mechanism--so amazing in its movements, so miraculous in the result
of these movements, that no scientist has yet been able entirely
to probe its powers or foresee its progressive possibilities. Some
there are who declare that all impulses, good and evil, are primarily
started by the brain--others, more subtly accurate, aver that the brain
itself is impelled or “pushed” to action by an influence stronger
than itself, mysterious, unnameable, but nevertheless all-potent,
which we call “free-will,” but which may more justly be termed
“free-spirit”; that is to say the “free” and deathless force which
the Creator gives to each human being to use according to the laws He
has ordained, but which, turned aside from these, can be debased as
surely as exalted. This untrammelled power is bestowed on every man
and woman born into the world, and its mode of action is frequently
swayed by impressions, sometimes pre-natal, and sometimes by the
“afterwards” of early surroundings. If the material brain of a child
is sound and healthy, the impulses which move that brain should be
sane and pure--but, unhappily, through the physical mentality of
irresponsible persons who recklessly take the divine responsibility of
parenthood upon themselves, it often chances that a brain, perfectly
organised in the matter and placement of its cells, conceives ideas
and actions which are little short of devilish in their ingenuity
of evil and mastership of cunning. How is this? It is not the forty
pairs of nerves which convey sense and feeling to the brain that are
guilty of criminal suggestion--they are merely the telegraph wires
on which messages are sent. But Who is the sender? Who or what is
responsible for the messages which prompt wicked deeds? We feel that
we do not have to inquire as to the source of Good, inasmuch as that
Divine Manifestation is everywhere about us. One thing, however, is
certain--that evil propensities corrupt and obstruct the blood-vessels
of the brain and distort its images and impressions, so that its powers
become perverted--and instead of creating helpful work for the welfare
of humanity it dwells on what shall harm and terrorise and destroy.
But we must and should realise the fact that an obstructed brain is a
more or less _insane_ brain. Its channels do not run clear. From these
blocked passages inhuman thoughts are generated as weeds from slime;
and fiendish or vicious ideas take shape and action like noxious vermin
bred from a stagnant pool. Therefore, if we would have regard to sanity
in the race, it should be our business to see to the “Brain-Balance”
of our social, ethical, political, and religious conditions, and
eliminate from our lives such things as tend towards incipient lunacy.
“Crazes” for this or that particular person or fashion are painfully
common, and always ludicrous, accompanied as they frequently are by a
didactic obstinacy resembling the pompous assertiveness of poor madmen
who conceive themselves to be exiled kings. Men and women run about
jabbering and gesticulating on the “preciousness” of this or that
form of art, when it is utterly opposed to truth and nature, and in
this sort of spirit they have held up the “Futurists” and “Cubists”
as something worthy to be looked at, much as a child might hold up
for admiration a dirty rag doll. Insane themselves, they seek to lead
others into the chaos of their own insanity, and this trend towards a
warped mentality has of late displayed itself in all the arts, such as
the sculpture of Epstein, the crotchets and quavers of De Bussy, and
the large output of revoltingly sexual fiction and coarse verse. The
“pose” of a supreme and scornful egotism marks these devotees of sham
and ineptitude, and though they may, in mere numbers, be a negligible
quantity, they spread infection, just as one fever-stricken person may
infect a whole neighbourhood. From an unsanitary mental outlook no
good can come, and the moral filth in which Germany has wallowed for
years has so poisoned the German brain that it can devise nothing but
treachery and evil. It is a brain that is choked with miasma--and it
may be centuries before it is cleansed and restored to sanity.
