CORRESPONDENCEThe War[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—The war and the new problems created by it are engrossing the attention of the entire British nation. Outwardly the life of London goes on pretty much as usual. Under the surface there is a tremendous lot of fermentation and premonition. It seems certain that the war will be accompanied or followed by a social readjustment on a scale hitherto undreamed of—and this readjustment will be entirely in a democratic and socialistic direction.That a great financial crisis is due one can hardly doubt. So far the weaker elements in the commercial and industrial world have been carried along by artificial support, but that cannot go on indefinitely. Whether the moratorium be extended or not, the crash must come sooner or later. People are realizing this, and it has already caused a tremendous awakening. In the end it will mean additional surrenders on the part of the wealthy classes. The Kaiser has solved not only the Ulster and suffrage questions, as some one said the other day, but the whole question of social reorganization. What would have had to be taken under ordinary circumstances will now be given. This may seem an optimistic view of the whole thing, and may prove unwarranted at this point or that, but on the whole I think it will be found absolutely correct. A spirit of self-sacrifice is in the air, and I think the German war machine will prove possessed of just enough initial impetus to prevent that spirit from petering out without tangible manifestation. The more the Germans win to begin with, the longer the war becomes protracted, the more thoroughly will the spirit for which their ruling class stands be killed in the end.Just how the financial precariousness of the European situation will affect America no one can hope to foretell with any certainty. It is possible that the distress of one continent will bring a “boom” to the other. But I doubt it. I believe that we shall have to suffer with the rest of the Western World, and if that proves so, it means that we shall have an outbreak of internal strife hardly less serious than the external strife on this side of the water. We are indeed—turn wherever we may—on the threshold of grave and portentous events, and may the Spirit of Life grant us all strength and patience and faith to live through them. There is a great darkness ahead of us—an ordeal of fire for the whole civilized portion of mankind—but beyond it awaits us the long, sunlit day of world-wide peace.Edwin BjörkmanLondon[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—I have just read your September editorial on War. How powerfully and terribly you write on the subject. I hope it may be read everywhere.George Burman FosterChicago[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—I am an old man. I watch with pain, almost with incredulity, the spectacle that Europe presents to the world. I see England fighting “lest the lights of freedom go out throughout the world.” I see Germany fighting lest God and civilization be obliterated by barbarians. I see France fighting for her honor, her freedom, her existence. I see everywhere murder, and misunderstanding. So I write to you to thank you for the attitude you have taken: the big attitude. It will be remembered. It will have effects that, when you are old, as I am to-day, will bring you contentment. You have fought a better fight than any of the commanders in the field.SenexCincinnati“Piety”[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—Your correspondent “Twentieth Century” who writes under the above heading in the AugustForumis surely in a bad temper. His letter is good evidence in favor of the theory that our beliefs are determined by our wishes. He objects strongly to the doctrines propounded in the tract he mentions, particularly to the use of the word “damned,” and, if he had the power, would stop the publication of such objectionable matter.The only reason he gives for this is that he dislikes it very much and won’t have Christianity of that brand at any price.Now why is he so hot about it? Why does he use such epithets as “stupid,” “disgusting,” “criminal lunatics,” etc.? If these doctrines are false, no one will be hurt by them—it may even be that some will be restrained from evil deeds by the teaching. On the other hand, if they are true, and no one can demonstrate their untruth, he and all those who despise the warning may find themselves in sorry case. Anyway Christians will try to get on without him and may be encouraged to know that the faith is still able to arouse such violent opposition.J. P. DunlopBerkeley, California[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—Thank you for sending me the proof of Mr. Dunlop’s letter. Mr. Dunlop has evidently rigid convictions which no discussion could modify. He may justly retort that I myself have convictions which I am unwilling to modify. But that would not be true. I am willing to modify any and every conviction that I have, if new evidence and new advances in knowledge make it clear that I have been partly or wholly at fault. But Mr. Dunlop clings fast to what he considers the faith of his fathers, though the thinking world has long discarded the idea of a God of Love who is supposed to punish his children for their faults in this life by consigning them to the flames of hell, in which they will suffer eternally the agonizing torments of fire. It is impossible to reason with the well-meaning and sincere, but utterly ignorant, people who are capable of believing such absurdities.I am glad that “Christians will try to get on without me.” I shall certainly succeed in getting on without the so-called Christianity which teaches that morality must depend essentially upon the fear of hell, not upon the love of God; and I will cheerfully take the risk of being punished for refusing to believe that God is in reality a fiend.Mr. Dunlop assumes that I was in a bad temper when I wrote my previous letter. A certainsæva indignatioagainst lies and hypocrisy, wilful or unwilful, is entirely justified. Was Christ himself icily cold when he swept the money-changers and brawlers from the Temple? Did he speak in measured academic platitudes?Mr. Dunlop does not realize that he believes what he believes merely because he has never used his brain, never investigated or tried to distinguish between the essential truth and the inevitable accretions of falsehood and folly. If he had been born in pagan times, he would probably have remained a pagan. In one age or country he would have sacrificed to Moloch: in another he would have worshipped Bacchus. But, of course, he cannot understand this.I used the epithets “stupid,” “disgusting,” etc., because they seemed to me the most appropriate in connection with such a travesty of reason and religion as the tract referred to presented. And Mr. Dunlop is quite wrong when he says that “if these doctrines are false, no one will be hurt by them.” Generations of men, women and children have been hurt by them; hampered and