The importance of the phenomenon we have just touched upon--the disparagement before war of truths we are compelled to face after war--lies in its revelation of subconscious or unconscious motive. There grows up after some years of peace in every nation possessing military and naval traditions and a habit of dominion, a real desire for domination, perhaps even for war itself; the opportunity that it affords for the assertion of collective power; the mysterious dramatic impulse to 'stop the cackle with a blow; strike, and strike home.' * * * * * For the moment we are at the ebb of that feeling and another is beginning perhaps to flow. The results are showing in our policy. We find in what would have been ten years ago very strange places for such things, attacks upon the government for its policy of 'reckless militarism' in Mesopotamia or Persia. Although public opinion did not manage to impose a policy of peace with Russia, it did at least make open and declared war impossible, and all the efforts of the Northcliffe Press to inflame passion by stories of Bolshevist atrocities fell completely flat. For thirty years it has been a crime of _lèse patrie_ to mention the fact that we have given solemn and repeated pledges for the evacuation of Egypt. And indeed to secure a free hand in Egypt we were ready to acquiesce in the French evasion of international obligations in Morocco, a policy which played no small part in widening the gulf between ourselves and Germany. Yet the political position on behalf of which ten years ago these risks were taken is to-day surrendered with barely a protest. A policy of almost unqualified 'scuttle' which no Cabinet could have faced a decade since, to-day causes scarcely a ripple. And as to the Treaty, certain clauses therein, around which centred less than two years ago a true dementia--the trial of the Kaiser in London, the trial of war prisoners--we have simply forgotten all about. It is certain that sheer exhaustion of the emotions associated with war explains a good deal. But Turks, Poles, Arabs, Russians, who have suffered war much longer, still fight. The policy of the loan to Germany, the independence of Egypt, the evacuation of Mesopotamia, the refusal to attempt the removal of the Bolshevist 'menace to freedom and civilisation' by military means, are explained in part at least by a growing recognition of both the political and the economic futility of the military means, and the absolute need of replacing or supplementing the military method by an increasing measure of agreement and co-operation. The order of events has been such as to induce an interpretation, bring home a conviction, which has influenced policy. But the strength and permanence of the conviction will depend upon the degree of intelligence with which the interpretation is made. Discussion is indispensable and that justifies this re-examination of the suggestions made in _The Great Illusion_.