A long series of eminent thinkers and investigators, from Comte and Buckle a century ago to Dr. Woods and Mr. Baltzly to-day, have assured us that war is diminishing and even that the war-like spirit is extinct. It is certainly not true that the war-like spirit is extinct, even in the most civilised and peaceful peoples, and we need not desire its extinction, for it is capable of transformation into shapes of the finest use for humanity. But the vast conflagration of to-day must not conceal from our eyes the great central fact that war is diminishing, and will one day disappear as completely as the mediaeval scourge of the Black Death. To reach this consummation all the best humanising and civilising energies of mankind will be needed. [1] It has been argued (as by Filippi Carli, _La Ricchezza e la Guerra_, 1916) that the Germans are especially unable to understand that the prosperity of other countries is beneficial to them, whether or not under German control, and that they differ from the English and French in believing that economic conquests should involve political conquests. VI WAR AND THE BIRTH-RATE During recent years the faith had grown among progressive persons in various countries, not excluding Germany, that civilisation was building up almost impassable barriers against any great war. These barriers were thought to be of various kinds, even apart from the merely sentimental and humanitarian developments of pacific feeling. They were especially of an economic kind, and that on a double basis, that of Capital and that of Labour. It was believed, on the one hand, that the international ramifications of Capital, and the complicated commercial and financial webs which bind nations together, would cause so vivid a realisation of the disasters of war as to erect a wholesomely steadying effect whenever the danger of war loomed in sight. On the other hand, it was felt that the international unity of interest among the workers, the growth of Labour's favourite doctrine that there is no conflict between nations, but only between classes, and even the actual international organisation and bonds of the workers' associations, would interpose a serious menace to the plans of war-makers. These influences were real and important. But, as we know, when the decisive moment came, the diplomatists and the militarists were found to be at the helm, to steer the ship of State in each country concerned, and those on board had no voice in determining the course. In England only can there be said to have been any show of consulting Parliament, but at that moment the situation had already so far developed that there was little left but to accept it. The Great War of to-day has shown that such barriers against war as we at present possess may crumble away in a moment at the shock of the war-making machine.