constitutes an end in itself. I fulfilled this duty simply because I regarded it as a dictate of humanity for every individual just as every collective entity to live without unnecessary restrictions and to develop a national culture.
For him who believes in the ideals of humanity, every step, every act, every sentiment is a service to humanity, to the nation, and to the progress of his own individuality at the same time. Such service and such labour do not await nor demand recognition or reward. They are an end in themselves, giving the individual the maximum of satisfaction and the maximum range for expressing his personality. Such labour is regularly accompanied and sanctified by religious faith.
From an economic and social point of view the war brought into prominence within every country the question of social and economic justice. It emphasized the question of socialism, in which at the same time it brought about a profound crisis, most strikingly manifested in the struggle for communism.
The war came at a moment when, in the countries of Western Europe, democratic tendencies had already made headway in economic and social policy. But the Great War was the first war of the masses; tens of millions of people in Europe and America were engaged in it, so that the conduct of the war became a matter directly affecting the masses, who made terrible sacrifices to it as regards their property, health, and lives. The consequence was that little by little they insisted upon a share in the decisions as to their destiny, and in return for their sufferings secured recompense mainly in an economic and social respect. They desired to have a decisive word in the future as to their density, and they realized that in so doing they could secure an influence on the economic life of the State, and could jointly control it in accordance with their requirements.
The wave of socialistic ideas gained an unexpected impetus after the war. It is true, of course, that this result was largely brought about by the common war-time sufferings of the masses, but it would be an error to suppose that the democratization of Europe which was brought about by the war will be transitory. Our own State, which is industrial in character, and our people, which through its social development comprises two main classes, the agricultural and the artisan, inevitably succumbed to this influence less than other States which were politically less advanced and industrially less developed.
Here it must be emphasized that side by side with socialism,
