INTRODUCTION
This Introduction was published in the Swiss newspapers in December, 1917, with an episode of the novel and a note explaining the original title, _L'Un contre Tous_. "This somewhat ironical name was suggested--with a difference--by La Boëtie's _Le Contr' Un_; but it must not be supposed that the author entertained the extravagant idea of setting one man in opposition to all others; he only wishes to summon the personal conscience to the most urgent conflict of our time, the struggle against the herd-spirit."
This book is not written about the war, though the shadow of the war lies over it. My theme is that the individual soul has been swallowed up and submerged in the soul of the multitude; and in my opinion such an event is of far greater importance to the future of the race than the passing supremacy of one nation.
I have left questions of policy in the background intentionally, as I think they should be reserved for special study. No matter what causes may be assigned as the origins of the war, no matter what theses support them, nothing in the world can excuse the abdication of individual judgment before general opinion.
The universal development of democracies, vitiated by a fossilized survival, the outrageous "reason of State," has led the mind of Europe to hold as an article of faith that there can be no higher ideal than to serve the community. This community is then defined as the State.
I venture to say that he who makes himself the servant of a blind or blinded nation,--and most of the states are in this condition at the present day,--does not truly serve it but lowers both it and himself; for in general a few men, incapable of understanding the complexities of the people,
