402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of 
wars. Let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no 
ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with 
bluff, but couldn’t stay there, the military tension was too much for 
them. In 1898 our people had read the word WAR in letters three 
inches high for three months in every newspaper. The pliant politician 
McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with 
Spain became a necessity. | 
At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. 
The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but are con- 
fronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. 
Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. 
Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally avowable motives, and 
pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy. Eng- 
land and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm 
solely for “ peace,” Germany and Japan it is who are bent on loot and 
glory. “ Peace” in military mouths to-day is a synonym for “ war 
expected.” The word has become a pure provocative, and no govern- 
ment wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a 
newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that “ peace ” and 
“ war” mean the same thing, now im posse, DoW in actu.. It may even 
reasonably be said that the intensely sharp competitive preparation for 
war by the nations ts the real war, permanent, unceasing ; and that the 
battles are only a sort of public verification of the mastery gained dur- 
ing the “ peace ”-interval. 
It is plain that on this subject civilized man has developed a sort of 
double personality. If we take European nations, no legitimate inter- 
est of any one of them would seem to justify the tremendous destruc- 
tions which a war to compass it would necessarily entail. It would 
seem as though common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach 
agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think it our 
pounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. 
But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace- 
party and the war-party together, and I believe that the difficulty is due 
to certain deficiences in the program of pacificism which set the militar- 
ist imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. 
In the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental 
ground. It is but one utopia against another, and everything one says 
must be abstract and hypothetical. Subject to this criticism and cau- 
tion, I will try to characterize in abstract strokes the opposite imagina- 
tive forces, and point out what to my own very fallible mind seems the 
best utopian hypothesis, the most promising line of conciliation. 
In my remarks, pacificist though I am, I will refuse to speak of 
the bestial side of the war-régime (already done justice to by many 
