EDITOR'S TABLE. 



387 



gets internal aggression — that as- 

 saults upon the rights of others 

 abroad leads to assaults upon the 

 rights of others at home. " As it 

 is incredible," he says, " that men 

 should be courageous in the face of 

 foes and cowardly in the face of 

 friends, so it is incredible that other 

 feelings fostered by perpetual con- 

 flicts abroad should not come into 

 play at home. We have just seen," 

 he adds, alluding to the proofs of 

 this truth that he has given, " that 

 with the pursuit of vengeance out- 

 side the society there goes the pur- 

 suit of vengeance inside the soci- 

 ety, and whatever other habits of 

 thought and action constant war 

 necessitates must show their effects 

 on social life at large." The facts 

 in support of Mr. Spencer's general- 

 ization are to be found in the his- 

 tory of every militant people. He 

 mentions himself the Fijian's sacri- 

 fice of their own people at their can- 

 nibal festivals, and the prevalence 

 of assassination among the Turks 

 from the earliest times down to the 

 present. He mentions also the hide- 

 ous acts of cruelty that are to be 

 found in the records of Greek and 

 Roman civilization. To these ex- 

 amples may be added the atrocities 

 committed by Italians upon Italians 

 during the last days of the mediae- 

 val republics, and those committed 

 by Frenchmen upon Frenchmen 

 during the French Revolution. 

 " The victories of the Plantagenets 

 in France," said Goldwin Smith, 

 pointing out not long ago the futil- 

 ity of war as a cure for national 

 factiousness, " were followed by in- 

 surrections and civil wars at home, 

 largely owing to the spirit of vio- 

 lence that the raids in France ex- 

 cited. The victories of Chatham 

 were followed by disgraceful scenes 



of cabal and faction, as well as cor- 

 ruption, terminating in the prostra- 

 tion of patriotism and the domina- 

 tion of George III and North." 



It is impossible to hope that the 

 United States can be an exception 

 to the social law thus established. 

 However pure the motive that may 

 lie at the bottom of a war of aggres- 

 sion, it can not annul the law. The 

 shedding of blood and the seizure 

 of territory produce a callousness of 

 feeling and a perverted view of the 

 rights of others that are certain to 

 turn the hands striking a foreign 

 foe to the work of domestic strife. 

 Already we have seen with what bit- 

 terness such men as Prof. Charles 

 Eliot Norton and Mr. Edward At- 

 kinson have been assailed. We have 

 seen, too, how attempts have been 

 made to discredit the principles of 

 the Declaration of Independence, 

 and to show that the Constitution 

 must not be permitted to stand in 

 the way of what has been politely 

 called the fulfillment of the destiny 

 of the United States. We have 

 seen, finally, how proposals for the 

 disfranchisement of American citi- 

 zens have been listened to in all 

 parts of the country with a tolera- 

 tion that must cause the old aboli- 

 tionists to turn in their graves. But 

 the spirit thus manifested has not, 

 we may be sure, failed to contribute 

 to the perpetration of the outrages 

 that have shocked every right-mind- 

 ed observer of current events. It 

 is not a difference of kind but only 

 one of degree that separates the 

 slaughter of Spaniards in Cuba and 

 Tagals in Luzon from the slaughter 

 of negroes in the South and the ex- 

 plosion of dynamite under street 

 cars in the North. The inhuman in- 

 stincts that impel to the one impel 

 to the other. 



