THE PASSING OF WAR 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Crown 8vo, 301 pp. Price 6s. 
 
 THE WORD AND THE WAY 
 
 OR 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE AGES ON THE PATH 
 OF TO-DAY 
 
 HARD SAYINGS OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 A STUDY 
 IN THE MIND AND METHOD OF THE MASTER 
 
 Crown Svo, 212 pp. Price 5s. 
 
 Second Edition 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
THE PASSING OF WAR 
 
 A STUDY 
 
 IN 
 
 THINGS THAT MAKE FOR PEACE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM LEIGHTON CRANE 
 
 VICAR OF COBHAM, SURREY 
 
 PKEBENUARY OF CHICHESTER, 1898. SELECT PREACHER, CAMBRIDGE, I904 
 
 AUTHOR OF " HARD SAYINGS OF JESUS CHRIST," ETC. 
 
 FORMERLY RECTOR OF ST. THOMAS-AT-CLIFFE, LEWES (iSSa-g) 
 AND RECTOR OF BEXHILL-ON-SEA (1S89-1900) 
 
 Tendentesque maims ripct ulteriorh Amore. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1912 
 
I AM 
 
 CONVINCED THAT 
 
 AS CIVILISATION ADVANCES 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN TEACHING 
 
 WILL TEND INCREASINGLY TO 
 
 INCULCATE THE LOVE 
 
 OF PEACE' 
 
 Last Message to the Hovses of Convocation 
 KING EDWAHD, THE PEACEMAKER. 
 
 253193 
 
mri t)a<r part soever sou bavc taken upon sou, plag tbat 
 as well as sou can, an& mafte tbe best of tt ... It 
 Bou cannot even as sou wolDe rcnieDs vices wblcb use an& 
 custom batb conf(rnic5, \?et tor tbls cause gou must not 
 leave anO forsake tbe common wealtbe; sou must not 
 forsake tbe sbippe In a tempest because sou cannot keep 
 Down tbe vvlnSes . . . but stuDge anJ) enOeavour, as mucb 
 as In sou Igetbe, to banDle tbe matter wsttelge an& ban6* 
 somelge to tbe purpose ; an& tbat wblcb sou can not turn 
 to flooD, so- to or&er tbat tt be not vers baSDe. 3For It Is 
 not possible for all tbings to be well unless all men were 
 0OO&, Mblcb 5 tblnk will not be set tbls gooD mans 
 
 seares. 
 
 Sir Thomas Moee. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It has been recently urged with force and skill 
 that Economic considerations alone are conclusive 
 against War. Current affairs in Europe have also 
 been pointing the same moral. Only a few months 
 ago Germany afforded an object-lesson to the world 
 upon the cost of indulgence in aggressive feeling, with 
 consequent rumour of War. We could see how acute 
 commercial crisis, in a country living on credit, can be 
 produced by a few weeks' hostile handling by a single 
 neighbour of the long lever of Finance. Now that 
 the warp and woof of banking and trade are closely 
 interwoven in one vast international web, so striking 
 a situation is produced even by War's forecast shadow, 
 that it seems scarcely a vain question whether the 
 subjugation of one nation to the will of another, 
 especially if that other has wealthy allies, might not 
 be bloodlessly effected by financial pressure alone if 
 it were organised and combined. 
 
 There exists, moreover, another power, not of 
 Capital but of Labour, which in combination has 
 undeniable potentialities. To realise the vision fore- 
 seen by De Bloch nearly twenty years ago has long 
 been a favourite notion with Socialists. It was 
 revived last summer at the Jena Congress, where an 
 orator observed : " We shall not need to declare the 
 General Strike. The Minister of War, by mobilization, 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 will do that for us." But much water is likely to 
 run under the bridge of Time before this oratorical 
 exuberance crystallises into accomplished fact. The 
 Socialist veteran Herr Bebel, at the same congress, 
 while denouncing war with eloquence and power, 
 scouted any such means of ending it. Non tali auccilio 
 will express the clamorous racial feehng even of 
 Socialists for some time yet ; and the possibility of 
 initiating, in the face of actual War, a Labour strike 
 on the national scale which alone could make it 
 efficacious must be regarded as exceedingly remote. 
 
 But all such questions, however interesting, are 
 outside the purview of this book, which is written in 
 the firm belief that Civilisation will finally exchange 
 the cult of blood and iron for that of national fraternity 
 only through the growing prevalence of Moral forces. 
 However true it may be that selfishness is a powerful 
 motive and one operating universally, yet the in- 
 contestable fact remains that this motive has never 
 effected any of the greater reforms in the history of 
 the world. 
 
 The whole economic argument for the futility of 
 War is in fact subject to grave limitations. It fatally 
 ignores the spirit of Nationalism which leads to ag- 
 gression as surely and as frequently as any covetous- 
 ness of material pelf. It is silent before the imperative 
 demand created by some teeming population out- 
 growing its own confines, for outlet and expansion in a 
 world already occupied by other peoples. And even 
 where such argument applies, its force in any com- 
 munity will vary with the extent of the citizens' 
 stake in the State. It is true that the destruction, 
 or even the jeopardy, of material conditions which 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 self-interest operates to preserve, must touch every 
 section of the people concerned ; but the full truth is 
 not obvious ; it cannot be realised except through a 
 knowledge which is special, and therefore rare. 
 
 Moreover, though Peace, like Godliness, is no 
 doubt " profitable," yet, if either is sought on this 
 account alone, it will certainly be forsaken should 
 War or wickedness appear likely to pay better. 
 
 The survival of War ultimately rests on Opinion. 
 But the conversion of halting opinion seems to have 
 been usually attempted by appealing to some one 
 particular element in human nature. The writer's 
 view is that siege must be laid against the whole 
 constitution of man — mind, heart, conscience, imagin - 
 ation, will. He thinks, too, that Pacifism has in- 
 adequately realised that until a sound Substitute fo. 
 War is actually in evidence, the effect of the most 
 cogent motives for its abolition, or even for armament 
 reduction, must be crippled. The perfecting of 
 existent Arbitral machinery, the gradual evolution 
 of some form of Federal Union among European 
 States, as well as the regular recourse to a 
 Permanent International Court of Justice, are all 
 essentials of the Reign of Peace. But Statesmen 
 cannot be expected to regard the more perfect adjust- 
 ment and further development of this alternative 
 mechanism as the most urgent step in the region of 
 high politics, until civilised Public Opinion clearly 
 shows, by manifesting keen concern, that the matter 
 has actually passed from the sphere of academic 
 interest into that of supreme practical importance. 
 The politician must be conscious of the pressure of 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 national sentiment, and be confident of its support, 
 if he is to act with resohition. It is this kind of 
 national feeling which needs to be quickened and 
 fostered. And among the means to be used, Moral 
 suasion is the chief. For no consuming desire for 
 an adequate and authorised alternative to War will 
 ever possess the hearts and minds of men who are 
 still unconvinced of War's inherent and irremediable 
 Evil. 
 
 To this elementary truth, however, the eyes of 
 multitudes are closed. Their sight is dimmed or dis- 
 torted through the malign and subtle influence of a 
 not inconsiderable part of the poetry, fiction, drama, 
 and journalism of the day ; or else they are completely 
 bhndfolded by militarist argument and military 
 glamour. Hence it becomes part of the object of this 
 book to review and revalue these contentions by which 
 the cause of Peace continues to be baulked. For 
 until the moral outlook is cleared, the general level 
 of public sentiment and opinion will never rise out of 
 the material plane, where War appears hopelessly 
 inevitable, and the very notion of its " passing " seems 
 quixotic. 
 
 A word seems due to the position of the Soldier 
 in this great controversy. No hatred of War can 
 abate for an instant our admiration for those qualities 
 of order and discipline which have come to be known 
 as " soldierly " ; still less for the higher gifts of 
 character which often bear them company. It is 
 no doubt true that the type of intellect which gives 
 pre-eminence to some wonderful Admiral or General 
 usually lacks the deep and universal note which 
 made the all-round brilliance and sagacity of Caesar 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 so unique among the great Captains of war. Only 
 very vulgar voices could ever rank the supreme 
 talent of a Napoleon, a Nelson, or a Moltke, in con- 
 quering physical forces and obstructions, as being 
 in any way comparable with the sublime genius — 
 ranging heaven and earth, and sounding the abysses 
 of the soul — which inspired a Shakespeare, a Bacon, 
 a Milton, or a Goethe. Nevertheless, it is remark- 
 able how often, among men who bear arms, a certain 
 noble fruitage is brought to high perfection. Words- 
 worth took no flight of imagination when he drew 
 his inimitable Character of the Happy Warrior — 
 
 " Who, doomed to go in company with pain, 
 And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train ! 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain : 
 In face of these doth exercise a power 
 Which is our human nature's highest dower; 
 Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves 
 Of their bad influence, and their good receives." 
 
 This is clearly a study from life. We all know such 
 soldiers, and rejoice in the knowledge. But the 
 whole point of the poet's eulogy lies in the triumph 
 of his " happy warrior " over the baneful nature of 
 the war in which he is " doomed " on occasion to 
 engage. Wordsworth's language is a lesson to the 
 crowd of illogical people who habitually quote the 
 good warrior in proof of the goodness of War ! The 
 clergy do this constantly. It is seriously propounded, 
 as a kind of poser, that war cannot be really so bad, 
 because soldiers are sometimes so good ! Whereas 
 the peculiar merit of the ideal soldier consists in his 
 power to transmute the dire obligation to accompany 
 war's horrors, into the " glorious gain " of a character 
 immune from their injurious effects. 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 In War itself, in war qua war, there is not, nor 
 can be, any good. War is nothing but a barbarous 
 anachronism, of which the civiHsed world ought to 
 be utterly ashamed. Good may come out of it, as 
 out of almost any other abomination ; but that cannot 
 change its own intrinsically evil nature. In some 
 quarters it seems to be thought that to denounce 
 war is to reflect upon the soldier's calling ; but that is 
 just as mistaken as to think that to praise some 
 soldier's character is to whitewash war. Soldiers 
 themselves make no such confusion. They tell us 
 in the plainest terms that " war is an infernally 
 dirty business." And the more experience they have 
 of what war really means, the more they rejoice that 
 the chief business of modern armies is less to wage 
 war than to prevent it. These men know quite well 
 how our " Iron Duke," on the morrow of his greatest 
 victory, came to declare : " Nothing except a battle 
 lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." 
 And they very likely share the recorded opinion of 
 Nelson, that " nations, like individuals, are to be won 
 more by deeds of kindness than by cruelty." But 
 whatever be his thoughts, the soldier is about the last 
 man responsible for the declaration of war. Like 
 the good Centurion of the Roman Empire, he can 
 still happily describe himself as "a man under 
 authority." He is, therefore, fortunate enough to 
 have but one concern — the most directly ennobling 
 concern which can occupy a human life — devotion 
 to what he deems to be his duty. 
 
 In the execution of that duty he may find himself 
 a unit among forces of violence now at the disposal 
 of a political system guided and informed by pagan 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 ideals. These ideals tradition and habit still blind 
 Public Opinion into accepting for the nonce ; but they 
 are already discredited with that increasing multitude 
 who hold that " Morality is the nature of things." 
 As the revolution of thought swings full circle, the 
 soldier will gradually find himself a unit in the forces 
 not of violence and " grab," but of order and equity. 
 The time will come when the taint of possible piratical 
 employment will cease to shadow his career. He and 
 his confreres of every civilised nation will become 
 the honoured instruments and guardians of Peace 
 on earth for all men of Goodwill. 
 
 An increasing body in all progressive lands, from 
 England to Peru, is now undoubtedly prepared to 
 press for the Passing of War. But an enormous 
 " lump " awaits " raising " by this leaven. There 
 are those for whom War is an everlasting ordinance 
 of God, to save the world from becoming too sluggish, 
 or too populous. There are those for whom the 
 Biblical account of the tribal Deity of barbaric ages — 
 " the God of Battles " — is decisive of Divine approval 
 of perpetual strife. Numbers of people still fancy 
 War to be ennobling and beneficent, or at least 
 "natural" and therefore necessary; while many 
 from whose minds these fetters of crude thought have 
 fallen, are still in bondage to the fear that from no 
 possible development of Arbitral machinery can ever 
 evolve a really efficacious substitute for War. 
 
 Much first-rate mentality, which might otherwise 
 become a Pacifist power, seems paralysed by the idea 
 that the deep differences between nations which 
 eventuate in War are not of the kind that Arbitration, 
 honestly practised, can solve. Others fear that War 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 can only be ended by imposing Arbitration in lieu 
 of it by material force, or, in fact, by War itself. 
 
 These last two ideas are probably by far the most 
 serious hindrances to the adoption by thinking 
 people of Pacifist aims. As to the first, however, 
 it may well be recollected that occasions of war 
 which are not justiciable are now extremely few, and 
 none of them intractable save those of a purely 
 piratical order. And even these would tend to dis- 
 appear if the late Lord Salisbury's earnestly advocated 
 policy of a gradual Federation of European States 
 were to be realised. 
 
 As to the second fear, it must be admitted that 
 " force " is required to compel nations to resort to 
 Justice in place of Violence for the settlement of inter- 
 national disputes. But what force ? It is the con- 
 tention of the writer that all the power required can 
 and certainly will be found in the developing Moral 
 sense of civilised mankind — a force, in his view, 
 guaranteed sufficient by its past achievements in the 
 social progress of the world. 
 
 A striking instance of the practical power of this 
 force has recently appeared, not only in the terms 
 of President Taft's proposed Arbitration Treaty, 
 but in the warm welcome accorded to its provisions 
 both by England and by France. The co-signatories, 
 in fact, enter into a contract by which they mutually 
 agree, in the case of any serious international dis- 
 agreement with America, to take the issue into 
 Court and abide by the Court's decision, instead of 
 appealing to the sword. This treaty, proposed to 
 be operative between America and France and 
 between America and England, has been duly signed 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 on behalf of these nations. But to one rather crucial 
 clause there are dissenters among the members of 
 the Foreign Relations' Committee of the American 
 Senate, whose objections it is greatly hoped may be 
 overcome. For, in the President's words, " If the 
 Treaties are to do all the good we hope, they ought to 
 bind us firmly when we do not wish to be bound. 
 They ought to compel us to arbitrate when we would 
 rather not submit to an impartial Tribunal. An 
 agreement which leaves the parties to arbitrate when 
 it suits them implies no progress at all. It is a pact 
 written in water, and might as well not have been 
 made." 
 
 An example of the type of Treaty thus proposed 
 has for years existed between Norway and Sweden; 
 but its provisions constitute a marked advance upon 
 any instruments hitherto ratified by the three Powers 
 now concerned. The field of arbitrable subjects is 
 enlarged, and many of the occasions of war between 
 nations are lifted out of the sphere of Violence into 
 the realm of Equity. Here, then, is at least a 
 definite beginning made, to translate into practical 
 politics the plan which Benjamin Franklin longed to 
 see discovered — " a plan which would induce and 
 oblige nations to settle their disputes without first 
 cutting one another's throats." 
 
 Given the ratification of this American Treaty with 
 Great Britain and with France, it is no unreasonable 
 hope that other nations will follow suit. When ex- 
 perience has proved the value and workableness of 
 such Agreements, it is probable that all the great 
 Powers will come under obligation to arbitrate their 
 differences with other nations. Smaller countries 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 will naturally do the same. And thus, by degrees, 
 something approaching that Universal Arbitration 
 which men now persist in thinking too good to be 
 practicable, if not wholly Utopian, will become the 
 regular rule as far as civilisation stretches. 
 
 This climax would have slaked the thirst of a 
 thousand hearts long ages before Franklin. It is 
 now no less than 1600 years since the distinguished 
 Arnobius — after conversion to the Faith against 
 which he had vigorously lectured — declared that 
 " if all men who understand that their humanity 
 consists not in the shape of their bodies, but in their 
 possession of Reason, would only for a moment give 
 ear to Christ's saving and peace-making commands, 
 then straightway would the entire universe, turning 
 to kindlier offices the use of iron, live in gentlest 
 peace and agree in saving concord, fenced round with 
 inviolable Treaties." 
 
 That was at the opening of the Fourth Christian 
 century. We are now at the opening of the Twentieth. 
 That President Taft's magnificent attempt stands out 
 to-day as the high-water mark of political endeavour, 
 should cover modern Christendom with shame. 
 Arnobius, even in the reign of Diocletian, saw " an 
 ungrateful world enjoying a benefit from Christ, 
 through Whom the madness of brutality has been 
 assuaged, and men have begun to he restrained from 
 plunging hostile hands in a kindred living being's 
 blood." Yet what happened during the last com- 
 pleted century of our vaunted civilisation ? Naming 
 none but the most striking items of the holocaust 
 of violence, we find the appalling aggregate of eight 
 million lives sacrificed to gratify Napoleon's passion 
 
PREFACE xvii 
 
 for dominion. We are confronted with tlic 328,000 
 who fell on the side of the AUies alone, in the 
 Crimean War; with the 359,000 on the side of the 
 Union alone, in the American Civil War; while in 
 the Franco-German War death claimed 184,000, 
 and 241,000 more were wounded and disabled. It is 
 only thus, then, that in modern Christendom, " the 
 madness of brutality is assuaged," and bloody 
 hands show themselves " restrained " ! In such wise, 
 the Fourth Century " benefit from Christ " bears 
 fruit in the Nineteenth ! 
 
 Now at sundry times during the intervening 
 period, the Church was in a position to exercise 
 enormous influence in the matter of Peace and War; 
 so that only a positive marvel of dereliction from 
 the first principles of Christ could have permitted 
 for ages the outrageous anomaly called " Military 
 Christianity " — now succeeded by an era, scarcely 
 less anomalous, of " Christian " Militarism. How- 
 ever in the past the Church's witness has been spoilt 
 and traversed by recourse to violence on the part of 
 her own Rulers, it surely lies the more heavily on the 
 commissioned guardians of " Christ's Religion," with 
 one mind and one mouth, and in every land, to make 
 belated amends. But, whatever may be the case 
 elsewhere, it cannot be said that the official Church in 
 England has been distinguished by endeavour of this 
 kind. Yet, at the present stage in the world's evolu- 
 tion, the effort is one of immeasurable promise, as 
 well as of urgent need. 
 
 It is no doubt true that the judgment of the 
 Anglican Episcopate, registered in Resolution 52 of 
 the last Lambeth Conference, records its " deep 
 b 
 
xviii PREFACE 
 
 appreciation of the practical work achieved " at the 
 Hague ; and "urges earnestly upon all Christian peoples 
 the duty of allaying race-prejudice, and of promoting 
 among all races the spirit of brotherly co-operation 
 for the good of all mankind." So far, so good. 
 
 But when will the rank and file of the clergy, 
 similarly, " rejoice in the growth of higher ethical 
 conceptions, and in the increasing willingness to settle 
 difficulties among nations by peaceful methods" ? 
 
 That great Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton — 
 accounted by Lord Rosebery " the most alert and 
 universal intelligence " of his day — was in the habit 
 of declaring that no more serious danger could threaten 
 either Church or State than " the absence of high 
 aspirations." The Bishop was speaking of a nation's 
 life; and only last year the unmitigated materialism 
 of both parties in our own industrial struggles 
 punctuated the truth of his warning. But the same 
 identical defect is the gravest also of international 
 perils. Are we going to leave it to events, at present 
 perfectly controllable, to punctuate that lesson too ? 
 
 The simple, deep and universal truth that " where 
 there is no Vision, the people cast off restraint," is 
 as true to-day as when it was first uttered. And it 
 applies no less fatefully to the " restraint " of inter- 
 national courtesy than to the relations of, class and 
 class. The shortness of temper which casts off re- 
 straint is by nothing so surely generated as by 
 " shortness of thought " — incapacity to take account 
 of any " interests " but those of the most immediate 
 and most material kind. It is just what Butler 
 meant by " shortness of thought " which sets the 
 forces of Labour and Capital — each vitally necessary 
 
PREFACE xix 
 
 to the other — at hopeless loggerheads. And it is short- 
 ness of thought, again, which too often sets national 
 feeling on edge ; which can set two great countries — 
 each indispensable to the other — carping and quarrel- 
 ling, and swallowing " armour-plate-press " lies about 
 each other's sinister designs, until short temper makes 
 the most suicidal folly possible to either people. 
 
 For this disastrously perilous " absence of high 
 aspirations," the one remedy is to restore the lost 
 Vision of that wherein true greatness essentially 
 consists; — not in sovereign supremacy, whether by 
 sea or by land, but in sovereign service and harmoni- 
 ous co-operation for the welfare of the world. The 
 one great hope for the future of civilisation lies in 
 the learning, by peoples and kings alike, a lesson old 
 as history itself; — that God's best for mankind can not 
 be accomplished by any training of the hands to war, 
 or of the fingers to fight; — that the old exultation^ 
 on this sort of skill must give way to " a new song " 
 altogether, celebrating a future in which righteousness 
 prevails, — righteousness taught by God, and " dis- 
 covered by obedience to the perpetual revelation He 
 is ever making in the affairs of the world." National 
 prosperity of a permanent and precious kind rests on 
 national character. But this can never be assured 
 either by violence or by adventure; for the simple 
 and sufficient reason that it can only be developed 
 from within. 
 
 " Where there is no Vision " the soul of a people 
 
 cannot rise beyond the sphere of outward things — 
 
 unlimited acquisition of power, continual accessions 
 
 of prestige, new and increasing markets— in short, 
 
 1 Psalm cxliv. 1 ; cf. vcr. 9, etc. 
 
 b 2 
 
XX PREFACE 
 
 " the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them." 
 But the most lavish satisfaction of mundane desire 
 cannot compensate for that " leanness of soul " 
 which is the nemesis of low aspirations, whether 
 gratified or denied. If we have no mind above 
 " quails," we shall very likely get our quails, but we 
 shall also pay for them. And to pay for temporals 
 by loss in spirituals, and not even to notice this 
 incalculable loss in making up accounts, is to take 
 the road to ruin, which can only appear to be the 
 way of life " where there is no Vision." 
 
 This old, perennially recurrent, Choice confronts 
 the world to-day in sharper outline than ever ; 
 Will national ambition and international diplomacy 
 deliberately ally themselves with the Power which 
 works for Righteousness? — the Power whose opera- 
 tion, sooner or later, can be traced in all that happens 
 on the earth. National choice of Right alone can 
 hasten the lingering dawn of that desirable day — 
 
 "When there is no breaking in, and no salljdng Toith, 
 And no outcry in our streets." 
 
 Only on the impulse of that Choice, enthusiastically 
 made, will national energies begin to be steadily 
 directed to the ordained and universal task of making 
 human life on this planet brighter, better, and more 
 beautiful. Only so can fall on any folk, whatever 
 their language or their name, the blessing which 
 beatifies beneficence — 
 
 "Happy is the people that is in such a case; 
 Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord." 
 
 Fcasi of The Manifestation of Christ to the Nations. 
 January Cth, 1912. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 
 
 CIIAPTEIl I 
 
 PAOK 
 
 A Great Delusion 3 
 
 The remarkable interest excited b}^ The Great Illusion 
 by Norman Angell. His own delusion that to accom- 
 plish the gigantic stride in Social evolution involved 
 in the Passing of War, argument addressed to self- 
 interest alone is sufficient. His proposal to interdict 7 
 the moral plea is (despite the damage done by indis- 
 creet pacifists) mistaken policy. It would exclude the 
 immense influence of Imagination and of the Religious 
 Sense. Sir Edward Grey and Lord Avebury are Aviser 
 advocates. On this point, why quarrel with Tolstoi ? 
 " La Belle Alliance." Social progress hitherto has 10 
 not been achieved by appeals to expediency. Some 
 instances. Telemachus, Paul, Wilberforce, Shaftes- 
 bury. The required level of Public Opinion can only 
 be reached by help of the conviction that War is 
 not only profitless, but fundamentally ^Vrong. The 
 siege of Human Nature therefore calls for the com- 
 bination of all available forces, including those of 13 
 Ethics and Religion, which appeal to the conscience and 
 imagination of mankind. A modern statesman on 
 Reform without Religion. Mr. Benjamin Kidd on the 
 factor of altruistic feeling in the progress of the world. 
 Crusades change, but Deus vult is never out of date. 
 Pacifist aims will not be realised except through the 
 victory of Moral motives over material desires. Mahan 11 
 on IMammon. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Soul of War 17 
 
 Occasions of War to be distinguished from imderlying 
 Cause. The \Var Trinity of Clausewitz. \Var's cause 
 is to be sought within the mind of man : in the lower 
 passions of the People : in the ambition of Statecraft 
 for Dominion : in the pride of Prestige and the lust 20 
 of Greed ; all engendering international Hatred. Thus 
 War is rooted in Moral Evil. Shakespeare's witness. 
 This ugly fact needs to be faced by the Imagination 21 
 
xxii Synopsis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and Conscience of Mankind. How it has come to be 
 ignored. Neglect of it has made Europe an armed 
 camp unto this day. Little harm in military pageants. 24 
 But nevertheless the exciting phenomena of War do 
 but mask the malignant spirit " Evil, be thou my 
 good." The obsession of Nietzsche. The supposed 
 failure of the moral appeal is not established. 
 Appeals are not necessarily pointless because pre- 27 
 mature. Socrates, Aristotle, Dante. Channing, 
 
 Mazzini and Tolstoi — all men in advance of their age — 
 will yet be justified. Leo Tolstoi's Message to the World. 
 As the standard of humanity progresses, truth of the 31 
 higher sort becomes more readily assimilated. Tolstoi's 
 conviction of the resistless power of expressed truth. 
 " The mills of God grind slowly." Antiquity of the 
 Race. Soil and surroundings to be reckoned with as 32 
 well as quality of Seed. The need of Patience. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Bad Mistake ........ 35 
 
 The futility of the common attempt to undermine 
 the ground of Ethical appeal by some pretended 
 " inexorability of natvu-al laws." The bogey of 
 Necessity and his stuffing. Confusion of terms : 
 " Nature," " Natural," and " Law." Confusion worse 38 
 confounded in " natural law." Its proper meaning 
 and scientific use. Descriptive not prescriptive. 
 Prebendary Row and Prof. K. Pearson. " Natural 
 law " does not " govern," and is not " inexorable." 
 Homer Lea's confusion with Austin's definition of Law. 40 
 " Struggle for Existence : " in what sense the phrase is 
 applicable ; and how it is continually misapplied. The 
 real direction of evolutionary law in the case of Man. 
 Psychological " laws " at present less formulated than 
 Physical, but they arc more relevant in this debate. 42 
 Herbert Spencer on " advance to the highest form 
 of man." The evolution of Conduct. Sir E. Ray 
 Lankester on savage tribes and Natural Selection, 
 which has had no connection with the wars of mankind 44 
 since the very earliest period. The attributes of 
 Man constitute him " a new departure in the gradual 
 unfolding of Nature's scheme." The effects of human 
 volition. Nature's " insiu-gcnt son." Amiel justified : 
 " Civilisation rests on Conscience." The regenerating 46 
 power of Social imagination. 
 
Synopsis of Contents xxiii 
 
 CIIAPTEll IV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sovereign Law 49 
 
 Man IS under the operation of Law. But what Law ? 
 The imperfection of all human laws. Progressive 
 and Pedagogic Law continually outgrown, as the Bible 51 
 record clearly shows. Growth of Humanitarian feeling. 
 The Roman Domina and " the Worcester cruelty case." 
 Man's Religious Sense the organ of the influence of 
 Eternal Law. The three stages of its evolution. The 53 
 cosmical sweep of Eternal Law, which is the expres- 
 sion of Eternal Mind, Its aim, direction, and goal, 
 Wallace's "irreducible minimum of a rational belief," 56 
 The inevitable verdict of the Highest Court, Obscuri- 
 ties minister to progress. Milton's golden ndc. Con- 
 firmation of Eternal Law by the svirvival of our regard 60 
 for Love, Renunciation, Honour, etc. Their wide 
 distribution and the witness of their supremacy in 
 human esteem. The fictitious dilemma of the mili- 62 
 tarists. Work the true primordial Law. Why Ger- 
 many and England are successful. Work not War the 
 secret of perpetual growth. Herbert Spencer's down- 
 right conclusion. The verdict of Science and Philo- 64 
 sophy acclaimed by Seer and Singer heralding the 
 reign of " miiversal Law." 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Choice 67 
 
 Man freed from Nature's ancient rule. A. R. Wallace 
 on the crowning product of the cosmic process. Science 
 and Religion at one. Unity of Truth. " First that 
 which is natural, afterwards that Avhich is sj^iritual." 69 
 How will Man use his Freedom ? His weight of re- 
 sponsibility and power of Choice. What this choice 
 involves. Admiral Mahan's Confession of Faith. 
 Propitious omens. President Taft, Messrs, Asquith 71 
 and Balfour on International Arbitration. The 
 reality of the Peace Movement. Dawning Power. 
 The attitude of the world surveyed. Germany hangs 7-1 
 back. Why ? Youth is banal. So with a young 
 Nation in process of development, England, too, has 76 
 had a " mailed fist " and " shining armour " stage. 
 The demand for outlet and expansion of a rapidly 
 increasing people. Dr. Creighton and the German 78 
 advocate of Duels. Effect of the different habit of 
 
xxiv Synopsis of Contents 
 
 PAOB 
 
 mind in England and Germany. Zeit-Geist neverthe- 
 less at work. The German Chancellor's Anglo-American 
 speech, and the Kaiser's declaration of six years ago. 79 
 Conduct of Peru and of Italy illustrates the effect of 
 good example, and of bad, in politics. The power 
 passing to the peoj^le makes their ideal of great im- 
 portance. Religion, Association, Libertj^ elements of 81 
 this ideal. How each of them makes for Peace. The 
 eternal Choice. Chaos or Christ. The increasing pain 
 of shutting out the Light. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Soul of Patriotism . . . . . .85 
 
 The next step upward in Social evolution is dependent 
 on the decision of the whole of Human Nature. The 
 influence of feeling on Ideas, The tribal conscience 87 
 and humanity at large. Is Patriotism the enemy 
 of Peace ? Certainly not. Tolstoi's great mistake. 
 Where he is nevertheless quite right. Where he went 91 
 wrong, and why. The gipsy's horse. The pi'ohibition- 
 ist reformer. Because some milk is sour, all milk is 
 not therefore bad. The modern cosmopolitan instinct : 94 
 typical of what is needed in personal and national 
 relations. No man loves his Home less for loving his 
 Country, neither is Patriotism incompatible with love 
 to all Mankind. Concentration of affection involves no i;6 
 hostility to other people. As Home is the nursery of 
 Patriotism, Patriotism may be perfected in a larger and 
 completer Love. No cause can ever be served by the 
 vilification of Love in any shape. A great example of 98 
 unpatriotic " patriotism." Why America was lost 
 to the British Crown. To Burke's splendid failure at 
 the time belongs the eternal honour of having initiated 
 all subsequent successes of our Colonial policy. The 99 
 Dominion Premiers in London and Lord Rosebery's 
 message. Bishop Talbot at Berlin on the larger 
 Patriotism. The higher air we need to breathe easily 100 
 and naturall}^ 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Salt of Citizenship ...... 103 
 
 Story of Croesus and Cyrus. A primitive economic 
 argument. Some awkward modern incidents. Their 
 lesson is, first, particular ; in regard to German ill-feeling. 
 
Synopsis of Contents xxv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The microbe " s\vord-in-mouth." Saner influences. 105 
 The general lesson is that the rvhole of human nature 
 must join to relax dangerous tension. To suiiplement 
 apjieal to reason, three Factors are chiefly called for. 107 
 il) The extension of the patriotic ideal in accordance 
 with tlic principles of the last Chapter. (2) The 
 oeneral development of the Social sense, through the 
 cultivation and expansion of the tribal conscience, (3) 
 The united, free, and publicly arrayed manifestation of 
 the forces of Religion, The second of these factors is 
 the subject of this Chapter, Prof. Karl Pearson on 
 " the ideal Citizen." The passing of War conditioned 
 by a high development of man's Social sense. For 
 "wars are the manifestations of policy." Policj'^ is 110 
 determined by Public Opinion which depends on the 
 view taken of " interests." That view is determined 
 by the stage of development reached by the Social 
 sense of the Community. In accordance with this 
 development, jjolicy is perfected either by War or by 
 Peace. Burke's great principles. The Impeachment 112 
 that failed : the Witness that succeeded. War doomed 
 by the gradual transformation of Policy. Two ways 
 of " staggering humanity." Social Science and Pure 
 Religion make for Human Solidarity. Church and IIG 
 State in Russia. Rome's suicidal Temporal Claims. 
 Vexation decreed to Violence. Religion, ordained to be 
 the greatest unifying power in existence, has been made 
 "the great Divider of Mankind." Aristotle; Kesub 118 
 Chundah Sen. Nature and effect of Bushido. Japanese 
 Self-Poise. No " motoritis." The Moral supremacy 
 of Christendom challenged. A British workman's 
 " thirsting mind " satisfied only by reading Marcus 121 
 Aurelius, What this must imply, A lesson for 
 Church and Chapel. A pathetic proposal. Francis 
 Bacon. God, or wolf. Nietzsche's cult of the ham- 128 
 mer. The Social idea matures in the light of the 
 Religious. No political " second-best " satisfies our 
 Religious sense. The Religion which can never die. 
 The accordant voices of Religion, Philosoph)^ Experi- 12% 
 euce, on those high communal aims which constitute 
 the Salt of Citizenship. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Call of Religion . . . . . ., 127 
 
 The Unanimity of the greatest Teachers of Mankind... 
 Their unremitting witness despite general disregard. 
 
71 Synopsis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Our debt to their inextinguishable Hoi)c, " The Prince 128 
 of Peace." " The increase of His Government." Iron- 
 heart or Lion-heart ? Modern worship of the big 
 battahon. Old ideas, and new, about " the multitude 
 of an host." Catalogues of forces which ignore the 130 
 Unseen. The great materialistic Dereliction. " God 
 loveth the Stranger." The spiritual protest of the Old 
 Testament. An early Patriot. But Christian repudia- 
 tion far worse than Theistie neglect. Apostolic witness : 
 " Grace and Peace " becomes a pagan cry, — " Two 133 
 keels for one." Modern Anglican witness : Mozlcy 
 and Aubrey Moore. Dr. Bethunc-Baker's Essay (1888). 
 Dr. T. J. Lawrence at Stoke Congress (1911) sounds a 
 Call too seldom heard. How War's inherent evil has 136 
 come to be obscured. Evil influence of the fetish of 
 Motive. This arch-excuse appears as a blemish in Mr. 
 J. H. Peile's admirable Bampton Lectures for 1907. 
 His treatment of the subject examined. The growth 140 
 of character under " War's red rain." The effect of a 
 wrong criticism all history through. Military Christi- 
 anity and Christian Militarism. Augustine's ambiguous 144 
 counsel : " Be therefore, even while warring, a peace- 
 maker " ! How a mistranslation has proved a fountain 
 of mistaken motive. Letter choking Spirit. Papal 147 
 indulgences counter the promises of Mohammed. 
 Western theology supposed to be founded on Aquinas ; 
 yet he insists on Christ as Legislator as well as Redeemer. 
 So does the Council of Trent. But the Catholicism of 
 Rome has ignored the " new law," as much as that of 
 Constantinople or Canterbury. Du Bose disposed 
 to go to the root of the matter. Characteristics of 
 Christ's own emphasis upon Motive. The contrast 150 
 with His followers' handling of it. The Law of Christ. 
 Our disloyalty is His crucifixion. " Solenui Te Deiwi " 
 over multitudinous murder. Yet the oldest Christian 
 Liturgies enshrine " the Angelical Hymn." At every 
 Eucharist we cry " Peace on earth : good- will to men ! " 
 The voice of public Worship and the aim of public 
 Policy. " Motive " and " Millennium " as subterfuge 
 and anodyne. The "impracticable" Sermon on the 153 
 Mount is the best reinforcement of the Social and 
 Religious Sense, The results of William Penn's obe- 
 dience, and of American disobedienee. American 
 praise of Canadian policy. British xidministration in 
 South Africa, and generous Colonial policy generally, 
 have been justified. Idealistic principles are there- 155 
 fore not unpractical. A French view of the value of 
 
Synopsis of Contents xxvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " the religious idea." The growing God in man. 
 Whole history of Social progress is one long triumph 156 
 over heredity and environment. " The Son of Man 
 when He comcth, shall He find Faith on the earth ? " 
 What Faith means. Religion and Romance. The 
 quest and hest of the Divine. The Call of Religion to 
 the Church, and, through the Church, to the World. 158 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Awakening Interest . . . . . . . IGl 
 
 The clear and imperative Call has been made indefinite 
 and doubtful. " Mistiness is the mother of wisdom." 
 The " creeping foot and blinking eye." Heretic and 
 Non-conformist to the rescue of the Ideal. Tertullian 
 to Tolstoi. The politician's excuse not valid for the 
 moralist. Public opinion is becoming more and more 164 
 the statesman's guide. " Morality is the nature of 
 things." St. Ambrose and Newman on the Dialectics 
 w^hich do not save the world. A Century Dictionary 
 definition of Christianity. Tlie Crimean War. John 
 Bright and " the Churches of Britain." Church of 167 
 England apathy. A general boycott of the subject. 
 Dr. Mozley breaks silence at Oxford University in 1871. 
 His apology for War. Comments by the Master of 170 
 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His appeal 
 to the clergy for " a change of front." Contrast 171 
 between Mozley in 1871 and Harnack in 1911 : typical 
 of a general change of attitude. The " old wine " of 
 Christ should not appear to be " new." Responsi- 
 bility of the stewards. The Commission of the Peace 
 of God. Governmental right to make W^ar has 
 bounds. War Declaration unique among legislative 
 acts. Infamy of hostilities arising out of selfish 173 
 passions. Channing on the need of " a ncAV moral 
 sense." Its actual existence. Evidences of growth. 
 Value of simultaneous and imited Christian appeal. 
 Effect on public opinion and, through that, on 
 Governments. Berlin Statesmen and Franco-German 
 War. Is " Peace on Earth " a quixotic dream or a 175 
 practical possibility ? Benjamin Franklin's appeal in 
 1780. Terms of reference to it in The Times an evidence 
 of progress. Joubert's regret. W'here is the obligation 
 to arbitrate to come from ? This " touches the spot." 
 Witness of Carlyle, Clausewitz and Napoleon on the 
 supremacy of Moral forces. If this be true when war is 177 
 raging, how much more when minds arc normal ! The 
 
xxviii Synopsis of Contents 
 
 PAoa 
 
 recorded achievements of the moral sense. Recent 178 
 African experience. Anglo-Saxondom and Arbitration. 
 Effect of example. The dead-weight of indifference 
 to be overcome; backwardness of spiritual leaders. 
 A chance for the unanimity so rare among the clergy. 
 Bollinger's forecast. Corporate weakness of Christianity. 
 Strength of its diffused Spirit. Attitude of Churches 
 and tone of clergy not uninfluential. Helped to avert 
 Anglo-American War in 1895. Association of Churches 
 in England and Germany for " fostering friendly rela- 
 tions between the countries " is an example of the most 180 
 promising kind of effort. Appeal to Christian Teachers 
 for an organised international rescue of the desecrated 
 Temple of Peace. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Watchman ! What of the Night ? . . . . 183 
 
 /. The Contrast 
 
 The striking contrast between the mental attitude of 
 civilised mankind to-day towards Peace and War, and 
 that of less than a century ago. The old need of Truce 
 of God. The great work of Grotius : evidence from 183 
 title. The foregone conclusion of Clausewitz. His con- 
 tempt for International Law. The Russian rescript of 
 August 24, 1898. Peace a positive subject of inter- 
 national regulation. Hague Conferences. Represented 18G 
 States grow from twenty-six to forty-four in eight years. 
 Increasing ratio in the acceptance of the principle of 
 Arbitration. Cases adjudicated rise from eight between 
 1820 and 1840, to one hundred and fifteen between 1883 
 and 1903. Dogger Bank incident. Atlantic Fishery 187 
 Dispute. For the kind of cases specially suitable, 
 Compulsory Arbitration commended. Peace no more 
 regarded as a brief inglorious interlude in War's re- 
 splendent reign, but as the norm of national life. War 
 rests on Opinion, and Opinion is withdrawing its support. 188 
 Progress in the world has now excluded many once 
 fertile grounds of strife. Rising respect for humanity 
 robs Chauvinism of its opportunity. Real interests 
 of " the people " not served on the battle-field. 189 
 
 //. The Contradiction 
 
 Despite this general reversal of opinion, and in 
 direct contradiction of it, the Powers are whirling 
 in a maelstrom of armament-jealousy. Cost of pre- 
 
Synopsis of Contents xxix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 paring for war which seldom or never occurs. 
 British Navy estimates quadrupled in one generation, 190 
 Armies of France and Germany, almost imused for 
 thirty-nine years, have cost in that period three thou- 
 sand million pounds, apart from Naval expenditure. 
 Though Europe thus armed to the teeth, desire for 102 
 Peace greater than ever. A frightful contradiction. 
 Unstable equilibrium of the Powers. Armament mania 
 engenders suspicion. Europe's Stone of Sisyphus. 19-1 
 Can bad religion be good politics ? The wisdon\ of 
 Hamlet. Impasse created by worship of Violence 
 can be ended only by general acceptance of a nezv 
 standard of thouiild. War and Militarism, living or 
 dying, hang together. Force, statical or dynamical, no 196 
 remedy. \Var is not even provisionally good ; but if it 
 were, we should remember its provisionalness, and work 
 for what is Ijctter. Si vis pacem, etc., does it apply ? 
 Prodigious folly of this deadly race. International ill- 
 will costs Europe four hundred and fifty millions a year. 198 
 United States of America with a fourth of the population 
 requires only a fortieth of European forces under arms. 
 Roosevelt's protest. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Difficulties 201 
 
 " No insuperable difficulty." Cowper's " mountains 
 interposed" are man's work, not God's. Newman in 
 his Apologia on the " European mind." The comity 
 of Nations still a sardonic spectacle. British self- 
 righteousness misplaced. Italy and Africa; Germany 20.3 
 and France also. Irony of the situation. Wanted : 
 Political Righteousness. Morality according to Moses 
 at least, imtil we can rise to that of Christ. The Year 
 1911. Christmas Day " leader " in r/«e rim^5. Words- 
 worth on the evanescence of lofty thought. What 205 
 ^ would open the windows of Heaven. The anachronism 
 of ill-feeling. All great interests international. No 
 " foreign" coimtries. New standard of thought and 
 feeling a necessity. What a change in national senti- 
 ment can effect, England and France ; England and 
 Germany ; England and America. 
 
 The chief " Difficulty " of the moment is Anglo- 207 
 German susj^icion. Fostered by the Press of both 
 countries. Wanted : high-minded journalistic influence. 
 
<. Synopsis of Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 An example of this. Examples of the other sort. 
 Too much " mustard." The need for healing by " sug- 
 gestion." Baseless beliefs and vain imaginings. Why 209 
 German grievance must have some real ground, apart 
 from artificial irritants applied. Three streams fill 
 the fountain of German resentment. (1) The Colony 
 " cry " is chiefly of oblique utility. Germany and 212 
 Portuguese Africa. Walfisch Bay, or, the closed Gate. 
 The reason for hesitation. Herr Delbriiek's picture of 
 England's " inveterate political hostility." What the 
 Professor forgets. His stress on the German need of 
 markets rather than of territory. Britain provides 
 them freely, in England, Australia, South Africa, and 215 
 also in Egypt. (2) Germany allows that Britannia 
 must " rule the waves," but resents her use of naval 
 strength to block German diplomacy. Some instances 
 of this. But audi alteram partem. The common fear 
 of Pan-German aggression. Delbriiek's important re- 
 pudiation. The Diplomatic " moral " of all this. (3) 218 
 German grievance over the Anglo-French entente. Its 
 real source in the " difficult " relations between Germany 
 and France. Russia's French alliance no cause of 
 offence ; then why England's entente ? No reason for it, 
 on Prince Billow's own principle. Wanted : at once, a 221 
 detente; and, as soon as possible, a rap-prochement. 
 
 The recent humours are creditable to neither country. 
 German and Briton have often fought side by side. 
 That they should ever even contemplate fighting each 
 other is grotesque as well as horrible. Anglo-German 
 ties of blood, of culture, and of commerce. How 
 Mandell Creighton, at Sandringham, interested the 
 Kaiser. The endless possibilities of giant-comradeship. 
 If England and Germany, the stoutest rocks of the 
 world's peace, sank into the quicksands of war, — ! The 224 
 bonds of blood and of likemindedness. The mission of 
 the Teutonic race. It should lead in the redxiction of 
 " Difficulties." 
 
 Returning to general aspect. The Armament 
 problem. Effect of drained resources on the con- "^ 
 
 dition of the people. Atmosphere of uncertainty 
 causes discontentment. Possible reinvestments when 
 resources allow. A sound national insurance. Reduc- 
 tion of Armaments, however imperative, can only 
 be internationally arranged. Condorcet's caution. 227 
 Co-operation of anti-aggressionists necessary in every 
 country. The German Government's rejection of 
 recent overtures. What Germany herself thinks, 
 
Synopsis of Contents xxxj 
 
 PAGE 
 
 according- to the Press of the country. So lon^r as 
 Force is tliought the onl}'^ sohition for disputes, nations 229 
 will go on storing Force. The problem of armament- 
 reduction is therefore bound up with that of the 
 Passing of War. Either War or Armaments, or both, 
 will flourish while Violence is final arbiter among the 
 Nations. Pacifist endeavour should concentrate on the 230 
 furtherance of International Arbitration and Federation 
 rather than on schemes for disarmament. Admiral 
 Mahan's objections to Arbitration as a substitute for 
 War. His desire for codified International Law. The 
 agencies noAv engaged on this work. International Law 231 
 may be made as effective as the Laws of separate 
 States. The Spectator says Arbitration is no panacea. 
 But on what ground ? Might and Right. Four unde- 
 niable uses of existing Arbitral Court. Perverse 
 objections about the Constitution of international 
 Courts, The alternative examined. The rival arbi- 235 
 trament of War is not only Unjust, but hopelessly 
 Uncertain. A trinity of incalculable contingencies. 
 Instances of their effects. Clausewitz summarises 
 the position. Yet to such a lottery as this the fate 238 
 of nations is committed, in preference to the verdict 
 of an International Court of Justice ! All genuine 
 obstacles to just methods are surmountable. A last 
 cavil answered. The bearing of " national honour." 
 Mountains of Difficulty are often moimtains of Mist. 
 The rest will yield to Faith and Patience : the two 
 infallible " Guides." 240 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Dawx .......... 243 
 
 The effective exercise of Arbitral Justice seems to 
 involve some kind of Federal union among Eui'opean 
 States. The late Lord Salisbury on " some international 
 constitution." A Pan-European Bureau likely to prove 
 a useful preliminary step. The Bureau at Washington 
 and the partially independent American States. The 244 
 quadrennial Conference of Representatives of the British 
 Colonies. Why not a European Areopagus ? The 
 Palace of Peace at The Hague would splendidly accom- 
 modate. Its enrichment by the Gifts of all "Nations, 
 if not a travesty, impUes European Goodwill. Good- 245 
 will of paramount importance. Co-operation the only 
 cure for Comj^ctition. Victor Hugo's prophecy. Why 
 
xii Synopsis of Contents 
 
 Character would not deteriorate if War were ended. A 247 
 Cabinet Minister's illustration. Even Duels have one 
 clear advantage over War. Carlyle's vivid picture of 
 what war means. How it eliminates the fit. Recent 
 prowess of Japan nurtured in long Peace. American 
 vigour versus Spanish militarism. W^ar is not the 
 Factory of Character, but a much-over-advertised 249 
 Theatre for its display. Why the chivalries of the past 
 liave small place in modern war, which is chiefl}^ an 
 affair of the armourer and chemist. Makarov and the 
 minefield. The true Umpire. The tA\an Pillars of 
 peace and justice upheld by Moral Forces. The need 251 
 of zeal combined with discretion. Festina lente. 
 Power of i-!ri€LK€ia. The Heart of the world is more than 
 its machinery. Revolution, or Reform ? Freedom is 
 the end of Government. Free national institutions a 
 Trust for all the world. President Taft explodes a 253 
 fetish. Eternal increase from Living seed. Mazzini's 
 Faith. Robert Browning, on " Too much Love ! " — 
 the cry of the Church as well as of the World. Yet 254 
 things said to be " not in human nature" take place. 
 Love's miracles do happen, and contingent disasters 
 do not. Rome, Canterbury, Geneva. The casket is 255 
 not the Pearl, nor the wine-skin the Wine. Religions 
 die, but Religion is immortal. " Try the spirits." 
 The vital Choice. Nietzsche's ideal in his own words. 257 
 W. E. H. Lecky on War. A Star of Hope to inspire 
 a world-endeavour. Let Christendom try Christianity. 
 The Rising of the Sun of Righteousness and the 25S 
 Healing of the Nations. " The Parliament of Man ; 
 the J'ederation of the World." 
 
L'ENVOl 
 
 "Devotion to the practical aspect of truth is in such 
 excess as to make people habitually deny that it can be 
 worth while to form an opinion, when it happens at the 
 moment to be incapable of realisation, for the reason 
 that there is no direct prospect of inducing a sufficient 
 number of people to share it. 'Your view is no doubt 
 right, and would produce the improvements for which 
 you hope; but then there is not the smallest chance 
 of persuading the only persons able to carry out such 
 a view; why therefore discuss it?' No talk is more 
 familiar to us than this. As if the mere possibility of 
 the view being the right one did not obviously entitle 
 it to discussion. . . . The fact that leading Statesmen 
 are of necessity so absorbed in the tasks of the hour, 
 furnishes all the better reason why as many other people 
 as possible should busy themselves in helping to prepare 
 Opinion for the practical application of weighty and 
 promising suggestions by constant and ready discussion 
 of them on their merits. . . . Truth and Wisdom have to 
 bide their time and take their chance after all. But we 
 misunderstand the considerations wljicfi should rightly lead 
 us in practice to acquiesce in a second-best course of action, 
 and go on to suppose that there are the same grounds why 
 we should in our own minds acquiesce in second-best 
 opinions."— loRD Morley. 
 
It is sometimes said that Revolutions are not made 
 with rose-water. Greater changes, however, have been 
 made in the constitution of the world by argument than 
 by arms ; and even where arms have been used, in most 
 cases the pen has wielded the sword. Ideas are more 
 powerful than bayonets.^ 
 
 Whoso calls to mind what I may venture to term 
 the bright side of Christianity — that ideal of Manhood, 
 with its strength and its patience, its justice and its 
 pity, its helpfulness to the extremity of self-sacrifice, 
 its ethical purity and nobility — is not likely to under-rate 
 the importance of the Christian Faith as a factor in 
 human history r 
 
 I can conceive but one thing which will really affect 
 the military and naval expenditure of the world on the 
 wholesale scale on which it 7nust be affected if there is to 
 be a real and sure relief. You will not get it until 
 nations do what individuals have done — come to regard 
 an appeal to Law as the natural course for nations 
 instead of an appeal to Force.^ 
 
 ^ Lord Avkbury. ^ x. H. Huxlkv. 
 
 3 Sir EmvARD Grky. 
 
THE PASSING OF WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 M. PoBiEDONOSTZEFF, wlicn Head of the Holy- 
 Synod of the Russian Church, declared — and he of 
 all men ought to know — that the force of dynamite 
 is innocuous compared with the destructive effect 
 of a new idea. The Great Illusion, by Mr. Norman 
 Angell, is a recent book with much of this explosive 
 power. Though the author disclaims novelty for 
 his ideas, no one before has so presented them as to 
 command world-wide attention, and that is novelty 
 enough. 
 
 Mr. Angell's specialty is the exploitation of self- 
 interest in the cause of international Peace; and in 
 any other kind of advocacy he disbelieves. If 
 modern conditions have robbed War, even for the 
 victor, of its old material gains, a main motive for 
 aggression has disappeared, and the difficulties of 
 defence are correspondingly diminished. After stat- 
 ing the position of the War-party of the world as 
 strongly as possible in the quoted words of its ac- 
 credited exponents, Mr. Angell prepares for the 
 attack by citing a series of "self-evident facts" — econo- 
 mic and psychological. From these the artillery is 
 forged before which fortress after fortress falls. His 
 
4 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 opponents' position is carried ; and " the Case for 
 War " is left in sorry plight. 
 
 The effect produced, even within a few months of 
 the book's publication, is sufficiently striking. The 
 author's main thesis has been widely accepted in 
 England by Tories and Radicals alike. American, 
 French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish and Nor- 
 wegian editions of his book are in active circulation. 
 It has been quoted at length in the French Chamber 
 of Deputies by a well-known Member, who explained 
 this unusual course by adding that " the significance 
 of such a movement of opinion in Europe generally 
 can hardly be over-estimated." M. Henri Turot, 
 who made Mr. Angell's thesis the topic of a long 
 series of Articles in the Petite Republique, declares it 
 " destined to have as much effect on the conception 
 of National Economics, as Darwin's Origin of Species 
 had on our conception of Biology." And whether 
 this forecast is lealised or not, few will doubt that the 
 Peace crusade has been powerfully reinforced by this 
 sane and reasoned appeal to expediency, policy and 
 self-interest. 
 
 In Germany Mr. Angell's book has been read as 
 eagerly as in France. Not only have its principles 
 been made the subject of a diplomatic pronounce- 
 ment by the German ambassador in London, but a 
 whole sheaf of favourable criticisms from distin- 
 guished men in Germany itself has been quoted in the 
 London Press. For example, Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald, 
 who has occupied Chairs in several German Uni- 
 versities, as well as at Harvard and Columbia, writes, 
 " From the first line to the last The Great Illusion 
 expresses my own opinions." 
 
A 'GREAT DELUSION 5 
 
 Here is the verdict of two well-known authorities 
 on International Law — 
 
 " Particularly do I agree with the author on these two points : 
 (1) that in the present condition of organized society, the attempt 
 of one nation to destroy the commerce or industry of another 
 must damage the victor more perhaps than the vanquished ; (2) 
 that physical force is a constantly diminishing factor in human 
 affairs " (Professor Karl von Bar). " Norman Angell has shoA\Ti 
 — and in this compelling way for the first time — the real economic 
 and political foundations on which future Peace %\ill be inevitably 
 built" (Professor Walthar Shuecking). 
 
 Dr. Max Nordau says, " If the destiny of peoples were settled 
 by reason and interest, the influence of such a book would be 
 decisive. Unhappily ' common sense ' is the least common 
 thing in the world. . . . Nevertheless, the book will convince the 
 far-seeing minority, who will spread the truth and thus slowly 
 conquer the world." 
 
 The criticism of Pastor Nithack-Stahn, Chaplain 
 to the Kaiser, may, however, serve to introduce a 
 point on which many admirers of Mr. Angell will 
 certainly feel protest necessary. " I am in general 
 agreement with the author . . . but give to moral 
 and religious motives a larger place in the mainten- 
 ance of peace," will be a very general verdict. The 
 fact is that Mr. Angell gives no place at all to 
 these motives. He would have the moral plea 
 rigorously excluded ; and roundly declares that if the 
 Pacifist cause is to be rescued, and " the average 
 sensual man " convinced, " the plane of the 
 whole discussion must be shifted to that of policy 
 and interest." 
 
 But this raises an issue too far reaching to be 
 thus summarily dismissed. No great attempt to 
 ameliorate the world has ever failed of damaging 
 support. And the Peace crusade is no exception. 
 
