Sunday, May 4, 2025

Julien Benda's The Treason of the Intellectuals

The following are extracts (for review purposes) from The Treason of the Intellectuals, Julien Benda, 1927, tr. Richard Aldington, 1928, Transaction Publishers, 2014:

Translator's Note

"The title of M[r]. Benda's book is La Trahison des Clercs. The word 'Clercs,' which occurs throughout the book, is defined by M[r]. Benda...as 'all those who speak to the world in a transcendental manner.' [I]n Chaucer's time the word 'clerk' ('a clerke of Oxenforde') meant any one who was not a 'layman,' a word employed by M[r]. Benda as the antithesis to 'clerk'[.] In order to avoid a misleading title I have called this translation The Treason of the In­tel­lec­tu­als[.]

"I should add that the words 'real'[, 'realist'] and 'realism' are nearly always used in this book as the antithesis to 'ideal'[, 'idealist'] and 'idealism.' " – pp. xxv–xxvi

Author's Foreword

"Those who lead men to the conquest of material things have no need of justice and charity.

"Nevertheless I think it important that there should be men—even if they are scorned—who urge their fellow beings to other religions than the religion of the material. [C]ontrar[ily, m]ost of the influential moralists of the past fifty years in Europe, particularly the men of letters in France, call upon mankind to sneer at the Gospel and to read Army Orders.

"This new teaching seems to me all the more deserving of serious attention because it is addressed to a humanity which of its own volition is now established in materialism with a decisiveness hitherto unknown." – p. xxvii

Chapter 1: The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions

"We are to consider those passions termed political, owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions, class passions and national passions....

"When...we study the civil wars which convulsed France in the sixteenth century, and even those at the end of the eighteenth century, we are struck by the small number of persons whose minds were really disturbed by these events. [See note A. T]o-day there is scarcely a mind in Europe which is not affected—or thinks itself affected—by a racial or class or national passion, and most often by all three. [I]mmense bodies of men in the Far East, who seemed to be free from these impulses, are awakening to social hatred, the party system, and the national spirit insofar as it implies the will to humiliate other men. To-day political passions have attained a universality never before known." – pp. 1–2

Note A

A-1 - " 'The peasants,' says M[r]. R[o]mier, 'were only really converted where it was to their interests to be so...and where the Catholic clergy had completely deserted the parishes. We must be careful not to consider as Protestants all the "rustics" who took part in pillaging the abbeys and castles during the civil war'[.]" – p. 146

A-2 - "Contemporaries mention the indifference of the people of Paris to the Peace of Westphalia[, etc.]" – p. 147

"They have also attained coherence. Thanks to the progress of communication and, still more, to the group spirit, it is clear that the holders of the same political hatred now form a compact impassioned mass, every individual of which feels himself in touch with the infinite numbers of others, whereas a century ago such people were com­par­a­tive­ly out of touch with each other and hated in a 'scattered' way.

"This is singularly striking with respect to the working classes who, even in the middle of the nineteenth century, felt only a scattered hostility for the opposing class, attempted only dispersed efforts at war (such as striking in one town, or one union), whereas to-day they form a closely-woven fabric of hatred from one end of Europe to the other. [T]he passion of the individual is strengthened by feeling itself in proximity to these thousands of similar passions[.] Let me add that the individual bestows a mystic personality on the association of which he feels himself a member, and gives it a religious adoration, which is simply the deification of his own passion, and no small stimulus to its intensity.

"The coherence just described might be called a surface coherence, but there is added to it a coherence of essence. [T]hey also form a more homogeneous, impassioned group, in which individual ways of feeling disappear and the zeal of each member more and more takes on the color of the others. [T]hose who are subject to these emotions now all tend to say the same thing[.] Political passions...seem to have attained the habit of discipline[.]" – pp. 2–3

"Wars between nations lasted for years, but not hatred—even if we may say that it existed. To-day we have only to look every morning at any daily paper and we shall see that political hatreds do not cease for a single day. At best some of them are silent a moment for the benefit of one among them which suddenly claims all the subject's strength. This is the period of 'national unions,' which do not in the very least herald in the reign of love, but merely of a general hatred which for the moment dominates partial hatreds. To-day political passions have acquired continuity, which is so rare a quality in all feelings....

"Twice during the nineteenth century, in Germany and in Italy, the age-old hatreds of petty States disappeared in favor of a great national passion. In the same period (more precisely, at the end of the eighteenth century) in France, the mutual hatred of the Court nobles and the country nobles was extinguished in the greater hatred of both parties for all who were not nobles; the hatred between the military and legal nobles disappeared in the same impulse; the hatred between the upper and lower ranks of the clergy vanished in their common hatred of laicality; the hatred between clergy and nobility expired to the profit of their mutual hatred for the commons. And in our times the hatred between the three orders has melted into one hatred, that of the possessing classes for the working class." – p. 4

"An apostle of the modern mind clamors for 'politics first.' He might have observed that nowadays it is politics everywhere, politics always and nothing but politics....Coming to the man of the people, we can measure the increase of his political passions...by considering, as Stendhal puts it, how long his whole passion was limited to wishing (a) Not to be killed, (b) For a good warm coat.

"[T]hen...when a little less misery permitted him a few general ideas[,] his vague desire for social changes was transformed into...the two essential characteristics of passion: The fixed idea, and the need to put it into action." – pp. 5–6

"Political passions rendered universal, coherent[,] preponderant—every one can recognize there...the work of the cheap daily political newspaper...to which they abandon themselves with all the expansion of their hearts every morning as soon as they are awake.

"[L]argely owing to the influence of the newspaper, it is clear that the mind affected by political hatred to-day becomes conscious of its own passion, formulates it...with an accuracy unknown to the same sort of mind fifty years ago. [T]he passion is intensified by this. [T]wo passions [now] have attained consciousness of themselves, self-assertion, [and] a pride in themselves.

"The first is what I shall call a certain Jewish nationalism. In the past, when the Jews were accused in various countries of forming an inferior race, or at any rate a peculiar people not to be assimilated, they replied by denying their peculiarity, by trying to get rid of all appearance of peculiarity, and by refusing to admit the reality of race. But in the last few years we see some of them laboring to assert this peculiarity[,] taking a pride in it, and condemning every effort at assimilation with their opponents[.]

"The other impulse I am thinking of is 'bourgeoisism' by which I mean the passion of the bourgeois class in asserting itself against the class by which it is threatened. [T]he bourgeois temporized with this egotism, would not admit even to themselves that it existed, tried to convince themselves and others that it was a form of interest in the common good. The bourgeois replied to the dogma of the class war by denying that there really are any classes, thereby showing that while they felt an inalterable opposition to the adverse party, they were unwilling to admit...it. To-day we have only to think of Italian 'Fascism'...and we shall see that the bourgeoisie are becoming fully conscious of their specific egotisms, are proclaiming and venerating them as such and as though these egotisms were bound up with the supreme interests of the human race, that they are proud of this veneration and of setting up these egotisms against those which are trying to destroy the bourgeoisie. In our time there has been created the 'mysticism' of bourgeois passion in its opposition to the passions of the other class." – pp. 6–8

"The progress of political passions in depth during the past century seems to me most remarkable in the case of national passions.

"[T]o-day when this national feeling is continually experienced by common minds, it consists chiefly in the exercise of pride. Every one will agree that nationalist passion in the modern citizen is far less founded on a comprehensive knowledge of the national interests (he has an imperfect perception of these interests[)] than on the pride he feels in his nation, on his will to feel himself one with the nation, to react to the honors and insults he thinks are bestowed on it. No doubt he wants his nation to acquire territories, to be prosperous and to have powerful allies; but he wants all this...on account of the glory, the prestige which the nation will acquire. By becoming popular, national feeling has become national pride, national susceptibility. [Y]ou may be convinced...by observing how commonly men let themselves be killed on account of a wound to their pride, and how infrequently for some infraction of their interests." – pp. 8–9

"Another considerable deepening of national passions comes from the fact that the nations are now conscious of themselves...as regards their moral existence. With a hitherto unknown consciousness (prodigiously fanned by authors) every nation now hugs itself and sets itself up against all other nations as superior in language, art, literature, philosophy, civilization, 'culture.' Patriotism to-day is the assertion of one form of mind against other forms of mind. We know how much this passion increases its inner strength in this way and that the wars it determines are fiercer than those waged by the Kings, who merely desired the same piece of territory....

"It is impossible to over-stress the novelty of this form of patriotism in history. It is obviously bound up with the adoption of this passion by the masses of the populace, and seems to have been inaugurated in 1813 by Germany, who is apparently the real teacher of humanity in the matter of democratic patriotism, if by this word is meant the determination of a nation to oppose others in the name of its most fundamental characteristics. (The France of the Revolution and the Empire never dreamed of setting itself up against other nations in the name of its language or of its literature.)...Shall I refer to the profound respect of Rome for the genius of Greece, though Rome had felt it necessary to crush Greece politically? [S]hall I mention Louis XIV annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of forbidding the German language? [See note B.] The notion that political warfare involves a war of cultures is entirely an invention of modern times[.]" – pp. 10–11

Note B

"It was not until 1768 that the Monarchy thought of setting up schools in Alsace, 'where French is to be taught.' Vidal de la Blache...adds: 'This indifference (to the language question)...takes us into an age when another spirit presided over human relations....Fortunate eighteenth century, when war bred no lasting hatred, when the poison of national animosities was not inoculated and fostered by all the means now at the disposal of the State, including the schools.' " – pp. 147–148

"Another strengthening of national passions comes from the determination of the peoples to be conscious of their past[.] This Romantic patriotism is also a characteristic of patriotism as practiced by...society people and men of letters[.]" – p. 11

"Those who wish to estimate the increase of violence given to national passion...have only to observe what has happened to this feeling among the Germans, with their claim to be carrying on the spirit of the Holy Roman Empire, and among the Italians since they have set up their aspirations as the revival of those of the Roman Empire. [T]he leaders of the State find in popular sentimentality a new and excellent instrument for carrying out their practical designs, an instrument they well know how to use." – pp. 11–12

"[N]ational passions, owing to the fact that they are now exerted by plebeian minds, assume the character of mysticism, of a religious adoration almost unknown in these passions in the practical minds of the great nobles." – p. 12

"[S]everal very powerful political passions, which were originally independent of nationalist feeling, have now become incorporated with it. These passions are: (a) The movement against the Jews; (b) the movement of the possessing classes against the proletariat; (c) the movement of the champions of authority against the democrats. To-day each one of these passions is identified with national feeling and declares that its adversary implies the negation of nationalism. I may add that when a person is affected by one of these passions he is generally affected by all three; consequently nationalist passion is usually swelled by the addition of all three. Moreover this increase is reciprocal, and it may be said that to-day capitalism, anti-semitism and the party of authority have all received new strength from their union with nationalism. [See note C.]" – pp. 12–13

Note C

"[Although] the conservative passions fully comprehend their immense interest in identifying themselves with national passion and thereby benefiting by its popularity[, i]t is easy to imagine that the French bourgeoisie would turn against France if they thought their patrimony was being too seriously threatened by the legislation of the Republic.

"[T]he bourgeoisie have another interest in keeping up nationalism and the fear of war. These feelings...create in the people a disposition to accept the existing hierarchy, to obey orders, to recognize superiors, i.e. the very things required of them by those who wish them to continue in a state of service. [See C-1.]" – pp. 148–149

C-1 - "Machiavelli...advises[:] 'Above everything, avoid taking your subjects' property; for men will more easily forget the deaths of their fathers than the loss of their patrimony.' " – p. 149

"In all nations the number of persons who feel a direct interest in belonging to a powerful nation is incomparably greater now than in the past. In all the great States to-day I observe that a considerable number of small tradesmen, small bourgeois, doctors, lawyers, and even writers and artists, and working men too, feel that for the sake of the prosperity of their own occupations it is essential for them to belong to a powerful group which can make itself feared. [I]t is certainly something new to hear artists constantly girding at the government of their country because it 'does not give the nation enough prestige to impose their art on foreigners.' The feeling that from a professional point of view they have an interest in belonging to a powerful nation is also very recent among the working classes. The party of 'Nationalist Socialists,' which seems to exist everywhere except in France, is a quite modern political development." – pp. 13–14

"To-day I notice that every political passion is furnished with a whole network of strongly woven doctrines, the sole object of which is to show the supreme value of its action from every point of view, while the result is a redoubling of its strength as a passion....Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds....

"Ever since these systems have been in existence, they have consisted in establishing for each passion that it is the agent of good in the world and that its enemy is the genius of evil. But to-day these passions desire to establish this not only politically, but morally, intellectually and esthetically. Anti-semitism, Pangermanism, French Monarchism, Socialism are not only political manifestations; they defend a particular form of morality, of intelligence, of sensibility, of literature, of philosophy and of artistic conceptions. Our age has introduced two novelties into the theorizing of political passions, by which they have been remarkably intensified. The first is that every one to-day claims that his movement is in line with 'the development of evolution' and 'the profound unrolling of history.' All these passions of to-day...have discovered a 'historical law,' according to which their movement is merely carrying out the spirit of history and must therefore necessarily triumph, while the opposing party is running counter to this spirit and can enjoy only a transitory triumph. That is merely the old desire to have Fate on one's side, but it is put forth in a scientific shape. And this brings us to the second novelty: To-day all political ideologies claim to be founded on science, to be the result of a 'precise observation of facts.' We all know what self-assurance, what rigidity, what inhumanity...are given to these passions to-day by this claim.

"To-day political passions...possess men's hearts in moral regions they never before [have] reached, and have acquired a mystic character which had disappeared for centuries. All are furnished with an apparatus of ideology whereby, in the name of science, they proclaim the supreme value of their action and its historical necessity. On the surface and in the depths, in spatial values and in inner strength, political passions have to-day reached a point of perfection never before known in history. The present age is essentially the age of politics." – pp. 14–16

Chapter 2: Significance of this Movement—Nature of Political Passions

"[W]hat is the nature of political passions[?]

