REFLECTIONS ON READING AUGUSTE FOREL
THE name of Auguste Forel is renowned in the world of European science, but within the confines of his own land his writings are perhaps less well known than they should be. Every one is familiar with the social activities of this splendid personality, of this man whose indefatigable energies and ardent convictions have not been affected either by his age or by ill-health. But Latin Switzerland, which justly admires the writings of the naturalist J. H. Fabre, hardly seems to realise that in Forel it is fortunate enough to possess an observer of nature whose insight is no less keen than that of Fabre, and whose scientific endowments are perchance even richer and more unerring. I have recently been reading some of Auguste Forel's studies of ant life, and I have been profoundly impressed by the wide scope of his experimental researches, carried on for a whole lifetime.[75]While patiently observing and faithfully describing the life of these insects, day by day, hour by hour, and year after year, his thoughts have been simultaneously directed towards the ultimate recessesof nature, so that he has been able from time to time to raise for a moment a corner of that veil of mystery which covers our own instincts.
Here is a strange fact. J. H. Fabre believes in providence, "le bon Dieu"; Auguste Forel is a monist, a psycho-physicist. Nevertheless, Forel's observations suggest to the reader a conception of nature which is far less crushing than that suggested by the observations of Fabre. The latter, untroubled by anxieties concerning the human soul, sees in the little insects he is studying nothing more than marvellous machines. But Forel discerns here and there sparks of reflective consciousness, germs of individual will. These are no more than widely separated luminous points, piercing the darkness. But the phenomenon is all the more impressive for its rarity. I have amused myself by selecting from out this wealth of observations a group of facts wherein are displayed the secular instincts, the "anagke," of the species—oppugned, shattered, vanquished. Wherefore should a combat of this sort be less dramatic when waged by these humble ants than when it is waged by the Atrides inOrestes? In all cases alike, we have the same waves of force, blind or conscious; the same interplay of light and shade. And the analogy of certain social phenomena, as we observe them among these myriads of tiny beings, and as we observe them among ourselves, may help us to understand ourselves—and perhaps to achieve self-command.
I shall be content, here, to cull from the vast experimental repertory of Auguste Forel, those of his observations which bear upon certain psychopathological collective states, and those which bear upon the formidable problem which faces us to-day, the problem of war.
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Ants, says Forel, are to other insects what man is to other mammals. Their brain surpasses that of all other insects in its relative size and in the complexity of its structure. Even if they fail to attain the level of individualintelligence characteristic of the higher mammals, nevertheless they excel all animals without exception in the development of their social instincts. It is not surprising therefore, that in many respects their social life should resemble that of the human species. Like the most advanced human communities, the ant societies are democracies, fighting democracies. Let us contemplate them at work.
The Ant State is not restricted to the single ant-hill; it has its territory, its domain, its colonies. Like our colonising powers, it has its ports of call, its revictualling stations. The territory is a single meadow, a few trees, or a hedge. The domain of exploitation consists of the ground and the subsoil, together with the aphis-bearing trees whence the ants take the aphides they keep under domestication. Their colonies are detached nests more or less distant from the metropolis and more or less numerous (there may be as many as two hundred), communicating with the primary nest by open roads or by underground passages. The depots are small nests or dug-outs for the use of ants on long expeditions, ants that require a rest or those that are overtaken by bad weather.
Naturally these communities tend to grow, and they thus come into conflict one with another. "Territorial disputes, along the frontier between two great ant communities, are the usual cause of embittered struggles. The aphis-bearing shrubs are the most fiercely contested. But, in the case of certain species, subterranean domains (the roots of plants) are likewise the region of savage warfare." Some species live solely by war and plunder. Polyergus rufescens (Huber's "amazon") disdains work, and has indeed lost the power. The members of this species live as slave-owners, served, tended, fed, by troops of slaves, the latter being recruited (in the larval or pupal stage) by slave raids upon neighbouring ant-hills.
Thus war is endemic, and every citizen of these democracies, every worker ant, has to take part in the fighting. In certain species (Pheidole pallidula), the military caste is distinct from the working caste. The soldier takes no part in domestic work, but idles away the days in barracks,with nothing to do save at the times when life has to be staked for the defence of the community.[76]There are no leaders, or at any rate no permanent leaders. We see neither kings nor generals. The expeditionary armies of Polyergus rufescens, which may vary from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand ants, act in obedience to streams of influence which appear to emanate from small and scattered groups, sometimes in the van and sometimes in the rear. When the army is on the march, the entire column will suddenly halt, remaining indecisive and motionless, as if paralysed. Of a sudden, the initiative will be taken by some small group of ants whose members rush about among the others, striking these on the head; then the temporary leaders start off, and the whole army is in motion once more.
Formica sanguinea is an able tactician. Forel follows Huber in his description of the fighting methods of this species. The insects do not advance in close formation, à la Hindenburg, but in platoons, communicating one with another by orderlies. They do not make a frontal attack; but, after watching the enemy's movements, attempt to take him by surprise on the flank. Their aim, like that of Napoleon, is to concentrate upon a given point at a particular time, to secure there and then the advantage of numbers. Like Napoleon, too, they know how to lower the adversary's morale. Seizing the psychological moment when the enemy's courage or confidence flags, they hurl themselves upon him with irresistible fury, now recking nought of numbers, for they know that at such a time one fighter on their own side is worth a hundred on the other, where panic is rife. Moreover, like good soldiers, their aim is not to kill, so much as to gain the victory and to harvest its fruits. When the battle is won they post a guard at each exit of the conquered nest. The members of this guard allow the enemy ants to escape, provided these carry nothing away. The victors pillage to the uttermost, but do as little killing as possible.
Between species of equal strength, fighting for frontiers, war is not perennial. After many days of battle and glorious hecatombs, the rival states would appear to recognise that their respective ambitions are unattainable. As if by common consent, the armies withdraw within either side of a frontier, which is accepted by both parties with or without treaty. This frontier is respected much more perfectly than among men, bound merely by "scraps of paper." The citizen ants of the two communities always keep strictly within their borders.
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A matter of even greater interest is to note how this war-making instinct originates among our brothers the insects; to study how it develops; and to ascertain whether it is fixed or modifiable. Here Forel's observations and experiments lead to the most remarkable deductions.
