4Q2 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of 

 wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no 

 ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with 

 bluff, but couldn't stay there, the military tension was too much for 

 them. In 1898 our people had read the word WAR in letters three 

 inches high for three months in every newspaper. The pliant politician 

 McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with 

 Spain became a necessity. 



At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. 

 The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but are con- 

 fronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. 

 Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. 

 Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally avowable motives, and 

 pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy. Eng- 

 land and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm 

 solely for " peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent on loot and 

 glory. " Peace " in military mouths to-day is a synonym for " war 

 expected." The word has become a pure provocative, and no govern- 

 ment wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a 

 newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that " peace " and 

 " war " mean the same thing, now in posse, now in actu. It may even 

 reasonably be said that the intensely sharp competitive preparation for 

 war by the nations is th e real war, permanent, unceasing ; and that the 

 battles are only a sort of public verification of the mastery gained dur- 

 ing the " peace "-interval. 



It is plain that on this subject civilized man has developed a sort of 

 double personality. If we take European nations, no legitimate inter- 

 est of any one of them would seem to justify the tremendous destruc- 

 tions which a war to compass it would necessarily entail. It would 

 seem as though common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach 

 agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our 

 bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. 

 But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace- 

 party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due 

 to certain deficiences in the program of pacificism which set the militar- 

 ist imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. 

 In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental 

 ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says 

 must be abstract and hypothetical. Subject to this criticism and cau- 

 tion, I will try to characterize in abstract strokes the opposite imagina- 

 tive forces, and point out what to my own very fallible mind seems the 

 best utopian hypothesis, the most promising line of conciliation. 



In my remarks, pacificist though I am, I will refuse to speak of 

 the bestial side of the war-regime (already done justice to by many 



