OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16215, 18 May 1918, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

BERGSOX and the meaning of the war.

(OTtuu-t rami* " n,c

(DT 11. D. Broadiiead.)

Tn a former article the present writer favoured to show tho relation ot rc- ' t German philosophical tnought to ihe growth of tho materialistic spirit, a nd to the development- of that Imperialistic doctrine which Germany « the super-natum, and finds its intel- . justification in the monstrous assumption that nrght is right, because, Tfithout tho biological necessity ot war there could be no real racial progrcs«ion. I" this lirtic,c lle liaH ~ ct him " self the pleasant ta.-k ol presenting the T ; effS of ono who is, perhaps, the greatest of living philosopher,—Henri Bejgvon. As president of the -Academic, des Sciences, Morales, et Politiqucs, Bergson delivered, not long after the outbreak of tho war, an address which las been since issued in book form. In ihe words of Dr. Wildon Carr, who ffrites a short introduction, "the full, significance of the doctrines lie has been teaching, "and their wliolo moral, and political bearing, are brought into clear light, focusscd, as it wore, on the actual present struggle. Yet there is no word that breathes hatred to any person or to any race. It is by the triumph of a spiritual principle that philosophy may hope to free humanity from the oppression of a materialistic doctrine." Beginning with the time when Germany, after a long period devoted to poetry, art, and metaphysic, was engaged in working out the task of her organic self-development, Bergson shows iow there was within her, or, rather, by ber side, a people with whom every process tended to take a mechanical form. Artificiality marked the creation of Prussia; for she was formed by clumsily sewing together, edge to edge, provinces either acquired or conquered. Her administration was mechanical; it did its work with the regularity of a trell-appointed machinc. So did the army. ..Whether it was that the poople had been drilled for centuries to un-

questioning obedience, or that an ele-

mental instinct for conqucst and plunder. absorbing to itself the life of the nation, had simplified its aims and reduced them to materialism, or that the Prussian character was originally so made—it is certain that the idea of

' Prussia always evoked a vision of rudeness, of rigidijty, of automatism, as if everything vifchin her went by clockwork, from the gesture of her kings to the step of her soldiers. Bergson then proceeds to describe how the evil .genius of Bismarck managed to secure that -German} should feel, for ever and ever, the necessity of the irmour in which she was imprisoned. The taking of Alsnco and a part of Lorraine wns to make reconciliation with' Iho French .impossible. Bismarck intended that the German people should believe itself in permanent danger of war, and that the new Empire should remain armed to the teeth. On the morrow of the war of 1870, a nation expressly made for appropriating the good things of this world had no alternative •but to become industrial and commercial. Not on that account, however, would she change the essentia] principle of her action. On the contrary, she, bad but to utilise her habits of discipline, method, tenacity, minute cp.ro, precise information—and, it may be added, of impertinence and spying to'which she owed the growth of her military power. She would thus equip ' herself with industry and tommerce not less formidable than her army, and able to march, on their part also, in military order. From that time onwards these two were seen going forward together, advancing.at an even pace and reciprocally supporting each other—industry, which had answered the appeal of the spirit of conquest, on one side; on the other, the army, in which that spirit' was incarnate, with the navy, which had just been added to the -..forces of the army; Industry was free to develop in all directions; but, . from the first, war was the end m View. In enormous factories, such as tho world had never seen, tens of thousands of workmen toiled in casting . great guns, while by their side, in workshops and laboratories, every invention which the disinterested genius of . neighbouring peoples had been able to, achieve 'was immediately captured, tenfc from its intended use. and ronverted into an engine of war. Reciprocally, the army and navy which owed their growth to the increasing wealth of the nation, repaid the debt by placing •"'their services at the disposal of this wealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets for industry. i JTken, at one' bound, inordinate ambition throw aside Bismarck's cautious policy for the wildest temerity—Germany now looked forward to tha domination of the world. And there was lio moral restraint which> could ( - keep this ambition under control. Intoxicated by victory, by the prestige which had given her, and of *JHch her commerce, her industry, her ; science even, had reaped the benefit, Germany plunged into immaterial pros.ierrly .such-as sho would never have "dared .to dream of.' She told herself

