Chapter IV: Summary--Predictions (1)

To sum up: If I look at contemporary humanity from the point of view of its moral state as revealed by its political life, I see (_a_) A mass in whom realist passions in its two chief forms--class passion, national passion--has attained a degree of consciousness and organization hitherto unknown; (_b_) A body of men who used to be in opposition to the realism of the masses, but who now, not only do not oppose it, but adopt it, proclaim its grandeur and morality; in short, a humanity which has abandoned itself to realism with a unanimity, an absence of reserve, a sanctification of its passion unexampled in history.

This remark may be put in another form. Imagine an observer of the twelfth century taking a bird’s-eye view of the Europe of his time. He would see men groping in the obscurity of their minds and striving to form themselves into nations (to mention only the most striking aspect of the realist will); he would see them beginning to succeed; he would see groups of men attaining consistency, determined to seize a portion of the earth and tending to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from the groups surrounding them. But at the same time he would see a whole class of men, regarded with the greatest reverence, labouring to thwart this movement. He would see men of learning, artists and philosophers, displaying to the world a spirit which cared nothing for nations, using a universal language among themselves. He would see those who gave Europe its moral values preaching the cult of the human, or at least of the Christian, and not of the national, he would see them striving to found, in opposition to the nations, a great universal empire on spiritual foundations. And so he might say to himself: ‘Which of these two currents will triumph? Will humanity be national or spiritual? Will it depend on the will of the laymen or of the “clerks”?’ And for long ages the realist cause will not be completely victorious; the spiritual body will remain faithful to itself long enough to our observer to be uncertain of the result. To-day the game is over. Humanity is national. The layman has won. But his triumph has gone beyond anything he could have expected. The ‘clerk’ is not only conquered, he is assimilated. The man of science, the artist, the philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-labourer and the merchant. Those who make the world’s values, make them for a nation; the Ministers of Jesus defend the national. All humanity including the ‘clerks’, have become laymen. All Europe, including Erasmus, has followed Luther.

I said above that the humanity of the past, more precisely the humanity of Europe in the Middle Ages, with the values imposed upon it by the ‘clerks’, acted ill but honoured the good. It may be said that modern Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are beautiful, acts ill and honours what is ill. Modern Europe is like the brigand in one of Tolstoi’s stories, who made his confession to a hermit, and the hermit said in amazement: ‘Others were at least ashamed of being brigands; but what is to be done with this man, who is proud of it?’

Indeed, if we ask ourselves what will happen to a humanity where every group is striving more eagerly than ever to feel conscious of its own particular interests, and makes its moralists tell it that it is sublime to the extent that it knows no law but this interest--a child can give the answer. This humanity is heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world, whether it is a war of nations, or a war of classes. A race of which one group exalts one of its masters (Barrès) to the skies because he teaches: ‘We must defend the essential part of ourselves as sectarians,’ while a neighbouring group acclaims a leader because, when he attacks a defenceless small nation, he says, ‘Necessity knows no law’--such a race is ripe for the zoological wars Renan talks about, which, he said, would be like the life and death wars which occur among rodents and among the carnivora. As regards the nation, think of Italy; as regards class, think of Russia; and you will see the hitherto unknown point of perfection attained by the spirit of hatred against what is ‘different’ among a group of men, consciously realist and at last liberated from all non-practical morality. And my predictions are not rendered less probable by the fact that these two nations are hailed as models throughout the world by those who desire either the grandeur of their nation or the triumph of their class.

These dark predictions do not seem to me to need as much modification as some people think, on account of certain actions resolutely directed against war, such as the setting up of a supernational institution and the agreements recently made by the rival nations. Imposed upon the nations by their Ministers rather than desired by them, dictated solely by interest (the fear of war and its ravages) and not at all by a change in public morality, these new institutions may perhaps be opposed to war but leave intact the _spirit of war_, and nothing leads us to suppose that a nation which only respects a contract for practical reasons, will not break it as soon as breaking it appears more profitable. Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.[164] In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing. And moreover these tribunals leave untouched the economic war between the nations and the class wars.

Peace, it must be repeated after so many others have said this, is only possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession of things ‘which cannot be shared’, and if they raise themselves to a point where they adopt an abstract principle superior to their egotisms. In other words, it can only be obtained by a betterment of human morality. But, as I have pointed out above, not only do men to-day steel themselves entirely against this, but the very first condition of peace, which is to recognize the necessity for this progress of the soul, is seriously menaced. A school arose in the nineteenth century which told men to expect peace from enlightened self-interest, from the belief that a war, even when victorious, is disastrous, especially to economic transformations, to ‘the evolution of production’, in a phrase, to factors totally foreign to their moral improvement, from which, these thinkers say, it would be frivolous to expect anything. So that humanity, even if it had any desire for peace, is exhorted to neglect the one effort which might procure it, an effort it is delighted not to make. The cause of peace, which is always surrounded with adverse factors, in our days has one more against it--the pacifism which pretends to be scientific.[165]

I can point to other sorts of pacifism, whose chief result I dare to say is to weaken the cause of peace, at least among serious-minded persons:--

