There may remain the plea that a prolonged campaign is necessary in order by exhaustion to compel the enemy to evacuate some territory that he may have wrongfully occupied. The inevitable answer to such a plea would be that if a war had arrived at a stage in which there was a clear possibility of coercing the enemy by a process of exhaustion, that possibility, if it were well-founded, would certainly not have escaped the intelligence of the enemy, who would consequently be prepared to save his face by coming to terms. The evacuation of the occupied territory, or whatever it is that was to be achieved by the coercive exhaustion of another year or two of battle, might then be obtained by negotiation at once, and at the cost of a certain amount of paper and ink, instead of being forced on a revengeful and embittered opponent by the expensive process of killing young men, a process which has the disadvantage of working both ways.
The conclusion of these general considerations seems to be that all the arguments that are likely to be put forward in the course of a war in order to excuse and ensure its continuation, are only excuses to gain time, put forward in hope that the chances of a further campaign may enable the government concerned to retrieve some apparent advantage out of the disastrous muddle through which they drifted into the first declaration of war. Having drawn the sword in a moment of embarrassment, they have now jolly well got to pretend that it was the right thing to do, and are not going to sheathe it till they see a chance of proving that they are glad they drew it. In short, there comes a point in all modern wars in which the belligerents are fighting for nothing at all, except for a more or less advantageous position from which to discuss a way to stop fighting.[85]
§ 7
Physical Force in a Moral World
The explanation of all this seems to lie in the simple fact that it is for ever impossible to solve questions of moral or political principle by the expenditure of physical force. Anyone at all conversant with philosophical thought, if I may adopt a simile used by Mr. H. G. Wells, "would as soon think of trying to kill the square root of 2 with a rook rifle." Physical violence can only solve purely physical problems. But as man no longer exists, if he ever did exist, in the completely unsocial "state of nature,"[86] the relations of one individual with another are no longer purely physical: their position as members of one society has given them a moral relation, questions affecting which can only be settled by reference to the judgment of the society as a whole. Within the limits of the State this fact is already clearly recognised by the common voice of public opinion. If Smith quarrels with his neighbour Robinson, because Smith's old English sheep-dog is suspected of having scratched up Robinson's lawn, and Smith says the poor dog would never do such a thing, and anyhow Robinson had no business to leave his back gate open, while Robinson declares that that brute is becoming a damned nuisance, and so provokes Smith to express a hope that now perhaps that grass of Robinson's won't want so much godless mowing on Sunday morning: if two neighbours, in short, have a difference of opinion they both know perfectly well that the rights of the argument can never be decided by a free fight in the middle of the road, even if one of them happens to be a heavy-weight champion. Moreover, if they do come to blows it is perfectly certain that the opinion of the whole road will be against them, and that the Law, to which they might have appealed in the first instance, will intervene as the embodiment of that opinion. The street fight is clearly recognised as not only futile but immoral; it not only settles no questions of principle but it constitutes a breach of the moral relation between two members of one community; it is become merely a rather sordid exhibition of irrelevant physical facts. The average citizen of England or Germany would never think of encouraging a fight between two sides of a street: why does he not recognise with equal directness the futility and immorality of a fight between two sides of a continent?[87] It is only because public opinion has not yet effectively realised that the moral sphere includes not only the citizens of one city and the cities of one nation, but the nations of a continent and the continents of the world. But it is a fact that the moral sphere does include the whole of humanity, who are colleagues in the task of civilisation, inspired by the twentieth-century corollary of gloomy nineteenth-century religious agnosticism, the cheerful corollary that it is Man's duty rather than God's to improve the habitable earth. The truth of this fact is already recognised by the better thought of all the nations concerned, and there is no reason why it should be withheld any longer from the people who suffer most by its suppression. As soon as public opinion is allowed to grasp this truth—and it is only too willing to clutch at any generalisation that is emotionally encouraged by its governors—there need be no difficulty at all in embodying that opinion in some form of international government: for, as Rousseau might have said, where there's a General Will, there's a way. As a matter of fact the way has already been admirably mapped by several parties of surveyors.[88]
On the constitution of an International Authority, even on the general aspiration of Europe towards some form of supernational judicature, war will cease to have any more attraction or justification than the street brawl. For war is actually in the community of nations what the street fight is between individual citizens. War is futile, because it can settle no questions of principle; it is immoral, because it is an offence against the membership of a moral community. There is abundant evidence in Blue Books and in the overt acts of Germany that war releases and encourages the elementary brutality of the individual which is normally inhibited by the consciousness of social relations. I have tried to show in a former chapter that war serves the lowest interests of a parasitic commercial class at the expense of the better part of the community. War fosters at the same time the basest elements in the individual, and the basest individuals in the community. War is a crime against the peace of the people.