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taking the life of one’s like, shedding human blood without just cause, and without being constrained by necessity. It is one of those laws which are most indelibly engraved in the human heart.⁠ ⁠… But if it is a question of war, that is, of the shedding of human blood in torrents, the men of the present do not trouble themselves about a just cause. Those who take part in it do not think of asking themselves whether these innumerable murders are justified or not, that is, if the wars, or what goes by that name, are just or iniquitous, legal or illegal, permissible or criminal⁠ ⁠… whether they violate, or not, the primordial law which prohibits homicide and murder⁠ ⁠… without just cause. But their conscience is mute in this matter. > > “War has ceased for them to be an act which has anything to do with morality. They have no other joy, in the fatigue and perils of the camp, than that of being victorious, and no other sadness than that of being vanquished.⁠ ⁠… Do not tell me that they serve their country. A long time ago a great genius told you these words, which have become proverbial, ‘Reject justice, and what are the empires but great societies of brigands?’ And are not a band of brigands themselves small empires? Brigands themselves have certain laws or conventions by which they are ruled. There, too, they fight for the conquest of booty and for the honor of the band.⁠ ⁠… The principle of the institution” (he is talking of the establishment of an international tribunal) “is this, that the European nations should stop being a nation of thieves, and the armies gangs of brigands and of pirates, and, I must add, of slaves. Yes, the armies are gangs of slaves, slaves of one or two rulers, or one or two ministers, who dispose of them tyrannically, without any other guarantee, we know, than