"[T]he[y] can be reduced to two fundamental desires: (a) The will of a group of men to get [or] retain...hold of...some material advantage[;] and (b) the will of a group of men to become conscious of themselves as individuals, insofar as they are distinct in relation to other men. It may also be said that these passions can be reduced to two desires, one of which seeks the satisfaction of an interest, the other of a pride or self-esteem. [R]acial passion...is chiefly based on the will of a group of men to set themselves up as distinct from others; the same thing may be said of religious passion[. C]lass passion, at least as we see it in the working classes, apparently consists solely in the will to obtain possession of material advantages. The desire to feel himself distinct, which George Sand and the apostles of 1848 had begun to inculcate in the working man, now seems to be abandoned by him, at least in his utterances. National passion contains both factors. The patriot wants to obtain material advantages and he wants to set himself up as distinct from others. This is the secret of the evident superiority in strength of this passion (when it is really a passion) over all other passions, especially over Socialism. A passion whose sole motive is interest is too weak to contend with another which combines interest and pride. This too is one of the weaknesses of Socialism when opposed to class passion as exerted by the bourgeoisie, for the bourgeois wants both to possess material advantages and to feel himself distinct from others. I shall add to this that in my opinion the relative strengths of these two passions (one based on interest and the other on pride or self-esteem) are very unequal, and that the more powerful of the two is [the latter.]

"[T]hese fundamental desires of political passions [are] the two essential composites of man's will to situate himself in real life. To want real life is to want (a) to possess some material advantages, and (b) to be conscious of oneself as an individual. Every life which despises these two desires, every life which pursues only spiritual advantage or sincerely asserts itself in the universal, situates itself outside the real. Political passions, especially national passions insofar as they unite the two desires mentioned, seem to me essentially realist passions." – pp. 21–22

"[T]he national...passions, insofar as they are the will of a group of men to set themselves up as distinct from others, have attained a hitherto unknown degree of consciousness. [See note 6.]" – p. 24

6 - "[I]n words like the following, uttered at Venice on the 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and Fine Arts: 'Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist function which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we must categorically impose a principle of Italianita. Whoever copies a foreigner is guilty of...an insult to the nation[.]" – p. 26

"[W]hen the individual transfers these desires to the body of which he is a part, he does not thereby alter their nature[. A]ll he does is simply to increase their dimensions immeasureably[.] To wish to possess material advan­tages in one's nation, to want to feel distinct from other men in one's nation, is still the desire to possess material advantages, still the desire to feel distinct from other men. It only means that, if you are a Frenchman, you want to possess Brittany, Provence, Guyenne, Algeria, Indo-China; and you want to feel yourself distinct from other men in Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Racine, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Pasteur. Add to this that at the same time you attach these desires, not to a transitory and precarious single existence, but to an 'eternal' existence, and feel them in that way. Not only does national egotism not cease to be egotism because it is national, but it becomes 'sacred' egotism. Let me complete my definition by saying that political passions are realism of a particular quality, which is an important element of strength in them: They are divinized realism. [See note 2.]" – p. 23

2 - "[I]n the 'Addresses to the German People' (Eighth Address): Fichte attacks religion[:] 'It is an abuse of religion to force it, as Christianity has...often done, to extol complete indifference to the business of the State and the nation as the true religious spirit. Men,' he declares, 'are determined to find heaven on earth and to impregnate their earthly labours with something durable.' [F]or him earthly labors become divine by becoming durable. This...is the only means men have discovered for divinizing their institutions." – p. 25

"[M]en to-day are displaying, with a hitherto unknown knowledge and consciousness, the desire to situate themselves in the real or practical manner of existence, in opposition to the disinterested or metaphysical manner. [T]he nationalist mind...everywhere takes a pride in being purely realistic. The French people who fought in the past to carry to other nations a doctrine they believed would bring happiness...would now blush to have it even suspected that they would fight 'for principles.' Is it not suggestive to observe that the only wars of the past which, to some extent, brought into play passions that were a little disinterested—the wars of religion—are the only wars from which humanity has freed itself? And that immense idealistic upheavals like the crusades (idealistic at least with humble people) should now be something which makes the modern man smile[? T]he supreme attribute we have discovered in political passions, i.e. the divinization of their realism, is now openly admitted, with a plainness never seen before. The State, Country, Class, are now frankly God; we may even say that for many people (and some are proud of it) they alone are God. [See note 7.] Humanity, by its present practice of political passions, thereby declares that it has become more realist, more exclusively and more religiously realist than it has ever been." – pp. 23–24

7 - " 'Discipline from the lowest to the highest must be essential and of a religious type.' (Mussolini, 25th October, 1925.) This is new language in the mouth of a statesman, even of the most realist kind; it may be asserted that neither Richelieu nor Bismarck would have applied the word 'religious' to an activity whose object is exclusively materialistic." – p. 26

"[T]he national passions[,] the most perfectly realist of all political passions[,] have [the] most absorbed all other passions[. See note D.]" – p. 24

Note D

"[T]he attitude of the German Catholics in the past twenty years...has been described...by M[r]. Edmond Bloud in...Le nouveau Centre et le catholicisme....

"The 'Centre' began by declaring itself 'a political party[,] which has assumed as its duty the representation of the interests of the whole nation in all domains of public life, in accordance with the principles of Christian doc­trine.'...In 1914[,] Karl Bachem...published a pamphlet entitled: Centre, Catholic Doctrine, Practical Politics, where[in] he declares that the doctrine of 'universal Christianity' is only a [secular] political formula[;] that from the religious point of view this formula has only a negative meaning[:] the determination to struggle against materialism, atheism and nihilism; that its positive content is defined by the Prussian Constitution which...lays down that 'the Christian religion' is the 'foundation of the institutions of the State.'

"Thus...Bachem makes the Prussian Constitution the Rule of Faith. Put 'national interest' in place of 'Prussian Constitution' and you will have the state of mind of many a modern French Catholic.

"[While] M[r]. Bloud [notes] the 'declericalization of the Centre'[,] the...German nationalist organ (the Prussian Annals)...joy[ously] observes that 'the Catholic idea of the State is ceasing to be ultramontane and is becoming nationalist.'

"[T]wo protests which M[r]. Bloud quotes [are,] first[,] Father [Johannes] Weiss[,] the eminent theologian[:] 'The worst...political Catholicism...consists in looking upon pure politics, social politics, national politics, not only as something wholly independent of religion, but as being the standard [for] determin[ing] the degree to which Catholicism or Christianity may be utilized in public life.'

"[And he quotes] Cardinal [Georg von] Kopp [from] 1887: 'Unhappily a gust of madness is blowing over us. Formerly we held to the principle: Faith first, politics afterwards. Now they say: Politics first!' " – pp. 150–152

Chapter 3: The "Clerks"—The Great Betrayal

"[H]itherto I have been considering only masses...which I shall call 'the laymen,' whose whole function consists essentially in the pursuit of material interests[.]

"Side by side...there existed until the last half century another, essentially distinct humanity, which to a certain extent acted as a check upon the former. I mean that class of men whom I shall designate 'the clerks,' by which term I mean all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages, and hence in a certain manner say: 'My kingdom is not of this world.' [F]or more than two thousand years until modern times, I see an uninterrupted series of philosophers, men of religion, men of literature, artists, men of learning (one might say almost all during this period), whose influence, whose life, were in direct opposition to the realism of the multitudes. To come down specifically to the political passions—the 'clerks' were...either entirely indifferent[;] or, gazing as moralists upon the conflict of human egotisms[,] they preached, in the name of humanity or justice, the adoption of an abstract principle superior to and directly opposed to these passions. [T]heir activity undoubtedly was chiefly theoretical, and they were unable to prevent the laymen from filling all history with the noise of their hatreds and their slaughters; but the 'clerks' did prevent the laymen from setting up their actions as a religion, they did prevent them from thinking themselves great men as they carried out these activities. It may be said that, thanks to the 'clerks,' humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species[.]

"[A]t the end of the nineteenth century a fundamental change occurred: the 'clerks' began to play the game of political passions. The men who had acted as a check on the realism of the people began to act as its stimulators." – pp. 27–28

First: The "Clerks" Have Adopted Political Passions

"[T]hroughout Europe to-day the immense majority of men of letters and artists, a considerable number of scholars, philosophers, and 'ministers' of the divine, share in the chorus of hatreds among races and political factions. [Certainly] they adopt national passions....To-day, if we mention Mommsen, Treitschke[,] Barrès, Lemaître, Péguy, Maurras, d'Annunzio, Kipling, we have to admit that the 'clerks' now exercise political passions with all the characteristics of passion—the tendency to action, the thirst for immediate results, the exclusive preoccupation with the desired end, the scorn for argument, the excess, the hatred, the fixed ideas....The modern 'clerk' is determined to have the soul of a citizen and to make vigorous use of it; he is proud of that soul; his literature is filled with his contempt for the man who shuts himself up with art or science and takes no interest in the passions of the State....To have as his function the pursuit of eternal things and yet to believe that he becomes greater by concerning himself with the State—that is the view of the modern 'clerk.' [T]he 'clerk' by adopting political passions, brings them the tremendous influence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his persuasive power if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral prestige. [See note E.]" – pp. 29–30

Note E

"The serious disorganization in the modern world is that the 'clerks' do not denounce the realism of States, but on the contrary approve of it[.]

"When the 'clerk' performs the layman's task, the result is anarchy; but there is also anarchy when the layman acts and speaks as a 'clerk,' when those whose duty is to defend the nation display their cult for the abolition of frontiers, universal love, or other spiritual things." – p. 153

"[T]here exists a certain criterion by which we may know whether the 'clerk' who takes public action does so in conformity with his true functions; and that is, that he is immediately reviled by the laymen, whose interests he thwarts (Socrates, Jesus). We may say beforehand that the 'clerk' who is praised by the laymen is a traitor to his office." – p. 32

"After the violation of Belgium and other excesses of the Germans, in October, 1914, a German teacher said: 'There is nothing for which we need make excuses.' Now, if their own countries had been in a similar position, the same thing would have been said by most of the spiritual leaders of that time[.] I am quite ready to agree that this sort of blind patriotism makes powerful nations[.] It remains to determine whether the function of 'clerks' is to secure empires." – p. 34

"This adhesion of the 'clerks' to national passion is particularly remarkable among those whom I shall call 'preëminently clerks'; I mean the Churchmen. In all European countries during the past fifty years, the immense majority of these men have not only given their adhesion to the national feeling [see note F] and therefore have ceased to provide the world with the spectacle of hearts solely occupied with God—but they seem to have adopted this feeling with the same passion as that I have pointed out as existing among men of letters, and they too appear to be ready to support their own countries in the most flagrant injustices. During the last war this could be most clearly seen in the German clergy, from whom no one could drag the shadow of a protest against the excesses committed by their nation, and whose silence does not appear to have been caused solely by prudence. In contrast to this attitude I refer the reader to that of the Spanish theologians of the sixteenth century[,] earnestly denouncing the cruelties committed by their compatriots in the conquest of America. I do not claim that similar behavior was then the rule among Churchmen, but I should like to ask whether there is a single country to-day where they would do likewise, or where they would even wish to be permitted to do so?" – pp. 34–35

Note F

"[T]he modern 'clerks' have ceased to understand that the sign of an attitude truly in harmony with their function is that it should be unpopular with the laymen." – p. 154

"[T]he Dictionnaire apologetique de la foi catholique (Art[icle:] 'Paix et Guerre') [declares] that bearing arms, even by 'clerks' in holy orders, is in no sense contrary to Christian law." – p. 155

"In Le Songe du Verger, a kind of summary of moral doctrines current in France in the fourteenth century[,] a soldier urg[es] a minister of the spiritual to perform his true function[,] seeming to think that the performance of this function is necessary to the good order of the world. [See F-2.]" – p. 156

F-2 - "[This] passage express[es] the feelings of most modern laymen on the subject of the patriotic loyalty of the priests: 'The clergy of France is ardently patriotic; it serves gallantly under fire; it absolves and glorifies every action of the soldier[.] It is not for me to say whether it is in accord with the Gospels. We are simply Frenchmen and patriots; we can only approve and admire the French patriotic monks and priests. The French priest has no pardon for a German, the German priest and pastor have no pardon for a Frenchman. Mother-country first! Kill! Kill! In the name of the God of the Christians, we absolve you, we glorify you for killing Christians!' (Urbain Go[h]ier, 'La Vieille France,' quoted by Grillot de Givry, Le Christ et la Patrie[)]." – p. 156

"I shall point out another characteristic of patriotism in the modern 'clerk': xenophobia....We know how sys­tem­at­ic­ally the mass of German teachers in the past fifty years have announced the decline of every civilization but that of their own race, and how in France the admirers of Nietzsche or Wagner, even of Kant or Goethe, were treated by Frenchmen who claimed to share in the life of the spirit." – p. 35

"[D]uring the past fifty years, and especially during the twenty years before the war, the attitude of foreigners to France was such that the most violent national partiality was forced upon all Frenchmen who wished to safeguard the nation, and that the only true patriots were those who consented to this fanaticism. I say nothing to the contrary; I only say that the 'clerks' who indulged in this fanaticism betrayed their duty, which is precisely to set up a corporation whose sole cult is that of justice and of truth, in opposition to the peoples and the injustice to which they are condemned by their religions of this earth. It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances....

"It must be admitted that the German 'clerks' led the way in this adhesion of the modern 'clerk' to patriotic fanaticism. The French 'clerks' were, and long remained, animated with the most perfect spirit of justice towards foreign cultures (think of the cosmopolitanism of the Romantics!), when already Lessing, Schlegel, Fichte, G[ö]rres were organizing in their hearts a violent adoration for 'everything German,' and a scorn for everything not German. The nationalist 'clerk' is essentially a German invention. This, moreover, is a theme which will frequently recur in this book, i.e. that most of the moral and political attitudes adopted by the 'clerks' of Europe in the past fifty years are of German origin, and that in the world of spiritual things the victory of Germany is now complete.

