s this thing that we call the country? Land? People? What is
land? I have no land. I have no people, so far as I know. But, supposing
that I have people and land--what is the country for which we fight?
Will the enemy take our people, and take our land, if we do not beat
them back? Yes, they will reduce our people to subjection. I shall
become a dependant upon them. I shall be constrained in my liberties;
part of my labour will go to them against my will. My property, if I
have any, will be taken from me in some way--perhaps confiscated, if not
wholly, at least in a measure, by laws of the conquerors. I shall not
be free.

But am I now free? If we drive back the enemy, shall I be free? Yes, I
shall be free, rightly free, free to aid the country, and to got aid
from the country, I shall be part of the country and can enjoy my will,
because I will to be part of my country and to help build up her
greatness and sustain and improve her institutions.

Institutions? What is an institution? We say government is an
institution. What is a government? Is it a body of men? No. What is it,
then? Something formed by the people for their supposed good, a growth,
a development--a development of what? Is it material? No, it is moral;
it is _soul_--then I thought I could see what is meant by the country
and by her institutions. The country is the spirit of the nation--and it
is deathless. It is not doomed to subjection; take the land--enslave the
people--and yet will that spirit live and act and have a body. Let our
enemies prevail over our armies; let them destroy; yet shall all that is
good in our institution be preserved even by our enemies; for a true
idea is imperishable and nothing can decay but the false.

Then why fight? Because the true must always war against the false. The
false and the true are enemies. But why kill the body in order to
spread, or even to maintain, the truth? Will the truth be better or
stronger by that?

Perhaps--yet no. War is evil and not good, and it is only by good that
evil can be overcome. But if our enemies come upon us, must we not
fight? The country wishes peace. Our enemies bring war. Must we submit?
We cannot submit. Submission to disgrace is repugnant to the spirit of
the nation; death is better than submission. But killing, is it not
crime? Is crime better than submission? No; submission is better than
crime But is not submission also a crime? At least it is an infringement
of the law of th