A man thinks he is dying for his country,” said Anatole France, “but he is dying for a few industrialists.” But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.
It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
