Do you remember how I warned you against an American who counseled disarmament? They will yet, in alliance with Russia, threaten Europe; and I am thoroughly convinced that it is only the enormous armies, which no one would be able to command and provide for, that are to-day an assurance of peace and are smoothing the way for the arbitrators. The defeat of the Italians in Africa pains me; but it is a wholesome lesson. If I were Crispi’s successor, I should have no scruple in openly declaring, “Italy has been deservedly punished for a great offense; let us not make the offense worse; we have something better to do,” and Italy would give jubilant ratification to Your Carneri I possess a copy of my reply, and I give some extracts from it: Harmannsdorf, March 10, 1896 Dear Friend, Your letter is a new proof of your affection. I have known for a long time that you are not one of us,—have known it from the day when you discovered that it would be money ill spent to contribute a legacy as a proof of respect to my life work. You find my work useless,—almost harmful; but at the same time you love Martha and Löwos, and would like to spare Martha pain. But, my dear, if I did not feel pain what would be the impulse for my work? Certainly not, as my enemies say, vanity? You surely do not believe that? No, pain at the way men stick to their barbarism is what penetrates me and compels me to oppose my weak activity against the general inaction. If one should keep waiting for the next century or so for things to be done of themselves, they would never get done. After the principle of railroads was discovered (they, too, were sufficiently opposed), locomotives and tracks had also to be built, without waiting until a future generation should be ripe for such a mode of travel.... The war that does not break out because of worry over the responsibility, that is to say, because of the excess of armaments, is not peace, for it is doubly precarious: in the first place, because the armaments are in themselves ruinous, materially and morally, for they exhaust all resources, they enslave and degrade men, and they _must_ keep alive the spirit of war and the worship of force, which is happening in all schools at the present time; secondly, because the explosion of the powder magazine is left to depend on the arbitrary will of a few people.... Of course disarmament—especially of a single state—cannot begin immediately; but just as the interminable increase of armaments is the consequence of the anarchy that prevails in the mutual relations of states, so would disarmament be the consequence of their mutual relations based upon law....