J. H. Fabre, in a famous passage ofInsect Life,[77]tells us that "brigandage is the law in the struggle among living beings.... In nature, murder is universal. Everywhere we encounter a hook, a dagger, a spear, a tooth, nippers, pincers, a saw, horrible clamps, ..." But he exaggerates. He has a keen eye for the facts of mutual slaughter and mutual devouring, but he fails to see the facts of mutual aid and associated effort. Kropotkin has devoted an admirable book to the study of phenomena of the latter class, as manifested throughout nature.[78]Furthermore, the careful observations of Forel show that in ants the instincts of war and plunder may be modified or overcome by instincts of a contrary character.
First of all, Forel proves that the war-making instinct is not fundamental. This instinct does not exist in the early stages of ant life. Putting together newly hatched ants belonging to three different species, Forel obtained a mixed ant community whose members lived in perfect harmony. The only primitive instinct of newly hatchedants is that for domestic work and the care of larvae. "Not until later do ants learn to distinguish between friend and foe; not until later do they realise that they are members of a single ant community on behalf of which they have to fight."[79]
Forel next presents the fact, even more surprising, that the intensity of the warrior instinct is directly proportional to the size of the collectivity. Two ants of enemy species meeting at a distance from their respective nests or from their own folk, will avoid one another and run away in opposite directions. Even if you come across the armies in full combat, and you remove from the ranks an ant belonging to either side and shut the two by themselves in a small box, they will do one another no harm. If, instead of taking merely two, you shut up a moderate number from either side within a narrow space, they will fight half-heartedly for a while, but soon cease to struggle, and often end by making friends. In such circumstances, says Forel, they will never resume the struggle. But put these same ants back among the fighting forces of their respective sides, and separate them by a reasonable distance, so that they might live at peace, and you will see them return to the attack; the individuals which a moment before were avoiding one another with repugnance or fear, will now furiously engage in mutual slaughter.[80]It thus appears that the combative instinct is a collective contagion.
Sometimes this epidemic assumes unmistakably morbid attributes.[81]In proportion as it extends and in proportion as the struggle is prolonged, the fighting rage becomes a positive frenzy. The very same ant, which at the outset was timid, will now be affected with a paroxysm of furious madness. She no longer knows what she is about. She throws herself upon her own companions, kills the slaves that are endeavouring to calm her, bites everything she touches, bites fragments of wood, can no longer find her way. Other members of the community, slaves as a rule,have to surround such a frenzied worker by twos and threes; they seize her by the legs and caress her with their antennae until she comes to herself, has recovered as I might say "her reason." Why not? Had she not lost it?
We have hitherto been dealing exclusively with general phenomena, those which obey fairly rigid laws. Now we are faced with special phenomena wherein initiative conflicts in the most peculiar way with the instinct of the species, and, which is yet more curious, in the end causes instinct to stray from its appointed path, and even to die out altogether.
Forel places in a jar some ants of enemy species, the sanguinea and the pratensis. After a few days of warfare, followed by a sullen armistice, he introduces a newly hatched pratensis which is very hungry. She runs to those of her own species begging them to feed her. The pratenses fob her off. Then the poor innocent appeals to the enemies of her species, the sanguineae, and, after the manner of ants, she licks the mouth of two among them. The two sanguineae are so touched by this gesture, which turns their instinct topsy-turvy, that they disgorge their honeyed store and feed the young enemy. Thenceforward all is well. An offensive and defensive alliance is formed between the little pratensis and the sanguineae against the ants of the young one's own species. The alliance becomes irrevocable.
Let me adduce another example; the results of a common danger. Forel places in a bag a nest of sanguineae and another of pratenses. He shakes them together, and leaves them in the bag for an hour. Thereafter he opens the bag and places it in direct contact with an artificial nest. At first we witness a general state of confusion, a delirium of fear. The ants cannot recognise one another apart; they show their mandibles, and then sidle away in a panic. But by degrees calm is restored. The sanguineae begin by removing the pupae, taking indifferently those of both species. Some of the pratenses follow their example. From time to time fights take place, but these are merely single combats, and they grow less and less fierce. Fromthe next day onwards, all work together. In four days the pact is sealed; the pratenses disgorge food to the sanguineae. At the end of a week, Forel transports them to the neighbourhood of an abandoned ant-hill. They settle in, helping one another in the house-moving, carrying one another, and so forth. No more than a few isolated individuals of the respective species, irreconcilable nationalists no doubt, keep up their sacred enmity, and end by killing one another. A fortnight later, the mixed community is flourishing; perfect concord prevails. The summit of the ant-hill, which at ordinary times is covered with pratenses for the most part, reddens with the martial sanguineae directly danger threatens the common state. Next month, Forel, carrying the experiment a stage further, went to the old nest for a number of the pratenses and put them down just outside the hill of the mixed community. The newcomers promptly fell upon the sanguineae. But these latter defended themselves without animosity, merely knocking the aggressors head over heels, and then letting them alone. The pratenses could not make it out. As for the other pratenses, those belonging to the mixed community, they avoided their sometime sisters, would not fight with them, but carried the pupae into the nest. The hostility was all on the side of the newcomers. Next day some of them had been admitted as members of the mixed community, and ere long relations were permanently established on a peace footing. Not in a single instance did the pratenses of the mixed community join with the newcomers to attack the sanguineae. The alliance between pratenses and sanguineae was stronger than the racial brotherhood of the pratenses; the enmity between the two hostile species had been permanently overcome.[82]
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Such examples suffice to show how grave is the mistake of those who believe that instincts are quasi-sacred, and who, after they have included the fighting instinct in thiscategory, regard it as imposed by fate upon all living animals from the lowest to the highest. For, in the first place, instinct varies greatly in its cogency. We find it to be non-modifiable or modifiable, absolute or relative, permanent or transient, not merely as we pass from one genus to another, but within the same genus as we pass from species to species,[83]and within the same species as we pass from group to group. Instinct is not a starting point, but is itself a product of evolution. Like evolution in general, it is progressive. The most ingrained instinct is merely an instinct of great antiquity. The observations quoted above suffice to show that the war-making instinct is less ingrained, less primitive, than people are apt to suppose, for even among the most combative species of ants, it can be resisted, modified, and restrained. If these humble insects are able to react against it, if they can modify their natures, if they can replace wars of conquest by peaceful cooperation, if they can substitute allied states (or, yet more remarkable, mixed and united states) for enemy states—should man be willing to avow himself more enslaved than they by his worst instincts, and less able than they to master these instincts? It is sometimes said that war lowers us to the level of beasts. War reduces us below that level, if we show ourselves less capable of freeing ourselves from the fighting spirit than are certain animal societies. It would be rather humiliating to be compelled to admit their superiority. Chi lo sa?... For my part I am far from certain that man is, as he is said to be, the lord of creation; more often, man is the destructive tyrant. I am sure that in many things he could learn wisdom from these animal societies, older than his own and infinitely diversified.
