and even his country, when the truth and his country were at odds.
Thus he is in the succession of all the great believers: Christians of the early centuries, the reformers during the epoch of the wars of religion, the freethinkers of the heroic age of free thought, all those who have prized beyond everything their faith in truth—in whatever form truth presented itself to their minds (divine or human, for to them it was always sacred). I may add that such a man as E. D. Morel is a great citizen even when he is demonstrating to his country the errors which it is committing. Nay more, he is preeminently a great citizen when he does this and because he does it. Some would draw a veil over the errors of their country; they are unprofitable servants, or they are sycophants. Every brave man, every straightforward man, knows best how to honour his country.
The state may strike down such a man if it pleases, as the state struck down Socrates, as the state has struck down so many others, to whom, after they were dead, it raised useless monuments. The state is not our country. It is merely the administrator of our country, sometimes a good administrator, sometimes a bad one, but always fallible. The state has power, and uses power. But since man has been man, this power has invariably broken vainly against the threshold of the free soul.
September 15, 1917.
