Britain--which has a large part of the responsibility for this failure
of European civilisation. It has caused us to sustain the Turk in
Europe, to fight a great and popular war with that aim, and led us into
treaties which had they been kept, would have obliged us to fight to-day
on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States.

(9) If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and interest
in principles, the ideas that govern human relationship, they are the
only things that can prevent future wars, just as they were the only
things that brought religious wars to an end--a preponderant power
"imposing" peace playing no role therein. Just as it was false religious
theories which made the religious wars, so it is false political
theories which make the political wars.

(10) War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of error and
passion--religious persecution for instance--are inevitable; they cease
with better understanding, as the attempt to impose religious belief by
force has ceased in Europe.

(11) We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to prevent war;
and though that preparation may include battleships and conscription,
those elements will quite obviously make the tension and danger greater
unless there is also a better European opinion.

These summarised replies need a little expansion.



CHAPTER II.