The internal structure of a healthy social organism makes its international relations also threefold. Each of its three branches will have its own independent relation to the corresponding branch of other threefold organisms. All manner of interconnections will spring up between the economic network of one district and that of another, without being directly influenced by the connections between their “rights-States.”1 And, conversely, the relations between their “rights-States” will, within certain limits, develope in complete independence of their economic connections. This independence of origin will enable these two sets of relations to act as a check upon each other in cases of dispute. Such a close interweaving of interests will grow up, as will make territorial frontiers seem negligible in the life of mankind.

The spiritual organisations of the different districts will become linked in a way that only the common spiritual life of mankind can make possible. Detached from the State and placed on its own footing, the spiritual life will develope all manner of connections, that are impossible when the recognition of spiritual services does not rest with a spiritual corporation, but with the “rights-State.” So far as this is concerned, there is no real difference between the services rendered by science,—which are frankly international,—and those rendered in any other spiritual field. The common language of a nation, and all that goes along with language, constitutes one such field of spiritual life,—including the national consciousness itself. The people of one language-area do not come into unnatural conflict with those of another language-area, except when they try to make their national form of civilisation predominant through the use of their State-organisation or their economic power. If one national civilisation spreads more readily, and has greater spiritual fertility than another, then it is quite right that it should spread; and the process of spreading will be a peaceful one, provided it comes about solely through the agency of the spiritual communities of the different social organisms.

At the present time, the keenest opposition to the threefold order will come precisely from those groups of mankind which have clustered round a common origin of speech and national culture. Such opposition however must break down before the common goal of all mankind,—a goal towards which men will set their faces with increasing consciousness from the very necessities of life in the modern age. Mankind will come to feel, that each of its many parts can only lead a life worthy of their common humanity, when bound in living links to all the rest. National affinities, together with other impulses of a natural order, are amongst the causes which historically led to the formation of communities in “rights” and communities of industrial economy. But the forces to which nationalities owe their growth require for their development free mutual interaction, untrammelled by any ties that grow up between the respective bodies of State and the economic Associations. And the way of achieving this, is for the various national communities to develope the threefold order within their own social structures; and then their three branches can each expand its own relation with the corresponding branches of the other communities.

In this way, peoples, States, economic bodies, become grouped together in formations that are very various in shape and character, and every part of mankind becomes so linked with the other parts, that each is conscious of the life of the other pulsing through its own daily interests. A league of nations is the outcome,—arising out of root impulses that correspond to actual realities. There will be no need to “institute” one, built up solely on legal theories of right.2

To anyone, who is thinking of these things in terms of real life, it must seem of especial importance, that the aims here set before the body social, whilst having a meaning for the whole of mankind collectively, are such as can be put in practice by any single corporate community, no matter what may be the attitude adopted by other countries for the time being.—If one corporate community has organised itself into its three natural divisions, the administratures of the three divisions can act together as a single body, and thus perfectly well form relations even with outside communities that are not yet prepared to adopt the threefold order themselves. Whoever leads the way with the threefold order, will be furthering the common aim of all mankind. What actually has to be done, will be carried through by that strength which an aim brings with it in practical life, when it is rooted in the actual guiding forces of humanity,—rather than by diplomatic agreements, or drafting schemes at conferences. It is on a basis of reality that this aim is conceived in thought. It is one to be pursued in the real action of life at any and every point amongst the communities of men.

