From all our hearts a great weight has been lifted; in those fields death no longer sweeps his scythe, and our ears at last are free from the rustling thereof—now comes the test of magnanimity, in all countries. Will modern man rise to the ordering of a sane, a free, a generous life? Each of us loves his own country best, be it a little land or the greatest on earth; but jealousy is the dark thing, the creeping poison. Where there is true greatness, let us acclaim it; where there is true worth, let us prize it—as if it were our own.
This earth is made too subtly, of too multiple warp and woof, for prophecy. When he surveys the world around—“the wondrous things which there abound,” the prophet closes foolish lips. Besides, as the historian tells us: “Writers have that undeterminateness of spirit which commonly makes literary men of no use in the world.” So I, for one, prophesy not. Still, we do know this: All English-speaking peoples will go to this adventure of Peace with something of big purpose and spirit in their hearts, with something of free outlook. The world is wide and Nature bountiful enough for all, if we keep sane minds. The earth is fair and meant to be enjoyed, if we keep sane bodies. Who dare affront this world of beauty with mean views? There is no darkness but what the ape in us still makes, and in spite of all his monkey-tricks modern man is at heart further from the ape than man has yet been.
To do our jobs really well and to be brotherly! To seek health and ensue Beauty! If, in Britain and America, in all the English-speaking nations, we can put that simple faith into real and thorough practice, what may not this century yet bring forth? Shall man, the highest product of creation, be content to pass his little day in a house like unto Bedlam?
When the present great task in which we have joined hands is really ended; when once more from the shuttered mad-house the figure of Peace steps forth and stands in the risen sun, and we may go our ways again in the wonder of a new morning—let it be with this vow in our hearts: “No more of Madness—in War, or in Peace!”
VI
TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION, NEW YORK
Standing here, privileged to address my betters—I, the least politically educated person in the world, have two thoughts to leave on the air. They arise from the title of your League.
I wish I did not feel, speaking in the large, that politics and education have but a bowing acquaintanceship in the modern State; and I wish I did feel that either education or politics had any definite idea of what they were out to attain; in other words, had a clear image of the ideal State. It seems to me that their object at present is just to keep the heads of the citizens of the modern State above water; to keep them alive, without real concern as to what kind of life they are being preserved for. We seem, in fact, to be letting our civilisation run us, instead of running our civilisation. If a man does not know where he wants to go, he goes where circumstances and the telephone take him. Where do we want to go? Can you answer me? Have you any definite idea? What is the Ultima Thule of our longings? I suppose one ought to say, roughly, that the modern ideal is: Maximum production of wealth to the square mile of a country—an ideal which, seeing that a man normally produces wealth in surplus to his own requirements, signifies logically a maximum head of population to the square mile. And it seems to me that the great modern fallacy is the identification of the word wealth with the word welfare. Granted that demand creates supply, and that it is impossible to stop human nature from demanding, the problem is surely to direct demand into the best channels for securing health and happiness. And I venture to say that the mere blind production of wealth and population by no means fills that bill. We ought to produce wealth only in such ways and to such an extent as shall make us all good, clean, healthy, intelligent, and beautiful to look at. That is the end, and production whether of wealth or population only the means to that end, to be regulated accordingly. As things are, we confuse the means with the end, and make of production a fetich.
Let me take a parallel from the fields of Art. What kind of good in the world is an artist who sets to work to cover the utmost possible acreage of canvas, or to spoil the greatest possible number of reams of paper, in deference to the call from a vulgar and undiscriminating market for all he can produce? Do we admire him—a man whose ideal is blind supply to meet blind demand?
The most urgent need of the world to-day is to learn—or is it to re-learn?—the love of quality. And how are we to learn that in a democratic age, unless we so perfect our electoral machineries as to be sure that we secure for our leaders, and especially for our leaders of education, men and women who, themselves worshipping quality, will see that the love of quality is instilled into the boys and girls of the nation.