It has been said that war, with all its terrible evils, is the
occasion of at least one good which humanity values as above price: it
inspires great poetry. On the other hand, it seems to crush
philosophy. Many may think that in this message it is poetry to which
M. Bergson is giving expression. It is, however, from the depth of his
philosophy that the inspiration is drawn. The full significance of the
doctrines he has been teaching, and their whole moral and political
bearing, are brought into clear light, focussed, as it were, on the
actual present struggle. Yet is there no word that breathes hatred to
any person or to any race. It is by the triumph of a spiritual
principle that philosophy may hope to free humanity from the
oppression of a materialist doctrine.

The opposing principle has had, and still has, philosophers to defend
it, and they belong to no particular nation or race. One of its most
brilliant and influential exponents was a Frenchman, the diplomatist,
Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882). A brief word on this
remarkable man may help the reader to understand the mention of his
name on page 30. His _Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines_ (1855)
was the first of a series of writings to affirm, on ethnological
grounds, the superiority of the Aryan race, and its right and destiny
by reason of that superiority to rule all other races as bondsmen. He
was the friend of Wagner, and also of Nietzsche. Madame
Förster-Nietzsche in her biography of her brother has spoken of the
almost reverent regard which he entertained for Gobineau, and it may
be that from him Nietzsche derived the idea which he developed into
his doctrine of the non-morality of the superman.

Were the discourse of M. Bergson no more than the utterance of a
philosopher stirred by deep patriotic feeling to uphold his country's