10 Mr. H. Wickham Steed [Jan. 30, 



and popularize the results of their studies ; if newspaper owners and 

 editors would remember that the idealism which lifts a man out of 

 himself and a nation out of the muddy rut of everj-daj affairs is 

 more attractive tlian even the details of a murder or the contortions 

 of post-lascivious dances, the moral situation might change. At 

 times, the conclusion seems irresistible that, having no faith them- 

 selves, our trustees of public opinion assume scepticism everywhere to 

 exist. But it is mv profound conviction, based, it is true, more upon 

 experience of foreign countries than upon recent acquaintance with 

 England, that no State can be powerful unless the action of its 

 Government be based upon a public opinion, or, rather, upon a state 

 of a public f eehng, founded on sane idealism nourished by knowledge, 

 and that the true strength of a nation consists less in the multitude 

 of arms it possesseth than in every true and honest impulse that 

 moves the heart of its citizens. 



I would not have it thought that small importance is to be at- 

 tached to the possession of arms and to efficiency in their use. The 

 doctrines known as "pacificism," and all cognate apologies for 

 national unreadiness based upon faith in the pure intentions of others, 

 are, I believe, the surest pledge of disaster. Only a radical change 

 in the present constitution of States, perhaps even a revolution in 

 human nature itself, can alter the fact that, entrenched behind a 

 stockade of national and international legal precepts, " force rules the 

 world still." Force is the sanction of law, from the strong constable 

 who seizes the burglar to the gun-boat that suppresses the pirate. 

 Force also is the sanction of diplomacy, the ultima ratio of kings and 

 peoples whose representatives diplomatists are. The problem we 

 have to consider is what constitutes, in the modern world, effective 

 force — to what extent physical power is valueless without the coef- 

 ficient of moral strength used in the light of knowledge. 



In a word, the question is one of education, education of the will 

 as much as education of and instruction of the mind. The problem 

 has never in the history of the world presented itself in quite the 

 same form as it wears to-day. Universal suffrage ; a cheap press 

 ruled by the commercial spirit — a press given to sensationaHsm, 

 striving to concentrate the attention of its readers upon one main 

 topic for a short space of time, and changing the topic from day to 

 day ; the dissemination of superficial cognitions, or rather of visual 

 impressions, by "pictures" — pictures in the press, pictures on the 

 cinematograph film, nictures in the theatre. The appeal is to the eye, 

 not to the reasoning inteUigence, and rarely to the ethical instinct. 

 Picture-books used to be considered accessories of the nursery. Does 

 it follow that the present prevalence of pictorial representation is 

 evidence of national childishness ? Not necessarily. But just as a 

 child may be bewildered by too rapid a succession of pictures, so the 

 mind of a nation may be dazed by the impact of too many images in 

 too rapid succession. The bewilderment of the British public mind 



