beyond all question, exercises a certain influence, especially with the young, nursing a pride in that beak and those pounces which are the menace of War. [92] Erasmi Adagia, Chil. III. Cent. VII. Prov. 1: _Scarabæus aquilam quærit._ Hallam, Literature of Europe, Part I. ch. 4. sec. 43, 44. * * * * * The maxim, _In time of Peace prepare for War_,[93] is transmitted from distant ages, when brute force was the general law. It is the terrible inheritance which painfully reminds present generations of their connection with the Past. It belongs to the dogmas of barbarism. It is the companion of harsh, tyrannical rules by which the happiness of the many is offered up to the few. It is the child of suspicion, and the forerunner of violence. Having in its favor almost uninterrupted usage, it possesses a hold on popular opinion not easily unloosed. And yet no conscientious man can fail, on careful observation, to detect its mischievous fallacy,--_at least among Christian nations in the present age_,--a fallacy the most costly the world has witnessed, dooming nations to annual tribute in comparison with which the extortions of conquest are as the widow's mite. So true is what Rousseau said, and Guizot has since repeated, that "a bad principle is far worse than a bad fact"; for the operations of the latter are finite, while those of the former are infinite. [93] If countenance were needed in thus exposing a pernicious maxim, I might find it in the German philosopher Kant, whose work on Perpetual Peace treats it with very little respect. (Kant, Sämmtliche Werke, Band VII., _Zum Ewigen Frieden_, § 1.) Since this Oration, Sir Robert Peel and the Earl of Aberdeen, each Prime Minister of England, and practically conversant with the question, have given their valuable testimony in the same direction. Life has its surprises; and I confess one in my own, when the latter, in conversation on this maxim, most kindly thanked me for what I had said against it. I speak of this principle with earnestness; for I believe it erroneous and false, founded in ignorance and wrong, unworthy of civilization, and disgraceful to Christians. I call it a principle; but it is a mere _prejudice_,--sustained by vulgar example only, and not by enlightened truth,--obeying which, we imitate the early mariners, who, steering from headland to headland, hugged the shore, unwilling to venture upon the broad ocean, with the luminaries of heaven for their guide. If not yet discerned in its true character, it is because the clear light of truth is discolored and refracted by an atmosphere where the cloud of War covers all.