The Ethical Challenge of the Times

I

THE moral policy of Germany is as well defined and as aggressive as its military policy. They are in fact one and the same thing. Germany at once projected into the war its own political morality, the morality of power. Both in diplomacy and on the field the nation has acted with entire moral consistency. It may be a debatable question whether the political morality of Germany was or was not the direct cause of the war, but without dispute it has given to the war its very marked and peculiar ethical significance. It has caused it to assume the character of an ethical challenge. Militarism, the distinctive term of the present war, means in the last analysis not so much the assertion or over-assertion of military force as the assumption of moral prerogative. Beneath armaments and organization lies the political theory on which militarism rests and from which it draws its life: the state is power.

In order to measure the full force of this ethical challenge of the war, as it reaches us, we need to revert to the state of mind out of which it springs. The actual justification of the war on the part of Germany, that, underlying justification of it which sustains and supports the German people as the war proceeds, is to be found in the sincerity and in the assumed validity of the claim to a superior type of civilization, culminating in the state. The obligation which this claim is supposed to carry with it has been accepted in the mood of exalted passion. The destiny of the nation prescribes its duty. This can be nothing less than to supplant AngloSaxon civilization as no longer entitled to leadership, no longer equal to the burdens or to the tasks of the modern world. It lacks virility and it lacks vision. It is incapable of solving the new problems of civilization. The time has come for it to give way before Teutonic methods and ideals. War only hastens the inevitable, and saves the world the wastes of delay.

Those who are familiar with Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (which, after passing through eight editions in Germany, was presented in 1909 to English readers) will recall the author’s extraordinary exploitation of the Teutonic race as the essential force in human progress. The claim to superiority which was then set forth in broad and inclusive terms, with philosophical temper, was at the same time being urged by a group of intellectual leaders in Germany with vehemence and wdth exclusive application to the German people. What seemed at first to be the doctrine of a cult became in due time the accepted truth of a whole people. I am aware that certain German apologists minimize the influence of this school of thought. Some of them assert that the names of its leaders are practically unknown in Germany. This might well be, though in fact it is doubtful, and yet the leaven of their thought might pervade the nation. Judging from the formal, and still more from the almost unconscious utterances of the peopie, such at least appears to be the fact. When Germany speaks her mind officially or unofficially, she speaks in the language and with the accent of superiority. As we pass out of the range of purely diplomatic explanations regarding the causes of the war, the plea of self-defense quickly disappears, lost in its own inconsistency; and the plea of national necessity with a view to expansion is soon merged in the claim to supremacy. It is indeed singular that the clearest and ablest writers, who contend for a place of equality with England in world-relations, should so generally weaken their argument by their insistence in the end, not upon equality, but upon supremacy. Nearly every presentation of the case of Germany reverts soon or late to the claim to superiority, which through the stimulus of militarism has been converted into the terms of actual warfare.

As no one can doubt the absolute sincerity with which the claim to superiority is put forward, few, I think, will be disposed to deny that it has a certain justice when tested by the standards of our modern material civilization. I know of no nation that would be willing to subject itself to a comparison with the Germany of the last forty years in respect to organization, industrial progress, economic efficiency, and the practical applications of the sciences. These advances stand to the credit of Germany apart from their relation to militarism, apart, that is, from what they have done toward making war the grand science, the magnificent industry, under the guise of armed peace. But it is through militarism that the claim to superiority passes over into the right of superiority, and the right of superiority becomes the right of dominion. This is not the bald reassertion of the ancient dogma that might makes right. The injection of the idea of superiority tempers the original dogma, but it brings it again into service without essentially changing its ethical character. It would be unfair to say that this modified form of the doctrine is new. It was in fact introduced through Anglo-Saxon civilization. It has done its duty faithfully in the interest of British imperialism. True, its language has been evasive and apologetic. We are familiar with its characteristic phraseology — ‘ benevolent assimilation,’ ‘the white man s burden,’ and the like. But the fact is not to be denied that the doctrine has been held and practiced by those now in contention against the present assertion of it. Be that however as it may, our concern with the present assertion of it lies in the fact that it comes to us as a challenge, a challenge designed to unmask the hypocrisy of opposing nations, but also intended to set before all nations the ethical authority of a new and higher type of civilization which finds its normal expression in the power of the state. Evidently it. is the challenge of the half-truth, but for that reason all the more effective as a challenge. The half-truth is capable of an audacity which is denied the truth in its fullness. It can urge its demands without qualification and with little regard to consequences.

