Apeil 9, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



521 



I do not consider it as my province to 

 try to discuss here all sorts of means 

 ■which possibly may serve to increase prog- 

 ress in international morality. My chief 

 purpose is, as stated at the beginning, to 

 bring forward the value of medical sci- 

 ences and medical men as efficient factors 

 in furthering the progress of international 

 morality. However, before coming to it, 

 I wish to call attention briefly to a point 

 or two to which reference has been made 

 before. I believe, in the first place, that it 

 is of prime educational importance to point 

 impressively to the fact that there is a 

 gulf between national morality, on the one 

 hand, and interracial and international 

 morality, on the other hand. A confusion 

 between the two sets of ethics may harm 

 the former and retard the possible progress 

 of the latter. Citizens in neutral countries 

 at all times, and citizens of all countries in 

 times of peace, should know, should feel it 

 deeply in their hearts, that war has not the 

 slightest feature of morality, that it is 

 simply a mode of settling differences be- 

 tween two or more strains of the human 

 race in the fashion of wild beasts, in- 

 creased in deadliness and ugliness by the 

 activities of human intelligence. Here is 

 an incontestable fact which gives pain and 

 distress to the moral man; humanity, as a 

 whole, shows that its moral conduct is not 

 above that of vicious animals of various 

 species. The discussion of the question as 

 to who began the war and who prevents 

 its conclusion is far from the mark; it is 

 purely academic and is borrowed from the 

 point of view of intranational morals. 

 Justice and law had little to do with the 

 beginning of the war and will have very 

 little to say with its settlement. War is 

 carried on by brute force and is settled by 

 it with the aid of exhaustion and starva- 

 tion. The many circumstances which lead 

 to the numerous wars are mere incidents, 



but not the real cause of them. There is 

 only one cause for all the wars and that is 

 the possession by human beings of ferocious 

 qualities peculiar to wild beasts, often en- 

 tirely unrestrained and sometimes even 

 directly cultivated to a higher degree. 



In teaching intranational morality it 

 ought to be made clear that physical 

 strength, courage, dexterity and efSciency, 

 useful and desirable as they are for the 

 success in the life of the individuals and 

 the nation they compose, are not moral 

 principles. On the contrary, they may 

 greatly magnify the evil results when 

 used for unethical principles. Bravery 

 and efficiency, which are most highly val- 

 ued qualities in war, are qualities which 

 are most destructive to your so-called 

 enemy of to-day and perhaps your friend 

 of yesterday and, moreover, perhaps of 

 your friend of a day after to-morrow. 



I now come to the chief point I wish to 

 discuss. Short as the discussion will be, 

 it is nevertheless the chief object of my 

 entire discourse. I have stated above that 

 the striking feature of this war, the great 

 destructiveness of human life, owes its 

 success to the employment of scientific re- 

 sults in carrying on the war. All sciences 

 which may contain some practical element 

 are contributing in some way or another 

 to the wholesale destruction of human life. 

 And not only the scientific results, but the 

 scientists themselves are active at the 

 front in laboratories improvised in large 

 automobiles to search for new inventions 

 and discoveries which may be of some im- 

 mediate practical use or to predict the na- 

 ture of the weather to be expected at dif- 

 ferent points, etc. And those who can not 

 assist in such a direct way try to contrib- 

 ute to the spirit of war by spreading en- 

 thusiasm, by abusing the enemy, and by 

 implanting hatred against it. 



But there is one most inspiring exception 



