Certain American methods have based their theory upon a clever sophism; they exaggerate the automatic under the pretext of thus cutting short the length of the work. That is not a happy solution, to cut short the hours of labor by emptying it of all joy, of all professional interest. It is better to undertake a long piece of work with relish than to hurry through a short task with repugnance. The specialization that is rendered necessary by the very extent of scientific and industrial activity remains a dangerous thing, especially among an old race of encyclopedists like ourselves. However that may be, the peoples consent to yield themselves to the discretion of the modern world. May the monster leave them some scraps of a liberty that is still honorable enough for them to think of cultivating their souls. There will not be lacking men of good will who will be glad to devote themselves to directing this liberty, to transforming the meaning and the demands of joy, propagating a culture which, unlike those old errors, will support education more readily than instruction,--men who will more often address themselves to the heart than to the disastrous reason. IX France has suffered, suffers and will suffer more deeply than all the other countries of the world. She is at once the altar and the holocaust. She has sacrificed her men, her cities, and her soil. It is in the heart of her beautiful fields that the devastating storm whirls and roars. In the depths of my soul I hope that, because of this great grief, it will be France that will give the signal for redemption. I hope that the reign of the heart will begin just here where the old civilization will leave imperishable traces of its murderous folly. The resources of the French people in perseverance, in self-reliance, in goodness, in subtle delicacy are so great that one feels a word would suffice to rally all hearts and give them their bearings. One feels that at the mere phrase “moral civilization” thousands and thousands of noble heads will nod approval, thousands of hands will reach out to find each other. People who have obstinate views on the political meaning of wars, on the eminently economic nature of the peril that has been run by humanity, and on the efficacy of the industrial and scientific civilization, will not fail to proclaim that France ought first of all to return to its furious task and apply itself to surpassing the peoples that have outstripped it along this path. But France has always been the country of initiation and revelation. It is the chosen land of spiritual revolutions. May the bloody baptism it has received give it precedence in the discussion of the future! Do you wish it to lose the glorious rank it holds in the moral order, at the head of the nations, that it may fall in line behind the peoples who are enslaved by automatism and swear allegiance to a worn-out, condemned, bankrupt social and economic religion?