and the study of human nature, that man must resist aggression; that defence and even a war if defensive is legitimate and not immoral.
War is not the greatest evil, though it is an evil. The open struggle of the battlefield is not the greatest evil; worse is that chronic condition of society which makes possible the violence of the stronger to the weaker; worse than war are insincerity and falsehood; worse is that egotism hidden under the mask of humanity and nobility in mind; worse is cowardice passing itself off as fortitude; worse is sophistry deceiving the sensible and wise. Death is not worse than a dishonourable life which destroys its own soul as well as that of its neighbour.
But the war of the present age, on land as well as on sea, presupposes a whole system of so-called militarism, and militarism is very evil, especially militarism as developed by Prussia. Militarism is aggressiveness organised; Prussian militarism is the principal and leading function of the State; Prussia, therefore, spends comparatively larger sums on the army than the other States.[1]
Against such militarism it is necessary to be on the defensive. Pacifism at any price is an unnatural and unsound proposition. Democratism does not exclude military defence, it excludes only Prussian militarism. Radical pacifism, Tolstoy’s theory of resisting not the evil, is not right. Every action is judged ethically with a view to its motive; there is therefore a difference, not only a psychological, but also a moral, between aggressive violence and defence, between the offensive and the defensive. The argument of the pacifists that the western states, by accepting universal military service, accept Prussian militarism is unsound. In the West the army will rather be a kind of militia, such as is recommended even by the antimilitarist Socialists. Tolstoy leads to quietism, by which the permanent injustice of the violent would be rendered possible. Such a pacifism as appeals to humanity is in reality inhuman; I shall not even speak of the fact that the apostles of this pacifism do not know Prussian militarism and are ignorant of the conditions on the Continent in general.
In this war even Prussian militarists have unconsciously
- ↑ As evidence I mention an article written before the war: Adolf Grote, “Die angebliche und die wahre Höhe der deutschen Kriegslasten, Friedenswarte,” 1913; evidence is here adduced which shows that German armaments were not the result of the French, but that Germany was the aggressor.
348
