increasing signs of questioning the infallibility of the existing regime
and system in Germany give evidence that there, too, the conflict is at
work.

With ourselves, the opposition appears, as yet, only in minor degree.
Nevertheless, it is here. On the one hand, are the registration,
conscription and espionage measures, the effort to control news, the
governmental supervision of food supplies, transportation, production
and corporation earnings, the war taxes. On the other hand, thought is
so stimulated that everything is questioned: our political system, our
social institutions--marriage, the family, education. As some one says,
"Nothing is radical now." We probably shall escape a sudden revolution,
but the conflict must produce profound readjustment in every aspect of
our life; for thought and action must come measurably together, since
they are related as soul and body.

There are singular eddies in the main current both ways. For instance,
the exigencies and sufferings of war produce a reaction toward narrower,
orthodox forms of religion and a harsher spirit of nationalism; while in
fields of action apart from the struggle, freedom and even license may
increase, as in sex-relations. Nevertheless these cross-currents, while
they may obscure, do not alter the main tendencies, which move swiftly
and increasingly toward the essential conflict.

Even before our actual entrance into the War, its profound influence
upon both our thinking and our conduct and institutions was evident.
Now that we are in the conflict that influence is multiplied. We are
aroused to new seriousness of thought. The frivolity and selfish
pleasure-seeking that have marked our life for recent decades are
decreasing. We may reasonably hope that the literature of superficial