Anyone, watching what was going on in the life of peoples and of States during the last 30 or 40 years from a point of view such as given in these pages, could see how the State-structures that had been built up in the course of history, with their blending of spiritual life, “rights” and industrial economy, were becoming involved in international relations that were heading for catastrophe. At the same time, it was equally plain, that the opposite forces at work within mankind’s unconscious impulses were tending towards the threefold order. Here lies the remedy for those convulsions that have been brought about by the mania for unification. The way of life among the “leaders of mankind” was not however of the kind to enable them to see what had been for years past slowly working up. In the spring and summer of 1914, one still found “statesmen” saying, that, thanks to the governments’ exertions, the peace of Europe was, so far as could be humanly foreseen, assured. These “statesmen” simply had not the faintest notion, that all that they were doing and saying had absolutely lost touch with the course of real events. Yet these were the people who were looked up to as “practical”; and people were regarded as little better than “cranks” at that time, who had been forming other views during all those years, which differed from those of the “statesmen”;—such views, for instance, as those expressed by the present writer months before the war-catastrophe, when addressing a small audience in Vienna,—(a large audience would certainly have laughed him down.) He then spoke of the danger menacing, in more or less these words:—“The tendencies prevalent in the life of the present day will continue to gather strength, until they end by annihilating themselves. And if one reads social life with the eyes of the spirit, one can perceive everywhere the ghastly signs of social tumours forming. Here is the great menace to our civilisation, manifest to anyone able to read below the surface of existence. It is this that is so appalling, so overpowering, that—even if one could otherwise repress all zeal on behalf of a science in which spiritual knowledge is made instrumental to the knowledge of life’s events,—these things alone would impell one to speak, to proclaim the remedy, to hurl one’s words as it were in the face of the world. If the body social follows the same line of evolution as hitherto, it will become full of sores—sores of civilisation that will be for it what cancers are for man’s natural body.”—Such were the foundations upon which life rested, and which the ruling circles neither could nor would see. But their special view of life led them to find in such conditions a pretext for measures that would have been better left undone, but for none that were of a sort to establish confidence between the different communities of mankind.—Whoever is under the belief that the social necessities of the time played no part amongst the immediate causes of the present world-catastrophe, should ask himself this question:—What direction would political impulses have taken in the States that were rushing into mutual war, if the “statesmen” had recognised the social needs of the times, and embodied these in their aims? And how much that was done would have been left undone, if their efforts had thus been directed to something more substantial than piling up inflammable material, that was bound sooner or later to lead to an explosion? As one watched the relations between the States during recent years, and the cancer creeping on in them, owing to the form that social life had taken amongst the leading sections of mankind, one could understand how a man of broadly human spiritual interests, such as Hermann Grimm, was led to speak as he did, so early in 1888, when discussing the form that social aims had taken amongst the leading circles:—“The end they set before them, is the ultimate formation of mankind into a commonwealth of brothers, who ever afterwards shall go forward hand-in-hand, actuated only by the noblest impulses. Merely to follow history on the map of Europe, one would imagine that a general internecine massacre were the next step imminent.” Only the thought, that a “road must be found” to the true riches of human life, this thought alone can keep alive a sense of human worth. It is a thought “which hardly seems compatible with the gigantic preparations for war that we and our neighbours too are making. And yet, I believe in it. And in the light of this thought we must live; unless indeed it were better to put an end to human existence altogether by common consent, and appoint an official day of universal suicide” (Herman Grimm: “The Last Five Years,”—Pub. 1888.)—What were these “preparations for war,” save steps taken by men who were bent upon preserving their old State constructions in one and undivided form, despite the fact that the evolution of the new age had made this onefold form incompatible with the very essence of healthy relations between the peoples. Health can, nevertheless, be brought into the common life of the peoples, by that form of social order that takes its shape from the requirements of the times.

The State-structure of Austria-Hungary had, for more than half a century, been struggling towards a new formation. Its spiritual life, which had its roots in a multiplicity of racial communities, called for a form of development to which the old onefold State, created by outworn impulses, offered a continual obstacle. The incident with which the great catastrophe opened—the quarrel between Austria and Serbia—is a conclusive sign, that the political frontiers of the onefold State ought not, after a certain point of time, to have formed the cultural frontiers for the spiritual life of its various nationalities. Could the spiritual life have been on its own footing, independent of the political State and political boundaries, it would have had a chance to develope regardless of frontiers, in a manner befitting the true purpose of the several nationalities; and the struggle, which was deeply rooted in the spiritual life, need never have found vent in a political catastrophe. Deliberate development in this direction seemed an utter impossibility, sheer lunacy indeed, to all “statesman-like” thinkers in Austria-Hungary. Their habits of thought admitted of no other conception than that the boundaries of State must also be the boundaries of national community. They could not understand, how spiritual organisations could be formed, cutting across state frontiers, and comprising the school system and other branches of spiritual life. It was against all their habitual conceptions. And yet this “inconceivable” thing is what international life demands in the new age. A really practical thinker ought not to be held up by apparent impossibilities, and assume that the obstacles in the way of doing what is requisite are insurmountable. He must simply concentrate on surmounting them. But instead of turning their statesman-like thought along lines that would have been in unison with modern-age requirements, they devoted their whole energies to bolstering up the onefold form of State against the demands of the age by all manner of institutions. The State grew more and more unwieldy and impossible in its structure. And in the second decade of the twentieth century, it had reached a point when it could no longer keep itself together in its old form, and must either passively await dissolution, or else attempt to accomplish externally by force the internally impossible, and maintain itself by the power which a war-footing would give to it. In 1914 there remained for the Austro-Hungarian “statesmen” but one alternative:—Either they must direct their policy along the lines of life in a healthy social order, and make known their intention to the world,—a course which might have revived new confidence,—or else they were absolutely obliged to start a war, in order to keep the old structure from tumbling about their ears.—What happened in 1914 must be judged from these underlying causes; otherwise it is impossible to think correctly and justly about the question of “blame.” The fact that many nationalities went to compose the fabric of her State, might well seem to have made it Austria-Hungary’s mission in the world’s history to lead the way in evolving a healthy form of social order. The mission was not recognised. And this sin against the spirit of the world’s historic life drove Austria-Hungary into war.

