governed. We believed that, if only we went on long enough repeating our singsong about humanity' and the 'social whole,' something really good would come of it. We believed that the world could be steered into right courses by preaching and pamphleteering and holding conferences and passing resolutions and making speeches. This last especially. When Mr. Asquith or President Wilson made a speech, we devoured it almost before we had read the news of the day, and went home from our clubs depressed or elated as the case might be. We saw that things were in a bad way, but we thought that, if only somebody of sufficient weight would make a certain sort of speech, or issue a certain sort of programme, all would be well. But now! We are growing into tough subjects. When we hear of the 'lessons' the war is teaching, we ask, 'Will the lesson be learned?' When we hear of programmes for reconstructing the world, we ask, 'Will the programme be rehearsed?'

We are all more or less like Dante when the women saw him in the streets of Ravenna. We have sniffed the fumes of the pit and been bitterly salted by its fires. In sympathy with those whom we love, we have been through experiences which reveal the vanity of speechmaking. We have learned something from those young men who come back to us now and then after rubbing elbows with death for many months something, but not a thousandth part of what we shall learn hereafter when the survivors come back in their millions. What is it we have learned? What is it we are going to learn? Not a new theory of life. Not a new view of the universe. Not anything which can be reduced to a doctrine, a formula, a lesson; but an indefinable mood, of which a faint echo may be caught in the words of the young officer, 'Oh, how I wish they would all shut up!'

This may seem a somewhat lamentable conclusion. But it is not so. Unless I am much mistaken, the mood I am trying to indicate has had something to do with every notable renaissance of the human spirit. "Your solemn assemblies my soul hateth. Your hands are full of blood.' It is an old story, and a promising one from the moment when men begin to feel its signifi

cance.

II

And here I wish to make a recantation tion - not because I regard my opinions as important to others, but because I observe that many persons, who are wiser than I am and have more to lose by confessing their errors, would be glad to make the same recantation. Two years ago, I thought and wrote that human nature is responsible for the war. A thing is known by its fruits, and since the war was plainly the doing of man, what better evidence could we have of the sort of being man really is? The war seemed to me at the moment to represent both the height and the depth, the best and the worst, of which man is capable the best in the heroism, courage, sense of duty which are everywhere abundantly displayed, the worst in the ferocity, the hatred, the blood-lust, and the cruelty.

I could not make up my mind as to which of the two sides was preponderant. Sometimes it seemed the one, sometimes the other. But as the war went on and developed its general character and proportions, I began to feel that it could not be interpreted in terms either of the good side or the bad side, either taken singly or taken together. It gradually took on the character of a vast exhibition of insanity, not amenable to the categories either of evil or of good; so that if my original. proposition about human nature being responsible were true, the only conclu

sion I could draw was that man was essentially mad. And it was madness of a curiously complicated kind, of a kind so extraordinary indeed that it may well be doubted if the most experienced alienist has ever encountered anything comparable to it among the most dangerous class of lunatics. Here was a group of great peoples, enlightened by all that science, philosophy, and religion have to teach, slaughtering and mutilating one another to the tune of forty-one millions in two years and all for what? To settle a type of quarrel which, if it had broken out between six sensible individuals, instead of so many 'Great Powers,' might have been amicably settled in a few minutes over a pipe of tobacco.

But that was only half the story. The other half came, not from the war, but from the people who stay at home and discuss the war and think that these Bedlam proceedings can be stopped and prevented for the future by launching programmes or by pronouncing epigrams. It seemed to me incomprehensible that these people should be unaware that their talking method had had its day, had had a fair trial through many centuries, with such results as we are now witnessing; and so, of all the madmen who were making their contributions to the reigning pandemonium, these wiseacres seemed to me the maddest of the lot. So I began to listen with sympathy when I heard people saying ugly things about human nature as that man is the lowest of all the carnivora, the most irrational of all created beings, the biggest fool in the universe, the one animal who is incapable of managing his own affairs, and so on. All this seemed to follow if I stood firm to my original proposition that human nature is responsible for the war.