Meanwhile let us pull the beam out of our own eye before we try to
cure other nations’ blindnesses. We have been mad enough in our
disregard of honest warnings--we are pretty mad still. We have vied
with the old-time “cities of the plain” in reckless orgies of vice
and intemperance; but the great War has pulled us back on the road to
ruin, and it seems we may be given another chance. Let us begin then
by a good try for Sanity. In the first place let us make such laws
for those who marry as shall compel them to submit to a searching
health examination, so that union may be forbidden to the unfit. A
diseased man or woman should no more be allowed to mate than any
other diseased animal. The animals arrange this themselves, in a much
more common-sense way than humans. They only rear healthy progeny. It
is for us to do the same, and to see to it that the _mentality_ of
children is safeguarded and set on a sound basis. This cannot be done
by forcing education at too early an age, or perplexing young brains
with difficulties of learning almost too much for their elders to
grasp. The brain in childhood records impressions as a disc prepared
for the phonograph records sound, and the circles marked on it in
early days are seldom or never effaced. Therefore care must and should
be taken that such impressions are of the best. Corporal punishment
should never be resorted to as a means of training. A blow to a
sensitive child frequently means a lasting contempt for the parent or
teacher who inflicts it, and excites a rebellious spirit towards life
in general. A vicious impulse or an act of crass stupidity does not
necessarily mean inherent wickedness or obstinacy--it only shows that
there is some “clog on the wheel” in the brain, which a day’s fasting
and cooling medicine may remove. At any rate, such a method of cure
is better worth trying than the rod and angry threats which have no
real effect on “insane impulse.” Sometimes--indeed often--a physical
defect in the brain is the cause of evil thoughts and evil deeds, as
in the recent case of a man whose warped mind always tended towards
murder and mutilation, and who was found to have a thickening of a
portion of the cranium which pressed heavily upon certain of the cells
within. The operation of “trepanning” was performed by a surgeon who
was scientifically interested in the case, with the result that the
previously insane criminal is now a person of perfectly normal type and
harmless disposition. Who that knows the history of the German Kaiser’s
ancestry can doubt that his brain has been more or less diseased from
his birth, and that with his approach towards the “grand climacteric”
the incipient lunacy bred within him has become more active and less
capable of control! No _sane_ man would have acted as he has done, for,
prior to the war, the trade of Europe was practically in Germany’s
hands, and in the interests of his country a sane man would have
realised the fulness and value of such a conquest, peacefully obtained
without the sacrifice of millions of useful lives.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER
The brain is affected by “insane impulse” in the same way as the
digestion is affected by improper food. An error in diet will cause
pain and general _malaise_--so will an evil influence or suggestion
disorganise the brain cells and create obstacle and confusion within
their marvellous formation and movement. A child, from earliest
years, needs watching--and those who have that duty to perform should
be carefully selected persons who are particular as to general
surroundings. A child’s mother or nurse should be a refined woman of
soft voice and gracious manners, able to control her own moods as
well as the moods of her young charge, so that distinct “character”
may be formed and insisted upon. A “no” should be absolute--a “yes”
equally so. Character “tells” from the very beginning. The youngest
child understands a discipline of firmness conjoined with sweetness and
affection--the smallest boy has an ineffable contempt for weakness and
vacillation. From the “character” displayed by their elders, children
draw their own conclusions. An impatient, hot-tempered father makes
callous, indifferent, more or less contemptuous sons and daughters.
Children invariably despise and laugh at “temper” in their fathers and
“fuss” in their mothers. And the mocking, jeering spirit of scorn is a
spirit that grows with years, and makes of the person it dominates an
often spiteful and vicious influence in society, creating mischief and
rejoicing in the unhappiness of others. One sweet, strong, independent
character unconsciously forms the nucleus of many others, while one
soured malcontent infects a whole community. We have only to consider
the “character” of Prussian militarism--how from two or three blatant
and braggart egotists it has spread its infection through an entire
people, till the brain of the whole German nation has become clogged
with thick and poisonous thought and has been driven by “insane
impulse” to the committal of the greatest crime in history. If we would
avoid such crimes for the future we must see to it first that the race
is healthily and sanely born, and secondly that “character” is the only
basis on which all education must be founded, or it will be merely a
house of cards, toppling at a breath. And the corner-stone on which
“character” itself must be reared is a high and reasonable faith in
the Supreme Cause of all creation, coupled with an earnest and devout
following of the divine order in which that great Force at the back of
all things has ordained this Universe to move.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Religion is not what the Churches would have us accept as such. It is
not man-made dogma. So far as Christianity is concerned, the saying is
true that “There never was but one Christian and He was crucified.”
