Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/199

Rh their childhood have been taught that the Nature of Man is evil; that every man, whenever he is invested with power, will abuse his power; and further that every man as soon as he gets strong enough to be able to do it, will be sure to want to rob and murder his neighbour. In fact, I want to say here the reason why John Smith, Bobus and Moses Lump have been able to get the plain men and women in Europe to help them to force the actual rulers, soldiers and diplomats of Europe to create the monstrous modern machine, which has brought on this terrible war, is because the plain men and women in every country, when in a crowd, are always selfish and cowardly.

Thus, if you go into the root of the matter, you will see that it is not the rulers, soldiers and diplomats, not even John Smith, Bobus and Moses Lump, but it is really the good honest plain men and women, such men as Professor DickisonDikinson [sic] himself, who are responsible for this war. But Professor Dickinson will repudiate and say: We plain men and women did not want this war. But then, who wanted this war? I answer, Nobody wanted this war. Well then, what brought on this war? I answer, It was panic which brought on this war; the panic of the mob, —the panic which seized and took possession of the crowd of plain men and women in all European countries when last August that monstrous modern machine in Russia which the plain men and women had helped to create, began to move. In short, it was paincpanic [sic], I say, —the panic of the mob, panic of the crowd of the plain