But in spite of that, I believe that on the whole there is far more good
than evil in the enormous military growths that have occurred in the
last half century. I cannot estimate how far the alternative to war is
lethargy. It is through military urgencies alone that many men can be
brought to consent to the collective endowment of research, to public
education and to a thousand interferences with their private
self-seeking. Just as the pestilence of cholera was necessary before men
could be brought to consent to public sanitation, so perhaps the dread
of foreign violence is an unavoidable spur in an age of chaotic
industrial production in order that men may be brought to subserve the
growth of a State whose purpose might otherwise be too high for them to
understand. Men must be forced to care for fleets and armies until they
have learnt to value cities and self development and a beautiful social
life.
The real danger of modern war lies not in the disciplined power of the
fighting machine but in the undisciplined forces in the collective mind
that may set that machine in motion.
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