t an author (and I mean always, of course,
quite sincere and unconscious misrepresentations, like that which led
the country gentlemen to write that railway smoke killed poultry) is a
trifling matter, but to misrepresent an idea, is not, for it makes that
better understanding of facts, the creation of a more informed public
opinion, by which alone we can avoid a possibly colossal folly, an
understanding difficult enough as it is, still more difficult.

And that is why the current misrepresentation (again unconscious) of
most efforts at the better understanding of the facts of international
relationship needs very badly to be corrected. I will therefore be very
definite.

The implication that Pacifists of any kind have ever urged that war is
impossible is due either to that confusion of thought just touched upon,
or is merely a silly gibe of those who deride arguments to which they
have not listened, and consequently do not understand, or which they
desire to misrepresent; and such misrepresentation is, when not
unconscious, always stupid and unfair.

So far as I am concerned, I have never written a line, nor, so far as I
know, has anyone else, to plead that war is impossible. I have, on the
contrary, always urged, with the utmost emphasis that war is not only
possible but extremely likely, so long as we remain as ignorant as we
are concerning what it can accomplish, and unless we use our energies
and efforts to prevent it, instead of directing those efforts to create
it. What anti-Bellicists as a whole urge, is not that war is impossible
or improbable, but that it is impossible to benefit by it; that conquest
must, in the long run, fail to achieve advantage; that the general
recognition of this can only add to our security. And incidentally most
of us have declared our complete readiness to take any demonstrably
necessary measure for the maintenance of armament, but urge that the
effort must not stop there.

One is justified in wondering whether the public men--statesmen,
soldiers, bishops, preachers, journalists--who indulge in this gibe, are
really unable to distinguish between the plea that a thing is unwise,
foolish, and the plea that it is impossible; whether they really suppose
that anyone in our time could argue that human folly is impossible, or
an "illusion." It is quite evidently a tragic reality. Undoubtedly the
readiness with which these critics thus fall back upon confusion
of thought indicates that the