t; to the style rather than the matter. Style is often more
important than matter, and this War would not have been so fierce or so
prolonged if it had not become largely a war on a point of style, a war,
that is to say, to determine the question how war should be waged. If
the Germans had behaved humanely and considerately to the civil
population of Belgium, if they had kept their solemn promise not to use
poison-gas, if they had refrained from murder at sea, if their valour
had been accompanied by chivalry, the War might now have been ended,
perhaps not in their disfavour, for it would not have been felt, as it
now is felt, that they must be defeated at no matter how great a cost,
or civilization will perish.

Even as things are, there have been some gains in the manner of
conducting war, which, when future generations look back on them, will
be seen to be considerable. It is true that modern science has devised
new and appalling weapons. The invention of a new weapon in war always
arouses protest, but it does not usually, in the long run, make war more
inhuman. There was a great outcry in Europe when the broadsword was
superseded by the rapier, and a tall man of his hands could be spitted
like a cat or a rabbit by any dexterous little fellow with a trained
wrist. There was a wave of indignation, which was a hundred years in
passing, when musketry first came into use, and a man-at-arms of great
prowess could be killed from behind a wall by one who would not have
dared to meet him in open combat. But these changes did not, in effect,
make war crueller or more deadly. They gave more play to intelligence,
and abolished the tyranny of the bully, who took the wall of every man
he met, and made himself a public nuisance. The introduction of
poison-gas, which is a small thing compared with the invention of
fire-arms, has given the chemist a place in the ranks of fighting-men.
And if science has lent its aid to the destruction of life, it has spent
greater zeal and more prolonged effort on the saving of life. No
previous war will compare with this in care for the wounded and maimed.
In all countries, and on all fronts, an army of skilled workers devote
themselves to this single end. I believe that this quickening of the
human conscience, for that is what it is, will prove to be the greatest
gain of the War, and the greatest advance made in restraint of war. If
the nations come to recognize that their first duty, and their firs