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nydus/The Great IllusionPublic
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THE HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS OF THE CASE

sympathy—the Reformers. As war would increase the influence of the reactionary party in Russia, it would do nothing to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, and so quite the wrong party would suffer. Were the real facts and the real responsibilities understood, a Liberal people would reply to such an aggression by taking every means which the social and economic relationship of the two States afforded to enable Russian Liberals to hang a few Russian Admirals and establish a Russian Liberal Government. In any case, the realization of the fact attenuates hostility. In the same way, as they become more familiar with the facts, the English will attenuate their hostility to "Germans." An English patriot recently said, "We must smash Prussianism." The majority of Germans are in cordial agreement with him, and are working to that end. But if England went to war for that purpose, Germans would be compelled to fight for Prussianism. War between States for a political ideal of this kind is not only futile, it is the sure means of perpetuating the very condition which it would bring to an end. International hostilities repose for the most part upon our conception of the foreign State, with which we are quarrelling, as a homogeneous personality, having the same character of responsibility as an individual, whereas the variety of interests, both material and moral, regardless of State boundaries, renders the analogy between nations and individuals an utterly false one.

Indeed, when the co-operation between the parts of the social organism is as complete as our mechanical development has recently made it, it is impossible to fix the limits not merely of the economic interests, but of the moral

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