6 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 There are enthusiasts who assert War to be absolutely 
 and in all possible cases unlawful. There are fanatics 
 who prefer national subjugation to a war of defence. 
 There are literalists who quote Christ on non-resist- 
 ance without using the reason which Christ assumed 
 His hearers to possess. There are anarchists who 
 press the same principle until they nullify the end 
 and office of all government. And all who seek to 
 build on indefensible premises must jeopardise their 
 conclusions and their cause. It is thus that a keen 
 Arbitrationist like Mr. Stead is driven to exclaim, 
 " There are no such enemies to the peace-movement 
 as the so-called ' peace people.' " And one is glad, 
 for the sake of the large class of readers for whom 
 sentiment is anathema, that Mr. Angell's rational 
 note should be kept at concert pitch throughout his 
 treatment of the topic. 
 
 But when it comes to a deliberate boycott of every 
 consideration appealing to the better nature of men, 
 our author seems too feverishly anxious to clear 
 himself of the very least suspicion of altruistic taint. 
 The threshing-floor is swept too thoroughly. Mr. 
 Angell's fan purges without winnowing. The good 
 grain is driven with the chaff. Much that he disdains 
 is the best of wheat, essential to that " true Bread " 
 by which, generation after generation, the upward 
 evolution of mankind is really supported. Many of 
 the methods he despises have actually wrought those 
 changes in the world which his book records and which 
 his argument requires. Yet we are in future only 
 to cut slices from our author's own standard loaf, and 
 must grind every grain of our appeal between the 
 granite millstones of self-interest and economic fact. 
 
A GREAT DELUSION 7 
 
 Since Peace can live by this bread alone, no other 
 must be offered to the world. Henceforth discussion 
 is to essay no futile flight above the strictly utilitarian 
 plane. Reformers may prove at length how impolitic 
 is dishonesty, but they will only promote thieving 
 if they assert it to be wrong. 
 
 Now to sweep into Gehenna as worthless and inept 
 all but utilitarian argument, is a truly astonishing 
 proposal from one who freely allies himself with the 
 growing amenity of the modern world; who sees in 
 human nature the key of the peace position, and in 
 public opinion the factor which must determine the 
 battle. Economic truth and biological law may be 
 pressed with flawless logic, but that kind of pressure 
 is not universally felt; while the Eternal Laws of 
 Right and Wrong, by reason of some spark of the 
 Divine in all mankind — even in " the average 
 sensual man " — do press universally, and that with an 
 evergrowing weight of insistence, not on the human 
 mind alone but on the will. And until the will is 
 won, the ear of multitudes will be deaf to the soundest 
 doctrine. 
 
 Mr. Angell's estimate of the obstacles to be en- 
 countered in this campaign must be sadly at fault 
 if he imagines that to make irrefutable statements 
 in the ear of the world will of itself ensure their 
 becoming " operative in the minds and conduct of 
 nations." Here precisely is an instance of the weak- 
 ness of Philosophy and the strength of Religion. As 
 Seeley long ago observed, " Both endeavour to lead 
 men to do right; but philosophy can only explain 
 what it is right to do, while Christianity undertakes 
 to make men disposed to do it." 
 
8 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 Or, in the words of another, — 
 
 " Utilitarianism may advance arguments incomparably lucid 
 and cogent in themselves, yet they will be disregarded simply 
 because men in general are governed rather through their imagi- 
 nation than their reason. An ideal of truth or virtue, which the 
 imagination may clothe with a Divine nimbus, is of far greater 
 effect in influencing conduct than the clearest motives of self- 
 advantage which may be enunciated by the reason." 
 
 Hence, in the conduct of this great debate on 
 Peace and War, they are wiser guides than Mr. Angell, 
 who remember that the history of mankind irre- 
 sistibly shows that utihtarianism seldom has any 
 deep or prolonged effect upon human conduct. " The 
 man most in error is usually conscious enough of his 
 unwisdom. What he lacks is the conviction that he 
 is wrong, and some powerful motive which will enable 
 him to do right." That is why Sir Edward Grey sees 
 the necessity of raising public opinion to a far higher 
 plane than it has ever reached in the past ; and sets 
 his hopes for International Arbitration on the rise of 
 a general feeling that the appeal to Law is right, and 
 the resort to Force is wrong. That is why Lord 
 Avebury, in Peace and Happiness, in no way detracts 
 from the cogent arguments which he advances on 
 material and economic grounds, when he goes on to 
 take the higher line for which Mr. Angell finds no 
 place — 
 
 " If the so-called Christian nations were nations of Christians 
 there would be no wars. The present state of Europe is a disgrace 
 to us, not only as men of common sense, but as being altogether 
 inconsistent with any form of religious conviction." 
 
 By all means let The Great Illusion do its own 
 great work. Let " the preposterousness of the ideas 
 on which military aggression is based " be brought 
 home to the animal man. Let him grasp the fact 
 
A GREAT DELUSION 9 
 
 that no modern war can ever " pay." Let him reahse 
 that overweening armaments, with their perpetual 
 menace and infrequent use, are daily mulcting him 
 in damages which can only lead at last either to colli- 
 sion or collapse. Let him understand that by co- 
 operation, not by conflict, nations flourish, and that 
 for survival as for prosperity, Work, and not War, 
 has the sanction of primordial Law. Yet the risk 
 remains that the man convinced against his will 
 is of the same opinion still. Selfishness, however 
 conjured into courtesy, will still lean to strife, and 
 tend to grow angry and fierce in face of opposition. 
 Hence in the enormous reformation of opinion which 
 Mr. Angell desiderates, there is abundant call for the 
 transforming power of that higher spirit than the 
 world can produce which lies in the depths of all men's 
 consciousness, and which alone is able to change the evil 
 nature out of which war-motives spring. And they 
 are not to be accounted hinderers in this crusade who 
 hold that social reformations are to be worked out 
 by spiritual means, and that the seed of social ethics 
 will best fructify in the soil of spiritual experience. 
 
 Some indeed maintain all lower methods useless, 
 and history certainly gives them a better case than 
 can be claimed by Mr. Angell to justify his own inter- 
 dict. But why ban either ? Because Tolstoi dis- 
 allowed the kind of weapon so dexterously employed 
 in The Great Illusion, why repeat his fanaticism in 
 the opposite sense ? Since every possible argument 
 is badly needed, let these typical champions both be 
 recognised as true allies. In the year 1815, Europe 
 was rescued from an unimaginable bondage. Mili- 
 tarism, personified in the Corsican adventurer who 
 
10 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 sought to dominate the world, suffered a crushing 
 defeat. Duty triumphed over Glory. But on that 
 historic field there is a feature more striking than 
 either Hougomont or La Haye Sainte. It is still 
 commemorated as " La Belle Alliance." And Mr. 
 Angell's Waterloo will never be won by his own 
 artillery alone. There must be an awakening among 
 all nations of a far higher spirit than the cleverest 
 appeal to self-interest can either produce or maintain. 
 For it is this higher spirit, and not the doctrine of 
 expediency, which has demolished the worst evils 
 in the past, and which will in turn destroy what is 
 gradually coming to be recognised as evil by the 
 quickened Conscience of Humanity to-day. 
 
 One of our author's axioms is the complexity of 
 human nature. It is consequently a citadel with 
 many avenues of approach, which may be effectively 
 stormed with very diverse engines, and from precisely 
 opposite quarters. Those who favour the low road 
 have no need to block the high. Many a man quite 
 impervious to logic may be strongly moved through 
 his moral nature. Another may take the view of Elihu 
 Burritt, and see that, however people may laugh at 
 the plan of arbitration, the warlike plan is infinitely 
 more ludicrous : " The inequality of horses, a dis- 
 parity in the power of wielding the sword, or the 
 possession of high powers of strategy in a general, 
 are circumstances which the merest child can under- 
 stand have no connection either with Justice or 
 national Honour." But already the world is indis- 
 posed to laugh at either alternative. And one day, 
 when Arbitration is finally enthroned, the public 
 opinion which effects the change will be the creation 
 
A GREAT DELUSION 11 
 
 not merely of those convinced by Mr. Angell tliat 
 War is unprofitable; it will be also, and perhaps 
 rather, the work of the gathering host who feel War 
 to be a crime against man and a sin against God. 
 
 Thus in this great struggle upward of civilised 
 humanity out of the engulfing ocean of its armaments, 
 it is suicidal strategy either to regard as hostile or to 
 reject as useless those great spiritual forces which are 
 more reliable allies than the cleverest juggling with 
 expediency and selfishness. In that microcosm of 
 the Pagan world, the Roman Amphitheatre, Mr. 
 Angell's " average sensual man " was amply repre- 
 sented. Yet it was the moral effect of an obscure 
 monk's self-sacrifice which brought the bloody games 
 of the Coliseum to an end. Some folk's " hot- 
 blooded dislike " of a moral appeal is excellent 
 evidence that Conscience is awake, and may there- 
 fore soon become an ardent ally. There was a certain 
 fiery little Jew who felt " hot-blooded dislike " 
 enough to stand by at the stoning of Stephen. But 
 Conscience, certainly not expediency, changed him 
 into the greatest Apostle of the proto-Martyr's cause 
 the world has ever seen. And Paul never tried to 
 regenerate the nations with the message " Godliness 
 is profitable," though he felt that to be true. 
 
 When, too, in a later day the curse of slavery was 
 lifted, the Gospel of the Abolitionists rang with a far 
 deeper and more moving note than that of selfish 
 interest. The emancipation of the slave was won, 
 not by proving that free labour would produce more 
 sugar and more cotton than the cowhide whip, but 
 by persuading public opinion that slavery as an insti- 
 tution involved horrors which were an outrage on 
 
12 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 humanity and an insult to God. This was the sort 
 of " futility " which moved the British Parliament — 
 that quintessence of the common sense of " the average 
 man " — to vote its Millions to rid England of her 
 share in the disgrace. In the eyes of Mr. Angell " the 
 moral plea " wins nothing but ineffectual " martyr- 
 dom " for those who urge it. But history and ex- 
 perience are against him on this point, as the most 
 familiar instances may show. William Wilberforce, 
 John Bright, and the seventh Lord Shaftesbury 
 suffered obloquy but not martyrdom, and the English 
 Statute Book does not record them ineffectual. 
 
 The present Chancellor of the Exchequer has had 
 very exceptional experience in dealing both with 
 men and circumstances. What is his verdict ? Quite 
 recently he used these words — 
 
 "There are political reformers who conscientiously believe that 
 they will never be able to save the people until they have destroyed 
 Religion from the world. There was never any more destructive 
 mistake than that. Were it not for the spirit of Religion, the 
 reforms already effected would never have been achieved. If the 
 Christian Church were destroyed, the coimtry would be turned 
 into a burnt-up wilderness, and there would be nothing between 
 the people and what is called Force. And what is that ? The 
 spirit of cruelty, the spirit of despotism, the spirit of self-seeking." 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that the enormous 
 energy of Public Opinion needed to make War im- 
 possible between civilised peoples, will require for its 
 consolidation every possible moral and religious aid. 
 And for this simple reason, that the Opinion necessary 
 must not only reach but maintain a far higher level 
 than can ever be inspired by considerations solely 
 material and mundane. Whatever be their cogency 
 in certain quarters, the prediction is safe that before 
 this tremendous stride in the Social Evolution of 
 mankind is actually made, long drafts will be de- 
 
A GREAT DELUSION 13 
 
 manded on " that great fund of altruistic feeling 
 generated by the ethical system on which our civilisa- 
 tion is founded ; " and " the prime motive-force behind 
 the whole series of political and social phenomena 
 peculiar to the modern world " ^ will need to be far 
 more widely and vigorously invoked than heretofore. 
 
 The fact is that the sanctions of ethics and reli- 
 gion — so far from being a sort of stock-in-trade of 
 " sentimentalists, dreamers and fanatics " — are inex- 
 tricably woven into the very warp and woof of the 
 modern mind, whether they are acknowledged or 
 denied. And no abuse of these sanctions by " the 
 peace-at-any-price " man can make the use of them 
 irrational. Old crusades may be outgrown, but 
 " Deus vult " is never out of date. What is really 
 Right always has Reason on its side, and may by this 
 be recognised. And to demonstrate with Mr. Angell's 
 skill the Reasonableness of a right course is invaluable 
 work. Nevertheless to persuade men of its Rightness 
 is often the surest and sometimes the only way to stir 
 them to take it. 
 
 No one disputes with Mr. Angell that " the only 
 permanent revolutions in the history of civilisation 
 are those that result from a revolution of ideas," but 
 if sociologists like Mr. Kidd are to be credited, the 
 proposal to interdict the moral plea, and work only on 
 the basis of policy and interest, is equivalent to a 
 proposal to promote the progress of ideas by ignoring 
 the mainspring of the best and most efficacious of 
 them all. 
 
 Most people are further agreed that " no mechan- 
 ism, however well devised, no leagues, no ententes, 
 no exchange of visits, no Hague Conferences, will in 
 ^ Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution, cli. vi. ct jjassim. 
 
14 A GREAT DELUSION 
 
 the long rim avail anything," that " all such patent 
 devices can at best be palliatives, until we get at the 
 underlying cause of the disease." But our author 
 is persuaded that in exposing " the great illusion on 
 which the whole armament competition is based " 
 he has gone to the root of the matter, has reached 
 and cured the " underlying cause," and has put be- 
 hind the palliatives of the Peace movement " the 
 driving force of political rationalism." 
 
 Would that it were so ! Would that the plague 
 might thus be stayed ! But before humanity is 
 thrown no more on " the flinty and steel couch of 
 War," before the world accepts International Arbi- 
 tration as its efficient substitute, the revolution of 
 ideas will have to be carried into deeper depths of 
 human nature than the sphere of intellectual illusion. 
 The " great illusion " itself, considered as a cause, is 
 superficial. It is symptomatic quite as much as 
 causative. Multitudes — and multitudes whose con- 
 version is necessary to make political rationalism a 
 driving force — despite Mr. Angell's excellent logic, 
 will cling to their illusion because they like it. And 
 it is not till we examine the ground of this extra- 
 ordinary bias in favour of Force, that we really reach 
 " the underlying cause of the disease," where all agree 
 that the remedy must be applied. 
 
 Meanwhile, all who realise that Pacifist aims are 
 bound up with the victory of moral motives, will 
 remain as convinced as Admiral Mahan himself that 
 " so far as the advocacy of Peace rests upon material 
 motives like economy and prosperity, it is the service 
 of Mammon; and the bottom of the platform will 
 drop out when Mammon thinks that War will pay 
 better." 
 
It takes a soul 
 To move a body, — it takes a high-souled man 
 To move the masses . . . and your Fouriers failed 
 Because not poets enough to understand 
 That life developes from within.^ 
 
 Every social question is ultimately a problem of 
 character, and therefore of religion. It concerns 
 primarily not what is lowest, but what is highest in 
 human natures 
 
 Men who work can only work for men, 
 And, not to work in vain, must comprehend 
 Humanity and so work humanly. 
 And raise men's bodies still by raising souls, 
 As God did first} 
 
 1 E. B. Browning. ^ R. L. Ottley. 
 
We mean by War all that War ever meant. 
 
 Destruction's ministers, Death's freemen, Lust's 
 
 Exponents, daily like a blood-red dawn. 
 
 In flames and crimson seas, we shall advance 
 
 Against the ancient immaterial reign 
 
 Of Spirit, and our watchword shall be still, 
 
 "Get thee behind me, God: — I follow Mammon." 
 
 The Soul of War — that deep impersonality born of 
 Hatred, that conscience born of murder and cold- 
 bloodedness, that fervour born of effort in the annihila- 
 tion of the foe, that proud indifference to one's own 
 existence and to that of one's fellows — is an asset of 
 the race. 
 
 It is mere illusion and pretty sentiment to expect 
 anything of mankind if it forgets how to make War.^ 
 
 Destruction is one of War's chief ends, and De- 
 ception one of its chief means. It would be difficult 
 to conceive a disposition more remote from the morals of 
 ordinary life, not to speak of Christian ideals.^ 
 
 1 Nietzsche. - W. E. II. Lecky. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 One of the first conditions of curative success is 
 to distinguish clearly the character and origin, from 
 the symptoms of disease. But in the case of wars 
 between civilised countries, with which alone we are 
 here concerned, directly we begin to seek the really 
 causative forces, we are at once met by a great diffi- 
 culty. This difficulty consists in the complexity of 
 motive out of which the wars of civilisation originate. 
 However convinced we may be that the real seat of 
 War, the essential spirit out of which it springs, lies 
 deeper down in human nature than any illusion of 
 the brain about questions of profit and loss ; however 
 certain we may be that the War-spirit cannot be 
 exorcised by any process of intellectual disillusion 
 alone, be it never so acute; nevertheless the inclina- 
 tion to confuse the occasions of War with the spiritual 
 forces which make those occasions is extremely strong. 
 
 If one could believe with Tolstoi that, since all 
 
 peoples naturally love one another. Wars would cease 
 
 were it not for the unscrupulous iniquity of Kings and 
 
 Governments, the matter would be greatly simphfied. 
 
 For Tolstoi, the bitterness of Shelley was not a whit 
 
 too bitter — 
 
 "War is the statesman's game, the priest's dehght, 
 
 The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade." 
 c 17 
 
18 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 In his view, Statesmen are always obsessed with the 
 one idea of national aggrandisement, and he sees them 
 perpetually goading the peaceful peasantry needed 
 for War into the requisite inflammatory condition 
 by perverting Patriotism to their purpose. As the 
 horsewoman values her spur for its persuasive point 
 and not for its silver sheath, so (in Tolstoi's opinion) 
 the politician merely estimates his patriotic ideal as 
 the becoming shield of a useful goad wherewith to 
 excite pacific peoples into war for some fictitious 
 advantage to their own State. 
 
 The great Russian writer's distorted views of 
 Patriotism are dealt with in Chapter VI. On the one 
 point here relevant, it may suffice to say that however 
 often in the past War may have been produced 
 through perverted patriotic feeling pricked into 
 passion by political intrigue, yet every year that 
 passes over the world of politics lessens the likelihood 
 of this kind of occurrence. The Napoleonic period 
 is over for ever. War is no longer the concern of one 
 man, nor even of a Cabinet plus an arm3\ Nations 
 are armies now. The participation of the people in 
 this great affair of State grows less and less a negligible 
 quantity. Even a hundred years ago the foresight of 
 a philosopher who still remains the greatest authority 
 On War pronounced it " a difficult point to settle, 
 whether all wars hereafter in Europe will only take 
 place on account of great interests affecting the 
 people." How much more unreasonable now, after 
 the lapse of a century, must it be to think War likely 
 to be undertaken except in the supposed interests of 
 the people as a whole. While with every passing 
 decade of growing intelligence the masses become less 
 
THE SOUL OF WAR 19 
 
 gullible as to the real nature of those interests, and 
 consequently a less easy prey to the Chauvinism of the 
 hour. 
 
 No doubt it remains shamefully true — and largely 
 owing to the pre-occupation of Christian Teaching 
 with things that can neither profit nor deliver — that 
 " even the most civilised nations may burn with 
 passionate hatred of each other." No doubt also, 
 " State policy is (still) the womb in which War is 
 developed, in which its outlines lie hidden in a rudi- 
 mentary state, like the qualities of living creatures 
 in their germs." And when these two possibilities 
 coincidently actualise, when between national Hatred 
 and War-policy an intimate relation is established so 
 that they act and react on each other, a state of 
 feeling between two countries may result, out of which 
 the most trifling cause may produce an explosion. 
 Then the great Duel begins. For War is nothing but 
 a Duel on an extended scale, — a sort of stupendous 
 wrestling match in which each nation or government 
 concentrates every power by sheer physical force to 
 compel the other to yield to its will. Then we see 
 Violence arming itself with all the aids of art and 
 science to contend with Violence. 
 
 " War," wrote Clause witz, — and no one ever 
 understood it more completely — " War is a wonderful 
 trinity, composed of the original violence of its 
 elements — hatred and animosity — which may be 
 looked upon as blind instinct ; of the play of proba- 
 bility and chance, which make it a free activity of the 
 soul; and of the subordinate nature of a political 
 instrument, by which it belongs purely to the reason. 
 The first of these three phases concerns more the 
 
20 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 people; the second, more the General and his army; 
 the third, more the Government. The passions 
 which break forth in war must already have a latent 
 existence in the peoples." 
 
 Now from the emphatic reiteration of that last 
 sentence, taken in connection with many another of 
 his dicta, it is safe to conclude that the order in which 
 Clausewitz places the constituents of his trinity is the 
 order of their importance in his mind. No doubt he 
 intends to give weight to the element of policy (to 
 this I advert in Chapter VII), but I think he put first 
 the passions of " hatred and animosity " because he 
 thought them fundamental, — the fount and origin of 
 War's own element of Violence — the root of all. It 
 is therefore in these passions, which " must already 
 have a latent existence in the peoples before they 
 break forth in War," that War's " underlying cause," 
 as distinct from its ostensible " occasion," whether 
 political or other, is to be sought. 
 
 No doubt it may frequently appear that the 
 passion for Dominion, the exigencies of Prestige and 
 Pride, or the lust of Greed, rather than any conscious 
 Hatred of the foe, produce War. But a little reflection 
 will remind us that unless public opinion has become 
 heavily charged with animosity, the other three war- 
 engendering passions have an excellent chance of 
 being sufficiently leashed to avert War's actual 
 Declaration. Any one of these may be diverted into 
 other channels; other outlets for them are discover- 
 able ; a safety-valve may be found to relieve the force 
 of any of these three passions, and the explosion of 
 War avoided. But the only escape possible for the 
 elemental passion of Hate, heated to explosive point, 
 
THE SOUL OB^ WAR 21 
 
 is by the danger-valve called War. There Hatred 
 can mature and fructify, and no otherwise can it be 
 wholly and fully satiated. 
 
 There is a passage in the second part of Shake- 
 speare's Henry VI (v. 2) which perhaps brings us as 
 near to the black Soul of War as human genius can. 
 A battle has been fought outside St. Albans. Lord 
 Clifford has been slain by the sword of the Duke of 
 York. Young Clifford speaks : 
 
 " Shame and Confusion ! all is on the rout; 
 , . . . O War, thou son of hell;" 
 
 and then (his eye lighting on his father's corse) — 
 
 " . . . . Even at this sight 
 My heart is turned to stone : and while 'tis mine, 
 It shall be stony, York not our old men spares; 
 No more will I their babes : tears virginal 
 Shall be to me even as the dew to fire, 
 And beauty that the tyrant oft reelaims 
 Shall to my flaming Avrath be oil and flax. 
 Henceforth I will not have to do with Pity; 
 
 In cruelty will I seek out my fame." 
 
 Here is an unveiled vision of sheer Hate, the latent 
 lust which bringeth forth War, stript of the military 
 trappings which usually conceal its moral foulness. 
 Such inhuman passion mates with War. Hate en- 
 genders War and War engenders Hate. And War, 
 one thinks, would have been already ended by the 
 developed Conscience of a later age, had the mass of 
 mankind possessed a Shakespeare's power of ima- 
 gination and analysis. 
 
 Quite apart from the actual combatants, once 
 War is declared, the peoples involved become im- 
 mersed in a kind of sea of concentrated passion, and 
 possessed with an absorbing impulse of destruction. 
 
22 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 The more complete the destruction the greater the 
 rejoicing. The thing becomes a mania. And even 
 when the war is over, this deadly spirit of antagonism, 
 which has havocked among multitudes who never 
 saw a battle, dies but slowly down. Long after 
 Nature has hidden with her kindly cloak the ghastly 
 evidence of inhuman strife, that unseen spirit of war- 
 engendered Hate commonly continues to embitter 
 the national heart, exciting rancour in the defeated 
 and arrogance in the victorious, poisoning in both 
 the natural wells of fraternity and peace. Thus, 
 however plausibly War may be excused, and although 
 " a resolved and honourable war " may doubtless be 
 possible, and " a just and charitable war " may be 
 conceived, yet War's corrupting character remains 
 inherent and indelible. 
 
 Now it is with this inherently corrupting character 
 of War, and its moral evil, that the problem of War's 
 abolition is bound up. Whether we study War in its 
 origin, progress, or effects, it is the hideous form of 
 Moral Evil that always confronts and confounds us. 
 This is the Upas-tree under whose malignant shade are 
 bred the endless complications which make the out- 
 ward and visible occasions of national strife. These 
 ostensible occasions we are always being invited to 
 consider War's sole cause. But behind them may 
 invariably be discerned the spectral shape in which 
 moral evil has specialised to turn the occasion into 
 actual War. Hence, instead of ignoring this inform- 
 ing force of spiritual evil, as he is often exhorted to do, 
 the pacifist is bound as a practical man to concentrate 
 upon its riddance, as the principal source of danger. 
 All coincident external circumstances would certainly 
 
THE SOUL OF WAR 23 
 
 be amenable to diplomacy or arbitration, but for the 
 underlying passion which colours and distorts them 
 into a casus belli. 
 
 And if, when war impends, the question of right 
 and wrong is primary; it is manifest folly to bar it 
 from discussion in days of peace when normal 
 emotions prevail, when war-fever has not hopelessly 
 upset mental balance, perverted Reason, and gagged 
 Conscience. No progress is made by playing about 
 the surface of a problem when we should be probing 
 to its root. In the constitution of man Reason and 
 Conscience are the God-appointed arbiters of human 
 destiny. Their conjoint authority is alone beyond 
 appeal. And the attempt to set one in opposition to 
 the other, or to substitute for either the dicta of self- 
 interest and expediency, is the extremity of unwisdom. 
 The subordinate value of such considerations is no 
 doubt great. They may rive and loosen the tough 
 integument of old-ingrained opinions still retained 
 from an obsolete and pagan past. But before the 
 social organism of to-day actually sloughs them off, 
 War's essential evil will have to be recognised for what 
 it is. Then only will the developed and developing 
 nature of man, struck with horror and remorse, rise, 
 as one in wrath, to cast it out. 
 
 But we are told that human nature is at present 
 insufficiently developed to accomplish this result. 
 Then we ought to hasten that development by refusing 
 any longer to gloze the dark indisputableness of the 
 facts. As Ruskin truly says — 
 
 " God gives the disposition to every healthy human mind in 
 some degree to pass ovei' or even harden itself against evil things, 
 else the suffering would be too great to be borne, ... so what with 
 
24 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 hard-hearted people, thoughtless people, busy people, and cheer- 
 fully-minded people, — priest and Levite, masquer and merchant- 
 man, all agreeing to keep their own side of the way — the evil that 
 God sends to w^arn us gets to be forgotten, and the evil that He 
 sends to be mended by us gets left unmended." 
 
 This is just what has happened in reference to the 
 gigantic evil of War. And consequently Europe at 
 the present moment is an armed camp. We have 
 widely lost even Huxley's " real and living belief in 
 that fixed order of Nature which sends social dis- 
 organisation upon the track of immorality, as surely 
 as it sends physical disease after physical trespasses." 
 And because we have forgotten that moral laws are 
 as irresistible as physical ones, we think it futile to 
 allude to them. The bare truth being so disagreeable 
 and derogatory, we conspire to ignore or to resent it. 
 " Horribly stuffed with epithets of War," we boast 
 and belaud its pomp and circumstance and glory, till 
 we become prepared to bow in submissive awe and 
 veneration before " the big wars that make ambition 
 virtue." We extol the virility of races, and call upon 
 War, instead of upon Work, to maintain it. We 
 mistake arrogance for valour, and confound honour 
 with revenge. Thus we come to be easily persuaded 
 that " War is an element of order in the world," 
 though order, freedom, civilisation itself, are War's 
 natural prey. And in this twentieth century men are 
 found to assert that War is " established by God," 
 though even in the dawn of history it was understood 
 that no Temple, however " magnifical," could be 
 acceptable to the Almighty, if its builder had " made 
 great wars and shed much blood upon the earth." 
 
 To such confusion are we brought by dilating only 
 on the cost of War and armaments, their grandeur or 
 
THE SOUL OF WAR 25 
 
 their futility, while we stubbornly refuse to confess 
 their shame. Most of us seem rank materialists. 
 Those who prate of the power of ideas, nevertheless 
 laugh ideahsm to scorn. It would appear that only 
 ideas about what is politic and expedient have revolu- 
 tionary power : so Pilate and Caiaphas are to redeem 
 the world ! As our God is always with the big 
 battalions and helpless without them, we hasten to 
 transfer our worship. But now that an economic 
 prophet has arisen to prove that this Divinity of 
 Physical Force has somehow dropt the old power to 
 win prestige or pelf, Dagon has fallen, and we worship 
 we know not what. 
 
 Fortunately, however, for future generations, God 
 lives, and the world moves, and man himself has been 
 growing. Despite all materialistic set-backs, the 
 great collective Conscience of civilised mankind has 
 increased in sensitiveness and power of perception. 
 It begins to realise as never before what actually lies 
 behind the moving drama of armies and navies in 
 action. In the soul of the people the fruitful idea is 
 dawning that all the spectacular grandeur with which 
 the idea of War is commonly associated is nothing but 
 its outward visage, whether glorious or grim. 
 
 Between these thrilling phenomena and the black 
 reality beneath, the vital distinction is beginning to 
 be drawn. It is, however, a distinction which not a 
 few familiar things are always tending to obscure. 
 The popularity of a certain type of poetry and fiction, 
 the pageantry of war upon the stage, the stirring 
 strains of martial music,— all help to hypnotise the 
 mind. On this account protest is sometimes made 
 against the military display so conspicuous in every 
 
26 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 great National Procession, when, moreover, some 
 successful General is usually the cynosure of every 
 eye. It seems, however, very doubtful if this kind of 
 thing has any more harmful effect upon spectators 
 than if it happened to be the custom for the pictur- 
 esque old Yeomen of the Guard to come from the 
 Tower to take part in a Lord Mayor's Show. As a 
 Show, a fine regiment of soldiers is incomparable. 
 They and their officers alike, as things are, may 
 wholesomely represent not Defiance but Defence. 
 
 While the final appeal amongst civilised nations 
 is to the savage arbitrament of Violence, soldiers and 
 sailors, and the physical force they stand for, consti- 
 tute a Power as necessary for Peace as for War. 
 Nothing whatever is wrong about the soldier or the 
 sailor, except that the evil regime under which the 
 world is groaning compels their maintenance in 
 ruinous numbers chiefly for hypothetical use. Their 
 honoured and ancient calling has produced, from the 
 days of Roman Ctesar and Saxon Alfred to those of 
 Garibaldi, Gordon, and, may we not say ? — George V,'^. 
 character of the very highest kind. But no 
 glamour of a great profession can avail to blind us, 
 either to the inherent iniquity of War, or to the in- 
 excusably trivial pretexts which have not seldom 
 sufficed to set men of the most splendid spiritual gifts 
 in battle array against each other. 
 
 Therefore it is that the people, who in days of peace 
 bear most of the burden of preparing War, and in days 
 of conflict most of the suffering in waging it, are daily 
 more disposed to turn from all outward and visible 
 appearances to the inward heart of the whole matter. 
 And when mere outward symptoms thus begin to be 
 
THE SOUL OF WAR 27 
 
 clearly distinguished from disease itself, cure is not 
 far off. In this particular case, they are on the road 
 to a recovery too long delayed, who grasp the certain 
 truth that War itself — the real presence of the hideous 
 god — is within the mind of man. When men further 
 come to realise what the phenomena to which War's 
 magic name is given, actually embody and express, 
 the cure will be complete. For War is nothing less 
 than the expression and embodiment of a people's 
 passion, heated to the inhuman point which cries 
 *' Evil, be thou my good ! " 
 
 Now this confounding of good and evil, not Milton 
 only but all men recognise as characteristically 
 diabolic. Yet before public opinion in civilised lands 
 ever drifts or plunges into War, this impious confusion 
 must have obsessed the general mind. The German 
 Chancellor would have us believe that the power of 
 producing war has already passed from Kings and 
 Governments to the people themselves. Whether 
 that be so or not, it is certainly shifting in that direc- 
 tion. And Machiavellian subtleties do not appeal to 
 the conscience of mankind. But what that conscience 
 is perfectly capable of understanding is that nothing 
 short of a devilish inversion of right and wrong can 
 actually bring men to " cry Havoc ! and let slip the 
 dogs of War." No other means, as Nietzsche tells 
 us with neurotic joy, can so call into action " the deep 
 impersonality born of hatred, the conscience born of 
 murder and cold-bloodedness, the fervour born of effort 
 in the annihilation of the enemy, the proud indifference 
 to loss, to one's own existence, and to that of one's 
 fellows," which were leading features of his insane 
 ideal. {Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, No. 477.) 
 
28 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 This hateful obsession, which is War's pecuhar 
 horror and impiety, human nature in its gradual 
 upward evolution is beginning to face nude and bare. 
 No longer, in exploring some fair city or traversing 
 some fertile land laid waste by war, do men only 
 lament the outward signs of ruin and desolation. 
 Beneath every thought of the pain, the wounds, the 
 carnage of " mortal-staring War," there stirs the 
 ineradicable feeling of something more, and something 
 worse. We reflect on the ravages of disease among 
 the combatants with its ghastly record of mortality 
 rivalling that from the sword, and still the nadir is 
 not reached. Abhorrent and revolting as are these 
 inevitable phenomena of a campaign, that which 
 really sped the bullet and lit the fuse, that which 
 underlies the whole inhuman drama, the invisible 
 spirit of atrocious Evil masquerading as virtuous 
 valour — is seen to be more monstrous still. And the 
 century-old warning of the great warrior-philosopher 
 tears anew at our heart-strings : " The passions which 
 break forth in War must already have a latent exist- 
 ence in the peoples." 
 
 If then the essential root of War is Moral Evil ; if 
 the slow but sure advance of the much quoted " aver- 
 age man " to the point where War becomes impossible 
 is a moral process ; no proposal could well be more 
 unscientific and illogical than to disconnect the peace- 
 crusade from the powerful sanction of ethics and 
 religion. On the contrary, we have to persuade men 
 to face that side of the question which in fact consti- 
 tutes the most cogent appeal to their reason and 
 conscience. 
 
 " Man is surrounded with mighty powers of nature which he 
 caiuiot comprehend or withstand : and amidst their beneficent 
 
THE SOUL OF ^VAR 29 
 
 operations all of them involve much suffering. ^Vhat distinguishes 
 War is not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed, 
 by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand, 
 of man. The Evil is Moral evil. War is the concentration of all 
 human crimes. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, 
 rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. The field of battle is a 
 theatre, got up at "immense cost, for the exhibition of crime on a 
 grand scale." 
 
 Since Channing spoke those words, some eighty 
 years ago, both hemispheres have been shaken with 
 Titanic strife, and milhons of hves have been spilt 
 upon the ground in " the bloody course of war." 
 Therefore it is argued that every such appeal is worse 
 than useless. Men say to us, " The world is tired of 
 your stale morality. Shift the whole plane of your 
 discussion. Come down from these ideal heights to 
 the plains of profit and loss. Tell men that War is 
 sterile, never say that it is wrong. The moral plea 
 is folly where destiny is worked out in blood and iron 
 Avith the sole help of gold." But these taunts miss the 
 mark. An appeal is not proved pointless because it 
 may be premature. The folly of one age is the wis- 
 dom of another. Do we now count Socrates a fool or 
 a wise man ? Yet once he was accounted wicked as 
 well as foolish, and condemned to silence in the grave. 
 Was Aristotle stupid to think BTrisr^sia. incomplete 
 without the " wish to settle a matter by words rather 
 than by deeds"? although after twenty-two-and- 
 a-half centuries, only Anglo-Saxondom has yet 
 abolished Duelling, and international Arbitration is 
 but slowly coming to its own. 
 
 Did Dante do nothing for the world, although his 
 own distracted age, and many another since, refused 
 to find its " Peace in the Will of God " ? Did the 
 noble spirit of Mazzini effect nothing for Humanity, 
 because, " born out of due time," even his own 
 
30 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 countrymen inadequately felt the grandeur of his 
 life till it had ended ? It is at least significant that 
 when the end came, eighty thousand Italians crossed 
 the Apennines to make a belated triumph of his 
 funeral. Since " the sacred, inexorable, dominant 
 idea of Duty " and " the one pure and efficacious 
 virtue, Sacrifice," were seldom more splendidly in- 
 carnate, Mazzini is one of the Immortals. And his 
 torch will still be passed from hand to hand, until 
 Man actually is what this patriot-thinker had faith 
 to know he would become. Then only, the apostles 
 he invoked may be disbanded, — apostles of the Fra- 
 ternity of nations, and of the Unity of the human 
 race, — apostles of a doctrine freely now in principle 
 admitted, but still in practice denied. 
 
 And because, to the untold loss of mankind, a 
 later generation than Mazzini's still denies in practice 
 what in theory it allows, Tolstoi once more lit his lamp 
 from the same sacred fire; and its light lives after 
 him to beacon and beckon us to-day. " Utter failures 
 both " is no doubt the cynic's verdict. But it is " in 
 the sight of the unwise " they seem to fail, " yet is 
 their hope full of immortality." The number of 
 Christian disciples who gathered at Jerusalem after 
 the Crucifixion was but 120. But Christianity did 
 not die with the "madmen" of that generation; 
 and those of this age who keep aloft the oriflamme of 
 Peace in a warring world will yet be justified. The 
 first Christians turned the world upside down because 
 of their conviction that it is Spiritual force that moves 
 the world. 
 
 Tolstoi was consumed by the same belief. He 
 was full of that " weakness of God which is stronger 
 than men," of that Divine " foolishness " which is 
 
THE SOUL OF WAR 31 
 
 wiser than man's wisdom. He had heroic faith in 
 the certain triumph of Truth. The essence of his 
 trumpet-call was the summons to every man to 
 " believe that the truth is not what men about him 
 say, but what his conscience, that is God, says to 
 him." He never for an instant doubted that all the 
 apparently invincible organisation of rude force, now 
 in possession, is nothing in comparison with the 
 recognition of the truth, " which arises in the heart of 
 one man who knows the force of the truth, and is 
 communicated by this man to another and another 
 just as an endless number of candles are lighted from 
 one. This light need only burn, and like the wax 
 before the face of the fire all this seemingly so powerful 
 organisation will waste away." " If men only under- 
 stood that terrible power which is given them in the 
 word that expresses the truth ! " 
 
 Such was the burden of his constant cry. When 
 the world is awake, it will be understood. 
 
 " For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness 
 of men to give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary for the 
 obsolete public opinion to give way to a live and new one. For 
 the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, live one, 
 it is necessary that the men who are conscious of the new demands 
 of life should clearly express them. No milliards of roubles, or 
 millions of soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor revolutions, will 
 produce what will be produced by the simple expression of a free 
 man as to what he considers just, independently of what exists, 
 and of what is inculcated on him. One free man will truthfully 
 say what he thinks and feels, amidst thousands of men who by 
 their acts and words affirm the very opposite. It would seem that 
 the man who frankly expressed his thought would remain alone, 
 while in reality it happens that all tJiose men, or the majority of 
 them, have long been thinking and feeling the same, but have not 
 expressed their thought. ... If men only knew in what their 
 mighty, all-conquering force consists, the peace for which men 
 have always wished — not the one obtained by the exhaustion of 
 the masses by taxes, nor by tearing the flower of the population 
 away from productive work, but by the free profession of the truth 
 by every separate individual — would long ago have come to us." 
 
32 THE SOUL OF WAR 
 
 This is Tolstoi's recurrent message on the matter 
 of Peace and War. He is always crying, " Only the 
 Truth and its expression can establish that new 
 pubhc opinion which will change the obsolete and 
 harmful order of life " under which we live. And the 
 truth which he aimed at expressing, and getting others 
 to express, was always truth of the highest sort, the 
 truth of the true order of life framed in accordance 
 with Eternal Law, the truth to which the spirit living 
 in the depths of men's consciousness is bound sooner 
 or later to respond. To imagine for such teaching 
 the possibility of failure, would be as reasonable as 
 to think that Calvary falsified the assertion of Christ, 
 — so astounding in the circumstances of its utterance 
 — " Though heaven and earth pass, INIy Words shall 
 never pass away." 
 
 The mills of God grind slowly. If half what we 
 are told be true of the antiquity of human life, it 
 seems wise to mix much patience with our sure and 
 certain hope in the predestined progress of the race. 
 And this despite the enormously increased ratio of 
 advance in recent times. Soil and surroundings have 
 to be reckoned with, as well as the quality of the seed, 
 to fairly account for delay in germination. The finest 
 seed may fall unfavourably, as the finest pearls may 
 be displayed in vain where husks are highly valued. 
 Every husbandman has need of patience. But if 
 he scatter seed which in sort and sowing is accordant 
 with the Everlasting Law that makes for the social 
 and spiritual elevation of mankind, he may trust the 
 winds of heaven to help it somewhere into fruitful 
 life. 
 
/ will not believe that it is given to Man to have 
 thoughts higher and nohler than the real truth of things.^ 
 
 The vestal fires burned out, but never the fires of 
 Christ's spirit, which answer each other from height to 
 height across the continents. The gentleness of Christ 
 has conquered. His influence continues and widens. 
 His Spirit moves on the face of civilisation, and makes it 
 kindlier every generation. However far we go in the 
 conquest of Nature, in diminishing sin, disease, war, 
 poverty, ignorance — always in the advance will be that 
 gracious Figure of the Sinless One, ardent and gentle. 
 Who showed Love as the Rule of Life. Slowly the 
 brightening gleam that touched Him spreads through the 
 World."^ 
 
 We live by Faith ; but Faith is not the slave 
 Of text and legend : Reason's voice and God's, 
 Nature's and Duty's, never are at odds.^ 
 
 • Sir Olivkr Lodge. ^ Norman Hapgood. ^ J. G. Whittier. 
 
The History of Civilisation is the history of the 
 displacement of old conceptions by nezv ones more 
 conformable with the facts} 
 
 The World only grows better because people wish that 
 it should, and take the right steps to make it better. 
 Evolution is not a force but a process ; not a cause but 
 a law} 
 
 The truly important object with every one who holds 
 opinions which he deems it of the highest moment that 
 others should accept, must obviously be to reach people's 
 general ways of thinking ; to stir their love of truth ; to 
 penetrate them with a sense of the difference in the 
 quality of evidence ; and perhaps above all to persuade 
 them to take ungrudging trouble to clear up in their 
 minds the exact sense of the terms they use} 
 
 It is commonly asserted that old habits of thought 
 can never be shaken ; that as men have been, so they will 
 be. That, of course, is why we noiv eat our enemies, 
 enslave their children, examine witnesses ivith the 
 thumbscrew, and burn those who do not attend the same 
 church ! In a world where change and development 
 have been the universal law through unthinkable time, 
 where changes take place with increasing velocity, the 
 methods of yesterday are bound to be the methods of 
 to-77iorrozv ! I am no prophet, but I beg to differ.- 
 
 ' Lord Morlky. - Norman Angki.i,. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 Such notions as those broached in the last Chapter, 
 implying any expectation or even hope that Law will 
 some day take the place of Force in deciding inter- 
 national disputes, are not at present popular. That 
 they derive the slightest support from the actual 
 constitution of man or the possible purpose of God 
 is widely and strenuously denied. We are assured, 
 on the contrary, that God and man alike make the 
 perpetuation of War inevitable. Dr. Steinmetz, in 
 the Philosophie des Krieges, would have us regard 
 War as an ordeal of God, by which nations are weighed 
 and tried when " God holds His assizes, and hurls 
 the peoples one upon another." In Moltke's Letter 
 to Bluntschli it is written : " Without War the world 
 would degenerate and disappear in a morass of 
 materialism ; " and again, " War is one of the elements 
 of order established by God." Nor are these opinions 
 only made in Germany. General Homer Lea's Valour 
 of Ignorance declares that " in theory International 
 Arbitration denies the inexorability of natural laws, 
 — the laws that govern all life, plant, animal, or 
 national;" and only man's folly and conceit could 
 ever contemplate their subversal. " Without any ex- 
 ception known to me," says Professor William James, 
 " militarist authors regard War as a biological or 
 sociological necessity." 
 
 D 2 35 
 
36 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 In these views, unfortunately, " militarist " 
 writers have no monopoly. They are accepted and 
 promulgated by a host of people, who help to form 
 the public opinion of Christendom and drag it in 
 the wrong direction. Unless therefore the pseudo- 
 scientific assumptions on which such opinions rest 
 are seen to be baseless, the public opinion which 
 finally determines Peace or War will never escape 
 the pit into which it is continually being driven back 
 by this mythical Dragon of Necessity. 
 
 On examination, the stuffing of this Dragon is 
 found to be a compact of figments, — the fabric of an 
 undisciplined imagination. It is freely assumed that 
 War is inextricably imbedded in the nature of things, 
 a perpetual part of the cosmic order " established 
 by God," the inevitable response to some inexorable 
 mandate of " natural law " which the very con- 
 stitution of man compels him to obey. So that 
 " while men are men and states are states " they can 
 only go on carving out their destiny in " blood and 
 iron " to the end of time. 
 
 Now these contentions are compounded chiefly 
 of confusions of thought about the principal terms 
 used. This confusion is the more easy owing to the 
 free and undefined use, by Militarist writers, of the 
 ambiguous words " Nature," " Natural," and " Law." 
 To the first of these terms the Century Dictionary 
 assigns no less than fifteen distinct meanings; to the 
 second, twenty meanings ; and in the case of the third, 
 the distinctions drawn are still more numerous ; while 
 the late Duke of Argyll tells us that even in scientific 
 treatises the word " Law " is used in not less than five 
 different senses. It is chiefly from the waters of this 
 
A BAD MISTAKE 87 
 
 sea of ambiguity that the flood of stupid strife between 
 theological and natural science has been kept at a 
 calamitous height almost to the present day. And 
 now that this deluge is somewhat abating, the old 
 waters of confusion are drawn upon to drown the 
 Dove of Peace. 
 
 Let us see how this occurs. The term " Nature " 
 is commonly and conveniently used to denote the 
 material Universe, its necessary forces and laws. 
 But it is also used to include Man, his intellectual and 
 moral nature, including his volition. Thus two dis- 
 tinct and widely differing classes of phenomena 
 become easily complicated the one with the other, 
 through the same term being used indiscriminately 
 in the narrower and in the larger sense. In the same 
 way " Law " is constantly used to express two con- 
 ceptions which are radically distinct. A " Law " of 
 science is a formula briefly describing an invariable 
 sequence of events, or the constant mode of action 
 of a force. It is descriptive, not prescriptive. As 
 Karl Pearson observes : " It is idle to speak of any 
 scientific law — the law of gravitation, for example — 
 as ruling nature. Such laws simply describe, they 
 never explain, the routine of our perceptions." ^ 
 But " Law " in its primary and wholly different 
 meaning of a " Command imposed by Rightful 
 Authority " (Sidgwick), or " a rule laid down for the 
 guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent 
 being having authority over him " (Austin),^ is also 
 in even more common use. And when ideas attri- 
 butable only to " law " in this latter sense (which 
 
 1 Grammar of Science, p. 99, 3rd cd., 1911. 
 
 2 Lectures on Jurisprudence, 4th ed., 1879. 
 
88 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 alone is applicable to man and his actions) are trans- 
 ferred without distinction to laws describing orderly 
 sequences of natural phenomena, chaos results. 
 
 When, further, these two ambiguous words, 
 " Nature " and " Law," are joined together in the 
 common term " natural law," a double ambiguity 
 is combined, and confusion is worse confounded. 
 " Natural laws " are quoted as though they were 
 prescriptive and not merely descriptive; as though 
 they had the quality not only of " laws " but of 
 " forces." The idea of causation is introduced, which 
 belongs only to natural forces, and not at all to 
 natural laws, which simply describe the invariable 
 sequences of the phenomena resulting from the 
 forces at work. " The laws of nature," says Reid, 
 " are the rules according to which effects are pro- 
 duced." They are wholly distinct from the cause 
 operating according to these rules. " The rules of 
 navigation never steered a ship, nor did the law of 
 gravity ever move a planet." 
 
 Through neglect of this distinction the term 
 " law " has been complicated with the conception of 
 cause or force. And thus, as Prebendary Row long 
 ago complained in his valuable Bampton Lectures, 
 " the laws of nature are habitually spoken of, even b}^ 
 scientific men, as though they were efficient causes, 
 and language is used respecting them which amounts 
 to little short of their personification." More than 
 thirty years have passed since that complaint was 
 made, and " scientific " men would probably be hard 
 to find to-day who are guilty of anything of the kind. 
 Indeed, they are strenuous in exhorting the world 
 to avoid the blunder. Professor Karl Pearson, for 
 
A BAD MISTAKE 39 
 
 instance, devotes many pages of his Grammar of 
 Science to clear statement of the various senses in 
 which these terms are commonly used, and to warn- 
 ings against their illegitimate employment. In view 
 of the prevalent confusion, he desiderates " the 
 specialisation of the word ' law ' in one or other of 
 its senses." On page 94, he says, " We sadly need 
 separate terms for the routine of sense impressions, 
 for the brief description or formula of science, and for 
 the canon of social conduct; or, in other words, for 
 the perceptive order, the descriptive order, and the 
 prescriptive order," 
 
 Now when General Homer Lea asserts that " in 
 theory International Arbitration denies the inexor- 
 ability of natural laws,— the laws that govern all life, 
 plant, animal, or national," he may speak with 
 " the valour of ignorance," but he flatly contradicts 
 the language of science. He is simply helping to 
 stuff the above-mentioned dragon, which is continu- 
 ally being " brought on " the militarist stage to 
 frighten the world into believing War an eternal 
 necessity in the life of mankind. Science knows 
 nothing of an " inexorable natural law." What is 
 properly termed " natural law," so far from being 
 inexorable, is always liable to be replaced by a wider 
 generalisation or completer analysis of the facts it 
 represents. Such replacement of one formula by 
 another is indeed the regular course of scientific 
 progress. 
 
 " The only final test we have of the truth of any law, of the 
 siifFiciency of its description, is the actual comparison of the 
 results of the formula with the facts themselves,— that is historical 
 observation or physical experiment. This test is all that marks 
 the division between scientific hypothesis and scientific law. 
 
40 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 And the scientific law must, with every increase of our perceptive 
 powers, return to the position of hypothesis, and be anew put to 
 the test of experience." ^ 
 
 So much for " inexorability." 
 
 But the wonderful " natural law " of this bold 
 soldier is not only inexorable; it "governs," and 
 " governs all life " from the plant to the nation. 
 Here is fresh confusion. For neither nature, nor 
 man, is governed by natural laws. They are de- 
 scriptive, not prescriptive. Our General really cannot 
 have it every way. He appeals against the principle 
 of International Arbitration to " natural law." But 
 this is law in the scientific sense, and must therefore 
 be subject to the definition of the scientist, which 
 totally excludes the idea of Government. But in 
 order to provide the stuffing required for the dragon 
 of Necessity — ^the mythical protector of War — Homer 
 Lea's " natural law " must control as well as describe; 
 so he promptly endows it with the governing attributes 
 of law in Austin's sense (law civil, moral, or divine, 
 but not scientific), and makes it " a rule laid down for 
 the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent 
 being having power over him." But then, so far 
 from " governing all life," such law postulates in- 
 telligent obedience. I fear this gallant writer, typical 
 of a numerous class, must be left under the great 
 jurist's castigation of those who " through the mis- 
 application of a name — the name of Law — deluge 
 the field of jurisprudence and morals with muddy 
 speculation." 
 
 The so-called " laws " invoked by the advocates 
 of perpetual War among mankind are pure bogeys, 
 
 ' Karl Pearson, op. cU., j). 100, 
 
A BAD MISTAKE 41 
 
 and it is high time that their legendary character 
 was generally understood. The glamour of the 
 splendid advances made during the past sixty years 
 in Man's knowledge of Nature has accustomed the 
 general mind to invest " natural law " with vague 
 notions of dignity. The phrase has therefore become 
 one to conjure with. And its prominence in the 
 vocabulary of quite unscientific people renders it 
 peculiarly liable to partisan exploitation. Snatches 
 from the Law of Survival, for example, like " the 
 struggle for existence," are freely applied to the 
 question of War and Peace in ways no biologist would 
 adopt without careful qualification. Man, " nature's 
 insurgent son," is accounted a slave to forces he has 
 long learnt to control and subdue. It is continually 
 forgotten that if Warfare between civilised nations 
 is to be regarded as the actual consequence and 
 necessary expression of this particular law, the 
 conquerors ought invariably to be the jittest to sur- 
 vive (not merely the strongest), which is by no means 
 always the case, and the conquered must be elimin- 
 ated, which in modern warfare never occurs. 
 
 Even if the phrase continually bandied to prove 
 a, state of War between nations inevitable and eternal, 
 has any applicability at all to human affairs under 
 the conditions of modern life, the formula must be 
 applied on the right principle, as Mr. Angell has 
 usefully pointed out. The " organism " to which it 
 then refers is " human society," and the " struggle " 
 to be understood is that of human society as a whole 
 to adapt itself to its environment — the world. By 
 confining the stock phrase " struggle for existence " to 
 the relation of man with man, the a^gis of evolutionary 
 
42 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 law is absurdly thrown over a condition of affairs which 
 the very course of human evolution is leading mankind 
 to repudiate, and will presently cause him to reject. 
 
 The fact is that Physical and Biological facts have 
 been marshalled and grouped with such indomitable 
 industry by Darwin, Wallace, Weismann and other 
 giant workers, that their classification is more com- 
 plete and their " laws " further formulated than is 
 yet possible with the newer sciences of Psychology 
 and Sociology, which have far more to do with the 
 present discussion. Here many of the data have 
 come but lately under scientific observation.^ The 
 grouping and factual sequences in this great field have 
 scarcely reached the stage for the profitable deduction 
 of their " natural laws." But nothing is more certain 
 than that Psychology and Sociology are the destined 
 arena of most fruitful efforts of science in the near 
 future. As the causes which favour the growth or 
 decay of human societies become more obvious, and 
 more the subject of scientific investigation, dis- 
 coveries are likely to result bearing very directly 
 upon the relation of War to human nature. 
 
 But, meanwhile, the indiscriminate application 
 of formulas borrowed from other fields of research, 
 just because time has made them current coin, favours 
 nothing so much as " muddy speculation." And the 
 blunder is intensified when scientific law, which does 
 not " govern " anything, is quoted, not as a brief 
 expression of the facts it resumes, but as though it 
 represented some mysterious Force by which human 
 actions must necessarily be guided to the end of 
 
 1 E. g. The sub-conscious mind was scarcely recognised before 
 1866. 
 
A BAD MISTAKE 48 
 
 time. If these dabblers with scientific formulae 
 would attend to what scientists themselves teach, — 
 as for instance that " the Unity of all science consists 
 alone in its method, not in its material,"— they 
 would save themselves from mistakes and their readers 
 from misguidance. 
 
 Despite their non-identity, no doubt a connection 
 may be established between civil and moral laws 
 and natural laws in the scientific sense (as we shall 
 see in the next Chapter), for civil and moral laws are 
 the natural product of societies and classes within 
 society. But the attempt to saddle mankind for ever 
 with the limitations attaching to rudimentary stages 
 of an evolution begun among Simian progenitors 
 perhaps more than three hundred thousand years ago, 
 is about as ridiculously unscientific a proposal as can 
 well be imagined. The sole reason which can now be 
 given for the continuance and encouragement of any 
 social institution lies in its tendency " to promote the 
 welfare of human society, to increase social happiness, 
 or to strengthen social stability." It is by this kind 
 of standard that so anti-social an institution as War 
 comes to be judged in such days as these in which we 
 live. And a century hence the world will acknow- 
 ledge the truth of Herbert Spencer's sweeping general- 
 isation : " advance to the highest forms of man and 
 society depends on the decline of militancy and the 
 growth of industrialism." 
 