I do not propose to prophesy whether humanity will succeed (any more than the ant communities) in gaining the mastery over blind instinct. But what strikes me, asI read Auguste Forel, is the conviction that no more in man than in the ants is such a victory radically impossible. To recognize that a particular advance is not impracticable even though we should fail to realise that advance, seems to me more encouraging than the belief that, whatever we attempt, we shall run our heads against a stone wall. The window is closed. It is thick with grime. Perhaps we shall never be able to open it. But between us and the sunlit air there is nothing but a pane of glass, which we can break if we will.[84]
June 1, 1918.
"Revue Mensuelle," Geneva, August, 1918.
ON BEHALF OF THE INTERNATIONAL OF THE MIND
This chapter relates to the plan for an Institute of the Nations, suggested by Gerhard Gran, professor at the University of Christiania, writing in the "Revue Politique Internationale" of Lausanne. My reply was first published in the same periodical, under the title "Pour une culture universelle" (On behalf of a universal civilisation).
GERHARD GRAN'S broad-minded appeal cannot fail to arouse echoes. I have read it with lively sympathy. He displays the virtue of modesty, so rare in our day. At a time when all the nations are making an arrogant parade of a superior mission of order or justice, organisation or liberty, a mission which authorises them to impose on other nations their own hallowed individuality (for each looks upon itself as the chosen people), we draw a breath of relief when we hear one of them, by the voice of Gerhard Gran, speaking not of its rights, but of its "debts." How noble, too, are his tones of frankness and gratitude!
"Among all the nations, ours is perhaps the one which has the greatest duty to perform, for our nation owes most to the others. What we have gained from international science is incalculable.... Our debts are manifest in all directions.... When we draw up our scientific balance-sheet in account with the rest of the world, the credit side is meagre. In this respect we have to speak chiefly of our passive advantages, and our modesty forbids us to refer to our active contributions."
How refreshing is such modesty! How refreshing is it in this world-crisis of delirious vanity! Nevertheless Ibsen's fellow-countrymen are entitled to hold their headshigh among their European brethren; for more than any other writer the great Norwegian recluse has stamped with his seal both the drama and modern thought. The eyes of Young France turned towards him; the writer of these lines asked counsel of him.
All the nations are debtors one to another. Let us pool our debts and our possessions.
If there are any to-day for whom modesty is befitting, it is the intellectuals. The part they have played in this war has been abominable, unpardonable. Not merely did they do nothing to lessen the mutual lack of understanding, to limit the spread of hatred; with rare exceptions, they did everything in their power to disseminate hatred and to envenom it. To a considerable extent, this war was their war. Thousands of brains were poisoned by their murderous ideologies. Overweeningly self-confident, proud, implacable, they sacrificed millions of young lives to the triumph of the phantoms of their imagination. History will not forget.
Gerhard Gran expresses the fear that personal cooperation between intellectuals of the belligerent lands may prove impossible for many years. If he is thinking of the generation of those who are over fifty, of those who stayed at home and waged a war of words in the learned societies, the universities, and the editorial offices, I fancy that the Norwegian writer is not mistaken. There is little chance that these intellectuals will ever join hands. I should say that none of them will do so, were I not familiar with the brain's astounding faculty for forgetting, were I not familiar with this pitiful and yet salutary weakness, by which the mind is not deceived, but which is essential to its continued existence. But in the present case, oblivion will be difficult. The intellectuals have burned their boats. At the outset of the war it was still possible to hope that some of those who had been carried away by the blind passion of the opening days, would be able within a few months frankly to admit their mistake. They would not do so. Not one of them has done so on either side of the frontier. It was even possible to note that in proportion as the disastrousconsequences to European civilisation became apparent, those whose mission it was to act as guardians of that civilisation, those upon whose shoulders part of the responsibility weighed, instead of admitting their mistake, did all they could to increase their own infatuation. How, then, can we hope, when the war is over, and when the disasters to which it will have led will have become unmistakable, that the intellectuals will curb their pride and will constrain themselves to say, "We were wrong"?—To ask this would be to ask too much. The older generation, I fear, will have to endure to the last its sickness of mind and its obstinacy. On this side there is little hope. We can only wait until the older generation has died out.
