66 Making of the Complete Citizen
the song of the invisible choir, the music of the spheres. At
present the Russian ruling class are determined to dispense
with religion. What the result of the attainment of such an
utterly industrialized society will be, it is futile to prophesy.
Doubtless many human virtues will exist in a nation which is
devoting itself on a large scale to cooperative effort ; but to
banish religion can hardly fail to atrophy the spiritual char-
acter of the people. Hitherto civilizations with a high grade
of culture have had some place for religion. As to whether
Russia will return out of her agony and travail to the spir-
itual and bring forth a new quality of culture it is idle to
speculate.
But some may reply that in all ages civilizations have
been materialistic, and that most governments and peoples
have been absorbed in selfish aggrandizement. All around
us is Realpolitik, policies determined by the frankest self-
interest, nationalism expressing itself in utter indifference
to others, the Orient having gone to school to the western
world to learn lessons in rapacity. In our industrial and
social order, we are told, the selfishness of an acquisitive
system surpasses that of the Russians, who at least lose
themselves in order to find a better distribution of the means
of living, and who toil hard for their subsistence. In all
this there may be some truth. Support is lent to it by those
among us who in frantic fear appeal selfishly to religion
to save the world from its present industrial disorder; and
by those who practically meet Russia on its own materi-
alistic basis, grounding their hope for the failure of the
great experiment on the reassertion by the individual of
the desire of possession, and on the likelihood of the bricks
cracking under the strain of the sacrifice demanded.
There is, however, this difference between western civili-
zation and Russian; from the latter religion is excluded, in