And what about the German Empire?—The German Empire was founded at a moment, when the call of the new age for the healthy form of social life was endeavouring to find practical realisation. To have realised it, might have given the empire a justification for its existence in the world’s history. All the social impulses met together in this realm of Central Europe, as if it were the ground allotted to them from of old in the world’s history for them to work themselves out. The social tendency in thought was to be found in any number of places, but within the German Empire it assumed a form that plainly shewed whither it was tending. Here lay the work which should have given the empire its substance and purport. Here was the field of labour for those who were at the head of its affairs. This empire would have required no justification in the community of modern nations, had it received at its foundation a task and purport such as the forces of history themselves seemed to suggest. But instead of dealing with the task on a scale corresponding to its magnitude, those at the head of affairs contented themselves with “social reforms” arising out of the exigencies of the hour, and were delighted when such reforms as these were held up as models by other countries. And all the time, they were more and more seeking to establish the external prestige of the empire upon a pattern taken from the antiquated conceptions of the power and glory of States. They went on building up an empire, which was as contrary as the Austro-Hungarian fabric to everything that history shewed to be an active force in the modern life of the peoples. But of these forces the empire’s governors saw nothing. The particular form of State-structure, that they had in their mind’s eye, could only rest on military force. Whereas the form of State, that modern history demanded, must have rested on a practical realisation of the impulses that were making for a healthy social organism. In giving these impulses practical realisation, they would have made themselves a different place in the community of peoples from the position they actually occupied in 1914. Through failure to understand what was demanded by the life of the peoples in this new age, German policy had, in 1914, reached a dead-point as regards any possibility of further action. For years past, German policy had been blind to everything that ought to have been accomplished; it had busied itself with every conceivable thing that lay outside the forces of modern evolution, and that was bound inevitably from sheer hollowness to “tumble down like a house of cards.”

The whole tragedy, thus brought about in the course of history and summed up in the fate of the German Empire, is to be found very faithfully reflected, for anyone who would take the trouble to examine and give the world a true and exact picture of what occurred in the leading quarters of Berlin in the last days of July and 1st August, 1914. Of these occurrences very little still is known, either at home or abroad. Whoever is acquainted with them knows, that German policy at that time was a card-house policy, that it had reached a dead-point in action; so that the whole question, as to whether there should be a war, or how it should begin, was inevitably made over to the decision of the military authorities. And the responsible people amongst the military authorities could not, from a military point of view, act otherwise than they did act, because from that point of view, the situation could only be regarded as they regarded it; for outside the military department things had got to a pass where no further action was possible. This would be a notorious fact in the world’s history, if there were any who would make it their business to bring to light what went on in Berlin at the end of July and on the first of August,—in particular on July 31 and August 1. People are still under the delusion, that nothing is to be gained by a minute knowledge of these occurrences, if one knows the previous events that led up to them. But it is knowledge that must not be shirked, if there is to be any discussion of the question of “blame,” as it is called to-day. Of course, there are other ways of arriving at the causes, which were already of long standing; but a detailed knowledge of these few days reveals the way in which these causes acted.