Those who wish to reknit the relations among the peoples, must turn their hopes towards the other generation, that of those who bleed in the armies. May they be preserved! They have been ruthlessly thinned out by the sickle of war. They might even be annihilated if the war should be prolonged and extended, as may happen, for all things are possible. Mankind stands, like Hercules, at the parting of the ways. One of these ways leads (if Asia takes a hand in the game, and accentuates yet further the characteristics of hideous destruction in which Germany has set an example inevitably followed by the other combatants) to the suicide of Europe.—But at the present hour we have still the right to hope that the young men of Europe, now enrolled in the armies, will survive in sufficient numbers to fulfil the mission that will devolve on them after the war, the mission of reconciling the thoughts of the enemy nations. In either camp, I know a number of independent spirits, who look forward, when peace is signed, to realising this intellectual communion. They propose to except from this communion none but those who, be it in their own or be it in the other camp, have prostituted thought to the work of hatred. When I reflect on these young men, I am firmly convinced (and herein I differ from Gerhard Gran) that after the war the minds of all lands will inter-penetrate one another far more effectively than they have ever done before. The nations which knew nothing of oneanother, or which saw one another only in the form of contemptuous caricatures, have learned during the last four years, in the mud of the trenches, and at grips with death, that they are the same suffering flesh. All are enduring the same ordeal, and in it they become brothers. This sentiment continues to grow. For when we attempt to foresee the changes which, after the war, will occur in the relationships between the nations, we do not sufficiently realise the extent to which the war will lead to other upheavals, which may well modify the very essence of the nations. Whatever may be the immediate upshot of happenings in Russia, the example of the New Russia will not fail to have its influence upon the other peoples. An intimate unity is becoming established in the soul of the peoples. It is as if they were connected by gigantic roots, spreading underground regardless of frontiers.—As for the intellectuals who, sitting apart from the common people, are not directly swept along by this social current, they none the less feel its influence by intuition and sympathy. Notwithstanding the efforts which, during these four years, have been made to break off all contact between the writers in the two camps, I know that in both, on the morrow of the peace, international magazines and other publications will be founded. I have first-hand information concerning such schemes, initiated by young writers, soldiers at the front, men permeated with the European spirit. Among those of my own generation, there are a few who will give wholehearted assistance to their younger brethren. In our view, we shall in this way serve, not merely the cause of mankind, but the cause of our own land, far better than that cause will be served by the evil counsellors who preach armed isolation. Every country which shuts itself apart pronounces its own death-sentence. Gone for ever are the days when the young and tumultuous energies of the European nations needed, for their clarification, to be surrounded by partition walls.—Let me quote a few words uttered by Jean Christophe in his riper age:
"I neither admire nor dread the nationalism of the present time. It will pass away with the present time;it is passing, it has already passed. It is but a rung in the ladder. Climb to the top.... Every nation felt [before the war] the imperious necessity of gathering its forces and making up its balance-sheet. For the last hundred years all the nations have been transformed by their mutual intercourse and the immense contributions of all the brains of the universe, building up new morality, new knowledge, new faith. Every man must examine his conscience, and know exactly what he is and what he has, before he can enter with the rest into the new age. A new age is coming. Humanity is on the point of signing a new lease of life. Society is on the point of springing into vigour with new laws. It is Sunday to-morrow. We are all balancing our accounts for the week, setting our houses in order, making them clean and tidy, so that, joining together, we may go into the presence of our common God and enter into a new covenant with Him."
The war will prove (even against our will) to have been the anvil upon which will have been forged the unity of the European soul.
It is my hope that this intellectual communion will not be restricted to the European peninsula, but will extend to Asia, to the two Americas, and to the great islets of civilisation spread over the rest of the globe. It is absurd that the nations of western Europe should pride themselves upon the discovery of profound differences, at the very time when they have never resembled one another more closely in merits and defects; at a time when their thought and their literature are least notable for distinctive characteristics; when everywhere there becomes sensible a monotonous levelling of intelligence; when on all hands we discern individualities that are dishevelled, threadbare, limp. I will venture to say that all of them, with their united efforts, are incompetent to give us the hope of that mental renovation to which the world is entitled after this formidable convulsion. We must go to Russia, which has doors thrown wide open towards the eastern world, for there only will our faces be freshened by the new currents which are blowing in every department of thought.
Let us widen the concept of humanism, dear to our forefathers, though its meaning has been narrowed down to the signification of Greek and Latin manuals. In every age, states, universities, academies, all the conservative forces of the mind, have endeavoured to make humanism in this narrower sense a dike against the onslaughts of the new spirit, in philosophy, in morals, in aesthetics. The dike has burst. The framework of a privileged culture has been broken. To-day we have to accept humanism in its widest signification, embracing all the spiritual forces of the whole world. What we need is, panhumanism.
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It is our hope that this ideal, formulated here and there by a few leading minds, or heralded by the foundation while the war is yet in progress of centres for the study of universal civilisation,[85]shall be boldly adopted as its ensign by the international academy, in the foundation of which I hope (with Gerhard Gran) that Norway will take the initiative.
I note that Gerhard Gran seems, like Professor Fredrik Stang, to limit his ambitions to the foundation of an institute for scientific research, for in his view science is in its essence more international than art and letters. He writes:
"In art and literature we may, in case of need, discuss the advantages and disadvantages resulting from the isolation of one nation from the rest, or from the antagonism of human groups. In science, such a discussion is absurd. The kingdom of science is the whole world.... The atmosphere indispensable to science has nothing whatever to do with national conflicts."
I think that this distinction is not so well founded as it may seem. No domain of mental activity has been more disastrously involved in the war than the domain of science. Whereas art and letters have only too often been accessory stimulants of the crime, science furnished the war with its weapons, did its utmost to render them more atrocious, to widen the bounds of suffering and cruelty. I may add that even in time of peace I have always been struck by the bitterness of national sentiment displayed by men of science. Those of every nation are fond of accusing their foreign colleagues of stealing their best discoveries and forgetting to acknowledge the source. In a word, science shares in the evil passions which corrode art and letters.
On the other hand, if science needs the collaboration of all the nations, to art and letters to-day it is no less advantageous that they should abandon a position of "splendid isolation." Without speaking of the technical advances which, in painting and music, have during the course of the nineteenth century and of the one which has begun so badly brought such sudden and enormous enrichment to the aesthetics of sight and hearing—apart from such considerations—the influence of one philosopher, one thinker, one writer, can modify the whole literature of an epoch, switching the mind on to a new road in psychological, moral, aesthetic, or social research. If any one wish to be isolated, isolated let him be! But the republic of the mind tends to enlarge its frontiers day by day. The greatest men are those who know how to embrace and fuse in a single vigorous personality the wealth that is dispersed or latent in the soul of all mankind.
Let us refrain, therefore, from limiting the idea of internationalism to the field of science. Let us give the fullest possible amplitude to the scheme. Let us form a world-wide Institute of Art, Letters and Science.
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Moreover, I do not think that this foundation couldcontinue isolated. No longer, to-day, can the internationalism of culture remain the luxury of a few privileged persons. The practical value of an Institute of Nations would be small, unless the masters were associated with their disciples in the same stream, unless all the levels of culture were permeated with the same spirit.
That is why I greet, as a fruitful initiative and a happy symptom, the recent foundation in Zurich, by the university students of that city, of an International Association of Students (Internationaler Studentenbund). Let me quote from its program.
