At the same time, this glorification of the regenerating powers of war quite overlooks the consideration that the fighting spirit tends to destroy itself, so that the best way to breed good fighters is not to preach war, but to cultivate peace, which is what the Germans have, in actual practice, done for over forty years past. France, the most military, and the most gloriously military, nation of the Napoleonic era, is now the leader in anti-militarism, altogether indifferent to the lure of military glory, though behind no nation in courage or skill. Belgium has not fought for generations, and had only just introduced compulsory military service, yet the Belgians, from their King and their Cardinal-Archbishop downwards, threw themselves into the war with a high spirit scarcely paralleled in the world's history, and Belgian commercial travellers developed a rare military skill and audacity. All the world admires the bravery with which the Germans face death and the elaborate detail with which they organise battle, yet for all their perpetual glorification of war there is no sign that they fight with any more spirit than their enemies. Even if we were to feel ourselves bound to accept war as "an integral part of God's Universe," we need not trouble ourselves to glorify war, for, when once war presents itself as a terrible necessity, even the most peaceable of men are equal to the task. This consideration brings us to those "moral equivalents of war" which William James was once concerned over, when he advocated, in place of military conscription, "a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against _Nature_."[8] Such a method of formally organising in the cause of civilisation, instead of in the cause of savagery, the old military traditions of hardihood and discipline may well have its value. But the present war has shown us that in no case need we fear that these high qualities will perish in any vitally progressive civilisation. For they are qualities that lie in the heart of humanity itself. They are not created by the drill-sergeant; he merely utilises them for his own, as we may perhaps think, disastrous ends. This present war has shown us that on every hand, even in the unlikeliest places, all the virtues of war have been fostered by the cultivation of the arts and sciences of peace, ready to be transformed to warlike ends by men who never dreamed of war. In France we find many of the most promising young scientists, poets, and novelists cheerfully going forth to meet their death. On the other side, we find a Kreisler, created to be the joy of the world, ready to be trampled to death beneath the hoofs of Cossack horses. The friends of Gordon Mathison, the best student ever turned out from the Medical Faculty of the Melbourne University and a distinguished young physiologist who seemed to be destined to become one of the first