"It may be said that Germany, by creating for herself the nationalist 'clerk' and thereby acquiring the additional strength we know she has acquired, made this species of 'clerk' necessary to all other countries....Every Frenchman attached to the continuance of his nation must rejoice that in the last half century France has possessed a fanatically nationalist literature. Yet one would like this Frenchman to rise for a moment superior to his interest, and...to think it sad that the course of events in the world should force him to rejoice in such a thing." – pp. 35–37

"[I]t would be much less serious if we found that the 'clerks' deplored it while they submitted to it, if they felt how much their own value is diminished by it, how greatly civilization is menaced by it, to what an extent the universe is rendered ugly by it. But this is exactly what we do not see. On the contrary, we see them joyfully carrying out this realism; we see them believing that they are rendered greater by their nationalist fury, that it is a service to civilization[.]" – p. 37

"[The following] lines [were] written by an author of the fifteenth century[:] 'All cities,' says Guicciardini, 'all States, all Kingdoms, are mortal; everything comes to an end, either by accident or by the course of nature.'...And here we come upon one of the great impieties of the moderns: The refusal to believe that above their nations there exists a development of a superior kind, by which they will be swept away like all other things. The ancients, so completely the adorers of their States, nevertheless placed them beneath Fate....All the literature of the ancients shows us that, in their opinion, the duration of their institutions was a precarious thing, solely due to the favor of the Gods[.]

"It was reserved for the moderns to make of their City a tower which defies the heavens, and to do it with the aid of their 'clerks.' " – pp. 37–38

"[Also new with] the modern 'clerks' is a desire to relate the form of their own minds to a form of the national mind, which they naturally brandish against other national forms of mind. We all know how, during the last fifty years, so many men of learning on both banks of the Rhine have asserted their views in the name of French science, of German science. We know how acridly so many of our writers in the same period have vibrated with French sensibility, French intelligence, French philosophy. Some declare that they are the incarnation of Aryan thought, Aryan painting, Aryan music[. See note 14.]" – pp. 38–39

14 - "The systematic nationalization of the mind is undoubtedly an invention of modern times. As regards the men of learning, this nationalizing has undoubtedly been favored by the disappearance of Latin as the scientific language; and no one will ever be able to say to what an extent this disappearance was an element of arrest in civilization." – p. 105

"[T]his abdication of the individual in favor of 'a great impersonal and eternal Whole' satisfies another sort of Romanticism. It is true that this impulse of the artist may also be explained by the desire...to increase the enjoyment of himself by himself, since the consciousness of the individual ego is doubled in profundity by consciousness of the national ego[. Also] the artist is not blind to his own interest in calling himself the expression of the genius of his nation, thereby inviting the whole race to applaud itself in the work he put before it. Whatever their motives[,] the great minds...by relating the whole of their value so noisily to their nation, have labored in a direction contrary to that expected of them; they have flattered the vanity of nations, they have fed full the arrogance with which each nation flings its superiority in the face of its neighbors.

"I cannot better bring out all the novelty of this attitude of the 'clerk' than by quoting the remark of [Ernest] Renan, which would be signed by all men of thought from Socrates onwards: 'Man belongs neither to his language nor to his race; he belongs only to himself, for he is a free being[:] that is, a moral being.'...

"The modern 'clerks'...declare that their thought cannot be good, that it cannot bear good fruit, unless they remain on their native soil[.] And they not only proclaim this law for the poets, but for critics, moralists, philosophers, the servants of purely intellectual activity. To declare the mind good to the extent of its refusal to liberate itself from the earth is something which will make the modern 'clerks' certain of a conspicuous place in the annals of the spiritual life....

"I am only denouncing this desire of the 'clerk' to feel himself determined by his race and to remain fixed to his native soil to the extent that it becomes in him a political attitude, a nationalist provocation." – pp. 39–40

Second: They Bring Their Political Passions into Their Activities as "Clerks"

"The 'clerks' have not been content simply to adopt political passions...side by side with the activities they are bound to carry on as 'clerks.'...They...desire them to be mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers, to color the essence of their work and to mark all its productions. And indeed never were there so many political works among those which ought to be the mirror of the disinterested intelligence." – p. 41

"We must not ask the poets to separate their works from their passions. The latter are the substance of the former, and the only question to ask is whether they write poems to express their passions or whether they hunt for passions in order to write poems. [P]olitical passion, as it is expressed by Claudel or d'Annunzio, a conscious and organized passion lacking all simplicity, coldly scornful of its adversary, a passion which in the second of these poets displays itself as so precisely political, so cunningly adapted to the profound cupidity of his compatriots and the exact point of weakness in the foreigner[,] is something different[.] A work like La Nave, with its national plan as exact and practical as that of a Bismarck[, and] wherein the lyric gift is used to extol this practical character, seems to me something new in the history of poetry, even of political poetry. The result of this new departure on the minds of laymen may be judged by the present state of mind of the Italian people. But in our day the most remarkable example of the poets' applying their art to the service of political passions is that literary form which may be called 'lyrical philosophy'[.] It begins by taking as its centers of vibration certain truly philosophical states of mind...and then entirely devotes itself to serving racial passion and national feeling. Here the action of the lyric spirit is doubled by the prestige of the spirit of abstract thought...and in France as elsewhere the 'clerks' have thereby stimulated political passions among the laymen, at least in that very important section of them who read and believe they think. Moreover, in regard to poets and especially the poet I have just named, it is difficult to know whether the lyrical impulse lends its aid to a genuine and preëxisting political passion, or whether on the contrary this passion puts itself at the service of a lyrical impulse which is seeking inspiration." – pp. 42–43

"[I]nstead of making their heroes feel and act in conformity with a true observation of human nature, they make them do so as the passion of the authors requires. Shall I cite...the novels where the author displays his compatriots in contact with foreigners and, more or less frankly, gives all moral superiority to his own people? There is a two-fold evil in this proceeding; not only does it considerably inflame political passion in the breast of the reader, but it deprives him of one of the most eminently civilizing effects of all works of art, i.e. that self-examination to which every spectator is impelled by a representation of human beings which he feels to be true and solely preoccupied with truth. From the point of view of the artist and of the value of his activity alone, this partiality indicates a great degradation. The value of the artist, the thing which makes him the world's high ornament, is that he plays human passions instead of living them, and that he discovers in this 'play' emotion the same source of desires, joys and sufferings as ordinary men find in the pursuit of real things. Now, if this accomplished type of exuberant activity places itself at the service of the nation or of a class, if this fine flower of disinterestedness becomes utilitarian, then...'The world has lost its import.' " – pp. 43–44

"[T]here are other 'clerks' in whom this derogation from the disinterested activity of the mind is far more shocking, 'clerks' whose influence on the laymen is much more profound by reason of the prestige attached to their functions. I mean the historians. [T]he true novelty here is the admission of this spirit of partiality, the expressed intention to employ it as a legitimate method. 'A true German historian,' declares a German master, 'should especially tell those facts which conduce to the grandeur of Germany.' The same scholar praises Mommsen (who himself boasted of it) for having written a Roman history 'which becomes a history of Germany with Roman names.' Another (Treitschke) prided himself on his lack of 'that anemic objectivity which is contrary to the historical sense.' Another (G[ie]se­brecht) teaches that 'Science must not soar beyond the frontiers, but be national, be German.'...By his determination in bringing this partiality to historical narrative the modern 'clerk' most seriously derogates from his true function, if I am right in saying that his function is to restrain the passions of the laymen. Not only does he inflame the laymen's passions more cunningly than ever, not only does he deprive them of the suggestive spectacle of a man solely occupied by the thirst for truth, but he prevents the laymen from hearing speech different from that of the market place, speech (Renan's is perhaps the finest example) which, coming from the heights, shows that the most opposite passions are equally justified, equally necessary to the earthly State, and thereby incites every reader who has any capacity for getting outside himself to relax the severity of his passions, at least for a moment.

"Let me say, however, that indeed men like Treitschke and his French equivalents are not historians; they are men of politics who make use of history to support a cause whose triumph they desire....Nevertheless, the really cunning ones assume the mask of disinterestedness. [See note H.]" – pp. 44–46

Note H

"[T]he champions of authority are not the only persons who make history serve their own interests. Condorcet...says that history should serve 'to maintain an active vigilance in recognizing and crushing under the weight of Reason the first germs of superstition and tyranny, if they ever dare to appear again.' " – p. 160

"[M]any of those whom I am here accusing of betraying their Spiritual ministry, that disinterested activity which should be theirs by the mere fact of their being historians, psychologists, moralists, would [secretly] reply[:] 'We are not in the least the servants of spiritual things; we are the servants of material things, of a political party, of a nation. Only, instead of serving it with the sword, we serve it with the pen. We are the spiritual militia of the material.' – p. 46

"I shall also mention the critics. Every one knows that innumerable critics to-day consider that a book is only good insofar as it serves the party which is dear to them, or as it manifests 'the genius of the nation,' or as it illustrates a political doctrine in harmony with their own political system, or for other reasons of the like purity. The modern 'clerks,' I said before, insist that the just shall be determined by the useful. They also want the useful to determine the beautiful, which is not one of their least originalities in history. Nevertheless, here again those who adopt such a form of criticism are not truly critics, but men of politics, who make criticism serve their practical designs. Here is a perfecting of political passion, the whole honor of which must be given to the moderns....This new departure has brought forth its fruits. For instance, if you assert with the French Monarchists that the democratic ideal is inevitably bound up with bad literature, you are dealing that ideal a real blow in a country like France, which has a real devotion to literature[.]" – pp. 46–47

"But the most remarkable thing about the modern 'clerk' in his desire to bring political passion into his work, is that he has done so in philosophy, more precisely, in metaphysics....It has been said that the morality of the Greeks was national, but their metaphysics were universal. The Church itself, so often favorable to class or national interests in its morality, thinks only of God and Man in its metaphysics. It was reserved for our own age to see metaphysicians of the greatest eminence turning their speculations to the exaltation of their own countries and to the depreciation of other countries, fortifying the will to power of their compatriots with all the power of abstractive genius. Fichte and Hegel made the triumph of the German world the supreme and necessary end of the development of Being, and history has showed whether the action of these 'clerks' had an effect on the hearts of their laymen. Let me hasten to add that this spectacle of patriotic metaphysics is provided by Germany alone. [W]hat a degradation this has been for metaphysics, as it has been for art[!] It will be the eternal shame of the German philosophers to have trans­formed the patrician virgin who honored the Gods into a harpy engaged in shrieking the glory of her children." – pp. 47–48

Third: The "Clerks" Have Played the Game of Political Passions by Their Doctrines

"But where the 'clerks' have most violently broken with their tradition and resolutely played the game of the laymen in their eagerness to place themselves in the real, is by their doctrines, by the scale of values they have set up for the world. Those whose preaching for twenty centuries had been to humiliate the realist passions in favor of something transcendental, have set themselves (with a science and a consciousness which will stupefy history) to the task of making these passions...the highest of virtues, while they cannot show too much scorn for the existence which in any respect raises itself beyond the material." – pp. 48–49

A. The "Clerks" Praise Attachment to The Particular and Denounce The Feeling of The Universal

"[T]he 'clerks' have set out to proclaim as contemptible every tendency to establish oneself in a universal. [The] teaching...of certain authors like Tolsto[y] and Anatole France...is now looked on with contempt by most of their colleagues[. A]ll the influential moralists of Europe during the past fifty years[,] Barrès, Maurras, Péguy, d'Annunzio, Kipling, the immense majority of German thinkers, have praised the efforts of men to feel conscious of themselves in their nation and race, to the extent that this distinguishes them from others and opposes them to others, and have made them ashamed of every aspiration to feel conscious of themselves as men...in the sense of rising above ethnical aims. Those whose activity since the time of the Stoics had been devoted to preaching the extinction of national egotism in the interest of an abstract and eternal entity, set out to denounce every feeling of this kind and to proclaim the lofty morality of that egotism. [P]ractical common sense has become the measure of intellectual values with these strange 'clerks.' " – p. 49

"What will especially amaze history in this movement of the 'clerks' is the perfection with which they have carried it out. They have exhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in what makes them the most distinct from others, in their poets rather than in their scientists, in their legends rather than in their philosophies[.] They have exhorted the peoples to honor their poets' characteristics insofar as they are peculiar to them and are not universal. Recently a young Italian writer praised his language because it is only used in Italy, and poured scorn on French because it is employed universally. They have exhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in everything which makes them distinct from others, not only in their language, art, and literature, but in their dress, houses, furniture, and food....They have exhorted the peoples to feel themselves distinct even in their vices. The German historians, says Fustel de Coulanges, urge their nation to be intoxicated with its personality, even to its barbarity. The French moralist does not lag behind and desires his compatriots to accept their 'national determinism' in its 'indivisible totality,' with its injustices as well as its wisdom, with its fanaticism as well as its enlightenment[.] Another (Maurras), declares: 'Good or bad, our tastes are ours and it is always permissible to take ourselves as the sole judges and models of our lives.' Once again, the remarkable thing here is not that such things should be said, but that they should be said by the 'clerks,' by a class of men whose purpose hitherto has been to urge their fellow-citizens to feel conscious of themselves in what is common to all men[.]" – pp. 51–52

"This glorifying of national particularism, so unexpected among all 'clerks' is especially so among those whom I described as 'preëminently clerks'—the Churchmen. Those who for centuries have exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences in order to take cognizance of each other in the divine essence which brings all men together, have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' for 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervour of their Italian hearts.' " – p. 52

"Could anything better symbolize the determination of the modern 'clerks' to place their credit and their activities at the service of lay passions than...Churchmen making Jesus an apostle of nationalism?

