Thus we come back to our thesis that war is not only possible but inevitable so long as the extent of the moral sphere is conterminous with the frontiers of the State. But merely to explain laboriously that all this organised killing is not really a paradox but the natural accompaniment of a certain stage of moral development, and to leave it at that, would be rather to exaggerate our philosophic detachment. The point is that we are long past the stage of regarding any but our fellow-subjects as moral outlaws. For some years, to say the least, it has been generally received that the sphere of morality is co-extensive with mankind. In spite of certain lingering exceptions, it is to-day a commonplace of thought that every human being on the earth is our colleague in civilisation; is a member that is of the human race, which finding itself on this earth has got somehow to make the best of it; is a shareholder in the human asset of self-consciousness which we are called upon to exploit. It would certainly be hard to find a man of what we have called enlightened opinions who would not profess, whatever his private feelings, that it is as great a crime to kill a Hottentot or a Jew as to kill an Englishman. With certain lingering exceptions then we already regard the foreigner as a member of our own moral system. The moral sphere has already extended or is at least in course of extension to its ultimate limits: and war is a survival from the penultimate stage of morality. War, to put it mildly, is a moral anachronism. War between European nations is civil war. Logically all war should be recognised at once, at any rate by enlightened opinion, as the crime, the disaster, the ultimate disgrace that it obviously is. Why then do we cling to the implications of a system that we have grown out of? Why do we affect the limitation of boundaries that have been already extended? Or is our prison so lovely that though the walls fall down we refuse to walk out into the air? CHAPTER II A sociologist wrote to the Vali of Aleppo, asking: What are the imports of Aleppo? What is the nature of the water-supply? What is the birth-rate, and the death-rate? The Vali replied: It is impossible for anyone to number the camels that kneel in the markets of Aleppo. The water is sufficient; no one ever dies of thirst in Aleppo. How many children shall be born in this great city is known only to Allah the compassionate, the merciful. And who would venture to inquire the tale of the dead? For it is revealed only to the Angels of death who shall be taken and who shall be left. O idle Frank, cease from your presumptuous questioning, and know that these things are not revealed to the children of men. The _Bustan of Mahmud Aga el-Arnauty_. Sec. 1 The Armament Ring