are incompatible. War is bestial, they hold, war is devilish; in its
presence it is absurd, almost farcical, to talk about morality. That
would be so if morality meant the code, for ever unattained, of the
Sermon on the Mount. But there is not only the morality of Jesus, there
is the morality of Mumbo Jumbo. In other words, and limiting ourselves
to the narrower range of the civilised world, there is the morality of
Machiavelli and Bismarck, and the morality of St. Francis and Tolstoy.

The fact is, as we so often forget, and sometimes do not even know,
morality is fundamentally custom, the _mores_, as it has been called,
of a people. It is a body of conduct which is in constant motion, with
an exalted advance-guard, which few can keep up with, and a debased
rearguard, once called the black-guard, a name that has since acquired
an appropriate significance. But in the substantial and central sense
morality means the conduct of the main body of the community. Thus
understood, it is clear that in our time war still comes into contact
with morality. The pioneers may be ahead; the main body is in the thick
of it.

That there really is a morality of war, and that the majority of
civilised people have more or less in common a certain conventional
code concerning the things which may or may not be done in war, has
been very clearly seen during the present conflict. This moral code is
often said to be based on international regulations and understandings.
It certainly on the whole coincides with them. But it is the popular
moral code which is fundamental, and international law is merely an
attempt to enforce that morality.

The use of expanding bullets and poison gases, the poisoning of wells,
the abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag, the destruction of