[Translated for CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE from Les Annales, Paris]
The struggle of today is only a resumption of the conflict that has
never ceased to redden the soil of Western Europe ever since its birth
into history. The two chief episodes of this conflict, as everybody
knows, are the invasion of Roman Gaul (including Northern Italy) by the
Germans, and the conquest of Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxons and the
Normans. Ignoring questions of race, which are complex, uncertain, and
always debatable, one can, by viewing the subject from another point,
see in the persistence and desperation of this war the conflict of two
wills, either one of which succumbs for a moment only to rise again
with more energy and determination.
On one side there is the will of earth, or of nature, which openly, in
the human species, as in all others, favors physical and brutal force;
on the other, the will of humanity, or at least of a part of humanity
that is seeking to establish the reign of other energies more subtile
and less animal. It is incontestable that brute force thus far has
always triumphed. But it is equally certain that it has never triumphed
save in appearance and for a brief moment. Gaul, invaded and overcome,
quickly assimilated the invaders, and England gradually transformed
her conquerors. The instruments of the will of earth turned against it
on the morrow of victory and armed the hand of the vanquished.
It is probable that, even today, if events followed the course
prescribed by destiny, the same phenomenon would be reproduced.
Germany, after having crushed and enslaved the greater part of
Europe, throwing it back and overwhelming it with numberless evils,
would herself end by turning against the will which she represents;
and that will, which hitherto had found a docile instrument and a
chosen accomplice in the German race, would be obliged to find these
elsewhere, a task less easy than formerly.
But now, to the stupefaction of those who will some day examine this
epoch dispassionately, behold, events are suddenly moving upward
against the irresistible current, and, for the first time since man is
in a position to observe it, brute force is meeting an unexpected and
insurmountable resistance. If this resistance remains victorious to the
end, there will, perhaps, never have been a change of course comparable
to it in the history of man; it will mean a triumph over the will of
earth, of nature, or of fate, a triumph infinitely more significant,
more heavy with consequences, and perhaps more decisive, than all those
which in other domains appear to have crowned our effort with more
glory.
Let us be not at all astonished, then, that the resistance is enormous
and prolonged beyond all that experience of war has taught us. Our
prompt and easy defeat was written in the annals of destiny. We had
against us all the force of aggression acquired since the origin of
Europe. We have to reverse the wheel of history. We are on the point of
succeeding; and if it is true that intelligent beings on the heights
of other worlds are watching us, they are doubtless contemplating the
most curious spectacle that our planet has offered them since they
discovered it in the star dust scintillating around them in space.
They must be saying to themselves, disconcerted, that age-long and
fundamental laws are being unexpectedly transgressed.
Unexpectedly? That is too much to say. This transgression of an
inferior law, no longer as high as man, has long been in process of
preparation; but it came very near to being frightfully punished. Its
success will be due only to the aid of a part of those who formerly
swelled the great flood which today they are resisting with us, as if
something in the history of the world or in the plans of destiny had
been changed; or, rather, as if we had finally succeeded in changing
something, and in bending laws to which we have hitherto been entirely
subject.
But we need not think that after victory the struggle will be ended.
The profound forces of earth (brute force) will not lay down their
arms so soon, and the invisible war will go on for a long time under
peace. If we do not take care, victory will be even more fatal than
defeat. In fact, this defeat, like its predecessors, would have been
only an adjourned victory. It would have worn out, scattered, absorbed,
the adversary by dispersing his energies over the world, while our
victory will bring us a double danger. It will leave our enemies in a
fierce isolation, where, massed upon themselves, fenced in, purified by
misfortune and misery, they will secretly strengthen their formidable
virtues, while we, no longer held in check by their intolerable but
salutary menace, may give free rein to defects and vices which, soon
or late, will place us at their mercy. Before thinking of peace,
therefore, it would be well to assure ourselves of the future and make
it powerless to harm us. We cannot take too many precautions when
going, as we are, against the manifest desire of the power that is
carrying us.
This is why our effort is painful and meritorious. We are going, it
cannot be too often repeated, against the law of force. Our adversaries
are driven forward by a power that drives us back. They are advancing
in the direction of nature, whereas we are swimming against the great
current that flows around the globe. Earth has an idea that is no
longer ours. She is convinced that man is an animal in all respects
like other animals. She has not yet noticed that he has drawn away
from the herd. She does not yet know that he has climbed her highest
mountains. She has not yet heard of justice, of pity, of loyalty,
of honor; she knows not what these are, or she confuses them with
weakness, inefficiency, stupidity, and fear. She has held to the
original certitudes that were indispensable in the beginnings of life.
She is falling behind us, and the space between is growing rapidly.
She thinks less swiftly and has yet had the time to comprehend us.
Besides, she does not count as we do, and the ages for her are less
than our years. She is slow because she is almost eternal, while we are
swift because we have not many hours before us. It is possible that
her thought may some day rejoin ours; meanwhile, we have to defend our
advance and prove to ourselves, as we are beginning to do, that it is
permitted to be right against her will, that our advance is not fatal,
and that it is possible to maintain it.
For it is beginning to be difficult to maintain that earth, or nature,
or brute force, is always right, and that those who do not blindly
follow its mandates are doomed to perish. We have learned to observe
nature more attentively and have acquired the right to judge her. We
have ascertained that, far from being infallible, she never ceases to
deceive herself. She hesitates, she gropes. She does not know just
what she wants. She begins with enormous blunders. She first peoples
the world with fantastic and inchoate monsters, not one of which is
stable, and they all disappear. Gradually, at the expense of the life
which she creates, she acquires an experience which is the cruel fruit
of innumerable sufferings inflicted with indifference. In the long run
she grows wiser, learns moderation, corrects herself, retraces her
steps, redresses her errors, and devotes to their reparation the best
of her intelligence and of her forces. It is incontestable that she is
perfecting her methods and that she is showing herself more able, more
prudent, less given to excess, than in the beginning. It is none the
less true that in all reigns, in all organisms, and even in our own
bodies, the bad workmanship, the double uses, the inadvertencies, the
things repented of, the absurdities, the useless complications, the
sordid economies, and the senseless wastes continue.
There is no reason, therefore, to believe that our enemies have the
truth on their side because nature's primal force is with them. Nature
does not possess the truth any more than we do. She searches for it as
we do, and does not find it any more easily. She does not seem to know
any more than we where she is going or whither she is being led by that
which leads all things. We do not have to obey her without questioning,
and there is no need to be disturbed or to despair if one is not of her
opinion. We are not dealing with an infallible and immutable wisdom
against which it would be madness to oppose one's thought. We are on
the way to prove to her that she is in error, that the raison d'être
of man is higher than that which she has provisionally assigned to
him, that he has already surpassed her previsions, and that she is
wrong to retard his march. Besides, she is full of good-will, knows
how to recognize her faults on occasion, to avoid their disastrous
consequences, and never stiffens herself in an inflexible and majestic
self-esteem. We can convince her if we can persevere. It will take
a great deal of time, for, I repeat, she is slow, but not at all
obstinate. It will take a great deal of time, because it involves
a very long future, a very great change of direction, and the most
important victory for which man has ever hoped.