ONE OF THE LAST MEN

CHAPTER 9. THE RIVALS

AFTER the eclipse of Europe, the allegiance of men gradually crystallized into two

great national or racial sentiments, the American and the Chinese. Little by little all

other patriotisms became mere local variants of one or other of these two major

loyalties. At first, indeed, there were many internecine conflicts. A detailed history of

this period would describe how North America, repeating the welding process of the

ancient "American Civil War," incorporated within itself the already Americanized

Latins of South America; and how Japan, once the bully of young China, was so

crippled by social revolutions that she fell a prey to American Imperialism; and how

this bondage turned her violently Chinese in sentiment, so that finally she freed

herself by an heroic war of independence, and joined the Asiatic Confederacy, under

Chinese leadership.

A full history would also tell of the vicissitudes of the League of Nations. Although

never a cosmopolitan government, but an association of national governments, each

concerned mainly for its own sovereignty, this great organization had gradually

gained a very real prestige and authority over all its members. And in spite of its

many short-comings, most of which were involved in its fundamental constitution, it

was invaluable as the great concrete focusing point of the growing loyalty toward

humanity. At first its existence had been precarious; and indeed it had only preserved

itself by an extreme caution, amounting almost to servility toward the "great powers."

Little by little, however, it had gained moral authority to such an extent that no single

power, even the mightiest, dared openly and in cold blood either to disobey the will of

the League or reject the findings of the High Court. But, since human loyalty was still

in the main national rather than cosmopolitan, situations were all too frequent in

which a nation would lose its head, run amok, throw its pledges to the winds, and

plunge into fear-inspired aggression. Such a situation had produced the Anglo-French

War. At other times the nations would burst apart into two great camps, and theLeague would be temporarily forgotten in their disunion. This happened in the RussoGerman

War, which was possible only because America favoured Russia, and China

favoured Germany. After the destruction of Europe, the world had for a while

consisted of the League on one side and America on the other. But the League was

dominated by China, and no longer stood for cosmopolitanism. This being so, those

whose loyalty was genuinely human worked hard to bring America once more into

the fold, and at last succeeded.

In spite of the League's failure to prevent the "great" wars, it worked admirably in

preventing all the minor conflicts which had once been a chronic disease of the race.

Latterly, indeed, the world's peace was absolutely secure, save when the League itself

was almost equally divided. Unfortunately, with the rise of America and China, this

kind of situation became more and more common. During the war of North and South

America an attempt was made to recreate the League as a Cosmopolitan Sovereignty,

controlling the pooled armaments of all nations. But, though the cosmopolitan will

was strong, tribalism was stronger. The upshot was that, over the Japanese question,

the League definitely split into two Leagues, each claiming to inherit universal

sovereignty from the old League, but each in reality dominated by a kind of

supernational sentiment, the one American, the other Chinese.

This occurred within a century after the eclipse of Europe. The second century

completed the process of crystallization into two systems, political and mental. On the

one hand was the wealthy and close-knit American Continental Federation, with its

poor relations, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the bedridden remains of

Western Europe, and part of the soulless body that was Russia. On the other hand

were Asia and Africa. In fact the ancient distinction between East and West had now

become the basis of political sentiment and organization.

Within each system there were of course real differences of culture, of which the chief

was the difference between the Chinese and Indian mentalities. The Chinese were

interested in appearances, in the sensory, the urbane, the practical; while the Indians

inclined to seek behind appearances for some ultimate reality, of which this life, they

said, was but a passing aspect. Thus the average Indian never took to heart the

practical social problem in all its seriousness. The ideal of perfecting this world was

never an all-absorbing interest to him; since he had been taught to believe that this world was mere shadow. There was, indeed, a time when China had mentally less in

common with India than with the West, but fear of America had drawn the two great

Eastern peoples together. They agreed at least in earnest hate of that strange blend of

the commercial traveller, the missionary, and the barbarian conqueror, which was the

American abroad.

China, owing to her relative weakness and irritation caused by the tentacles of

American industry within her, was at this time more nationalistic than her rival,

America. Indeed, America professed to have outgrown nationalism, and to stand for

political and cultural world unity. But she conceived this unity as a unity under

American organization; and by culture she meant Americanism. This kind of

cosmopolitanism was regarded by Asia and Africa without sympathy. In China a

concerted effort had been made to purge the foreign element from her culture. Its

success, however, was only superficial. Pigtails and chopsticks had once more come

into vogue among the leisured, and the study of Chinese classics was once more

compulsory in all schools. Yet the manner of life of the average man remained

American. Not only did he use American cutlery, shoes, gramophones, domestic

labour-saving devices, but also his alphabet was European, his vocabulary was

permeated by American slang, his newspapers and radio were American in manner,

though anti-American in politics. He saw daily in his domestic television screen every

phase of American private life and every American public event. Instead of opium

and joss sticks, he affected cigarettes and chewing gum.

