THE MEANINGOF THE WAR

LIFE & MATTER IN CONFLICT

BY HENRI BERGSON

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BYH. WILDON CARR

LONDONT. FISHER UNWIN LTD. ADELPHI TERRACE

_English translation first published June 1915__Second impression, July 1915__Third impression, August 1915_

(_All rights reserved_)

CONTENTS

 PAGE

INTRODUCTION 9

LIFE AND MATTER AT WAR 15

THE FORCE WHICH WASTES AND THAT WHICH DOES NOT WASTE 41

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

This little volume contains the discourse delivered by M. Bergson asPresident of the _Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques_ at itsannual public meeting on December 12, 1914. It is the address whichpreceded the announcement of the prizes and awards bestowed by theAcademy. It is now issued in book form with the consent of the author, and his full appreciation of the object, to give it the widestcirculation. Although it is brief, it is a message addressed directlyto the heart of our people in the crisis of war. To it is added ashort article on the same theme, contributed to the _Bulletin desArmées de la République_, November 4, 1914. 

It has been said that war, with all its terrible evils, is theoccasion of at least one good which humanity values as above price: itinspires great poetry. On the other hand, it seems to crushphilosophy. Many may think that in this message it is poetry to whichM. Bergson is giving expression. It is, however, from the depth of hisphilosophy that the inspiration is drawn. The full significance of thedoctrines he has been teaching, and their whole moral and politicalbearing, are brought into clear light, focussed, as it were, on theactual present struggle. Yet is there no word that breathes hatred toany person or to any race. It is by the triumph of a spiritualprinciple that philosophy may hope to free humanity from theoppression of a materialist doctrine. 

The opposing principle has had, and still has, philosophers to defendit, and they belong to no particular nation or race. One of its mostbrilliant and influential exponents was a Frenchman, the diplomatist, Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882). A brief word on thisremarkable man may help the reader to understand the mention of hisname on page 30. His _Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines_ (1855)was the first of a series of writings to affirm, on ethnologicalgrounds, the superiority of the Aryan race, and its right and destinyby reason of that superiority to rule all other races as bondsmen. Hewas the friend of Wagner, and also of Nietzsche. MadameFörster-Nietzsche in her biography of her brother has spoken of thealmost reverent regard which he entertained for Gobineau, and it maybe that from him Nietzsche derived the idea which he developed intohis doctrine of the non-morality of the superman. 

Were the discourse of M. Bergson no more than the utterance of aphilosopher stirred by deep patriotic feeling to uphold his country'scause and denounce his country's foes, then, however eloquent itsappeal, it would have no significance or value beyond its presentpower to inspire courage in the hearts of his comrades. And it wouldnot differ from equally earnest appeals which other philosophers haveaddressed to the world on behalf of their fellow-countrymen. It has amuch deeper meaning. It is no mere indictment of modern Germany'srulers or people. It goes to the very heart of the problem of thefuture of humanity. Shall the splendid material progress which hasmarked the scientific achievement of the last century be the forgingof a sword to destroy the freedom which life has won with it frommatter?

As these words are written the conflict is raging, and the decisionseems still far off. Death is striking down the young in all thenations, and among them many on whom our highest hopes were founded. "But whatever be the price of victory, " so writes M. Bergson to me, "it will not have been too dearly bought if humanity is finallydelivered from the nightmare which weighs on it. "

 H. WILDON CARR

 LONDON, _May 1915_

LIFE AND MATTER AT WAR

LIFE AND MATTER AT WAR

"Comprendre et ne pas s'indigner": this has been said to be the lastword of philosophy. I believe none of it; and, had I to choose, Ishould much prefer, when in presence of crime, to give my indignationrein and not to understand. Happily, the choice has not to be made. Onthe contrary, there are forms of anger which, by a thoroughcomprehension of their objects, derive the force to sustain and renewtheir vigour. Our anger is of that kind. We have only to detach theinner meaning of this war, and our horror for those who made it willbe increased. Moreover, nothing is easier. A little history, and alittle philosophy, will suffice. 