"Painfully affected by the great ordeal of the war, academic youth has realised the peculiar social responsibilities enjoined by the privileges of a studious life, and desires to find a remedy for the deeper causes of the evil.... The Association will endeavour to bring together those of all countries who are in close touch with university life, to unite them in a common faith in the advantages of the free development of the mind. It groups them for the struggle against the growing empery of mechanism and militarism in all the manifestations of life.... It hopes to realise the ideal of universities which shall remain centres of higher culture, in the service of truth alone, unsullied shrines of scientific research, absolutely independent in matters of opinion, paying no attention to selfish aims or to class interests."
This demand for the freedom of scientific research and for independence of thought, this organisation of young intellectuals for the defence of a right so essential and hitherto so incessantly violated, seem to me matters of primary necessity. If you desire that the cooperation between the teachers in different countries should not remain purely speculative, it is not enough that the teachers should associate their efforts. It is further essential that their thoughts shall be able to spread freely and to fructify in the minds of the young intellectuals throughout the world. Let us have no more of these barriers erected by the states between the two classes, between the two ages,of those who are engaged in the search for truth—teachers and students.
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My dream goes further. I should like the seed of universal culture to be scattered, from the very beginning of education, among the pupils of the primary and secondary schools. Above all let me suggest that throughout the countries of Europe an international language should be one of the compulsory subjects of study. Such international languages (Esperanto, Ido) have already attained something very near perfection; and with the minimum of effort the international language could be mastered by all the children of the civilised world. Not merely would this language be of unrivalled practical value throughout life. It would further serve as an introduction to the study of foreign languages and of their own national tongue; for it would make them realise, far better than any express instruction, the common elements in the European languages and the unity of European thought.
I would further insist that both in primary and secondary education there should be given a sketch of the history of universal thought, universal literature, universal art. I consider it utterly erroneous that the syllabus of instruction should concern itself only with these subjects as manifested within the limits of a single nation, and that within those limits there should be a further restriction to a period of two or three centuries. Despite all that has been done to modernise education, its spirit still remains essentially archaic. It perpetuates among us the atmosphere of extinct epochs. Let not this criticism be misunderstood. All my own education was classical. I passed through every stage of university instruction. In my student days we were still taught to write Latin speeches and Latin verses. I am impregnated with the ideas of classical art and classical thought. Far from desiring to sweep these things away, I should wish such treasures, like those of our Louvre, to be made accessible to the great mass of mankind.But I must point out that we should remain free in relation to that which we admire, and that we are not free in relation to classical thought. The Greco-Roman mental formulas, which our education has made as it were second nature, are nowise suited for application to modern problems. Those into whose minds such formulas have been instilled in childhood have acquired overwhelming prejudices which they are rarely, if ever, able to shake off, prejudices which weigh heavily upon contemporary society. I am inclined to believe that one of the moral errors from which Europe is chiefly suffering to-day, the Europe whose members are tearing one another to pieces, is that we have preserved the heroic and rhetorical idol of the Greco-Roman fatherland, which corresponds no better to the natural sentiment of the fatherland to-day than the deities of Homer correspond to the true religious needs of our time.
Humanity grows older, but does not ripen. It is still enmeshed in the teachings of childhood. Its greatest fault is its slothful unwillingness to seek renewal. But humanity must seek renewal and growth. For centuries it has condemned itself to use no more than a modicum of its spiritual resources. It is like a half-paralysed colossus. It allows some of its organs to atrophy. Are we not weary of these infirm nations, of these scattered members of a great body, which might dominate our planet!
Membra sumus corporis magni.
Let these members unite; let Humanity, the New Adam, arise!
Villeneuve,March 15, 1918.
"Revue Politique Internationale," Lausanne, March and April, 1918.
A CALL TO EUROPEANS
IN the downfall of imperial Germany, there stand out the great names of a few free spirits of Germany, the names of those who during the last four years have strenuously defended the rights of conscience and reason against the abuses of force. The name of G. F. Nicolai is one of the most illustrious among these. I devoted two articles[86]to the study of his excellent work,The Biology of War, and have recorded the conditions under which it was written. This distinguished professor of physiology at the university of Berlin, a celebrated physician, appointed at the outbreak of the war as chief of one of the army medical departments, was cashiered because he had expressed his disapproval of the misdeeds committed by the statesmen and the high military commanders of Germany. Suffering humiliation after humiliation, degraded to the rank of private, sentenced to five months' imprisonment by the Danzig court-martial, he at length fled from Germany in order to escape yet severer punishment. A few months ago we learned from the newspapers of his daring escape in an aeroplane. He has secured asylum in Denmark, and in that country he has just published the first number of a review, to whose historical and human interest I now wish to call attention.
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This periodical is entitled "Das werdende Europa,—Blätter für zukunftsfrohe Menschen,—neutral gegenüberden kriegführenden Ländern,—leidenschaftlich Partei ergreifend für das Recht gegen die Macht." (The Coming Europe,—a review for men who look joyously towards the future,—neutral as regards the belligerent lands,—but taking sides passionately on behalf of right against might.)[87]
Looking joyously towards the future! This is one of Nicolai's most salient characteristics, and I have alluded to it at the close of my critique of hisBiology of War. How many in his place would have been disheartened by all that he has seen, heard, and endured in the way of human malice; of cowardice, which is worse; and of folly, which is yet more intolerable—the folly that rules the world! But Nicolai is a man of extraordinary elasticity. "Nicht weinen!" as his little girl of two says to him when he is about to leave her and everything he loves. "Not cry!" Looking joyously towards the future. To uphold him in this joyance he has his wonderful vitality, the inviolable strength of his convictions, his triumphant assurance (meine triumphierende Sicherheit). He displays an apostolic zeal which we should hardly have expected in a scientific observer; but Nicolai, of a sudden, becomes from time to time a seer, an idealist, a prophet, like the religious heroes of old. With all his equipment of modern science, he is a strange instance of reincarnation. The Old Germany of Goethe, Herder, and Kant, speaks to us through his voice. To use his own words, he claims his rights as against the right of Ludendorff and other usurpers to adopt the political methods of the Tatars.
