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Understanding Peace
Understanding Peace: A Comprehensive Introduction
fills the need for an original, contemporary examination
of peace that is challenging, informative, and
empowering. This well-researched, fully documented,
and highly accessible textbook moves beyond fixation
on war to highlight the human capacity for nonviolent
cooperation in everyday life and in conflict situations.
After deconstructing numerous ideas about war and
explaining its heavy costs to humans, animals, and the
environment, discussion turns to evidence for the
existence of peaceful societies. Further topics include the
role of nonviolence in history, the nature of violence and
aggression, and the theory and practice of nonviolence.
The book offers two new moral arguments against war,
and concludes by defining peace carefully from different
angles and then describing conditions for creating a
culture of peace. Understanding Peace brings a fresh
philosophical perspective to discussions of peace, and
also addresses down-to-earth issues about effecting
constructive change in a complex world. The particular
strength of Understanding Peace lies in its commitment
to reflecting on and integrating material from many
fields of knowledge. This approach will appeal to a
diverse audience of students and scholars in peace
studies, philosophy, and the social sciences, as well as to
general-interest readers.
Michael A. Fox is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at
Queens University, Canada.

2
Understanding Peace
A Comprehensive Introduction
Michael Allen Fox

3
First published 2014
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14
4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Michael Allen Fox to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fox, Michael Allen, 1940 May 7–

4
Understanding peace : a comprehensive introduction / by
Michael A. Fox. — 1 [edition].
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Peace. I. Title.
B105.P4F69 2013
303.6′6—dc23
2013020485
ISBN: 978-0-415-71569-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-71570-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88013-6 (ebk)

5
The earth is too small a planet and we too brief visitors
for anything to matter more than the struggle for peace.

—Coleman McCarthy, I’d Rather Teach Peace (2007)

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed

over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for
victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our
contribution to the human spirit.

—John F. Kennedy, remarks on behalf of National

Cultural Center which would come to bear his name, 29
November 1962; inscribed on wall of John F Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC

6
To Jason, Tim, Zoé, Ava, and Hannah. And to all
children, present and future, including their own, with
the hope that they may live in a more peaceful world.

7
Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
List of Diagrams
Introduction: Thinking about Peace Today
1 The obstacle of war
2 War myths
3 The costs of war
4 Why we need peace
5 The appeal of peace
Notes to Introduction
PART I
Beyond the War Mentality
1 Historical Narrative and the Presupposition of
Violence
1.1 History as a conflict zone
1.2 Constructing, revising, and controlling history
1.3 Nonviolence in history made visible
(i) General considerations

8
 1.4 Nonviolence in history made visible
(ii) Some examples
1.5 A postscript on nonviolence in history
Notes to Chapter 1
2 Peaceful Societies and Human Potential
2.1 A future without war?
2.2 Early humans and war
2.3 Human universals
2.4 The existence of peaceful societies
2.5 What does a real-life peaceful society look
like?
2.6 Peace in everyday life
2.7 Cooperation and coevolution
2.8 Some tentative conclusions
Notes to Chapter 2
3 Two Moral Arguments Against War
3.1 War and morality
3.2 Just war thinking, and some issues
3.3 Further critical reflections on the just war
concept
3.4 “Last resort” and the case of Iran
3.5 First antiwar argument: the fundamental
premise of morality

9
 3.6 Second antiwar argument: the extended sphere
of obligation
3.7 Evaluation of the arguments against war
Notes to Chapter 3
PART II
A Window on Peace
4 Violence, Aggression, and Nonviolence
4.1 Violence and aggression
4.2 The limitations of violence
4.3 Nonviolence: narrower and broader visions
4.4 Self-affirmation and other everyday benefits
of nonviolence
4.5 Strategic (or transformative) nonviolence
4.6 Critiques of nonviolence and its vindication
Notes to Chapter 4
5 The Meaning(s) of Peace
5.1 Approaches to peace
5.2 Peace as a state of well-being, as a goal, and
as a process
5.3 The relationship between nonviolence and
peace
5.4 Inner peace and outer peace
5.5 From inner peace to cosmic peace

10
 5.6 Peace as a prescriptive concept and a vision
5.7 Compassion: (i) what it is, and is not
5.8 Compassion: (ii) action, and morality
5.9 Compassion: (iii) seeing things whole
5.10 The will to peace
5.11 Peace as a way of life
Notes to Chapter 5
6 Building a Culture of Peace (1): Fundamentals
6.1 First thoughts
6.2 Obstacles to peace—and reasons for hope
6.3 What is a culture of peace?
6.4 Women and peace
6.5 Thinking creatively about alternatives
6.6 Everyday peaceful conduct and alternatives to
violence
6.7 Engaging with conflict
Notes to Chapter 6
7 Building a Culture of Peace (2): The Way Forward
7.1 Respect for differences and human rights
7.2 Respect for other animals and the
environment
7.3 Education for peace