For a long period Germany devoted herself to poetry, to art, tometaphysic. She was made, so she said, for thought and imagination;"she had no feeling for the reality of things. " It is true that heradministration had defects, that she was divided into rival states, that anarchy at certain times seemed beyond remedy. Nevertheless, anattentive study would have revealed, beneath this disorder, the normalprocess of life, which is always too rank at the first and later onprunes away its excess, makes its choice and adopts a lasting form. From her municipal activity there would have issued at length a goodadministration which would have assured order without suppressingliberty. From the closer union of the confederated states that unityin diversity, which is the distinguishing mark of organized beings, would have arisen. But time was needed for that, as it always isneeded by life, in order that its possibilities may be realized. 

Now, while Germany was thus working out the task of her organicself-development there was within her, or rather by her side, a peoplewith whom every process tended to take a mechanical form. Artificiality marked the creation of Prussia; for she was formed byclumsily sewing together, edge to edge, provinces either acquired orconquered. Her administration was mechanical; it did its work with theregularity of a well-appointed machine. Not less mechanical--extremeboth in precision and in power--was the army, on which the attentionof the Hohenzollerns was concentrated. Whether it was that the peoplehad been drilled for centuries to mechanical obedience; or that anelemental instinct for conquest and plunder, absorbing to itself thelife of the nation, had simplified its aims and reduced them tomaterialism; or that the Prussian character was originally so made--itis certain that the idea of Prussia always evoked a vision ofrudeness, of rigidity, of automatism, as if everything within her wentby clockwork, from the gesture of her kings to the step of hersoldiers. 

A day came when Germany had to choose between a rigid and ready-madesystem of unification, mechanically superposed from without, and theunity which comes from within by a natural effort of life. At the sametime the choice was offered her between an administrative mechanism, into which she would merely have to fit herself--a complete order, doubtless, but poverty-stricken, like everything else that isartificial--and that richer and more flexible order which the wills ofmen, when freely associated, evolve of themselves. How would shechoose?

There was a man on the spot in whom the methods of Prussia wereincarnate--a genius, I admit, but an evil genius; for he was devoid ofscruple, devoid of faith, devoid of pity, and devoid of soul. He hadjust removed the only obstacle which could spoil his plan; he had gotrid of Austria. He said to himself: "We are going to make Germanytake over, along with Prussian centralization and discipline, all ourambitions and all our appetites. If she hesitates, if the confederatepeoples do not arrive of their own accord at this common resolution, Iknow how to compel them; I will cause a breath of hatred to pass overthem, all alike. I will launch them against a common enemy, an enemywe have hood-winked and waylaid, and whom we shall try to catchunarmed. Then when the hour of triumph shall sound, I will rise up;from Germany, in her intoxication, I will snatch a covenant, which, like that of Faust with Mephistopheles, she has signed with her blood, and by which she also, like Faust, has traded her soul away for thegood things of earth. "

He did as he had said. The covenant was made. But, to ensure that itwould never be broken, Germany must be made to feel, for ever andever, the necessity of the armour in which she was imprisoned. Bismarck took his measures accordingly. Among the confidences whichfell from his lips and were gathered up by his intimates is thisrevealing word: "We took nothing from Austria after Sadowa because wewanted to be able one day to be reconciled with her. " So, then, intaking Alsace and a part of Lorraine, his idea was that noreconciliation with the French would be possible. He intended that theGerman people should believe itself in permanent danger of war, thatthe new Empire should remain armed to the teeth, and that Germany, instead of dissolving Prussian militarism into her own life, shouldreinforce it by militarizing herself. 

