If this war is not the result of certain perfectly well known individuals using their own nations for an attack on others, but is the result of impersonal enmity between Teuton and Slav, then no person or persons are responsible for the war, there is no more blame on one side than there is on the other, and the moral element is as lacking as it is in an encounter between the inhabitants of the jungle. It is a curious thing that the prophet assumes the role of a moral censor, and devotes much the greater part of his energies to confusing the moral issues, to obliterating moral distinctions, and to blunting the ethical sense. To condemn all war, which is a congenial theme for a moralist, is rank immorality; for it puts the nation that attacks, and the nation that repels the invader, in the same category, and refuses to make any distinction between the burglar, the householder who resists him, and the policeman who overpowers him and drags him away to jail. The prophet readily drops his eye on armies, and at once announces that it is their existence that accounts for the war. If there were no armies there would possibly be no wars, but we have shown more than once that armies can be pretty rapidly extemporized. Besides, this, too, confuses the moral issues. All nations have armies, and if America and England had relatively small armies before this war, they had the largest navy in the world and the navy which ranked second or third. The highwayman carries a pistol, and so does the paymaster who is obliged to transport a treasure chest. If the possession of a revolver was the cause of the homicide that occurred, the guilt lies equally on the souls of both. We are told that no truth is more certain than that "if you create a vast fighting machine it will sooner or later compel you to fight, whether you want to fight or not"--which is about as dubious a truth as was ever paraded as an axiom--that "these vast machines, whether armies or engines of war, are made to be used," and that "the military machine will overpower the minds which have called it into being." Then their responsibility is not for the ensuing war, but for carelessness in leaving a war weapon around. But if these vast military machines were made to be used, then why complicate the question of responsibility by representing the machine as overpowering its careless but really peaceful creator, and compelling him to fight whether he wants to fight or not?