This, at least, is clear, from the history of military discipline, that only by the most repressive laws, and by a tyranny subversive of the commonest rights of men, is it possible to retain men in the fighting service of a country, after forcing or cajoling them into it. And this consideration fully meets the theory of an inherent love of fighting dominating human nature, such as that contended for in a letter from Lord Palmerston to Cobden, wherein he argues that man is by nature a fighting and quarrelling animal. The proposition is true undoubtedly of some savage races, and of the idle knights of the days of chivalry, but, not even in those days, of the lower classes, who incurred the real dangers of war, and still less of the unfortunate privates or conscripts of modern armies. Fighting is only possible between civilised countries, because discipline first fits men for war and for nothing else, and then war again necessitates discipline. Nor is anything gained by ignoring the conquests that have already been won over the savage propensity to war. Single States no longer suffer private wars within their boundaries, like those customary between the feudal barons; we decide most of our quarrels in law courts, not upon battle-fields, and wisely prefer arguments to arms. A population as large as that of Ireland and about double as large as that of all our colonies in Australia put together lives in London alone, not only without weapons of defence in their hands, but with so little taste for blood-encounters that you may walk for whole days through its length and breadth without so much as seeing a single street-fight. If then this miracle of social order has been achieved, why not the wider one of that harmony between nations which requires but a little common-sense and determination on the part of those most concerned in order to become an accomplished reality? The limitations of personal liberty already alluded to would of themselves suffice in a country of free institutions to render the military profession distasteful and unpopular. The actual perils of war, at no time greater than those of mines, railways, or merchant-shipping, would never alone deter men from service; so that we must look for other causes to explain the difficulty of recruiting and the frequency of desertion, which are the perplexity of military systems still based, as our own is, on the principle of voluntary not compulsory enlistment.