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AN INQUIRY INTO
THE NATURE OF PEACE
AND
THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION
BY
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
New York
B.W. HUEBSCH
1919
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1917.
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Published April, 1917:
Reprinted August, 1917.
New edition published by
B.W. HUEBSCH.
January, 1919.
PREFACE
It is now some 122 years since Kant wrote the essay, _Zum ewigen
Frieden_. Many things have happened since then, although the Peace to
which he looked forward with a doubtful hope has not been among them.
But many things have happened which the great critical philosopher, and
no less critical spectator of human events, would have seen with
interest. To Kant the quest of an enduring peace presented itself as an
intrinsic human duty, rather than as a promising enterprise. Yet through
all his analysis of its premises and of the terms on which it may be
realised there runs a tenacious persuasion that, in the end, the régime
of peace at large will be installed. Not as a deliberate achievement of
human wisdom, so much as a work of Nature the Designer of
things--_Natura daedala rerum_.
To any attentive reader of Kant's memorable essay it will be apparent
that the title of the following inquiry--On the nature of peace and the
terms of its perpetuation--is a descriptive translation of the caption
under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is
hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue
inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any
disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in
Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part made it,--viz., a
systematic knowledge of things as they are. Nor is the light of Kant's
leading to be dispensed with as touches the ways and means of
systematic knowledge, wherever the human realities are in question.
Meantime, many things have also changed since the date of Kant's essay.
Among other changes are those that affect the direction of inquiry and
the terms of systematic formulation. _Natura daedala rerum_ is no longer
allowed to go on her own recognizances, without divulging the ways and
means of her workmanship. And it is such a line of extension that is
here attempted, into a field of inquiry which in Kant's time still lay
over the horizon of the future.
The quest of perpetual peace at large is no less a paramount and
intrinsic human duty today than it was, nor is it at all certain that
its final accomplishment is nearer. But the question of its pursuit and
of the conditions to be met in seeking this goal lies in a different
shape today; and it is this question that concerns the inquiry which is
here undertaken,--What are the terms on which peace at large may
hopefully be installed and maintained? What, if anything, is there in
the present situation that visibly makes for a realisation of these
necessary terms within the calculable future? And what are the
consequences presumably due to follow in the nearer future from the
installation of such a peace at large? And the answer to these questions
is here sought not in terms of what ought dutifully to be done toward
the desired consummation, but rather in terms of those known factors of
human behaviour that can be shown by analysis of experience to control
the conduct of nations in conjunctures of this kind.
February 1917
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY: ON THE STATE AND ITS RELATION TO WAR
AND PEACE 1
The inquiry is not concerned with the intrinsic merits
of peace or war, 2.
--But with the nature, causes and consequences of the
preconceptions favoring peace or war, 3.
--A breach of the peace is an act of the government,
or State, 3.
--Patriotism is indispensable to furtherance of warlike
enterprise, 4.
--All the peoples of Christendom are sufficiently patriotic, 6.
--Peace established by the State, an armistice--the State
is an instrumentality for making peace, not for perpetuating it, 7.
--The governmental establishments and their powers in all
the Christian nations are derived from the feudal establishments
of the Middle Ages, 9.
--Still retain the right of coercively controlling the actions
of their citizens, 11.
--Contrast of Icelandic Commonwealth, 12.
--The statecraft of the past half century has been
one of competitive preparedness, 14.
--Prussianised Germany has forced the pace in this
competitive preparedness, 20.
--An avowedly predatory enterprise no longer meets
with approval, 21.
--When a warlike enterprise has been entered upon, it
will have the support of popular sentiment even if it
is an aggressive war, 22.
--The moral indignation of both parties to the quarrel
is to be taken for granted, 23.
--The spiritual forces of any Christian nation may be
mobilised for war by either of two pleas: (1) The
preservation or furtherance of the community's material
interests, real or fancied, and (2) vindication of the
National Honour; as perhaps also perpetuation of the
national "Culture," 23.
CHAPTER II
ON THE NATURE AND USES OF PATRIOTISM 31
The nature of Patriotism, 31.
--Is a spirit of Emulation, 33.
--Must seem moral, if only to a biased populace, 33.
--The common man is sufficiently patriotic but is hampered
with a sense of right and honest dealing, 38.
--Patriotism is at cross purposes with modern life, 38.
--Is an hereditary trait? 41.
--Variety of racial stocks in Europe, 43.
--Patriotism a ubiquitous trait, 43.
--Patriotism disserviceable, yet men hold to it, 46.
--Cultural evolution of Europeans, 48.
--Growth of a sense of group solidarity, 49.
--Material interests of group falling into abeyance
as class divisions have grown up, until prestige
remains virtually the sole community interest, 51.
--Based upon warlike prowess, physical magnitude and
pecuniary traffic of country, 54.
--Interests of the master class are at cross purposes
with the fortunes of the common man, 57.
--Value of superiors is a "prestige value," 57.
--The material benefits which this ruling class contribute
are: defense against aggression, and promotion of the
community's material gain, 60.
--The common defense is a remedy for evils due to the
patriotic spirit, 61.
--The common defense the usual blind behind which events
are put in train for eventual hostilities, 62.
--All the nations of warring Europe convinced that they
are fighting a defensive war, 62.
--Which usually takes the form of a defense of the National
Honour, 63.
--Material welfare is of interest to the Dynastic statesman
only as it conduces to political success, 64.
--The policy of national economic self-sufficiency, 67.
--The chief material use of patriotism is its use to a
limited number of persons in their quest of private gain, 67.
--And has the effect of dividing the nations on lines of
rivalry, 76.
CHAPTER III
ON THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE 77
The patriotic spirit of modern peoples is the abiding
source of contention among nations, 77.
--Hence any calculus of the Chances of Peace will be
a reckoning of forces which may be counted on to keep
a patriotic nation in an unstable equilibrium of peace, 78.
--The question of peace and war at large is a question of
peace and war among the Powers, which are of two contrasted
kinds: those which may safely be counted on spontaneously
to take the offensive and those which will fight on provocation, 79.
--War not a question of equity but of opportunity, 81.
--The Imperial designs of Germany and Japan as the prospective
cause of war, 82.
--Peace can be maintained in two ways: submission to
their dominion, or elimination of these two Powers;
No middle course open, 84.
--Frame of mind of states; men and popular sentiment in
a Dynastic State, 84.
