perishableness of the individual himself, transfers the meaning of his life to the aggregate of individuals; but in the universal military service it turns out that men, having brought all the sacrifices demanded of them, in order to free themselves from the cruelty of the struggle and the insecurity of life, are, after all the sacrifices which they have made, again called to bear all those dangers from which they thought they had freed themselves, and, besides, that aggregate, the state, in the name of which the individuals renounced their advantages, is again subjected to the same danger of destruction to which the individual himself was subjected before.
The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of the struggle of individuals and to have given them the assurance of the inviolability of the order of the state life; but, instead, they impose upon the individuals the necessity of the same struggle, except that the struggle with the nearest individuals is transferred to the struggle with the individuals of other states and they leave the same danger of the destruction of the individual and of the state.
The establishment of the universal military service is like what would happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated house: the walls bend inwards—supports are put up; the ceiling is sagging down—other supports are put up; boards hang down between the supports—some more supports are put up. A point is finally reached when the supports indeed hold the house together, but it is impossible to live in the house because there are so many supports.
The same is true of the universal military service. It destroys all those advantages of the social life which it is called to preserve.
The advantages of the social life consist in the security of property and labor and in the cooperation in the aggregate perfection of life—the universal military service destroys all that.