manage to keep what is mine”. But now if this uncertainty +confronts them in grim earnest in the shape of hussars with naked +sabres, then the touching spirit of edification, in the face of the very +thing it foretold, betakes itself to hurling curses at the victors. But +in spite of all, wars take place when the occasion demands it; the crops +grow again; and babble is mute before the grim iterations of +history.’[23] + +Before leaving these ideas of a hundred years ago, it is worth while to +note the general temper of intellectual Germany in that great age. It +was full, no doubt, of self-assertion, not unbecoming to a nation +conscious of immense capacities. But it was sympathetic and receptive. +No men ever worked harder to educate themselves in the widest experience +of humanity than Goethe and his contemporaries. Their feeling is fairly +expressed in some verses addressed by Schiller to Goethe, on the +exceptional occasion of a play by Voltaire being performed at the Weimar +theatre. We see in them the delicate balance of self-assertion and +receptivity. Here is a rough version: + + To home-born art this stage is consecrated, + No more are stranger idols worshipped here; + The laurel we display with heart elated + On _our_ poetic mount its growth did rear; + To art’s high fane, himself initiated, + Boldly the German genius has drawn near; + And on the track of Briton and of Greek + Has set his face a purer fame to seek. + +The Briton and the Greek are Shakespeare and Aristotle, or perhaps the +Greek Tragedians. And the same types of experience, English and +Hellenic, were at work in the conception of patriotism we have +portrayed. It is not, Hegel says, emphatically, the mere occasional +readiness for extreme sacrifices. It is the recognition of the community +as our substance throughout all the detailed functions of life. We shall +further see the supreme value of this apparently prosaic view. + +Now we need not add many words in explaining how this attitude of the +great time has degenerated into the creed of violence and self-interest +of which we hear to-day. It is essentially the passage of a large and +many-sided philosophical doctrine into the hands of ignorant and biased +amateurs, soldiers, historians, politicians.[24] Well, all philosophy is +dangerous, for it blinks no side of the truth, and any one of its +statements, taken by itself and with bias, may act as a mighty strong +wine or as a high explosive. + +It is enough to recall the two points in the great German philosophy at +which we noted how readily one idea slides into another. One is where it +says that a state is and can be determined only by its own good. We +tried to explain that the thing is a truism. Its good is the form of +life and feeling which it has made and chosen, and includes its +relations to others. But if for good (Wohl) you read exclusive +self-interest, the thing is done. A great idea slides before your eyes +into the meanest of worldly maxims. So with the other point. As guardian +of a treasure, the state must be strong in war. But it is different when +you say that its strength in war sets it free to sully at its will the +treasure it has to guard. + +To make these two transitions is the same thing as to drop out from the +conception of patriotism all that we said about the positive values of +which the state is guardian. In a huge country, intoxicated with its new +material prosperity, and even in the realm of intellect so busy with +myriad specialities as to be deafened to voices from without by the +clamour of its own contending schools, such a transition seems almost +natural. + +But yet, when this transition is made, the public conscience, the +compass of the difficult voyage, is gone. Everything depended on its +recognition of the supreme values within its own good; and the change +leaves them as mere names for whatever can be effected by force. And +now, all the _de facto_ truths which the great philosophy conceded with +regard to international conventions return upon us with crushing force. +You can find parallels in Hegel, as we saw, for much of the language, e. +g., of the _Book of War_, about mere usages and conventions. The only +difference is that the national conscience—which makes Hegel say, for +instance, that Europe is in actual humane behaviour a single family—the +national conscience is now deleted from the theory. + +So by mere omission and exaggeration, this great idea of patriotism is +totally perverted, and we are brought to the point that what a man +desires for his country is military supremacy to be used without scruple +in the promotion of its exclusive interest. + +This was the second of the three attitudes or ideas of patriotism which +we meant to consider. We have observed how it might arise by a heated +and narrowed conception of the first, under the intoxication of new +achievements, leading to new temptations and ambitions. + +But now, recurring for a moment to the