His thought also was largely a Mongolian variant of American thought. For instance,

since his was a nonmetaphysical mind, but since also some kind of metaphysics is

unavoidable, he accepted the naïvely materialistic metaphysics which had been

popularized by the earliest Behaviourists. In this view the only reality was physical

energy, and the mind was but the system of the body's movements in response to

stimulus. Behaviourism had formerly played a great part in purging the best Western

minds of superstition; and indeed at one time it was the chief growing point of

thought.

This early, pregnant, though extravagant, doctrine it was that had been absorbed by

China. But in its native land Behaviorism had gradually been infected by the popular

demand for comfortable ideas, and had finally changed into a curious kind of spiritism, according to which, though the ultimate reality was indeed physical energy,

this energy was identified with the divine spirit. The most dramatic feature of

American thought in this period was the merging of Behaviorism and

Fundamentalism, a belated and degenerate mode of Christianity. Behaviourism itself,

indeed, had been originally a kind of inverted Puritan faith, according to which

intellectual salvation involved acceptance of a crude materialistic dogma, chiefly

because it was repugnant to the self-righteous, and unintelligible to intellectuals of the

earlier schools. The older Puritans trampled down all fleshy impulses; these newer

Puritans trampled no less self-righteously upon the spiritual cravings. But in the

increasingly spiritistic inclination of physics itself, Behaviorism and Fundamentalism

had found a meeting place. Since the ultimate stuff of the physical universe was now

said to be multitudinous and arbitrary "quanta" of the activity of "spirits," how easy

was it for the materialistic and the spiritistic to agree! At heart, indeed, they were

never far apart in mood, though opposed in doctrine. The real cleavage was between

the truly spiritual view on the one hand, and the spiritistic and materialistic on the

other. Thus the most materialistic of Christian sects and the most doctrinaire of

scientific sects were not long in finding a formula to express their unity, their denial

of all those finer capacities which had emerged to be the spirit of man.

These two faiths were at one in their respect for crude physical movement. And here

lay the deepest difference between the American and the Chinese minds. For the

former, activity, any sort of activity, was an end in itself; for the latter, activity was

but a progress toward the true end, which was rest, and peace of mind. Action was to

be undertaken only when equilibrium was disturbed. And in this respect China was at

one with India. Both preferred contemplation to action.

Thus in China and India the passion for wealth was less potent than in America.

Wealth was the power to set things and people in motion; and in America, therefore,

wealth came to be frankly regarded as the breath of God, the divine spirit immanent in

man. God was the supreme Boss, the universal Employer. His wisdom was conceived

as a stupendous efficiency, his love as munificence towards his employees. The

parable of the talents was made the corner-stone of education; and to be wealthy,

therefore, was to be respected as one of God's chief agents. The typical American manadmires the fragrance and the order all the more because in the air is the first nip of

winter, and in his ear rumour of the irresistible barbarian."

In this attitude there was something admirable, and sorely needed at the time; but also

there was a fatal deficiency. In its best exponents it rose to a detached yet fervent

salutation of existence, but all too easily degenerated into a supine complacency, and

a cult of social etiquette. In fact it was ever in danger of corruption through the

inveterate Chinese habit of caring only for appearances. In some respects the spirit of

America and the spirit of China were complementary, since the one was restless and

the other bland, the one zealous and the other dispassionate, the one religious, the

other artistic, the one superficially mystical or at least romantic, the other classical

and rationalistic, though too easy-going for prolonged rigorous thought. Had they cooperated,

these two mentalities might have achieved much. On the other hand, in both

there was an identical and all-important lack. Neither of them was disturbed and

enlightened by that insatiable lust for the truth, that passion for the free exercise of

critical intelligence, the gruelling hunt for reality, which had been the glory of Europe

and even of the earlier America, but now was no longer anywhere among the First

Men. And, consequent on this lack, another disability crippled them. Both were by

now without that irreverent wit which individuals of an earlier generation had loved to

exercise upon one another and on themselves, and even on their most sacred values.

In spite of this weakness, with good luck they might have triumphed. But, as I shall

tell, the spirit of America undermined the integrity of China, and thereby destroyed its

one chance of salvation. There befell, in fact, one of those disasters, half inevitable

and half accidental, which periodically descended on the First Men, as though by the

express will of some divinity who cared more for the excellence of his dramatic

creation than for the sentient puppets which he had conceived for its enacting