(Continued.)
"Mechanism, Diabolism and the common interest of the nations is War'
the title of the Editor's being asserted against the principle article is characteristic. Of the four of self-assertion; the vital forces articles I am trying to summarize, of Europe are in arms against an this will suffer most. immoral abstraction. They will ulti-(1). "The will of the nations when mately triumph. ther singly or together is for peace; (2). A' contrast between the against their wills they are at war. squabbles of 'a few weeks ago" 'The thing they would not' is the and the union now. thing they are doing. The absurd "The war, bursting like " thunderbolt, and the horrible have joined brought us to our souses. Instantly the forces." "The impression left on conception of the State, which we had the mind is that the will of humani-turned upside down, seemed to right ty is being thwarted and mocked. itself: it ceased to be thought of as the tool of our interests and assumed ita true It is though another will not human had wrested the control of the object of our service, "took the place man's affairs from the hands of The change in the man and set him at variance with form of the question acted like ma on the mind of the nation. We were himself.. Our first feeling is one of penetrating discouragement.
Werhed becomes" united. conasnigy longer a collection of
It would seem as if civilization had What is the force that unites us! sense of common danger, the call of no alternative but to common duty, the certainty of common deteat."—"Porhaps history, suffering, the memory of " common often throws light on seemingly "osch faye a part, Bat behind all there irrational situations, may help us is the consciousness of a nation which has to understand these things. For kept its word: No refinements of social mechanism can nite a nation three centuries Europe has been which hae broken ite fait A promise building up " type of civilization betrayal means s people divided." which in many of ita features is Absolute Security. artificial... The mind itself (3). A sense of insecurity before amo to be regarded as 8 mechan-the war due to fear: of revolution iam, to be perfected as such, to be in many forms internally, and to a exploited as such, And society was prospect of a great war externally. "but " larger instance of the same "If civilization is to return to its) mechanism... The outcome of it course ti mosphere must not be all is an artificial civilization found-suffered to return... Ie it ed on the cult. of mechanism and foolish dream that each nation will power, " civilization whose works emerge from the trial, shattered, continually run counter to the deep-it may be, as to the artificial or will of the race, and this for the mechanism of ita daily life, but simple reason that the principle at made whole in spirit by the healing its root wrongly interprets the of internal divisions and by a new nature of man. birth of confidence between man and Man No Machine.
Man is not s machine, neither in his body nor in his mind." "The mechanical abstraction, once installing principle in the cul-sure of nations, is bound to issue at last in the appeal of force, based on the doctrine that might is right. Of all principles, mechanism is the most directly opposed to the recognition of a common interest in the nations of the earth. Its spirit divides, but cannot unite Never will the achievements of mechanism be more brilliant or imposing than when offering proof that merey and justice are illusions. "The mechanical idea has come its tri and the tribunal is one which its own methods have created—the tribunal of force. Life is at war with mechanism, soul with infellect, spirit with matter. The (4). "There is no such thing as absolute' security for human life but a working sense of secon ty is essential to the propre-s of mankind." Civilization and envagory differ just in this respect. "To the savage, the world is demonic, 'a storehouse of trickery: the gods is no concert, no principle in their actions; nor the single god or demon always consistent with himself Hence the savage knows not what a day may bring forth and counts himself}. happy if the hour is unmarked by the disastrous inrush of the unknowable. In Nature everything is liable to play him false... The cultured races have overcome those fundamental misgivings about the world]. which paralyse primitive man. Whatever else Nature may do to powers will never cheat.
They play the game,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.