One would not venture to say that _all_ wars are so engineered, for there certainly are occasionally wars which are the spontaneous expression of two nations' natural hostility and hatred; but these are rare, very rare, and the war in which we are concerned at present is certainly not one of them. Also one would not venture to say that though in the present affair the actuating motives have been of class origin, and have been worked through secret channels, the motives so put in action have all been base and mean. That would be going too far. Some of the motives may have been high-minded and generous, some may have been mean, and others may have been mean and yet _unconsciously_ so. But certainly when one looks at the conditions of public and political life, and the arrangements and concatenations by which influence there is exerted and secured, and sees (as one must) the pretty bad corruption which pervades the various parties in all the modern States--the commercial briberies, the lies of the Press, the poses and prevarications of Diplomats and Ministers--one cannot but realize the great probability that the private advantage of individuals or classes has been (in the present case) a prevailing instigation. The fact that in Britain two influential and honourable Cabinet Ministers resigned at once on the declaration of war (a fact upon which the Press has been curiously silent) cannot but "give one to think." One cannot but realize that the fighting men in all these nations are the pawns and counters of a game which is being played for the benefit--or supposed benefit--of certain classes; that public opinion is a huge millstream which has to be engineered; that the Press is a channel for its direction, and Money the secret power which commands the situation. The fact is sad, but it must be faced. And the facing of it leads inevitably to the question, "How, then, can Healing ever come?" If (it will be said) the origin of wars is in the diseased condition of the nations, what prospect is there of their ever ceasing? And one sees at once that the prospect is not immediate. One sees at once that Peace Societies and Nobel Prizes and Hague Tribunals and reforms of the Diplomatic Service and democratic control of Foreign Secretaries and Quaker and Tolstoyan preachments--though all these things may be good in their way--will never bring us swiftly to the realization of peace. The roots of the Tree of Life lie deeper.