(_a_) First, there is the pacifism I shall call ‘vulgar’, meaning thereby the pacifism which does nothing but denounce ‘the man who kills’, and sneer at the prejudices of patriotism. When I see certain teachers, even if they are Montaigne, Voltaire, and Anatole France, whose whole case against war consists in saying that highwaymen are no more criminal than leaders of armies, and in laughing at people who kill each other because one party is dressed in yellow and the other in blue, I feel inclined to desert a cause whose champions over-simplify things to this extent, and I begin to feel some sympathy for the impulses of profound humanity which created the nations and which are thereby so grossly insulted.[166]

(_b_) _Mystic pacifism_, by which I mean the pacifism which is solely animated by a blind hatred of war and refuses to inquire whether a war is just or not, whether those fighting are the attackers or the defenders, whether they wanted war or only submit to it. This pacifism is essentially the pacifism of the people (and that of all the so-called pacifist newspapers) and was strikingly embodied in 1914 by a French writer who, having to judge between two fighting nations one of which had attacked the other contrary to all its pledges while the other was only defending itself, could do nothing but intone ‘I have a horror of war’ and condemned them both equally. It is impossible to exaggerate the consequences of this behaviour, which showed mankind that mystic pacifism, just like mystic militarism, may entirely obliterate the feeling of justice in those who are smitten with it.

I think I see another motive in the French writers who in 1914 adopted the attitude of M. Romain Rolland--the fear that they would fall into national partiality if they admitted that their nation was in the right. It may be asserted that these writers would have warmly taken up the cause of France, if France had not been their own country. Whereas Barrès said, ‘I always maintain my country is right even if it is in the wrong,’ these strange friends of justice are not unwilling to say: ‘I always maintain my country is in the wrong, even if it is right.’ There again we see that the frenzy of impartiality, like any other frenzy, leads to injustice.

I have also a word to say about the severities of these ‘justiciaries’ towards France’s attitude immediately after her victory, towards her desire to force the enemy to make good the damage done to her, and to seize on pledges if he refused. The motive which here animated these moralists without their perceiving it, seems to me very remarkable; it was the thought that the just person must inevitably be weak and suffer, that he must be a victim. If the just man becomes strong and comes to possess the means of enforcing justice towards himself, then he ceases to be just to these thinkers. If Socrates and Jesus make their persecutors disgorge, then they cease to embody justice; one step more and the persecutors, having become victims, would embody right. In this the cult of justice is replaced by the cult of misfortune, a Christian Romanticism which is somewhat unexpected in a man like Anatole France. No doubt the events of 1918 upset all the habits of the advocates of right. Outraged right became the stronger, the assailed toga triumphed over the sword, the Curiatii were victorious. Perhaps some coolness of mind was needed to recognize that right remained right, even when thus invested with force. The French pacifists failed to remain cool. In short, their attitude in the past ten years has been inspired by sentiment alone, and nothing could show better the degree of weakness to which intellectual discipline has now fallen among our ‘princes of the mind’.[167]

(_c_) _Pacifism claiming to be patriotic_, by which I mean the pacifism which claims to exalt humanitarianism, to preach the abatement of the militarist spirit and of national passion, and yet not to harm the interests of the nation nor to compromise its power of resistance to foreign nations. This attitude--which is that of all Parliamentary pacifists--is the more antipathetic to upright minds in that it is inevitably accompanied by the assertion (which is also nearly always contrary to the truth) that the nation is not in the least threatened and that the malevolence of neighbouring nations is a pure invention of people who want war. But that is merely an aspect of a very general fact, which is of supreme importance to the matter under discussion.

By this I mean the ‘clerk’s’ determination to put forth his principles as valid in the practical order of things, as reconcilable with the safeguarding of the sword’s conquests. This determination, which has affected the Church for twenty centuries and almost all the idealists (give me the names of those since Jesus who have declared themselves incompetent in the practical order of things), is the source of all the ‘clerk’s failures’. It may be said that the ‘clerk’s’ defeat begins from the very moment when he claims to be practical. As soon as the ‘clerk’ claims that he does not disregard the interests of the nation or of the established classes, he is inevitably beaten, for the very good reason that it is impossible to preach the spiritual and the universal without undermining the institutions whose foundations are the possession of the material and the desire to feel distinct from others. A true ‘clerk’ (Renan) says excellently: ‘The mother-country is a worldly thing; the man who wants to play the angel will always be a bad patriot.’ Thus we see that the ‘clerk’ who claims to secure the works of the world has a choice between two consequences. Either he secures them and transgresses all his principles, which is the case with the Church supporting the nation and property; or he maintains his principles and causes the ruin of the institutions he claimed he was supporting, which is the case with the humanitarian who claims to safeguard what is national. In the first case the ‘clerk’ is despised by the just man, who denounces him as cunning and strikes him out of the rank of ‘clerk’; and in the second case he collapses under the hooting of the nations who call him inefficient, while he provokes a violent and loudly acclaimed reaction on the part of the realist, which is what is now happening in Italy. From all this it follows that the ‘clerk’ is only strong if he is clearly conscious of his essential qualities and his true function, and shows mankind that he is clearly conscious of them. In other words he declares to them that his kingdom is not of this world, that _the grandeur of his teaching lies precisely in this absence of practical value, and that the right morality for the prosperity of the kingdoms which are of this world, is not his, but Caesar’s_. When he takes up this position, the ‘clerk’ is crucified, but he is respected, and his words haunt the memory of mankind.[168] The need to remind the modern ‘clerks’ of these truths (for everyone of them is angry at being called Utopian) is one of the most suggestive observations in connection with our subject. It shows that the desire to be practical has become general, that the claim to be so has now become necessary in order to obtain an audience, and that the very notion of ‘clerkdom’ has become obscured even in those who still tend to exercise that function.

