Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 7, 1926. LOST ILLUSIONS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16210, 7 December 1926, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DEC. 7, 1926. LOST ILLUSIONS

If an illusion be merely an unreal vision presented to tho bodily or mental oye, it. would be a veritable foundation of sand, and quite inadequate, in any degree, to support the stress of the business of life. An apology might be made for illusions which ,mako up so much of the romance of iho child life, and, however chimerical they may bo, are never parted with without regret. So long as man comes short of perfection his best ideals cannot, wholly escape from illusory foundations. The illusions of the child dissolve in his increasing years: the illusions of tho military cadet hardly survive his first command; the illusions of the young politician hardly can outlive his first session in the House: the illusions of the newly admitted barrister die with his first'hard year of toilsome business on the bench. Vet who would be such a churl as; wholly to condemn illusions, though they bo fleeting. Although we have to bury many illusions, which, in the pursuit of our caning in life, will not stand the strain of tho stern, and rather relentless, facts Ave come up against, there arc many silent and invisible mourners, related to the dead, in attendance at the funeral. Man being imperfect, and, on tho whole, rather ignorant, cherishes many visions that prove, to bo wanting in reality. These add a good deal to the pleasures of life, and,

happily, are blameless. He is perhaps fortunate, who, at maturity, finds pleasures as innocent as those'left behind in the valley of illusion. Many millions of young men from Europe, America and the Dominions, were flung into the great war from 19141918, in the hard endurance of which,] it could not be but that many illusions i would be- rudely shattered, 'fi' pillage and destruction; wholesale slaughter of .-men, by any and every means, human, or diabolical, were (he products, after nearly two thousand years of Christianity, of the highest form of civilisation that the world probably had ever reached, who' could blame many of the survivors of these young ,men, who threw away ideals with illusions, and cried out, with no hopi of favorable answer, "Who will show us any good?" The sacrifices men often made for each other in times of great danger, in the trenches, or on Iho battlefield, kopt alive their faith in man, while- the fact that, such danger and sufferings were possible shook many a man's faith in the existence of any unseen and permitting Overlord. The Christian culture given in'many a home was. not without regrpt, in many cases, in the future to rank with.the ancient fables of classic mythology. And yet the lessening of the faith of many, which the war was responsible for, was based upon an eroncous assumption. The evil acts of men, because unchecked by miraculous interposition, wero assumed to be in line with the will of .God. It was forgotten that man's greatness consists in his freedom. He is free —free even to err. Human imperfectibility permits wars, human passions create- them. The abominable cruelties of tho last great war have made many of those who survived its tragedies, inconoclasts as to all peace Leagues, and as to the possible education of a will-for-pcaco in all countries. All these are treated . with respect and lip service, but with entire sceptism as to their usefulness. Mr. John Carter, an American writer of note, is a representative of this school of thought. He by no means defends war, but holds it to be inevitable, man being what.he is. "War," dio says, "is held," but it is "human." He admits tho spirit of the age is not his spirit. "This is an ago," he says, "which holds strongly to the .belief that man is perfectible, that war can be abolished and that peace is the highest aim of civilisajtion.' His book "Man is War" is written to combat the more popular view, which according to him is largely based upon sentimentality and willing blindness to man's nature exemplified in the will-to-fight. The reviewer of his book, in tho New York Times, places Mr. Carter among the talented young men whoso views have been embittered by tho ten years following upon the outbreak of tho war in 1914. Writing personally of Mr. Carter, he says: "Like- so "many others who emerged from college about 1914, full of high hopes and good i.uteutions, he has been made to suffer. If like his contemporaries in the arts he has an abhorrence of illusion and sentimentality, it is because lio knows by sad experience how vulnerable they are and how they t:ehe when they are pricklOcL" Mr. Carter's view may betaken as being typical of the views of many thousands of young men who suffered through tho war, and whose, influence 1 o-day throughout tho world is unconsciously altering materially not only the habits of the peoples, but also their mental ideals, thoughts, and aspirations. They have thrown off. old illusions only to-' clothe themselves with others —to find later that these also are illusory. The shredding of illusions would not so much be a matter for regret if it wore not that "ideals," which after all separate a man from a mere brute, are apt also to follow "illusions" on to the scrap heap. Mr. Carter sees this, and would cling tenaciously to ideals of national and individual honor, and I national freedom. The buttress for these he considers to be war, the only alternative to war being national suicide. In his own words "War is | dreadful, certainly, but is- dreadful 'only as death and suffering are dreadful; and hitherto no idealist has preferred las life to his ideal, no gentleman has preferred dishonor to death, no nation has preferred slavery to ex- . tinction; and until degeneracy bfij comes a virtue, no idealist, gentleman | or nation will prefer the course of safety in such dilemmas.'' Man being made free, and not a mechanical automaton, cannot escape from the responsibility of his own actions. MilHon put into the angel's mouth this j caution to the first man then in I Paradise: — God made thee perfect, not immutable; And good he made thee, but to persevere He left it- in thy power; ordained thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity: Our voluntary service he requires, Not our necessitated: . . . 'To cast away as being contrary to /man's nature the looking for and waiting upon tho dawn of universal 'peace, and to Tcjoct, as futile, all .human effort to hasten that day, appears to be. rather an abnegation of 'I he gift of "free will," hardly worthy of the advanced civilisation of the twentieth century. It is a surrender to the powers of evil and to tho insoluble mystery of its existence. Some day, when knowledge has* increased upon the earth, man may know why animals prey upon one another, and why men fight. That day is not yet. ..