umanism in a broad
sense emerged from all the purposes of the war as the principle of the
greater part of the world, as opposed to the idea of Germanism. This
spirit of humanism, however, is no single motive or feeling. It is a
complex mood, so to speak, and it is not to be regarded as strange
that it has been felt and described in various ways, and that it is
not yet clearly understood. _Humanism appears to be most deeply felt
as the appreciation of the common and fundamental things in human
nature._ It inclines toward the employment of feeling, or at least to
subjective rather than to purely objective principles in the
determination of fundamental values in life. Humanism includes an
interest in personality, which is of course the most basic of the
common possessions of man, and it is therefore interested in justice
and in freedom. Humanism as thus an appreciation of fundamental values
in life by feeling rather than by principle, belongs to the deeper
currents of life, those that flow in the subconscious--it is close to
instinct, to moods, and the religious and the aesthetic experiences.

The later German philosophy of life we might mention as a denial of
much that humanism asserts. Here we see a doctrine of force, an ideal
of life based upon the elevation of conscious will to its first
principle. If we seek concrete contrasts to this anti-humanism we
might mention our own national life, governed by an idea of free
living, which has made possible the assimilation of many stocks, in a
life in which common human nature is regarded as the supreme value.
Extreme specialization, rational principles, objective standards are
watchwords of the plan of life that is most opposed to humanism. In
this life instincts and values determined by feelings are brought out
into the clear light of consciousness and are there judged with
reference to their fitness to serve ends determined by reason. It is
all noon-day glare in this rational consciousness. Collectivism is
based upon coercion and upon calculation of the value of order in
serving practical purposes, themselves determined by a theory of
society, instead of upon social feeling or upon a natural process of
assimilation of the different and the individual into a common life.
Specialization also, in this philosophy, is a result of calculation
rather than of a belief in the value of the individual, and is gained
by the sacrifice of those experiences which, if we hold to the
humani