Reading The Popes: John XXIII's Mater et Magistra On The Economy

On the issue of the economy today there are many people in America that fill the vacuum of the various political theories, across the political spectrum - we have those who are libertarian or leaning libertarian, socialists, communists, capitalists or free-market supporters, conservatives, liberals, and those that even fall somewhere in the middle of those political beliefs. Recently tensions have been running high between unions, businesses, and other citizens concerning the various clash of opinions on whether or not the unions are in fact a burden on both the State and its citizens, particularly with regards to how much tax is appropriate for a taxpayer to be required to pay to support the wage of a union member. In the Papal document Mater Et Magistra Pope John XXIII refers to Rerum Novarum a papal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII and says: 

" As is well-known, the outlook that prevailed on economic matters was for the most part a purely naturalistic one, which denied any correlation between economics and morality. Personal gain was considered the only valid motive for economic activity. In business the main operative principle was that of free and unrestricted competition. Interest on capital, prices--whether of goods or of services--profits and wages, were to be determined by the purely mechanical application of the laws of the market place. Every precaution was to be taken to prevent the civil authority from intervening in any way in economic matters. The status of trade unions varied in different countries. They were either forbidden, tolerated, or recognized as having private legal personality only."

Today are unions merely tolerated here in the U.S.? Or does their standard of pay either fall in line with or exceed that of similar private sector jobs? Does the U.S. citizen pay taxes (generally speaking, minus the exception of the most recent bailouts) towards what a private sector employee earns? No. But each of us does pay a tax which goes toward supporting the pensions, health benefits, and salaries of both public sector union members and other public sector employees. Are these public sector employees putting too much of a burden on the State and forcing the average citizen to pay excessive taxes? My answer is yes. The unions and other public sector jobs today have more of a responsibility to garner the citizens' approval as to whether their wages are too high or too low or are earning a decent wage or not. Today do we forbid the unions existence? Or the right to peacefully assemble? Do we have unions who are merely tolerated? No. No. No. I am not quite sure why there is a problem with unions only having private legal personality.

Today union members are far better off than many who hold compatible private sector jobs. The outcry from the public which demanded a decent living and decent working conditions that occurred during the late 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century were appropriate for that time when there were no laws in place to protect either the worker or a safe work environment but today there are laws in place protecting public unions wages and the conditions of the work environment so when people protest in the streets acting like irrational children, acting like they are being persecuted or mistreated in some way while demanding that they should be paid more and compensated with more benefits than employees who hold similar private sector jobs today is deceptive, absurd, unfounded and illegitimate. The way that some public sector union employees are forcing other citizens to contribute more money than they themselves do towards their own health insurance benefits which burdens both the State and the citizens at a time when our debt and deficits are at an all-time high in this country is unbelievable and unconscionable to me.

"It is furthermore the duty of the State to ensure that terms of employment are regulated in accordance with justice and equity, and to safeguard the human dignity of workers by making sure that they are not required to work in an environment which may prove harmful to their material and spiritual interests."

While nothing is ever foolproof from error I believe that this has largely been achieved in our country.

"They concern first of all the question of work, which must be regarded not merely as a commodity, but as a specifically human activity. In the majority of cases a man's work is his sole means of livelihood. Its remuneration, therefore, cannot be made to depend on the state of the market. It must be determined by the laws of justice and equity. Any other procedure would be a clear violation of justice, even supposing the contract of work to have been freely entered into by both parties.

"Secondly, private ownership of property, including that of productive goods, is a natural right which the State cannot suppress. But it naturally entails a social obligation as well. It is a right which must be exercised not only for one's own personal benefit but also for the benefit of others."

