ABSTRACT
Ever since 1914, everybody conscious of trends in the world has been deeply troubled by what has seemed like a fated and predetermined march towards ever greater disaster. Many serious people have come to feel that nothing can be done to avert the plunge towards ruin. They see the human race, like the hero of a Greek tragedy, driven on by angry gods and no longer the master of fate. I think this view is at once lazy and superstitious. Misfortunes can be imagined for which men, individually and collectively, would be not responsible: if the sun were to explode, we could not blame the government. But the misfortunes of the human race since 1914, and those much greater misfortunes with which it is threatened, are not of this order. They are brought on by human volition, by the passions of the many and the decisions of the few.
