It is useless to allure mankind by promises of a pig’s paradise.  Much has been rightly written about the horrors of war.  Everyone knows them to be sudden, hideous, and overwhelming; those who have seen them can speak also of the squalor, the filthiness, the murderous swindling, and the inconceivable absurdity of the whole monstrous performance.  But the horrors of peace, if not so obvious, come nearer to our daily life, and we are naturally terrified at its softness, its monotony, and its enfeebling relaxation.  Of all people in the world the wealthy classes of England and America are probably the furthest removed from danger, and no one admires them in the least; no one in the least envies their treadmill of successive pleasures.  The most unwarlike of men are haunted by the fear that perpetual peace would induce a general degeneration of soul and body such as they now behold amid the rich man’s sheltered comforts.  They dread the growth of a population slack of nerve, soft of body, cruel through fear of pain, and incapable of endurance or high endeavour.  They dread the entire disappearance of that clear decisiveness, that disregard of pleasure, that quiet devotion of self in the face of instant death, which are to be found, now and again, in the course of every war.  Even peace, they say, may be bought too dear, and what shall it profit a people if it gain a swill-tub of comforts and lose its own soul?

The same argument is chosen by those who would persuade the whole population to submit to military training, whether it is needful for the country’s defence or not.  Under such training, they suppose, the virtues that peace imperils would be maintained; a sense of equality and comradeship would pervade all classes, and for two or three years of life the wealthy would enjoy the realities of labour and discomfort.  It is a tempting vision, and if this were the only means of escape from such a danger as is represented, the wealthy would surely be the first to embrace it for their own salvation.  But is there no other means? asked Professor William James, and his answer to the question was that distinguished psychologist’s last service.  What we are looking for, he rightly said, is a moral equivalent for war, and he suddenly found it in a conscription, not for fighting, but for work.  After showing that the life of many is nothing else but toil and pain, while others “get no taste of this campaigning life at all,” he continued: 

“If now—­and this is my idea—­there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other benefits to the commonwealth would follow.  The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain blind, as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man’s real relations to the globe he lives