shall set about the task of making an end to it under hopelessly
disabling misconceptions. We shall underrate and misunderstand
altogether the very powerful forces that are against pacifist effort.

Let us consider first, then, the forces that are directly opposed to the
pacification of the world, the forces that will work openly and
definitely for the preservation of war as a human condition. And it has
to be remembered that the forces that are for a thing are almost always
more unified, more concentrated and effective than the forces that are
against it. We who are against war and want to stop it are against it
for a great multitude of reasons. There are other things in life that
we prefer, and war stops these other things. Some of us want to pursue
art, some want to live industrious lives in town or country, some would
pursue scientific developments, some want pleasures of this sort or
that, some would live lives of religion and kindliness, or religion and
austerity.

But we all agree in fixing our minds upon something else than war. And
since we fix our minds on other things, war becomes possible and
probable through our general inattention. We do not observe it, and
meanwhile the people who really care for war and soldiering fix their
minds upon it. They scheme how it shall be done, they scheme to bring it
about. Then we discover suddenly--as the art and social development, the
industry and pleasant living, the cultivation of the civil enterprise of
England, France, Germany, and Russia have discovered--that everything
must be pushed aside when the war thinkers have decided upon their game.
And until we of the pacific majority contrive some satisfactory
organization to watch the war-makers we shall never end war, any more
than a country can end crime and robbery without a police. Specialist
must watch specialist in either case. Mere expressions of a virtuous