philosophy of the great time, let +us consider a third expression of patriotism, to which it has given rise +in a wholly different atmosphere. + +It was a conviction, held in common by the two forms of patriotism we +have been considering, that war is a necessary accident, arising out of +the very nature of the state as a separate sovereign power exposed to +accident, and therefore, something to which a state is liable because +and in as far as it is what a state should be. Now a great deal in this +idea may seem to us a truism. States _are_ particular independent +bodies, themselves sole ultimate judges of their differences and their +honour. No independent state (as Pericles said) _will_ brook an order +from another state; if it does, its independence is gone. And on such a +point there can be no arbitration. War _is_ the ultimate arbiter, and +therefore springs from this very nature of states; and it _does_ behove +states to be strong. And for war, as for all other evils and accidents, +there _is_ a good deal to be said. Each of them by itself is clearly a +thing to be fought against, but without any of them at all—well, life +would very soon generate new ones. + +But a further question has been raised, and seems worth pursuing. Is not +a wrong done somewhere, when lives are sacrificed in war? Certainly it +is not murder, for it is not unlawful killing; but again, it is not +merely like an earthquake. It comes from human conduct somewhere and +somewhen. We may not be able to apportion the guilt of it, but it might +be worth inquiry whether the conduct could not be changed. Perhaps our +analysis has hitherto not gone far enough. _After_ differences have +broken out between independent sovereign states all we have said holds +good—the separate wills of separate bodies, the mere outward agreements +with no deep-seated impartial will and power behind them, the usages and +rules at the mercy of the individual conscience of states, which in some +cases appears to be an absent factor. + +Well, but cannot we go further back? _Is_ it in the nature of states +that differences should constantly be arising between them? The state is +there to be the condition of organized good life for the inhabitants of +a certain territory. Is it a property of this function that different +states should be continually liable to be at variance? Is tendency to +war really a feature of states in respect of what they are as states? Or +is it not rather perhaps a feature of them in so far as they fail to be +states? To organize good life in a certain territory seems to have +nothing in it prima facie which should necessitate variance between the +bodies charged with the task in one place and in another. + +When, in the light of this question, we look closer at the facts, what +stares us in the face is that the cause of external conflict as a rule +is not internal organization, but internal disorganization. The +quarrelsome man is not well organized in his mind; he is ill +organized—certainly in mind, probably in body. Plato indeed laid his +finger on the place, though you might criticize his explanation in some +particulars. The origin of war, he says, is when states become +internally diseased; the more they are distracted within, the more they +come into conflict without. + +Let us think further of this. People who are satisfied do not want to +make war; and in a well-organized community people are satisfied. War +must arise from dissatisfied elements in a community; people who have +not got what they want within (or have it but are afraid of losing it) +and so look for profit or for security in adventures without. War +belongs to a state, then, ultimately, not in so far as it is a state, +but in so far as it is not a state. + +All sorts of causes of dissatisfaction or alarm lead to external +conflict. There may be privileged classes directly interested in +resisting the better organization of the community; in maintaining, for +instance, an obsolete franchise and the power of a military caste. There +may be oppressed religious persuasions, oppressed nationalities, +provinces torn from the allegiance they prefer. All of these are likely +to throw their hopes and ambitions outside the state which formally +includes them, and to produce resentments against it in other groups. +Then, more subtle and more modern, there are the whole set of +restrictions upon human intercourse which depend on the idea that the +gain of one community is the loss of another. All of these make doubly +for war; they make privileges at home, which turn the mind of the +privileged class away from internal organization and towards external +aggression; and they make exclusions abroad, turning the mind of the +excluded classes to retaliation both in kind and by arms. Exclusion +reaches the climax of its vicious effect when it becomes an affair of +what I shall call for short ‘passive markets’—such, that is, as raise +the problem of the prior