She reinforced it; and day by day the machine grew in complexity andpower. But in the process it yielded automatically a result verydifferent from that which its constructors had foreseen. It is thestory of the witch who, by a magic incantation, had won the consent ofher broomstick to go to the river and fill her buckets; having noformula ready to check the work, she watched her cave fill with wateruntil she was drowned. 

The Prussian army had been organized, brought to perfection, tendedwith love by the Kings of Prussia, in order that it might serve theirlust of conquest. To take possession of neighbours' territory was thenthe sole aim; territory was almost the whole of the national wealth. But with the nineteenth century there was a new departure. The ideapeculiar to that century of diverting science to the satisfaction ofmen's material wants evoked a development of industry, andconsequently of commerce, so extraordinary that the old conception ofwealth was completely overthrown. Not more than fifty years wereneeded to bring about this transformation. On the morrow of the war of1870 a nation expressly made for appropriating the good things of thisworld had no alternative but to become industrial and commercial. Noton that account, however, would she change the essential principle ofher action. On the contrary, she had but to utilize her habits ofdiscipline, method, tenacity, minute care, precise information--and, we may add, of impertinence and spying--to which she owed the growthof her military power. She would thus equip herself with industry andcommerce not less formidable than her army, and able to march, ontheir part also, in military order. 

From that time onwards these two were seen going forward together, advancing at an even pace and reciprocally supporting eachother--industry, which had answered the appeal of the spirit ofconquest, on one side; on the other, the army, in which that spiritwas incarnate, with the navy, which had just been added to the forcesof the army. Industry was free to develop in all directions; but, fromthe first, war was the end in view. In enormous factories, such as theworld had never seen, tens of thousands of workmen toiled in castinggreat guns, while by their side, in workshops and laboratories, everyinvention which the disinterested genius of neighbouring peoples hadbeen able to achieve was immediately captured, bent from its intendeduse, and converted into an engine of war. Reciprocally, the army andnavy which owed their growth to the increasing wealth of the nation, repaid the debt by placing their services at the disposal of thiswealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets forindustry. But through this very combination the movement imposed onPrussia by her kings, and on Germany by Prussia, was bound to swervefrom its course, whilst gathering speed and flinging itself forward. Sooner or later it was bound to escape from all control and become aplunge into the abyss. 

For, even though the spirit of conquest knows no limit in itself, itmust limit its ambitions as long as the question is simply that ofseizing a neighbour's territory. To constitute their kingdom, kings ofPrussia had been obliged to undertake a long series of wars. Whetherthe name of the spoiler be Frederick or William, not more than one ortwo provinces can be annexed at a time: to take more is to weakenoneself. But suppose that the same insatiable thirst for conquestenters into the new form of wealth--what follows? Boundless ambition, which till then had spread out the coming of its gains over indefinitetime, since each one of them would be worth only a definite portion ofspace, will now leap all at once to an object boundless as itself. Rights will be set up on every point of the globe where raw materialfor industry, refitting stations for ships, concessions forcapitalists, or outlets for production are seen to exist. In fact, thepolicy which had served Prussia so well passed at a bound from themost calculating prudence to the wildest temerity. Bismarck, whosecommon-sense put some restraint on the logic of his principles, wasstill averse to colonial enterprises; he said that all the affairs ofthe East were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. ButGermany, retaining Bismarck's former impulse, went straight on andrushed forward along the lines of least resistance to east and west:on the one side lay the route to the Orient, on the other the empireof the sea. But in so doing she virtually declared war on the nationswhich Bismarck had managed to keep allied or friendly. Her ambitionlooked forward to the domination of the world. 

