Never before in history has the right of war been more fully admitted in
the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in public prints, in
all the public works of peace, culminating in the establishment of the
Hague Tribunal--that solemnly official recognition of the Earth as a
House of Strife. To him whose indignation is qualified by a measure of
hope and affection, the efforts of mankind to work its own salvation
present a sight of alarming comicality. After clinging for ages to the
steps of the heavenly throne, they are now, without much modifying their
attitude, trying with touching ingenuity to steal one by one the
thunderbolts of their Jupiter. They have removed war from the list of
Heaven-sent visitations that could only be prayed against; they have
erased its name from the supplication against the wrath of war,
pestilence, and famine, as it is found in the litanies of the Roman
Catholic Church; they have dragged the scourge down from the skies and
have made it into a calm and regulated institution. At first sight the
change does not seem for the better. Jove's thunderbolt looks a most
dangerous plaything in the hands of the people.
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