Then I looked round on the men and women I knew; I even thought of cer

tain Germans whose friendship had been mine in happier days. I thought of men of other races whom I had met in my travels, men of many religions, of different colors and of skulls with curious shapes. Plainly these people were not mad or bestial. They were far superior to the highest of the carnivora. I was bound to admit some exceptions. But taking them all in all, they were a very decent, kindly, sensible lot. They had no desire to blow one another to pieces. I could not remember meeting one who wanted even to blow me to pieces. I could indeed recall a conversation with an angry German professor who assured me in excellent colloquial English that one of these days 'Germany would knock the bottom out of the British Empire'; but if I had suggested that he should make a small beginning on the spot by sticking a bayonet through my body, he would have turned sick at the thought. I certainly had no wish to bayonet him. And so all round. The forty-one millions killed and wounded represent what none of these decent, sensible, kindly individuals wants. It represents something which every one of them abhors. If only these men and women were left alone to express their own nature in its own way; if only they were allowed to live without interference from foul spells of one kind or another, they would never be such fools (to use the mildest term) as to make the exhibition of themselves which an astonished universe has now to witness. And I turned aside from my books on 'The Philosophical Theory of Human Solidarity' and began repeating the 'Battle of Blenheim'-about Old Caspar and Little Peterkin.

As I considered these things it suddenly flashed upon me that human nature is not responsible for the war, and that I had been wholly and disastrously wrong in thinking that it was. I saw

that human nature has been dragged into the business against its will dragged into it by some malign power. For something or somebody is plainly responsible for the war-else it could never have taken place. What is it?

Pondering this question, I found a certain indignation rising within me, and it moved in three directions. First it moved against myself for having ever done my species the foul wrong of thinking that human nature is responsible for this war. Secondly, it moved against the writers (of whom again I had formerly been one myself) who are constantly declaring that what the peoples want is a change of heart. Thirdly and chiefly, it moved against our philosophical theorists, of whom I had never been one, thank God! - who have erected the State into something semi-divine, if not divine altogether. For I had begun to see that it is precisely State-nature, and not human nature, which is rightly responsible for all this devilry. Of this I will try to speak more fully.

III

The State, as philosophers represent it, is an organization by means of which individuals pool their personalities, their wills, their minds, their energies, and their resources for the common good. It appears to be an admirable arrangement, and, in the eyes of many, it is adorable. Not only is the common good' promoted as it could be by nothing else, but the individual who lends himself to the State, body, soul, and spirit, gets back his individuality enlarged and enriched with the wisdom, the grandeur, the morality of the vast being whom he has thus made his creditor. Thus, the State draws both the selfish and the unselfish into its net and provides salvation for both. To the selfish man who wants to have the best possible time, the State says, 'Surren

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der to me and serve me, for only thus can anybody have a really good time.' To the unselfish man who would sacrifice himself for others, the State says, 'I am here, a standing opportunity for self-immolation. Serve me!'

All this is true and would be helpful were it not for a single drawback. The State which the philosophers describe exists nowhere on the earth. What does exist is a group of states, whose characteristics, if you take them one by one, and still more if you take them all together, are very different from those of the philosophers' 'State,' and to a large extent its opposite.

To begin with, even if we assume (what is doubtful) that each of the existing states is organized for achieving the highest good of its own members, we must not overlook the fact that some of them are organized for doing the utmost harm to the members of other states. The philosophers tell us very little about this; yet surely it is a point that ought to be taken into consideration before we surrender ourselves to the State in the name of the 'common good.' Again, a state may be extremely wise in its dealings with its own members but extremely stupid in its relations with other states; so that my surrender to it will involve me in becoming a party to its external stupidity as well as to its internal wisdom, and perhaps leave me at the end of the chapter a bigger fool than if I had stayed outside altogether and stood on my own individual legs.

And not only do these existing states differ from and contradict the philosophers' conception, but they differ widely and flagrantly among themselves. Surrendering my individuality to the State is one proposition if I happen to be born a German, or a Mexican; it is another proposition if I happen to be born an American or an Englishman. In either of the latter cases the proposi

tion is one which a wise man may consider on its merits: in either of the former he can only cry, Retro, Sathanas! He would do as well for himself by surrendering his personality to the Devil.

Philosophers do indeed remind us from time to time that the 'State' of which they discourse has as yet no actual embodiment on the earth. But they ought to be more explicit in showing us how we can serve this ideal State and surrender ourselves to it, and at the same time do our duty to a real State which contradicts the ideal in so many important respects. My duties to the ideal State of the philosophers require me to promote the good of all mankind; my duties to the actual State to which I belong require me to give up a third of my income and the whole of my energy, not to speak of things more precious still, to help in the work of overthrowing another state and destroying the individuals who are fighting on its behalf.

