Everybody is to some extent pacific, as everybody prefers to attain his ends by peaceful means if he can. Even the most bloodthirsty militarist uses threats of war rather than war, if threats will do the work. Though most people prefer persuasion to violence and peace to war, they are prepared as a last resort to go to war and use violence, when that seems the only means to attaining some end they consider to be of vital importance. The one hundred per cent pacifist, however, refuses to engage in war or support warlike action under any circumstances whatever. It is his case that I wish to consider. It is not my purpose to try to persuade anyone to be a pacifist or to be the opposite, but to point out that absolute pacifism carries with it certain logical consequences which are not particularly palatable. The opposed view, which I shall call the case for civic virtues, also carries unpalatable though different consequences. These two appear to be simple and clear-cut opposed views which I propose to state as fairly as I can, with their consequences. Certain qualifications and modifications will have to be considered later, but I do not think that there is actually any possible mean position which avoids the dilemma I am concerned to present. I shall state the case for civic virtue first and the pacifist case second.

Conflicting Systems in the History of Philosophy. Hegel's logic consists, as is well known, in a chain of categories, connected by a relation of dialectic, which proceeded from the featureless Being, Nothing, and Becoming through more important ones such as Substance, Cause, and Reciprocity to the highest category of all, the Absolute Idea. Now Hegel also pointed to an interesting correlation between the categories of his logic and the dominant concepts of those philosophies that preceded his own: that is to say, the logical order of categories given by him corresponded to the temporal order of the history of philosophy. Such connexion was not, however, to be regarded as an accident but as a necessary truth: for the Absolute manifested itself temporally in the form of the history of philosophy. Seeing that this contention probably contains some psychological truth and is probably assumed in Marxian interpretations of Hegel, it may be of some interest to see how far it can be substantiated.

There have been two attempts in the history of human speculation to estimate the number of particles in the universe. The first was that of Archimedes of Syracuse about 216 B. C., and the second that of Sir Arthur Eddington nearly two thousand years later. What is surprising is that they both arrive at the same number. This is the number obtained by multiplying ten by itself seventy-nine times.

There is a curious reluctance in many quarters to try to apply to the philosophical questions the ordinary person in the street is continually raising, the technique and results of recent logical and philosophical analysis. Ordinary persons like Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary persist in asking questions about the meaning of the Universe and the destiny of the individual. Yet, on the whole, the only answers that are offered come from those quarters that find themselves to-day increasingly out of tune with the temper and idiom of the times and more and more out-manoeuvred by the “talkie” and the gossip columnist of the gutter press. This situation has certain unfortunate results, and consequently imposes on philosophical analysis a special function at the present time.