I can see that too. But how often does
interest, the best and highest, raise an impregnable barrier against
passion or even caprice?

We must take men as they are, and the world as we find it, to get a
secure ground for attempting the reformation of either. And as men are,
and as I find the world, at present, I meet Wrong, and find it armed to
resist Right. The Wrong will not yield to persuasion, it will not
surrender to reason. It comes straight on, coarse, brutal, devilish,
caring not a straw for peace rhetoric or Quaker gravity, for persuasion
or interest. It strikes straight down at right or justice. It tries to
hammer them to atoms, and trample them with swinish hoofs into the mire.
Now what am I to do? To stand peaceably by and see this thing done,
while I study new tropes and invent new metaphors to _persuade_? Is that
my business, to waste the godlike gift of human speech on this mad brute
or devil?

With wise pains and thoughtful labor, I clear my little spot of this
stubborn soil. I hedge and plant my small vineyard. It begins, after
much care, to yield me some fruit. I get a little corn and a little
wine, to comfort me and mine. I have good hope that, as the years go by,
I shall gather more. I trust, at last, my purple vintages may gladden
many hearts of men, my rich olives make many faces shine. But some day,
from the yet untamed forest, bursts the wild boar, and rushes on my
hedge, and will break through to trample down my vineyard before mine
eyes. And I am only to _argue_ with him! I am to cast the pearls of
human reason and persuasion at his feet to stop him! Nay, rather, am I
not to seize the first sufficient weapon that comes to hand, unloose the
dogs upon him, and drive him to his lair again, or, better, bring his
head in triumph home?

It is true, there are wars where this parable will not apply. There are
capricious wars, wars undertaken for no fit cause, wars with scarce a
principle on either side. Such have often been _king's wars_, begun in
folly, conducted in vanity, ended in shame, wars for the ambition of
some crowned scoundrel, who rides a patient people till he drives them
mad. And even such wars have their uses. They are not wholly evil.
Alexander's, the maddest wars of all, and those of his successors, the
most stupid and brutal ever fought, even they had their uses. Our war
with poor Mexico, even Louis Bonaparte's, was not wholly evil.

But there are wars, again, that are not caprici