No more uplifting faith was ever taught than that of Christ; but
it has never been spiritually realised or fully practised. Read
Christ’s own words in the New Testament, and then ask where shall
we find His commands obeyed? In some exceptional cases there have
been saintly lives and saintly deeds resulting from the sincere and
devout application of the Gospel--but in dealing with this question
we have to think of mankind in general, not in an individual sense.
This horrible war with its riot of blood and carnage is a damnatory
answer to professing Christianity. Man has made of himself his own
god--and in the God as revealed or explained in all the conflicting
religious “formulas” he has ceased to believe. Faith of any kind must
be supported by reason. And Science is the door to the highest heaven
of faith. Every new discovery, every new aid to man’s well-being on
the planet, is a fresh proof of God. It has taken twenty centuries and
more for us to begin learning the wonders of electricity, though the
miraculous force, with all its component and divergent radiations, was
with us always. It may take us twenty times twenty million centuries
to discover God--nevertheless He is with us, notwithstanding our
intellectual blindness and lack of Spiritual perception. Science is our
peep-hole, through which we may, even now, glimpse Him, but which in
time to come will not only be our window, but our open door, through
which we may approach Him, full-eyed, without fear. But, to arrive at
this, we should remember that Science, like every other power bestowed
upon us, must be used sanely; and through “Free-Will”; that is to say,
we may bend its force to either good or evil. It is good when we use
it for the advantage of humanity--it is evil when we make of it an
agent to injure or destroy humanity. The scientist who employs his
abilities to discover means whereby he may remedy disease, eliminate
pain, and assist his fellow-men to the betterment of life, is that
“good and faithful servant” who, when God comes, He finds watching--but
the scientist, equally brilliant, who devotes himself to the invention
of fiendish instruments of destruction and death, whereby he may
make the wholesome earth a terror, the sea a snare, and the sky a
scourge, is a warped intellectuality, moved by “insane impulse,” which,
combined with creative activity, makes of him a devil rather than a
human being. Let any thoughtful person try to realise himself engaged
day and night on the work of evolving some instrument of death more
cruel than any old-time torture, will he maintain that such persistent
concentration on the means of killing can mould him into a worthier
or nobler individual? But reverse the position and let him imagine
himself absorbed in finding out remedies for pain and suffering, aids
to happier and more useful living for mankind in general, will he not
admit that however difficult his work may be of accomplishment, he
knows within himself that he is striving for constructive good, not
destructive evil, and that his science is an output of clear sanity
which must bring, not only deep contentment to his mind, but also the
consciousness that his energies are moving in harmony with the Divine
Spirit of law and order.
This is the true and only religion--to bring one’s soul into unison
with the infinite beauty and reason which prevail everywhere in Nature.
And the Christian Faith, could it but be relieved from ecclesiastical
dogma, is the truest symbol we have of our spiritual and immortal
destiny, for it teaches the possible god-in-man which should be born
through the purity of woman. Carry the symbol further, and we find the
Crucifixion of Love through selfishness and hypocrisy--yet another
step, and we are shown the Resurrection from the grave--“the Light of
the World” released from the stone and seal of priestcraft, breaking
free from the cerements of prejudice, and ascending to the Father of
us all! Search as we may through all the religions of the world, we
shall never find a grander, simpler “Symbol” of eternal truth than
this--the faith preached by Christ. But it must be divested of its
clerical encumbrances. Like a glorious ship that has lain too long
in harbour, it must be cleansed of weed and barnacle and launched
unhindered into the open sea. And those who man the ship must be
free from self-interest, from “cranks” and meddlesome theories and
formulas--briefly, they must be _sane_, with the great sanity of
nature and nature’s immutable laws. Without this neither Religion nor
Civilisation can endure. They can only be crazed attempts to build that
“house upon sand,” of which we have been told that “the rain descended
and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it
fell; AND GREAT WAS THE FALL OF IT!”
