as
grown by war and a people has been energized by war.

Next, let us take the cases which show that there have been in many
countries long periods of incessant war with no corresponding progress
in the things that make civilization. I will not speak of semi-barbarous
tribes, among the more advanced of which may be placed the Albanians and
the Pathans and the Turkomans, while among the more backward were the
North American Indians and the Zulus. But one may cite the case of the
civilized regions of Asia under the successors of Alexander, when
civilized peoples, distracted by incessant strife, did little for the
progress of arts or letters or government, from the death of the great
conqueror till they were united under the dominion of Rome and received
from her a time of comparative tranquillity.

The Thirty Years' War is an example of long-continued fighting which,
far from bringing progress in its train, inflicted injuries on Germany
from which she did not recover for nearly two centuries. In recent times
there has been more fighting in South and Central America, since the
wars of independence, than in any other civilized countries. Yet can
anyone say that anything has been gained by the unending civil wars and
revolutions, or those scarcely less frequent wars between the several
republics, like that terrible one thirty years ago in which Peru was
overcome by Chile? Or look at Mexico. Except during the years when the
stern dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz kept order and equipped the country
with roads and railways, her people have made no perceptible advance and
stand hardly higher today than when they were left to work out their own
salvation a hundred years ago. Social and economic conditions have
doubtless been against her. All that need be remembered is that warfare
has not bettered those conditions or improved the national character.

If this hasty historical survey has, as I frankly admit, given us few
positive and definite results, the reason is plain. Human progress is
affected by so many conditions besides the presence or absence of
fighting that it is impossible in any given case to pronounce that it
has been chiefly due either to war or to peace. Two conclusions,
however, we may claim to have reached, though they are rather negative
than positive. One is that war does not necessarily arrest progress.
Peoples may advance in thought, literature, and art while they are
fighting. The other is that war cannot be s