possession of uncivilized regions which the +white man can exploit at pleasure, and at pleasure close against others. + +I must not pause to analyse at length the claims supported by that +blessed word ‘expansion’. So good a historian as Dr. Holland Rose[25] +seems to accept the increase of Germany’s population by 50 per cent. in +one generation as a sufficient reason for a vigorous expansion policy. +But surely we must distinguish between the duties really imposed upon a +state by such an increase with a view to organization of life, and the +adventures and exclusive exploitations for which it may be the pretext, +but which do nothing serious to aid the work of organization, while they +fill the world with monopolies and with terrors of aggression. + +And again, it appears only just to remark, following for example a +recent article by Sir Harry Johnston,[26] confirmed in this respect by +Mr. Morel,[26] that when in a huge world-empire there is advocated a +policy of commercial exclusion directed against other countries, these +countries will anticipate being gravely prejudiced in their legitimate +foreign trade. Then follows the desire on their part to possess +themselves of exclusive markets, and unending fears and resentments are +bred on every side. That the practical and theoretical inspiration of +the policy so advocated had its source in some of the countries +threatened by it, would have made it, if carried out, an interesting +retribution, but would not have diminished its danger. + +Surely, for the legitimate expansion demanded by increase of population +the ‘open door’ is the right and effective principle. It will meet both +the need of trade, and in the last resort, the need of space and +elbow-room for population. Under it no one’s expansion can be a threat +to any one, or produce monopolies which will hinder social organization, +and turn men’s minds to aggression. And it must also be noted that the +loss of citizen population, which is sometimes complained of, is not +really met by mere increase of territorial possessions. It is largely +due to the very military system which is relied on to remedy its +causes—in a word, to defective social organization, which lays unwelcome +burdens on the ordinary citizen, and even fails to utilize territorial +expansion as an outlet for population. + +It must be borne in mind, however, that the exclusive policy advocated +within our Empire was decisively rejected, and the open door, the main +thing demanded by expansion elsewhere, was as decisively maintained. +Even territorial acquisition in tropical regions, though it has +practically been of little value to the increasing populations of +European countries, this country has not obstructed, and I hope and +trust that it will maintain its unenvious policy in this respect up to +the limits of possibility in the settlement after the war. + +I have no right to lecture on economics, but the general principles +which I have been advocating, of absence of monopoly at home, and the +‘open door’ abroad, fall, I think, within the competence of a student of +politics. Restrictions on human intercourse are prima facie injurious, +and demand the very strongest justification if they are to be tolerated. + +And on a kindred point, really beyond my competence, I will merely put a +question. Presupposing a sufficiency of external trade to pay for food +and raw materials, is not the home market the most important and the +most secure? When it is not so, is not the purchasing power of the most +numerous classes short of what it should be? And through directing the +minds of the leaders of trade to external adventure, is not such a state +of things a constant incentive to exclusive exploitation and to war? + +I will end by summarizing as shortly as I can the conclusions which +follow from our argument—both what we must admit, and what we are +anxious to maintain. + +(1) We must admit that states, in consequence of their separateness and +absoluteness, are so _far_ in a relation of nature to each other, though +this is mitigated by humane conventions and usages. If differences +arise, the ultimate arbiter is war, which is therefore necessary to the +function of states as now existing. While this is so, international +politics must differ from individual morality as maintaining a world +differs from living in one. + +(2) We must admit that when, on this basis, it is attempted to secure +peace according to the rule _Si vis pacem, para bellum_, the project is +self-contradictory. As principles are the same for all parties, it +implies the condition of securing peace to be that of any two opponent +powers each must be at the same time stronger than the other. This +contradiction is the root of the race in armaments. + +(3) We must admit that, on this basis, no league or federation _ad hoc_ +can secure peace. Every such league must, sooner or later (being a mere +convention of separate wills) arouse a counter-league. Such +arrangements, I believe, are fertile of wars. + +(4) We maintain that the fundamental root of peace lies in the +recognition that war belongs to states not in as far as they are states, +but in as far as they are not states; granted that their actual defects +to-day make the reverse of this appear to be the truth. + +(5) We maintain that the patriotism which is the source of peace +therefore lies in a thorough everyday loyalty to the state as a means of +harmonious internal organization excluding privilege and monopoly, and +in our desire for our country of those supreme goods which are not +diminished by sharing. Trade and industry, though acquisitions of +material wealth, take on this character when conducted on an impartial +and rational basis. This view agrees with the great German philosophy in +its estimate of true patriotism, but goes further in analysing the +relation of such patriotism to the causes of war.[27] + +(6) We maintain that in a group or world of states, possessed by such a +patriotism, and therefore organized so as to be free from causes of +resentment, and united in aims and methods which admit of harmony, it is +conceivable that a true general will (not a mere external convention) +might grow up which should be solidly supported by the body, spirit, and +sentiment of all the communities.[28] In such a case a genuine +international moral world would be created, and international politics +would approach more nearly to the nature of private morality, though +they could never be the same. In some respects, indeed, the state, as +more impartial, might maintain a higher standard than the individual, as +happens on occasion even to-day.[29] + +(7) We maintain that the patriotism which is the desire for our country +of those supreme goods which are not diminished by sharing, is a +guarantee of a right estimate of values, and therefore of justice and +reasonable organization in dealing with wealth and power both at home +and abroad. + +Such a patriotism, desiring and sustaining the perfection of the state +in its organizing functions as a state, is the only force which is +essentially directed to destroying the causes of war. Even those +intangible springs of hostility, the jealousy and vanity of nations, +cannot ultimately exist in the same world with such a patriotism. + +This temper of mind offers the only prospect of a solid general will +including groups of states. As its expression, but not without it, +leagues of states for the enforcement of peace might do good service. +Its detailed operation in such a crisis as will confront the nations of +Europe at the close of the war, will consist in a sincere and +persevering effort to secure everywhere the removal of all such causes +of internal distraction as have been specified above. + +By the merest accident in the world, the last word in this course of +lectures has fallen to me. And I feel irresistibly impelled to use the +opportunity, well knowing how inadequately, in making an appeal to you +in the spirit of a conviction which more and more possesses my mind. + +I will try to explain it thus. + +It was proposed some weeks ago that there should be a day of national +humiliation. The highest authority in the land rejected that form of +expression, and I believe that we all approved of the rejection. + +No, we do not want a day of national humiliation. If ever it is right +for a country to hold up its head, it is right for our country to-day. +But nevertheless there is something, not wholly different from this, for +which in the spirit of our argument I would earnestly appeal. There is a +way in which every one of us can do something, and even can do much, to +promote the solid foundations of a stable peace. I repeat that we do not +want a national humiliation. But we at least who must stay at home have +a need and duty of individual and national self-examination. It cannot +indeed be a duty incumbent on the men at the front—they have other +matters to attend to—but, most remarkably, the evil temper against which +it is directed is not on the whole the temper of the men at the front. +But for us—it is a thing we can do, and a thing we should do. We should +examine ourselves—is our patriotism such as to lead towards the +perfectly organized state? Do we desire for our country and ourselves +only the best things we know, beauty and truth and love and wholesome +living? Do we seek, by this infallible criterion of values, to guarantee +both ourselves and our country against the corrupt self-seeking which is +the ultimate cause of war? + +Right as our cause is to-day, has not the wrong which we are labouring +to undo been fostered by ourselves as by others, if not in our case by +direct international action, yet by the exhibition of a jealous and +menacing spirit of rivalry? Do we not constantly endeavour to lower +other nations in our private and public talk, in the world of letters, +and in trade? Is our journalism, is