It will be seen that I entirely dissociate myself from those who want the ‘clerk’ to govern the world, and who wish with Renan for the ‘reign of the philosophers’; for it seems to me that human affairs can only adopt the religions of the true ‘clerk’ under penalty of becoming divine, i.e. of perishing as human. This has been clearly seen by all lovers of the divine who did not desire the destruction of what is human. This is marvellously expressed by one of them when he makes Jesus say so profoundly to His disciple: ‘My son, I must not give you a clear idea of your substance ... for if you saw clearly what you are, you could no longer remain so closely united to your body. You would no longer watch over the preservation of your life.’[169] But though I think it a bad thing that the ‘clerk’s’ religion should possess the lay world, I think it still more to be dreaded that it should not be preached to the layman at all, and that he should thus be allowed to yield to his practical passions without the least shame or the least, even hypocritical, desire to raise himself however slightly above them. ‘There are a few just men who prevent me from sleeping’--that was what the realist said of the teachers of old. Nietzsche, Barrès, and Sorel do not prevent any realist from sleeping; on the contrary. This is the novelty I want to point out, which to me seems so serious. It seems to me serious that a humanity, which is more than ever obsessed by the passions of the world, should receive from its spiritual leaders the command: ‘remain faithful to the earth.’

Is this adoption of ‘integral realism’ by the human species permanent, or merely temporary? Are we, as some people think, witnessing the beginning of a new Middle Ages (and one far more barbarous than the former, for though it practised realism, it did not extol realism), from which, however, will arise a new Renaissance, a new return to the religion of disinterestedness? The elements we have discovered as forming the new realism scarcely allow us to hope so. It is hard to imagine the nations sincerely striving not to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from others, or, if they do so, having any other motive than that of concentrating inter-human hatred into that of class. It is hard to imagine the clergy regaining a real moral sway over the faithful and being able (supposing they desired to do so) to tell them with impunity unpleasant truths. It is hard to imagine a body of men of letters (for corporative action becomes more and more important) attempting to withstand the bourgeois classes instead of flattering them. It is still harder to imagine them turning against the tide of their intellectual decadence and ceasing to think that they display a lofty culture when they sneer at rational morality and fall on their knees before history. Nevertheless one thinks of a humanity of the future, weary of its ‘sacred egotisms’ and the slaughterings to which they inevitably lead, coming as humanity came two thousand years ago, to the acceptance of a good situated beyond itself, accepting it even more ardently than before, with the knowledge of all the tears and blood that have been shed through departing from that doctrine. Once more Vauvenargues’ admirable saying would be verified. ‘The passions have taught men reason.’ But such a thing only seems to me possible after a long lapse of time, when war has caused far more woes than have yet been endured. Men will not revise their values for wars which only last fifty months and only kill a couple of million men in each nation. One may even doubt whether war will ever become so terrible as to discourage those who love it, the more so since they are not always the men who have to fight.

When I set this limit to my pessimistic outlook and admit that such a Renaissance is possible, I mean no more than that it is just possible. I cannot agree with those who say it is certain, either because it happened once before, or because ‘civilization is due to the human race’. Civilization as I understand it here--moral supremacy conferred on the cult of the spiritual and on the feeling of the universal--appears to me as a lucky accident in man’s development. It blossomed three thousand years ago under a set of circumstances whose contingent character was perfectly perceived by the historian who called it ‘the Greek miracle’. It does not appear to me in the least to be a thing due to the human race by virtue of the data of its nature. It seems to me so little such a thing that I observe large portions of the species (the Asiatic world in antiquity, the Germanic world in modern times) who showed themselves incapable of it and quite likely to remain so. And this means that if humanity loses this jewel, there is not much chance of finding it again. On the contrary there is every chance that humanity will not find it again, just as a man who should find a precious stone in the sea and then drop it back in the water would have little chance of ever seeing it again. Nothing seems to me more doubtful than Aristotle’s remark that it is probable the arts and philosophy have several times been discovered and several times lost. The other position which maintains that civilization, despite partial eclipses, is something which humanity cannot lose, seems to me quite worthless except as an act of faith--though it is valuable as a means of preserving the good we wish to keep. I should not think it a serious objection to what I have said if someone should point out that civilization, lost once with the fall of the ancient world, nevertheless had its Renaissance. Everyone knows that the Graeco-Roman form of mind was far from being wholly extinguished during the Middle Ages and that the sixteenth century only brought to life what was not dead; to which I add that even if that form of mind had been ‘reborn’ _ex nihilo_, the fact that this is the only instance would make it insufficient to reassure me, although the fact that it had occurred would disturb me.

