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THE JUDGMENT OF THE ORIENT

KUNG YUAN KU'SUH

GIFT OF HORACE W. CARPEOTIEI

The Judgment of the Orient

The Judgment of the Orient

Some Reflections on the Great War Made by the Chinese Student and Traveller

K'ung Yuan Ku'suh

Edited and Rendered into Colloquial English

By

Ambrose Pratt

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E, P. Dutton & Company

681 Fifth Avenue

New York

1917

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THE JUDGMENT OF THE

ORIENT

WHERESOEVER I have wandered in the Occident I have found the peoples earnestly seeking to discover whom a remote pos- terity shall blame for the Great War. It is very strange to a simple Oriental that the subtle and cultivated minds of Euro- peans should be interested in the judg- ment of their probable grandchildren. We Chinese, who are taught to rule our actions in conformity with the admirable precepts of our venerable forebears, are not con- cerned in speculating what our descendants may think of us, for it is very certain we shall be judged in comparison with our ancestors and accounted worthy or un-

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worthy as our conduct shall approximate of recede from the flawless standards of antiquity. I am of opinion that the East differs from the West in nothing more decisively than in this outlook of the soul. The East looks into the past for its direc- tions, and its course is shaped accordingly with tranquillity and certitude. The West has no historic sense deserving of the name. It is impatient of all mortmain restrictions. It scorns experience and revels in experi- ment. It searches constantly for change, and it looks forward v/ith an unappeasable ambition and an optimism as resolute as it is unwarranted for a favorable outcome of its vague and poorly charted strivings. The spirit of the West is, says the West, undauntedly progressive: and the West observes derisively of the East that the spirit of the Orient is static — a courteous euphemism for "retrogressive." It is true that we hasten slowly hi the Orient, for our mood is patient and our minds are contemplative. But all change is not pro-

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gress, and the restless West is now at war. What does that signify if not that the theory and practice of Western, civilization have broken down and that progressive Europe has reverted to the conditions of a primitive and savage era? The only feature which pleases in the cataclysm is that every Western nation recognizes equally that a monstrous crime has been committed. It matters not that they agree on little else and that each belligerent group is desperately eager to fasten the entire guilt on its antagonists.

We perceive in this universal shrinking from censure an underlying common sense of culpable responsibility which is forced into expression by the forward-looking spirit of the Occident. The warring nations care not greatly how living generations shall regard their conduct, and they offend each other with unbridled recklessness: but all alike betray a passionate anxiety to be held blameless by generations yet unborn. There is something almost

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pathetic in the faith they unconsciously evince in the competence of a future world to dispense justice: and also in their evidently shared belief that the judgment of posterity will be lucid, decisive, and unanimous. This faith and this belief are in no wise to be discounted by the pains each warring Power is at present taking to confuse the judgment of posterity by special pleading and by building up great official libraries of distorted facts and twisted evidence. These are purely instinc- tive and therefore unavoidable develop- ments, and it is not difficult to perceive that each nation is infused with the con- viction it is laboring in vain, and that some day in the distant future it will be stripped of its pretensions and required to pay the penalty of its misdeeds.

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II

THE Germans are a rarely gifted people- also they are strangely limited. They have large and highly cultivated brains, small and imperfectly developed minds. The soul of the nation is young, almost infantile. It has not been allowed to mature and it has been forcibly prevented from expansion by a despotically perverted and effectively organized dedication of the whole energies of the people to the pursuit of material success. During the time I spent in Germany I was oppressed with a dis- tinct and unescapable consciousness of being unassimilatively alien, of belonging to an older and more genial age, and to a race of human beings animated with a wiser and a gentler spirit. For a period I experienced much difficulty in liking my hosts, despite their unaffected anxiety to please me: for their manners are crude and unlovely and their aspirations narrow

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and sordid almost past belief. But under- standing is incompatible with anger and I came at length to understand the Germans. Psychologically, they are a nation of little children. Those big bodies, those capable and skillful brains, those clever hands, are all inhabited and ruled by immature and stunted souls. It has been my fortune to meet and know two giants. I encountered the first, when still a young man, atPol'li- hi. His name was T'chen-Ah-Quam. He stood more than seven feet high and he weighed as much as four ordinary men. He was a gardener by trade and he worked with many other coolies on the plantation of my father's cousin. Now, the strength of T'chen-Ah-Quam was so great that he might very easily have made himself master of his fellow workmen, and compelled them to perform his tasks or to pay him other tribute. But that was not his way. On the contrary he seemed the least asser- tive of all the laborers in my father's cousin's service, and not only did he per- form his allotted duties with industry and

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perfect honesty, but he was always ready to take upon his shoulders the burden of some weaker associate. Astonished by the humanity and orderliness of his conduct, 1 questioned him, upon a time. " T'chen- Ah-Quam," said I, " it surprises me that a man so vigorous and capable should be content to pass his days in so common- place a servitude."

" Do you think, Master," he replied, "that in some other occupation I could acquire riches? If so, it would be to give money to those I love where I now give services. But, indeed, Master, you are wrong. I am big in body but my brain is not big. I am very fit to dig the fields."

