“Thus the duty of every well-meaning man today is to diffuse knowledge of the fact that war no longer serves the purpose it once served in the struggle for civilization. “War necessary to civilization?” Well, for a long time in the life of the human race nature was so ill understood, man had such insufficient knowledge and control of nature, that it was extremely difficult to get a living for all. Our ancestors naturally quarreled; perhaps it was necessary for some of them to kill others in order that some of them might live—ignorant as the people were in those times of how to make nature yield bountifully and easily for all. And no doubt the struggle developed the race—the part that did not get killed. In those struggles were developed, at first, strong muscles, skin-ripping claws or knife-like finger-nails, tusks in the mouth, and thick skins; and, later, clubs, spears, cross-bows, bows-and-arrows; and still later, rifles, cannon, battleships and lignite shells, and also the methods and tactics of struggle;—all these were developed. Always, too, cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism, coarse-grained dispositions, cheap ambitions, swaggering manners, fierce eyes, and the soft, bull-like military voices and hero worship—all these were developed. The muscles and the mentality thus developed are still extremely useful. Indeed, the mentality, developed in war (but neither wholly nor chiefly in war), is worth all it cost, whatever it did cost, because with this godlike mentality, and only with this mentality, we can now have the higher and finer forms and phases of life, the pleasures that distinguish man from the brutes; that is, with this mentality we can have these more glorious forms of life: _Provided_, that the low cunning, deception, malignance, egoism, egotism and the coarse-grained strain of the ancient brute are not even yet too strong in our veins and characters. In spite of one’s intelligence he may be “not only willing, but anxious to fight.” Such a person may no longer have the skin-ripping finger-claws, but he has the skin-ripping disposition that was developed when the skin-ripping finger-claws were developed, and developed in the same way. Now, of course, we still need the muscle and the intelligence, every one of us. But we do not any longer need the skin-rippers, or the tusks, or the club, the “big stick,” the spear, the bow and arrow, the rifle and the battleship; nor do we any longer need the arrogant egotism, the cheap cunning, the prize-fighter ambitions or the tiger’s readiness to take blood. Nor should we any longer need the ancient method of struggle, every-fellow-for-himself, in the industrial process of life—in a _rationally_ organized society, with our _present_ control of nature. And we should no longer enjoy any of these brute means and methods if we were civilized in the noblest sense, that is, if we were decently socialized. “Are you ready for the question?” This is the question: