Page:Freud - Reflections on war and death.djvu/22

This page has been validated.
REFLECTIONS ON

that might contradict the foundations of its own existence. To be sure, one was aware that scattered among these civilized nations there were certain remnants of races that were quite universally disliked, and were therefore reluctantly and only to a certain extent permitted to participate in the common work of civilization where they had proved themselves sufficiently fit for the task. But the great nations themselves, one should have thought, had acquired sufficient understanding for the qualities they had in common and enough tolerance for their differences so that, unlike in the days of classical antiquity, the words "foreign" and "hostile" should no longer be synonyms.

Trusting to this unity of civilized races countless people left hearth and home to live in strange lands and trusted their for-

6