Abstract

The Failure of the Intellectuals

The outbreak of the war in 1914 was a triumph of militarism in European civilization, that all men know. But all men do not see with the same eyes what were the forces leading to internationalism over which this militarism triumphed. It triumphed over the economic bonds of industry and trade, whose symbol is banks and gold, but surely it is a fatuous estimate of the human soul which rests its hope for peace upon its love of gain. But if the spirit of the International was the least articulate, that of the intellectuals was the most articulate of the great professions of European culture. It is the very business of art and science and scholarship to express themselves, and to an international audience and for an international understanding, and there was no solidarity of Western civilization so pretentious as that of its intellectualism.