Let me point out in this respect that insufficient attention is perhaps paid to the fact that there are always only a very tiny number of instances in history on which are built up a ‘law’, which claims to be valid for the whole past and future evolution of humanity. Vico says that history is a series of alternations between periods of progress and periods of retrogression; and he gives _two_ examples. Saint-Simon says history is a series of oscillations between organic epochs and critical epochs; and he gives _two_ examples. Marx says history is a series of economic systems, each of which casts out its predecessor by means of violence; and he gives _one_ example! I shall be told that these examples could not be more numerous, owing to the fact that history, at least known history, is so short. The truth, implied by this very reply, is that history has lasted too short a time for us to be able to deduce laws from it to enable us to infer the future from the past. Those who do so are like a mathematician who should decide the nature of a curve from the form he finds it has at its very beginning. True, a somewhat uncommon turn of mind is required to confess that human history, after several thousands of years, is only beginning. I cannot sufficiently admire the rare mental value displayed by La Bruyère (in my opinion) when he wrote the following lines in a century which was strongly inclined to think it was the topmost summit of human development: ‘If the world lasts only a hundred million years, it will still be in all its freshness and only beginning; we ourselves are almost contemporary with the first men and the patriarchs, and who, in those far-off ages, will be able to avoid confusing us with them? But if we judge of the future from the past, what new things are we ignorant of in the arts, in the sciences, in Nature, and, I dare say, in history? What discoveries will be made! What different revolutions will occur in our Empires all over the world! How ignorant we are! And how slight is an experience of six or seven thousand years!’

I shall go further and say that even if an examination of the past could lead to any valid prediction concerning man’s future, that prediction would be the contrary of reassuring. People forget that Hellenic rationalism only really enlightened the world during seven hundred years, that it was then hidden (this _a minima_ verdict will be granted me) for twelve centuries, and has begun to shine again for barely four centuries; so that _the longest period of consecutive time in human history on which we can found inductions is, upon the whole, a period of intellectual and moral darkness_. Looking at history, we may say in a more synthetic manner that, with the exception of two or three very short, luminous epochs whose light, like that of certain stars, lightens the world long after they are extinct, humanity lives generally in darkness; while literatures live generally in a state of decadence and the organism in disorder. And the disturbing thing is that humanity does not seem to mind these long periods of cave-dwelling.

To come back to the realism of my contemporaries and their contempt for a disinterested existence, I must add that my mind is sometimes haunted by a dreadful question. I wonder whether humanity, by adopting this system to-day, has not discovered its true law of existence and adopted the true scale of values demanded by its essence? The religion of the spiritual, I said just now, seems to me a lucky accident in man’s history. I shall go further, and say it seems to me a paradox. The obvious law of human substance is the conquest of things and the exaltation of the impulses which secure this conquest. Only through an amazing abuse were a handful of men at desks able to succeed in making humanity believe that the supreme values are the good things of the spirit. To-day humanity has awakened from this dream, knows its true nature and its real desires, and utters its war-cry against those who for centuries have robbed it of itself. Instead of waxing indignant at the ruin of their domination, would it not be more reasonable for these usurpers (if there are any left) to wonder that it lasted so long? Orpheus could not aspire to charm the wild beasts with his music until the end of time. However, one could have hoped that Orpheus himself would not become a wild beast.

It is scarcely necessary to say my remarks on realist desires and their violent perfecting do not blind me to the immense growth of gentleness, justice, and love written to-day in our customs and laws, which would certainly have amazed our most optimistic ancestors. There is an immense improvement in the relations between man and man within the groups which fight each other--especially within the nation where security is the rule and injustice is a scandal. But to keep more closely to our subject, perhaps we do not sufficiently realize the incredible degree of civilization implied by the good treatment of prisoners, and the care of enemy wounded in wars between nations, and by the institution of public and private charity in the relations between the classes. The denial of progress, the assertion that barbarity of heart has never been worse, are natural themes for poets and those who are discontented, and perhaps they are even necessary to progress. But the historian, whether he looks at national or class warfare, is amazed at the transformation of a species which only four centuries ago roasted prisoners of war in baker’s ovens, and, only two centuries ago forbade the workers to establish a pension fund for their aged members. Nevertheless I must point out that these improvements cannot be credited to the present age. They are the results of the teaching of the eighteenth century, against which the ‘masters of modern thought’ are in complete revolt. The establishment of war ambulances, the wide development of State charities are the work of the Second Empire, are connected with the ‘humanitarian clichés’ of Victor Hugo and Michelet, which are immeasureably despised by the moralists of the past half century. They exist to some extent _despite of_ these moralists, not one of whom has conducted a truly humane campaign, while the chief of them--Nietzsche, Barrès, Sorel--would blush to be able to say like Voltaire: ‘I have done a little good, ’tis my best work.’ I must add that these good works are now merely customs, i.e. actions performed from habit, without the will taking any part in them, without the mind reflecting on their meaning. And if the mind of our realists ever came to think of them, I think there is every possibility that it might prohibit them. I can well imagine a future war when a nation would decide not to look after the enemy wounded, a strike where the bourgeoisie would make up its mind not to support hospitals for the benefit of a class which was ruining it and anxious to destroy it. I can imagine both priding themselves on getting free from a ‘stupid humanitarianism’, and finding disciples of Nietzsche and Sorel to praise them for it. The attitude of the Italian Fascists and the Russian Bolshevists towards their enemies is not calculated to give me the lie here. The modern world still displays certain failures in pure practicality, a few stains of idealism from which it might well cleanse itself.

