Then our love of
the absolute shows itself. For we do not like qualifying
adverbs. [Footnote: _Cf_. Freud's discussion of absolutism in
dreams, _Interpretation of Dreams_, Chapter VI, especially pp.
288, _et seq_.] They clutter up sentences, and interfere with
irresistible feeling. We prefer most to more, least to less, we
dislike the words rather, perhaps, if, or, but, toward, not quite,
almost, temporarily, partly. Yet nearly every opinion about public
affairs needs to be deflated by some word of this sort. But in our
free moments everything tends to behave absolutely,--one hundred
percent, everywhere, forever.
It is not enough to say that our side is more right than the enemy's,
that our victory will help democracy more than his. One must insist
that our victory will end war forever, and make the world safe for
democracy. And when the war is over, though we have thwarted a greater
evil than those which still afflict us, the relativity of the result
fades out, the absoluteness of the present evil overcomes our spirit,
and we feel that we are helpless because we have not been
irresistible. Between omnipotence and impotence the pendulum swings.
Real space, real time, real numbers, real connections, real weights
are lost. The perspective and the background and the dimensions of
action are clipped and frozen in the stereotype.
PART IV
INTERESTS
CHAPTER 11.
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