our literature of the war—though I +gladly acknowledge some most excellent things in both—yet are they on +the whole such as we can look upon with satisfaction? + +I am entirely without sympathy for the attempts made by a few among our +learned men, and by very many who are far from learned, to belittle the +intellectual and moral debt of Europe to Germany, and to prove for +instance that Goethe—_Goethe_—was a great exemplar of selfishness. And +horrible things as I believe her armies have done in the war, yet the +attitude which demands that when peace returns Germany or Prussia should +be intentionally humiliated and excluded from the European family of +nations, to my own feeling is actually repellent, and to my judgement is +an attitude of self-satisfaction, morally dangerous in the extreme, and +politically absurd. Surely, whatever others may do, we on our side +should fight our terrific battle like gentlemen, without rancour or +venom, and with eagerness, above all, when the fight is done, to +recognize the merits of our adversary which both his passion and ours +have for the moment travestied, and to renew the international bonds of +commerce, science, art, and philosophy. We ought not to fall below the +standard set us by our private soldiers upon Christmas Day, and indeed, +as we hear, upon every day of the war. + +Punishment and humiliation let us leave to consequences and to history. +Belligerents are not good moral judges of each other. Much of what we +hear to-day in anticipation of the sequel of the war brings irresistibly +to my mind the profound wisdom of George Meredith’s warning against the +ridiculous attempt at a union of ill temper and policy. + +The patriotism we have attempted to portray implies and demands that we +should desire for our country, not a triumph of vanity and +self-interest, but a share in such a solid work of organization as shall +be most favourable to the performance of a true state’s function in +_every_ community of Europe. Thus alone can we deserve well of our +country, and our country of the world. + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + _L’Orientation religieuse de la France actuelle_, pp. 62, 63. + +Footnote 2: + + _Practical Ethics_, pp. 64, 65. + +Footnote 3: + + These sentences are taken from an address, ‘Ueber das Verhältniss der + Politik zur Moral’, published in 1875, among the _Reden und Aufsätze_ + of Gustav Rümelin, Chancellor of the University of Tübingen. + +Footnote 4: + + The mistake of attempting to deal with both subjects was discovered + too late to be remedied, but some remarks on the second which were + omitted in the delivery of the lecture are here printed. + +Footnote 5: + + The reader to whom discussions of the subject of the preceding + paragraphs are new, and who desires to pursue them, is recommended to + refer to F. H. Bradley, _Ethical Studies_, v and vi; Green, + _Principles of Political Obligation_, in _Works_, vol. ii, or as + separately published; Bosanquet, _Philosophical Theory of the State_. + The line followed in these books runs back through Hegel to Plato and + Aristotle, on whose political philosophy see vol. i of Newman’s + edition of Aristotle’s _Politics_. My short statement does not + profess, of course, to represent the views of any one of the writers + named. + +Footnote 6: + + ‘By nature’ here does not mean what the reader is likely to suppose. + On Spinoza’s doctrine see Green, op. cit. + +Footnote 7: + + Essay _Of Empire_. Cf. _Of Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates_. That + Bacon should be thought a great _moral_ guide seems strange, but his + political essays (notably that _Of Plantations_), like his others, are + of course full of wisdom. + +Footnote 8: + + I introduce the word in order to indicate the danger of using it. It + inevitably suggests an antithesis to something higher (‘duty’ or + ‘principle’), and so is taken to mean, not the end of the state, but + some subordinate part of that end. + +Footnote 9: + + What is said here of slavery was suggested by a passage in Green, op. + cit. + +Footnote 10: + + Regarding this ideal, and others less ambitious, there is always the + question whether they do not presuppose a moral progress which would + make an actual organization needless. + +Footnote 11: + + The number of British embassies and legations abroad is fifty-seven + (Whitaker). + +Footnote 12: + + It is ridiculous to give this name to the state’s normal duty of + developing its own life. + +Footnote 13: + + This cannot be called an unconditional duty, if that means a duty + which in no circumstances can be superseded by a higher duty (_every_ + duty is unconditional except as against a higher). I honour the German + Chancellor for his frank statement that the violation of Belgian + neutrality was an ‘Unrecht’ (a violation of law; i.e. something which + is almost always, but not always, wrong). What was false was the + description, as ‘a matter of life