 Clearly, in the predatory life of savages conduct 
 is in an embryonic stage of evolution. But it is true 
 also, and equally clear, that 
 
 " in social groups formed by compounding and rc-compounding 
 primitive hordes, conduct remains imperfectly evolved in pro- 
 
44 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 portion as there continue antagonisms between the groups, and 
 antagonisms between members of the same group, — two traits 
 necessarily associated ; since the nature which prompts inter- 
 national aggression prompts aggression of individuals on one 
 another. Hence the limit of evolution can be reached by conduct 
 only in permanently peaceful societies. That perfect adjustment 
 of acts to ends in maintaining life, which is effected by each without 
 hindering others from effecting like perfect adjustments, is, in its 
 very definition, shown to constitute a kind of conduct that can 
 be approached only as War decreases and dies out." ^ 
 
 But the contention of the mihtarist party is that 
 even if Peace were desirable from the point of view 
 of ethical development, which most of them of course 
 deny, yet it is an impracticable ideal on account of 
 the nature of man and the power of Nature over man. 
 War, they claim, is " a Biological necessity." Thus 
 they appeal to Science. Then to Science let them go. 
 The scientific world has few more highly accredited 
 names than that of Sir E. Ray Lankester, who happens 
 to have dealt with the very point these writers raise, 
 in the following words : - 
 
 " In early tribal times natural selection still imposed the death 
 penalty on failure. The stronger, the more cunning, the better 
 armed, the more courageous tribe or family group, exterminated 
 by actual slaughter, or starvation, the neighbouring tribes less 
 gifted in one or all of these qualities. But from what we know 
 of the history of warlike, exterminating, savage tribes at the 
 present day, it seems unlikely that the method of extermination 
 — that is of true natural selection — had much effect in man's 
 development after the very earliest period. Union and absorption 
 were more usual results of the contact of primitive tribes than 
 struggles to the death. ... In spite of frequent assertions to 
 the contrary, it seems that neither the more ancient wars of 
 mankind for conquest and migration, nor the present and future 
 wars for commercial privilege, have any real equivalence to the 
 simple removal by death of the unfit, and the survival and repro- 
 duction of the fit, which we know as Natural Selection, 
 
 " The mental qualities which have developed in Man ... so 
 
 ^ II. Spencer's Data of Ethics, p. 19. 
 - The Kiugdom of Man, p, 27 et seq. 
 
A BAD MISTAKE 45 
 
 far dominate everything else in his activities as a hving organismr 
 that they have to a very large extent, if not entirely, cut him off 
 from the general operation of that process of survival which up 
 to their appearance had been the law of the living world. Know- 
 ledge, reason, self-consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man. 
 They justify the view that Man forms a ncAV departure in the 
 gradual unfolding of Nature's pre-destined scheme. 
 
 " The volition of Man has become a power in Nature w'hich has 
 profoundly modified not only man's own history but that of the 
 face of the planet on which he exists. . . . And as he has more 
 and more obtained control over his surroundings, he has expanded 
 that unconscious protective attitude towards his immature off- 
 spring which natural selection had already favoured and established 
 in the animal race, into a conscious love for his tribe, his race, his 
 nationality, and his kind. ... At every step of his progress man 
 has receded further and further from the ancient rule exercised 
 by Nature." 
 
 Man, in short, according to Professor Lankester, 
 has become a successful rebel, raising his own standard 
 of " fitness," substituting new ideals for the old 
 proffered conditions of survival, using his will to con- 
 trol, and in important respects even to subvert, 
 " what were Nature's methods of dealing with life 
 before she had produced her insurgent son." 
 
 Thus we see that when the Militarist turns to 
 Science to confirm his thesis of the inevitable per- 
 manence of War, it is only to find himself in the sorry 
 pHght of King Balak of old. His chosen prophet 
 can but utter the verdict that facts have shaped. 
 He cannot curse where events have already blessed. 
 No more in " natural law " than in alluring promises 
 of prestige or pelf is the desired barrier to be found 
 to block the way of social progress. The immense 
 advances actually recorded to the credit of mankind 
 indisputably presage the future achievements of the 
 race. 
 
 Those who abide by this witness of facts are un- 
 disturbed by accusations of " folly and conceit."" 
 
46 A BAD MISTAKE 
 
 They look upon such charges as the price of their 
 incapacity to mistake the occasional backwash of 
 advancing waves for sign of an ebbing tide. And 
 they will continue to decline all invitations to oppose 
 the onward sweep of human evolution either with 
 a Partington mop of inapplicable " law," or with 
 some Canute-like veto of fictitious authority. 
 
 " Civilisation," as Amiel has said, " rests on 
 Conscience, not on Science." But it is also plain 
 that they who have won from Science the right to 
 speak in her name are thoroughly convinced of the 
 elastic capabilities of human nature. Their language 
 may often be less optimistic than that of the American 
 Sociologist, Mr. G. S. Lee, who tells us ^ that the 
 great regenerator, man's Social Imagination, is 
 steadily developing ; that " men live to-day in wider 
 distances, and think in larger figures, and become 
 susceptible to nobler and wider motives than they 
 did in past ages;" that, in fact, "an astounding 
 revolution is taking place before our eyes in human 
 nature, in the level of insight, and the grade of motive 
 in modern life." But if, over the precise form of 
 these statements, some scientist might hesitate, 
 none would dissent from Mr. Lee's conclusion— which 
 practically summarises the contention of this chapter 
 — " We are in the world to make it the kind of world 
 we like; determination succeeds in this, and it is for 
 us to say what kind of world we will live in." 
 
 1 Sociological Society Lecture, London, Oct. 1911. 
 
May not the tendency to Conduct form an essential 
 part of our inclinations, of our instinct, like the ten- 
 dency to self-preservation, and to the reproduction of the 
 species ? ^ 
 
 It has been the misfortune of our time that attention 
 has been diverted from the ethical and spiritual order, in 
 which the essentials of progress lie, to the biological con- 
 ditions which affect man only as the human animal.^ 
 
 . . . Man was made to grow, not stop ; 
 That help he needed once and needs no more. 
 Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn : 
 For he hath new needs and new helps to these. 
 This imports solely, man should mount on each 
 New height in view ; the help whereby he inounts. 
 The ladder-rung his foot hath left, may fall, 
 Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.^ 
 
 1 Senancolr. - L. T. HoBHOusE. ^ Robert Browning. 
 
These doctrines of yours have now been examined and 
 found wanting. And this doctrine alone has stood the 
 test — that we ought to be more afraid of wronging than 
 of being wronged, and that the prime business of every 
 man is, not to seem good but to be good, in all his private 
 and public dealings } 
 
 As man is formed by Nature to acts of benevolence: 
 when he has done anything in any way conducive to 
 the common interest, he has acted conformably with his 
 constitution.^^ 
 
 Aimer Dieu, et se faire aimer de Lui, aimer nos 
 semblables et nous faire aimer d'eux : voila la morale 
 et la religion. Dans Vune et dans Vautre V Amour 
 est tout : fin, principe, et moyen.'' 
 
 Voila les Lois que VEternel a gravces non seulement 
 sur la pierre de Sinai, mais encore dans le cceur de 
 Vhomme.* 
 
 ' SocRATKs, in Plato's Gorgim: ■ Marcus Antoninus. 
 
 3 JouBERT. * Chateaubriand. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 In the foregoing pages we have seen that no con- 
 tinuity of contact with the past, no unconquerable 
 leaning towards any brutish process of survival, 
 no fancied " inexorability of natural law," condemns 
 the human race to perpetuate the gigantic inhumanity 
 of War. In this chapter we leave negative argument 
 for positive, and go on to ask what the only Law which 
 has an inherent claim on the obedience of mankind 
 really is, how it operates, and what it urges. 
 
 The consciousness of the prevalence of Law 
 and of his own obligation to obey it, is part of the 
 constitution of man. His moral sense gives him an 
 instinctive belief in Law as the very nature and soul 
 of things. And it is just this instinctive belief which 
 the militarist unfairly exploits on behalf of his bellicose 
 ideal. By the simple device of endowing " laws of 
 nature," having no power of governance at all, with 
 the force and authority of Law in another sense, 
 the Warmonger conjures the undiscriminating into 
 the idea that international strife is an ordained 
 necessity of life. In these circumstances the best 
 protection for public opinion must be a clear under- 
 standing of the true nature of the one Law which 
 does absolutely bind mankind, within the permitted 
 limits of human volition. It must be brought to 
 
 E 49 
 
50 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 recognise the aim and direction of this Law's force, 
 and the method of its operation. 
 
 It is, of course, perfectly true that though our race 
 has left behind the stage of blind conformity to pro- 
 cesses of survival which obtain among lower forms 
 of life, we are as much as ever under the operation 
 of Law. The question is, what Law ? 
 
 The one sovereign and Eternal Law to which 
 
 humanity is subject is the expression of the one self- 
 
 existent and eternal Mind, of which our universe 
 
 and all universes are the manifestation. And the 
 
 reason for Man's instinctive belief in this Law, and 
 
 for his consciousness of duty in respect of it, is that 
 
 most precious of all our inheritances, an ethical and 
 
 religious sense which is in constant and increasingly 
 
 perfect correspondence with the Law's commands. 
 
 Thus 
 
 " the difference between Man and his progenitors is not in his 
 freedom from Law, but in his consciousness of the forces within 
 him, in his cajiacity for understanding their origin and import, 
 and in his power of choosing with which of his inherited instincts 
 — the lower or the higher^he will co-operate." ^ 
 
 This sovereign Law it is which, from the first 
 faint tremor of organic life to the last " far-off divine 
 event to which creation moves," persistently expresses 
 that Eternal Mind and Life which reason compels 
 us to regard as the real cause of the material cosmos, 
 with its products of life and mind. In Pauline phrase, 
 it might fitly be called " The Law of the Spirit of 
 Life." For in its living perfection it anticipates 
 every possible evolutionary change, because it is 
 itself the everlasting Rule by which all development 
 
 1 Dr. Greville Macdonald, The Religious Sense in its Scientific 
 Aspect, p. 34, 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 51 
 
 proceeds. All lower laws, howsoever termed — civil, 
 moral, natural, scientific — only witness its supremacy 
 in some pale reflection of its excellence. The value 
 of all such laws may, in fact, be gauged by the degree 
 in which they truly interpret to man's developing 
 conscience and comprehension the inexhaustible 
 Wisdom of the One Law which is changeless and 
 supreme. 
 
 All human laws are, of necessity, instinct with 
 the imperfect knowledge and immature conscience 
 of the generation which makes them. This is the 
 price of their intelligibility and usefulness. Their 
 mission has ever been to " accommodate," as we say, 
 the perfection of the One Law that is for ever, to the 
 youth of Humanity and to those " times of ignorance " 
 at which Eternal Wisdom could but " wink." ^ But 
 as the first streaks of early daylight surely broaden 
 to full noon, so the social evolution of the world is 
 not confined to any dim possibility of its grey dawn. 
 The office of the laws applicable to human life is 
 that of pedagogue, in the etymological meaning of 
 the word. They lead the infancy and childhood of 
 the race onward and upward to maturity. But as 
 humanity develops, their sanctions and prescriptions 
 are out-grown, and their place is taken by others 
 more nearly in accord with the Law which is Eternal, 
 for which the old prepared the way. Perhaps the 
 most generally familiar example is the relation of 
 the laws of Moses to the Law of Christ. Indeed, 
 the manifest progressiveness traceable throughout 
 the Library we call the Bible, strikingly justifies the 
 conviction reached even by Heraclitus, that nothing 
 1 Acts xvii, 30. 
 
52 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 lives but in virtue of its becoming otherwise in growth 
 and change — a great premonition, now thoroughly 
 substantiated in the kingdom of nature, and signifi- 
 cantly applicable in the realm of metaphysics.^ 
 
 But the period of progression covered by all the 
 Biblical books is only some 1600 years. A similar 
 period from the closing of the Canon would even bring 
 us to the present day. And though both together 
 amount to next to nothing compared with the proved 
 antiquity of Man, the combined period forcibly 
 illustrates the enormous change and growth in human 
 nature. Realise, for instance, the moral sense of 
 the early Hebrew community, when it marked a 
 step upward in social evolution for law to protect 
 the bare life of a servant, while expressly licensing 
 severe maltreatment ; - or, again, the ethical standard 
 of much later western " civihsation," when Juvenal 
 satirised,'^ but even the Christian Church for long years 
 condoned, the ingenious cruelties wherewith the 
 fashionable Roman lady was wont to beguile the 
 tedium of her toilet. Then compare this kind of 
 thing with the common conscience of to-day, when 
 a case of inhumanity to a small domestic sends an 
 umbraged multitude surging through a City's streets, 
 and stirs the Press of a whole country to indignation. 
 Such comparisons — easily multiplied indefinitely — 
 demonstrate the folly of ignoring the ever-present 
 process of moral evolution, and the inherent capacity 
 of human nature to out-grow laws and customs once 
 barbarously justified as " natural," and to modify 
 or change them into less imperfect correspondence 
 
 ^ Cf. e. g. Bergson, Creative Evolution, chap, iv, et passim. 
 2 Exod. xxi, 21. 3 Sat. vi. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 58 
 
 with the Ideal standard of the Law which is 
 Eternal. 
 
 The organ of the influence of Eternal Law on 
 human life is Man's moral sense, " perhaps the most 
 real of all our inheritances from the unknown ultimate 
 parentage whence we come." Dr. Greville Mac- 
 donald, in his fascinating King's College Lectures, 
 finds three stages or " standpoints " in the evolution 
 of the religious sense : (i) Egoism ; (ii) Altruism ; 
 (iii) Transcendentalism ; each leading up to and 
 merging into that above it, in imperceptible steps 
 of gradation. And he observes their traces in very 
 humble living organisms. For example, in the 
 microscopic toil of the sponge-sarcode, in the renun- 
 ciation observable in more than one community of 
 flowers, in the interdependence of insect and flower 
 as well as in the perfect socialism of every hive of 
 bees, he sees evidence of an elementary religious 
 sense obedient to the prevailing guidance of Eternal 
 Law. Everywhere is carefully organised Service, 
 not of self alone but of the community, and also of 
 " the Law whose purposes transcend these humbler 
 functions." He argues that 
 
 " the elemental beginnings of the religious sense no more necessi- 
 tate self-consciousness than do the beginnings of reason or other 
 human attributes. We do not belittle the giant oak because of 
 its beginning in the acorn ; nor is man's soul the less because its 
 possibility lay dimly in a particle of primordial protoplasm. The 
 difference between the protoplasmic mason and man is this, that 
 man's soul is in part free, and thus responsible to the Law for its 
 labour, while the spongilla is wholly captive to the Law and thrives 
 in a passive obedience." ^ 
 
 In this view, the Eternal Law of the One Mind 
 
 ' The Religions Sense in its Scientific Aspect, p. xi, cf. pp. GS-77. 
 
54 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 ramifies and reaches everywhere in the universe of 
 its manifestation. All life is One. Through the re- 
 ligious sense the Law is sovereign in the rudimentary 
 and in the highly developed. The sublimities of 
 Sacrifice are forecast in the lives of insect and flower. 
 The Law informs the humblest obediences, yet none 
 the less inspires the lofty flights of spiritual genius, 
 and the deepest depths of human devotion. Re- 
 nunciation is no fancy woven in the complex fabric 
 of our environment, but pervades all Nature. It 
 takes effect through the response of the rehgious 
 sense to the rule of Eternal Law, whether the mani- 
 festation appear in the development of the Daisy or 
 the wayside Guelder Rose, or in a Mazzini's " sacred, 
 inexorable, dominant idea of Duty," and his " one 
 pure and efficacious virtue, Sacrifice." So the cos- 
 mical sweep of sovereign Law is unbroken and com- 
 plete. The future evolution of humanity appears 
 as much a part of the cosmic process as its past 
 history. 
 
 It is certainly the view most consonant with that 
 wonderful Unity which is characteristic of Nature. 
 It falls in, for example, with the general witness of 
 naturalists to the very close resemblance between 
 animals and plants. "The laws of variation, heredity, 
 and the struggle for existence apply equally to both, 
 and their evolution under these laws has gone on in 
 a parallel course from the earliest period of the 
 geological record." ^ " There is not a single property 
 of vegetable life that is not found, in some degree, 
 in certain animals ; not a single characteristic feature 
 of the animal that has not been seen in certain 
 1 Russcl Wallace, The World of Life, p. 2. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 55 
 
 species or at certain moments in the vegetable 
 world." 1 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies : 
 I hold you here, root and all, in my hand. 
 Little flower — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." ^ 
 
 Some thinkers, however, would distinctly differenti- 
 ate between the operation of sovereign Law in Nature 
 and in the mind of Man. They, therefore, separate 
 the cosmic from the ethical process. Identifying the 
 former with evil and the latter with good, they regard 
 them as in necessary opposition, until the growing 
 dominion of the ethical shall have finally subjugated 
 the lower instincts. Huxley, for instance, was dis- 
 posed to shut the door on Man's past history, and 
 start fresh, so to speak, with his developed religious 
 sense, which however he considered to be, like the 
 aesthetic, intuitive in origin. We find him saying, 
 " The cosmic order is obviously non-moral : " ^ Law 
 and morals are " restraints upon the struggle for 
 existence between men and in society; " "Morality 
 commenced with society;" "Moral purpose is an 
 article of human manufacture;""^ and so forth. 
 But all this setting of the ethical process in opposition 
 to the cosmic process seems contrary to scientific 
 principles, and doubtfully consistent with Huxley's 
 own belief in the intuitional origin of the moral sense. 
 He does not seem to have recognised fully the gradual 
 adjustment of the organism to its environment which 
 
 1 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, p. 111. (Dr. Mitchell's 
 Trans. 1911). 
 
 2 Alfred Tennyson. ^ Essays, ix, 197, etc. 
 * Romanes Lecture, IST^. 
 
56 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 is implied in " natural selection," — a matter of no 
 less importance than its companion truth of " the 
 struggle for existence." 
 
 But whichever view is taken, the fact of the exist- 
 ence of Man's moral sense is unaffected. There it 
 is, with its instinctive endeavour to honour and obey 
 the Eternal Law with which it is created to corre- 
 spond. We go on, therefore, to inquire, What is the 
 aim and direction of this sovereign Law ? and whether 
 the regular and abundantly witnessed drift of civilised 
 mankind away from conflict and towards mutual co- 
 operation is what we might expect from a progressive 
 obedience to its commands ? Now I take it that 
 most of us are ready to accept what the ripe reflection 
 of the veteran naturalist, A. R. Wallace, lays down 
 as " the irreducible minimum of a rational belief." 
 Namely, that " beyond all the phenomena of nature 
 and their immediate causes and laws, there is a Mind 
 and Purpose : and that the ultimate purpose is (so 
 far as we can discern it) the development of Mankind 
 for an enduring spiritual existence." ^ 
 
 No better statement could easily be found of the 
 trend and direction of the Eternal Law which is the 
 subject of this chapter. This " enduring spiritual 
 existence " is the intended destiny for which Man's 
 evolution from the beginning has been gradually 
 preparing the race. Man's moral sense — ever grow- 
 ing into fuller correspondence with, and comprehen- 
 sion of, the sovereign Law of Eternal Mind — is always 
 urging him to this achievement. It is thwarted by 
 the misuse of Man's volition, but every sign of the 
 times assures us that it cannot be deferred for ever. 
 1 The World of Life, p. 277. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 57 
 
 Eternal Law will win at last, with a magnificence of 
 fulfilment only possible through Man's Freedom, 
 and unattainable by the inglorious automatism of lower 
 forms of life. Know thy future, is as true a talisman 
 as the old philosophic " Know thyself " ; for what 
 is possible lies wrapt up in what is. " Religion," 
 said Mandell Creighton, " is the knowledge of our 
 destiny, and of the means of fulfilling it." ^ 
 
 Human destiny is the perfect accomplishment 
 of Eternal Law. The organ of its influence provides 
 the means for its fulfilment in that ethical and religious 
 sense which in some sort and degree appears to be 
 recognisable in all kinds of created life. This great 
 human inheritance has been, and is, everywhere 
 struggling for satisfaction. The satisfaction is the 
 reward of absolute obedience to the sovereign Law, 
 which throughout the Universe is the expression of 
 that sovereign Mind which most of us call God. 
 Owing to Man's abuse of volition, the correspondence 
 of the religious sense with eternal Law is in his case 
 imperfect. But when the finally irresistible beauty 
 of the Law's demands has drawn Humanity to full 
 allegiance, the whole grand purpose of the Law — 
 adumbrated in the mutual service and co-operative 
 energy of lower forms of life — will be gloriously un- 
 folded. For man, God cannot be content with any 
 second-best. The consummation therefore waits ; 
 for by a mere automatic fidelity it would be dis- 
 honoured. It waits for the gradual, but latterly 
 very manifest, upward movement of man's moral 
 sense in deliberate choice and intelligent grasp of 
 the Law's Ideal. When the true import of Duty 
 ^ Lije and Letters, vol. ii, p, 195. 
 
58 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 lying at the root of all Life as the eternal condition 
 of life and growth, and also the ethics of Freedom, 
 are better understood, " we shall come nearer to 
 interpreting the Master-Law of life which has evolved 
 and holds in leash all lesser laws despite their apparent 
 conflict and confusion." 
 
 But we certainly know quite enough already to 
 be sure of the verdict as between Peace and War, 
 when the case is carried to the Highest Court. The 
 whole face of the world shouts the finding not for 
 " the necessity of War " but for the necessity of Peace, 
 in the future evolution of the human race. The 
 comparative condition of the nations everywhere 
 proclaims this truth. So far from " Peace on earth " 
 being opposed to the One Law which counts — the 
 Law which actually does " govern all life, plant, 
 animal, or national " — Peace is the clearly ordained 
 condition of its fulfilment. So far from fidelity to 
 its mandate involving the subversal of " natural 
 laws by man's folly and conceit," it is man's folly 
 and conceit which are reduced to defending disobedi- 
 ence by the misapplication of the laAvs of nature. 
 As Clausewitz, the greatest of all writers On War, 
 exclaims, referring to some of his confreres' disserta- 
 tions, " Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition 
 to the moral forces of the mind ! " 
 
 Those moral forces recognise the sovereignty of 
 the Eternal Law in correspondence with which they 
 were created. As truly as birth and growth, change 
 and death, increase of kind and ascent in excellence, 
 are properties of all life, so truly there lie imbedded 
 deep and essential in our very nature, the laws of 
 ethics and cTsthetics and the impulse to obey them. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 59 
 
 The sense of Duty is intuitive; it is no notion of 
 purely human manufacture, no merely utilitarian 
 product of society or of environment. When did 
 environment alone, apart from proclivities, generate 
 anything ? Freedom to grow in obedience, which 
 is freedom to be guided by the Law, is the first 
 principle of life.^ It is limited Freedom, if you will. 
 But it is real; just as the choice to the Chess-player 
 of moves and motives is real, despite the fact of laws 
 and limits prescribed by the game. 
 
 In this One supreme Law of the One self-existent 
 and eternal Mind is a truth at once more truly monistic 
 and of greater practical value, than any to be found 
 in the system which, with very questionable right, 
 goes by the name of Monism. Traces of the opera- 
 tion of this sovereign Law are everywhere; and 
 even where the ways of its Wisdom are as yet in- 
 scrutable, the very obscurities may minister to human 
 progress. For education largely consists in develop- 
 ing a perpetual curiosity. And 
 
 " not only the variety and beauty, but even the strangeness, the 
 ughness and unexpectedness we find everywhere in natiu-e are, 
 and therefore were intended to be, an important faetor in our 
 mental development. They excite in us admiration, wonder 
 and curiosity, — three emotions which are the basis of observation 
 and experiment, and therefore of all science and all philosophy." 2 
 
 Moreover it is just this faithful following of truth 
 in the spirit of Milton's golden rule — " to be still 
 
 1 " Before the evolution of Life the portals of the future remain 
 wide open. It is a creation that goes on for ever in virtue of an 
 initial movement. This movement constitutes the unity of the 
 organised world — a prolific unity, of an infinite richness, superior 
 to any that the intellect could dream of, for the intellect is only 
 one of its aspects or products." H. Bergson, op. cit., p. 110. 
 
 2 A. R. Wallace, op. cit., p. 278. 
 
60 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 searching what we know not by what we know, still 
 closing up truth to truth as we find it " — which most 
 convincingly confirms our faith in the integral embrace 
 of the Universe by the Law of which we have been 
 speaking. 
 
 Confirmation, indeed, appears on every hand. 
 Such emotional inheritances as love, renunciation, 
 honour and the like, live and last among us from 
 generation to generation. They do not disappear 
 as useless and unprofitable, as " the eyes have gone 
 from those animals who for aeons have lived in 
 lightless caves." Our enthusiastic estimate of their 
 worth, too, surpasses any feeling attributable to the 
 mere naked need of such qualities, which might 
 account for their survival. By the common sense 
 of most they are pedestalled in triumph in the temple 
 of human regard. These great abstractions so elusive 
 of scientific test or demonstration, as years pass, 
 loom larger and not less on the great canvas of life. 
 This paramount esteem, in which the passion of love 
 and self-sacrificing service is held by general and 
 instinctive consent, testifies to something more than 
 bare utility. It indicates depths of our nature 
 unknown but for these inheritances; it is eloquent 
 of the moral sense which values them so highly, 
 and proclaims the transcendence of the Law which 
 ordained them.^ 
 
 While almost every issue of the daily paper gives 
 exercise to this esteem; so in each record of some 
 serviceful renunciatory choice of the human will 
 is also announced the justification of the Law's Idea 
 in the evolution of Man. Even in his present state 
 1 Cf. Dr. G. Macdonald, op. cit., Lccts. II and III. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 61 
 
 of imperfect development, how often does an instance 
 of this kind startle us with the discovery of the wide 
 and impartial distribution in human nature of qualities 
 men call heroic. The inheritance is there, ready upon 
 occasion to be realised. An accident, an explosion, 
 a fire, a wreck, — any emergency which calls on the 
 reserves of human nature — will almost invariably 
 produce the instinctive response of lofty powers 
 underlying even the vulgarest exterior. Nor can 
 we doubt that the quickness and the prevalence of 
 such response grow with man's growth, and that 
 War is in these days less than ever the necessary 
 nurse of heroes. 
 
 Labour is the great Conqueror. Not War, but 
 Work, is the great Educator ; and the essential watch- 
 word of all permanent advance. When the militarist 
 tells us that Peace on earth is a mere dream, and " not 
 even a beautiful dream; " when he solemnly warns 
 us that " without War the world would sink in a 
 morass of materialism ;" he appears to see no choice 
 open between perpetuation of murder on a grand 
 scale, and a state of demoralising lethargy. But the 
 world is now too old to impale itself on the horns 
 of this imaginary dilemma. The world is becoming 
 aware that " Peace hath her victories, not less re- 
 nowned than War " and infinitely more productive. 
 Proof is everywhere that it is hot the men that give 
 up fighting, who lose stamina and virility; but the 
 men who give up work. The most " unfit " are they 
 who least co-operate in the great struggle of their 
 race against whatever in its environment obstructs 
 real progress and development. And of all such 
 obstacles War is the greatest, as may at any time 
 
62 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 be clearly seen from the condition of those peoples 
 who chiefly occupy their time in conflict, either 
 with their neighbours or among themselves. And 
 it is these, and not the prosperous, hard-working, 
 peace-loving populations, who reap the fruit of their 
 transgression of primordial Law. 
 
 Why is Germany, for instance, great and success- 
 ful ? Not because she is military, but because she 
 is busy. No doubt her last great War indirectly helped 
 to weld her Empire, because it drew the German 
 peoples together for a gigantic co-operative effort. 
 But it was the awakened spirit of mutual service 
 and national co-operation, not the direct fruits of 
 the combat, which constituted the foundation of 
 her remarkable development during forty years of 
 fruitful peace. The ostensible gains from the war 
 of 1870, whether of wealth or territory, gave her no 
 help at all. Within three years of the final payment 
 of Indemnity by France, Bismarck himself said, 
 referring in the Reichstag to German commerce and 
 finance, " We are slowly bleeding to death." The 
 acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine has involved the 
 bitterest heart-burnings, together with enormous 
 trouble and expense. Germany is great and success- 
 ful because she puts brains into all her work, and 
 sticks to it with Teutonic persistence. It is because 
 of this capacity and industry that she is able to afford 
 the huge unproductive luxury of her idolised army. 
 But one need not be an economic expert to see that 
 Germany, and every other big State on this side 
 the Atlantic, would succeed more easily and far bet- 
 ter but for the crushing weight of their monstrous 
 armaments. As it is now, on every competitive 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 63 
 
 contract, the Disunited States of Europe give the 
 United States of America a ten per cent, start into 
 actual profit, while the cost of European militarism 
 is being defrayed. 
 
 There is no possible reading of modern history, 
 nor any sort of experience among civilised mankind, 
 which counters the fact that it is Labour, of hand and 
 heart and head, which is the true Conqueror of the 
 world. That is why the world at last is learning so 
 rapidly the true conditions of survival and success, 
 and the kind of agency required to accomplish the 
 Law's work, which is the ultimate excellence and 
 joy of all creation. And that is why it is no vain 
 imagination, but the most hopeful of all realities, 
 that mankind sees with greater clearness every year 
 that not in disintegrating strife, but in unifying and 
 co-operative work, lies the open secret of perpetual 
 growth and the appointed method of Eternal Law. 
 
 To make this growing comprehension operative and 
 efficacious in national affairs, public opinion needs 
 to be thoroughly convinced that while no law of any 
 sort or kind can be quoted for the necessity of War, 
 the One Law which is sovereign over human destiny, 
 and which the voices of Experience, Science and 
 Philosophy support, maintains the necessity of Peace. 
 It can only require the careful and persistent pro- 
 mulgation of unadulterated truth, to secure that 
 judgment of " the common sense of most " on which 
 all turns. Already the day is past when the forces 
 which make for peace can be dismissed as the sickly 
 sentiment, or morbid enthusiasm of pacifist indis- 
 cretion. For those forces include facts hard enough 
 and logic keen enough to bring a thinker of the 
 
64 SOVEREIGN LAW 
 
 calibre of Herbert Spencer to declare, " Advance to 
 the highest forms of Man and Society depends on the 
 decline of militancy and thegro-wth of industrialism." 
 
 How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since the immov- 
 able foundation of that dictum is the unchallengeable 
 supremacy of Eternal Law. Everywhere in Nature, 
 Unity is the characteristic of that Law. And the 
 universality of its sweep has rooted the principles 
 of Brotherhood and Love so deeply in the constitu- 
 tion of man that the real Solidarity of the Race cannot 
 finally fail of vindication, however human perversity 
 may delay it.^ 
 
 The normal attitude of mankind, although artifici- 
 ally separated by national boundaries, is manifestly 
 one of mutual interdependence, continually tending 
 to co-operation for completer life. This natural 
 attitude requires, and normally secures, a measure 
 of appreciation or at least of sympathy toward every 
 human being of whatever name or nation. And the 
 fact that the malignant spirits whose work is War 
 cannot take possession of a people until what is 
 normal and sane has disappeared, proclaims their 
 disappointment and predicts their doom. 
 
 Just because Violence is increasingly felt by the 
 spirit of man to be unnatural, and because his whole 
 
 1 " At times, in a fleeting vision, the invisible breath that bears 
 all Ufe in its great blast is materialised before our eyes. We have 
 this sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal love, 
 so striking, and in most animals so touching, observable even in 
 the sohcitude of the plant for its seed. This love in which some 
 have seen the great mystery of life, may possibly deliver us life's 
 secret. It shows us each generation leaning over the generation 
 that shall follow. It allows us a glimpse of the fact that the 
 living being is above all a thoroughfare, and that the essence 
 of life is in the movement by which life is transmitted." 
 Bergson, op. cit., p. 135. 
 
SOVEREIGN LAW 65 
 
 being unfolds to Peace as the eye of the body opens 
 to the Hght, " the pain of shutting it out must 
 grow greater and greater." Mankind cannot waver 
 for ever between sanity and madness, " between 
 serving the fiend in the fiery desert, or else God 
 walking in the garden at cool of day; between the 
 tempter's service with wages of death, and the be- 
 queathed Peace with gift of the Morning Star." ^ 
 
 Thus the witness and the appeal well up in 
 unquenchable longing from the inmost souls of seer 
 and singer. Among the latest, most melodious and 
 most missed, is the voice of our last Laureate : — 
 
 " Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule; and Universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, s 
 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Through all the circle of the golden year ? " 
 
 But it is Tennyson himself who elsewhere answers 
 his own question : — 
 
 " When the common-sense of most shall hold each fretful realm 
 in awe, 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in Universal Law." 
 
 Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. v, pp. 356, 357. 
 
The great nations of the World are now in bondage 
 to their armies and navies — increasing bondage. It 
 does not seem to me impossible that they may discovery 
 as individuals have discovered, that Law is a better 
 remedy than Force, and that during all the time they 
 have been in bondage to this tremendous expenditurCy 
 the prison door has been locked on the inside.^ 
 
 The plain truth is, people want War. They want 
 it anyhow. . . . It is the final bouquet of life's fire- 
 works. The born soldier wants it hot and actual. The 
 non-combatants want it in the background, and ahvays 
 as an open possibility to feed imagination on, and keep 
 excitement going. . . . Let the general possibility of 
 War be left open, in Heaven's name, for the imagina- 
 tion to dally with. Let the soldiers dream of killing 
 as the old maids dream of 7narrying. But organise 
 in every possible way the practical machinery for making 
 each successive chance of War abortive.^^ War is Hell.^ 
 
 If we wish to promote progress in the future, we 
 must retain the relation which Providence has insti- 
 tuted between Character and Conduct.^ 
 
 Be transformed, by the renewal of your Mind, that 
 ye may discern and approve the good, acceptable and 
 perfect Will of God. God is Love. 
 
 • Sir Edward Grey. '^ Prof. William James. 
 
 ^ CosiMON Proverb. * Spinoza. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 In the two previous chapters the common con- 
 tention that War is a Biological or Sociological 
 necessity has been confronted with accredited scien- 
 tific opinion, and found to be absurd. We saw how 
 " at every step of his progress Man has receded 
 further and further from the ancient rule exercised by 
 Nature," and that his attributes of knowledge, 
 reason, self -consciousness and will, " justify the view 
 that Man forms a new departure in the gradual 
 unfolding of Nature's predestined scheme." 
 
 The World of Life, which contains the ripest fruit 
 of the knowledge and reflection of that veteran of 
 evolutionary science, Alfred Russel Wallace, carries 
 us still further. The whole book with its wealth of 
 illustration, everywhere testifies to the author's con- 
 viction of a Creative Power, a directive Mind, and an 
 ultimate Purpose, overruling, informing, underlying, 
 the very existence of the whole vast life-world in all 
 its long course of Evolution throughout the aeons of 
 geological time. And this purpose Dr. Wallace finds 
 in the preparation of Man — " the one crowning 
 product of the whole cosmic process " — for " an 
 enduring spiritual existence." 
 
 This doyen among evolutionists, after tracing the 
 " natural " with the laborious steps of close investi- 
 
 F 2 67 
 
68 THE CHOICE 
 
 gation for fifty years, becomes a twentieth century 
 apostle of the " spmtual." In the Hght of this long 
 life's treasure trove, Reason and Faith unite. As 
 we grasp the fact that Evolution itself would be 
 robbed of its crowning product were not infinite space 
 and freedom available for Man's noblest develop- 
 ment, we understand anew that pregnant word, 
 " First that which is natural, afterward that which 
 is spiritual." In a sense which far transcends Paul's 
 primary thought of Mosaism superseded, we hear 
 the harmonious echo of his words : " The fruit of the 
 Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, . . . against such there 
 is no law." 
 
 Forthwith not the words only, but the idea at 
 the back of the militarist's mind — upon which he 
 harps with every possible inaccuracy of expression 
 — the idea that some primitive Law of Survival 
 " governs all life," and must therefore determine 
 human politics " while men are men and states are 
 states," is once more clearly seen to be nothing but 
 a delusion and a snare. 
 
 The spectre of so-called natural or political law, 
 with its alleged necessity for War, is for ever laid 
 for a race which has already largely outgrown the 
 trammels of its physical nature. " So soon as people 
 have done this," as Harnack truly says, " they stand 
 no longer helpless under the iron rule of political 
 laws, but make laws for themselves." 
 
 And that brings us to the question of questions 
 in the whole matter. What laws will the people 
 make ? How will they exercise their heritage of 
 Freedom ? 
 
 Enormous forces in the world to-day whose sport 
 
THE CHOICE 69 
 
 and profit is War, are alive and alert. Whole classes 
 live on war, or on the fear of war ; and chained to War's 
 chariot they would keep the world. Their attitude 
 makes itself felt like the oppressive presence of a 
 lowering storm. Black and electric as a thunder- 
 cloud, their power is charged with disaster. A deep, 
 decided, world-wide Choice against these forces has 
 become the world's first duty, and pre-eminently 
 the duty of Europe where explosion is most easily 
 provoked. 
 
 Let us listen again to the veteran prophet of 
 human progress. " Now that Man has been de- 
 veloped, that he is in full possession of this earth, 
 a great responsibility is placed upon him for the way 
 in which he deals with this his great inheritance from 
 all the ages, not only as regards himself and his fellows 
 of the present generation, but towards the unknown 
 multitude of future generations which are to succeed 
 him." Thus we always come back to the old truth 
 " Man is man, and master of his fate." And Carlyle's 
 favourite lines summarise the position — 
 
 " Choose well, for your choice is 
 Brief, and yet endless." 
 
 For, as Mr. Harold Spender has recently reminded 
 us, the issue is great. Civilisation or barbarism ? 
 yes, but more than that. " A bright future for this 
 Western World, or a sudden, irretrievable downfall 
 in blood and fire ? Shall we have a fair field for our 
 new machinery and new discoveries in the abate- 
 ment of toil and suffering — an opportunity for carry- 
 ing on the fight against poverty to possible success, 
 for perfecting new organisations of law and industry. 
 
70 THE CHOICE 
 
 still in their first infancy— shall we have this, or a 
 sudden smash-up greater and more sudden than that 
 which befell the Roman Empire ? That and nothing 
 less seems to be the Choice before us." 
 
 One thing seems certain. Not this nation or that, 
 but the whole civilised world will ere long be forced 
 to a decision between the ruinous worship of Force 
 and the beneficent worship of God. Two Masters 
 cannot be served for ever. Two opposite opinions 
 cannot be eternally maintained. The time comes 
 when it is no longer possible to continue to keep both, 
 and it is necessary to ally oneself with either one or 
 the other. No Compromise is possible between 
 Christ and Nietzsche. Multitudes even now are 
 mustering in the Valley of Decision. And before 
 them lies the most momentous choice yet proposed 
 in the course of the social evolution of the world. 
 
 This is well understood by the staunchest believers 
 
 in the present supremacy of Physical Force and the 
 
 most confirmed sceptics as to the possibility of change. 
 
 Admiral Mahan, for instance — even while denying 
 
 the practical efficiency of Arbitration as a present 
 
 substitute for War — uses these emphatic words — 
 
 " I believe with full intensity of personal conviction, that when 
 moral motives come to weigh heavier with mankind than do 
 material desires there will be no war, and coincidcntly therewith 
 better provision of reasonable bodily necessities to all men. But 
 the truth still remains as stated by Jesus Christ twenty centuries 
 ago, that between material and moral motives men and nations 
 must commit themselves to a definite choice ; one or the other — 
 not both. We cannot serve God and Mammon. The question 
 is not of the degree of the devotion, but of the service chosen — 
 of the Master. This will be cither the moral motives summed up 
 in the phrase Kingdom of God, or the material. So far as the 
 advocacy of peace rests upon material motives of economy and 
 prosperity, it is the service of Mammon, and the bottom of the 
 platform will drop out when Mammon thinks that war will pay 
 
THE CHOICE 71 
 
 better. The common sense of mankind recognises the truth of 
 this affirmation. We speak of mixed motives ; but we know that 
 to one alone belongs the title ' Master.' And we have common 
 proverbs and common experience that the service of the Moral 
 assures in the end sufficiency of the material. / believe that the 
 time is coming vchen conviction of this truth will take effect in 
 practice, and that indications of its distant arrival can be seen." 
 
 Recent " indications " are certainly arresting. 
 They have in fact multiphed exceedingly since Admiral 
 Mahan's confession of faith appeared in the pages of 
 the National Review. And the latest omens are the 
 most distinctly propitious. Apart from the miserable 
 Turco-Italian set-back, the undeniable drift of civili- 
 sation away from War has been greatly accelerated 
 even during the last year. 
 
 In March 1910, the Representative Head of some 
 hundred million people of America put out a feeler, 
 which was surprisingly well received considering the 
 weight of immemorial prejudice. It even drew a 
 sympathetic, though not very hopeful, leader from 
 The Times. President Taft used these words — 
 
 " Personally I do not see any reason why matters of national 
 honour should not be referred to Courts of Arbitration as matters 
 of private or national property are, I know that is going further 
 than most men are willing to go, but I do not see why questions 
 of honour should not be referred to men of honour who under- 
 stand questions of national honour, to abide by their decisions, 
 as Avell as in other questions of difference arising between nations." 
 
 In December 1910, President Taft returned to 
 the charge, then saying — 
 
 " If we can negotiate and put through private agreements with 
 some other nation to abide by the adjudication of International 
 Arbitration Courts in every issue wliich cannot be settled by 
 negotiations, no matter what it involves, whether honour, terri- 
 tory, or money, we shall have made a long step forward by demon- 
 strating that it is possible for two nations at least to establish 
 between them the same system which, through process of law, 
 has existed between individuals under Government." 
 
72 THE CHOICE 
 
 In March 1911, our Foreign Minister, Sir Edward 
 Grey, made answer thus : " When agreement of that 
 kind, so sweeping as it is, is proposed to us, we shall 
 be delighted to have such a proposal." Sir Edward's 
 courage was amply justified by the subsequent debate 
 in the House of Commons; and on April 28, what 
 may perhaps be regarded as an historic meeting was 
 held at the Guildhall, when, speaking to a Resolution 
 " in favour of a General Treaty of Arbitration 
 between the United States of America and the 
 British Empire as serving the highest interests of 
 the two nations and as tending to promote the peace 
 of the world," the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith^ 
 observed that — 
 
 " what a very few years ago might have been regarded as the 
 dream of idealists has not only passed into the domain of practical 
 statesmanship, but has become the settled purpose of two great 
 democracies," 
 
 The language of Mr. Balfour was no less decided — 
 
 " When a law or a treaty goes too far in advance of the public 
 opinion of the time, it may be that inore harm than good is done 
 by well-meant attempts to embody impossible ideals in paper 
 provisions, but so far as my observation goes — and I do not 
 think I am too sanguine — I believe the great mass of public 
 opinion in all classes is in favour of this ideal being embodied 
 in the form of the Treaty proposed." 
 
 " More eloquent even than the words of the Hector 
 and Achilles of politics," said the Primate who followed 
 them, " was the fact that either speech might have 
 been delivered by the other speaker, so completely 
 were they in accord ! " But from the point of view 
 of these pages the chief interest of this historic Meeting 
 lies not in the great words so unanimouslj^ spoken, 
 nor in the vote passed with glad shouts of " All," 
 
THE CHOICE 78 
 
 but in its public registration (by the two men best 
 qualified to judge the pulse of the whole country) of 
 the practical importance and wide acceptance of the 
 high Ideal which aims at seating Justice on the throne 
 of War. 
 
 And now the story is all but complete, for, on 
 August 3, 1911, the Anglo-American Arbitration 
 Treaty, thus projected, was duly signed, and at the 
 same time also a similar Treaty between America 
 and France. Both, moreover, are said to be so 
 popular in the States that the required ratification 
 by the Senate should scarcely be long delayed. 
 
 No recent happenings could better help us to 
 realise that the Peace-movement, though sometimes 
 weighted by injudicious advocacy, has been unduly 
 despised. It is a genuine " movement," having deep 
 foundations, righteous aims, and wide support. If 
 the day of its Power is not yet actually breaking, 
 that pale light which presages the dawn has certainly 
 appeared in the sky. Whether such signs really 
 harbinger the desired day is likely to depend less on 
 the policies and plans of Governments and Kings, 
 than on whether the movement away from War 
 secures the resolute and enthusiastic support of the 
 democracies of the world. Into the hands of the 
 people, in all civilised countries, (more or less, accord- 
 ing to the level of civilisation reached) fresh power 
 is perpetually passing. Soon the attitude taken by 
 the masses of mankind in every nation will dominate 
 the issue and determine the choice, which ostensible 
 Rulers, after much ado, will no doubt ratify and 
 confirm. 
 
 A brilliant and reliable historian has recorded 
 
74 THE CHOICE 
 
 his opinion that " the important crisis in the fortunes 
 of any movement is that which impresses its aim 
 upon the imagination of the multitude." ^ Looking 
 broadly over the face of the civilised world to-day, 
 it seems quite possible that such an hour may be 
 nearer than certain truculent minds, blind to the 
 indisputable drift of civilisation, care to believe. 
 The whole of Anglo-Saxondom with its practical 
 genius, and much of France with its genius for ideas, 
 are profoundly moved. As to Russia, some may 
 regard the iiair of Tolstoi as merely accidental honey 
 in the carcase, but Russia's millions are only just 
 beginning to articulate. Some day they will speak. 
 Germany, with whom the relations of Austria are 
 intimate, undoubtedly hangs back. The magic spell 
 of the Bismarckian tradition still works. The vic- 
 torious memories of 1870 and the perversions of 
 Nietzsche, infamous and influential, have assisted 
 its longevity. But though the Pan-Germanic faction 
 is powerful, the Prussian Junker is not Germany. 
 The Prussianising of the southern States, especially 
 of Bavaria, progresses with only less difficulty than 
 the process of Germanising the frontier provinces. 
 The task seems to have proved actually heavier 
 in Schleswig and Prussian Poland than in Alsace- 
 Lorraine. Meanwhile the galling bondage of the 
 militaristic regime is continually feeding the forces 
 of internal reaction. Social Democracy,^ despite 
 frequent repressive efforts, and partly perhaps be- 
 cause of them, undeniably flourishes on German soil, 
 
 1 Mandcll Creighton, Cambridge Lectures. 
 
 2 An inclusive term " covering variations of opinion from the 
 doctrinaire system of Marx to a degree of Radicalism which in 
 England would not be considered a bar to a peerage." 
 
THE CHOICE 75 
 
 as polls and press bear striking witness.^ In view 
 of constant war-scares, it is relevant to remember 
 that Germany is not " a homogeneous nation." The 
 contrary is notorious. The homogeneity is nothing 
 but a freak of Mr. Blatchford's fancy. In politics 
 as in religion, the Empire is composed of a hetero- 
 geneous amalgam. As Mr. Fried puts it, " the con- 
 tradistinctions within Germany are greater than 
 those between Germans and the units of any other 
 foreign nation." The bulk of the Protestant working- 
 class population are Social Democrats, a body described 
 in 1901 by the veteran Mommsen as " the only 
 great party in Germany which has any claim to 
 political respect," probably in view of the fact that 
 they alone stand outside the whole system of political 
 bargaining by means of which the other parliamentary 
 groups are manipulated by the imperial Government. 
 In German Social Democracy exists a distinctly 
 pacifist force, probably destined to a future influence 
 far beyond anything now attainable while foreign 
 policy continues to be moulded by Prussia. Quite 
 apart from politics, a more entirely wholesome 
 pacific movement is now well at work among the 
 Churches in the admirable Association " for pro- 
 moting Friendly Relations between Germany and 
 England." Several notabilities of European reputa- 
 tion have shown zeal in this laudable endeavour, which 
 
 1 Socialist newspapers in Germany number over 70, The 
 party won 35 seats in the Reichstag in 1890, 58 seats in 1898 
 and 81 in 1903. Though, by enormous governmental efforts, 
 this number sank to 53 in 1907, yet the Socialist poll in the country, 
 so far from diminishing, actually increased from 3,010,771 in 1903 
 to 3,250,000 in 1907. January 1012 added a million to the poll 
 (35 % of electorate), and won 110 seats out of the total of 397. 
 
76 THE CHOICE 
 
 (combined with the Society in Britain) may render 
 yeoman service by removing, in both countries, the com- 
 post of ignorance, misconception and ill-feehng, which 
 is everywhere the most prohfic producer of War. 
 
 On the whole, the outlook even in the country 
 often regarded as least favourable to Peace ideals 
 is quite as favourable as might be expected. It is 
 a real misfortune for a country of Germany's pro- 
 gressiveness and power to have had so late a birth- 
 day. Older empires should be able to take a more 
 understanding and less jealous view of her exigencies ^ 
 than that which too commonly prevails. Self-re- 
 straint in thought and speech is seldom practised as 
 it might be on either side of the North Sea. And the 
 most miserable misunderstandings result. Although 
 in this twentieth century the predatory instinct is 
 plainly alive and alert, there exists also a fund of 
 common sense capable of perceiving that a period 
 has been reached in which civilisation rules it im- 
 possible to demolish a rival without at the same time 
 destroying an ally. When an awkward competitor 
 and a best customer own the same head, that head 
 cannot be cut off at the sole cost of a troubled 
 conscience. 
 
 The German Empire is very young, as well as 
 very vigorous. Vaulting ambition and a kind 
 of stilted self-consciousness are part and parcel 
 of youthful vigour. The whole Continent counts 
 England hypocritical, but we cannot be such hypo- 
 crites as to pretend no experience of the " mailed 
 fist " and " shining armour " stages of national 
 
 ^ The German situation is discussed with more detail in 
 Chapter XI. 
 
THE CHOICE 77 
 
 development. Though this old country has left 
 behind for ever the aggressive phase, our past should 
 make it neither unintelligible nor irritating. The 
 invitingly gleaming face of the glorious shield of 
 Power is supremely attractive on very short acquaint- 
 ance. But the Restraint which bears that shield 
 becomingly, is bred by ages of experience of the 
 dull reverse, with its balancing burden of Responsi- 
 bility. It is the gift and growth of Time. 
 
 A writer of much historical perception, who is 
 manifestly intimate with modern German life, con- 
 cludes a recent article in the Contem'porary Review ^ 
 with these words : "In whatever light we view 
 Germany — and I am convinced there is no just reason 
 whatever to view her with unfriendliness — we may be 
 guided by one dominant consideration, that she is 
 in process of development." And he exhorts English- 
 men to influence that development for good and not 
 for evil; to aid it with honest good-will, and not 
 hinder it with the poison of suspicion. We ought to 
 remember sympathetically " against what odds, out 
 of the Prussia of a century ago, the German Empire 
 has emerged, fighting hard for existence even within 
 the last fifty years with three of her neighbours one 
 after the other." Small wonder if such recent history 
 still leaves marks upon an attitude which we too 
 readily interpret as one of present menace and 
 proposed aggression. 
 
 English and German thoughts and ways are still 
 curiously apart. The amusing account, once given 
 in a Cambridge lecture, by Dr. Creighton, of his 
 difficulty in explaining to a distinguished German 
 
 1 No. 544 (Apr. 1911), p. 434. Article by F. M. Cutlack. 
 
78 THE CHOICE 
 
 why Duelling was not the vogue in English Uni- 
 versities is illuminating — 
 
 " I first said that we had other forms of athletic sports which 
 we preferred : I described the charms of cricket, football, and 
 boating. ' But,' he said, ' in all these men contend against 
 one another.' I agreed. ' Then,' he pursued, ' they sometimes 
 lose their temper and use injurious words,' I admitted sorrow- 
 fully that sometimes adverse opinions were expressed about the 
 capacity of an otherwise respected colleagvie. ' Then,' he con- 
 tinued triumphantly, ' when a man is injured, he must redress 
 his wounded honour by a duel ! ' This was quite logical : and 
 I could only state the fact, without accounting for it, that it was 
 possible for us to listen to disparaging comments on our failure 
 to catch a ball without feehng personally wronged, or indeed 
 paying any attention to them at all." ^ 
 
 Here we seem actually to see the current thouglit 
 of the two countries on two perfectly different levels. 
 It is no mere difference of opinion : the plane on which 
 the two minds work is a different plane. And it 
 indicates that we may expect an analogous difference 
 when the habit of mind reappears in the Govern- 
 mental attitude on matters of infinitely greater 
 moment. Seeing, however, from the marked fall in 
 the annual number of duels in the German army 
 since the present Emperor's accession, that the Zeit- 
 Geist is at work, some of us may yet live to read the 
 speech of a German Chancellor who sees the sanity 
 of Arbitration, and the practical possibility of a higher 
 aim than simply " to keep War as far off as possible." 
 
 Such higher perception and aim would be worthier 
 of Herr Bethmann von Holwcg's high position than 
 was the old-world Bismarckian tenour of his recent 
 deliverance in the Reichstag, a apropos of Anglo- 
 American Treaty proposals, and would certainly 
 better accord with the spirit of words spoken by his 
 1 Cambridge Lectures, p. 228. 
 
THE CHOICE 79 
 
 own Kaiser only six years ago : " When I ascended 
 the throne, I vowed, as the result of my studies of 
 world-history, never to strive after a mighty world- 
 supremacy. My dream of a world-empire is that of 
 a German Empire which shall be regarded on all 
 sides as a quiet, honest, and peaceable neighbour. 
 If history has ever to record a world-supremacy of 
 the Hohenzollerns, that supremacy will not be based 
 on conquests gained by the sword, but on mutual 
 confidence between ourselves and other nations which 
 are striving after similar objects." 
 
 The following sentences from a speech with which 
 the Peruvian President opened Congress at Lima, 
 on July 29, 1911, are of interest, because they illus- 
 trate the effect produced by the example of a leading 
 nation upon the aim and spirit of other countries' 
 policy, and because they show how the new leaven 
 is at work in all quarters of the world. President 
 Leguia said — 
 
 " The policy of my government has been moderate, fearlessly 
 defending what we considered our rights in a spirit of conciliation, 
 proclaiming our faith in the principles of Arbitration, and thus 
 increasing our prestige in the eyes of America. Our close and 
 cordial relations with the United States are daily becoming 
 stronger, owing to the decisive influence of the great Republic 
 in favour of the peace of this continent." 
 
 He goes on to refer to Peru's relations with Bolivia 
 and Colombia — with whom differences have been 
 satisfactorily settled by arbitral negotiation — and 
 with Ecuador and Chile, in which cases " Peru is 
 not responsible for any difficulty at present existing, 
 my Government having declared its willingness to 
 accept unreserved Arbitration." 
 
 It is scarcely possible to regard the recent in- 
 
80 THE CHOICE 
 
 excusable outbreak of liostilities in Tripoli but as 
 further illustrating the effect of example, though of 
 a very different kind. The Bosnia and Herzegovina 
 annexation in the face of Treaty obligations, and the 
 menacing method adopted by Germany in opening 
 recent French " conversations " upon her expansive 
 needs, were incidents obviously not lost upon Italy. 
 She chose a moment for the prosecution of her piracy 
 which precluded the utterance of any German protest. 
 And a further possibility as to the future fate of the 
 Tripolitaine, unless quickly secured, may easily have 
 presented itself to Italian statesmen, in view of the 
 prevailing predatory malaria. The contamination 
 from any deliberate lowering of the level of inter- 
 national politics is sure to be contagious ; just as every 
 exercise of national restraint, every reference of 
 disputed matters to higher arbitrament than that 
 of Force, indefinitely tends to purify and elevate 
 international relations generally. 
 
 How Italy will emerge from her present struggle 
 is still on the knees of the gods. It is to be hoped 
 she may not find in Tripoli another Abyssinia. 
 Nietzsche of course declared that a " good war justi- 
 fies any cause." That sort of " justification " for 
 the Italian cause Turks and Arabs may be trusted to 
 provide. But the awful exhibition of vindictive 
 savagery, which Moslem and Christian alike seem to 
 have given, illustrates afresh the atrocious passions 
 excited by war. Cruelty was to be expected from 
 Arabs stung by hostile invasion, but it was sad 
 that Italian soldiers should so soon have forgotten 
 Giuseppe Garibaldi. Or do they now no longer 
 admire "the inborn and native grace which seemed 
 to attend all his actions " ? More than one recent 
 
THE CHOICE 81 
 
 scene in Tripoli must have disturbed, even in his 
 grave, that heroic figure among the makers of 
 modern Italy, who " united the most profound and 
 tender humanity with his fiery valour." 
 