Is work becoming a rare commodity nowadays? There are more people than ever in our history reliant on the government for some type of benefit, whether it be welfare, food stamps or medicaid. Since Barack Obama took office in 2009 the number of recipients receiving food stamps has more than doubled and under Obama's budget for 2011 will increase spending on the welfare programs by 42% over President Bush's last year in office, with Obama's budget to spend $1.43 trillion on the medicare and medicaid programs. There is a difference between assisting someone in financial need and aiding their irresponsible lifestyles or behavior. This to me seems like Obama & Company are treating jobs for citizens as a commodity, while doing all the wrong things to spur growth and create jobs then saying it is a moral duty for the "rich" to pay even more taxes than the huge amount they already do to support his welfare state recipients. Obama and the rest of the progressives are making individuals and families dependent on the government which is in my opinion at least as bad, if not worse, than one's livelihood being dependent on the state of the market.

Pope John XXIII rightly points out that "it is advisable for the contract to be modified so that 'wage-earners and other employees participate in the ownership or the management, or in some way share in the profits.'"

This would be an example of where distributism comes into play. This is a third type of economic philosophy - Catholic Social Teaching - which was formulated by such thinkers as G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. I think instituting the principles of this philosophy in our society would help to alleviate many problems which crony capitalism has caused in our society today.

"According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton's statement: 'Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.'

"Essentially, distributism distinguishes itself by its distribution of property (not to be confused with redistribution of capital that would be carried out by most socialist plans of governance). While socialism allows no individuals to own productive property (it all being under state, community, or workers' control, with exceptions such as mutualism), distributism itself seeks to ensure that most people will become owners of productive property. As Belloc stated, the distributive state (that is, the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number of owners of the means of production.'This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, etc.'" - Wikipedia article on distributism

"Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production, it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority."

I am in full agreement with both Pope John XXIII and Pope Pius XI on the matter of Socialism and Communism, that both political philosophies "places too severe a restraint on human liberty."

"Of special doctrinal and practical importance is his [that is, Pius XI's] affirmation that 'if the social and individual character of work be overlooked, it can be neither justly valued nor equitably recompensed.'In determining wages, therefore, justice demands that account be taken not only of the needs of the individual workers and their families, but also of the financial state of the business concern for which they work and of 'the economic welfare of the whole people.'

Unions today are not taking into account the needs of other workers and their families or the financial burden they have on businesses today. The Unions, union bosses, and many union members feel entitled to whatever amount of money and benefits regardless of how it affects anyone else.

" It should be stated at the outset that in the economic order first place must be given to the personal initiative of private citizens working either as individuals or in association with each other in various ways for the furtherance of common interests.
But--for reasons explained by Our predecessors--the civil power must also have a hand in the economy. It has to promote production in a way best calculated to achieve social progress and the well-being of all citizens."

Today, it would seem that in America the civil power has much more than a hand in economic affairs, but in fact have both hands, both feet, arms, and legs involved in our economy.

"And in this work of directing, stimulating, co-ordinating, supplying and integrating, its guiding principle must be the 'principle of subsidiary function' formulated by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, 'This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable. . . Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to a community what private enterprise and industry can accomplish, so too it is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower societies. Of its very nature the true aim of all social activity should be to help members of the social body, but never to destroy or absorb them.'"

The federal government has become a huge albatross held over the heads of Americans today. The social philosophy of subsidiarity is one method that needs to be applied in order to save our economy from collapse. The federal government is putting undue fiscal burdens on the states.

"But however extensive and far-reaching the influence of the State on the economy may be, it must never be exerted to the extent of depriving the individual citizen of his freedom of action. It must rather augment his freedom while effectively guaranteeing the protection of his essential personal rights. Among these is a man's right and duty to be primarily responsible for his own upkeep and that of his family. Hence every economic system must permit and facilitate the free development of productive activity."

The number of recipients receiving food stamps has more than doubled since Bush left office and now it is reported that 43.6 million Americans are now receiving food stamps today. President Obama has increased spending on welfare programs by 42 percent over President Bush's last year in office. The promoters of a welfare state or the welfare state mentality are not promoting the human dignity of the person and freedom of the person by allowing persons to be dependent on the State but in fact are doing the opposite by promoting this dependency mentality. Progressives are enabling the person to avoid fulfilling his "right and duty to be primarily responsible for his own upkeep and that of his family." This quite frankly is irresponsible on so many fronts.

