The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1916-01-22
DISCUSSED CAUSES OF WAR.
Prof. S. F. Emerson Of University of Yer
mont Spoke in Barre.

A scholarly talk on some OF the funda
mentals OF European history with refer
ence to their effect on the present de
bacle across the water and their bearing
on the ultimate issue of the great con
flict was given by Professor Samuel +
Emerson OF the University Of Vermont
at the first smoker of the winter under
the auspices of the Vincitia club last
evening. The occasion brought together
large assembly of the club members
and their guests, including several mem
bers OF the Apollo club of Montpelier to
whom an invitation had been extended.
To good many persons whose interest
in the war is naturally confined to the
more tangible issues Immediately at
stake, Professor Emerson contributed an
accurate and well-disciplined discussion
of the profounder phases involved, phases
with which the lay mind is not ordinarily
concerned. The speaker was introduced
by the club president, Henry II. Jackson,
and for more than an hour he held the
closest attention of his auditors. After
the smoke-talk there was substantial
buffet luncheon.
Deep into the underlying causes of the
European struggle Professor Emerson
sank his plummet taking his audience
back to history as it is written of Greece
and Rome. Ii was not merely an aca
demic discussion of the multitudinous
causes that wrought so many changes in
the collective groups engaged in the war,
but as much an illuminating excursion
through the development periods of three
great nations, England, France and Ger
many. The ultimate imperative. as it
existed in the corpus juris of Rome, as
it was magnifed by other peoples and
as it was embodied in other forms
through the centuries, Professor Emer-
son described as the fundamental con
ception of justice, the inherent desire for
the ideal Time and countless other
agencies wrought mnumbered changes
on the factor that Plato was pleased TO
call the great ideal. II suffered its great !
est decline in the middle ages, emerged |
into the light with the coming of the |
and was realized in varying !
measures through the years that preced- |
ID the French revolution.
The desire to reconstitute the ideal, to |
ADJUST national existence to an impera-
i've that philosophers felt but somehow |
allied to experience was the underlying
ause of the French revolution Briefly, |
he speaker rehearsed the influences that I
worked for the great ideal in France, of
,omte's philosophy. and then of the revo-
ution's effects in England. Much of
chat followed was associated with the
gelding of the German states into a con-
ederation, of the spirit of nationalism
hat followed the subiugation of Napo-
aon. Professor Emerson laid special
tress on the influence of Hegel and his
iealistic philosophy and then of the era
pessimism, which is ineffably linked
! history with the teachings and rea-
onings of Schopenhaur. There were
ears of despair for Germany and a real
ational feeling that did not assert itself
ntil the blood and iron teachings began
, pave the way for German military
spirations, the subordination of more
orthy ideals, and the doctrine that ma
onsl necessity takes precedence over
rerything else.
The complete collapse of Hegers inilu- J
ices and the ascendency OF the blood !
Id iron ideal turned on tho German sue
sses in 1870. the year Of the memor- I
de march to Paris and the overthrow I
France. In the present war, then. the
'eaker sees the outeropping once again G
the age-old desire for justice, the in
ngible longing of peoples for nearer
alization of the great ideal which Plato I
ught, of a human freedom that is not e
strained by despotism, its metes and I
unds unmarked by autocratie fats of !
e disciples of the Bismarckian doctrine Q
blood and iron. \