 But let us pass from this rough survey of the 
 nations and return to " the people " — the greatest 
 army after all in every nation, because it is productive. 
 Is their own outlook upon life likely to range these 
 Rulers of the future on the side of Peace or War ? 
 How will this enormous question, in Creighton's 
 phrase, " strike their imagination " ? The first step 
 toward answering that, is to ask what already con- 
 stitutes their ideal. Now I think-it may be taken as 
 an admitted truth that, speaking broadly, there are 
 three essential elements of human life really dear 
 to the people. Leaving aside for the moment the 
 dignity of labour, the average working-class Ideal 
 seems to be compounded of these three ideas : Reli- 
 gion, Association, Liberty. Each of these elements 
 is more than living, it is' germinal : and that of 
 which each contains the seed is not War but Peace. 
 Consequently I regard their combined influence in 
 the popular mind as of cardinal importance in con- 
 nection with the Peace-movement in the world. 
 
 Let us see. First, as to Religion. It is sometimes 
 said that the great masses of mankind are irreligious. 
 But they are not. It is not theij who are opposed to 
 the Christianity of Christ. Whether they go to 
 Church or not, they still " hear Him gladly." De- 
 spite the Babel of contending sects, the people hold 
 by Jesus Christ. Their regard for morality is in- 
 tense : and they are never found belittling the 
 Sermon on the Mount. If neglect of common worship 
 
82 THE CHOICE 
 
 leads many of them to miss the great idea of Fellow- 
 ship inherent in Religion, they all believe in Associa- 
 tion for practical purposes, and thoroughly understand 
 its power. Moreover, this idea is conceived in a large 
 and noble way which brooks no hampering national 
 limits. Their Brotherhood movements. Co-operative 
 Societies, Socialist Federations, Labour Unions, are 
 all, more or less, international. Such organisations 
 are educative. They prepare the way for that larger 
 view of the world's life into which the limited patriot- 
 ism, which was a virtue and a necessity in the past, 
 is now in process of translation. 
 
 So with their love of Liberty. That again refuses 
 to be limited by considerations of race or clime. 
 And even the spirit of Nationalism, if it tends to isolate 
 the gifts of freedom and progress from the universal 
 life palpitating everywhere, will be rejected as in- 
 adequate. In the eyes of the people, separate nations 
 will increasingly appear as the separate families of 
 Humanity. And even as no man can completely 
 fulfil his duty as a father, who fails in the higher 
 duty which he owes to his Country ; so no man can 
 rightly fulfil his duties as a patriot, who fails in the 
 higher duty which he owes to Humanity. That 
 doctrine, which never prevented in Mazzini the love 
 of his native land from burning as a fire in his bones, 
 has still to come to its own; but it is coming. And 
 the international scope of existing popular organisa- 
 tions will further its acceptance in the precise quarter 
 where its acceptance is most necessary, owing to the 
 continual widening of enfranchisement. 
 
 Thus, though the old Choice still confronts the 
 world, and we have to reckon with human wills whose 
 waywardness God Himself will but challenge not 
 
THE CHOICE 83 
 
 command; though even appeals the most Divine 
 must always end in the fateful "if yc will receive 
 it " ; yet none can doubt that much of the old blind- 
 ness which broke Christ's heart is gone for ever; that 
 the base desire and cruel hope, wrapped up in the 
 old promise of the Tempter, of "the kingdoms of this 
 world and the glory of them," are weakening before 
 yet another advent of the Lord of Life and Light, 
 Whose kingdom, though it cometh " without observa- 
 tion " like the dawn, shall yet be " with power and 
 great glory " like the light whose going forth is to the 
 ends of heaven. 
 
 Everywhere are signs of dissatisfaction with that 
 world of War which Ruskin so vividly describes in 
 the closing pages of his greatest book^ — that " world 
 of Chaos and of the Night with her daughters — 
 where men desire to possess rather than to give, and 
 look for power to command instead of to bless." 
 Everywhere the heart of Humanity is turning toward 
 the truer world of another Government, " a new 
 earth," no more without form, and void, but sown 
 with the fruit of Righteousness and Peace. Yet the 
 judgment and the choice are left to us. " The 
 growing Light may still be shut out from many a 
 dark place of cruelty, or by sloth may be unseen for 
 many a glorious hour." And it behoves us to give 
 earnest heed to that Divine insistence, which, in 
 mercy, makes the pain of shutting out the light grow 
 greater and greater; and harder every day the 
 struggle of man with man in the abyss ; until the hope 
 before us is no longer supremacy instead of Love, and 
 our prosperity no longer " seems to us to issue out of 
 contest or rivalry with other men or other nations." 
 1 Modern Painters, vol. v, pp. 354-357. 
 
Non exercitus, neque thesauri, prcesidium regni sunt, 
 verum amici} 
 
 Rulers and Statesmen can set before themselves no 
 higher aim than the promotion of mutual good under- 
 standing and cordial friendship among the nations of the 
 zvorld. It is the surest and most direct means whereby 
 humanity may be enabled to realise its noblest ideals r 
 
 Treaties and international understandings are year 
 by year minimising the risks and narrowing the area of 
 possible contention between States. Far more important 
 as a settled and growing influence is the increasing dis- 
 position of the various peoples to know and understand 
 one another. I do not think it is an exaggeration when 
 I say that, a generation or two ago. Patriotism, not only 
 here but in other countries, was largely fed and fostered 
 upon reciprocal ignorance and contempt."' 
 
 What can we do ? We can endeavour to understand 
 the needs, the feelings, the endowments, the traditional 
 aspirations of other countries. We can do what lies in 
 us to remove the suspicions and misunderstandings which 
 serve perhaps more to stir animosities among nations 
 than either ambition or pride. We can assure ourselves 
 by quiet thought that the glory of a nation does not lie in 
 unlimited dominion, but in fulfilling its office for the 
 great commonwealth of mankind, and so preparing 
 within its own sphere the advent of international concord.* 
 
 ' Sallust. - KiN'« Edward VII. "' H. H. Asqiith. 
 
 ^ BllOOKE FOSS ^VESTCOTT. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SOUL or PATRIOTISM 
 
 The next great Step onward and upward in the 
 social evolution of mankind consists in the establish- 
 ment of Law and Justice on the throne now occupied 
 by Violence as final arbiter and last resort in the 
 settlement of the world's affairs. The purpose of 
 these pages is to show that the considerations which 
 still operate to keep public opinion clinging to stone- 
 age ideas on the necessity of War are not only base- 
 less, but quite unworthy even of the present stage of 
 human development. This on the one hand : and on 
 the other, to emphasise the evidence of the Moral 
 Consciousness of humanity and the corresponding 
 urgency of Sovereign Law in favour of removing inter- 
 national differences from the primitive arbitrament 
 of the sword. 
 
 I venture to believe that the growth of public 
 opinion in the right direction may be helped by an 
 appeal to the whole of human nature, instead of to 
 that part alone which is affected by considerations 
 of policy and expediency, and by the bearing of such 
 comparatively new facts as a synchronised Bank- 
 rate and re-acting Bourses so tellingly set forth by 
 Mr. Norman Angell. Men are moved through the 
 conscience and imagination and affections, as well 
 as through their calculating faculties. And the 
 
 85 
 
86 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 emotional part, of their human inheritance is as real 
 and as effective a possession as that of either lungs or 
 brain. George Eliot made an observation character- 
 istic of her insight when she wrote, " After all has 
 been said that can be said about the widening influence 
 of ideas, it remains true that they would hardly be 
 such strong agents unless they were taken in a solvent 
 of feeling. The great world-struggle of developing 
 thought is continually foreshadowed in the struggle 
 of the affections, seeking a justification for love and 
 hope." ^ 
 
 Now if that observation be accurate; if human 
 affections have a way of being beforehand with human 
 thought, and of "foreshadowing" its direction; if 
 human feeling is a powerful factor in the influence of 
 ideas; it is plain that their initial acceptance may 
 be prevented and their progress hindered, whenever 
 these ideas appear to oppose themselves to the dic- 
 tates of the heart. Feeling, in this case, instead of 
 acting as a solvent in which the idea becomes easily 
 assimilated and strongly operative, sets all the emo- 
 tional forces of human nature in arms against the 
 intellect. Mind and soul, instead of " according 
 well " and making " one music " for the onward 
 march, keep on acting and re-acting against each 
 other, making any bold advance difficult if not im- 
 possible. 
 
 Such considerations magnify the importance of 
 the apparent opposition, or at least incongruity, of 
 which we are immediately aware when, facing the 
 possibility of a world of Peace replacing a world of 
 War, we begin to set this idea in some sort of relation 
 1 Romola, vol. ii, p. 235. 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 87 
 
 to our patriotic feeling. There is here a very real 
 difficulty in the path of progress. The problem of 
 the true relation between the ideals of Patriotism 
 and Peace is one which cannot be avoided, and which 
 urgently demands more careful and less prejudiced 
 treatment than it has usually received. The civilised 
 world stands now at the parting of the ways, where a 
 right or wrong Choice may be affected in no small 
 degree by a wise or unwise handling of the great 
 patriotic tradition. 
 
 If what sociologists call our " tribal conscience " 
 is to grow naturally into the consciousness of the 
 paramount supremacy of the needs of civilised 
 humanity as a whole, it is plain that some evolution- 
 ary change in the patriotic instinct is called for. 
 Bismarck, a few years ago, in reference to his Kaiser's 
 enthusiasms, used to say, " at my time of hfe one no 
 longer believes in the practicability of schemes for 
 the benefit of humanity at large." But, in spite of 
 Bismarck, " humanity at large " is precisely the 
 organism with the development of which Social evolu- 
 tion is concerned. And the next step in the world's 
 advance involves the frank recognition that none of 
 the lesser loyalties of human thought and feeling— 
 not even the great and glorious national spirit which 
 in the past has effected so much in reducing the chaos 
 of human life — can be allowed to encumber the path 
 of progress which once they served to clear. So much 
 is certain. 
 
 But does it therefore follow that Patriotism is to 
 be accounted the enemy of Peace ? I cannot think 
 so. I am perfectly convinced that nothing which the 
 word Patriotism properly connotes need be regarded 
 
88 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 as an obstacle to progress, or as an element of hesita- 
 tion in taking " the next step." And this convietion 
 has not been reached without a careful study of all 
 that Tolstoi has contrariwise written. I yield to no 
 one in my admiration of the splendid service rendered 
 by this great man to the cause of Humanity ; but his 
 diatribes against what he regards as patriotic feeling 
 appear to be not only mistaken, but sadly prejudicial 
 to the interests which he had most at heart. 
 
 But before we come to the jaundiced views in 
 which he seems to lead men needlessly astray, owing to 
 prejudices to which his own upbringing and environ- 
 ment made him peculiarly liable, there are points in 
 his teaching which in the present transitional period 
 of thought it will be well to note. Tolstoi is quite 
 ready to allow that patriotic feeling has been splen- 
 didly influential in welding heterogeneous races into 
 orderly united Kingdoms protected from barbarian 
 encroachment. In days of yore, " when every nation 
 appeared to itself as an island in an ocean of barbarism 
 which ever threatened it with inundation; " in times 
 when barbarous attacks not only involved the destruc- 
 tion of the social order, but " wholesale plundering 
 and murder, the enslavement of men and the rape of 
 women;" the safeguard of Patriotism was incalcul- 
 ably valuable. But " every man of our own time 
 knows full well, however little educated he may be, 
 that the men against whom his patriotic hostility is 
 now stirred are not barbarians, but just such Christians 
 as he, frequently professing the same form of Faith, 
 and desiring, like him, nothing but peace and a peace- 
 ful exchange of labour." 
 
 It will be said that Patriotism has united men in 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 8& 
 
 States, and keeps up the unity of States. " But this 
 work is all done; why should men now maintain an 
 exclusive loyalty for their state, when this loyalty 
 produces calamities for all states and nations ? 
 Patriotism no longer unites, but disunites. To say 
 that what was beneficent in the great days of Greece 
 and Rome is just as beneficent now, after nineteen 
 hundred years of Christian life, is the same as saying 
 that, since ploughing was useful and beneficent for 
 the field before the sowing, it will be as useful now,, 
 after the crop has grown up." 
 
 Now with the general gist of the foregoing words 
 we can scarcely quarrel. And they may help us to 
 realise that some change in the common conception 
 of the patriotic ideal — " My country right or wrong, 
 and right or wrong my country " — is forced upon us 
 by any rational view of the ever-changing conditions 
 of the world. Indeed, we may take them as a forcible 
 reminder that even the glorious patriotic tradition is 
 no exception to the universal rule that nothing lives 
 except in virtue of its becoming otherwise in growth 
 and change. It is certain that every true principle 
 alike of Religion and Science is now clearly seen to 
 make for the Solidarity of the Race. This truth so 
 conforms with that sense of human Brotherhood which 
 2,000 years of Christianity have helped to root more 
 and more firmly in the constitution of Man, that any- 
 thing whatever which is really a barrier to that Union 
 among Nations for which by dint of their Christian 
 consciousness they are becoming prepared, is as- 
 suredly doomed. If Patriotism be such a barrier; 
 if its essential idea could fairly be accused of hindering 
 progress, not only by delaying the consolidation of 
 
90 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 the World's Peace, but by preventing that Federal 
 Unity among civilised nations which in the judg- 
 ment of the late Lord Salisbury constitutes the only 
 hope of averting a conflagration in Europe; then 
 assuredly Patriotism, despite all the glorious asso- 
 ciations of its splendid past, must go. But is the 
 great patriotic sentiment, rightly understood, such a 
 barrier ? Let us see for ourselves. 
 
 We know that by no one has Patriotism been more 
 powerfully arraigned than by Tolstoi, in the course 
 of his magnificent apostleship of Peace. No one has 
 said such bitter things of it. But are they justified ? 
 Despite all he has urged, I own to the firmest belief 
 in an undying mission for patriotic feeling. Even 
 though the Kingdoms and Empires it has founded, 
 and still unifies, have become largely transformed 
 from within by social and religious enlightenment, 
 and the bent of patriotic ideals should therefore take 
 a higher range, we shall never assist their purification 
 and uplifting by entering on a campaign of needless 
 abuse. An acuter sense of the reality of the great 
 human Brotherhood, of the Oneness of the great 
 organism we call Humanity, is gradually penetrating 
 every civilised region, and the hope of the world is 
 bound up in its progress. But that progress is not 
 conditioned by the extinction of Patriotism.^ It will 
 rather grow out of its fuller and more abundant life. 
 For Patriotism rightly understood is an invaluable 
 educative force. In the large words of Lord Avebury, 
 " the love of one's country elevates the conception of 
 
 ^ Unless, indeed, we dishonour that great word b)'^ using it to 
 signify the tiresome braggadocio once lashed by Dr. Johnson as 
 " the last refuge of a scoundrel." 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 91 
 
 citizenship, raises us above the petty circle of personal 
 and even family interests, to the true width and 
 splendour of national life. The real imperial spirit 
 is not one of vain-glory, but of just pride in the ex- 
 tension of our language and literature ; of our people 
 and our commerce, on land and sea ; and a deep sense 
 of the great responsibility thus imposed upon us." 
 
 But any such attitude as this toward the patriotic 
 sentiment was impossible to Tolstoi. Much that he 
 has said of it is not only bad strategy from the pacifist 
 point of view, but it is bad philosophy ; and so far as 
 it confuses the use and abuse of Patriotism, it appears 
 to be illogical. 
 
 Writing in a land but recently emerging from the 
 dark ocean of despotism, obsessed with an almost 
 anarchical belief in Governmental capacity for inter- 
 national mischief, the great Russian prophet had come 
 to look upon the patriotic instinct of the people as 
 little more than a dangerous tool ever ready for wicked 
 exploitation by their rulers. It appeared to him as 
 the perennial source of international crime. Its 
 qualities were only the more detestable for being a 
 caricature of virtue. He saw mankind perpetually 
 hindered in stretching forward to the goal of its destiny 
 by the spirit of Nationalism which could no longer 
 forward its march. He saw this spirit diligently 
 nursed by every government, so that through its 
 influence the very people who most suffer and least 
 gain by War might be easily aroused to attack some 
 other nation, for the sole advantage of the ruling 
 caste. Consequently, no language can adequately 
 express Tolstoi's hatred and contempt for the instru- 
 ment of such gigantic evil. 
 
92 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 As it has become an engine for enabling Rulers to 
 keep people in ceaseless fear of other people's aggression 
 and thus the more subject to their authority for pro- 
 tection, " Patriotism is slavery." As it was the 
 watchword of such astonishing orgies as for example 
 marked the Toulon celebrations of the Franco- 
 Russian alliance, he writes of Patriotism as " beastly." 
 As it is " nothing but a preference shown to one's 
 own state or nation in comparison with any other 
 state or nation," for Tolstoi it is both " stupid and 
 immoral." Stupid, because " if every state will 
 consider itself better than any other, it is obvious 
 that they will all be in the wrong; " and immoral, 
 because it leads the patriot to seize advantages for 
 his own state and nation at the expense of others; — 
 " a tendency directly opposed to the fundamental 
 moral law recognised by all men : not to do unto 
 another what we do not wish to have done to our- 
 selves." 
 
 Finally, after reciting instances of the changed 
 conditions of modern life, and the commingling of its 
 interests in commerce, art, science, and religion, 
 which are ever growing more international, he bitterly 
 concludes : " No matter how much we have tried for 
 centuries to conceal the meaning of Christianity, it 
 has none the less trickled through into our life, and is 
 guiding it in such a way that the coarsest and most 
 stupid of men cannot help but see the absolute in- 
 compatibility of Patriotism with those moral rules 
 by which men live." 
 
 But neither coarseness nor stupidity is necessary 
 to make one rather see that the real target of Tolstoi's 
 tirade is not Patriotism at all in any true sense, but 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 93 
 
 simply its grossest abuses. The root of his bitterness 
 plainly lies in the conviction that the Governments he 
 hated are continually " provoking hostile relations 
 under the guise of Patriotism," either to bring about 
 War or to obtain the credit of appearing to prevent 
 it, as may happen at the time to be expedient. He 
 himself likens the process which kindles his wrath to 
 the conduct of the gipsy who puts pepper under his 
 horse's tail and lashes it in the stall, in order that 
 when the animal is led out, its master may appear to 
 have the utmost difficulty in restraining its mettle- 
 some caprices. This illustration alone is enough to 
 show what angers his soul and envenoms his speech. 
 As he would confiscate the horse-dealer's pepper and 
 whip, so he would mulct the Chauvinist politician of 
 his chance of " gingering " the people, by utterly up- 
 rooting the sentiment which is liable to such nefarious 
 use. 
 
 Tolstoi, in fact, adopts the familiar line of the pro- 
 hibitionist reformer. If anything lends itself to fla- 
 grant abuse, it is at once pronounced to be essentially 
 bad. It must be forthwith boycotted, banned, and 
 abolished, and any vilification which may promote 
 this end is thereby justified. Wine, on this principle, 
 gets described as " the devil in solution," though a 
 certain old Book remarks that it " maketh glad the 
 heart of man," and though on a certain festive occa- 
 sion it was supplied in surprising excellence by the 
 Redeemer of the world. In the same way, we are to 
 be rid of the risk of our Patriotism being misused by 
 learning to hate it, as perhaps once a virtue but " now 
 unquestionably a vice." We are told that " \Miat 
 produces War is the desire for an exclusive good 
 
94 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 for one's own nation, — what is called Patriotism. '^ 
 Hence, " to abolish War it is necessary first to become 
 convinced that Patriotism is an evil." That is 
 Tolstoi's argument. Its validity obviously depends 
 upon our understanding Patriotism to mean " the 
 desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation," 
 and on this desire involving war. 
 
 But the desire of an exclusive good for one's own 
 nation is not of the essence of Patriotism at all. And 
 it is bad logic to describe sour milk and then argue 
 from the description that therefore all milk is bad. I 
 may love my own garden better than my neighbour's, 
 and may even be specially pleased with certain plants 
 which give it distinction, but I do not grudge my 
 neighbour the precisely similar love and similar 
 pleasure, as natural to him as to myself. But it 
 would appear that I cannot genuinely love my garden 
 unless I am always scheming to prevent my flowers 
 being grown by other people, — which is absurd. But 
 it is no less absurd to maintain that a peculiar love 
 for one's own land involves ill-will to every other. 
 There is no sort of necessity for such a consequence. 
 The patriotic Englishman is no traitor to Words- 
 worthshire because he loves the Lakes and Mountains 
 of Italy and Switzerland; nor do Rhine Castles and 
 Thuringian Forests seem sinister because the castles 
 are not at Warwick, or at Edinburgh, or even at 
 Carnarvon, and because the German forests can 
 produce no Stone of Rufus, no ghost of Robin Hood, 
 no vivid memories of Shakespeare. The patriotic 
 American can celebrate the Fourth of July, and 
 boast Niagara and the Rockies, no less cordially for 
 his pious pilgrimage to Stratford, his wonder in 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 95 
 
 Westminster Abbey, and his joy in the antiquities of 
 the Tower. 
 
 Now this extended appreciation, this modern 
 cosmopoHtan instinct, is typical of exactly what is 
 called for in the sphere of personal and national rela- 
 tions. The widening sense of community of interest 
 in all things human, which, partly in consequence of 
 phenomenal facilities of intercourse, is characteristic 
 of modern life, in no way interferes with particular 
 affection and regard. It is certain that no man loves 
 his home less for loving his country ; then why should 
 love of country be incompatible with love to all man- 
 kind ? Concentration of particular affection, as the 
 love of child and parent or of husband and wife, in- 
 volves no hostility to those outside the family circle. 
 And so it comes to pass, as Maurice truly taught, that 
 " he is most Just, on the whole, to every other nation, 
 who has the strongest feeling of attachment to his 
 own." 
 
 It is not real Love of any sort, but only its travesty, 
 which can ever beget enmity. And the growing 
 sense of the greater human brotherhood no more de- 
 mands the extinction of patriotic feeling than Patriot- 
 ism calls for the extinction of natural affection. 
 Human capacity for love is not a fixed and limited 
 capacity. On the contrary, the more love is exercised, 
 the more it is drawn upon, the more it abounds and 
 flourishes. The more men love, the more they are 
 able to love; for it is a law of our nature that love 
 begets love. 
 
 Is it not indisputably true that those nations whose 
 patriotic ideal is purest — the peoples who best pre- 
 serve its essence (love of the patria, the Fatherland) 
 
96 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 least tainted with extraneous and disfiguring lusts of 
 domination, greed, or glory — are just those for whom 
 the word Home means most ? And what is more 
 natural than that the larger love of Country should 
 have for very nursery the more concentrated and 
 first cherished affections of Home ? What is a man's 
 country, in one at least of its most appealing aspects, 
 but the great aggregate of homes like the one he loves 
 best ? And it is precisely because the man has learnt 
 in the limited sphere the unselfishness of love, that 
 when the call comes, he is able to make those patriotic 
 sacrifices which so often clash with family affection. 
 And just as no man thinks less of home because he 
 has learned to live, and if need be to die, for his native 
 land ; — as that very home is ever in his heart and often 
 on his lips, though a hemisphere may intervene, as 
 countless camp-fires have heard and countless com- 
 rades of heroes have told ; — so also may a man's un- 
 stinted cherishment of his patria prepare his heart 
 and mind for a larger and completer love, and for a 
 due appreciation of the contributions of countries not 
 his own to the sum of the world's enrichment. 
 
 Therefore let no man think that he serves the 
 cause of progress, or of peace, by trampling the great 
 Ideal of Patriotism in the mud. The cause of inter- 
 national amity is the cause of Love freed from the 
 limitations imposed by the earlier stages of the world's 
 evolution. And as the flower of mankind has already 
 solved the preliminary difficulty of conflicting affec- 
 tion in the case of Home and Country, with positive 
 gain to both ideals, so may the greater problem find 
 solution, when the full glory is realised of that larger 
 life into which it is the destiny of the patriotic impulse 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 97 
 
 to be translated and transfigured. The extinction 
 of Patriotism is an idea which, were it thinkable, 
 would be revolting. No cause can ever be served 
 by the death of any Love that is noble and pure ; but 
 Love itself rejoices even in those seeming sacrifices 
 which ever meet it on the way to larger life. And it 
 is but the perfecting of the love we call patriotic which 
 summons us to extend as far as possible its unifying 
 power, forbids us to rigidly confine its range within 
 those national limits which have largely served .their 
 educative purpose, and prepares us constantly to view 
 it in relation to the greater whole, of which the country 
 that each of us naturally and rightly loves best is a 
 component part. 
 
 What was it, in fact, but the mistake of degrading 
 Patriotism to selfish ends, which lost us America ? 
 Our whole present colonial policy is instinct with the 
 very opposite spirit to that against which Burke at 
 the crucial moment in 1775 so splendidly, though 
 vainly, strove. Had his words been heeded by the 
 ears which first heard them as they have been heeded 
 since, it is scarcely too much to say that the Anglo- 
 Saxon race would now appear before the world as an 
 undivided people. 
 
 " My hold on the colonies," he cried, " is in the close affection 
 which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from simi- 
 lar privileges, and equal protection. There are ties Avhich though 
 light as air, arc strong as links of iron. Let the Colonies always 
 keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government ; 
 they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will 
 be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it once be 
 understood that your government may be one thing and their 
 privileges another ; that these two things may exist without any 
 mutual relation, — the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and 
 everything hastens to decay and dissolution. ... To men truly 
 initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master-principles, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 which in the opinion of men who can rcaUse nothing but what is 
 gross and material have no substantial existence, are in fact every- 
 thing, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the 
 truest wisdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill together. 
 Sursum corda ! Let us lift up our hearts to the greatness of that 
 trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting 
 to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a 
 savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most 
 extensive, and the only honourable, conquests ; not by destroying 
 but by promoting the wealth, the mmiber, and the happiness of 
 the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got 
 an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it 
 is. English privileges alone will make it all it can be. In full 
 confidence of this unalterable truth, I now {quod Jelix jaustumque 
 sit) lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace." 
 
 But the Patriotism of Britain in that day could not 
 rise to this level. It rejected the stone so grandly- 
 laid in full accord with the everlasting Law of the 
 great Master-Builder, and refused to build thereon 
 by a parliamentary majority of 270 to 78. To this 
 " patriotic " majority the only " practicable " thing 
 was War. And swift upon this use of violence there 
 fell vexation — the immense vexation of the loss of 
 America to the British Crown, and of a prolonged 
 estrangement between two great peoples of the same 
 stock. But to Burke and to the minority who voted 
 " Conciliation " belongs the eternal honour, not only 
 of their protest against harsh and vulgar methods, 
 but of the actual initiation of those infinitely more 
 sagacious principles which are the backbone of our 
 Colonial policy unto this day. The prophetic per- 
 ception that " ties though light as air might yet be 
 strong as links of iron " proved itself splendidly true, 
 in the testing-time of trouble in South Africa. And 
 surely the shade of Edmund Burke might almost have 
 been seen hovering over Lord Rosebery when — ad- 
 dressing the Colonial Premiers assembled in London 
 
THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 99 
 
 for the Coronation — he said : " You in your Domin- 
 ions have your own domestic problems to face. . . . 
 But here we have nothing to do with them, for the 
 principle of our Empire is that you should settle all 
 these affairs for yourselves." Certainly nothing could 
 have more rejoiced Burke's noble spirit than the con- 
 cluding words of England's public orator : 
 
 " I ask our guests to take back with them to their homes and 
 their Parhaments, a message of Empire, a message of Unity, and 
 a message of Peace. They may take with them, too, a more sub- 
 Hme conception of the future than has been possible at any time 
 since the Coming of Christ. They may take back with them a con- 
 ception of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen, encircling 
 the world with its Dominions, floating its Flag in every zone, 
 strong in the strength that is based on self-governing communities 
 of free peoples ; and united to that, and shoulder to shoulder with 
 it, the giant Republic of the West, both Empire and RepubUc 
 conjoined after long years of estrangement in the blessed hope of 
 the promotion of Peace both by influence and example," 
 
 The true value and right view of Patriotism have 
 
 perhaps never been more discriminatingly touched 
 
 than in some winged words spoken last year, by the 
 
 present Bishop of Winchester, to a German audience 
 
 at Berlin. Bishop Talbot said, 
 
 " Among the patriotisms of the world none are stronger than 
 the patriotism of Germany and the patriotism of England. To 
 both of us the Nation, the Patria, the Fatherland, is a name pre- 
 cious and dear. What has Patriotism taught us ? It has taught 
 us to forget self and serve a common cause. Shall not Patriotism 
 itself teach us to go further on that good road ? Shall we serve 
 Patriotism by forgetting its lesson ? For, I ask you, is there no 
 whole greater than the single nation, however great, however 
 historic ? I answer, we must answer, yes : there are greater 
 wholes. The Christendom of Europe is one ; the Human Race is 
 yet another ; and the Kingdom of God upon earth, that is a third. 
 Loyalty to the country is splendid ; but there are other loyalties. 
 Patriotism is a noble ideal ; let us not make of it an idol. There 
 is no reason why we should do so. Each nation is an instrument 
 for the service of humanity and God. But nations get separated. 
 Separated by languages, "by history, by rivalries, by suspicion. 
 Patriotism may turn selfish, and when selfish it turns sour. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE SOUL OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 " Let statesmen decide for us our force by sea and land. Let 
 it be ours to create the spirit which shall use that force for blessincc 
 not destruction, for life not death. Force, machinery, material 
 power, have grown enormously in our lifetime. There is enough 
 of them in the world. What we need to cherish is the spiritual 
 force which binds man to man, and nation to nation, by an inner 
 bond, stronger than selfishness, or ambition, or any material 
 thing." 
 
 Such sane and gracious speech is redolent of that 
 higher air which the pubhc opinion of all countries 
 needs to breathe easily and naturally, in order to find 
 firm foothold for the next step onward in the destiny 
 of mankind. Nor is there any sort of reason why the 
 Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races, by virtue of their 
 practical genius and positive spirit, should not lead 
 the way in this mighty Reformation. So mote it be ! 
 
Public men are not the most powerful. A public 
 man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. 
 It is private life zvhich governs public men and Cabinet 
 Ministers.^ 
 
 What can we do ? We can cherish the noblest ideal 
 we have formed of the destiny of mankind, and we can 
 refuse to surrender one ray of its glory under the stress 
 of disappointment. We can check in ourselves, and in 
 others, every temper which makes for war, all ungenerous 
 judgments, all presumptuous claims, all promptings of 
 self-assertion, the noxious growths of isolation, arrogance 
 and passion.'^ 
 
 Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
 Down with ambition, avarice, pride. 
 Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 
 The bitter springs of anger and fear; 
 Down too, down at your own fireside. 
 With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
 For each is at war with mankind.'^ 
 
 • Lord Beaconsfield. - Bishop Westcott. 
 
 ■* Alfred Tennyson. 
 
7n the comparatively early stage of human advance- 
 ment in which we now live, one may not feel that entire- 
 ness of sympathy with all others which would banish all 
 discordance in the conduct of life; but already the man 
 in whom the Social feeling is at all developed cannot 
 bring himself to think of the rest of his fellow-creatures 
 as struggling rivals with him for the means of happiness, 
 whom he must desire to see defeated in their object in 
 order that he may succeed in his^ 
 
 Social imagination — a great regenerator — is steadily 
 developing. The most characteristic modern inventions 
 are those that make us see further, and think and act 
 further. This promotes ethical consciousness, or good- 
 ness, and better, and more permanent, motives. Social 
 imagination is growing. Wild horses cannot drag a 
 man away from doing right, if he really sees, vividly, 
 what the right is.^ 
 
 We needs must love the highest when we see it.^ 
 
 1 John Stuaht Mill. ^ Gerai-p S. Lee. 
 
 * Alfred Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Herodotus, that prince among Historians, had 
 a faculty for hghting up his relation of bare facts 
 with picturesque bits of detail and dialogue which, 
 though not always strictly historical, make his pages, 
 even after this lapse of time, eminently readable. 
 
 In recounting the capture of Sardis by the Persians, 
 he tells us how Croesus, the Lydian King, and some 
 of his chief men were, according to the gentle usage 
 of the day— but not quite agreeably with the Persian 
 reverence for Fire — about to be burnt alive for the 
 delectation of their conquerors. While the pile is 
 preparing, Crcesus, who accepts his fate as a matter 
 of course, first regales Cyrus with stories of the 
 wisdom of Solon, who seems to have come from Athens 
 to pay the king a visit in the days of his wealth, and 
 then proceeds to add some notable reflections of his 
 own : " No one," declares he, " is so foolish as to 
 prefer war to peace — war in which, instead of sons 
 burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons ;" but 
 he had been persuaded into this particular campaign 
 by what he understood to be the will of Apollo, who, 
 nevertheless, seems to have left him in the lurch. 
 Then, as Crcesus watched the Persian soldiers making 
 havoc in Sardis, he goes on to ply his conqueror with 
 
 103 
 
104 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the question : " What is it, O Cyrus, which those 
 men yonder are doing so busily ? " " Plundering thy 
 city," came the answer, " and carrying off thy riches." 
 " Not my city," rejoined Croesus, " nor my riches. 
 They are not mine any more. It is thy wealth which 
 they are pillaging ! " ^ 
 
 This view — a remarkable anticipation of some 
 modern economic arguments — effected something 
 even in that early day, for Cyrus rewarded the 
 speaker's acuteness by ordering the now lighted 
 pile to be put out. But the story reminds us 
 of a psychological fact, as well as of an economic 
 futility; for, despite the militarist fable that human 
 nature never changes, all modern attempts to civilise 
 by massacre do now, in fact, arouse the horror of 
 the world, and even in Tripoli there has been no 
 literal holocaust of unarmed foes. 
 
 When, however, we have taken all possible credit 
 for such modern mercies as may temper the savagery 
 of War among civilised men, our daily paper forbids 
 us to forget that economic argument, whether ancient 
 or modern — even though supported by " sjmchron- 
 ised Bank-rates and re-acting Bourses " — contends 
 in vain with the unbridled passions which goad 
 nations into fighting. More psychological explosive, 
 for example, can be manufactured in a week by the 
 lying attribution to the Ambassador of a rival 
 Power of some slighting journalistic comment, than 
 truth and logic can destroy in a year. Or, again, 
 take the strange apparition of a great Empire's Heir 
 who mistakes a crucial debate in his country's 
 
 1 Book I, §§ 85-88. Rawlinson, p. 214, vol. i. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 105 
 
 Parliament for a stage spectacle inviting the ad- 
 vertisement of his Chauvinistic leanings to the 
 world ! Such an indiscretion is perhaps too flagrant 
 to be disconcerting. To the rational and reflecting 
 mind there is nothing inflammatory in the ebullience 
 of youth ; but what of the irrational and unreflecting, 
 so numerous in every land ? 
 
 These episodes may be but straws, but they in- 
 dicate the presence and pressure of the wind, whose 
 whirling gusts of misconception and dislike all too 
 easily make way for a disastrous storm of jealousy 
 and hate — for that mysterious tempest of passion- 
 ately malignant feeling which is only the less con- 
 trollable in proportion to its lack of reasonable 
 cause. Such incidents should therefore not be lost 
 upon us. And their lesson is both general and 
 particular. 
 
 The particular lesson belongs to us as Englishmen, 
 as it is against us, more even than against France, 
 that German ill-feeling has quite recently assumed 
 the proportions of a menace. It behoves us to ask 
 ourselves ^ whether British policy may not, however 
 unwittingly, have given some ground for the as- 
 sumption, which undoubtedly prevails on the further 
 shores of the North Sea, that we desire to belittle 
 the importance of Germany in the eyes of the world. 
 It behoves us honestly to consider whether as a 
 people we may not appear too ready to resent in 
 other nations a patriotic imperialism we admire in 
 
 1 Two Articles in The Nineteenth Century and After, November 
 1911— "Britain and Germany," by J. H. Whitchouse, M.P., 
 p. 828 ; and "The Franco-German Dispute," by E. D, Morel, p. 834, 
 deserve thoughtful digestion ; as well as " England and Germany," 
 by Noel Buxton, M.P., in The Contemporary Review, p. 605. 
 
lOG THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 ourselves. Sir Frank Lascelles has confirmed in a 
 recent speech the fact that such impressions have 
 produced a real grievance in Germany, which makes 
 her people hypersensitive and suspicious, and con- 
 sequently ready to believe concerning us what is 
 totally untrue. That a sweeping alteration of opinion 
 in the direction of unfriendliness to England has 
 recently occurred in Germany is undeniable; and 
 the fact that Anglophil Committees have been 
 affected, and that Anglophobes have even appeared 
 among the pacifist Social Democrats, points to the 
 conclusion that this evil spirit of hostility has not 
 arisen wholly out of the miasma of misrepresentation 
 and distortion which has chiefly contributed to poison 
 the relations of both peoples, to their common injury 
 and the injury of the world. 
 
 Such circumstances surely give point to the 
 imperative call upon civilisation to engage in the 
 spread of Wisdom, which may keep Public Opinion 
 immune from the attacks of that " sword-in-mouth " 
 microbe, so often a fons et origo mali, which can 
 rapidly and fatally infect a whole people with the 
 dire disease of War. 
 
 Among the influences tending to clear, in 
 Germany and England, the mephitic air of jealousy 
 and suspicion, must be counted the known desires 
 of the Kaiser himself, and the firm and dignified 
 attitude of the German Chancellor, in a situation of 
 late extremely difficult, with his opportune citation 
 of Bismarck's strictures upon " preventive war " — 
 war undertaken on the ground that it would be 
 inevitable later on — and his declared regard of even 
 victorious wars as " a peril all must try to avert." 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 107 
 
 On our own side the water we may reckon the 
 philosophical wisdom of Mr. Haldane, the straight- 
 forward utterances of Mr. Winston Churchill, the 
 well-balanced language of Sir Frank Lascelles, for 
 thirteen years our Ambassador at Berlin; and above 
 all, the wise and weighty words of our Prime 
 Minister — 
 
 " British friendships are neither exclusive nor jealous. We 
 have no cause of quarrel with any nation, nor, wth such a history 
 .and such an Empire as ours, have we any disposition to curtail 
 or to fetter the natural and legitimate aspirations of others. We 
 rejoice with sincerity and without reserve in every settlement 
 which removes upon honourable and durable terms outstanding 
 differences, which clears the mists of misunderstanding from the 
 international atmosphere, and which broadens the foundations 
 of peace and good-wll in Europe and the world." ^ 
 
 Passing from the particular to the general, the 
 dangerous tension of feeling to which reference has 
 been made is only one more illustration of the thesis 
 that the whole of human nature must needs take 
 part in the great social transformation which will 
 eventually substitute the machinery of Law and 
 Justice for the arbitrament of Violence. 
 
 If the barbarous use of Physical Force is not to 
 remain final arbiter and last resort in the adjustment 
 of international needs, and in the settlement of inter- 
 national disputes, it is abundantly plain that other 
 factors must ally themselves with the human intellect 
 in order to create the new Public Opinion necessary 
 to effect this tremendous change. To the first of 
 these " other factors " the last chapter was de- 
 voted : namely, the extension of the patriotic ideal 
 to embrace that greater whole of which the country 
 we each quite rightly love best is only a part. But 
 1 Close of Speech at Guildhall, Nov. 9, 1911. 
 
108 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 besides this perfecting of Patriotism, what Professor 
 CHfford calls our " tribal conscience " sorely needs 
 expansion. Last, not least, the progress and eleva- 
 tion of Opinion demand the unhindered, united and 
 publicly manifest array of the forces of Religion 
 against the continuance of War. 
 
 The Social sense, pure and simple, we may perhaps 
 contently leave to the care of a Time-spirit evidently 
 solicitous for its development. Although the bear- 
 ing of that development upon our problem is direct, 
 yet the Social sense is so bound up in human nature 
 with the sense we call Religious, and its influence is 
 so manifestly in the same direction, that for most of 
 us the greater will seem to gather up and fulfil the 
 purpose of the less. 
 
 Before we pass, however, from the purely social 
 to what is more strictly religious, we ought not in 
 these democratic days to miss a point made by Karl 
 Pearson — that, while the tendency of our age is 
 always throwing back responsibility from the in- 
 dividual upon the State, yet this is really only throw- 
 ing it back on the social conscience of citizens as a 
 body. As Professor Pearson puts it — 
 
 " The wide extension of the franchise has cast a greatly- 
 increased responsibihty on the individual citizen. He is brought 
 face to face with the most conflicting opinions, and with the most 
 diverse party cries. ... He is thrust into an appalling maze 
 of social and educational problems; and if his tribal conscience 
 has any stuff in it, he feels that these problems ought not to be 
 settled by his own individual prospects of profit or loss. He is 
 called to form a judgment apart, if it possibly may be, from his 
 own feelings and emotions; — a judgment in what he considers 
 to be the interests of society at large." ^ 
 
 However obviously difficult this may be in particular 
 
 cases, 
 
 1 Grammar of Science, pp. 5, G. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 109 
 
 " The tribal conscience ought, for the sake of social welfare, 
 to be stronger than private interest; and the ideal citizen, if he 
 existed,! would form a judgment free from personal bias." 
 
 This, then, is the sociological position as it appears 
 to the author of The Grammar of Science. All I 
 adventure further is that the social instinct exists 
 for the production of " ideal citizens," and that this 
 produce is increasing, despite the fact that, through 
 the misdirection of man's will, he may still seem to 
 be outstripped even by bees in sundry particulars 
 of social organisation. We are, however, evidently 
 getting on, despite the eccentricities of human voli- 
 tion. The purely egoistic stage has been definitely 
 superseded. The tribal consciousness is an admitted 
 fact of Sociology. The required organ is there, ready 
 for further development. In due time it will fully 
 respond to the needs of the Organism, which is neither 
 the individual, nor the nation, but Mankind. It is 
 by the completer comprehension of these needs that 
 the tribal limitation will grow less and less insistent; 
 as the more primitive egoism has already yielded. 
 
 That a high development of man's Social sense is 
 a condition precedent to the Passing of War be- 
 comes self-evident directly we give due weight to 
 the just and unanimous contention of militarist 
 writers, that " War is only a continuation of State- 
 policy by other means." Clausewitz,'- for instance, 
 is emphatic : " In one word, the art of War, in its 
 highest point of view, is policy; but no doubt a 
 policy which fights battles instead of writing notes." 
 Accordingly, " war can never be separated from 
 
 1 On this doubt see injra, pp. 111-114. 
 - Of. cit.. Introduction, et al. 
 
110 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 political intercourse," for " wars are in reality only 
 the expressions or manifestations of policy itself." 
 Of course that "only" is not strictly accurate; for 
 War, as Clausewitz has himself shown ^ in a masterly 
 analysis, is a great deal more than a political instru- 
 ment. But that war and policy are closely bound 
 together is undeniable. What, then, is policy ? Policy 
 in this connection represents the general interests of 
 a whole Community. What determines policy ? 
 
 Public opinion. What determines public opinion ? 
 
 The view of its interests which most commends itself 
 to the Community. And what will determine 
 
 that view ? The stage of development reached by 
 the Social Sense of the Community. Upon that will 
 depend the sort of policy pursued; that sort which 
 naturally completes itself in War, or that which is 
 perfected in Peace. 
 
 Thus the cardinal importance of using every 
 possible means of fostering the Social sense is patent. 
 Such means were happily summarised, 150 years 
 ago, by " the greatest man since Milton," as Macaulay 
 called him — Edmund Burke : " It is our business 
 carefully to cultivate in our minds, to rear to the 
 utmost vigour and maturity, every sort of generous 
 and honest feeling that belongs to our nature ; to bring 
 the dispositions that are lovely in private life into the 
 service and conduct of the Commonwealth ; so to be 
 patriots as not to forget that we are gentlemen." 
 
 If the use of that recipe had been general instead 
 
 of exceptional among Western nations since, " with 
 
 the large utterance of the early gods," Burke gave it, 
 
 the scientific observer of to-day would have been 
 
 1 On War, Bk. I, ch. i, cited siipra, pp. 19, 20. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 111 
 
 spared, after describing his " ideal citizen," the 
 ignominious interjection, " if he existed." This would 
 no more have occurred to him than it would, for 
 example, to a Japanese publicist, writing in a land 
 where the energies of daily conduct are habitually 
 and nationally actuated by a high ideal. In the 
 West, however, Matthew Arnold's " three-fourths of 
 life " too often run out into a casting of the commoner 
 mould of mere Philistine materialism.^ 
 
 But, however slow the movement, the world 
 advances. There are thousands in England to-day, 
 for every ten in Burke's day, who can see something 
 more profound than platitude in his maxim, " There 
 is no qualification for government but wisdom and 
 virtue, actual or presumptive. Wherever they are 
 actually found they have, in whatever state, con- 
 dition, profession or trade, the passport of heaven 
 to human place and honour." 
 
 As Dr. Montagu Butler reminds us,'- " India is 
 still, as it was a hundred years ago, the truest touch- 
 stone of England's conscience." Compare, then, 
 
 1 " Take the average modern scheme of hfe of the average 
 Society of the West. Bushido, as nearly as may be, represents 
 its exact antithesis. It offers us the ideal of Poverty instead of 
 wealth, Humility in place of ostentation, Self-sacrifice instead 
 of selfishness, the care of the interest of the State rather than that of 
 the individual. Bushido inspires ardeiit Courage, It looks death 
 calmly in the face and prefers it to ignominy of any kind. It 
 preaches submission to authority, and the sacrifice of all private 
 interests, ivhether of self or family, to the Common Weal. It enjoins 
 and requires strict physical and mental discipline ; and by lauding 
 the virtues of Constancy, Courage, Fortitude, Fidelity and Self- 
 restraint, furnishes an exalted code of principles, not for the 
 warrior only, but for men and women, in times both of Peace and 
 of War." — Times Article on The Soul of a Nation. 
 
 2 Ten Great and Good Men (Arnold), p. 18. Lectures to which 
 I gratefully acknowledge sundry obligations. 
 
112 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Burke's outlook on Indian affairs (to which he gave 
 fourteen years of laborious and unbroken study) with 
 the outlook of statesmanship in our own day; and 
 realise the change in Social consciousness involved. 
 Burke's scathing indictment of the " Company " 
 for vulgar heartlessness, as much as for downright 
 cruelty, is as historical as his more famous impeach- 
 ment of Hastings. The stock plea was that the public 
 faith was plighted to their Charter; but for Burke 
 any such fidelity to crime appeared simply intolerable 
 cant. " If I kept such a faith with what is called the 
 Company, I must break the faith, the covenant, the 
 solemn, original, indispensable oath, in which I am 
 bound by the eternal frame and constitution of things 
 to the whole human race." There speaks the ideal 
 citizen, who already held that " all persons possessing 
 any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully 
 impressed with the idea that they act in trust, and 
 that they are to account for their conduct to the one 
 great Master, Author and Founder of Society," and 
 that nothing in heaven or earth is surer than the 
 retribution in store for tyranny and the petty greed 
 of the oppressor. " If we make ourselves too little 
 for the sphere of our duty; if we do not stretch and 
 expand our minds to the compass of their object; be 
 well assured that everything about us will dwindle 
 by degrees, until at length our concerns are shrunk 
 to the dimensions of our minds." 
 
 Warren Hastings, we know, was acquitted. Burke's 
 great Impeachment failed. But Burke's witness for 
 truth and righteousness did not fail. In the words 
 of the Master of Trinity,^ " It cleared the sluggish 
 
 ^ Op. cU., p. 17. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 113 
 
 air of British indifference. It touched the national 
 conscience. It quickened the sense of trusteeship. 
 It awoke in his countrymen their slumbering moral- 
 ity, recalled them with a voice of power to their better 
 mind, and ensured the dawning of a brighter day." 
 
 That brighter day may be recognised in such words 
 as these, spoken in the House of Commons in 1895 
 by Sir Henry Fowler (Viscount Wolverhampton) : 
 " Every member of this House, whether elected by 
 an English, or by a Scotch, or by an Irish con- 
 stituency, is a member for India. All its interests 
 are committed to the individual and collective 
 responsibility of the House of Commons. I ask the 
 House to discharge this gigantic trust uninfluenced 
 by any selfish or party feeling, but with wisdom, and 
 justice, and generosity." That such words could have 
 been spoken, and acted upon as they were, is a public 
 registration of the fact of the influence on policy 
 of the progress in social Consciousness, through the 
 development of the social Sense of a great community. 
 
 Nor is more recent illustration lacking. If the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be credited, " the 
 ideal citizen " who profits nothing by the reform he 
 sets himself to carry out not only " exists," but is 
 becoming an increasing force in the State. Mr. 
 Lloyd George counts it " one of the mistakes the 
 Labour Party are making, that they thought they 
 would win reform through the people who suffered 
 only." He evidently agrees with Mr. Benjamin 
 Kidd,^ for he continues — 
 
 " No reform was ever so brought about, but always through 
 the help of those who profited nothing. Take any reform — the 
 1 Social Evolution, passim, 
 1 
 
114 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 extension of the franchise. The people who moved to extend it 
 were the people who already had it. Look at the reforms carried 
 during the last few years. The men who worked for them gave 
 and sacrificed in order to effect them." 
 
 He instances men, advanced in years, appearing in 
 the House of Commons, and (after being immersed 
 from an early horn- each day in some of the greatest 
 business undertakings in the country) remaining there 
 till three or four a.m., in order to impose a heavy tax 
 upon themselves ; and he concludes : " There has 
 never been a revival or a reform carried through 
 except by the help and leadership of men who gained 
 nothing, and perhaps lost much, from those move- 
 ments. That is the history of the world from the 
 beginning to the end." 
 
 When, therefore, we are told that War must 
 endure for ever because it is indissolubly bound up 
 with Policy, let us answer that, so far as that is true 
 — and true it is in a very great degree — the doom of 
 war is only thereby rendered the more certain by 
 the gradual transformation of policy in the slow but 
 certain process of social evolution. Further, let us 
 dismiss for ever from our minds the baseless fable 
 that the example of nations aiming at a high ideal 
 and resting their policy on the deep foundation of 
 Christian morality is an impracticable dream. But 
 before we can do this, we must tear from our eyes 
 those scales of prejudice which confine our outlook 
 to the world as it once was, and prevent our seeing 
 the world as it now is. We must learn to recognise 
 and welcome the rising international spirit whicli 
 chafes against the narrowness and artificiality of 
 those national limits which once were vital to human 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 115 
 
 progress, but now call for readjustment to meet new 
 conditions in the world. 
 
 I have instanced from our relations with India 
 the practicability of a high political ideal. But has 
 not the very last decade furnished a still more 
 strikingly dramatic example in another continent ? 
 Have we not actually seen that it may be found less 
 practicable to " stagger humanity " by the bloody 
 course of war, than to surprise it by the swift and 
 peaceful reorganisation of a war-worn land, largely 
 through the co-operation of the foes of yesterday 
 become the friends and fellow-workers of to-day ? 
 How few years ago the prophet who foresaw General 
 Botha an honoured guest at the Coronation of the 
 King of England would have been accounted mad ! — 
 and yet perhaps not more mad than he who in 1895 
 had predicted that the leaders of our Government 
 and of the Opposition would meet at the Guildhall in 
 1911 to proclaim the idea of War between England 
 and America an unthinkable thing, which unthink- 
 ableness the public opinion of two great democracies 
 desired and determined to register for ever in a solemn 
 Treaty ! Yet such predictions would have been 
 justified by events — events, too, which mean much 
 more than mere sport of the whirligig of time. As 
 years pass, mayhap, it will dawn on the statesman- 
 ship of the world that idealistic policy is the most 
 practical and permanently effective of all policies, if 
 only men dare practise it; as their Social and their 
 Religious sense have been urging on their Reason 
 age after age. 
 
 No doubt the reinforcement of the Social sense 
 to the point at which the tribal conscience habitually 
 
116 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 forgoes what may look like a tribal advantage for the 
 sake of a larger Weal, calls into operation motives 
 which belong strictly to the sphere of Ethics and 
 Religion. So that we pass by a natural transition 
 to what plainly should be the most powerful of all 
 the factors bearing on the problem of Peace and 
 War. 
 
 We have seen that so far as the thinking of science 
 and philosophy has been applied to this controversy, 
 its conclusions enormously preponderate on the side 
 of the angels. Every principle of Social Science, as 
 well as of Pure Religion, makes for the truth of human 
 Solidarity. Yet the admitted fact that Man is both 
 a gregarious and a worshipping animal is only now 
 beginning to force him " seriously to lay to heart 
 his unhappy divisions," and to contemplate the 
 possibility of abolishing the greatest of them all. 
 And we cannot be surprised if public opinion at 
 present largely fails to recognise the weight and 
 importance of the enormous social and religious 
 forces, as yet but poorly organised and tragically 
 disunited, but which, as the world advances, are 
 undoubtedly destined to take a larger and larger 
 part in the determination of the issue. These forces 
 are " natural " allies of progress, in the deepest 
 possible sense of the word natural. And for that 
 reason should be the more eagerly welcomed. 
 
 But can we be astonished if they are not ? Can 
 we wonder if the world, now grown into a conviction 
 of War's barbarism, looks askance at the prospect of 
 support which for so long has been at best equivocal ? 
 How often has the sacred name of Religion, like that 
 of Patriotism, been used to qualify the larger truth 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 117 
 
 and obscure the higher view for which all that is 
 sound in the heart of the world is longing ! 
 
 From the peculiar relations of Church and State 
 in Russia, for the great Oriental Church every Russian 
 War is still ipso facto a " religious " war. The 
 Western Church for centuries used the sword with 
 Mohammedan zeal until she was disarmed. Even 
 the Vatican Decrees of 1870 magnified the arm of 
 flesh, and clung to the old idea. Yet he is blind 
 who cannot see that the Roman Church was greater 
 under Leo XIII, than under Pio Nono with his 
 accentuation of Temporal claims. Even the Anglican 
 Church erstwhile has played with the dangerous fires 
 of Temporal Power, though she may fairly be ac- 
 quitted of the suicidal policy of making it her chief 
 ambition. 
 
 The present, however, not the past, is our con- 
 cern; and confining ourselves to that, must it not be 
 said that if the social and religious sense is to be 
 reinforced, and to become the power for good it was 
 intended to be, current religious teaching must attain 
 to something more definite in the way of conviction 
 than a dim inkling that perhaps after all the prophets 
 and apostles, the philosophers and poets, were not 
 wholly foolish and fanatical ! Is it not high time that 
 the accredited public voice of Religion in every 
 civilised land should speak with less uncertain sound, 
 if human wills are to bestir themselves to fresh 
 endeavour ? Are we not yet convinced, with Edmund 
 Burke, that " By an eternal law, Providence has 
 decreed vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine " ? 
 And if we are, why do we persist in exposing our- 
 selves to cynical taunts upon our futile use of twenty 
 
118 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 centuries of neglected light ? When are " religious " 
 people, for example, going to allow Religion, which 
 is the deepest principle of Unity among men, to 
 become the great God-ordained Unifier of the Race ? 
 How long is it scandalously to remain, in Mr. Balfour's 
 phrase, " the great Divider of mankind ! " 
 
 Why, even a heathen out of a pre-Christian past, 
 or a Hindoo Brahman or Japanese Buddhist of our 
 own day, may put our boasted Christianity to shame ! 
 Here is the wisdom of Greece three hundred years 
 before Christ : " Look to the spirit, not to the letter; 
 to the intention, not to the action ; to the character 
 of the actor in the long run, not in the present moment. 
 Remember good rather than evil. Wish to settle 
 a matter by words rather than by deeds." ^ Here 
 speaks India, in the nineteenth century after Christ : 
 "To be a Christian, then, is to be Christlike," says 
 Kesub Chundah Sen, — " not acceptance of Christ as 
 a proposition, or as an outward representation; but 
 spiritual conformity with the life and character of 
 Christ. . . . Allow me, friends, to say that England 
 is not yet a Christian nation." The indictment is 
 not untrue. 
 
