s M. Bergson to me,
"it will not have been too dearly bought if humanity is finally
delivered from the nightmare which weighs on it."

H. WILDON CARR

LONDON, _May 1915_

LIFE AND MATTER AT WAR

LIFE AND MATTER AT WAR

"Comprendre et ne pas s'indigner": this has been said to be the last
word of philosophy. I believe none of it; and, had I to choose, I
should much prefer, when in presence of crime, to give my indignation
rein and not to understand. Happily, the choice has not to be made. On
the contrary, there are forms of anger which, by a thorough
comprehension of their objects, derive the force to sustain and renew
their vigour. Our anger is of that kind. We have only to detach the
inner meaning of this war, and our horror for those who made it will
be increased. Moreover, nothing is easier. A little history, and a
little philosophy, will suffice.

For a long period Germany devoted herself to poetry, to art, to
metaphysic. She was made, so she said, for thought and imagination;
"she had no feeling for the reality of things." It is true that her
administration had defects, that she was divided into rival states,
that anarchy at certain times seemed beyond remedy. Nevertheless, an
attentive study would have revealed, beneath this disorder, the normal
process of life, which is always too rank at the first and later on
prunes away its excess, makes its choice and adopts a lasting form.
From her municipal activity there would have issued at length a good
administration which would have assured order without suppressing
liberty. From the closer union of the confederated states that unity
in diversity, which is the distinguishing mark of organized beings,
would have arisen. But time was needed for that, as it always is
needed by life, in order that its possibilities may be realized.

Now, while Germany was thus working out the task of her organic
self-development there was within her, or rather by her 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 well-appointed machine. Not less mechanical--extreme
both in precision and in power--was the army, on which the attention
of the Hohenzollerns was concentrated. Whether it was that the people
had been drilled