"These strange Christians express themselves thus:

" 'Jesus does not look beyond the frontiers of his own country with the idea of bestowing his benefactions upon other nations'[; and]

" 'One of the most important characteristics of Jesus' teaching is its absolutely national character[.]' " – pp. 54–55

"The modern 'clerk' denounces the feeling of universalism, not only for the profit of the nation, but for that of a class....There is certainly something more novel in this attitude of the 'clerks' to class differences than in their attitude towards national differences. To discover the results of this teaching and the additional hatred (hitherto unknown) which it has given to either class in doing violence to its adversary, you have only to look at Italian Fascism for the bourgeois class, and at Russian Bolshevism for the working class." – p. 56

"We see certain Catholic teachers striving to prove that, by encouraging the bourgeois class, in the name of morality, to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from the opposing class[,] these teachers are merely acting in conformity with the teaching of the Church.

"[T]he Church never exhorted...the privileged...to glorify in themselves the feeling of this distinction, still less did she ever do so in the name of morality. On the contrary, she exhorted them...to feel conscious of themselves in that humanity which is common to all men beneath the inequality of ranks and states of life. [O]ne cannot meditate too much on the eagerness of so many modern Church teachers to try to find some means of sanctifying bourgeois egotism through the words of the Gospels. [See note 44.]" – p. 57

44 - "The essential position of the Church on this point...seems to me defined in these lines: 'Malebranche inclines, like Bossuet, to look upon social inequalities and injustices as the results of sin, which must be endured as such, and to which exterior conduct must conform....We must not even attempt to remedy these injustices except by charity, for we should simply disturb the peace of the world, probably without any result. Only, we should not in our own souls attach any sort of importance to these circumstances and conditions, for the true life is not there' (H. Joly[.)]" – p. 110

"Let me point out another and remarkable form of this extolling of particularism by the 'clerks': the extolling of particular systems of morality and the scorn for universal morality. During the past half century a whole school, not only of men of action but of serious philosophers, has taught that a people should form a conception of its rights and duties from a study of its particular genius, its history, its geographical position, the particular circumstances in which it happens to be, and not from the commands of a so-called conscience of man in all times and places. Moreover, this same school teaches that a class should construct a scale of good and evil, determined by an inquiry into its particular needs, its particular aims, the particular conditions surrounding it, and should cease to encumber itself with such sensibilities as 'justice in itself,' 'humanity in itself' and other 'rags and tatters' of general morality. To-day with Barrès, Maurras, Sorel, even Durckheim we are witnessing the complete bankruptcy among the 'clerks' of that form of soul which, from Plato to Kant, looked for the notion of good in the heart of eternal and disinterested man. The example of Germany in 1914 shows the results of this teaching which exhorts a group of men to set themselves up as the sole judges of the morality of their actions, shows what deification of their appetites it leads to, what codification of their violence, what tranquillity in carrying out their plans. [See note 46.]" – pp. 57–58

46 - " 'Germany is the sole judge of her methods.' (Major von Disfurth, November, 1914.) The philosophy of national moralities seems essentially German. Is it not very remarkable to see Hegel and Zeller desiring at all costs to prove that Plato in his Republic defined a state of good which was only valid for the Greeks, and not for all peoples?" – p. 110

"[T]he indignation of certain French moralists at the action of Germany in 1914 surprises me[. S]ome sixteen years earlier...these moralists preached to their compatriots exactly the same doctrines, urging them to reject the concept of absolute justice, and to desire only a form of justice 'adapted to France,' to...its particular history...and present needs. [See note 47.]" – p. 58

47 - "Barrès wrote in 1898: 'The professors are still arguing about justice and truth, when every self-respecting man knows that he must limit himself to inquiring if there is justice in the relations between two given men, at a given time, under specified circumstances.' That is exactly what the Germany of 1914 said in answer to those who brought accusations against her. Not a single moralist in France before Barrès...would have asserted that 'every self-respecting man' can conceive of no justice but one specially arranged for the circumstances." – p. 110

"If a man exhorts his compatriots to recognize only a personal morality and to reject all universal morality, he is showing himself a master of the art of encouraging them to want to be distinct from all other men, i.e. of the art of perfecting national passion in them, at least in one of its aspects. The desire to take none but oneself as a judge of one's actions and to scorn every opinion [from] other people is undoubtedly a source of strength to a nation, as every exertion of pride is a source of strength to an institution, whose fundamental principle...is the assertion of an ego against a non-ego. What ruined Germany in the last war was...the fact that its material strength was not equal to its arrogance. When arrogance finds an equivalent material power at its disposal, it is very far from ruining nations; witness Rome and the Prussia of Bismarck. The 'clerks' who, thirty years ago, exhorted France to make herself the sole judge of her own actions and to despise eternal morality, showed that they possessed in the highest degree the perception of the national interest, insofar as that interest is wholly realist and has nothing to do with disinterested passion. It remains to be seen, once more, whether the function of the 'clerks' is to serve this sort of interests.

"But the modern 'clerks' have held up universal truth to the scorn of mankind, as well as universal morality. Here the 'clerks' have positively shown genius in their effort to serve the passions of the laymen. It is obvious that truth is a great impediment to those who wish to set themselves up as distinct; from the very moment when they accept truth, it condemns them to be conscious of themselves in a universal. What a joy for them to learn that this universal is a mere phantom, that there exist only particular truths, 'Lorrain truths, Provençal truths, Britanny truths, the harmony of which in the course of centuries constitutes what is beneficial, respectable, true in France' [see note 48] (the neighbor similarly speaks of what is true in Germany)[.] Humanity hears the same teaching about the classes and learns that there is a bourgeois truth and a working-class truth; better still, that the functioning of our minds should be different according to whether we are working men or bourgeois." – pp. 59–60

48 - "It must not be thought that dogma of national truths aims only at moral truth. Recently certain French thinkers waxed indignant that the doctrines of Einstein were accepted by their compatriots without more resistance." – pp. 110–111

"The cult for the particular and the scorn for the universal is a reversal of values[.] The metaphysics adopted in the last twenty years...set up as the supreme state of human consciousness that state...where we succeed in taking cognizance of ourselves in what is most individual, most distinct from everything not ourselves, and in freeing ourselves from those forms of thought...through which we can only become conscious of ourselves in what is common to us and others. These metaphysics put forward as a superior form of cognizance of the world that which grasps each thing by what is unique in it, distinct from every other, and is full of scorn for the mind which seeks to discover general states of being. Our age has seen a fact hitherto unknown, at least from my point of view; and this i[s a] metaphysics preaching adoration for the contingent, and scorn for the eternal. [See note 49.] Nothing could show better how profound is the modern 'clerk's' desire to exalt the real, the practical side of existence, and to degrade the ideal, the truly metaphysical side. In the history of philosophy this veneration for the individual comes from the German thinkers (Schlegel, Nietzsche, Lotze), while the metaphysical cult of the universal (added to a certain contempt for the experimental) is preëminently a legacy of Greece to the human mind. So here again, and moreover in its profoundest part, the teaching of the modern 'clerks' shows the triumph of Germanic values and the bank­ruptcy of Hellenism." – pp. 60–61

49 - "Renouvier...never bestows philosophical value on a knowledge of what is 'unique and inexpressible' in the object....He would never have signed this charter of modern metaphysics: 'That the philosophers since Socrates should have contended as to which should most scorn the knowledge of the particular and should most adore knowledge of the general, is something which passes understanding. For, after all, must not the most honourable knowledge be the knowledge of the most valuable realities! And is there a valuable reality which is not concrete and individual?' (William James.)" – p. 111

"I should like to point out another form, not the least remarkable, which this preaching of particularism assumes among the 'clerks.' I mean their exhortations to consider everything only as it exists in time, that is as it constitutes a succession of particular states, a 'becoming,' a 'history'[.] I mean especially their assertion that this view of things in their historical aspect is the only serious and philosophical view, and that the need to look at them in their eternal aspect is a form of the child's taste for ghosts, and should be merely smiled at. Need I point out that this conception inspires the whole of modern thought? It exists among a whole group of literary critics, who, on their own showing, inquire far less whether a work is beautiful than whether it expresses 'the present' aspirations of 'the contemporary soul.' It may be seen in a whole school of moralist-historians who admire a doctrine, not because it is just or good, but because it embodies the morality of its time, the scientific spirit of its time. [A]ll our metaphysicians...teach that the absolute is developed in time, in the circumstantial, and proclaim the decadence of that form of mind which, from Plato to Kant, hallows existence as conceived beyond change. [See note 51.] If, with Pythagoras, we assume that the Cosmos is the place of regulated and uniform existence, and the Ouranos the place of the becoming and the moving, we may say that all modern metaphysics place the Ouranos at the top of their scale of values and hold the Cosmos in very slight esteem. Is it not remarkable to see the 'clerks,' even in the lofty function of metaphysicians, teaching the laymen that the real alone is worthy of consideration, and that the supersensible is only worthy of derisive laughter?" – pp. 61–62

51 - "[F]or certain Christians dogma is only valid relative to a time. There again particularism seems to have been started by the Germans: 'No exposition of morality can be the same for all periods of the Christian Church; each possesses full and complete value for a certain period only.' (Sch[l]eiermacher.)" – p. 111

B. The "Clerks" Praise Attachment to The Practical, and Denounce Love of The Spiritual

"[T]he 'clerks' with their doctrines have inflamed the realism of the laymen in other ways[.] At the very top of the scale of moral values they place the possession of concrete advantages, of material power and the means by which they are procured; and they hold up to scorn the pursuit of truly spiritual advantages, of non-practical or dis­in­ter­est­ed values.

"This they have done, first of all, as regards the State. For twenty centuries the 'clerks' preached to the world that the State should be just; now they proclaim that the State should be strong and should care nothing about being just....Convinced that the strength of the State depends upon authority, they defend autocratic systems, arbitrary government, the reason of State, the religions which teach blind submission to authority, and they cannot sufficiently denounce all institutions based on liberty and discussion. This denunciation of liberalism, notably by the vast majority of contemporary men of letters, will be one of the things in this age most astonishing to History, especially on the part of the French. With their eyes fixed on the powerful State, they have praised the State disciplined in the Prussian manner, where every one has his post, and under orders from above, labors for the greatness of the nation, without there being any place left for particular wills. Owing to their cult of the powerful State (and also for other reasons I shall mention later), they want the military element to preponderate in the State, they want it to have a right to privileges and they want the civil element to agree to this right....It is certainly something new to see men of thought preaching the abasement of the toga before the sword[.] And then they preach that the State should be strong and contemptuous of justice, above all in its relations with other States. To this end they praise in the head of the State the will to aggrandisement, the desire for 'strong frontiers,' the effort to keep his neighbors under his domination. And they glorify those means which to them seem likely to attain these ends, i.e. sudden aggression, trickery, bad faith, contempt for treaties. This apology for Machiavellianism has inspired all the German historians for the past fifty years, and in France it is professed by very influential teachers, who exhort France to venerate her Kings because they are supposed to have been models of the purely practical spirit, exempt from all respect for any silly justice in their relations with their neighbors.

"[Q]uoting the famous answer of Socrates to the realist in the Georgias:

" 'In the persons of Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, you praise men who made their fellow citizens good cheer, by serving them with everything they desired without caring to teach them what is good and right in food. [A] swel­ling, a tumour filled with corruption...is all that has been achieved by these former politicians by filling the city with ports, arsenals, walls, tributes, and the like follies, and by not adding Temperance and Justice.'

"Up to our own times[,] the supremacy of the spiritual proclaimed in those words has been adopted by all those who...have proposed a scale of values to the world, whether through the Church, or the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century....For Socrates[,] the perfect model of the 'clerk' who is faithful to his essential function, ports, arsenals, walls are 'follies,' and the serious things are justice and temperance. Those who to-day should perform the duties of a Socrates consider that it is justice which is a folly—'a cloud'—and the serious things are the arsenals, the walls. [O]ne of the most revered modern moralists definitely approves of the judges who condemned Socrates, as good guardians of worldly interests. And that is something which has not been seen [before] among the educators of the human soul." – pp. 62–64

"[T]he modern 'clerks' have preached that the State should be strong and care nothing about being just; and in fact the 'clerks' do give this assertion the characteristic of preaching, of moral teaching. I cannot insist too often that in this lies their great originality. When Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian scheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality or beauty. For him morality remains what it is for every one else, and does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without melancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. 'The Prince,' says Machiavelli, 'must have an understanding always ready to do good, but he must be able to enter into evil when he is forced to do so'[.] The modern realists are the moralists of realism. For them, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral character by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may be. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes good. This position is evident in Hegel[;] it is no less evident among realists like M[r]. Maurras[.] For them as for Hegel, the practical in politics is the moral, and if what the rest of the world calls moral is in opposition to the practical, then it is the immoral....It seems as if we might say that for M[r]. Maurras the practical is the divine, and that his 'atheism' consists less in denying God than in shifting Him to man and his political work. I think I can describe the work of this writer accurately by saying that it is the divinizing of politics. [See note 56.] It is a great turning-point in the history of man when those who speak in the name of pondered thought come and tell him that his political egotisms are divine[.] The results of this teaching were shown by the example of Germany a decade ago." – pp. 65–66

56 - "Maurras' work makes the passion of man to found the State (or to strengthen it) an object of religious adoration; it is really the worldly made transcendental. This displacing of the transcendental is the secret of the great influence exerted by Maurras on his contemporaries. These persons, especially in irreligious France, were plainly eager for such a doctrine, if one may judge by the outburst of gratitude with which they greeted it, and which seems to say: 'At last we are delivered from God; at last we are allowed to adore ourselves in our will to be great, not in our will to be good; we are shown the ideal in the real, on earth and not in heaven.' " – p. 112

"[These] innovations may be judged by the fact that up till our own times men had only received two sorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and morality. One was Plato's, and it said: 'Morality decides politics'; the other was Machiavelli's, and it said: 'Politics have nothing to do with morality.' To-day they receive a third. M[r]. Maurras teaches: 'Politics decide morality.' However, the real departure is not that this doctrine should be put before them, but that they should accept it....Machiavelli was covered with insults by most of the moralists of his time, at least in France....

