a^atmll MmmtBtt^ SJitearg 
 
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 National and international right and wro 
 
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NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL 
 RIGHT AND WRONG 
 
NATIONAL AND 
 INTERNATIONAL 
 RIGHT AND WRONGi 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SIDGWICK 
 
 author of 
 
 *'the methods of ethics," "elements of politics, "the 
 
 development of european polity," etc. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 THE RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE] 
 
 aothor"~Of 
 '*the holy roman empire," " the american commonwealth," etc^ 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. 
 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. MCMXIX 
 /5L 
 
i^i-S^g-s*! 
 
 Reprinted ficom Professor Sidgwick's volume of Essays 
 entitled Practical Ethics (Messrs. George Allen and 
 Unwin, Ltd.) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 9 
 
 I. Public Morality . 17 
 
 II. The Morality of Strife 48 
 
PREFACE 
 
 AMONG the great and startling events of 
 ^ *• this war there are none of more per- 
 manent significance to the historian and the 
 philosophic thinker than those which have 
 raised the question : "By what, if any, moral 
 law are states and their governments bound ? " 
 We had .been wont to assume that ethical 
 standards and principles exist for states as for 
 individuals, even if the standards were not 
 wholly identical. But four years ago, while 
 the governments of two great civilised^ nations 
 were, with soijie faint excuses, violating the 
 traditional standards by their acts, their phil- 
 osophers and historians were proclaiming that 
 no such standards exist. The State, they 
 declared, has no morality. It is a Law unto 
 
lo PREFACE 
 
 Itself. It can do no wrong. It finds in its 
 supreme end of self-preservation the justifica- 
 tion for any means it may employ. The bold 
 assertion of this doctrine forced us to examine 
 the foundations of our old-fashioned beliefs. 
 We had to ask, "Why have we held that 
 there are relations of honour, and duty among 
 states? What is Public Morality? I§ there 
 such a thing at all, and if it does not exist for 
 the great organisation we call the State, why 
 should it exist for organisation^ within the 
 State, and how can it exist for individual men 
 if it does. not hold good for men associated in 
 a political body ? " 
 
 When we examine these questions, either 
 by the light of theory or by the conduct of 
 statesmen, rulers, and leaders, in the past and 
 the maixims they have bequeathed to uS, the 
 questions turn out to be less simple than most 
 of us have been disposed to believe. The con^ 
 ventional phrases do not satisfy us. We need 
 
PREFACE II 
 
 the help of some penetrating and fertile mind, 
 equally at home in philosophy and history — 
 a mind which can combine subtlety of dis- 
 crimination with clear common sense, to guide 
 us to some solution of our perplexities which 
 may be at once logical and practical. 
 
 Such a mind was that of Henry Sidgwick. 
 Within the rapidly diminishing number of 
 those who knew him intimately — and to know 
 him was to admire him — there can be no one 
 who has not , often and often during the last 
 foqr years been wishing that he were still 
 among us that we might go to him for light 
 and guidance. It has occurred to some of. 
 these friends that in a little book which contains 
 several of his shorter pieces there are two 
 essays, dealing with just such moral issues as 
 this war has raised, which deserve to be now 
 reprinted. Neither of them is long, but both 
 contain much matter which is fitted to stimu- 
 late reflection. Whoever wishes to cultivate a 
 
12 PREFACE 
 
 habit of exact and patient thinking and to learn 
 how much more intricate many questions are 
 than they appear at first sight to be, and how 
 many qualifications are needed to bring popular 
 opinion into a just conformity with the realities 
 of the case, may always be advised to recur to 
 some of Sidgwick's writings. These essays 
 liave the characteristic merits of his iiiethod 
 and temper. They are excellent specimens of 
 the refinement and precision and untiring love 
 of truth which he brought to everything he 
 undertook. One of the essays, composed in 
 1897, is entitled "Public Morality." It deals 
 with the very questions raised by the German 
 invasion of Belgium and by Dr. von Bethmann 
 Hollweg's attempted palliation of that lawless 
 act. Sidgwick had already perceived more 
 than twenty years ago that the current of 
 German thought, beginning to run in an anti- 
 moral direction, was returning to the doctrines 
 promulgated by Machiavelli but provided with 
 
PREFACE 13 
 
 a new basis by the Hegelian doctrine of the 
 omnipotent sta^e. Some of us had latterly 
 observed that not in Germany only was 
 there a decKne from the moral standards of 
 eighty years ago, but no one (so far as 
 I know) has explained with so much ingenuity 
 the causes that have contributed to this 
 change. 
 
 The other essay here reprinted and entitled 
 ''The Morality of Strife" has also a direct 
 bearing on the phenomena which have marked 
 the conduct of this war, and on those which 
 many fear as likely to arise when the claims 
 of the- wage-earning class come into conflict 
 with those of employers and capitalists. 
 Writing in 1890, Sidgwick foresaw what was 
 to be said for and against the scheme of a 
 League of Nations to preserve peace, how far 
 the method of arbitration is and how far it is 
 not applicable to controversies between states, 
 what difficulties surround the determination of 
 
14 PREFACE 
 
 y^ _ . 
 
 wages by the compulsory action of courts set 
 up, as is now the case in New Zealand and 
 Australia. He pointed out in words that 
 ought to be pondered to-day what may be 
 hoped for from the sedulous cultivation of 
 what he calls the spiritual methods of avoiding 
 both international and industrial strife. Almost 
 the only one of the dangers to mankind which 
 we have seen during these last years which he 
 had assumed (and which all of us had assumed) 
 to have been left behind for ever, was a 
 recrudescence of cruelty in the methods of 
 conducting war, and especially in the brutal 
 treatment of non-combatants and prisoners. 
 
 Along with his inexhaustible ingenuity of 
 suggestion, these essays have that atmosphere 
 of mellow wisdom which gives its distinctive 
 quality to all that Sidgwick wrote on ethical 
 and historical subjects. They make those who 
 learnt from him in his lifetime as friends or 
 pupils feel, no less than they did when he 
 
PREFACE 15 
 
 departed from among us eighteen years ago. 
 that he was one of the irreplaceable lights of 
 his time. 
 
 HiNDLEAP, Forest Row, Sussex. 
 December, 191 8. 
 
I. 
 
 PUBLIC MORALITY* 
 
 THERE are two distinct ways of treating ethical 
 questions, the difference between which, in 
 respect of method, is fundamental ; though it does 
 not necessarily lead to controversy or diversity of 
 systems. We may begin by establishing funda- 
 mental principles of abstract or ideal morality, and 
 then proceed to work out deductively the particular 
 rules of duty or practical conceptions of human good 
 or well-being, through the adoption of which these 
 principles may be as far as possible realized, under 
 the actual conditions of human life. Or, we may 
 contemplate morality as a social fact — "positive 
 morality" as it has been called — i.e., the body of 
 opinions and sentiments as to right and wrong, good 
 and evil, which we find actually prevalent in the 
 society of which we are members; and endeavour, 
 by reflective analysis, removing vagueness and 
 
 * An essay read on Jan. 36, 1897, at a meeting of a Cambridge 
 essay-club called "The Eranus." 
 
 B 17 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 ambiguity, solving apparent contradictions, correct- 
 ing lapses and supplying omissions, to reduce this 
 body of current opinions, so far as possible, to a 
 rational and coherent system. The two methods 
 are in no way antagonistic: indeed, it may reason- 
 ably be contended that if pursued with complete 
 success, they must lead to the same goal— a 
 perfectly satisfactory and practical ideal of conduct. 
 But in the actual condition of our intellectual and 
 social development, the respective results of the two 
 methods are apt to exhibit a certain divergence 
 which, for practical purposes, we have to obliterate- 
 more or less consciously — by a rough compromise. 
 
 In the present discourse, I "shall adopt primarily 
 the second method. I shall accordingly mean by 
 " public morality " prevalent opinions as to right and 
 wrong in public conduct; that is, primarily in the 
 conduct of governments — whether in relation to the 
 members of the states governed, or in- dealings with 
 other states. We must, however, extend the notion^ 
 especially in states under popular government, to 
 include opinions as to the conduct of private indi- 
 viduals and associations, so far as they influence or 
 control government; or we might put it otherwise, 
 by saying that in such states every man who 
 possesses the franchise has a share in the functions 
 and responsibilities of government. Thus, in such 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. ig 
 
 states the morality of party strife is a department 
 of public morality. The limits of my discourse will 
 compel me to concentrate attention mainly on 
 government in the ordinary sense — the persons 
 primarily responsible for governmental action, and 
 to whose conduct the judgment of right and wrong 
 applies in the first instance. But it seemed desirable 
 to notice at the outset the wider extension of govern- 
 mental responsibilities that belongs to democracy; 
 because on this largely depends, in my view, not 
 the theoretical interest, but the practical urgency 
 of the question that I am about to raise. 
 
