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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
completely failed in its purpose, if it really did aim at securing Peace! Distrust is the prevailing note of our political life today, and it is distrust which must sooner or later lead us into war again with our neighbours. And let me say that this distrust is fully justified by experience. For we have learnt the bitter lesson that political promises are grounded not upon conscience and honesty of purpose, but upon mere considerations of national convenience and advantage, so that in their hearts the statesmen are all the time aware that the great treaties which they adorn with their signatures are but seldom anything more than mere scraps of paper! But shall not peace be secured through such organizations as the League of Nations, the Brotherhood of Youth or the Fellowship of Reconciliation? My reply is an emphatic NO! For the former will be in danger of becoming the breeding ground of intrigue, and the others will never have a voice in any case not an effective voice in the disposal of matters pertaining to peace and war amongst the nations of men.
I do not want to be a pessimist by any means: but it is no good to shut one's eyes to the fact that our political aspirations are at war with the science of peace, and will not yield anything except thorns and tears so long as our outlook on life is not completely changed. You need to change the very hearts of men in the first instance, and the change must be universal, neither sporadic nor erratic. A few peacefully inclined men can accomplish nothing in a world that is constituted by the opposite type of people. The outlook on life of the peace-loving man is very different from that of the average man of our day. To-day you have only two ideals in the innermost hearts of men, namely, acquisition and fashion! What you want for Peace on the contrary is the passion to live and 'let live'! In other words, those who aspire to introduce the millennium of PEACE in the world today must find out a way to the human heart and to replace therein the existing harmful ideals of acquisition and fashion with the love for the neighbour, both near and remote, and respect and loving regard for all forms of life! For unless you respect life in all its manifestations, it will not be possible for you to respect it as you should in your neighbour. I am not talking of the mockery of love that is no deeper than the inucous lining of one's lips, and that readily leads one to circumvent
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