This answer, and the man's life, taught me that a full-statured soul inhabited T'chen-Ah-Quam's tremendous frame, and I was content to chide him no more, for is it not better to be God-like than grasping? Germany, the second giant I have known, is a monster of a different species. Germany is a giant possessed of the soul of a dwarf — a childish, self-seeking

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soul, not intent on benefiting mankind, but infatuated with the greed of gain, and resolute to concentrate all the powers of its enormous body on the acquisition of material advantages. When a little child sees a shining thing in the hand of another, does he not covet it and cry for it? Does he pause to consider that it belongs else- where? No child of my acquaintance acts other than to get the bauble he desires by any means he can. I, too, was such a child. Did I not make a promise to my mother not to use or touch her fret saw and sharpened chisels: and did I not fly, a perjured rascal, to her pretty cabinet the moment after her departure to join my sickened father at Ze-chan? As a grown man, I must needs look back on the incident with a smile of shame and pity for the petty soul which then infused my carcass. Will not Germany, perhaps, some day look back with sorrow and con- cern on the puerile wickedness of soul which drove her corporeal greatness to chastise the helplessness of Belgium?

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I HAVE not lived with the Italians long enough to understand them. Ifear to wrong them, therefore, should I pronounce an estimate of them without a reservation. They seem to me an old race — a race that has matured its every faculty and allowed some of its finer spiritual attributes to mortify or, maybe, to assume a twisted form that simulates morbidity. When Germany forced war on Europe, the Italian people cried out with a single voice against the outrage, and their Government immediately affirmed its right to denounce the Treaty which had for decades bound the country in a military partnership v/ith Germany and Austria. Now it is very certain that Germany and Austria were the first to violate this Treaty; for they de- clared war on France and Russia without

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consulting Italy, and the Treaty pledged them to such prior consultation. But why did Italy pause so long before ter- minating the alliance: and why did Italy, before denouncing the Treaty, exhaust every means of exacting material compen- sation for her partners' breach of faith? Her conduct suggests that she was willing to condone the Austro-German conspiracy against Europe, provided only that she should reap a territorial advantage. Italy fights now with the enemies of Germany, but would she be fighting on their side if Germany and Austria had conceded her demands? I dare not say. The wrongs of Belgium, as I saw with my own eyes, filled the people of Italy with a noble indignation; but I think the soul of Italy is as crafty as it is emotional. The nation's soul desired to behave nobly, but was it unwilling to accept an adequate material reward for acting wrongly? I confess it terrifies me to envisage a nation which is able simultaneously to recognize an over-

powering duty to mankind and to delay performance until non-performance has become unprofitable. With incomparably more urgent reasons to temporize with Germany and to sanction courses of dis- honor, Belgium did not hesitate an instant. I admire the Italian people. I do not understand them. I am afraid of them. They are the wisest of all nations: the subtlest thinkers, the shrewdest bar- gainers; and withal they are energetic, brave, and chivalrous. Are they a race of Bayards or a race of politicians? I have looked into the nation's heart but cannot read it. The outer chambers teem with dazzling purposes, but there are cavernous recesses, too, which hide mysterious authorities of malformation and restraint. It is the heart of a classical and pagan God, powerful for either good or ill, cunning, prudent, avaricious.

IV

THERE are two Frances — the France which bubbles gaily in the sunlight and works and wantons with an equal verve when all goes well, or seems to go well, with her: and the France which, smiling still, un- grudgingly prepares to die that France shall live when her sacred soil is desecrated by the tramp of hostile legions. I like better the second France, the France of to-day. Least of all the world has this splendidly regenerated nation cause to grieve that Armageddon has appeared. War only could have transmuted the dross of self-indulgence and the sordid aims of bourgeois industry into the refined gold of patriotism which is now the universal spiritual currency of France. Do not repine, oh people of France, that so many

of your cities have been demolished, that

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so many of your gallant children have been slain! You who survive and your descendants are and will be infinitely richer for the cruel chastening; and the treasures you have already won and are destined to acquire will not decay, for they are treasures of the soul. Do not ask for pity. Your right is to be praised. From a far country a simple Oriental sends you this humble word of greeting and lays this tribute at your feet:- -You have changed to good your worst defects and blemishes, and out of frivolity you have created a steadfastness of character which terrifies your enemies and fills your friends with admiration. March on to victory ! The way is rough and your foes are strong and merciless. You will suffer greatly, but your triumph is assured.

I SEE in Russia a race of kin with mine, immense in population, immense in the primitive and latent virtues, immense in ignorance and vice. But China sleeps still, and Russia has been galvanized. Her virtues are becoming active : her vices are in process of suppression and elimina- tion. The vast simplicity, the transparent guile of Russia are forces too enormous to be measured even by the Russians. Germany comprehends them not at all, or there had never been this war. The Germans thought to batter Russia to humility, seeing often Russians prostrate to such treatment dealt them by their kind. But the Russian people can be humbled only by their kind. Foreign blows arouse their pride. They accept such chastisement with momentary patience

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when retaliation is not possible, and when hurt sufficiently it is their custom to re- treat. But they have brooding minds and a physical capacity that thrives on suffering. If they retire to-day it is that they shall return to-morrow invigorated and revenge- ful. Germany is passionately hated by the whole Slav race. This is Russia's first national war in the sense that Germany is the first foe that the entire Russian people ever have been glad to fight, and are anxious to destroy. It is a racial war. Of their own will the Russians will never cease from fighting while they have the wherewithal to build an army and while their enemy survives.

