protection of their own Governments; they favour the development of a
national _carrying_ trade; and, above all, they supply plentiful
official and other posts and situations for the young men of the middle
and commercial classes; but for the mere extension and development of
the nation's general trade and commerce it is doubtful whether they have
anything like the importance commonly credited to them.




XIII


WAR AND THE SEX IMPULSE

_January_, 1915.

It seems that War, like all greatest things--like Passion, Politics,
Religion, and so forth--is impossible to reckon up. It belongs to
another plane of existence than our ordinary workaday life, and breaks
into the latter as violently and unreasonably, as a volcano into the
cool pastures where cows and sheep are grazing. No arguments, protests,
proofs, or explanations are of any avail; and those that are advanced
are confused, contradictory, and unconvincing. Just as people quarrel
most violently over Politics and Religion, because, in fact, those are
the two subjects which no one really understands, so they quarrel in
Warfare, not really knowing _why_, but impelled by deep, inscrutable
forces. Spectators even and neutrals, for the same reason, take sides
and range themselves bitterly, if only in argument, against each other.