Page:The Source and Aim of Human Progress.djvu/33

Rh brute of the subconscious clothes itself in the tattered garments of rationality and idealism. Few are clear-sighted enough to discern the cloven hoof from under the mantle of the active subconscious, freed from all control of the rational self. Those few who by some luck happen to escape the madness of social hypnotization are afraid to give expression to their thoughts, because they are terrorized by the inquisitorial intolerance of crazed mobs and frenzied nations. Everyone spies and is spied upon in turn; everyone denounces and is denounced in turn for disloyalty to the cause of "humanity" and treason to the sacred flag. The few are forced into silence and submission by threats of violence and torture. If anyone dares to say anything rational, or if he has the courage to set himself in opposition to the maddened current of popular opinion, he is mobbed by pious crowds and is persecuted by inquisitorial courts of justice. Such was the terrible state of the mediaeval crusade-mania. Such in fact is the state of every crusade-mania which seizes on the minds of nations in the long history of national mental epidemics. If any rational person during the crusade epidemic dared to speak a word of warning, the only answer of the hypnotized, entranced crusaders was the suggestion given by the pope: "He who will not follow Me is unworthy of Me." Such conscientious objectors, "sinners undeserving of Me," were usually wiped out by sword and fire.

If we ridicule the mediaeval crusade mania, let us compare it with what took place in our own times, in the first quarter of the twentieth century. At the outbreak of the war for the alleged defense of the Fatherland the excitement of militaristic mania in the central empires of Europe reached a formidable height. There were parades, processions, the carrying high of banners and flags, the preaching of hatred and singing of "Hass" and the patriotic national hymn—"DeutchlandDeutschland [sic] ueber Alles"; there were Leagues of Defense and Leagues of Security, and all sorts of societies for fighting the war to a finish and for winning the war. The plague did not spare scientists, philosophers, and theologians; such men as Wundt, Haeckel, and Harnack were affected alike with the lowliest chimney-sweeps and craziest asylum inmates,—all cursed and threatened perfidious England and the treacherous allies, all were obsessed by the fervor of national defense of the imperilled Fatherland. The patriotic crusade of the Fatherland-defense did not spare anyone; the young and the old, the learned and the ignorant, the conservatives and the radicals, the capitalists, the workmen, and the international socialists were all alike affected by