y feel
their highest life is the corporate one; and that feeling is fostered
continually, until at last all the units, by some law of the soul, are
as it were in spite of themselves, in spite of the legs which want to
run, in spite of the body which trembles with fear, constrained to
move in obedience to the purpose of the whole organism expressed by its
controlling will; and so we get these devoted masses of men who advance
again and again under a hail more terrible than Dante imagined falling
in his vision of the fiery world.

There is nothing like it in civilian life, but yet the aim of the higher
minds in all civilizations is to create a similar devotion to civic
ideals, so that men will not only, as Pericles said, "give their bodies
for the commonwealth," but will devote mind, will, and imagination with
equal assiduity and self-surrender to the creation of a civilization
which will be the inheritance of all and a cause of pride to every one,
and which will bring to the individual a greater beauty and richness of
life than he could finally reach by the utmost private efforts of which
he was capable.

I believe that an organization of society, such as I have indicated,
would evolve gradually a similar passion for the general zeal, having,
without the stern restraint militarism imposes on its units, a like
power of turning the thoughts to the general good.

I may say also that to create a militarist organization, before the
natural principles to be safe-guarded are well understood and a common
possession of all the people in the country, would be a danger akin to
the peril of allowing children to play with firearms. We may find it a
bad business to create natural ideals as they are required, just as it
is a perilous business to try to create an army when a country is in a
state of war. If we do not rapidly create a national culture embodying
the fundamental ideas we wish to see prevailing in society our volunteer
armies will be subject to influences from the baser sort of politicians
who would force party aims on the country. We shall have a wretched
future unless the soul of the country can dominate the physical forces
in it, unless ideals of national conduct, liberty of speech and thought,
of justice and brotherhood, exist to inspire and guide it, and are
recognized by all and appealed to by all parties equally.

We are standing on the threshold of nationhood, and it is problems like
these we should be setting o