Page:Justice in war time by Russell, Bertrand.djvu/38

12 to day, and they, at least, must be admitted by both sides equally.

The difference of opinion as to the desirable issue of the war is not wholly due to self-interest, though that is no doubt the chief cause. The difference is due in part to divergent ideals embodying divergent desires. Putting the matter crudely, and considering only the Western war, we may say that the Germans love order, learning, and music, all of which are good things, while the French and English love democracy and liberty, which are also good things. In order to force their respective ideals upon nations which do not value them, the Germans are willing to replace order in Europe by the universal chaos of war, and to send the young men who pursue learning or music to be killed on the battlefield, while the French and English have found it necessary to suppress democracy and liberty for the present, without any guarantee that they will be restored when the war is over. If the war lasts long, all that was good in the ideals of Germany, France, and England will have perished, as the ideals of Spartans and Athenians perished in the Peloponnesian War. All three races, with all that they have added to our civilisation, will have become exhausted, and victory, when it comes, will be as barren and as hopeless as defeat.

Under the distorting influence of war, the doubtful and microscopic differences between different European nations have been exaggerated when it has become treason to question their overwhelming importance. Every educated man knew and acknowledged before the war began, and every educated man now knows without acknowledging, that the likenesses