cramped and narrowed by them; prevented from living their full, free lives, and driven from the comprehension and sustaining power of Christ’s Christianity by such grotesque inventions of little minds, striving to measure their God by their own paltry standards.As I said before, it is time that the narrow-minded reactionaries should be taught that they are not the pillars of the true Church and the pillars ofthe ideal society that they have supposed themselves to be; they are neither good, nor pious, nor useful. They are the real enemies of knowledge, reason, Christ and God. They try to murder childhood with ghastly lies about hell-fire; they try to enchain manhood and womanhood in shackles of mediæval, nonsensical, character-rotting superstitions.Twentieth CenturyNew YorkAmerican Industrial Independence[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—The peril of dependence on foreign nations for production and over-sea transportation is demonstrated in the European war of 1914 as never before.The loss of human life in this war will be appalling, the resulting sacrifice of the fruits of the labor of generations inestimable, and the loss of capital will be enormous.We must use our best judgment to prevent these disastrous conditions from weakening our industrial capacity. This is the time when we should think and think hard about conserving and developing industrial independence.We have issued the following announcement:“To American Producers: Please report to us any article or articles (raw material or finished product) of use in agriculture, mining or manufacture in the United States, for the supply of which we are dependent upon any foreign country.”We shall take up every article thus reported, investigate the possibility of successful production at home, and urge upon Americans the desirability of such changes in our existing tariff system as shall create new industries in every line where we are now partly or wholly dependent on foreign countries.A. D. JuilliardChairman, Executive Committee,The American Protective Tariff League.New YorkEugenics in Wisconsin[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—As supplementary to your editorial onEugenic Tests, which appeared in the August issue ofThe Forum, I am submitting herewith my editorial on the general subject, which appeared inThe MilwaukeeDaily Newsrecently. As, of course, you know, Wisconsin, at the last session of its legislature, placed on its statute books a law requiring certain examinations and tests to be made before the intending groom could secure a license to marry. The law provoked widespread discussion and far from general approval. It was thought, in some quarters, to be too drastic to be capable of full and complete compliance. However, it is still on our statute books, and while some of its most drastic provisions, like the laboratory tests, are not being insisted upon, the belief is general that the law is doing some good along new and, heretofore, untried lines. It gives notice that something beside matrimonial misery must be a condition precedent to the marriage relation.However, your editorial suggestion that popular education rather than drastic legal enactments should be employed to secure a reasonable standard of health preceding marriage, is undoubtedly sound and should lead to what ought be the much-desired condition. Legislation, here as elsewhere, is not the panacea of all the matrimonial ills of which we know. But silence is an inexcusable crime in the premises.Duane MowryMilwaukee, WisconsinThe Fourth Dimension[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]Dear Sir,—With due deference to your valued journal, the article of Claude Bragdon,Learning to Think in Terms of Spaces, in your August number, is essentially illogical. The writer thus introduces his subject: “A point, moving in an unchanging direction, traces out a line; a line, moving in a direction at right angles to its length, traces out a plane; a plane, moving in a direction at right angles to its two dimensions, traces out a solid. Should a solid move in a direction at right angles to its every dimension, it would trace out, in four dimensional space, a hypersolid.”Now this may pass current in blackboard geometry, but does not hold good in the abstract. The physical point is indeed extended to represent the line, and the physical line, to represent the plane, etc. But these concrete objects are not to be conceived as true geometrical figures, which are not movable, for motion presupposes sensuous experience. Only matter is movable. The true geometrical line is not the extension of the point, nor is the cube formed by the extension of the plane. When a point “moves” it is no longer a point, and when a cube “moves” it becomes annihilated.“Student,” in a letter upon the same subject, speaks of a division of a cube into smaller cubes. But when a part of a geometrical figure is conceived the first figure is of necessity annihilated.Mr. Bragdon, after expatiating upon the vastness of the firmament,makes this extraordinary conclusion: “Viewed in relation to this universe of suns, our particular sun and its satellites shrink to a point. That is, the earth becomes no-dimensional.” The last word is in italics. Now this is manifestly a misconception, since the most minute atom, notwithstanding its insignificance in proportion to the universe, cannot be considered as an abstraction, which a point really is. Those who are not satisfied with the intuitive evidence of the limitation of space to three dimensions, solely because no logical proof can be adduced of this limitation, would do well to read the essay of Schopenhauer onThe Methods of Mathematics, in which is cited as an instance of the undue importance of logical demonstration the controversy on the theory of parallels. The eleventh axiom of Euclid “asserts that two parallel lines inclining toward each other if produced far enough must meet,—a truth which is supposed to be too complicated to pass as self-evident and thus requires a demonstration….It is quite arbitrary where we draw the line between what is directly certain and what has first to be demonstrated.” (The italics are mine.)I believe with Schopenhauer, who quotes Descartes and Sir W. Hamilton in support of his contention, that the science of mathematics has no cultural value. Far from affording “a new way of looking at the world,” as Mr. Bragdon tries to convince us, “its only direct use is that it can accustom restless and unsteady minds to fix their attention.” That such mental concentration may be woefully misdirected is instanced in the cases of Swedenborg and Madame Blavatsky, reference to whom by Mr. Bragdon is alone sufficient to cause a sniff of suspicion.Indeed your author himself, while evidently well versed in bookish mathematics, has been unable to free his mind of its limitations. Upon a basis of phrases devoid of significance he builds his extravagantly mystical speculation, which dissolves in the light of reason, “into air, thin air.”Philip J. Dorety, M. D.Trenton,N. J.