"Experience has shown that where personal initiative is lacking, political tyranny ensues and, in addition, economic stagnation in the production of a wide range of consumer goods and of services of the material and spiritual order--those, namely, which are in a great measure dependent upon the exercise and stimulus of individual creative talent.

Political tyranny and the lack of personal initiative go hand in hand. If one is not going to be rewarded for one's initiative when that produces success or even penalized by the State why would someone continue on this path of displaying personal initiative?

"Where, on the other hand, the good offices of the State are lacking or deficient, incurable disorder ensues: in particular, the unscrupulous exploitation of the weak by the strong. For men of this stamp are always in evidence, and, like cockle among the wheat, thrive in every land."

In America I think we have a case of the weak being exploited by the State to further a tyrannical political agenda. But I am also of the opinion that there are those in corporate America who are in some ways exploiting the weak or those less fortunate.

"In a system of taxation based on justice and equity it is fundamental that the burdens be proportioned to the capacity of the people contributing."

"As it affects the less developed countries, the problem is stated thus: The resources of modern hygiene and medicine will very shortly bring about a notable decrease in the mortality rate, especially among infants, while the birth rate--which in such countries is unusually high--will tend to remain more or less constant, at least for a considerable period. The excess of births over deaths will therefore show a steep rise, whereas there will be no corresponding increase in the productive efficiency of the economy. Accordingly, the standard of living in these poorer countries cannot possibly improve. It must surely worsen, even to the point of extreme hardship. Hence there are those who hold the opinion that, in order to prevent a serious crisis from developing, the conception and birth of children should be secretly avoided, or, in any event, curbed in some way."

Was Pope John XXIII writing under divine inspiration? Today progressives are propagating that births should be avoided in third world countries to solve the problem of hunger and extreme hardship. It is amazing and sad that his predictions became a reality.

"Besides, the resources which God in His goodness and wisdom has implanted in Nature are well-nigh inexhaustible, and He has at the same time given man the intelligence to discover ways and means of exploiting these resources for his own advantage and his own livelihood. Hence, the real solution of the problem is not to be found in expedients which offend against the divinely established moral order and which attack human life at its very source, but in a renewed scientific and technical effort on man's part to deepen and extend his dominion over Nature. The progress of science and technology that has already been achieved opens up almost limitless horizons in this field."

"As for the problems which face the poorer nations in various parts of the world, We realize, of course, that these are very real. They are caused, more often than not, by a deficient economic and social organization, which does not offer living conditions proportionate to the increase in population. They are caused, also, by the lack of effective solidarity among such peoples."

"We must solemnly proclaim that human life is transmitted by means of the family, and the family is based upon a marriage which is one and indissoluble and, with respect to Christians, raised to the dignity of a sacrament. The transmission of human life is the result of a personal and conscious act, and, as such, is subject to the all-holy, inviolable and immutable laws of God, which no man may ignore or disobey. He is not therefore permitted to use certain ways and means which are allowable in the propagation of plant and animal life."

"Human life is sacred--all men must recognize that fact. From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God. Those who violate His laws not only offend the divine majesty and degrade themselves and humanity, they also sap the vitality of the political community of which they are members."

NO ABORTION!! - MURDERING OF INNOCENT HUMAN LIFE

NO EUTHANASIA!!

NO GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE RATIONING

NO SAME SEX "MARRIAGE"

NO EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH!

NO ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION OR IN VITRO FERTILIZATION!

Here are some closing remarks from Pope John XXIII:

"It has been claimed that in an era of scientific and technical triumphs such as ours man can well afford to rely on his own powers, and construct a very good civilization without God. But the truth is that these very advances in science and technology frequently involve the whole human race in such difficulties as can only be solved in the light of a sincere faith in God, the Creator and Ruler of man and his world."

"We most earnestly beg all Our sons the world over, clergy and laity, to be deeply conscious of the dignity, the nobility, which is theirs through being grafted on to Christ as shoots on a vine: "I am the vine; you the branches." They are thus called to a share in His own divine life; and since they are united in mind and spirit with the divine Redeemer even when they are engaged in the affairs of the world, their work becomes a continuation of His work, penetrated with redemptive power. "He that abideth in men, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit."

