The prerequisite to the creation of a society is the Social Will. And herein lies the difficulty of making any comparative estimate of the respective risks of the alternative courses. We admit that if the nations would sink their sacred egoisms and pledge their power to mutual and common protection, the risk of such a course would disappear. We get the paradox that there is no risk if we all take the risk. But each refuses to begin. William James has illustrated the position:-- 'I am climbing the Alps, and have had the ill luck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure that I shall not miss my aim, and nerve my feet to execute what, without those subjective emotions, would have been impossible. 'But suppose that, on the contrary, the emotions ... of mistrust predominate.... Why, then, I shall hesitate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launching myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss. In this case, and it is one of an immense class, the part of wisdom is to believe what one desires; for the belief is one of the indispensable, preliminary conditions of the realisation of its object. There are cases where faith creates its own justification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish.' CHAPTER VII THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF THE SETTLEMENT _'Human Nature is always what it is'_ 'You may argue as much as you like. All the logic chopping will never get over the fact that human nature is always what it is. Nations will always fight.... always retaliate at victory.' If that be true, and our pugnacities, and hates, and instincts generally, are uncontrollable, and they dictate conduct, no more is to be said. We are the helpless victims of outside forces, and may as well surrender, without further discussion, or political agitation, or propaganda. For if those appeals to our minds can neither determine the direction nor modify the manifestation of our innate instincts, nor influence conduct, one rather wonders at our persistence in them. Why so many of us find an obvious satisfaction in this fatalism, so patently want it to be true, and resort to it in such convenient disregard of the facts, has been in some measure indicated in the preceding chapter. At bottom it comes to this: that it relieves us of so much trouble and responsibility; the life of instinct and emotion is so easily flowing a thing, and that of social restraints and rationalised decisions so cold and dry and barren.