"Formerly, leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it[.] With them morality was violated, but moral notions remain intact; and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization. Signor Mussolini proclaims the morality of his politics of force and the immorality of everything which opposes it. Like the writer, the man of government, who formerly was merely a realist, is now the apostle of realism; and the majesty of his function—if not of his person—gives weight to his apostleship.

"The modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is compelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with a system of morality, a metaphysics, a mysticism....Mussolini, Bethmann-Hollweg, Herriot, are condemned to these heights. [See note 60.] Moreover, this shows how great to-day is the number of those whom I can call 'clerks,' since by that word I mean all those who speak to the world in a transcendental manner." – pp. 66–67

60 - "No one writes with impunity in a democracy. Moreover, a political activity which is supported by moral activity proves that it understands the true conditions of its success. A master in these matters says: 'There can be no profound political reform unless religion and morality are also reformed.' (Hegel.)" – p. 113

"The preachers of political realism often claim to base themselves on the teaching of the Church, and call her a hypocrite when she condemns their theses....I doubt whether one could now find from the pen of a modern theologian any passage so brutally denunciatory of a war of aggression as the following:—

" 'Glaringly unjust is the war of him who declares war only from ambition'[. T]here are an immense number of works to-day which need only a little twisting to make them justify every attempt at conquest. For instance, the view that a war is just 'if it can invoke the necessity of safeguarding the common good and public tranquillity, the recapture of things unjustly carried off, the repression of rebels, the defence of the innocent.' And the view which asserts that 'war is just when it is necessary to a nation either to defend itself against invasion, or to overthrow the obstacles thwarting the exercise of its rights. At the beginning of the last century the Church still taught that war could only be just for one of the two belligerents. [See note 64.] It is heavy with consequences that she has now abandoned this position and to-day asserts that war may be just on both sides at once[. T]o-day it may be declared just if it is directed against a material injury caused without any malice, for instance, an accidental violation of frontier. It is certain that to-day Napoleon and Bismarck could find in the teaching of the Church more justification than ever for their incursions." – pp. 67–68

64 - "According to...the Scholastic doctrine of war[,] the Prince who has declared war ought solely to punish the guilty, if he is victorious, and not to acquire any personal benefit from his victory." – p. 114

"The modern 'clerks' have preached this realism to the classes as well as to the nations. They say to the working class as well as to the bourgeois class: 'Organize yourselves, become the stronger, seize on power or exert yourself to retain it if you already possess it; laugh at all efforts to bring more charity, more justice or any other "rot" into your relations with the other class, you have been cheated long enough by that sort of thing.' And here again they do not say: 'Become so, because necessity demands it.' They say, and that is the novelty of it: 'Become so, because morality, esthetics demand it; to wish to be powerful is the sign of an elevated soul, to wish to be just [is] the sign of a base soul.' This is the teaching of Nietzsche [see note K], of Sorel, applauded by a whole thinking (so-called) Europe; this is the enthusiasm of Europe, when it is attracted by Socialism, for the doctrines of Marx[.] The 'clerks' have said the same thing to the parties contending within the same nation. 'Make yourself the stronger, and do away with everything which obstructs you; free yourself from the foolish prejudice which exhorts you to make al­low­ances for your adversary, to establish with him a system of justice and harmony.' We all know the admiration professed by a whole army of 'thinkers' in all countries for the Italian government, which simply outlaws all citizens who do not approve of it. Until our own times the educators of the human soul, disciples of Aristotle, urged mankind to denounce as infamous any State which was an organized faction. The pupils of Signor Mussolini and M[r]. Maurras learn to reverence such a State." – pp. 68–69

Note K

"Is it not the criterion of a philosophy which may be called rational...that it should remain incorruptibly faithful to itself? On the other hand, the systems which begin by accepting contradictions, reserving the right to add that they are capable of surmounting them or of 'living' them, lodge their enemy in their midst. Their punishment is that their antithesis still resembles them; and that is what has happened to Nietzsche.' (L. Brunschvicg[.])" – p. 163

"(a) The affirmation of the rights of custom, history, the past...in opposition to the rights of reason....The modern traditionalists...teach that custom has a right, the right, and consequently that custom should be respected not only from the point of view of interest, but of justice. The arguments in favor of the 'historical right' of Germany to Alsace, the 'historical right' of the French monarchy, are not purely political positions, they are moral positions. They claim to be accepted in the name of 'true justice,' of which (they say) their adversaries have a false conception. To determine what is just by the 'accomplished fact' is certainly a new sort of teaching, especially among the peoples who for twenty centuries derived their conception of what is just from the companions of Socrates. Here again, the soul of Greece has given place to the soul of Prussia among the educators of mankind. The spirit which speaks here—and from all the teachers of Europe, Mediterranean as well as Germanic—is the spirit of Hegel: 'The history of the world is the justice of the world.' " – pp. 69–70

"(b) The extolling of policy founded on experience[. T]he recommendation...that a society should be governed on principles which have proved that they can make it strong, and by 'illusions' which would tend to make it just[,] in opposition to a purely rational policy[,] appeared in the thinking world long before the disciples of Taine[. See note L. T]he cult of experimental politics is a new thing among the 'clerks.' [Some] declare that in matters of politics 'they consider only the facts.' [This] I shall call the Romanticism of Positivism[. T]his cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an acquisition of the nineteenth century, [see note M] i.e. the belief that the teachings to be drawn from the past (supposing that they exist) will come straight out of an examination of the facts, viz. desires which have been realized. As if the desires which have not been realized were not as important[. T]his cult of fact also claims to be the sole discoverer of 'the meaning of history' and 'the philosophy of history'[.] When Bossuet and Hegel built up philosophies of history they were certainly no...metaphysicians...and were not so naive as to think themselves 'pure scientists.' " – pp. 70–71

Note L

"[Hippolyte Adolphe] Taine...taught...that the universalist who stays in his own domain...is the great human model....

"Nevertheless...Taine [is] the initiator of the modern realists [by] his condemnation...of the moral liberty of the citizen[; by] his exhortation to form groups, which shape the individual's soul, instead of allowing it to be autonomous as against the State[;] and [by] his condemnation of idealist education." – p. 164

"[Referring to the youth in his Le] Régime Moderne [(1893) Taine has a] young man...say to us: ' "[W]e curse and despise the whole of your world, and reject your pretended truths, which for us are lies, including those elementary and primary truths which you say are evident to common sense"[.] That is what contemporary youth have been telling us aloud for fifteen years'[.]" – pp. 164–165

" 'Taine comes to use words similar to those of the adversaries of ancient literature [see L-2] and of disinterested culture even. The only object would then be to prepare persons for an empirical world, people taught to know the world as it is[. E]ven if it were true that the comparison between the general principles of reason, morality and beauty, and empirical life[,] engendered more disgust with the realities than it has done in the past, it would be a sad paradox to ask that this danger should be averted by banishing from education all elevated views and all idealism.' (Renouvier[.)]" – p. 165

L-2 - "Jules Lemaître was explicitly this adversary." – p. 166

Note M

"[T]he superstition of science, held to be competent in all domains, including that of morality[,] is an acquisition of the nineteenth century. [T]he dogma that history is obedient to scientific laws is preached especially by partisans of arbitrary authority. This is quite natural, since it eliminates the two realities they most hate, i.e. human liberty and the historical action of the individual." – p. 166

"(c) The assertion that political forms should be adapted to 'man as he is and always will be' (viz. unsocial and bloody, therefore eternally needing systems of coercion and military institutions). This effort of so many modern teachers to assert the imperfectibility of human nature appears as one of their strangest attitudes, if you realize that it tends towards...asserting the complete uselessness of their function, and proving that they have completely ceased to realize its very essence. [W]hen...the[y claim] 'they are positive minds and not Utopians,' [it seems] they do not know that the moralist is essentially a Utopian, and that the nature of moral action is precisely that it creates its object by affirming it. But [actually] they are in no wise ignorant of this, and know...that by affirm[ation] they will create that eternity of barbarism necessary to the maintenance of the institutions which are dear to them." – pp. 71–72

"The dogma of the incurable wickedness of man has another root among some who profess it. This is a Romantic pleasure in picturing the human race as walled in by an inevitable and eternal woe. [T]his Romanticism of Pessimism [is] as false in its absoluteness as the optimism of Rousseau and Michelet, in hatred of whom it has arisen, while its haughty and so-called scientific attitude is most impressive to simple souls. [A]t its voice there has arisen a humanity which believes in nothing but its egotisms and merely laughs at the naive persons who still think that it might become better." – p. 72

"[T]he modern 'clerks'...declare to Man that he is great to the extent that he strives to act and to think as his ancestors, his race, his environment thought, and ignores 'individualism.'...Our age has seen priests of the mind teaching that the gregarious is the praiseworthy form of thought, and that independent thought is contemptible. It is moreover certain that a group which desires to be strong has no use for the man who claims to think for himself. [See note 79.]" – pp. 72–73

79 - "Such a group logically comes to declarations like the following, which every supporter of 'integral nationalism' is bound to admire: 'From to-night onwards let there be an end to the silly Utopia where every one thinks with his own head.'...See Note N[.]" – p. 116

Note N

"[W]hat is new in this crusade against individualism (the great apostle of which is M[r]. Maurras) is not the recognition that 'the individual is only an abstraction,' that to a great extent, he is formed by his race, his surroundings, his nation, a thousand things which are not himself. The novelty is the cult for this servitude, the order given to mankind to submit entirely to it, the contempt shown for any attempt to get free from it. Once again this is the cult (so strange in French thinkers) for the inevitable part of the human being, the hatred for its free part.

"Note that those who to-day preach obedience of the mind, not only demand it from the uncultured masses but...espe­cially from the men of thought. The anti-individualists of the Dreyfus affair particularly opposed the indepen­dence of scientists, writers, and philosophers—'the mad vanity of a few intellectuals.' Nevertheless, the most curious thing is not that they require this obedience, but that they obtain it....The thinkers of the eighteenth century said: 'A religion is needed for the people.' Those of our age say: 'A religion is needed for ourselves.'...Here we again come upon that thirst for discipline[.] The cause, I said, was their desire to belong to a 'strong group.' In them it also arises from a feeling for the artistic value of regimenting a collection of men in a beautiful 'procession,' and also from the joy felt by so many souls in being governed, i[n] not having to make the effort to think for them­selves—a most curious joy in so-called men of thought.

"The cult for the collective soul, with all its violation of human consciousness, seems to me admirably denounced by a passage of Maine de Biran, quoted by M[r]. L. Brunschvicg[:]

" 'According to M[r]. Bonald, it is not the human mind, it is not the individual understanding which is the seat, the true subject of inherence of the n[o]tions or (universal) truths under discussion; but it is society, which, gifted with a kind of collective understanding different from that of individuals, was from its origin imbued with them through the gift of speech and by virtue of a miraculous influence exerted on the mass alone, independent of its parts. The individual, the man, is nothing; society alone exists; society is the soul of the moral world, it alone exists, while individual persons are only phenomena....Then we must cease to talk of philosophy and recognize the nothingness of the science of intellectual and moral man, we must admit that all psychology based on the primitive fact of consciousness is simply false'[.]

"M[r]. Brunschvicg...adds: 'The antithes[e]s could not be stated more clearly. Either the primary fact of consciousness, or the primary fact of language; either Socrates or Bonald.' " – pp. 166–168

"This cult of the strong State and the moral methods which ensure it have been preached to mankind by the 'clerks' far beyond the domain of politics, and on a wholly general plane. This is the preaching of Pragmatism whose teaching during the past fifty years by nearly all the influential moralists of Europe is one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal[,] should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will 'to power,' that the part of his soul which determines what is good is its 'will to live' wherein it is most 'hostile to all reason,' that the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end[.]

"[T]he modern 'clerks' teach man...that his species is sacred insofar as it is able to assert its existence at the expense of the surrounding world. [T]he old morality told Man that he is divine to the extent that he becomes one with the universe; the new morality tells him that he is divine to the extent that he is in opposition to it. The former exhorted him not to set himself in Nature 'like an empire within an empire'; the latter exhorts him to say with the fallen angels of Holy Writ, 'We desire now to feel conscious of ourselves in ourselves, and not in God.' The former, like the master of the Contemplations, said: 'Believe, but not in ourselves'; the latter replies with Nietzsche and Maurras: 'Believe, and believe in ourselves, only ourselves.'...

"Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; to-day he is divine because he has been able to create an equipment which makes him the master of matter." – pp. 73–75

"Moreover, the modern 'clerks' extol Christianity insofar as it is supposed to have been preëminently a school of practical, creative virtues, adjusted to the support of the great human institutions. This amazing deformation of a doctrine which in its precepts is so obviously devoted to the love of the spiritual alone, is not only taught by laymen, who are quite within their rights in trying to place their practical desires under the patronage of the highest moral authorities; it is also professed by the ministers of Jesus themselves. Pragmatist Christianity, as I mean it here, is preached to-day from all Christian pulpits." – p. 75

"This exhortation to concrete advantages and to that form of soul which procures them, is expressed by the modern 'clerk' [b]y praise of the military life and the feelings which go with it, and by contempt for civil life and the morality it implies. We know...Europe['s] most esteemed moralists['s] apology for war 'which purifies,' their veneration for the man of arms 'the archtype of moral beauty,' their proclamation of the supreme morality of 'violence' or of those who settle their differences by duels and not before a jury, while they declare that respect for contracts is the 'weapon of the weak,' the need for justice the 'characteristic of slaves.'...Here is an idealization of practical activity, which humanity had never before heard from its educators, at least from those who speak dogmatically." – p. 75

"[T]he cult of the warlike instinct is [referenced] by [certain] assertions of Nietzsche[, e.g.:]

" 'The superb blond beast wandering in search of prey and carnage'[.]