I said above that the logical end of the ‘integral realism’ professed by humanity to-day is the organized slaughter of nations or classes. It is possible to conceive of a third, which would be their reconciliation. The thing to possess would be the whole earth, and they would finally come to realize that the only way to exploit it properly is by union, while the desire to set themselves up as distinct from others would be transferred from the nation to the species, arrogantly drawn up against everything which is not itself. And, as a matter of fact, such a movement does exist. Above classes and nations there does exist a desire of the species to become the master of things, and, when a human being flies from one end of the world to the other in a few hours, the whole human race quivers with pride and adores itself as distinct from all the rest of creation. At bottom, this imperialism of the species is preached by all the great directors of the modern conscience. It is Man, and not the nation or the class, whom Nietzsche, Sorel, Bergson extoll in his genius for making himself master of the world. It is humanity, and not any one section of it, whom Auguste Comte exhorts to plunge into consciousness of itself and to make itself the object of its adoration. Sometimes one may feel that such an impulse will grow ever stronger, and that in this way inter-human wars will come to an end. In this way humanity would attain ‘universal fraternity’. But, far from being the abolition of the national spirit with its appetites and its arrogance, this would simply be its supreme form, the nation being called Man and the enemy God. Thereafter, humanity would be unified in one immense army, one immense factory, would be aware only of heroisms, disciplines, inventions, would denounce all free and disinterested activity, would long cease to situate the good outside the real world, would have no God but itself and its desires, and would achieve great things; by which I mean that it would attain to a really grandiose control over the matter surrounding it, to a really joyous consciousness of its power and its grandeur. And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.

1924-1927.

_Notes_

Note A (Page 1)

_That political passions affect a large number of men they never before affected ..._

It is very difficult to know to what extent crowds are moved by the political events of their time (of course, I am leaving on one side all truly popular movements). Crowds do not write their memoirs, and those who write memoirs scarcely ever speak of the crowds. However, I do not think my proposition will be seriously disputed. To limit ourselves to France and the two examples I quoted--suppose we had another upheaval like the Religious Wars, I do not think we should see the immense majority of country districts possessed by no other passion than a hatred for soldiers, whatever party they belonged to.[170] Nor should we see cultivated bourgeois who keep diaries giving a couple of lines to such events as Luther’s preaching, along with the thousand little facts they relate.[171] Nor do I think that a month after an event like the taking of the Bastille we should find a foreigner on his travels in France, writing: ‘13th August, 1789. Before I leave Clermont I must remark that I have dined or supped five times at the table d’hôte with some twenty to thirty merchants and tradesmen, officers, etc.; and it is not easy for me to express the insignificance--the inanity of the conversation. Scarcely any politics, at a moment when every bosom ought to beat with none but political sensations.’ (Arthur Young.)[172]

The attitude of populations towards wars between States long seems to have been that described by Voltaire in the following lines: ‘It is indeed a deplorable evil that this multitude of soldiers should always be kept up by all Princes. But, as we have pointed out, this evil produces a good. The peoples take no part in the wars carried on by their masters; the citizens of besieged towns often pass from the power of one to another without having cost the life of a single inhabitant; they are simply the prize of the King who possesses most soldiers, cannons and money.’ (_Essai sur les Moeurs_, towards the end.) Again, in 1870, a Prussian servant girl said to a French prisoner employed on the farm where she was working: ‘When the war is over I will marry you. Don’t be surprised at what I say, patriotism doesn’t mean much to us, you know.’ I imagine that in 1914, many servant girls, Prussian or otherwise, felt in their hearts and put into practice, this absence of patriotism; but I dare to assert that very few would have formulated it, even to themselves. The really new fact to-day is not perhaps that the peoples feel political passions, but that they claim the right to feel them. This claim is sufficient to make them act and therefore furnishes a magnificent opportunity for their leaders to exploit them.

