What is called in history books 'an insult' seemed also to have lost much of its ancient power for plunging nations into war. The Chancelleries of Europe had grown cautious, and were on the watch against being misled by the emotions of the moment. A sensational but unintended injury was not allowed to drive us {5} into war with Russia in 1904, and this precedent seemed of good augury. Moreover, when every statesman in Europe was fully alive to the electric condition of the atmosphere, a deliberate insult was not very likely to be offered from mere ill-manners or in a fit of temper, but only if there were some serious purpose behind it, in which case it would fall under a different category. Fear was a great danger, and everybody knew it to be so--fear lest this nation, or that, might be secretly engaged in strengthening its position in order to crush one of its neighbours at some future date, unless that neighbour took time by the forelock and struck out forthwith. Among the causes which might bring about a surprise outbreak of war this was the most serious and probable. It was difficult to insure against it. But though perilous in the extreme while it lasts, panic is of the nature of an epidemic: it rages for a while and passes away. It had been raging now with great severity ever since 1909,[1] and by midsummer 1914 optimists were inclined to seek consolation in the thought that the crisis must surely be over. [Sidenote: DANGERS TO PEACE] More dangerous to peace in the long run even than fear, were certain aims and aspirations, which from one standpoint were concrete and practical, but regarded from another were among the cloudiest of abstractions--'political interests,' need of new markets, hunger for fresh territory to absorb the outflow of emigrants, and the like; on the other hand, those hopes and anxieties which haunt the {6} imaginations of eager men as they look into the future, and dream dreams and see visions of a grand national fulfilment. If the British race ever beheld a vision of this sort, it had been realised already. We should have been wise had we remembered that this accomplished fact, these staked-out claims of the British Empire, appeared to fall like a shadow across visions seen by other eyes, blotting out some of the fairest hopes, and spoiling the noble proportions of the patriot's dream.