The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century EuropeCramb, J. A. (John Adam)
History
The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain: Nineteenth Century Europe
Cramb, J. A. (John Adam)
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration -- History -- 19th century; Imperialism; War
First of all, as we have seen from this brief survey of the wars of the
past, the most religious of the great races of the world, and the most
religious amongst the divisions of those races--the Hebrews, the
Romans, the Teutons, the Saracens, the Osmanii--have been the most
warlike and have pursued in war the loftiest political ends. This fact
is significant, because war, like religion and like language,
represents not the individual but the race, the city, or the nation.
In a work of art, the _Phaedrus_ of Plato or the _Bacchus and Ariadne_
of Titian, the genius of the individual is, in appearance at least,
sovereign and despotic. But as a language represents the happy moments
of inspiration of myriads of unremembered poets, who divined the fit
sound, the perfect word, harmonious or harsh, to embody for ever, and
to all succeeding generations of the race, its recurring moods of
desire or delight, of pain, or sorrow, or fear; and as in a religion
the heart-aspirations towards the Divine of a long series of
generations converge, by genius or fortune, into a flame-like intensity
in a Zerdusht, a Mohammed, or a Gautama Buddha; so war represents the
action, the deed, not of the individual but of the race. Religion
incarnates the thought, language the imagination, war the resolution,
the _will_, of a race. Reflecting then on the part which war has
played in the history of the most deeply religious races, and of those
States in which the attributes of awe, of reverence are salient
features, it is surely idle enough to essay an arraignment of war as
opposed to religion in general?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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