VI

ENGLAND entered the war in a very different spirit from that animating the other belli- gerent nations. To France, Russia, Servia, and Belgium the issues at stake were vital — touching and threatening their exist- ence. Germany and Austria had risked their all to grow greater: therefore they too, perforce, were serious. But England had no similar cause of apprehension. An Island nation protected by an all- powerful navy, he was in a position at the outset of the trouble to stand aloof and watch Europe commit hari-kari without fear of fatal consequences to himself; for it was perfectly clear that whichever side should win, the ultimate Continental victor would be, if not exhausted, certainly in

no condition to challenge the unimpaired

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resources of the British Empire. Self- interest, therefore, suggested that England should refrain from any sort of active inter- vention until the final stages of the Conti- nental struggle, when he might play the part of arbiter, perhaps, without firing a shot and dictate any settlement he pleased. That he did not wait but flung himself into the firing line within a few days of the commencement of hostilities on the mainland of Europe, proves one of two things. Either — as the Germans plausibly contend — he felt unable to resist seizing so apparently favorable an opportunity to advance a long-cherished secret ambition to crush Germany: or his intervention was disinterested. Which is the truth? England, of course, insists that he inter- vened and joined forces with France and Russia from the noblest motives. His honor was pledged to Belgium, and when Germany lawlessly invaded Belgium, England was in duty bound to fly to that little Power's assistance, which he did —

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having no honorable alternative. Germany admits the technical grounds of England's claim, but scoffs at the deduction. England, says Germany, has not always been so prompt to respect his treaty obligations; and Germany declares, with the passion of sincere conviction, that England would have watched the violation of Belgium, without venturing a protest, if Germany had been matched against a less powerful combination than that of Russia and France. My opinion is that Germany is wrong, and that her contemptuous estimate of England's motives is untenable. The basis of my judgment is purely psycho- logical. On the physical plane there is an infinity of evidence, documentary and historic and political, both pro and con the issue. But this sort of testimony is bewildering to simple minds, and I leave it to the lawyers. The psychology of a people, on the other hand, is always clear and truthful. The mind often deceives: the soul never. And here is a fact which

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cannot be disputed :- -The people of England (I say nothing of their rulers, for England is a democracy, and the people are only nominally ruled by their King and Parliament) forced their country into war with Germany. They made the war — not the British Government. The Govern- ment would have kept England wholly neutral if it could. But it could not. The people saw Belgium violated by Germany, and, on instant, they took fire with indigna- tion. The world has heard a great deal of the treaty which pledged Germany not to invade Belgium, and pledged England to fight for Belgium if invaded. But the people of England knew little of that treaty and cared less — before the war. What inflamed their breasts was not the breaking of a treaty, not the tearing up of " a scrap of paper, " but the sight of inno- cent weakness trampled beneath the heel of guilty strength. The right of little nations to live was an ideal very dear to them, although they did not guess how

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dear until the right was brutally assailed before their very doors. Then they knew.

The people of England were utterly unorganized and unprepared for war, and they were perfectly aware of their unpre- paredness. Nevertheless they declared with one voice for war, and for immediate war. Their hearts, their souls declared it: not their brains. The English brain moves slowly, by deliberative ratiocinative pro- cesses. The soul of England travels like a lightning flash when it is stirred, and its mandates cannot be restricted nor its will. The soul of England ordered war. The Government of England submissively obeyed.

When the die was cast, the people stubbornly refused for quite a time to measure the abyss into which they had so impulsively and swiftly cast their lives and fortunes. Upheld by a sense of having acted finely, they were gay and wonder- fully cheery. They were instinctively impelled to transfer the responsibility for

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further moves to Providence. " We have done our duty, therefore everything must turn out well. It is 'up to ' God to see that we succeed.5' Such was the general feeling of the nation throughout the earlier stages of the combat. They adopted for their rule of life " Business as usual," and not until necessity had sheathed its black fangs in their bosoms could they be induced to lay aside this foolish optimism and approach the task which they had under- taken with the vigor and concentrated industry and resolution requisite to insure its satisfactory performance. This awak- ening was tedious and painful, but it came at last. It is a nation, this England, which cannot be conquered. It may be broken, bruised, defeated, crushed, and ruined, but it cannot be subdued. I am asked Why? I reply — its soul is too great. My fathers, what a soul! It is hypocritical, but it willingly exposes and laughs gleefully at its own hypocrisy. It is a smug soul, but it candidly despises itself for its smug-

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ness. It is instinct with reverence for principles, even the principles it most usually offends. It is full of sympathy for all weak and little things, and will not let other people beat them, though it may abuse them itself. It is continually pur- suing the path of self-improvement, striv- ing earnestly for better things: often failing, but always aware of and ashamed of its defects and non-success. It is an under- standing soul, and therefore tolerant and humorous. It always smiles under punishment, believing its punishment de- served. It is a covetous soul: but it admits the right of other nations to be covetous. In a word — it is a humane and human soul, a soul that passionately de- sires justice, and is anxious, on its part, to be just. Did you know that souls have sex as well as stature? It is a fact. The soul of England is not hermaphroditic: it is intensely, arrogantly masculine.

