First, a change of outlook. We must give up, in all nations, this habit
of dwelling on the unique and peculiar wickedness of the enemy. We must
recognize that behind the acts that led up to the immediate outbreak of
war, behind the crimes and atrocities to which the war has led, as wars
always have led, and always will lead--behind all that lies a great complex
of feeling, prejudice, tradition, false theory, in which all nations and
all individuals of all nations are involved. Most men believe, feel, or
passively accept that power and wealth are the objects States ought
to pursue; that in pursuing these objects they are bound by no code of
right in their relations to one another; that law between them is, and
must be, as fragile as a cobweb stretched before the mouth of a cannon;
that force is the only rule and the only determinant of their differences,
and that the only real question is when and how the appeal to force may
most advantageously be made. This philosophy has been expressed with
peculiar frankness and brutality by Germans. But most honest and candid
men, I believe, will agree that that is the way they, too, have been
accustomed to think of international affairs. And if illustration were
wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant satisfaction with which
the failure of the Hague conferences to achieve any radical results was
generally greeted, and the contemptuous and almost abhorring pity meted
out to the people called "pacifists." Well, the war has come! We see now,
not only guess, what it means. If that experience has not made a deep
impression on every man and woman, if something like a conversion is not
being generally operated, then, indeed, nothing can save mankind from the
hell of their own passions and imbecilities.
But if otherwise, if that change is going on, then the way to deliverance
is neither difficult nor obscure. It does not lie in the direction of
crushing anybody. It lies in the taking of certain determinations, and
the embodying of them in certain institutions.
First, the nations must submit to law and to right in the settlement of
their disputes.
Secondly, they must reserve force for the coercion of the law-breaker;
and that implies that they should construct rules to determine who the
law-breaker is. Let him be defined as the one who appeals to force, instead
of appealing to law and right by machinery duly provided for that purpose,
and the aggressor is immediately under the ban of the civilized world, and
met by an overwhelming force to coerce him into order. In constructing
machinery of this kind there is no intellectual difficulty greater than
that which has confronted every attempt everywhere to substitute order
for force. The difficulty is moral, and lies in the habits, passions,
and wills of men. But it should not be concluded that, if such a moral
change could be operated, there would be no need for the machinery. It
would be as reasonable to say that Governments, law-courts, and police
were superfluous, since, if men were good, they would not require them,
and if they are bad they will not tolerate them. Whatever new need, desire,
and conviction comes up in mankind, needs embodiment in forms before it
can become operative. And, as the separate colonies of America could not
effectively unite until they had formed a Constitution, so will the States
of Europe and the world be unable to maintain the peace, even though all
of them should wish to maintain it, unless they will construct some kind
of machinery for settling their disputes and organizing their common
purposes, and will back that machinery by force. If they will do that
they may construct a real and effective counterpoise to aggression from
any Power in the future. If they will not do it, their precautions against
any one Power will be idle, for it will be from some other Power that the
danger will come. I put it to the reader at the end of this study, which
I have made with all the candour and all the honesty at my disposal, and
which I believe to represent essentially the truth, whether or no he agrees
that the European anarchy is the real cause of European wars, and if he
does, whether he is ready for his part to support a serious effort to end
it.