The aim of "Coming Europe" is, he tells us, to "awaken love for our new, our greater fatherland, Europe.... We wish that all the peoples of Europe shall become useful and happy members of this new organism."—Now the future of Europe mainly depends upon the condition of Germany, a country which, by its brutal disregard of European principles, supports the old policy of armed isolation. The primary aim, therefore, must be the liberation of Germany.
The first issue of the magazine contains an inaugural article by Professor Kristoffer Nyrop, member of the Royal Academy of Denmark. It further includes interesting pages written by Dr. Alfred H. Fried, and by Carl Lindhagen, burgomaster of Stockholm. But the main contribution, filling three-fourths of the number, is a long article by Nicolai, entitled "Warum ich aus Deutschland ging. Offener Brief an denjenigen Unbekannten, der die Macht hat in Deutschland."[88]These words are the confession of a great spirit, of one whom the oppressors have wished to enslave, but who has broken his chains.
Nicolai opens by explaining what has led him to an act which has cost him dear, the abandonment of his country in the hour of danger. In touching terms he expresses his love for the motherland (which he contrasts with Europe, his fatherland), his love for Germany and for all that he owes it. He tore himself away only because there was no other means of working for the liberation of his country. While he remained in Germany, he could do nothing; for years of tribulation had been the proof. Right was shackled. Germany was no longer a Rechtsstaat. Oppression was universal; and, still worse, it was anonymous. The power of the sword, irresponsible, was supreme. Parliament no longer existed. The press no longer existed. The chancellor, the emperor himself, were subject to the mysterious "Unknown who rules Germany." Nicolai tells us that he had long waited for others better qualified than himself to speak. He had waited in vain. Fear, corruption, lack of determination, stifled all attempts at revolt. The soul of Germany was dumb.—Even he, Nicolai, would perhaps have held his peace to the end, constrained to silence by the sentiment of chivalrous loyalty which influences everyone in time of war, had he not been driven to extremities, had he not been brought to bay, by the unknown power. After everything had been taken from him, after he had been despoiled of his honours, of his official position, ofthe comforts and even the necessaries of life, those in authority wished to wrest from him the one thing that still remained, his right to obey, his convictions. This was too much, and he fled. "I was compelled to leave the German empire; I left, because I believe myself to be a good German."
To enable us to understand his decision, he describes for us the four years of daily struggle which had been his lot in Germany before he made up his mind to leave.—Notwithstanding his views on the war, when it actually broke out he put himself at the disposal of the military authorities, but only as a civilian medical man (vertraglich verpflichteter Zivilarzt). He was appointed principal medical officer in the new Tempelhof hospital, a post which permitted him to continue his public lectures at the university of Berlin. But in October, 1914, in conjunction with Professor W. Foerster, Professor A. Einstein, and Dr. Buek, he issued a protest, couched in very strong terms, against the notorious manifesto of the 93. Punishment did not tarry. He was at once relieved of his post, and was appointed medical assistant at the isolation hospital in the little fortress of Graudenz. Being under no illusions as to the reasons for this arbitrary and absurd measure, he devoted his spare time to the preparation of his book,The Biology of War. Now came the sinking of the Lusitania, which was a terrible shock to Nicolai, affecting him as if he had been struck with a whip. At dinner with a few of his comrades, he declared that the violation of Belgian neutrality, the use of poison gas, and the torpedoing of merchantmen, were not merely immoral actions, but were acts of incredible stupidity, which would sooner or later ruin the German empire. One of those present, his colleague Dr. Knoll, could find nothing better to do than to inform against him. Anew dismissed from his post, Nicolai was sent in disgrace to one of the most out-of-the-way corners of Germany. He protested in the name of justice. He appealed to the emperor. The latter, he was given to understand, wrote on the margin of the report of his case: "Der Mann ist ein Idealist, mansoll ihn gewähren lassen!" (The man is an idealist. Let him alone!)
He was sent back to Berlin in the winter of 1915-16, with instructions to be on his good behaviour. Ignoring these instructions, immediately after his return to the university he began a course of lectures upon "War as an evolutionary Factor in human History." The lectures were promptly prohibited, and Nicolai was sent to Danzig, where he was strictly forbidden to speak or write on political topics. Nicolai took exception to this order, on the ground that he was a civilian. Thereupon an attempt was made to administer to him the oath of loyalty and obedience. He refused. Summoned before a court-martial, and warned of the consequences of refusal, he persisted. He was thereupon reduced to the ranks, and for two and a half years was engaged in futile clerical work as a private in the army medical corps. Nevertheless, he finished his book, and it went to press in Germany. The first two hundred pages had been set up when an information against it was lodged by the chief clerk of a great submarine dockyard, who said indignantly, "We earn our money arduously in the war, and this fellow is writing in favour of peace!" Nicolai was arrested and his manuscript was seized. After a lengthy trial, he was sentenced to five months' imprisonment. The newspapers were forbidden to mention his name. The "Danziger Zeitung" was suspended for having published an account of the trial. His troubles began afresh immediately he came out of prison. The commandant of Eilenburg wished to force Nicolai to accept combatant service. Nicolai refused, and was given twenty-four hours to think the matter over. He thought of Socrates, and of the Greek philosopher's obedience to his country's laws, bad though they were. But he thought also of Luther, who fled to the Wartburg to finish his work. And Nicolai left that night. Not even yet, however, did he quit Germany, for he wished to make a last appeal to the justice of his country. He wrote to the minister for war, relating the infractions of law to which he had been exposed, and asking for protection against the arbitrary proceedings of themilitary authorities. While awaiting an answer, he took refuge with friends, first in Munich, then in Grunewald near Berlin. But no answer was received. He had, therefore, to expatriate himself. We know how he crossed the frontier, "in an aeroplane, two miles above the earth amid clouds formed by bursting shrapnel."[89]At dawn after Saint John's night, he saw the distant gleam of the sea of freedom. He reached Copenhagen. For the last time he addressed himself to the German government, offering to return upon guarantees that his rights should be respected, and that he should be reinstated. After eight weeks, he was declared to be a deserter. A raid was made upon his house in Berlin, and upon the houses of some of his friends. His goods were sequestrated. A demand was made for his extradition, upon the charge of stealing an aeroplane.—Then it was that, resuming freedom of speech, Nicolai wrote his "Open Letter" to the "Unknown" despot.