The War
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—The war and the new problems created by it are engrossing the attention of the entire British nation. Outwardly the life of London goes on pretty much as usual. Under the surface there is a tremendous lot of fermentation and premonition. It seems certain that the war will be accompanied or followed by a social readjustment on a scale hitherto undreamed of—and this readjustment will be entirely in a democratic and socialistic direction.
That a great financial crisis is due one can hardly doubt. So far the weaker elements in the commercial and industrial world have been carried along by artificial support, but that cannot go on indefinitely. Whether the moratorium be extended or not, the crash must come sooner or later. People are realizing this, and it has already caused a tremendous awakening. In the end it will mean additional surrenders on the part of the wealthy classes. The Kaiser has solved not only the Ulster and suffrage questions, as some one said the other day, but the whole question of social reorganization. What would have had to be taken under ordinary circumstances will now be given. This may seem an optimistic view of the whole thing, and may prove unwarranted at this point or that, but on the whole I think it will be found absolutely correct. A spirit of self-sacrifice is in the air, and I think the German war machine will prove possessed of just enough initial impetus to prevent that spirit from petering out without tangible manifestation. The more the Germans win to begin with, the longer the war becomes protracted, the more thoroughly will the spirit for which their ruling class stands be killed in the end.
Just how the financial precariousness of the European situation will affect America no one can hope to foretell with any certainty. It is possible that the distress of one continent will bring a “boom” to the other. But I doubt it. I believe that we shall have to suffer with the rest of the Western World, and if that proves so, it means that we shall have an outbreak of internal strife hardly less serious than the external strife on this side of the water. We are indeed—turn wherever we may—on the threshold of grave and portentous events, and may the Spirit of Life grant us all strength and patience and faith to live through them. There is a great darkness ahead of us—an ordeal of fire for the whole civilized portion of mankind—but beyond it awaits us the long, sunlit day of world-wide peace.
Edwin Björkman
London
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—I have just read your September editorial on War. How powerfully and terribly you write on the subject. I hope it may be read everywhere.
George Burman Foster
Chicago
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—I am an old man. I watch with pain, almost with incredulity, the spectacle that Europe presents to the world. I see England fighting “lest the lights of freedom go out throughout the world.” I see Germany fighting lest God and civilization be obliterated by barbarians. I see France fighting for her honor, her freedom, her existence. I see everywhere murder, and misunderstanding. So I write to you to thank you for the attitude you have taken: the big attitude. It will be remembered. It will have effects that, when you are old, as I am to-day, will bring you contentment. You have fought a better fight than any of the commanders in the field.
Senex
Cincinnati
“Piety”
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—Your correspondent “Twentieth Century” who writes under the above heading in the AugustForumis surely in a bad temper. His letter is good evidence in favor of the theory that our beliefs are determined by our wishes. He objects strongly to the doctrines propounded in the tract he mentions, particularly to the use of the word “damned,” and, if he had the power, would stop the publication of such objectionable matter.
The only reason he gives for this is that he dislikes it very much and won’t have Christianity of that brand at any price.
Now why is he so hot about it? Why does he use such epithets as “stupid,” “disgusting,” “criminal lunatics,” etc.? If these doctrines are false, no one will be hurt by them—it may even be that some will be restrained from evil deeds by the teaching. On the other hand, if they are true, and no one can demonstrate their untruth, he and all those who despise the warning may find themselves in sorry case. Anyway Christians will try to get on without him and may be encouraged to know that the faith is still able to arouse such violent opposition.
J. P. Dunlop
Berkeley, California
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—Thank you for sending me the proof of Mr. Dunlop’s letter. Mr. Dunlop has evidently rigid convictions which no discussion could modify. He may justly retort that I myself have convictions which I am unwilling to modify. But that would not be true. I am willing to modify any and every conviction that I have, if new evidence and new advances in knowledge make it clear that I have been partly or wholly at fault. But Mr. Dunlop clings fast to what he considers the faith of his fathers, though the thinking world has long discarded the idea of a God of Love who is supposed to punish his children for their faults in this life by consigning them to the flames of hell, in which they will suffer eternally the agonizing torments of fire. It is impossible to reason with the well-meaning and sincere, but utterly ignorant, people who are capable of believing such absurdities.
I am glad that “Christians will try to get on without me.” I shall certainly succeed in getting on without the so-called Christianity which teaches that morality must depend essentially upon the fear of hell, not upon the love of God; and I will cheerfully take the risk of being punished for refusing to believe that God is in reality a fiend.
Mr. Dunlop assumes that I was in a bad temper when I wrote my previous letter. A certainsæva indignatioagainst lies and hypocrisy, wilful or unwilful, is entirely justified. Was Christ himself icily cold when he swept the money-changers and brawlers from the Temple? Did he speak in measured academic platitudes?
Mr. Dunlop does not realize that he believes what he believes merely because he has never used his brain, never investigated or tried to distinguish between the essential truth and the inevitable accretions of falsehood and folly. If he had been born in pagan times, he would probably have remained a pagan. In one age or country he would have sacrificed to Moloch: in another he would have worshipped Bacchus. But, of course, he cannot understand this.
I used the epithets “stupid,” “disgusting,” etc., because they seemed to me the most appropriate in connection with such a travesty of reason and religion as the tract referred to presented. And Mr. Dunlop is quite wrong when he says that “if these doctrines are false, no one will be hurt by them.” Generations of men, women and children have been hurt by them; hampered and cramped and narrowed by them; prevented from living their full, free lives, and driven from the comprehension and sustaining power of Christ’s Christianity by such grotesque inventions of little minds, striving to measure their God by their own paltry standards.
As I said before, it is time that the narrow-minded reactionaries should be taught that they are not the pillars of the true Church and the pillars ofthe ideal society that they have supposed themselves to be; they are neither good, nor pious, nor useful. They are the real enemies of knowledge, reason, Christ and God. They try to murder childhood with ghastly lies about hell-fire; they try to enchain manhood and womanhood in shackles of mediæval, nonsensical, character-rotting superstitions.
Twentieth Century
New York
American Industrial Independence
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—The peril of dependence on foreign nations for production and over-sea transportation is demonstrated in the European war of 1914 as never before.
The loss of human life in this war will be appalling, the resulting sacrifice of the fruits of the labor of generations inestimable, and the loss of capital will be enormous.
We must use our best judgment to prevent these disastrous conditions from weakening our industrial capacity. This is the time when we should think and think hard about conserving and developing industrial independence.
We have issued the following announcement:
“To American Producers: Please report to us any article or articles (raw material or finished product) of use in agriculture, mining or manufacture in the United States, for the supply of which we are dependent upon any foreign country.”
We shall take up every article thus reported, investigate the possibility of successful production at home, and urge upon Americans the desirability of such changes in our existing tariff system as shall create new industries in every line where we are now partly or wholly dependent on foreign countries.
A. D. JuilliardChairman, Executive Committee,The American Protective Tariff League.
New York
Eugenics in Wisconsin
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—As supplementary to your editorial onEugenic Tests, which appeared in the August issue ofThe Forum, I am submitting herewith my editorial on the general subject, which appeared inThe MilwaukeeDaily Newsrecently. As, of course, you know, Wisconsin, at the last session of its legislature, placed on its statute books a law requiring certain examinations and tests to be made before the intending groom could secure a license to marry. The law provoked widespread discussion and far from general approval. It was thought, in some quarters, to be too drastic to be capable of full and complete compliance. However, it is still on our statute books, and while some of its most drastic provisions, like the laboratory tests, are not being insisted upon, the belief is general that the law is doing some good along new and, heretofore, untried lines. It gives notice that something beside matrimonial misery must be a condition precedent to the marriage relation.
However, your editorial suggestion that popular education rather than drastic legal enactments should be employed to secure a reasonable standard of health preceding marriage, is undoubtedly sound and should lead to what ought be the much-desired condition. Legislation, here as elsewhere, is not the panacea of all the matrimonial ills of which we know. But silence is an inexcusable crime in the premises.
Duane Mowry
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Fourth Dimension
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE FORUM]
Dear Sir,—With due deference to your valued journal, the article of Claude Bragdon,Learning to Think in Terms of Spaces, in your August number, is essentially illogical. The writer thus introduces his subject: “A point, moving in an unchanging direction, traces out a line; a line, moving in a direction at right angles to its length, traces out a plane; a plane, moving in a direction at right angles to its two dimensions, traces out a solid. Should a solid move in a direction at right angles to its every dimension, it would trace out, in four dimensional space, a hypersolid.”
Now this may pass current in blackboard geometry, but does not hold good in the abstract. The physical point is indeed extended to represent the line, and the physical line, to represent the plane, etc. But these concrete objects are not to be conceived as true geometrical figures, which are not movable, for motion presupposes sensuous experience. Only matter is movable. The true geometrical line is not the extension of the point, nor is the cube formed by the extension of the plane. When a point “moves” it is no longer a point, and when a cube “moves” it becomes annihilated.
“Student,” in a letter upon the same subject, speaks of a division of a cube into smaller cubes. But when a part of a geometrical figure is conceived the first figure is of necessity annihilated.