 For the most important inquiry which my subject 
 at the present time suggests is whether there is 
 any deep and fundamental distinction between 
 public and private morality; any more difference, 
 that is, than between the moralities belonging 
 respectively to different professions and callings. 
 We all, of course, recognize that in a certain 
 sense the application of moral rules varies for 
 different professions : certain kinds of duty be- 
 come specially important for each profession, and 
 accordingly come to be defined for it with special 
 precision ; and certain minor problems of conduct 
 are presented to members of one profession which 
 are not presented to another. In this way some 
 variations are thus caused in the practical casuistry 
 
30 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 belonging to different callings; so that we might 
 speak of clerical morality, ^ legal morality, and 
 medical morality; but in so speaking we should be 
 commonly understood to refer to variations in detail 
 of comparatively minor importance. It would be 
 a violent paradox to maintain that the ordinary 
 rules of veracity, justice, good faith, etc., were 
 suspended wholly or partially in the case of any of 
 these professions. But the case is different with 
 the department of morality which deals with the 
 conduct of states or governments. In this region 
 paradoxes of the kind just mentioned have been 
 deliberately maintained by so many grave persons 
 that we can hardly refuse them serious attention. 
 Indeed, if anyone will study the remarkable catena 
 of authorities quoted by Lord Acton in his intro- 
 duction to Burd's edition of Machiavelli's Prince, 
 he will, I think, be left in some doubt how far the 
 proposition, that statesmen are not subject in their 
 public conduct even to the most fundamental rules 
 of private morality, can properly be called para- 
 doxical any longer, for persons duly instructed 
 in modern history, and modern political thought. 
 It is still, no doubt, a paradox to the vulgar. 
 It is not a proposition that a candidate for 
 Parliament would affirm on a public platform ; 
 but the extent to which it is adopted, explicitly 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 21 
 
 m 
 
 or implicitly, by educated persons is already 
 sufficient to introduce into popular morality an 
 element of perplexity and disturbance, which it 
 would be desirable, if possible, to remove; and this 
 perplexity and disturbance must be expected to 
 increase, in proportion as democracy increases the 
 responsibility — and the sense of responsibility — of 
 the ordinary citizen. 
 
 Observe that in speaking of "morality" I have 
 in view the standard by which men are judged, not 
 the standard of their practice. It is not merely that 
 the statesman ' frequently violates the rules of duty, 
 for that we all do. Nor is it merely that, in view 
 of the greatness of his temptations or the nobleness 
 of his patriotic motives, more indulgence is shown 
 to his breaches of justice, veracity, or good faith, 
 than would be shown to similar transgressions in 
 private life; that the historian is "a little blind" 
 to the faults of a man who has rendered valuable 
 services to his country. For this kind of indulgence 
 is also sometimes shown to persons in other voca- 
 tions, when subject to special temptations or moved 
 by fine impulses ; but it does not commonly amount 
 to a modification of the rule by which men are 
 judged, but only to an alteration in the weight 
 of the censure attached to a breach of the rule. 
 Thus public opinion is indulgent to the amorous. 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 escapades of gallant soldiers and sailors, though 
 it would condemn similar conduct severely in 
 schoolmasters ; but no one would gravely argue 
 that the Seventh Commandment is not binding on 
 military men. So again, we all sympathize with 
 the Jacobite servant who " would rather trust his 
 soul in God's hands than his master in the hands 
 of the Whigs," and therefore committed perjury to 
 avoid the worse alternative ; but our sympathy 
 does not lead us to contend that domestic loyalty 
 has a licence to swear falsely on suitable occasions. 
 Nor, further, is the fact I am considering merely 
 that there is, or has been, an esoteric professional 
 morality current among politicians, in which con- 
 siderable relaxations are allowed of the ordinary 
 rules of veracity, justice, and good faith. This is 
 doubtless a part of the fact; but if this were all, 
 it would be easy to find analogies for it in several 
 other professions and callings,~which are all liable 
 to similar esoteric relaxations of ordinary morality. 
 For instance, I suppose that there is now an 
 esoteric morality widely spread among retail traders 
 which allows of secret payments to cooks and 
 butlers in order to secure their custom; but we 
 do not hear the bribery approved or defended 
 outside the circles of retail tradesmen and domestic 
 servants. So, again, it would seem that in certain 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 23 
 
 ages and countries the current morality among 
 priests has regarded " pious fraud " as legitimate ; 
 but the success of this method of promoting the 
 cause of religion would seem to depend upon its 
 being kept strictly esoteric; and I am not aware 
 that it was ever openly defended in works pub- 
 lished for the edification of the laity. The 
 peculiarity of the divergence of political from 
 ordinary morality is that it has been repeatedly 
 thus defended, not only by the statesmen them- 
 selves, but by literary persons contemplating the 
 statesman's work in the disengaged attitude of 
 students of life and society. 
 
 Nor, finally, is it merely that the statesman's 
 breaches of morality, if successful, are liable to be 
 approved by the popular sentiment of the nation 
 which profits by them, so that the writers of 
 this nation are inadvertently led into fallacies and 
 sophistries in order to justify the immoralities in 
 question. This doubtless occurs, and cannot much 
 surprise us. Adam Smith has explained how con- 
 science — the imaginary impartial spectator within 
 the breast of each of us — ^"requires often to be 
 awakened and put in mind of his duty by the 
 presence of the real spectator"; and how, when the 
 real spectator at hand is interested and partial, 
 while the impartial ones are at a distance, the 
 
24 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 propriety of moral sentiments is apt to be cor- 
 rupted. No doubt this partly explains the low 
 state of international morality, and of the morality 
 of party warfare, as compared with ordinary private 
 morality; but this explanation will not suffice to 
 account for the divergence that I am now con- 
 sidering. It is not merely that particular cases in 
 which leading statesmen have employed immoral 
 means for patriotic ends are sophistically defended 
 by patriotic contemporaries belonging to the same 
 nation. The point is that the approval of such 
 breaches is formulated in explicit general maxims, 
 raised into a system, and deliberately applied by 
 eminent students of history and political science to 
 the acts of statesmen in remote ages and countries. 
 This seems to be especially the case in Germany, 
 where men of letters have in recent times taken 
 the lead in advocating the emancipation of the 
 statesman from the restraints of ordinary morality. 
 It is not merely that the German defends his 
 Frederic or his Bismarck to the best of his ability ; 
 his historical and philosophical soul is not content 
 wifh that. To do him justice, he is equally earnest 
 in defending the repudiation by Rome of the treaty 
 with the Samnites after the incident of the Caudine 
 Forks, — or any similar act of bad faith or aggression 
 perpetrated by that remarkably successful common- 
 wealth. \ 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 25 
 
 Let us contemplate more closely the principles 
 of this charter of liberation from the ordinary rules 
 of morality, issued to statesmen and states by 
 respectable thinkers of our century. And, first, I 
 may begin by distinguishing the explicitly anti- 
 moral propositions that I have in view from other 
 propositions in some measure cognate, which yet 
 do not definitely imply them. For instance, when 
 a writer speaks of the "irresistible logic of facts," 
 or tells us that history furnishes the only touch- 
 stone for political ideals, that great designs and 
 great enterprises can only prove themselves such 
 by succeeding, that achievement is the only criterion 
 of the true statesman, etc., etc. — this does not 
 necessarily imply the emancipation of the states- 
 man from ordinary moral restraints. It may merely 
 mean that the construction of the finest possible 
 Utopia is not statesmanship, and that the true 
 statesman's ideas must be adapted for realization 
 with the means at his disposal and under given 
 conditions; it need not be taken to deny that the 
 restraints of common morality are among these 
 conditions. No doubt this kind of language strongly 
 suggests the 
 
 Si possis recti si non quocungue modo 
 of Horace; but though it suggests this meaning, 
 it does not strictly justify us in attributing it to 
 
26 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 the writer. For one might similarly say that the 
 possession of the art of medicine can only be 
 proved by success, and that the one business of 
 the physician is to cure his patient, without in- 
 tending to imply that it does not matter what 
 commandments the physician may break, provided 
 only the cure is effected. 
 
 So, again, when it is said that morality varies 
 from age to age, and from country to" country, 
 that the code shifts with the longitude and alters 
 with the development of society, and that in 
 judging any statesman we must apply the standard 
 of his age and country, — all this seems directed 
 rather to the emancipation of the historian from 
 moral narrowness in his judgments than to the 
 emancipation of the statesman from moral restraint 
 in his conduct. For this language assumes that 
 the statesman is bound by the established moral 
 code of his society ; it only points out that that 
 court for the award of praise and blame, in which 
 the historian from time to time appoints himself to 
 §it as judge anid jury, is subject to the difficulties 
 arising from the diversity and con.flict of laws, and 
 that the judicious historian must take care to select 
 and apply the right code. Whether this view is 
 sound or not, it has no logical connection with the 
 doctrine that sets a statesman free from the funda- 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 27 
 
 mental rules of morality, recognized as binding in 
 his own age and country. 
 
 One more distinction, and then I come to the 
 point. I suppose that if there is any one his- 
 toric name with which this anti- moral doctrine 
 is to be specially connected, it is the name of 
 Machiavelli; I might indeed have referred to it 
 briefly as " Machiavellianism," only that I am 
 anxious to examine it rather in its nineteenth 
 century than its sixteenth century form. Now, 
 competent historians of thought have regarded it as 
 the essential principle of Machiavelli that "the end 
 justifies the means"; and certainly this principle is 
 expressly laid down by the great Florentine, not 
 only in the paradoxical and variously interpreted 
 Prince, but in the more moderate and straightforward 
 Discourses on Livy, — which have largely escaped 
 the reprobation piled on the more famous treatise. 
 He lays this principle down in treating of a case 
 so remote from modern interest as the slaying of 
 Remus by Romulus; he admits that this fratricide 
 was objectionable in itself, but holds it justified when 
 we take Romulus' ends into account. "A good 
 result excuses any violence." And probably for 
 ordinary readers this statement sufficiently charac- 
 terizes Machiavelli's doctrine as anti-moral ; but it 
 must be obvious that it cannot so characterize it 
 
28 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 for those who, like myself, hold that the only true 
 basis for morality is a utilitarian basis. I desire 
 here to digress as little as may be into this con- 
 troversy of the schools: but I must refer to it to 
 avoid confusion and misunderstanding. For in the 
 view of utilitarians the proposition that "the end 
 justifies the means" cannot possibly be taken to 
 characterize the anti-moral position of MachiavelH 
 or his nineteenth century followers. In our view 
 the end must always ultimately justify the means — 
 there is no other way in which the use of any 
 means whatever could possibly be justified. Only 
 it must be a universal end; not the preservation of 
 any particular state, still less its aggrandisement or 
 the maintenance of its existing form of government; 
 but the happiness or well-being of humanity at 
 large — or, rather, of the whole universe of living 
 things, so far as any practical issue can be raised 
 between these two conceptions of the universal 
 end. According to us, then, the immorality of 
 Machiavellianism does not lie in its affirmation that 
 the bindingness of all moral rules is relative, or 
 that the moral value of actions is to be estimated 
 by their consequences — if only a sufficiently wide 
 view is taken of these consequences. It only 
 begins when the end in view and the regard for 
 consequences is narrowed and restricted ; when 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 29 
 
 the interest of' a particular state is taken as the 
 ultimate and paramount end, justifying the em- 
 ployment of any means whatever to attain it, 
 whatever the consequences of such action may be 
 to the rest of the human race. 
 