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What particularly strikes me in this narrative is, in the first place, the man's invincible tenacity, the way in which he stands upon his right as upon a fortress—"eine feste Burg." ...But I am also greatly impressed by the secret aid which was furnished him by so many of his compatriots.
People are astonished to-day at the sudden collapse of the German colossus. A hundred different reasons are given. We are told that the army is ravaged by epidemic disease; that the morale of the Germans has been undermined by bolshevist propaganda; and so on. These influences have played their part. But another cause has been forgotten. It is that the entire edifice, despite itsimposing front, has been mined. Behind the façade of passive obedience, widespread disillusionment prevails. Nothing is more striking in Nicolai's story (notwithstanding all his precautions lest anything he may say should betray his friends to the vengeance of the authorities) than the way in which he has again and again been supported and encouraged by the devotion or by the tacit complicity of those with whom he came into contact. "Men of science, working men, rankers, and officers," he writes, "begged me to say what they did not dare to utter themselves." When he was arrested and when his book was seized, the manuscript was rescued and was smuggled into Switzerland. By whom? By an official German courier!—When, having fled from his post, he wished to leave Germany, and when, in the first instance, he thought of getting out of the country on foot, he was arrested a hundred yards short of the frontier and was taken before an elderly captain. "When he asked me my name, and I said, 'I am Professor Nicolai,' he looked at me long and quizzically. I am doubtful whether he knew that I was being hunted, but I have the impression that he did know.... He advised me, in friendly fashion, not again to attempt crossing the frontier by night, for the frontier patrols were accompanied by bloodhounds—then he let me go."—Seeing no other way of escape than by the air route, Nicolai turned—to whom? To an officer in the flying corps, asking the loan of an aeroplane, for a journey to Holland or Switzerland. The officer, without turning a hair, replied that the thing could be done, and that if Nicolai should decide to make his way to Denmark (which would be much easier) they could start with a whole air-squadron. In the end, as we know, there was no squadron; but two aeroplanes and a number of officers participated in the flight from Neurippin to Copenhagen.—Many similar incidents, though perhaps less striking than those quoted, serve to show the dissolution of the bonds between the citizens and the state. The publication of Nicolai's book in Switzerland, and the subsequent clandestine circulation in Germany of one hundred copies, brought him into relationships with personsbelonging to all parties in Germany, and enabled him to realise how deep and passionate was the feeling of hatred diffused throughout all strata of the population. He adds: "I am convinced that Germany and the world would be liberated to-morrow, if only all the Germans were to say to-day without reserve that which, at the bottom of their hearts, they wish and ardently desire."
Herein lies the force of his protest. It is not the protest of one individual, but that of an entire nation. Nicolai is merely the spokesman.
Thus, having told his tale, he turns to the people, he turns to those who inspired him to speak. By a sudden transformation, the "Unknown" to whom he addresses his "Open Letter"—derjenige Unbekannte, der die Macht hat—is no longer the military authority. Sovereign power seems already to have passed into the hands of the real master, the German people. He invites the German people to enter into a union with the other peoples. In the tone of an inspired evangelist, he reminds the German people of its true destiny, its spiritual mission, a thousandfold more important than any empty victory. To all the peoples of Europe, he points out the duty of the hour, the pressing task: to achieve the unity of Europe and the organisation of the world.
"Come, then, kindred spirits!... I am a free man, freed from everything in the world, free from the state [staatenlos], ein deutscher Weltbürger [a German citizen of the world].... I have peace! [Ich habe Frieden].... Come! Cry aloud what you already know and feel!... We do not wish tomakepeace; we simply wish to realise that wehavepeace...."
Reiterating his cry of October, 1914, the Call to Europeans[90]which he, in conjunction with his friends Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Foerster, and Otto Buek, issued as a counterblast to the insane utterances of the 93, hereaffirms his act of faith in the spirit of Europe, one and brotherly; and he launches his appeal to all the free spirits, to those whom Goethe long ago termed: "Good Europeans."
October 20, 1918.
"Wissen und Leben," Zurich, November, 1918.
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT WILSON
Monsieur le Président,
THE peoples are breaking their chains. The hour foreseen by you and desired by you is at hand. May it not come in vain! From one end of Europe to the other, there is rising among the peoples the will to resume control of their destinies, and to unite, that they may form a regenerated Europe. Across the frontiers, they are holding out their hands to one another for a friendly clasp. But between them there still remain abysses of mistrust and misunderstanding. These abysses must be bridged. We must break the fetters of ancient destiny which shackle these peoples to nationalist wars; which have compelled them, century after century, to rush blindly upon one another for their mutual destruction. Unaided, they cannot break their chains. They are calling for help. But whither can they turn for help?
You alone, Monsieur le Président, among all those whose dread duty it now is to guide the policy of the nations, you alone enjoy a world-wide moral authority. You inspire universal confidence. Answer the appeal of these passionate hopes! Take the hands which are stretched forth, help them to clasp one another. Help these peoples, groping in the dark, to find their way, to establish the new charter of freedom and union whose principles they are seeking earnestly but confusedly.
Reflect: Europe is in danger of falling back into the circles of hell through which she has been toiling for more than four years, drenching the soil with her blood. Inall lands, the peoples have lost confidence in the ruling classes. At this hour, you are the only one who can speak to all alike—to the common people and to the bourgeoisies of the nations. You alone can be sure of an attentive hearing. None but you can act as mediator to-day (and will even you still be able to act as mediator to-morrow?). Should this mediator fail to appear, the human masses, disarrayed and unbalanced, will almost inevitably break forth into excesses. The common people will welter in bloody chaos, while the parties of traditional order will fly to bloody reaction. Class wars, racial wars, wars between the nations of yesterday, wars between the nations which have just been formed, blind social convulsions, with no further aim than the gratification of the hatreds, the envies, the crazy dreams of an hour of life looking forward to no morrow....
Heir of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, take up the cause, not of a party, not of a single people, but of all! Summon the representatives of the peoples to the Congress of Mankind! Preside over it with the full authority which you hold in virtue of your lofty moral consciousness and in virtue of the great future of America! Speak, speak to all! The world hungers for a voice which will overleap the frontiers of nations and of classes. Be the arbiter of the free peoples! Thus may the future hail you by the name of Reconciler!
