The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-29


 broad trend of its policy It's freedom from rules or formaItties prevented any obstructive proceedings, and when one of the two newly arrived homo rule members for India sought for informa- ton how to bring in bill they learned simply that bills were not brought in. They asked for the speaker and were privileged to hear much ripe wisdom from the ex-king EgbertJ who was now consciously among the seniors of the gathering. Thereafter they were baf- ned men,
 But already by that time the work of the council was drawing to an end. 1t was concerned not so much for Ghe continuation of It's constructions as for the preservation of it's accomplished work from the dramatic instincts Of the politician.
 The life of the race becomes indeed more and more independent of the for nal government. The council in its opening phase was heroic in spfrit 4 dragon staying body, it slashed out of existence a vast knotted tangle of obsolete ideas and clumsy and Jealous proprietoTships 1t secured by a nohIe system of Institutional precautions, freedom of inquiry, freedom Of cIEtf- cfsm, free communications, common basis Of education and understandlng and freedom from economic opures- sion. With that it's creative task was accomplished. It became more ana more an established security and less and less an active intervention There is nothing in our time to coETeE3cnd . with the continual petty making ana entangling of laws in an atmosphere Of contention that is perhaps the most
 
 tory in the nineteenth century. In that age they seem to have been peEpstu- ally making laws when we should alter regulations. The IEoEk of change which we delegate to faese scientific committees of specific general diree- ton which have the special knowledge needed, and which are themselves dominated by the broad intellectual process of the coxn1u0nity. was fn those days inextricably mixed up with legis- iation. They fought over the details. We should as soon think Of lighting over the arrangement of the parts of a machine We know nowadays that such things go on best within laws, as fife goes on between earth and sky And so it is that government gathers now for a day or so in each year un- der the sunshine of BrfssagO when St. Bruno's lfIlfes are in flower and does little more than bless the work of fts committees And even these commit tees are less or4gfnat1Ve ana more eI- presstve Of the general thought than they were at first. It becomes difficult to mark out the particular directive personalities of the world. Continually we are less personal. Every good thought. contributes now, and every sa<,r a7 and dispersed kingship which gathers together into one purpose the energies of the race.
 It is doubtful if we shah ever see again phase of. human existence in which. espoIftics''- is to say, parti- san interference with the ruling sant- ties of the worId-will be the dominant interest among serious men, We seem to have entered upon an entirely new phase in history, in which contention as distinguished from rivalry has all most abruptly ceased to be the usual occupation and has become at most a subdued and hidden and discredited thing Contentious professions cease to. be an honorable employment for men. The peace between nations Is also a peace between individuals. We live in a world that comes Of age. Man E the pickering aspects of life pdss into obscurity; the grave dreamers. man the curious learner and man the crea- tive artist, come forward 10 replace | these barbaric aspects of existence by less ignobIe adventure.
 There is no natural life of man. Re | is and always has been a sheath oG varied and even incompatible possibil- ities. a palimpsest of inherited dispO- sitions. It was the habit of many writers in the early twentieth century to speak of competition and the narrow l private life of trade and saving and suspicious isolation as though such ] things were in some exceptional way proper to the human constitution ana 1 as though openness of mind and a pref erence for achievement over possession were abnormal and rather unsubstan- tia1 qualities. How wrong that was the history of the decades immediately 1 following the establishments o1 the world republic witnesses. Once ahS world was released from the hardening insecurities of needless struggle for l life that was collectively planless and individually absorbing, it became ap- parent that there was in the vast mass of people long smothered passion Sa make things. The world broke out into. making, and at first mainly tnts aesthetic making. This phase of his tory, which has been not inapt1y term l ed the "ef7orescence," is still to a l large extent with us. The ma5Or5ty of our population consists Of artistz and the bulk of activity in the world lies no longer with necessities, but l with their elaboration, decoration and refinement. There has been an evident change n the quality of this making during the recent years It becomaa more purposefu1 than it was, losing something of its first elegance and prettiness. and gaining in intensity, but that is a change rather Of hue than of nature. That comes with a deepening