The fact remains, however, that there
has been a real moral improvement in England and France, and it would
now be impossible for those nations to enter upon the aggressive and
nakedly ambitious wars which they were accustomed to undertake before
the nineteenth century. We have a genuine abhorrence of the "lust for
land" which has impelled Germany to plunge Europe into war. But until a
century or two ago that lust for land was considered a legitimate
appetite in Europe, and the clergy crowded with the people to greet the
warriors who came home with the news that they had added, by the sword,
one more province to our spreading Empire.
That this change of heart is not merely a feeling that we have no
further need of aggression, and would ourselves suffer by the aggression
of others, could easily be proved, if it were necessary. In the same
period of change we abolished the duel, and there was no material
advantage in discovering the immorality of the duel. We abolished
dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and other brutalising
spectacles. We undertook a reform of our industrial and penal systems
which, however imperfect it be, was very considerable in itself, and was
inspired solely by motives of humanity.
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