By Edward Carpenter 1915 " The Tree of Life … whose leaves are for the Healing of the Nations " A New and Better Peace The Change from the Old Germany to the New Classes in Germany for and against the War Political Ignorance Purpose of the War: Max Harden England's Perfidy: Professors Haeckel and Eucken Manifesto of Professor Eucken Nietzsche on Disarmament The Effect of Disarmament The Principle of Nationality: Winston Churchill Conscription Neutralization of the Sea: H.G. Wells The War and Dem

The following Studies and Notes, made during the earlier period of the present war and now collected together for publication, do not—as will be evident to the reader—pretend to any sort of completeness in their embrace of the subject, or finality in its presentation. Rather they are scattered thoughts suggested by the large and tangled drama which we are witnessing; and I am sufficiently conscious that their expression involves contradictions as well as repetitions. The truth is that affairs of

September , 1914. How mad, how hopelessly mad, it all seems I With fifteen to twenty million soldiers already mobilized, and more than half that number in the fighting lines; with engines of appalling destruction by land and sea, and over the land and under the sea; with Northern France, Belgium, and parts of Germany, Poland, Russia, Servia, and Austria drenched in blood; the nations exhausting their human and material resources in savage conflict—this war, marking the climax, and (let us hope)

October , 1914. In the present chapter I wish especially to dwell on (1) the danger to society, mentioned in the Introduction, of class-ascendancy and class-rule; and (2) the hope for the future in the international solidarity of the workers. Through all the mist of lies and slander created on such an occasion—by which each nation after a time succeeds in proving that its own cause is holy while that of its opponent is wicked and devilish; through the appeals to God and Justice, common to both s

November , 1914. With every wish to do justice to Germany, to whose literature I feel I owe such a debt, and among whose people I have so many personal friends; allowing also the utmost for the general causes in Europe which have been for years leading up towards war—and some of which I have indicated already in the pages above—I still feel it is impossible not to throw on her the immediate blame for the present catastrophe. However we distribute the indictment and the charges among the various

Having put in the last chapter some of the points which seem to throw the immediate blame of the war on Germany, it would be only fair in the present chapter to show how in the long run and looking to the general European situation to-day as well as to the history of Germany in the past, the war had become inevitable, and in a sense necessary, as a stage in the evolution of European politics. After the frightful devastation of Germany by the religious dissensions of the early part of the sevente

It is quite possible that the little rift within the lute, alluded to in the concluding paragraph of last chapter, may widen so far as to cause before long great internal changes and reconstructions in Germany herself; but short of that happening, it would seem that there is no alternative for the Allies but to continue the war until her Militarism can be put out of court, and that for long years to come. There is no alternative, because she has revealed her hand too clearly as a menace—if she s

Many Socialists and sympathizers with the Labour movement over the world belittle Patriotism, and seem to think that by decrying and discouraging the love of one's country one will bring nearer the day of Internationalism. I do not agree. Of course we all know there is a lot of sham and false Patriotism—such as, for instance, Pressmongers magnify and make use of in order to sell their papers, or such as comfortable, well-to-do folk with big dividends do so heartily encourage among the poorer cla

November , 1914. I sometimes think the country-folk round about where I live the most sensible people I know. They say with regard to the War—or said at its outset: "What are they fighting about? I can't make out, and nobody seems to know. What I've seen o' the Germans they're a decent enough folk—much like ourselves. If there's got to be fightin', why don't them as makes the quarrel go and fight wi' each other? But killing all them folk that's got no quarrel, and burnin' their houses and farms,

December , 1914. While protesting, as I have already done, against forced military service, it must still be admitted that the argument in favour of it retains a certain validity: to the extent, namely, that every one owes a duty of some kind to his own people, that it is mean to accept all the advantages of citizenship—security, protection, settled conditions of life, and so forth—and still to refuse to make sacrifice for one's country in a time of distress or danger. It is difficult of course

Christmas , 1914. People ask what new arrangements of diplomacy or revivals of Christianity—what alliances, ententes , leagues of peace, Hague tribunals, regulation of armaments, weeks of prayer, or tons of Christmas puddings sent into the enemies' camps—will finally scotch this pestilence of war. And there is no answer, because the answer is too close at hand for us to see it. Nothing but the general abandonment of the system of living on the labour of others will avail. There is no other way .

The economics of the statement that "commercial prosperity means little more than the prosperity of a class "[24] may be roughly indicated by the following considerations: International trade means division of labour among the nations. There is certainly a gain in such division, a margin of advantage in production; and that gain, that margin, is secured by the trading class. That is all. Let us take an example, and to simplify the problem let us leave out of account those exotic products—like te

There is another point of economics on which there seems to be some confusion of mind. If mere extension of Trade is the thing sought for, it really does not matter much, in these days of swift and international transport, whether the outlying lands with which the Trader deals or the ports through which he deals are the property of his own nation or of some other nation. The trade goes on all the same. England certainly has colonies all over the world; but with her free trade and open ports it o

January , 1915. It seems that War, like all greatest things—like Passion, Politics, Religion, and so forth—is impossible to reckon up. It belongs to another plane of existence than our ordinary workaday life, and breaks into the latter as violently and unreasonably, as a volcano into the cool pastures where cows and sheep are grazing. No arguments, protests, proofs, or explanations are of any avail; and those that are advanced are confused, contradictory, and unconvincing. Just as people quarrel

Some cheerful and rather innocent people insist that because of the over-population difficulty wars must go on for ever. The population of the world, they say—or at any rate of the civilized countries—is constantly increasing, and if war did not from time to time reduce the numbers there would soon be a deadlock. They seem to think that the only way to solve the problem is for the men to murder each other. This says nothing about the women, who, after all, are the chief instruments of multiplica

January , 1915. Fighting is certainly a deeply ingrained instinct in the human race—the masculine portion. In the long history of human development it has undoubtedly played an important part. It has even (such is the cussedness and contrariety of Nature) helped greatly in the evolution of love and social solidarity. There is no greater bond in early stages between the members of a group or tribe than the consciousness that they have a common enemy.[27] It is also obviously still a great pleasur

Like a great cry these words to-day rise from the lips of the nations—"Never Again!" Never before certainly have such enormous masses of human beings been locked in deadly grip with each other over the earth, and never before, equally certainly, has their warfare been so horrible in its deliberate preparation, so hideous, so ghastly in its after-effects, as to-day. The nations stand round paralysed with disgust and despair, almost unable to articulate; and when they do find voice it is with the

February , 1915. Finally, and looking back on all we have said, and especially on the Christmas scenes and celebrations between the trenches in this war and the many similar fraternizations of the rank and file of opposing armies in former wars, one realizes the monstrosity and absurdity of the present conflict—its anachronism and out-of-dateness in the existing age of human thought and feeling. The whole European situation resembles a game of marbles played by schoolboys. It is not much more di

[The following extracts, mostly from contemporaneous sources, are gathered together in an Appendix with the object of throwing side-lights, often from opposing points of view , on the questions raised in the text.] * * * * *...

"If we now destroy the German national idol, it must not be to set up an idol of our own in its place. There will be ruin enough after the war to repair, and a heavy task for all the nations in repairing it; but if they have learned then that peace is not a disguised war but a state of being in which men and nations alike pursue their own ideas of excellence without rivalry, then we shall know that the irrevocable dead have not died in vain."— "Times" Literary Supplement , September 17, 1914. *