"We have seen what war is. We have seen men turned into brutes, maddened, killing for the sake of pleasure, of terror, of bravado, of ostentation. Then, when law no longer exists, when law is dead, when every notion of right has disappeared, we have seen men shoot innocent people who are found on the road and who have roused suspicion only because they showed fear. We have seen dogs chained near the doors of their masters killed, just to try new revolvers on them; we have seen cows lying in the field shot to pieces, for the sake of pleasure, only to try a gun on them, to have something to laugh at. "This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism. "To enter a country, to kill a man who is defending his home, simply because he wears a blouse and has no cap on his head, to burn the habitations of wretched people who have no bread, to smash the furniture, to steal some of it, to drink the wine which is found in the cellars, to rape the women who are found in the streets, to burn millions of dollars' worth of powder, and to leave behind them misery and the cholera,--this is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism. "What have the men of war done to give evidence of even a little intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? Cannon and guns. That is all. "What has Greece left to us? Books, marbles. Is she great because she has conquered, or because she has produced? "Is it the invasion of the Persians that kept her from falling into the most hideous materialism? "Is it the invasions of the barbarians that saved Rome and regenerated her? "Was it Napoleon I. who continued the great intellectual movement which was begun by the philosophers at the end of the last century? "Oh, well, if the governments arrogate to themselves the right to kill the nations, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the nations now and then take upon themselves the right to do away with the governments. "They defend themselves. They are right. Nobody has the absolute right to govern others. This can be done only for the good of the governed. Whoever rules is as much obliged to avoid war as a captain of a boat is obliged to avoid a shipwreck. "When a captain has lost his boat, he is judged and condemned, if he is found guilty of negligence or even of incapacity. "Why should not the governments be judged after the declaration of a war? If the nations understood this, if they themselves sat in judgment over the death-dealing powers, if they refused to allow themselves to be killed without reason, if they made use of their weapons against those who gave them to them for the purpose of massacring, war would be dead at once! But this day will not come!" (_Sur l'Eau_, pp. 71-80.)