This credulity begins, like charity, at home. Whenever a war breaks out, there is much talk of the disingenuousness of “enemy” writers; but the sophisms which are really perilous to each country are those of native growth--those which lurk deep in the minds of its own people, ready, when the season summons them, to spring up to what Sydney Smith called “the full bloom of their imbecility.” That egregious maxim, _si vis pacem para bellum_, “If you wish for peace, prepare for war,” is now somewhat discredited; but it did its “bit” in causing the war, and after a temporary retirement will doubtless be brought forward again when circumstances are more favourable. It is perhaps as silly a saying as any invented by the folly of man. Imagine a ward of lunatics, who, having got their keepers under lock and key by a reversal of position such as that described in one of Poe’s fantastic stories, should proceed to safeguard peace by arming themselves with pokers and legs of tables. For a time this adoption of the _para bellum_ principle might postpone hostilities; but even lunatics would be wasting time and temper in thus standing idly arrayed, and it is certain that sooner or later that madhouse would realize its Armageddon. For opportunity in the long run begets action; and whether you put a poker into a lunatic’s hand, or a sword into a soldier’s, the result will eventually be the same. Or perhaps we are told that war is “a great natural outburst,” mysterious in its origin, beyond human control: the creed expressed in Wordsworth’s famous assertion that carnage is “God’s daughter.” Could any superstition be grosser? There is nothing mysterious or cataclysmic in the outbreak of modern wars. Antipathies and rivalries of nations there are, as of individuals, and of course if these are cherished they will burst into flame; but it is equally true that if they are wisely discountenanced and repressed they will finally subside. We do not excuse an individual who pleads his jealousy, his passion, his thirst for revenge as a reason for committing an assault, though personal crime is just as much an “outbreak” as war is. There seems to be an idea that when such passions exist it is better for them to “come out.” On the contrary, the only hope for mankind is that such savage survivals should _not_ come out, but that “the ape and tiger” should be steadily repressed until they die.