4 o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the Brussels Declaration. We may rest assured the civilized world has 

 seen the last of that atrocity. 



We look back from the pinnacle of our high civilization with sur- 

 prise and horror to find that even in Wellington's time, scarcely one 

 hundred years ago, such savagery was the rule; but so shall our de- 

 scendants after a like interval look back from a still higher pinnacle 

 upon our slaying of man in war as equally atrocious, equally unneces- 

 sary and equally indefensible. 



Let me summarize what has been gained so far in mitigating the 

 atrocities of war in our march onward to the reign of peace. Non- 

 combatants are now spared, women and children are no longer massa- 

 cred, quarter is given, and prisoners are well cared for. Towns are 

 not given over to pillage, private property on land is exempt, or if 

 taken is paid or receipted for. Poisoned wells, assassination of rulers 

 and commanders by private bargain, and deceptive agreements, are 

 infamies of the past. On the sea, privateering has been abolished, 

 neutral rights greatly extended and property protected, and the right 

 of search narrowly restricted. So much is to be credited to the 

 pacific power of international law. There is great cause for con- 

 gratulation. If man has not been striking at the heart of the monster 

 war, he has at least been busily engaged drawing some of its poisonous 

 fangs. 



Thus even throughout the savage reign of man-slaying we see the 

 blessed law of evolution unceasingly at work performing its divine 

 mission, making that which is better than what has been and ever 

 leading us on towards perfection. 



We have only touched the fringe of the crime so far, however, the 

 essence of which is the slaughter of human beings, the failure to hold 

 human life sacred, as the early christians did. 



One deplorable exception exists to the march of improvement. A 

 new stain has recently crept into the rules of war as foul as any that 

 war has been forced by public sentiment to discard. It is the growth 

 of recent years. Gentilis, Grotius and all the great publicists before 

 Bynkershoek, dominated by the spirit of Eoman law, by chivalry and 

 long established practise, insist upon the necessity of a formal declara- 

 tion of war, ' that he be not taken unawares under friendly guise.' 

 Not until the beginning of the last century did the opposite view begin 

 to find favor. To-day it is held that a formal declaration is not in- 

 dispensable and that war may begin without it. Here is the only step 

 backward to be met with in the steady progress of reforming the rules 

 of war. It is no longer held to be contrary to these for a power to 

 surprise and destroy while yet in friendly conference with its adversary, 

 endeavoring to effect a peaceful settlement. It belongs to the infernal 

 armory of assassins hired to kill or poison opposing generals, of forged 



