_The existing economic system of the world is calamitous and bad; it
ought to be remedied; but war, which tries to swindle a more fortunate
and able competitor for the benefit of the inexpert or the lazy,
makes this vicious system worse; it enriches a few, and ruins the
community_.
_All peoples cannot walk abreast on the same road; they are always
passing each other, and being outstripped in their turn. What does it
matter, since we are all in the same column? We should get rid of
our silly self-conceit. The pole of the world's energy is constantly
changing, often in the same country. In France it has passed from
Roman Provence to the Loire of the Valois; now it is at Paris, but it
will not stay there always. The entire creation swings in alternate
rhythm from germinating spring to dying autumn. Commercial methods
are not immutable, any more than the treasures beneath the earth are
inexhaustible. A people spends itself for centuries, without counting
the cost; its very greatness will lead to its decline. It is only by
renouncing the purity of its blood and mixing with other nations that
it can subsist. Our old men today are sending the young ones to death;
it does not make them younger, and they are killing the future_.
_Instead of raging against the laws of life, a wholesome people will
try to understand them and see its real progress, not in a stupid
obstinacy which refuses to grow old, but in a constant effort to
advance with the age, changing and becoming greater.
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