--Information, persuasion and reflection will not subdue
national animosities and jealousies; Peoples of Europe
are racially homogeneous along lines of climatic latitude, 88.
--But loyalty is a matter of habituation, 89.
--Derivation and current state of German nationalism, 94.
--Contrasted with the animus of the citizens of a commonwealth,
103;--A neutral peace-compact may be practicable in the
absence of Germany and Japan, but it has no chance in
their presence, 106.
--The national life of Germany: the Intellectuals, 108.
--Summary of chapter, 116.
CHAPTER IV
PEACE WITHOUT HONOUR 118
Submission to the Imperial Power one of the conditions
precedent to a peaceful settlement, 118.
--Character of the projected tutelage, 118.
--Life under the _Pax Germanica_ contrasted with
the Ottoman and Russian rule, 124.
--China and biological and cultural success, 130.
--Difficulty of non-resistant subjection is of a psychological
order, 131.
--Patriotism of the bellicose kind is of the nature of
habit, 134.
--And men may divest themselves of it, 140.
--A decay of the bellicose national spirit must be of
the negative order, the disuse of the discipline out
of which it has arisen, 142.
--Submission to Imperial authorities necessitates
abeyance of national pride among the other peoples, 144.
--Pecuniary merits of the projected Imperial dominion, 145.
--Pecuniary class distinctions in the commonwealths and
the pecuniary burden on the common man, 150.
--Material conditions of life for the common man under
the modern rule of big business, 156.
--The competitive régime, "what the traffic will bear,"
and the life and labor of the common man, 158.
--Industrial sabotage by businessmen, 165.
--Contrasted with the Imperial usufruct and its material
advantages to the common man, 174.
CHAPTER V
PEACE AND NEUTRALITY 178
Personal liberty, not creature comforts, the ulterior
springs of action of the common man of the democratic
nations, 178.
--No change of spiritual state to be looked for in the
life-time of the oncoming generation, 185.
--The Dynastic spirit among the peoples of the Empire
will, under the discipline of modern economic conditions,
fall into decay, 187.
--Contrast of class divisions in Germany and England, 192.
--National establishments are dependent for their
continuance upon preparation for hostilities, 196.
--The time required for the people of the Dynastic
States to unlearn their preconceptions will be longer
than the interval required for a new onset, 197.
--There can be no neutral course between peace by
unconditional surrender and submission or peace by
the elimination of Imperial Germany and Japan, 202.
--Peace by submission not practicable for the modern
nations, 203.
--Neutralisation of citizenship, 205.
--Spontaneous move in that direction not to be looked for, 213.
--Its chances of success, 219.
--The course of events in America, 221.
CHAPTER VI
ELIMINATION OF THE UNFIT 233
A league of neutrals, its outline, 233.
--Need of security from aggression of Imperial Germany, 234.
--Inclusion of the Imperial States in the league, 237.
--Necessity of elimination of Imperial military clique, 239.
--Necessity of intermeddling in internal affairs of Germany even
if not acceptable to the German people, 240.
--Probability of pacific nations taking measures to insure peace, 244-298.
--The British gentleman and his control of the English government, 244.
--The shifting of control out of the hands of the gentleman into
those of the underbred common man, 251.
--The war situation and its probable effect on popular habits
of thought in England, 252.
--The course of such events and their bearing on the chances
of a workable pacific league, 255.
--Conditions precedent to a successful pacific league
of neutrals, 258.
--Colonial possessions, 259.
--Neutralisation of trade relations, 263.
--Futility of economic boycott, 266.
--The terms of settlement, 269.
--The effect of the war and the chances of the British people
being able to meet the exigencies of peace, 273.
--Summary of the terms of settlement, 280.
--Constitutional monarchies and the British gentlemanly
government, 281.
--The American national establishment, a government
by businessmen, and its economic policy, 292.
--America and the league, 294.
CHAPTER VII
PEACE AND THE PRICE SYSTEM 299
The different conceptions of peace, 299.
--Psychological effects of the war, 303.
--The handicraft system and the machine industry,
and their psychological effect on political preconceptions, 306.
--The machine technology and the decay of patriotic loyalty, 310.
--Summary, 313.
--Ownership and the right of contract, 315.
--Standardised under handicraft system, 319.
--Ownership and the machine industry. 320.
--Business control and sabotage, 322.
--Governments of pacific nations controlled by privileged classes, 326.
--Effect of peace on the economic situation, 328.
--Economic aspects of a régime of peace, especially as related
to the development of classes, 330.
--The analogy of the Victorian Peace, 344.
--The case of the American Farmer, 348.
--The leisure class, 350.
--The rising standard of living, 354.
--Culture, 355.
--The eventual cleavage of classes, those who own and those
who do not, 360.
--Conditioned by peace at large, 366.
--Necessary conditions of a lasting peace, 367.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF PEACE AND THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION
ON THE NATURE OF PEACE AND THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY: ON THE STATE AND ITS RELATION TO WAR AND PEACE
To many thoughtful men ripe in worldly wisdom it is known of a verity
that war belongs indefeasibly in the Order of Nature. Contention, with
manslaughter, is indispensable in human intercourse, at the same time
that it conduces to the increase and diffusion of the manly virtues. So
likewise, the unspoiled youth of the race, in the period of adolescence
and aspiring manhood, also commonly share this gift of insight and back
it with a generous commendation of all the martial qualities; and women
of nubile age and no undue maturity gladly meet them half way.
On the other hand, the mothers of the people are commonly unable to see
the use of it all. It seems a waste of dear-bought human life, with a
large sum of nothing to show for it. So also many men of an elderly
turn, prematurely or otherwise, are ready to lend their countenance to
the like disparaging appraisal; it may be that the spirit of prowess in
them runs at too low a tension, or they may have outlived the more vivid
appreciation of the spiritual values involved. There are many, also,
with a turn for exhortation, who find employment for their best
faculties in attesting the well-known atrocities and futility of war.
Indeed, not infrequently such advocates of peace will devote their
otherwise idle powers to this work of exhortation without stipend or
subsidy. And they uniformly make good their contention that the
currently accepted conception of the nature of war--General Sherman's
formula--is substantially correct. All the while it is to be admitted
that all this axiomatic exhortation has no visible effect on the course
of events or on the popular temper touching warlike enterprise. Indeed,
no equal volume of speech can be more incontrovertible or less
convincing than the utterances of the peace advocates, whether
subsidised or not. "War is Bloodier than Peace." This would doubtless be
conceded without argument, but also without prejudice. Hitherto the
pacifists' quest of a basis for enduring peace, it must be admitted, has
brought home nothing tangible--with the qualification, of course, that
the subsidised pacifists have come in for the subsidy. So that, after
searching the recesses of their imagination, able-bodied pacifists whose
loquacity has never been at fault hitherto have been brought to ask:
"What Shall We Say?"
