THE WORLD REVOLUTION 18 



in the reviews, books, newspapers, parliaments, 

 congresses, and even in the schools of the principal 

 countries, war has been the principal subject of 

 interest. The discussion of war by experts and 

 publicists the methods by which war is to be carried 

 on, the enemies against whom it may have to be 

 directed, and the objects and policies for which it 

 may have to be waged has gone on continually. 



As the result of tendencies which in a short space 

 have enveloped the world, settled modes of thought 

 regarding war, which in countries like Great Britain 

 and the United States had been the slow growth of 

 centuries of previous development, have become 

 profoundly modified and altered. Men have come 

 to listen silently, as they would not have listened 

 half a century previously, when they have been told 

 by leaders of opinion that the ultimate principles 

 of civilization do not justify the prophecies since 

 the beginning of our era as to an eventual age of 

 peace and goodwill; that war is the natural con- 

 dition of man, that it is not an evil but a necessity 

 and even a good, and that the modern resources of 

 science are not tending to abolish war but only to 

 render it more terrible and destructive by raising 

 to the n^ power the possibilities of savagery. 



The alteration taking place in the nature of the 

 pleas urged in favour of peace have become even 