11
7.4 A Global outlook
7.5 Evaluating where we are and where we are
heading
7.6 Conclusion
Notes to Chapter 7
Bibliography
Sources for Epigraphs
Index

12
13
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all those who have helped me

develop my ideas on peace over the years. They include
students in courses I have taught on the philosophy of
peace at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada,
and various members of Concerned Philosophers for
Peace, Philosophers for Peace (and Prevention of
Nuclear Omnicide), and the Peace and Justice Studies
Association. Brian Byrne and Robin Fox kindly agreed
to vet my entire manuscript, and I cannot thank them
enough for their astute observations and suggestions,
which have been of great benefit to me and to the quality
of this book. Leo Groarke assisted me in thinking
through the earliest stage of this project. Steven Mitchell
put forward the idea that peace needs to be
“sold”—which I at first rejected, then later found useful
for framing my argument in the Introduction. Tom
Bristow first proposed that I submit my manuscript to
Routledge, and persuaded me to do so. I also owe a debt
of gratitude to several other individuals who have
inspired me and/or helped me work my way through
specific issues, roadblocks, and decisions about the
structure and content of the book: Marty Branagan, Peter
Erskine, Ken Fraser, Adam Harris, Russell Hogg, Louise
Noble, Lynne Rienner, John Scott.

14
A special thanks is due to Diana Francis, whose very
clear, reasoned, forceful, and impassioned writing on
war inspired the pacifist arguments presented in Chapter
3.
My editors at Routledge, Felisa Salvago-Keyes, Andrew
Beck, and John Downes-Angus have been very helpful
and encouraging. I am grateful for their support. My
thanks also go to the rest of the Routledge team for their
efforts to make this book a success. To the anonymous
reviewers of my manuscript, thank you for your votes of
approval and good suggestions.
Research for this book was conducted primarily at the
University of New England, Armidale, New South
Wales, Australia, which provided me with a
much-appreciated adjunct appointment and access to
essential facilities, and to a lesser extent at the beautiful
Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
An earlier version of the Introduction appeared, under
the title “Thinking About Peace Today” in the Journal of
Sociology and Social Welfare 38 (2011), pp. 15–36. The
material on compassion in Chapter 5 first appeared as
“Compassion and Peace” in Philosophy Now #80
(August/September 2010), pp. 28–9. The editors of these
journals have kindly allowed this content to be included
here. Bruce Bonta has generously agreed to the usage of
his ideas in the diagram “Features of a Peaceful Society”
in Chapter 2.

15
16
Preface

This book has three main goals: to explain the

fundamentals of peace in a clear and accessible manner
within a secular framework; to show that peace in the
world is possible; and to argue that where war is
concerned, we are not using our brains effectively in the
interest of survival and flourishing. Peace is not a great
mystery. We know to a large extent what we need to do
to realize it. But there is no simple recipe for motivating
people to do what they ought to do and can do—which is
essentially to choose the path of intelligence and
nonviolent coexistence. By appealing to everyone’s
sense that peace is desirable, Understanding Peace: A
Comprehensive Introduction aims to stimulate greater
interest in peace as well as creative thinking and action
to help promote it. But it is also necessary to address a
prevailing kind of skepticism that suggests peace is only
an elusive dream of humankind, and this is done here by
arguing that we have the resources, individually and
collectively, to make peace a realistic objective that is
worth working toward.
A few central questions will occupy our attention: Why
does war crowd out peace in our consciousness of the
world? What is peace anyway? What is the human
potential for peace? How can it best be promoted? If we
can get a grip on peace by answering questions of this

17
kind, then we will be well situated to do things that will
help bring it about. While we must not ignore the serious
threats to peace that exist today, we can empower
ourselves by seeing that we do indeed have choices; that
we are actually developing some of the ideas and tools
needed for peace to become a reality; and that we are
therefore not destined, as a species, to a gloomy future of
violent responses to inter-human problems, destructive
confrontation, perhaps even self-annihilation.
This book is written without the use of the first-person
“I.” The reason for this is that I, the author, want you, the
reader, to join with me in considering certain relevant
evidence, reasoning through a set of problems and
arguments, and trying out (or trying on) certain
assumptions and intuitions to see where
they might lead. So when you encounter the personal
pronoun “we,” as above, this is meant to encourage you
to share a particular point of view—to be part of this
“we”—and to acknowledge that we are all indeed in the
same boat, as reflected by a certain issue, position, or
judgment. I hope that this approach resonates with you
as you go along and that I have identified some
important beliefs and values we hold in common as
fellow beings on this endangered planet.
The plan of the book is as follows. Since peace needs to
dethrone war, a reversal of the usual emphasis is needed:
Peace, not war, must be our primary focus and central
concept. The Introduction aims to overcome the
widespread preoccupation with war and resistance to
thinking about peace that exist today. The strategy here
is to deconstruct attitudes that promote war and myths of

