Excerpt from The Law of Struggle
We have promised ourselves that this War is to be the last. Still, how do we know? We did not seek it, yet it came. We are in the grip of momentous currents, we know not how. Evidently, we still do not know the laws by which we live. Tho we have stored up great accumulations of miscellaneous, unrelated, unassimilated facts concerning ourselves, these accumulations have only served to make confusion worse confounded. And yet, the great problems with which the world is wrestling so bloodily to-day are compounded of the measure and quality of our self-knowledge. We still do not know our place in the scheme of things; and the blows of the Germans resounding against the gates of Paris, beat also upon the faith in the hearts of men.
If the Great War, which has descended upon us like a visitation from another world, is not really native to our true nature as human beings, why does it have such a hold upon us? Whence does it derive its power to stretch forth its gruesome hand and drag us, open-eyed, protesting, horror-stricken, into its dread vortex? Why are we finally fascinated by it and go exulting into the fray?
To accuse the world of inconsistency and hypocrisy provides us with no explanation. Beneath every cover of duplicity is concealed some earnestness of purpose. What is it? What is the blundering purpose of the world?
Some years ago - in the year 1911, to be precise - I wrote a book in which I attempted to set forth this riddle and its answer.
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