 Such savagery as recently disgraced the streets 
 of Liverpool, for instance, would be utterly im- 
 possible in Burmah or Japan. In Japan there is 
 a disciplined moral will, and a general diffusion of 
 moral culture, which speak in character and conduct 
 more eloquently than any words. Though Western 
 teaching and example have taught her much the 
 Buddha would have disapproved no less than Christ, 
 in particular the art of scientific slaughter, yet, as 
 1 Arist., lihet., i. 13. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 119 
 
 we have seen, the very profession of arms in Japan 
 is controlled by a lofty ethical code. If competent 
 witnesses are to be credited, the Samurai of the 
 nation's heroic age were not more saturated with the 
 principles of Bushido than is the Japanese soldier of 
 to-day. For the Bushi, mercenary motive is despi- 
 cable, and self-control the most cardinal virtue. With 
 this sort of spirit quickening rank and file, we begin 
 to understand how Japanese statesmen declined to 
 regard the imposition of a cash indemnity as the 
 natural result of their country's victory over Russia. 
 
 Japan no doubt will have her reward. The 
 opposite course, pursued by Christian Germany for 
 instance after the War of 1870, has proved extremely 
 expensive. But that does not detract from the 
 ethical value of conduct only possible in " repre- 
 sentatives of a nation whose moral instincts have 
 been trained to a high level of vigour and discern- 
 ment." Nor does it lessen the service this non- 
 Christian nation has rendered to the world by a high 
 example of international magnanimity after a war 
 quite unjustifiably provoked by one of the great 
 Powers of Christendom. 
 
 Now, seeing that we Christians have an abstract 
 ideal unquestionably higher than any generally ac- 
 cepted in Japan, an object-lesson such as this should 
 give us " furiously to think." Yet there is no real 
 anomaly. We must face the patent fact that while 
 the nominally Christian nations of the West are un- 
 controlled by their Christian ideal, the social and 
 religious ideals of a non-Christian people may control 
 and influence them from the least to the greatest. 
 The Self-poise, which European culture professes in 
 
120 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the abstract to admire, is a concrete habit and 
 practice of the more dignified East. From what 
 Professor L. P. Jacks has called " the motoritis of 
 character " — the mood of a man who cannot be any- 
 where without at once desiring to be somewhere else 
 — the Japanese, for instance, is saved by his aesthetic 
 sense alone. Among the well-to-do, life is something 
 more than a mere process of exhaustion; while no 
 pressure of poverty can rob the poor of the dignity 
 of manhood. Having learned " in whatsoever state 
 he is, therewith to be content," he has the talisman 
 commended of St. Paul. And because the vision of 
 a "joy in widest commonalty spread " is never 
 wholly absent from his mind, he knows how to find 
 his happiness in that which makes others also happy. 
 
 The striking chapter on " The Moral Supremacy 
 of Christendom " with which the Editor of The Hibbert 
 Journal closes his recent book. The Alchemy of 
 Thought, should be digested by the clergy. If 
 Christianity is so taught in the West that neither 
 the Christian ideal, nor even the " Gothic qualities " 
 of chivalry and honour, are generally operative, while 
 other Faiths are producing higher policy and better 
 lives, Christendom is challenged indeed. To the 
 man whose eyes are open, the broad outlines of 
 any policy of blood and iron, from the story of British 
 colonial expansion — however splendidly compensated 
 by subsequent administration — down to the Italian 
 descent on Tripoli — however blessed by Princes of 
 the Church — have really " as little to do with chivalry 
 and honour as with the Sermon on the Mount." 
 
 Or take accordant witness of quite another kind. 
 The other day an English workman recounted in 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 121 
 
 a morning paper how an end came to the ethical 
 famine in his soul. Though " a patient Hstener to 
 innumerable sermons, lectures and speeches," year 
 after year he went empty away. But now, he tells 
 us, the light has come at last. A moral miracle has 
 been wrought, which " sufficed to kill all my troubles 
 and keep me in perfect peace." How then ? By 
 the simple discovery of — Marcus Aurelius ! " To 
 clasp his feet and weep my heart out there, would be 
 my supremest joy : " " For the sake of his matchless 
 Meditations I would willingly barter all other books 
 that have ever been written : " and so on, for a 
 column.^ 
 
 But is there no sort of serious significance in such 
 a fact as this, that in a nominally Christian country 
 this " patient Hstener to innumerable sermons " 
 must wait for his soul's awakening till he happens on 
 the wisdom of the great Stoic Emperor ? Has the 
 normal presentment of Religion amongst us become 
 so emasculated of its ethical strength that the 
 philosophy of the Porch strikes the imagination of 
 this thirsting soul as a transcendent and unique 
 specific for the ills of life ? Have Church and Chapel 
 and their religious wars brought us indeed to this, 
 that it appears to a British working-man that " to 
 show our love of Wisdom, nay, to redeem our life 
 from destruction," we ought at once to " put up 
 schools of philosophy in every town and every 
 village " ? 
 
 Reflection on tlie present fate even of schools of 
 reading and writing — the prey of codes and syllabuses, 
 and the battleground of fanatics— makes this proposal 
 1 Daily Mail, August 1911. 
 
122 THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 supremely pathetic. Nevertheless this earnest man's 
 appeal may stand for witness and for warning — 
 
 " Let it be no longer said that amid all the strident voices 
 of to-day only the voice of wisdom is hushed ; that the world was 
 turned upside down to give the toiler an extra shilling here, an 
 hour or two more of ease there, while his soid remains fettered, 
 inarticulate, unseeing, marred beyond recognition. The people 
 sit in darkness upon whom a great light has shined. Who 
 among us will remove this reproach from our generation and 
 unbandage its eyes ? " 
 
 But if there be pathos in the desire for schools to 
 teach what no man can learn except he be willing 
 to teach himself, let not our artisan make a tragedy 
 of his disabilities. Has he not decided (however 
 hastily) that " no trace of wisdom is discernible in 
 the lives and words of the cultured," to whom he 
 seems to grudge their disused " inkling " of his 
 Aurelian treasure ? Then who is to remove the 
 " bandage " or silence the " reproach " ? Let him 
 go back to his chosen prophet, and learn " What a 
 power a man himself has to do nothing except what 
 God will approve, and to accept all that God may 
 give him," ^ and be at peace. Above all, let him 
 remember that " Hatred and War, as well as astonish- 
 ment, torpor and slavery, will daily wipe out those 
 holy principles " - he has imbibed to the renewing 
 of his life. Let him, and all his fellows too, spare an 
 ear for Francis Bacon, no mean philosopher, who 
 called to England in days of storm 400 years ago, 
 when war and rapine had a vogue which has long 
 vanished, and who calls out of that age of violence 
 to us to-day, " It is due to Justice that Man shall 
 be a God to man, and not a wolf." Every " thirst- 
 ing mind " among the masses, may find each for 
 1 M. Antoninus, xii. 11. ^ Ibid., x. 9. 
 
THE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 123 
 
 itself, schools or no schools, the whole philosophic 
 world in general agreement with that Baconian 
 utterance. From Antisthenes to Nietzsche, a dis- 
 cordant note is extraordinarily rare. And in the 
 latter case, — which stands prodigious and unique in 
 its iconoclasm, — we know how the brain of genius 
 reeled under Nietzsche's record attempt to traverse 
 the finality of the human intuitions which prompt 
 men to good-will. The upshot of his system, like 
 the end of his career, is the reduction to absurdity 
 of an impossible and inhuman task. 
 
 That a cult of the hammer like this should pay to 
 Wisdom the homage of hatred is no cause for wonder. 
 But what is really astonishing is to hear men speak 
 with hostile or vacillating voice in the sacred name 
 of Religion. For since the essence of war is Hate, 
 and the essence of religion is Love, no sophistry can 
 atone these antinomies. There is no chance here of 
 hitting some convenient course between the Scylla 
 and Charybdis of Yes and No. That well-worn 
 field of the second-best — the familiar sphere of 
 politics — is not Religion's field. Here ambiguity 
 spells treachery, and compromise is absurd. For 
 War is not crime only : it is sacrilege. If it be true 
 that " God is Love," war violates the very shrine 
 of the Eternal, Either that great Central Truth of 
 the faith of Catholic and Protestant alike is never 
 going to be thoroughly believed, or War must become 
 impossible for Christian nations. 
 
 But even as things are, would men but reflect, 
 they must admit that no imaginable conclusion in- 
 volves more glaring inconsistency than this to which 
 we are driven by hard facts : that the open con- 
 
124 TIIE SALT OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 fession neither of Theism, nor of Christianity, carries 
 any kind of guarantee that Theist or Christian holds 
 War to be morally indefensible, or Peace an ordained 
 condition of life, and consequently a realisable object 
 of endeavour. For all who identify God Himself 
 with that Eternal Mind with which the human 
 conscience is created to correspond, these truths, 
 one would have thought, must be axiomatic. We 
 recall, indeed, the INIystic protest against scholiast 
 attempts to define the indefinable — " Le Dieu defini 
 est le Dieu fini." But no Mystic ever quarrelled with 
 the sentence which constitutes for the larger part of 
 civilised mankind the sovereign definition : God is 
 Love. When that is said, one might have thought that 
 all is said. For the eternal Religion is founded on that 
 Rock : the rest are but tossed upon the waves of time. 
 Let, then, the accordant voices of Religion and 
 Philosophy, all high examples of non-Christian con- 
 duct, and the specimen witness of " the thirsting 
 mind " of our own masses, teach us, ere it be too late, 
 that one of the highest aims of a community is " to 
 maintain the moral vigour of its members, to increase 
 it by discipline, and to provide it with inspirations." 
 ^Vhatever happens, we may be sure that, whether in 
 the West or in the East, the power of self-guidance and 
 restraint will remain the very Salt of Citizenship. 
 And, contrariwise, its certain corruption will arise 
 from flouting the wisdom of our Burke by neglecting 
 to " cultivate every sort of generous and honest 
 feeling belonging to our nature," and by refus- 
 ing to " bring the dispositions that are lovely in 
 private life into the service and conduct of the 
 Commonwealth." 
 
The Good for the reasonable animal is Society. 
 Take pleasure in passing from one social act to another, 
 thinking of God. Men exist for the sake of one another. 
 We are made for Co-operation. To act against one 
 another is therefore contrary to Nature. Whatever is 
 done without reference, either immediately or remotely, 
 to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, destroys its 
 unity, and is of the nature of a mutiny. Never value 
 anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee 
 to suspect, or to hate, any man. If as rational beings 
 we have in common intellect or reason, we have also a 
 common law, and are all fellow-citizens. For of what 
 other political community will any one say that the whole 
 human race are members ? ^ 
 
 O people of the World, ye are the fruit of One Tree, 
 and the leaves of One Branch. Put away the Sivord, 
 and put the Word in its place. Let not any 7nan glory 
 in that he loves his Country ; let him rather glory in 
 that he loves his Kind.- 
 
 ' M. AuRELius Antoninvs. 
 
 - Baha'u'llah.— Founder of a modern religious movement in Persia, 
 credited with a roll of 20,000 martyrs, and with the current adherence of at 
 least one-fifth of the people. It aims at imity of spirit among all Faiths and 
 all Races. 
 
One is your Father, even God ; and all ye are 
 Brethren. The first of all the commandments is, 
 ** Thou shall love ..." It was said to them of old 
 time " Thou shall love thy neighbour and hate thine 
 enemy;'' hut I say unto you, ''Love your enemies . . . 
 that ye may he sons of your Father in Heaven.'" 
 
 All our mighty achievements are heing hampered 
 and often neutralised, all our difficulties are heing 
 douhled, and all our social diseases are heing aggravated 
 by this supreme and dominant fact — that zve have 
 suffered our Religion to slide from us, and that in effect 
 our age has no abiding faith in any religion at all. 
 The urgent task of our time is to recover a religious 
 Faith as a basis of life both personal and social.^ 
 
 What are the Churches doing, — rvhat in particular 
 is the Church of England doing, — to help the fulfilment 
 of her prayer for the gift to all nations of unity, peace, 
 and concord ? 
 
 In her best and greatest days the Church has been a 
 great emancipating power. . . . But it is the mission 
 of the Church not only to set men free but to hind and 
 hold them together. She has banished, or helped to 
 banish, many of the social plagues which used to poison 
 and devastate human life. She may still, if she will — 
 using her opportunities and living up to the height of her 
 mandate — take her share in expelling the greatest scourge 
 which still threatens the unity and progress of mankind.- 
 
 ' Frederic Harrison. - II. H. Aswhth. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 The uniform Witness of the world's greatest 
 Teachers on the subject of Peace and War has been 
 continually disregarded. Wisdom and eloquence have 
 striven in vain to straighten out obliquity which 
 ages of habit have ingrained and immemorial tradition 
 has upheld. 
 
 In the infancy and childhood of the world, in ages 
 of violence and in regions of barbarism, such treat- 
 ment of premature testimony is not surprising. 
 Though its Light shone never so clearly, " the darkness 
 comprehended it not." But that the rejection should 
 persist, when the social progress of mankind has 
 made men susceptible to light of almost every other 
 kind, is anomalous indeed. 
 
 When Religion by the mouth of its true teachers 
 has invited ; the world has, for the most part, begun to 
 make excuse. Prophet after prophet has proclaimed 
 the Eternal Law which visits violence with vexation, 
 and sends " poverty as an armed man " quick on the 
 heels of rapine. Scarcely ever has the witness failed ; 
 very poorly has mankind responded. Yet the choicer 
 spirits of the race have gone on striving to propagate 
 their own vivid sense of the invincibility of Love, the 
 fact of Brotherhood, the sovereignty of Service. To 
 their quick insight, wide outlook, and large words, we 
 owe a debt beyond appraisal. For whatever the 
 
 127 
 
128 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 degree in which man has " come to himself," it is 
 greatly owing to their enthusiastic perseverance, 
 shaken neither by discouragement from without nor 
 by despondency within. But, as Lowell sings — 
 
 " Disappointment's dry and bitter root, 
 Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool 
 Of the world's scorn, arc the right mother-milk 
 To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind." 
 
 Moreover, " the secret of the Lord is with them that 
 fear Him." In the lucent crystal of their souls so 
 clearly rose " the Vision of the Future, and all the 
 glory that would be " at the final triumph of Eternal 
 Law, that all the long dark past, filled with immeasur- 
 able failure, has been lost in the light of inextin- 
 guishable Hope. 
 
 Even in ages long remote, the listening spirits heard 
 with singular acuteness those unsilenceable voices 
 which none the less appeal to all : " O that thou 
 hadst hearkened to My Law ! Then had thy Peace 
 been as a river, and thy Righteousness as the waves 
 of the sea." For them, the crowning title of the 
 King of kings was neither Wonderful, nor Counsellor, 
 nor Mighty One, nor even Everlasting Father, but 
 " Prince of Peace." And of their eagle outlook on 
 the days to come, this was the outstanding feature : 
 — " Of the increase of His government, and peace, 
 there shall be no end." In the whole wild world of 
 nature and of man, " They shall not hurt nor destroy ; 
 neither shall they learn War any more." " For the 
 earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
 waters cover the sea." 
 
 To some similar effect, with a voice which rever- 
 berates along the ages, seer after seer has spoken, and 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 129 
 
 shall speak till the fulness of time be come. But 
 history is full of instances to prove that no age and 
 no land are free from the blot with which Ruskin ^ 
 reproaches his own country, — the blot of under- 
 valuing her greater souls, " whose hearts were kindest 
 and whose spirits were most perceptive of the work 
 of God." As he thinks of England — " of the Iron- 
 heart now, not of the Lion-heart," — which has allowed 
 them to die without hope, he takes refuge in the 
 future; where " blind from the prison-house, maimed 
 from the battle, or mad from the tombs, they shall 
 yet sit, astonished, at His feet Who giveth Peace." 
 And at that word, the prophet-soul in him takes fire. 
 He launches into panegyric on that wider Peace, 
 which alone can remove an infinitely wider reproach. 
 But this reproach of Christendom still remains, in 
 the world's attitude to War, — in the vulgar and 
 faithless worship of big battalions, which seem to 
 represent the only kind of Almighty our miserable 
 materialism now allows us to conceive. 
 
 The old idea that " no king can be saved by the 
 multitude of an host " because One rules in the 
 kingdoms of men Who knows how to help " whether 
 by many or by few," is for the Church of to-day 
 mere fable ! If He " Who weighs the mountains in 
 scales and the hills in a balance, and taketh up the 
 isles as a very little thing " ever did govern the world, 
 He is now apparently a useless Absentee ! We are 
 left to keep our own order, or disorder, by the elevat- 
 ing process of numbering our neighbour's hosts and 
 scheduling his engines of destruction, and then pre- 
 paring for every contingency (including bankruptcy) 
 ^ Modern Painters, v, pp. 353, 354. 
 
130 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 by securing at all costs bigger hosts, and engines 
 more deadly. Like Elisha's servant at Dothan we 
 calculate and catalogue the opposed material forces. 
 We adjust fear and hope by a " balance of power " 
 Vv'hich ignores or derides the Unseen. And Avhy 
 
 not ? Since those unseen spiritual forces that 
 
 really turn the scale are now fancied to be as out-of- 
 date as the " horses and chariots of fire " which once 
 to a Prophet's eye symbolised their presence. But 
 what have we to do with prophets ? Elisha was a 
 fool or a fanatic. Wisdom and patriotism are with 
 the successors of Gehazi. God is gone. 
 
 To such a pass are we brought by resisting 
 Sovereign Law ; by forsaking the ways and thoughts 
 of God; by rejecting Him Who "made them 
 current coin " in the world. Words fail to 
 
 describe the dereliction which has made the worship 
 of a God of Love, and the Religion He gave to bind 
 the human race together, — " the great Divider of 
 Mankind " ! The teaching of our most sacred Books 
 has been travestied; the tyranny of texts has had 
 full swing; the letter has been allowed to choke the 
 spirit. As with the New Testament so with the 
 Old. We hail " the God of Battles," but the God 
 Wlio " loveth the stranger " have we not known. 
 Yet the great story of the gradual development of 
 Kindness in the earth is the outstanding feature of all 
 Holy Writ, from the old injunction " Thou shalt not 
 seethe a kid in its mother's milk," to the Incarnate 
 revelation, " Greater Love hath no man than 
 Thisr 
 
 Great play is sometimes made with the Old Testa- 
 ment sanction of War, by people who forget that 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 131 
 
 unless the revelation of lofty truth is gradual and pro- 
 gressive it cannot be revealed at all. As barbarism 
 gives place to civiHsation, men cease to take the law 
 into their own hands, and rely upon an impersonal 
 administration of justice. The nearest relative drops 
 the role of blood-avenger, and the " kind of wild 
 justice " called revenge grows into that law-abiding 
 thirst for righteous vindication out of which our 
 judicial system has gradually evolved. 
 
 The seeds of such advance were sown in the Penta- 
 teuchal teaching upon war. War is taken out of 
 man's hands, so to speak. And, even in that primi- 
 tive age, he is led to understand that " he can only 
 wage war lawfully as God's vicegerent." x4s Aubrey 
 ^loore six-and-twenty years ago maintained, " There 
 is nothing personal in the Hebrew campaigns, nothing 
 even national except so far as the cause of Israel is the 
 cause of God. ... It was the first, though an in- 
 direct blow to the AVar-spirit among the Jews." ^ 
 By degrees glimpses of the higher truth, — dimly 
 foreshadowed in the homage of the Patriarchal con- 
 queror to a mysterious King of Peace — grow brighter. 
 God is no longer " a Man of War." He " maketh 
 wars to cease in all the earth." He no longer " teaches 
 the hands to war and the fingers to fight." He 
 " scatters the people that delight in war." Clearer 
 and more clear the promise is seen that not Israel 
 only, but through them the whole world, shall know 
 the blessings of peace, when " nation shall not lift 
 up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
 any more." 
 
 1 Church Congress Address, 1885. Essays Scientific and 
 Philosophical, p. 218 ff. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 The Old Testament prophets were the spiritual 
 kinsmen of Jesus. Micah, with his " What doth the 
 Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Hosea, 
 with his "I will have loving-kindness and not sacri- 
 fice." Jeremiah, with his great idea of the at-one-ing 
 power of the Nation which should take the form of 
 a Suffering Servant of Jehovah, glorified not with 
 earthly glory, but with that of Heaven. The supreme 
 sacrifice of the Nation which has learnt the sovereignty 
 of Service is the key-note of everything. It is the 
 secret of the eternal persistence of the spiritual Israel ; 
 of those " meek who shall inherit the earth," — the 
 earth which, despite all prevailing piracy, is the King- 
 dom of God, whose appointed heirs will one day come 
 by their own. 
 
 Nor was this lofty appreciation of Eternal Law, 
 this clear insight into the will of God for men, a mere 
 matter of doctrine and theory. The Old Testament 
 teems with examples of its actual practice. Even in 
 barbaric times these principles were found to work. 
 That " Friend of God," the patriarch Abraham, 
 practised them, when to his apparent disadvantage 
 he refused to quarrel over territory with Lot. Abigail 
 practised them, when with conciliatory generosity 
 she averted the natural result of Nabal's churlish- 
 ness to David. Elisha the patriot-prophet practised 
 them, when he fed the enemies of his country and 
 so won the record, — " the bands of Syria came no 
 more into the land of Israel." 
 
 But the gradual dawning of the Light over a world 
 of barbarism is a matter of historico-religious interest 
 rather than of practical import to us " on whom the 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 133 
 
 Dayspring from on high hath shiiied to guide our 
 feet into the way of peace." We are now in the 
 twentieth century since the Prince of Peace was 
 born. And, though War has ceased to be the habit 
 of leading Christian nations, to prepare for it is their 
 most engrossing occupation, and the resort to it, 
 upon occasion, is still regarded — as it was (with much 
 better excuse) two centuries ago — as the orthodox 
 and inevitable " continuation of policy." 
 
 Now however strangely flagrant the forsaking of 
 which Theism has been guilty, however inconsistent 
 a denial of the Brotherhood of men must be with any 
 genuine belief in the Fatherhood of God, yet for 
 nations which profess and call themselves Christian 
 to cultivate the art of War to the detriment of the 
 arts of Peace, is a far more glaring outrage. But in a 
 world which has no use for prophets, except for pur- 
 poses of persecution, it is found that Apostles too 
 are inconvenient. What has a world of War to do 
 with the counsels of men who, like the prophets, kept 
 seeing things invisible to the astutest worldling; — 
 men who prated constantly of Love as the greatest 
 thing in the world, greater even than Faith or Hope. 
 " Love " actually said one of them, " never faileth." 
 More edifying than knowledge, more efficacious than 
 eloquence, by Love prophecy will be outlived and 
 even charity superseded. Another declared that 
 God Himself indwelt the loving, and that the loving 
 dwell in God ! What place has such language in a 
 world before all things occupied in preparing for War ? 
 No place; until that world is turned upside down, 
 and thereby brought right side up. No place; until 
 for the old Apostolic Message, " Grace and Peace," 
 
134 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 some more Christian substitute is found than the 
 pagan cry, " Two keels for one." 
 
 I fear, liowever, that the testimony of the Christian 
 Church, regarded as a whole, cannot claim to be 
 Apostolic, still less Christlike. 
 
 The modern witness of the Anglican Body has for 
 forty years been far too heavily hampered by the 
 kind of teaching which is dealt with in the next 
 chapter. But that things are moving in this matter 
 is clear from a comparison of the line taken in 1871 
 by Dr. Mozley, in 1885 by Aubrey Moore, and by Dr. 
 T. J. Lawrence in 1911. 
 
 Most Anglicans are agreed on the value of ^Ir. 
 Aubrey Moore's contributions (too soon, alas ! cut 
 short) to religion in its relation to science and 
 philosophy ; and it is interesting to note the attitude 
 of his mind when dealing with our present topic, 
 fourteen years after Dr. Mozley's deliverance in the 
 pulpit of Oxford University. " Under the Gospel," 
 he declares,^ " war is an anachronism and a survival. 
 The Christian Church recognises war as a fact, never 
 as a right. It never ' contemplates it forensically,' 
 as a legitimate international court of appeal. Even 
 Dr. Mozley, in spite of his great tour de force, is com- 
 pelled to admit that ' Christianity only sanctions war 
 upon the hypothesis of a world at discord with herself. 
 In her own world war would be impossible.' " 
 
 Such words clearly introduce a changing outlook. 
 There is also a new anxiety to show that, in so far as 
 the Church accepts War, it is only as it accepted 
 slavery, — because the method of enunciating princi- 
 ples eventually destructive of both, is a more radically 
 
 > Op. cit., p. 220. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 135 
 
 effective method than that of direct prohibition. 
 " Christianity takes human nature as it is, only to 
 make it what it is not." Moreover, though this 
 speaker is of one mind with St. Augustine in seeking 
 the mahgnancy of war not in the act so much as in 
 the motive, — in " the desire for wrong, the cruelty 
 of revenge, the implacable spirit, the savagery of 
 fighting, the lust of lordship, — though this is what 
 we blame in war, and find condemned in Divine and 
 human law; " nevertheless we are duly warned that, 
 " until the spirit of Peace inspires our motives, the 
 aiiempt to distinguish between just and unjust ivars can 
 only lead to casuistry.''' Mr. Moore will have no 
 Jesuitry about ends justifying means. He is neither 
 insensible to " the something of truth in the sneer 
 that even Missionary work once done by a Henry 
 Martyn is now done by a Martini-Henry," nor un- 
 aware that " the maxim si vis pacem para helium is per- 
 verted into a justification for all the armaments of 
 Europe by those who have little real thought or wish 
 for peace." Thus we are brought to the verdict that 
 " for the tone and temper of popular Jingoism, for 
 the thinly disguised policy of bluster, for the craving 
 after military display, for the readiness to stamp 
 effort for peace as weak foreign policy and an aban- 
 donment of national interests,"— nothing can be 
 found but " unqualified condemnation," in the teach- 
 ing whether of the Bible or of the Church. 
 
 Some three years later came a painstaking and 
 scholarly essay on The Influence of Christianity on 
 War, by Mr. Bethune-Baker, which, from the point 
 of view of these pages, is chiefly interesting in its 
 careful tracing of the intermittent stream of pure 
 
136 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 witness to the Christian ideal which tried to amehorate 
 age after age; never drying up even in the era of 
 Mihtary Christianity, or during the long drought of 
 the subsequent religious wars; but, like a river of 
 water of life, refreshing men's thought and uplifting 
 their souls, from the beginning even to our own day. 
 The essayist seldom leaves his chosen path of histori- 
 cal narrative and fruitful quotation in order to show us 
 his own opinion. But he plainly tells us that " it is a 
 mistake to represent war as an evil in itself; " that 
 " every particular war must be judged by its aim; " 
 and that war in general is "to be judged entirely by 
 its motive.'''' As Peace " is the secret that Christ 
 spent His life to teach to men; " as that Peace is 
 " universal and complete; " as it " blesses man and 
 all around him; " it certainly passes understanding 
 how. after all, it can be only " inward " Peace Christ 
 came to bring. On the same page,^ we are told that 
 " War is sanctioned by the law of nature, — the con- 
 stitution of man, and the constitution of society ; and 
 by the teaching and practice of Christ and His 
 immediate disciples;" although in the "brother- 
 hood of man to which the Christian Gospel teaches all 
 men to aspire, war would be impossible." After this, 
 it seems surprising that our essayist should be so dis- 
 turbed by Ruskin's panegyric on the patent and 
 peculiar kind of " creative or foundational war," 
 which he once invented for the elevation of an 
 audience of Woolwich cadets. A genuine grasp even 
 of that particular lecture as a whole would at once 
 show such solicitude to be superfluous. As, moreover, 
 Ruskin himself took pains to confess the inconsistencies 
 ' Influence of Chrutianiii/ on War. p. IS. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 137 
 
 of his language on this occasion,^ it is a bad instance 
 to adduce as representing his balanced opinion on the 
 subject. 
 
 More than a quarter of a century has lapsed between 
 Mr. Aubrey Moore's address at Portsmouth Church 
 Congress in 1885, and that of Dr. T. J. Lawrence at 
 the Stoke Congress of 1911. And the very different 
 treatment of the subject in the two cases is typical of 
 the progress which the period intervening might be 
 expected to produce. The topic has plainly emerged 
 from the region of academic speculation, and left the 
 devious paths of Christian apology. As it thus passes 
 from cloud-encumbered heights into the sunlit plain 
 of actuality, the method of its discussion naturally 
 follows suit. Dr. Lawrence's attainments in the 
 science of International Law give weight to his live 
 and moving appeal, which is only less academic in the 
 sense of being more intensely and directly practical. 
 The speaker is jealous for the honour of his Church, 
 lest it be left behind in the great movement which 
 is bringing " half- forgotten ideals " prominently 
 before the masses of mankind. So far from despising 
 " the patriotic ardour, the high sense of duty, the 
 splendid zeal of those who are eagerly pressing the 
 claims of military and semi-military organisations," 
 he urges that the Church should emulate this enthusi- 
 asm, while " showing how all that is good in it can be 
 preserved and even increased, without constant ex- 
 altation of War, and constant preparation for it." He 
 too sees a " vision of strenuous manhood and devoted 
 womanhood," and would have the Church preach as 
 emphatically as any militarist " the duty of national 
 ^ Ruskin's Works, vol. vi, p. 177. 
 
138 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 service," while also proclaiming " that the best 
 service citizens can render to the State is to guide it 
 along the paths of righteousness." 
 
 If Mr. Chadband had descendants, they would be 
 likely to disown the entirely wholesome and hopeful 
 pacifism of Dr. Lawrence. Yet no one was ever more 
 sure that Peace is not War. He proceeds unhampered 
 by casuistical distinctions, and declines to be entangled 
 with the thorny question of motive, so benumbing 
 to numberless handlers of the relation of Christianity 
 to War. Hence the trumpet of his summons gives 
 no uncertain sound— 
 
 " The task before us is positive as well as negative. We have 
 to destroy the old idea that War is in itself a noble thing ; and 
 we have also to foster the growth of a new and better international 
 order. . . . During the last twelve j^cars the cause of International 
 Arbitration has advanced by leaps and boiuids. Several very 
 threatening questions have been settled by the Hague Tribunal. 
 A practical alternative to War has been placed before the nations. 
 They are beginning to bind themselves to use it and are striving 
 to improve it. A serious attempt has been made to create a 
 permanent .Judicial Arbitration Court administered by the 
 ablest jurists of the civilised world. Could such a Court be 
 actually brought into constant use, the rcahsation of God's 
 Kingdom on earth would be brought perceptibly nearer. Is it not 
 time the Church took up the qiiestion ? 
 
 " The moral and material bankruptcy of the accepted methods 
 of statecraft helps to drive home the lesson that only the golden 
 rule of Christ can bring the golden age of man. If the Church will 
 take advantage of the present opportunity, the force behind her 
 will be found far stronger than is commonly sujjposcd. The 
 world is sick of strife. A brave stand for international peace 
 would rally to the banner of the Cross millions who are now 
 suffering bitterly from international ill-will. The working classes 
 are awake to the moral as well as the material evil of war. The 
 Church in co-operating to abate this evil will be in a stronger 
 position to help them in guarding against the manifestation of 
 any kindred sjiirit in the conduct of their own affairs. She may 
 reconcile and lead the masses of the peoples if only she will pro- 
 claim with no uncertain voice her Master's message of brotherhood 
 and peace. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 139 
 
 " Now, and for some time to come, States must maintain forces 
 sutiicient to secure for their country the proper development of 
 its national life. But in so far as armaments arc necessary, they 
 should be regarded as symptoms of a deep-seated disease. In- 
 stead of exulting over them, we ought to repent in sackcloth and 
 ashes because of them. For they arc the outward visible signs of 
 a gigantic failure of Christianity." {Church Congress Address, 1911 .) 
 
 Now if the genuine Call of Religion be of this 
 character, — why is the call so seldom heard ? To 
 speak of " gigantic failure " in no way strains the 
 language of truth and soberness. Can we doubt that 
 the common conspiracy of silence, and the vacillating 
 voice with which that silence is occasionally broken, 
 have contributed to this result ? — a result so notorious 
 that, by one of the doughtiest champions of " peace 
 on earth," the Christian Church is now invited in 
 plain terms to retire from the field, and leave the 
 campaign to experts in the use of purely mundane 
 leverage. 
 
 When we reflect upon the influence with which all 
 unprejudiced thinkers admit that Christianity has 
 aided civilisation in so many quarters, the poverty 
 of its attainment in the direction of suppressing war 
 cries aloud for explanation. And there is one 
 characteristic feature of the teaching of nearly every 
 orthodox exponent of the relation of the attitude of 
 religion to war which, in the writer's judgment, goes 
 a very long way to explain it. This feature is the 
 general practice of making the right or wrong of war 
 solely a question of motive. By this line of teaching 
 the intrinsic evil inherent in war itself has been habi- 
 tually obscured, and invaluable moral force has run 
 to waste in casuistry, which ought to have been con- 
 centrated on quickening the conscience of the world. 
 
140 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 That conscience has been perpetually assisted to 
 escape from the Castle of Decision by this miserable 
 postern door. Did ever a war break out which, in 
 one aspect or another, could not affect a claim to 
 justification from motive ? And is it not largely 
 because the Christian consciousness has been trained 
 to accept this plea as valid, that the barbarity of war 
 is still rampant in Christendom ? 
 
 Buckle maintains, though unconvincingly, that 
 civilisation neither has been, nor can be, aided by 
 religion in this matter. But if anything connected with 
 the world's slow deliverance from its slavery to war, 
 could give to that contention the appearance of 
 vahdity, it would be the obvious impotence of religious 
 forces tied and bound by this fetish of motive. As long 
 as the criminality of War itself is thus left open, more 
 may well be done for its abolishment by efforts which 
 leave right and wrong out of count, and urge only 
 war's anachronistic folly and futility. For history 
 abundantly shows that to justify bad conduct by a 
 good initial motive may prove quite as maleficent 
 as to teach that a good end can justify atrocious 
 means. And unless we mean to take our stand with 
 the cynical essayist,^ and hold the fascination of war 
 to be its wickedness, and that only the perception 
 of its vulgarity will kill it, some protest seems 
 necessary. 
 
 It is impossible to assess, but perhaps scarcely 
 possible to exaggerate, the evil influence of this arch- 
 excuse, in feeding and fostering the war-spirit, all 
 down the stream of time. Age after age, from the 
 days of Tertullian onward, whenever some spiritual 
 
 1 Oscar Wilck-. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 141 
 
 revival begins to counterwork the current tendency 
 to blunt pristine enthusiasm, and reduce the sharp- 
 ness with which the Christian ideal stands out against 
 the darkness of pagan practices and standards, the 
 same old opiate of " motive " has been used with 
 paralysing effect. 
 
 One of the most recent and surprising of its 
 appearances is as a fly in the ointment of Mr. J. H. 
 Peile's admirable Bampton Lectures.'^ The whole 
 treatise is a striking effort to persuade the Church 
 that our current Christianity should more definitely 
 reflect Christ's own Teaching. Yet even here, though 
 we are told that " War, and the preparation for War, 
 are not only clumsy and wasteful methods," which 
 " cannot be reconciled with the teaching of Christ; " 
 though " ' Thou shalt not kill ' is a plain command, 
 and one confirmed and extended in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, where the lex talionis in the Mosaic Law 
 is met and annulled; " - nevertheless, "it is not the 
 act of slaying, but the spirit of murder, hatred, and 
 revenge, which Christ condemns." ^ 
 
 Moreover, on the authority of Henry Newbolt,^ 
 here endorsed by the lecturer, we are invited to believe 
 that " we need not love a man less because it falls to 
 us to strike the final stroke ; and it is only the hatred, 
 the treachery, the selfishness, that make the crime of 
 murder; " while it is only " confusing the unreal with 
 the real, — putting the material before the spiritual," 
 to be surprised if " loving our neighbour come to 
 include fighting him, or taking his hfe." ^ To such 
 
 1 For 1907, called The Reproach of the Gospel. 
 
 2 p. 78. 3 p^ 82. '' The Old Country, p. .'304. 
 5 Reproach of the Gospel, p. 84. 
 
142 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 glosses on the Gospel are we given up by the cult of 
 this fetish of motive. 
 
 Verily, (in Mr. Peile's own words) " The danger of 
 weakening or explaining away plain commands is 
 very great." ^ Such distinctions as have been in- 
 stanced, and all like them, are much more than " a 
 matter of very delicate casuistry in practice; " - they 
 are axes at the root of the very tree which Mr. Peile, 
 from beginning to end of his valuable lectures, shows 
 himself anxious to cherish. 
 
 "For us," he says, "the one thing needful is for 
 mankind to recover the Rule of Life as Christ taught 
 it, and to follow it at whatever sacrifice." 
 
 Again, " It is quite true that His teaching is strangely at 
 variance with the accej)ted standards and ways of hfe which we 
 find in modern civihsations. . . , But it is not on that account 
 to be dismissed as impracticable. Rather, when we consider the 
 pass to which the said ways and standards have brought us, this 
 very antagonism commends it, inspiring a hope that an uncom- 
 promising ajiplication of it might produce results widely divergent 
 from those which we deplore." ^ 
 
 And if we turn from the first Lecture to the last, the 
 same high note is struck : 
 
 "Christian public opinion, the expression of the Spirit of 
 Christ in the united will, emotion, and intellect of human societies, 
 has wrought, and is working, miracles. It has raised the stan- 
 dard of purity, of honesty, of loving-kindness; and above all, it 
 has established the sense of brotherhood, of mutual obligation 
 and responsibility. But it has not had its perfect work. It has 
 been paralysed by timidity, and the fear of plain speaking . . . 
 more than all it has been weakened by division. . . . The 
 greatest and most deadly effect of contro\ ersy is not that it 
 embitters, but that it confuses. . . . But surely, unless we 
 wilfully blind ourselves to the signs of the times, the real 
 issue is clear and definite ... it is between Christian and 
 non-Christian." * 
 
 1 Op. ciU, p. 81. •' p. 82. a p. 23. « p. 194. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 143 
 
 Brave words, all of them, and true. But if con- 
 fusion of thought is so deadly a danger, why multiply 
 the risk of it by giving longer life to distinctions " of 
 very delicate casuistry in practice " ? — distinctions 
 which go far to counterbalance, if they do not counter- 
 act, the wholesome warnings which this candid writer 
 himself administers in reference to our present subject. 
 For example : — 
 
 " Fighting, in the Middle Ages, and even the Chivahy which 
 often gave romantic grace and dignity to noble life, had a very 
 ugly side." ^ " It is the baser part of Chivalry which still 
 
 survives in Militarism; and in some countries gives the Army 
 the privilege of despising the civilian and the worker." ^ 
 " Though the spirit which admires war for war's sake has never 
 been congenial to the English character, and the bitter lesson of 
 the short military tyranny of Cromwell has saved us from that 
 danger luitil now ; yet it is a danger ; and . . . we begin to have 
 ground for uneasiness." ^ 
 
 It is one of the drawbacks of the opinion that the 
 whole right or wrong of war is a question of motive, 
 that if a writer is utterly honest as well as ethically 
 sensitive, he is bound to give his readers all the help 
 he can in the ticklish business of discrimination. So 
 that some pages of The Reproach of the Gospel are 
 occupied with examples, before the author is satis- 
 fied that he has made it clear that " only extreme 
 necessity and the strictest purity of motive can 
 justify war." ^ And perhaps, theoretically, he has 
 done this. 
 
 But what, in actual practice, must result from 
 leaving open, nay even recommending, this postern 
 door to the Castle of Conscience in which the " To 
 be, or not-to-be " of War must be decided ? It is 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 84. 2 p, 85^ 3 p^ 85, 4 p, 37, 
 
144 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 just because keen spirits like Mr. Peile go on assuring 
 the world, in the name of Christ's Christianity, " that 
 no sweeping condemnation can be passed on War," ^ 
 for the reason that strict purity of motive can justify 
 it ; and because distinguished students and good men 
 like Prof. Bethune-Baker keep telling us that " the 
 Christianity of Christ, here as always, looks to the 
 motive, and every particular war must be judged 
 entirely by its aim;"^ — it is because of this, I say, 
 that the gigantic evil intrinsic and inherent in War 
 itself is fatally obscured. And it follows that the 
 average mind, even among the clergy, is inclined to 
 the belief that on the whole war can be safely 
 classed among the lesser evils of life, with a 
 considerable amount of good to its credit; and 
 even grand old Bishops — as a delighted soldier 
 wrote recently to The Spectator to point out — 
 glorify the growth of character under " war's red 
 rain." 
 
 It is thus that the influence of Christianity against 
 War has been calamitously lessened all history 
 through. When was there ever a war for which, in 
 some aspect or another, no excuse of motive, either 
 good or great, could not be made ? Nothing else 
 under-lay the whole of that extraordinary contra- 
 diction in terms known as " Military Christianity," 
 which for over two hundred years dominated the 
 Europe which now groans under the anomaly of 
 "Christian" Militarism. If by this criterion alone 
 conscience is to be led, even religious persecution may 
 assume the shape of virtue, and intellectual error may 
 
 ^ Op. cit., p. 84. 2 Influence of Chnstiamtij on War, p. l.S. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 145 
 
 supply sufficient motive to justify the " religious 
 wars " which it took humanity so many centuries to 
 abolish. 
 
 By this line of teaching, continued for ages, 
 incalculable moral force has been diverted into 
 casuistical futilities, instead of quickening the world's 
 Conscience. By lending his splendid intellectual 
 powers to this theory, the great Augustine — the 
 man in whom the Western Church for ages found 
 the umpire of its disputes, in such degree that 
 " for a thousand years those who came after him 
 did little more than re-affirm his teaching," ^ — still 
 hypnotises the Church with hope of attaining the 
 acrobatic triumph : " Be therefore, even while warring, 
 a peace-maker," - (though even the wretched Chad- 
 band knew better than to try that) ; and we still 
 delude ourselves with the conceit that "if thus 
 the earthly state observes the Christian precepts, 
 even wars will not be waged without benevolent 
 intentions." ^ On the strength of this, how many 
 " benevolent intentions," how much " compulsion 
 flowing from the temper of love," have flooded the 
 world with strife, from Augustine's own violent re- 
 pression of the Donatists, to the Quaker martyr- 
 doms of the last century. Let but [xla. -Koiixv-t] be 
 mistranslated, and uniim ovile be made the letter of 
 Christ's word,^ and lo ! there is " motive " enough 
 to establish Force as a means of conversion; 
 whereby is quenched the whole Spirit of the Good 
 Shepherd's teaching, age after age. Thus such 
 
 1 Allen : Continuity of Christian Thougld, p. 170. 
 
 2 Letter to Boniface, Ep. 189. 
 
 3 Aug. Ep., 138, § 9 sqq. ■» St. John x, 16. 
 
146 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 infinite degradations — such Dead Sea fruit — be- 
 come possible as, for single instance, provoked the 
 Edict of Charlemagne, in 801, where he asks, " What 
 hope could there be of victory, when the priests at 
 one liour presented to Christians the Body of the 
 Lord, and in the next with their own wicked hands 
 killed . . . the pagans to whom they should have 
 preached Christ." ^ 
 
 But why disturb the ashes of an unholy past 
 which sorely needs such apology as the Time-Spirit 
 permits ? No doubt the warlike ardour of the Goths 
 infused itself into the gentler Creed which they 
 adopted ; and for centuries of course " the example 
 and terrors of Mohammedanism " did immensely 
 help to lower the standard of true Christian senti- 
 ment with regard to War. To unite the passion of 
 the soldier with the passion of the devotee is indeed, 
 as Mr. Lecky says, a fatal secret. To substitute 
 Papal indulgences for the promises of a False Prophet 
 was an only too obvious counter, — for great is the 
 power of " motive " ! — and even Papal Bulls began 
 to belaud those who, " consecrating their hands in 
 the blood of the unbelievers in the Lord, have after 
 this world's warfare obtained the reward of Life 
 Eternal." - 
 
 Let, then, the dead past bury its dead horrors. 
 My object has only been to illustrate the danger 
 which has always attached to this perennial distinc- 
 tion, which does away the force of Christ's law by 
 referring all Scriptural prohibition of carnal warfare 
 " not to the outward act, but to the temper with which 
 
 ' Ncandcr, vol, v, ]). 140. 
 
 2 Bull, of Po])c Alexander : Omtie (latum optimum . . . 
 
THE CALL OF EPXIGION 147 
 
 weapons should be used." ^ Such was the conten- 
 tion promptly advanced by Humbert de Romanis, 
 General of the Dominicans, in defence of the principle 
 of the Crusades, against those who, at the Council of 
 Lyons (1274), had urged " that though Christians 
 might be allowed to flght in self-defence, it did not 
 follow that they might attack the infidels in their 
 own country." - And the same contention about 
 temper and motive has no doubt played its part in 
 the minds of the Roman Cardinals of to-day who 
 assisted the eclat with which the latest Italian ex- 
 pedition was dismissed to Tripoli. 
 
 Surely in the year of our Lord 1912 the time has 
 come for the Church and the World alike to cry, 
 " Back to Christ." For this is no Modernist " heresy," 
 be it remembered. The theology of the Western 
 Church is admittedly based on the writings of St. 
 Thomas Aquinas. And are not those writings full 
 of the idea of Christ as a Legislator, with a " new 
 law " to deliver ? And was not the contrary view, 
 that Christ was given to mankind as a Redeemer 
 but not as a Legislator also, deliberately anathe- 
 matised 3 by the Council of Trent ? 
 
 The search, however, for signs in the modern 
 administration of the Latin Church of some practical 
 regard for "the Angelic Doctor's " tenet of a Law- 
 giving Christ, is not encouraging. We turn with 
 more hope to the language of those later theologians 
 who seem increasingly informed by the inner idea of 
 that pregnant Pauline phrase, " the Law of the 
 
 ^ " ad prcvparationem aniini, non ad executionem gladii.'^ 
 ^ Influence of Christianity on War, j). 73. 
 3 Sess. vi, § 21. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 Spirit of Life in Christ." They are learning from the 
 Master to combine the opposite truths of immanence 
 and transcendence. They grasp the necessity of 
 making 
 
 " the passage made once for all by Him from the infinite 
 objective to the infinite subjective; from the absolute uithout us 
 in the form of law to the absolute within us in the form of spirit. 
 The essence of the moral teaching of Jesus was the change of 
 venue from the tribunal of law to that of spirit. ... In Him 
 eternal law had given place to eternal spirit ; the letter that killeth 
 to the S23irit that giveth life." ^ 
 
 Such language justly sets forth the striking difference 
 in effect, amounting in fact to positive contrast, 
 between Christ's treatment of motive and the use 
 of it by many of His followers. The Inwardness 
 characteristic of Christ's teaching made no holes for 
 escape from the stringency of the literal command. 
 Instead of slackening the reins of morality, it drew 
 them taut, and increased their guiding power. By 
 Christ's accentuation of the spiritual, the scope of the 
 letter was never minimised or restricted, but always 
 increased and extended. The Seventh commandment, 
 for instance, might be broken by a lustful look, and 
 the Sixth by nursing an angry temper. It must be 
 clear to the commonest of common sense how such 
 a Teacher must regard condonation of an outrage 
 involving incalculable and enormous waste of life, by 
 crying over this or that form of it, " Corban, Corban ! " 
 We can almost hear such distinctions crackling in the 
 fire of His scorn, along with similar attempts to make 
 up for the " gulping of camels " by meticulous care 
 in " straining out gnats." 
 
 Seeing, then, that the " new law " of Christ is in 
 
 ^ l)u Bose : The Gospel in the Gospels, p. 21. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 149 
 
 fact explicitly what tlie old law was implicitly, — a 
 law of Love; what need have we of further witness 
 to prove the enormity of the accepted attitude of 
 civilised nations which regards War as a normal 
 weapon of policy and fitting " continuation " of it ? 
 Unless Christianity has altogether ceased to mean 
 conformity to the principles of Christ, how can that 
 attitude be called Christian ? We know that for 
 Apostles the principle that " Love is the fulfilment 
 of Law " ^ was paramount. It was the beginning, 
 and also " the end, of the Charge." - But it is when 
 we reflect on the Teaching and the Life of Him in 
 AVhose Name apostles spoke, and Whose commission 
 they bore, that the full violence of the contradiction, 
 between what He said and did and what Christian 
 nations say and do, strikes hardest. For here our 
 
 crass indifference is not in respect of some out-worn 
 ceremony or symbolic rite, or in regard to some stone 
 table of Mosaic regulations. Our dereliction is not 
 even only from the living Law divinely traced on the 
 tablets of the human heart, but from that Sovereign 
 and Eternal " Word " which once at least " had 
 breath and wrought " — nay " worketh hitherto " — 
 in the loveliness of the Lawgiver's own Life. 
 
 Jesus Christ was Love incarnate because He was 
 God incarnate. But ages of disloyalty to the Divinity 
 which spoke in Beatitude from the Mount seem to 
 have doomed Christendom to wander in search of the 
 Lord through the desert of Greek metaphysics, and 
 one part of it seriously to think His Deity dependent 
 on the periodical recitation of damnatory clauses. 
 Nor is this doom undeserved. For we have juggled 
 
 J Horn, xiii, 10. 2 i xim. i, 5. 
 
150 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 not only with the words, but with the spirit and 
 essence of Christ's Charter. The guilt of Jews for- 
 saking the Sinaitic Law for idols, is nothing to the 
 guilt of Christians who bow their being before the 
 Juggernaut of Physical Force, in flat opposition to 
 Christ's precepts, and to the whole tenour of His 
 example from the hour of His Temptation to that of 
 His Betrayal. 
 
 Individual lives, in free obedience to Christ's 
 spirit, no doubt have often found and used the talis- 
 man which makes a human life Divine. But, as to 
 the great mass of public opinion which dictates the 
 policy of so-called Christian nations, is not our callous- 
 ness still shamed by the indignant cry of a great 
 Englishman of sixty years ago ? — " Let us abandon 
 our pretensions. Whilst we adhere to heathen prac- 
 tices, let us no longer claim to be a Christian people. 
 Take down at any rate the Ten Commandments from 
 inside your Churches; and say no longer that you 
 read, or believe in, or regard, the Sermon on the 
 Mount." ^ 
 
 For what is it that we see in a nominally Christian 
 Europe, whose nations provoke one another to every- 
 thing except love and good works ? Nineteen 
 centuries ago the Chief among Love's Teachers was 
 nailed to the Cross in Judaea for withstanding ecclesi- 
 astical prejudice and national ambition. And now, 
 not indeed by men of His own race, but by men of 
 His own religion, Christ in effect is crucified again and 
 again. For though, by the conventions of our nominal 
 adherence, we give Him Divine honour in our creeds ; 
 though we ban as heretics the verbal impugners of 
 ' Life and Speeches of John Bright, vol. ii. p. .'526. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 151 
 
 His Deity; though with our Hps we sing Hosannas, 
 and hail Jesus as the very " Word of God ; " full well 
 in our lives, and in the direction of our policies, we 
 make that Word of none effect through our tradition. 
 When He, who wept over His beloved Jerusalem, 
 says, " Love your enemies; " we deride His patriot- 
 ism or doubt His sanity. When He, Who Himself 
 used force to clear traffickers from the Temple, tells us 
 " Resist not evil ; " we reduce the letter to absurdity, in 
 order to silence the conscience which acclaims its spirit. 
 Cornered by a Raimon Lull, a Molinos, or a Tolstoi, 
 we talk suavely of " counsels of perfection," of " ideals 
 to be realised in heaven;" or we conjure up fictitious 
 and impossible examples to prove obedience im- 
 practicable. We draw glib distinctions between 
 private and public life; between the individual and 
 the nation; between conduct reprehensible in the 
 case of man and man, but admirable in the case of 
 States, since here brutality and bluff are lauded as 
 " spirited policy." Thus the lever of Christ may 
 lift the private citizen, but we refuse it a fulcrum on 
 which to raise the world. Things allowed to be 
 wrong in single instances, when done by men in the 
 aggregate become suddenly and mysteriously right. 
 To take one life, for instance, is criminal ; but to take 
 life wholesale may on occasion be sublime.^ Indi- 
 vidual hatred, inducing to a single murder, deserves 
 abhorrence and the gallows. But collective hatred, 
 driving a nation to the multitudinous murder required 
 
 1 " AVhilc any one who has murdered a single man is regarded 
 as a criminal and excluded from the temple, yet he who has 
 butchered countless thousands, has deluged plains with blood, 
 and dyed rivers crimson, is admitted not only to the temple but 
 even into Heaven ! " — Lactantius (-ith century). — De Div. Inst., i. 
 
152 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 for successful War, wins patriotic paeans and a 
 " Solemn Te Deum " in Temples dedicated to the 
 Prince of Peace. 
 
 " His sad face on the Cross sees only this, 
 After the passion of a thousand years." ' 
 
 Yet this particular breach between the creed and 
 conduct of Christendom is peculiarly flagrant, because 
 the Gloria in excelsis, which Orientals call " The 
 Angelical Hymn " or " Great Doxology," is not only 
 to be found imbedded in every one of the most ancient 
 liturgies of Christ's Religion, but it occupies a place 
 of special honour in the highest act of worship through- 
 out East and West. At every Eucharist, from re- 
 motest times, the great Christian Ideal, enshrined in 
 the very words of the heavenly host, is incessantly 
 accorded the homage of the lip, though it is so often 
 scouted in the national life. " Glory to God in the 
 Highest : On earth Peace : Good-will to men." So 
 says Christendom in its public worship : what does 
 it say in its public policy ? The contrast could 
 hardly be sharper if the banner of politics were actually 
 emblazoned with that ne plus ultra of vulgar ex- 
 pediency : " Get on : Get Honour : Get Honest ! '* 
 And yet, details apartj who is prepared to controvert 
 the Christian principle asserted in The Great Doxologij ? 
 Who elsewhere can find in all science or philosophy 
 a truer rule of human progress ? What else are these 
 great words, but the very touch-stone, by which at 
 last every human institution, system, or phenomenon, 
 must be tried and judged, acquitted or condemned ? 
 
 Though " never man spake like this ]\Ian," not 
 
 1 Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 153 
 
 even Christ could express the inexpressible. But He 
 does much more; He makes us feel it. The Spirit 
 He brought down from Heaven for the world's 
 redemption truly no letter could contain. Never- 
 theless such wine-skins as He did Himself fashion 
 cannot but hold the kind of wine He counted to be 
 medicine for a wounded world, even though Priest 
 and Levite look another way. 
 
 Any Bulbul in search of a religion, still more any 
 ordinary Christian, might well think that in Christ's 
 great Sermon on the Mount, with all its prospective 
 evolutional possibilities of eternal growth, Christen- 
 dom would find the proclamation of the elemental 
 Law of Life. But no ! We quote it, discuss it, 
 admire it, explain it. With tireless and tender care 
 we most ingeniously explain it away. But it scarcely 
 even occurs to us to obey it. Indeed we very likely 
 burke the ver}^ thought of that, with the solemn 
 observation : " It is dangerous to ante-date the 
 millennial reign of Christ." For we seldom forget 
 that, whether as subterfuge or anodyne, " the Mil- 
 lennium " makes a good alternative to " Christian 
 motive." Perhaps, in moments of inspiration, we 
 may rise to the fancy that such well- omened words 
 as were spoken from Kurn Hattin may really come in 
 usefully when human nature has made further pro- 
 gress. That is, in other words, when such teaching 
 is less necessary. So we bury the Sword of the Spirit 
 in the scabbard of compromise, and go on giving 
 points to Mr. Buckle. 
 
 When shall we more need than now and here, the 
 educative effort of striving to obey Christ's precepts ? 
 Is it not true that the stimulus of a great Ideal might 
 
154 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 indefinitely reinforce the social and religious sense, 
 assist the development of human nature, and secure 
 an advance in social evolution ? Yet we leave it to 
 a few singular people like William Penn and his com- 
 panions, to prove conformity to Christ's teaching 
 practical. And now we scarcely even recollect — 
 though it happened not so long ago — how, protected 
 by invisible weapons and strong with unseen strength, 
 that band of men lived for seventy years in the midst 
 of ten barbarous and powerful Indian tribes, with no 
 military defence whatever. 
 
