The Raft & Socrates Asks Why
Page 4
VOLTAIRE
I begin to feel doubtful about the impartiality of our Commentator. I incline more and more to the belief that it was he who instigated this doleful war. There is in his voice a deepening note of gratification when he tells us how big it is. He reminds me of a theatrical producer who has put upon the stage the most extravagant spectacle of all time, and hopes by advertising its enormous cost to excuse its lack of taste.
LINCOLN
But surely he is justified in combing the dictionary for every superlative he can find. If we are to realise even a fraction of this war’s significance, we must strain our minds to the very limit of comprehension. There is nothing in human speech that can exaggerate its size, or overestimate its consequences. If we exclude the story of the Flood — and as no one here has ever seen Noah, I think we may — then this certainly is the most general calamity in history. No war has ever counted (God help them all) so many participants.
JOHNSON
You are wrong, sir. The perpetual conflict between Passion and Reason, extending over the whole terrestrial surface of the globe, engages all mankind.
LINCOLN
But there is sometimes a truce in that campaign.
VOLTAIRE
Nor has it the energy of total war, for while our sympathy, of course, is all enlisted upon the one side, our behaviour often takes service with the other. And so there is some dispersal of our forces.
JOHNSON
So much the worse for us.
LINCOLN
In the American Civil War nearly a million men lost their lives. It was a war for a good cause, it was a right and necessary war. But even now I cannot think without dismay of what it cost, and in the Southern States it left a heritage of poverty and bitterness that lasted all the years of a lifetime. And that war was confined to a single country. Do you dare to picture the casualty lists in this war, that has no boundaries except the limits that God has so mercifully given to our world? What fearful ghosts will remain of hatred and utter misery! How many Germans and Russians have already died in the snow, and on the banks of those red rivers? How many English boys have died in the desert, or in the greater desolation of the sea? What myriads of Chinese have gone to their death! How many of my countrymen will perish in lands to which they never gave a thought? There must be, in this new chaos, twenty, thirty, forty million men in arms.
SOCRATES
Why?
LINCOLN
You ask me why?
SOCRATES
Yes. What are they fighting for?
LINCOLN
My country was attacked by an unscrupulous enemy without warning, without provocation, without other reason than the lust of aggression. Is that a sufficient answer?
SOCRATES
But America is also at war with Germany, and Germany has not bombed your cities or attacked your dependent islands. Why are you fighting Germany?
LINCOLN
Because Germany and Japan are two nations tarred with the same brush. They are survivors of an older world. A brutal world of inequality and fear. That is why they are in alliance. They are the last of the slave-states. They’re resurrectionists. They have dug up, from some old and haunted grave, those shapes of hideous cruelty and oppression that were, we thought, for ever buried. The rape of Nanking and the massacre of Lidice are evidence of their nature and the deliberate demonstration of their power. And their single policy, their avowed intention, is to increase that power till it covers the earth. If they could work their will, they would destroy not only men and cities, but all our way of life.
SOCRATES
America, then, is fighting to preserve its way of life? That is to say, its manners, and morals, and philosophy. Are you satisfied that your American way of life is worth the sacrifice of a large number of its sturdiest and most energetic citizens?
LINCOLN
It is a way of life that safeguards freedom of conscience, that has brought about good and friendly relations between the people of forty-eight States, and does what it can to promote their material welfare.
SOCRATES
There are, however, certain elements in your American way of life which are less desirable than freedom of conscience, and may not be worth so great a price?
LINCOLN
In every country on earth you will find elements which, so far from being worth the slightest effort to preserve them, inspire in all right-thinking men the desire to eliminate them.
SOCRATES
But those undesirable elements will, by a successful war, be preserved equally with the good elements of American civilisation. They may, indeed, even be encouraged to grow, because war loosens many of the moral bands which, in time of peace, we try to keep tied.
LINCOLN
That, unhappily, is very true.
SOCRATES
So that in going to war to preserve only what is good, you are no more certain of achieving your purpose than a gambler, rolling his dice, can be sure of throwing the number seven?
LINCOLN
I think you underestimate, not only the better aspirations of American life, but our capacity for putting them in harness and making them work.
SOCRATES
Then I am glad you have corrected me, for I wanted to be assured of that. — Now as to Britain. Britain went to war in quite different circumstances. Britain was not attacked by Germany. If my memory is right, Britain went to war on behalf of Poland, though a year earlier it had refused to fight for Czechoslovakia. Surely, then, the reason for Britain’s participation in the war was a particular and decisive admiration for the Polish way of life?