and death’, of the supposed superior + duty taken to justify the supersession of the inferior. And what was + revolting, and only too significant, was the revelation, in the phrase + ‘a scrap of paper’, of the belief that the supersession of a duty is a + trifle. + +Footnote 14: + + See the introduction to the translation of Kant’s essay (1893, now + republished). There is a slighter sketch in W. A. Phillips’ + instructive _Confederation of Europe_, 1914. + +Footnote 15: + + The conduct of the ‘Concert of Europe’ in recent years may be + contrasted very favourably with that of the Holy Alliance, and may + well be taken as a good augury; and it is better to emphasize this + than to dwell on the defects of the Concert. At the same time, one + must remember that it has been mainly concerned with troubles arising + from the decay of the Turkish Empire, and that this Empire has not + been considered as a full member of the European ‘Family’, and so has + not been treated as one of the United States of Europe would have to + be. + +Footnote 16: + + I do not remember, and have not found, any passage in his writings + which shows in what precise form he conceived this ideal. + +Footnote 17: + + The latter, for example, in the instructive little book called _The + War and Democracy_, by members of that admirable society, ‘The + Workers’ Educational Association’. + +Footnote 18: + + As regards its social spirit and its standard of social values, + England can hardly be called democratic. It is probably less so than + France was under the third Napoleon. + +Footnote 19: + + I must point out that it by no means follows from the doctrine of the + state’s moral end that the state should promulgate or encourage one + particular view regarding the duties of its citizens or its own + future. On the contrary, one may hold that doctrine and yet hold that + the state should abstain from doing this and, however much it may + support or enforce education, should, within the necessary limits, + leave ‘ideas’ to prevail or fail through the process of free + competition. + +Footnote 20: + + In his lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel spoke of + ‘world-historical’ individuals and peoples, who represent for a time + that ‘world-spirit’ whose ‘right’ is supreme; and perhaps some rash + German reader might cry, ‘Yes, France a century ago, and Germany now.’ + But he will not find a word in Hegel to countenance his claim; and if + he builds his hopes on military power he might ponder Hegel’s final + sentence about the astounding victories of Napoleon: ‘Never was the + powerlessness of victory shown in a clearer light than then.’ I do not + mean to imply that, according to Hegel, what we call the best + intentions are bound to prevail. No philosopher was less inclined to + ignore painful facts. His whole philosophy might even be called an + attempt to understand and justify them. + +Footnote 21: + + My indebtedness in this Paper to Bishop Butler will be obvious to all + who know his sermons on ‘Resentment’ and on ‘The Forgiveness of + Injuries’. + +Footnote 22: + + Among these faults I should count our failure to intervene in the + Schleswig-Holstein War. + +Footnote 23: + + Hegel, _Philosophy of Right_, s. 324. + +Footnote 24: + + The professors, it is said, have been mobilized in the service of + Germany. And on the general merits of the dispute this is so. But I am + not aware of evidence that philosophers of repute have adopted, say, + Bernhardi’s or Treitschke’s views of justification by force. Eucken, + though he stands up for his country, does so partly on the ground that + Bernhardi is not representative, and we must be allowed to discount + the popular use of hard sayings from Nietzsche, though he has very + probably misled the multitude. Nietzsche is not a thinker whom he that + runs may read. Wundt, I think, is simply misinformed and credulous, + while strongly affected by national bias and vanity. I may add that + the idea of ‘culture’ in the earlier period is right and fine. I cite + from Kant what is probably the original account of it: ‘We are + _civilized_ to the point of wearisomeness, into all sorts of social + courtesy and politeness. But before we can be held to be _moralized_ + there is a very long way to go. For culture implies more than + civilization, it implies the idea of morality.’ Kant’s _Werke_ (R.) + 7,329. He is censuring the expenditure on ‘expansion’, as thwarting + the spiritual growth of the citizens. + +Footnote 25: + + _Manchester Lectures on Germany in 19th Century_, 2nd. ed. 19. + +Footnote 26: + + _New Statesman_, February 6 and 13. + +Footnote 27: + + See T. H. Green, _Lectures on Principles of Political Obligation_, ss. + 157–75. + +Footnote 28: + + Lord Haldane’s Montreal address, ‘Higher Nationality’, republished in + _The Conduct of Life_, Murray, 1914. + +Footnote 29: + + Green, op. cit., s. 175. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79404 *** |