the Prussians and other backward peoples. For precisely the same reason I object to Duhamel's book."
"I see," Thorpe broke in, with a rather crudely ironical tone, "for precisely the same reason. Your analogy is flawless. Maternity and war are both necessary, both inevitable, if the race is to continue. You object to deterrents from either. In what German work did you learn of the sacred inevitability of war, the holy duty of handing the torch of battle on from generation to generation? Between deterring people from what is necessary to the perpetuation of life and deterring people from the unnecessary destruction of it, there is, I should think, a not inconsiderable difference."
"You do not, you said, take the radical pacifist position? You aren't ready with Russell to lie down and let the invader swarm over you?"
"No."
"Then admit that the book is dispiriting, demoralizing. It steadily envisages the seamy side of military life without a glimpse of the incontrovertible glamor and glory of battle. That sort of writing is ruinous to morale. It is just what shouldn't be read by a young soldier. It sets the imagination to work. You recall why boys between eighteen and twenty make better
