John Galsworthy

“ Sport, which still keeps a flag of idealism flying, is perhaps the most saving grace in the world at the moment, with its spirit of rules kept, and regard for the adversary, whether the fight is going for or against. ”

“ It is a pity, then, that philosophy is, or has been, draggle-tailing—art avoiding life, taking to contraptions of form and colour signifying nothing; literature driven in on itself, or running riot; science more hopeful of perfecting poison [2] gas than of abating coal-smoke or curing cancer; that religion should incline to tuck its head under the wing of spiritualism; that there should be, in fact, a kind of tacit abandonment of the belief in life. ”

“ Destructive science has gone ahead out of all proportion. It is developing so fast that each irresponsible assertion of national rights or interests brings the world appreciably nearer to ruin. Without any doubt whatever, the powers of destruction are gaining fast on the powers of creation and construction. In old days a thirty years’ war was needed to exhaust a nation; it will soon be (if it is not already) possible to exhaust a nation in a week by the destruction of its big towns from the air. ”

“ The world’s hope lies with them; in the possibility of their being able to institute a sort of craftsman’s trusteeship for mankind—a new triple alliance, of Science, Finance and the Press, in service to a new idealism. [8] Nations, in block, will never join hands, never have much in common, never be able to see each others’ points of view. The outstanding craftsmen of the nations have a far better chance of seeing eye to eye; they have the common ground of their craft, and a livelier vision. ”

“ The rest of mankind have experienced no particular astonishment—the doing-down of man by man was part of daily life, and when it was done collectively they felt no spiritual change. It was dreadful but—in a word—natural. This may not be a popular view of human life in the mass, but it is true. Average life is a long fight; this man’s success is that man’s failure; co-operation and justice are only the palliatives of a basic, and ruthless, competition. ”

“ No one denies that the conquest of the air was a great—a wonderful—achievement; no one denies that it could be a beneficent achievement if the nations would let it be. But mankind has not yet, apparently, reached a pitch of decency sufficient to be trusted with such an inviting and terribly destructive weapon. ”

“ Certainly, the genuine publication of all military movements and developments throughout the world, the unfathoming and broadcasting of destructive inventions and devices, would bring us nearer to salvation than any covenant can do. If the world’s chemists and the world’s engineers would hold annual meetings in a friendly spirit, for the salvation of mankind! ”

“ The conquest of the air, so jubilantly hailed by the unthinking, may turn out the most sinister event that ever befell us, simply because it came before we were fit for it—fit to act reasonably under the temptation of its fearful possibilities. ”

“ To sum up, Governments and Peoples are no longer in charge. Our fate is really in the hands of the three great Powers—Science, Finance and the Press. Underneath the showy political surface of things, those three great Powers are secretly determining the march of the nations ”

“ They can recognise and maintain the principle that works of the imagination, indeed all works of art, are the property of mankind at large, and not merely of the country of their origin; that to discontinue (for example) during a war with Germany the reading of German poetry, the listening to German music, the looking at German pictures, was a harmful absurdity which should never be repeated. Any real work of art, however individual and racial in root and fibre, is impersonal and universal in its appeal. ”

“ The real key to the future is in the hands of those who provide the means of destruction. Are scientists (chemists, inventors, engineers) to be Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Japanese, Russians, before they are men, in this [5] matter of the making of destruction? Are they to be more concerned with the interests of their own countries, or with the interests of the human species? That has become the question they have to answer now that they have for the first time the future of the human race within their grasp. ”

“ Looking the world in the face, we see what may be called a precious mess. Under a thin veneer—sometimes no veneer—of regard for civilisation, each country, great and small, is pursuing its own ends, struggling to rebuild its own house in the burnt village. ”

“ Modern invention has taken such a vast stride forward that the incidence of responsibility is changed. It rests on Science as it never did before; on Science, and on—Finance. There again the exchange of international thought has become terrifically important. The financiers of the world, for instance, in the light of their knowledge, under the pressure of their difficulties, out of the motive of mutual aid, could certainly devise some real and lasting economic betterment of the present ruination, if only they would set to work steadily, not spasmodically, to exchange international thought. ”

“ Improvement in Press standards of international and political fair play can only come from the individual writers who make up the Press. And such reform will not come until editors and journalists acquire the habit of exchanging thought internationally, of broadening their minds and hearts with other points of view, of recognising that they must treat as they would themselves be treated. ”

“ We do not commonly hold, in private life, that ends justify means. Why should they be held to justify means in Press life—why should report so often be accepted without due examination when it is favourable to one’s views; rejected without due examination when it is unfavourable; why should the other side’s view so often be burked; and so on, and so on? The Press has great power and professes high ideals ”

“ At present, with, of course, many and distinguished exceptions, the Press in every country plays the game according to rules of its own which have too little acquaintance with those of sport.
The Press is manned by a great crew of writers, the vast majority of whom have in private life a higher standard of fair play than that followed by the Press ship they man. ”

“ And disenchanted philosophers, though by so much the nearer to the truths of existence, are by that much, perhaps, the less useful to human nature. We need scant reminder of a truth always with us, we need rather perpetual assertion that the truth might with advantage be, and may possibly with effort become, not quite so unpleasant. ”

“ The disenchantment of the few would not have mattered so much but for the fact that they were the nerves and voice of the community. Their histories, poems, novels, plays, pictures, treatises, sermons, were the expression of what we call civilisation. ”

“ It is easy to be pessimistic, and easy to indulge in cheap optimism; to steer between the two is hard. We still have a chance of saving and improving such civilisation as we have; but this chance depends on how far we succeed in exchanging international thought in the next few years. To some the word international has a socialistic, even communistic, significance. ”

“ The exchange of international thought which alone can save us, is the exchange of thought between craftsmen—between the statesmen of the different countries; [6] the lawyers of the different countries; the scientists, the financiers, the writers of the different countries. ”

“ If neither Science nor Finance will agree to think internationally, there is probably nothing for it but to kennel-up in disenchantment, and wait for an end which can’t be very long in coming—not a complete end, of course, say—a general condition of affairs similar to that in the famine provinces of Russia. ”

“ The salvation of a world in which we all live, however, would seem to have a certain importance. Why, then, is not more attention paid to the only existing means of salvation? The argument for neglect is much as follows: Force has always ruled human life—and always will. Competition is basic. ”

“ Inventors, chemists, engineers, financiers, all have to make their living, and are just as disposed to believe in their own countries as other men. Their pockets and the countries who guarantee those pockets, have first call on them. ”

“ There is no such ring-fence round nations, therefore no general opinion, and no underlying force to ensure the abstention of individual nations from crime—if, indeed, transgression of laws which are not fixed can be called crime. ”

“ I do not believe it necessary that the League should have a definite force at its disposal. It could not maintain a force that would keep any first-rate power from breaking the peace. Its strength lies in the use of publicity ”