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VII

1 SUPPOSE it is inevitable that, for many years to come, the unlettered masses of mankind will industriously debate the surface causes of the war: — Germany's world-empire ambition: her far-seeing or- ganic preparations to realize her aims: her anxious quest of pretexts to precipitate a crisis: the adventitious murder of the Austrian Archduke: the brow-beating of Servia: the blood-call of the Southern Slavs to Russia: the minatory conversa- tions of the Greater Powers: England's stupidly conceived attempts to pacify a terrified and angry continent: England's fatal failure to notify Germany in direct and simple language that he would fight on the side of France and Russia if Ger- many persisted in going to extremes: and, finally, the invasion of Belgium. But

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how can these historic happenings, these governmental sins of commission and omission, aye, or a hundred such in com- bination, satisfy intelligence that the originating causes of the war have been revealed? Causes: they are not causes of the war at all. They are effects ; merely the outer symptoms and external instru- ments of causes operating infinitely nearer to the core of life; unseen forces of de- velopment, disorder, and disease. The war was fanned into a flame by some or all, but it sprang from none of the events or aims or failures I have catalogued, nor from cognate others I have left unnamed. It was born and fabricated in the souls of the contesting nations. It is a war of souls. If we look deeper still we shall see, provided that our sight is strong and clear, it is a war of sex.

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THE sentient world consists of men and women. Men have souls. Women have souls. Men are differentiated from women by sex: so too are the souls of men and women differentiated. The souls of men have little in common with the souls of women. They are just as like and just as radically unlike each other as the bodies of the men and women they inhabit and control. Certain ancient philosophers be- lieved that woman has no soul because the female race largely functionates by instinct and is, at heart, unmoral. Their opinion has been tested by the ages and discarded as unsound. Science observes more shrewdly in these later days, and pronounces less prejudiced and truer judgments. We all admit, now, that

woman has a soul: but the cynical philo-

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sopher of modern times compounds for his concession by despising woman's soul as a mean and petty spirit. Those of us who wish not to be cynical state merely that the soul of the typical woman is meaner and pettier than the soul of the typical man. We prefer no charges. We record facts.

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THE soul of a woman does not always inhabit the body of a woman: nor the soul of a man the body of a man. History teems with instances of women possessed and governed by virile souls. Life teems with instances of men effeminated by the souls of women. Yet the rule holds good despite exceptions. The average man has a male soul: the average woman has a female soul.

X

THE individual human being has a soul. The community also has a soul. The soul of a community is the fused sum of the souls of its constituents. To say this is at the same time to employ a figure of speech and to define imperfectly (yet as perfectly as is possible) the very greatest of all the metaphysical and political forces known to and recognized by human science. It is customary to call the soul of a nation ^ the national consciousness," " public opinion," etc. We prefer speaking loosely to thinking closely. It saves trouble. Human beings are intensely indolent in mind.

XI

JUST as each individual human being has a sex, each community has a sex: and just as the soul of each being has a sex, the soul of each community has a sex. The sex of a community and of the soul of a community is determined by the predominance in the community of masculine or feminine soul characters. From the earliest times, this truth has been more or less vaguely recog- nized by historians, politicians, and philo- sophers; and the proof is, that nations have always been regarded and described in bulk as belonging to a distinct gender. In the primitive world when most strong peoples were warlike and lived, except by fits and starts, on prey and plunder, it was usual to designate such a nation as of the 3 33

male sex. As civilization advanced, a crude discrimination was drawn between belli- cose and peaceful nations; and while the former type was referred to as "he," the latter was called " she."

In medieval and modern times a further step in wisdom was achieved. It having been observed that all nations, whether bellicose or peaceful, are apt to be more or less capricious and unfaithful in then: international dealings and diplomacy, it was agreed by tacit and almost universal assent to ascribe to every nation alike a feminine massed soul or consciousness.

And so it is that, even to this day, to think of a nation is to conjure the image of a woman. But we who are thinkers should do wrong to remain under the gov- ernment of a mental habit so carelessly formed, so unphilosophically contracted. It needs no argument, it needs scarce a moment's thought, to teach us that the preponderating soul characteristics of all nations are not necessarily feminine. We

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require merely to raise the question to per- ceive and comprehend the truth which it enfolds. Many nations may have the one dominating sex; but it is possible that some, or one, may have another. It is possible, also, that the soul sex of a nation may by time and circumstances be changed.

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XII

HOW may the soul sex of a nation be determined? It may be determined by examining the conduct of the nation in peace and in war and by contrasting its conduct with the conventional standards of individual rectitude, and with the conduct of other nations.

