This  slaying  of  men,  if  you  do  it  for  the  right  motive,
may  be  a  high  and  austere  duty;  if  you  admit  any  wrong
motive,  it  begins  to  be  murder  —  and  hypocritical
murder.
And  yet,  as  soon  as  you  let  loose  in  war  the  whole  of  a
big  nation,  you  have  handed  over  that  high  and  austere
duty  to  agents  who  cannot  possibly  perform  it:  to  masses
of  very  ordinary  people,  and  not  only  of  ordinary  people,
but  of  stupid  and  vulgar  and  drunken  and  covetous  and
dishonest  and  tricky  and  cruel  and  brutal  people,  who
will  transform  your  imagined  crusade  into  a  very  dif-
ferent reality.
