But the time is not ripe yet for a Commonwealth of Europe.  The peoples of Europe have yet to win their liberties before they can be free to dream of a United States of Europe.  So long as the Emperors and statesmen of Central Europe believe, like the Mahomedans of old, that propaganda can be imposed by the sword, they can only be met by the sword, and controlled by the sword.  Not till they have been conquered and rendered harmless, or displaced by the better mind of the peoples whom they have indoctrinated, can Europe proceed along the natural course of her development.

So far we have been concerned—­as we shall be concerned throughout this book—­with the political causes underlying the war.  But it would not be right to ignore the fact that there are other deeper causes, unconnected with the actions of governments, for which we in this country are jointly responsible with the rest of the civilised world.

This war is not simply a conflict between governments and nations for the attainment of certain political ends, Freedom and Nationality on the one side and Conquest and Tyranny on the other.  It is also a great outburst of pent-up feeling, breaking like lava through the thin crust of European civilisation.  On the political side, as we have said just now, the war reveals the fact that civilisation is still incomplete and ill-organised.  But on the moral side it reveals the fact that modern society has broken down, that the forces and passions that divide and embitter mankind have proved stronger, at the moment of strain, than those which bind them together in fellowship and co-operation.  “What we are suffering from,” says one of the greatest of living democrats,[1] “is something far more widespread than the German Empire.  Is it not the case that what we are in face of is nothing less than the breakdown in a certain idea and hope of civilisation, which was associated with the liberal and industrial movement of the last century?  There was to be an inevitable and glorious progress of humanity of which science, commerce, and education were to be the main instruments, and which was to be crowned with a universal peace.  Older prophets like Thomas Carlyle expressed their contempt for the shallowness of this prevailing ideal, and during this century we have been becoming more and more doubtful of its value.  But we are now witnessing its downfall.  Science, commerce, and education have done, and can do, much for us.  But they cannot expel the human spirit from human nature.  What is that?  At bottom, love of self, self-interest, selfishness individual and corporate.  As a theory, the philosophy of selfishness has often been exposed.  But, to an extent that is difficult to exaggerate, it has been the motive, acknowledged and relied upon without shame or apology in commerce, in politics and in practical life.  Our civilisation has been based on selfishness, our commerce on competition and the unrestricted love of wealth, our education on the motive of self-advancement.  And science and knowledge, made the instrument of selfishness and competition, have armed man against man, class against class, and nation against nation, with tenfold the power of destruction which belonged to a less educated and highly organised age.”