In this matter it seems fatally easy to secure either one of two kinds of action: that of the "practical man" who limits his energies to securing a policy which will perfect the machinery of war and disregard anything else; or that of the Pacifist, who, persuaded of the brutality or immorality of war, is apt to deprecate effort directed at self-defence. What is needed is the type of activity which will include both halves of the problem: provision for education, for a Political Reformation in this matter, _as well as_ such means of defence as will meantime counterbalance the existing impulse to aggression. To concentrate on either half to the exclusion of the other half is to render the whole problem insoluble. What must inevitably happen if the nations take the line of the "practical man," and limit their energies simply and purely to piling up armaments? A British critic once put to me what he evidently deemed a poser: "Do you urge that we shall be stronger than our enemy, or weaker?" To which I replied: "The last time that question was asked me was in Berlin, by Germans. What would you have had me reply to those Germans?"--a reply which, of course, meant this: In attempting to find the solution of this question in terms of one party, you are attempting the impossible. The outcome will be war, and war would not settle it. It would all have to be begun over again. The British Navy League catechism says: "Defence consists in being so strong that it will be dangerous for your enemy to attack you."[115] Mr. Churchill, even, goes farther than the Navy League, and says: "The way to make war impossible is to make victory certain." The Navy League definition is at least possible of application to practical politics, because rough equality of the two parties would make attack by either dangerous. Mr. Churchill's principle is impossible of application to practical politics, because it could only be applied by one party, and would, in the terms of the Navy League principle, deprive the other party of the right of defence. As a matter of simple fact, both the British Navy League, by its demand for two ships to one, and Mr. Churchill, by his demand for certain victory, deny in this matter Germany's right to defend herself; and such denial is bound, on the part of a people animated by like motives to themselves, to provoke a challenge. When the British Navy League says, as it does, that a self-respecting nation should not depend upon the goodwill of foreigners for its safety, but upon its own strength, it recommends Germany to maintain her efforts to arrive at some sort of equality with England. When Mr. Churchill goes farther, and says that a nation is entitled to be so strong as to make victory over its rivals certain, he knows that if Germany were to adopt his own doctrine, its certain outcome would be war.