Mr. Bragdon, after expatiating upon the vastness of the firmament,makes this extraordinary conclusion: “Viewed in relation to this universe of suns, our particular sun and its satellites shrink to a point. That is, the earth becomes no-dimensional.” The last word is in italics. Now this is manifestly a misconception, since the most minute atom, notwithstanding its insignificance in proportion to the universe, cannot be considered as an abstraction, which a point really is. Those who are not satisfied with the intuitive evidence of the limitation of space to three dimensions, solely because no logical proof can be adduced of this limitation, would do well to read the essay of Schopenhauer onThe Methods of Mathematics, in which is cited as an instance of the undue importance of logical demonstration the controversy on the theory of parallels. The eleventh axiom of Euclid “asserts that two parallel lines inclining toward each other if produced far enough must meet,—a truth which is supposed to be too complicated to pass as self-evident and thus requires a demonstration….It is quite arbitrary where we draw the line between what is directly certain and what has first to be demonstrated.” (The italics are mine.)
I believe with Schopenhauer, who quotes Descartes and Sir W. Hamilton in support of his contention, that the science of mathematics has no cultural value. Far from affording “a new way of looking at the world,” as Mr. Bragdon tries to convince us, “its only direct use is that it can accustom restless and unsteady minds to fix their attention.” That such mental concentration may be woefully misdirected is instanced in the cases of Swedenborg and Madame Blavatsky, reference to whom by Mr. Bragdon is alone sufficient to cause a sniff of suspicion.
Indeed your author himself, while evidently well versed in bookish mathematics, has been unable to free his mind of its limitations. Upon a basis of phrases devoid of significance he builds his extravagantly mystical speculation, which dissolves in the light of reason, “into air, thin air.”
Philip J. Dorety, M. D.
Trenton,N. J.
EDITORIAL NOTESSoldiers of All NationsItis difficult to realize that while this note is being written, men are dying, every moment: not in the fulness of time, for the glory of God and their own rest; but unduly and by wanton violence, in the prime of manhood, with the whole making and purpose of their lives incomplete and unrenewable. They lie in strange places, and must sleep, not uncompanioned, but uncoffined and without memorial: mere broken bits of life-stuff, shattered from the resemblance of humanity by machines that must be fed with the food that women travail for, and pray for, and, losing, break their hearts. Well, may they sleep soundly, these soldiers of all nations who will march no more to music, nor answer the reveille at dawn! God be gracious to them, gallant men all, if graciousness be needed where they have gone now!Paying the CostIfthe death of warriors were war’s only penalty, men perhaps might be forgiven for their battles, since heroes are made known by them. But the world has gone to school again, to learn the lesson that is enforced with cannons; and it knows the whole cost of war, and is paying it, and will continue to pay it for many a year. In this country, we have not contributed much, so far: only a hundred millions officially, and who shall say how many millions unofficially, in disorganized industry? But they have paid a large sum in Belgium, where the prices are plainly marked; they have paid in France (it is an ill winter that follows unreaped and rotting harvests); they have paid in Austria; and the bill for the other countries is being added up.Christianity and CivilizationButit is not true that Christianity has broken down, or that civilization has broken down, as some have said in the first flush of their indignation and sorrow. Civilization and Christianityhave never yet been tried in the world, so they cannot very well have broken down. What we have had, so far, has been a pseudo-Christianity and a pseudo-civilization. It is not so much that we have been deliberately insincere, perhaps; but we have not faced life and the problems of life as they should be faced; we have accepted the imitation instead of insisting upon the genuine thing; we have given lip-worship, but not heart-worship.RebuildingWeare living, and some of us are dying, in strange, wonderful, terrible days. There is no room for pessimism or for bravado. Barbarism is showing us what deeds it can produce. We must answer with deeds.Let no man who has held high rank in the Government of any country think now that he has done well or deserves acclamations. So far as his vision led him, he may have tried to do his duty, with foresight, devotion, faithfulness. Yet he has failed. The Government which cannot save its country from war has failed, whatever its other achievements. The new ideas, the new hopes, have not been fully comprehended. And so suspicion and enmity have been allowed to grow steadily, and the thought of war has been constantly in men’s minds, as the inevitable end to which the world was drifting.The thought of war should have been as impossible as the thought of murder. The press of all nations, instead of pandering to misunderstanding and animosities, should have educated the people, day by day and year by year, until the curse of nationalism was lifted from the world.For nationalismhasbeen a curse, and will remain a curse, so long as devotion to one country can involve enmity to any other. We are brothers in one boat, as we pass from the unknown to the unknown. Let us learn to understand each other.BenedictXVTheelection of Cardinal della Chiesa was certainly unexpected, and it may be hoped that this element of surprise willbe extended to his general policies. But if his Holiness continues, as Pontiff, to carry out the principles of the Archbishop of Bologna, the Church will lose far more than she can gain. What is needed now is not a saint or a scholar or a skilful administrator, though saintliness and scholarship and executive talent are admirable qualifications. If the Church is to do anything more than merely mark time, or actually lose ground, she requires as her head now a man of profound imagination and unswerving courage. The tendency of the Papacy has been too much toward mechanical routine, the neglect of new opportunities, the discountenancing of new ideas, the refusal of new life. The creative genius of the great artist, the incommunicable imaginative insights of the great novelist or poet or painter, could give the Vatican a new leadership in the spiritual affairs of mankind. We have seen the Pope