 And this "national egoism" is, I think, the 
 essence of tKe Neo-Machiavellianism, which, — though 
 views somewhat similar have frequently found ex- 
 pression from the sixteenth century onward, — has 
 been especially prominent in the political thought 
 of the last forty years, and, as I have said, has 
 found the most unreserved and meditated expression 
 in the writings of Germans. I may give as an 
 example the statements of an able and moderate 
 writer, who is by no means an admirer of Machiavelli. 
 "The state," says Rlimelin,* "is self-sufficient." 
 "Self-regard is its appointed duty; the maintenance 
 and development of its own power and well-being, — 
 egoism, if you like to call this egoism, — is the 
 supreme principle of all politics." ' "The state can 
 only have regard to the interest of any other state 
 so far as this can be identified with its own interest." 
 "Self-devotion is the principle for the individual, 
 
 • These sentences are taken from an address, " Ueber das 
 Verhaltniss der Politik vta Morale," published in 1875, among the 
 ReUn umi Aufsalie of Gustro Rumelin, Chancellor of the University 
 of Tubingen. 
 
30 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 self-assertion for the state." "The maintenance of 
 the state justifies every sacrifice, and is superior to 
 every moral rule." 
 
 It may perhaps be said that this adoption of 
 national interest as a paramount end does not 
 necessarily involve a collision with established 
 morality: that it may be held along with a belief 
 that veracity, good faith, and justice are always 
 the best policy for states and for individuals. But 
 the common sense of Christendom does not affirm 
 this of individuals, jf mundane consequences alone 
 are taken into account: and though Bentham and 
 an important section of his earlier followers were 
 prepared to base private morality on pure self- 
 interest empirically ascertained and measured, this 
 doctrine has few defenders now. And the cor- 
 responding doctrine as regards national interest is 
 certainly not to be attributed to the German 
 writers to whom I refer : their practical aim in 
 affirming national egoism is almost always expressly 
 to emancipate the public action of statesmen from 
 the restraints of private morality. 
 
 The origin of this Neo-Machiavellianism may be 
 traced to various causes. It is partly due to a 
 reaction from the political idealism of the later 
 eighteenth century — a reaction in which moral 
 rules have been thrown overboard along with con- 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 31 
 
 stitutional principles ; partly to a reaction from the 
 cosmopolitanism of the same period, tending to an 
 exaggerated affirmation of the self-sufficiency and 
 absolute moral independence of the nation-state ; 
 partly, perhaps, to a kind of Neo-paganism, striving 
 to make patriotism take the place of Christianity. 
 Partly it seems to be connected with the triumph 
 of the historical method, influenced in its earlier 
 stage by the Hegelian change of Idealism through 
 Optimism into its opposite, summed up in the 
 famous declaration that the Real is Rational; from 
 which it seems an obvious inference that the man 
 who succeeds is always in the right, whatever his 
 path to success, the man who fails always in the 
 wrong. In any case, I think the nineteenth century 
 study of history has tended to enlarge and systematize 
 the demand for the moral emancipation of the 
 statesman. Doubtless from the time of Machiavelli 
 downwards it has been a common view of practical 
 politicians that " good men " are unsuited for 
 political crises, because they will not, as Walpole 
 puts it, "go the necessary lengths." But so long 
 as Traditional and Ideal Legitimacy were carrying 
 on their constitutional struggle with confident 
 conviction on both sides, the required relaxation 
 from moral restraints was commonly limited to crises 
 sincerely believed to be exceptional. " Revolutions 
 
32 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 and wars are not made with rose water," said 
 the political idealist; "but when once we have 
 emancipated nations, and established in them free 
 and equal democratic governments, revolutions and 
 wars will be things of the past." "We have to 
 violate rules of right to defend the right," said 
 the party of order, "in the present tempest of 
 revolutionary madness ; but, once the madness is 
 over, the powers ordained of God will, of course, 
 conform to the moral order which they are essentially 
 required to maintain." But the convictions of both 
 parties belong to a stage which the movement of 
 nineteenth century thought has now left behind it 
 The study of history has caused the view to prevail 
 that "the great world" is to 
 
 "Spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change"; 
 
 and, consequently, at every turn of this rotatory 
 movement forward, there would seem likely to be 
 an ever recurrent need for the morally emancipated 
 statesman — the statesman who, when circumstances 
 drive him to cruelty, rapacity, breach of faith, false- 
 hood, will not waver and whine about the "painful 
 necessity"; but, with simple decision, unhampered 
 by scruples, take the course that leads straightest 
 to the next stage of the everlasting progress. 
 In the extreme form which this doctrine not 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 33 
 
 unfrequently assumes, and in which I have, for 
 clearness, presented it, it neither invites nor requires 
 a formal refutation; since it neither appeals to t]ie 
 common moral consciousness of mankind, which, 
 indeed, it frankly claims to override, nor to any 
 principles which have ever been accepted by 
 philosophers. For egoism pure and simple, the 
 doctrine that each individual's interest must be for 
 him ultimately paramount to all other considerations, 
 there is, in abstract ethical discussion, much to be 
 said ; but I have never seen, nor can I conceive, any 
 ethical reasoning that will provide even a plausible 
 basis for the compound proposition" that a man is 
 bound to sacrifice his private interest to that of the 
 group of humai? beings constituting his state, but that 
 neither he nor they are under any similar obligation 
 to the rest of mankind. And to do them justice, 
 the advocates of this doctrine do not commonly 
 resort to ethical deductions to justify their position. 
 They prefer to appeal to facts; and certainly it is 
 not difficult to find examples of statesmen who 
 have attained their ends by such breaches of current 
 morality as this doctrine defends: but obviously no 
 appeal to facts can settle the question of right 
 without a palpable petitio principii. 
 
 There is, however, one objection that may be 
 taken to this doctrine on the purely historical 
 
34 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 ground on which its advocates usually argue. I do 
 not think that the history of polity and of political 
 ideas gives us any reason for believing that this 
 emancipation from morality, if once admitted, will 
 stop where the Neo-Machiavellians desire it to 
 stop — at national egoism. The moral emancipation 
 allowed to governments for the promotion of the 
 interests of the nation will be used by governments 
 for the maintenance of their power, even against the 
 interests of the nation ; the distinction between what 
 may be done to hold power and what may be done 
 to acquire it will come to be recognized as arbitrary ; 
 and so by an easy inclined plane we shall pass 
 from the Machiavellianism of the Discourses on Livy 
 to the Machiavellianism of the Prince. Or, again, 
 granting that some kind of corporate sentiment is 
 maintained, there is still no ground for confidence 
 that it will always attach itself to the particular 
 corporation called the state. If everything is per- 
 mitted in national struggles for the sake of the 
 nation, it will be easy to think that everything is 
 permitted in party-struggles or class-struggles for 
 the sake of the party or class. The tendencies of 
 modern democracy are running strongly towards 
 the increase of corporate sentiments and the habits 
 of corporate action in industrial groups and classes, 
 and so towards dividing civilized humanity by lines 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 35 
 
 that cut across the lines separating nations ; and 
 history certainly does not justify us in confidently 
 expecting that when the rules of private morality are 
 no longer held to apply to public action, patriotism 
 will still keep class feeling and party feeling within 
 the bounds required by national peace and well- 
 being. It is in the later period of free Greece — the 
 civilized fourth century — that the class conflict is 
 most disintegrative, which makes, as Plato says, 
 "two cities in one, the city of the rich and the 
 city of the poor " : and similarly in mediaeval Italy, 
 whereas in the twelfth century the chronicle ran 
 simply, "Parma fights Piacenza," before the end of 
 the thirteenth it ran, "Parma, with the exiles from 
 Piacenza, fights Piacenza." 
 
 I conclude, then, that this Neo-Machiavellian 
 doctrine is really condemned by history — the Caesar 
 to which it appeals — no less than by the old- 
 fashioned moral philosophy that it despises. But 
 I am far from wishing to dismiss it with a bare 
 negation. The extent to which it has found favour 
 with thoughtful persons affords a prima facie pre- 
 sumption that there are elements of sound reason 
 in it, which have been exaggerated into dangerous 
 paradox ; and, if so, it seems very desirable to get 
 these clear. The most important of these elements 
 — especially as regards international conduct — is, I 
 
36 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 think, more easily discernible in the work of Hobbes 
 than in that of Machiavelli; the Englishman being 
 a more systematic and philosophical thinker than 
 his Florentine master, though a less acute and 
 penetrating analyst of political experience. Hobbes, 
 as is well known, accepted fully the Machiavellian 
 view of human relations — outside the pale of a 
 political society compacted through unquestioning 
 obedience into peace and order. Outside this pale 
 he certainly held any aggression or breach of 
 compact conducive^o self-preservation to be lawful 
 to the human individual or group, struggling to 
 maintain its existence in the anarchy called a state 
 of nature ; but he justified this licence on the ground 
 that a member of such a "natural society" who 
 may observe moral rules can have no reasonable 
 expectation of reciprocal observance on the part of 
 others, and must therefore merely " make himself 
 a prey to others." In Hobbes' view, morality — 
 the sum of the conditions of harmonious human 
 living in society — is a system that man is always 
 bound to keep before his mind as an ideal ; but 
 his obligation to realize it in act is conditional 
 on a reasonable expectation of reciprocity. This 
 condition is, I think, with careful limitations and 
 qualifications, sound ; and the error of Hobbes 
 does not lie so much in making this demand for 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. $7 
 
 reciprocity — though he makes it too unguardedly — 
 as in his palpable exaggeration of the difference 
 between human relations in a so-called "natural" 
 society and in the state of political order. The 
 exaggeration is palpable — since (e.g.) the mere fact 
 that the habit of making compacts prevails among 
 states is evidence of a prevalent confidence that 
 they will be more or less observed — but the 
 exaggeration should not blind us to the real 
 divergence that exists between the rules of public 
 and of private duty, or to its connection with the 
 cause that Hobbes assigns for it. 
 
