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