But if these preposterous armaments are unlikely to be conclusive in warfare, they do at any rate block the way very effectively to any reorganisation of the world for peace. You can’t make love in armour. All this lumpish preparedness keeps the atmosphere of human life unwholesome; it prevents the settlement by any frank concerted action of the tariff conflicts, financial squabbles, currency annoyance, and mutual economic injuries that are rapidly destroying the present social system. Every big nation comes into such discussions an implicit bully. The nations have to learn the same lessons that individuals learnt in the middle ages, they have to learn not to bear arms even in the company of those who do. In the middle ages, when the loving-cup went round, one’s neighbour stood as one drank to protect one’s back from the assassin’s knife. At last some reckless souls took heart to sit and drink and trust their fellow men. Other desperate spirits left their weapons at home--and survived. But the nations are still half-way back to barbarism. Our cartoonists draw Uncle Sam and John Bull as decent peaceable everyday citizens. They flatter our countries. Really the Great Powers should be drawn as completely canned warriors with their wary eyes and noses just peeping out of their preparedness. And this in spite of the fact that the only serious danger to either is that the weight and clumsiness of this silly equipment and of the world-wide distrust it produces will undermine his business and his national health altogether. XXXI THE CASE OF UNAMUNO: THE FEEBLE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS 12.4.24 There is nothing greater in the world of men than thought. Science, literature, and art; what other glories has man? And yet the company of men of science and letters and art forms but the feeblest of republic throughout the world, is insignificant socially and politically, and wins only posthumous respect.