* * * * *
Under these circumstances it will not be out of place to inquire into
the nature of this peace about which swings this wide orbit of opinion
and argument. At the most, such an inquiry can be no more gratuitous and
no more nugatory than the controversies that provoke it. The intrinsic
merits of peace at large, as against those of warlike enterprise, it
should be said, do not here come in question. That question lies in the
domain of preconceived opinion, so that for the purposes of this
inquiry it will have no significance except as a matter to be inquired
into; the main point of the inquiry being the nature, causes and
consequences of such a preconception favoring peace, and the
circumstances that make for a contrary preconception in favor of war.
By and large, any breach of the peace in modern times is an official act
and can be taken only on initiative of the governmental establishment,
the State. The national authorities may, of course, be driven to take
such a step by pressure of warlike popular sentiment. Such, e.g., is
presumed to have been the case in the United States' attack on Spain
during the McKinley administration; but the more that comes to light of
the intimate history of that episode, the more evident does it become
that the popular war sentiment to which the administration yielded had
been somewhat sedulously "mobilised" with a view to such yielding and
such a breach. So also in the case of the Boer war, the move was made
under sanction of a popular war spirit, which, again, did not come to a
head without shrewd surveillance and direction. And so again in the
current European war, in the case, e.g., of Germany, where the
initiative was taken, the State plainly had the full support of popular
sentiment, and may even be said to have precipitated the war in response
to this urgent popular aspiration; and here again it is a matter of
notoriety that the popular sentiment had long been sedulously nursed and
"mobilised" to that effect, so that the populace was assiduously kept in
spiritual readiness for such an event. The like is less evident as
regards the United Kingdom, and perhaps also as regards the other
Allies.
And such appears to have been the common run of the facts as regards all
the greater wars of the last one hundred years,--what may be called the
"public" wars of this modern era, as contrasted with the "private" or
administrative wars which have been carried on in a corner by one and
another of the Great Powers against hapless barbarians, from time to
time, in the course of administrative routine.
It is also evident from the run of the facts as exemplified in these
modern wars that while any breach of the peace takes place only on the
initiative and at the discretion of the government, or State,[1] it is
always requisite in furtherance of such warlike enterprise to cherish
and eventually to mobilise popular sentiment in support of any warlike
move. Due fomentation of a warlike animus is indispensable to the
procuring and maintenance of a suitable equipment with which eventually
to break the peace, as well as to ensure a diligent prosecution of such
enterprise when once it has been undertaken. Such a spirit of militant
patriotism as may serviceably be mobilised in support of warlike
enterprise has accordingly been a condition precedent to any people's
entry into the modern Concert of Nations. This Concert of Nations is a
Concert of Powers, and it is only as a Power that any nation plays its
part in the concert, all the while that "power" here means eventual
warlike force.
[Footnote 1: A modern nation constitutes a State only in respect of or
with ulterior bearing on the question of International peace or war.]
Such a people as the Chinese, e.g., not pervaded with an adequate
patriotic spirit, comes into the Concert of Nations not as a Power but
as a bone of contention. Not that the Chinese fall short in any of the
qualities that conduce to efficiency and welfare in time of peace, but
they appear, in effect, to lack that certain "solidarity of prowess" by
virtue of which they should choose to be (collectively) formidable
rather than (individually) fortunate and upright; and the modern
civilised nations are not in a position, nor in a frame of mind, to
tolerate a neighbor whose only claim on their consideration falls under
the category of peace on earth and good-will among men. China appears
hitherto not to have been a serviceable people for warlike ends, except
in so far as the resources of that country have been taken over and
converted to warlike uses by some alien power working to its own ends.
Such have been the several alien dynasties that have seized upon that
country from time to time and have achieved dominion by usufruct of its
unwarlike forces. Such has been the nature of the Manchu empire of the
recent past, and such is the evident purpose of the prospective Japanese
usufruct of the same country and its populace. Meantime the Chinese
people appear to be incorrigibly peaceable, being scarcely willing to
fight in any concerted fashion even when driven into a corner by
unprovoked aggression, as in the present juncture. Such a people is very
exceptional. Among civilised nations there are, broadly speaking, none
of that temper, with the sole exception of the Chinese,--if the Chinese
are properly to be spoken of as a nation.
Modern warfare makes such large and direct use of the industrial arts,
and depends for its successful prosecution so largely on a voluminous
and unremitting supply of civilian services and wrought goods, that any
inoffensive and industrious people, such as the Chinese, could doubtless
now be turned to good account by any warlike power that might have the
disposal of their working forces. To make their industrial efficiency
count in this way toward warlike enterprise and imperial dominion, the
usufruct of any such inoffensive and unpatriotic populace would have to
fall into the hands of an alien governmental establishment. And no alien
government resting on the support of a home population trained in the
habits of democracy or given over to ideals of common honesty in
national concerns could hopefully undertake the enterprise. This work of
empire-building out of unwarlike materials could apparently be carried
out only by some alien power hampered by no reserve of scruple, and
backed by a servile populace of its own, imbued with an impeccable
loyalty to its masters and with a suitably bellicose temper, as, e.g.,
Imperial Japan or Imperial Germany.
However, for the commonplace national enterprise the common run will do
very well. Any populace imbued with a reasonable measure of patriotism
will serve as ways and means to warlike enterprise under competent
management, even if it is not habitually prone to a bellicose temper.
Rightly managed, ordinary patriotic sentiment may readily be mobilised
for warlike adventure by any reasonably adroit and single-minded body of
statesmen,--of which there is abundant illustration. All the peoples of
Christendom are possessed of a sufficiently alert sense of nationality,
and by tradition and current usage all the national governments of
Christendom are warlike establishments, at least in the defensive sense;
and the distinction between the defensive and the offensive in
international intrigue is a technical matter that offers no great
difficulty. None of these nations is of such an incorrigibly peaceable
temper that they can be counted on to keep the peace consistently in the
ordinary course of events.