Moreover, there was no moral restraint which could keep this ambitionunder control. Intoxicated by victory, by the prestige which victoryhad given her, and of which her commerce, her industry, her scienceeven, had reaped the benefit, Germany plunged into a materialprosperity such as she had never known, such as she would never havedared to dream of. She told herself that if force had wrought thismiracle, if force had given her riches and honour, it was becauseforce had within it a hidden virtue, mysterious--nay, divine. Yes, brute force with its train of trickery and lies, when it comes withpowers of attack sufficient for the conquest of the world, must needsbe in direct line from heaven and a revelation of the will of God onearth. The people to whom this power of attack had come were theelect, a chosen race by whose side the others are races of bondmen. Tosuch a race nothing is forbidden that may help in establishing itsdominion. Let none speak to it of inviolable right! Right is what iswritten in a treaty; a treaty is what registers the will of aconqueror--that is, the direction of his force for the time being:force, then, and right are the same thing; and if force is pleased totake a new direction, the old right becomes ancient history and thetreaty, which backed it with a solemn undertaking, no more than ascrap of paper. Thus Germany, struck with wonder in presence of hervictories, of the brute force which had been their means, of thematerial prosperity which was the outcome, translated her amazementinto an idea. And see how, at the call of this idea, a thousandthoughts, as if awaked from slumber, and shaking off the dust oflibraries, came rushing in from every side--thoughts which Germany hadsuffered to sleep among her poets and philosophers, every one whichcould lend a seductive or striking form to a conviction already made!Henceforth German imperialism had a theory of its own. Taught inschools and universities, it easily moulded to itself a nation alreadybroken-in to passive obedience and having no loftier ideal wherewithto oppose the official doctrine. Many persons have explained theaberrations of German policy as due to that theory. For my part, I seein it nothing more than a philosophy doomed to translate into ideaswhat was, in its essence, insatiable ambition and will perverted bypride. The doctrine is an effect rather than a cause; and should theday come when Germany, conscious of her moral humiliation, shall say, to excuse herself, that she had trusted herself too much to certaintheories, that an error of judgment is not a crime, it will then benecessary to remind her that her philosophy was simply a translationinto intellectual terms of her brutality, her appetites, and hervices. So, too, in most cases, doctrines are the means by whichnations and individuals seek to explain what they are and what theydo. Germany, having finally become a predatory nation, invokes Hegelas witness; just as a Germany enamoured of moral beauty would havedeclared herself faithful to Kant, just as a sentimental Germany wouldhave found her tutelary genius in Jacobi or Schopenhauer. Had sheleaned in any other direction and been unable to find at home thephilosophy she needed, she would have procured it from abroad. Thuswhen she wished to convince herself that predestined races exist, shetook from France, that she might hoist him into celebrity, a writerwhom we have not read--Gobineau. 

None the less is it true that perverse ambition, once erected intotheory, feels more at ease in working itself out to the end; a part ofthe responsibility will then be thrown upon logic. If the German raceis the elect, it will be the only race which has an unconditionalright to live; the others will be tolerated races, and this tolerationwill be precisely what is called "the state of peace. " Let war come;the annihilation of the enemy will be the end Germany has to pursue. She will not strike at combatants only; she will massacre women, children, old men; she will pillage and burn; the ideal will be todestroy towns, villages, the whole population. Such is the conclusionof the theory. Now we come to its aim and true principle. 

As long as war was no more than a means to the settlement of a disputebetween two nations, the conflict was localized to the two armiesinvolved. More and more of useless violence was eliminated; innocentpopulations were kept outside the quarrel. Thus little by little acode of war was drawn up. From the first, however, the Prussian army, organized as it was for conquest, did not take kindly to this law. Butfrom the time when Prussian militarism, now turned into Germanmilitarism, had become one with industrialism, it was the enemy'sindustry, his commerce, the sources of his wealth, his wealth itself, as well as his military power, which war must now make the end inview. His factories must be destroyed that his competition may besuppressed. Moreover, that he may be impoverished once and for all andthe aggressor enriched, his towns must be put to ransom, pillaged, andburned. Above all must the war be short, not only in order that theeconomic life of Germany might not suffer too much, but further, andchiefly, because her military power lacked that consciousness of aright superior to force by which she could sustain and recuperate herenergies. Her moral force, being only the pride which comes frommaterial force, would be exposed to the same vicissitudes as thislatter: in proportion as the one was being expended the other would beused up. Time for moral force to become used up must not be given. Themachine must deliver its blow all at once. And this it could do byterrorizing the population, and so paralysing the nation. To achievethat end, no scruple must be suffered to embarrass the play of itswheels. Hence a system of atrocities prepared in advance--a system assagaciously put together as the machine itself. 

