THE PATH TO PEACE
It may be there is a hope of getting the nations to agree to outlaw war. That would be good. It may be they would keep the pledge under all circumstances, once it was taken. But there is no guarantee of either of these things. The problem of achieving peace is certainly more comprehensive than that. The greatest hope of peace lies neither in legal enactment, nor in the individual's announcement that he personally will have nothing to do with any future war. Behind both is the problem of the world's learning to live on a human basis. The real advance in peace up to this moment rests more than anything upon advances in the human art of living together. Hope rests upon the further development of all those advantages for intercourse we have over the past: communication and travel; education and interchange of teachers; the development of the sciences in the spheres of human interest, such as medicine and agriculture; the world-wide contact of investigators of nature; the meeting of statesmen from the world over around a common table;—and with these the development of law; of conscience, of public opinion and a common religion.
