Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/262

248 disguised in diplomatic formulas; they desire that their delegates should not be interfered with when going the round of the workshops charged with the mission of bringing those workmen who wish to work to understand that it would be to their interests to follow the directions of the Trades Unions; they consent to express their desires in a form which will be perfectly clear to the listener, but which could be represented in a court of justice as a solidarist sermon. I protest I cannot see what is so admirable in these tactics, which are worthy of Escobar. In the past the Catholics have often employed similar methods of intimidation against the Liberals; I understand thus perfectly well why so many worthy progressives admire the Trades Unions, but the morality of the worthy-progressives does not seem to me very much to be admired.

It is true that for a long time in England violence has been void of all revolutionary character. Whether corporative advantages are pursued by means of blows or by craft, there is not much difference between the two methods; yet the pacific tactics of the Trades Unions indicate an hypocrisy which would be better left to the "well intentioned progressives." In a country where the conception of the general strike exists, the blows exchanged between workmen and representatives of the middle classes have an entirely different import, their consequences are far reaching and they may beget heroism.

I am convinced that in order to understand part, at any rate, of the dislike that Bernstein's doctrines rouse in German social democracy we must bear in mind these conclusions about the nature of the sublime in ethics. The German has been brought up on sublimity to an