armed, and equipped. They are intelligently led and follow with intelligence.

"Of Russia there is hardly evidence to show that the cause for which she is fighting has touched the imaginations or the feelings of more than a small fraction of the population. It is the war of a bureaucracy, and Russia may easily fail to develop either great leading, though her officers are instructed, or intelligent following of the leaders by the rank and file. But the Russian troops are brave and have always needed a good deal of beating."

Substitute Great Britain for Russia and Germany for Japan in this forecast, which has been proved true, and every word holds good except two. We now know that Russia's policy was not deliberate; that her Government bungled into the war without knowing what it was doing. In just the same way British Governments have drifted blindly into the present difficult relations with Germany. Those in England who would push the country into a war with Germany are indeed not a bureaucracy, they are merely a fraction of one of the parties, and do not represent the mass of our people, who have no desire for such a war, and are so little aware of its possibility that they have never even taken the trouble to find out why it may come. A larger section of the other party is steeped in the belief that force, violence, and war are wicked in themselves, and ought therefore not to be thought about. It is a prejudice which, unless removed, may ruin this country, and there is no way of dissipating it except that of patient argument based upon observation of the world we live in. That way I shall attempt to follow in the next chapter.

III

If there are any among us who adopt these words as the governing rule of their lives they will certainly cause no difficulty to the State in its military policy whatever that may be, and will find their natural places even in time of war to the public good. If the whole population were of their way of thinking and acting there would be no need to discuss war. An invader would not be resisted. His troops would be hospitably entertained and treated with affection. No opposition would be made to the change of Government which he would introduce, and the taxes which he imposed would be cheerfully paid. But there would be no State, except that created by the invader; and the problem of conduct for those living the life described would arise when the State so set up issued its ordinances requiring every able-bodied man to become a competent soldier.

There are those who believe, or fancy they believe, that the words I have quoted involve the principle that the use of force or of violence between man and man, or between nation and nation, is wicked. To the man who thinks it right to submit to any violence or to be killed rather than to use violence in resistance, I have no reply to make. The world cannot conquer him and fear has no hold upon him. But even he can carry out his doctrine only to the extent of allowing himself to be ill-treated, as I will now convince him. Many years ago the people of South Lancashire were horrified by the facts reported in a trial for murder. In a village on the outskirts of Bolton lived a young woman, much liked and respected as a teacher in one of the Board schools. On her way home from school she was accustomed to follow a footpath through a lonely wood, and here one evening her body was found. She had been strangled by a ruffian who had thought in this lonely place to have his wicked will of her. She had resisted successfully and he had killed her in the struggle. Fortunately the murderer was caught and the facts ascertained from circumstantial evidence were confirmed by his confession. Now, the question I have to ask of the man who takes his stand on the passage I have quoted from the Gospel is: "What would have been your duty if you had been walking through that wood and come upon the girl struggling with the man who killed her?" This is a crucial instance which, I submit, utterly destroys the doctrine that the use of violence is in itself wrong. The right or wrong is not in the employment of force but simply in the purpose for which it is used. What the case establishes, I think, is that to use violence in resistance to violent wrong is not only right but necessary.

The employment of force for the maintenance of right is the foundation of all civilised human life, for it is the fundamental function of the State, and apart from the State there is no civilisation, no life worth living. The first business of the State is to protect the community against violent interference from outside. This it does by requiring from its subjects whatever personal service and whatever sacrifice of property and of time may be necessary; and resistance to these demands, as well as to any injunctions whatever laid by the State upon its subjects, is unconditionally suppressed by force. The mark of the State is sovereignty, or the identification of force and right, and the measure of the perfection of the State is furnished by the completeness of this identification. In the present condition of English political thought it may be worth while to dwell for a few moments upon the beneficent nature of this dual action of the State.

Within its jurisdiction the State maintains order and law and in this way makes life worth living for its subjects. Order and law are the necessary conditions of men's normal activities, of their industry, of their ownership of whatever the State allows them to possess—for outside of the State there is no ownership—of their leisure and of their freedom to enjoy it. The State is even the basis of men's characters, for it sets up and establishes a minimum standard of conduct. Certain acts are defined as unlawful and punished as crimes. Other acts, though not criminal, are yet so far subject to the disapproval of the courts that the man who does them may have to compensate those who suffer injury or damage in consequence of them. These standards have a dual origin, in legislation and precedent. Legislation is a formal expression of the agreement of the community upon the definition of crimes, and common law has been produced by the decisions of the courts in actions between man and man. Every case tried in a civil court is a conflict between two parties, a struggle for justice, the judgment being justice applied to the particular case. The growth of English law has been through an endless series of conflicts, and the law of to-day may be described as a line passing through a series of points representing an infinite number of judgments, each the decision of a conflict in court. For seven hundred years, with hardly an interruption, every judgment of a court has been sustained by the force of the State. The law thus produced, expressed in legislation and interpreted by the courts, is the foundation of all English conduct and character. Upon the basis thus laid there takes place a perpetual evolution of higher standards. In the intercourse of a settled and undisturbed community and of the many societies which it contains, arise a number of standards of behaviour which each man catches as it were by infection from the persons with whom