VOLTAIRE
Which, in the general estimation of Britain, must have been superior to the Czechoslovak way of life.
SOCRATES
I agree with you. Now in what respect was Poland superior?
JOHNSON
Sir, you are sophisticating. There was no such thing as an appraisal of the several claims to admiration, which may have been numerous, of the countries you denominate. The majority of Englishmen, though indifferent to neither when it was attacked, had until then been ignorant of both. The reason of our going to war was a simple one. It was to put a stop to an abuse which had become intolerable.
SOCRATES
And if some other nation, let us suppose France or Spain, were to acquire as great a strength as Germany’s, and try to bend all other countries to its will, would you judge that also an abuse which had to be stopped by war?
JOHNSON
Yes, sir. Both France and Spain, at one time or another, were disposed to secure, by the subjugation of their neighbours’ power, the vicious aggrandisement of their own. They went very far on their road to a domination of the world, till we put a spoke in the wheel.
VOLTAIRE
And if Britain tried, in a similar manner, to dominate the continent of Europe, would you agree that Britain should be stopped?
JOHNSON
Why, sir, I confess that I might be tempted to judge my own country more leniently than some foreign adventurer. But I would expect France to resent the intrusion of England, and though I might not sympathise with your resentment, I would respect it.
SOCRATES
For a long time it was the declared policy of Britain to preserve in Europe what was known as the Balance of Power. Is not that, perhaps, the reason why Britain is now at war with Germany?
JOHNSON
A balance, sir, is a very useful instrument. On the counter of a shop it guarantees honesty in trade, and in the hand of Justice it is the symbol of equity. Where the balance is equal, then neither side can bluster in the gross assurance of superior wealth, nor tremble for its precarious insufficiency. A balance, sir, is not to be despised, nor is he who adjusts it.
LINCOLN
I suppose you are aware, Doctor, of the view that is taken by my country of your Balance of Power. We do not regard it with much liking, certainly with no reverence, and nothing will persuade us to juggle with contributory weights
.
JOHNSON
I am the more willing to listen to you, sir, because in my London days I would have shown too little agreement. I used to hate an American almost as deeply as I hated a Whig. But that, sir, may have been due to ignorance. Since my arrival here, I have changed my mind in several particulars. I have even lost something of my animosity to the Whig dogs, because one doesn’t meet them here, and memory becomes more kind as absence grows longer. But in regard to America my conversion has been positive, and that is because no one who has enjoyed the benefit and pleasure of your company, Mr. President, could fail to think kindly of the country that nursed you.
LINCOLN
Lord Chesterfield himself couldn’t be more graceful than that, Doctor, but I’m better pleased to hear it from you than I would be from him. And I hope you won’t change your opinion if I continue to be sceptical about your diplomacy. I had a very interesting talk with a countryman of yours not so long ago, a young fellow called Arden, who was in your Royal Air Force before he got himself killed, and I gathered from him that the younger generation in Britain have no more respect for the Balance of Power than I have. What some of them want, according to Arden, is a rule of international law, guaranteed and to begin with enforced, by the leading members of the Allied nations: that is to say, Great Britain, Russia, China, and the United States.
SOCRATES
That, I grant you, would be an object or purpose corresponding in importance with the magnitude of the war. But is that fourfold rule of law the declared policy of the Allied nations?
LINCOLN
No, I’m afraid it isn’t. Not yet.
SOCRATES
It is, then, merely the aspiration of a few?
LINCOLN
I believe that something of that kind is the aspiration of a great number of intelligent people.
SOCRATES
Who would not be satisfied with anything less?
LINCOLN
They will certainly not be satisfied if, when the war shall be over, the world returns to that uneasy system of balancing power against power until both sides, overloaded with their horrible accumulation of guns and hatred and fear, upset the machine and bring to ruin a whole generation in its fall.
SOCRATES
It is a characteristic of man that he aspires to better things. It is, however, a characteristic of nature that most human aspirations come to nothing. And if this desire that the stability of law should replace the uncertain equipoise of nations is not, as you admit, the agreed and stated policy of the Allied Powers, but merely an expression of hope on the part of some well-meaning people who, for all I know, have little influence in the world, then it seems likely that their aspirations will succumb to nature, and fail. That being so, all this fighting is a waste, not only of time and effort, but also of soldiers’ lives.