Such is the explanation of the spectacle before us. "Scientificbarbarism, " "systematic barbarism, " are phrases we have heard. Yes, barbarism reinforced by the capture of civilization. Throughout thecourse of the history we have been following there is, as it were, thecontinuous clang of militarism and industrialism, of machinery andmechanism, of debased moral materialism. 

Many years hence, when the reaction of the past shall have left onlythe grand outline in view, this perhaps is how a philosopher willspeak of it. He will say that the idea, peculiar to the nineteenthcentury, of employing science in the satisfaction of our materialwants had given a wholly unforeseen extension to the mechanical artsand had equipped man in less than fifty years with more tools than hehad made during the thousands of years he had lived on the earth. Eachnew machine being for man a new organ--an artificial organ whichmerely prolongs the natural organs--his body became suddenly andprodigiously increased in size, without his soul being able at thesame time to dilate to the dimensions of his new body. From thisdisproportion there issued the problems, moral, social, international, which most of the nations endeavoured to solve by filling up thesoulless void in the body politic by creating more liberty, morefraternity, more justice than the world had ever seen. Now, whilemankind laboured at this task of spiritualization, inferior powers--Iwas going to say infernal powers--plotted an inverse experience formankind. What would happen if the mechanical forces, which science hadbrought to a state of readiness for the service of man, shouldthemselves take possession of man in order to make his nature materialas their own? What kind of a world would it be if this mechanismshould seize the human race entire, and if the peoples, instead ofraising themselves to a richer and more harmonious diversity, as_persons_ may do, were to fall into the uniformity of _things_? Whatkind of a society would that be which should mechanically obey a wordof command mechanically transmitted; which should rule its science andits conscience in accordance therewith; and which should lose, alongwith the sense of justice, the power to discern between truth andfalsehood? What would mankind be when brute force should hold theplace of moral force? What new barbarism, this time final, would arisefrom these conditions to stifle feeling, ideas, and the wholecivilization of which the old barbarism contained the germ? What wouldhappen, in short, if the moral effort of humanity should turn in itstracks at the moment of attaining its goal, and if some diabolicalcontrivance should cause it to produce the mechanization of spiritinstead of the spiritualization of matter? There was a peoplepredestined to try the experiment. Prussia had been militarized by herkings; Germany had been militarized by Prussia; a powerful nation wason the spot marching forward in mechanical order. Administration andmilitary mechanism were only waiting to make alliance with industrialmechanism. The combination once made, a formidable machine would comeinto existence. A touch upon the starting-gear and the other nationswould be dragged in the wake of Germany, subjects to the samemovement, prisoners of the same mechanism. Such would be the meaningof the war on the day when Germany should decide upon itsdeclaration. 

She decided, he will continue, but the result was very different fromwhat had been predicted. For the moral forces, which were to submit tothe forces of matter by their side, suddenly revealed themselves ascreators of material force. A simple idea, the heroic conception whicha small people had formed of its honour, enabled it to make headagainst a powerful empire. At the cry of outraged justice we saw, moreover, in a nation which till then had trusted in its fleet, onemillion, two millions of soldiers suddenly rise from the earth. A yetgreater miracle: in a nation thought to be mortally divided againstitself all became brothers in the space of a day. From that moment theissue of the conflict was not open to doubt. On the one side, therewas force spread out on the surface; on the other, there was force inthe depths. On one side, mechanism, the manufactured article whichcannot repair its own injuries; on the other, life, the power ofcreation which makes and remakes itself at every instant. On one side, that which uses itself up; on the other, that which does not useitself up. 