Note B (Page 15)

_Louis XIV annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of forbidding the German language ..._

It was not until 1768 that the Monarchy thought of setting up schools in Alsace, ‘where French is to be taught’. Vidal de la Blanche, who relates this (_La France de l’Est_, 1, vi) adds: ‘This indifference (to the language question) must not shock us too much. Let us rather learn a lesson from it. It raises us above the narrowly jealous conceptions which since then have set nation against nation, under this language pretext. It takes us into an age when another spirit presided over human relations. There was then no language question. Fortunate eighteenth century, when war bred no lasting hatred, when the poison of national animosities was not inoculated and fostered by all the means now at the disposal of the State, including the schools.’ The eminent historian forgets that the State has these means at its disposal, _with the consent of the peoples_. The peoples, or at least the cultivated classes among them, at the bidding of their men of letters, during the past century have set themselves up arrogantly against one another in their languages and cultures, even though they one day come face to face with the unexpected results of this attitude, as is happening to-day to France in its difficulties with Alsace.

Note C (Page 19)

_The Union of capitalism, anti-semitism, anti-democracy with nationalism._

I am under no illusion concerning the solidity of certain among these unions. Although the conservative passions fully comprehend their immense interest in identifying themselves with national passion and thereby benefiting by its popularity, although one may even admit that they have been caught in their own net and have become sincere in this feeling, yet it is none the less true that conservatism (chiefly capitalism) is essentially something entirely different from patriotism, and that this difference, whose manifestations in the course of history have been innumerable (how many times have the bourgeoisie treated with foreigners when they thought it was to their interests!) may once again display itself. It is easy to imagine that the French bourgeoisie would turn against France if they thought their patrimony was being too seriously threatened by the legislation of the Republic. This may already be seen in the case of families who, in recent years, have exported their capital abroad. I may say the same thing of monarchist passion. It is easy to imagine that certain followers of that passion might one day decide to work against a nation which decisively and finally rejects the system they propose. I think I observe this when I see monarchist writers publishing that ‘from the Spree to the Mekong, the whole world knows that France is in a state of weakness bordering upon disintegration’. However, such things are still exceptional, and those who are responsible for them would refuse to admit--perhaps sincerely--that they meant to harm their nation.

Moreover, the bourgeoisie have another interest in keeping up nationalism and the fear of war. These feelings create a sort of permanent military spirit in a nation. More precisely, they create in the people a disposition to accept the existing hierarchy, to obey orders, to recognize superiors, i.e. the very things required of them by those who wish them to continue in a state of service. The confused perception of this truth inspires the bourgeoisie with that curious ill-humour they display towards every attempt at international agreement, in whatever form this may be presented by the governments. This ill-humour (they declare) arises from the fact that they consider it simple-minded and imprudent to believe in the extinction of national hatreds. At bottom, it arises from the fact that _they do not want this extinction to occur_. They know that the maintenance of these hatreds will cost the lives of their children, but they do not hesitate to make the sacrifice, if by doing so they retain possession of their property[173] and their power over their servants. Here is a grandeur of egotism which is perhaps insufficiently appreciated.

Note D (Page 28)

_On the attitude of the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is in opposition to their nationalism._

A good example is the attitude of the German Catholics in the past twenty years. It has been described with all desirable detail by M. Edmond Bloud in his great study: _Le nouveau Centre et le catholicisme_.[174] It will be seen that it strangely resembles the attitude of many a non-German Catholic.

The ‘Centre’ began by declaring itself ‘a political party which has assumed as its duty the representation of the interests of the whole nation in all domains of public life, in accordance with the principles of Christian doctrine.’ (_Katholische Weltanschauung_: Catholic conception of the world.) Soon they announced political action founded on ‘a Christian basis’ (christliche Basis), the spirit of which is thus defined by one of its apostles (Doctor Brauweiler, April, 1913): ‘In the domain of practical action, _concepts are determined by the end in view_. The formation of political concepts is comparable with the formation of juridical concepts. The jurist forms his concepts _with no other consideration than that of what is needed, in relation solely to the required end_. But no one can say that the juridical concept thus formed is a false one. In the same way, one may speak in politics of Christianity or Christian doctrine.’ In 1914, Doctor Karl Bachem of Cologne, published a pamphlet entitled: _Centre, Catholic Doctrine, Practical Politics_, where he declares that the doctrine of ‘universal Christianity’ is only a political formula intended to render possible the collaboration of Catholics and Protestants, chiefly in Parliament; that from the religious point of view this formula has only a negative meaning, and only means the determination to struggle against materialism, atheism and nihilism; that its positive content is defined by the Prussian Constitution which in paragraphs 14 and 18 lays down that ‘the Christian religion’ is the ‘foundation of the institutions of the State’.

Thus, as M. Edmond Bloud justly remarks, Doctor Bachem makes the Prussian Constitution the Rule of Faith. Put ‘national interest’ in place of ‘Prussian Constitution’ and you will have the state of mind of many a modern French Catholic.

The attitude of the German Catholics seems to me also representative of a certain Catholicism common to-day to other nations, in declarations of this sort:

‘The Catholic members of the “Centre” remain Catholics individually, _but the party, as a party, does not necessarily accept the Catholic conception of the world_.’