"The moralist who quotes those remarks (Sorel, Reflexions sur la Violence[)] adds...'It is quite evident that liberty would be seriously compromised if men came to look upon the Homeric values...as being characteristic of the barbarous peoples only.'

"[H]ere again, the moral presentation dominant among the world's educators is essentially Germanic, and shows the bankruptcy of Graeco-Roman thought[.] Before our times you do not find in France a single serious moralist (including de Maistre) or even a poet (if you consider only the great ones) who praises the 'pleasures of victory and cruelty.' And it is the same for ancient Rome[.] I do not find a single passage which puts forward the instincts of prey as the supreme form of human morality[.] On the other hand, I find a great many which attribute this rank to the instincts on which civil life is based.

"[T]hese passages from Nietzsche praise the military life apart from any political aim[. T]he modern 'clerks' teach men that war implies a morality in itself and should be exercised even apart from any utility. This thesis...has been defended in its full splendor by a young hero who is an educator of the soul for a whole French generation:

" 'In my country [w]e make war for the sake of making war, with no other purpose.' [See note 87.]" – pp. 76–78

87 - "Ernest Psichari[,] through the mouth of a character [having his] sympathies[:] 'I think it necessary that there should be in the world a certain number of the men who are called soldiers and...who have a taste...not for victory but for the contest[.] The part we have to play, or otherwise we lose our reason for existing and have no more meaning, is to maintain a military ideal'[.] 'Big guns,' [Psichari] says, 'are the most real realities which exist, the sole realities of the modern world.' [T]these realities are divinities for this 'spiritual' person and his followers." – p. 117

"This teaching leads the modern 'clerk' (we have just seen it in Nietzsche) to confer a moral value upon physical exercise and to proclaim the morality of sport—a most remarkable thing indeed among those who for twenty centuries have exhorted man to situate good in states of the mind....Moreover, our age has seen this new thing: Men who claim to belong to the spiritual life teaching that the Greece to venerate is Sparta with her gymnasiums[.] All these things are perfectly consistent in those who desire to preach to humanity nothing but strong constitutions and solid ramparts." – p. 78

"The preaching of realism leads the modern 'Clerk' to certain...novelt[ies] in his...teachings[:]

"(a) The extolling of courage, or more precisely the exhortation to make the supreme virtue Man's aptitude to face death...is entirely new among the 'clerks,' I mean among men who put before the world a scale of values in the name of philosophical reflection, or who are willing to be considered as such. [W]ith Plato: 'In the first rank of virtue are wisdom and temperance; courage only comes afterwards.'...It was reserved for our time to see the priests of the spiritual placing in the first rank of forms of soul that which is indispensable to man if he is to conquer and to lay foundations." – p. 79

"(b) The extolling of honor, by which is meant all those impulses which cause a man to risk his life...from desire of glory—are an excellent school of practical courage, and were always extolled by those who lead men to the conquest of material things. In this connection, let the reader think of the respect in which the institution of the duel has always been held in armies[.]

"[T]he most remarkable thing about all this is that the cult of [M]an for his own glory is currently preached by the Churchmen as a virtue which leads Man to God. Is it not amazing to hear words like the following from a Christian pulpit? 'The love of grandeurs is the path to God, and the heroic impulse which fully coincides with the search for glories in their cause, permits him who had forgotten God or who thought he knew not God to re-invent Him, to discover this last summit[. See note 93.]" – pp. 79–80

93 - "The sermons of the Abbé Sertillanges ('La Vie Héroique') should be read entire, as a monument of a Church­man's enthusiasm for warlike instincts. It is positively the manifesto of a helmed 'clerk.' You can find in them such emotions as the following which, mutatis mutandis, might be an extract from the Regimental Orders of a Colonel of the Death's Head Hussars: 'Behold Guynemer, the young hero, the simple soul with the eagle glance, the slim Hercules, the Achilles who does not retire to his tent, the Roland of the clouds and the Cid of the French sky: was there ever a wilder and more furious paladin, more careless of death whether his own or that of an enemy? This 'kid,' as his comrades called him, only enjoyed the savage pleasure of attack, of the hard fight, of the clear victory, and in him the arrogance of the conqueror was at once charming and terrible.' " – pp. 119–120

"One cannot forbear quoting the lesson given by a true disciple of Jesus[:]

'Have you noticed that...the whole of primitive Christian literature...contain[s] not one word which sets military virtues among those which lead to the Kingdom of Heaven?' (Renan[.) See note 94.]" – p. 80

94 - "Let me recall Thomas Aquinas' definition of honor[:] 'Honour is good (like the love of human glory) on condition that charity is its principle, and the love of God or the good of one's neighbor is its object.' " – p. 120

"Let me observe that I am not reproaching the Christian preacher for giving their due to glory and other earthly passions, I am only reproaching him for trying to pretend that he is in harmony with his institution when he does so. We do not ask that the Christian shall not violate the Christian law; we only ask him to know that he is breaking it when he does break it....A man who [says,] 'I know what I ought to do'...may give way to every species of violence, and yet maintain Christian morality. Here actions are nothing; [his] judgment on the actions is everything....

"I am not deploring the fact that the cults of honor and courage should be preached to human beings; I am deploring the fact that they are preached by the 'clerks.' Civilization, I repeat, seems to me possible only if humanity consents to a division of functions, if side by side with those who carry out the lay passions and extol the virtues serviceable to them there exists a class of men who depreciate these passions and glorify the advantages which are beyond the material. What I think serious is that this class of men should cease to perform their office, and that those whose duty was to quench human pride should extol the same impulses of soul as the leaders of armies.

"[W]hat amazes me is not so much that I see the 'clerks' preaching in this manner, as to see them do it with such docility, such absence of disgust, such enthusiasm, such joy[.]" – pp. 80–81

"(c) The extolling of harshness and the scorn for human love—pity, charity, benevolence. Here again, the modern 'clerks' are the moralists of realism. They are not content to remind the world that harshness is necessary in order 'to succeed' and that charity is an encumbrance[. Indeed t]hey proclaim the moral nobility of harshness and the ignominy of charity. This teaching, which is the foundation of Nietzsche's work, need not surprise one in a country which has not provided the world with a single great apostle, but it is very remarkable in the land of Vincent de Paul[.] When Machiavelli declares that 'a Prince in order to maintain his power is forced to govern in a manner contrary to charity and humanity,' he is simply saying that to act contrary to charity may be a practical necessity, but he does not in the least touch that charity is a degradation of the soul. This teaching is the contribution of the nineteenth century to the moral education of mankind." – pp. 81–82

"[For] Spinoza[,] pity is depreciated, not to the benefit of inhumanity, but to the benefit of humanity guided by reason, because reason alone 'enables us to give aid to others with certainty.' [He] adds: '[I]f a man is never led by reason or by pity to go to the assistance of others, then assuredly he deserves the name of inhuman, since he retains no resemblance to a man.' [See note 99.]" – pp. 82–83

99 - " 'The man of justice subordinates passion to reason, which seems regrettable if his heart is cold, but will appear sublime if he is capable of love'[.] (Renouvier[.)]" – p. 120

"[T]he great majority of the (so-called) thinking young men have a cult for doctrines which respect nothing but force, pay no attention to the lamentations of suffering and proclaim the inevitability of war and slavery, while they despise those who are revolted by such prospects and desire to alter them. I should like these cults to be compared with the literary esthetics of these young men[.] I should like you to observe the gloomy gravity and arrogance with which these young men subscribe to these 'iron' doctrines. It seems to me that the modern 'clerks' have created in so-called cultivated society a positive Romanticism of harshness.

"They have also created a Romanticism of contempt[. I]n recent times contempt has been practiced in France for reasons quite other than esthetic. These peoples have come to see that by feeling contempt for others they are not only obtaining the pleasure of a lofty attitude, but that when they are really expert in expressing contempt they harm what they despise, do it a real damage. And in fact the kind of contempt which Barrès expresses for the Jews and which certain royalist teachers have displayed for democratic institutions every morning for the past twenty years, do really harm their victims, at least among those very numerous artistic minds for whom a superbly executory gesture is as good as an argument. The modern 'clerks' deserve a place of honor in the history of realism; they have come to understand the practical value of contempt.

"It may also be said that they have created a cult for cruelty. Nietzsche proclaims that 'every superior culture is built up on cruelty'[.] Nevertheless, the cult of cruelty...has remained limited to a few particularly artistic sensibilities, at least in France." – pp. 83–84

"(d) The cult of success. I mean the teaching which says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt. This philosophy which is professed by many a modern teacher in political life (it may be said, by all in Germany since Hegel[)] is also professed in private life, and has borne its fruits there." – p. 84

"[T]he modern moralists...at the expense of the man of learning...preach to the world the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life. We all know Nietzsche's hue and cry against the man of the study, the man of erudition, 'the mirror man,' whose only passion is to understand. And also Nietzsche's esteem for the life of the mind solely insofar as it is emotion, lyricism, action, partiality; his derisive laughter at 'objective' methodical research devoted to 'the horrible old woman known as truth.' And we know Sorel's denunciations of societies which 'give a privileged place to the amateurs of purely intellectual things' [;] those of Barrès, Lemaître, Brunetiére...intimating to the 'intellectuals' that they are a type of humanity 'inferior to the soldier'; those of Péguy, who admires philosophies to the extent that 'they are good fighters,' and admires Descartes because he was in the army, and the dialecticians of French monarchism solely because they are ready to be killed for the sake of their views. [See note O.] In Nietzsche, the scorn for the man of study to the benefit of the warrior is only an episode in a desire which...inspires...the work of Sorel, Barrès and Péguy: The desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action." – pp. 85–86

Note O

"The new thing...is not that we see men of letters praising an active life and scorning a sedentary life; it is the absence of naïveté, the dogmatic tone." – p. 169

"To-day this desire inspires...another kind of 'clerk' who speaks from...that teaching of modern metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively little esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honor the active and willing part of himself with all his devotion. The theory of knowledge from which humanity has taken its values during the past half century assigns a secondary rank to the mind which proceeds by clear and distinct ideas, by categories, by words, and places in the highest rank the mind which succeeds in liberating itself from these intellectual habits and in becoming conscious of itself insofar as it is a 'pure tendency,' a 'pure will,' a 'pure ac­tiv­i­ty.'...Formerly philosophy taught [man] that his soul is divine insofar as it resembles the soul of Pythagoras linking up concepts; now she informs him that his soul is divine insofar as it resembles that of the small chicken breaking its eggshell. [See note 106.]" – pp. 86–87

106 - "Notice...the tendency of modern philosophy to make the practical character of thought its essential char­ac­ter­is­tic and to make its consciousness of itself a secondary characteristic: 'Perhaps thought must be defined as the faculty of combining means towards certain ends rather than by the sole property of being clear to itself.' (D. Roustan[.)]" – pp. 121–122

"During fifty years...a whole literature has assiduously proclaimed the superiority of instinct, the unconscious, intuition, the will (in the German sense, i.e. as opposed to the intelligence) and has proclaimed it in the name of the practical spirit, because the instinct and not the intelligence knows what we ought to do—as individuals, as a nation, as a class—to secure our own advantage." – p. 87

"It may be said that since the Greeks [m]ost thinkers would have agreed with Plato's famous hymn to geometry, where that discipline is venerated more than all others because for him it represents the type of speculative thought which brings in nothing material[.] By this standard of values the 'clerks' put before the laymen the spectacle of a class of men for whom the value of life lies in its disinterestedness, and they acted as a check on—or at least shamed—the laymen's practical passions. The modern 'clerks' have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim that intellectual functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up with the pursuit of a concrete advantage, and that the intelligence which takes no interest in its objects is a contemptible activity. They teach that the superior form of the intelligence is that which thrusts its roots into 'the vital urge,' occupied in discovering what is most valuable in securing our existence. In historical science especially, they honor the intelligence which labors under the guidance of political interests, and they are completely disdainful of all efforts towards 'objectivity.' Elsewhere they assert that...the intelligence which allows itself to be guided by the desire for truth alone, apart from any concern with the demands of society, is merely a 'savage and brutal' activity, which 'dishonours the highest of human faculties.' [See note 111. They say] that science has a purely utilitarian origin—the necessity of man to dominate matter, 'knowledge is adaptation'; and the[y] scorn...the beautiful Greek conception which made science bloom from the desire to play, the perfect type of disinterested activity. And then they teach men that to accept an error which is of service to them (the 'myth') is an undertaking which does them honor, while it is shameful to admit a truth which harms them. In other words, as Nietzsche, Barrès and Sorel plainly put it, sensibility to truth in itself apart from any practical aim is a somewhat contemptible form of mind." – pp. 88–89

111 - "[S]ee Note P[. W]ith...reference to social order[, t]his practical conception of...intelligence leads to def­i­ni­tions of this sort: 'True logic is to be defined as the normal union of feelings, images and signs, to inspire in us the conceptions suited to our moral, intellectual and physical needs.' (Maurras.)" – p. 122

Note P

"This manifesto [was] signed by fifty-four French writers[. I]t contains...th[ese] passages[:]

" 'Nationalism...is a reasonable, humane system, and French in addition.'

" 'We believe—and the world believes with us—that it is part of the destiny of our race to defend the spiritual interests of humanity....We are solicitous for Europe and all the humanity remaining in the world. French humanity is the sovereign protector of this.'

" 'Victorious France means to take her place again in the order of the mind, the only order whereby a legitimate domination may be exercised.'

"Hence the desire to found...'The intellectual Federation of Europe and the world under the aegis of victorious France, the guardian of civilization.'