"Thus is man's work exalted and ennobled--so highly exalted that it leads to his own personal perfection of soul, and helps to extend to others the fruits of Redemption, all over the world. It becomes a means whereby the Christian way of life can leaven this civilization in which we live and work--leaven it with the ferment of the Gospel."


Crossposted at Catholibertarian 

The Masterful Killing of Osama Bin Laden, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, and Progressives Skewed Morality

The Navy Seals masterful operational tactics which killed Osama Bin Laden has sparked a debate, yet again, as to whether enhanced interrogation techniques work and are ever morally justifiable under extreme, out of the ordinary circumstances.  Enhanced interrogation techniques aided in finding and killing Osama Bin Laden.  Leon Panetta and previous directors of the CIA have admitted this, that EIT's were one piece of the puzzle in finding Bin Laden. We owe the Navy Seals our gratitude to a mission well done.  They are to be commended for their bravery for a mission accomplished, which was started not too long after September 11, 2001.  Bin Laden got exactly what he deserved.  I hope that those families who lost loved ones on 9/11 may now feel some sense of justice now that Osama is dead and buried at sea. 


Progressives are rehashing the old debate, asking whether it is ever moral to use enhanced interrogation techniques to get our enemy detainees to divulge important information.  Bernard Goldberg asks the question: "Why it is moral to allow the bomb to go off killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?" 

And then goes on to say...

"And exactly what American values are upheld by letting the bomb go off? I can’t think of any.
If liberals want to make the case that waterboarding is immoral no matter how many innocent lives are saved – no matter if the target is a yellow school bus filled with third graders on their way to the museum – then Man Up and make the case, with no apologies."

I don't know how anyone could actually think that it is moral to simply allow millions of innocents to die when there is an avenue we could use in extreme cases to prevent the tragedy from happening.  How is it an American value to vie for our nation to yield in its duty to protect its citizens?  I don't consider America abandoning its responsibility to do its all to protect American citizens from our enemies adhering to American values. 


Progressives like to spout the human rights mantra, have compassion for and are fervent defenders of criminals, scumbags, and terrorists.  For some reason liberals hearts empathize with the scum of the earth even though these people are responsible for the most heinous of crimes and thrive on victimizing ordinary people.  For some reason progressives haven't deemed that the ordinary Joes and Joannes of this world to be worthy of the same compassion as the scumbags of the world.  In addition liberals treat the innocent and most vulnerable of all with utter contempt, like they are non-existent in their alternate quasi-reality. According to liberals the innocent and most vulnerable of all who have not committed any crimes are undeserving of the same rights simply because these babies are unable to speak, are inconvenient, and thus to progressives they are to be brutally destroyed and thrown out like they were pieces of garbage all because progressives are irresponsible, morally bankrupt human beings who prey on the weak. 


  Progressives would have us revert back to a time when so-called civilized people committed barbaric actions.  In First Century BC the Carthaginians were a civilized people who wanted to maintain their opulent lifestyle and would crush the skulls of infants in order to sacrifice them to the pagan Gods as a way of achieving that end and today we have liberals who want to maintain a relatively comfortable lifestyle and in order to do so they murder their offspring.  And the progressives push this demonic agenda on the confused, desperate, and frightened. 


My husband was reminded of and pointed me to this famous passage from The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton: 


In a previous chapter I have hinted at something of the psychology that
lies behind a certain type of religion. There was a tendency in those
hungry for practical results, apart from poetical results, to call upon
spirits of terror and compulsion; to move Acheron in despair of bending
the Gods. There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers
will really do things, with no nonsense about it. In the interior
psychology of the Punic peoples this strange sort of pessimistic
practicality had grown to great proportions. In the New Town, which the
Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god
who got things done bore the name of Moloch, who was perhaps identical
with the other deity whom we know as Baal, the Lord. The Romans did not
at first quite know what to call him or what to make of him; they had to
go back to the grossest myth of Greek or Roman origins and compare him
to Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch were not
gross or primitive. They were members of a mature and polished
civilisation, abounding in refinements and luxuries; they were probably
far more civilised than the Romans. And Moloch was not a myth; or at any
rate his meal was not a myth. These highly civilised people really met
together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing
hundreds of their infants into a large furnace. We can only realise the
combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants with
chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday
at eleven o'clock to see a baby roasted alive.

