As the war now proceeds through stages that can, without undue optimism, be considered decisive, we become conscious of anxieties, tears, and even hopes, which, though always looming in the background of our thoughts, have been obscured by the very uncertainty of the war itself. We are all uneasy about the future of Europe. But we cannot postpone the declaration of our uneasiness until the last shot has been fired. Silence now would be imprudent for many reasons, and especially because it is certain that the end of hostilities will be the signal for an immediate outburst of bitter and passionate discussions between the partisans of the different political and economic systems that stand ready to compete for our support. Therefore, before we come to the parting of the ways, each of us owes it to himself to enter into his own mind and sort out his own ideas. Unless we do this, our ideas are always confused, and con-, fusion is always a sign of latent and unsuspected contradictions; until these are cleared away we are in no position to fight for or against anything.

In our opinion Europe is about to become the theatre of still another war, bloodless we hope, between two parties not yet aligned against one another : the one supporting a new order, and eager to profit by the ravages of the present war to build it; the other zealous to preserve in continuity the spiritual, political, or economic life ol the Old World. This is a general view, and does not ignore the intermediate shades of difference that may help to absorb something of the shock between extremes.