"Victory under arms conferring the right to command in the intellectual order—th[is] is professed to-day by French thinkers! [T]he German teachers of 1871...also claimed intellectual hegemony for their 'victorious' nation, which they too claimed as 'the guardian of civilization.' [See P-1.]" – pp. 171–172

P-1 - " 'Germany is the protector and the support of European civilization.' (Lamprecht.) 'After the war Germany will again take up her historic task, which is to be the heart of Europe and to prepare European humanity.' (Wilhelm II [.)]" – p. 173

"In a letter concerning this document, Marcel Proust deplores the proclamation of 'a kind of "Frankreich ueber alles," the policeman of the literature of all nations.' [H]e goes on: 'Why take this peremptory attitude towards other countries in such matters as literature, where a man only reigns by persuasion?' " – pp. 172–173

"Then the modern 'clerks' have preached to men the religion of the practical by means of their theology, through the image of God they have set before them. First, they determined that God, who since the Stoics has been infinite, should once more become finite, distinct, endowed with a personality, that He should be the affirmation of a physical and not a metaphysical existence. Anthropomorphism...in the poets from Prudentius to Victor Hugo existed mingled with pantheism without troubling to define the frontiers between them, since God was personal or indeterminate according to the direction of the emotion and the needs of the lyric impulse[. T]he political teachers attacked the religion of the Infinite with a precision of hatred, a skill in depreciation, unparalleled even in the Church, which consisted in denouncing this religion precisely because it is not practical, because it saps away the feelings which found the great earthly realities: the City and the State. [S]ince the Old Testament, God was far more just than strong, or rather[,] as Plato thought, His strength was only a form of His justice[.] The desire to increase was implicitly excluded from His nature, as well as the moral attributes necessary to the satisfaction of that desire—energy, will, the love of effort, the attraction of triumph. This was an inevitable result of His perfect and infinite state of being, which at once constituted the whole of possible reality. [T]he world was far less a result of God's power than of His love; it came out of God as a ray comes out of the sun, without God feeling any increase of Himself at the expense of anything else. God, to speak in terms of the schools, was far less the transcendent cause of the world than its immanent cause. On the other hand, for the modern teachers (Hegel, Schelling, Bergson, Péguy), God is essentially something which increases; His law is 'incessant change,' 'incessant novelty,' 'incessant [see note 116] creation'; His principle is essentially a principle of growth—Will, Tension, Vital Urge. If He is Intelligence, as with Hegel, He is an intelligence which 'develops,' which 'realizes itself' more and more. The Being situated immediately in all His perfection and knowing nothing of conquest is an object of contempt; He represents (Bergson) an 'eternity of death.' So the believers in an initial and single creation to-day strive to present this act in its purely practical aspect. The Church condemns with a hitherto unknown clearness every doctrine of immanence and preaches transcendence in all its strictness. God, in creating the world, no longer witnesses an inevitable expansion of His nature; through His power (some, to diminish the arbitrariness, say 'through His benevolence') he sees the arising of something clearly distinct from Himself, something on which He sets His hand. His act, whatever may be said to the contrary, is the perfect model of material aggrandizement. Like the prophet of Israel of old, the modern 'clerk' says to mankind: 'Display your zeal for the Eternal, the God of battles.' " – pp. 89–91

116 - "According to Hegel, God constantly grows at the expense of His opposite; His activity is essentially that of war and victory." – p. 124

"For half a century, such has been the attitude of men whose function is to thwart the realism of nations, and who have labored [instead] to excite it with all their power and with complete decision of purpose. For this reason I dare to call this attitude 'The Treason of the Intellectuals.' " – p. 91

"[T]he 'clerk' may well retort that his nation claps a soldier's pack on his back if she is insulted, and crushes him with taxes even if she is victorious. If shame is cried upon him because he does not rise superior to social hatreds, he will point out that the day of enlightened patronage is over[. I]t is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which takes a pleasure in his productions....One of the gravest responsibilities of the modern State is that it has not maintained (but could it do so?) a class of men exempt from civic duties, men whose sole function is to maintain nonpractical values." – pp. 91–92

"[I]t may be argued that the 'clerk's' new faith is caused by the changes of the nineteenth century, which by giving national groups a consistency hitherto unknown furnishes food to a passion which in many countries before that period could have been little more than potential. Obviously, attachment to the world of the spirit alone was easier for those who were capable of it when there were no nations to love. And, in fact, it is most suggestive to notice that the true appearance of the 'clerk' coincides with the fall of the Roman Empire, i.e. with the time when the great nation collapsed and the little nations had not yet come into existence. It is equally suggestive to notice that the age of the great lovers of spiritual things, the age of Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Galilei, Erasmus, was the age when most of Europe was in a state of chaos and the nations were unknown; that the regions where pure speculation endured longest seem to be Germany and Italy, i.e. the regions which were the last to be nationalized[,] and practically ceased to produce pure speculation from the moment when they became nations." – pp. 92–93

"The practice of the life of the spirit seems to me to lead inevitably to universalism, to the feeling of the eternal, to a lack of vigor in the belief in worldly conventions....It will...be hard to convince me that the motives of their public attitudes in artists are such simple things as the desire to live and to eat." – pp. 93–94

"[D]uring the past two centuries most of the men of letters who have attained wide fame in France assumed a political attitude—for instance, Voltaire, Diderot, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Anatole France, Barrès. With some of them, real fame dates from the moment when they assumed that attitude. This law has not escaped the attention of their descendants, and it may be said to-day that every French writer who desires wide fame (which means every writer endowed with the real temperament of a man of letters) also desires inevitably to play a political part....

"These observations...do not explain why...the contemporary French writer['s] political attitude...is so inevitably in support of arbitrary authority. Liberalism is also a political attitude; and the least which can be said is that the modern French 'clerk' has very seldom adopted it in the past twenty years. Another factor comes in here. That is the practical writer's desire to please the bourgeoisie, who are the creators of fame and the source of honors....Now, the bourgeoisie of to-day, terrified by the progress of the opposing class, solely anxious to retain the privileges which are left them, feel nothing but aversion from liberal dogmas; and the man of letters who displays any political flag is bound to wave the flag of 'Order' if he wishes to obtain favors....A phenomenon which is caused by the uneasiness of the French bourgeoisie does not seem likely to disappear quickly." – pp. 94–95

"[A] very general novelty [is] the consciousness of...the bourgeoisie['s] sovereignty felt by the herd of laymen, and the resolution they display to bring to his senses any writer who dares to say anything but what they wish to hear. This propensity of the layman appears...remarkabl[y] in his relations with his truly 'clerical' teachers, whose voice speaks to him in the name of the Divine. The pulpit-orator who really presumed to censure nationalist passion, who really mortified bourgeois arrogance, would soon (particularly in France) see his flock disperse. He can no longer terrify such a gathering with the fear of punishment, and they no longer believe in anything but the real; con­se­quent­ly they feel stronger and more important than he, and only consent to listen to his preaching on condition that he treats with deference—not to say sanctifies—the egotisms they venerate. Modern humanity is fully determined that those who call themselves its teachers, shall be its servants and not its guides. And most of the teachers understand this admirably." – pp. 95–96

"[T]he modern writer...has become...a bourgeois, endowed with...the social position and respect which belong to that caste[;] he has...come to possess the bourgeois form of soul[. O]ne of [its] characteristics is an affectation of the political feelings of the aristocracy[.] How many writers in France during the past fifty years...think they are ennobling themselves by expressing disgust for democratic institutions!" – p. 96

"The reasons I have just mentioned for the new political attitude of [the] men of letters arise from the changes in their social status. Those I am about to mention arise from changes in the structure of their minds[.]

"First of all, we have their Romanticism, taking that word to mean the desire which arose in the writers of the nineteenth century [(]greatly perfected in the last thirty years) to treat themes which lend themselves...to striking attitudes. About 1890 the men of letters, especially in France and Italy, realized...that the doctrines of arbitrary authority, discipline, tradition, contempt for the spirit of liberty, assertion of the morality of war and slavery, were opportunities for haughty and rigid poses infinitely more likely to strike the imagination of simple souls than the sentimentalities of Liberalism and Humanitarianism. [T]hese doctrines are to-day given forth as founded upon science, upon 'pure experience,' and thereby permit a tone of calm inhumanity (the Romanticism of Positivism) whose effect on the herd has not escaped the sagacious eye of the man of letters. (Of course, I am only speaking of the elegant herd; Romantic pessimism has no value whatsoever for the people.)" – p. 97

"[A]nother transformation of the literary soul in men of letters...is...that recently the only one of their faculties they venerate is their artistic sensibility, on which to some extent they base all their judgments. Until the last thirty years it may be said that men of letters...were determined in their judgments—even their literary judgments—far more by their sensibility to reason than by their artistic sensibility[.] If the weakening of sensibility to reason and, more generally, of lofty intellectual discipline, is indisputably one of the characteristics of the Romanticism of 1830, the contempt for this sensibility makes no appearance. [T]owards 1890, there occurred a revolution whose influence cannot be exaggerated. [T]he men of letters became conscious of the fundamental difference between intellectual sensibility and artistic sensibility; and ardently chose the latter. This is the epoch when they were heard to assert that a book is great as soon as it achieves a literary and artistic success, that its intellectual content is of no interest, that all arguments are equally defensible, that error is no more false than truth, etc. This great change affected their political attitudes. Obviously, as soon as we think things are good only insofar as they content our artistic needs, the only good political systems are those of arbitrary authority. Artistic sensibility is far more gratified by a system which tends to the realization of force and grandeur than by a system which tends to the establishment of justice, for the characteristic of artistic sensibility is the love of concrete realities and the repugnance for abstract conceptions[.] Artistic sensibility is especially flattered by the spectacle of a mass of units which are subordinated to each other up to the final head who dominates them all, whereas the spectacle of a democracy, which is a mass of units where no one is first, deprives this sensibility of one of its fundamental needs. [See note 126. E]very doctrine which honors Man in the universal...is a personal injury to the artist, whose characteristic (at least since Ro­man­ti­cism) is precisely to set himself up as an exceptional being. [Therefore t]he determination of men of letters to pass judgment only in accordance with their artistic sensibility is only one aspect of their desire (since Romanticism) to exalt feeling at the expense of thought, a desire which itself is one among the thousand results of the decline of intellectual discipline among them." – pp. 97–99

126 - "[A] sensibility to equilibrium is far more intellectual than truly artistic. See Note Q[.]" – p. 125

Note Q

"Th[e] artistic origin of the political attitudes of so many men of letters has been pointed out with great ability by M[r]. Daniel Halévy in the case of M[r]. Maurras.

" '[In] his classical way of thought, things are beautiful...from the form and rhythm which give them continuity[.] M[r]. Charles Maurras applies this taste for form to the study of history, and that is the whole of his "sociology." '

"There could be no better definition of the type of man for whom things are good insofar as they satisfy his artistic sensibility. Let me place in opposition...the exactly contrary type[:]

" 'For the perfection of things should be measured by their nature alone, and things are not more or less perfect because they flatter or wound our senses.' (Spinoza.)" – pp. 173–174

"This attitude also seems to me to result from the decline of the study of classical literature in the formation of their minds....Notice that this decline of classical culture in the French writers coincides with the discovery of the great German realists, Hegel and especially Nietzsche, whose genius had the more effect on these Frenchmen because their lack of classical discipline deprived them of the one real barrier which can be opposed to that genius." – pp. 99–100

"Among the causes of this new attitude among men of letters I must point to their thirst for sensations, their need to experience things, which in recent times have grown stronger and have caused them to adopt a political attitude which gave them emotions and sensations. [N]umbers of our moralists who sneer at pacific civilization and extol a warlike life, do so because the former seems a dull sort of a life to them and the latter an opportunity for sensations. [See note 132.] There are many thinkers of the past fifty years who...are only too happy if their rockets fall like swords and satisfy that need for cruelty which they profess as the sign of noble minds. This prodigious decline of morality, this sort of (very Germanic) intellectual sadism, is usually and quite openly accompanied by a huge contempt for the true 'clerk,' whose joy comes from the exercise of thought and who disdains sensation, particularly the sensations of action." – pp. 100–101

132 - "[A]rt, science, and philosophy offer sufficient opportunities for 'amusement' without one asking of it doctrines which set the world on fire. But that is the view of a man who is not wildly eager for sensation." – p. 126

"[M]any modern 'clerks' have adopted these realist doctrines because they want to have done with the moral disarray into which they are thrown by the spectacle of philosophies, 'none of which bring certainty'[. T]he 'clerk's' political attitude is the result of a great decline in his intellectual discipline, whether we consider that this decline is shown by his belief that any philosophy can bring certainty, or whether we think that it lies in his inability to stand upright on the ruins of the schools, devoting himself to reason, which is above all the schools, and is their judge.' – p. 101

"[O]ne other cause of realism in the modern 'clerks' [is] the irritation produced in them by the teaching of some of their predecessors—I mean certain masters of the year 1848, with their visionary idealism, their belief that justice and love were suddenly about to become the essence of the soul of nations[—]an irritation greatly increased by seeing the dreadful contrast between these idyllic prophecies and the events which followed them. Nevertheless, the point to remember is that the modern 'clerks' replied to these errors by hurling anathemas at every sort of idealism, whether visionary or not, thereby showing incapacity to distinguish between species, inability to rise above passion to judgment." – pp. 101–102

"The political realism of the 'clerks'...seems...bound...with the very essence of the modern world." – p. 102

Chapter 4: Summary—Predictions

"If I look at contemporary humanity from the point of view of its moral state as revealed by its political life, I see...a humanity which has abandoned itself to realism with a unanimity, an absence of reserve, a sanctification of its passion unexampled in history." – p. 127

"Imagine an observer of the twelfth century[. H]e would see groups of men attaining consistency...and tending to feel conscious of themselves[.] He would see men of learning, artists and philosophers, displaying to the world a spirit which cared nothing for nations, using a universal language among themselves. [H]e would see them striving to found, in opposition to the nations, a great universal empire on spiritual foundations. [H]e might say[:] 'Which...will triumph? Will humanity...depend on the will of the laymen or of the "clerks"?'...To-day the game is over. Humanity is national. The layman has won. But his triumph has gone beyond anything he could have expected. The 'clerk' is not only conquered, he is assimilated....Those who make the world's values, make them for a nation; the Ministers of Jesus defend the national. All humanity including the 'clerks,' have become laymen. All Europe, including Erasmus, has followed Luther." – pp. 127–128

