and sacrifice of
this war, nothing may come of it, no real relief, no permanent benefit
to Europe, no improvement to the future of mankind.

The pronouncements of publicists--"This must never happen again,"
"Conditions for abiding peace must be secured," "The United States of
Europe must be founded," "Militarism must cease"--all such are the
natural outcome of this dread. They are proclamations admirable in
sentiment and intention. But human nature being what it has been and
is likely to remain, we must face the possibility that nothing will
come of the war, save the restoration of Belgium, (that, at least, is
certain;) some alterations of boundaries; a long period of economic
and social trouble more bitter than before; a sweeping moral reaction
after too great effort. Cosmically regarded, this war is a debauch
rather than a purge, and debauches have always to be paid for.

Confronting the situation in this spirit, we shall be the more
rejoiced if any of our wider hopes should by good fortune be attained.

Leaving aside the restoration of Belgium--for what do we continue to
fight? We go on, as we began, because we all believe in our own
countries and what they stand for. And in considering how far the
principle of nationality should be exalted, one must well remember
that it is in the main responsible for the present state of things. In
truth, the principle of nationality of itself and by itself is a quite
insufficient ideal. It is a mere glorification of self in a world full
of other selves; and only of value in so far as it forms part of that
larger ideal, an--international ethic, which admits the claims and
respects the aspirations of all nations. Without that ethic little
nations are (as at the present moment) the prey--and, according to the
mere principle of nationality, the legitimate prey--of bigger nations.
Germany absorbed Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig, and now Belgium, by
virtue of nationalism, of an overweening belief in the perfection of
its national self. Austria would subdue Serbia from much the same
feeling. France does not wish to absorb or subdue any European people
of another race, because France, as ever, a little in advance of her
age, is already grounded in this international ethic, of unshakable
respect for the rights of all nations which belong, roughly speaking,
to the same stage of development. The same may be said of the other
western democratic powers, Britain and America. "To live and let
liv