22 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



on those actualities of force which are deeply 

 inherent in it. 



As we turn to watch the character of the inter- 

 national situation contemporaneously developing, 

 we have to observe how the cause of the working 

 classes of civilization gradually becomes involved 

 as part of the universal movement in progress in 

 the West. 



Historians of the future will note that it took 

 roughly the whole span of the nineteenth century 

 for the masters of force in Europe, while re- 

 maining carefully hidden behind the screen of our 

 current civilization, to evolve the principles of force 

 scientifically applied in international war. The funda- 

 mental condition of the science of force as applied 

 among nations was that which, first systemati- 

 cally developed by Prussia, has changed the 

 face of the modern world, namely, universal con- 

 scription or the compulsory levying of the whole 

 available male population of a nation for purposes 

 of war. 



The second and equally fundamental condition 

 of force scientifically applied has been the gradual 

 formulation, also behind the screen of a civilization 

 founded on the ethics of the Christian religion, of 

 the original code of pagan ethics which placed the 

 interests of the State resting on force above all 



