a War, or to have been ratified without discussion in its own National Legislature, or to have been informally worded, so as to appear rather as an express understanding than a formal convention.
So, also, no canon of right or wrong is publicly avowed as to the circumstances under which it is held justifiable to go to War. The distinction has, indeed, been drawn from the times of Grotius or of a just occasion for War. between a "just" and an "unjust" War; and Grotius himself seemed to consider the distinction to be one of practical moment, so as to carry with it certain qualifications of rights and duties. But, even if the distinction be a true one, and Wars may be just on one side and not on the other, and if it be further true that certain acts of warfare are more or less permissible, according as the original cause of the War was, on the side on which they are done, more or less urgent, yet when a real occasion is in view, with all its practical complications, the distinction, and the consequences following from it, are found to be either too large and sweeping, or not nearly large and comprehensive enough, for actual use. No practical test is afforded, capable of instant application, for determining whether it is, under given circumstances, morally justifiable, as distinguished from being prudentially advisable, or even seemingly necessary, for a particular State to go to War. The ordinary mode in which the question is handled is to merge all the considerations together, so as to erect what seems the only possible resource, or, at least, what is in itself a tempting enterprise, into a call of moral duty. It is, of course, quite possible that what is convenient and useful may be also conformable to the highest standard of morality, as existing at the day; and it is true that, in doubtful questions of morality, utility of a high order may supply the only index for a decisive course between competing courses of action. All that is here asserted is that, in the momentous matter of plunging two nations, and perhaps several nations, into War, no authoritative moral principles are