This contention of the half-truth that superiority gives the right to dominion, a right to be incorporated into the state, has become in a very distinct way the ethical challenge of the war. Whatever the war may or may not declare in regard to other matters, it calls the attention of the civilized world to the new moral valuation which it puts upon the power of the state. Tracing the war back to the teachings in which it had its origin, we find in them the constant idealization of power, at times almost the deification of it. The most authoritative teachings have been only an ampler statement of the Machiavellian axiom that the state is power. ‘The highest moral duty of the state is to increase its power.’ ‘War is the mighty continuation of politics.’ ‘Of all political sins that of weakness is the most reprehensible and the most contemptible; it is in politics the sin against the Holy Ghost.’ It will give a proper background to these teachings to have in mind Milton’s conception of the state: ‘A nation ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth or stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body, for look, what the ground and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same ye shall find them to be to a whole state.’

The question of the essential morality of power when embodied in the state, which is thrust upon us as the ethical challenge of the war, is the most serious public question which we have to face. Coming before us as a challenge, it calls us back to things fundamental, both in politics and in religion. To reverse in part Mr. Cleveland’s saying, we find ourselves confronted, not so much by a condition, appalling as that is in which all nations are now involved, as by a theory which is likely to outlive the war, whatever may be its fortune, and to present itself to each nation for definition. It is a theory which has a most insidious fascination. There is no allurement so great when the mind turns to affairs of state as the allurement of power. Clothe the bare conception of power with the moral sanctities and it becomes not only alluring but commanding. In this form it presents itself to us, and at a time of great doubt and perplexity in regard to subjects but lately in the category of commonplace realities, — democracy, patriotism, and religion. Speaking with the assurance, if not w’ith the audacity, of the half-truth, it says to us, ‘Your democracy, your patriotism, your religion are obsolete. They are all guilty of inadequacy. If you would keep your place in the modern world, you must recast your fundamental conceptions of the state, and of the things which belong to it, in terms of power, and reinvigorate them with its spirit.’

II

What is the state of the case in regard to democracy ? Has it ceased to be a necessary factor in the social and political order of the world? Is it no longer adequate in theory, or has it gone so far wrong in practice as to be useless? Let us see how it appears to an observer who looks upon present conditions from the new point of view. I quote from Professor Francke in a recent number of the Harvard Monthly. ‘The German conception of the state and its mission, and of the service due to it, is something which to members of other nationalities, especially to Anglo-Saxons and Americans, cannot help appearing as extravagant and overstrained. To the Anglo-Saxon and American the state is an institution for the protection and safeguarding of the happiness of individuals. To the German it is a spiritual collective personality, leading a life of its own beyond and above that of individuals, and its aim is not the protection of the happiness of individuals, but their elevation to a nobler type of manhood, and their training for the achievement of great common tasks in all the higher concerns of life, — in popufar education, in military service, in commercial and industrial organization, in scientific inquiry, in artistic culture.’

This is not the language of challenge, or even of criticism, but of courteous comparison. The implication, however, is equally plain, that democracy does not require that surrender of the individual to the state which can enable the state in turn to perform the various functions in his behalf which Professor Francke enumerates. The implication is true, but it is the half-truth. We reach the truth as we ask why democracy does not require or even allow that surrender of the individual to the state which is here demanded.

But before we ask this question let us take the full rebuke of the half-truth. Democracy, in this country at least, has not. trained its citizens in the proper conception of their personal relation to the state. We are at fault in our political manners and in our political morals. We have not learned to pay that respect to the state which ought to differ only in degree from reverence. We lack the imagination to clothe the state with personality. We fail to recognize at their full value its symbols of authority. We do not. instantly and reverently recognize its essential majesty as embodied in law. In a word, our political manners are as yet unformed. More serious still is the undeveloped state of our political morals, as evidenced in the tendency to regard the state as a legitimate source of privilege and monopoly. There is not the same moral sensitiveness in the dealings of individuals with the state as in the conduct of business between individuals. The attempt is not infrequently made to put the state to corrupt and shameless uses. Democracy may fairly be held responsible for this moral crudeness in so far as it has failed to bring the individual into morally sensitive relations to the state. We have been paying the penalty for the lack of this training in our struggle with monopoly for the past decade. It is due in good part to this deficiency that we have had to resort to the transfer, to so considerable an extent, of the state from an individualistic to a socialistic basis. The transfer has come about in the process of protecting the state itself, as well as the people at large, from the thoughtlessness and greed of untrained individualism.

