The first is the circumstance that the mental habit of this generation has been profoundly affected by the supremacy of the machine. Its characteristic intellectual achievement is the pragmatist philosophy; and as much in religion and sociology as in the physical sciences its main pre-occupation is with processes. It requires efficiency for immediate concrete objects rather more than faithfulness to what seems to be remote and imponderable abstractions. Conscientious objection is irritating because it is so palpably futile, and indeed so vexatiously obstructive of the business in hand. Not only does it not _work_, it actually hinders the work in which the multitude is engaged. It puts the machine out of gear; in a supreme emergency when all hands should be at the pumps, the conscientious objector puts us to the trouble of putting him in irons. That is obviously—and naturally—how the case looks. The gulf between the conscientious objector and common opinion is made by a difference of emphasis upon principle and process. The conscientious objector—being perhaps a sort of reversion to a less sophisticated age—puts the process to the test of principle and finds them incompatible. Common opinion, in the exercise of a presumably more realistic judgment says, “This is the only process available; let us make the best use of it we can, and take the risk of coming to terms with principles afterwards, if that be necessary.” The one hitches his wagon to a star; the other hitches it to anything that is going his way. Upon the merits of this kind of controversy, contemporary judgments are notoriously unsafe; unfortunately, none of us will be living at the time when it will be possible to say with assurance who was in this case the true realist after all. Meantime, the conscientious objector, however despised, may help us to a healthier balance between ultimate principle and immediate process than any of us have had this many a day.