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A PLEA FOR INTELLECTUAL COALESCENCE 151
To show the absurdity of the standpoint of the conscientious
objector it is only necessary to assume that all citizens of a
State were conscientious objectors ; and it becomes apparent
at once that the State and community under such conditions
could not exist at all. The conscientious objector is a
remnant of past hierarchical rule, when religion and State
rule were undivided and were supposed to serve the same
ends. There is, however, no longer any doubt that the laws
of Moses and the Christian religion do not advocate killing,
and that, on the other hand, the State cannot exist if its
citizens are not ready to defend it with arms against foreign
aggression. If those who take advantage of the order of the
State assuring peace are not ready to defend it, but prefer
to leave such necessary duty to their fellow-citizens, they are
profiteering. During the present war, public anger has been
justly manifested against able-bodied men who declined to
join the ranks, and made a profitable business by taking
advantage of those who had to leave their calling for the
defence of their country.
There is a difference in the idea of freedom as conceived by
the British and by Russians which makes an Anglo-Russian
Entente specially desirable. There is, of course, no difference
in the civic liberties as they exist in modern civilised States.
Russia possesses now the personal rights—" les droits de
l’homme "—which are common to civilised countries ; but
the Russian " broad nature," the necessity for a wide outlook
on humanity, leads the Russian to regard freedom from a
vastly different standpoint. For the Britisher it means the
possibility of observing a mode of living and conduct pleasing
to the individual, without causing interference to the freedom
of others and in conformity with the rules which he himself
and the community recognise as binding. Freedom, being a
social conception, involves self-imposed restrictions upon one’s
volition. Public opinion, not less than the law, determines
the limits of free decision of the individual in so many ways
that freedom appears often to be not very unlike life in a
workhouse, where nearly everything is prearranged, regulated, and
svstematised for the benefit of the community as a whole.
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