Great changes come to pass slowly, but in times like the present, when upheavals are fierce and dangers lie near, it might be hoped that swifter advances should be made in the conflict between the new and the old. Just as, immediately before the vote was taken on the Heinze law, a group of devoted men was formed to oppose that measure, which succeeded in defeating it, so, in the face of the present conspicuous and overwhelming manifestation of the principle of brute force, the friends of right might resolutely band themselves together, and, with shields upraised, declare a crusade for the liberation of politics from the thraldom of that immoral tradition. Possibly the hope that such a step could be taken might again involve an over-estimate of our contemporaries. What matters it? Kant said: “Man cannot think too highly of man,” and it is better to have erred in this direction than, by lukewarm doubt, to have condoned the fault of those here criticised. What we see happening to-day furnishes proof, furnishes wonderfully objective illustrations and experimental demonstrations, not against, but in favor of our doctrines. In the first place, let us consider the war in the Transvaal. True, it broke out immediately after the conference at The Hague, and in despite of the principles of arbitration and of mediation there announced, and subscribed to even by England herself. Yet it was no triumph for the dogma of the necessity of war; it was rather a triumph for the _advocates_ of war. For our opponents, in giving voice to the slogan, “The South African war and the Chinese horrors were the direct result of the conference,” commit—purposely, without a doubt—the blunder of confusing sequence in time with sequence of cause and effect. It is the familiar, senseless, exploded, “_Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_.” Seeds which lay slumbering in the world’s soil long before the conference at The Hague sprouted in these two instances. For all that the conference itself could achieve was not in the nature of a harvest, but merely a sowing of seed. The newly created institutions are not yet in operation, their spirit has not yet become incarnate in the flesh and blood of the nations, of potentates, of the press. And Mr. Chamberlain was able to accomplish his purpose, in spite of the pleading of Krüger for arbitration, even unto the last minute. Every intermediation was refused, and none was honestly and earnestly considered.