760 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



express this deep and inalienable ferocity, look out at intervals 

 from below these gorgeous draperies ; and sad it is to think that 

 at intervals the acts and the temper suitable to those glaring eyes 

 must come forward." That differences of national temperament, 

 differences of institutions, and commercial rivalries do breed ani- 

 mosities is, unfortunately, true ; but still the question presents 

 itself: How long will the civilized nations of the world persist in 

 a willingness to slaughter one another for these causes ? It is 

 acknowledged on all hands that the character of war has changed 

 greatly for the better in modern times. It still is a matter of 

 killing and of maiming in the endeavor to kill ; but, decade by 

 decade, it has to reckon more and more with the spirit of 

 humanity. In this age, when civilized nations fight, they fight 

 because they must or think they must, because overmastering 

 circumstances^ have driven them to it; but the spirit to do the 

 dreadful deeds which they set out to do is not what it was in past 

 times: they neither hate nor contemn their enemies sufficiently 

 to make war quite a satisfactory pastime. Our essayist talks of 

 the " glaring eyes." Doubtless there is always danger when the 

 eyes glare, for the next thing may be a spring ; but the eyes may 

 glare under momentary provocation, when there is no permanent 

 rancor in the heart ; and then what woe it would be if a moment's 

 madness should mean the wrapping of a kingdom or a continent 

 in the flames of war ! 



These are the thoughts which, we believe, are pressing them- 

 selves more and more upon the minds and hearts of men in the 

 present day. Our essayist himself tells us that war is "ever 

 amending its modes," and that, though it is a necessary final re- 

 sort, it is even in that character " constantly retiring farther into 

 the rear." This was written fifty years ago, when as yet arbitra- 

 tion between nations was scarcely known. The question which 

 we may reasonably ask is, how much further war will have to 

 retire into the background without falling into practical desue- 

 tude. War, moreover, tends continually to its own extinction, 

 inasmuch as it is continually bringing the principles of interna- 

 tional justice into clearer relief, and operating as " a bounty upon 

 the investigation and adjudication of disputed cases." In this 

 way "a comprehensive law of nations will finally be accumu- 

 lated " ; so that " it will become possible to erect a real Areopagus 

 or central congress for all Christendom; not" (the essayist is 

 careful to add, keeping in mind his thesis) " with any commission 

 to suppress wars, but with the purpose and effect of oftentimes 

 healing local or momentary animosities, and of taking away the 

 shadow of dishonor from the act of retiring from war." It is 

 encouraging to think that these words have more point to-day 

 than ever they had before ; that the progress of events and the 



