The Rule of Universality 125 



fifty per cent, righteous. Both parties to a dispute 

 may be wrong, but they cannot both be right. 

 If it is noble for a man to sacrifice himself for an 

 ideal, to defend his country and his rights, and to 

 lay down his life for a great cause, then it is equally 

 base and ignoble to attack other men's lives and 

 rights, to tyrannize over their consciences, to de- 

 stroy their ideals by force. But every aggressor 

 must of necessity commit these misdeeds. Since 

 there can be no war without an aggressor, war 

 must be counted not as the cause of the progress 

 of civilization but as one of the chief causes of the 

 degradation of the human race. 



The test for one-sided reasoning is the rule of 

 universality. Let us apply this rule, for example, 

 to the following statement by Ernest Renan. 



. . . Fidelity to a monarch (something which de- 

 mocracy holds to be base and stupid) is that which 

 gives strength and extends the possession of territory.^ 



Renan is thinking of the fidelity of the Prussians 

 to King William I. which resulted in the gain of 

 Alsace and Lorraine for Germany. As usual, in 

 one-sided reasoning, he is thinking only of the 

 conqueror and leaves the conquered out of ac- 

 count, but if the fidelity to the King resulted in 

 the gain of territory for Germany, it resulted 

 equally in the loss of these provinces to France, 

 for it is impossible that one State should annex a 



' La reforme intellectuelle et morale, p. 293. 



