try, a fall from civilization, all that belongs on the debit side
of the ledger. But there is also a credit side: and to realize that
the effects of war are positive as well as negative is by no means to
condone war, but only to accept it as a fact.

History teaches us to expect that the positive result of this struggle
will be in the nature of a physic--a dissolving away of delusions, and
simultaneously a bringing into relief of some essential facts. This
clearing of the ground will not wait until the war is over; it has
already begun, though men are yet but half-conscious of it, and then
only in the guise of profitless disillusionment. This state of mind is
understandable enough. The spectacle of thousands going out by
trainload to settle differences through slaughter has been a terrible
shock. Individuals, having progressed beyond that stage, had assumed
that collectively, too, men must share the same aversion to so
illogical a method as murder for the solution of differences. This
assumption has had root in a justifiable belief in the world's
attainment to a higher plane of civilization. The quality of to-day's
culture may not be so fine as that of Judaea, of Greece, or Rome, or of
the Renaissance, but surely in no period of history has its extent
been so great. Never had the entire world been nearer denationalization,
never had the economic interdependence of nations been more complete.
Jingoism has seemed obsolete, cosmopolitanism had seemed the ideal, as
the horizon of an increasing number of individuals broadened out, and
prejudice gave way before enlightenment. But now this assumption is
suddenly discovered to be mere delusion, and at once much scorn is
heaped upon "our alleged civilization." How much justification there
is for disappointment over the failure of culture to influence action
is difficult to determine. There is much confusion of thought on this
point. To conclude that because nations go to war, individuals have
therefore made practically no advance from the original state of
barbarism is absurd. What should be clear is the danger of
generalizations from the individual to groups of the individual--two
psychologically different entities. It may be that even as communities
we have progressed more than we believe, as some future reaction to
this war may indicate, but what is brought to the surface now is the
old fact that the progress of groups of men is at snail's pace,
however men may forge ahead as