ue, that we can get from it on these terms work such as
that of the soldier's, which is work in its most terrifying form, it
stands to reason that we can, on the same terms, get out of it work of a
much easier kind, such as that of exceptional business ability applied
to the safe and peaceful direction of labour. Nor is this argument urged
by socialists only. Other thinkers who, though resembling them somewhat
in sentiment, are wholly opposed to socialism as a formal creed, have
likewise pitched upon the soldier's conduct in war as a signal
illustration of the potentialities of human nature in peace. Thus Ruskin
says that his whole scheme of political economy is based on the moral
assimilation of industrial action to military. "Soldiers of the
ploughshare," he exclaims in one of his works, "as well as soldiers of
the sword! All my political economy is comprehended in that phrase." So,
too, Mr. Frederic Harrison, the English prophet of Positivism, following
out the same train of thought, has declared that the soldier's readiness
to die in battle for his country is a realised example of a readiness,
always latent in men, to spend themselves and be spent in the service of
humanity generally. Again in the same sense, another writer observes,
"The soldier's subsistence is certain. It does not depend on his
exertions. At once he becomes susceptible to appeals to his patriotism,
and he will value a bit of bronze, which is the reward of valour, far
more than a hundred times its weight in gold"--a passage to which one of
Mr. Sidney Webb's collaborators refers with special delight, exclaiming,
"Let those take notice of this last fact who fancy we must wait till men
are angels before socialism is practical."

Now, the arguments thus drawn from the facts of military activity throw
a special light on the methods and mental condition of those who so
solemnly urge them; for the error by which these arguments are vitiated
is of a peculiarly glaring kind. It consists of a failure to perceive
that military activity is, in many respects, a thing altogether apart,
and depends on psychological and physiological conditions which have no
analogies in the domain of ordinary economic effort.

That such must necessarily be the case can be very easily seen by
following out the train of reasoning suggested by Mr. Frederic Harrison.
Mr. Harrison correctly assumes that no man, in ordinary life, will run
the risk of being killed or mutilated except f