The notions, which at the time drove Germany’s leaders into war, continued their baneful work. They became the mood of a nation. And these same notions prevented the people in power from acquiring by the bitter experiences of the final terrible years that insight, for want of which the tragedy had come about. These experiences might well have opened men’s eyes; and, in this hope, the present writer took what seemed to him an opportune moment in the war calamity, and did his best to bring before various personages the ideas underlying a healthy social organism, and the political attitude that these entail towards the world abroad. He addressed himself to prominent individuals, whose influence at that time might still have been exerted to carry these social impulses into effect; and various persons, who had the destiny of the German people honestly at heart, took pains to gain admission for these ideas. All that was said was in vain. Every old habit of thought was up in arms against social impulses of this kind, which to a purely military cast of thought appeared quite impracticable,—something for which they had no use at all. The farthest they could get was: “Separation of Church and School,”—yes,—there was something in that. The thoughts of the “statesman-like thinkers” had been running on lines of that sort for years, and would not be turned into any direction involving drastic change. Well-meaning people suggested my “publishing” these proposals,—most futile advise at that particular moment. What would have been the good of another treatise on these social impulses, in addition to all the other current literature of the hour,—and coming from a private person too! From the very nature of such impulses, they could, at that time, only have carried weight through the quarter from which they were pronounced. Had a pronouncement in favour of these impulses been made from the right place, the peoples of Central Europe would have recognised the possibility of realising something that was in sympathy with their own more or less conscious tendencies. And the peoples of the Russian districts, East, would at that time most undoubtedly have recognised in these social impulses a practical solution to Czarism. That they could and would have recognised the significance of these impulses, is beyond dispute for anyone able to perceive the as yet unexhausted intellectual vigour of the peoples of Eastern Europe, and how receptive their minds are to healthy social ideas. However, there was no pronouncement in favour of these ideas; and, instead, came Brest-Litovsk.

That military thinking could do nothing to avert the disaster from Central and Eastern Europe, could have been concealed from none but militarist minds. The cause of the German people’s disaster was, that people would not recognise that the disaster could not be averted. They would not face the fact, that in those quarters, which had the deciding of affairs, there was no sense of the big, historic necessities. Anyone, who knew anything of these historic necessities, also knew, that the English-speaking races had persons amongst them, who were able to read the forces at work amongst the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, and that these persons were convinced, that there was something working up in Central and Eastern Europe which must find vent in tremendous social convulsions,—convulsions of a sort for which they believed there to be no necessity nor occasion in the English-speaking regions. They framed their own policy on these conclusions. In Central and Eastern Europe nothing was seen of all this, and the people there shaped their policy on lines which brought the whole thing “like a house of cards” about their ears. The only policy, which could have had a solid foundation, would have been one which recognised, that people in the English-speaking countries were handling the forces of world-history on large lines, and of course, naturally, from the English point of view. But to agitate in favour of such a policy would have been regarded as highly superfluous,—especially by the “diplomatists.”

So, instead of adopting a policy, which might have also have ensured the prosperity of Central and Eastern Europe,—despite the large lines of English policy,—before the war-catastrophe swept over everything, the leaders still continued to run along the familiar diplomatic rails. And, even amidst the horrors of war, bitter experience still failed to teach them, when the manifesto came from America announcing the world’s mission in political terms, that it must be met by another and a different one from Europe, born of the forces of Europe herself. Wilson had announced the world’s mission from the American standpoint. Europe’s sense of her mission would have been heard as a spiritual impulse above the roar of the guns. Between the two it would have been possible to effect an understanding. All other talk of mutual understanding rang hollow in face of the historic necessities. But those, whom circumstances brought to the head of affairs in the German Empire, lacked the perception which could make them lay hold on the seeds of new growth in modern human life and embody them in a comprehensive aim. And, therefore, the autumn of 1918 could bring nothing but what it brought. The collapse of military power was accompanied by spiritual surrender. In this supreme hour, at least they might have roused themselves, have sought strength in the will and purpose of Europe, and made good the spiritual forces of the German people. Instead, they abdicated to Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Wilson was confronted by a Germany that had nothing to say on her own account. Whatever Wilson may think about his own 14 points, he is nevertheless powerless to help Germany except as Germany is willing. He was bound to await a pronouncement of her will. The beginning of the war had already demonstrated the nullity of German policy. It was again demonstrated in October, 1918. So came that awful spiritual capitulation, at the hands of a man on whom numbers in German lands had staked as it were their last hope.

Want of faith in insight based on the forces at work through history;—unwillingness to seek strength in impulses that proceed from a perception of spiritual facts:—The state of Central Europe was due to these two things.

And now, to-day, the circumstances consequent on the war-catastrophe have created a new situation. The idea that gives its stamp to the new situation can be that of the social impulses of mankind, as conceived in this book. These social impulses speak a language, towards which the whole civilised world has a responsibility. Has thought spent itself, and come to its dead-point before the social question as Central-European policy did before the problems of 1914? Some countries were able to stand aloof from the points that were then at issue. From the social movement they cannot stand aloof. This is a question that admits of no political adversaries and of no neutrals. Here, there must be but one human race working at one common task, willing to read the signs of the times and to act in accordance with them.