who condemned Modernism dying of a broken heart because Europe was turned into a field of desolation and slaughter. The impotence of the Pontiff to secure some regard for Christian teachings amongst supposedly Christian nations, is at once the measure of the Church’s weakness and the condemnation of her methods. In the spirit of the Modernists, if not in the spirit of Modernism itself, BenedictXVcould remove many of the mountains that stand in the way of the direct line for the Twentieth Century, Limited. Mountains may be picturesque: but, in the wrong place, they are merely a nuisance.UncensoredThepress has not had an easy task in attempting to gratify the natural desire of the public for dramatic details of the war operations. But even after making the fullest allowances for all difficulties, whether due to the censorship, to broken communications, or to the indiscretions of partisans, one can scarcely congratulate the newspaper world as a whole upon its achievements. In New York, for instance, there have been two or three papers which have maintained reasonable standards; but most of the papers have published and republished so-called news of a kind that should never have found public record. Why should any journal waste time in announcing, in large type, that “the Serviansswear that the enemy will never enter the capital so long as one house stands and one Servian lives”? This is mere bombastic rubbish, and has nothing to do with the patriotism and fortitude of the Servians. The appearance of perpetual “war extras,” with no additional information, but with immense scareheads, is another unpleasant sign of the shallowness and insincerity that we permit in these busy days. Frothy journalism may flourish for the moment: but the public has a better memory than it is sometimes supposed to possess.“Civilized Warfare”Someone, somewhere, appears to be laboring under a rather serious mistake, or we should not have been exposed so frequently during the last few weeks to the phrase “civilized warfare.” There is no such thing, of course, as civilized warfare. All war is necessarily barbaric in its methods, and ludicrous in its assumption of semi-decency. When nations go out, in the name of God, to mangle and destroy their fellow-creatures, they are reverting to theprimitive profession of murder. The glory of war is the glory of murder, however it may be embellished by infantile brains.We have heard much of atrocities and “uncivilized” outrages. Probably most of the stories are utterly false: but even if they were true, they would only be in full accord with the whole purpose, methods, and disgrace of war.Let us realize, very clearly, that war is necessarily and always murderous and barbaric, and let us abandon the pretence that we are shocked at the annihilation of towns, the rape of women, the slaughter of children, the desolation of once-prosperous communities. These are the trimmings of war. If we order the feast, let us pay for it; but let us, in the name of all decency, give up the pretence that we are either civilized or Christianized.Saintless PetrogradTheofficial change from St. Petersburg to Petrograd removes the intrusive saint from the Russian capital. The citywas named after Peter the Great, of somewhat uncouth memory, and the subsequent sanctification by the rest of Europe was perhaps a tribute to the religious reputation of Holy Russia.Now that the Ice has been broken, such cities as Florence, for example, may begin to assert their right to be known, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, by their real and native names.Thumbs DownInhis clever, whimsical and symbolistic play,Androcles and the Lion, Mr. George Bernard Shaw has fallen—or a zealous proof-reader has made it appear that he has fallen—into the usual error of “thumbs down,” as the death signal.It is strange that this mistake should be so widely prevalent, and should even be repeated by theEncyclopædia Britannica. But the error, like ’round for round and laid for lay, will no doubt pass steadily through the years.However, anyone who has not yet read Mr. Shaw’s little play should do so at once, paying special attention to Ferrovius.The Earl of WhiskyTheoddities of childhood are rarely understood completely, even in these days of ingenious educational devices. The child lives and moves and has his being in his own world. He may emerge at moments, he may seem to understand or be understood by the great confederation of blundering adults: but he must go back as soon as possible to the realm of his real allegiance, where fact and fancy, dreams, doubts and discoveries are so cunningly intermingled.Why do we forget our own childhood, and turn deaf ears and unseeing eyes to the sounds and sights that once we should have comprehended so easily? The world of flame, the glory of color, the music in the winds and the darkness, the actuality of romance, the strange limits and restrictions of knowledge! Can you remember when the earth stretched twelve miles out, beyond doubt, and perhaps a little further? Or the immensesignificance of double figures when the tenth birthday painted a huge 10 across the entire sky, but nobody else particularly noticed the phenomenon? Or the fantastic associations of certain names from time to time, so that to live in Champagne would have seemed a comic-opera infliction, and a Duke of Burgundy was as Gilbert-and-Sullivanesque as a Marquess of Claret, or an Earl of Whisky, or Baron Beer?Yet we have long had Sir Loin, and scarcely remember the cause of that famous knighting; and now we have our copper kings, beef barons, pork princes, and what not. Perhaps we are not so remote from the whimsicalities of childhood as we have imagined, after all.Jaded AppetitesA recentadvertisement of a well-known New York restaurant announced: “Whether it is in luncheon, dinner or supper, you will find in our menu of delicious cold specialties, ready for your selection at our buffet in the main dining room, creations to tempt the most jaded of appetites.”It is comforting to know that the grossly overfed man or woman need not starve. When the appetite fails through constant indulgence, it can be tempted to new excesses by these “delicious cold specialties,” and so enough nourishment may be secured to preserve life.It is indeed a pitiable spectacle to see the forlorn victim of piggishness sadly regarding a menu that can no longer entice him to abuse his stomach. Let him now take heart and visit the restaurant that has learnt how to “tempt the most jaded of appetites.”It is a noble work that this restaurant is doing; one well worthy of our civilization.But who will tempt the unjaded appetites of the slum-dwellers?
