£52 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. ir 



continue very long in one community without tending to set 

 up disturbance in some other, yet this interaction of different 

 states was far less conspicuous in ancient than it is in 

 modern times. The Hanuibalic war might go on for seven- 

 teen years, and Athens or Alexandria not be much the worse 

 off for it. But before the war of secession had continued 

 twelve months, the consequent suffering in Lancashire was 

 manifesting itself in riots, and England for a time seemed 

 willing at all hazards to interfere and check the contest. 



This single example — out of hundreds that might be taken 

 ^must suffice to illustrate the way in which the ever- 

 increasing interdependence of human interests, itself both 

 the cause and the effect of industrial progress, is ever making 

 warfare less and less endurable. To this it must be added 

 that both moral and intellectual factors contribute to bring 

 about the general result. As human interests in various 

 parts of the world become more and more inextricably 

 wrought together, and as communities which lie apart from 

 each other come ever into closer contact, the ancient an- 

 tagonisms of sentiment between them slowly disappear, and 

 international friendship grows at the expense of the old 

 hostility or distrust. Thus the moral adaptation due to long- 

 «»,ontinued social discipline diminishes the warlike feelings 

 and strengthens the feelings which maintain an industrial 

 rigime ; while on the other hand, intellectual adaptation, 

 ever adding new complication to industry, arrays the opinion 

 Df society more and more decidedly against war, as against 

 iin intolerable source of disturbance. Besides which, the 

 very heterogeneity of the military art, the increasing ccm- 

 plication both of the implements and of the methods of war- 

 tare, due to scientific and industrial progress, renders war evei 

 more costly, and makes the community less willing to engage 

 in it. And these cooperating processes must go on until 

 — probably at no very distant period — warfare shall have 

 become extinct in all the civilized portions of the globe, ' 



