All was woe that seem'd but gladness
Ere my gaze with truth was sear'd;
Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness,
Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd.

Now I know the fiendish fable
That the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
That I watch'd and lov'd before;
But the horror, set and stable,
Haunts my soul forevermore.

THE UNITED AMATEUR JULY 1918

At the Root

H. P. Lovecraft

(Editor Laureate)

To those who look beneath the surface, the present universal war drives
home more than one anthropological truth in striking fashion; and of
these verities none is more profound than that relating to the essential
immutability of mankind and its instincts.

Four years ago a large part of the civilised world laboured under
certain biological fallacies which may, in a sense, be held responsible
for the extent and duration of the present conflict. These fallacies,
which were the foundation of pacifism and other pernicious forms of
social and political radicalism, dealt with the capability of man to
evolve mentally beyond his former state of subservience to primitive
instinct and pugnacity, and to conduct his affairs and international or
inter-racial relations on a basis of reason and good-will. That belief
in such capability is unscientific and childishly naive, is beside the
question. The fact remains, that the most civilised part of the world,
including our own Anglo-Saxondom, did entertain enough of these notions
to relax military vigilance, lay stress on points of honour, place trust
in treaties, and permit a powerful and unscrupulous nation to indulge
unchecked and unsuspected in nearly fifty years of preparation for
world-wide robbery and slaughter. We are reaping the result of our
simplicity.

The past is over. Our former follies we can but regret, and expiate as
best we may by a crusade to the death against the Trans-Rhenane monster
which we allowed to grow and flourish beneath our very eyes. But the
future holds more of responsibility, and we must prepare to guard
against any renascence of the benevolent delusions that four years of
blood have barely been able to dispel. In a word, we must learn to
discard forever the sentimental standpoint, and to view our species
through the cold eyes of science alone. We must recognise the essential
underlying savagery in the animal called man, and return to older and
sounder principles of national lif