18
war, then to examine and reject negative assessments of
humans’ capacity for peaceful behavior. Wide-ranging
costs of war and war-preparedness are also exposed. The
Introduction concludes with a list of “Home Truths”
(beliefs that invite universal assent), from which a
constructive conversation on peace might begin.
Chapter 1 reflects on the ways in which historical
accounts help shape a cultural outlook where war
appears to be a permanent and integral part of the human
condition. The antidote to this “militarist” historical
narrative is an alternative story that clarifies the
significant role of nonviolence in human affairs, and that
provides examples from various eras and parts of the
world to explain how nonviolence shapes history. A
contribution to this alternative story is offered here.
The war mentality assumes that, given a certain
conception of human nature, war is here to stay. Chapter
2 provides a more optimistic view of our species and of
how we can and do get along with one another—and
have done so for millennia. Through an examination of,
and commentary on, numerous studies of peaceful
societies, we learn important and positive lessons about
the human capacity for nonviolent living. This chapter
also discusses some new ideas about evolution that
feature cooperative interrelationships, both nonhuman
and human.
Discussions of war and peace cannot avoid adopting an
ethical perspective. Some moral arguments about war
start from the premise that war is unavoidable in certain
circumstances, and end with prescriptions governing
how wars can legitimately be started and then conducted

19
in an ethically acceptable manner. Chapter 3 analyzes
and rejects the foregoing approach, epitomized by the
“just war tradition,” and introduces two new arguments
against war. These arguments demonstrate that (i) war
undermines and violates the basic premise of morality;
and (ii) war negates the extension of morality to other
species and
nature, to both of which we owe important obligations.
The conclusion drawn from these arguments is that war
is fundamentally immoral. Some critical objections to
this outcome are examined and put aside.
“Violence,” “aggression,” and “nonviolence” are
indispensable terms for describing human behavior of
various types, and they are of central concern to peace
theorists. These concepts are investigated in Chapter 4.
After considering how best to understand violence and
aggression, and the difference between them, we explore
the meaning of nonviolence. Being nonviolent, it is
argued, does not mean being quietly resigned and
passive, but rather being actively self-assertive in certain
ways. This perspective teaches us that there are different
forms of nonviolence, and that nonviolence can be a
potent force for change.
Peace, relative to war, is an unfamiliar notion. Yet peace
possesses a rich variety of meanings, many of which we
already identify with. Chapter 5 explores these
dimensions of meaning, and then incorporates peace and
peacefulness into an overall outlook on life. In the course
of this discussion, attention is turned to compassion, an
attribute that is a key component of morality and of
peace. This chapter highlights, in addition, the “will to

20
peace”—a strong and motivating desire that exists
beneath the surface in people. Some evidence in support
of positing this psychological phenomenon is reviewed
and evaluated, which enables the characterization of
peace as a way of life.
Chapters 6 and 7 define what the nature and scope of a
culture of peace might be, and examine how one can be
created. Since peace is a process to the same extent as, or
even more than, anything else, it requires continuous
cultivation and monitoring. There are many trends in
global affairs the individual can do little to influence,
except very indirectly. However, there are all kinds of
activities and behaviors that will help build a better
world. Among these are nonviolent conflict
management, everyday peaceful conduct, and showing
respect for human rights. Even how we treat the natural
environment and members of other species count
significantly in this regard. Within this larger context, we
also come to appreciate education as a vital agent of
change across the range of issues pertaining to the
creation of a peaceful form of life. Chapter 7 concludes
with an account of the gradual emergence of a global
outlook for humanity, which is a pivotal event in the
development of a universal peace-consciousness.
Understanding Peace argues that peace is central to a
constructive and comprehensive view of our place in the
world, and that realizing peace is a function of
self-examination, choice, and commitment. Arguments
do not necessarily change the way things are in the
world, much as we might wish they could. But at least

21
they show us where certain beliefs and behaviors will
lead us, and if we
do not like what we see, we can find the strength and
determination to choose a different direction. This is the
beginning of constructive change. Those who would like
to bring about peace, and to experience and live in a
more peaceful world, have formidable opponents—not
tin-pot dictators, terrorists, the military-industrial
complex, international arms dealers, and greedy
capitalists. These are there all right, but none of them,
nor even all of them combined, are the main issue. The
main issue is clinging to the status quo and thinking
inside the box. What box? The box confining us to an
outlook that prescribes military solutions to human
problems, as though such solutions really work, a view
that convinces us we cannot do any better. However,
when we gain insights into the nature of peace and our
potential for peaceful living, these can help energize our
quest to bring about positive transformations that will
make the world a better place. Everyone has a part to
play in accomplishing this great human project, and
everyone stands to benefit from it.