The first stages of the political or commercial quarrel can be followed
in far too much detail, precisely because it is merely political or
commercial. The Punic Wars looked at one time as if they would never
end; and it is not easy to say when they ever began. The Greeks and the
Sicilians had already been fighting vaguely on the European side against
the African city. Carthage had defeated Greece and conquered Sicily.
Carthage had also planted herself firmly in Spain; and between Spain and
Sicily the Latin city was contained and would have been crushed; if the
Romans had been of the sort to be easily crushed. Yet the interest of
the story really consists in the fact that Rome was crushed. If there
had not been certain moral elements as well as the material elements,
the story would have ended where Carthage certainly thought it had
ended. It is common enough to blame Rome for not making peace. But it
was a true popular instinct that there could be no peace with that sort
of people It is common enough to blame the Roman for his Delenda est
Carthago; Carthage must be destroyed. It is commoner to forget that, to
all appearance, Rome itself was destroyed. The sacred savour that hung
round Rome for ever, it is too often forgotten, clung to her partly
because she had risen suddenly from the dead. Carthage was an
aristocracy, as are most of such mercantile states. The pressure of the
rich on the poor was impersonal as well as irresistible. For such
aristocracies never permit personal government, which is perhaps why
this one was jealous of personal talent. But genius can turn up
anywhere, even in a governing class. As if to make the world's supreme
test as terrible as possible, it was ordained that one of the great
houses of Carthage should produce a man who came out of those gilded
palaces with all the energy and originality of Napoleon coming from
nowhere. At the worst crisis of the war Rome learned that Italy itself,
by a military miracle, was invaded from the north. Hannibal, the Grace
of Baal as his name ran in his own tongue, had dragged a ponderous chain
of armaments over the starry solitudes of the Alps; and pointed
southward to the city which he had been pledged by all his dreadful gods
to destroy.


Hannibal marched down the road to Rome, and the Romans who rushed to war
with him felt as if they were fighting with a magician. Two great armies
sank to right and left of him into the swamps of the Trebia; more and
more were sucked into the horrible whirlpool of Cannae; more and more
went forth only to fall in ruin at his touch. The supreme sign of all
disasters, which is treason, turned tribe after tribe against the
falling cause of Rome, and still the unconquerable enemy rolled nearer
and nearer to the city; and following their great leader the swelling
cosmopolitan army of Carthage passed like a pageant of the whole world;
the elephants shaking the earth like marching mountains and the gigantic
Gauls with their barbaric panoply and the dark Spaniards girt in gold
and the brown Numidians on their unbridled desert horses wheeling and
darting like hawks, and whole mobs of deserters and mercenaries and
miscellaneous peoples; and the grace of Baal went before them.


The Roman augurs and scribes who said in that hour that it brought forth
unearthly prodigies, that a child was born with the head of an elephant
or that stars fell down like hailstones, had a far more philosophical
grasp of what had really happened than the modern historian who can see
nothing in it but a success of strategy concluding a rivalry in
commerce. Something far different was felt at the time and on the spot,
as it is always felt by those who experience a foreign atmosphere
entering their own like a fog or a foul savour. It was no mere military
defeat, it was certainly no mere mercantile rivalry, that filled the
Roman imagination with such hideous omens of nature herself becoming
unnatural. It was Moloch upon the mountain of the Latins, looking with
his appalling face across the plain; it was Baal who trampled the
vineyards with his feet of stone; it was the voice of Tanit the
invisible, behind her trailing veils, whispering of the love that is
more horrible than hate. The burning of the Italian cornfields, the ruin
of the Italian vines, were some thing more than actual; they were
allegorical. They were the destruction of domestic and fruitful things,
the withering of what was human before that inhumanity that is far
beyond the human thing called cruelty. The household gods bowed low in
darkness under their lowly roofs; and above them went the demons upon a
wind from beyond all walls, blowing the trumpet of the Tramontane. The
door of the Alps was broken down; and in no vulgar but a very solemn
sense, it was Hell let loose. The war of the gods and demons seemed
already to have ended; and the gods were dead. The eagles were lost, the
legions were broken; and in Rome nothing remained but honour and the
cold courage of despair.