 This divergence, observe, does not arise in the 
 main from any fundamental difference in the general 
 principles of ideal morality for states and individuals 
 respectively, but from the actual difference of their 
 relations. A similar, if not an equal, divergence 
 would exist for a virtuous individual who found 
 himself in a society where, whether from anarchy 
 or from other causes, the moral standard maintained 
 in ordinary conduct was as low as the moral 
 standard of international conduct actually is. 
 
 As Mr. Spencer* forcibly says — 
 
 "Ideal conduct .... is not possible for the ideal 
 man in the midst of men otherwise constituted. An 
 
 • Principles of Ethits, Part I., chap, xv., p. 28a 
 
38 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 absolutely just or perfectly sympathetic person, could not 
 live and act according to his nature in a tribe of cannibals. 
 Among people who are treacherous and utterly without 
 scruple, entire truthfulness and openness must bring ruin. 
 If all around recognize only the law of the strongest, one 
 whose nature will not allow him to inflict pain on. others, 
 must go to the waU. There requires a certain congruity 
 between the conduct of each member of a society and 
 other's conduct. A mode of action entirely alien to the 
 prevailing modes of action, cannot be successfully per- 
 sisted in — must eventuate in death of self, or posterity, 
 or both." 
 
 I do not mean that the customary conduct of 
 nations to each other is accurately represented by 
 Spencer's description; but it is liable to resemble 
 this description much more closely than the 
 customary conduct of individuals in a civilized 
 society. Nor, again, do I mean that a state, any 
 more than an individual, can justify conduct which 
 ideal morality condemns by simply alleging the 
 similar conduct of other states — even the majority 
 of other states : if this were so, moral progress 
 would be almost impossible in international relations. 
 "From the fact that unprovoked aggression, com- 
 mitted with impunity and successful in its immediate 
 aims, is a phenomenon that continually recurs 
 throughout modern European history, I do not infer 
 that it is right for a modern European state to 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 39 
 
 commit an act of unprovoked aggression; what I 
 contend is that this fact materially alters the moral 
 relations between states by extending the rights and 
 duties of self-protection. 
 
 The difference thus introduced is unmistakably, 
 though vaguely, recognized in ordinary moral 
 thought; all we have to do — according to the 
 plan of the present essay — is to bring it clearly 
 before our minds, and assign its limits as pre- 
 cisely as we can. Thus it has long been tacitly 
 recognized that in international relations the con- 
 ditions are wanting undec which the morality of 
 passive submission and resignation, specially distinc- 
 tive of Christianity, is conducive to the general 
 well-being. It has been comprehended by the 
 common sense of the Christian world that the 
 precept to turn the other cheek, and repay coercion 
 and encroachment with spontaneous further con- 
 cessions, was not given to nations; and that the 
 meek who are to inherit the earth must be under- 
 stood to be meek individuals, protected by a 
 vigorous government from the disastrous conse- 
 quences to themselves that meekness in a state of 
 anarchy would entail. 
 
 The case is different with the rules of veracity, 
 good faith, abstinence from aggression on person or 
 property, which are not specially Christian : it would 
 
40 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 be absurd to interpret popular morality as allowing 
 governments a general licence to dispense them- 
 selves from the obligation of these rules when they 
 find it convenient, in view of the general tendency to 
 transgress them. But to an important extent, in 
 special cases, such a licence is commonly conceded. 
 Take the case of venacity. We should not condemn 
 a general in war for disseminating false statements to 
 mislead the enemy, or for sending spies to obtain 
 information as to the enemy's movements by pro- 
 cesses involving an indefinite amount of falsehood. A 
 similar licence is commonly conceded to governments 
 — or at least to their subordinates — in performing 
 the task of maintaining order within the community 
 governed. We riecognize that in the ceaseless contest 
 with secret crime, the business of the detective police 
 — which involves continual deception — is practically 
 indispensable; and must therefore be regarded as 
 a legitimate, if not highly honourable, calling. There 
 is at present no such general toleration of the use of 
 falsehood and spies and stratagems in diplomacy; 
 times are changed, I am told, since the definition of 
 a diplomatist as a, person " sent to lie abroad for the 
 benefit of his country," was from a scientific point of 
 view admissible. But here again, I think, a reason- 
 able expectation of reciprocity is practically accepted 
 ^s a condition of the stringency of the rule prohibit- 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 41 
 
 ing such artifices — a plot would be held to justify 
 a counterplot, at any rate if there were no other 
 effective means of defeating it. 
 
 In the case of breach of engagements, the exten- 
 sion of the scope of self-protection is of a somewhat 
 different character. Our common morality does not 
 justify treacherous promises, made without intention 
 of fulfilling them, even in dealing with states that 
 have been guilty of such treachery. Speaking 
 broadly, the right mode of dealing with such a 
 state is clearly to treat its promises as idle words, 
 unless there is some adequate ground, other than 
 the promise itself, for expecting its fulfilment. 
 But when modern states have failed to carry out 
 their compacts — and history abounds in instances 
 of such failure — they have usually made excuses, 
 alleging ambiguity of terms, material change of 
 circumstances, or the non-fulfilment of promises on 
 the other side. Now, in dealing with a government 
 which— in order to free itself from inconvenient 
 treaty-obligations — is in the habit of using pleas of 
 this kind in a strained and unreasonable manner, 
 I conceive that any other government would not 
 be liable to censure for claiming a similar freedom 
 — at any rate, in case of urgent need. 
 
 It will be observed that, according to the moral 
 view that I am endeavouring to express, urgent 
 
42 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 need is held to be required — as well as the ante- 
 cedence of similar acts on the other side — in order 
 completely to justify a breach of veracity or good 
 faith. Without urgent need, the fact that any 
 particular act of unveracity or bad faith is merely 
 imitative and retaliatory affords an excuse, but not 
 an adequate justification; since even a retaliatory 
 act of this kind has the mischievous effect of a 
 bad precedent, and tends to depress the customary 
 standard of morality between nations. 
 
 I may here mention one special difference between 
 public and private morality arising from the same 
 absence of a common government which has hitherto 
 rendered wars between nations inevitable, — the 
 different view that is and must be taken of the 
 bindingness of compacts imposed by force in the 
 two cases. In an orderly state, a promise obtained 
 from any person by unlawful force has, of course, 
 no legal validity : and it is at least doubtful whether 
 it has any moral validity. If in England a robber 
 were to force me, under threat of death, to promise 
 him a large sum of money, I conceive that no 
 thoughtful person would censure me for breaking 
 my promise, though he might feel a sentimental 
 preference for the opposite course. But in the case 
 of states, we cannot similarly treat wrongful force 
 as invalidating obligations deliberately undertaken 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 43 
 
 under its pressure: to do this— as I have elsewhere 
 said—" would obviously tend to aggravate the evils 
 of unjust victory" in war: "as the unjust victor, 
 being unable to rely on the promises of the van- 
 quished community, would be impelled by self- 
 interest to crush it utterly." At the same time, 
 there is an opposite danger in treating oppressive 
 conditions thus imposed as finally and permanently 
 binding: as this would increase the temptation — 
 already sufficiently strong — to skilfully-timed acts of 
 violent aggression. In this dilemma, international, 
 morality has, I think, to adopt a somewhat vague 
 compromise, and to regard such obligations as having 
 a limited validity, but tending to lose their force 
 through lapse of time, and the change of circum- 
 stances that lapse of time brings with it* 
 
 So far I have been speaking of international 
 relations; but the general principles that I have 
 applied to them must, I think, be admitted to some 
 extent in respect of internal crises in the life of a 
 political society. Here, however, I must guard 
 against a misunderstanding. I do not think we 
 should assume that the changes — even the greater 
 changes — in internal polity, which the future has 
 
 * This general view may be made a little less vague by distinguish- 
 ing di^erent kinds of conditions imposed by unjust force. See my 
 Eletntnts of Politics, chap, xvi., p. 268 (2nd Edn.) 
 
44 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 doubtless in store for European states, must neces- 
 sarily involve violent breaches of political order, 
 in respect of which the ordinary rules of morality 
 are to be suspended. Revolutions and coups d'itat 
 are fraught with such wide and far-reaching mischief 
 that the efforts to avoid them should never be 
 relaxed : if political meteorologists unite in affirming 
 that one or other must come "sooner or later," the 
 true patriot should answer, with Canning, that he 
 "prefers it later." The same is, of course, true of 
 wars : but there is at present more reason to hope 
 for the ultimate success of such efforts in the case 
 of internal strife owing to the greater strength of 
 the bonds of interest and sympathy that unite 
 members of the same state. But if ever such efforts 
 seem doomed to fail, and the minds of men are 
 turning to the violent courses that appear inevitable, 
 an enlargement of the right of self-protection — . 
 somewhat similar to that which we have just 
 recognized in international relations — must be 
 conceded to any of the sections into which the 
 state is suffering a transient moral disintegration ; 
 or rather to the statesmen acting on behalf of such 
 a section. 
 
