of criticism designed to embarrass the Government rather than, as it professes, to strengthen the country. It is a testimony to the moral sturdiness of the people, and to the power and subtlety of the spirit of the hive, that success has been possible in such conditions. When one remembers how England has flourished on domestic discord in {209} critical times, one is tempted to believe that she derives some mysterious power from such a state, and that the abolition of discord might not be for her the advantageous change it appears so evidently to be. Consideration, however, must show that this hypothesis is inadmissible, and that England has won through on these occasions in spite of the handicap discord has put upon her. In the present war, tough and hard as is her moral fibre, she will need every element of her power to avoid the weariness and enfeeblement that will otherwise come upon her before her task is done.
Throughout the months of warfare that have already passed no evidence has become public of any recognition that the moral power of a nation depends upon causes which can be identified, formulated, and controlled. It seems to be unknown that that domination of egoistic impulses by social impulses which we call a satisfactory morale is capable of direct cultivation as such, that by it the resources of the nation are made completely available to the nation’s leaders, that without it every demand upon the citizen is liable to be grudgingly met or altogether repudiated.
We are told by physicians that uninstructed patients are apt to insist upon the relief of their symptoms, and to care nothing for the cure of their diseases, that a man will demand a bottle of medicine to stop the pain of an ulcer in his stomach, but will refuse to allow the examination that would establish the nature of his disease. The statesman embarrassed by the manifestations of an imperfect morale seems to incline to a similar method. When he finds he cannot get soldiers at the necessary rate, he would invent a remedy for that particular symptom. When he has