Soldiers of All Nations
Itis difficult to realize that while this note is being written, men are dying, every moment: not in the fulness of time, for the glory of God and their own rest; but unduly and by wanton violence, in the prime of manhood, with the whole making and purpose of their lives incomplete and unrenewable. They lie in strange places, and must sleep, not uncompanioned, but uncoffined and without memorial: mere broken bits of life-stuff, shattered from the resemblance of humanity by machines that must be fed with the food that women travail for, and pray for, and, losing, break their hearts. Well, may they sleep soundly, these soldiers of all nations who will march no more to music, nor answer the reveille at dawn! God be gracious to them, gallant men all, if graciousness be needed where they have gone now!
Paying the Cost
Ifthe death of warriors were war’s only penalty, men perhaps might be forgiven for their battles, since heroes are made known by them. But the world has gone to school again, to learn the lesson that is enforced with cannons; and it knows the whole cost of war, and is paying it, and will continue to pay it for many a year. In this country, we have not contributed much, so far: only a hundred millions officially, and who shall say how many millions unofficially, in disorganized industry? But they have paid a large sum in Belgium, where the prices are plainly marked; they have paid in France (it is an ill winter that follows unreaped and rotting harvests); they have paid in Austria; and the bill for the other countries is being added up.
Christianity and Civilization
Butit is not true that Christianity has broken down, or that civilization has broken down, as some have said in the first flush of their indignation and sorrow. Civilization and Christianityhave never yet been tried in the world, so they cannot very well have broken down. What we have had, so far, has been a pseudo-Christianity and a pseudo-civilization. It is not so much that we have been deliberately insincere, perhaps; but we have not faced life and the problems of life as they should be faced; we have accepted the imitation instead of insisting upon the genuine thing; we have given lip-worship, but not heart-worship.
Rebuilding
Weare living, and some of us are dying, in strange, wonderful, terrible days. There is no room for pessimism or for bravado. Barbarism is showing us what deeds it can produce. We must answer with deeds.
Let no man who has held high rank in the Government of any country think now that he has done well or deserves acclamations. So far as his vision led him, he may have tried to do his duty, with foresight, devotion, faithfulness. Yet he has failed. The Government which cannot save its country from war has failed, whatever its other achievements. The new ideas, the new hopes, have not been fully comprehended. And so suspicion and enmity have been allowed to grow steadily, and the thought of war has been constantly in men’s minds, as the inevitable end to which the world was drifting.
The thought of war should have been as impossible as the thought of murder. The press of all nations, instead of pandering to misunderstanding and animosities, should have educated the people, day by day and year by year, until the curse of nationalism was lifted from the world.
For nationalismhasbeen a curse, and will remain a curse, so long as devotion to one country can involve enmity to any other. We are brothers in one boat, as we pass from the unknown to the unknown. Let us learn to understand each other.
BenedictXV
Theelection of Cardinal della Chiesa was certainly unexpected, and it may be hoped that this element of surprise willbe extended to his general policies. But if his Holiness continues, as Pontiff, to carry out the principles of the Archbishop of Bologna, the Church will lose far more than she can gain. What is needed now is not a saint or a scholar or a skilful administrator, though saintliness and scholarship and executive talent are admirable qualifications. If the Church is to do anything more than merely mark time, or actually lose ground, she requires as her head now a man of profound imagination and unswerving courage. The tendency of the Papacy has been too much toward mechanical routine, the neglect of new opportunities, the discountenancing of new ideas, the refusal of new life. The creative genius of the great artist, the incommunicable imaginative insights of the great novelist or poet or painter, could give the Vatican a new leadership in the spiritual affairs of mankind. We have seen the Pope who condemned Modernism dying of a broken heart because Europe was turned into a field of desolation and slaughter. The impotence of the Pontiff to secure some regard for Christian teachings amongst supposedly Christian nations, is at once the measure of the Church’s weakness and the condemnation of her methods. In the spirit of the Modernists, if not in the spirit of Modernism itself, BenedictXVcould remove many of the mountains that stand in the way of the direct line for the Twentieth Century, Limited. Mountains may be picturesque: but, in the wrong place, they are merely a nuisance.
Uncensored
Thepress has not had an easy task in attempting to gratify the natural desire of the public for dramatic details of the war operations. But even after making the fullest allowances for all difficulties, whether due to the censorship, to broken communications, or to the indiscretions of partisans, one can scarcely congratulate the newspaper world as a whole upon its achievements. In New York, for instance, there have been two or three papers which have maintained reasonable standards; but most of the papers have published and republished so-called news of a kind that should never have found public record. Why should any journal waste time in announcing, in large type, that “the Serviansswear that the enemy will never enter the capital so long as one house stands and one Servian lives”? This is mere bombastic rubbish, and has nothing to do with the patriotism and fortitude of the Servians. The appearance of perpetual “war extras,” with no additional information, but with immense scareheads, is another unpleasant sign of the shallowness and insincerity that we permit in these busy days. Frothy journalism may flourish for the moment: but the public has a better memory than it is sometimes supposed to possess.