 Even the great and progressive country which 
 includes the scene of that bright experiment, long 
 neglected to profit by its witness. It is an American 
 Bishop who indicts his nation with spending 500 million 
 dollars on Indian wars, and with not having 100 miles 
 between the Atlantic and the Pacific which have not 
 been the scene of an Indian massacre. We must 
 extract what consolation we can, as Bishop Whipple 
 continues : " On the other side of the line are the same 
 Anglo-Saxon race, and the same heathen. They have 
 not spent one dollar in Indian wars, and have had no 
 Indian massacres. In Canada the Indian treaties 
 call these men " the Indian subjects of His Majesty." 
 When civilisation approaches them, they are placed 
 on ample reservations, have personal right in property, 
 are amenable to law and protected by it. They 
 receive aid in civilisation, education, and religion." 
 
 Would it were possible to maintain that British 
 policy had been everywhere as true to Christian 
 principle ! But Britain is still far from any general 
 acceptance of the lesson which Thomas Carlyle — a 
 philosopher and prophet of her own, and no Exeter 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 155 
 
 Hall sentimentalist — strove to teach; that " not by 
 material, but by moral force, are men and their actions 
 governed." Yet recent events, especially in South 
 Africa, as well as the steadily generous Colonial 
 policy which has long been a feature of British admin- 
 istration, have abundantly shown what can be done, 
 not only without injury but with mutual profit, on 
 idealistic principles. 
 
 An astonished but admiring French observer of 
 certain recent Coronation " incidents," found their 
 explanation in " the attachment of the British people 
 to the religious idea." Whether right or wrong in 
 his particular application of it, our French friend's 
 principle is sound enough, that out of genuine attach- 
 ment to the religious idea astonishing things may 
 come. For, after all, it does appeal to us, — this 
 " religious ideal " that we like to call impossible; — 
 this " gleaming goal " we are perpetually pushing 
 beyond the confines of earth; — this "reckless good- 
 ness " we count the happiness of saints, but the ruin 
 of the work-a-day world ! Yes, it appeals to us, and 
 to us all, of whatever nation under heaven; for in 
 every man there lives a spark of God. 
 
 It is the growing God in man which craves for just 
 this sort of inspiration, and which sees that while 
 " the Ten Commandments are rational, the Sermon 
 on the Mount is Divine." It is in fact this (as so 
 sober a witness as The Spectator ^ reminds us) which 
 the populace acknowledges, when it " disregards the 
 good man and acclaims the Saint." There is an 
 element in human nature over which argument has 
 no sway. That element is of the essence of Faith. 
 1 June 17, 1911, p. 917. 
 
156 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 It is the element which is Divine. And by virtue of 
 its development, the good man may become " a 
 good man delivered from the everlasting fear of 
 consequences; — not only a good man, but a man of 
 Faith.'' Nothing less was Christ's ideal of Disciple- 
 ship. He seeks it at every advent. And for it 
 the world still keeps Him waiting : " The Son of 
 Man, when He cometh,— shall He find Faith on the 
 earth ? " 
 
 But this Call of Religion, men tell us now is vain. 
 
 " They would have us believe that the larger part of what 
 we are is determined by our ancestors, while most of what is 
 left is disposed of by our circumstances, so that all we, poor 
 fools of destiny, can do, is to create modifications of a minor 
 sort. And doubtless in this doctrine there is an element of 
 truth. Yet what, after all, is the history of progress and civili- 
 sation, but the record of one huge triumph over heredity and 
 environment ;— a victory won by men who, regardless of all 
 difficulties, inherited or otherwise, started forth on an adventure ; 
 who braced up their soul for a stupendous undertaking; who 
 went out after perfection ; who went out not knowing whither 
 they went." ^ 
 
 " Little or great is man ; 
 
 Great if he Avill, or if he will 
 
 A pigmy still; 
 For what he will he can." - 
 
 " He can," — if he have what Christ understood by 
 Faith ;— if he have the sort of faith He looks for Who 
 never disunited Religion and romance; — Whose 
 method was not primarily to address the intellect, 
 nor to win the world by syllogism ; but " to stir up 
 an ardour for excellent things, to kindle a passion of 
 interest which should mightily catch men away 
 towards great visions and great tasks." ^ And 
 whenever this Captain of Salvation " shall see of the 
 
 1 Dr. Homes Dudden, Christ and Cliri.sVs Religion, p. 167. 
 
 2 Christina Rossetti. ^ j^j. Dudden, op. cit., p. IGO. 
 
THE CALL OF RELIGION 157 
 
 travail of His soul and be satisfied," it will be throuoh 
 the eager and adventurous response of human faith 
 to the Divine Ideal which He lived and died to make 
 men love. 
 
 " The Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He 
 find Faith on the earth ? " and Faith of the sort that 
 He seeks ? It is a crucial question. For, as there 
 are " religions many," so faith, too, is manifold. 
 It is not always " lame hands " that Faith stretches; 
 nor is Faith's symbol always an impotent "look; " 
 nor always, the weak's last resort, — last clutch of a 
 life as it slips down the precipice' side. Not so runs 
 the record, "of whom the world was not worthy; " 
 who "out of weakness were made mighty;" sub- 
 duing kingdoms of unrighteousness, and removing 
 great mountains of wrong. For Faith is the Christ in 
 us, walking those waters which whelm and engulf 
 unbelief. And Faith's voice is no faint drowning 
 cry, but the shout of Love's henchmen, who follow 
 Love's lead, and would keep Love's commands 
 whether given from gibbet or Throne. 
 
 Faith's escutcheon no doubt has been blotted, 
 and sinister bars have appeared. But mere mental 
 acceptance, or verbal assent; juggling transfer of 
 merit which cannot be shifted; or sheer substitution 
 which could not take place; — these are no more like 
 Faith than they are like the fact. For Faith means 
 the whole man's passionate fealty to Beauty, to 
 Truth, and to Love. Romance, Mr. Benson has 
 written, is "a certain high-hearted, eager dealing 
 with life." But Religion is more than romance. Its 
 call is to the gathering and concentration of every 
 human faculty and power, to dare " the utmost for 
 
158 THE CALL OF RELIGION 
 
 the Highest," — to set unfaltering feet upon " the 
 great world's altar-stairs," and follow " beyond the 
 sunset and the stars," but no less here and now, 
 the quest and hest of the Divine. 
 
 " The Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find 
 Faith on the earth ? " Had the great army of 
 Christ's heralds fully realised the crucial nature of 
 that question ; had they not so often crippled, by 
 their eternal system-making, the original force of 
 the word Faith ; and had they worked as they might 
 for a world-wide affirmative answer to Christ's 
 challenge; surely by this time Christendom at least 
 would have believed in something other and higher 
 than armaments alone to " give peace in our time; " 
 and even civilisation would scarcely have continued 
 for 2,000 years to depend for defence and aggression 
 as brutes depend, — on horns, or claws, or beak. 
 This Call of Religion then is, first and foremost, a 
 Call to the Church, and, through the Church, to the 
 World. 
 
The Church — not the world only, but the Church 
 and Christian society — seems to have disappointed the 
 hopes of Apostles, seems to have persisted in the path 
 zvhich the Prince of Peace came to lead it from. . . . 
 The ancient imrld looked upon War and conflict as the 
 natural field for the highest virtues. It had no mis- 
 givings about strife and war : they were what men ivere 
 born to by the law of their existence ; conditions which 
 none could alter ; which none with honour could escape 
 from. It was a great reversal of all accepted moral 
 judgment, and of all popular traditions, when the 
 teaching of the Gospel put in the forefront of its message 
 God's value for Peace, and His blessing upon it ; when 
 it placed Peace as a divine and magnificent object, to be 
 aimed at with the earnestness with ivhich men aimed 
 at glory. . . . Thus the Gospel raised the imperfect 
 moral standard of men to a divinely-sanctioned height ; 
 and, however in practice Christians have fallen short 
 of it, this standard of what is true and right never has 
 been and never can be lowered. 
 
 Do not let any one cheat us out of our inheritance of 
 Peace by saying that God means it for Heaven, not for 
 earth. He means it for Time as well as for Eternity. 
 Let us in the name of God defy the mocking voices 
 ivhich appeal to experience to prove that the world can 
 be but a great scene of strife ; that none but enthusiasts 
 can dream of peace here. That will be according to our 
 Faith. That will be according as we master the poivers 
 of Evil which are the enemies of Peace.^ 
 
 ' R. W. Church (sometime Dean of St. Paul's). 
 
For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
 Jerusalem's sake I zvill not rest until her Righteousness 
 go forth as brightness and her Salvation as a lamp that 
 hurneth} 
 
 They misunderstand the doctrine of Evolution who 
 believe that the world is improved by some mystic and 
 self-acting social discipline, which dispenses with the 
 necessity of pertinacious attack upon institutions that 
 have outlived their time.' 
 
 I feel convinced that as civilisation advances, the 
 influence of Christian Teaching will tend increasingly 
 to inculcate the love of Peace, upon which the health, the 
 happiness, and the progress of all nations depefid.^ 
 
 Bishop Butler has warned us, in his fine phrase, 
 against the danger of "shortness of thought " — thought 
 zvhich covers only what we see at the moment. " Where 
 there is no Vision the people perish.'' ^ 
 
 Let your reach be beyond your grasp, 
 Or what's a Heaven for ? ^ 
 
 Even if our hopes may not be realised in our time, 
 that is no reason why we should not press forward in the 
 direction in which we see a possible means of relief. 
 What is impossible in one generation may become possible 
 in another. It is rnade more possible in another by the 
 fact that one generation presses in that direction, even 
 though it fails to attain the goal.^ 
 
 ' Isaiah. - Loni) Moni.KY. '' Kixc EinvARn V^II. 
 
 ^ Archbishop of Cantkrriry. '' Kobkht Browning. 
 
 " Sib Edward (jIrey. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 The preceding chapter aimed at establishing two 
 things. First, that the Call of Religion in regard to 
 War's passing is imperative and clear; next, that 
 this clear and imperative call has been habitually 
 made to sound indefinite and doubtful, by being 
 qualified unduly. 
 
 The writer's conviction is that one great reason 
 why Religion, in so long a time, has effected so little 
 toward the attainment of the Gospel's goal — " Peace 
 on Earth " — lies in the frequent practice of religious 
 teachers, either to boycott the subject, or to state 
 Religion's claim with ambiguity. He would venture 
 a protest against the still common attitude which 
 Newman pilloried in the famous passage which 
 begins, " ^Mistiness is the mother of wisdom," and 
 ends with the picture of " sensible, temperate, sober, 
 well- judging " pilots, steering carefully " through 
 the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and 
 Charybdis of Aye and No." ^ 
 
 What could be more likely to hinder the growth of 
 a decided judgment among the very people who ought 
 naturally to be most eager for a reformation of wrong 
 opinion, than a doubtful attitude, reflected in halting 
 language, on the part of accredited religious teachers ? 
 
 1 J. H. Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, vol. i. p. 301. 
 M IGl 
 
162 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 Such hindrance would be only the more serious for 
 its chiefly weighing with those from whom most help 
 was to be looked for — those, namely, who really 
 wish to maintain a genuine connection betAveen the 
 sanctions of religion and the conduct of human 
 affairs. 
 
 The struggle to break the criminal habit of resort 
 to Violence in settling international disputes, and to 
 substitute the resort to Justice, is one which pre- 
 eminently needs to be " pursued intrepidly, with a 
 sense of its size and amplitude"; and not "with 
 creeping foot and blinking eye." All history and 
 experience join Archbishop Whately in the warn- 
 ing : "It makes all the difference in the world 
 whether we put Truth in the first or in the second 
 place." 
 
 Pontius Pilate wrote that, once and for ever, on 
 the imperishable walls of Time, in characters which 
 Christendom at least should find indelible. The 
 Roman Governor incarnated the political spirit, 
 then, as now, " the great force in throwing the love 
 of Truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary 
 place." It was precisely to bear an everlasting wit- 
 ness against this spirit of expediency, that the Church 
 of Christ was founded. Those, therefore, who speak 
 in the name of Religion have no share in Pilate's 
 excuse for compromise, nor in any like excuse which 
 may serve to exonerate the statecraft of to-day. Any 
 possible duty of compromise, owing to intractable 
 circumstances, belongs to a field wholly foreign to 
 that of the Ideal in which the commissioned teacher 
 of Religion is called and sent to work. 
 
 It would, therefore, appear to be one of the many 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 163 
 
 ironies of ecclesiastical history that, in the plain duty 
 of upholding the standard of the Gospel in the matter 
 now under review, orthodoxy has so commonly — 
 from the age of Tertullian to that of Tolstoi — left it 
 to the heretic and the nonconformist to be in labours 
 more abundant, and in appeals more trenchant, for 
 the preservation in anything like pristine purity of 
 the ideal of Christ. 
 
 Parts of their witness no doubt have been marred 
 by extravagance, since few mortals escape the defects 
 of their qualities. One Idealist alone had the gift 
 of " sweet-reasonableness " to perfection. In the 
 grace of that celestial element only one Teacher's 
 words were wholly steeped, whether He winningly 
 unfolded His " secret " to the timid, or hammered 
 home His " method " on the dull. Nevertheless, to 
 the splendid fidelity of those followers who tried 
 unflinchingly to tread in what seemed to them to be 
 the very footprints of their Lord, inexpressible homage 
 is due. A man like Tertullian may be tainted with 
 Montanist revivalism if you will : he may have little 
 else but logic with him when he says : " No son of 
 peace should engage in battle when it is unseemly 
 for him even to take part in litigation";^ and he 
 may lack logic when he affirms : " Christ by disarming 
 Peter disarmed every soldier afterwards"; yet in a 
 rude age this great Father of the early Church made 
 magnificently clear the contrast between " the 
 standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the 
 camp of light and the camp of darkness." And his 
 example may teach us, who live in a less trying time, 
 to eschew that moral twilight which affects all ages, 
 ' 1 Cor. vi. 7. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 and in which God's purpose and man's duty both 
 grow dim. 
 
 Testimony hke TertulHan's in the third century, 
 or hke Tolstoi's in the twentieth, remains, despite all 
 blemishes, a priceless protest against the adulteration 
 of Religion's downright demand. Compromise, either 
 careless or considered, has been needlessly frequent. 
 If the point appears to some religious teacher worth 
 the making that " strict purity of motive " may, in 
 imaginable circumstances, justify recourse to War, 
 that can be done without encouraging the false idea 
 that War itself is not intrinsically wrong. It is by 
 indiscretions of this kind that so many conscientious 
 people have come to rest content with very " second- 
 best opinions " on the abstract morality of War. 
 
 It is easy to quote some conceivable concrete case 
 in which a wrong course of action may claim such 
 justification as belongs to the necessary acceptance 
 of the lesser of two evils. But what of that ? The 
 Teacher of Religion, as such, has nothing whatever 
 to do with those political exigencies with which it is 
 often the unhappy lot of statesmen to be compelled 
 to deal. The moralist's contribution to the world's 
 welfare consists in raising the level of public senti- 
 ment in regard to those matters which involve not 
 only political ideas but moral and religious ideas as 
 well. The possible passing of War is plainly one of 
 these. But it is with the ethical aspect only of such 
 a problem that the religious teacher, as such, is 
 concerned; and it is the verdict of Religion on the 
 matter which he is commissioned to declare. Ways 
 and means come only indirectly within his sphere, if 
 indeed they enter it at all. The exigencies and 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 165 
 
 expediencies of ordinary politics ought tlierefore 
 never to hamper his clear-cut presentment of the 
 Moral aspect of the Choice for which public opinion 
 so urgently needs preparing. He has to voice the 
 dictates of sovereign Law and the imperative of 
 Conscience and Religion, unmoved by those " proud 
 instincts of an imperial race " or whatever else may 
 be the euphemism for the national antipathies and 
 hatreds which have so often turned the fairest lands 
 of the world into fields of blood. 
 
 Public opinion in these days tends to become 
 more and more the Statesman's guide. If he is not 
 to be forced into second best, not to say iniquitous, 
 courses of action, it is plain that the ministers of 
 religion in every Christian State must cease to 
 present, for public consumption, second best, or 
 morally defective, opinions. Their tone must be no 
 longer that of apologists for War, or of ingenious 
 evaders of the logic of Religion which declares 
 that War ought to be unfalteringly exposed as an 
 inherently un-Christian political weapon. In so far 
 as " Beware of the high and hold fast to the safe," 
 " Dismiss conviction and study general consensus," 
 are maxims honoured by the Church, the Church is 
 borrowing the least worthy of the politician's prin- 
 ciples without having any right at all to his excuse 
 for using them. 
 
 The reign of War in the world rests on the con- 
 tinuance of the decision of mankind to refer things 
 finally to the arbitrament of physical force. With 
 that anti-Christian decision the disciple of Christ is 
 pledged to a holy War from which there is no discharge 
 till the decision is changed, however long this may 
 
16G AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 take to accomplish. When Civilisation, urged by 
 Religion, reaches the stage of substituting Justice 
 for Violence as final arbiter of its affairs. War will 
 die away. In contemplating this practicable possi- 
 bility, who can deny that we face " one of those 
 supreme and indefeasible expediencies which are 
 classified as moral " ? If before such a claim we 
 traitorously hesitate, then whatever depth of Truth 
 resides in the great saying, " Morality is the nature 
 of things," will rise in judgment against us. 
 
 To the sphere, then, of the religious teacher 
 belongs only — and the range is very ample — " the 
 higher, wider, more binding, and transcendent part 
 of the master art of social well-being." But if he is 
 free of the incubus of political exigency, which lies 
 outside the scope of his domain, his responsibility 
 for the purity of the doctrine delivered in Religion's 
 name is all the greater, since he has the less excuse 
 for its perversion. He must set himself to prevent his 
 message from becoming chargeable with the sort of 
 weakness which attaches for instance to those purely 
 economic arguments against War, which appeal only 
 to one part of human nature. If the teacher is wise 
 he will remember that it was a prince among dialec- 
 ticians — John Henry Newman — who adopted and 
 endorsed the famous warning of St. Ambrose, that 
 " it hatli not pleased the Lord to give His people 
 salvation in dialectic." And it may help him further 
 to keep the calculating faculty in its place, if he 
 recollects that it is a past master in mental analysis 
 — Lord Morley — who maintains that " our ruling 
 convictions are less the product of ratiocination, 
 than of sympathy, imagination, usage, tradition." 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 167 
 
 Tluis, if Religion's view of War is to become a ruling 
 conviction in tlie world, its appeal must plainly be 
 addressed to the whole of human nature. And the 
 more so, as daily experience confirms the truth that 
 the most subtle reasoning will leave but lightly 
 moved the multitude which waits for inspiration, and 
 already indeed lives thereby so far as it lives at all. 
 The doubt whether, as things are, all can be quite 
 right with normal Christian teaching seems fortified 
 by the fact that, when the most up-to-date English 
 Dictionary refers to "Christianity," the last possible 
 definition given is " conformity to the teachings of 
 Christ in life and conduct," and this is ominously 
 pronounced " Rare." Are we to fold our hands, until 
 we discover in the next edition that " Rare " has 
 become " Obsolete " ? 
 
 Surely we still have need to lay to heart the 
 appeal by a great lay preacher of political righteous- 
 ness, when he strove in 1853 to avert that War in the 
 Crimea ' which was as immediately fertile in horrors 
 as it afterwards proved politically barren — 
 
 " You profess to be a Christian nation. You make it your 
 boast that you are a people who draw your rule of doctrine and 
 practice, as from a well pure and undefiled, from the living 
 oracles of God. You have even conceived the magnificent project 
 of illuminating the whole earth, even to its remotest and darkest 
 recesses, by disseminating the volume of the New Testament, 
 in whose every page are written for ever the words of Peace. 
 Within the limits of this island alone, on every Sunday, in more 
 
 1 The Crimean war cost England 132 million pounds. It 
 cost the Western powers 428,000 men, and Taissia 325,000 men. 
 For chief result (beyond the ruin of Russia's forts and a 
 temporary check to her imperial prestige) it revived the mirage — 
 the delusiveness of which occasioned the Russo-Turkish War of 
 1877, and has kept Europe in pain and travail to this day — the 
 mirage of Ottoman rejuvenation. 
 
168 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 than twenty thousand temples, devout men and women assemble 
 that they may worship Ilim Who is the ' Prince of Peace.' Is 
 this a reality, or is your Christianity a romance, and your 
 profession a dream ? No, I am sure that your Christianity is 
 not a romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not 
 a dream. It is because I believe this that I have hope and faith 
 in the future. I believe that we shall see, and at no very distant 
 time, sound economic principles spreading much more widely 
 among the people ; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which 
 hitherto has been deemed unfruitful; and, better than all, the 
 Churches of Britain awaking as it were from their slumbers, and 
 girding up their loins to more glorious work, when they shall not 
 only accept and believe in the prophecy, but labour earnestly 
 for its fulfilment, that there shall come a time — a time which 
 shall last for ever — when ' nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' " 
 
 Now can we think that during the sixty years 
 which have passed since those words were spoken, the 
 " Churches of Britain " have " laboured earnestly " 
 in this direction ? I am quite sure the Church of 
 England has not. Among her multitudinous Societies 
 and Organisations for every imaginable propaganda, 
 no sort of association for promoting either the Peace 
 of the World or any kind of Peace Ideal, even existed 
 till about a year ago, and perhaps a hundred names 
 would nearly exhaust its present membership. Too 
 rarely has her voice been raised at all against the mili- 
 tarism which now more than ever oppresses Europe, 
 and which dishonours and defies the Christianity we 
 profess. 
 
 Let any one who has been accustomed for many 
 years to listen to sermons try to recall even two or 
 three occasions on which the possible prevention of 
 War by Christian influences has been treated. He 
 will, in all probability, find the topic untouched. 
 You may ransack any theological library and look at 
 the contents-table of numberless volumes published 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 169 
 
 even in years of apprehension before the Crimean 
 War, the Franco-German War, the Riisso-Turkish 
 War, the South African War, without finding a single 
 discourse directly bearing upon the moral aspect of 
 trial by War. There have been deliverances, no 
 doubt, when a nation is actually in the throes of a 
 vital struggle, such as that in which our country was 
 engaged in the gloomy triennium from 1899 to 1902, 
 or that which made all Europe stand aghast some 
 forty years ago beside the battle-fields of Gravelotte 
 and Sedan. But do sermons preached in these times 
 of storm and stress, when men's minds are warped by 
 the partisanship, the fears, the anxieties, or the ruin 
 and havoc of the hour, do these efforts afford any 
 material help in the direction required ? Are they 
 always pitched in the right key ? Do they give any 
 hint or hope of good tidings to the toiling peoples of 
 the world almost equally groaning under the oppressive 
 burdens of Peace and the possible terrors of War ? 
 
 Take a classic example — a sermon of Dr. Mozley 
 before the University of Oxford in 1871. Here it 
 is argued that the Christian Church recognised and 
 adopted nations as it found them, with their inherent 
 rights. As war is one of these rights, Christianity was 
 bound to recognise the right of a nation in certain 
 circumstances to make war. Dr. Mozley allows, 
 indeed, that Christianity does utterly condemn and 
 denounce the motives which lead to war : selfish 
 ambition, rapacity, tyranny, vain-glory. But, he 
 adds, the existence of these very motives gives the 
 right — the right be it noted — of resistance by War 
 to one or other side. Further we are told that " the 
 Christian Church only contemplates war forensically. 
 
170 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 as a mode of settling national questions, which is 
 justified by the want of any other mode." And 
 again, " It is the judicial character of War as a mode 
 of obtaining justice that gives war its morality, and 
 enables it to produce its solemnising type of character." 
 
 We are reminded that " there is one side of the 
 moral character of War in special harmony with the 
 Christian type; and that is the spirit of sacrifice, 
 which is inherent in the very idea of the individual 
 encountering death for the body to which he belongs. 
 This serious and sacred function consecrates War." 
 And so the conclusion is reached that " War is thus 
 elevated by sacrifice." 
 
 Commenting on this discourse of Dr. Mozley, the 
 present Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cam- 
 bridge,^ in a sermon preached before the University, 
 very pertinently says — 
 
 " I venture to hold that if the clergy as a body arc to take 
 their share in educating the nations to a more wholesome view 
 of the wrongfulness and uselessness of the arbitrament of \yar, 
 there must be observed in their public utterances an attitude 
 entirely different from that of the sermon, masterly in its way, 
 from which quotations have been given. I would press for a 
 complete change of front. I would banish once and for all 
 those commonplaces of the pulpit which are really intended as 
 so many palliatives, where no palliative should be admissible 
 in face of an admitted international sin against our common 
 humanity. 
 
 " Let us hear more of the inherent senselessness of war, and 
 less of the inherent right of a nation to make war. Let us hear 
 less and less of the so-called justifiable nature of war, the purifying 
 influence of war, the heroic sacrifices made in war; let us be un- 
 sparing in denunciation of the selfish motives that lead to war. 
 Let us regard as a flagrant contradiction in terms such phrases 
 as a ' war of progress,' ' the judicial character of war,' ' the lawful 
 place of war in the world,' ' the sacred and serious object of 
 war,' ' the morality of war,' ' the solemnising type of character 
 
 The Rev. E. S. Roberts. 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 171 
 
 produced by war ' ; and let us stoutly maintain that no function, 
 however serious and sacred, can ' consecrate ' war. Let us cease 
 to preach that war, as such, can be ' elevated ' — even by ' sacri- 
 fice.' Lastly, let us refuse to concede in any given case the 
 ' necessity of war.' " 
 
 I would, then, invite the Anglican clergy to ponder 
 the cogency of this Cambridge Master's appeal against 
 the special pleading of the Oxford Professor. And, 
 since no doubt Dr. Mozley was widely accounted a 
 considerable theologian, I offer them, in the place of 
 their Oxford luminary, this following light from a 
 theological star of infinitely greater magnitude — 
 
 " It was a significant advance in the evolution of the European 
 man when the Stoic philosophy recognised and taught the brother- 
 hood of all men. But it was a far greater advance when Jesus 
 Christ proclaimed that we are all children of one Father, and 
 therefore should love one another as brothers. There is the 
 beginning of the great movement to bring together a divided 
 humanity as a union of brothers, comprehensive as human life 
 and deep as human need. It is sadly evident that this ideal 
 has not been fully applied in human affairs, although 2000 years 
 have already been given to the work, but nevertheless the ideal 
 is there ; it abides in our midst, and we feel its compelling force 
 and its benediction. We dare not cast forth this ideal from the 
 realm of politics ; we are bound to recognise its validity even there. 
 We ought not to act as if our Christianity bound us only in the 
 home and in the Church, whilst elsewhere its authority failed; 
 as if the sword of the barbarian maintained a lawful place among 
 us ! Every man, and every people, has precious possessions 
 which must be defended, and for which life itself must be laid 
 down ; but only the smallest fraction of the wars carried on upon 
 earth have concerned these hallowed possessions. Strike out the 
 wars which have been undertaken from motives of covetousness 
 and envy, ambition and pride, and we shall see how much occasion 
 and material of war and bloodshed would still be left ! " 
 
 Between Dr. Mozley's sermon at Oxford in 1871, 
 and Professor Harnack's great Address in London in 
 1911, more than a generation has passed. And their 
 very different tone is undoubtedly typical of a changed 
 attitude which is far from being confined to profess- 
 
172 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 orial Chairs, whether in Oxford or Cambridge or 
 Berhn. Ears are everywhere open now which forty 
 years , ago were stopped. Hearts are eager to be 
 gladdened with the Wine of Christ's own making. 
 And if that very old wine now appears as " new," 
 calling for " new bottles," this surely points to some 
 neglect on the part of its authorised stewards. 
 
 No doubt we too may say, with the Oxford 
 preacher of a past generation, that Governments 
 have the right of making war. But what we have in 
 addition to recollect, and to proclaim, is that a right 
 has bounds; and also that when these are trans- 
 gressed by us, the right ceases to exist, a*id we becpme 
 culpable. The private citizen, we commonly allow, 
 has the right of taking life in self-defence, but if 
 under plea of this right he should take life without 
 cause, he would not stand absolved of murder. In 
 like manner, though a Government be authorised to 
 make war in self-defence, it still contracts guilt if it 
 proclaims war from policy, expediency, ambition, or 
 revenge. How clear, then, is the duty of all men, and 
 pre-eminently of men who act on the commission of 
 God's peace, to help in creating such a public opinion 
 in all nations that Statesmen shall be compelled to 
 exercise the very utmost caution before they " slip 
 the dogs of War." On this subject, as Channing 
 trenchantly taught long ago — 
 
 " A new moral sense and a new language are needed throughout 
 the whole too nominally Christian world, and just in proportion 
 as the truth shall find a tongue, war will cease. ... A Declara- 
 tion of War stands alone among acts of legislation. It has no 
 parallel. These few words, ' Let War be,' have the power of 
 desolation which belongs to earthquakes and lightnings : they 
 may stain the remotest seas with blood and carry anguish into 
 thousands of homes. No scheme of aggrandisement, no doxibtful 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 173 
 
 claims, no uncertain fears, no anxiety to establish a balance of 
 power, will justify this act. It can find no justification but in 
 plain stern necessity, in unquestionable justice, in persevering 
 wrono-s which all other and long-tried means have failed to avert. 
 It is time that the right of War should not shield Governments 
 from the infamy due to liostilities to which selfish wicked passions 
 give birth." 
 
 It cannot be doubted that this " new moral 
 sense " has been slowly developing all over the world 
 since Channing wrote, and with greatly accelerated 
 progress during the last decade. And this fact 
 illuminates that great word Hope, which more than 
 any other must be our anchor probably for many a 
 decade yet to come. " The mills of God grind slowly," 
 but they move. Man's evolution out of his original 
 animal savagery is painfully slow, but it is taking 
 place. The Moral Conscience of the civilised world 
 to-day is poles removed from what it was in Old 
 Testament times, or in the palmiest days of the Greek 
 or Roman Empire. Less than two centuries ago, for 
 instance, even the Christian pulpit was a bulwark of 
 Slavery. The contrast is continually being accentu- 
 ated, and the increasing ratio in the progress of social 
 evolution is more noticeable every year. Eight 
 million lives, according to the generally accepted 
 estimate of Professor Richet of Paris, were sacrihced 
 to the ruthless glory-lust of Napoleon I. That the 
 moral consciousness of Europe would allow the 
 repetition of such a career, has to-day become utterly 
 unthinkable. 
 
 Of course there are set-backs ; but no occasional 
 recrudescence of the evil spirit can blind us to the 
 incoming tide of a far higher level of public opinion 
 on this tremendous matter. Anything like a wide- 
 
174 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 spread organised movement to establish a better 
 judgment on the question in the minds of men 
 would have caused wonder only too short a time ago. 
 And yet it is in the minds of men of all classes, and 
 among all nations, that the seed of more Christian 
 views of War must be sown. 
 
 A simultaneous appeal such as is now annually 
 made to thousands of conscientious people, if it 
 could become universal over the whole Christian 
 world, could hardly fail of considerable cumulative 
 effect. With all the Churches of Christendom united 
 in one object among a hundred points of difference, 
 and demonstratively united, we might even hope 
 that in some not distant future it would be incon- 
 ceivable and impossible to find a parallel to the recent 
 statement of a sober critic, who wrote of the great 
 European struggle of forty years ago : "As time goes 
 on, and as authentic records leap to light, it becomes 
 more and more clear that not onlj^ Bismarck, but 
 almost all the leading statesmen in Berlin, had been 
 for some years working to bring about war between 
 Germany and France." ^ 
 
 We may hope that concerted Christian action, 
 when it has attained the hoped-for development in 
 civilised countries, could scarcely fail to elevate in 
 some appreciable measure the sense of solemn re- 
 sponsibility in Statesmen on whose individual decree 
 the fate of empires may depend. Here, at all events, 
 is a subject on which one may fairly expect sub- 
 stantial agreement among the Churches of Christ, 
 amid their regrettable conflicts on other and com- 
 paratively trivial points of dispute. Here, at least, we 
 1 The Times, Aumist 21. 190.*i. 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 175 
 
 are in face of an admitted international sin against 
 our common humanity; and it is one of tlie first of 
 our grounds of Hope that the recognition of this as 
 a subject for concerted appeal to the Christian con- 
 science is steadily becoming clearer. 
 
 Perhaps nothing would do more to stir endeavour 
 in the right direction, than a real conviction that 
 " Peace on earth " is not only an angel-song, or 
 merely a crank's quixotic dream, but a real, definite, 
 practicable possibility. And is it not so ? In 1780, 
 Benjamin Franklin wrote, " We make great improve- 
 ments in natural, there is one I wish to see in moral, 
 philosophy, the discovery of a plan which would 
 induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes 
 without first cutting one another's throats. When 
 will human reason be sufficiently improved to see 
 the advantage of this ? " Commenting on this (in 
 a leading article inspired by Mr. Andrew Carnegie's 
 munificent gift in the cause of Peace) The Times 
 recently observed : " After the lapse of one hundred 
 and thirty years human reason is manifestly not yet 
 sufficiently improved to see it. W^e must still sorrow- 
 fully say, with Joubert, ' Force is the Right which 
 rules everything in the world; Right waits upon 
 Force.' Force is still waiting until Right is ready 
 to achieve its perfect work ; and to all appearance it 
 will still have many a long day to wait." 
 
 I am bold to put among our grounds of Hope 
 language even such as this, from such a source. The 
 Times leader-writer is at least sorrowful about his 
 verdict, and he does not dismiss Franklin's ideal as 
 absurd, but only as likely to be long delayed. Indeed 
 he goes on to say that " it would be well worth the 
 
176 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 while of the nations to lay down their tens of millions 
 for each of the two just given by Mr. Carnegie (to 
 hasten the abolition of international war) if by so 
 doing they could get rid of the crushing and ever- 
 growing burden of their armaments. But could 
 they ? Franklin yearned for a plan which could 
 induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes 
 without first cutting one another's throats. But 
 where is the obligation — or sanction, as jurists call it 
 — to come from ? " 
 
 This question, we must all agree, " touches the 
 spot." And we shall all be as hopeless as The Times, 
 if we think it unanswerable. But I venture to submit 
 that it is not. No one who gives due weight to the 
 opinions of psychologists most qualified to judge, no 
 one who recognises the leading factor in such advances 
 in social evolution as have already been made, can 
 be anything but confident that the " sanction " and 
 " obligation " of which the leader-writer despairs, 
 can be, and will be, found in a further developed 
 Moral sense among the peoples of the earth. Carlyle 
 himself was no milk-and-water prophet, and he had 
 made a special study of the violences of mankind; 
 yet his testimony to the supremacy of moral forces is 
 positively flat and stale beside that of some other 
 witnesses. Napoleon's saying that in War itself 
 " the moral is to the physical as three to one " is far 
 more striking ; and it is ex animo accepted by Clause- 
 witz when he pours scorn on the military writers 
 who " only consider material objects, while every 
 action in war is saturated with moral forces and 
 effects." Early in his profound work On War he 
 writes, " Most of the subjects which we shall go 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 177 
 
 through in this book are composed half of physical, 
 half of moral, causes and effects; and we might say 
 that the physical are almost no more than the wooden 
 handle, whilst the moral are the noble metal, the real 
 bright polished weapon." 
 
 Now if ever mortal men understood the nature 
 of war, Napoleon and Clausewitz understood it. One 
 of them lived by war : " Conquest," he said, " has 
 made me; conquest must maintain me." The other 
 saw fighting in 1793 at the age of thirteen, and 
 practised it continuously (in the service of Russia 
 when he had no scope under his own flag) till 1815, 
 when he was thirty-five. And he was engaged in 
 military organisation, study, or writing, for the 
 remainder of his life. He not only, however, had this 
 unrivalled practical experience, but possessed such 
 skill in recording it that the military writer probably 
 next him in ability — General von der Goltz — feels, 
 eighty years after the death of Clausewitz, that to 
 essay the same subject is like attempting a Faust 
 after Goethe, or a Hamlet after Shakespeare. Yet 
 this is the man who not only tells us that " War is an 
 Act of Violence which in its application knows no 
 bounds," but also that in War " the struggle between 
 the spiritual and moral forces, on both sides, is the 
 centre of all." 
 
 If, then, in such antagonistic circumstances, if 
 while the tempest is actually raging, " the moral and 
 spiritual factors are everything," are we to deny their 
 supremacy when minds are in a normal and healthy 
 state ? If the issue of a storm of utterly immoral 
 violence is determined by " moral and spiritual 
 factors," are these factors to be accounted incapable 
 
178 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 of dispersing any imaginable occasion for such a 
 storm before it arises ? The surprisingly effective 
 activity generated by the moral sense even during 
 the last twelve months, as well as its recorded achieve- 
 ments in the sphere of Arbitration, surely go far to 
 justify a sanguine spirit. Moreover quite lately in 
 Africa we have ourselves been putting to the proof 
 the saying that " he only who is reconciled is truly 
 vanquished." Despite the supine attitude of its 
 accredited instructors in righteousness, the whole 
 Anglo-Saxon race seems resolute in refusing to blunt 
 its best aspirations by accounting War a necessary 
 evil. That the great movement towards finding 
 a sound substitute for its barbarous arbitrament 
 will confuie itself to Anglo-Saxondom no one can 
 believe who realises the growing intelligence and power 
 of " the people," and the effect of the ever-increasing 
 pressure of taxation for War-worship, — all working 
 in the direction indicated by the most elementary 
 maxims of morality. 
 
 Meanwhile there is, no doubt, a terrible dead- 
 weight of indifference to be overcome, an extra- 
 ordinary backwardness on the part of those who 
 ought to be spiritual leaders to be changed into 
 real enthusiasm, if the growth of public opinion is not 
 to be halting and slow. Would that the whole body 
 of clergy might see their way to act (at least in this 
 matter) with more unanimity than now prevails ! 
 The erudite von Dollinger both desired and forecast 
 the gradual advent of a more united Johannine 
 Church, in natural succession to its Petrine and 
 Pauline precursors. He thought that the fulfilment 
 of this hope would correspond with the coming of a 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 179 
 
 new Age of the Holy Spirit, leading the world further 
 into the light of God. Few modern men have had 
 such endowments, of learning, honesty and love, to 
 justify the right of prophecy. And history's vindi- 
 cation of this hope may even now be near. Already, 
 whatever weakness may appear to attach to institu- 
 tional and corporate Christianity, a general, notable 
 and efficacious diffusion of its Spirit is undeniable. 
 
 Whatever happens, we should surely be on our 
 guard lest we fail to read the signs of the times. We 
 should watch as well as pray lest any exclusive 
 ecclesiasticism, any obscurantist mediaeval mentality, 
 blind us to the value of a reviving sense of the essential 
 meaning of true Religion, or abate our welcome of a 
 re-Christianised public opinion at all events in one 
 direction, and one of momentous importance. 
 
 The contention that the attitude of Churches, and 
 the tone of the clergy, have some cogency with public 
 opinion, and may thus affect National decisions on 
 Peace and War, is supported by a recollection of the 
 influence admittedly exercised (though more especi- 
 ally on the other side of the Atlantic) less than 
 twenty years ago, when a peculiarly fratricidal war 
 between England and America was happily averted. 
 But it is the organised, persistent, and widely simul- 
 taneous pressure, which holds the promise of the 
 future. The recently formed " Associated Councils 
 of Churches in the British and German Empires, for 
 fostering Friendly Relations betM^een the Two 
 Peoples " indicates the kind of work which is 
 most full of hope. And the noble address by prob- 
 ably the most widely influential religious thinker in 
 Europe, Professor Adolf Harnack of Berlin, delivered 
 
180 AWAKENING INTEREST 
 
 in London at the British Inaugural Meeting,^ should 
 certainly provoke us to emulate its spirit until the 
 nations are so inoculated with friendliness and 
 fraternity as to be entirely immune from War-fever, 
 however poisonously engendered or sensationally 
 provoked. 
 
 Surely the bare possibility of combined and 
 effective action on the part of the clergy even tending 
 to prevent Statesmen from finding themselves under 
 the dire compulsion to declare war, should suffice to 
 give eagerness to our endeavours. As Clausewitz 
 has only too truly observed : " Even the most 
 civilised nations may burn with passionate hatred 
 of each other." And " it is quite possible for such 
 a state of feeling to exist between two States that a 
 very trifling political motive for war may produce an 
 effect quite disproportionate, in fact, a perfect ex- 
 plosion." But have the clergy, acting under " holy 
 orders " from the Prince of Peace, received no charge 
 concerning this, wherever their lot be cast ? Christ's 
 fundamental message to the world was the Brother- 
 hood of Man, founded on the Fatherhood of God. 
 " Love your neighbour as yourself : do to others as 
 you would they should do unto you." These were 
 the words of this Teacher we hold to be Divine. 
 Are " His ministers " ministering His principles ? 
 Have they taken account, not only of the Tree of 
 the Knowledge of good and evil, but of the Tree of 
 Life whose " leaves are for the healing of the 
 nations ? " 
 
 What will Filioque clauses, or Homoousion ortlio- 
 doxy, avail when Christ asks why, after two thousand 
 1 At Queen's Hall, February 5, 1911. 
 
AWAKENING INTEREST 181 
 
 years of Christian ministry, it is still possible that 
 " even the most civilised nations may burn with 
 passionate hatred of each other " ? What the 
 Churches have done by precept and example in the 
 unholy past to encourage the spirit of division and 
 disdain is written in chronicles which the twentieth- 
 century conscience shudders to peruse. But that 
 conscience is now clamant that at length and at last, 
 and always henceforth, primary Christian instinct 
 should have free course — that men should resolutely 
 shed " the Light of the World " upon the most 
 difficult problem of the age, and pursue its solution 
 witJi every power of head and heart with which the 
 God of Peace has endoAved them. 
 
 If the clergy hold commission from Him Who came 
 " not to destroy men's lives but to save them," how 
 can they fulfil it without doing all that in them lies 
 to elevate the public sentiment in this tremendous 
 affair ? Ought they not to feel " straitened " until 
 something further is accomplished, and the nations, 
 instead of spending and being spent in " making 
 provision " to bite and devour one another, are 
 enlisted in a holy army and launched on a new crusad^ 
 for the unifying and compacting of the common 
 civilisation, and for an organised international rescue 
 of the still desecrated Temple of Peace. For this — 
 this novum salutis genus indeed — the old war-cry 
 may well be raised again, and with infinitely greater 
 truth : Deus vult ! Dieu le veult ! God wills it ! 
 
The reproach of being impracticable attaches by 
 right not to those ivho insist on resolute, persistent and 
 uncompromising effort to remove abuses, but to a very 
 different class — to those, namely, who are credulous 
 enough to suppose that abuses, and bad customs, and 
 wasteful ways of doing things, will remove themselves.^ 
 
 Out doubts are traitors. 
 And make us lose the good ive oft might win 
 By fearing to attempt.'^ 
 
 The tide is flozving, the expenditure is increasing. 
 What we have to look for is any beneficent movement 
 which will go to the root of the matter, and so affect 
 Public Opinion, not in one country but in all, that it 
 may lead first of all to the tide ceasing to flow, then 
 turning, and, I hope, ebbing. Public Opinion has 
 been stirred. The number of arbitrators is increasing. 
 But you must take a long step further yet, before the 
 increase of Arbitration will really affect this increase 
 of expenditure on armaments.^ 
 
 1 Lord Morlev. - Shakkspeark. •' Sir EinvARn Grey. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 " WATCHMAN ! WHAT OF THE NIGHT ? " 
 
 Some answer to this question, in our present 
 application of it, has ah-eady been suppHed. But as 
 everything immediately practicable in the direction 
 of securing " Peace on earth " must largely depend 
 upon the kind of thought and feeling current in the 
 world, the purpose of these pages seems to call for 
 some more definite attempt to summarise the exist- 
 ing outlook. That outlook has two salient features. 
 One a Contrast; the other a Contradiction. The 
 retrospect reveals a most encouraging contrast; the 
 prospect a very discouraging contradiction. 
 
 I. First, then, the Contrast. I refer to the 
 mental attitude of civilised mankind to-day toward 
 Peace and War, compared with that of even less than 
 a century ago. To realise the greatness of the change, 
 we need not go back to pre-mediaeval times, when 
 war was so incessant that the very shortest Treuga 
 Dei was eagerly established by way of limiting the 
 time available for bloodshed ; nor to the seventeenth 
 century, when the very title of the historic work of 
 Grotius (published 1G25), De jure Belli et pads, 
 implies the predominance of War. The contrast is 
 almost equally marked if we compare now current 
 thoughts with those prevalent even eighty or ninety 
 years ago. In the great book of Clausewitz, On JVar — 
 
184 WATCHMAN ! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 a work no less philosophically than scientifically 
 famous — its author commits himself to this forecast 
 of the future : " Every one will agree with us that, 
 at least when great interests are in dispute, mutual 
 hostility will discharge itself in the same manner as 
 it has done in our times." ^ Now such words can only 
 mean that little more than eighty years ago it was 
 a generally accepted certainty that disputed interests 
 could never be arranged without recourse to arms; 
 and that, even by a thinker of this writer's calibre, 
 this was regarded as an axiom. 
 
 Or again, with recent arbitral achievements fresh 
 in our minds, it affords astonishing evidence of pro- 
 gress to read this great man's valuation of Inter- 
 national Law. Eighty years ago International Law 
 appeared as a mere futile appanage of War, and 
 Clausewitz writes of it with withering contempt. 
 " Self-imposed restrictions," he says, " almost im- 
 perceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed 
 usages of International Law, accompany War without 
 essentially impairing its power." ^ War, therefore, 
 remains " an act of violence which in its application 
 knows no bounds." - That this supreme Violence 
 could ever be ousted from its immemorial throne by 
 any other arbitrament whatever, much more by a 
 system based upon the precedents and principles 
 of so negligible an authority, would have appeared 
 mere madness to this spiritual son of Napoleon. 
 
 Now from such points in the picture of a not 
 
 distant past let us turn to the outlook of to-day. 
 
 Although the progress of the world in other sciences 
 
 has undoubtedly outstripped its growth in statecraft, 
 
 1 On War, bk. viii. ^ juj^^ bk. i. ch. i. 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 185 
 
 and therefore War still lingers ; yet the most confirmed 
 devotee of the unchangeability of human nature must 
 allow that War is no longer the habitual occupation 
 of civilised nations, and that in proportion to their 
 civilisation it occupies them less and less. So com- 
 plete, in fact, is the change in public opinion, that it 
 is not easy now to realise how short a period separates 
 us from the ages when Peace was merely regarded 
 as " the political condition which prevailed in the 
 intervals between wars." Indeed, the famous re- 
 script of Tsar Nicholas II (August 24, 1898), Avhich 
 puts the case as high as possible, claims no more than 
 that " in the course of the last twenty years " (since 
 1878 therefore) " the preservation of Peace has be- 
 come an object of international policy." But such 
 words — and we know how they have been justified 
 in the subsequent happenings initiated by the rescript 
 — imply nothing short of a complete reversal of the 
 old point of view. 
 
 Peace no longer appears to civilised mankind as 
 a merely negative condition. International Law, 
 instead of continuing to be a negligible quantity, 
 " almost imperceptible and hardly worth mention- 
 ing," takes its due place as the foundation upon which 
 will gradually be built the great system of Inter- 
 national Procedure which is destined to supplant 
 the barbarous arbitrament of the sword, just as 
 systems of National Judicature have supplanted 
 lawless appeals to ph3'sical force, which were once 
 the common substitute for Justice in every individual 
 State. It is, in fact, no over-statement to say with 
 Sir Thomas Barclay that Peace among nations has 
 become, or is fast becoming, a positive subject of 
 
186 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 international regulation, while War is becoming, in 
 the regard of progressive peoples, " an accidental 
 disturbance of that harmony and concord among 
 mankind which nations require for the fostering of 
 their domestic welfare." 
 
 When we reflect how short an interval separates 
 the time when the whole air of Europe was perpetu- 
 ally befouled by battle-smoke, and her glorious 
 mountains reverberated with the continual boom 
 of artillery, from such a date as, let us say, 1907, 
 which found the European nations, despite many 
 differences, unanimously avowing (at the second 
 Hague Conference) their " firm determination to 
 co-operate in the maintenance of general peace," 
 and " to favour with all their efforts the amicable 
 settlement of International conflicts," surely the 
 contrast needs no labouring. It stands out of itself 
 in bold relief, witnessing a positive reversal of current 
 opinion, and the actual presence of something not far 
 short of that " new moral sense " for which Channing 
 so ardently longed. 
 
 A contrast of similar import, though perliaps 
 less broadly striking, might be drawn between the 
 ratio of advance during the last decade, and that of 
 the years most nearly preceding. As all the world 
 knows, an opportunity was created in 1899 for focus- 
 ing the efforts of all States " sincerely seeking to 
 make the great idea of universal Peace triumph over 
 the elements of trouble and discord." But while, 
 at this first Hague Conference, only twenty-six 
 Powers were represented; at the second, in 1907, 
 the represented Powers were forty-four, including 
 practically the civilised world. The working of the 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 187 
 
 law of acceleration, in this leap in the number of 
 represented States from twenty-six to forty-four in 
 eight years, is similarly prominent in the rapidly 
 growing acceptance of the Arbitration principle as 
 a mode of settling national disputes. Dividing the 
 eighty years from 1820 to 1900 into four periods of 
 twenty years each, the number of cases submitted 
 and decided stands as follows : eight only in the 
 first period of twenty years; thirty in the second; 
 forty-four in the third; and in the last period, 
 ninety ; or, if the twenty years are counted back 
 from 1903, the adjudications number 115. The 
 ratio of increase is as significant as the growth 
 itself. 
 
 These actual achievements — especially some of 
 those recently accomplished, like the settlement of 
 the sudden and awkward Dogger Bank incident, or 
 the very different kind of adjustment involved in 
 ending the protracted differences of a hundred years 
 about the North Atlantic Fishery rights — are more 
 eloquent than any words. They should enable public 
 opinion to realise that, when national representatives 
 at the Hague specifically agree that arbitration is 
 " the most efficacious and at the same time most 
 equitable method " of settling disagreements of a 
 legal character insoluble by diplomacy, this is no 
 mere beating the air; but the statement of a plain 
 fact of proved practical utility. Such examples 
 should also prepare the way for the acceptance of 
 a further principle embodied by the Conference in 
 these words : " Certain disputes, in particular those 
 relating to the interpretation and application of the 
 provisions of international agreements, are of a kind 
 
188 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 to be submitted to compulsory arbitration without 
 any restriction." 
 
 In spite of tlie careful limitation of their phrasing, 
 it is difficult not to see in such statements at least 
 the dawning of a quite new day ; and it is impossible 
 not to think them representative of widespread 
 thought and feeling in all civilised lands. They 
 clearly add to the manifold and multiplying testi- 
 mony that Peace has left behind for ever the ignominy 
 of being regarded as a brief, inglorious interlude in 
 War's resplendent and interminable reign ; and has 
 come to be generally acclaimed as the norm of national 
 life, worthy to be guarded by a definite code of 
 methods and laws from War's abnormal disturbance. 
 
 But if this be so, if matters of moment, as well as 
 the petty interests and selfish rivalries which here- 
 tofore have inflamed States into conflict, are in so 
 fair a way of legal adjustment ; if War rests on Opinion, 
 and Opinion is obviously withdrawing its support ; 
 it follows that the idea of War's final Passing to the 
 limbo of other savageries must be regarded as some- 
 thing more than a visionary dream of philanthropic 
 zeal. Moreover, the point already reached in the 
 social evolution of the world has put beyond the pale 
 of possible recurrence so many formerly fertile grounds 
 of strife, such as the once prevalent dynastic wars; 
 and the growth of civilisation is so constantly adding 
 to the number of dead causes of quarrel; that the 
 hope of War's abolishment is continually fed. A 
 rising respect for man qud, man, has put an end to 
 that contempt for aggregate humanity which in past 
 ages gave such unlimited opportunity to Chauvinism. 
 
 A value higher than that of mere machines, or of 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 189 
 
 animals standing ready to be shot at for the glory 
 of a chief, has come to be set upon the masses of 
 mankind. At the same time, also, the prevalence 
 of conscription has tended to bring the fighting part of 
 continental States nearer and nearer to the total 
 of their available male strength. This issue, fore- 
 seen eighty years ago by Clausewitz when he spoke 
 of wars being in future " carried on with the ivhole 
 poiver of States," awoke in his mind the extremely 
 reasonable doubt, " whether all wars hereafter in 
 Europe will only take place on account of great 
 interests affecting the people." But what he, whose 
 whole life was wrapped in the element and atmosphere 
 of War, could not foresee, was the breaking in upon 
 " the people "—the actual fighting men — of the know- 
 ledge, spreading now so fast, that whatever " great 
 interests " affecting others may bid them to the 
 battle-field, their own are seldom, if ever, to be 
 served there. 
 
 If, then, there is all this, and much more that might 
 be said, to emphasise the radical change, amounting 
 to positive reversal, in to-day's general attitude 
 toward the relative positions of Peace and War, 
 may we not report " All's well," and make an 
 end? 
 
 II. Unfortunately, any fair estimate of the out- 
 look as a whole is bound to take account of another 
 set of facts, which present us with a contradiction 
 only the more violent the more genuine we hold the 
 progress of general thought and feeling in the civilised 
 world to be. If actions speak louder than words, 
 what are we to think of a civilisation which perpetu- 
 ally praises Peace, and inaugurates the most elaborate 
 
100 WATCIDIAX ! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Conferences to preserve it, yet all the while consumes 
 itself in preparing for War ? 
 
 This insensate armament-competition is always 
 gathering fresh impetus. No " Great Power " has 
 the power, or the greatness, to keep out of this 
 maelstrom of jealous rivalry. The disunited States 
 of Europe seem only able to agree on one policy 
 and one pursuit; although the admitted end must 
 be either War or Bankruptcy, or perhaps both ! 
 Few deny that this prodigal waste of the earnings of 
 labour, this devotion of the intellect of mankind to 
 the cult of slaughter, is an iniquitous, immoral and 
 consequently indefensible affair. Yet it goes on all 
 the same. In preparing for Wars which occur seldom 
 or not at all, the energies and resources of the civilised 
 world are perpetually wasted. 
 
 Though the modern British Navy has never fired 
 a single shot in naval war in any part of the world, 
 its cost has quadrupled in a single generation. The 
 annual ten-and-a-half millions of naval expenditure 
 in 1880, became forty-one millions in 1910. And 
 the estimate for 1911-12 is close upon forty-five 
 millions, being more than double that of Germany. 
 
 Whether Mr. Arnold White is right or wrong in 
 the opinion that " for years the British Fleet has kept 
 foreign troops out of Paris," it is more than probable 
 that, as things noiv are, under the reign of Physical 
 Force, the unapproached strength of the Navy of 
 Britain is the greatest Peace asset in the world. 
 But those who inveigh against the criminal folly of 
 would-be reducers of the brute power of peaceable 
 nations, seldom criticise the moral blindness which, 
 in this twentieth Christian century, acquiesces in 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 101 
 
 the absurdly barbarian system of politics which 
 necessitates so much ruinous waste, and which 
 imposes upon Europe an outrageous and intolerable 
 tax to meet it. 
 
 The Army expenditure for France in 1910 reached 
 forty-three-and-a-half millions, German Military ad- 
 ministration for 1910-11 figures about forty-eight 
 millions, on which a further increase of two millions 
 appears in the estimates for 1912. Now for forty 
 years, only the smallest wheels of the gigantic en- 
 gines thus lavishly supported have ever turned in 
 War. Yet if the annual average cost of their upkeep 
 be multiplied by forty, the expense of this masterly 
 inactivity is more than three thousand million pounds 
 for France and Germany only, on things military 
 alone— much of it being simply the inevitable con- 
 sequence of the Franco-German War ! 
 
