[59] This the Church has understood so well, and the corollary to this truth: That love between men can only be created by developing in them the sensibility for abstract man, and by combatting in them the interest for concrete man; by turning them towards metaphysical meditation and away from the study of history (see Malebranche). This is exactly the contrary direction to that of the modern ‘clerks’ but, once again, these ‘clerks’ have not the slightest desire to create love among men. [60] Thus they adopt the national spirit if it seems to serve their interests; for instance, the party of ‘nationalist-socialists’. [61] Certain nationalists, desirous of honouring cosmopolitanism, whose full value their intelligence perceives, and yet not wishing to sacrifice nationalism, declare that cosmopolitanism represents ‘enlightened nationalism’. M. Paul Bourget, who gives this definition (_Paris-Times_, June, 1924), quotes Goethe and Stendhal as examples, ‘the former of whom remained so profoundly German while striving to understand the whole movement of French thought, and the latter remained so profoundly French while he devoted himself to understanding Italy.’ One wonders how these two masters showed the least, even enlightened, ‘nationalism’ by remaining profoundly German and profoundly French. Obviously M. Bourget confuses national and nationalist. [62] Almost all works of national propaganda among the small nations of Eastern Europe are anthologies of poetry. Very few are works of thought. See the words uttered by E. Boutroux in August, 1915, to the Committee of the Entente Cordiale, against the peoples who attach too much importance to the intelligence, which ‘of itself tends to be one and common to all beings capable of knowledge’. [63] _Les Nouvelles Littéraires_, 25th September, 1926. [64] Here is a specimen of the acrobatics which these teachers are compelled to perform in order to conciliate Christian doctrine with the preaching of national particularisms: ‘We wish to set the ideal of universalism in positive relation to the contemporary reality of the national form, which is that of all life, even the Christian life.’ (Pastor Witte, quoted by A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 18.) Here are minds for whom the squaring of the circle is obviously mere child’s play. [65] Is it not suggestive to note that the Church in the last twenty years has replaced the commandment ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, in fact or by assent’ with ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, without right, nor voluntarily’?