To the moralist we need make no reply except simply to name the infant mortality which is at last coming to be recognised everywhere as, perhaps, the most abominable of all our scandals. To the militarist I would quote the case of our ally, Japan. He recalls the war between China and Japan, and its issue, and has some idea, perhaps, of the population ratio of those two Empires. How was it that Providence was on the side of the small battalions? He recalls also the Russo-Japanese war and its issue; and the population ratio of the two Empires in that case. How many other instances does not military history afford of the truth that in the human species mind is the master of matter? One would suppose that a critical historical enquiry had been made, proving that the results of all past wars could have been predicted by the simple method of estimating the total aggregate weight of the combatant nations in flesh and blood and bone! More than this, if the development of the art of warfare means anything, if there has been any such development since the days of fists and stones, it means, as all human development in every sphere means, the increasing dominance of mind over matter, character and initiative over machinery, _dead or alive_. Meanwhile, the estimate of warriors in terms of the scale and the foot rule are still accepted just as if they had not been rendered obsolete for ever with the passing of the “dragons of the prime.” As regards the psychical worth of the soldier, is it not recognised, though too commonly forgotten, when we applaud the value of the veteran or of seasoned troops? Physically the veteran is, on the average, inferior to the younger man. It is the psychical that gives him his worth, just as it was patriotism and sobriety that enabled the few sober Japanese to beat the many drunken Russians. It is safe to prophesy that, in all future war, the numerical criterion, which in effect weighs armies by the ton, as if war were merely a tug-of-war, will become less and less important--if, indeed, it is not already negligible; whilst the purely psychical qualities, from generalship and strategy and hygiene to initiative, judgment, accuracy, memory, and down finally to mere brutal red-blooded courage, will determine the issue.