“Civilized Warfare”
Someone, somewhere, appears to be laboring under a rather serious mistake, or we should not have been exposed so frequently during the last few weeks to the phrase “civilized warfare.” There is no such thing, of course, as civilized warfare. All war is necessarily barbaric in its methods, and ludicrous in its assumption of semi-decency. When nations go out, in the name of God, to mangle and destroy their fellow-creatures, they are reverting to theprimitive profession of murder. The glory of war is the glory of murder, however it may be embellished by infantile brains.
We have heard much of atrocities and “uncivilized” outrages. Probably most of the stories are utterly false: but even if they were true, they would only be in full accord with the whole purpose, methods, and disgrace of war.
Let us realize, very clearly, that war is necessarily and always murderous and barbaric, and let us abandon the pretence that we are shocked at the annihilation of towns, the rape of women, the slaughter of children, the desolation of once-prosperous communities. These are the trimmings of war. If we order the feast, let us pay for it; but let us, in the name of all decency, give up the pretence that we are either civilized or Christianized.
Saintless Petrograd
Theofficial change from St. Petersburg to Petrograd removes the intrusive saint from the Russian capital. The citywas named after Peter the Great, of somewhat uncouth memory, and the subsequent sanctification by the rest of Europe was perhaps a tribute to the religious reputation of Holy Russia.
Now that the Ice has been broken, such cities as Florence, for example, may begin to assert their right to be known, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, by their real and native names.
Thumbs Down
Inhis clever, whimsical and symbolistic play,Androcles and the Lion, Mr. George Bernard Shaw has fallen—or a zealous proof-reader has made it appear that he has fallen—into the usual error of “thumbs down,” as the death signal.
It is strange that this mistake should be so widely prevalent, and should even be repeated by theEncyclopædia Britannica. But the error, like ’round for round and laid for lay, will no doubt pass steadily through the years.
However, anyone who has not yet read Mr. Shaw’s little play should do so at once, paying special attention to Ferrovius.
The Earl of Whisky
Theoddities of childhood are rarely understood completely, even in these days of ingenious educational devices. The child lives and moves and has his being in his own world. He may emerge at moments, he may seem to understand or be understood by the great confederation of blundering adults: but he must go back as soon as possible to the realm of his real allegiance, where fact and fancy, dreams, doubts and discoveries are so cunningly intermingled.
Why do we forget our own childhood, and turn deaf ears and unseeing eyes to the sounds and sights that once we should have comprehended so easily? The world of flame, the glory of color, the music in the winds and the darkness, the actuality of romance, the strange limits and restrictions of knowledge! Can you remember when the earth stretched twelve miles out, beyond doubt, and perhaps a little further? Or the immensesignificance of double figures when the tenth birthday painted a huge 10 across the entire sky, but nobody else particularly noticed the phenomenon? Or the fantastic associations of certain names from time to time, so that to live in Champagne would have seemed a comic-opera infliction, and a Duke of Burgundy was as Gilbert-and-Sullivanesque as a Marquess of Claret, or an Earl of Whisky, or Baron Beer?
Yet we have long had Sir Loin, and scarcely remember the cause of that famous knighting; and now we have our copper kings, beef barons, pork princes, and what not. Perhaps we are not so remote from the whimsicalities of childhood as we have imagined, after all.
Jaded Appetites
A recentadvertisement of a well-known New York restaurant announced: “Whether it is in luncheon, dinner or supper, you will find in our menu of delicious cold specialties, ready for your selection at our buffet in the main dining room, creations to tempt the most jaded of appetites.”
It is comforting to know that the grossly overfed man or woman need not starve. When the appetite fails through constant indulgence, it can be tempted to new excesses by these “delicious cold specialties,” and so enough nourishment may be secured to preserve life.
It is indeed a pitiable spectacle to see the forlorn victim of piggishness sadly regarding a menu that can no longer entice him to abuse his stomach. Let him now take heart and visit the restaurant that has learnt how to “tempt the most jaded of appetites.”
It is a noble work that this restaurant is doing; one well worthy of our civilization.
But who will tempt the unjaded appetites of the slum-dwellers?
Transcriber’s NoteDialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.Footnotes were moved to the end of the section to which they pertain.Raised caps replaced dropped caps at the beginning of each article and poem.Spelling changes:‘conciousness’ to‘consciousness’…class-consciousness…‘prmitive’ to‘primitive’…primitive profession of murder…Two lines wereomittedby the editor ofThe Forumin the poem by Giovannitti. The omitted lines read:And from its bloody pedestalThe last god, Terror, shall be hurled.
Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.
Footnotes were moved to the end of the section to which they pertain.
Raised caps replaced dropped caps at the beginning of each article and poem.
Spelling changes:
‘conciousness’ to‘consciousness’…class-consciousness…‘prmitive’ to‘primitive’…primitive profession of murder…
Two lines wereomittedby the editor ofThe Forumin the poem by Giovannitti. The omitted lines read:
And from its bloody pedestalThe last god, Terror, shall be hurled.
And from its bloody pedestal
The last god, Terror, shall be hurled.