The Washington herald., 1920-11-28
On Being DisilIusioned.
.NE Of the commonest expressie

the hour is that we are Giving in a
disillusioned world" The assump-
tion is that therefore the world is worse off
than it used to be. Possibly it is for per-
sons who cherish their illusions" of whom
there are many in all lands and at all times
But for persons who want the truth, even
though It hurts to be disiliusioned. either
as to personal or national or racial affairs,
the process is sign of coming health and
vigor and not of disease and rdecrepitude
II is quite true that for time "the SEEM
ing often works the same results as the
actual" But the stars in their courscs and
all the laws of cause and effect work
against any such permanent solution of life. Z
Truth is truth. Man is the creature and
not the Creator. The universe.is cosmos
and not chaos. The Ten Commandments
are still ripe with wisdom, whether written
on tables of stone by Moses, OF not. Tyr,
amy invariably incites revolution whether
IN Babylon or Russia. Jesus was finer
spirit than Plate. Water naturally seeks
its own level. What goes up must come
down. Peace is better than war. Reason,
is safer guide than fancy. Chastity ia
vors finer race product than lust.
So the list runs on. Man has not lived
as long as he has without coming to some
definite knowledge about himself and the
world in which he lives, knowledge that is
not going to-alter in the year 7o2o or at
any future time in mans evolution Con-
sequently he is wisest among the men of
his time who finds out what this accumu-
lated deposit of truth is and accepts it as
a working creed of belief and conduct
Analysis OF the personnel of the disillu-
stoned at the present time, were it to be
made, would find them to be people of the
poetical, imaginative, vision-coastructing
temperament and habit, men and women
who take the things they long for as pres
ent fact. They would be found compare
tvely ignorant of the great field of history
and the growth of political and social in !,
stitutions. They would be found to be
optimists, instead of motorists, which is
the best sort of "ist" that any one can be.
1t there is any one cause of the out
standing present cynicism and depression
OF the, disillusioned, it is to be found in
the fact that strife between peoples con-
tinues, debts for armies and navies mount
up rather than decline, and violence in
creases in the civilian populations of even
the most stable and least rayaped conn
tries. But there is nothing surprising in
this however disappointing it may be. To
destroy Teutonic and Slavic imperialism it
was necessary to invoke lesser LOYALTY,
namely that of nationalism, and nationalism
in its first stages is bellcose as irnperial-~S
ism in its last msnifestations,s4..- .z,s...- s.
Again, millions of men cannot be trained
to hight, and having as it were tasted blood.
suddenly turn to a milk diet. Peoples un-
dernourished during war will not when
peace dawns fail to fight for food by use
OF willy statecraft to capture new sources
OF supply for themselves and for their
children No nation staggering under the
debts of militarism turns gladly to settle
the accounts by even more severe taxation,
Parents of both sexes cannot serve the
state either as fighters or as makers of mu-
nitions and at the same time discipline their
young, who, without the checks of normal
home life, always revert to rebellion and
license.
1t is as true of civilization as it is of
a house that you cannot subject it to bonn
bardment and expect to find it very habit
able or Gkeable thereafter; and people who
supposed that when Germany signed the
Peace treaty two years ago the world was
going to be pleasant place in which to
live just because Germany was conquered,
not only had illusions but delusions.
Grim, realistic, cynical Clemenceau saw
the truth and stated it when he said that
the process of making peace would be
more difficult than the process of making
war. AS he recuperates in far off India
from his physical strain and meditates on
the ingratitude of the French people, he
can serenely say. II told you so;" and it
would be strange if around his Mongolian
like features did not play an ironic smile
But lest we create the impression of be-
ing pessimistie let it be said now that an
IDEAL and an illusion are very differnt fac
tors m human experience. Idealism may
linger when an Illusion has to 60. Nothing
that has happened since the armistice is
wholly surprising to reader of history or
to an evolutionist. He can see steady ap-
proximation to desired goal even when
chaos of immediate hopes drives to despair
the visionary. The meliorist sees emerging
from all the present strife closer approach
to popular rule in government. He knows