unchangeable and eternal above the domain of nothingness. In that
hope we strive for better things and go forth to reform life, and in the
striving we find our spirit. We know we are shortsighted and sometimes
blind, and that the fight is often hopeless. But the joy, the
imperishable joy, lies in the struggle. Don Quixote is inexpressibly
dear to us because he personifies the ridiculous tasks which we attempt,
though we know them to be ridiculous.

There is a human need which is always paramount, yet surprisingly little
recognized. It is the need of an enemy. Life is a perpetual looking
forward to a time when we shall have conquered. We are happiest when we
see the enemy in all his ugliness and wickedness, and can draw our
swords without any doubt as to his presence. We prefer solid dragons of
evil to flitting butterflies of sin. We are ever in search of the enemy
in our schemes of reform, our political wrangles, our moral crusades.
The growth of individuality is indissolubly bound up with cognizance of
the enemy. He may be hiding in the bowels of the earth, defying the
attempt to tame the soil to our advantage; he may be mocking our efforts
to find scientific solutions to the riddles of nature; he may be
encamped in our own souls, confounding our goodness and demolishing our
moral defences. But he must be there. Without him life would be
stagnant, energy and virtue purposeless.

War satisfies the human hunger for a sight of the enemy. All the vague
sense of evil which in peace-time makes the morality of our next-door
neighbour a matter of anxious concern to us is now solidified in hatred
of the foe of the country. Smaller enmities are patched, national
brotherhood is recognized. The country at war with us becomes the
target of all our moral bullets. Tyranny, cruelty, lust, greed, and all
manner of abomination dwell there; its people are the servants of
Antichrist.

The evil seen in the enemy stimulates unseen good in the masses, to whom
the sacrifices of war would be impossible but for the conviction that
the nations have been sharply divided into sheep and goats. The
abolition of war will come about when we have learnt to eliminate sham
enemies and to recognize the real one within our own hearts. In our
present stage of cosmic education, the idea of a negative peace is
entirely repellent. Now and then, after a bout of too much talking or
too much doing, we may dwell tenderly on the thought of complete
inaction and