22
23
Diagrams

INTRODUCTION
War myths
Costs of war
Advantages of peace
CHAPTER 1
Nonviolence making history
CHAPTER 2
Features of a peaceful society
CHAPTER 3
War and morality: a spectrum of views
Morally based antiwar arguments
CHAPTER 4
Types of violence
Types of aggression
Types of nonviolence
CHAPTER 5
Dimensions of peace

24
CHAPTER 6
United Nations culture of peace program
CHAPTER 7
A global outlook

25
26
Introduction: Thinking about Peace Today

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.

—Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of independent

India (1947–64)

You can no more win a war than you can win an

earthquake.

—Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to the United

States Congress (1916), and a lifelong pacifist who voted
against entry into both World Wars

We seem always ready to pay the price for war. Almost

gladly we give our time and our treasure—our limbs and
even our lives—for war. But we expect to get peace for
nothing.

—Peace Pilgrim, adopted name of Mildred Norman

Ryder (1908–81), spiritual teacher, nonviolence
advocate, and peace prophet, who for twenty-eight years
walked for peace across North America, Peace Pilgrim:
Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1992)

27
1. The Obstacle of War
How we think about the world determines the ways we
act in it; this is obvious to most people, most of the time.
But there are more subtle levels on which the
relationship between thinking (including the holding of
beliefs, attitudes, and values) and action (as well as
inaction) calls out for investigation and exposure to the
clarifying light of day. Thinking about peace and war is
a case of this kind.
War versus Peace
Peace and war are uncomfortable and restless opposites.
The meaning of each, in a way, depends on how we
understand the other, and yet each makes its own
independent claims for our attention. A fresh look at
both is called for, because dangerous forms of militarism
that abound in the world today prevent improvements in
the quality of human life, and indeed cast a cloud over
the future of the planet; as a consequence, the need for a
new dialogue about peace and for peace has never been
greater. War is, of course, just one of many pressing
global issues of our time. Richard Smalley, a Nobel
Prize-winning chemist also known as “the father of
nanotechnology,” lists the following ten problems (in
descending order) as the crucial challenges facing
humanity: energy, water, food, environment, poverty,
terrorism and war, disease, education, democracy,
population.1 But a moment’s reflection will convince us
that these are interconnected by virtue of their mutual
impacts. War, and in particular its complex causes, are
related to most, if not all, of the other nine factors on this
list. And peace is related to all ten. It follows that we

28
must keep in mind a holistic view of war and peace, as
we go along.
Some of the best thinking about humans as social and
political beings has been devoted to peace. However, a
far greater amount has undoubtedly been devoted to war.
Indeed, war hovers, like some abstract entity, over the
surface of daily life and, tragically often enough,
occupies the surface itself. When war is not “hot” in
one’s own region or in some geographical area nearby, it
seems guaranteed to be going on elsewhere in the world.
But even where no active conflict is raging, war
consumes many resources while biding its time and
exercising its metaphorical presence—as in the sentence
you are now reading. War, as it appears and reappears on
the stage of human life, is reflected in everyday
discourse not only as a metaphor but also as a paradigm
for conscientious, constructive action. (And the language
of war figures prominently in the way we speak and
report on everyday events, with words like
“ammunition,” “battle,” “bombshell,” “fallout,”
“minefield,” “onslaught,” “shoot down,” and “trenches”
being commonly employed.) Taking a closer look,
campaigns to improve the human lot, as everyone is
aware, are often characterized as: “war on poverty,”
“war against climate change,” “war on hunger,” “war
against HIV/AIDS,” “war on child abuse,” and so on.
“The [US] federal government needs to build a public
health defense system that can wage and win a War on
Asthma,” declared a report issued by the Pew
Environmental Health Commission in 2001, which
added that, in order to accomplish this, it would be
necessary to “develop and deploy a ‘911 Force’ at the

29
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” in Atlanta.2
A Newsweek magazine cover photograph of
Hillary Rodham Clinton as US Secretary of State
accompanies the announcement of the cover story:
“Hillary’s War.” Inside, the reader learns with
bewilderment that, ironically, this article is really about
“her most heartfelt mission: to put women and girls at
the forefront of the new world order.”3
For over a decade, the “war on terror” was a headline
news event almost daily, and this ill-considered concept
licensed a spectrum of illegal and immoral
behaviors—from systematic lying by elected leaders to
the dark excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo,
which are comparable to wartime crimes of the past.
Think you’ve heard it all? You haven’t. Surfing the crest
of the war on terror wave, the Civil Aviation Authority
of Australia declared “war on error”—an educational
“roadshow” aimed at reducing pilot mistakes.4 Political
contests and picayune squabbles between rival
candidates are so frequently portrayed as “wars” that this
way of talking barely raises an eyebrow anymore. But
there really is no limit to the absurdly elastic use of this
term: A well-known newsstand magazine shouts out the
title of a report on innovative lighting technology: “The
Light Bulb Wars.”5
War is free for the taking in lots of ways. Some say that,
in contrast, peace has to be “sold”—that there is a
problem of “marketing peace” to those who know little
and maybe think less about it, or else are just downright
skeptical of the whole idea. Why should there be a
problem of this kind? It seems very puzzling. But let us