And again:

‘The Pope and the Bishops have authority in matters of religion, but wherever political matters are concerned we shall not allow ourselves to be influenced by the authority of the Pope or by that of the Bishops.’ (M. Edmond Bloud alludes to a conversation reported in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, April, 1914, where one of the chief of the ‘syndicats mixtes’ declared that, ‘The German Catholics have had enough of the Pope.’)

What M. Bloud calls the ‘declericalization of the Centre’ is not a thing peculiar to our neighbours, nor is the joy of the great German nationalist organ (the Prussian Annals) when it observes that ‘the Catholic idea of the State is ceasing to be ultramontain and is becoming nationalist’.[175]

The attitude common to German Catholics and to certain Catholics of other nations seems to me well brought out by two protests which M. Bloud quotes.

The first is from Father Weiss:

‘There exist,’ says the eminent theologian, ‘several kinds of political Catholicism.... The worst of all consists in looking upon pure politics, social politics, national politics, not only as something wholly independent of religion, but _as being the standard by which we should determine the degree to which Catholicism or Christianity may be utilized in public life_.’

The other is from Cardinal Kopp (then Bishop of Fulda) in a letter written in 1887:

‘Unhappily a gust of madness is blowing over us. Formerly we held to the principle: Faith first, politics afterwards. Now they say: _Politics first!_ The Church and the Faith afterwards.’

Our Catholics of the _Action Française_ have not invented much.

Note E (Page 33)

_The ‘clerk’, by adopting political passions, brings them the tremendous influence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his persuasive power if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral prestige._

This prestige itself is something new in history, at least from my point of view. The results produced in France by the intervention of the ‘intellectuals’ in the Dreyfus affair, and those produced by the manifesto of the German Intellectuals in 1914, not only in their own country but throughout the world, are things to which I find no equivalent in the past. One cannot imagine the Roman Republic feeling that the moral support of Terence and Varro was of value to it during the war with Carthage, or the government of Louis XIV finding that the approbation of Racine and Fermat, gave it additional strength in the war with Holland. This increase of strength which a cause to-day receives from the approbation of the men of thought (or those who are considered such) does great honour to the modern world. It is an homage to the mind hitherto unexampled in humanity.

Naturally, this prestige has a double result. Though the modern ‘clerk’ fortifies a cause by giving it his approbation he can also seriously harm it by refusing his approbation. If in 1915 men like Ostwald and Mach had refused to approve the acts of their nation, they would have seriously harmed it. The ‘clerk’ who to-day condemns the realism of the State to which he belongs does really harm that State.[176] Hence it follows that the State, in the name of its practical interests, to defend which is its function, has a right--perhaps a duty--to punish them. This appears to me to be the true order of things: The ‘clerk’, faithful to his essential duty, denounces the realism of States; whereupon, the States, no less faithful to their duty, made him drink the hemlock. The serious disorganization in the modern world is that the ‘clerks’ do not denounce the realism of States, but on the contrary approve of it; they no longer drink the hemlock.[177]

Let me point to another disorganization. That is when the State does not punish the ‘clerk’ for denouncing its realism. This occurred in France during the Dreyfus affair. The order of things demanded that the ‘clerks’ should demand abstract justice, as they did; but perhaps it also demanded that the State, weakened in strength by their idealism, should throw them into prison. When the ‘clerk’ performs the layman’s task, the result is anarchy; but there is also anarchy when the layman acts and speaks as a ‘clerk’, when those whose duty is to defend the nation display their cult for the abolition of frontiers, universal love, or other spiritual things.[178] When I see philosophers concerning themselves with the safety of the State and Ministers striving to bring about love among mankind, I think of what Dante says: ‘You turn to religion him who was born to wear the sword, you make a King of one who was born to preach. Thus all your steps are out of the true way.’ However, this second disorganization of orders has been denounced by others, and it is not my function to combat it.

Note F (Page 37)

_Think how willingly the ecclesiastics now accept military service._

I think this willingness is worthy of the historian’s attention. Obviously, it implies some sincere attachment to their country in those who display this willingness, although their law is to be dead to all worldly attachments. Moreover, it appears that in the last war most of the ministers of Jesus Christ able to bear arms were glad to defend their country, whatever that country was, and whatever notion they may have had of the justice of its cause. Here is a most suggestive fact: Certain Belgian monastic orders (and others as well, I am told) established abroad at the declaration of war, and authorized by the government to remain abroad, insisted upon returning to the capital to perform their military duties. True, the behaviour of these monks may be explained, not on grounds of patriotism, but from the fear that they would be severely criticized by their fellow-citizens if they acted otherwise; for the modern ‘clerks’ have ceased to understand that the sign of an attitude truly in harmony with their function is that it should be unpopular with the laymen.

But the most remarkable thing here for the historian, is that the imposition of military service on ecclesiastics does not appear to arouse any protest from the Church. Certain Church teachers even assert (Mgr Battifol, _L’Eglise et le Droit de la guerre_): ‘There is no further doubt about the legality of military service.’[179] It is also curious to see in the _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ (Art. ‘Paix et Guerre’) the strenuous efforts of the author (Father de la Brière) to prove that bearing arms, even by ‘clerks’ in holy orders, is in no sense contrary to Christian law. However, the opinion of these theologians does not seem to be shared, at least publicly, by the higher ecclesiastical authorities; for every ‘clerk’ who bears arms is laid under an interdict, as he was in the past--only the interdict is taken off a few minutes after it has been declared.

