The fact is--and it is one of the most suggestive facts we know
of--that the very growth of the public conscience has helped to
make peace somewhat more difficult, war vastly more terrible.
When war was the game of kings and soldiers, the nations went
into it in a half-hearted way, and sincerely loathed it; now that
war is literally an outburst of popular feeling, the friend of
peace finds most of his logic powerless. There is little use in
reasoning with a man who is ready to die on the folly or
wickedness of dying. When a nation has worked itself up to the
point of believing that there are objects within its reach for
which life were well surrendered, it has reached a region in
which the wise saws and modern instances of the philosopher or
lawyer cannot touch it, and in which pictures of the misery of
war only help to make the martyr's crown seem more glorious.
Therefore, we doubt whether the work of peace is well done by
those who, amidst the heat and fury of actual hostilities, dwell
upon the folly and cruelty of them, and appeal to the combatants
to stop fighting, on the ground that fighting involves suffering
and loss of life, and the destruction of property.
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