visible and more potent than now. It is as though the long-hoarded results of bygone generations were culminating in our own time. Within the last thirty years the map of Asia has been changed. The Russian, in civilisation inferior to other Europeans, but still superior to the Asiatic, has annexed Central Asia and set his grip on China. The German people, driven by the impulse of their own growing energy, have planted their flag far in the South Pacific and have annexed huge territories on both sides of the African continent. That continent itself is at this moment being divided between the Powers of Europe; the darkness which has brooded over it through uncounted ages is at last being followed by the dawn of day.

Again-in another hemisphere-the political conditions of South America are plainly in a state of flux, and its confused populations seem to be awaiting the moment when some force from without shall at last compel the order, the law, and the security, lacking which its vast natural resources cannot be developed. Europe itself, the agent of so many changes, is subject to the operation of the same law of growth, of movement, and of retrogression which it elsewhere administers. It is a commonplace saying that the Latin races are decaying. If, or when, that decay has far continued, who shall prevent, and who would prevent, the growing peoples from entering into and possessing their neighbours' heritage? If, for instance, processes of decay persist in France, will not causes similar to those which have recently led to the loss of the colonial empire of Spain, lead inevitably to a like overthrow in the case of the French colonial empire also? And is it not manifestly to the advantage of humanity that persistent decay should produce this result? Nor can the territorial limits of the European nations be regarded by anyone as fixed and immutable. Austria is manifestly seething with disruptive forces. Turkey in Europe and the Balkan States present endless probabilities of change. In Russia the same cause-starvation-which produced the first French revolution, threatens to bring about an upheaval the effects of which on the world at large must be prodigious indeed. To conceive that growths and movements involving the supersession of one nation or race by another can be prearranged by agreement is truly an amazing thought. Will Russia ever obtain the complete mastery of Asia without fighting for it, or will she ever unless torn to pieces by internal convulsion-abandon the attempt to gain that mastery?

To any one who realises that wars in our time are the expression of vast natural forces, having their roots far down in national character, there is something melancholy and pitiful in the delusion that they can be for ever arrested by the breath of Ministers sitting round a table. As well might a man bid a field of growing corn, or a forest of growing trees, cease the competition of each blade and of each sapling with every other blade and sapling, as bid the strongly

marked divisions of the human race cease to grow and cease to compete. If, in the example named, the order were obeyed, not only would the competition cease but the growth also; and if nations did indeed cease, the one to take advantage of the other's weakness, the processes of biological law, and therefore the evolution of man, would come to an end.

But in truth, in the nature of things, no such arrest is possible. As well might monarchs and rulers seek to abolish the winds of the heavens, or the earthquakes that shake the ground beneath their feet, as to give pause, before the day of ultimate uniformity, to those competing movements (due to infinite diversities) which are the appointed means of man's ascent.

It may be replied, however, that the actual proposals which have evoked so much comment in the world at large, have for their object not the abolition of war, but the reduction of armaments. A little consideration will show that if the foregoing argument possess any validity, an arbitrary standard of armaments will be as impossible, in the long run, as an agreement to stop war altogether.

To prove this, let us assume that the Great Powers of the earth agree, at the approaching Conference-if it ever meets-that their relative military and naval forces shall always bear the same proportion to one another that they bear now. But what may be called the carrying capacity of States-that is to say, their power to endure burdens-varies enormously from one generation to another. The cost of the British Navy, which was tremendous indeed, relatively to the total revenue of Britain in 1814, when over 23,000,000l. sterling was voted, is comparatively trifling now when the annual vote has reached the same figure, because the national income has increased more than sixfold. Suppose, then, that the existing standard be fixed and that the wealth of France decrease, while that of Germany increase, for the next twenty years. It is evident that then the immutable standard will no longer be the same for the two countries, for in the case of France it will imply a greater burden, and in the case of Germany a less burden. Moreover, the power to make war effectively depends not merely on direct warlike machinery, but on the development of the means of communication and of applied science among peoples. Thus it is extremely well known that the progress of Russian railway construction in Asia will add enormously to her military power. Is then Russia to be required to cease these enterprises, and, if so, for how long? If so, not only will her military efficiency be impaired, but a means of communication of immense future utility to civilisation will also be removed.

Again, still assuming that arrest of armaments rather than of wars is the object to be aimed at, it is evident that the moment the latter break out, the former will instantly be increased from motives of self-preservation to the highest point which the resources of the

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belligerents will admit. Reduction of armaments, even could it be agreed upon, must therefore be necessarily a temporary expedient only.

As a matter of fact, however, it has often been recognised, and should never be forgotten, that the competing armaments of the nineteenth century are the substitute for the wars of the eighteenth, and it appears a probable speculation that they are a less exhausting method of competition. Thus, in spite of her immense organisation for war, it is beyond dispute that the prosperity of Germany was never greater than it is at this moment, and that the standard of living is constantly rising. How then can it be said that her veins are being drained by the military burdens imposed? On the other hand, it is equally certain that Italy is unable to endure the weight of her financial obligations. Here therefore is an illustration of the strong nation growing stronger, and of the weak nation becoming weaker. If this disparity grow, how can their present relative fighting values be maintained?

To recapitulate.

(1) The appearance of fixedness in the bounds and conditions of nations is entirely fallacious, being due merely to our taking an insufficient extent of time for our survey. In reality these bounds and conditions are constantly changing, these changes being due to increases and decreases in the essential vigour of those strongly differentiated groups into which, in the course of human evolution, mankind has become divided.

