My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyfacts of today armed with the instruments which only this age has ever conferred uponmankind. By this new and wonderful coincidence of instrument and of event theproblems of this age can be overcome, and the future can be assured in a progressivestability. Possibly this is the last great world wave of the immortal, the eternallyrecurring Caesarian movement; but with the aid of science, and with the inspiration ofthe modern mind, this wave shall carry humanity to the farther shore.'Then, at long last, Caesarism, the mightiest emanation of the human spirit in highendeavour toward enduring achievement, will have performed its world mission in thestruggle of the ages, and will have fulfilled its historic destiny. A humanity releasedfrom poverty and from many of the horrors and afflictions of disease to the enjoymentof a world re-born through science, will still need a fascist movement transformed tothe purpose of a new and nobler order of mankind; but you will need no more thestrange and disturbing men who in days of struggle and of danger and in nights ofdarkness and of labour, have forged the instrument of steel by which the world shallpass to higher things.'In retrospect, I see at this point the merit of this speech: the union of Caesarism andmodern science which could be the decisive fact of history, a final union of will withthought in a limitless achievement. After this lapse of time it still seems to me a veryconsiderable thesis—now reinforced by the subsequent development of science—thatfor the first time executive men could find the means to do something truly great andenduring. The union of a revolutionary movement, which is a modern Caesarism, withthe force of modern science could be nothing less than this. The genius of scienceimprisoned by the dull mediocrity of politics which could not realise its potentialwould be released for a world transforming task. The new men of politics in relationto science would transcend even the relationship of the men of the renaissance to artand a new world could be born of this union. The speech in conclusion expressed thebelief that fascism itself would eventually pass to make way for a higher order ofmankind. Beyond the 'fact men' of Caesarism could already be discerned 'a new form,shadowy, as yet obscure, visible in outline only, but still a higher form' (as I wrotelater) 'the will to power and the will to beauty in the mystical union which is allachieving'.It is, of course, possible to comment on the speech of 1933 that was just a diffuse andromantic way of saying: if you bring together executive men with modern science inan efficient system of government, you will get things done. In the present day I havesome intellectual sympathy with the contemporary preference for short, flat, clearstatement, but the method belongs to this humdrum period when action is not yetgenerally felt to be essential. If you want to move men to do great things in a greatway, you must set plain facts in the perspective of history and illumine them with asense of destiny.I returned to some of the same themes five years later in Tomorrow We Live:, in thelast chapter I described briefly the situation of Britain as I saw it in relation to othercivilisations which had succumbed to the forces now threatening us: 'British Unionemerges from the welter of parties and the chaos of the system to meet an emergencyno less menacing than 1914, because it is not so sudden or so universally apparent.British Union summons our people to no less an effort in no less a spirit. Gone in thedemand of that hour was the clamour of faction, and the strife of section, that a great273 of 424