ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



them. But could there be any better proof that 

 peace had not begotten degeneracy in England or 

 France or Russia than the promptness with which 

 these countries took up the challenge of Prussian 

 militarism, and the fortitude and self-denial with 

 which they gave it blow for blow? 



Under the smiling face of peace, when the de- 

 mand is made, the heroic element is always found to 

 be slumbering. Every day, in the industrial and 

 scientific fields, men prove themselves the same 

 heroes that they do on the field of battle, and they 

 prove it without the excitement and stimulus that 

 war gives; and women prove it in times of peace and 

 times of war. 



The gospel of war as a national tonic in our time 

 ia a delusion and a snare. Are we to get up a war off- 

 hand because we think the nations need that kind 

 of medicine? Blood-letting is a strange remedy for 

 the depleted condition to which Lord Roberts re- 

 fers. War sets up the victorious nation, but how 

 about the defeated one? Have the defeats of Spain 

 in the past two or three hundred years set her 

 up? Have the defeats of Turkey redounded to her 

 glory and power? Little doubt that this World 

 War will bear fruit, but it will be a kind of fruit 

 the combatant did not seek or expect. 



The conclusion, then, that I arrive at is that a 

 new rule of conduct for nations as for individuals, a 

 new biological law, has come into being through 



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