It is useless to deny that some of our social and political ills are due to the laxity or the selfishness of our democratic conception of the state. We do well to heed the challenge of absolutism to democracy, as it uncovers faults both in theory and practice; but we may not hesitate for a moment to accept the challenge in behalf of democracy. The sin of democracy is laxity; the sin of absolutism is tyranny. The remedy for the one is reform; the only remedy for the other is revolution. The subjection of the individual to the state may indeed come about through self-surrender. That was the method by which the mediaeval church absorbed the rights of the individual in the realm of faith. Self-surrender secured the guarantee of the church for salvation. The state under absolutism assumes to guarantee, on like conditions, political security, economic gains, cultural development — everything, in fact, save liberty. And for the satisfactions of liberty it offers, through the spirit of militarism, the intoxication of power. So a nation may become self-intoxicated. ‘Not against our will and as a nation taken by surprise did we hurl ourselves into this adventure. We willed it. It is Germany that strikes. When she has conquered new domains for her genius, then the priesthood of all the gods will praise the God of War.’

It may have required such an illustration of the outworking of the theory, — the state is power, — as is afforded by the present exhibition of militarism, to enable some minds to understand the real significance of the contrasted theory of the state expressed in the cardinal maxim of democracy, — the state is freedom. Without doubt there has been a decline in the enthusiasm for democracy. Democracy has suffered in proportion to the growth of economic inequality. Many have been disappointed that it has not produced results in the economic world equivalent to those which it produced in the political world. The war has brought us back to a revaluation of political freedom. We are forced by it. to the conclusion that though it may be difficult to provide for the securities of freedom under democracy, it is impossible to guarantee its existence under absolutism. Democracy may be lax in the use of the power of self-defense entrusted to the state, but the full power is always in reserve. There is no reasonable excuse for ‘unpreparedness.’ The safeguard against militarism does not lie in our indifference to the means of national security. On the contrary, any sudden sense of insecurity, such as is often created by international emergencies, is quite sure to evoke the most extreme and foolish type of militarism. Preparedness is simply a common-sense adjustment of a nation to its environment. It is in no sense incompatible with the spirit of democracy. Switzerland, notwithstanding the apparently impregnable guaranties of its neutrality, has a complete and almost perfect system of national defense in which every able-bodied man from twenty to sixty bears his part. Nowhere is the spirit of anti-militarism more assured. The danger from national preparedness lies in the national temptations, or in the national ambitions. The danger is moral, not physical. The means of defense cannot be changed into the means of aggression except through a change in the spirit of a people. Such a change is quite possible, but the possibilities of it are best calculated as we try to measure that play of national impulses to which we accord the name of patriotism.

III

If we find in the war a direct challenge to democracy on the ground of political inadequacy, we can see that it compels attention with almost equal directness to the moral liabilities of patriotism. Among moral forces related to the state, patriotism must be regarded as the most inconsist ent in its action, now the watchful servant of liberty and now the blind instrument of power. It is therefore liable to become at any time a disturbing factor in international morality.

The ordinary traditions of patriotism are so great and inspiring that these alone occupy our minds. Some of the greatest and most inspiring of those belonging to western Europe and America have not passed out of the personal remembrances of men now living. The period from 1859 to 1871 was distinctly an era of patriotism. Almost within the limits of a decade three events took place which mightily stirred the peoples immediately concerned, and awakened the sympathetic interest of all peoples bred in the t raditions of liberty — the Restoration of Italy, the Reunion of the United States, and the Unification of Germany. The names inseparably connected with these events, Cavour, Lincoln, and Bismarck, illustrate, with due allowance for the personal variant, the type of patriotism exemplified in the historic struggles for freedom and nationality.

And yet with these examples uppermost in our minds we have but to turn to the battlefields of Belgium to see how diverse are the deeds possible under the common incentives of patriotism, — the heroic resistance of the Belgians, the chivalrous support of their allies, and the ruthless ravages of the Germans. It was in the assertion of German patriotism that Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg uttered the words, impossible to recall, impossible to forget: ‘Necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and have possibly already entered on Belgian soil. That is a breach of international law. . . . We were forced to ignore the rightful protests of the governments of Luxemburg and Belgium, and the injustice— I speak openly—the injustice we thereby commit, we will try to make good as soon as our military aims have been attained. Anybody who is threatened as we are threatened and is fighting for his highest possessions can have only one thought — how he is to hack his way through.’