 The last sentence leads me to notice a reason 
 sometimes given for divergence between public 
 and private morality, which I have not yet con 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 45 
 
 • 
 
 sidered. It is said that the actions of states have 
 generally to be judged as actions of governments ; 
 and that governments hold a position analogous 
 to that of trustees in relation to the community 
 governed, and therefore cannot legitimately incur 
 risks which a high morality would require individuals 
 to incur in similar cases. I think that there is some 
 force in the argument, but that it is only applicable 
 within a very narrow range. Trustees, whether for 
 private or collective interests, are bound to be just ; 
 and the cases are at any rate very rare in which 
 the highest morality applicable in the actual 
 condition of international relations would really 
 require states to be generous at the definite sacrifice 
 of their interests. For a state to embark on a 
 career of international knight-errantry would, 
 generally speaking, be hardly more conducive to 
 the interests of the civilized world than to those 
 of the supposed Quixotic community. Still I 
 admit that cases may occur in which intervention 
 of this kind, at a cost or risk to the intervening 
 community beyond what strict self-regard could 
 justify, would be clearly advantageous to the world, 
 and that in such cases the " quasi-trusteeship " 
 attaching to the position of government might 
 render its duty doubtful. It would seem that in 
 a case of this kind the moral responsibility for public 
 
46 PUBLIC MORALITY. 
 
 f 
 
 conduct is properly transferred in a large measure 
 from the rulers to the ruled. The government may 
 legitimately judge that it is right to run a risk with 
 the support of public opinion which it would be 
 wrong to run without it; so that it becomes the 
 duty of private persons — in proportion as ' they 
 contribute to the formationof public opinion-^to 
 manifest a readiness to give the required support. 
 
 To sum up briefly the main result of a long 
 discussion. So far as the past conduct of any 
 foreign state shows that reciprocal fulfilment of 
 international duty — as commonly recognized — 
 cannot reasonably be expected from it, I admit 
 that any other state that may have to deal with 
 it must be allowed a corresponding extension of 
 the right of self- protection, in the interest of 
 humanity at large no less than in its own interest. 
 It must be allowed to anticipate attack which it 
 has reasonable grounds for regarding as imminent, 
 to meet wiles with wiles as well as force with force, 
 and to be circumspect in the fulfilment of any 
 compact it may make with such a state. But 
 I do not regard this as constituting a fundamental 
 difference between public and private morality; 
 similar rights may have to be exceptionally claimed 
 and exercised between man and man in the most 
 orderly society that we have experience of; the 
 
PUBLIC MORALITY. 47 
 
 difference is mainly in the degree of exceptionality 
 of the claim. It remains true that in both cases 
 equally it must be insisted that the interest of the 
 part is to be pursued only in such manner and 
 degree as is c6mpatible with the interests of the. 
 larger community of which it is a part; and that 
 any violation of the rules of mutual behaviour 
 actually established in the common interests of this 
 community, so far as it is merely justified by its 
 conduciveness to the sectional interest of a particular 
 group of human beings, must receive unhesitating 
 and unsparing censure. 
 
II. 
 
 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE* 
 
 A LL who have thought earnestly on moral 
 ■^*- questions, and in particular have reflected on 
 the causes of and the remedies for the failure to 
 do what is right in themselves and others, must have 
 recognized that the causes of this failure divide 
 themselves naturally under two distinct heads. 
 Firstly, men^do not see their duty with sufficient 
 clearness ; secondly, they do not feel the obligation 
 to do it with sufficient force. But there are great 
 differences of opinion among thoughtful persons as 
 to the relative importance of these different sources 
 of wrong conduct. The commonest opinion is 
 disposed to lay most stress on the latter, the defect 
 of feeling or will, and even to consider the defect 
 of intellectual insight as having comparatively little 
 practical importance. It is not uncommon to hear 
 it said by preachers and moralizers that we all 
 
 * An address delivered to the London Ethical Society in the year 
 1890. 
 
 48 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFM. 49 
 
 know our duty quite sufficiently for practical pur- 
 poses, if we could only spur or brace our wills 
 into steady action in accordance with our convictions. 
 And it is no doubt true that, if we suppose all 
 our intellectual errors and limitations to remain 
 unchanged, and only the feebleness of character 
 which prevents our acting on our convictions re- 
 moved, an immense improvement would take place 
 in many departments of human life. But it is 
 important not to overlook other inevitable results 
 of the supposed change, which would certainly not 
 be improvements. We all recognize the dangers 
 of fanaticism. But what is a fanatic? Surely we 
 all mean by a "fanatic" a person who acts up to 
 his convictions, resolutely and peiiiaps vehemently, 
 when they are opposed to the common sense of 
 mankind, and when — ^in the judgment of common 
 sense— his acts are likely to lead to gravely mis- 
 chievous consequences. If, therefore, we suppose 
 that the element of intellectual error in the causes 
 of wrong action remains unchanged, while the 
 element of feebleness of character, weakness of 
 motive or will to do duty, is entirely removed, we 
 must suppose fanaticism greatly increased. We 
 must also suppose an increase in the bad effects 
 of more widespread errors in popular morality, 
 which are now often prevented from causing the 
 
so THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 full evil which they tend to cause, by the actual 
 feebleness of the mistaken resistance which they 
 oppose to healthy natural impulses. Hence, when 
 we 1iad to strike the balance of gain and loss to 
 human happiness resulting from the change — though 
 I have no doubt that the gain on the whole would 
 be great — we must recognize that the drawbacks 
 would be serious and substantial. 
 
 Considerations of this kind have led some thought- 
 ful minds to take an exactly opposite view, and 
 to regard it of paramount importance to remove 
 the intellectual source of error in conduct, holding 
 with Socrates that the true good of each individual 
 man is really consistent and harmonious with the 
 true good of all the rest ; and that what every man 
 really wants is his own true good, if he only knew 
 it. But this view also is too simple and unqualified ; 
 since, in the first place, a man often sacrifices what 
 he rightly regards as his true interest to the over- 
 mastering influence of appetite or resentment or 
 ambition ; and, secondly, if we measure human 
 well-being by an ordinary mundane standard, and 
 suppose men's feelings and wants unaltered, we 
 must admit that the utmost intellectual enlighten- 
 ment would not prevent the unrestrained pursuit 
 of private interest from being, sometimes, anti-social, 
 anarchical, and disorganizing. Still, allowing all 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 51 
 
 this, it seems to me not only that a very substantial 
 gain would result if we could remove from men's 
 minds all errors of judgment as to right and wrong, 
 good and evil, even if we left other causes of bad 
 conduct unchanged ; but that the gain in this case 
 would be more unmixed than in the former case. 
 Suppose, for instance, that every one who is liable 
 to drink too much had clearly present to his mind, 
 in the moment of temptation, the full amount of 
 harm that his insobriety was doing to his bodily 
 health, his reputation, his means of providing for 
 those dependent on him; some, no doubt, would 
 drink all the same, but the great majority of those 
 not yet in bondage to the unnatural craving would 
 draw back. Suppose, again, that any one who is 
 wronging a neighbour saw, as clearly as any im- 
 partial judge or friend would see, the violation of 
 right that he is committing; surely only a thoroughly 
 bad man would persist in his wrong-doing. And 
 thoroughly bad men are after all rare exceptions 
 among the beings of mingled and chequered moral 
 nature of whom the great mass of mankind consists, 
 and who on the whole mean only to maintain their 
 own rights and not to encroach upon the rights 
 of others; though doubtless, from a mixture of 
 intellectual muddle with passionate impulse or selfish 
 negligence, they are continually liable to wrong others. 
 
5i THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 •» ~ 
 
 I have drawn attention to this fundamental 
 distinction between (i) improvement in moral in- 
 sight and (2) improvement in feeling and will, 
 because I think it important that we should have 
 a clear view of its general character before we enter 
 on the special discussion of the " Morality of Strife," 
 which is the subject of the present paper. I ought 
 perhaps to explain that in speaking of strife I 
 shall have primarily and chiefly in view that most 
 intense form of conflict which we call war, in which 
 masses of civilized men elaborately try to destroy 
 each other's lives and incidentally to take each 
 other's property. This is the strife which, from its 
 fundamental nature and inevitable incidents, causes 
 the most intense and profound moral aversion and 
 perplexity to the modern mind. At the same time 
 it seems to me that the deepest problems presented by 
 war, and the deepest principles to be applied in dealing 
 with them, are applicable also to the milder conflicts 
 and collisions that arise within the limits of an orderly 
 and peaceful community, and especially to those 
 struggles for wealth and power carried on by classes 
 and parties within a state. Indeed, these latter — 
 though conducted by the milder methods of debate 
 and vote — often resemble wars very strongly in the 
 states of thought and feeling that they arouse, and 
 also in some of the difficulties that they suggest. 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 53 
 
 Now, in considering the morality of strife, the 
 difference of opinion which I have been discussing, 
 as to the causes of wrong conduct in general, meets 
 us with especial force. Thus many will say, when 
 they hear of moralizing war, that the moralist ought 
 not to acquiesce in its existence ; he ought to trace 
 it to its source, in the lack of kindly feeling among 
 human beings. Spread kindness and goodwill ; 
 make altruism predominate over egoism; and wars 
 between states will come to an end among civilized 
 men, because there will be no hostile emotions to 
 rouse them; while within states strife will resolve 
 itself into a competition for the privilege of doing 
 good to others. I do not deny that a solution of 
 the problem of war for the world might be found 
 in this diffusion of kindly feeling, if sufficiently 
 ardent and universal. But for this effect the uni- 
 versality is necessary as well as the ardour. The 
 increase of the "enthusiasm of humanity" in a 
 moral minority, in a world where most men are 
 still as selfish as now, would have no decisive 
 tendency to prevent strife; for if around us some 
 are wronging others, the predominance of altruism 
 in ourselves, though it will diminish our disposition 
 to fight in our own quarrels, will make us more 
 ei^er to take part with others who are wronged; 
 and since, so long as we are human beings, our 
 
54 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 
 
 kindly feelings must flow more strongly in special 
 channels, as they grow in intensity we shall exhibit 
 greater energy in defending against unjust attacks 
 the narrower communities and groups in which we 
 take special interest. Increase of sympathy among 
 human beings may ultimately do away with strife ; 
 but it will only be after a long interval, during which 
 the growth of sympathetic resentment against wrongs 
 seems not unlikely to cause as much strife as the 
 diminution of mere selfishness prevents. The 
 Founder of Christianity is recorded to have said 
 that he "came not to bring peace on earth, but 
 a sword," and the subsequent history of Christianity 
 offers ample and striking confirmation of the truth 
 of the prediction. And the same may be said, 
 with at least equal truth, of that ardour for the 
 secular amelioration of mankind which we find 
 presented to us in these latter days as a substitute 
 for Christian feeling. 
 
