In 1871 the world beheld England, Italy, Austria and Russia occupied with internal prob lems, as well as the sultan's dominions in proc ess of dissolution. Then followed the birth of new nations.— Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Rumania,— from the ruins of the Turkish Empire. From all this one can readily understand why the concept of ((nation ality* needed modification. For with the birth of these nations arose also many hopes, and many fears, as well as jealousies, even among greater continental powers.
No one could have foreseen the marvelous efflorescence of qualities in men who come from the most widely sundered classes of society and ethnic stations. All nations possess an aggre gate of inherited feelings which are detertnina tive of their mental orientation, causing in dividuals of unlike ancestral equilibria to take different views of the same questions, and which occasion those inextinguishable race-hatreds that were among the chief causes of the Euro pe,an War.
It is a general psychological rule that inter nal dissension and civil dangers cease as foreign danger begins to threaten. England and Ire land are thus seen united in the hour of dan ger. The sight of Belgium's burning cities did not make her hesitate a moment to defend her ahonor.) Here the Belgian resembles the Frenchman. Invariably when an idea becomes too ethereally abstract (as (honor)) the Eng lislunan begins to regard it as humor. In his most exalted moments during the war the Frenchman seemed to the Englishman like an idealistic ghost. An Englislunan thinks in quan tities; only an American outdoes him in this respect. We see him demand all ships; let him dictate all news, and allow him to control all credit. Here we behold the English world idea. During the war the English mind de veloped for the first time, and without insu larity, an extension of national consciousness into one of imperial magnitude. A new experi ence brought the islander to feel a deepened intimacy with the dominions overseas, a feel ing reflected in his daily press, in the pulpit, and on the platform, in conversation of phi losophers and working men. When the war began there was an insular, national conscious ness, now there is an imperial consciousness in the Briton.
The experience of rationing has begotten for England a respect for the idea of equality over that formerly exercised by inequality in the same country. Many other transformations in the English habit of thought could be men tioned; space forbids.
It could be shown that Italy entered the war through fear, as did China. Japan's policy is perhaps the most consistent expression of an intelligible purpose of any nation who partici pated in the war; it may be fortnulated as the consideration of her own influence in the Far Eastern waters to the exclusion of all others.
Ever since Peter the Great's time Russia had been consciously reaching forth for an outlet upon the warmer waters of the sea. A Russian traces his religion and very largely his civiliza tion to the Christian Empire of Constantinople (Byzantium), and this was destroyed by the Turks in 1453.
No thoughtful person underestimates the great moral powers latent in the Russian people. The Slavic world, whether north or south, is one full of deep melancholy beauty, of devoted loyalty, of religious democracy, of sincere ideal ism. The harshness of its upper classes under the autocratic regime and widespread corrup: tion of its upper classes are unimportant com pared with the sterling virtues of the Russian people of Slavic descent.
Even a German 'soul is full of sunshine. The Russian at its best reveals something som bre, gloomy, oppressive. The aspiration of a Russian aims at democracy, but history reveals that this aim brings high and low 'to one level, by lowering the better, and thus bringing all to a state of simple humanity. The result is lack of education, complete submission to the church, and a pathetic mixture of ignorance and superstition.
Such is the soul which the Russian exposed to the awful experiences of the Front. No one can wonder that in its various transfortnations the horrible state of his land as it now exists has resulted. For is it not a state expressing child like ignorance of the un-Paradisiacal inno cence of the empirical man? P. W. HAusmAnN, Editorial Staff of The Americana.