WAR. 91 



Piiiiso, now, at the foot of tliis tree of death, which has 

 taken so mighty and vast a growth in the world. Let 

 lis dig down to its roots, and find how deep they grow. 

 Let us climl) its huge trunk, and reaeh upon itshranclies 

 tiiosc fatal but sometimes salutary fruits whicli the na- 

 tions may pluck therefrom. 



In other words, Gentlemen, 1 will inquire with you, 

 in the first place, into the causes of war ; and in the 

 second place, I Avill attempt to penetrate its nature and 

 results. 



Part Fikst.— 77^^ Orifjin of War. 



L I w ill do for war, that law of death, what I hay.e 

 done for love, that law of life ; I will look for its first 

 root in the depth of the animal nature. They tell us, 

 now-a-days, in the name of science falsely so called, that 

 the historical origin of man w^as in the brute. Under 

 every error there is hid a truth ; and long before mod- 

 ern science, the Fathers of the Church had taught that 

 man should contemplate in the lower races not only the 

 diversified but faithful rough-drafts of his bodily or- 

 ganism, but the complete assemblage of the passions 

 of his soul. It is not without reason that the Creator 

 introduced man's appearance on the earth by the long 

 preceding appearance of the brute. Through all the 

 lapse of those "days" of Genesis, whicli undoubtedly 

 were ao:es and mvriads of a2:es, brute life was the neces- 

 sary preface to human life. It was written then by the 

 hand of God, and we are reading it to-da}'. Xow, if I 

 survey the series of those beings whicli might be called, 

 in the language of Francis of Assisi, " our inferior 

 In-ethren," everywhere among them I find war. In the 

 air and on the earth, everywhere death-groans, blood- 



