When I think of the intensity of the perturbing agencies which arise out of these and other conditions of modern European society, I confess that the attempt to counteract them by asking Governments to agree to a maximum military expenditure, does not appear to me to be worth making; indeed I think it might do harm by leading people to suppose that the desires of Governments are the chief agents in determining whether peace or war shall obtain in Europe. CCCLXXX I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life--always growing and increasing--is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests. CCCLXXXI There is such a thing as a science of social life, for which, if the term had not been so helplessly degraded, Politics is the proper name. Men are beings of a certain constitution, who, under certain conditions, will as surely tend to act in certain ways as stones will tend to fall if you leave them, unsupported. The laws of their nature are as invariable as the laws of gravitation, only the applications to particular cases offer worse problems than the case of the three bodies. The Political Economists have gone the right way to work--the way that the physical philosopher follows in all complex affairs--by tracing out the effects of one great cause of human action, the desire of wealth, supposing it to be unchecked. If they, or other people, have forgotten that there are other potent causes of action which may interfere with this, it is no fault of scientific method but only their own stupidity. Hydrostatics is not a "dismal science," because water does not always seek the lowest level--e.g. from a bottle turned upside down, if there is a cork in the neck! There is much need that somebody should do for what is vaguely called "Ethics" just what the Political Economists have done. Settle the question of what will be done under the unchecked action of certain motives, and leave the problem of "ought" for subsequent consideration. For, whatever they ought to do, it is quite certain the majority of men will act as if the attainment of certain positive and negative pleasures were the end of action. We want a science of "Eubiotics" to tell us exactly what will happen if human beings are exclusively actuated by the desire of well-being in the ordinary sense. Of course the utilitarians have laid the foundations of such a science, with the result that the nicknamer of genius called this branch of science "pig philosophy," making just the same blunder as when ne called political economy "dismal science." "Moderate well-being" may be no more the worthiest end of life than wealth. But if it is the best to be had in this queer world--it may be worth trying for. CCCLXXXII