XIII

GERMANY claims to be the most virile nation in the world, and I am unaware that any other nation, or any living occi- dental philosopher, has seriously ventured to dispute her arrogant assertion of un- rivaled and incomparable masculinity. Nevertheless, the claim of Germany is demonstrably without foundation. First, examine her in peace. For several decades Germany prepared with tireless industry for war. Why? She desired to expand. Her millions needed room, she says, " a place in the sun": — they were "choking down." In short Germany aspired to make room for herself by annexing forcibly the territory and possessions of her neighbors. Hence her unparalleled military and naval growth. It had, this growth, an immoral

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object — conquest, that is, plunder. The men of Germany worked and toiled for years with this ambition in their minds. Did they labor for themselves? Did they covet Naboth's vineyard for their own exclusive and particular enjoyment? Impossible! When one man decides to steal, it is rarely for his own advantage. Usually he is driven to his crime by the desire to please and to enrich a woman.

When many men decide to steal, it is never for their personal advantage, but always for the State, /. e., for the wives and daughters and sweethearts of the thieves. And the women of a robber nation, if they countenance their men's ambition, are the responsible and real culprits: for the women of a nation are the nurses and the tutors of the men. Do not tell me that the men of Germany secretly originated and conceived, and then for thirty years success- fully concealed from their women the monstrous resolution to subjugate and expropriate thexr European neighbors.

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Let us be honest and not raise false issues. Guibert expressed a half truth when he said: — "Les hommes font les loist les femmes font les moeurs" If the men of Germany adopted the ambition of con- quest, it was not merely because they knew their women would not reject the fruits of conquest, rather it was because they knew then- women coveted the fruits of conquest. Women, however, neither plan nor execute. They inspire. But which is more culpable, the hand that reaches forth to steal the purse, or the brain that moves the hand? And which is more culp- able, the man who steals, or the woman who inspires the man to steal? An honest man is one whose wife is either an unusually con- tented and unenvious woman, or a woman whose power of spiritual influence is of in- sufficient force to prevail over her husband's native sense of justice. An honest nation is one whose female citizens are not of stronger soul fiber than its male citizens. When the female soul collectively pre- 39

dominates, the nation is potentially dis- honest. The female soul is an envious and grasping spirit. It respects no rights which cannot be enforced or longer than they are enforced. It submits to superior strength, but it scorns the compulsion of ethical restraints. It will get always that which it wants if it can, and by any means it can.

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XIV

THE social condition of Germany supplies further proof that the nation is under feminine dominion. The women of Germany have never as a race shown themselves solicitous of political enfran- chisement. It is because their power of government through sex is complete enough to satisfy their instinct to excel and to enslave. The men of Germany are peculiarly uxorious. They treat their women as subordinates, as playthings and house fraus, rarely as equals and partners, never as superiors. But the women are con- tent. Women do not rebel against mascu- line ill-usage which assumes the form of an apparent sexual tyranny. Well they know who are real tyrants in the eternal processes of conjugation. The woman with a lusty mate is ever a proud animal ; an animal not

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in the very least degree inclined to alter the established order in the quest of illusory intellectual advantages. The women of Germany willingly concede the power of lawmaking to their men. They make the morals on which the laws are founded in the home, and in the home the men of Germany only seem to be lords. Actually they are pampered helots: beasts that are fed and flattered into an unconscious acquiescence with the fact that they are slaves of sex.

XV

IT is not without significance that Turkey is Germany's ally in the war. Turkey has but one conspicuous national institution — the seraglio. Every male Turk hopes to have many wives. The sensual male is the 'predestined servant of femininity. The soul of Turkey is depraved and essentially effeminate. It abandonedly worships the generative principle.

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XVI

I WAS in Berlin when the German Chan- cellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag admitting that Germany had done wrong to invade Belgium, but pleading, for excuse, necessity; and ending with the defiant proclamation — "We must hack our way through!" Thus does the typical primitive woman always forgive herself for breaking an inconvenient law and then, in the very act of sympathizing with those she injures, fling herself to the furthest extreme of uncompromising criminality: "We must hack our way through!" Who is more merciless than the wife intent upon adultery? But she always pretends to pity the husband she dishonors, and often she interrupts the kisses of her paramour to weep for the home she has defamed. There is this essential

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difference between the male and female criminal, that the masculine malefactor is never so completely lacking in the sense of humor and of dignity as to parade a hypocritical compassion for his victim: but the female wrongdoer invariably acts like that. When the Chancellor's speech was published, all Berlin rocked with grief for Belgium and madly cheered the Prussian soldiers on their way to complete the devastation of that small unhappy State. In that whirlwind of emotion, the soul of Germany shook off its trappings and stared at the horizon, the eyes dropping tears, the mouth breathing flames. I saw the face of a woman, the face of a Medusa.

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XVII

WHILE it suits a woman to observe a law, or to respect a convention, there is nobody more scrupulous in complying with the obligations thereby imposed, and nobody more indignant and virtuously outraged to witness breaches by others. But when it suits a woman to offend the code herself, she forthwith discovers that the said law or convention merely postulated a counsel of perfection impossible for fallible human nature to follow faithfully. She is invari- ably astounded when called to a reckoning for her sin, and she never fails to over- whelm with reproaches those who venture to reprove her and to accuse them of hypocrisy. It suited Germany to respect

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for half a century the treaty which guaran- teed the inviolable neutrality of Belgium: and during all that time no other signa- tory Power upheld the law with a sterner or more exalted affectation of fidelity. But as soon as Germany saw a profit in breaking the agreement, she did not hesitate an instant to be faithless. England called her to account and for a moment Germany was dumb, stricken with amazement. When she found her voice again, she poured forth a torrent of reproaches. "What!" said the Chancellor to England. " Just for a scrap of paper you will make war on us? " And all Germany shrieked invective, praying Almighty God to hate and punish the English for their perfidy and damnable hypocrisy. Germany's astonishment was perfectly genuine: her indignation was transparently sincere. The female soul of the nation could not understand the nature of the crime it had committed: could not believe it had committed more than a venial sin. It had acted sui generis-

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just as a woman always acts when in a difficulty. And just as a woman always feels outraged when threatened with punish- ment by a man — whatever she has done to deserve it — the female soul of Germany felt outraged and aghast when masculine England menaced her with chastisement.