Peace established by the State, or resting in the discretion of the
State, is necessarily of the nature of an armistice, in effect
terminable at will and on short notice. It is maintained only on
conditions, stipulated by express convention or established by custom,
and there is always the reservation, tacit or explicit, that recourse
will be had to arms in case the "national interests" or the punctilios
of international etiquette are traversed by the act or defection of any
rival government or its subjects. The more nationally-minded the
government or its subject populace, the readier the response to the call
of any such opportunity for an unfolding of prowess. The most peaceable
governmental policy of which Christendom has experience is a policy of
"watchful waiting," with a jealous eye to the emergence of any occasion
for national resentment; and the most irretrievably shameful dereliction
of duty on the part of any civilised government would be its eventual
insensibility to the appeal of a "just war." Under any governmental
auspices, as the modern world knows governments, the keeping of the
peace comes at its best under the precept, "Speak softly and carry a big
stick." But the case for peace is more precarious than the wording of
the aphorism would indicate, in as much as in practical fact the "big
stick" is an obstacle to soft speech. Evidently, in the light of recent
history, if the peace is to be kept it will have to come about
irrespective of governmental management,--in spite of the State rather
than by its good offices. At the best, the State, or the government, is
an instrumentality for making peace, not for perpetuating it.
* * * * *
Anyone who is interested in the nature and derivation of governmental
institutions and establishments in Europe, in any but the formal
respect, should be able to satisfy his curiosity by looking over the
shoulders of the professed students of Political Science. Quite properly
and profitably that branch of scholarship is occupied with the authentic
pedigree of these institutions, and with the documentary instruments in
the case; since Political Science is, after all, a branch of theoretical
jurisprudence and is concerned about a formally competent analysis of
the recorded legal powers. The material circumstances from which these
institutions once took their beginning, and the exigencies which have
governed the rate and direction of their later growth and mutation, as
well as the _de facto_ bearing of the institutional scheme on the
material welfare or the cultural fortunes of the given community,--while
all these matters of fact may be germane to the speculations of
Political Theory, they are not intrinsic to its premises, to the logical
sequence of its inquiry, or to its theoretical findings. The like is
also true, of course, as regards that system of habits of thought, that
current frame of mind, in which any given institutional scheme
necessarily is grounded, and without the continued support of which any
given scheme of governmental institutions or policy would become
nugatory and so would pass into the province of legal fiction. All these
are not idle matters in the purview of the student of Political Science,
but they remain after all substantially extraneous to the structure of
political theory; and in so far as matters of this class are to be
brought into the case at all, the specialists in the field can not
fairly be expected to contribute anything beyond an occasional _obiter
dictum_. There can be no discourteous presumption, therefore, in
accepting the general theorems of current political theory without
prejudice, and looking past the received theoretical formulations for a
view of the substantial grounds on which the governmental establishments
have grown into shape, and the circumstances, material and spiritual,
that surround their continued working and effect.
By lineal descent the governmental establishments and the powers with
which they are vested, in all the Christian nations, are derived from
the feudal establishments of the Middle Ages; which, in turn, are of a
predatory origin and of an irresponsible character.[2] In nearly all
instances, but more particularly among the nations that are accounted
characteristically modern, the existing establishments have been greatly
altered from the mediaeval pattern, by concessive adaptation to later
exigencies or by a more or less revolutionary innovation. The degree of
their modernity is (conventionally) measured, roughly, by the degree in
which they have departed from the mediaeval pattern. Wherever the
unavoidable concessions have been shrewdly made with a view to
conserving the autonomy and irresponsibility of the governmental
establishment, or the "State," and where the state of national sentiment
has been led to favor this work of conservation, as, e.g., in the case
of Austria, Spain or Prussia, there the modern outcome has been what may
be called a Dynastic State. Where, on the other hand, the run of
national sentiment has departed notably from the ancient holding ground
of loyal abnegation, and has enforced a measure of revolutionary
innovation, as in the case of France or of the English-speaking peoples,
there the modern outcome has been an (ostensibly) democratic
commonwealth of ungraded citizens. But the contrast so indicated is a
contrast of divergent variants rather than of opposites. These two
type-forms may be taken as the extreme and inclusive limits of variation
among the governmental establishments with which the modern world is
furnished.[3]
[Footnote 2: The partial and dubious exception of the Scandinavian
countries or of Switzerland need raise no question on this head.]
[Footnote 3: Cf., e.g., Eduard Meyer, _England: its political
organisation and development_. ch. ii.]
The effectual difference between these two theoretically contrasted
types of governmental establishments is doubtless grave enough, and for
many purposes it is consequential, but it is after all not of such a
nature as need greatly detain the argument at this point. The two differ
less, in effect, in that range of their functioning which comes in
question here than in their bearing on the community's fortunes apart
from questions of war and peace. In all cases there stand over in this
bearing certain primary characteristics of the ancient régime, which all
these modern establishments have in common, though not all in an equal
degree of preservation and effectiveness. They are, e.g., all vested
with certain attributes of "sovereignty." In all cases the citizen still
proves on closer attention to be in some measure a "subject" of the
State, in that he is invariably conceived to owe a "duty" to the
constituted authorities in one respect and another. All civilised
governments take cognizance of Treason, Sedition, and the like; and all
good citizens are not only content but profoundly insistent on the clear
duty of the citizen on this head. The bias of loyalty is not a matter on
which argument is tolerated. By virtue of this bias of loyalty, or
"civic duty"--which still has much of the color of feudal
allegiance--the governmental establishment is within its rights in
coercively controlling and directing the actions of the citizen, or
subject, in those respects that so lie within his duty; as also in
authoritatively turning his abilities to account for the purposes that
so lie within the governmental discretion, as, e.g., the Common Defense.
These rights and powers still remain to the governmental establishment
even at the widest democratic departure from that ancient pattern of
masterful tutelage and usufruct that marked the old-fashioned
patrimonial State,--and that still marks the better preserved ones among
its modern derivatives. And so intrinsic to these governmental
establishments are these discretionary powers, and by so unfailing a
popular bias are they still accounted a matter of course and of
axiomatic necessity, that they have invariably been retained also among
the attributes of those democratic governments that trace their origin
to a revolutionary break with the old order.
To many, all this will seem a pedantic taking note of commonplaces,--as
if it were worth while remarking that the existing governments are
vested with the indispensable attributes of government. Yet history
records an instance at variance with this axiomatic rule, a rule which
is held to be an unavoidable deliverance of common sense. And it is by
no means an altogether unique instance. It may serve to show that these
characteristic and unimpeachable powers that invest all current
governmental establishments are, after all, to be rated as the marks of
a particular species of governments, and not characteristics of the
genus of governmental establishments at large. These powers answer to an
acquired bias, not to an underlying trait of human nature; a matter of
habit, not of heredity.
