No one can see at present how such a consummation is
to be brought about, but any one can see already that this consummation
is the only one which can satisfy the lovers of liberty under law, and
the believers in the progress of mankind through loving service each to
all and all to each.
Extreme pacificists shrink from fighting evil with evil, hell with
hell, and advise submission to outrage, or at least taking the risk of
being forced into resigned submission. The believers in the religion of
valor, on the other hand, proclaim that war is a good thing in itself,
that it develops the best human virtues, invigorates a nation become
flaccid through ease and luxury, and puts in command the strong,
dominating spirit of a valid nation or race. What is the just mean
between these two extremes? Is it not that war is always a hideous and
hateful evil, but that a nation may sometimes find it to be the least of
two evils between which it has to choose? The justifiable and indeed
necessary war is the war against the ravager and destroyer, the enemy of
liberty, the claimant of world empire. More and more the thinkers of the
world see, and the common people more and more believe instinctively,
that the cause of righteous liberty is the cause of civilization.
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