Is the moral control of patriotism possible? Can a nation train itself to go beyond resistance to the allurements of conquest and aggrandizement, and withstand also the incitements of national pride, national prejudice, and socalled national necessity, in the interest of international morality? The hope of the development of an authoritative international morality must rest upon this possibility. It is implied in the ethical challenge of the war that such a result is impossible. It is implied further that the claim to respect an international authority in national emergencies would be hypocrisy. In the language already quoted, ‘Necessity knows no law. . . . Anybody who is threatened as we are threatened and is fighting for his highest possessions can have only one thought — how to hack his way through.’ Or to quote t he saner language of Treitschke, ‘The evolution of an international court of arbitration as a permanent institution is incompatible with the nature of the state. To the end of history arms will maintain their rights; and in that very point lies the sacredness of war.’

In this insistence upon the moral supremacy of the nation in national emergencies we have again the challenge of the half-truth. The challenge rests upon the assumed impotence of international morality to provide against national emergencies or to lessen their stringency. That great progress has been made in the development of international morality is evident. The principles of international justice have been set forth with increasing clearness and cogency, and are steadily gaining recognition. The greatest stumbling-block to further progress lies in the lack of self-control on the part of individual nations. Before we can anticipate any general practice of international morality the nations must go to school, each to itself, in this severe art of selfcontrol.

I think that this is the discipline which awaits the people of this country. There seems to be little danger from the spirit of conquest. The acquisition of the Philippines, if that is the proper term to apply to our possession of the islands, has not developed the desire for further expansion of that kind. I doubt if anybody regards their retention in any other light than that of an obligation. And though territory lying near at hand may be a source of temptation, it is probable that the great majority of our people, certainly in their saner moments, would be willing to subscribe to President Wilson’s Mobile pledge, that our government would ‘ never seek a foot of territory by conquest.’

The discipline awaiting us as a nation in the control of patriotism grows out of the indefiniteness and at the same time the sensitiveness of certain foreign relations which are peculiar to our situation. The United States made its distinctive entrance into diplomacy through the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine. It was the most sensational entrance which a nation ever made into world-diplomacy. One cannot tell even now whether to be the more amazed at its sublimity or at its audacity. The Monroe Doctrine preempted a whole continent for undisturbed experimentation in democracy, the experiments to be carried on in regions remote from one another, and by races as unlike as those trained under English and Spanish traditions. What greater claim to political superiority could have been advanced than that involved in the official assertion of the principle ‘that the American continents, by the free and independent conditions they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered subjects for further colonization by any European powers’; and, further, that ‘it is impossible that the allied powers [the powers of the Holy Alliance] should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness: nor can any one believe that our southern [South American] brothers, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible therefore that we should behold such interposition with indifference.’

Fortunately, through the interested cooperation of Great Britain, the original occasion for the doctrine passed by without any demand for its enforcement, and subsequent occasions have not been of sufficient importance to test the force of the doctrine. It by no means follows, however, that the doctrine has become obsolete. Certainly it survives as a sentiment which can be easily aroused, as was shown in the response of the country to President Cleveland’s Venezuelan message. Occasions may revive the doctrine and give it a new application. The South American republics have outgrown the danger of European interference, but who can foresee what interpretation would be put upon the doctrine, or what expression would be given to the sentiment, if any of the republics should enter into alliances with European powers? Of much more immediate concern is the relation of the Central American states to the European powers through concessions granted to private capital; and closer still, our necessary concern with the internal affairs of Mexico. Other complications of a more delicate nature will at once suggest themselves in view of the liability of a state to involve the federal government in very grave difficulties. For years to come, if not for the indefinite future, our foreign relations must increase in relative importance and in the demands which they must make upon the intelligent consideration of the country.