HAS CHRISTIANITY FAILED?
Has Christianity failed? No! Men and women have “failed,” but
_not_ Christianity. The very question is to my mind terrible and
blasphemous--one of the many terrible and blasphemous utterances common
to the Press and current literature during recent years.
It is a shame to a professingly Christian nation that such a question
should be asked at all. The greatest, purest religion in the world
can have no weight with mere apes of humanity, who practise the most
appalling hypocrisy in front of the sacred altars, and assume to
believe in and to obey Christian precepts, while indulging to excess in
their own private and particular selfish vices and passions, without
restraint and without regret.
The nations have mocked at God and disobeyed His laws. It is the old
story over again. “The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was
filled with violence.” Christ said, “Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do
not the things which I say?”
Christianity is based on two great laws--love to God and love to one’s
neighbour; can any one say that modern civilisation fulfils these
demands?
We have only to note the fearful corruption in Church and State, in
every phase of politics and business, and the unspeakable vices which
pollute so-called “society,” and poison our literature and art, to
realise that the “cities of the plain” were no whit worse than our
own, and merit no less than they a rain of fire.
But Christianity itself, as taught by Christ, towers above all
“failure,” despite the apathy and hypocrisy of thousands of its
professing priests, who in many instances are as selfish and flagrant
blasphemers as the worst atheist and iconoclast in _un_christianised
and brutalised Germany.
Without that heavenly faith which helps us towards the attainment and
reverence of the Divine in all things, what has Germany become? More
cruel and callous, more lost to every sense of decency and honour than
the savages of prehistoric times, she is sowing the wind and will reap
the whirlwind.
But let us take care that we do not join her in her rush towards
annihilation. Political shams and treacherous intrigues would drag us
thither--“Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.” If a weak section
of men and women fail to find their souls, Christianity itself has not
“failed,” nor will it fail; because it is the divine expression of the
unconquerable Spirit of Truth.
The most brilliant House of Lies ever built by man’s careful stupidity
falls into dust at the lightest breath of a truth based on eternal
equities. The microbes in a rotting cheese may deny the existence of
the sun because they do not see it, and may ask, “Has the daylight
failed?” But the sun pursues its glorious course, lightening the
visible universe.
So it is with Christianity. And those who presume to ask “Has it
failed?” are but the microbes in the rotting cheese.
SNOOKS’S OPINION
Snooks is one of those entertaining persons who makes a point of giving
an “opinion” on everything. From the Almighty downwards he has what he
calls a “calm common-sense view” on all subjects in heaven or on earth,
and his chief object in life is to get that “calm, common-sense view”
on all to the front, so that the poor, purblind, uneducated public who
seldom have any time to indulge in “views,” and still less chance to
express them, may understand that there yet exists one truly great man
of sane and sober judgment--namely, SNOOKS.
Before the War he used to write letters to the _Times_ on the urgent
necessity there was for complete disarmament. In fervent language
he pressed the reduction of naval expenses. He was, and is still,
under the impression that the _Times_ is still as it was in ages
past--a British Thunderer; an Oracle which manifested itself as “I
am Sir Oracle; and when I open my mouth let no dog bark.” He forgets
that journalism is now only a monstrous Syndicate, not expressive of
thoughts, but of Shares and Dividends, and that if the _Times_ were
what it once was, it would not publish any letter from Snooks. But
Snooks is “fixed” in his opinions. He admits no change in the course of
things--an old-established institution must, without argument, remain
always as such, and must not totter to decay. When decay sets in,
despite Snooks, he firmly denies its possibility.
