Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/205



confusion, and pushing the people from time to time into wholesale slaughter with ever more hor- rible instruments of destruction. They feel also that if secret policies, engendering fears and sus- picion, are to continue to be the dominant factor, then all improvement in human welfare, education and science, will have to be in a large measure postponed to the preparation of constantly more formidable engines of death. One cannot but re- member the worst imprecations of the Greek tragic poets and philosophers, on the miserable destiny of man. In fact, if we should have to be- lieve that no better way could be found to man- age the vital interests of mankind, a great nat- ural catastrophe, which would extinguish once and for all the miserable breed on this planet, would almost appear in the light of a redemption.

But we cannot believe that the peoples of the world will be so foolish as to allow themselves to remain in this condition and not to find their way to a reorganization of public affairs which will make such a haphazard and perilous situation impossible. It seems plain that the idea of the state and of state action will have to be trans- formed in accordance with the greater self-con- sciousness of humanity which has developed in the last century, or the desire to scrap the po-