Is this adoption of ‘integral realism’ by the human species permanent, or merely temporary? Are we, as some people think, witnessing the beginning of a new Middle Ages (and one far more barbarous than the former, for though it practised realism, it did not extol realism), from which, however, will arise a new Renaissance, a new return to the religion of disinterestedness? The elements we have discovered as forming the new realism scarcely allow us to hope so. It is hard to imagine the nations sincerely striving not to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from others, or, if they do so, having any other motive than that of concentrating inter-human hatred into that of class. It is hard to imagine the clergy regaining a real moral sway over the faithful and being able (supposing they desired to do so) to tell them with impunity unpleasant truths. It is hard to imagine a body of men of letters (for corporative action becomes more and more important) attempting to withstand the bourgeois classes instead of flattering them. It is still harder to imagine them turning against the tide of their intellectual decadence and ceasing to think that they display a lofty culture when they sneer at rational morality and fall on their knees before history. Nevertheless one thinks of a humanity of the future, weary of its ‘sacred egotisms’ and the slaughterings to which they inevitably lead, coming as humanity came two thousand years ago, to the acceptance of a good situated beyond itself, accepting it even more ardently than before, with the knowledge of all the tears and blood that have been shed through departing from that doctrine. Once more Vauvenargues’ admirable saying would be verified. ‘The passions have taught men reason.’ But such a thing only seems to me possible after a long lapse of time, when war has caused far more woes than have yet been endured. Men will not revise their values for wars which only last fifty months and only kill a couple of million men in each nation. One may even doubt whether war will ever become so terrible as to discourage those who love it, the more so since they are not always the men who have to fight.