I ' ~that if force had wrought this miracle, >j ( if .force had given her riches and non- '' \ as because force had within! it a hitlden virtue, mysterious—nay, divine. Ye 3, brute force with its train of trickery and lies, when it comes with powers of attack sufficient for tho conquest of the world, must needs be in direct line from heaven, and a revelation of the will of God on I earth. -The people to whom this power | of attack . had come were the elect, a chosen race by whose side the others are races of bondmen. To such a ! nothing is forbidden that may help in establishing its dominion. Let • none • speak to it of inviolable right! Bight is what ia 'written in a treaty; a treaty is. what registers the will of ,* conqueror—that is, the direction ef ws force for the time being: force, tfien, and right are the same thing; ®nd if force is pleased to take a uevv ; direction, the old right becomes ancient ,• history and the treaty, which backed jt •lft a solemn undertaking, no more j • than a scrap of paper. •Jy; ' 1 Thus Germany, struck with wonder presence of her victories, of <ne force which had been their nS&filßeanß, of the material orosoeritv whicn

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

wa s the outcome, translated her amazement into an idea. How at the call of this idea, a thousand thoughts, as if awakened from slumber, and shaking off the dust of libraries, came rushing in from every side —thoughts which Germany had suffered to sleep among her poets and philosophers, evorv one which could lend a seductive or striking form to a conviction already made! Henceforth German Imperialism had a theory of ifs own. Taught in schools and universities, it easily moulded to itself a nation already broken-in to passive obedience, and having no loftier j ideal wherewith to oppose the official doci/ine. This theory, to which the aberrations of German policy were supposed to be due, was simply a philosophy doomed to translate into ideas what was in its essence, insatiable ambition, and will perverted by pride. iDoctrines, in most cases, are the means by which nations and individuals seek to explain what they are and what they do. feo Germany, having finally become a predatory nation, invokes Hegel as witness; just as a Germany enamoured of moral beauty would have declared herself faithful to Kant, just as a sentimental Germany would have found her tutelary genius in Jacobi-or Schopenhauer. For perverse ambition, onco erected into theory, feels more at ease in working itseif out to the ond; a part of the responsibility will then be thrown upon logic. Henco we naturally expect that "scientific and systematic barbarism" which is now devastating Europe. The war must bo short, not only that the economic life of Germany may not suffer too much, but. further, and chiefly, because her military power lacked that consciousness of a right superior to force by which she could sustain and recuperate her energies. The machine must deliver its blow all at once, and no scruple must be sufferod to embarass the play of its wheels.

But the result will be very different from what had been predicted. For the moral forces, which wore to submit to the forces of matter by their side, suddenly revealed themselves as creators ot material force. A _ simple idea, the heroic conception which a small people had formed of its honour, enabled it to make head against a nowerful Empire. At the cry of outraged justice, we saw, moreover, in a nation which_ till then had trusted in its fleet, one million, two millions of soldiers suddenly rise from the earth. A yet greater miracle: in a nation thought _to be mortally divided against itself all became" brothers in the space- of a day. On the one side there was force spread out on the surface; on the other, there was force in the depths. On one side, mechanism, the manufactured article which cannot repair its own injuries; bn the other, life, the power oPcrea- 1 tion, which makes and remakes itself at every instant. The_ moral . energy of nations, as of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher than themselves, and stronger than themselves, to which they cling •firmly when they feel their courage waver. "Where," asks our philosopher, "is the ideal of tho Germany of to-day?" He replies that the time <when her philosophers proclaimed the inviolability of right, the eminent dignity of the per- j son, the duty of mutual respect among nations, is no more. Germany, mili- | tarised by Prussia, has cast aside those noble ideas, ideas she received for the most part from the France of tho eighteenth century, and of the Revolution. She has made for herself a new soul, or rather she has meekly accepted the soul Bismarck has given her. Right in Bismarck's view was simply what is willed by the strongest, and Germany to-day knows no other morality. She, too, worships brute force. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material force inspires in her. So she will see her forces waste and her courage at the same time. But the energy of our soldiers is drawn from something which does not waste, from an ideal of justice and freedom. To the force which feeds -only on its own brutality we are opposing that which seeks outside, and above itself a principle of life and renovation. An implacable law decrees that spirit must encounter the resistance of matter, that life cannot advance without bruising that which livo3, and that great moral results are purchased by much blood and> by many tears. "But this time," Bergson eloquently concludes, "the sacrifice was to be rich in fruit as it had been rich in beauty. That the powers of death might be matched against life in one supreme combat, destiny had gathered thom all at a single point. And behold how death was conquered.; how humanity was saved by material suffering from the moral downfall which would have been its end, while the people, joyful in their desolation, raised on high the song of deliverance from the depths of ruin and of grief!" ~