I do not
fear any such finality, for I happen to believe in the kind of men who
fight best with bayonets and whose fathers hammered their own pikes for
the French Revolution.
THE TOWER OF BEBEL
Among the cloudy and symbolic stories in the beginning of the Bible there
is one about a tower built with such vertical energy as to take a hold on
heaven, but ruined and resulting only in a confusion of tongues. The
story might be interpreted in many ways--religiously, as meaning that
spiritual insolence starts all human separations; irreligiously, as
meaning that the inhuman heavens grudge man his magnificent dream; or
merely satirically as suggesting that all attempts to reach a higher
agreement always end in more disagreement than there was before. It might
be taken by the partially intelligent Kensitite as a judgment on Latin
Christians for talking Latin. It might be taken by the somewhat less
intelligent Professor Harnack as a final proof that all prehistoric
humanity talked German. But when all was said, the symbol would remain
that a plain tower, as straight as a sword, as simple as a lily, did
nevertheless produce the deepest divisions that have been known among men.
In any case we of the world in revolt--Syndicalists, Socialists, Guild
Socialists, or whatever we call ourselves--have no need to worry about the
scripture or the allegory.
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