pted in the belief that
order in due season will come out of relative disorder, by a natural
process or by a gradually increasing organization and voluntary
adjustment. If we accept the validity of this attitude in life we
shall be inclined to regard rationalism as it is manifested to-day in
German life as an evil. We may believe that in the end the cure for
this rationalism will not be less reason but rather more, but we shall
see also that it is possible for reason to outstrip and pervert life,
and indeed involve life in an absurdity, simply because as a method of
dealing with the whole of life it cannot be sufficiently
comprehensive.

Are these and all such issues that we find in war, causes of war? Do
nations fight for principles? Opinions certainly differ on this point.
Some think of wars, we say, as essentially conflicts of principles;
some interpret wars wholly in terms of political issues. We should say
that the truth lies between these assertions or is the sum of their
half-truths. Wars are not in their origin wars of principle. The
political, the personal, the concrete aspects of the relations of
nations are always in the foreground in causing wars. Wars become wars
of principle after they have been begun for other reasons. Sanctions
and motives appear after the fact. Fundamental differences of mores
which include the raw material, so to speak, of principles and causes
are factors in wars in so far as they create misunderstanding and
antipathy, but in so far as these differences of nature and of
principle do not enter into the sphere of politics and of national
honor, they do not as such cause wars Those deep moods which
accumulate in the minds of peoples and enter into the causes of war
are not convictions about principles. They are more generic and
natural. History does not seem to show us wars caused by pure
principles. We sometimes say that the Civil War in our own country was
fought over a principle, but that is something less than the truth.
The fundamental question at issue was plainly that of the rights of
certain states at a particular time to be independent and free.

Principles emerge in war, we say, and then they become secondary
causes. And it is precisely this emergence of principles from fields
of battle that perhaps constitutes the greatest contribution of wars
to the civilization of the world. We need to reflect upon this deeply,
since the whole philosophy of history is concerned in it. The