1915] S. J. Meltzer 283 



engaged in their military quarters or in their chancelleries in spying 

 upon and intriguing against the nations with whom they exchange 

 international amenities. 



In international dealings cunning and deceit are essential factors 

 in success; it is diplomacy. Honesty has hardly a place in these 

 dealings. Only honor is the big word which is loudly used hy those 

 who speak for nations as units, that shain virtue in the name of 

 which crimes are committed hy the privileged classes within each 

 nation and in the name of which hundreds of thousands of honest 

 and innocent Citizens of various nations are murdered or crippled 

 for life in the groundless and senseless strife of nations, brought 

 dbout by the amhitions of unprincipled leaders. Furthermore, inter- 

 national relations in time of peace, which have an ethical appearance, 

 are held together by flimsy ties. International peace Conferences, 

 international law, and peace treaties are merely scraps of paper 

 which are torn to shreds at first sight of a bone of contention be- 

 tween nations. 



In a previous section I insisted, and I believe rightly, that intel- 

 lectual growth and activity are most important factors in the devel- 

 opment and growth of intranationa.\ morals. What is the value and 

 influence of intellectual growth and activity in international morals? 

 Highly intellectual, civilized nations fight one another with a rage, 

 a ferocity and with an intent to kill as probably did their animal 

 ancestors of different strains or races, hundreds of thousands of 

 years ago. But different species of another type of animals, let us 

 US say dogs and cats, are probably fighting to-day as their ancestors 

 fought thousands of years ago, that is, tooth and nail, the only 

 weapons at their disposal ; their physical agility, their promptly act- 

 ing reflexes, the finer developed senses and their remarkable instincts 

 did not help them in developing new weapons or new ways of fight- 

 ing ; they had no human intellect. But the human race ? We need 

 not go back thousands of years. It suffices to compare warfares 

 separated only by a hundred years. I need not enter upon a com- 

 parison of the rage, brutality and barbarity with which the wars 

 are conducted ; in this regard the present war is surely not behind 

 its predecessors, and none of the cultured belligerent nations is 

 ahead of or behind the others. But as to destructiveness of human 