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XVIII

THE male soul, like the female soul, is compact with faults and virtues. Its faults are distinguished in kind, as well as in degree, from the faults peculiar to the female soul. The male soul is apt to be cruel, but it is incapable of spite. It can hate even unto death, but it is always willing to raise a fallen enemy. It can willfully destroy, but it cannot deliberately torture. It loves justice, and except when influenced by pas- sion, it voluntarily serves the ends of justice. The female soul neither loves nor hates justice, and the only cause it serves with spontaneity is that of generation. The typical woman loves herself above the world until she has a child. She then transfers the larger part of her devotion to her offspring, whose interests she will prosecute at any cost, to the interests of all 4 49

other persons if she can, careless of moral sanction or ethical restraints. The national soul of Germany reveals its ruling feminine characteristic most clearly when contrasted with the national soul of England. That of England is conspicuously distinguished by its respectful consideration for the conventional rights of smaller independent States, and by a sentimental readiness to elevate the status of, and to concede autonomous powers to, subject peoples. The masculine soul is tolerant, sentimental, and somewhat indolent. The female soul is impatient, cupidinous, and energetically bent on exploitation. Germany has always ruled, as with a rod of iron, the peoples she has subjugated: and freedom of action in her colonies is a thing unknown. She built up her mighty strength with no desire to achieve moral greatness, but simply to destroy the privileges and to annex compulsorily the property of her weaker neighbors. The present war was sensibly precipitated by England's magnanimous

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grant of self-government to the Boers in South Africa. From the outset, Germany regarded that wonderful experiment with emotions of profound concern, and she watched its progress towards success with an ever-growing consternation. With all her heart she resented the new Ethic that she saw in process of establishment, for it seemed to her to menace with obliteration the essential raison d'etre of war. She felt it incumbent on her at all hazards to shatter the experiment before the world should realize its inner meaning and its real aims: last, perceiving its results consoli- dated, the world should accept the new Ethic and co-operate, under the spiritual (and possibly the political) hegemony of England, for its perpetuation and defense. And herein is the reason why Germany, as soon as war was declared, strove her very utmost to promote a Boer rebellion and to incite the Dutch peoples of South Africa to prove themselves recreant to their plighted word, and unworthy of the

gracious and genial treatment England had accorded them. Only a female soul could have conceived a policy at once so crafty and so spiteful. Germany knows well that the complete loss of South Africa could not have impaired in the smallest degree England's military and naval efficiency: but she was also aware that such an event would have humbled England's pride: and she yearned to demonstrate that mag- nanimity is an unprofitable course for any nation to pursue in its dealings with alien or conquered communities.

XIX

THE female soul is profoundly superstitious. When all goes well it is content to worship the unseen with formal genuflections: but when beset by unaccustomed troubles, or harassed by fear of pain, it instantly pro- strates itself before a shrine, and screams God to partner its affliction and to con- found the physical agent of its thr eaten ing grief. The enemy of every pious woman is, in her opinion, the arch foe and anta- gonist of God. Within a few hours of the outbreak of the present war, the German nation adopted a new National motto: — "Gott mit uns," and the Divine Essence had become a personal Deity and the foster- parent of the Kaiser. England and France approached their altars too: but with less cock-sureness. They asked Heaven to judge, but they did not anticipate the

53

verdict. The women of England and France may have been as silly as the women of Germany, but if so, their behavior failed substantially to affect the general attitude of their nations towards Heaven. Their attitude, indeed, remains to-day much as it was before the war. England is perhaps more reverent, and France more prayerful: but the posture of both nations is masculine and dignified. The position of Germany, per contra, is that of an impassioned pagan priestess urging on her servant-god to reward her ministrations by super- naturally augmenting the capacity of her people to pillage, murder, and destroy.

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XX

MEN and women are natural enemies. The war between the sexes is unceasing. Nature has entrusted to women the work of con- tinuing the species and improving it. Men are necessary factors in this work, but their sexual functioning is only intermittently, while woman's is continuously, operative. To men, sex is a goad driving them now towards, now from woman. Woman cannot free herself from the government of sex, and her slavery must be perpetual, lest the purposes of nature be frustrated. She is doomed to attempt the subjugation of men as long as she is capable of bearing children, for she needs both to be fertilized and to be supported by man. Woman succeeds, because a traitor sits in the citadel of every man's heart. It is the instinct of normal woman to make one man of per- manent use to her — her bonded servant. It is the instinct of normal man to satisfy

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,

the passion which draws him to one woman, and to abandon the woman who provokes it — for another. Man was made by nature a polygamist. The supreme demonstration of woman's craft, and of the superiority of instinct over reason, is that woman has imposed monogamy upon the greater part of the world. The battle lasted many ages. Woman won it. The evolutionary develop- ment of the human species is now pro- ceeding along courses not originally planned by nature, for all conventions which restrict polygamy contradict the simpler purposes of evolution. The new order may develop modifications of type and structure. It may expedite or retard modifications that possibly had been originally designed. (Query: The disap- pearance of redundant toes — the degenera- tion of the vermiform appendix, etc.?) Philosophers may speculate : science teems with vague and wonderful ideas, but con- trols its tongue. The human being of the future may have two heads. Who can tell?

