Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/187

 other regards the nation as an agency for the greatest good of the greatest number. He who follows this conception takes his pride not in his nation’s hollow victories of arms but in her achievements of order, common prosperity, art, science, industry. The one is the old-fashioned patriotism, grown in the twentieth century to a world-menace; the other is the patriotism of the future.

Again let me make a human comparison. In all times poets have sung of the nation as the Mother, of its citizens as her sons and daughters. Now you may interpret your love for your mother in two ways, one sane, the other a little insane. You may work peacefully to keep her happy and well-housed and well-fed. This, I suppose, states the attitude of most of us toward our mothers. But of course you may go round with a pistol in your pocket, always ready to start a fight with anyone who may say that she is not the best of mothers, or watching for an opportunity to hold up a shop and steal the fur coat which she happens to want. So, I suppose, the savage expressed his love for his mother in the days before the law; in recent ages we have had less and less patience with this form of filial devotion.