n no State at all. To be without a State is to
prowl backwards from the divinity before us to the beast behind us.
The power the State exerts is a spiritual power, acting on or through
the will of man. The volunteer armies do not really march to die with
more readiness than the conscript armies. The sacrifice is not readily
explicable by material causes. There is no material reason why the
proletarian--who has no property to defend, who is more or less sure
as a skilled craftsman of employment under any ruler--should concern
himself whether his ruler be King, Kaiser, or President. But not one in
a hundred proletarians really thinks like that. It is not the hope
of personal profit works upon men to risk life. Let some exploiter of
industry desire to employ a thousand men at dangerous work, with the
risks of death or disablement equal to those of war; let it be known
that one in six will be killed and another be disabled, and what sum
will purchase the service of workers? They will risk life for the State,
though given a bare subsistence or a pay which they would describe as
inhuman if offered by one of the autocrats of industry. Men working for
the State will make the most extraordinary sacrifices; but they stand
stubbornly and sullenly as disturbers and blockers of all industry which
is run for private profit. Is it not clear of the two policies for the
State to adopt, to promote personal interests among its citizens or to
unite men for the general good, that the first path is full of danger to
the State, while through the other men will march cheerfully, though it
be to death, in defense of the State. Something, a real life above the
individual, acts through the national being, and would almost suggest
to us that Heaven cannot fully manifest its will to humanity through the
individual, but must utter itself through multitudes. There must be an
orchestration of humanity ere it can echo divine melodies. In real truth
we are all seeking in the majesties we create for union with a greater
Majesty.
I wrote in an earlier page that the ancient conception of Nature as
a manifestation of spirit was incarnating anew in the minds of modern
thinkers; that Nature was no longer conceived of as material or static
in condition, but as force and continual motion; that they were trying
to identify human will with this arcane energy, and let the forces of
Nature manifest with more power in society. The real nature of these
energies ma
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