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BAERS Aes ae vid 44 € emotionist, _ who merely befog the real issue which is not the biological . Recessity of war, but the biolo ical character of war. The Springs of human conflict cannot be eradicated through institu- tions, but only through the reform of the individual human being, and that is a task which has baffled the highest theolo- gians for two thousand years and more. 4 | often wonder how the. future historian in’ the calmness of his study will analyze the civilization of the century recently . t was ushered in by the end of the Napoleonic ‘Wars which devastated half of of closed. : urope; then followed the Mexican ar, the American Civil War, the Crimean War, the Austro- Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, the “Opium wars of England and China; the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese Wer, and finally the World. War, _ which for ferocity ‘and magnitude of losses is unequaled in the history of humanity, If he compares this record of human ' Slaughter with, say, the Thirteenth Century, when civilization ; . was just emerging from the dark ages, when literature had its Dante, art its Michaelangelo and Gothic architecture, educa- tion the establishment of the famous colleges and technical schools of Europe, medicine the organization of hospital sys- on the wane. In the last 3400 years, only 268, less than one in — foundation o Anglo-Saxon liberty, the thirteen; have been free from war. No wonder that Plato, that wisest of all men, once exclaimed: ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ Every reasonable man knows that war is cruel and destructive. Yet our civilization is such that very little of the fever of. war is sufficient to melt ‘BUT AS YET IT IS ONLY A DREAM. ) No one desires Peace as much as the soldier, for he must pay the greatest penalty in war. Our army is maintained solely for the preservation of peace or for the restoration of peace alter it has been lost by statesmen or others, Dionysius, the ancient thinker, twenty centuries ago uttered these words: “It is a 1 greater strength and power shall bear rule over those who have less.” Unpleasant as they may be to hear, disa reeable as they may be to contemplate, the history of the world bears ample testimony to their truth and wisdom, When looking over the past or when looking over the world in its present form there is but one tren to be discerned—a constant change of tribes, clans, nations, the stronger ones ‘re placing the others, the more vigorous of events - ones pushing aside, absorbing, covering with oblivion, the - - weak and the worn out. From the dawn of history to the