62 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



considerations. He agrees to fight for his country, whether it is 

 right or wrong; and he agrees to forfeit his hfe should he, in the 

 time of peril, refuse to do his utmost to kill those, who by pos- 

 sibility, he may think to be justifiably and nobly defending their 

 country. His own countrymen may revolt against oppression 

 and he may deem them patriots; but he agrees to shoot them, if 

 so ordered, as rebels. As Mr. Leckey has said: — 



"A large and difficult field of moral compromise is opened 

 out in the case of war, which necessarily involves a complete 

 suspension of great portions of the moral law * * * j|^ would 

 be difficult to conceive a disposition more remote from the morals 

 of ordinary life " (c). 



The justification, of course, is the safety of the State. If 

 every member of a community followed the dictates of his own 

 opinion and of private moralities, the community would not long 

 survive. Nationality means solidarity, and solidarity means the 

 suppression of private conscience. 



National Heroes. — An excellent test of popular attitude 

 towards political morality is to be found in the character of the 

 men whom the people delight to honor. Is morality in our ideals 

 a prerequisite of their worship? We marvel at the Pagan Greeks 

 tolerating the sensuality of their Pantheon. Generations later 

 than ours will note that the 19th and 20th century Christians were 

 little scrupulous as to the morality of their national demi-gods. 



Napoleon. — The French have Napoleon for their hero — a 

 man great in every department but that of morality ; a man with- 

 out pretence of conscience, or shadow of scruple. 



Bismarck. — For the Germans, Bismarck is the popular ideal. 

 That extraordinary man no doubt accomplished much. He 

 made of many states one mighty nation. But political morality 

 he held as lightly as Napoleon; and avowed it as cynically as 

 Machiavelli. Not the golden rule, but "blood and iron" was his 

 motto, and represented his method. His secret treaty with 

 Russia in 1884, clearly derogating from his proclaimed alliance 

 with Austria and Italy, is one of the most salient examples of his 

 indifference to anything but success, (d) Everything had to be 

 made subservient, he pleaded, to the one essential — the isolation 

 of France. But even this treachery was outdone in perfidy by 

 his cold-blooded alteration of the Ems telegram, by which he 



(c) "Mapof Life,"p. 92. 



(d) See 66 Fortnightly Rev., 904. 



