ian
McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with
Spain became a necessity.

At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. The
military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but are confronted
by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom.
Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military
service. Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally avowable
motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the
enemy. England and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without
ceasing, arm solely for "peace," Germany and Japan it is who are bent
on loot and glory. "Peace" in military mouths to-day is a synonym for
"war expected." The word has become a pure provocative, and no
government wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed
in a newspaper. Every up-to-date dictionary should say that "peace"
and "war" mean the same thing, now _in posse_, now _in actu_. It may
even reasonably be said that the intensely sharp competitive
_preparation_ for war by the nations _is the real war_, permanent,
unceasing; and that the battles are only a sort of public verification
of the mastery gained during the "peace"-interval.

It is plain that on this subject civilized man has developed a sort of
double personality. If we take European nations, no legitimate
interest of any one of them would seem to justify the tremendous
destructions which a war to compass it would necessarily entail. It
would seem as though common sense and reason ought to find a way to
reach agreement in every conflict of honest interests. I myself think
it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as
possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to
bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and I believe that
the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of
pacificism which set the militarist imagination strongly, and to a
certain extent justifiably, against it. In the whole discussion both
sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. It is but one utopia
against another, and everything one says must be abstract and
hypothetical. Subject to this criticism and caution, I will try to
characterize in abstract strokes the opposite imaginative forces, and
point out what to my own very fallible mind seems the best Utopian
hypothesis, the most promising line of conciliation.

In my rem