lasting all religious storms, remained unbroken in body and soul. We shall point proudly to our indefatigable resistance to Austria-Hungary—a resistance that was moral at heart, for we should often have been ready to recognize Austria politically—and, finally, we shall describe our part in the World War and assure Europe that we shall strive for democracy, peace and progress. In a word, Palacký’s philosophy of our own and of world history is our best recommendation. From the beginning of the fourteenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries, the Czech question, the question of our existence, was in essence the question of religion and of humanity.
These were, briefly, the main arguments with which we upheld our title to fight for freedom, and showed why it was the duty of others to stand by us. National they were, but not nationalist in the sense of the Legionary whom I have quoted. Nor were they Liberal after the manner of many Liberals who reject the moral and religious foundations of the humane ideal. Among such Liberals some essay to ascribe our whole Reformation to the awakening of the national consciousness in a struggle against the Germans—a view so shallow and thoughtless that it needs no special refutation. Others admit that the humane ideal of the Reformers and the Reformation (and, subsequently, of Comenius) was, indeed, based on religious feeling yet allege that it was otherwise with the leaders of our national renascence. Though the more reasonable of them confess that Palacký, and possibly Kollár, may be looked upon as religious humanitarians, they insist that all the other leaders of our renascence were devoid of religious convictions and were Liberals in the sense of insisting upon the importance of nationality and of upholding the contemporary Liberal principles of democracy and of freedom of conscience.
Recently, too, I read a Liberal explanation of my own humanitarian doctrine. It was described as that of a theorist, whereas our real national ideal of humanity was alleged to have been evolved as the weapon of the weak amid the circumstances of the modern era. Assuredly the small and the weak in the struggle against the great and strong will not straightway put their faith in iron but will see what can be done by reason and reasonable methods. Thus it has always been. Like Comenius before them, Kollár and Palacký taught the humane ideal on principle and as good discipline for the character, not on utilitarian or tactical grounds. We wished, and we wish truly to be human. A Czech “Liberal” is