LINCOLN
Let us hope you are wrong.
SOCRATES
By all means let us hope so. But if, unhappily, I am right, then surely these millions of men now at war are fighting without a sufficient cause? Or have they some large and reasoned motive about which I am ignorant?
VOLTAIRE
Is it possible, Socrates, that after all these years the power of your mind is failing? Do you really believe that human beings are governed by reason?
SOCRATES
It is the faculty of reason which principally distinguishes man from the lower animals. When he renounces the government of reason, he must relapse into the anarchy of the beasts.
VOLTAIRE
Which is a circumstance as common in history as a shower of rain in London.
SOCRATES
Since my time there has been a great number of excellent teachers, of whom you, Voltaire, were not the least. Is it possible that a race of men which has heard so much wisdom should remember none of it?
VOLTAIRE
The world is incapable of learning.
JOHNSON
That is not so, sir. The world is eminently susceptible to instruction, and the universal growth of knowledge is happily accompanied by a general increase of sensibility. It is true, sir, that progress or advancement in one particular is rarely seen without some decline or retrogradation in another. I dare say you have observed a man, hurrying to his place of business, who sets his foot upon a piece of orange-peel, and thereby takes a fall? But will any good man be distracted from his vocation by such a trivial interruption? No, sir, he will not. He will pick himself up and proceed as though nothing had happened.
VOLTAIRE
Do you really share the optimism of a certain creature of my fancy whom I called — if my memory is good — Dr. Pangloss?
JOHNSON
No, sir. The world is not the best of all possible worlds, but it is a tolerable world, and a strong man should not despair of its growing better. It has grown better in many of its aspects. Twenty years ago I contemplated the Russian revolution with every degree of antipathy and revulsion, but I am bound to admit that the Russian army of to-day is a better army than that which fought for the late Czar. There has been progress in the military art. In China we have seen not only the growth of a national spirit, but, under the influence of a lady whose name I shall not venture to pronounce, the inculcation of public morality and the social virtues. As for America, that has developed from a dissident coterie of ill-advised but worse-conducted savages — —
LINCOLN
My dear Doctor! The fathers of my country are venerated, at least in the United States, not only for the integrity of their minds, but their political acumen.
JOHNSON
They lived as near neighbours to the savages, and were infected by their perpetual dissension. But their descendants are better men. They have fostered the growth of learning, and raised the price of authorship. I repeat, sir, that of America to-day I have formed a high opinion.
LINCOLN
If I praise your candour, that will not imply agreement with the reasoning by which you have come to your good opinion. I hope you consider that Britain has made equal improvement on the accomplishments of your Eighteenth Century?
JOHNSON
No, sir, in my own countrymen there has been less advancement. They have neglected their religion and forgotten how to write. They have no painter equal to Reynolds, nor an actor who could hold a candle to Davy Garrick. In certain directions they have gone downhill. But they are better than they were a few years ago, when they were little removed from being contemptible. They have come out of the doldrums, sir. They have shown hardihood and resolve, and now in several particulars are revealing a tincture of good sense. I have my hopes of England.
SOCRATES
If there has been this improvement in the countries you mention, and doubtless in others, is it not likely that their inhabitants are aware of national progress, and take pride in it?
JOHNSON
It is very likely, sir.
SOCRATES
Then the reason for their fighting in this war may be national pride or patriotism?
JOHNSON
I would trust no one, sir, who gave such a reason. I have said it before, and I shall say it again, that patriotism is too often the last refuge of a scoundrel.
VOLTAIRE
Not his last refuge. His last refuge is to make a commodity of his country, and sell it.
LINCOLN
I never thought an epigram worth much as evidence, but it doesn’t entitle one to throw the witness out of court. I would have said myself that patriotism was still a very compulsive force, and where it happens to co-operate with the principles of good government, I cannot suppose it to be a despicable force. But young Arden, of whom I spoke to you before, tells me that people nowadays want a larger purpose. So both young and old, it may be, have agreed to discount it as a casus belli.
SOCRATES
Then we have still to find the reason why forty million men are at present using all their strength and ingenuity to kill each other. I wish it were possible to put some questions t
o an intelligent German or Japanese. But there are obvious difficulties.