“Nonsense!” he says--“D’ye think I’ve come to my time of life without
knowing better than that? Teach your grandmother!”
Just at the time when he wrote letters about naval expenses and
disarmament, one or two other “Snooks’s” popped up and replied. He was
not pleased with their replies, as they opposed him. So he took up that
Scheme of Idiots, the “Channel Tunnel,” and wasted a deal of ink in
seeking to point out what a fine thing it would be to spend needless
millions on a tunnel which the Richborough Ferry makes superfluous. His
arguments fell a little flat, and he was for a short period reduced
to writing about “the first primrose in my back garden”--and “I hope
some of your readers have noticed the very early arrival of the wasp
this year,” to the indulgent _Daily Mail_. But he never has found quite
enough to do in the way of letter-writing to satisfy his ambition.
There are not enough wrongs for a Snooks to set right--people of place
and position do not make enough mistakes for a “Snooks” to correct.
Daily and nightly he is consumed by the desire to see his name in
print, and his craving sometimes leads him to look up familiar Latin
quotations, more or less applicable to the political situation, and to
send them (with the usual signed letter) to certain small newspapers
whose position and reputation make the chance of their editor’s
classical scholarship doubtful. To see himself in print, no matter how
or when, is Snooks’s joy. And now that the war is blowing the dust of
human affairs in all directions, Snooks has, as some press reviewers
say: “come into his own.” He finds, so he states with engaging
modesty, that if HE had been consulted, there would have been no war.
“There was that Algeciras business,” he says vaguely, not knowing in
the least what he is talking about. “It should all have been settled
then.”
He knows Viscount Grey personally, so he says, but--“he never would
take my advice”--and as for Kitchener--ah!--“That’s a man who had
immense possibilities!--immense!--but he was obstinate--he wouldn’t
listen to a word I told him!”
Here, impressed with the reflections awakened by this melancholy fact,
he writes a letter to the _Times_--a letter which happens to be just
the proper quantity of “stuff” to fill up the end of a column: so
it goes in. No one pays any attention to it. Snooks shows it to his
friends at the club--they smile, half read it, don’t understand it and
don’t want to understand it. After some difficulty he gets an old deaf
gentleman to look at it.
“What’s this, what’s this!” says the old deaf gentleman
nervously--“Something happened to our Allies!”
“No, no!” roars Snooks--“It’s a letter!--a letter I’ve written; I,
myself--to the _Times_ about Kitchener!”
“Ah, I wouldn’t do it if I were you!” mildly replies the old gentleman,
with one hand up to his ear--“We don’t know anything about his work----”
“_I_ know!” shouts Snooks--“If he had taken _my_ advice----”
“Ah, ah! Did you know him?” inquires the old gentleman, evidently
surprised and unconvinced.
“_Know_ him!” Snooks snorts defiance, as much as to imply that if he
knows the inside of his own pocket he knew Kitchener still better! In
irritable impatience he watches the old gentleman’s leisurely perusal
of his epistolary effusion.
“Ah! Yes--er--yes! I don’t agree with you,” says the old gentleman at
last, putting aside the paper. “I’m not quite sure that I understand
it, but it’s not the way I’d put it.”
“Oh, all right!” and Snooks turns on his heel with a superior air of
disdain. “I suppose you’re for the wasting of millions! Everybody is,
that doesn’t study the subject. Now _I_----”
Here a stray man comes to the rescue of the deaf old gentleman, the
conversation changes, and the famous _Times_ letter is forgotten.
Often Snooks seems to be ubiquitous. His letters appear in numerous
papers, especially the provincial ones. Sometimes a Snooks’s “opinion”
is squeezed just under the “Space for Special News,” which in many
halfpenny rags is not “Special News” at all, but merely the results
of--Football!
When all the intelligent world was waiting for war news, a Birmingham
paper had a “Space for Special News” in which football results were
printed first and the war news second! The absurd folly and incongruity
of this sort of thing never seems to strike the syndicated Press.
