(1) In spite of its danger, and its pain, war has been a great excitement and joy to men.  Tennyson is doubtless true to life in making Ulysses exclaim “All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly. . .  And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.  How dull it is to pause, to make an end, As though to breathe were life!”

In the Iliad, indeed, we read:  “With everything man is satiated, sleep, sweet singing, and the joyous dance; of all these man gets sooner tired than of war.”  In primitive times, and even, though decreasingly, in modern times, the cause of war has lain not merely in the ends to be attained thereby, but in the sheer love of war for its own sake-the quickened heartbeats, the sense of power and daring and achievement, the joy in martial music and uniforms, in the rhythmic footsteps of marching men, in the awakened thrill of patriotism, the love of effort and sacrifice for a cherished cause.

To some extent this primitive lure of war still persists.  But, fortunately, the glory and excitement of hand-to-hand conflict, the picturesque valor and visible achievement of earlier battles, are now gone.  The soldier is but a cog in a machine, usually at a considerable distance from his enemy.  He does not know whether his shot has hit or not; if he is wounded it is by an invisible hand.  All the strain and fatigue and pain of war remain, but little of its glory and delight.  Moreover, whatever normal satisfaction has been found in war can be had, as we shall presently note, in other ways- in all sorts of generous rivalries and useful as well as exciting endeavors that are open to the modern man.

(2) War has necessitated discipline, organization, courage, self-sacrifice, and has thus been a great stimulus to virtues which to some extent have carried over into other fields.  It has kept men from sinking into inertia or mere pleasure seeking, fostered energy and hardihood, quieted civil strife, taught the necessity of union and justice at home.  The patriotism awakened by struggle against a common enemy has often persisted when the conflict was over, given birth to art and history, and many an act of devotion to the State.  But national solidarity and a regime of justice within the State are now our stable possession, while the hardier and heroic virtues can be awakened in other and less disastrous ways.  War has ceased to have its former usefulness as a spur to personal and social morality.

(3) Wars of self-defense have often been necessary, to preserve goods that would have been lost by conquest; as when the Greeks at Marathon repelled the barbaric hordes of Asia, or when Charles Martel and the Franks checked the advance of the Saracens at Tours.  Offensive wars, even, may have been necessary to wipe out evils, such as slavery or the oppression of neighboring peoples.  But in modern times the moral justification of war on such grounds has usually been a flimsy pretext;