a war of which the end is not demonstrably certain. If the issues of
wars were known beforehand, and could be discounted, there would be no
wars. Good wars are fought by nations who make their choice, and would
rather die than lose what they are fighting for. Military fortunes are
notoriously variable, and depend on a hundred accidents. Moral causes
are constant, and operate all the time. The chief of these moral causes
is the character of a people. Germany, by her vaunted study of the art
and science of war, has got herself into a position where no success can
come to her except by way of the collapse or failure of the
English-speaking peoples. A study of the moral causes, if she were
capable of making it, would not encourage her in her old impious belief
that God will destroy these peoples in order to clear the way for the
dominion of the Hohenzollerns.




MIGHT IS RIGHT

_First published as one of the Oxford Pamphlets, October 1914_


It is now recognized in England that our enemy in this war is not a
tyrant military caste, but the united people of modern Germany. We have
to combat an armed doctrine which is virtually the creed of all Germany.
Saxony and Bavaria, it is true, would never have invented the doctrine;
but they have accepted it from Prussia, and they believe it. The
Prussian doctrine has paid the German people handsomely; it has given
them their place in the world. When it ceases to pay them, and not till
then, they will reconsider it. They will not think, till they are