Country. Loved Ones. Home. Empire. Sacred Cause of Justice. Freedom of the World. At first sight it may seem that the introduction of 'Home' is inconsistent, but as it has been arranged in most cases that the home in question shall not materialise, the spiritual aspect of the inscription remains intact. What amuses the surviving comrades of the Unknown Warrior is that precisely similar inscriptions may be found in Germany and other late enemy countries. Everywhere, it will be remembered, the aid of the Deity was invoked. 'Pleased to be able to tell you,' telegraphed the Kaiser, 'that, by the grace of God, the battles of Moully, Cambrai, and La Fere have been won. The Lord has gloriously aided. May He further help!' On all sides great efforts were made to encourage the spiritual attitude. The Churches lent their aid with enthusiasm. Not a protest was raised from any pulpit on any side of the line. Bibles and prayer-books were distributed. At services held all along the front-on both sides-the men were assured that God was on their side. The Church Army and the Young Men's Christian Association hastened out, though, to their credit, it may be said they soon realised that the soldier was less interested in hymns than tinned salmon. They earned the gratitude of the troops--and got into trouble at home for doing so. Among those disturbed by the new attitude of the men was the Crown Prince of Germany. In My War Experiences, when discussing the morale of the German troops in 1915, he writes: They were proving that they were inwardly sound as a bell. They had not yet fallen to materialism.' The moment, apparently, that they began to think, and to become suspicious of their military and spiritual leaders, they became ' materialists.' Neither the army commanders nor the Church had any further use for them. Their growing distaste for martyrdom, their increasing disinclination to make themselves responsible for carrying out the spiritual excesses of other people, made all the difference between being a hero and a materialist. The Crown Prince, securely sheltered behind the line-no less securely than some of our own warmongers-was distressed by the dawn of intelligence among the men protecting him. His view of materialism is a representative one. It is only when intelligence becomes stifled by emotion of the kind sanctioned by exponents of the spiritual attitude that men are held to be free from what a journalist has called 'the devastating material influences of our age.' The strength of these influences may be traced to a conviction deeply entrenched in the minds of men who came back from the war-the conviction that the war was due not so much to materialism as to emotionalism run riot. They know that the chief ally of the 'spiritual forces' is this very emotionalism—this primitive tendency to be careless of all material consequences-and they are, therefore, more than a little suspicious of people who insist that 'humanity can be saved only by a revival of spiritual influence.' They have seen something of the results of spiritual and emotional influence, and they have decided that it may be as well to give the materialists a chance. Who are the materialists? The reply commonly made to any protest against the excessive spirituality of war is that though the soldier himself, when on the battle-field, may be spiritual rather than brutal or materialistic, nothing of the kind can be said of those who make wars or profit by them. They, it is insisted, are the real materialists. But are they? Are they intelligent enough? Surely the real materialists are men like Mr. Norman Angell, Mr. H. G. Wells, Dean Inge, and Mr. Bernard Shaw. The warmongers are neurotic emotionalists. The profiteers are unintelligent and perverted fools. What is left of their profits now? Here is an expression, by Mr. N. K. Smith, whom I suspect of being an ex-soldier, of the endless dispute carried on throughout the ages between supporters of the spiritual and materialistic attitudes : There is no comfort in the vague statement that our life must be more spiritual. Materialism, coupled with what is called the scientific habit of thought, seems to be the only road to real progress. When, however, the popular imagination is caught by the hocus-pocus of spiritualism and the emotionalism of theosophy, Christian Science, and the Salvation Army, it is too much to hope that materialism will be recognised as a definite philosophical and ethical system. Here is another representative view, by Miss Irene Cooper Willis, who dedicates her analysis of How we came out of the War to those who, unwilling to cultivate heroism at the expense of humanity, are ready to look back, question, and condemn. Emotion recollected in disappointment makes for satire, but it makes also for common-sense. And if common-sense be perhaps over-suspicious of idealism, the world, after five years of men's infatuated credulities, will be none the worse for that. But her attitude is revealed most clearly in this phrase: What is wanted to avoid such catastrophes as this which has almost ruined us is not so much a creed as a scepticism. Probably there is little need for Miss Willis to be anxious on this account. The only good result of the war is that it has bred all over the world a vast population of sceptics (not necessarily in the religious sense) and of cynics. Mr. Bonar Law realised this when he declined to make any promises. He knew that it was idle to offer more illusions to a disenchanted and