2i6 The Intellectual Revolution 



epoch in human history. But the military events 

 will not determine what the character of this new 

 epoch will be. In fact, in so far as it is affected 

 only by the surface events of the war, it may be 

 said that the human race is as likely to draw the 

 wrong conclusions as the right ones. 



The condition after the war is likely to resemble 

 that which followed the Thirty Years' War. 

 Two main currents of thought may be traced to 

 the events of that period. On the one hand, 

 Hobbes, looking out upon the world as he saw it, 

 drew his picture of "the war of each against all" 

 as the natural state of man and applied the 

 philosophy of force to the theory of the State. 

 On the other hand, the futility of force was widely 

 recognized, and the same events which led Hobbes 

 to write his Leviathan impelled Grotius to write 

 his De Jure Belli ac Pads, which laid the founda- 

 tions of the science of international law, and marks 

 the beginning, at least, of the conception of a 

 society of nations living iinder a reign of justice. 



In the same way, it is possible that the end of the 

 Great War may mark the beginning of two powerful 

 currents of intellectual forces which will struggle 

 for the mastery during the next generation. On 

 the one hand, we may have an immense strength- 

 ening of militarism. If an unjust treaty of peace 

 should be made by short-sighted statesmen and 

 diplomats, Eiu-ope would be left an armed camp. 

 The resulting peace would be only a temporary 

 truce, and the nations would concentrate all 



