is well that the transitoriness of the
goods of this world is not only preached, but is learnt by experience.
War alone teaches this lesson." [F]

[Footnote F: Kuno Fischer, "Hegel," i., p. 737.]

War, in opposition to peace, does more to arouse national life and to
expand national power than any other means known to history. It
certainly brings much material and mental distress in its train, but at
the same time it evokes the noblest activities of the human nature. This
is especially so under present-day conditions, when it can be regarded
not merely as the affair of Sovereigns and Governments, but as the
expression of the united will of a whole nation.

All petty private interests shrink into insignificance before the grave
decision which a war involves. The common danger unites all in a common
effort, and the man who shirks this duty to the community is deservedly
spurned. This union contains a liberating power which produces happy and
permanent results in the national life. We need only recall the uniting
power of the War of Liberation or the Franco-German War and their
historical consequences. The brutal incidents inseparable from every war
vanish completely before the idealism of the main result. All the sham
reputations which a long spell of peace undoubtedly fosters are
unmasked. Great personalities take their proper place; strength, truth,
and honour come to the front and are put into play. "A thousand touching
traits testify to the sacred power of the love which a righteous war
awakes in noble nations." [G]

[Footnote G: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 482.]

Frederick the Great recognized the ennobling effect of war. "War," he
said, "opens the most fruitful field to all virtues, for at every moment
constancy, pity, magnanimity, heroism, and mercy, shine forth in it;
every moment offers an opportunity to exercise one of these virtues."

"At the moment when the State cries out that its very life is at stake,
social selfishness must cease and party hatred be hushed. The individual
must forget his egoism, and feel that he is a member of the whole body.
He should recognize how his own life is nothing worth in comparison with
the welfare of the community. War is elevating, because the individual
disappears before the great conception of the State. The devotion of the
members of a community to each other is nowhere so splendidly
conspicuous as in war.... What a perversion of morality to wish to
aboli