embittered people. A population of cynics is the best safeguard against war. The most dangerous people are those who have too high an opinion of human nature. If cynicism were more general, if we expected less from our fellow-men, we should certainly not run the risk of asking them to be good enough to die for us. There would always be in our minds the possibility of their refusing, in which case we should be in the embarrassing position of having to die for ourselves. The spiritual, idealistic attitude that produces wars can be effective only in a world that lacks a sufficiently high proportion of cynics. A cynical warmonger is a contradiction in terms. If the Kaiser had been a cynic he would have reflected in this way: These Germans that make fools of themselves whenever I appear in the streets are obviously quite ordinary unheroic people. They enjoy their homes, their beer, their music. They have no desire to give up these things and to die a violent and painful death. It is clear, indeed, that they go to immense trouble and expense to keep alive. It would be absurd and risky to ask them to die for me.' Unluckily the Kaiser was not a cynic. He, and those round him, had a fatally high opinion of human nature. While such men have any power or influence there will always be wars. Only Cabinets of cynics can safeguard us. Anatole France is one of the leaders of the post-war revolt against the emotional spiritual outlook. He agrees with Miss Willis (or Miss Willis agrees with him) that what is needed is more scepticism and less credulity. To die for an idea,' he says, 'is to put a very high value on one's opinions. It seems presumptuous to get burnt for an opinion. One is shocked that men should be so positive about things.' Even Sir Charles Higham, who astonished me in 1915 by insisting on every hoarding that I was a potential hero, now joins with Miss Willis in refusing to cultivate heroism at the expense of humanity.' He writes characteristically: If, through the agency of a devil or a damned fool King or President, there should come another war, I could never think of a reason for asking men to shed blood. I wrote most of the advertising appeals for Kitchener's Army, but I shall never write another 'ad.' of that sort. Such revelations of so drastic a change of mood are significant. They are not, as some suggest, a symptom of decadence. They are an indication of the coming triumph of intelligence over emotionalism. There has always been warfare between the emotionalists and the intellectuals. So far the emotionalists have won, but there are signs already that the war was their last great victory. Even the Church has begun to realise the danger of insisting too recklessly on the need for a more spiritual attitude. A short time ago I heard a well-known London preacher taking pains to suggest that they must not be concerned only with the spiritual, other-worldly aspect of things. It was essential, he insisted, that they should offer the people a message that was not too detached from their daily lives. They must make it clear that their message was not merely an anti-material one. It was argued by Karl Marx that all human activities sprang from materialistic motives. Unluckily they do not. So far man has been recklessly and incorrigibly spiritual. Not till the growing band of materialists led by Mr. Norman Angell, Mr. H. G. Wells, and Dean Inge are joined by the great masses of the people, and by the Church itself, will there be any chance of living in an unspoilt and reasonably attractive world. 'The world,' cries Mr. Wells, 'is idiotically spoilt.' It is chiefly by the preposterous habit of war, a habit that has been fostered throughout the ages by supporters of the emotional and spiritual attitude. Their final defeat by the development of intelligent materialistic opinion all over the world will see the beginning of the real peace. In the meantime it is as well perhaps to follow the example of the Irish sergeant fatally wounded at Arras, who said to the men who stayed to help him: 'Get on wid ye, bhoys! I'm making a separate peace.' We all for the present have to make a separate peace. Some find it in books, others in the tolerance and humility of the real Christian, others in a garden. E. CLEPHAN PALMER. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER XX XIX No. DLIX-SEPTEMBER 1923 NOISE ONE of the most striking-not to say ominous-phenomena of the present day, in relation to the life of the ordinary citizen, is the ever-increasing predominance of noise. Invention proceeds apace, new mechanisms and contrivances of every kind succeed each other, presumably for the advancement of our well-being, but the important accessory of silence-or, in other words, the fact that the avoidance of friction of the human senses is as important for the equable functioning of the mind as is the elimination of mechanical friction for the proper working of a dynamic machine— seems to have escaped the notice of, or received little attention from, those responsible for the conditions of life in which we must perforce move and have our being. I allude to the larger and more general noise-producing conditions first, because it is here that the individual is most helpless; he has no alternative but to accept them, and make the best of it. There is no need to specify or catalogue the many available examples (though one or two particularly offensive cases must be discussed). Some people are affected by one noise, some by VOL. XCIV-No. 559 313 Y |