In the whole world one thing still threatened Carthage, and that was
Carthage. There still remained the inner working of an element strong in
all successful commercial states, and the presence of a spirit that we
know. There was still the solid sense and shrewdness of the men who
manage big enterprises; there was still the advice of the best financial
experts; there was still business government; there was still the broad
and sane outlook of practical men of affairs, and in these things could
the Romans hope. As the war trailed on to what seemed its tragic end,
there grew gradually a faint and strange possibility that even now they
might not hope in vain. The plain business men of Carthage, thinking as
such men do in terms of living and dying races, saw clearly that Rome
was not only dying but dead The war was over; it was obviously hopeless
for the Italian city to resist any longer, and inconceivable that
anybody should resist when it was hopeless. Under these circumstances,
another set of broad, sound business principles remained to be
considered. Wars were waged with money, and consequently cost money;
perhaps they felt in their hearts, as do so many of their kind, that
after all war must be a little wicked because it costs money. The time
had now come for peace; and still more for economy. The messages sent by
Hannibal from time to time asking for reinforcements were a ridiculous
anachronism; there were much more important things to attend to now. It
might be true that some consul or other had made a last dash to the
Metaurus, had killed Hannibal's brother and flung his head, with Latin
fury, into Hannibal's camp; and mad actions of that sort showed how
utterly hopeless the Latins felt about their cause. But even excitable
Latins could not be so mad as to cling to a lost cause for ever. So
argued the best financial experts; and tossed aside more and more
letters, full of rather queer alarmist reports. So argued and acted the
great Carthaginian Empire. That meaningless prejudice, the curse of
commercial states, that stupidity is in some way practical and that
genius is in some way futile, led them to starve and abandon that great
artist in the school of arms, whom the gods had given them in vain.


Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always
overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between
brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so
long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as
sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are,
like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men,
the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about
what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only
ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is
evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead
things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things
are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of
nature. It may sound fanciful to say that men we meet at tea-tables or
talk to at garden-parties are secretly worshippers of Baal or Moloch.
But this sort of commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the
vision of Carthage. It has in it the brutal blunder that was the ruin of
Carthage. The Punic power fell because there is in this materialism a
mad indifference to real thought. By disbelieving in the soul, it comes
to disbelieving in the mind. Being too practical to be moral, it denies
what every practical soldier calls the moral of an army. It fancies that
money will fight when men will no longer fight. So it was with the Punic
merchant princes. Their religion was a religion of despair, even when
their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that
the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hopeless? Their
religion was a religion of force and fear; how could they understand
that men can still despise fear even when they submit to force? Their
philosophy of the world had weariness in its very heart; above all they
were weary of warfare; how should they understand those who still wage
war even when they are weary of it? In a word, how should they
understand the mind of Man, who had so long bowed down before mindless
things, money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts?
They awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had disdained too
much even to tread out were again breaking everywhere into flames; that
Hasdrubal was defeated, that Hannibal was outnumbered, that Scipio had
carried the war into Spain; that he had carried it into Africa. Before
the very gates of the golden city Hannibal fought his last fight for it
and lost; and Carthage fell as nothing has fallen since Satan. The name
of the New City remains only as a name. There is no stone of it left
upon the sand. Another war was indeed waged before the final
destruction: but the destruction was final. Only men digging in its deep
foundation centuries after found a heap of hundreds of little skeletons,
the holy relics of that religion. For Carthage fell because she was
faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical
conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his
children.