from the seething depths of animalism; a mad
impulse towards destruction and self-destruction; the crude appetites of
the herd; distorted religion; mystical erections of the soul enamoured
of the infinite, and seeking the morbid assuagement of joy through
suffering, through its own suffering, and through the suffering of
others; the pretentious despotism of reason, claiming the right to
impose on others the unity it lacks yet desires; romanticist flashes of
an imagination kindled by memories of the past; the academic
phantasmagoria of official history, of the patriotic history which is
ever ready to brandish the "Vae Victis" of Brennus, or the "Gloria
Victis," as circumstances may dictate.... Helter-skelter there surge
upon the tide of passion all the lurking fiends which, in times of peace
and order, society spurns.... Every one of us is entangled in the
tentacles of the octopus. Every one of us discovers in himself the same
confusion of good and of bad impulses, knotted and intertwined. A
tangled skein. Who shall unravel it?... Thence comes the feeling of
inexorable fate by which, in such crises, men are overwhelmed.
Nevertheless this feeling derives merely from their own despondency in
face of the efforts necessary to free themselves, efforts manifold and
prolonged, but within the compass of their powers. If each one did what
he could (no more would be required!) fate would not prove inexorable.
The apparent fatality results from the universal abdication. By
abandoning himself to fate, each one incurs a share of the guilt.

But the shares in the guilt are unequal. Honour to whom honour is due!
In the loathsome stew which European politics constitute to-day, money
is the tit-bit. Society is enchained, and the hand holding the chain is
the hand of Plutus. He is the real master, the real ruler, of the
states. It is he who makes of them fraudulent firms, swindling
enterprises.[11] The reader must not suppose that we wish to fix the
whole responsibility for the ills we are now enduring upon this or that
social group, upon this or that individual. We are not such innocents;
we have no wish to make a scapegoat of anyone! This would be too easy a
solution. We shall not even say, "Is fecit cui prodest." We shall not
say that those desired the war who are now shamelessly profiting by the
war. All that they want is profit, and how the profit is made is of no
moment to them. They accommodate themselves equally well to war and to