That
has ever been the Englishman's impulse in the hour of peril of his island
Ship of State, as to-day we see illustrated in an almost miraculous
degree. It is the saving grace of an obstinately independent and
indisciplinable people.
Yet let us not forget that this same English temper is shown not only in
warfare, not only in adventure in the physical world, but also in the
greater, and--may we not say?--equally arduous tasks of peace. For to
build up is even yet more difficult than to pull down, to create new
life a still more difficult and complex task than to destroy it. Our
English habits of restless adventure, of latent revolt subdued to the
ends of law and order, of uncontrollable freedom and independence, are
even more fruitful here, in the organisation of the progressive tasks of
life, than they are in the organisation of the tasks of war.
That is the spirit in which these essays have been written by an
Englishman of English stock in the narrowest sense, whose national and
family instincts of independence and warfare have been transmuted into a
preoccupation with the more constructive tasks of life. It is a spirit
which may give to these little essays--mostly produced while war was in
progress--a certain unity which was not designed when I wrote them.
[1] O'Dalton, _Letters of Sidonius_, Vol. II., p. 149.
II
EVOLUTION AND WAR
The Great War of to-day has rendered acute the question of the place of
warfare in Nature and the effect of war on the human race.
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