of affectionate ministrations arising out of family instincts and memories; and that the right to have life protected corresponds to this passive social function. The fact, however, that we have almost to cast about in certain cases for an explanation of the established belief in the sacredness of human life, shows how deeply rooted that belief is unless where some counter-belief interferes with it. 155. On the other hand, it is equally noticeable that there are counter-beliefs which, under conditions, do neutralise it, and that certain other beliefs, which form its proper complement, have very slight hold on the mind of modern Christendom. It is taken for granted that the exigencies of the state in war, whether the war be necessary or not for saving the state from dissolution, absolutely neutralise the right to live. We are little influenced by the idea of the universal brotherhood of men, of mankind as forming one society with a common good, of which the conception may determine the action of its members. In international dealings we are apt to suppose that it can have no place at all. Yet, as has been pointed out, it is the proper correlative of the admission of a right to free life as belonging to man in virtue simply of his human nature. And though this right can only be grounded on the capacity, which belongs to the human nature, for freely fulfilling some function in the social organism, we do very little to give reality to the capacity or to enable it to realise itself. We content ourselves with enacting that no man shall be used by other men as a means against his will, but we leave it to be pretty much a matter of chance whether or no he shall be qualified to fulfil any social function, to contribute anything to the common good, and to do so freely (i.e. under the conception of a common good). The only reason why a man should not be used by other men simply as a means to their ends, is that he should use himself as a means to an end which is really his and theirs at once. But while we say that he shall not be used as a means, we often leave him without the chance of using himself for any social end at all.