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This Book List Sectory 09
Page 06
And yet there is one thing in the present war which I do in my heart of hearts feel to be worth fighting for, and that is for the hope of liberty. It is hard to say what liberty is, because the essence of it is the subjugation of personal inclinations. The Germans claim that they alone know the meaning of liberty, and that they have arrived at it by discipline. But the bitterness of this war lies in the fact that the Germans are not content to set an example of attractive virtue, and to leave the world to choose it; but that if the world will not choose it, they will force it upon them by violence and the sword. It is this which makes me feel that the war may be a vast protest of the nations, which have the spirit of the future in their hearts, against a theory of life that represents the spirit of the past. And I thus, with some seeming inconsistency, believe that the war may represent the hope of peace at bay. If the nations can keep this clearly before them, and not be tempted either into reprisals, or into rewarding themselves by the spoils of victory, if victory comes; if it ends in the Germans being sincerely convinced that they have been misled and poisoned by a conception of right which is both uncivilised and unchristian, then I believe that all our sufferings may not be too great a price to pay for the future well-being of the world. That is the largest and brightest hope I dare to frame; and there are many hours and days when it seems all clouded and dim.
On January 21st we made a long and tedious march, rising all the time among slippery rocks along precipices, or sinking in swampy mud on the narrow trail. Picturesque waterfalls of great height were visible in volcanic vents, some square, others crescent-shaped, on the face of the mountain. The torrents, swollen by the heavy rains, were difficult to cross, my mules on several occasions being nearly swept away by the foaming current. We sank in deep red slush and in deep holes filled with water, but continued all the time to ascend a gentle but continuous incline. We travelled that day from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening, rain pouring down upon us all the time. We were simply smothered in mud from head to foot.
The gait is shuffling; the motion of the body, which is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the body a half-jumping, half-swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms upward.
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