THE ETHICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION. 631 



groups or communities, and then the same relation existed be- 

 tween the large communities that had hitherto existed between 

 the smaller groups. They all felt the need of protection, and this 

 desire for protection led them to build larger and stronger walls, 

 and to devise new methods of defense. 



The only advantage was — and it was a great one — that, instead 

 of a lot of little groups all fighting with one another, there were 

 now large communities, and the chances for fighting were cor- 

 respondingly decreased. But the process of assimilation once be- 

 gun could not stop, because man, if he was to be anything more 

 than a fighting animal, must agree to live on friendly terms with 

 his fellows and cultivate the arts of peace. The process went on : 

 communities that had gradually grown to have similar ideas 

 united into still larger communities; tribes became states, and 

 then, at last, states became nations. 



Now the idea of the necessity for protection has so long been 

 dominant with the various associations of men that these associa- 

 tions, even in our days of general enlightenment, do not readily 

 believe that it can be given up. A man who has been living for 

 years in a wild country where he has been liable to attacks from 

 savages at any moment, does not readily adapt himself to the 

 new conditions of mutual trust when he comes to live again 

 among civilized and peaceful folks. You will find him still sleep- 

 ing with his revolver at his side, and when he walks abroad he 

 has his eye out for a possible ambush. So it is with the associa- 

 tions of mankind that have developed from the far-back barbar- 

 ous groups. They know that the conditions of existence have 

 changed, they know that if they are peaceable and industrious 

 they will not be molested ; but the idea of protection still lurks in 

 their minds, and they feel that they must have it in some form, or 

 be at the mercy of the rest of mankind, whom they wrongfully 

 regard as enemies, but who are by nature as peacefully inclined 

 as themselves. 



And so we find man, as intelligent and enlightened as he is to- 

 day, still clinging to this relic of barbarism, this system of organ- 

 ized selfishness known as protection. The trade of man is no 

 longer fighting, the trade of man is now to devise inventions for 

 his own comfort, and although we find some great associations 

 maintaining vast standing armies in conformity with the spirit of 

 protection, the chief occupation of man is with the arts of peace. 

 The arts of peace and warfare are incompatible ; one builds up 

 and the other tears down ; one creates, the other destroys ; hence 

 it is generally acknowledged that warfare is an evil which must 

 soon be abolished. Men can not fight and at the same time till the 

 fields, work in factories, construct railways, write novels, preach 

 sermons, and paint pictures. Men are beginning to see now that 



