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.