gone mad with patriotism and rage. They are, first of all,
the preaching in the press and elsewhere of the false and
pernicious doctrine that one nation gains by another's losses,
and can be made happy by its misery; that the United States, for
instance, profits in the long run by the prostration of French,
German, or English industry. One of the first duties of a peace
society is to watch this doctrine, and hunt it down wherever they
see it, as one of the great promoters of the pride and hardness
of heart which make war seem a trifling evil. America can no more
gain by French or German ruin than New York can gain by that of
Massachusetts. Secondly, there is the mediaeval doctrine that the
less commercial intercourse nations carry on with each other the
better for both, and that markets won or kept by force are means
of gain. There has probably been no more fruitful source of war
than this. It has for three centuries desolated the world, and
all peace associations should fix on it, wherever they encounter
it, the mark of the beast. Thirdly, there is the tendency of the
press, which is now the great moulder of public opinion, to take
what we may call the pugilist's view of international controversies.
The habit of taunting foreign disputants, sneering at the cowardice
or weakness of the one who shows any sign of reluctance in drawing
the sword, and counting up the possible profit to its own country
of one or other being well thrashed, in which it so frequently
indulges, has inevitably the effect not only of goading the
disputants into hostilities, but of connecting in the popular mind
at home the idea of unreadiness or unwillingness to fight with
baseness and meanness and material disadvantage. Fourthly, there
is the practice, to which the press, orators, and poets in every
civilized country steadily adhere, of maintaining, as far as their
influence goes, the same notions about national honor which once