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"I should think so. You know what these men are. Every hour they have in Loango demoralises them more and more." They had reached the gate of the bungalow garden. She turned and held out her hand in an undeniable manner. He bade her good-bye and went his way, wondering vaguely what had happened to them both. The conversation had taken quite a different turn to what he had expected and intended.
"How long, O Lord, how long," we exclaim with the prophet of old, shall men be consumed with this ignoble fever, this war-madness which degrades the combatants far more than it exalts them, which senselessly destroys valuable property, scatters ruin broadcast, paralyses industry, robs the poor of all the bread of life, fills the land with mourning and desolation, with widows and orphans? war, which we learnt from wild beasts, our ancestors, which cannot therefore determine a question of justice, which makes the wrong triumph as often as the right, which degrades all that touch it by isolating them for months, for years perhaps, from civilised life, which demoralises the victors, embitters the vanquished, and, by creating strife, perpetuates the possibilities of renewed strife war, which at this moment keeps Europe in the condition of an armed camp, millions of men leading comparatively idle lives, with long hours on their hands which they cannot fill, with the inevitable results, the nauseating record of filth, disease and abominations too utterly loathsome even to think about war, which is the curse of the poor and unfortunate, consuming the energies of men and the material means whereby their unhappy lot might be alleviated war, the hard, cruel, relentless, inexorable monster of unregenerate man's creation we, since no pope, bishop or priest will do it we execrate it in the name of all we hold holiest, in the name of reason, morality and religion, and we pledge ourselves so to act, privately and politically, as to promote such measures a federation of all English-speaking nations of the earth, if that will serve the purpose, or any other method equally or more serviceable as will finally exorcise this last of the besetting demons of humanity, and fulfil thereby the "sweet dream" of our master and inspirer, Immanuel Kant.
To persuade a man that he is a miserable sinner is to go some way towards leading him into the path of sin. Systematic distrust paralyses and demoralises those who live under it, and so tends to justify the cruelty into which it too readily develops.
Their cruelty to the Hottentots and other natives arises from the prejudices of education: they have from their childhood beheld them treated as slaves, and do not consider them as fellow-creatures. As Mr Fairburn truly said, nothing demoralises so much, or so hardens the heart of man, as slavery existing and sanctioned by law." "But are not the Dutch renowned for cruelty and love of money?"
He saw in them merely specimens, though good ones, of the great majority of the British public, a public so overlaid and permeated by convention, so parochial in outlook, so hidebound by social tradition and insular prejudice, that it is really less in touch with everlasting fact than the animals it pets, demoralises, and eats.
"But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose and set up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will teach us that this choice must be social, not merely individual.
There may occur cases where farmers will continue to employ labourers for the mere purpose of preventing them from coming on the poor-rates, but these are exceptions. If the desire of gain will not cause the employment of capital, assuredly poor- rates wall not. A poor-law adds to pauperism, by inviting to idleness. It drags down the man who pays, and demoralises him who receives.
They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins. There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair. Under Socialism all this will, of course, be altered.
Manifestly Greek must be dropped as a part of the general curriculum for a highly educated man, for the simple reason that now there are scarcely any competent teachers, and because the sham of teaching it partially and pretentiously demoralises student and school alike. The claim of the clergy and so forth to "know" Greek is one of the many corrupting lies in British intellectual life.
Administering corporal punishment demoralises and stupefies the educator, for it increases his thoughtlessness, not his patience, his brutality, not his intelligence. A small boy friend of mine when four years old received his first punishment of this kind; happily it was his only one.
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