compulsory service; but rather how most speedily we can disband our army--an ever-growing danger to our peace and liberty--and how we can advance elsewhere the cause of universal disarmament. CHAPTER IX. THE LIMITS OF MILITARY DUTY. _‘I confess when I went into arms at the beginning of this war, I never troubled myself to examine sides; I was glad to hear the drums beat for soldiers, as if I had been a mere Swiss, that had not cared which side went up or down, so I had my pay.’_--MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER. The old feeling of the moral stain of bloodshed--Military purificatory customs--Modern change of feeling about warfare--Descartes on the profession of arms--The old-world sentiment in favour of piracy--The central question of military ethics--May a soldier be indifferent to the cause of war?--The right to serve made conditional on a good cause, by St. Augustine, Bullinger, Grotius, and Sir James Turner--Old Greek feeling about mercenary service--Origin of our mercenary as opposed to gratuitous service--Armies raised by military contractors--The value of the distinction between foreign and native mercenaries--Original limitation of military duty to the actual defence of the realm--Extension of the notion of allegiance--The connection of the military oath with the first Mutiny Act--Recognised limits to the claims on a soldier’s obedience--The falsity of the common doctrine of duty illustrated by the devastation of the Palatinate by the French and by the bombardment of Copenhagen by the English--The example of Admiral Keppel--Justice between nations--Its observation in ancient India and Rome--St. Augustine and Bayard on justice in war--Grotius on good grounds of war--The military claim to exemption from moral responsibility--The soldier’s first duty to his conscience--The admission of this principle involves the end of war. It must needs be that new questions arise, or old perplexities in a fresh form; and of these one that has risen again in our time is this: Does any moral stain attach to bloodshed committed upon the battle-field? Or is the difference between military and ordinary homicide a real one, and does the plea of duty sanction any act, however atrocious in the abstract, provided it be committed under the uniform of the State?