Page:The Kingdom of God is within you, by Leo Tolstoy.pdf/174

 So much for the attitude to war of those who regard it as something tragic and fated by destiny.

The third category consists of men who have lost all conscience and, consequently, all common sense and feeling of humanity.

To this category belongs Moltke, whose opinion has been quoted above by Maupassant, and the majority of military men, who have been educated in this cruel superstition, live

by it, and consequently are often in all simplicity convinced that war is not only an inevitable, but even a necessary and beneficial thing. This is also the view of some civilians, so-called educated and cultivated people.

Here is what the celebrated academician Camille Doucet writes in reply to the editor of the Revue des Revues, where several letters on war were published together:

":

When you ask the least warlike of academicians whether he is a partisan of war, his answer is known beforehand.

"Alas! sir, you yourself speak of the pacific ideal inspiring your generous compatriots as a dream.

"During my life I have heard a great many good people protest against this frightful custom of international butchery, which all admit and deplore but how is it to be remedied?

"Often, too, there have been attempts to suppress dueling; one would fancy that seemed an easy task but not at all! All that has been done hitherto with that noble object has never been and never will be of use.

"All the congresses of both hemispheres may vote against war, and against dueling too, but above all arbitrations, conventions, and legislations there will always be the personal honor of individual men, which has always demanded dueling, and the interests of nations, which will always demand war.

"I wish none the less from the depths of my heart that