Towards the Great Peace | Page 2

Nothing corporate,
whether secular or ecclesiastical, endured the test, nothing of
government or administration, of science or industry, of philosophy or

religion. The victories were those of individual character, the things
that stood the test were not things but _men._
The "War to end war," the war "to make the world safe for democracy"
came to a formal ending, and for a few hours the world gazed
spellbound on golden hopes. Greater than the disillusionment of war
was that of the making of the peace. There had never been a war, not
even the "Thirty Years' War" in Germany, the "Hundred Years' War" in
France or the wars of Napoleon, that was fraught with more horror,
devastation and dishonour; there had never been a Peace, not even
those of Berlin, Vienna and Westphalia, more cynical or more deeply
infected with the poison of ultimate disaster. And here it was not things
that failed, but _men._
What of the world since the Peace of Versailles? Hatred, suspicion,
selfishness are the dominant notes. The nations of Europe are bankrupt
financially, and the governments of the world are bankrupt politically.
Society is dissolving into classes and factions, either at open war or
manoeuvering for position, awaiting the favourable moment. Law and
order are mocked at, philosophy and religion disregarded, and of all the
varied objects of human veneration so loudly acclaimed and loftily
exalted by the generation that preceded the war, not one remains to
command a wide allegiance. One might put it in a sentence and say that
everyone is dissatisfied with everything, and is showing his feelings
after varied but disquieting fashion. It is a condition of unstable
equilibrium constantly tending by its very nature to a point where
dissolution is apparently inevitable.
It is no part of my task to elaborate this thesis, and still less to magnify
its perils. Enough has been said and written on this subject during the
last two years; more than enough, perhaps, and in any case no thinking
person is unaware of the conditions that exist, whatever may be his
estimate of their significance, his interpenetration of their tendency. I
have set myself the task of trying to suggest some constructive
measures that we may employ in laying the foundations for the
immediate future; they may be wrong in whole or in part, but at least
my object and motive are not recrimination or invective, but
regeneration. Nevertheless, as a foundation the case must be stated, and
as a necessary preparation to any work that looks forward we must
have at least a working hypothesis as to how the conditions that need

redemption were brought about. I state the case thus, therefore: That
human society, even humanity itself, is now in a state of flux that at any
moment may change into a chaos comparable only with that which
came with the fall of classical civilization and from which five
centuries were necessary for the process of recovery. Christianity,
democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance
of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of
history. How has this been possible, what has been the sequence of
events that has brought us to this pass?
It is of course the result of the interaction of certain physical, material
facts and certain spiritual forces. Out of these spiritual energies come
events, phenomena that manifest themselves in political, social,
ecclesiastical transactions and institutions; in wars, migrations and the
reshaping of states; in codes of law, the organization of society, the
development of art, literature and science. In their turn all these
concrete products work on the minds and souls of men, modifying old
spiritual impulses either by exaltation or degradation, bringing new
ones into play; and again these react on the material fabric of human
life, causing new combinations, unloosing new forces, that in their turn
play their part in the eternal process of building, unbuilding and
rebuilding our unstable and fluctuant world.
Underlying all the varied material forms of ancient society, as this
developed around the shores of the Mediterranean, was the great fact of
slavery: Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, all were
small, sometimes very small, minorities of highly developed, highly
privileged individuals existing on a great sub-stratum of slaves. All the
vast contributions of antiquity in government and law, in science,
letters, art and philosophy, all the building of the culture and
civilization that still remain the foundation stones of human society,
was the work of the few free subsisting on the many un-free. But
freedom, liberty, is an attribute of the soul and it may exist even when
the body is in bondage. The slaves of antiquity were free neither in
body nor in soul, but with the coming of Christianity all this was
changed, for it is