une
trainee de souphre sous terre depuis Lima jusqu'a Lisbonne. Rien
n'est plus probable, dit Candide; mais, pour Dieu, un peu d'huile
et de vin. Comment, probable? repliqua le philosophe; je soutiens
que la chose est demontree.

Candide perdit connaissance, ... et Pangloss lui apporta un peu
d'eau d'une fontaine voisine.

VOLTAIRE, _Candide_.

Sec. 1

Dialectics round the Death-bed

Philosophical aloofness is all very well in its way, but while we argue
about economic causes and attempt to induce a philosophy of earthquakes,
our bright young democracy lies bleeding under the ruins. The urgent
necessity is a little first aid, a little cessation of the killing. I
don't know how many young men in different parts of the world have been
deliberately and scientifically murdered during the writing of this
protest. England alone, who has been criticised for her delay in
exposing her youth to the slaughter, is having about half a million of
her best citizens stabbed or pierced or crushed or mutilated or poisoned
or torn to pieces in one year[64] of modern warfare. And life is not the
only instrument of vital progress that is being thrown away. Britannia
has beaten her trident into a shovel, and with it is shovelling gold;
and not only gold, but youth and love and happiness into the deep sea.
The belligerent nations are frantically engaged in destroying two
thousand years of education and all the accumulated capital of humanity.
Only the enemies of civilisation, the sellers of arms and the sowers of
hatred, are growing rich on its ruins. It is impossible to deny that the
longer the war continues the greater will be the subsequent sufferings,
spiritual and material, of every nation engaged. It is impossible to
maintain that any nation or class or individual will be any better in
any respect for the Great War, with the single exception of that
parasitic class who, as a class, and therefore perhaps not consciously,
are chiefly responsible for its inception. We must have Peace first and
congresses afterwards. The survivors of civilisation cannot discuss a
lasting settlement while they are still under fire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 64: The total British casualties from the beginning of the war
till July 18, 1915, were given as 321,889, of whom 61,384 were killed.]

Sec. 2

German Responsibility for the War

Nor is it necessary to continue the slaughter while we argue about which
bel