Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/204

158 and war, this attitude of mind of a man even like Professor Dickinson conclusively shows it.

But the point I want to insist upon here, is that everybody even in the countries now at war wants peace, but nobody has the power to make peace, to stop the war. Now the fact that nobody has the power to make peace, to stop the war, makes everybody believe that there is no possible way of making peace; makes everbodyeverybody [sic] despair of the possibllitypossibility [sic] of making peace. This despair of the possibility of making peace it is which prevents everybody in the countries now at war from seeing that this war wanted by nobody and brought on only by the panic of the mob, is really nothing but an infernal madness. The first thing to be done, therefore, in order to make everybody see that this war is nothing but an infernal madness is to show everybody that there is a possibility of making peace. In order to make everybonyeverybody [sic] see that there is a possibility of making peace, the very first and simple thing to do is at once to stop the war; to invest some one with full power to stop the war; to invest the rulers of the countries now at war with absolute power by making, as I said, a Magna Charta of Loyalty,—absolute power to order and command the war to be stopped at once. As soon as everybody sees that the war can be stopped, everybody in the countries now at war, everybody except perhaps a few absolute incurable lunatics, will be able to see that this war wanted by nobody and brought on only