expense and toil of previous preparation, and the still greater expense and toil of guarding and securing whatever advantage has been gained? I am far from taking it for granted that the answer to this question would necessarily be a sweeping negative; but it would surely appear that, in these days of fabulously expensive armament and apparatus, and ever more intricate financial interrelations, the possible advantages of war to any class of any community were becoming increasingly dubious. The Franco-German War is commonly cited as one from which the victor reaped huge and conspicuous gains. The Franco-German War, be it noted, took place nearly half a century ago; but, even so, I should very much like to see a searching analysis of its vaunted profits. It is true that the conditions were exceptionally favorable to profitmaking. The war was short, the collapse of the enemy complete, the territorial acquisition large, the indemnity enormous. But was the territorial acquisition a true gain to any human being? Is it fair to attribute the industrial growth and expansion of Germany wholly, or in any determining measure, to the influence of the war? How many times over has the indemnity been absorbed by the direct and indirect expense involved in guarding the spoils? And is the account yet closed? Even if the balance stands to-day somewhat to the credit side, may there not be huge sums of compound interest to be paid in the ⚫ future for those months of inebriating triumph? As one walks the streets of Berlin, and sees at every corner some bronze colossus sending up its silent shout of "Victory!" to the inscrutable heavens, one wonders how the German "philolog" of to-day expounds to his students the myth of Nemesis. And these doubts and hesitations, be it noted, merely concern the question of gross profits as recorded in col umns of statistics. The Great Analysis would be a futility indeed if it took statistics at their face value, and did not translate them into terms of human well-being. The results of the investigation would probably be still more dubious when the distribution of the profits came to be considered, and their influence upon the actual worth of human life. I am not assuming (as some people do) that the dreamy, idealistic, provincial, ante-bellum German was a happier or a better man than the hustling, aggressive, cosmopolitan German of to-day. The idealist, in so far as he existed at all, was probably doomed to go under in the mere march of human affairs, war or no war. What I do suggest is that investigation might possibly show that, for the mass of the German people, the stress and strain of life had increased out of all proportion to any increase in its interest, pleasure, or comfortin short, in either its spiritual or its animal satisfactions. It would not improbably be found that the French milliards, in so far as they reached the pockets of the German people at all, went to swell the tide of luxury and vulgar ostentation, not to relieve the burdens, or dignify the lives, of the masses. They may have helped to make of Berlin a flaunting, swaggering, champagne-bibbing European capital, in place of the unpretentious Residenz of old; but have they enhanced the general worth of life for the bulk of the German nation? The efficiency which one so often admires, not without envy, in Germany, is no product of the war: rather, the war was a product of the efficiency. As for the rapid growth of population, we must think twice before we accept that as a proof of general well-being. It is often the most miserable household that is the most prolific. I would be understood as suggesting the heads of a possible analysis, not forestalling its results. It is quite probable that in this particular instance-an exceptionally favorable one for the believers in the benefits of war -a good case could be made out for an ultimate balance of profit. Still more probably might it be demonstrated that, with an unscrupulous mock-Napoleon seated on the throne of France, war was, for Germany, the less of two evils. This argument may sometimes be advanced with speciousness, and possibly with justice, while the worldwill remains at sixes and sevens, and the world-conscience, though perhaps moving in the womb of time, is certainly as yet unborn. But that only brings home to us the urgent necessity for a systematic effort to harmonize the distracted will by proposing to it a largely conceived, rational design, and at the same time to expedite the birth of a collective conscience. It is a monstrous and intolerable thought that civilization may at any moment be hurled half-way back to barbarism by some scheming adventurer, some superstitious madman, or simply a pompous, well-meaning busybody. There is a great deal of common sense in the world, if only it could be organized to the rational end. But while we are wholly in doubt as to whither we are going, it is no wonder if we quarrel as to how we are to get there, and are never secure against the baneful influence of crazes, hallucinations, sophistries, catchwords, and that tribal vanity which, under the name of patriotism, works far more insidious mischief than personal conceit. VIII One thing, however, I do venture to prophesy-namely, that the study of all international problems, with that of war at their head, will be found to lead back to the one great problem-neither national nor international, but fundamental of the distribution of wealth. I am even tempted to lay down an axiom, to this effect: "When the profits of war (if any) are distributed with a reasonable approach to justice, no one will any longer want to make war." In other words, the profits of war—and that term, of course, includes "armed peace," with its everrecurring games of bluff in pursuit of some economic advantage-the profits of war go to widen the gap between the "haves" and "have nots." They may give room for an increase in the numbers of the proletariat; they do not better its condition. We are back, then, at our starting-point. We find, after reviewing the main factors of complication, that the fundamental problem of the Great Analysis is precisely that which confronted the Organizers of our hypothetical Yorkshire-the establishment of a reasonable equilibrium between the resources of the planet and the drafts upon them, between Commodities and Consumption, or, in the most general terms, between Nature and Human Life. It is evident, if we only think of it, that such an equilibrium can and must be established, unless the history of the world is to be one long series of oscillations between nascent order and devouring chaos. Hitherto, as above indicated, the necessary data for the equation have been unattainable. We simply did not know the world we lived in. Now that we possess, or are in a fair way of attaining, an adequate knowledge of the data, we cannot too soon set about working out the equation-in the first place on paper. The sooner we see our way (however roughly outlined) to a rational world-order, the more chance is there of preventing a catastrophic swing of the pendulum. XXIII THE UNITY OF HUMAN NATURE 1 JOHN JAY CHAPMAN If one could stand on the edge of the moon and look down through a couple of thousand years on human politics, it would be apparent that everything that happened on the earth was directly dependent on everything else that happened there. Whether the Italian peasant shall eat salt with his bread depends upon Bismarck. Whether the prison system of Russia shall be improved depends upon the ministry of Great Britain. If Lord Beaconsfield is in power, there is no leisure in Russia for domestic reform. The lash is everywhere lifted in a security furnished by the concurrence of all the influences upon the globe that favor coercion. In like manner, the good things that happen are each the product of all extant conditions. Constitutional government in England qualifies the whole of western Europe. Our slaves were not set free without the assistance of every liberal mind in Europe; and the thoughts which we think in our closet affect the fate of the Boer in South Africa. That Tolstoi is to-day living unmolested upon his farm instead of serving in a Siberian mine, that Dreyfus is alive and not dead, 1 An address delivered before the graduating class at Hobart College in 1900. Reprinted from Learning and Other Essays, through the courtesy of John Jay Chapman and of Messrs. Moffat, Yard and Company. |