“Whoever says today, ‘might makes right,’ performs an act of the Middle Ages, and speaks to men a hundred years behind their times. Gentlemen, the nineteenth century glorifies the eighteenth century. The eighteenth proposed, the nineteenth concludes. And my last word shall be a declaration, tranquil but inflexible, of progress. “The time has come. Right has found its formula:—human federation. “Today force is called violence, and begins to be judged; war is arraigned. Civilization, upon the complaint of the human race, orders the trial, and draws up the great criminal indictment of conquerors and captains. The Witness, History, is summoned. The reality appears. The fictitious brilliancy is dissipated. In many cases, the hero is a species of assassin. The people begin to comprehend that increasing the magnitude of a crime can not be its diminution; that, if to kill is a crime, to kill much can not be an extenuating circumstance; that if to steal is a shame, to invade can not be a glory; that Te Deums do not count for much in this matter; that homicide is homicide; that bloodshed is bloodshed; that it serves nothing to call one’s self Caesar or Napoleon; and that in the eyes of the eternal God, the figure of a murderer is not changed because, instead of a gallow’s cap, there is placed upon the head an Emperor’s crown. “Ah! let us proclaim absolute truths. Let us dishonor war. No; glorious war does not exist. No; it is not good, and it is not useful, to make corpses. No; it can not be that life travails for death. No; O, mothers who surround me, it can not be that war, the robber, should continue to take from you your children. No; it can not be that women should bear children in pain, that men should be born, that people should plow and sow, that the farmer should fertilize the fields, and the workmen enrich the city, that industry should produce marvels, that genius should produce prodigies, that the vast human activity should, in the presence of the starry sky, multiply efforts and creations, all to result in that frightful international exposition called war.” (=D=) INGERSOLL’S VISION OF WAR:[283]