 The extinction of strife through the extension 
 of amity being thus at best a remote event, we 
 may allow ourselves to dwell for a moment on the 
 brighter aspects of the continuance of war. War 
 is an evil; but it is not, from an ethical point of 
 view, an unmixed evil. Indeed, its value as a school 
 of manly virtue led the greatest thinkers of ancient 
 Greece — even in the civilized fourth century — to 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 55 
 
 regard the fighting part of the community as the 
 only part on whose education it was worth while 
 to bestow labour and care; the occupations of the 
 trader and the artisan being considered an in- 
 superable bar to the development of fine moral 
 qualities. Christianity and the growth of free 
 industry combined have carried European thought 
 so far away from the point of view of Plato and 
 Aristotle, that their utterances on this topic now 
 seem to most of us startlingly narrow-minded and 
 barbaric ; but the element of truth that they contain 
 still, from time to time, forces itself on the modern 
 mind, and finds transient expression in a modified 
 form. There are, I believe, even at the end of 
 the nineteenth century, some thoughtful persons 
 seriously concerned for moral excellence, who would 
 regret the extinction of war; attracted not so 
 much by the showy virtue of valour in battle, but 
 by the unreserved devotion, the ardour of self- 
 sacrifice for duty and the common good, which war 
 tends to develop. If this acceptance of war as 
 an indispensable school of virtue were widespread 
 enough to impede the drift of modern opinion and 
 sentiment towards universal peace as an ideal, it 
 might be necessary to argue against it as a 
 dangerous paradox. In such an argument we 
 should not lay stress exclusively or even mainly 
 
j6 THE MORALITY OF STRIPS. 
 
 on its physical mischief; but still more on its 
 moral evils, its barbarous ii^adequacy as a means 
 of settling disputes of right, the frequent triumphs 
 of injustice and their demoralizing consequences, 
 the constant tendency of the bitter resentments and 
 the intensification of national self-regard, which war 
 brings with it, to overpower the sentiments of 
 humanity, and confuse and obscure those of justice 
 and good faith. But I need not labour these points ; 
 the evils of war are so keenly felt that the moralist 
 may without danger allow himself to make the 
 most of the opportunities of moral development 
 that it affords. 
 
 What I rather wish now to point out is, that 
 the moral benefits of war, such as they are, 
 depend largely on the fact that war is not usually 
 — as cynics imply — a mere collision of passions 
 and cupidities; it is a conflict in which each side 
 conceives itself to be contending on behalf of 
 legitimate interests. In the wars I have known, 
 as a contemporary, this has been strikingly mani- 
 fested in the sincere belief of religious persons 
 generally — ordinary plain honest Christians on either 
 side — that God would defend their cause. In the 
 wars of ancient history a people's belief in special 
 divine protection was not equally an evidence of 
 its belief in the justice of its cause, since each 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. S^ 
 
 nation had its own deities who were expected to 
 take sides with their worshippers; but in a war 
 between modern Christian nations, worshipping the 
 same God, the favour of heaven implies the justice 
 of the cause favoured ; and it is sometimes startling 
 to see that not only is each side convinced of its 
 overwhelming claims to the favour of heaven, but 
 it can hardly believe in a similar sincere conviction 
 on the other side. Perhaps some of my readers 
 may remember how, in the Franco -German war of 
 1870, the pious utterances of the Emperor William 
 excited the derision of Ffenchmen and their friends ; 
 it seemed to the latter not only evident that the 
 invading Germans were brigands, but even impossible 
 to conceive that they did not know that they were 
 brigands. This strikingly shows how war among 
 human beings, supposing them to pcJssess the degree 
 of rationality, that average civilized humanity has 
 at present reached, is normally not a mere conflict 
 of interests, but also a conflict of opposing views 
 of right and justice. 
 
 I must not exaggerate. I do not mean that in 
 modem times unscrupulous statesmen have never 
 made wars that were substantially acts of conscious 
 brigandage, and have never been applauded for so 
 doing by the nations whom they led, who have 
 suffered a temporary obscurity of their moral sense 
 
38 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE 
 
 under the influence of national ambition. I do not 
 say that this has not occurred ; but I do not think 
 it is the normal case, and I shall leave it out of 
 account, partly because it does not seem to me to 
 give rise to any moral problem which we can 
 profitably discuss. The immorality of such un- 
 scrupulous aggression is simple; and the duty is 
 no less clear for any individual in the aggressing 
 countty to use any moral and intellectual influence 
 he may possess — facing unpopularity — to prevent 
 the immoral act. It may be difHcult to say exactly 
 how far he should go in such opposition; but the 
 answer to this question depends so much on cir- 
 cumstances that an abstract discussion of it is 
 hardly profitable. 
 
 It is still more true that in any strife of parties 
 and classes within a modem civilized state, when 
 there is a conflict of interests, it is not of bare in- 
 terests, but of interests clothed in the garb of rights— 
 and in the main the garb is not hypocritically wora 
 In such a state the sentiment of fellow-citizenship, 
 the habit of co-operating for common ends, the 
 community of hopes and fears stirred by the 
 vicissitudes of national prosperity, tend powerfully 
 to reinforce the wider sentiments of humanity and 
 justice to men as mea Hence, though the pre- 
 datory type of human being cannot be aaid to 
 
THE MORAIITY OF STRIFE. $9 
 
 be rare in any civilized society, it is still an ex- 
 ceptional t}T)e; the average member of such a 
 society is too moral to enter into a struggle on 
 behalf of interests which he knows to be "sinister 
 interests" — to use Bentham's apt phrase. I do not 
 say that he is not easily led to believe that what is 
 conducive to his interests is just — men's proneness 
 to such belief is proverbial — but the belief is 
 generally sincere; and though, again, in the heat 
 of party conflict many things are done from passion 
 and eagerness to win which are known to be wrong, 
 these are deplorable incidents of party strife, they 
 do not make up its moral texture. 
 
 If, then, normal human strife is due not merely 
 to colliding interests, but to conflicting views of 
 rights, it would seem that we might hope to reduce 
 its worst effects to a sporadic and occasional evil, 
 if we could only find and make clear the true 
 definition of the rights in question. For though 
 the interests of all individuals, classes, and nations 
 are not harmonious, their rights are; that is the 
 essential difference between the two. You cannot 
 be sure of bringing disputants into harmony and 
 peace by enlightening them as to their true interests, 
 though you may in some cases ; but you must do 
 this if you can really and completely enlighten them 
 as to their true rights, unless they are bad enough 
 
6q THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 to fight on in conscious wrongful aggression. Such 
 completeness of enlightenment, however, we cannot 
 reasonably expect to attain; the complexity of 
 human relations, and the imperfection of our intel- 
 lectual methods of dealing with them, preclude the 
 hope that we can ever solve a problem of rights 
 with the demonstrative clearness and certainty with 
 which we can solve a problem of mathematics. The 
 practical question therefore is, how we can attain 
 a tolerable approximation to such a solution. 
 
 To many the answer to this question seems simple. 
 They propose to settle the disputes of right between 
 nations, and the disputes of right between classes 
 and sections within any state, by applying what 
 I will call an external method; i.e.^ by referring 
 the dispute to the judgment of impartial — and, if 
 possible, skilled — outsiders, as the legal disputes of 
 individual members of a civilized community are 
 referred to arbitrators, judges, and juries. I call this 
 an external method, because it does not require 
 any effect to be produced on the intellects and 
 consciences of the disputants; they are allowed 
 to remain in their onesided and erroneous con- 
 victions; indeed, they are almost inevitably left to 
 concentrate their attention on their own onesided 
 views, and — if I may so say — harden themselves 
 in their onesidedness, because their function in the 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 6i 
 
 process of settlement is to advocate their own case 
 before the outside arbiter; they are not supposed 
 to be convinced by his decision, but merely to 
 accept it for the sake of peace. 
 