Such an historical instance is the so-called Republic, or Commonwealth,
of Iceland--tenth to thirteenth centuries. Its case is looked on by
students of history as a spectacular anomaly, because it admitted none
of these primary powers of government in its constituted authorities.
And yet, for contrast with these matter-of-course preconceptions of
these students of history, it is well to note that in the deliberations
of those ancients who installed the Republic for the management of their
joint concerns, any inclusion of such powers in its competency appears
never to have been contemplated, not even to the extent of its being
rejected. This singularity--as it would be rated by modern statesmen and
students--was in no degree a new departure in state-making on the part
of the founders of the Republic. They had no knowledge of such powers,
duties and accountabilities, except as unwholesome features of a novel
and alien scheme of irresponsible oppression that was sought to be
imposed on them by Harald Fairhair, and which they incontinently made it
their chief and immediate business to evade. They also set up no joint
or collective establishment with powers for the Common Defense, nor does
it appear that such a notion had occurred to them.
In the history of its installation there is no hint that the men who set
up this Icelandic Commonwealth had any sense of the need, or even of the
feasibility, of such a coercive government as would be involved in
concerted preparation for the common defense. Subjection to personal
rule, or to official rule in any degree of attenuation, was not
comprised in their traditional experience of citizenship; and it was
necessarily out of the elements comprised in this traditional experience
that the new structure would have to be built up. The new commonwealth
was necessarily erected on the premises afforded by the received scheme
of use and wont; and this received scheme had come down out of
pre-feudal conditions, without having passed under the discipline of
that régime of coercion which the feudal system had imposed on the rest
of Europe, and so had established as an "immemorial usage" and a "second
nature" among the populations of Christendom. The resulting character of
the Icelandic Commonwealth is sufficiently striking when contrasted with
the case of the English commonwealth of the seventeenth century, or the
later French and American republics. These, all and several, came out of
a protracted experience in feudalistic state-making and State policy;
and the common defense--frequently on the offensive--with its necessary
coercive machinery and its submissive loyalty, consequently would take
the central place in the resulting civic structure.
To close the tale of the Icelandic commonwealth it may be added that
their republic of insubordinate citizens presently fell into default,
systematic misuse, under the disorders brought on by an accumulation of
wealth, and that it died of legal fiction and constitutional formalities
after some experience at the hands of able and ambitious statesmen in
contact with an alien government drawn on the coercive plan. The clay
vessel failed to make good among the iron pots, and so proved its
unfitness to survive in the world of Christian nations,--very much as
the Chinese are today at the mercy of the defensive rapacity of the
Powers.
And the mercy that we gave them
Was to sink them in the sea,
Down on the coast of High Barbarie.
No doubt, it will be accepted as an axiomatic certainty that the
establishment of a commonwealth after the fashion of the Icelandic
Republic, without coercive authority or provision for the common
defense, and without a sense of subordination or collective
responsibility among its citizens, would be out of all question under
existing circumstances of politics and international trade. Nor would
such a commonwealth be workable on the scale and at the pace imposed by
modern industrial and commercial conditions, even apart from
international jealousy and ambitions, provided the sacred rights of
ownership were to be maintained in something like their current shape.
And yet something of a drift of popular sentiment, and indeed something
of deliberate endeavour, setting in the direction of such a harmless and
helpless national organisation is always visible in Western Europe,
throughout modern times; particularly through the eighteenth and the
early half of the nineteenth centuries; and more particularly among the
English-speaking peoples and, with a difference, among the French. The
Dutch and the Scandinavian countries answer more doubtfully to the same
characterisation.
The movement in question is known to history as the Liberal,
Rationalistic, Humanitarian, or Individualistic departure. Its ideal,
when formulated, is spoken of as the System of Natural Rights; and its
goal in the way of a national establishment has been well characterised
by its critics as the Police State, or the Night-Watchman State. The
gains made in this direction, or perhaps better the inroads of this
animus in national ideals, are plainly to be set down as a shift in the
direction of peace and amity; but it is also plain that the shift of
ground so initiated by this strain of sentiment has never reached a
conclusion and never has taken effect in anything like an effectual
working arrangement. Its practical consequences have been of the nature
of abatement and defection in the pursuit of national ambitions and
dynastic enterprise, rather than a creative work of installing any
institutional furniture suitable to its own ends. It has in effect gone
no farther than what would be called an incipient correction of abuses.
The highest rise, as well as the decline, of this movement lie within
the nineteenth century.
In point of time, the decay of this amiable conceit of _laissez-faire_
in national policy coincides with the period of great advance in the
technology of transport and communication in the nineteenth century.
Perhaps, on a larger outlook, it should rather be said that the run of
national ambitions and animosities had, in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, suffered a degree of decay through the diffusion of this
sentimental predilection for Natural Liberty, and that this decline of
the manlier aspirations was then arrested and corrected by help of these
improvements in the technological situation; which enabled a closer and
more coercive control to be exercised over larger areas, and at the same
time enabled a more massive aggregate of warlike force to strike more
effectively at a greater distance. This whole episode of the rise and
decline of _laissez-faire_ in modern history is perhaps best to be
conceived as a transient weakening of nationalism, by neglect; rather
than anything like the growth of a new and more humane ideal of national
intercourse. Such would be the appraisal to be had at the hands of those
who speak for a strenuous national life and for the arbitrament of
sportsmanlike contention in human affairs. And the latterday growth of
more militant aspirations, together with the more settled and sedulous
attention to a development of control and of formidable armaments, such
as followed on through the latter half of the nineteenth century, would
then be rated as a resumption of those older aims and ideals that had
been falling somewhat into abeyance in the slack-water days of
Liberalism.
There is much to be said for this latter view; and, indeed, much has
been said for it, particularly by the spokesmen of imperialist politics.
This bias of Natural Liberty has been associated in history with the
English-speaking peoples, more intimately and more extensively than with
any other. Not that this amiable conceit is in any peculiar degree a
race characteristic of this group of peoples; nor even that the history
of its rise and decline runs wholly within the linguistic frontiers
indicated by this characterisation. The French and the Dutch have borne
their share, and at an earlier day Italian sentiment and speculation
lent its impulsion to the same genial drift of faith and aspiration.