30
accept the premise and see where we can go from there.
Peace scholar David Cortright remarks that “Throughout
history the cause of peace has been on trial, standing like
a forlorn defendant before the court of established
opinion, misunderstood and maligned on all sides.”6
Cortright’s reflection suggests that the answer to the
“why” question posed a moment ago can be framed as
follows: Peace is an unfamiliar and poorly understood
concept and reality. Perhaps it has been too seldom
experienced—or in the case of some people, hardly
tasted at all. Learned observers note that there have been
fewer inter-state wars in recent times; that democracies
do not go to war with one another; and that war as a
useful extension of national policy and means of
pursuing political objectives is a thing of the past. For
instance, one author writes that “The obsolescence of the
old kind of war and of the old kind of citizen readiness
for military sacrifice is a world-wide phenomenon.”7
Another asserts, paradoxically, that “War has almost
ceased to exist.”8 Perhaps so; but this does not prevent
wars from occurring in abundance, and increasingly,
they are intrastate civil wars, guerrilla-led insurgencies,
explosions of ethnic violence, criminal power-struggles,
proxy wars, or some combination of these, in which
ordinary civilians are defenseless targets of “militias,
paramilitaries, warlords and armies seeking control of
resources through depredation, terror and force.”9 Global
governance specialist Mary Kaldor calls these “new
wars,”
and describes them as “a new type of organized violence,
… a mixture of war, organized crime and massive
violations of human rights”; she adds that they utilize

31
“tactics of terror and destabilization that are theoretically
outlawed by the rules of modern warfare.”10
Seeing beyond War
Because war is such a familiar part of human life, past
and present, and peace, by contrast, occupies the
shadows, the position we are in is that if we want to
bring peace out into the open in order to think clearly
about it, we first have to get past being captivated by
thoughts about war. The second step is to try seeing the
world from the standpoint of peace rather than war. This
amounts to an epistemological and ethical reversal of
sorts, inasmuch as we must not only foreground peace as
the norm in human life and war as the aberration, but
also seek to define the positive attributes of peace,
placing it in the position of primacy, instead of viewing
peace as merely the negation or derivative opposite of
war. Subsequent chapters (especially Chapter 5) will
bring this approach into the light of day.
Getting beyond war requires us to move past some pretty
formidable and influential ideas. But before we confront
these, a definition of “war” is needed. This is important
not only in the interest of a logical progression of ideas,
but also because we will then know better what it is that
we need to put aside in order to grasp what peace means.
The meaning of war adopted here is the following: War
is a situation or process of openly hostile (and generally
armed) struggle between two or more organized groups
whose premeditated intention is to inflict damage and/or
death upon each other’s members and destroy each
other’s territory in the interest of achieving a desired
end.11 A qualification is in order: In the case of an

32
aggressive invasion by one side of the other’s territory,
the latter may lack this premeditated intention and have
the primary goal of repelling the invader in order to
protect its people and territory.12 A particular war may
be identified by its symbolic, ideological, economic,
historical, and political features, which are in turn related
to its causes, and also determine its overall character as a
form of conflict. The proposed definition provides a
useful paradigm for understanding war in the literal
sense, with secondary or metaphorical usages of the term
being more distantly related to its primary meaning.
Now, what are the ideas about war that must be
overthrown? There are many: that war brings out the
best qualities in men; that it is a “manly art”; that it
makes men out of boys; that a nation comes of age
through armed conflict,
its defining moment being some famous battle or a
particular war; that the most honorable way in which one
can serve one’s country (or group) is by shedding blood
for it. Both masculinity and patriotism, in relation to war,
are complex, multifaceted social constructs that require a
great deal of care to unpack.13 Some consider that dying
in war is made not only acceptable, but even desirable
and glorious, owing to their beliefs about rewards
awaiting heroes in the afterlife. None of these ideas has
served humanity well—rather, just the opposite. They
have led us blindly into more and more wars, genocides,
arms races, and ultimately, to the constant state of
war-readiness we find ourselves in today—a kind of
“unending war,” as some observers have labeled our
contemporary situation. Deep-seated beliefs about war
have cost our species and the planet hugely in terms of

