§ 46

If a League of Nations is to succeed, the wings of Science must be cut, her reckless flight, curtailed. Science has, by adaptation of peaceful to aggressive purposes, committed a crime against herself. She has used her children to be poisoners and murderers. Germany set the example, under the title “Kultur,” a wolf in sheepskin. Science, perverted from her noble initial intentions, became popular; she became the means for fabulous fortunes; piles of money was the price paid for her ghastly cleverness. A not very enviable class wore diamonds, drove expensive cars and clad themselves in costly furs; that is how they went into mourning for the slain. Science, pressed on by commercial greed, lost a friend when War ceased. What hideous contemplation; the slaughter of our children paying a hundred per cent. profit.

Politicians may plan elaborate games. Complicated moves may look as if checkmate was certain. No legislator, singular or plural, will stop War. All Wars come from the commercial element in the first place. War is made now for a purpose, and if we look that purpose straight in the face it is “More money.” Plutus has been the god of the modern world. As long as he reigns Wars will be. Politicians and lawyers may try to wriggle out of it, but The Truth has a disagreeable habit of cropping up. Sophistry may do its best to hide it or drown it; it may be hidden but not destroyed. There is only one way to stop War; to make people abominate it, scorn it as a stupid reckless destroyer. Once there was chivalry, even a kind of noble beauty in its conduct, which, superficially, redeemed it. The South African War was a war to acquire diamonds; it was purely commercial, hidden by sophistry under a garb of protection of public interest. It was not public, but private commercial success which produced a shameful disaster which came near to wreck England. When we are really civilized and are engrossed in the Arts of Peace, when we are all bent upon making the world a desirable place by making Life growingly attractive, growingly efficacious for all the classes, War will cease to have any attractions. When the beauty quite possible to life is insisted upon by the exerted will of an entire people united in Fraternity, united in schemes for the betterment of moral status, of honour and of industry, War will cease, and not till then. When we would clean out a pond, it is no use to scrape its surface of slime; slime on the surface is only a superficial sign of trouble. The bottom must be cleansed, that is where the real trouble is. It is of little use to adorn a chair with fanciful design when its legs are rotten, they must be made strong. The mass of the people is as the clean bottom of a pond is to its surface, the chair to its legs. They must be strengthened and purified by education, which is not arrived at by a parrot-like repetition of facts or theories, but which teaches the whole duty of man to man, hence to God. That is what our new Education is trying to do. The child being father to the man, we try to take him in hand at once, and through him re-establish honour, sobriety, industrious habits which will lead his highest instincts and teach him that he must be master of himself, to which, having attained, he will be a guide, philosopher and friend to his and after generations. Make the people love Beauty as a sign to goodness, ugliness as a signpost to Evil. If that education fails none will succeed.

This discourse was delivered by an Expert. He was no amateur in Science; it was only that his fine mind was free from disillusion. Right and wrong are on different planes. They are disconnected, and he, being honest as well as gifted, had no intention of making a compromise between them! He has a great following in the New Life, and is a progressive power not only in his own but in all the Communes of England.