The Navy as a Fighting Machine | Page 8

That this should be so seems natural;
because civilization has resulted mainly from the attempts of
individuals and groups to enhance the pleasures and diminish the ills of
life, and therefore cannot tend to unselfishness in either individuals or
nations. Civilization in the past has not operated to soften the relations
of nations with each other, so why should it do so now? Is not modern
civilization, with its attendant complexities, rivalries, and jealousies,
provocative of quarrels rather 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