33
both the casualties and consequences of armed conflict
and the resources consumed by war-preparedness. What
is it all for? Are we stuck forever within cultures of
violence, fear, and war? Do we lack the intelligence,
will, moral fiber, and sense of world community to find
better ways of conducting our affairs? Is it in our genes
to be warriors? Is there something specifically wrong
with how males are biologically constituted or socialized
that leads to war? Do conditions that seem to drive
human beings to war keep arising and periodically need
to be dealt with? Are there forces in history with their
own irresistible momentum that cause brutal clashes
between groups and nations? Or, on the other hand, are
there perhaps many valuable templates already in
existence for building relationships, negotiation
strategies, trust, and modes of behaving that can provide
alternatives to war and even terrorism? As Australian
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pondered in 2008, on the
ninetieth anniversary of Armistice Day, “Is war our
permanent condition? Must every generation go through
war to be reminded why there should be no war? Or can
we dare to do something different, can we dare to think
something different?”14 The questions pile up like the
dead and maimed that humans continue to produce in
armed confrontations.
Many have raised these questions and more, wondering
whether human beings are fatefully warlike and locked
into perennial cycles of mortal combat. To be sure, no
one can claim to have complete answers to the hardest
questions about war because abundant areas of
uncertainty still persist in our knowledge about our own
species. Even if we could gather together all of the

34
world’s psychologists and psychiatrists, it is unlikely
they could explain everything we need to know in order
to create a world free from war and violent conflict. But
we can try to move forward with the insights we have
achieved and the tools we possess for understanding and
promoting the factors that make peace possible, with the
aim of stimulating new and different thought and feeling
processes that may promise better choices in the future
than those made in the past and present.
2. War Myths
In keeping with the commitment to examine and
overcome barriers that block thinking about peace, it will
be useful to expose some myths. Eighteenth-century
philosopher and political theorist John Locke assigned
himself the task of “removing some of the rubbish that
lies in the way to knowledge.”15 In a similar spirit,
deconstructing the myths of war will enable a better
profile of peace to emerge. Of course, the existence of
myths alone does not explain the war phenomenon. A
monocausal account could never do justice to the
complexities of war or the particularities of any given
conflict, and no attempt will be made here to provide a
comprehensive explanation of why wars occur. That
would be an entirely different and very ambitious
project.16 But whatever else might be said about war, it
lives in the domain of myth, and this applies both to the
factors that help bring it about and to those that create
and sustain ideas such as that of the “demonic enemy.”
As psychologist Lawrence LeShan points out, war brings
about a shift from the normal or “sensory mode” of
perceiving reality to a “mythic mode”17 with a logic of

35
its own. Journalist Chris Hedges, who has reported
on-the-scene from numerous wars, explains this “logic”:
“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its
destruction and carnage, it can give us what we long for
in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for
living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does
the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives
become apparent.… And war is an enticing elixir. It
gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And
those who have the least meaning in their lives … are all
susceptible to war’s appeal.”18 Looking back at his own
experience of war’s addictive allure, Hedges adds, “The
chance to exist for an intense and overpowering moment,
even if it meant certain oblivion, seemed worth it in the
midst of war—and very stupid once the war ended.”19
The great popular philosopher and pacifist Bertrand
Russell expressed a similar view in a book published in
1917: “If men’s actions sprang from desires for what
would in fact bring happiness, the purely rational
argument against war would have long ago put an end to
it. What makes war difficult to suppress is that it springs
from an impulse, rather than from a calculation of the
advantages to be derived from war.”20 But what neither
Hedges nor Russell acknowledges about war, however,
is that we have to find meaning there—especially those
who have fought in them—in order to keep a grip on
sanity and personal integrity. This is a task that
challenges everyone: combat soldiers, because of the
horrors they face and the lethal actions required of them;
their commanders, because of the horrors they are
responsible for perpetrating; and the rest of us, because
we are complicit in these horrors (they are done in our

36
name). Nor do these authors confront the fact that some
combatants (most would say
a small minority) love war too much, that is, actually
enjoy killing,21 and that war corrupts ordinary morality
at a very deep level (as discussed in the antiwar
arguments of Chapter 3).
War also thrives on symbolism and imaginative
associations, and it has been remarked, in this vein, that:
“Wars commence in our culture first of all, and we kill
each other in euphemisms and abstractions long before
the first … missiles have been launched.… The
deformed human mind is the ultimate doomsday
weapon.…”22 Partly because of these myths and
subconscious connections, historian Jeremy Black
cautions that in studying wars, past or present, “Rather
than focusing on individual conflicts, it is more
important to understand the values that made
compromise unacceptable, force appear necessary and
even desirable, and war seem crucial to identity and
self-respect.”23
The Illogic of War
If we step back from all of this and think carefully for a
moment, the total absurdity of war readily shows itself.
In conventional wars, soldiers who have no prior
relationship to one another, and who, as individuals,
have no reason for animosity toward one another, are
given the job of killing one another—if at all possible,
and however possible, no questions asked. They are
expected and commanded to participate not just in
killing, but in mass killing. (Of course, war makes not
only anonymous strangers into enemies, but also fathers