This means, of course, the development of a diplomatic service suitable to the strain which will fall upon it. Our ‘unpreparedness’ in diplomacy is far greater than our unpreparedness in war, and it is far more dangerous. It is the office of diplomacy to make an unjustifiable war impossible. It is the office of diplomacy to make a nation intelligent and responsible in the uses of patriotism. It is the office of diplomacy to school the state in the principles of international morality. Under the guidance of wise and consistent diplomacy, the citizens of a state ought never to be placed in the dilemma of apparent disloyalty or of supporting the government when in the wrong. The dilemma ought to be anticipated and provided against. I believe that the profession of diplomacy has the greatest opportunity, among all the professions in this country, for advanced ethical instruction and leadership. And if the ethical challenge of the war arouses the nation to a sense of its deficiency in this regard, and to a determination to meet its obligations, we may justly hope that the nation will in due time assume a place of commanding influence in the sphere of international morals.

But we have much to learn, and possibly much to practice, before we can speak with authority. I doubt the estimate which some are inclined to place upon the influence of the United States in any diplomatic settlement of the issues of the present war.

IV

It is highly significant of the ethical reach of the war that it has brought religion into the field of controversy: not contending religious faiths, but religion. The war itself is absolutely free from religious bias. Christians of all faiths, Moslems, and Buddhists are fighting side by side, while Protestant is fighting against Protestant, Catholic against Catholic, Moslem against Moslem. Not even Russia or Turkey has been able to make it a Holy War. And yet no religious war ever stirred deeper questionings about religion. As it originated entirely among the Christian nations, it was to be expected t hat the mocking cry would go up from without Christendom:£ Where is now thy God ? ’ On the whole, the Oriental nations have shown surprising restraint, in their religious attitude toward the war, due in part possibly to their more fatalistic conception of religion. Within Christendom the immediate result was a suspension, almost a paralysis, of faith. Some Christian publicists were moved to give over Christianity altogether as of no further service in any endeavor to establish international peace.

What have we the right to expect of religion — in particular of Christianity— in restraint of war? In what sense is Christianity the religion of peace? Without doubt the present war is a more direct challenge to the Christian religion to define its own militant spirit than it has ever before received.

The contention that religion needs the stimulus of war to maintain its virility is not only less than the half-truth, but in respect to Christianity it is a perversion of the truth. Militarism has nothing to teach Christianity regarding the practice of the heroic virtues. A religion which was born in the supreme act of sacrificial courage, which defied the centuries of persecution, which mastered in turn the virile races of Europe, which conquered despotism and cast out. slavery, which has subdued savage tribes and now holds its outposts in all dark and cruel parts of the habitable earth, is not a religion to be asked to sit at the feet of modern militarism. On the contrary, it ought to be made a function of modern Christianity to expose the mock heroics of militarism — its affectations, its cheap swagger, its intolerable insolence, its scorn of all knightly qualities. The present war has its heroes in all ranks, but they are such, not because of militarism, but in spite of it. A system which produced and justified the Zabern incident can lay no claim to the finer qualities of heroism. The German army, trained in the school of militarism, has shown no superiority in courage to compensate for the character of its discipline. The terrorizing of non-combatant communities is a natural sequence of the debasement of heroism. And both are prophetic of the inevitable effect upon a nation which allows its civil life to be subordinated to the demands of militarism. Whatever may be t he revenges of time in atonement for the present war, the heaviest revenge must ultimately fall upon the spirit of the German people.

But while from every point of view militarism is an offence to Christianity, to be resisted in the name of religion as well as in the name of liberty, it by no means follows that the militant spirit of Christianity is contrary to its essential object in this world. That object is the furtherance of righteousness. Righteousness as compared with peace is an absolute term. It has a definite and well-nigh unchangeable meaning. Peace, as applied to the relation of states, is a term of uncertain ethical force. It is no guaranty of righteousness. For example, in the Hague Conferences our government joined in setting forth certain definite principles concerning the treatment of neutral states. Nearly every one of those principles was violated by Germany in the treatment of Belgium. We have refrained from official protest on the ground that the action of the Conference still awaits complete ratification, contenting ourselves with whatever of protest is involved in our attempt to feed the starving population of that devastated country. Suppose that by the terms of settlement following the close of the war the sovereignty of Belgium should be destroyed; ought we to support the settlement, in the interest of peace? How far may the militant, spirit of Christianity be held in check by the claims of neutrality? When does peace forfeit the sanctions of religion? Evidently peace has no moral significance except as it is an exponent of justice. History bears constant witness to the fact that the most disturbing factor in international relations is an unjust peace. Treaties really belong to the estate of war. They are intrenchments cast up to defend the status quo. International conventions usually have no other object. The balance of power was fitly characterized by John Bright as the ‘foul idol’ of England. The so-called concert of Europe has seldom prevented war except at the cost of freedom and justice.

