I have spoken about British and French proposals for the treatment of Germany.  But all that I have said applies, of course, equally to German proposals of the same kind for the treatment of the conquered Allies.  That way is no way towards a durable peace.  If it be replied that a durable peace is not intended or desired, I have no more to say.  If it be replied that punishment for its own sake is more important than civilization, and must be performed at all costs—­fiat justitia, ruat coelum—­then, once more, I have nothing to say.  I speak to those, and to those only, who do desire a durable peace, and who have the courage and the imagination to believe it to be possible, and the determination to work for it.  And to them I urge that the course I have been discussing cannot lead to their goal.  What can?

19. The Change Needed.

First, a change of outlook.  We must give up, in all nations, this habit of dwelling on the unique and peculiar wickedness of the enemy.  We must recognize that behind the acts that led up to the immediate outbreak of war, behind the crimes and atrocities to which the war has led, as wars always have led, and always will lead—­behind all that lies a great complex of feeling, prejudice, tradition, false theory, in which all nations and all individuals of all nations are involved.  Most men believe, feel, or passively accept that power and wealth are the objects States ought to pursue; that in pursuing these objects they are bound by no code of right in their relations to one another; that law between them is, and must be, as fragile as a cobweb stretched before the mouth of a cannon; that force is the only rule and the only determinant of their differences, and that the only real question is when and how the appeal to force may most advantageously be made.  This philosophy has been expressed with peculiar frankness and brutality by Germans.  But most honest and candid men, I believe, will agree that that is the way they, too, have been accustomed to think of international affairs.  And if illustration were wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant satisfaction with which the failure of the Hague conferences to achieve any radical results was generally greeted, and the contemptuous and almost abhorring pity meted out to the people called “pacifists.”  Well, the war has come!  We see now, not only guess, what it means.  If that experience has not made a deep impression on every man and woman, if something like a conversion is not being generally operated, then, indeed, nothing can save mankind from the hell of their own passions and imbecilities.

But if otherwise, if that change is going on, then the way to deliverance is neither difficult nor obscure.  It does not lie in the direction of crushing anybody.  It lies in the taking of certain determinations, and the embodying of them in certain institutions.

First, the nations must submit to law and to right in the settlement of their disputes.