37
and sons, brothers, other relatives, friends, and
neighbors.) And after the killing is over—maybe a year
later, maybe a decade or two—they can be friends and
even close allies in various ventures. As Jean-Jacques
Rousseau maintains, “War is not … a relationship
between man and man, but between state and state, in
which individuals become enemies only by accident.…”
As soon as the vanquished surrender, “ceasing to be
enemies or agents of the enemy, they become simply
men again, and there is no longer any right over their
lives.”24 In short, after a war is over (strange as it may
seem), enemy combatants are transformed once again
into beings whose full moral status is magically restored
to them.
From another standpoint, the unfolding of war goes like
this: “We have issues with one another that have
historically fermented. We each claim to be innocent and
to be grievously wronged by the other. Both of us have
hatreds that need avenging. We have patriotic zeal, so do
you. So let’s unleash as much destruction on one another
as possible and see who survives best. The winner gets
to dictate the terms of peace.” The conditions under
which unconventional wars are fought may vary from
these models, but there is not a great deal of difference in
their basic dynamics. Certain nagging questions push
themselves forward here: How is it that, in the face of
manifest absurdities, the patterns of war-making are so
hard to abandon? How are soldiers (insurgents, terrorists,
and so on) conditioned to do what they do? These are
long stories, which we will not go into here; suffice it to
say for the moment that many—if not all—of the
answers are supplied by well-known and readily

38
available research studies on the social construction and
politics of masculinity, group identity and loyalty
formation, patriotism, authority structures, indoctrination
techniques, propaganda (principally, seeing the enemy as
the personification of a despised ideology or value-set),
fear-mongering, xenophobia, and attitudes toward the
use of violence. But war is sustained as well by myths
that weave their way through many of the foregoing
sociocultural elements. These myths we will now
examine.
Six Myths about War
Myth #1. According to one prominent fabrication about
war that everyone will recognize, the history of
humankind is equivalent to the story of great deeds done
by famous rulers and leaders (mostly men) and the wars
they have prepared for and fought. Peace, viewed from
this standpoint, consists of the dull, uneventful periods in
between wars that are unworthy of examination. (The
book section of a large local chain store contains a shelf
labeled “History/War.” And where might one find a
shelf marked “Peace”? The question answers itself.)
Aside from begging questions about the nature of peace,
peace as a desirable goal, and the best avenues by which
to reach a peaceful world, the outlook just described
neglects the positive phenomenon of peaceful everyday
interactions that predominate among humans, as well as
the perspective that the full story of humanity cannot be
written without reference to the actions and ways of life
of average people throughout the ages. Kenneth
Boulding points out that “In all nations, even in
democratic societies, the decision-making power with

39
regard to war and peace is highly concentrated, though it
is always to some extent modified by the fear of possible
consequences to the decision maker.”25 This already
opens up a gap between two alternative stories of
humankind: what we might call, on the one hand, the
“outstanding figures and their exploits” story, and, on the
other, the story of history “as forged by ordinary people
and unsung heroes.” Each represents part of the whole
truth and we would therefore be foolish to choose one
over the other. But as Boulding also notes, “Even when
two countries are at war, a large part of the behavior of
the inhabitants is totally unrelated to the war—sleeping,
eating, making love, having children, producing civilian
goods, and so on.…I am convinced it is in the field of
what I have called nonconflict—working, producing,
buying and selling, learning,
thinking, worshipping, loving, procreating—that the
mainstream of the human race goes on.”26 We will return
to examine many of these themes concerning history,
war, peace, and everyday life in the following chapters.
Myth #2. Closely related to this first myth is a second
one, with an ancient lineage. In the dim and more recent
past, it would look like this: The venerated leader is a
great and fearless warrior.Today’s version would be
toned down but would still express the same belief,
perhaps in a manner closer to the following: “A
satisfactory head of government will have a good
inventory of modern weapons at his or her disposal, and
must possess the will to use them (but of course only
‘when necessary’).” The state of the world could be
vastly improved if the principle by which leaders were
chosen read instead: “A great national leader has a