The two things are not easily reconciled. Even our pacifist friends can hardly claim to have overcome the difficulty. For while in the name of the ideal State they consistently refuse to fight for the actual State, they none the less accept quite contentedly the immense benefit of the protection which the actual State, by fighting, secures for them, and even pay the taxes which provide their defenders with arms. Indeed, I know of no form of conscientious objection or passive resistance which could free us from complicity in the deeds of the State to which we belong. Even the act of speaking the language of one's country involves us, when we come to think of it, in sharing the guilt, if it be a guilt, of the general proceedings which have made and are still keeping our nation what it is. There is no escape from these responsibilities for any of us. Pacifists and militarists alike, we are all tarred with the

same brush - and the hand which wields the brush is not the ideal State of our philosophy but the actual State of our political allegiance. By these actual states the world of to-day will be justified; and by them it will be condemned.

What then is the true character of these states? There are two modes of arriving at the answer and it is highly important that they should be distinguished.

The first mode is to take one of the more advanced of them and consider its internal structure. It is this mode of studying the State which generally leads us to give it a good character. We see before us a public organization which, in spite of many blunderings and much waste of words, is obviously intent on the good of the community, promoting all kinds of arrangements for rendering people as happy and as wise as circumstances will permit. This State, we say, is both moral and intelligent, and on the whole seems to be growing more moral and more intelligent. It is guided by the ablest brains, and is not uninfluenced by noble ideals of humanity. Looked at in isolation, it stands for a splendid achievement, and though no such state has yet fulfilled the ideal of the philosopher, there is good reason to believe that the gulf has been bridged between the actual and the ideal; that, in short, we are on the right road. Seen from this angle of vision the particular State we are studying is an altogether admirable institution. It is the view on which the modern worship of the State stands founded. It comes to us in times of peace, permeates our political philosophy, and is the commonplace of young men's debating societies. No other view of the State has any currency in normal times.

But there is another mode of determining the character of the State, which yields a very different impres

sion. Instead of looking at the single state in its internal structure we may look at the whole group of states in their external relations to one another. Here we are confronted with a scene of disorder, stupidity, and immorality which, if the actors in it were individual men instead of individual 'powers,' would at once be recognized as a scene in some asylum for criminal lunatics. "The State,' say the philosophers, ' is a larger individual.' Very well then, let some dramatist 'stage' the international situation accordingly. Let these large individuals be personified and given names as though they were men: let them appear on the boards before the public eye, and then in dumb show let them faithfully enact the history of European international politics during the last fifty years; let them reveal by their actions and attitudes the absurd and childish misunderstandings, in all their protean imbecility, which have characterized that period, and let them end by dividing into two groups and proceeding to tear one another to pieces, as the States of Europe are now doing. What impression would the play make on any person in the theatre who happened to retain possession of his wits in presence of a spectacle so appalling? This,' he would unquestionably say, 'is Bedlam in dumb show.'

Belonging as I do to one of the more advanced states of the world, I am willing to concede to it all the good qualities which it can claim in virtue of its internal structure. I admit further my duty to serve it to the best of my ability. And I question nothing of what the philosophers say of the resulting benefit to me as a man to wit, that this, my service of the State, makes me more of a man in every essential regard, that it enlarges my individuality and clothes me, according to my faithfulness, with the strength of the whole body politic and the wisdom of the

common mind. But unfortunately that is not the end of the matter. This State to which I belong as a member is itself a member of a larger group. It is a state among states; so that I, in belonging to it, become involved in the affairs of the whole group to which it belongs. Here, the extension of my personality, the enrichment of my manhood, the enlargement of my reason, and so forth, which have gone on merrily enough while my relations to my own State were in question, come to a dead stop. From that point onward the process is reversed. To begin with, I become involved in all sorts of jealousies, misunderstandings, suspicions, and foolish antics, which if they took place between man and man would be disgraceful, if not idiotic. And finally, when the states begin to tear one another to pieces, I am made a party to ferocities of which the very brutes are incapable. In fact, all that has been said about the State being a better and wiser sort of individual vanishes when we come to consider the group which is formed by all the states and by their external relations to one another. All that my humanity has gained by having its place in the single community is not only lost but converted into its opposite by participation in the total chaos of international affairs.

So, then, I can share and indorse every argument which bids me honor the well-ordered State to which I happen to belong; I can extend a like respect to certain other states, as well ordered as my own; I can even understand the condition of mind which runs to state-worship when internal structure is alone in question; but as to worshiping the whole lot in their external relations to one another I would rather, to borrow Huxley's phrase, 'worship a wilderness of monkeys.' And yet the fact remains that, in spite of our reasonable contempt, in spite of the horror