 The method takes various forms, according to 
 circumstances. In the case of disputes between 
 nations it takes the form of a substitution of 
 arbitration for war ; the practical — or, perhaps I 
 may say, the technical — problem comes to be how 
 to get a wise and impartial court of international 
 arbitration. A similar method is widely advocated 
 for the settlement of those disputes between em- 
 ployers and employed — within the limits drawn 
 by the existing law — which have been so long a 
 prominent feature of our present industrial condition. 
 But in the still deeper disputes between classes 
 and sections within a community, which tend to 
 changes in the established legal order, the expedient 
 commonly recommended is somewhat different; it 
 consists in the construction of a legislature on the 
 representative system, so adjusted and balanced that 
 each class and section has enough representatives 
 to advocate its claims, but not enough to constitute 
 it a judge in its own cause ; the decision on any 
 proposed change in laws or taxation, affecting the 
 interests of different sections in opposite ways, is 
 always to rest with the presumably impartial repre- 
 
62 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 sentatives of other sections. Now, I do not wish 
 to undervalue the external method in any of these 
 cases; I think the attention of statesmen should 
 be seriously directed to making it as perfect as 
 possible. But I cannot believe that it is in any 
 case safe to rely on it for a complete and final 
 removal of the evils of strife. 
 
 Let us place ourselves at the point of view of 
 a nation that is being drawn into what it regards 
 as a just war, according to the received principles 
 of international justice. It is obvious that any 
 serious and unprovoked violation of international 
 duty must be held to give a state whose rights 
 are violated a claim for reparation ; and if repara- 
 tion be obstinately refused, it would seem that — 
 so long as states are independent — the offended 
 state must be held to have a right to obtain it by 
 force, with the aid of any other states that can be 
 persuaded to join it. This exercise of force need 
 not necessarily amount to war. For instance, if 
 the property belonging to a state or any of its 
 members has been unjustly seized by another state, 
 reparation may be obtained by reprisals; but it is 
 most probable that such reprisals, being resisted, 
 will lead to the thorough-going appeal to physical 
 force as a means of settlement, which we call war. 
 Well, at this point it is asked, by many earnest 
 
THE MOXAUrr OF STRIFE 63 
 
 philanthropists, "Why should not the ofTended state 
 make a proposal to submit its claims to arbitration, 
 and vAiy should not the offending state be made, 
 by the pressure of public opinion, to accept this 
 proposal?" I am far from waiving this suggestion 
 aside as out of the range of practical politics. 
 Much may be hoped, in the way of reduction of 
 the danger of war between civilized states, from 
 improvements in the machinery of arbitration, and 
 a more extensive adoption of the improved ma- 
 chinery ; and the efforts of those who keep ui^ing 
 these points on the attention of statesmen and of 
 the public deserve our warmest sympathy. But I 
 think that such efforts are more likely to attain 
 the limited success which can alone be reasonably 
 hoped, if those who urge them bear in mind the 
 inevitable limitations of the applicability of arbitra- 
 tion to the disputes of right between nations. 
 
 In the first place, the violation of right which 
 leads to a conflict- may be a continuing evil, which 
 requires immediate abatement as well as reparation ; 
 and the violence required for this abatement is 
 likely to lead to further violence on the other side, 
 so that the conflicting states may be drawn into 
 the condition of war by a series of steps too rapid 
 to allow of the delay necessary for arbitration, and 
 which involve so many fresh grounds of complaint 
 
64 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 that the decision of the original dispute may easily 
 sink into insignificance. But there are other reasons 
 of more importance and wider application. On the 
 one hand, the interests at stake may be so serious 
 that a state, believing itself able to obtain redress 
 by its own strong hand, cannot reasonably be ex- 
 pected to run the risk of arbitration, unless it can 
 feel tolerably secure of impartiality in the arbitrator ; 
 or, to keep closer to the moral problem actually 
 presented, I should rather say that the government 
 of a community cannot feel justified in thus risking 
 the interests of the community intrusted to it. On 
 the other hand, where the quarrel is one that in- 
 volves a conflict of principles, widely extended 
 among civilized states, there may be an insuperable 
 difficulty in finding an arbiter on whose impar- 
 tiality both sides could rely. A similar difficulty 
 may be caused by the ties of interest and alliance 
 binding nations into groups. Thus, in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries it would have been almost 
 impossible to find such an arbiter in Europe in 
 any quarrel between a Catholic and a Protestant state. 
 In the nineteenth century it would be almost im- 
 possible to find such an arbiter in any quarrel 
 caused by the claims of a nationality struggling 
 for independence; while in the intervening period 
 the combinations of states — formed, to a great 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIPE. 65 
 
 extent, for the legitimate end of maintaining the 
 "balance of power" — presented a similar obstacle. 
 
 Now, I think that history shows that minor 
 violations of international rights — such as arbitra- 
 tion undoubtedly might settle— have rarely been the 
 real causes, though they have often been the osten- 
 sible causes and the real occasions, of momentous 
 wars. The most serious wars of the European 
 group of states have resulted from conflicting 
 fundamental principles, religious or political, or 
 conflicting national interests of great real or sup- 
 posed importance, or more often a combination 
 of the two. Hence, though the international law 
 which arbitrators can administer may be most useful 
 in removing minor occasions of controversy and 
 in minimizing the mischief resulting from graver 
 conflicts, we can hardly look to it to provide such 
 a settlement for the graver controversies as will 
 enable us to dispense with war. This will perhaps 
 appear more clearly if we reflect for a moment 
 on the special difficulties that beset the definition 
 of international rights, in consequence of which 
 opposite views of imperfectly- defined rights tend 
 to be combined with discordant^ interests. Such 
 difficulties arise partly from the absence of a central 
 government of the community of nations; partly 
 from the imperfect unity and cohesion of a nation 
 
66 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 as compared with individual human beings; partly 
 from the great difference in d^rrees of civilization 
 in the society of nations; and practically we have 
 also to take into account the comparatively small 
 number of civilized states, and the consequent 
 greater importance of an individual nation — and 
 still more of a group of allied nations — relatively to 
 the whole community whose affairs international law 
 is designed to regulate. The first of these causes 
 renders necessary and legitimate an extension of 
 the right and duty of self-defence, which it is very 
 difficult to limit War is not only obviously just 
 against actual aggression, but when aggression is 
 unmistakably being prepared, the nation threatened 
 cannot be condemned for striking the first blow 
 if this is an important gain for self-defence. But 
 this easily passes over into anticipation of a blow 
 that is merely feared, not really threatened. Indeed, 
 this enlarged right of self-protection s^ainst mere 
 danger has often been further extended to justify 
 hostile interference to prevent a neighbour growing 
 strong merely through expansion or coalescence 
 with other states. I think that moral opinion should 
 set itself steadily against this latter extension of the 
 right of self-protection ; still, it is obviously difficult 
 to define exactly the d^iree of alarm that would 
 justify hostile action. It is still more difficult to 
 
THE MORALITY OP STRIFE. 67 
 
 decide, on any clearly just prindplfs, how far the 
 right of national self-preservation may be legiti- 
 mately extended into the right to prevent interference 
 with "national development" — e^g., if nation A 
 appropriates territory over which nation B is hoping 
 to extend its sway some time or other. At the 
 same time, this is a cause of strife that we must, 
 I think, expect to operate more intensely as the 
 world gets fuller. With each successive generation 
 the demand for expansion on the part of civilized 
 nations is likely to grow stronger; and the more 
 serious the interests involved, tlie more difficult it 
 will be to obtain acquiescence in the rules deter- 
 mining the legitimate occupation of new territory, 
 which must inevitably be to some extent arbitrary. 
 And the question is complicated by the differences 
 in grade of civilization, to which I have referred; 
 for the nations most advanced in civilization have 
 a tendency — the legitimacy of which cannot be 
 broadly and entirely disputed — to absorb semi- 
 civilized states in their neighbourhood, as in the 
 expansion of England and Russia in Asia, and of 
 France in Africa. As, I say, the tendency cannot 
 be altt^ther condemned, since it often seems clearly 
 a gain to the world on the whole that the absorp- 
 tion riraakl take place; still it is obviously difficult 
 to define the cooditioas under which this is legiti- 
 
68 THE MORAUTY OF STRIPS. 
 
 mate, and the civilized nation engaged in this process 
 of absorption cannot be surprised that other civilized 
 nations think that they have a right to interfere and 
 prevent the aggression. 
 
 When we turn to the part of the earth tolerably 
 filled with civilized nations — ^to Western Europe — 
 it seems that the duty of avoiding substantial en- 
 croachment would be so clear that it could not 
 be violated without manifest immorality, if only 
 such nations had perfect internal unity and co- 
 herence. I do not see, e^., how any quarrel could 
 easily arise between France and Spain — apart from 
 collisions of interest in other parts of the world — 
 except of the minor kind which arbitration might 
 settle, unless there was something like avowed 
 brigandage on one side or the other. But we have 
 only to look at Germany and Italy to see that 
 even Western Europe is far from being composed 
 of states of this type; and even if internal unity 
 were attained for a time, it might always be broken 
 up again by some new division. 
 
 I therefore think it inevitable that, at least for 
 a long time to come, every nation in the most 
 important matters — as individuals in matters not 
 within the range of law courts — must to an im- 
 portant extent be judge in its own cause; it may 
 refer some of its disputes to arbitration — and i 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 69 
 
 hope the number may increase — but there are others 
 which it cannot so refer, and its judgment must 
 determine the limits of such reference. Other con- 
 siderations might be adduced, tending to restrict still 
 further the normal application of arbitration in inter- 
 national controversies; e.g., it might be shown that 
 even where both sides in such a controversy are 
 animated by an adequate and preponderant desire 
 for peace, an acceptable compromise is often more 
 likely to be attained by direct negotiation than by 
 reference to an arbitrator. But it belongs to a 
 political rather than an ethical discussion to dwell 
 on points like these. I have said enough to show 
 why even civilized nations, in which the majority 
 are so far moral as to be sincerely unwilling to 
 fight for a cause clearly known to be wrong, cannot 
 be expected to avoid war by arbitration, except to 
 a very limited extent. 
 