The modern laymen (Barrès for example) praise this patriotism of the ecclesiastic and his willingness to fight. The laymen of the past tried to make him ashamed of it, and liked to exhort him to sentiments which they considered more in harmony with his sacred ministry. The warlike ardours of John XII and Julius II were severely condemned by their contemporaries. Apart from Erasmus--the type of the man of letters fully aware of the ‘clerk’s’ high function, who was continually saying: ‘Their tonsure does not warn them that they ought to be free from all the passions of this world and think only of the things of Heaven’--the Italian Tizio wrote: ‘It is astonishing that the Pontiffs, whose part is to be pacific and independent, should take part in the shedding of Christian blood.’ The French poet Jean Bouchet shows the weeping Church imploring Julius II to end the war (though it is true that Julius II was fighting France):

‘Your patron is my Lord Saint Peter,
Who never warred for worldly goods.’

In _Le Songe du Verger_, a kind of summary of moral doctrines current in France in the fourteenth century, there is a dialogue between a Knight and a Clerk, when the Clerk claims for his caste the right to make war, and the Knight tells him that ‘the arms of the “clerks” are prayers and tears’. It is suggestive to see a soldier urging a minister of the spiritual to perform his true function and seeming to think that the performance of this function is necessary to the good order of the world. Here is a feeling for ‘clerkdom’ and its social value which is very seldom to be found among the modern laymen, even the non-military ones--I nearly said, especially the non-military ones.[180]

Note G (Page 53)

_That self-examination to which every spectator is impelled by a representation of human beings which he feels to be true and solely pre-occupied with truth._

Let me quote the following passage concerning the civilizing effects of such representation:--

‘This spectacle of man offered to man has considerable moral effects. First, a valuable exercise of the intelligence, an increase of reflection, a widening of the view in every direction, result from the habit thus set up of getting out of oneself and entering into others, to understand their actions, to share in their passions, sympathize with their sufferings, appreciate their motives. This faculty of the artist communicated to the spectator or the listener, this faculty of participation and assimilation, is something set up in opposition to egotism and is a condition of tolerance and benevolence, frequently even of justice. Then, lessons of virtue, frequently not the least effective, are given to the spectator, from the very fact that he is placed in a position to praise or condemn acts or thoughts which are set before him relative to cases where his own interests are not involved. He recognizes his own image in the actor of the epic, a man like himself, a voluntary and impassioned agent, whose dangers though perhaps magnified are not foreign to his own experience. Then the essential phenomena which characterize conscious humanity and morality occur in him who thus witnesses himself in the person of another, i.e. disinterested objectivity of himself to himself, generalization of passion, motive and maxim, judgment founded on the universal, self-examination to arrive at what is duty, clear and defined sentiment of the direction of the will.

‘_But this must not lead us to think that the poet’s object is utility or morality. If it were, he would be lacking in the true feeling of art._ Teaching, moralizing--this object of the artist is indirect, i.e. does not exist systematically for him. He must only attain it without having sought it, and sometimes he attains it when he seems to have departed from it. What he desires to do, is to touch the feelings, to arouse emotions. But it happens that by doing so he elevates, purifies, moralizes. The poet (I am especially speaking of him) does indeed address himself to everyone. _That means he can only sing the universal_, however curious such an assembly of words may appear. He may indeed sing it under the form of the particular, without which his fictions would be lacking in life, he none the less excludes the pure, incomprehensible, inexplicable individual, shorn of all truth if he does not express a relationship.[181] He generalizes passion, therefore ennobles it and renders it at once the object of observation, reflection and disinterested emotion. The listener, carried away from his own relatively base private preoccupations and transported without hope or fear (at least, too personal and too present hope and fear) into the superior sphere of humanity’s common passion, feels the benefit of an elevation of soul; his consciousness is temporarily freed from egotism.’ (Renouvier, _Introduction à la philosophie analytique de l’Histoire_, p. 354.)

Note H (Page 56)

_... Napoleon, who ordered the chief of police to take measures for the history of France to be written in a manner favourable to his own throne._

Here are some portions of a note on this subject dictated by Napoleon at Bordeaux in 1808. It promulgates the conception of history as practised, mutatis mutandis, by many of our historians of the past:--

‘I do not approve the principles laid down in his note by the Minister of the Interior. They were true twenty years ago, they will be true sixty years hence, but they are not true to-day. Velly is the one fairly detailed author who has written on the history of France. The abridged chronology of the President Hénault is a good classical book. It is useful to have them both continued. _It is of the greatest importance to make certain of the spirit in which these continuations are written._ I ordered the Minister of Police to look after the continuation of Millot, and I desire the two Ministers will consult over the continuation of Velly and the President Hénault....