e such a wanton disregard of their
sacred duty.

What, then, was the cause? If I have correctly analyzed the situation,
the war is the natural result of a false philosophy. Theories of life
are invisible, but they control for good or for evil. They enter our
very being, and may be as deadly to the moral man as germs of disease,
taken into the body, are deadly to the physical man. The fundamental
precept of this false philosophy is that "might makes right." It is
not proclaimed now as loudly as it once was, but it is often acted
upon in particular cases by those who would be unwilling to indorse
it as a general principle.

The individual makes this maxim his excuse for violating three
commandments that stand in his way; this maxim also leads nations to
violate these same three commandments for the same purpose, but on a
larger scale.

Strange that men should fail to apply to nations the moral principles
which are now so generally applied to the individual units of a
nation!

The tendency is to condemn the violation of these commandments, not in
proportion to the injury done, but rather in inverse proportion. No
one will dispute the validity of the injunction against covetousness
as long as the object coveted is of little value or not greatly
desired, but the last and all-inclusive specifications, viz., "or
anything that is thy neighbor's," is sometimes interpreted by nations
to except a neighbor's vineyard or a neighbor's territory.
Covetousness turns to might as the principle to be invoked, and the
greater the unlawful desire the firmer the faith in the false
principle.

Conquest is the word used to describe the means employed for securing
the thing desired, if the force is employed by a nation, and conquest
violates the commandments Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not
Kill.

By what sophistry can rulers convince themselves that, while petit
larceny is criminal, grand larceny is patriotic; that, while it is
reprehensible for one man to kill another for his money, it is
glorious for one nation to put to the sword the inhabitants of another
nation in order to extend boundaries?

It is a mockery of moral distinctions to hang one man for taking the
life of another, either for money or in revenge, and then make a hero
of another man who wades "through slaughter to a throne, and shut the
doors of mercy on mankind."

As in the case of the individual, the violation of the commandments
Thou Shall Not Covet, Thou