The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of the struggle of individuals and to have given them the assurance of the inviolability of the order of the state life; but, instead, they impose upon the individuals the necessity of the same struggle, except that the struggle with the nearest individuals is transferred to the struggle with the individuals of other states, and they leave the same danger of the destruction of the individual and of the state. The establishment of the universal military service is like what would happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated house: the walls bend inwards--supports are put up; the ceiling is sagging down--other supports are put up; boards hang down between the supports--some more supports are put up. A point is finally reached when the supports indeed hold the house together, but it is impossible to live in the house because there are so many supports. The same is true of the universal military service. It destroys all those advantages of the social life which it is called to preserve. The advantages of the social life consist in the security of property and labour and in the coöperation in the aggregate perfection of life,--the universal military service destroys all that. The taxes which are collected from the masses for war preparations swallow the greater share of the production of labour which the army is supposed to protect. The tearing away of the men from the habitual course of life impairs the possibility of the work itself. The menaces of a war that is likely to break out at any time make all the perfections of the social life useless and in vain. If a man was formerly told that if he did not submit to the power of the state he would be subjected to the attacks of evil men, of external and internal enemies; that he would be compelled himself to struggle with them and to subject himself to being killed; that therefore it would be advantageous for him to bear certain privations, in order to free himself from these calamities,--he was able to believe it all, because the sacrifices which he made for the state were only private sacrifices and gave him the hope for a peaceful life in an imperishable state, in the name of which he made these sacrifices. But now, when these sacrifices have not only increased tenfold, but the advantages promised to him are absent, it is natural for any one to imagine that his submission to power is quite useless. But not in this alone lies the fatal significance of the universal military service, as a manifestation of that contradiction which is contained in the social concept of life. The main manifestation of this contradiction consists in the fact that with the universal military service every citizen, upon becoming a soldier, becomes a supporter of the state structure, and a participant in everything which the government does and the legality of which he does not recognize.