destroy itself, so that the best way to breed good fighters is not to
preach war, but to cultivate peace, which is what the Germans have, in
actual practice, done for over forty years past. France, the most
military, and the most gloriously military, nation of the Napoleonic
era, is now the leader in anti-militarism, altogether indifferent to the
lure of military glory, though behind no nation in courage or skill.
Belgium has not fought for generations, and had only just introduced
compulsory military service, yet the Belgians, from their King and their
Cardinal-Archbishop downwards, threw themselves into the war with a high
spirit scarcely paralleled in the world's history, and Belgian
commercial travellers developed a rare military skill and audacity. All
the world admires the bravery with which the Germans face death and the
elaborate detail with which they organise battle, yet for all their
perpetual glorification of war there is no sign that they fight with any
more spirit than their enemies. Even if we were to feel ourselves bound
to accept war as "an integral part of God's Universe," we need not
trouble ourselves to glorify war, for, when once war presents itself as
a terrible necessity, even the most peaceable of men are equal to the
task.

This consideration brings us to those "moral equivalents of war" which
William James was once concerned over, when he advocated, in place of
military conscription, "a conscription of the whole youthful population
to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted
against _Nature_."[8] Such a method of formally organising in the cause
of civilisation, instead of in the cause of savagery, the old military
traditions of hardihood and discipline may well have its value. But the
present war has shown us that in no case need we fear that these high
qualities will perish in any vitally progressive civilisation. For they
are qualities that lie in the heart of humanity itself. They are not