e international law says:--

"Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of
_armed_ enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally
_unavoidable_ in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the
capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the
hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of
all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of
traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance
or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an
enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the
army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good
faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into
during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist."[274]

[Sidenote: 81. Lecky's Standard of Morality.]

But supposing the modern morality does not approve of Mohammad what
hardly "affected his character in Arab estimation," are there no
diversities in moral judgments? The moral unity to be expected in
different ages is not a unity of standard or of facts, but a unity of
tendency.

"That some savage kill their old parents, that infanticide has been
practised without compunction by even civilized nations, that the best
Romans saw nothing wrong in the gladiatorial shows, that political or
revengeful assassinations have been for centuries admitted, that slavery
has been sometimes honoured and sometimes condemned, are unquestionable
proofs, that the same act may be regarded in one age as innocent, and in
another as criminal. Now it is undoubtedly true, that in many cases an
historical examination will reveal special circumstances explaining or
palliating the apparent anomaly. It has been often shown that the
gladiatorial shows were originally a form of human sacrifice adopted
through religious motives; that the rude nomadic life of savages
rendering impossible the preservation of aged and helpless members of
the tribe, the murder of parents was regarded as an act of mercy both by
the murderer and the victim; that before an effective administration of
justice was organized, private vengeance was the sole preservation
against crime, and political assassination against usurpation; that the
insensibility of some savages to the criminality of theft arises from
the fact that they were accustomed to have all things in common; that