—if all, or the great part of, men and women were agreed as to the shape it was desirable to impose on it. In our age differences of ideal restrain the hand and prevent us from giving a fairer face to the earth. The power of a united mankind would be something akin to omnipotence. Every man or woman who has seen the earth with this larger vision must seethe with impatience to end this conflict of old traditions and new ideas which paralyses our hands; to do what he or she can to accelerate that final harmony of conviction which will set free the fingers of the Great Potter. That is the controlling sentiment of this little book.
It happens that, before the book reaches the public, one of those traditions which it assails has spread a ghastly devastation over the face of the earth. For nearly twenty years I have used my slender opportunities as speaker and writer to denounce the military machine: to imagine the mighty resources we waste on militarism and war transferred to those enterprises which seek to brighten the earth and make the hearts of men and women lighter. Now the little sermon, which many feeble voices were preaching, is taken up by an orator whose voice thunders from pole to pole, whose words are blood-curdling realities. Ten thousand million sterling, perhaps, poured into the sea in eighteen months: ten million men, perhaps, prematurely blasted off the earth or stricken for life: and a trail of blood and tears and misery that all the mighty fertility of the earth will take a