But, by historical accident, its center of gravity and of diffusion has
lain with the English-speaking communities during the period when this
bias made history and left its impress on the institutional scheme of
the Western civilisation. By grace of what may, for the present purpose,
be called historical accident, it happens that the interval of history
during which the bias of Natural Liberty made visible headway was also a
period during which these English-speaking peoples, among whom its
effects are chiefly visible, were relatively secure from international
disturbance, by force of inaccessibility. Little strain was put upon
their sense of national solidarity or national prowess; so little,
indeed, that there was some danger of their patriotic animosity falling
into decay by disuse; and then they were also busy with other things.
Peaceable intercourse, it is true, was relatively easy, active and
far-reaching--eighteenth and nineteenth centuries--as compared with what
had been the case before that time; but warlike intercourse on such a
scale as would constitute a substantial menace to any large nation was
nearly out of the question, so far as regards the English-speaking
peoples. The available means of aggression, as touches the case of these
particular communities, were visibly and consciously inadequate as
compared with the means of defense. The means of internal or
intra-national control or coercion were also less well provided by the
state of the arts current at that time than the means of peaceable
intercourse. These means of transport and communication were, at that
stage of their development, less well suited for the purposes of
far-reaching warlike strategy and the exercise of surveillance and
coercion over large spaces than for the purposes of peaceable traffic.
But the continued improvement in the means of communication during the
nineteenth century presently upset that situation, and so presently
began to neutralise the geographical quarantine which had hedged about
these communities that were inclined to let well enough alone. The
increasing speed and accuracy of movement in shipping, due to the
successful introduction of steam, as well as the concomitant increasing
size of the units of equipment, all runs to this effect and presently
sets at naught the peace barriers of sea and weather. So also the
development of railways and their increasing availability for strategic
uses, together with the far-reaching coordination of movement made
possible by their means and by the telegraph; all of which is further
facilitated by the increasing mass and density of population.
Improvements in the technology of arms and armament worked to the like
effect, of setting the peace of any community on an increasingly
precarious footing, through the advantage which this new technology gave
to a ready equipment and a rapid mobilisation. The new state of the
industrial arts serviceable for warlike enterprise put an increasingly
heavy premium on readiness for offense or defense, but more particularly
it all worked increasingly to the advantage of the offensive. It put the
Fabian strategy out of date, and led to the doctrine of a defensive
offense.
Gradually it came true, with the continued advance in those industrial
arts that lend themselves to strategic uses, and it came also to be
realised, that no corner of the earth was any longer secure by mere
favor of distance and natural difficulty, from eventual aggression at
the hands of any provident and adventurous assailant,--even by help of a
modicum of defensive precaution. The fear of aggression then came
definitively to take the place of international good-will and became the
chief motive in public policy, so fast and so far as the state of the
industrial arts continued to incline the balance of advantage to the
side of the aggressor. All of which served greatly to strengthen the
hands of those statesmen who, by interest or temperament, were inclined
to imperialistic enterprise. Since that period all armament has
conventionally been accounted defensive, and all statesmen have
professed that the common defense is their chief concern. Professedly
all armament has been designed to keep the peace; so much of a shadow of
the peaceable bias there still stands over.
Throughout this latest phase of modern civilisation the avowed fear of
aggression has served as apology, possibly as provocation in fact, to
national armaments; and throughout the same period any analysis of the
situation will finally run the chain of fear back to Prussia as the
putative or actual, center of disturbance and apprehension. No doubt,
Prussian armament has taken the lead and forced the pace among the
nations of Christendom; but the Prussian policy, too, has been
diligently covered with the same decorous plea of needful provision for
the common defense and an unremitting solicitude for international
peace,--to which has been added the canny afterthought of the "defensive
offense."
It is characteristic of this era of armed peace that in all these
extensive preparations for breaking the peace any formal avowal of other
than a defensive purpose has at all times been avoided as an
insufferable breach of diplomatic decorum. It is likewise characteristic
of the same era that armaments have unremittingly been increased, beyond
anything previously known; and that all men have known all the while
that the inevitable outcome of this avowedly defensive armament must
eventually be war on an unprecedented scale and of unexampled ferocity.
It would be neither charitable nor otherwise to the point to call
attention to the reflection which this state of the case throws on the
collective sagacity or the good faith of the statesmen who have had the
management of affairs. It is not practicable to imagine how such an
outcome as the present could have been brought about by any degree of
stupidity or incapacity alone, nor is it easier to find evidence that
the utmost sagacity of the statecraft engaged has had the slightest
mitigating effect on the evil consummation to which the whole case has
been brought. It has long been a commonplace among observers of public
events that these professedly defensive warlike preparations have in
effect been preparations for breaking the peace; against which, at
least ostensibly, a remedy had been sought in the preparation of still
heavier armaments, with full realisation that more armament would
unfailingly entail a more unsparing and more disastrous war,--which sums
up the statecraft of the past half century.
Prussia, and afterwards Prussianised Germany, has come in for the
distinction of taking the lead and forcing the pace in this competitive
preparation--or "preparedness"--for war in time of peace. That such has
been the case appears in good part to be something of a fortuitous
circumstance. The season of enterprising force and fraud to which that
country owes its induction into the concert of nations is an episode of
recent history; so recent, indeed, that the German nation has not yet
had time to live it down and let it be forgotten; and the Imperial State
is consequently burdened with an irritably uneasy sense of odium and an
established reputation for unduly bad faith. From which it has followed,
among other things, that the statesmen of the Empire have lived in the
expectation of having their unforgotten derelictions brought home, and
so have, on the one hand, found themselves unable to credit any pacific
intentions professed by the neighboring Powers, while on the other hand
they have been unable to gain credence for their own voluble professions
of peace and amity. So it has come about that, by a fortuitous
conjuncture of scarcely relevant circumstances, Prussia and the Empire
have been thrown into the lead in the race of "preparedness" and have
been led assiduously to hasten a breach which they could ill afford. It
is, to say the least, extremely doubtful if the event would have been
substantially different in the absence of that special provocation to
competitive preparedness that has been injected into the situation by
this German attitude; but the rate of approach to a warlike climax has
doubtless been hastened by the anticipatory policy of preparedness which
the Prussian dynasty has seen itself constrained to pursue. Eventually,
the peculiar circumstances of its case--embarrassment at home and
distaste and discredit abroad--have induced the Imperial State to take
the line of a defensive offense, to take war by the forelock and
retaliate on presumptive enemies for prospective grievances. But in any
case, the progressive improvement in transport and communication, as
well as in the special technology of warfare, backed by greatly enhanced
facilities for indoctrinating the populace with militant
nationalism,--these ways and means, working under the hand of patriotic
statesmen must in course of the past century have brought the peace of
Europe to so precarious a footing as would have provoked a material
increase in the equipment for national defense; which would unavoidably
have led to competitive armament and an enhanced international distrust
and animosity, eventually culminating in hostilities.
