The Maccabaean

BUILDING THE TEMPLE OF PEACE

Dr. Kallen opens his essay, “The Structure of Lasting Peace” (Marshal Jones Company, Boston, $1.25) by boldly sweeping aside the conventional peace agencies—League to Enforce Peace, Carnegie, and other sentimentalists. It is not because they are sentimentalists that he dismisses them as futile, but rather because they are congenitally bound up with those forces that make for war; the traders, armorers and commercial adventurers.

From the very beginning of his investigation Dr. Kallen relates permanent peace to the fundamental economic arrangements, and the international order to which he points grows out of the economic interdependence of States as well as the mutual respect and toleration among nations. In the forefront of his structure is the principle of nationality. Toleration of nationality is the spiritual basis of an international order just as certainly as relig- ‘ious toleration is the basis of civil liberty.

The author makes it very clear that the freedom which he seeks for nations must not be interpreted in its present-day sense. He does not aim at unrestrained sovereignty. Quite ~the reverse. In unrestrained sovereignty’ he sees the same danger to international order that the liberum veto was to the civil order of the old Polish kingdom. No order can be built on such a selfish principle, The nations must surrender something of their sovereignty to an international authority—which is left upon the horizon—just as the colonial states of America surrendered a measure of their respective sovereignties for the advantages of peace and union.

The learned Doctor follows this principle of limited sovereignty with hard logic. He is * not in favor of independence for the petty Balkan states, but prefers a federalized Austria that will guarantee essential freedom to the little nations and at the same time prevent them from fighting. But this is only an illustration of the greater federation which shall embrace all the nations of the earth, or at least all that can be trusted. This great federation the author founds on two principles,

I. The right of nationality;

II. Economic interdependence of States. The nation, the Doctor points out, is the natural unit, the unit of culture, of the Spirit; the State is only an administrative unit and should be as large or as small as efficiency dictates. :

At this point the Doctor’s essay is obviously doctrinaire, in spite of the fact that he criti- cizes the President for not going into details with respect to his proposed League to Insure Peace. The Doctor’s own “League” is still 80 shadowy a structure that the same criticism may be lodged against him. The essay has polemical value for its attack on the robber

State which recognizes no international superior and respects no right that is not supported by vis et armis, but it can hardly be said to show us a practical way out of this forest of bayonets. The future is still with the armies. Germany must be overcome.

By his clear analysis of the economic causes of war the author himself raises the doubt whether any international union can be brought about without profound and_ revolutionary economic changes. It seems hardly likely that political changes will be sufficient. An over-emphasis of economic interdependence does not persuade the lay-reader. Economic interdependence existed in 1914 and did not prevent the hideous struggle now raging, and the Central Powers have prosecuted this war in spite of economic handicaps.

In seeking a remedy for the evil of war, one is inevitably driven to consider extremes, yet Dr. Kallen is certain that the Russian extremists cannot endure. He endeavors to develop an island of refuge somewhere between the present State and the revolutionary extremists, and like all good “Girondists” he perishes nobly. The trouble is that those who are masters in the present order will not have any international union of any merit because they will not surrender their economic privileges, while those who are willing to act upon an international program might not stop where the Doctor would sagely halt. In times of strife one must align himself definitely. Perhaps the President is wiser when he does not go into details!

No doubt Dr. Kallen could have given us ‘a more detailed program—which he demands of Mr. Wilson—if he had taken more time. The little essay was only suggested to him early in the Fall of 1917, he tells in the foreword, and this may also account for 8 100- heavy larding of catch phrases and newspaper terms. He who writes while he runs can hardly develop a personal terminology. Or perhaps the author wished to reach the man of the street. In this he ought to be successful. He reached me.

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Altogether out of the ordinary in the way of theological volumes is Eric S. Robertson’s “The Bible’s Prose Epic of Eve and Her Sons” (Putnam). Mr. Robertson, who is a fellow of the Punjab University and author of a very entertaining book on the Lake District of England called “Wordsworthshire,” has woven together a group of interpretative comments on what are commonly called “the ‘J’ stories in Genesis.” The result, however, is far from being dry; it says no undisputed things in an irritatingly solemn way; it does not imply in any way that stupidity is the only abso-

lutely valid proof of truth. On the contrary, it is a book humorous, poetic, free from both mawkishness and squeamishness. It is a stimulating book. Incidentally, Professor Robertson works out a philosophy of his own, sharp with the salt of wisdom and understanding of life, and including in its scope woman, war, and wine, the growth of cities and nations and religions. The writing, moreover, while avoiding any cheap cynicism, has a certain not displeasing flavor of satire. To repeat: a theological volume quite out of the ordinary.

Many Biblical critics, it will be recalled, have separated the Books of Moses into a number of strands, which seem not too skilfully interwoven in the text. A writer in Judah drew up an account of creation and what followed thereon, indicating God as JAHWEH; this, termed by scholars the primitive document, is credited to a writer called for convenience “J”. Meanwhile, in the northern kingdom during the same period, another writer composed a parallel document, in which the Deity is called ELOHIM; this writer is consequently described as “E”. Other portions of the Pentateuch are similarly credited to writers called “D” and “P”. In J Mr. Robertson believes he has discovered a hitherto unknown great writer, and he goes far towards persuading the reader to hold the same belief. For the sake of convenience he has printed separately in an appendix those parts of Genesis usually credited to this unknown genius.