 If, then, a moral acquiescence in war is at present 
 inevitable, what is to be the aim of morality with 
 regard to it ? Chiefly, it would seem, twofold : to 
 reduce its causes by cultivating a spirit of justice, 
 and to minimize its mischievous effects by the 
 prevalence of a spirit of humanity. Now in this 
 latter point the progress of modern civilization 
 shows a steady and considerable improvement, — 
 though it must be admitted that the prepress starts 
 
70 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 from a very low level. The growth of humane 
 sentiment has established rule after rule of military 
 practice, tending to limit the mischief of war to 
 the minimum necessary for the attainment of its 
 ehds. Thus bond-fide non-combatants have been 
 more and more completely exempted from personal 
 injury, while as regards their property, the old 
 indiscriminate pillage has given place to regulated 
 requisitions and contributions, the severity of which 
 at any rate falls short of cruelty. In the case of 
 combatants, the use of instruments — such as ex- 
 plosive bullets — which tend to cause pain out of 
 proportion to disablement has been expressly pro- 
 hibited, and the old liberty of refusing quarter 
 practically abandoned ; while elaborate provision has 
 been made for humane tending of sick and wounded 
 soldiers; and humane treatment of prisoners, even 
 at considerable inconvenience to their captors, is 
 decisively imposed by the opinion of the civilized 
 world. Much, no doubt, might yet be' done in the 
 same direction ; but considering the aims of war, 
 and the deadly violence inevitable in its methods, 
 I think that civilized humanity, at the end of the 
 nineteenth century, may look with some complacency 
 on the solid amount of improvement achieved. 
 
 The case is different when we turn to the 
 other duty of cultivating a spirit of justice. We 
 
THE MORAUTY OF STRIFE. 
 
 71 
 
 all admit that — as we must be judges in our own 
 cause — we ought to endeavour to be just judges; 
 but there is hardly any plain duty of great im- 
 portance in which civilized men fail so palpably 
 as in this. Doubtless the impartiality required is 
 difficult; still, I am persuaded that even the im- 
 perfect beings who compose modern nations might 
 perform with more success the judicial function — 
 which, in a modem' state under popular government, 
 has become, in some degree, the business of every 
 man — if national consciences could be roused to 
 feel the nobility, and grapple practically and 
 persistently with the difficulties of the task. At 
 any rate, the thoughtful and moral part of every 
 community might fit themselves for this judicial 
 function with more care, and perform it under a 
 sense of graver responsibility than is now the case. 
 I am not urging that they should keep coldly aloof 
 from patriotic sentiment; but at any rate before 
 the struggle has actually commenced, when the 
 cloud of discord that is to cover the sky is as 
 yet no bigger than a man's hand, it is surely the 
 imperative duty of all moral persons, according to 
 their gifts and leisure, to make an earnest and 
 systematic attempt to form an impartial view of the 
 points at issue. 
 
 There are three stages in such an attempt, which 
 
72 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 are not alwajre distinguished First, we may en- 
 deavour to put ourselves in tlie opponent's place, 
 carrying with us our own principles and views of 
 right, and see whether, when we look at the 
 opponent's case from the inside, there is not more 
 to be said for it than appeared when we contem- 
 plated it from the outside. Secondly, if we have 
 no doubt that our opponent is in the wrong, 
 according to principles of right that we sincerely 
 hold, we still have to ask ourselves whether we 
 apply these principles not merely in claiming our 
 rights, but also in practically determining the per- 
 formance of our duties. For if there has been 
 divergence between our actions and our principles, 
 though it may not always be a reason for abandoning 
 a present claim — for two wrongs do not make a right 
 — ^it is an argument for mildness and for a spirit 
 of compromise. And, thirdly, if there seems to 
 us to be a real difference of principles, then comes 
 the most diiHcult duty of endeavouring to place 
 ourselves in an impartial position for contemplating 
 the different sets of principles, and seeing if there 
 is not an element of truth in the opponent's view 
 which we have hitherto missed. It is hard to bring 
 a man to this when once the complex collision of 
 principles and interests has begun, and it is still 
 harder to bring a nation to it; but it is a plain 
 
THB MORAUTY OF STRIFE. 73 
 
 duty imposed on us by reason, and it is the most 
 essential part of the internal method of aiding 
 the transition from strife to concord, without which 
 the perfecting of the machinery of arbitration does 
 not seem to me likely to achieve very great results. 
 Fortunately it is not, for practical needs, indispensable 
 that the opposing views of justice should be com- 
 pletely harmonized ; it is practically sufficient if the 
 divergence be so far reduced by reciprocal admissions 
 that the difference remaining may appear to both 
 less important than the evils of war. Thus the effort 
 at mutual comprehension, even if it does not lead 
 to an}rthing like agreement, may still avert strife. 
 For, finally, one great argument for the strenuous 
 use and advocacy of what I may distinguish as 
 the spiritual method of avoiding the appeal to 
 brute force in international disputes — the cultivation 
 of a spirit of justice — is that it tends to promote 
 the application of the external or political method. 
 If we school ourselves to seek no more than is 
 our due in any dispute, and to take pains to 
 ascertain what this is, we shall be practically more 
 willing to submit our claims to arbitration; and, 
 further, if a keen interest in international justice 
 spreads through civilized nations, confidence in 
 arbitrators will tend to increase. 
 I pas3 to consider briefly the burning question 
 
74 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 
 
 of the strife between industrial classes, that is an 
 increasingly prominent feature of modern civilized 
 society; the strife which, so far as physical violence 
 is excluded by political order, is carried on between 
 two groups of producers — ordinarily manual labourers 
 and employers — by means of concerted refusals to 
 exchange productive services except on terms fixed 
 by one or other of the opposing groups. There is 
 no kind of strife to which the application of the 
 method of arbitration appears at first sight more 
 reasonable, or is more commonly demanded ; but 
 there is none in which the nature of the case 
 ordinarily presents greater obstacles to the satis- 
 factory application of it. The difficulty here is not 
 so much to find an arbitrator adequately free from 
 bias as to find principles of distributive justice 
 which the common sense of both the classes con- 
 cerned accepts. This is a difficulty that seems to 
 reach its maximum in the present state of society, 
 which is distracted between two opposing ideals. 
 According to the individualistic ideal, monopoly 
 and combination would only exist to an insignificant 
 extent, and every individual worker would obtain, 
 through unlimited competition, the market value- 
 representing the social utility — of the services 
 rendered by him to society. On the other hand, 
 so far as we can conceive a completely socialistic 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 
 
 75 
 
 rigitne to exist at all, we must suppose that the 
 remuneration allowed " to different classes of pro- 
 ducers — beyond the minimum which anyone could 
 obtain from the state in return for the work which 
 it would have to provide for him somehow — would 
 be determmed by some administrative organ of 
 government, on principles laid down by the legis- 
 lature. In neither case would there be an opening 
 for the industrial strife that naturally occurs in our 
 present intermediate system, in which the pursuit 
 of self-interest is more and more prompting to 
 combined instead of simply competitive action. In 
 this system the problem of determining the just 
 or equitable division of any product, between two 
 or more groups of the persons who have produced 
 it, only admits of a rough and, to a great extent, 
 arbitrary solution. Compulsory arbitration in the 
 disputes thus arising would involve serious risks in 
 a fully-peopled state ; for the rules to be applied by 
 the arbitrator would in the last resort have to be 
 determined by government ; and a state that under- 
 took to fix the terms of industrial bargains would 
 be responsible for any want of employment that 
 might result, and would therefore be in a logically 
 weak position for refusing to provide employment on 
 the terms thus laid down ; while if it attempted any 
 such provision, full-blown Socialism would be v/ell 
 
76 THE MORALITY OF STRIFE, 
 
 in sight And even voluntary arbitration is, under 
 these conditions, only applicable when the two parties 
 have been somehow brought to agreement as to 
 the general rules by which any particulsir dispute 
 should be decided ; and the difficult problem is 
 how to bring them to this agreement Here again, 
 therefore, the external method of composing strife 
 requires ftie aid of the spiritual method. For the 
 reason I have explained, to appeal to the sense of 
 justice, strictly speaking, of the opposing parties 
 would be rather ineffective rhetoric But we may 
 •none the less endeavour to develop the elements 
 from which the moral habit of justice springs — on 
 the one hand, sympathy, and the readiness to 
 imagine oneself in another's place and look at things 
 from his point of view ; and on the other hand, the 
 intelligent apprehension of common interests. In 
 this way we may iiope to produce a disposition to 
 compromise, adequate for practical needs, even when 
 the adjustment thus attained can only be rough, 
 and far removed from what either party regards 
 as ideally equitable. 
 
 My limits do not allow me to discuss the larger 
 questions raised by the other external method of 
 realizing justice between classes in a state— I mean 
 the construction of a supreme government that will, 
 in legislation and taxation and the control of adminis- 
 
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. 77 
 
 tration, keep a just balance between different sections 
 of the community. I can only express my conviction 
 that the most skilfully-adjusted representative system 
 will not really protect us against a majority, formed 
 by a combination of selfish interests, becoming 
 practically judge in its own cause ; and the belief in 
 the natural right of the majority of any community 
 to do what it likes is a political superstition which 
 is rapidly passing to the limbo of such superstitions. 
 The only sure way of preventing strife within modern 
 states from growing continually more bitter and 
 dangerous lies in persuading the citizens, of all 
 classes and sections, that it is not enough to desire 
 justice sincerely; it is needful that they fit them- 
 selves, by laborious and sustained efforts to under- 
 stand the truths mingled with opposing errors, for 
 the high and deeply responsible function, which 
 democracy throws on them, of determining and 
 realizing social justice so far as it depends on 
 government. Otherwise, there seems grave reason to 
 fear that the strife of sections within a community 
 may lead to war in the future, as it has done in 
 the past. 
 
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