the point at which reason falls under the law of diminishing returns. It has in fact reached the point when, so far as morality is concerned, there is no "return" at all.

At the beginning of the war, there was some anxiety in this country lest the Germans should get ahead of us in this matter of self-vindication; and some people were especially afraid that they would out-do us in the United States. Now, however, we are beginning to take comfort from the principle that in every quarrel the party most likely to be finally judged in the wrong is that which takes the greatest pains to prove itself in the right. There is certainly far less eagerness than there was to answer the German arguments. The British are growing more and more content to leave their case to the verdict of history. No nation has ever faced a great crisis with a conscience more at ease. Among ourselves, at all events, the moral issue is regarded as so self-evident that further discussion of it would be a mere waste of words. On the other hand, the more ingenious the German argument becomes, the more deeply do we distrust the German method of reasoning, and the more determined we are to return to some simpler criterion of right and wrong. Thus our more thoughtful men are not greatly tempted to answer arguments like those of Herr Scheffler. Or rather they think that the most effective answer is to let Herr Scheffler's reasoning stand in his own words, to hand it round as widely as possible and invite all honest men just to take a look at it. Guarda e passa.

"We are up against the real thing." This familiar colloquialism sums up, better than any other statement I can think of, the whole mentality of Great Britain at the present moment. It is frequently used in soldiers' letters written from the front; I have heard it in sermons and political speeches; in conversations with working men on the cars; and in the comments of distinguished philosophers. I will not attempt to define this "real thing" which we are "up

against." The utmost I can here accomplish will be to describe some of the modes of its present action upon the national mind, and some of the effects which this action produces on our temper and our thought. If the theory is true which tells us that a thing is what it does, then the reader who is skilled in that kind of inference will draw his own conclusions as to the ultimate nature of the "real thing" here in question. I will only say, by way of helping him to his conclusion, that the "real thing" with which we are now making such effectual acquaintance bears little resemblance to "reality" as defined by some philosophers. And if this

should raise the doubt that our "real thing" is not after all the genuine article but only an "appearance," my answer is that many of us would be exceedingly glad were the doubt to be verified. When the troop-train steams out of the station and our eldest son leans out of the carriage window to bid us his last farewell, and when a month later we get a telegram from the War Office announcing that he is killed, it would be no small comfort if someone could convince us that this is not the "real thing." To us it seems that if this isn't real, then nothing is. This remark must be my apology for the use of capital letters, rather than inverted commas, whenever the term is introduced in the remainder of the article.

The Real Thing presents itself, primarily, as a threat and a challenge directed against the very foundations of our national and individual existence. If you would conceive the state of our national psychology, you must imagine how you yourself would feel and think if everything you had taken for granted and reckoned as secure your country, your home, your family, your property, your life, your ideals, were suddenly menaced and bidden to defend themselves from destruction. A frontier settlement in the old days which had just received intelligence that a powerful tribe of Red Indians was on the war-path in the immediate vicinity, a populous city feeling the tremors of an earth

quake which had already shattered its next neighbor-these are images which may help the reader to understand the psychological disturbance of England at the present hour. I do not mean that there is panic; for there is none. England is calm, resolute, and prepared. Her teeth are set, and she has braced herself to meet a tremendous shock. And the need so to brace herself has acted as a stimulus to every faculty of her soul. We are feeling more deeply, thinking more clearly, willing more vigorously, than we do in normal times. There is exaltation in the national mind. One can even find a truth in the strange remark recently made by Mr. Harold Begbie, that England was never happier than she is to-day. But behind it all there is the sense of a present threat.

No psychologist, so far as I know, has ever taken the trouble to envisage the mind as it works under these conditions. The same holds true of social philosophy. In all such discussions, the world is assumed to be at peace. There is nothing to interfere with the normal working of the laws which govern the movements of the human spirit. No account is taken of the moment when the laws of life are suspended under the stern necessity of defending life itself from destruction. States are assumed to control their own destinies without reference to those possible interferences from other states, which fifty years of continuous peace have caused the philosopher to overlook. Even theology makes the same assumptions. Many notable developments of modern theology have been unconsciously but obviously accommodated to permanently peaceful conditions. They deal with man as living in a world where the foundations of his life are secured by the good will of his fellows, or by God. It is impossible to conceive that these optimistic developments of theology would ever have taken place if their authors had vividly foreseen a time when the nations of Europe, after nineteen centuries of Christian teaching, would be grappling one another by the throat.

A year ago, we were all writing books and articles about the "religion of the future." We were predicting the gradual fulfilment of certain orderly tendencies of the human spirit. In all these predictions we breathed the atmosphere of peace, and addressed ourselves to those who breathed it with us. If a world war was ever hinted at, we said that it was inconceivable, that the conscience of mankind had advanced beyond that point where such things were possible, that these were only the bad dreams of the wicked or the weak. We dismissed the possibility as having no relevance to our hopes and our ideals. How strange some of these predictions seem to us now as we listen to the warwhoop of the savages sounding in the woods, or feel the seismic shocks shaking the ground under our feet! "We are up against the Real Thing," and we see that the world is not so safe a place as we thought it to be. We are beginning to suspect that the world contains elements of which our previous philosophy had not taken account and that other elements of which we did take account have a narrower range of operations than we used to assign them. What if, after all, there is something in the world which has gone altogether wrong? What if some traces of original sin yet remain? What if the devil and his works are more than a myth? Every day there is something in the newspaper which suggests these questions; and there are heart-breaks to press them home.

I have not the slightest doubt that our present contact with the Real Thing will involve many modifications in those "views of life" which have hitherto been current among us. "I admired Bernard Shaw," said a friend the other day, "but now-well, he makes me sick." It would not surprise me if henceforth we attached less importance to "views of life" in general, no matter who their author may be. Life at the present moment is too big and terrible a thing to be merely "viewed." I am not prepared to predict what the changes of our thought will be; but I do predict that

changes will take place. So much that seemed wisdom to us before seems nonsense to us now. Some of us, it is true, are fighting manfully against the unpleasant necessity of having to eat our former words. But sooner or later we shall have to eat them. Shall we find other and better words to replace them? I believe we shall; but the belief is an act of faith and I will not attempt at this moment to make the grounds of it convincing.

Indeed, one of the most notable characteristics of the Real Thing is that while, on the one hand, it exalts our minds and stimulates the thinking faculty, on the other, it restrains us from excessive speculation concerning itself. I have recently encountered among my friends here in Oxford a state of mind which expresses itself in some such terms as these: "Let us talk no more about the meaning of the war. Let us cease arguing the justice of our cause. Let us have no more accusations against our enemies. Have done with all attempt to reconcile the war with the moral order. Have done with sermons and speeches and pamphlets and articles. What will any of these things matter if Germany wins? Let our one thought, our one care, our one effort be to make sure that Germany does not win. What is the use, either, of arranging beforehand ideal schemes for the preservation of the peace of the world? If Germany wins, none of them can be carried out. What is the use of proclaiming new gospels for the reformation of barbaric Europe? If Germany wins, she will not allow you to preach them. Postpone all such discussions. Treat the war not as a theme for eloquence; not as a subject for debate-but as a call for action and, for the time being, as nothing else. Concentrate wholly and exclusively on that. Restrain your passion for analysis and put everything into your will. First let us act: then we will speculate."

Here, I think, we encounter the outstanding feature of the Real Thing, as experienced at this moment by the soul of Britain. It presents itself not as an object to be studied but