n to suspect the doctor if on entering my room he flung his
legs and arms about, crying wildly, "Health! Health! priceless gift of
Nature! I possess it! I overflow with it! I yearn to impart it! Oh, the
sacred rapture of imparting health!" In that case I should suspect him
of being rather in a position to receive than to offer medical
superintendence.

Now, it is no exaggeration at all to say that any one who has ever known
any soldiers (I can only answer for English and Irish and Scotch
soldiers) would find it just as easy to believe that a real Bishop would
grovel on the carpet in a religious ecstasy, or that a real doctor would
dance about the drawing-room to show the invigorating effects of his own
medicine, as to believe that a soldier, when asked for his authority,
would point to a lot of shining weapons and declare symbolically that
might was right. Of course, a real soldier would go rather red in the
face and huskily repeat the proper formula, whatever it was, as that he
came in the King's name.

Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are
never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught
severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is
obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is
held to be right) is in the one man who commands them. They learn to
obey symbols, arbitrary things, stripes on an arm, buttons on a coat, a
title, a flag. These may be artificial things; they may be unreasonable
things; they may, if you will, be wicked things; but they are weak
things. They are not Force, and they do not look like Force. They are
parts of an idea: of the idea of discipline; if you will, of the idea of
tyranny; but still an idea. No soldier could possibly say that his own
bayonets were his authority. No soldier could possibly say that he came
in the name of his own bayonets. It would be as absurd as if a postman
said that he came inside his bag. I do not, as I have said, underrate
the evils that really do arise from militarism and the military ethic.
It tends to give people wooden faces and sometimes wooden heads. It
tends moreover (both through its specialisation and through its constant
obedience) to a certain loss of real independence and strength of
character. This has almost always been found when people made the
mistake of turning the soldier into a statesman, under the mistaken
impression that he was a strong man. The D