(2) Unless the vigorous nation or race can continue, as throughout history, to expand and grow stronger at the expense of the decaying nation or race, the fundamental condition of human advance will not be fulfilled, and a state of stagnancy, ending in social death, will be substituted for a state of progress.

(3) The only means, revealed to us by past experience, whereby the vigorous people has supplanted the weaker, has been war, without which change and movement must have ceased.

(4) Change and movement, the growth of those who use their opportunities at the expense of those who abuse them, are as essential now and in succeeding times as in the past.

(5) It is for the advocates of universal peace to show whether by any and what method decaying nations and states can be persuaded to abandon their territories, possessions, and privileges, without fighting for them.

Thus viewed, it will be seen that war appears simply a phase in that tremendous and ceaseless process of competition which prevails alike on sea and land-in the ocean depths, in the paths of the air, in field and forest, throughout insect and animal and vegetable life. The recoil from war, which is felt by so many minds, is merely another instance of the eternal contrast between the upward trend of

the human spirit and the physical environment by which that spirit is conditioned. But to strive to reach the ideal by a short cut is not only to fail to attain it, but also actually to postpone its arrival. The extraordinary conclusions reached by some who ignore this elemental truth are a proof of its reality. As an instance, we may take the writings of one of the most thoroughgoing of living peacemongers-Count Tolstoi. He poses as the special interpreter of the ethical teaching on this point of the founder of Christianity, and he boldly announces that all war, and apparently all use of force (and logically these are identical) are immoral.

It is hardly necessary to remark in passing that this interpretation of the words of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, is not the interpretation of most Christian bodies in all ages. Alike by the Roman Church and the Greek, and by most Protestant societies, has it been held to be lawful for a Christian man to bear arms and to use them. The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (I apologise to Anglican divines for venturing to refer to these discredited formularies) are explicit on this point.

We may

The point which we have here to consider, however, is not a question of authority, but one of fundamental morality. argue it thus: Supposing Count Tolstoi, proceeding along some lonely road, were to find a woman suffering cruel wrong at the hands of a man, what would he conceive to be his duty? If to interfere by violence, then the use of force is justified as a general principle, and its application to particular cases becomes entirely a question of circumstances. If not to interfere by violence, then his notion of obligation is diametrically opposed to the almost universal heart and conscience of his fellows. Better, most would say, the rough energy of a man than the emasculated cowardice of such a saint.

But passing from this case, where possibly the binding duty of violent action will be admitted, let us take another. Suppose Count Tolstoi to be the inhabitant of a city besieged by ferocious foes, who would, if they succeeded in storming it, kill every man, and outrage every woman. What, then, would he deem the duty which fundamental morality imposed upon him? If to aid in the resistance, then war in particular instances is justifiable, and, this being once conceded, all else becomes matter of circumstance and argument. If not to resist, then once more does he oppose his single conception of human duty to the all but unanimous opinion of good men in all the centuries.

To show, however, how completely this last instance covers the ground, and how closely connected in reality are the complicated causes of modern war with a case so elementary as that named, let us take yet another example.

Suppose that the inhabitants of a city, not actually besieged, had their access to the pastures and arable land which supplied them

with food interfered with by the men of another state; would they, or would they not, be justified in resisting them? Here we have a condition of things precisely analogous to that which actually obtains between Britain and Russia at this moment. Russia seeks to cut off the access of Britain to the markets of China, which furnish, or might furnish, means of subsistence to her industrial population. If war be justifiable in the one case, it must be justifiable in the other. Count Tolstoi would, however, probably reply that neither Russian nor Briton ought to bear arms at all, and that if one of them will be so naughty as to do so, then it is the duty of the other patiently to submit, and starve to death, if that consequence should naturally follow. Here, again, he opposes himself first to the received interpretation of Christ's teaching, of which interpretation he seems to believe himself a monopolist, and next to the general conscience of mankind.

Having regard to the utterly wild views of the causes of war to which Count Tolstoi has recently given vent in an English newspaper,' in which he attributes this tremendous phenomenon, common to all the ages, to the deliberate wickedness of an insignificant minority who live in luxury and idleness upon the labour of the workers,' it may seem waste of time to try to confu'e him. For, though doubtless a man of genius, it is apparent that he has never applied his mind to think out the subject about which he feels so strongly. But though no reasonable men would go the whole way with Count Tolstoi, there are many good people who, because they cannot or will not spare time to reason the matter out for themselves, have a kind of weak idea that there must be something in such wholesale abuse.

Turning away, however, from objections which are in fact superficial to the verge of puerility, we may well ask whether the conditions which make the possibility of war a necessity at the present time must continue so long as the human race shall endure.

If the imminence of war, as has been here maintained, be the inevitable result of existing diversities among the types of men now living on this planet, it is evident that if the time shall ever come when those diversities are no longer found, and all mankind shall have been welded into one homogeneous whole, then the cause of conflict will have been removed. That there are potent agencies at work, which make for such ultimate and far-off unity, none can deny. The silent march of invention, the constantly ensuing improvement in communications, point clearly to the gradual fusion of all the races of men. Every cable that is laid, every telephone that is put up, every discovery that adds to the power of man over nature brings us an inch nearer to that distant day. There may come a time when rapidity of movement and of communication will have The Westminster Gazette, August 24, 1898.