Indeed, our philosopher will conclude, the machine did use itself up. For a long time it resisted; then it bent; then it broke. Alas! it hadcrushed under it a multitude of our children; and over the fate ofthis young life, which was so naturally and purely heroic, our tearswill continue to fall. An implacable law decrees that spirit mustencounter the resistance of matter, that life cannot advance withoutbruising that which lives, and that great moral results are purchasedby much blood and by many tears. But this time the sacrifice was to berich in fruit as it had been rich in beauty. That the powers of deathmight be matched against life in one supreme combat, destiny hadgathered them all at a single point. And behold how death wasconquered; how humanity was saved by material suffering from the moraldownfall which would have been its end; while the peoples, joyful intheir desolation, raised on high the song of deliverance from thedepths of ruin and of grief!

THE FORCE WHICH WASTES AND THAT WHICH DOES NOT WASTE

THE FORCE WHICH WASTES AND THAT WHICH DOES NOT WASTE

The issue of the struggle is not doubtful. Germany will succumb. Material force and moral force, all which is sustaining her, will endby failing her, because she is living on provision she hasaccumulated, is spending it, and has no way of renewing it. 

Of her material resources all is known. She has money, but her creditis falling, and one does not see where she is to borrow. She needsnitrates for her explosives, fuel for her motors, bread for hersixty-five million inhabitants, for all of which she has madeprovision; but the day will come when her granaries will be empty andher tanks dry. How will she refill them? War, as she practises it, makes frightful havoc of her warriors. Yet here again replenishment isimpossible, no aid will come from without, because an enterpriselaunched with the object of imposing German rule, German "culture, "German products, only interests and ever will only interest what isalready German. Such is the situation of Germany confronted by aFrance who is keeping her credit intact and her ports open, who isprocuring herself victual and munitions as she pleases, who reinforcesher armies with all that her allies bring to her support, and who cancount on the ever more active sympathy of the civilized world becauseher cause is that of humanity itself. 

Still this is only material force, the force which is seen. What canwe say of moral force, the force which is not seen, which yet mattersmost since it can in a certain degree make good what is lacking ofthe other, and without which the other is worthless?

The moral energy of nations, as of individuals, is only sustained byan ideal higher than themselves, and stronger than themselves, towhich they cling firmly when they feel their courage waver. Where isthe ideal of the Germany of to-day? The time when her philosophersproclaimed the inviolability of right, the eminent dignity of theperson, the duty of mutual respect among nations, is no more. Germany, militarized by Prussia, has cast aside those noble ideas, ideas shereceived for the most part from the France of the eighteenth centuryand of the Revolution. She has made for herself a new soul, or rathershe has meekly accepted the soul Bismarck has given her. To him hasbeen attributed the famous maxim "Might is right. " But in truthBismarck never pronounced it, for he had well guarded himself againsta distinction of right from might. Right was simply in his view whatis willed by the strongest, what is consigned by the conqueror in thelaw he imposes on the conquered. In that is summed up his wholemorality. Germany to-day knows no other. She, too, worships bruteforce. And because she believes herself the strongest, she isaltogether absorbed in self-adoration. Her energy comes from herpride. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material forceinspires in her. And this means that in this respect she is living onreserves without means of replenishment. Even before England hadcommenced to blockade her coasts she had blockaded herself morally, inisolating herself from every ideal capable of giving her new life. 

So she will see her forces waste and her courage at the same time. Butthe energy of our soldiers is drawn from something which does notwaste, from an ideal of justice and freedom. Time has no hold on us. To the force which feeds only on its own brutality we are opposingthat which seeks outside and above itself a principle of life andrenovation. Whilst the one is gradually spending itself, the other iscontinually remaking itself. The one is already wavering, the otherabides unshaken. Have no fear, our force will slay theirs. 

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