SCIENCE AND HAPPINESS
now as much as at any former time, is based upon life-and-death competition; the question at issue in the War was whether German or Allied children should die of want and starvation. (Apart from malevolence on both sides, there was not the slightest reason why both should not survive). Most people have in the background of their minds a haunting fear of ruin; this is especially true of people who have children. The rich fear that Bolsheviks will confiscate their investments; the poor fear that they will lose their job or their health. Everyone is engaged in the frantic pursuit of “security ”, and imagines that this is to be achieved by keeping potential enemies in subjection. It isin moments of panic that cruelty becomes most wide-spread and most atrocious. Reactionaries everywhere appeal to fear: in England, to fear of Bolshevism; in France, t
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