" He does not think he is in advance of the
world in militarism, merely because he is behind it in morals. No; the
danger of the Pruss is that he is prepared to fight for old errors as if
they were new truths. He has somehow heard of certain shallow
simplifications; and imagines that we have never heard of them. And, as I
have said, his limited but very sincere lunacy concentrates chiefly in a
desire to destroy two ideas, the twin root ideas of rational society. The
first is the idea of record and promise: the second is the idea of
reciprocity.
It is plain that the promise, or extension of responsibility through time,
is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but from
brutes and reptiles. This was noted by the shrewdness of the Old Testament,
when it summed up the dark irresponsible enormity of Leviathan in the words
"Will he make a pact with thee?" The promise, like the wheel, is unknown in
Nature: and is the first mark of man. Referring only to human civilisation
it may be said with seriousness, that in the beginning was the Word. The
vow is to the man what the song is to the bird, or the bark to the dog; his
voice, whereby he is known.
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