preparedness peace tendency may augment these chances, may invite conquest, or as in the case of the United States, because of the aggressions of others, may help to drag an unwilling people into war. There are several nations fighting today that not only did not want war, but did not expect it, and those least prepared have suffered most. War was thrust upon them; there was really no choice. The nations of the world are so close together and so interdependent in our day that one cannot have peace when others are determined upon oppressive war. The allied nations were unwillingly dragged into war, let me repeat, but thanks to the people's instinct for human liberty, they are in the war heart and soul now, and are in it to crush the inhuman and merciless beast of autocratic and bigoted oppression! Pity it is that many of us have not seen until now that autocracy has always been the arch-enemy of freedom and human rights, and never could be trusted. Its whole foundation, as history shows, has been laid in hypocritical presumption and class privilege and selfishness, playing upon the innocence and ignorance of its unfortunate and incapable victims.

The trouble with the peace advocates before the war (and all honor to them-God forbid that the teachers of the young should be aught else) it seems to me, has largely been this: they have observed particularly the effects of war, but have done little along the practical line of studying its causes and proposing effective remedies. Not until the present gigantic conflict has there been anything like concerted and serious action on the prevention of war; and still less is the understanding of its causes. Many people, indeed, declare useless any study of the causes of war. With this view, the writer cannot at all agree; it is but blind fatalism, dangerous and utterly helpless in the face of the world situation and of most wars. How are we to apply the remedy-How are we to have peace—if we do not understand the cause? As in the study of medicine and disease,

so in this field, the search for causes is no less indispensable than the search for remedies; and certainly, the scientific method of treatment requires that we find the causes before we apply the remedy. The failure to do this, I maintain, is just the reason why so much that has been said and attempted in the past has been fruitless and disappointing. Men have not made a careful and systematic search into the causes of war. It is remarkable how little space is given to the causes of war in our histories. Generally speaking, they have been examined most superficially -have been strangely neglected. With one breath history instructors are teaching that causes and results are more important than wars themselves, and in the next breath they are hurrying their classes on from the causes to the wars and their results. Better not know the names of battles and leaders than not understand, in some degree at least, why the armies are fighting.

Those who oppose an intensive study of the causes of war, because they think it would increase the warlike spirit from the mere thinking upon the subject, have, it seems to me, a most peculiar and illogical method of reasoning. It is the people's not knowing the causes of wars that has often enabled their rulers to plunge them into conflicts and keep them there. This is true to some extent in the present war, as most of us know, particularly with the central powers. The search for the truth is dangerous only to its enemies. An acquaintance with the causes of war, even modern conflicts in civilized countries, can but lead the people to hate it more! When they see all the greed, the haughtiness, the selfishness, the blasphemous presumption of "divine right" monarchs and privileged classes, and sometimes the ignorance, misunderstandings and honest differences of peoples, that are back of war, they will certainly be greater lovers of peace, and more intelligent workers for it.

Moreover, it must be understood that there can be no real progress toward the peace we covet if we deny that

there is such a thing as a righteous war. The liberty of American democracy rests on that foundation stone. God has so willed it, and we cannot change it, although we believe it is God's will that some day wars shall cease from the earth. War has often rendered a great service in the past, and even today it must be seen that in the struggle for political and economic independence, as well as that for physical existence and comfort, the necessities and ambitions of the strong will be satisfied at the cost of the weak. We say this should not be. Christianity and our finer instincts are trying to lead us away from it. Nevertheless, it is the physical law of nature, has all our past history as a race back of it, and is the "survival of the fittest," one of the greatest of all biological laws; and, as Emerson says, the student of history may become more reconciled to this "copious bloodshed of ages past"-bloodshed often, too, in the name of the Prince of Peace when he reflects that it is a temporary and preparatory state-agelong though it be and has actively forwarded the culture of man. Nor is this any argument in favor of war as such, today; it is only a recognition of the service of war in the past. It is folly, it is a manifestation of ignorance of the history of mankind's development, to try to get away from or ignore the benefit of wars in the past. They are the price man has paid for his civilization, whether they be against kings on their "divine right" thrones, autocratic governments, religious bigotry and intolerance, or what not. Civilization has been destroyed by these conflicts, it is true, and is being destroyed; yet, more still of civilization has been preserved and gained, else we could not have democracy and enlightenment today; for man's normal condition throughout the ages, almost up to the present, has been a state of warfare and strife. Through the countless ages of the past these wars have raged. From it all there has come an evolution into the present state; and our faith can but repeat, "as was said three thousand years ago, so still

it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." In spite of the fact that wars have taken the physically best in all ages, they have sifted humanity, both physically and intellectually, and have found the best for its leaders. War has brought different races and nations of the earth together at first to blows; but from blows to truce, to trade, to inter-marriage, and finally to peace.

Considerations of this kind help to bring us to a true view of the nature and function of war. We became conscious of the fact that it is mingled with everything, that it is the subject of the greater part of historical treatment, if we take the human race as a whole; that it has, until very recent times, been the chief occupation or employment of the most conspicuous men of the world's long history; and that, in one form or another, it is the law of nature. With this view, we may study the causes of war intelligently, without prejudice, and be better able in consequence to utilize the knowledge thus gained in applying it to the remedies for war and the "fight for peace." So, the relationship of the causes to the ends of war must never be lost sight of. Also, on the severity of wars, on the degree of their necessity, on the extent to which they go in violating the laws of civilized warfare and outraging the sense of humanity, will depend the opportunity of modifying their character and the probability of an evolution into a world peace. "Civilized" warfare, as practiced by Germany in the present conflict, has become so horrible as to generate one of the most powerful reactionary influences against it. On the other hand, the measure in which wars are inevitable, or have been (and this can be found only by a close study of their causes) will furnish the character and limits of remedial measures.

CHAPTER III

CLASSIFICATION AND COMMENT

IT is manifestly true that in the present day there are

only two classes of wars that are justifiable, namely, those for defense or self preservation, and those for liberty or freedom from oppression. Yet, the attempt to classify the causes of war, past and present, is difficult, and results are more or less inaccurate and uncertain. For convenience, however, and for the sake of discussion, they may be grouped as follows:

1. Dynastic affairs. (Have ceased to be fundamental causes.)

2. Religion. (No longer exists as a leading cause.) 3. Love of a people for war. (Becoming rarer.)

4. Colonial expansion. (Recent, but has lost its attraction, except perhaps for Germany.)

5. Racial predominance-tendency to domination by one race in a composite nation, as in Austria-Hungary. (Still a cause for strife.)

6. National or race hatred. (Still strong, as in Germany vs. France and vice versa-inherited from the past, with distrust and misunderstanding.)

7. Growth of nationality-to secure national unity. (Chief cause of most wars in latter part of nineteenth century, and some today.)

8. "Balance of Power," in Europe. (Still a contributing cause.)

9. Imperfection of government-weakness, anarchy, as in Mexico and a few small states in Europe today. (Still a cause and excuse.)