opinion, its leaders, and its Press can appropriate--some phrase which
it can inscribe on its shield: be it "Country" or "God" or "Freedom from
Tyranny," or "Culture _versus_ Barbarism." It must have some such cry,
else obviously it could not fight with any whole-heartedness or any
force.

The thing is a psychological necessity. Every one, when he gets into a
quarrel, justifies himself and accuses the other party. He puts his own
conduct in an ideal light, and the conduct of his opponent in the
reverse! Doubtless if we were all angels and could impartially enter
into all the origins of the quarrel, we should not fight, because to
"understand" would be to "forgive"; but as we have not reached that
stage, and as we cannot even explain why we are quarrelling--the matter
being so complex--we are fain to adopt a phrase and fight on the
strength of that. It is useless to call this hypocrisy. It is a
psychological necessity. It is the same necessity which makes a mistress
dismiss her maid on the score of a broken teapot, though really she has
no end of secret grievances against her; or which makes the man of
science condense the endless complexity of certain physical phenomena
into a neat but lying formula which he calls a _Law of Nature_. He could
not possibly give all the real facts, and so he uses a phrase.

In war, therefore, each nation adopts a motto as its reason for
fighting. Sometimes the two opposing nations both adopt the same motto I
England and Germany both inscribe on their banners: "Culture _versus_
Barbarism." Each believes in its own good faith, and each accuses the
other of hypocrisy.

In a sense this is all right, and could not be better. It does not so
much matter which is really the most cultured nation, England or