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All social conventions are in favor of women. All alike are fashioned to prevent the abandonment of women, and for pro- tracting the enjoyment by women of male services. Women have become supreme executors of the social law. Nature obliges women to prey on men, and Nature has fashioned men at once to resent and to submit to female tyranny. Nature, there- fore, has made man merciful and woman pitiless. Man is the only sympathetic being. Woman simulates sympathy, but does not feel it. The supreme weakness of man as woman's adversary consists in his higher intelligence which recognizes that woman is the bondslave of sex and prevents him continuously resenting her continual efforts to join him to her yoke. Because of his comparative emancipation he pities woman, and his compassion insures his subjugation. The war between the sexes is a blind war. The sexes are amative enemies. They strive and struggle for they know not what. The combat has

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lasted since the beginning of the world. It is marked with monuments of female victories: and defeat is still the lot of man. Of late, indeed, the fight is visibly going, except in democratic countries, with increasing speed and thoroughness, the woman's way. Education seems to increase the sex power of the female, and to undermine the capacity of male resist- ance. Educated woman, however, is in- clined, in proportion with the cultivation of her intellect, to repudiate the duties and obligations of maternity. Nature's revenge is to implant in the heart of the female rebel an insatiable craving for excitement: hence her invasion of the sphere of politics in all democratic countries, and her am- bition to enlarge by brute force the material possessions of countries whose autocratic governmental systems impose immediately unbreakable restraints on her explosive energies. England remains to-day the most virile state in Europe, with a predomin- antly masculine soul, simply because the

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women of England, during the past few decades, have relaxed much of the fury of their primeval sex warfare against their male enemies, in order to chase the rainbows of economical and political enfranchisement. A secondary factor meriting attention, consists in the numerical superiority of Englishwomen. Whenever a monogamous country has a large surplus of female citizens, the unmarriageable proportion necessarily adopts artificial standards of conduct which often clash with the con- ventions. The unnatural life and morals of this section, inevitably infect and react upon the body politic. The result is this apparent paradox: — The State which has more women than men is always less effeminate than the State having more men than women. The administrative system of England (which is radically democratic) set the women of England chasing political rainbows, first by liberalizing the education of women, and secondly by permitting the women of England to recognize the

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feasibility of securing a toy which to see was to covet : because it seemed to be their right and it was, nevertheless, withheld from them. Woman always prizes most that which is withheld from her. The women of England are bound to win their will at last : but in the meantime they must lose ground in the sex contest, and already they have suffered the soul of the nation to become vigorously masculine, magnani- mous, and just. Per Contra, Germany confronts us to-day the most conspicuously woman-dominated State in Europe, simply because her autocratic system of Govern- ment has constrained her female population to concentrate their attention on prose- cuting the primeval sex war according to primeval methods. The women of Ger- many saw and envied the larger freedom of the women of England, and they avenged themselves according to their kind by forg- ing fresh fetters on their own male yoke- fellows : that is to say, by stamping a deeper female impress on the soul of Germany.

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XXI

THE psychological genesis of the war between Germany and Europe is sexual. It is a war between the femininity of Ger- many and the masculinity of her neighbors -especially the masculinity of England. The female soul of Germany captured the industrial efficiency of the nation, cajoled the nation to adopt a criminal ambition, and finally provoked the nation to offend beyond forgiveness the entire masculine world. The men of Germany are not morally responsible for their terrible behavior. They are rather to be pitied than blamed, for their souls have been hypnotized, and they are not free agents. Without knowing it, they have been en- chanted to betray their sex, and to fight against their brother men of other nations on the side, and at the behest, of a localized

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section of their natural enemies — the female race. If they could be awakened suddenly to a full perception of their degraded and infamous estate, I believe that the men of Germany, or at any rate a large propor- tion, would demonstrate their horror and remorse by forswearing concubinage for the remainder of their lives. The penance would be strictly appropriate, because it would punish all who are most guilty of forcing on humanity this fratricidal struggle.

