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Rh are, for the most part, in close sympathy with one another, are generally desirous of overcoming the narrow prejudices which are often mistaken for patriotism, are sincerely eager to assimilate the better institutions of other countries, and are eminently favorable to every form of political and commercial union between their own States, and States in the enjoyment of more advanced institutions than those at home.

The bearing of these unquestionable facts on the tendency to War in modern society is obvious enough. The mere fact that it is impossible for a modern civilized State to go to War, or at least to maintain a War, unless the Government can so far conciliate a popularly-constituted Assembly as to procure the necessary supplies, has the effect of launching the vital topic of how the War arose into the field of public discussion of the most serious and responsible kind, and also of making every War, in reality as well as in form, to be waged by the whole people, acting through their freely elected representatives, and not by the Government alone. These two facts cannot but have a most decisive influence on the frequency and on the duration of Wars, though the character of the influence may undoubtedly for a time be somewhat ambiguous. It is no doubt true that where a Government can shift its responsibility on to a large political Assembly, in which its own influence is at once concealed and overwhelming, it may be more ready to engage in a hazardous War than where itself must bear the whole onus of responsibility from first to last. It is also true that the War-fever can be very easily roused in a country, and in no way can the rhetoric  of daily journals and platform orators be turned to more successful and pernicious use than in that of creating a maddening fanaticism for War. A partially civilized people is perhaps quite as warlike as the most bellicose of Governments.