* * * * *
It may well be that the plea of defensive preparation advanced by the
statesmen, Prussian and others, in apology for competitive armaments is
a diplomatic subterfuge,--there are indications that such has commonly
been the case; but even if it commonly is visibly disingenuous, the need
of making such a plea to cover more sinister designs is itself an
evidence that an avowedly predatory enterprise no longer meets with the
requisite popular approval. Even if an exception to this rule be
admitted in the recent attitude of the German people, it is to be
recalled that the exception was allowed to stand only transiently, and
that presently the avowal of a predatory design in this case was
urgently disclaimed in the face of adversity. Even those who speak most
fluently for the necessity of war, and for its merits as a needed
discipline in the manly virtues, are constrained by the prevailing
sentiment to deprecate its necessity.
Yet it is equally evident that when once a warlike enterprise has been
entered upon so far as to commit the nation to hostilities, it will have
the cordial support of popular sentiment even if it is patently an
aggressive war. Indeed, it is quite a safe generalisation that when
hostilities have once been got fairly under way by the interested
statesmen, the patriotic sentiment of the nation may confidently be
counted on to back the enterprise irrespective of the merits of the
quarrel. But even if the national sentiment is in this way to be counted
in as an incidental matter of course, it is also to be kept in mind in
this connection that any quarrel so entered upon by any nation will
forthwith come to have the moral approval of the community. Dissenters
will of course be found, sporadically, who do not readily fall in with
the prevailing animus; but as a general proposition it will still hold
true that any such quarrel forthwith becomes a just quarrel in the eyes
of those who have so been committed to it.
A corollary following from this general theorem may be worth noting in
the same connection. Any politician who succeeds in embroiling his
country in a war, however nefarious, becomes a popular hero and is
reputed a wise and righteous statesman, at least for the time being.
Illustrative instances need perhaps not, and indeed can not gracefully,
be named; most popular heroes and reputed statesmen belong in this
class.
Another corollary, which bears more immediately on the question in hand,
follows also from the same general proposition: Since the ethical values
involved in any given international contest are substantially of the
nature of afterthought or accessory, they may safely be left on one side
in any endeavour to understand or account for any given outbreak of
hostilities. The moral indignation of both parties to the quarrel is to
be taken for granted, as being the statesman's chief and necessary ways
and means of bringing any warlike enterprise to a head and floating it
to a creditable finish. It is a precipitate of the partisan animosity
that inspires both parties and holds them to their duty of
self-sacrifice and devastation, and at its best it will chiefly serve as
a cloak of self-righteousness to extenuate any exceptionally profligate
excursions in the conduct of hostilities.
Any warlike enterprise that is hopefully to be entered on must have the
moral sanction of the community, or of an effective majority in the
community. It consequently becomes the first concern of the warlike
statesman to put this moral force in train for the adventure on which he
is bent. And there are two main lines of motivation by which the
spiritual forces of any Christian nation may so be mobilised for warlike
adventure: (1) The preservation or furtherance of the community's
material interests, real or fancied, and (2) vindication of the national
honour. To these should perhaps be added as a third, the advancement and
perpetuation of the nation's "Culture;" that is to say, of its habitual
scheme of use and wont. It is a nice question whether, in practical
effect, the aspiration to perpetuate the national Culture is
consistently to be distinguished from the vindication of the national
honour. There is perhaps the distinction to be made that "the
perpetuation of the national Culture" lends a readier countenance to
gratuitous aggression and affords a broader cover for incidental
atrocities, since the enemies of the national Culture will necessarily
be conceived as an inferior and obstructive people, falling beneath the
rules of commonplace decorum.
Those material interests for which modern nations are in the habit of
taking to arms are commonly of a fanciful character, in that they
commonly have none but an imaginary net value to the community at large.
Such are, e.g., the national trade or the increase of the national
territory. These and the like may serve the warlike or dynastic
ambitions of the nation's masters; they may also further the interests
of office-holders, and more particularly of certain business houses or
businessmen who stand to gain some small advantage by help of the powers
in control; but it all signifies nothing more to the common man than an
increased bill of governmental expense and a probable increase in the
cost of living.
That a nation's trade should be carried in vessels owned by its citizens
or registered in its ports will doubtless have some sentimental value to
the common run of its citizens, as is shown by the fact that
disingenuous politicians always find it worth their while to appeal to
this chauvinistic predilection. But it patently is all a completely idle
question, in point of material advantage, to anyone but the owners of
the vessels; and to these owners it is also of no material consequence
under what flag their investments sail, except so far as the government
in question may afford them some preferential opportunity for
gain,--always at the cost of their fellow citizens. The like is equally
true as regards the domicile and the national allegiance of the
businessmen who buy and sell the country's imports and exports. The
common man plainly has no slightest material interest in the nationality
or the place of residence of those who conduct this traffic; though all
the facts go to say that in some puzzle-headed way the common man
commonly persuades himself that it does make some occult sort of
difference to him; so that he is commonly willing to pay something
substantial toward subsidising businessmen of his own nationality, in
the way of a protective tariff and the like.
The only material advantage to be derived from such a preferential trade
policy arises in the case of international hostilities, in which case
the home-owned vessels and merchants may on occasion count toward
military readiness; although even in that connection their value is
contingent and doubtful. But in this way they may contribute in their
degree to a readiness to break off peaceable relations with other
countries. It is only for warlike purposes, that is to say for the
dynastic ambitions of warlike statesmen, that these preferential
contrivances in economic policy have any substantial value; and even in
that connection their expediency is always doubtful. They are a source
of national jealousy, and they may on occasion become a help to military
strategy when this national jealousy eventuates in hostilities.
