Germany's preparations for war have not resulted in economic disaster, but in unexampled economic expansion, unquestionably because of our demonstrated superiority over France. It is better to spend money on armaments and battleships than luxury, motormania, and other sensual living. We know that Moltke expressed a similar view in his famous letter to Bluntschli. "A perpetual peace," declared the Field-Marshal, "is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream. War is one of the elements of order in the world, established by God. The noblest virtues of men are developed therein. Without war the world would degenerate and disappear in a morass of materialism."[43] At the very time that Moltke was voicing this sentiment, a precisely similar one was being voiced by no less a person than Ernest Renan. In his "La Réforme Intellectuelle et Morale" (Paris: Lévy, 1871, p. 111) he writes: If the foolishness, negligence, idleness, and short-sightedness of States did not involve their occasional collision, it is difficult to imagine the degree of degeneracy to which the human race would descend. War is one of the conditions of progress, the sting which prevents a country from going to sleep, and compels satisfied mediocrity itself to awaken from its apathy. Man is only sustained by effort and struggle. The day that humanity achieves a great pacific Roman Empire, having no external enemies, that day its morality and its intelligence will be placed in the very greatest peril. In our own times a philosophy not very dissimilar has been voiced in the public declarations of ex-President Roosevelt. I choose a few phrases from his speeches and writings, at random: We despise a nation, just as we despise a man, who submits to insult. What is true of a man ought to be true of a nation.[44] We must play a great part in the world, and especially ... perform those deeds of blood, of valor, which above everything else bring national renown. We do not admire a man of timid peace. By war alone can we acquire those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. In this world the nation that is trained to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound to go down in the end before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities.[45] Professor William James covers the whole ground of these claims in the following passage: