'We have got thus far, then: both parties to the discussion are agreed as to the fundamental fact that civilisation is based upon moral and intellectual elements in constant danger of being overwhelmed by more deeply-rooted anti-social elements. The plain facts of history past and present are there to show that where those moral elements are absent the mere fact of the possession of arms only adds to the destructiveness of the resulting welter. 'Yet all attempts to secure our safety by other than military means are not merely regarded with indifference; they are more generally treated either with a truly ferocious contempt or with definite condemnation. 'This apparently on two grounds: first, that nothing that we can do will affect the conduct of other nations; secondly, that, in the development of those moral forces which do undoubtedly give us security, government action--which political effort has in view--can play no part. 'Both assumptions are, of course, groundless. The first implies not only that our own conduct and our own ideas need no examination, but that ideas current in one country have no reaction on those of another, and that the political action of one State does not affect that of others. "The way to be sure of peace is to be so much stronger than your enemy that he will not dare to attack you," is the type of accepted and much-applauded "axioms" the unfortunate corollary of which is (since both parties can adopt the rule) that peace will only be finally achieved when each is stronger than the other. 'So thought and acted the man with the stone axe in our illustration, and in both cases the psychological motive is the same: the long-inherited impulse to isolated action, to the solution of a difficulty by some simple form of physical movement; the tendency to break through the more lately acquired habit of action based on social compact and on the mental realisation of its advantage. It is the reaction against intellectual effort and responsible control of instinct, a form of natural protest very common in children and in adults not brought under the influence of social discipline.