The run of the facts touching this matter of national trade policy is
something as follows: At the instance of businessmen who stand to gain
by it, and with the cordial support of popular sentiment, the
constituted authorities sedulously further the increase of shipping and
commerce under protection of the national power. At the same time they
spend substance and diplomatic energy in an endeavor to extend the
international market facilities open to the country's businessmen, with
a view always to a preferential advantage in favor of these
businessmen, also with the sentimental support of the common man and at
his cost. To safeguard these commercial interests, as well as
property-holdings of the nation's citizens in foreign parts, the nation
maintains naval, military, consular and diplomatic establishments, at
the common expense. The total gains derivable from these commercial and
investment interests abroad, under favorable circumstances, will never
by any chance equal the cost of the governmental apparatus installed to
further and safeguard them. These gains, such as they are, go to the
investors and businessmen engaged in these enterprises; while the costs
incident to the adventure are borne almost wholly by the common man, who
gets no gain from it all. Commonly, as in the case of a protective
tariff or a preferential navigation law, the cost to the common man is
altogether out of proportion to the gain which accrues to the
businessmen for whose benefit he carries the burden. The only other
class, besides the preferentially favored businessmen, who derive any
material benefit from this arrangement is that of the office-holders who
take care of this governmental traffic and draw something in the way of
salaries and perquisites; and whose cost is defrayed by the common man,
who remains an outsider in all but the payment of the bills. The common
man is proud and glad to bear this burden for the benefit of his
wealthier neighbors, and he does so with the singular conviction that in
some occult manner he profits by it. All this is incredible, but it is
everyday fact.
In case it should happen that these business interests of the nation's
businessmen interested in trade or investments abroad are jeopardised by
a disturbance of any kind in these foreign parts in which these
business interests lie, then it immediately becomes the urgent concern
of the national authorities to use all means at hand for maintaining the
gainful traffic of these businessmen undiminished, and the common man
pays the cost. Should such an untoward situation go to such sinister
lengths as to involve actual loss to these business interests or
otherwise give rise to a tangible grievance, it becomes an affair of the
national honour; whereupon no sense of proportion as between the
material gains at stake and the cost of remedy or retaliation need
longer be observed, since the national honour is beyond price. The
motivation in the case shifts from the ground of material interest to
the spiritual ground of the moral sentiments.
In this connection "honour" is of course to be taken in the euphemistic
sense which the term has under the _code duello_ governing "affairs of
honour." It carries no connotation of honesty, veracity, equity,
liberality, or unselfishness. This national honour is of the nature of
an intangible or immaterial asset, of course; it is a matter of
prestige, a sportsmanlike conception; but that fact must not be taken to
mean that it is of any the less substantial effect for purposes of a
_casus belli_ than the material assets of the community. Quite the
contrary: "Who steals my purse, steals trash," etc. In point of fact, it
will commonly happen that any material grievance must first be converted
into terms of this spiritual capital, before it is effectually turned to
account as a stimulus to warlike enterprise.
Even among a people with so single an eye to the main chance as the
American community it will be found true, on experiment or on review of
the historical evidence, that an offense against the national honour
commands a profounder and more unreserved resentment than any
infraction of the rights of person or property simply. This has latterly
been well shown in connection with the manoeuvres of the several
European belligerents, designed to bend American neutrality to the
service of one side or the other. Both parties have aimed to intimidate
and cajole; but while the one party has taken recourse to effrontery and
has made much and ostentatious use of threats and acts of violence
against person and property, the other has constantly observed a
deferential attitude toward American national self-esteem, even while
engaged on a persistent infraction of American commercial rights. The
first named line of diplomacy has convicted itself of miscarriage and
has lost the strategic advantage, as against the none too adroit finesse
of the other side. The statesmen of this European war power were so ill
advised as to enter on a course of tentatively cumulative intimidation,
by threats and experimentally graduated crimes against the property and
persons of American citizens, with a view to coerce American cupidity
and yet to avoid carrying these manoeuvres of terrorism far enough to
arouse an unmanageable sense of outrage. The experiment has served to
show that the breaking point in popular indignation will be reached
before the terrorism has gone far enough to raise a serious question of
pecuniary caution.
This national honour, which so is rated a necessary of life, is an
immaterial substance in a peculiarly high-wrought degree, being not only
not physically tangible but also not even capable of adequate statement
in pecuniary terms,--as would be the case with ordinary immaterial
assets. It is true, where the point of grievance out of which a question
of the national honour arises is a pecuniary discrepancy, the national
honour can not be satisfied without a pecuniary accounting; but it needs
no argument to convince all right-minded persons that even at such a
juncture the national honour that has been compromised is indefinitely
and indefinably more than what can be made to appear on an accountant's
page. It is a highly valued asset, or at least a valued possession, but
it is of a metaphysical, not of a physical nature, and it is not known
to serve any material or otherwise useful end apart from affording a
practicable grievance consequent upon its infraction.
This national honour is subject to injury in divers ways, and so may
yield a fruitful grievance even apart from offences against the person
or property of the nation's businessmen; as, e.g., through neglect or
disregard of the conventional punctilios governing diplomatic
intercourse, or by disrespect or contumelious speech touching the Flag,
or the persons of national officials, particularly of such officials as
have only a decorative use, or the costumes worn by such officials, or,
again, by failure to observe the ritual prescribed for parading the
national honour on stated occasions. When duly violated the national
honour may duly be made whole again by similarly immaterial
instrumentalities; as, e.g., by recital of an appropriate formula of
words, by formal consumption of a stated quantity of ammunition in the
way of a salute, by "dipping" an ensign, and the like,--procedure which
can, of course, have none but a magical efficacy. The national honour,
in short, moves in the realm of magic, and touches the frontiers of
religion.
Throughout this range of duties incumbent on the national defense, it
will be noted, the offenses or discrepancies to be guarded against or
corrected by recourse to arms have much of a ceremonial character.
Whatever may be the material accidents that surround any given concrete
grievance that comes up for appraisal and redress, in bringing the case
into the arena for trial by combat it is the spiritual value of the
offense that is played up and made the decisive ground of action,
particularly in so far as appeal is made to the sensibilities of the
common man, who will have to bear the cost of the adventure. And in such
a case it will commonly happen that the common man is unable, without
advice, to see that any given hostile act embodies a sacrilegious
infraction of the national honour. He will at any such conjuncture
scarcely rise to the pitch of moral indignation necessary to float a
warlike reprisal, until the expert keepers of the Code come in to
expound and certify the nature of the transgression. But when once the
lesion to the national honour has been ascertained, appraised and duly
exhibited by those persons whose place in the national economy it is to
look after all that sort of thing, the common man will be found nowise
behindhand about resenting the evil usage of which he so, by force of
interpretation, has been a victim.