We can die
if our liberties are threatened, for there are circumstances in which
it would be shameful to live, but we shall never do anything which may
bring about results such as those before us." That would be a fair and
temperate mode of talking--far different from the airy babble of the
warlike scribe.
An argumentative person may stop us here and ask, "Are you of opinion
that it is possible to abolish warfare?" Unfortunately, we can cherish
no such pleasing hope. I do emphatically believe that in time men will
come to see the wild folly of engaging in sanguinary struggles; but the
growth of their wisdom will be slow. Action and reaction are equal; the
fighting instinct has been impressed on our nature by hereditary
transmission for countless generations, and we cannot hope suddenly to
make man a peaceful animal any more than we can hope to breed setters
from South African wild dogs. But the conditions of life are gradually
changing, and the very madness which has made Europe into a huge barrack
may work its own cure. The burden will probably grow so intolerable that
the most embruted of citizens will ask themselves why they bear it, and
a rapid revolution may undo the growth of centuries.
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