War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations

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Beacon Press, 1915 - Degeneration - 265 pages
 

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Page 187 - SET in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England ! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide ? The earth, a brittle globe of glass, Lies in the hollow of thy hand, And through its heart of crystal pass, Like shadows through a twilight land, The spears of crimson-suited war, The long white-crested waves of fight, And all the deadly fires which are The torches of the lords of Night. The yellow...
Page 173 - To me it seems that neither the obtaining or retaining of any trade, how valuable soever, is an object for which men may justly spill each other's blood; that the true and sure means of extending and securing commerce is the goodness and cheapness of commodities; and that the profit of no trade can ever be equal to the expense of compelling it, and of holding it, by fleets and armies.
Page 89 - So far from that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war ; no great art ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers. There is no art among a shepherd people, if it remains at peace. There is no art among an agricultural people, if it remains at peace. Commerce is barely consistent with fine art ; but cannot produce it.
Page 94 - War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with...
Page 140 - The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago. The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, Old Tiber!
Page 96 - Might is at once the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war.
Page 131 - the little finger of Constantine was thicker than the loins of Augustus." The emperor in the time of Claudius and Caligula was not the strong man who held in check all lesser men and organizations. He was the creature of the mob, and the mob, intoxicated with its own work, worshipped him as divine.
Page 246 - In the regimental bazaars it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women, to take care that they are sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses, and above all to insist upon means of ablution being always available.
Page 133 - Government having assumed godhead took at the same time the appurtenances of it. Officials multiplied. Subjects lost their rights. Abject fear paralyzed the people and those that ruled were intoxicated with insolence and cruelty." " The worst government is that which is most worshipped as divine." " The emperor possessed in the army an overwhelming force over which citizens had no influence, which was totally deaf to reason or eloquence, which had no patriotism because it had no country, which had...
Page 175 - We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead: We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha...

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