rather than commercial prosperity. The last is a vital point, for it does
not require much knowledge of modern history to discover that the race for
commercial advantage is exactly one of the reasons why Europe is at war at
the present moment. A vast increase in the commercial prosperity of any
one state means a frantic effort on the part of its rivals to pull down
this advantage. In some fashion, therefore, we have to substitute for
endless competition the principle of co-operation, national welfare being
construed at the same time not in terms of overwhelming wealth, but of
thorough sanity and health in the body corporate.


NAKED STRENGTH

All this sounds shadowy and abstruse until it is translated into something
concrete and definite. What is it we want to dispossess and banish from
the Europe of to-day? We have to find something to take the place of what
is called militarism. I dealt with the general features of militarism in
my last essay; I will therefore content myself with saying that militarism
in Europe has meant two things above all. First, the worship of might, as
expressed in formidable armaments; next, the corresponding worship of
wealth to enable the burden of armaments to be borne with comparative
ease. The worship of naked strength involves several deductions. Right
disappears, or rather is translated in terms of might. International
morality equally disappears. Individuals, it is true, seek to be governed
by the consciousness of universal moral laws. But a nation, as such, has
no conscience, and is not bound to recognise the supremacy of anything
higher than itself. Morality, though it may bind the individual, does not
bind the State, or, as General von Bernhardi has expressed it, "political
morality differs from individual morality because there is no power above
the State." In similar fashion the worship of wealth carries numerous