 To find the total Peace Insurance of these two 
 countries for this period, the same process would, 
 of course, have to be applied also to their joint Naval 
 expenditure, which now amounts in a single year 
 to thirty-nine million pounds. But such gigantic 
 figures as the grand-total w^ould reach convey little 
 to the mind; so w^e may leave the example where it 
 stands, to illustrate the almost incredible price of 
 Peace in the present year of our Lord, when peace is 
 kept by preparing for war. 
 
 It might seem, in face of such facts, that the esti- 
 mate given earlier in this chapter of the current 
 thought and feeling in respect of War is hopelessly 
 inaccurate, or that the political horizon must be 
 terribly dark, if Europe thus lives armed to the teeth. 
 But no. The estimate of general opinion is correct 
 
192 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 enough; though the pohtieal horizon is eertainly 
 darker (owing to a recrudescence of the piratical 
 spirit) than when King Edward VII, a few months 
 before his death, observed : " The concord of Christen- 
 dom is unbroken, and rarely in history has the 
 thought of War seemed more repulsive, or the desire 
 for Peace been more widely cherished." The true 
 position is not unjustly stated by an international 
 expert, Dr. A. Gobat, who says : " The general 
 spirit of the nations is from day to day more and more 
 convinced of the imperative necessity for peace; the 
 Governments themselves curse war, and judge it 
 disastrous from all points of view — to the conqueror 
 as well as the conquered. Nevertheless, Europe is 
 faced with this frightful contradiction : peace preached 
 by all, war prepared for by all; the menace of War 
 after all the protestations of Peace." 
 
 Now the tap-root of the Armament-mania seems 
 to be the prevalent idea that because the present 
 condition of internal stability in Europe (such as it 
 is) is largely the result of War, therefore by War 
 alone, in esse or in -posse, can this stability be main- 
 tained. But does this follow ? A condition of 
 things which violence may have helped to reach does 
 not necessarily require for its continuance a display 
 of force of the same kind and almost equal in degree. 
 The world is full of proofs to the contrary. But the 
 one word " India " is proof enough. 
 
 Yet, although it is patent that we are not living 
 even a hundred years ago, every great European 
 Power acts as though its conscience were no easier 
 than Bonaparte's, with his " Conquest has made 
 me : conquest must maintain me." And we know 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 193 
 
 what came of that. France emerged from those 
 Titanic efforts with shrunken territory and lessened 
 prestige; while Napoleon's works of Peace alone 
 survived to help re-fashion Europe. Nevertheless 
 we go on risking Armageddon, in furious pursuit 
 of the malign and fruitless, instead of following the 
 fruitful and benign. The current principle is just 
 the same as of yore, despite the substitution of a 
 parade of military efficiency for that of literal con- 
 quest. " Equilibrium of the Powers continues to 
 rest on well-known groupings : but these groups 
 continue to consider as the basis of their ententes^ 
 not liberty, goodwill and respect for Treaties, but 
 military rivalry." So reports one of the first inter- 
 national lawyers of the day. We can but add, 
 " 'Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis 'tis true." 
 
 Built on a foundation so preposterously wrong, 
 the " equilibrium " is inherently unstable. No 
 greater feeling of security is achieved by even these 
 extravagant sacrifices of national wealth in a direction 
 totally opposed to national progress. On the con- 
 trary, while enormous economical benefits are for- 
 gone, the seeds of suspicion, prejudice and passion 
 are all the while sedulously sown. A sudden increase 
 of naval or military development in some great 
 country may be engineered merely as a manufacturing 
 or financial coup, or it may only be the ebullience 
 of what is popularly known as " swank " ; never- 
 theless in the mind of every possible enemy there 
 will arise the same inevitable suspicion of a definitely 
 hostile design. The suspected menace at once 
 creates the demand for corresponding outlay to re- 
 store the status quo. Thus this ever-growing incubus 
 
194 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of squandered wealth weighs down the nations, and 
 keeps the mightiest only the more prostrate before 
 the juggernaut of material Force. The position is 
 positively pathetic. Groaning under monstrous and 
 needless burdens, supported only by the elusive hope 
 of securing Peace by the very means which tend to 
 make it insecurable, even the most progressive 
 peoples of Europe go on rolling a veritable Stone of 
 Sisyphus, with no possibility of winning any but 
 the briefest respite from the eternal menace of War. 
 
 Yet all the while the best thought in all civilisa- 
 tion is practically unanimous on the evil of War, and 
 even the least pacifist of European Chancellors 
 openly professes a desire to " keep War as far off as 
 possible." Great steps of world-progress, like the 
 establishment and consolidation of the Hague 
 Tribunal, and the agreement at least of Anglo-Saxon- 
 dom to exclude neither so-called " vital interests " 
 nor " questions of honour " from the Arbitrament 
 of Justice (instead of relegating them to that of the 
 sword), do surely indicate a revolt, not of the Moral 
 sense only but of the Common sense of mankind, 
 against the unmitigated Militarism which is but 
 the gloved hand of War itself, almost as crushing 
 and only less painful in its grip. 
 
 Can it be that the world is slowly coming to under- 
 stand that 
 
 •' There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Ron<vh-hew them how we will"? 
 
 Hamlet thought that if human rashness and the 
 
 palling of our schemes should teach us that, we were 
 
 well served even by our indiscretions.^ Certain it 
 
 ' Hamlet, v, 2. 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 195 
 
 is tliat, do what we may, Humanity, however per- 
 versely slow to learn, cannot escape that seonian 
 Choice between material splendour and spiritual 
 strength, or that eternally recurrent question as to 
 whether bad religion can be good politics. 
 
 The Armament impasse is the entirely inevitable 
 consequence of the worship of Violence. While this 
 lasts, the insensate folly of trying to win Peace by 
 propitiations offered to the god of War can never 
 appear foolish. Indeed, a general strike of those 
 mulcted to provide these offerings seems sometimes 
 the only possible alternative to Bankruptcy or 
 Armageddon. But violence is no remedy, even if 
 undertaken against violence. The general accept- 
 ance of a new standard of thought is the one cure for 
 War and Militarism alike. Living or dying they will 
 hang together. And some bitter experience of the 
 vicious circle in which Europe is now whirling may 
 perhaps be regarded as a necessary phase in the 
 evolution of a world which for 2000 years has proved 
 obdurate to the warnings of Incarnate Wisdom. 
 
 We know it has been argued that War itself, 
 though ideally bad, may be provisionally good ; that 
 it is the necessary accompaniment of the material 
 plane and outlook; destined to last "while material- 
 ism needs a testing ground." In this view it is 
 credited with an incidental, educational, and there- 
 fore remedial mission. If " War is Hell," some taste 
 of hell may reveal its quality as no insistence upon 
 moral precepts ever could. Anyhow it is self- 
 evident that so long as Civilisation chooses for ulti- 
 matum Violence instead of Justice, so long inevit- 
 ably must even Peace itself seem to depend on the 
 
196 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 force of Armaments alone- As thorns beset the path 
 of progress as long as thorns are necessary, perhaps 
 it may be only by bitter experience of this present 
 phase, by feeling its oppression and seeing its futility, 
 that the natural man can pass into possession of 
 the truth that moral, ethical, and political differences 
 alike, can only be rightly and permanently adjusted 
 on the eternal principles of Reason and Justice, 
 and not by resorting to Force, whether statical or 
 dynamical. 
 
 But the present writer is not prepared to concede 
 that War can justly be regarded as one of those 
 institutions which, though destined to be replaced 
 by a better, performs useful functions provisionally. 
 Even if it were so, the utility must not blind us to 
 the provisionalness. " For," as Lord Morley long 
 ago insisted, " the fact of any existing institution 
 being provisional is the very ground why every one 
 who perceives this element should set himself to draw 
 opinion in every way open to him in the direction of 
 new truth and better practice." ^ And surely every 
 one who believes that all material progress that is 
 sound and sane and lasting is determinately bound 
 up with Moral advance, must desire to shorten the 
 present period of transition, and rid the world of its 
 long-drawn " growing-pains." 
 
 Then the first necessity is to face the situation as 
 it is. We must be blind neither to the lowering sky 
 which covers Europe like an inky pall; nor to the 
 light that breaks continually through it, which all 
 who care either for God or man must long and labour 
 to increase. 
 
 1 On Covipromise (2nd ed. 1877), p. 177. 
 
WATCHMAN ! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 197 
 
 Civilised public opinion already very widely 
 doubts the necessity of resorting to active violence 
 in order to settle international disputes. Hence the 
 frequency of War is immensely reduced. But the 
 same opinion widely credits the chimera that the 
 Peace it desiderates is bound up with success in 
 unlimited warlike preparations. Si vis pacem, para 
 helium — the only sound principle in regions or in 
 ages of violence — ranks as a kind of axiom of universal 
 and perpetual application. The element of truth in 
 it even to-day in regard to any one separate nation is 
 grossly exaggerated; while its effect upon Europe as 
 a whole, where the gigantic armaments of unsatisfied 
 and restless nations endanger peace and indefinitely 
 increase the risk of war, is conveniently ignored. 
 Thus the very generally accepted cure for the doing 
 of ill-deeds is to obtain at any cost superabundant 
 means whereby they may be done ! 
 
 This strange but genuine belief in the promotion 
 of Peace by the accumulation of material for War, at 
 present blocks the path of Reform. For the greater 
 States of European Christendom it remains a chief 
 occupation to engage in a deadly race for supremacy 
 in power each to be able to destroy its neighbour. 
 
 "How in our means we should advance ourselves, 
 To look with forehead bold and big enough 
 Upon the power and puissance " ^ 
 
 of every other Nation, is the statesman's end and 
 aim. Thus the mutual trust, which among citizens 
 is a main pillar of public liberty within each State, 
 is hopelessly destroyed in international relations. 
 The substitution of reason and moral principle for 
 1 2 Henry IV, i. 3. 
 
198 WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 
 
 the sway of brute force, which everywhere conditions 
 the progress of civihsed society, is hopelessly retarded. 
 And only a great leader here and there is bold enough 
 to recollect that he who helps a country to compre- 
 hend itself, and to employ a higher rule of action, 
 is the truest patriot, and most helps to establish its 
 enduring fame. 
 
 Were we not all hypnotised by familiarity, we 
 should stand aghast at the prodigious folly of it all. 
 The cult of blood-and-iron, which places national 
 destiny not in Character but in Armaments, and 
 seeks freedom and greatness in a life of antagonism 
 to Eternal Law, now costs Europe some four hundred 
 and fifty millions every year. And when this gigantic 
 fine imposed by International Ill-feeling has been paid, 
 its investment in over-weening armaments, instead of 
 insuring against War, turns out to have been a 
 sowing of Dragon's teeth with correspondent promise 
 of fatal harvest. Each country is impelled toward 
 strife, even without cause, by the conviction that 
 some other is preparing to strike. Witness the recent 
 revelations as to the Anglo-German War-scare of 
 last summer. Thus the danger almost equals the 
 disgrace. A whole Continent — almost all nominally 
 Christian !— has become a vast powder-magazine, 
 where "preparations for peace" so mutually irritate, 
 that any trifle may start a conflagration. Having 
 only about four times the population, the Disunited 
 States of Europe keep under arms about forty times 
 as many men as the United States of America. Torn 
 by jealousies, hatred and suspicion, European nations 
 stagger under the weight of their armour, and even 
 accept loads of debt to increase it. We cannot wonder 
 
WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE NIGHT 19& 
 
 if even so intensely virile an observer as ex-President 
 Roosevelt is stung into protest. Only a year ago 
 he strongly stated that " something ought to be done 
 as soon as possible" to check the present rivalry; 
 adding his opinion that " there is no insuperable 
 difficulty in the way — granted sincerity on the part 
 of the Powers." 
 
Improvements in the means of communication, 
 greater facilities of intercourse, the spread of education, 
 particularly in regard to foreign languages, a growing 
 sense of the solidarity and interdependence of the trade 
 of the world, the inter nationalisation of science and 
 invention, are all contributory causes converging in the 
 same direction, — contributing to that better mutual under- 
 standing between men, to the growth of that corporate 
 sense of oneness which is the best safeguard to the 
 peace of the world. But the work is still lamentably 
 incomplete ! ^ 
 
 There is no reason why England and Germany 
 should not be good friends. There is no question at 
 issue between them which cannot be settled by discussion 
 — certainly none which could justify war — but there is 
 a great deal of mutual suspicion. People in England 
 think that Germany has designs upon us : Germans 
 are persuaded that we mean to attack them. Both are 
 wrong. . . . Let the British and the German nations 
 get to know one another better. Mutual understanding 
 is the remedy for suspicion and nervousness. In no 
 other way can these ailments be cured.^^ 
 
 Reason is for us, for War is an outrage upon reason. 
 Justice is for us, for War tramples justice underfoot. 
 Civilisation is for us, for War is the incarnation of bar- 
 barism. Above all Religion is for us, for we have the 
 benediction of Him Who has said, " Blessed are the 
 Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Sons of God.'' ^ 
 
 ' H. H. AsQUiTH. 2 Sir Frank Lascelles. ^ Henry Richards. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 " There is no insuperable difficulty in the way — 
 
 granted sincerity on the part of the Powers." Were 
 
 they, in fact, " sincere," the only possible cry had 
 
 surely been, from one and all, that of Malcolm to 
 
 Macduff— 
 
 " Good God, betimes remove 
 The means that make us strangers ! " 
 
 But the means that make us strangers are man's 
 work, not God's; and man must find the means for 
 their removal. It is useless to say with our Olney 
 
 poet — 
 
 " Mountains interposed 
 Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
 Like kindred drops, been mingled into one." 
 
 Physical barriers, thanks to natural and mechanical 
 science, are practically demolished. The adamantine 
 mountains which remain, are mountains of ambition 
 and ill-will. And these will continue to " make 
 enemies of nations " as long as ever it is thought to 
 promote national honour by arming, and over- 
 arming ; — against the moral sentiments of the world. 
 The change required can only come by the gradual 
 substitution of good feeling for bad among all nations. 
 " What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole 
 of Europe present at this day ! and not only Europe, 
 but every Government and every civilisation through 
 
202 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 the world, which is under the influence of the Euro- 
 pean mind." Unhappily Newman's ejaculation fits 
 the situation to-day no less than when he penned 
 his Apologia, if the European mind is expressed in 
 its diplomacy. Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted 
 that the general conscience has enormously advanced 
 in power of sensitiveness and perception during the 
 last half-century. And this book would not have 
 been written except for the belief that civilised man- 
 kind is gradually approaching the point when it 
 will refuse to reconcile itself any longer to the idea 
 of brute force alone being decisive in the world's 
 affairs. If the God ^Vhom Christ revealed, in any 
 real sense governs the world, it is simply unthinkable 
 that international relations will always be at the 
 disposal of the biggest battalions, and the nations 
 for ever condemned to the present cut-throat com- 
 petition in armaments. And this anomaly which 
 outrages our Faith, is no whit less an outrage upon 
 our Reason and sense of Justice. 
 
 So far from such sardonic spectacles as we have 
 lately witnessed within the comity of nations giving 
 the lie to any hope of a new regime ; they seem to be 
 rather calculated to stir all reasonable men to join 
 the crusade for its establishment. 
 
 No doubt there is plenty of glass in the roof of 
 the British Empire, and a quantity of very mixed 
 material in its foundation. Nor is any English 
 writer in a position to throw stones, or to denounce 
 in accents of horrified self -righteousness what appear 
 like examples of that policy of " grab " which still 
 stalks the world naked and unashamed. There is 
 a proverb about the flattery of imitation, which 
 
DIFFICULTIES 203 
 
 might furnish a ready retort. Moreover, there are 
 motives connected with the bed-rock facts of Hfe 
 as it is, which may lead statesmen to the perfectly 
 sincere conviction that what appears like flagrant 
 piracy, actually is political necessity, — necessity which 
 knows no law. Protest, however, holds good none 
 the less against the reigning political system which 
 forces the politician into courses of action barely 
 defensible even as a miserable pis aller. ^Vhen, in 
 the twentieth century, an honourable member of 
 the Triple Alliance suddenly descends upon one 
 portion of North Africa ; and when two other and still 
 greater Powers could seriously contemplate hurling 
 millions of men against each other in a dispute about 
 another portion which belonged to neither, " at a 
 time when masses of their own subjects were pro- 
 testing that the conditions of life at home had be- 
 come intolerable, and that their Governments had 
 failed to solve the most urgent and elementary of 
 domestic problems;" — when such things take place, 
 the irony of the situation cries aloud. And the cry, 
 in the ears of a fast growing number of sane and 
 reflecting men, is not for 15-inch guns instead of 
 guns of 13*5, but for political righteousness which 
 shall at least reflect the laws of Moses, even if, after 
 2000 years, it still repudiates the law of Christ. 
 For the whole accepted code of international conduct 
 is now seen more clearly than ever to be nothing 
 short of a travesty of the most rudimentary maxims 
 of INIorality, — that very INIorality which " is the 
 nature of things," and therefore has its own irre- 
 sistible way of avenging disobedience. ^Vhen all is 
 said that mav be said in mitigation, the fact remains 
 
204 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 that predatory designs, and the universal fear they 
 cause, are the greatest of all obstacles to the reform 
 of international relations. 
 
 The year 1911, from which we have just emerged, 
 has been one of acute and bitter controversy, 
 national and international, not less in England than 
 abroad. The general industrial unrest has here 
 been accompanied by a Constitutional upheaval, of 
 which the end is not yet. 
 
 " We have seen peace among the nations suddenly broken 
 in one direction, and hanging for long weeks and months in another 
 so perilously balanced on a knife-edge that a single false step 
 taken or an untoward provocation given on one side or the other 
 might have deluged the world with war. . . . We may surely 
 ask ourselves whether a quickened sense of human fellowship 
 and of the Christian brotherhood of man might not have abated 
 the conflicts and assuaged the antagonisms which have so nearly 
 wrecked our peace at home and abroad. It is an elementary part 
 of our duty to our neighbours to seek peace and ensue it, to do 
 unto others as we would they should do unto us. Have vic always 
 remembered this golden rule in our dealings with our neighbours, 
 national and international ? It may be that we have, or think 
 we have; but it is worth while to reflect that of the two men 
 who went up to the Temple to pray, it was not the man who said, 
 ' God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are,' but the 
 man of humbler soul who said, ' God, be merciful to me, a sinner,' 
 who went down to his house jtistified rather than the other." 
 
 Thus the leading " leader " of The Times last 
 Christmas Day. If the loftier level to which the 
 Christmas spirit lifts us annually for at least one 
 day could be kept; if this brief Pax Dei could only 
 be extended even for a single year; what might not 
 come of it ? But alas ! as Wordsworth,^ giving us 
 one of his finest figures, sang — 
 
 " 'Tis the most difficult of tasks to keep 
 
 Heights which the soul is competent to gain. 
 
 ' Excursion, Bk. iv. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 205 
 
 Man is of dust : ethereal hopes arc his, 
 
 Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft, 
 
 Want due consistence : like a pillar of smoke, 
 
 That -svith majestic energy from earth 
 
 Rises, but having reached the upper air. 
 
 Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen." 
 
 Before the waiting benison can fall from the windows 
 of Heaven on a world distraught, that world must 
 have learnt, as a constant practice and regular 
 habit, to examine its differences and clarify its 
 problems in the light which is always streaming 
 from on high, to guide our feet into the way of 
 Peace. 
 
 And what an absolute anachronism the present 
 feehng between nations really is ! Taking even the 
 lowest point of view, material interests grow every 
 year more inevitably international. Every land, to 
 the wise man, is, more and more, even as his native 
 land. Though we talk of foreign nations, there 
 are in fact no " foreign " nations. So inextricably 
 interwoven are the interests of different countries 
 that, as Lord Avebury puts it, " if one suffers, all 
 suffer; if one flourishes, it is good for the rest." 
 
 There is no " insuperable difficulty in the way " 
 of better things, says Mr. Roosevelt. Nor is there, 
 if the absence of ill-feeling and the presence of high 
 aspirations could be secured. Every other difficulty, 
 of whatever sort, would then be dwarfed at once, 
 and melt away by degrees. But, as Bacon's aphorism 
 has it, " Man prefers to believe what he prefers to 
 be true." What we prefer to be true, — what we 
 take as our ideal — is bound to govern our conduct, 
 whether as men or nations. National policy may 
 often fall below, but it cannot rise above, the national 
 
206 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Ideal. Thus, however the question is approached, 
 we are always brought back to the same point. 
 And that point is, the urgent necessity of a changed 
 standard of thought and feeling. 
 
 The wonderful efficacy of changed national senti- 
 ment in promoting friendly relations is constantly 
 before our eyes. Take the case of England and 
 France. After some seven hundred years of warfare, 
 France had come to be thought the traditional, 
 the so-called "natural," enemy of England. She 
 might be so now, but for the genius of Edward the 
 Peacemaker, who — without ever seeming to be so 
 engaged — simply reversed the currents of feeling in 
 both nations, and set them running in a new^ direction 
 of goodwill and amity, wliich has every promise of 
 permanence. The genius who does the same for 
 the present relations between Germany and England 
 will deserve the gratitude of Europe. And if the 
 Kaiser be disposed to emulate his uncle, he may be 
 certain of finding in King George a true son of his 
 father. 
 
 As between France and England, so has it proved 
 betw^een England and America. What has brought 
 within the range of practical politics that great Peace 
 Treaty which is perhaps the longest single stride 
 ever undertaken toward the reign of Righteousness 
 on earth ? Is it not the simple outcome of inter- 
 national good feeling, and of the resolute acceptance 
 of a high ideal ? When these conditions exist among 
 the European family, and not before, like results 
 will follow. 
 
 The chief immediate hindrance to European 
 concord is the miserable attitude of mutual suspicion 
 
DIFFICULTIES 207 
 
 existing between England and Germany, for which 
 both countries are to blame, and, in particular, 
 the Press of both countries. Every statesman and 
 diplomatist is agreed on the enormous danger to 
 Peace of the prevalence of popular misconception. 
 The life and currency of these misconceptions are 
 more largely determined, and therefore more largely 
 determinable, by the attitude of the Press than by 
 any other means. And until rancorous articles, 
 and firebrand letters, cease to occupy prominent 
 columns in daily and weekly journals, the hope of 
 the German and English nations knowing and under- 
 standing each other's real necessities and true aspira- 
 tions must continue to be indefinitely delayed. 
 
 Papers here print articles and correspondence 
 couched in foolish and menacing terms; and, two 
 days after, if you pick up a newspaper in Germany, 
 you find it all reproduced, with or without embellish- 
 ment, not seldom with editorial comment driving 
 home " the lesson," — the plainly urgent, patriotic 
 duty — of increasing the national insurance against 
 war. The same " lesson " is then taught here in 
 England, with some bellicose extract from a German 
 newspaper for text. So the bitter feeling is fed; 
 and enough fear and suspicion are generated to roll 
 the armament-snowball back and forth a few more 
 times, though already it has attained such bulk 
 that neither country can move it at all without painful 
 straining. 
 
 The power of the Press is great beyond all gauging. 
 But that power, however great, is only the exact 
 equivalent of its responsibility. Power and Duty 
 are joined together by God; and their divorce is 
 
208 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 sacrilegious. In the present matter the Press of 
 England, which has no equal in the world, should be 
 able to rise superior to the difficulty which always 
 attends initiative in reform. A valuable example of 
 the kind of contribution which insight, candour, 
 and an equal mind can make towards the elucidation 
 of an awkward problem, has recently appeared in 
 the excellent series of Articles, signed " S," in The 
 Westminster Gazette,'^ on " The Foundations of British 
 Policy." 
 
 It is only by this kind of genuine endeavour to 
 appreciate the German point of view, while giving 
 due weight to what is fundamental to Britain's 
 position in the world, that a sounder understanding 
 can be created, and Anglo-German relations be set 
 upon a safe, because a reasonable, basis. The other, 
 and the wrong, sort of journalistic effort, has been 
 far too much in evidence. Nine or ten years ago 
 a German Ambassador, Count Paul Metternich, 
 referred to its prevalence, when he wrote to Mr. 
 Alfred Austin, " England is daily told that we covet 
 her Colonies, and build a fleet to sweep the English 
 off the seas." On the other hand, in very similar 
 fashion, German newspapers have regaled their 
 readers with imaginary pictures of England's sinister 
 designs. Such tales are as dangerous as they are 
 foolish; for, as Count Paul observes, "There is 
 nothing so absurd which a number of people won't 
 believe in the end, when they are often told of it. 
 It acts as a suggestion, like ' Colman's mustard ' 
 on a wall ! " 
 
 Fortunately, however, "suggestion" need not be 
 
 1 Issues of Dec. 4, G, 12, 13, 18, 20, 1911 ; Jan. 2 and 1, 1912. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 209 
 
 of an irritant sort. Healing by suggestion is a com- 
 monplace of modern medicine. Of pungent language, 
 exciting popular alarm in order to facilitate the supply 
 of fresh war-material, both countries have surely had 
 their fill. This " mustard " helped to bring us to 
 the brink of war only last summer. The need 
 
 now is for " suggestion " of another kind. And 
 whether clouds of suspicion and malevolence shall 
 continue to lower, or begin to lift, and gradually 
 to disperse, will immensely depend upon the general 
 tone of " what the papers say " during the next 
 few months. No influence could be so directly and 
 effectively helpful towards improved Anglo-German 
 relations as a high-minded journalistic influence 
 exercised in both countries. 
 
 There is plenty of ground for a basis of good feeling. 
 As Sir Frank Lascelles reminds us, the German 
 Empire, since its foundation, has never made war 
 in Europe, though occasion might easily have been 
 found. ^Vhile, on the other hand, had England 
 intended aggression, she would assuredly not have 
 awaited the recent strengthening of the German 
 fleet, which has given rise to so much ill-feeling over 
 here, but which ought to be regarded as nothing 
 more than the natural fruit of the digestion of Admiral 
 Mahan's doctrine of the necessity of sea-power for 
 every great nation. But, as " Mr. Punch " has recently 
 shown in an apposite cartoon, if German or Briton, 
 just now, do but clean his slate, each takes it that 
 the other cleans that slate " at him ! " The preamble 
 to the German Navy Law, which declares that Ger- 
 many must have a fleet so formidable that even the 
 strongest naval Power would hesitate to attack it. 
 
210 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 is no doubt adroit. While perfectly moderate and 
 legitimate in expression, it utilises that scare of the 
 British fleet from which the German suffers perhaps 
 only less than we do from the scare of German 
 invasion. The serious belief in Germany, that we 
 meditated sudden descents on Kiel, or new battles 
 of Copenhagen, sounds preposterous to an English- 
 man ; but it vastly helps the passing of German Naval 
 estimates. 
 
 It is this kind of nightmare, engineered in the 
 Dreadnought interest, this gipsy " gingering " of 
 the public, to revert to Tolstoi's metaphor, ^ which 
 creates bad blood and foments ill-feeling. It is 
 at work on both shores of the North Sea. 
 
 For instance, it is widely imagined in England 
 that the Pan- German ambitions affected by a certain 
 noisy section of Junkerdom, represent the solid aim 
 of a homogeneous nation. There exists, too, amongst 
 us, a fearful and wonderful " orbit theory," according 
 to which France is liable to be drawn by the German 
 " orbit " into actual aggression against us ; while it 
 is further assumed that Europe generally, in order 
 to gratify its burning desire to take over British 
 possessions, will surmount age-long differences, as 
 well as the awkward problem of dividing the spoil. 
 These vain imaginings can only be classed with such 
 recent exhibits in the German show-case as the 
 assertion that we are about to make an all-British 
 Tariff combine against the world, and to raise a 
 conscript army on a scale equal to European opera- 
 tions; or the outrageous fancy to which no less a 
 man than the Professor of History in Berlin University 
 
 ^ Cited supra, p. 93. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 211 
 
 has actually given credence in the words : " We know 
 now ^ that England deliberately planned to fall upon 
 us last summer, without formal declaration of war." 
 
 These are but samples of the manifold ingenuity 
 continually being employed in both countries. And 
 why ? Mainly lest the subsidence of popular alarm 
 might endanger in England the predominance, and 
 in Germany the increase, of naval strength. It is 
 indeed high time that this precarious and costly 
 game of balancing upon its apex the pyramid of 
 international interests should be exchanged for the 
 sane and simple plan of setting it once more on its 
 safe and proper base of smooth relations. 
 
 But if these are to supervene, Germans and English- 
 men alike must make a genuine and resolute effort 
 to raise no more spectres, and liberate themselves 
 from the tyranny of fancies and theories. It is 
 simply the facts that both must try to face. 
 
 Now after making every allowance for the influence 
 of Press perversions, and other artificial irritants, it 
 is evident that some real ground of grievance with 
 England must exist in the German mind; or resent- 
 ment could not be so universally felt as it now assuredly 
 is, nor could it have come to be harboured among 
 pacifists and even anti-Prussian Germans. 
 
 This full fountain of Resentment seems to be fed 
 by three principal streams of grievance. 
 
 1. In Germ.an eyes it appears that France and 
 1 The italics are mine, for nothing could give clearer or sadder 
 evidence of the " highly inflammable state of feeling " now 
 prevalent in Germany against England, than the astonishing 
 fact that a canard of this sort should actually be endorsed by 
 Professor Hans Dclbruck, who occupies the Chair once filled by 
 Treitschke ; and who, though an ardent patriot^ is neither a Pan- 
 German nor a Jingo. 
 
212 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 England, for a couple of centuries past, have gone to 
 and fro in the earth picking up all the colonial pos- 
 sessions worth having, until there is little or no room 
 left for German expansion of a similar kind. Yet 
 a fresh million of German babies arrive with regularity 
 every year, for whom must be found food to eat and 
 a place in the sun to occupy. Prima facie, here is 
 something to conjure with. For German growth is 
 great, and its ratio increasing.^ But Germany is a 
 wide country, with a wonderful industrial organ- 
 isation; and there is no evidence of real pressure 
 from over-population. In fact thousands of foreign 
 labourers assist in housing every German harvest. 
 Emigration, moreover, has beien considerable, at all 
 events until quite recent years.'- And the large 
 number of German residents in countries where 
 fewer things are " Verboten " than at home, favours 
 the belief that, even as things now are, German 
 prosperity and happiness are vigorous plants in many 
 lands outside the immediate shelter of the German 
 eagle's wings. 
 
 If indeed an accession of colonial territory on which 
 to fly the German flag would finally abate German 
 unrest; if that could be ended by some equitable 
 process of cessions or sales; it would be well worth 
 
 1 The population of the German Empire, as at present con- 
 stituted, was under 25 millions in 181G. In less than ninety years 
 the population of the same area had risen to 61 millions. But it is 
 an eloquent fact that half of this total increase of 3G millions is 
 to be credited to the last third of the period. The increase in the 
 thirty years (1875 to 1905) equals that of the previous sixty years. 
 
 2 Over 4i millions, for instance, to the United States in eighty 
 years, (1820 to 1900), and 52,000 to Brazil in thirty years, (1870 to 
 1900). The averaoe density of population per sq. mile is still 
 exceeded in England, Holland, and Belgium ; although the figure 
 rose from 270 in 1900 to 290 in 1905. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 213 
 
 the while of other Powers to confer together for its 
 satisfaetion ; due regard being had to what France 
 has already done in this direction. There is more 
 than one place in the sun where German adminis- 
 tration would be a vast improvement on present 
 conditions. From an English point of view, any 
 increase in Germany's oversea possessions, involving 
 an increase of useful occupation for her navy, would 
 wholesomely tend to reduce our rather foolish liability 
 to those invasion scares for which ostensible pretext 
 is found in the recent somewhat feverish activity in 
 German ship-yards. 
 
 The present disposition in Germany, however, so 
 far as it is disclosed in the estimates for 1912,^ is to 
 spend more on her army and less upon her fleet. 
 This scarcely bears out the idea that new oversea 
 responsibilities stand first among German ambitions; 
 and it favours the belief that the Colony cry, when 
 raised, is chiefly of oblique utility. ' 
 
 1 The Naval figures, compared with those for 1911, shew a 
 decrease of £40,000 ; but the Army figures propose an increase of 
 £2,000,000. 
 
 2 Since the above was written, Professor Delbriick has made 
 some observations (pubHshed in the Daily Mail of December 27th, 
 1911) bearing on the same topic. He states that it is a myth to 
 suppose Germany to be land-hungry ; tliat while Germany's total 
 emigration has fallen to about 25,000, hundreds of thousands of 
 immigrant labourers from the East come there every year; that 
 Germany wants markets, not territory; that the mainspring of 
 the German rencontre with France over Morocco was the desire 
 to prevent the closing of the trade door (an invariable occurrence 
 in French Colonial jjractice) in a country so rich in trade possi- 
 bilities as the Moroccan Empire. 
 
 These statements of the Berlin historical Professor, who edits 
 the leading German Review, and as a publicist ranks second to 
 none in the Fatherland, finally dispose of the idea that German 
 unrest arises from any actual pressure of population. But there 
 are plainly other reasons for the undoubtedly prevalent desire 
 
214 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 2. The second stream which helps to fill the 
 fountain of German bitterness, flows through rather 
 
 for Expansion. And although no territory is coveted, according 
 to Herr Dclbruck, in Europe, Asia, or the Americas, he makes no 
 secret that in Africa "Germany sees possibiUties worth cultivating." 
 She looks towards the " inevitable eventual collapse of Portuguese 
 power in Africa " with more than a platonic interest. Now 
 Portugal, as The Spectator has recently p\it it, " in reahty only 
 holds the coast and a few posts in the interior, and holds them 
 largely in the interests of slave-raiders and kidnappers." And 
 doubtless, considered as an abstract question, it is practically 
 certain that the substitution of a more just and virile administra- 
 tion for this nominal hold on large slices of South Africa, Mould be a 
 great improvement. But the fact that Portuguese " possessions " 
 now belong to Portugal, is a curious count in a German grievance 
 against England ! 
 
 Herr Delbrtiek is easier to understand when he complams that 
 we have " resisted every overture for the cession of Walfisch Bay, 
 at the gateway of German S.W. Africa, though it is of no earthly 
 value to Britain." He declares this to be only a sample of the 
 kind of " dog-in-the-manger attitude of bhnd, unyielding opposi- 
 tion " encountered by German diplomacy in all parts of the 
 world. And he mainly attributes to England's intransigence in 
 meeting Germany's ambition to expand, the dangerous resentment 
 now aroused. As to Walfisch Bay, it is of course said in reply 
 that its cession to Germany would raise a fearful storm in British 
 South Africa. If that be so, it is greatly to be regretted that 
 the splendidly magnanimous spirit pervading the whole political 
 settlement since the South African war, should not have payed 
 the way for greater magnanimity in neighbourly relations with 
 other people. At the same time, from the German-grievance 
 point of view, British Statesmen can scarcely be blamed if they 
 have hesitated to invite the prophesied " tornado of protest " 
 from both Dutch and English elements in the South African Union 
 by ceding Walfisch Bay. And it is a pity that Herr Delbriick's 
 latest picture of the " inveterate political hostility " of Britain 
 against Germany should be unrelieved by even a passing reference to 
 such obvious acts of goodwill on England's part as the surrender 
 to her of Heligoland inl890, and in 1899 of two of the best islands 
 in the Samoan group; or to our acquiescence in her desires as to 
 the non-connection of Wei-hai-wei with the Shantung railways. 
 Such examples plainly prove that England's ill-will is not invari- 
 able ; and go some way at least to show that it is not " inveterate." 
 In the matter of Markets, likewise, on which Herr Delbriick lays 
 great stress, some credit might fairly be allowed for the fact that 
 
DIFFICULTIES 215 
 
 delicate ground, as it appears in English eyes. In 
 
 the course of the articles above referred to, " S " 
 
 truly says — 
 
 " To all Englishmen it is a fundamental fact that their country 
 should hold the command of the sea. If she fails to keep open 
 her communications with her Dominions and Dependencies, she 
 ceases to be an Empire ; if she cannot protect her commerce against 
 hostile navies, she ceases to be a great nation ; if she cannot secure 
 her food supplies, she may cease to be a nation at all, and become 
 a beleaguered fort." 
 
 In other words, our enormous Fleet is a necessity. 
 
 Without it, as things now are, 
 
 " This precious stone, set in the silver sea, 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself, 
 Against infection and the hand of War," 
 
 might seem too fair a prize, in a world not perfectly 
 amenable to the still voice of Sovereign Law. Her 
 Navy, then, is the needed sentinel of Britain, as 
 well as of the far-set, but close-bound, belongings 
 of the island throne.^ But nevertheless, however 
 
 no toll or restriction meets German trade with Britain, though 
 British exports, on reaching German shores, encounter heavy 
 duties. Not only do sixty million pounds' worth of imtaxed 
 German goods enter this coiuitry every year, but the Australian 
 Government railways are largely supplied from the Essen works, 
 and German machinery is used for Australian harbours. The 
 chief German locomotive firm has just obtained, in competition 
 with English builders, the engine-order from the English man- 
 agers of the Egyptian State railways ; and most of the electrical 
 machinery in South Africa comes from Germany ! 
 
 1 It is pleasant to find so influential an exponent of German 
 feeling as Herr Delbriick so clearly in agreement : — " We do not 
 dispute England's right to be supreme at sea. We recognise that 
 her insular character and far-flung imperial ramifications make it 
 imperative for Britannia to ' rule the waves.' I myself should 
 consider German interests at sea perfectly secure if the proportion 
 of British naval preponderance over Germany were in the ratio 
 of two to one. Our naval tacticians would probably desire three 
 to two. But they do not seek to outstrip or displace Britain at 
 sea." 
 
216 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 natural all this may seem from om- insular point ot 
 view, the fair mind must acknowledge that this 
 immense sea-power (however purely defensive we 
 may mean it to be) can and does make its existence 
 felt all over the world ; and hence is bound to appear, 
 in other eyes than ours, to give us an inordinate 
 advantage. 
 
 That England is constantly appearing, not only 
 to Germany but on the Continent generally, as an 
 object of jealous regard, is notorious. The feeling 
 is there, though it may not often be so plainly voiced 
 as it was last summer by the Austrian Radical Deputy 
 who urged, before a delighted Salzburg audience, a 
 coalition of Mediterranean Powers, — Austria, Italy, 
 and France — to solidly oppose " a Power which has 
 its hands on the affairs of the world." And if the 
 feeling is general, it is not surprising that it should 
 be shared by a multitude of peaceable folk in Germany 
 who are neither Pan-German Jingos nor victims of 
 Anglophobia. Now a sentiment so widely prevalent 
 cannot be dismissed as mere unreasoning jealousy. 
 Protestations of injured innocence only exasperate. 
 But, when all is said, there does remain the solid 
 fact that the modern British Navy has never fired 
 a single shot in any naval war; — a fact which, at the 
 very lowest, can stand as a parallel to the static use 
 of dominant military power by the German Empire 
 since 1871. 
 
 Germans freely declare themselves convinced that, 
 despite the actual silence of our naval guns, their 
 " power " has selfishly blocked the diplomacy of 
 other countries; acting recently against Germany 
 very much as formerly (for forty unwise years) it 
 
DIFFICULTIES 217 
 
 acted against Russia. But wlicu Germans indulge 
 in such thoughts, they should at least recollect the 
 difficulty we have, in coping with the conviction — 
 which, rightl}^ or wrongly, has informed most of the 
 diplomatic encounters of late — that the German 
 Empire aims at a hegemony in Europe far exceeding 
 what is already rightly and reasonably hers by virtue 
 of her grand position in the hierarchy of nations, — 
 a hegemony in which, to put it baldly, " we shall be 
 the next victim, after France is disposed of." But the 
 German will of course reply that, in view of the 
 Kaiser's explicit words,^ and even quite apart from 
 them, the idea of any such design is nothing but a 
 baseless suspicion ; " whereas the English diplomatic 
 hindrances met by Germany are no mere suspicions, 
 but matters of fact ; as sundry specific thwartings 
 witness.^ In China, for example, — in Persia over the 
 
 ^ Quoted supra, p. 79. 
 
 '^ Herr Delbriick is explicit on this point : " Cannot Britons 
 rid themselves of the nightmare that Germany wants war with 
 England ? We know perfectly well that war has nothing to bring 
 lis, even if wc should win. Is the German regime so beloved by 
 the Arabs, the Ii'ish, the Dutch, or the French Canadians, or the 
 Britons oversea, that they would accept it without making us 
 fight interminably to impose it upon them ? If Germany humbled 
 Britain in war, it would only be to find ourselves precisely in the 
 desperate position of Napoleon I ;— the masters of Europe, with 
 all Europe united to encompass our overthrow. That is a vision 
 which the sane and sensible business Germany of 1911 conjures 
 up only to banish as wild and irresponsible." 
 
 2 On this Professor Delbriick writes with bitterness. But he 
 adds no fresh count to the indictment recited above, except that 
 he accuses us of " losing no opportimity to unite Russian and 
 Frenchman against Germany ; and that we even seek to under- 
 mine his coimtry with the Turk, of whom Germany is the only 
 friend." But these allegations lack foundation. The fact is 
 that there has been no inimical movement on the part of England, 
 France, or Russia, against Germany, Whatever drawing together 
 of these nations has occurred, has been purely defensive; and tlie 
 
218 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Baghdad Railway, — in German S.W. Africa over the 
 desired gate at Walfisch Bay, — and more recently in 
 connection with Morocco. 
 
 The moral of all which is plain : that if better 
 relations between England and Germany are to 
 prevail, a higher spirit must take possession of the 
 Chancelleries and Foreign Offices of both countries ; — 
 a spirit which will reduce diplomatic friction to the 
 lowest possible point consistent with sound reason. 
 National opinion, in each case, badly requires to be 
 convinced that these two great branches of a Teuton 
 stock are actually engaged, not in a hostile endeavour 
 each to oust the other, but in a friendly policy of 
 give and take ; — ^the " giving " never to include " pin- 
 pricks," and the " taking " to exclude " offence." 
 
 More sympathy than The Spectator gave it, is 
 really due to Professor Caldecott's appeal for "a 
 higher political sagacity." 
 
 " If expansion is fundamentally equitable, as British Imperial- 
 ists must always allow, let us all weigh the equities in ealmness of 
 mind, and proceed along our several paths in friendly emulation. 
 German expansion is bound to take place ; and it is a legi- 
 timate aspiration of the German people that it should be set out 
 on larger lines without delay." It is imreasonable to expect them 
 to be contented only with " territories which are either fertile 
 but imhealthy, or healthy but unfertile; " and Britain is " called 
 upon to go deeper than conquest or nominal appropriation in a 
 
 natural result of Germany's own aggressive attitude. She deli- 
 berately preambled her Navy Act of 1900 with a reference to her 
 relations " with the greatest naval Power," of which we were 
 presumably intended to take note. In 1905 France suffered the 
 serious threatenings of the Delcasse crisis. In 1908 came the 
 Casablanca affair. In 1911 the Panther came to Agadir, ]\Iean- 
 while Russia had had to face a Balkan crisis in 1909. It was 
 the action of Germany, and no machination of England, Avhieh 
 set these three coimtries in a common attitude of defence, in which 
 only aggressive intention could find a ground of grievance. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 219 
 
 previous set of conditions, and to consider the claims of ability 
 to use the material springs of wealth and power," with a view to 
 its reasonable and legitimate satisfaction. 
 
 3. The third source of grievance has really to be 
 sought in those peculiarly awkward relations between 
 Germany and France, which Bismarck's policy in 
 compelling the cession of Alsace-Lorraine was calcu- 
 lated to keep alive for the better welding of the newly 
 confederated German Empire. This is just the kind 
 of astuteness which is so apt to overreach itself. An 
 outsider can but dimly measure the effect on Franco- 
 German feeling, however he may long for its healing. 
 But it seems palpable that, unless these relations 
 had been so " difficult," it must have been impossible 
 that the Anglo-French entente of 1903 could ever have 
 come to be regarded by Germans as though it involved 
 unfriendhness to them. Yet it is so regarded. And 
 even now, when Franco- German " conversations " 
 have amicably ended, there remains a quite unreason- 
 able disposition to make England the residuary 
 legatee of the ill-feeling engendered during the process 
 of settlement. 
 
 How can it be supposed, even in Germany, that 
 the fact of the entente's existence acted otherwise than 
 as a moderating influence on both parties, after the 
 Agadir incident, and during the subsequent Franco- 
 German diplomatic battles ? A peaceful conclusion 
 was admittedly desired by France at least as earnestly 
 as by Germany. Hence no friend of France could 
 fail to favour the desired peace. And this pacific 
 bias itself excludes the possibility of any kind 
 of imagined interference with any equitable claim 
 advanced on either side. 
 
220 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 A timely protest against supposing England to 
 have been actuated by ill-will to Germany in the 
 exercise of her influence in the Moroccan crisis has 
 just appeared from a quarter which cannot be sus- 
 pected of anti-German bias, and therefore deserves 
 the full weight attaching to independent opinion. 
 I refer to the tribute to England's good-will made 
 before a plenary sitting of the Austrian Delegations, 
 meeting in Vienna on December 29, 1911, by Dr. 
 Kramarz, a former Vice-President of the Austrian 
 Parliament. The fact, of course, is that, from 
 
 its very inception, the Anglo-French understanding 
 has been untainted by any sort of unfriendly feeling 
 or intention toward Germany. When the happy 
 change inaugurated by King Edward took place in 
 our relations with France, the British Statesmen who 
 concluded the entente were thinking of Colonial and 
 oversea interests, and not of European diplomacy. 
 The new understanding cleared up various entangle- 
 ments and controversies which hindered progress in 
 Egypt and the Soudan. It ended bickerings over 
 Newfoundland fisheries, and over boundaries in West 
 Africa. Questions relating to Madagascar, Morocco, 
 and Siam, became soluble in this clearer atmosphere. 
 " When the agreement was published, some English- 
 men said that British interests had been sacrificed to 
 French, and some Frenchmen said that France had 
 been too compliant to Britain ; but no one imagined 
 that an unfriendly act had been committed toward 
 Germany, or foresaw the contention with Germany 
 that was to arise out of it." 
 
 Nor is there any real ground for such contention. 
 No less a person than Prince Biilow himself years ago 
 
DIFFICULTIES 221 
 
 laid doAvn the principle " that the division of Powers 
 into groups for particular purposes did not preclude 
 the most cordial relations between Powers in the 
 different groups." And no injury appears to have 
 been done to the intimacy of the two Courts and 
 Governments of Germany and Russia by Russia's 
 adherence to the Dual Alliance, nor vice versa, by a 
 still closer intimacy between Germany and Austria. 
 Why, then, should an Anglo-French entente appear as 
 an offence in German eyes ? " S " pleads, in The 
 Westminster, for a detente. Let us have it, by all 
 manner of means ; with a rapprochement to follow as 
 soon as possible after. 
 
 On the whole, the recent humours of the English 
 and German peoples, however induced, are creditable 
 to neither. When two great nations break away from 
 the moorings of civility and forbearance, all their 
 joint-relations fall out of gear. Everything becomes 
 distorted. Nothing appears in true perspective. In- 
 stead of being able to co-operate for the betterment 
 of the world, nations out of temper can only irritate 
 each other. The least movement, on the part of 
 either, at once creates friction. They remain " neigh- 
 bours " only in the sense in which two monster 
 Dreadnoughts, gone adrift, may be so described 
 while their iron sides are grating and grinding against 
 each other. 
 
 Now, as Adolf Harnack, last year, in London, 
 observed : 
 
 " Every man, and every people, has precious possessions 
 which must be defended, and for which hfe itself must be laid 
 down ; but only the smallest fraction of the wars carried on upon 
 earth have concerned those hallowed possessions. Strike out the 
 
222 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 wars which have been undertaken from motives of covetousness 
 and envy, ambition and pride ; and we shall see how much occasion 
 for war and bloodshed would then be left ! " 
 
 That were indeed a dire and disgraceful day when 
 it became so much as conceivable that, for any one 
 of these last-named motives, or for any hell-broth 
 mixture of them all, Germany and England might be 
 found at war. It is positively unthinkable that the 
 well-springs of good feeling could ever be so poisoned, 
 and the natural bonds of brotherhood so broken, for 
 two great peoples bound together by blood-relation- 
 ship, by a national culture essentially the same amid 
 all differences, and by centuries of continual inter- 
 change of intellectual and material wealth. 
 
 Germans and Britons have together fought on 
 many battle-fields; but it were a new and horrible 
 thing in history were they now to begin to shed each 
 other's blood. Let them rather brace themselves 
 for the wholesome and exhilarating emulations of 
 industry and art, of science and philosophy. It is 
 by these mankind is ennobled, and the progress of 
 the world advanced. " The way of Righteousness 
 is the way of life," whether for men or for nations. 
 " Our plans, our hopes, our fears, must be regulated, 
 not by things as they at first present themselves to 
 us, but by those things rightly understood by reference 
 to an ideal conception of a future which is to be 
 framed by more perfect laws than the present." 
 
 Those last words were spoken by Mandell Creigh- 
 ton, at Sandringham, in 1899. The Kaiser, who 
 was there on a visit, was sufficiently interested to 
 get the Bishop to write out the sermon afterwards, 
 in order that it might be printed. The address 
 continues : — 
 
DIFFICULTIES 228 
 
 " Patriotism is doubtless a great and necessary virtue ; it must 
 always regulate much that we do; but it should not therefore 
 narrow our aspirations. A nation must learn, as the individual 
 learns, mainly by sympathetic intercourse with like-minded 
 nations. On this gradual education of nations, more than any- 
 thing else, the hope of the world's future depends. Nations with 
 like ideas of righteousness go forth on their separate ways, not 
 that they may emphasise the differences which arise from differing 
 experience, but that they may bring the results of their experience 
 to a common stock." 
 
 Now no two nations ever were to whom sueh words 
 are more directly applicable than they are to Germany 
 and England. Are all the endless vistas of possible 
 greatness-with-goodness which open before a com- 
 bined work for the amelioration of the world, to be 
 clouded or closed ; because each is wilfully determined, 
 in a spirit of hostile separativeness, to follow the 
 ignoble path of self-aggrandisement ? Absit omen ! 
 Here are two countries, like Tennyson's two heroes, 
 one great by land as the other is by sea. Each is a 
 veritable Atlas, bending beneath an inalienable load 
 of difficulties and duties. Is there no sense of giant 
 comradeship in English and German hearts, which 
 might gradually grow into a genuine longing to fulfil, 
 now without friction, and perhaps some day in 
 combination, the exceptional responsibilities of excep- 
 tional power ? 
 
 Were some viper of Hatred, some corrosive ulcer 
 of Ill-feeling, to turn healthy Anglo-German blood to 
 gall; were two of the most massive Rocks of the 
 world's Peace to sink down into the quicksands of 
 War; nation after nation would become entangled 
 and engulfed. And if every sane instinct of both 
 peoples revolts from the very thought in horror, — 
 then let neither of us dally with suicidal possibili- 
 ties. It must be a very different kind of man from 
 
224 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Bismarck's " Pomeranian peasant " who could ever 
 excuse, much less justify, recourse to arms on the 
 part of Germany and Britain, in order to settle 
 differences which every consideration, material, racial, 
 and religious, combines to urge these Empires to 
 submit to the all-powerful solvent of good feeling. 
 
 Every passing year's addition to the industrial, 
 commercial, and financial intimacy of Germany with 
 England, must make any kind of attempt to poison 
 these relations, or to agitate either country into war 
 with the other, a more and more damnable policy. 
 Moreover, there exists between these two nations, a 
 bond of blood and character, a like-mindedness, 
 which ought to be an even better guarantee for the 
 maintenance of sympathetic intercourse than any 
 kind of " cash nexus." Let us hear once more the 
 Bishop " who tried to write true history," and did so : 
 
 " The Teutonic race has the same fundamental ideas. It has 
 the same sense of duty, the same conception of conscience, the 
 same aspiration after justice as the highest expression of national 
 righteousness. We cannot shut our eyes to the responsibility 
 which God's Providence has placed upon the nations of that 
 Teutonic race. We are driven to consider how much the future of 
 the world depends on the extension and purification of the ideas 
 on which their vigorous life is foxmded." 
 
 For this long digression on what I am fully per- 
 suaded can be only a passing phase of the general 
 situation with which these pages are concerned, I 
 can only offer the excuse of its unspeakable importance 
 at the moment, and of the intense desire that Germany 
 and England should not lag but lead among the 
 nations, in reducing " Difficulties " in the way of 
 Peace. 
 
 Returning now to the general aspects of our topic, 
 
DIFFICULTIES 225 
 
 we are faeed at once by the Armament problem. 
 Now all men are convinced already, for the thing is 
 manifest in both hemispheres, that nations with War 
 for their liabit can neither create nor sustain the 
 institutions which determine their true dignity in 
 the hierarchy of the modern world. But some other 
 things seem very inadequately realised. One is that 
 the principle underlying the aggressive piling up 
 of war-material, beyond any possible exigencies of 
 national defence, is the same identical principle of 
 sole reliance on physical force, which keeps the nations 
 on a lower level of civilisation in a state of open war- 
 fare. The violence is in eruption in the one case; 
 the volcano is but resting in the other. Whether in 
 activity or in store, the same potential violence is 
 there, and the same sort of bellicose policy lies behind 
 both. 
 
 Further : as the root-principle of superabundant 
 armament is identical with that of wanton war, so 
 the disabilities attaching to each are much alike, 
 although they differ in degree. This ruthless and 
 reckless expenditure partakes of the nature of eternal 
 war; and only in a less degree depletes the national 
 coffers. The constant drain robs every Exchequer 
 of resources by which the condition of the people 
 might be enormously bettered. Only in November 
 last, Lord Roberts addressed the country (through 
 The Times) in the following words : — 
 
 " The conditions amid which miUions of our people arc Hving, 
 appear to me to make it natural that they should not care a straw 
 under what rule they may be called upon to dwell ; and I can quite 
 understand their want of patriotic feeling. Recent unimpeachable 
 evidence makes it clear that, to tens of thousands of Englishmen 
 engaged in daily toil, the call to ' sacrifice ' themselves for their 
 country must seem an insult to their reason ; for those conditions 
 
226 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 under which they live make their hves ah-cady an unending 
 sacrifice." 
 
 And the Field Marshal himself concludes : " Social 
 Reform is a necessary preliminary to any thorough 
 system of national defence." 
 
 Can we then wonder if, meanwhile, the present 
 state of unrest disposes the discontented to swallow 
 ultra-socialistic, anarchic, or nihilist nostrums dan- 
 gerous to the State ? Adequate and judicious social 
 reform is constantly subjected to perilous delay. Or 
 else the instalments granted involve the impoverish- 
 ment of those hard-pressed sections of the community 
 which just miss being beneficiaries. And all be- 
 cause, whatever happens, every nation must be fully 
 equipped with the most up-to-date means wherewith 
 to bite and devour its neighbour, — a new set of iron 
 teeth being necessary every few years. 
 
 Moreover, the prevalent Militarism generates an 
 atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty which is 
 highly prejudicial to industry. Where the weight 
 of taxation hampers manufacture, trade naturally 
 gravitates away to other regions more favourable to 
 its development. Can anything be plainer than that 
 the need of the hour is not " new national Loans " 
 for increasing armaments, but a heavier draft on the 
 sagacity of European statecraft which may bring 
 about their gradual and general reduction ? Such a 
 policy, internationally arranged, would be to every 
 consenting nation an incalculable boon. The creation 
 of propel ly organised machinery for dealing with 
 destitution and unemployment, would be a far sounder 
 national insurance against internal Revolution than 
 armaments can ever be against external ^Var. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 227 
 
 Again : a gradual, general, and proportionate re- 
 duction of expenditure on war-material would, for all 
 nations concerned, liberate increasing sums for produc- 
 tive labour. The great and general reconstruction of 
 Roads demanded by the recent revolution in traffic, 
 would become possible. A judicious and compre- 
 hensive scheme of Afforestation, which would benefit 
 most nations, need no longer be shelved. Waste 
 lands, which everywhere invite drainage and culti- 
 vation, need no further be neglected ; and the new or 
 improved Harbourage, always wanted by ^Maritime 
 nations, could be realised. But why specify ? The 
 point is, that National works of genuine intrinsic 
 value, and of immense indirect utility, could be under- 
 taken on a scale now quite impossible. By such 
 reinvestment of national resources, unspeakable 
 good might be achieved, and untold evils could be 
 averted which neither armaments nor war have 
 permanent power to prevent. 
 