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xxn

IN a recent number of the Contemporary Review, Professor L. T. Hobhouse wrote, " As events came crowding on, I, for one, saw — and I am sure that countless others had much the same experience — that the struggle was quite different from anything I supposed, that essentially it was not a fight between one country and another, but a struggle for the elements of a free and human civilization, as we understand the terms. In such a struggle many things may go under, but as long as we fight in this spirit we shall save our souls alive." Professor Hobhouse was within reasonable distance of apprehending the truth when he penned the above quoted lines. Yet it evaded him. The war is not merely "a struggle for the elements of a free and human civilization, " although that surface

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issue is involved: it is essentially a contest for supremacy between feminine and mas- culine ideals. The feminine ideal reaches towards material aggrandizement, and sanctions the employment of all measures capable of attaining the desired goal. Germany has staked her all on force, in the present war: but that does not prove her wedded exclusively to the doctrine of Might, or that she believes Might makes Right. She is using force because it seemed the best available expedient to realize her will: and had Craft appeared to her more suitable, she would have chosen Craft. The masculine ideal is by no means indif- ferent to material success, but it reaches also towards spiritual excellence, and it visualizes standards of conduct for the regulation of all human activities where- from, even when fighting for existence, masculine communities do not willingly depart. The only way to confound and shame a typical woman is to deprive her of the prize which she has steeped her soul

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in infamy to win. Allow her to retain it, and she is self-satisfied and proud of her success, because to a woman the end always justifies the means. The typical man, on the contrary, may be confounded, even if in undisturbable possession of his prize, by convicting his intelligence of having violated honor in securing it. English thought wrongs Germany in sup- posing that Germany aspires to destroy the elements of a free and human civiliza- tion. Germany's crimes are sufficiently detestable without inventing additions to their number. The fact is, Germany is firmly persuaded that the elements of her civilization are more free and human than any civilization that the world has seen: and she believes that, if she succeeds in her efforts to appropriate the wealth and to destroy the independence of her neigh- bors, her victims will be compensated for all their sufferings by the benefits her Kultur and enlightened rule will eventually confer upon them. Herein we

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have feminine psychology depicted in excelsis. The woman soul of Germany wants something belonging to another. The only perceptible method to secure it is by force. She decides to use force, but seeing clearly that her victim will be hurt and tortured by her acts, her female soul is disturbed and demands to be comforted. Being a woman she is excessively vain. Her ways, therefore, are in her opinion the best of all ways, and her face the most beautiful. She sincerely believes this, being a woman. Hey presto ! she immedi- ately adopts for her own comfort the pleasant belief that she can do no greater service to her intended victim than to impoverish and to enslave him so that he may learn the joy of looking on her face and appreciating her nobility and beauty.

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XXIII

THE female soul is inexperienced in the use of force. Throughout the ages it has sought and gained its ends by craft. It understands, therefore, less how to employ, than to submit to, force. The laws of force are the only laws that woman constantly respects and fears. The soul of Germany is making an almost original experiment to-day. For the first time in many centuries it is administering a power to which hitherto it has been subject. If the soul of Ger- many were masculine, Germany might win the war: for the male soul is expert in the use of force, and understands its limitations — understands, in particular, exactly how far the power of physical compulsion may safely invade the territory of spiritual resistance. The female soul

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is absolutely unaware of any such limita- tions: and the femininity of Germany's controlling ego has long since plunged the nation into cardinal mistakes — in ignorance. To cite a conspicuous example, there is her harsh treatment of Belgium. A masculine nation is too wise to ill-use a people it has subjugated, for experience has taught the souls of men that while the body may be overcome with compara- tive ease by the brutal pressure of a stronger body, the spirit of the conquered cannot be propitiated to accept defeat except by kindness. Thus it was that after the South African War had ended in England's favor, England hastened to exalt the Boers, and spared neither pains nor treasure to convince them of his sorrow for their sad estate and of his genuine desire to salve their wounded feelings. That was sound masculine policy — a policy which confessed recognition of the psychological truth that a persecuted nation acquires resources, by virtue of its persecution, against which

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the physical might of its oppressors must contend in vain. It is pure womanly to persecute. If the soul of Germany had been masculine — but the hypothesis need not be further pressed: for it is evident that, had the soul of Germany been masculine, there could not have been this war.

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XXIV

LOVE and Fear are the two original and elemental passions of the soul. All others are derived from one or both of them. Hate is Love perverted. Cruelty is the child of Fear. Germany so loved the outer world that she desired to make its inde- pendent parts incorporate in her: and, encountering resistance, her avaricious love was changed to hate. She complains now that she has no friend in all the uni- verse, and fear has made her cruel. She is terrible because she is afraid. For a like reason the Turks exterminate the Armenians. They are afraid. Courage springs from confidence. Courage is in- capable of cruelty. Those who are confi- dent must be courageous: those who are courageous must be kind. Be of good cheer, little Belgium. Germany tortures thee because her soul trembles before thee.

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XXV

Mulier recte olct ubi nihil olet Germany, thou diffusest too many odors that are strong and suffocating. Every lust has its peculiar perfume. The lust of thy cupidity smells odiously. But what is that subtle and intoxicating reek which emanates from thy sandals and the hem of thy robe, and which makes thy subjects reel like drunken monsters when thou stretchest forth thy hands? Is it not the stench of blood?

Germany, go cleanse thyself! Put away thy filthy lusts! Take off thy san- guinary decorations and lave thy body in the waters of repentance. Come to us smelling sweetly of nothing save thy womanliness and all the world will pardon thee. Come to us meekly and nakedly and humbly and all the world will love thee.

In the speech of Juvenal, I send thee this counsel and this prayer: Empower us to admire thee and not what is thine or what thou covetest.

Miremur te non tua,

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