ABSTRACT
Everybody can see, everybody admits, that in the period since the beginning of the Great War the love of freedom has sensibly weakened throughout the world, while the idea of freedom has progressively lost its clarity. Liberal systems that were once regarded as solidly established have collapsed in many countries, and everywhere and in general liberal convictions have been shaken, liberal enthusiasms have cooled, people have grown lukewarm toward an ideal of freedom that has ceased to fill hearts, inspire conduct, and give direction to outlooks on the future. So the educated and the so-called ruling classes are formed. Without such classes no human society has ever been able to endure, and their strength is the strength of society as a whole. The historian looks at things and judges them otherwise than people who are in the thick of the fight and feel all its passions.