The effect of it on the minds of our French and other Allies is too
humiliating to be written. It might draw forth a letter from Snooks,
if only Snooks’s opinion carried weight. But it doesn’t. The greatest
“opinion” that could be imagined, even that of Plato or Shakespeare,
doesn’t much matter to any one. It is not a time for individual
criticism; it is only time for inspiration and action. A strong thought
is always silent; it resolves itself into deeds rather than words.
There has been altogether too much talk during the progress of the war;
too many “Snookses” in too many newspapers. Snooks has even cropped
up in the House of Lords, to say nothing of the House of Commons. And
it should be borne in mind that Snooks _does_ nothing; he is not in
the smallest degree useful to his country; he merely stands, like an
old washerwoman leaning over her tub, and talks. He talks to any one
who is idle and stupid enough to listen. He finds out all sorts of
“queer things” about General this or Colonel that, and for women he has
scarcely a good word to say.
“_They’re_ no use!” he declares contemptuously. “All their sick nursing
and sewing was done just for sheer man-trapping! Show them some new
hats and they’d forget all about their patients!”
When this heresy is indignantly refuted, he snaps his mouth in a firm,
hard line, as though it were a steel box.
“I’d bet you a hundred pounds,” he says, “that if it were women
who were wounded in the war instead of men, you’d hardly find one
of their own sex to wait upon them! They love fussing round a man!
It’s a perfect godsend to them, especially the old maids! There’s an
excitement about it; a sort of morbid interest! They delight in washing
a Tommy’s face and brushing his hair. If it were one of themselves
they’d scrub the face till the skin was ruined and brush the hair the
wrong way! _I_ know ’em, I tell you! You give a pretty woman who is ill
to an ugly woman who is well, to be nursed, and she’ll ‘nurse’ her!
You’ll see what she’ll make of her in twenty-four hours! I tell you I
take a calm, common-sense view of all this sort of bunkum!”
Unfortunately for Snooks, his “calm, common-sense view” does not appeal
to the world in general. It does not even impress the Premier, who, up
to the present, has failed to consult Snooks respecting the “conduct
of the war,” or to offer him a “portfolio.” He longs to be consulted.
He yearns to be displayed on the headlines of the halfpenny dailies or
Sunday pictorials in flamboyant beauty, or as,--
“MR. SNOOKS SPEAKS OUT”; or “THE GREAT MESSAGE OF MR. SNOOKS.”
But these things don’t happen. He has still to content himself with
letters to the Press, which sometimes get read, but more often are
passed over and forgotten altogether. Nevertheless, his “opinion” is
in all the newspapers, whether read or unread, and though the King has
not sent for him yet, and he has no “portfolio,” he is admittedly and
visibly “SNOOKS.” So that when any particularly mischievous comment
on affairs in general appears in print, or any “calm and common-sense
view,” which gives useful “points” to the enemy, and irritates the
patience of the public, we know who it is, and we don’t much mind! We
merely say “SNOOKS again!” or “Another powerful letter from Mr. Snooks
will appear next week!”
SEA POWER, 1805–1918
I
Glory and terror and splendid joy of the Sea!
Thunderous Sentinel-Guard of our flowering Isles of the Free!
Fortress impregnable, built with the mountainous waves
Toppling in fury of laughter sheer over our enemies’ graves!
God!... It is all we can ask for!... that still we ever may be
Saved by the glory and terror and conquering joy of the Sea!
II
Sea that sprang to the keels of the ships of Nelson and Drake,
Billows that leap’d for delight in the battles for England’s sake--
Will ye fail us now? Nay, never! Ye are strong as ye were of yore,
And Victory’s voice rings clearly out in your rush on the rocky
shore--
And shark-like Death, at the enemy’s cry, to meet him swiftly runs,
For your swirl and sucking sands are as sure as the fire of a
thousand guns!
III