spheres of trade all over the
earth, on the model of the territorial spheres of influence marked in
Africa to keep the competitors for the privilege of improving the nigger
(as a buying machine) from flying prematurely at each other's throats.

This seems the only expedient at hand for the temporary maintenance of
European peace, with its alliances based on mutual distrust, preparedness
for war as its ideal, and the fear of wounds, luckily stronger, so far,
than the pinch of hunger, its only guarantee. The true peace of the
world will be a place of refuge much less like a beleaguered fortress and
more, let us hope, in the nature of an Inviolable Temple. It will be
built on less perishable foundations than those of material interests.
But it must be confessed that the architectural aspect of the universal
city remains as yet inconceivable--that the very ground for its erection
has not been cleared of the jungle.

Never before in history has the right of war been more fully admitted in
the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in public prints, in
all the public works of peace, culminating in the establishment of the
Hague Tribunal--that solemnly official recognition of the Earth as a
House of Strife. To him whose indignation is qualified by a measure of
hope and affection, the efforts of mankind to work its own salvation
present a sight of alarming comicality. After clinging for ages to the
steps of the heavenly throne, they are now, without much modifying their
attitude, trying with touching ingenuity to steal one by one the
thunderbolts of their Jupiter. They have removed war from the list of
Heaven-sent visitations that could only be prayed against; they have
erased its name from the supplication against the wrath of war,
pestilence, and famine, as it is found in the litanies of the Roman
Catholic Church; they have dragged the scourge down from the skies and
have made it into a calm and regulated institution. At first sight the
change does not seem for the better. Jove's thunderbolt looks a most
dangerous plaything in the hands of the people. But a solemnly
established institution begins to grow old at once in the discussion,
abuse, worship, and execration of men. It grows obsolete, odious, and
intolerable; it stands fatally condemned to an unhonoured old age.

Therein lies the best hope of advanced thought, and the best way to help
its prospects is to provide in the fullest, frankest way for the
c