19 APRIL 1940, Page 15

Here, essentially, is my quarrel with these Four Horsemen of

the Apocalypse who have now dismounted and led their horses back into the distant Hollywood stable. I have small criticism to make of the ivory tower so long as one remains in it. My criticism is against those who leave their tower when the sun of June is upon the meadows and then retreat to it when the winds of autumn begin to howl. " Pacifism," wrote Mr. Aldous Huxley, " is the application of the prin- ciples of individual morality to the problems of politics and economics." I entirely agree with him, and if my family were in grave difficulties I should consider it incumbent upon me, on the grounds of individual morality, to come to their assistance. " War," writes Mr. Huxley again, " is justified when it is waged in defence of the vital interests of the community. But the nature of modern war is such that the vital interests of the community cannot be defended by it." It is with this axiom that he preaches the doctrine of non-resistance. I wonder whether, if Mr. Huxley were a Dane of equal intellectual independence, he would today agree with his own axiom.

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