The Navy as a Fighting Machine | Page 8

than the reverse? In what respect is modern civilization better than past civilization, except in material conveniences due to material improvements in the mechanic arts? Are we any more artistic, strong, or beautiful than the Greeks in their palmy days? Are we braver than the Spartans, more honest than the Chinese, more spiritual than the Hindoos, more religious than the Puritans? Is not the superior civilization of the present day a mechanical civilization pure and simple? And has not the invention of electrical and mechanical appliances, with the resulting insuring of communication and transportation, and the improvements in instruments of destruction, advantaged the great nations more than the weaker ones, and increased the temptation to great nations to use force rather than decreased it? Do not civilization's improvements in weapons of destruction augment the effectiveness of warlike methods, as compared with the peaceful methods of argument and persuasion?
Diplomacy is an agency of civilization that was invented to avoid war, to enable nations to accommodate themselves to each other without going to war; but, practically, diplomacy seems to have caused almost as many wars as it has averted. And even if it be granted that the influence of diplomacy has been in the main for peace rather than for war, we know that diplomacy has been in use for centuries, that its resources are well understood, and that they have all been tried out many times; and therefore we ought to realize clearly that diplomacy cannot introduce any new force into international politics now, or exert, an influence for peace that will be more potent in the future than the influence that it has exerted in the past.
These considerations seem to show that we cannot reasonably expect civilization to divert nations from the path they have followed hitherto.
Can commerce impart the external force necessary to divert nations from that path?
Since commerce bears exactly the same relation to nations now as in times past, and since it is an agency within mankind itself, it is difficult to see how it can act as an external force, or cause an external force to be applied. Of course, commercial interests are often opposed to national interests, and improvements in speed and sureness of communication and transportation increase the size and power of commercial organizations. But the same factors increase the power of governments and the solidarity of nations. At no time in the past has there been more national feeling in nations than now. Even the loosely held provinces of China are forming a Chinese nation. Despite the fundamental commercialism of the age, national spirit is growing more intense, the present war being the main intensifying cause. It is true that the interests of commerce are in many ways antagonistic to those of war. But, on the other hand, of all the causes that occasion war the economic causes are the greatest. For no thing will men fight more savagely than for money; for no thing have men fought more savagely than for money; and the greater the rivalry, the more the man's life becomes devoted to it, and the more fiercely he will fight to get or keep it. Surely of all the means by which we hope to avoid war, the most hopeless by far is commerce.
The greatest of all hopes is in Christianity, because of its inculcation of love and kindliness, its obvious influence on the individual in cultivating unselfishness and other peaceful virtues, and the fact that it is an inspiration from on high, and therefore a force external to mankind. But let us look the facts solemnly in the face that the Christian religion has now been in effect for nearly two thousand years; that the nations now warring are Christian nations, in the very foremost rank of Christendom; that never in history has there been so much bloodshed in such wide-spread areas and so much hate, and that we see no signs that Christianity is employing any influence that she has not been employing for nearly two thousand years.
If we look for the influence of Christianity, we can find it in the daily lives of people, in the family, in business, in politics, and in military bodies; everywhere, in fact, in Christian countries, so long as we keep inside of any organization the members of which feel bound together. This we must all admit, even the heathen know it; but where do we see any evidence of the sweetening effect of Christianity in the dealings of one organization with another with which it has no special bonds of friendship? Christianity is invoked in every warring nation now to stimulate the patriotic spirit of the nation and intensify the hate of the crowd against the enemy; and even if we think that such invoking is a perversion of religious