The various international devices which have been entered into in the name of peace show how difficult it is for the nations to understand that the making of peace is as serious a business as the making of war. It seems to be equally difficult for some of the most ardent and devoted peace-makers to understand the tremendous seriousness of their business. I think that this inability explains the lack of popular support for the peace movement in this country. There is a well-grounded suspicion that it has been over-capitalized, and that it is being over-argued. In spite of its able promoters and its eloquent advocates, it has not greatly stirred the popular heart. It has yet to enter the ‘straight gate’ and the ‘narrow way’ through which all the great reform movements of history have passed. When the nations are willing to make sacrifices for peace in any degree commensurate with those which are made for war, we shall have peace. Is it reasonable to suppose that we shall have it on easier conditions? But this means at least the readjustment of many ‘existing rights,’ concessions in respect to trade and commerce, the restraint of racial pride, — in a word, it means sacrifice. Disarmament would be futile if the occasions and incentives of war were to remain in force.

If we are to advance the cause of universal and permanent peace, there are two points at which we must turn for support and guidance to the militant spirit of Christianity. First, we must look to that source for sufficiency of moral courage. Christianity never underestimates its tasks. The obduracy of human nature and its powers of resistance have never been so accurately measured as by the founder of the Christian religion. Christ based his hopes and expectations upon moral conflict. He made moral courage the indispensable requisite for those who proposed to do his work among men. The exercise of moral courage involves as many consequences as does the exercise of physical courage; sometimes the same consequences. When the peace movement passes into the stage of moral militancy it will develop its own type of heroism. This will be especially true among statesmen who may have the opportunity to emulate their predecessors in the anti-slavery struggle. Every occasion for the display of moral courage offers a counter-attraction to war.

And second, we must turn to militant Christianity to furnish us with its spirit of hospitality to the emerging races. The chief characteristic of civilization is its exclusiveness. It means to-day more than ever the aristocracy of culture, wealth, and power. In this aspect civilization and progress are not synonymous terms. Civilization boasts of the developed race and sets forth its accomplishments and achievements. Progress takes account also of the undeveloped race and estimates its value by the depth and richness of its humanity. The militant spirit of Christianity is always to be found in the ranks of progress whenever progress comes into conflict with civilization. It demands place and room for each advancing race in the name of ‘the God of the whole earth/ It is impossible to think that any exclusive peace devised by civilization can satisfy what may be termed the militant hospitality of Christianity. What guarantee of permanent peace could Christianity offer if the outcome of the present .war should be the exclusion of the Slav from partnership in European civilization ?

I have singled out that phase of the war which compels attention to the ethics of political power because of its bearing upon the political future of this country. Modern nations do not yield to the allurements of power without seeking to put their conduct upon an ethical basis. There is no longer danger from open and undisguised schemes of national aggrandizement. The danger lies in those political half-truths and sophistries through which nations are able to persuade themselves that their action in cases of aggression is rightful, — rightful because considered necessary to the welfare or the destiny of the state. No other persuasion can carry a nation so far, or become so easily the obsession of a whole people. Of this fact we have the supreme illustration in the present behavior of Germany.

It is not safe to assume that a democracy is proof against the allurements of power, or that it will not seek to find justification for yielding to temptation. In some respects democracies are more susceptible to outward temptations than peoples under the rule of absolutism. The chief security of a democracy must be looked for in those satisfactions of liberty for which there can be no equivalent. But even these satisfactions must be supported by a true understanding of the ethical meaning of democracy. What does it really mean to live under the conception of the state as freedom rather than as power? What docs loyalty to that conception require? How shall we maintain and defend the ethical life of a democracy? Apart from the clear understanding of its ethical life, I assume that the two great requisites are self-control and moral courage: self-control to guard the nation against the wrong uses of patriotism, and moral courage to enable it to make such genuine sacrifices as may be necessary for the advancement of international morality and international peace. In this conviction I have endeavored to interpret the ethical challenge of the war as a matter of direct concern to us in our theory and practice of democracy, in our command of the patriotic impulses of the nation, and in our application of the ethical forces of religion to the conduct of the state.