e of
Machiavelliism--The great blunder of Germany's diplomats and
soldiers 196

CHAPTER X

THE JUDGMENT OF THE WORLD

The completeness of the evidence--The force of public opinion--The
judgment of neutral States--The United States as a moral arbiter--A
summary of the probable verdict of history 246

EPILOGUE 252

The Evidence in the Case

CHAPTER I

THE SUPREME COURT OF CIVILIZATION

Let us suppose that in this year of dis-Grace, 1914, there had
existed, as let us pray will one day exist, a Supreme Court of
Civilization, before which the sovereign nations could litigate their
differences without resort to the iniquitous arbitrament of arms and
that each of the contending nations had a sufficient leaven of
Christianity or shall we say commonplace, everyday morality, to have
its grievances adjudged not by the ethics of the cannon, but by the
eternal criterion of justice.

_What would be the judgment of that august tribunal?_

It may be suggested that the question is academic, as no such Supreme
Court exists or is likely to exist within the life of any living man.

Casuists of the Bernhardi school of moral philosophy will further
suggest that to discuss the ethical merits of the war is to start with
a false premise that such a thing as international morality exists,
and that when once the conventionalities of civilization are laid
aside the leading nations commence and make war in a manner that
differs only in degree and not in kind from the methods of Frederick
the Great and Napoleon, and that these in turn only differed in degree
from those of Alaric and Attila. According to this theory, the only
law of nations is that ascribed by the poet to Rob Roy:

"The good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."

Does the Twentieth Century only differ from its predecessors in having
a thin veneering of hypocrisy, or has there developed in the progress
of civilization an international morality, by which, even though
imperfectly, the moral conduct of nations is judged?

The answer can be an unqualified affirmative. With the age of the
printing press, the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph there
has developed _a conscience of mankind_.

Wh