ortation,
and the improvements in instruments of destruction, advantaged
the great nations more than the weaker ones, and increased the
temptation to great nations to use force rather than decreased
it? Do not civilization's improvements in weapons of destruction
augment the effectiveness of warlike methods, as compared with
the peaceful methods of argument and persuasion?

Diplomacy is an agency of civilization that was invented to avoid
war, to enable nations to accommodate themselves to each other
without going to war; but, practically, diplomacy seems to have
caused almost as many wars as it has averted. And even if it be
granted that the influence of diplomacy has been in the main for
peace rather than for war, we know that diplomacy has been in use
for centuries, that its resources are well understood, and that
they have all been tried out many times; and therefore we ought
to realize clearly that diplomacy cannot introduce any new force
into international politics now, or exert, an influence for peace
that will be more potent in the future than the influence that
it has exerted in the past.

These considerations seem to show that we cannot reasonably expect
civilization to divert nations from the path they have followed
hitherto.

Can commerce impart the external force necessary to divert nations
from that path?

Since commerce bears exactly the same relation to nations now as
in times past, and since it is an agency within mankind itself, it
is difficult to see how it can act as an external force, or cause
an external force to be applied. Of course, commercial interests
are often opposed to national interests, and improvements in speed
and sureness of communication and transportation increase the size
and power of commercial organizations. But the same factors increase
the power of governments and the solidarity of nations. At no time
in the past has there been more national feeling in nations than
now. Even the loosely held provinces of China are forming a Chinese
nation. Despite the fundamental commercialism of the age, national
spirit is growing more intense, the present war being the main
intensifying cause. It is true that the interests of commerce are
in many ways antagonistic to those of war. But, on the other hand,
of all the causes that occasion war the economic causes are the
greatest. For no thing will men fight more savagely than for money;
for no thing have men fought more savagely than for m