i88o.] 
Analyses of Books . 
205 
The Philosophy of War. By James Ram. London : E. J. 
Davey. 
This is a difficult book for a critic who, like ourselves, is at once 
by inclination and by duty barred from any excursion into the 
thorny fields of party politics. The author holds that the hand 
of God has been shown in times past in the chastisement of 
nations and their rulers, in the transfer of empire from one 
people to another, in the very substitution of race for race — all 
by war. He considers, therefore, that war is an ordained method 
of procedure on the part of Nature ; that its sufferings and mi- 
series are but a small item in the incessant sacrifice of life, 
whether human or brute, which is constantly going on ; that 
individual happiness is not so much the aim of Providence as is 
the elevation of the type. He believes that man, like every other 
organism, is raised and ennobled only or mainly by the struggle 
for existence of which war is merely one of the more open 
manifestations. It is difficult to see how anyone who believes 
in the benefits of competition can come to a different conclusion. 
For in truth all competition is war. If A, by superior strength, 
bravery, activity, cunning, or practice in the use of arms, kills B 
outright, or reduces him to serfdom, the “ friends of peace ” 
express their horror ; but they fail to see how exacftly similar is 
the process when A, by dint of a larger capital, of greater skill 
and ta<51, perhaps even of a more unscrupulous disposition, 
undersells B, takes his business from him, and reduces him to 
poverty, perhaps to pauperism or to starvation. In the latter 
case the suffering is less acute, but more prolonged. 
One argument in favour of the idea that war is specially sanc- 
tioned and ordained by Providence has escaped the author. The 
very arrangement of land and water on the surface of the globe 
is eminently favourable to aggression and invasion. Suppose, 
for instance, there had been a “ silver streak of sea ” between 
France and Germany, how the history of Europe, from the days 
of Louis XIV. downwards, would have been modified. Suppose 
that another channel of salt water joined the Adriatic to the 
Black Sea, cutting off the Balkan peninsula from North-eastern 
Europe, would there ever have been an “ Eastern question ” 
at all ? 
But we may go still further : unless geologists are utterly mis- 
taken, the successive revolutions of the earth’s surface have 
tended in the direction of opening roads for armies and closing 
the paths of commerce. Thus there is every reason to believe 
that in pre-historical ages the Red Sea joined the Mediterranean. 
Had this feature remained there would have been no Suez Canal 
requiring a watchful guardianship, and no possibility of Egypt 
being one day overrun from the north. We are told that a vast 
inland channel extended from the Black Sea to the Pacific 
