The Present Conflict of Ideals - A Study of the Philosophical, Background of the World War #248532

It is my hope in these lectures to bring to light the deeper conflict Of ideas and ideals, of creeds and codes, Of philos ophies Of life, in Short that underlies the conflict of sub marines, airplanes and howitzers. This is a modern war in which the belligerents are nations largely governed by general ideas and ultimate values. It is these general ideas and ulti mate values that are at stake. The age after the war will be a new age; not SO much because the map Of Europe will be changed, but rather because the map Of the human mind will be changed. It is our present expectation and determina tion that certain ideas, like national aggrandizement, at present supported by most redoubtable champions, will find only a narrow and insecure lodgment in the human mind; and that other ideas such as international justice and domes tic self-government Shall be the big and triumphant ideas. But it will not be altogether a matter of the rise of some ideas and the fall Of others; to some extent there will be an exchange Of ideas. Ideas are catching; and you can catch ideas, like diseases, as well from your enemy as from your friend. If the idea be a good one you are not going to refuse it merely because, for example, it was made in Germany. N O one in our country is exhorting us to be wasteful, weak and dis organized, merely because the opposites of these qualities are German. I suspect we Shall even learn to think well Of efficiency again, though perhaps under another name.