Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/169

 nineteenth centuries led an extremely limited life. Of his own motion, he seldom stirred from his own domain or farm or village. War alone drew him out to teach him that there was a world beyond his horizon, that there were other men with other ideas not only among his own people but among stranger clans. War made a tremendous contribution to human experience, to collective human consciousness. That was its use, its larger reason for being.

Now, modern invention has changed all that. We no longer need a process so essentially wasteful to transmit the results of progress. When Wright proved to Europe that a man can fly through the air, the news was flashed that very night to every corner of the globe; three-quarters of the civilized world read it next morning. Within a month, such remote points as Shanghai, Cape Town and Buenos Aires had European publications with technical reports; any good mechanic who wished could go about building an aeroplane. The remote parts of the globe were by now coming fast into the circle of communication. Before the Great War, all the inaccessible places had been explored—even Thibet and the two poles. The world had no more secrets and mysteries. From end to end of Africa, the infant continent, ran a railroad; Africa was spotted with European settlements, in touch with civilization by telegraph-lines. The printing-press, the railroad, the automobile, the electric telegraph have all given