"[I]f we ask ourselves what will happen to a humanity where every group is striving more eagerly than ever to feel conscious of its own particular interests, and makes its moralists tell it that it is sublime to the extent that it knows no law but this interest—a child can give the answer. This humanity is heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world, whether it is a war of nations, or a war of classes." – pp. 128–129

"Peace...is only possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession of things 'which cannot be shared,' and if they raise themselves to a point where they adopt an abstract principle superior to their egotisms....A school arose in the nineteenth century which told men to expect peace from enlightened self-interest, from...factors totally foreign to their moral improvement, from which, these thinkers say, it would be frivolous to expect anything....The cause of peace, which is always surrounded with adverse factors, in our days has one more against it—the pacifism which pretends to be scientific. [See note 2.]" – p. 130

2 - " 'Universal peace will come about one day, not because men will become better (one cannot hope for that) but because a new order of things, new science, new economic needs, will impose a state of peace on them, just as the very conditions of their existence formerly placed and maintained them in a state of war.' (Anatole France, Sur la pierre blanche.) Note the refusal, mentioned above, to believe in any possible betterment of the human soul." – p. 142

"I can point to other sorts of pacifism, whose chief result I dare to say is to weaken the cause of peace, at least among serious-minded persons:—

"(a) First, there is...the pacifism which does nothing but denounce 'the man who kills,' and sneer at the prejudices of patriotism. When I see certain teachers...saying that highwaymen are no more criminal than leaders of armies, and...laughing at people who kill each other[,] I begin to feel some sympathy for the impulses of profound humanity which created the nations and which are thereby so grossly insulted. [See note 3.]" – pp. 130–131

3 - "This observation applied to nearly all anti-militarist literature up to our own times." – p. 142

"(b) Mystic pacifism, by which I mean the pacifism which is solely animated by a blind hatred of war and refuses to inquire whether a war is just or not, whether those fighting are the attackers or the defenders, whether they wanted war or only submit to it. This...is essentially the pacifism of the people (and...all the so-called pacifist newspapers) and was strikingly embodied in 1914 by a French writer[,] M[r]. Romain Rolland[,] who, having to judge between two fighting nations[,] one of which had attacked the other[,] contrary to all its pledges while the other was only defending itself, could do nothing but intone 'I have a horror of war' and condemned them both equally. [M]ystic pacifism, just like mystic militarism, may entirely obliterate the feeling of justice in those who are smitten with it." – p. 131

"[A]nother motive in the French writers who in 1914 adopted the [same] attitude [is] the fear that they would fall into national partiality if they admitted that their nation was in the right. [T]hese strange friends of justice say: 'I always maintain my country is in the wrong, even if it is right.' There again we see that the frenzy of impartiality, like any other frenzy, leads to injustice.

[On] the severities of these 'justiciaries' towards France's...desire to force the enemy to make good the damage done to her, [t]he motive which here animated these moralists...was the thought that the just person must inevitably be weak and suffer, that he must be a victim. If the just man becomes strong and comes to possess the means of enforcing justice towards himself, then he ceases to be just to these thinkers....In this the cult of justice is replaced by the cult of misfortune, a Christian Romanticism[. With] the events of 1918[, p]erhaps some coolness of mind was needed to recognize that right remained right, even when thus invested with force. The French pacifists'...attitude in the past ten years has been inspired by sentiment alone, and nothing could show better the degree of weakness to which intellectual discipline has now fallen among our 'princes of the mind.' " – pp. 131–132

"(c) Pacifism claiming to be patriotic, by which I mean the pacifism which claims to exalt humanitarianism, to preach the abatement of the militarist spirit and of national passion, and yet not to harm the interests of the nation nor to compromise its power of resistance to foreign nations. This attitude...is that of all Parliamentary pacifists[. I]t is inevitably accompanied by the assertion...that the nation is not in the least threatened and that the malevolence of neighboring nations is a pure invention of people who want war.

"[A] very general fact...is...the 'clerk's' determination to put forth his principles as valid in the practical order of things, as reconcilable with the safeguarding of the sword's conquests. [But] from the very moment when he claims to be practical[,] he is...beaten[. I]t is impossible to preach the spiritual and the universal without undermining the possession of the material and the desire to feel distinct from others. [T]he 'clerk' who claims to secure the works of the world has a choice between two consequences. Either he secures them and transgresses all his principles, which is the case with the Church supporting the nation and property; or he maintains his principles and causes the ruin of the institutions he claimed he was supporting, which is the case with the humanitarian who claims to safeguard what is national. [T]he 'clerk' is only strong if he is clearly conscious of his essential qualities and his true function[. T]he grandeur of his teaching lies precisely in this absence of practical value[. T]he right morality for the prosperity of the kingdoms...of this world, is not his, but Caesar's. [That] every one of...the modern 'clerks'...is angry at being called Utopian...shows that the...claim to be...practical has now become necessary in order to obtain an audience[.]" – pp. 132–134

"I think it a bad thing that the 'clerk's' religion should possess the lay world[. But] I think it still more to be dreaded that it should not be preached to the layman at all[.] This is the...serious...novelty I want to point out[,] that a humanity, which is more than ever obsessed by the passions of the world, should receive from its spiritual leaders the command: 'Remain faithful to the earth.' " – pp. 134–135

"Is this adoption of 'integral realism' by the human species permanent, or merely temporary?...It is hard to imagine the clergy regaining a real moral sway over the faithful and being able...to tell them with impunity unpleasant truths. It is hard to imagine a body of men of letters attempting to withstand the bourgeois classes instead of flattering them. It is still harder to imagine them...ceasing to think that they display a lofty culture[.] Nevertheless one thinks of a humanity of the future...coming as humanity came two thousand years ago, to the acceptance of a good[,] situated beyond itself, accepting it even more ardently than before, with the knowledge of all the tears and blood that have been shed through departing from that doctrine. [Yet m]en will not revise their values for wars which only last fifty months and only kill a couple of million men in each nation." – pp. 135–136

"I set [a] limit to my pessimistic outlook and admit that such a Renaissance is...just possible. I cannot agree with those who say it is certain, either because it happened once before, or because 'civilization is due to the human race.' Civilization as I understand it here—moral supremacy conferred on the cult of the spiritual and on the feeling of the universal—appears to me as a lucky accident in man's development. [Its] contingent character was perfectly perceived by the historian who called it 'the Greek miracle.' It does not appear to me in the least to be a thing due to the human race by virtue of...its nature....I observe large portions of the species (the Asiatic world in antiquity, the Germanic world in modern times) who showed themselves incapable of it and quite likely to remain so. [T]his means that if humanity loses this jewel, there is not much chance of finding it again. On the contrary there is every chance that humanity will not find it[.] The other position[,] which maintains that civilization, despite partial eclipses, is something which humanity cannot lose, seems to me quite worthless except as an act of faith[.]" – pp. 136–137

"[T]here are always only a very tiny number of instances in history on which are built up a 'law,' which claims to be valid for the whole past and future evolution of humanity. Vico...gives two examples. Saint-Simon...gives two examples. Marx...gives one example." – p. 137

"People forget that Hellenic rationalism only really enlightened the world during seven hundred years[,] and has begun to shine again for barely four centuries; so that the longest period of consecutive time in human history on which we can found inductions is, upon the whole, a period of intellectual and moral darkness. [H]umanity lives generally in darkness; while literatures live generally in a state of decadence and the organism in disorder. And the disturbing thing is that humanity does not seem to mind these long periods of cave-dwelling." – p. 138

"I wonder whether humanity, by adopting this...realism...and...contempt for a disinterested existence...to-day, has not discovered its true law of existence and adopted the true scale of values demanded by its essence? The religion of the spiritual, I said just now, seems to me a lucky accident[,] a paradox. The obvious law of human substance is the conquest of things and the exaltation of the impulses which secure this conquest. Only through an amazing abuse were a handful of men at desks able to succeed in making humanity believe that the supreme values are the good things of the spirit. To-day humanity has awakened from this dream, knows its true nature and its real desires, and utters its war-cry against those who for centuries have robbed it of itself." – p. 139

"[M]y remarks on realist desires and their violent perfecting do not blind me to the immense growth of gentleness, justice, and love written to-day in our customs and laws[.] There is an immense improvement in the relations between man and man within the groups which fight each other[.] The denial of progress, the assertion that barbarity of heart has never been worse, are natural themes for poets and those who are discontented[.] But the historian...is amazed at the transformation[s.] Nevertheless...these improvements cannot be credited to the present age. They are the results of the teaching of the eighteenth century, against which the 'masters of modern thought' are in complete revolt. The establishment of war ambulances, the wide development of State charities are the work of the Second Empire[. T]hese good works are now merely customs, i.e. actions performed from habit, without the will taking any part in them, without the mind reflecting on their meaning....The attitude of the Italian Fascists and the Russian Bolshevists towards their enemies is not calculated to give me the lie here." – pp. 139–141

"[T]he logical end of the 'integral realism' professed by humanity to-day is the organized slaughter of nations or classes....The thing to possess would be the whole earth[. T]he desire to set themselves up as distinct from others would [then] be transferred from the nation to the species, arrogantly drawn up against everything which is not itself....Above classes and nations there does exist a desire of the species to become the master of things[. T]his imperialism of the species is preached by all the great directors of the modern conscience....It is humanity, and not any one section of it, whom Auguste Comte exhorts to plunge into consciousness of itself and to make itself the object of its adoration. [F]ar from being the abolition of the national spirit with its appetites and its arrogance, this would simply be its supreme form, the nation being called Man and the enemy God. Thereafter, humanity would be unified in one immense army, one immense factory, would be aware only of heroisms [and] disciplines[,] would denounce all free and distinterested activity, would long cease to situate the good outside the real world, would have no God but itself and its desires, and would achieve great things; by which I mean that it would attain to a really grandiose control over the matter surrounding it, to a really joyous consciousness of its power and its grandeur." – pp. 141–142

Persons mentioned

Achilles  (c.1200 BCE)  Greek warrior
Annunzio, Gabriele d', General  (1863–1938)  Italian poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, soldier and politician
Aquinas, Thomas  (c.1225–1274)  Italian philosopher and theologian
Arc, Jeanne d'  (c.1412–1431)  French patron saint
Bachem, Karl  (1858–1945)  German politician
Bacon, Roger  (c.1210–c.1292)  English friar, philosopher and educational reformer, developer re: science
Barrès, Maurice  (1862–1923)  French novelist, journalist and politician
Benda, Julien  (1867–1956)  French philosopher, novelist, essayist and culture critic
Bergson, Henri  (1859–1941)  French philosopher
Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald von  (1856–1921)  German empire chancellor
Biran, Maine de  (1766–1824)  French philosopher
Bismarck, Otto von  (1815–1898)  German empire chancellor
Bloud, Edmond  (1876–1948)  French publisher and politician
Bonald, Louis de  (1754–1840)  French philosopher and politician, developer re: sociology
Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne  (1627–1704)  French bishop and theologian
Brunetiére, Ferdinand  (1849–1936)  French writer and critic
Brunschvicg, Léon  (1869–1944)  French philosopher
Caesar, Julius  (100–44 BCE)  Roman general and dictator
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de  (1768–1848)  French novelist, diplomat and historian
Çid, El, El Campeador, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar  (c.1043–1099)  Spanish knight and ruler
Cimon  (c.510–450 BCE)  Greek general, admiral and politician
Claudel, Paul  (1868–1955)  French poet, dramatist and diplomat
Comte, Auguste  (1798–1857)  French philosopher, mathematician and sociologist
Condorcet, Nicolas de, Marquis  (1743–1794)  French philosopher, mathematician and political scientist
Coulanges, Fustel de, Numa Denis  (1830–1889)  French historian
Descartes, René  (1596–1650)  French philosopher, scientist and mathematician
Diderot, Denis  (1713–1784)  French philosopher, writer and encyclopedist
Disfurth, von, Major General  (c.1914)  German soldier
Dreyfus, Alfred, Captain  (1859–1935)  French soldier
Durckheim, Émile  (1858–1917)  French sociologist
Erasmus, Desiderius  (1469[6?]–1536)  Dutch humanist
Fichte, Johann  (1762–1814)  German philosopher
France, Anatole, Thibault  (1844–1924)  French poet, journalist and novelist
Galilei, Galileo  (1564–1642)  Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, developer re: science
Georgias  (c.380 BCE)  Greek rhetorician
Giesebrecht, Wilhelm von  (1814–1889)  German historian
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  (1749–1832)  German poet, dramatist, novelist, scientist, politician and critic
Gohier, Urbain  (1862–1951)  French lawyer, journalist, editor and pamphleteer
Görres, Joseph von  (1776–1848)  German journalist and theologian
Grillot de Givry, Émile-Jules  (1874–1929)  French translator, occultist and pacifist
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Halévy, Daniel  (1872–1962)  French historian
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Hercules, Greek divine hero
Herriot, Édouard  (1872–1957)  French politician
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Maurras, Charles  (1868–1952)  French author, politician, poet and critic
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Plato  (428/423–348/347 BCE)  Greek philosopher
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Roland  (d.778)  Frankish military commander
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Romier, Lucien  (1885–1944)  French historian, journalist and minister
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Roustan, Désiré  (1873–1941)  French philosopher and cabinet member
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Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet  (1694–1778)  French author, historian and philosopher
Wagner, Richard  (1813–1883)  German composer and essayist
Weiss, Johannes  (1863–1914)  German theologian
Wilhelm II  (1859–1941)  German emperor
Zeller, Eduard  (1814–1908)  German philosopher, theologian and historian

Copyright (c) 2025 Mark D. Blackwell.