Page:Justice in war time by Russell, Bertrand.djvu/28

2 and Bernard Shaw—and even among politicians, although political extinction is now everywhere the penalty for a sense of justice. Among men of learning, there are no doubt many who have preserved justice in their thoughts and in their private utterances. But these men, whether from fear or from unwillingness to seem unpatriotic, have almost kept silence. Among those who have published their opinions, almost all have shown a complete lack of intellectual detachment. Such an article as that of V. Pareto in Scientia could hardly have been written by a professor in one of the belligerent countries.

I cannot but think that the men of learning, by allowing partiality to color their thoughts and words, have missed the opportunity of performing a service to mankind for which their training should have specially fitted them. The truth, whatever it may be, is the same in England, France, and Germany, in Russia and in Austria. It will not adapt itself to national needs: it is in its essence neutral. It stands outside the clash of passions and hatreds, revealing, to those who seek it, the tragic irony of strife with its attendant world of illusions. Men of learning, who should be accustomed to the pursuit of truth in their daily work, might have attempted, at this time, to make themselves the mouthpiece of truth, to see what was false on their own side, what was valid on the side of their enemies. They might have used their reputation and their freedom from political entanglements to mitigate the abhorrence with which the nations have come to regard each other, to help towards mutual