thus, practically for the first time, the rival claims of law and conscience upon a man's allegiance come to be fought out in public on a large scale; and if the Nation is engaged in a popular war, or in one where the vast majority believes that it has righteousness upon its side, then there will inevitably be much prejudice in the public mind against the conscientious objector; whereas there might be much sympathy for him (though not really on the principle for which he contended) if he were refusing to fight in a war which happened to be unpopular, or which a great number of people regarded as unjust.
But if we want to get to the true basis of the principle against which the conscientious objector is contending (a principle which cannot logically be separated from any form of government built up on force) we must not colour our view with the rightness or wrongness (in our own estimation) of the war in which we are engaged, since we obscure thereby that quality of allegiance which is claimed by the State.
The State's claim—latent in peace-time and liable to emerge whenever war or crisis shall arise—is not that its citizens should fight for it when the cause is just and right, but that they should fight for it in any case, if it orders them. That claim, made by every State with more or less urgency, we are now invited to view with horror operating at its full efficiency throughout a Prussianised Germany. Thus exalted and
