Modern life is worth while because the individual guaranteed the possibility of free development, free communication, free religion, and, as far as the well-being of human society permits, free initiative of action.
Nobody can deny that to-day this foundation of a worthy existence is in considerable danger. Forces are at work which are attempting to destroy the European inheritance of freedom, tolerance, and human dignity. The danger is characterised as Hitlerism, Militarism, and Communism which, while indicating different conditions, all lead to the subjugation and enslavement of the individual by the State, and bring tolerance and personal liberty to an end.
When I speak of Europe, I do not mean the geographical conception of Europe, but a certain attitude of life and to society which has grown up in Europe and is characteristic of our civilisation.
I mean the spirit which was born in ancient Greece and, more than a thousand years later, at the time of the Renaissance, spread from Italy: the spirit of personal liberty and regard for the individual.
If to-day our knowledge of natural laws and the technical possibilities for the advancement of our lives have reached such perfection as never before in the known history of mankind, we owe this to the fact that only the individual can really create what is new and worthwhile.
Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, and no Lister.
There would be no comfortable houses for the mass of the people, no railway, no wireless, no protection against epidemics, no cheap books, no culture and no enjoyment of art for all.
There would be no machines to relieve the people from the arduous labour needed for the production of the necessities of life.
It cannot be my task to act as judge of the conduct of a nation from the point of view of statesmen or as one who is immersed in the responsibilities and the details of the daily life of politics.
Yet everyone who loves the subtler manifestations and the beauty of the human spirit, and who believes himself able to diagnose the deeper causes of the present situation, has the duty of raising his voice in warning.
For if we do not make energetic resistance, we shall sink back into a way of life which is indistinguishable from that of the subjects of the old Asiatic despotisms.
It will be worse than theirs, for the modern despots, while not disposing of more brains than their former colleagues, own the arm---and it is a long and strong arm---of a mighty technical apparatus for the exercise of physical power, and in their schools, radio, and press they possess an instrument of mental and moral influence which ordinary mortals cannot resist.
It is of the essence of despotism not only that one individual with practically unlimited authority is at the head, but that society itself becomes the tool of the enslavement of the individual.
I would therefore much rather call the enemy of the European spirit "Servitude to the State."
This servitude exists when the State is not an instrument in the hands of the citizens, as it ought to be, but when the citizens are in practice unconditionally delivered over to the power of the State. This condition is expressed in the German language by speaking of the population as "human material" (Menschenmaterial).
What is it that converts the free European into a slave of the State? My simple answer is: the necessity of military organisation on the part of each separate State. In other words, the cause is international juridical anarchy. I believe that the German has become the complete victim of the State because his country, by its geographical condition, is most exposed to attack, and was therefore most dependent on rigid military organisation.
But military organisation means degradation of the individual to an obedient tool, void of will. It demands the training of youth into an automatic and uncritical obedience towards a superior.
In short, it implies the renunciation of personality and human worth.
The petty persons who to-day govern Germany owe their power mainly to the education of former generations in a spirit of submissiveness and servility, a state of mind which is diametrically opposed to the consciousness of personal responsibility of the true European man.
If it be true that individuality as the basis of the European ideal is gravely menaced by the necessity for military organisation of the several separate States, there can be no doubt as to how the danger may, and must be, overcome.
The separate State must be offered an effective guarantee for its security in relation to neighbouring States.
Disarmament according to a fixed plan without guarantee of security by the entire community of States is impossible, if for no other reason than that to-day war is not a society-game where one can be sure that everything will go according to rule.
On this main issue of how to win through to civilisation, therefore, I share entirely the French point of view.
I am also convinced that a universal collective guarantee for the security of individual States is in itself by no means enough.
The military organisations of the separate States ought to be internationalised, that is, transformed into an international police force subject to a super-national authority.
If the reader thinks this Utopian, he may, for comparison, imagine a State in which there are no police and no courts. In their place a law exists which makes it compulsory for every citizen to help his fellow-citizen with whom a third citizen dares to interfere. Do you believe that the citizens of such a State would desist from carrying their own weapons about with them? I doubt it.
The serious efforts of the Governments which have led to the Disarmament Conference show that there exists a general awareness of the danger in which we live. In the light of the foregoing, lack of success is not difficult to understand. There are problems which cannot be brought to solution by small steps and stages.
Either the security of States is guaranteed internationally, in which case the separate State needs no military organisation at all, or this guarantee is not achieved, in which case the State must arm as effectively and completely as possible.
Nationalism in my opinion is, in this respect, no more than an idealistic basis for the militarist and aggressive mental condition of a people.
Hitlerism is a form of State thoroughly adapted to military purposes. This is so true that a "leader" can only hold himself in power by behaving aggressively, at least in appearance, in foreign relations, for he must always hold before the eyes of his people the real or imaginary purpose for which they are asked to sacrifice their freedom.
Only through perils and upheavals can nations be brought to further developments. It is in times of economic distress such as are experienced everywhere to-day, that one sees very clearly the strength of the moral forces which reside in a people.
Let us hope that a historian, delivering judgment in some future period when Europe is politically and economically united, will be able to say that in our days the liberty and honour of this Continent were saved by its Western nations.
Let him be able to say they stood fast together against the temptations of hatred and oppression, and that the Western world defended successfully the liberty of the individual, without which life to a self-respecting man is not worth living.
The leading statesmen are burdened with tremendous responsibilities to-day as they were twenty years ago.
May they succeed through timely agreement in establishing a condition of unity and clarity of international obligations in Europe, so that to every State a war-like adventure must appear foredoomed as utterly hopeless.
But we are concerned not merely with the technical problem of securing and maintaining peace, but also with the important task of education and enlightenment. If we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must keep clearly before us what is at stake, and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors won for us after hard struggles.
Thus, the work of statesmen can succeed only if it is supported by the serious and determined will of the peoples. And the essence of that will is the creative adventure of free citizens.
I know very many people who are willing to approve in principle opinions such as have been expressed here, but who will fall back the next moment into the ruts of ordinary political action.
But he who is seriously convinced that the future growth of our civilisation is bound up with the preservation and development of the human personality, must be prepared to make sacrifices for his convictions.
The sacrifice I am thinking of is the partial abandonment of State sovereignty by the separate States, and the yielding of the principle of egoism in favour of international security.
Here lies the hope of Europe and the Western world.
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