Romain Rolland.
Villeneuve,November 9, 1918.
"Le Populaire," Paris, November 18, 1918.
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A few days later (December 4, 1918), "Le Populaire" published a letter from Romain Rolland to Jean Longuet, wherein Romain Rolland laid bare his most intimate thought and gave the reasons for his attitude towards Wilson. The letter was reprinted by "L'Humanité" in the issue of December 14, 1918, a special "Wilson Number."
I am no Wilsonian. I see all too plainly that the president's message, as clever as it is generous, aims (ingood faith) at realising throughout the world the ideal of the bourgeois republic of the Franco-American type.
This is a conservative ideal and it no longer satisfies me.
Nevertheless, despite our personal predilections and our reserves for the future, I believe that the best thing we can do for the moment is to support the action of President Wilson. He alone will be able to curb the greedy appetites, the ambitions, and the fierce instincts, which will seat themselves at the peace banquet. Through his action alone is there any chance of bringing about a modus vivendi in Europe, one which provisionally at least shall be fairly just. This great bourgeois embodies what is purest, most disinterested, most humane, in the mentality of his class.[91]No one is better fitted than he to act as Arbiter.
R. R.
June, 1919.
AGAINST VICTORIOUS BISMARCKISM
"Le Populaire" asked Romain Rolland to write an article on the occasion of President Wilson's arrival in France. Romain Rolland, who was ill at the time, wrote from Villeneuve as follows.
Thursday,December 12, 1918.
Dear Longuet,
YOUR letter of the 6th inst. did not reach me until to-day, of course after being opened by the military censorship. It finds me in bed, where I have been for a fortnight, suffering from an obstinate attack of influenza. It is therefore impossible for me to write the article you want.
All that I will say is that, during the last fortnight, the news from France has often made me more uneasy than my fever. The Allies believe themselves victorious. In my view (if they fail to pull themselves together) they are vanquished, beaten, infected, by Bismarckism.
Unless there is an extensive turn in events, I foresee a century of hatreds, of new wars of revenge, and the destruction of European civilisation. Let me add that the destruction of European civilisation is hardly to be regretted if the victorious nations prove thus incapable of guiding their destinies.
It is my hope that, amid the intoxicating but deceptive triumphs of the present, they may regain the consciousness of their crushing responsibilities towards the future! It is my hope that they will remember that every one of theirmistakes or their sins of omission will have to be paid for by their children and their children's children!
Excuse these lines, scribbled by a convalescent, and believe me, my dear Longuet,
Yours as always,Romain Rolland.
"Le Populaire," Paris, December 21, 1918.
DECLARATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE MIND
BRAIN workers, comrades, scattered throughout the world, kept apart for five years by the armies, the censorship and the mutual hatred of the warring nations, now that barriers are falling and frontiers are being reopened, we issue to you a call to reconstitute our brotherly union, but to make of it a new union more firmly founded and more strongly built than that which previously existed.
The war has disordered our ranks. Most of the intellectuals placed their science, their art, their reason, at the service of the governments. We do not wish to formulate any accusations, to launch any reproaches. We know the weakness of the individual mind and the elemental strength of great collective currents. The latter, in a moment, swept the former away, for nothing had been prepared to help in the work of resistance. Let this experience, at least, be a lesson to us for the future!
First of all, let us point out the disasters that have resulted from the almost complete abdication of intelligence throughout the world, and from its voluntary enslavement to the unchained forces. Thinkers, artists, have added an incalculable quantity of envenomed hate to the plague which devours the flesh and the spirit of Europe. In the arsenal of their knowledge, their memory, their imagination, they have sought reasons for hatred, reasons old and new, reasons historical, scientific, logical, and poetical. They have worked to destroy mutual understanding and mutual love among men. So doing, they have disfigured, defiled,debased, degraded Thought, of which they were the representatives. They have made it an instrument of the passions; and (unwittingly, perchance) they have made it a tool of the selfish interests of a political or social clique, of a state, a country, or a class. Now, when, from the fierce conflict in which the nations have been at grips, the victors and the vanquished emerge equally stricken, impoverished, and at the bottom of their hearts (though they will not admit it) utterly ashamed of their access of mania—now, Thought, which has been entangled in their struggles, emerges, like them, fallen from her high estate.
Arise! Let us free the mind from these compromises, from these unworthy alliances, from these veiled slaveries! Mind is no one's servitor. It is we who are the servitors of mind. We have no other master. We exist to bear its light, to defend its light, to rally round it all the strayed sheep of mankind. Our role, our duty, is to be a centre of stability, to point out the pole star, amid the whirlwind of passions in the night. Among these passions of pride and mutual destruction, we make no choice; we reject them all. Truth only do we honour; truth that is free, frontierless, limitless; truth that knows nought of the prejudices of race or caste. Not that we lack interest in humanity. For humanity we work, but for humanity as a whole. We know nothing of peoples. We know the People, unique and universal; the People which suffers, which struggles, which falls and rises to its feet once more, and which continues to advance along the rough road drenched with its sweat and its blood; the People, all men, all alike our brothers. In order that they may, like ourselves, realise this brotherhood, we raise above their blind struggles the Ark of the Covenant—Mind which is free, one and manifold, eternal.
R. R.
Villeneuve,Spring, 1919.
[This manifesto was published in "L'Humanité," June 26, 1919.]
By the end of 1919, the following signatures had been received to the above declaration.
Emilio H. del Villar, editor of "Archive Geografico de la Peninsula Iberica," of Madrid, has sent me a manifestoPor la causa de la civilizacion, published in the Madrid newspapers in June, 1919, and inspired with sentiments analogous to those of the above declaration. This manifesto is signed by about one hundred Spanish writers and men of science, university professors, etc. Emilio H. del Villar sends his own adhesion, together with that of all thesignatories of the Spanish manifesto, to the Declaration of the Independence of the Mind.
It is a matter for regret that we have not been able to add to the list the signatures of our Russian friends from whom we are still cut off by the governmental blockade. We keep their places open. Russian thought is in the vanguard of the thought of the world.
R. R.
August, 1919.