 While, however, the perversity which underlies 
 the present ruinous European armament-competition 
 calls for vehement protest, in the hope that public 
 opinion in all countries — stirred at last by the waste, 
 loss, and danger thus involved — may be moved to 
 reduce the stupendous evil ; yet the matter is plainly 
 one which can only be internationally arranged and 
 concurrently effected.^ Something is to be hoped 
 
 1 There are enthusiastic pacifists who, when tilting against 
 armaments, forget the caution of Condorcet : — " It is not enough 
 to do good ; one must do it in a good way. No doubt we should 
 destroy all errors ; but as it is impossible to destroy them all in an 
 instant, we should imitate a prudent architect who, when obliged 
 to destroy a building, and knowing how its parts are united to- 
 gether, sets about its demolition in such a way as to prevent its 
 fall from being dangerous." 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 from the now practically simultaneous development 
 of ideas in all civilised lands, which should soon 
 render possible a simultaneous movement toward 
 political rationalism, and create the understanding 
 necessary for the synchronous mitigation of armament- 
 rivalry. To this end, the organised co-operation of 
 anti-aggressionists in every country is above all 
 things desirable. But it is only as the economic 
 futility of military force employed in war comes to be 
 generally realised, and the arch-crime of War itself 
 is seen to be detestable, that the armament-policy, 
 which rests upon War's supposed value and necessity, 
 will die a natural death. 
 
 Germany, on this point of concurrent reduction, 
 is supposed to be hopelessly recalcitrant. Over- 
 tures during the Premiership of Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, met with no practical response from the 
 Government at Berlin. And proposals of this kind 
 are necessarily liable to misconstruction, especially 
 if nerves are on edge. But it must not be too readily 
 assumed that this idea is even now unwelcome to 
 the majority of the German nation, although no 
 doubt anti-English sentiment has increased since 
 July 1910, when the Daily Mail had the following 
 telegram from Berlin : " Mr. Asquith's disclosure 
 that the German Government declined to discuss a 
 naval understanding with Britain on the ground that 
 German public opinion was opposed to such a step, 
 arouses astonishment and indignation." At the 
 same time, the moderate Berliner Tageblatt declared 
 that " Emphatic protest must be made ; Germans 
 want their commerce and coast protected; but, 
 apart from a small clique directly interested in naval 
 
DIFFICULTIES 229 
 
 construction, they are decidedly against these Hmitless 
 armaments. Any prospect of a final abatement of 
 the rate of increase hitherto maintained would be 
 welcomed as freeing us from a nightmare." 
 
 The real state of general opinion in a country 
 cannot be accurately gauged by any particular move, 
 or refusal to move, on the part of an Imperialistic 
 Government. And, in the long run, the public 
 sentiment must impress itself on the policy; and 
 therefore it is from the elevation of that sentiment 
 in every country that relief is to be expected. 
 
 It was the saying of one of our recent Premiers, 
 that " the policy of huge armaments feeds the belief 
 that Force is the best, if not the only, solution of inter- 
 national differences." But it is quite as important 
 to recognise the converse truth, — that the belief feeds 
 the policy. Hence, on every ground, it is against 
 this false opinion that the forces of reform must be 
 directly aimed. The Upas Tree will never perish 
 while its roots remain alive. Negotiations founded 
 on mutual expediency may lop off a few big branches. 
 But even if the actual trunk were to fall before the 
 axe of some unprecedented Treaty, the maleficent 
 root would shoot again. So long as the belief prevails 
 that Force is the best if not the only solution for inter- 
 national disputes, nations will go on storing Force in 
 every possible form with all their available resources. 
 
 The problem of Armament-reduction is ultimately 
 identical with that of the Passing of War. It is the 
 single problem of finding and enthroning a really 
 efficient Substitute for physical force as final arbiter 
 among the peoples of the earth. Direct agitation 
 for disarmament is therefore a far less scientific line 
 
'230 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 of labour than that of pressing forward by every 
 possible means the principle of peaceful Arbitration. 
 It is only as that principle wins adherence and be- 
 comes more firmly accredited, that any considerable 
 readjustment of armaments to new and happier 
 conditions can be reasonably expected. For though 
 it be nothing better than Nietzschean blindness to 
 assert, with the German Chancellor, that " disarma- 
 ment is impracticable as long as men are men and 
 states are states," yet common foresight does make 
 it impracticable as long as men and states see no 
 better way of settling their differences than by going 
 to war. 
 
 Pacifist endeavour should therefore concentrate 
 on the furtherance of International Arbitration and 
 Federation, rather than upon schemes for disarma- 
 ment. Earl Russell — Prime Minister of Britain 
 during six years previous to the Crimean campaign, 
 and again after its close — declared that " there had 
 been no war for a century past which could not well 
 have been settled without recourse to arms." Yet 
 no Hague Tribunal then existed, to supplement the 
 methods of Diplomacy. Hence the weight which 
 rightly attaches to the opinion of Lord John Russell 
 is considerably increased by the circumstances of 
 to-day. And the least step forward in perfecting 
 Arbitral machinery is probably of greater moment to 
 the cause of universal Peace than even a long stride 
 in reducing European War-budgets, perilous and 
 pernicious as they are. The armament-limitation 
 problem will solve itself, when the common sense of 
 the world insists on adopting the final arbitrament 
 of Justice in place of that of the Sword. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 231 
 
 What, then, is the present and prospective outlook 
 in the matter of Arbitration as a recognised sub- 
 stitute for War ? One serious hindrance to this 
 consummation Hes in the alleged difficulty of con- 
 stituting an International Tribunal whose decisions 
 can be relied upon for absolute fairness. Admiral 
 Mahan may be taken as a typical representative of 
 those who think it impossible. He has complained, 
 in the pages of the National Review, that " where an 
 antecedent body of accepted law is wanting, arbitra- 
 tion becomes a matter of personal beliefs and opinions 
 on the part of the arbitrators; " that "Law strictly 
 speaking presupposes a law-maker; and for inter- 
 national law the law-maker has not yet come into 
 existence." But no one knows better than the gallant 
 Admiral that this objection is flimsy, for he tells us 
 in the same article that : 
 
 " through centuries of diplomacy, the practice of nations has 
 been slowly growing into a noteworthy bulk of precedents, — 
 material available for Codification. Could this be effected, and 
 accepted bj'^ all the great Nations, it would carry an assurance 
 of justice. . . . Such formulation of principles and rules, as far as 
 it may go, is a tangible and practical substitute for War ; and, where 
 approved and accepted, \v\\\, to its extent, avert War." 
 
 The sting here lies in the qualification, " as far 
 as it may go," which evidently, in the Admiral's 
 view, is a very short distance. But present and 
 possible " extent " are two very different things. 
 Rome was not built in a day. At least three eminently 
 erudite and experienced juristic bodies are continually 
 assisting in the extension of the work of the Second 
 Hague Conference, by whose Conventions many 
 branches of International Law have been already 
 codified. The Institute of International Law (founded 
 
232 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 in 1873), composed of sixty leading international 
 jurists and sixty associates, has done invaluable 
 work. So have the International Law Association, 
 and the more recently formed but vigorous Inter- 
 Parliamentary Union, whose labours are now sub- 
 sidised by interested States. The Carnegie Peace 
 Trust is also applying its great resources to the 
 same end. 
 
 There seems no valid reason why completer 
 codification should not eventually do for International 
 Law what it has already done to render efficacious 
 the laws of separate nations. If, as some think, 
 this " pre-supposes the concurrent development of a 
 World-State which shall, like the National State, 
 enforce the decisions and penalties of its Courts;" 
 then that is but a fresh argument for international 
 Federation, which, because it affords the most 
 definitive means of assuring Universal Peace, is 
 perhaps the most important goal of pacifist endeavour. 
 
 " IJntil the States of the world," says The Spec- 
 tator,^ " place themselves in the hands of a universal 
 policeman, like the Roman Empire in old days, or 
 like the British Empire in India in our time ; or 
 organise some sort of international committee which 
 shall be the real sovereign of the world ; it is idle to 
 think of Arbitration as if it were a panacea for 
 stopping wars. In the world of international affairs, 
 right is still might." 
 
 That last sentence is, of course, intended to define 
 the logical ground upon which the previous state- 
 ments rest. And it would actually do this, if the 
 words ran — " might is still right." 
 ' October 14, 1911. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 283 
 
 For that is of course the real position assumed 
 at present, and also the position against which it 
 is the main object of these pages to protest. But 
 The Spectator was careful to avoid so bald a state- 
 ment ; and I claim that very avoidance in justification 
 of an uncompromising attitude toward the present 
 entirely non-moral foundation for the whole structure 
 of international affairs. Until that is altered, I agree 
 that no form of arbitration can be " a panacea for 
 stopping wars." But that arbitration would so act, 
 if " right were might," if Justice were given the 
 authority now yielded to brute force, I confidently 
 assert. And whether Right shall become Might on 
 this earth, on this side Doomsday, simply depends 
 on the progress made by Public Opinion towards a 
 resolute acceptance of the sovereign supremacy of 
 jNIoral Forces. 
 
 Meanwhile, even as things now are, the services 
 ah'eady possible for a properly constituted Arbitration 
 Court, are more than sufficiently great to make 
 the " sane man," invoked by The Spectator, desire 
 earnestly its wider recognition. The Court is useful 
 for the authoritative interpretation of obscure or un- 
 determined points of International Law. It is useful 
 for giving the form and force of Law to accredited 
 diplomatic opinion. It is useful for enabling nations 
 which have got into a tangle to get out of it without 
 loss of self-respect. Above all, it is useful — and may 
 easily be made more so — in cases where the subject- 
 matter of disagreement is felt to be not worth a war, 
 and yet no agreement can be reached by means of 
 diplomatic " conversations." From these generally 
 admitted uses will grow the supremacy desired by 
 
234 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 those who hold almost no disagreement worth a 
 War. 
 
 It is commonly argued against the principle of 
 universal compulsory arbitration, that it would, for 
 practical purposes, mean the petrifaction of the pre- 
 sent status quo among nations. If it did mean this, 
 it would be a very damaging objection. But why 
 should it ? The whole raison d'etre of the Arbitral 
 process is not to stereotype existing international 
 conditions, but to remove friction by adjusting them 
 more equitably; — an adjustment seldom if ever 
 attained by the alternative method of fighting. This 
 process of adjustment is the continual occupation 
 of Diplomacy. When diplomatic conversations fail, 
 shall the final decision be referred to a Court of the 
 best Jurists the world can produce, or to the voices 
 of the biggest guns which each dissatisfied country 
 happens to be able at the moment to supply ? 
 That is the real question which the common sense of 
 civilised mankind is everywhere beginning to ask. 
 
 While not denying that there may be, among 
 the countless subjects of international contention, a 
 residuum of non-arbitrable matter; I submit that 
 this residuum is already small, and also constantly 
 tending to diminish. And I therefore urge that its 
 existence ought not for an instant to delay a universal 
 effort to perfect the present arbitral machinery, and 
 to promote recourse to its authority. 
 
 Objections which have been made to Arbitration 
 on the score of the actual constitution of the Court, 
 seem much less serious than perverse. No sooner 
 is it seen that the gradual codification of international 
 Law will furnish the required corrective to any 
 
DIFFICULTIES 235 
 
 possible personal bias on the part of the Judges, than 
 the ground of objection is reversed. The Tribunal 
 is disparaged as " an extraneous Court of unsym- 
 pathetic strangers; " and it is insisted that a sym- 
 pathetic intuition of national difficulties is absolutely 
 necessary to ethical fairness. The dilemma is pushed 
 to the point of absurdity on this wise : either the 
 Arbitral Body proposed is sympathetic, or it is not. 
 If it is, it will be prejudiced : if it is not, the intuition 
 essential to equity is wanting. 
 
 Now from such hypercritical niceties being brought 
 into the argument, one might naturally expect to 
 be invited to ^veigh Arbitration against some rival 
 Justiciary of superlative rectitude. But instead of 
 this, we are asked to adhere to the arbitrament of an 
 ordeal so notoriously uncertain and unjust that it 
 already revolts the sense and conscience of civilised 
 man. It is therefore only necessary, in order to 
 convince ourselves of the inherent perverseness of 
 such cavilling, to call to mind one or two prominent 
 features of the present alternative method of settle- 
 ment, namely, — War. It^is simply ludicrous to turn 
 from these largely hypothetical defects in the working 
 of Arbitral machinery to the pages of some military 
 expert, and read his account of the actual working 
 of the only alternative process for reaching inter- 
 national agreement. 
 
 We knew before, of course, that War was intrin- 
 sically barbarous and unjust, compared even with 
 the most imperfect judicial substitute. But we always 
 understood that, although War's verdict could by 
 nature have no kind of relation to Justice, yet at 
 least it might be relied on to determine correctly the 
 
236 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 respective values of the violences engaged. If it were 
 not so, what justification would remain for the mad 
 race for armament precedence ? 
 
 Yet so far from even this being assured, the most 
 expert evidence gives a surprisingly equivocal report 
 of the actual working of the War-machine, regarded 
 purely as a test of superiority in physical force. 
 Considered solely as two forms of ordeal, — all question 
 of Justice and Violence, or of Right and Wrong, 
 wholly apart — War is simply nowhere in comparison 
 with Juridical decision. " War," says Clausewitz, 
 " is the very province of uncertainty. Three-fourths 
 of those things upon which action in War must be 
 calculated, are hidden more or less in the clouds of 
 great uncertainty.'' ' Take, for threefold illustration, 
 the parts played in War, (1) by the effects of mere 
 bodily Fatigue; (2) by the trickiness of Weather; and 
 (3) by the still greater trickiness of Information. 
 
 1. To the first of this trinity of incalculable con- 
 tingencies you may put down the transformation of 
 La Grande Armke into a dwindling horde of stragglers ; 
 the break-up of Kutusof's hosts in 1812; and the ruin 
 of Napoleon's splendid regiments in 1813. Against 
 this single element in the verdict, which " puts 
 fetters on the action of the mind and wears out in 
 secret the powers of the soul," no genius in a General 
 is proof. Witness Benigsen at Eylau, after thirty- six 
 hours in the saddle ; or Napoleon, losing all the results 
 of his victory at Dresden.^ 
 
 2. Or take the second : the mere effect of Weather 
 
 ' On War, bk. i., ch. iii. 
 
 2 Instances given in The Ecality of War, by Major Stewart 
 Murray. 
 
DIFFICULTIES 287 
 
 on the issue. This has been proverbial, since " the 
 stars in their courses fought against Sisera " in the 
 plain of Esdraelon. AVhen the " rains descend " in 
 sheets of water, and some torrential flood rises without 
 warning as though to meet the downpour, bravery 
 and generalship go for little. Or when, as at Crecy, 
 slingers and archers were disabled by sleet, and 
 swordsmen crippled by cold, simply to have the storm 
 at one's back was to win. Or, to take a case of first- 
 rate historical importance, who can estimate the full 
 effect of the succession of violent gales in the summer 
 of 1588 in completing the ruin of " the Invincible 
 Armada " of Philip II ? But let the expert's own 
 summary of this kind of uncertainty speak for itself : 
 " Here, the fog prevents the enemy from being dis- 
 covered in time, a battery from firing, or a report from 
 reaching the General. There, the mud caused by rain 
 prevents a battalion from arriving, or the cavalry 
 from charging effectively;"' and so forth. 
 
 3. Or take the third : Information in War; which 
 Clausewitz counts " the foundation of all our ideas 
 and actions." And he thus proceeds to describe this 
 " foundation " ! " In a few words, most reports are 
 false. AVhen in the thick of war itself one report 
 follows hard on the heels of another, it is fortunate 
 if these in their contradictions show a certain balance 
 of probability." In another place, in order to illus- 
 trate " this uncertainty of all intelligence and supposi- 
 tions, this continual interposition of chance,'' he 
 compares two opposing commanders to men fighting 
 in a dark room, and groping about for one another in 
 the gloom ! 
 
 ^ Clausewitz, On War, bk. i., ch. viii. 
 
238 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 This, then, — and the account is given by one of 
 the greatest masters in the science of War — this is 
 the lottery ; where mind and soul may be " fettered by 
 fatigue," where victory or defeat may be decided by 
 the weather, and where leaders grope for guidance 
 in the dark; — this is the gambling arbitrament to 
 which the fate of nations is to be referred, in preference 
 to that of an International Court of Justice ! And 
 after this lesson (from the man whose writings are 
 so reverenced by the foremost soldiers of to-day that 
 " every one who makes or teaches War in a modern 
 sense bases himself upon him " ^) militarists still 
 oppose to Arbitration their talk of " ethical fairness," 
 of want or excess in the S3anpathy of Jurists, of im- 
 perfectly codified Law, and I know not what ! Did 
 ever eyes more sublimely unconscious of an obscuring 
 " beam " pursue more inconsistently the search for 
 microscopic " motes " ? 
 
 Of coarse there are real obstacles to be surmounted 
 
 in the achievement of every great reform. And there 
 
 are genuine difficulties which necessarily attend the 
 
 constitution of an International Court of Justice; — 
 
 difficulties not met with in forming a Prize Court, for 
 
 instance, or any other Tribunal with a specifically 
 
 limited scope. ( How to appoint a small bench of 
 
 Judges from forty nations, without infringing the 
 
 principle of equality, is an example of such a difficulty] 
 
 But — " given sincerity on the part of the Powers " — 
 
 it is not open to serious doubt that all obstacles could 
 
 be overcome by the joint political and juridical 
 
 wisdom of Europe. And the opinion of Mr. Secretary 
 
 Knox, that an acceptable solution of all such problems 
 
 ^ Opinion of the late General Meckel, of the German General 
 Staff. 
 
' DIFFICULTIES 239 
 
 will be found before the Third Hague Conference 
 meets, is not likely to be falsified. 
 
 But we are finally told that, even granting an 
 Ideal Arbitration Court, and also the progress of 
 Opinion necessary to lead nations to make use of it, 
 there still remains the possibility of some signatory 
 nation refusing after all to accept an unwelcome 
 Award. If compulsion then becomes necessary to 
 enforce tlie Court's decree, how is the position 
 improved ? The answer is, that even if this contin- 
 gency ever arose, the enforcement of international 
 Law by international Police would still represent an 
 immeasurable advance on the uncertain, unbridled, 
 and immoral violence involved in national wars. 
 But why is it reasonable to assume, as this objection 
 does assume, that the sense of " national honour " 
 which is so sensitive and so strong as sometimes to 
 plunge a nation into war, will suddenly become too 
 dull and too weak to save it from the deep disgrace 
 of breaking its pledged word ? ' There is small room 
 for doubt that, when the comity of nations has once 
 accepted the arbitral principle, no member of that 
 comity would ever risk forfeiture of the securitv 
 guaranteed only to fidelity, or brave the penalties 
 involved in the ostracism of other nations and the 
 condemnation of the world. 
 
 On the whole, then, it seems clear that while the 
 pacifist needs to walk warily among the mountains 
 of Difficulty to which he is always pointed — either 
 with infinite regret or with ill-concealed delight — 
 whenever the Passing of War is broached, he may also 
 walk hopefully; for many of them are nothing but 
 mountains of Mist; and the rest will yield their most 
 
240 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 perilous peaks to the vigour and experience of two 
 infallible Guides, whose names are Faith and Patience. 
 
 " Our doubts are traitors, 
 And make us lose the good we oft might win, 
 By fearing to attempt." 
 
For the establishment of a neiv political ethic it is 
 our Duty to labour. On both sides of the Channel many 
 of the truly excellent do not, even now, believe in the 
 assurances of peUce ; or if they do believe in them, 
 nevertheless doubt the possibility of fulfilling these 
 assurances. But neither mistrust nor doubt should be 
 allowed to have the last word. It is atrocious to speak 
 of an iron necessity which perforce 7nust issue in war. . . . 
 Germany and England must silence the materialistic 
 philosophers of history, — those enemies of their respective 
 countries who maintain the ultimate necessity of warlike 
 conflict, because in their presumption they overlook 
 commercial possibilities, and disbelieve i^i the power of 
 ideals. 
 
 To-day, in the international life of peoples, the two 
 chief questions are : How can we convert the national 
 strife of interests into a noble emulation? And, for 
 the attainment of this end, what disposition of mind 
 ought we ourselves to cherish, and in what new forms 
 can we express this disposition ? 
 
 At the present moment the history of the world 
 urges these questions upon England and Germany. If 
 they can answer them, their solution will have a world- 
 wide significance. . . . Germany and England, — each 
 nation should make itself strong, and, in the fulness of 
 its peaceful strength, be indispensable to the other.^ 
 
 ' Adolf Harnack. 
 
Lo for the Dawn, {and wherefore wouldst thou screen it?) 
 
 Lo with what eyes, how eager and alone. 
 Seers for the sight have spent themselves, nor seen it. 
 
 Kings for the knowledge, and they have not known. 
 Scarcely I catch the zvords of His revealing. 
 
 Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand. 
 Only the power that is within me pealing 
 
 Lives on my lips, and beckons to my hand. 
 Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest 
 
 Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny ; 
 Yea, with one voice, O world, tho' thou deniest. 
 
 Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.^ 
 
 Forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching 
 forth to those that are before, I press on toward the goaV 
 
 Let us listen only to the experience that urges us 07i. 
 It is always higher than that which keeps us back. Let 
 us reject all the counsels of the past that do not turn 
 toward the future.^ 
 
 I know that to bring about changes of this kind, 
 public opinion has to rise to a high plane, higher than 
 some people think it ever can rise to. But the minds of 
 men are working upon this, and if you look into History 
 you will find that there do come times when public 
 opinion does rise to heights which a generation previous 
 would have thought impossible.^ 
 
 1 F. VV^ Mybrs. 2 St. Paul. ^ Maeterlinck. 
 
 Sir Kdward Grey. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 DAWN 
 
 " An extension of Federation seems to me the 
 most probable of the political prophecies relative to 
 the form of government." With these words, his 
 Development of European Polity is closed by the late 
 Professor Sidgwick. He cannot be claimed as a 
 pacifist; but the aim and hope of every worker for 
 peace are taking more and more the direction in- 
 dicated. Federation, in the pacifist sense, means, 
 of course, " such a juridical union between independ- 
 ent States as shall provide peaceful and rational 
 methods of settling all questions arising out of their 
 mutual relations, eliminating every ground for resort 
 to brute force, but not interfering with autonomy." 
 Nor does it seem unreasonable to look for some such 
 fruitage as this from the increasing tendency of 
 civilised countries to submit their differences to 
 Arbitration. It is even possible that a really adequate 
 supremacy of arbitral Justice may prove unattain- 
 able unless accompanied by some such form of federal 
 union as the late Lord Salisbury held to be " the only 
 possible structure of Europe which can save civilisa- 
 tion from a desolating disaster of war." 
 
 The emphatic words of the great Unionist Prime 
 Minister, in one of his last speeches, are remarkable — 
 
 " The one hope that wc have to prevent the present armament- 
 competition ending in a terrible effort of mutual destruction which 
 R 2 243 
 
244 DAWN 
 
 would be fatal to Christian civilisation — the only hope we have 
 is that the Powers may gradually be brought together, to act 
 together in a friendly spirit on all questions that may arise, until 
 at last they shall be welded in some International Constitution 
 which shall give to the world, as a result of their great strength, 
 a long spell of unfettered and prosperous trade and continued 
 peace." 
 
 From his use of the phrase " at last," we may take 
 it that the speaker regarded " some international 
 constitution " as an ultimate goal — an end which 
 much " acting together of the Powers in a friendly 
 spirit " must precede and prepare for. It is, therefore, 
 pertinent now to note that when public opinion in 
 Europe is ripe for some definite step in the Federal 
 direction, nothing alarmingly original need be con- 
 templated. Germany and Austria-Hungary each 
 afford an example of a confederated Empire; while 
 Switzerland and the United States of America 
 are instances of confederated Republics. In a con- 
 federated Europe, when it comes to pass, we shall 
 but see the magnificent extension of a widely 
 accredited principle. 
 
 Moreover, the self-governing constituents of the 
 British Empire, though not formall)^ a Confederation, 
 may serve at least to illustrate the possibilities of a 
 Federal Union. And the quadrennial Conferences 
 in London of the Representatives of British Colonies, 
 which minister to imperial unity, suggest how the 
 harmony of Europe might be furthered by a kind of 
 European Areopagus, in which " the Powers may be 
 gradually brought to act together." Any agency 
 whereby the common feeling of Europe might be ascer- 
 tained and declared could hardly fail to act as a valu- 
 able restraint; and might often prevent — especially 
 
DAWN 245 
 
 by the use of influence at an early stage — the 
 pursuit of a poHcy in flagrant contradiction to the 
 general sentiment. It would seem to be only out of 
 some such habit of " acting together of the Powers 
 in a friendly spirit " that Lord Salisbury's " inter- 
 national constitution " could eventually be evolved. 
 It is plain that no such panacea could ever spring into 
 being, but must be the result of long and gradual 
 developments. 
 
 Something like the very structure required for 
 Europe, or at least its embryonic form, is actually 
 at work in the Pan-American Bureau, established at 
 Washington in 1890 to promote commerce and amity 
 between the various States of the Union, each of 
 which is practically a republic in itself. This Wash- 
 ington Bureau has been munificently housed by 
 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, whose magic wand is now 
 raising the still more wonderful Building at the 
 Hague, which at once suggests itself as the home of 
 a similar institution for Europe. In this Palace of 
 Peace all material things for glory and for beauty 
 already abound. Every nation of the earth has 
 added some lavish adornment. Unless this be sheer 
 mockery, we must see in such gifts, from every 
 quarter of the globe, the symbol and sacrament of 
 the grace of Good-will, of which the whole Palace 
 is the splendid shrine. For instance, when Germany 
 provides the House of Peace with monumentally 
 magnificent Entrance Gates, it becomes an insult 
 to harbour the thought that the great Teutonic 
 Empire has no genuine wish to enter them, or desires 
 to keep them continually closed ! If this were the 
 fact, it would spell tragedy, not merely travesty. 
 
246 DAWN 
 
 It remains certain, however, that no outward 
 and visible sign of unity of purpose and sincerity of 
 aim, no material gifts however " magnifical," could 
 compare in value with the actual institution of a 
 Pan-European Bureau in this Temple of Peace. 
 The ultimate goal, " some international Constitution," 
 needs just such a centre for the gradual growth 
 of the tentative and provisional organisation which 
 must precede and prepare for greater things. Its 
 mere existence would strengthen the necessary " will 
 to organise," by awakening and spreading a better 
 understanding of the immense potentialities of Co- 
 operation — the one real specific for the curse of 
 Competition. It would connect and concentrate 
 much scattered energy and enterprise now suffering 
 for lack of unity or cohesion. A structure of this 
 kind, even in embryo, would quicken effort and 
 inspire hope. For it would be certain to develop; 
 and might easily prove a very " mustard seed " in 
 rapidity of growth and in stimulating force. 
 
 But whatever new lines the larger horizon of 
 these later days may suggest for the amelioration 
 of the world ; however magnificent or manifold may be 
 the schemes proposed to bring nearer the new age of 
 Victor Hugo's confidence — " when a cannon will be 
 shown in museums, as to-day is shown some uncouth 
 instrument of torture, in wonder that such a thing 
 could ever have existed; " one thing is sure, which 
 is the root of all, that it is only to " men of good- 
 will " that Peace can ever be vouchsafed. The old 
 words, " In terra pax hominihns bonce voluntatis,'' 
 whether in their Greek or Latin dress, warn as well as 
 promise. So long as we choose to contend rather 
 
DAWN 247 
 
 with our fellows than with our faults, and make 
 of our meadows battle-fields instead of pastures, the 
 Flaming Sword will still turn every way, barring the 
 Gate of the Paradise to be regained. 
 
 One of these barriers must be specifically men- 
 tioned. It is the mischievous and mistaken but 
 extraordinarily prevalent idea that, if war were ended, 
 the world would suffer, because human character 
 would deteriorate, and we should soon become a race 
 of degenerates. If those who make this chimera 
 an article of faith are unconvinced by the facts and 
 the reasoning advanced by Mr. Norman Angell,^ 
 I cannot hope to move them. But, as one of our 
 Cabinet ^linisters has put it, " You might as well say 
 you can develop your muscles by paying to look on at 
 a Football match, as say it makes a nation a nation 
 of brave men to send a big army to fight for them." 
 The fact is that even the now discredited practice 
 of duelling has the advantage of war in this respect, 
 that the quarrellers at least fight out their quarrel 
 themselves, and take their own risks ; whereas in the 
 public quarrel, we take our workers to fight it, and 
 their means to support it; so that, as Ruskin says, 
 " the black seals on the parchment of our war- won 
 treaties are the deserted hearth and the fruitless 
 field." 
 
 Carlyle's unforgettable picture in Sartor Resartus 
 still in principle applies — 
 
 " What," says he, " What, speaking in quite unofficial language, 
 is the net purport and upshot of war ? To my own knowledge, 
 for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dum- 
 
 1 See The Great Illusion, Ch. iv. and v., pp. 161-224. 
 
248 DAWN 
 
 drudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain 
 ' natural enemies ' of the French, there are successively selected, 
 during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men : Dumdrudge, 
 at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them : she has, not 
 without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even 
 trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, 
 another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone 
 avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing,, 
 they are selected ; all dressed in red ; and shipped awaj^ at the 
 public charges, some tAvo thousand miles, or say only to the south 
 of Spain ; and fed tliere till wanted. And now to that same spot 
 in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from a 
 French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending : till at length, after 
 infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and 
 Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. 
 Straightway the word ' Fire ! ' is given : and they blow the souls 
 out of one another; and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, 
 the Avorld has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew 
 shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel ? Busy as the Devil 
 is, not the smallest ! They lived far enough apart ; were the 
 entirest strangers ; nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, 
 unconsciously, by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between 
 them. How then ? Simpleton ! their Governors had fallen 
 out; and, instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to 
 make these poor blockheads shoot." ^ 
 
 War, so far from invigorating a nation, or pro- 
 moting its survival by eliminating the unfit, actually 
 accomplishes the contrary, by crippling or killing 
 multitudes of its strongest, bravest and best. What 
 did the Napoleonic wars do for the physique of 
 France ? Their direct effect was the abrupt lowering 
 of the standard height of the French adult population 
 by one inch. Then there is Russia, with her four 
 to seven millions of soldiers and her vast experience 
 of war. When this Goliath comes to grips with a 
 mere David who has been perfecting his marvellous 
 gifts of chivalry and devotion during six generations 
 of this despised and character-ruining Peace, what 
 happens ? And if you go back from Liao-Yang and 
 1 Carlylc's Works, vol. iii. p. 119 (Ashburton Ed.). 
 
DAWN 249 
 
 Port Arthur in 1905 to Manila in 1898, you find the 
 Spanish nation, with its immemorial military tradi- 
 tion, hopelessly out-classed when pitted against a 
 people whose qualities have been nursed on agri- 
 culture, industry and commerce. The country of 
 Mr. Roosevelt is one of the least military on the face 
 of the earth, but Americans do not lack character, 
 virility, or vigour. On the other hand, the nations 
 who waste most of their time in fighting are the 
 most backward nations in the world. 
 
 In short, there is no common contention more 
 absurdly and utterly opposed to the logic of facts, 
 than that which strives to make the virility or the 
 character of the race dependent on the cultivation 
 of a propensity to war. No doubt the cardinal 
 qualities of character are bound to find scope and 
 opportunity in war. But every supreme call on 
 human faculties and powers is thus a field for hero- 
 ism, endurance and devotion. Sailors and miners, 
 constables and firemen, risk life more often than 
 most soldiers. The self-sacrifice of many a scientist, 
 physician, or missionary, is far more continuously 
 exacting. The chivalry which lays down life for a 
 great cause is worthy of all honour; but so also is 
 the devotion of those who " die daily," year after 
 year, in the service of mankind. Would any one of 
 us think less of Charles George Gordon, if Khartoum 
 had been relieved in time to save his hfe for the 
 regeneration of the Soudanese ? War is not the 
 factory of character. It is an immensely over- 
 advertised theatre for its display. Modern war 
 gives less and less scope, as time goes on, for the 
 emergence of those personal qualities, on the fame of 
 
250 DAWN 
 
 which its ancient glamour largely rests. It was ver\^ 
 different in the old days of prowess, when men met 
 in close combat foemen worthy of their steel. Lord 
 Roberts is complaining, even as I write, that " the 
 point-blank range " of the British service rifle is only 
 six hundred yards, while that of the French and 
 German is eight hundred ! 
 
 Just so. War is now a battle of science, for 
 foremost place in the cult of slaughter. The further 
 off lives can be mown down, the greater the triumph. 
 Yet it is in this elevating competition of armourers 
 and chemists — in this perfection of death-dealing 
 facility in the smokeless powder of invisible foes — 
 that we are still told to find an essential school of 
 human character ! And as on land, so on the sea. 
 We read in some Ballad of the Fleet, like Tennyson's 
 Revenge, of the immortal honour of Sir Richard 
 Grenville, and the noble fight of " the one and the 
 fifty-three " ; and our blood is stirred in gratitude 
 and pride that such things once upon a time were 
 done. And then we turn to a certain memorable 
 13th of April, seven or eight years ago. What are 
 those artful Japanese cruisers standing inshore for, 
 at Port Arthur ? They are tempting Admiral 
 Makarov to cross the mine-field laid the night before. 
 Presently, he does so. His flagship, with six hundred 
 men, is hurled into eternity. Such is War. And 
 thus " character " is made ! 
 
 Providence, which set men to work, not to war, 
 in order to produce and maintain character, becomes 
 vindicated only more clearly every day. 
 
 Returning now from this digression, let it be 
 repeated that the only Sword which bars the reign 
 
DAWN 251 
 
 of Universal Peace is of man's forging; and that 
 though Justice and Right stand waiting to supersede 
 War's violence and wrong, neither will War pass, 
 nor Peace be Umpire ^ in the Heart of the World, 
 until Equity, which scatters the imaginations of the 
 proud and pours contempt on their vainglory, has 
 become the chosen Light of the Nations and the Joy 
 of the Earth. Not till Justice is paramount will 
 Peace reign. And the pillars of their dual throne, as 
 well as the forerunners of their advent to power, 
 are the ever-gathering Moral Forces of w^orld-wide 
 public opinion. 
 
 It is, therefore, upon increasing the power and 
 organising the pressure of this Moral Force, that 
 pacifist endeavour should concentrate. The work 
 is ready to every one's hand. It is certain of fruit. 
 And yet, as we have seen, it is strangely neglected, 
 even in quarters which seem naturally pledged to 
 its advancement. Here we see too much zeal, and 
 there too much discretion ; but the zeal and discretion 
 combined, which alone hold the promise of success, 
 are too rare. We want more of the faith and conviction 
 which neither hurry nor hesitate. It is the same faith 
 in the future that rebukes our rashness which also 
 pricks the sides of our intent. " He that believeth 
 shall not make haste" was not written in vain; 
 but to urge discretion is not to proscribe zeal. " For 
 Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
 Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her Righteous- 
 ness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a 
 lamp that burnetii." 
 
 Greeks as well as Romans used the Caesarean 
 
 ' r) elpi^vr] toD Xpiarov jSpa/SeveTw. Col. iii. 15. 
 
252 DAWN 
 
 motto which we render : " Hasten slowly." Our 
 speed-worshipping modern world is too ready to 
 despise the wisdom it most needs. Yet in work of 
 a permanent and vital sort, Hurry is slow. The suc- 
 cess of the Peace-movement must largely turn upon 
 the element and atmosphere in which it elects to work. 
 It was a pregnant phrase which recently described 
 a noble character as " powerfully mild." The Avords 
 aim at expressing that combination of sweet reason- 
 ableness with quiet strength which, when it attains 
 sure balance, is the most efficacious of all healing 
 influences. The critical instinct of Matthew Arnold 
 marked it as the leading feature of that Mind of minds 
 which shone out, even to its closest earthly intimate, 
 " full of grace and truth." It is just this sttisUsio. 
 that Christendom in all its forms has so calamitously 
 missed; yet to this the world must revert, before 
 the dark Winter of its discontent can ever change to 
 a fair and flowerful Spring. It is only by the subtle, 
 potent spread of this spirit of "" sweet reasonable- 
 ness " that any schemes whatever for War's banish- 
 ment can take effect. For the gradual prevalence 
 of this temper creates the only element in which 
 Wisdom and Justice can reach abundant life. It will 
 accomplish more, and that more lastingly, than any 
 jejune plans, even though they promise revolution 
 at a stroke. No temporary capture of external 
 machinery can compare, in abiding gain, with the 
 reforming work which wins the world's heart and 
 renews its will by uplifting its thought. The work may 
 be slow, but it is sure, and from it there is no re-action. 
 The effect of reform excels that of revolution by 
 the permanence of its results. The kingdom which 
 
DAWN 258 
 
 is violently taken remains a prey to violence. As 
 Freedom is the end of Government, so to exalt men to 
 self-control is the end of all other Rule. It is for 
 Nations blest with free institutions to rise to the height 
 of their privileges, and to realise increasingly that 
 those privileges are held in trust for all mankind; 
 as America has not seldom nobly done through the 
 world-wide influence of her greatest men. It is by 
 such means, especially, that the general level of 
 civilisation is lifted, and the visions and dreams of 
 Seer and Sage gradually grow efficacious in the 
 policies and practice of mankind. 
 
 When President Taft blew up the fetish which 
 separated questions of " national honour " from other 
 arbitrable matter, he disturbed the waters of the 
 world with waves of blessing whose ever-widening 
 circles will compass immeasurable effects. The great 
 Treaty he initiated with England, and in which France 
 also eagerly joined, is a monument of the most fruit- 
 ful use of " the things that make for peace." For 
 it is the sowing of living seed, having within it a 
 spontaneous vitalising power, from which eternal 
 increase can unfold. 
 
 Was not Mazzini right in declaring that the ages 
 which have run their course have only revealed to 
 us " a few fragments " of all that is in store among 
 the thoughts of the Infinite which are not as the 
 thoughts of men ? Was not Robert Browning right 
 when he made it a Divine reproach that the sublime 
 Revelation of Calvary was rejected 
 
 " Upon the ground 
 That in the story had been found 
 Too much love! How could God love so?''' 
 
254 DAWN 
 
 And as the world at large doubted the earlier reve- 
 lation of the Incarnate Word, is it not to-day just 
 struggling in partial blindness with the newer reve- 
 lation of God's Spirit, perpetually appealing to the 
 ever-growing conscience of Humanity as it becomes 
 able to bear the Light ? As the saving Mission of 
 the Eternal Spirit ascends and advances from century 
 to century through a series of successive advents, 
 it is ever the true meaning and the unimagined 
 scope of Love, which are being clarified and extended. 
 
 But the delays we make are terrible. Continually 
 it is the same complaint : " Too much Love ! " This 
 reform or that is attempting too much. It is " not 
 in human nature," and so forth. Yet it comes. 
 The mills of God grind slowly, but they move. The 
 curse of Slavery has been lifted; even Russian 
 Serfs are emancipated ; the atrocities of Tyburn are 
 abolished ; Reform Bills and Factory Acts have been 
 passed ; Defenceless Age has been protected ; National 
 Insurance is on the way. 
 
 The Moral Idea, the Spiritual Principle, wins 
 at length. Love's miracles do happen. And the 
 prophesied contingent disasters do not. 
 
 Now it is a sorrowful but certain fact that the 
 Church has found the doctrine of God quite as difficult 
 of assimilation as the World. Here again " Too much 
 Love ! " has been the reiterated complaint. It seemed 
 incredible that " God will have all men to be saved; " 
 for surely some at least must be doomed from birth ! 
 To win eternal life, said Jesus, Love God supremely, 
 and your neighbour as yourself. On these two com- 
 mands. He added, all the rest depend. But the 
 Church finds here " Too much Love ! " and hastens 
 
DAWN 255 
 
 to substitute " Whosoever will be safe must thus 
 think.'" So the opinions of Copernicus must be 
 broken very, very, gently to the Pope. Galileo is 
 harassed and persecuted. Giordano Bruno, a philo- 
 sopher whose work has informed thinkers like 
 Spinoza and Leibnitz, is burnt alive, because he had 
 no more use for Aristotle than for Transubstantia- 
 tion. Not till 1889 did the Roman people set his 
 statue where, in 1600, they had calcined his bones. 
 
 Yet where are now the Stake, the Rack, and all 
 the fiendish ingenuities of Holy Inquisition ? Love 
 burnt them at last; and is busy now consuming 
 slowly and by degrees their modern substitutes. 
 Other Encyclicals will assuredly succeed Pascendi 
 Gregis. For even Rome cannot for ever excommuni- 
 cate her brightest intellects, index their books, and 
 try to bury their bodies with the burial of a dog. 
 Canterbury has begun to canvass the possibility of 
 a truth like the Incarnation being true enough to 
 survive without the periodical passing of public 
 anathema on the whole Eastern Church, and without 
 the reciting of condemnations unwarranted by Holy 
 Writ. And as with Rome and Canterbury, so, 
 perchance, with Geneva. For her followers already 
 grow dissatisfied with the mere " dissidence of Dis- 
 sent." x\nd when, throughout the " whole congre- 
 gation of faithful men," invincible Love has length- 
 ened the cords and strengthened the stakes of the 
 Church, new miracles will occur. 
 
 Thus, in every sphere on earth, Christ's commission 
 runs. Whether men will hear or whether they will 
 forbear. His stewards are bound to bring forth out 
 of the treasure of the Kingdom things new as well 
 
256 DAWN 
 
 as old. And they must refuse to measure the infinite 
 scope of God's Eternal Law by the puny standard of 
 a race so far from spiritual maturity as mankind 
 still is. They must recognise that moulds and forms 
 of Truth are temporary, and made to alter or dissolve. 
 They must cease mistaking the casket for the Pearl, 
 the wine-skin for the Wine. Then they will under- 
 stand why even religions die ; since the human spirit, 
 driven by the Spirit of God, leaves them behind, 
 " as the traveller leaves the camp-fire that served 
 him in the night, and marches to meet other suns." 
 
 But, if religions die, Religion remains. Thought 
 and Faith are immortal. They rise out of their own 
 ashes. The essence, the idea, the spirit, frees itself 
 from the shrunken symbol, and escapes from its 
 chrysalis prison. It shines forth, then, like some 
 new Star in the firmament of Humanity, with its 
 place ordained of God. One, perhaps, among many 
 Lights which Faith will need, ere the whole way of 
 the Future be illumined. Only by degrees can such 
 Stars come to be certainly distinguished as Divinely 
 intended for our guidance. Gradually, they take 
 their steady, authoritative place in the hierarchy of 
 heavenly help. Once, perhaps, accounted nothing 
 better than a wrecker's fraud, a bog-born ignis 
 jatuus, or an eccentric transient comet, now their 
 true origin and dignity appear beyond impeachment. 
 
 But the modern Babel of conflicting thought is 
 indescribable. How can we be sure that the Idea, 
 the Aim, the Endeavour, the Spirit, which it has been 
 the object of these pages to upliold, present anything 
 of the nature of a Star by which to steer ? Only by 
 use of the old Pauline method, " Test all things : 
 
DAWN 257 
 
 hold fast that which is good.'' " Try tlie spirits, 
 whether they be of God.'' Clioice is inevitable. 
 You cannot have Isaiah and Christ, and Moltke and 
 Nietzsclie too. The World has lialted between such 
 antinomies till we are within sight ahuost of universal 
 Peace, or of almost universal War. If Nietzsche be 
 " the Light of the World," let us follow him. But 
 if Christ, then follow Him. 
 
 If you think it " mere illusion and pretty senti- 
 ment to expect anything from mankind if it forgets 
 how to make War," you must put your Isaiah 
 behind the fire, and renounce your pretended rever- 
 ence for Christ. If your Ideal is " that deep im- 
 personality born of liatred, that conscience born of 
 murder and cold-bloodedness, that fervour born of 
 effort in the annihilation of the enemy, that proud 
 indifference to one's own existence and to that of 
 one's fellows " — which landed Nietzsche in the mad- 
 house, but seems still to appeal to many who are 
 yet at large ; then, for you, whatever might be light 
 in this book can seem only darkness. 
 
 But if the Passing of War, on the other hand, 
 suggests for you deliverance from the most gigantic 
 evil of the age; if you have realised that " destruction 
 is one of its chief ends, and deception one of its chief 
 means ; that one of the great arts of skilful general- 
 ship is to deceive in order to destroy; " that " what- 
 ever other elements may mingle with and dignify 
 War, these things at least are never absent; that 
 when the scene of carnage is once opened they must be 
 not only accepted and condoned, but stimulated, 
 encouraged and applauded ; " then you will agree with 
 Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, who concludes : " It would be 
 
258 DAWN 
 
 difficult to conceive a disposition more remote from 
 the morals of ordinary life, not to speak of Christian 
 ideals, than that upon which successful war depends." 
 
 Surely, then, the time past may suffice for hesita- 
 tion ! The Hope of the world still, starlike, shines 
 over the Bethlehem Khan, because it is the cradle 
 of the Prince of Peace. But while the materialism 
 of the modern world refuses the Wisdom of the 
 Wise, and despises the Good-will of the Simple, 
 nothing more will come of it. Sage and Shepherd 
 kneel in vain. " Peace on earth " is but a voice, 
 from the Heaven whose Light is too far off to reach 
 us even in two thousand years. 
 
 But let this Star of Hope become the inspiration 
 of a World-endeavour; let a nezv thing take place 
 on the earth, and Christ's Christianity begin to be 
 actually tried; then will the Sun of Righteousness 
 arise anew, "with healing in His wings." For the 
 Passing of War means nothing but the world's heart 
 slowly turning to the Wisdom of the Just. 
 
 When the throne of Violence is shaken, and we 
 see Justice prepare herself for crowning, it is but the 
 gradual march to its meridian of the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness, beneath whose holy light War's horrors fade, 
 like an appalling nightmare at the touch of Dawn. 
 
 " I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that wovdd be: 
 
 Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were 
 
 furl'd 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 
 
Sing the Bridal of Nations ! with chorals of Love 
 Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove, 
 Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord, 
 And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord ! 
 
 Bloiv, bugles of battle, the marches of Peace ; 
 East, west, north, and south, let the long quarrel cease 
 Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, 
 Sing of glory to God and of good-ivill to man ! 
 
 Hark ! joining in chorus 
 
 The heavens bend o'er us ! 
 The dark night is ending and Dawn has begun ; 
 Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun. 
 All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one ! ^ 
 
 But the sun is one. 
 
 And the sun's name Right ; 
 
 And when light is none 
 
 Saving of the sun. 
 
 All men shall have light. 
 
 All shall see and be 
 
 Parcel of the morn ; 
 Ay, though blind were we. 
 None shall choose but see 
 
 When that Day is born.^ 
 
 1 ,J. G. Whittikb. - Algernon C. Swinburne. 
 
Blow, winds of God, awake and blow 
 
 The mists of earth away ! 
 Shine out, O Light Divine, and show 
 
 How wide and far we stray ! 
 
 Hush every lip, close every book. 
 The strife of tongues forbear ; 
 
 Why forward reach, or backward look, 
 For Love that clasps like air ? 
 
 The letter fails, and systems fall, 
 
 And every symbol wanes ; 
 The Spirit over-brooding all, 
 Eternal Love remains.^ 
 
 (!. ^\'nlTTI^;H. 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Crown dvot 301 pp* Macmillan & Co, Price 6s. 
 
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 - OR - 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE AGES ON THE 
 PATH OF TO=DAY 
 
 PRESS NOTICES 
 
 27(6 Siicctalor. — " The author sets forth in a series of sermons which 
 constitutes an eminently logical and coherent whole, the character of Reve- 
 lation, the outlines of the Christian life in which this Revelation has its 
 practical outcome, the difficulties and hindrances which are encountered in 
 the effort to realise the ideals of this life, and the aids, individual or corporate, 
 wliich the Chi-istian may claim and appropriate. It is not the least of Canon 
 Crane's merits that it is not easy to determine to what school of churchmanship 
 he belongs. . . . Every one will recognise the value of these discourses, their 
 earnestness, their spirituality, the vigour of their style, and the richness of 
 illustration which gives them distinction. ..." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — " The Rector of Bexhill is, if we mistake not, a new 
 author. If he goes on as he has begun in this volume, we prophesy for him 
 a career of great usefulness in the Chiirch. His able discourses are candid, 
 erudite, and spiritual. . . . We heartily welcome one who has the com-agc 
 to follow truth. . . . The style of these sermons is excellent : earnest, con- 
 trolled, and forcible." 
 
 Guardian. — " The plan of this book has been well thought out . . . the 
 writer is both faithful to the old truth and also shrewd enough to road beneath 
 
"THE WORD AND THE WAY" 
 
 PRESS UOT\CES—co)Mnurd 
 
 the surface of the age in which he Uves. As a consequence, Prebendary 
 Grane's book is a vahiable companion for those whose duty is to bring out 
 of their treasures things new and old." 
 
 Church Times. — " This vohmie sets forth excellently the inherent testimony 
 to itself of Holy Scriptm-e . . . ingenious, persuasive, and sound." 
 
 Church Quarterly Review. — " This is a book of very distinct ability . . . 
 the writer's object is to commend the old Faith of Christianity in ways that 
 will appeal to the minds and consciences of the present day. . . . The tone 
 and aim of the book are excellent." 
 
 Church Bells. — " We specially commend this very useful book to the 
 thoughtful and the perplexed." 
 
 London Quarterly Review. — " A manly and pure ethical purpose is perhaps 
 the chief characteristic of these wholesome sermons. . . . They are rich in 
 quotation, readable, and stimulating." 
 
 Chichester Diocesan Gazette. — " This book is an opportune contribution 
 to soimd religious teaching. From first to last it is thorouglily practical in 
 its aim and in its method. Clear in statement, scholarly in style, distinct 
 and conclusive in argmnent, it is the work of a well-informed and thoughtful 
 writer, whose earnest and devout temper, everywhere apparent, adds authority 
 to his words. . . . These sermons are an interesting and valuable contribu- 
 tion to religious literature." 
 
 British Weekly. — " The subjects of Revelation and Inspiration are treated 
 with knowledge and judgment." 
 
 Freetnan. — "Fresh and striking; i-ich in the application of old truths to 
 new circumstances." 
 
 Manchester Guardian. — " This volume is marked by a broad liberality 
 of view, a sound common sense, and a transparent clearness which are truly 
 refreshing . . . the sobriety and manliness of the writer's teaching arc in 
 harmony with the best traditions of the Church of wliich he is a minister." 
 
 Scotsman. — " The author is evidently a well-equipped divine, as well as a 
 man of cultm-e and taste." 
 
 Leeds Mercury. — " The thoughtfulness, vigour, and freslmess of these 
 sermons, and their scholarly style, will make them very generally acceptable." 
 
 Sussex Daily News. — " A noble exposition of the imperishable power of 
 the Bible." 
 
 Sussex Express. — " ' Applied Christianity ' is what the world is waiting 
 for. Here is the method of application pointed out, not in a dry, wearisome, 
 dogmatic manner, but in a broad, cheering, and thorouglily original fashion." 
 
 Cheltenham Examiner. — " We cordially rcconunend this truly able and 
 instructive volume . . . characterised by learning and good sense, by clear- 
 ness and discrimination, and by a devout and Christian spirit." 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Crown 8vo, 212 pp, Macmillan & Co. Price 5s. 
 Second Edition 
 
 l)ara Sayings of Je$u$ €brt$t 
 
 A STUDY 
 
 IN THE MIND AND METHOD OF 
 THE MASTER 
 
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 T/iC Spectator. — " We commend this book to the attention of our readers. 
 . . . Canon Grane grapples with the difficulties which these Sayings present 
 frankly and courageously. He does not give easy answers compressed into 
 half a dozen sentences. But he will not leave his readers merely to ' de- 
 orientalise ' these utterances of Christ, nor permit them to be relegated to tho 
 region of the unpractical as ' counsels of perfection.' " 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — " Summer visitors to Bexhill have learned to expect 
 at the Parish Church sermons of more than ordinary merit. Prebendarj' 
 Grane brings to tho task of preaching a wide knowledge of books, and a shrewd 
 understanding of what is passing in tho lay mind. His most characteristic 
 claim upon lay gratitude lies, however, in the fact that he refuses to abandon 
 the common-sense principles by which most of us interpret contemporary men 
 and things when he enters upon the interpretation of the New Testament 
 records." 
 
 Guardian. — "This is a very suggestive book . . . throws light on many 
 difficult texts." 
 
"HARD SAYINGS' OF JESUS CHRIST' 
 
 PRESS UOT\CES-continued 
 
 Church Times. — " This book is one of marked ability, learned and tliought- 
 ful. It is in sermons such as these and the like that the power of the pulpit 
 will be maintained. Sermon after sermon meets the average cultured layman 
 on his own ground : the preacher, as it were, sits down by hun, and point by 
 point cuts away those difficulties which little knowledge, prejudice, cnide or 
 erroneous teaching in the past, have raised up. . . ." 
 
 Church Gazette. — " Prebendary Grane is not an average preacher, but 
 though original he keeps within the bounds of sober sense. There is a powerful 
 sermon on ' Spiritual Suicide,' from which we regret that we can only extract. 
 . . . We wish, too, that we had space to give Canon Grane's words on the 
 ' Divinity of Christ.' The best sermon in the book, however, is that on 
 ' Gehenna.' No previous writer, so far as we are aware, has put the true 
 meaning of our Lord — entirely lost for ages imder a multitude of false glosses 
 — so clearly and forcibly as does Prebendary Grane. . . . This is a volume 
 which should be in the hands of every clergyman who wishes to be in touch 
 with the minds and hearts of laymen in the present generation." 
 
 Church of England Pulpit. — " We cordially recommend this volume to 
 oiu" readers. They will find here the results of much reading, much pondering, 
 much observation of men and things, wrought into shape by a particularlj' 
 sane and trustworthy judgment." 
 
 Chichester Diocesan Oazette. — " . . . These terse summaries of critical and 
 practical reflections might be multiplied ; but enough has been quoted to show 
 the close relationship between the ' Hard Sayings ' and our everyday life, 
 with which the affluence of our author's practical wisdom enables him to 
 stimulate the interest of his readers from first to last." 
 
 Scottish Guardian. — " Few sermons merit publication as much as these. 
 . . . We readily perceive a vigorous and acute mind wrestling with the words 
 of the Master, and laying bare with wonderful force and lucidity the reason- 
 ableness of His demands and the effectiveness of His method of teaching. . . . 
 We can cordially recommend clergy to make use of this able and suggestive 
 book." 
 
 Expository Times. — ". . . We build theological systems; and there are 
 sayings of Jesus Christ we have left lying about as stones which would not 
 fit into our system. Sometimes we have fallen over them. Canon Grane 
 looks at them singly, measures them, and finds them fit any building which 
 has Christ for foundation." 
 
 Life and Work. — " A contribution of real value to the intelligent use of 
 Holy Scripture. Any preacher would find this book helpful, and it is so 
 little technical and so little indulges in a display of learning tliat it can be 
 commended to every lover of the Bible." 
 
 Great Thoughts. — " This is ' a study in the mind and method of the Master ' 
 from which no one can well rise without illumination. The most puzzling 
 of the paradoxes of our Lord are treated with a thoroughness, an insight, and 
 a candour which leave little to desire." 
 
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