40
first-class understanding of international affairs and
other cultures, compassion, trust in his or her own
citizenry, and excellent communication, negotiating, and
peace-building skills.”
Myth #3. There is also the myth that wars solve human
problems and advance interests more effectively than
other kinds of engagements.The fact that wars are
recurrent should by itself show that (with a very few,
debatable exceptions) they do not solve problems, or at
best, do so only temporarily and partially, while sowing
the seeds for narrow-minded nationalism, inter-group
hatred, revenge-seeking, defective political arrangements
and boundaries, and therefore, for future incidents of
violence and armed conflict. At the end of the day,
communication, respectful coexistence, and sometimes
even forgiveness and reconciliation, are the only ways to
bury hostilities with finality. As one social scientist
observes, “What all wars have in common is the
unmistakable moral lesson that homicide is an
acceptable, even praiseworthy, means to certain ends.”27
(More on this in Chapter 3.) But following this
go-nowhere teaching can only yield negative results:
Aggression begets more aggression; violence, more
violence; and war, more war, if they remain unchecked
by negotiation and nonviolent resolution. Surely bitter
experience has taught us that there is no “war to end
war”—or has it?
There are those who argue that war is sometimes needed
in order to make peace possible. But it is at least as
plausible to claim that peace, when fully developed
makes war impossible, or at least very much less likely

41
to occur. The beneficial impacts of peace are wider and
deeper than any gains resulting from war. That is
common knowledge. However, it is also documented in
a more empirical fashion. For example, in a series of
case studies, historian Ian Bickerton focuses on the
aftermath of war looked at from a perspective
twenty-five years on, and turns up these sobering
findings:

The inescapable and tragic conclusion one reaches is that

it is hard to tell who won and who lost the war.… [M]ost
of the assumptions about the benefits of victory in
warfare are either exaggerated or simply false.…
[M]ilitary victory rarely guarantees compliance by the
defeated belligerent, nor does it act as a deterrent against
further outbreaks of war. Victors rarely achieve the
international, political or military stability they seek.
Power and coercion are highly transitory in international
relations. Territorial arrangements are almost always
short lived. The goal of the victorious party of
transforming the defeated party’s domestic political
system and social values is hardly ever successful.…
The postwar reconstruction of the defeated party far
exceeds projected costs.… In addition … the postwar
economic benefits that flow from victory rarely match
prewar expectations. In other words, when examined a
generation later, it can be seen that the victor’s triumphs
on the battlefield yield little long-term value.28

Bickerton’s research covers a period ranging from the

Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century through
the two world wars of the last century and beyond. One

42
might be forgiven for thinking that a simple cost-benefit
calculation based on inductive inference from past
experience (call it gambling odds, if you prefer) would
be sufficient to deter political leaders from waging war.
Unfortunately, it does not. More advanced alien social
scientists from another planet, studying our own, would
probably be astonished at the shortsightedness we
“rational beings” display in regard to war.
Myth #4. Another associated myth is that
wars—or“military operations” that perpetrators seek not
to have thought of as wars, invasions, or acts of
aggression—are undertaken (always) “in defense of”
shared ideals and a cherished way of life.On the
contrary, historical examples show that in warfare,
economic, class, and other factors are often front and
center, and that private political aspirations, the jingoism
of particular interest groups, and various ideological
factors are rife. Some writers have pointed out that the
greatest enthusiasm for war usually comes from those
who do not have to fight in them, but send others to do
their dirty work for them. While it is simplistic and
onedimensional to argue that in all wars the poor and
disadvantaged serve the interests of the rich and
powerful, a stark slogan from the First World War— “A
bayonet is a weapon with a worker on both
ends”—makes us wonder whether this perspective might
contain a significant grain of truth. (Some studies of the
Vietnam War and of the contemporary US armed
services support the perspective in question.29 And a
recent empirical analysis shows that “Americans who
have died in Afghanistan are disproportionately white
and Native American working-class young people with

43
no more than a high school education.”30) Widespread
opposition to, and public demonstrations against, the
Vietnam War and the Iraq War, both in America and
abroad, also bring into focus the question of whose
values, interests, and political judgments were driving
these conflicts. Furthermore, as the wartime
record shows, and some post-9/11 events confirm, basic
human rights and civil liberties may get trampled even
by those nations claiming to be their staunchest
guardians.
The values identified with war are of course always
laden with patriotic references to one’s own nation and
its singular destiny. An interesting example, taken from
the Australian popular media, is an advertisement for
“Tea from a Time When Men Were Willing to Fight for
a Cause.” Tea, of course, in the British tradition, is as
homey, comforting, and essential to daily life as you can
get, in good times or in bad. The tea company in
question “contributes to … support the families of
diggers [soldiers] who have given their lives for our
country.”31 And who can possibly not want to donate to
that? But looking deeper, notice that the main headline
suggests several hidden meanings: Men who lost their
lives in past wars were one and all doing so for a
(presumably just) cause that they did not question. Men
were once willing to fight and die for such a cause—but
probably are not now, having lost their backbone and
their clear moral sense of right and wrong. War is the
proper way to take a stand when values are under serious
threat. A real man is prepared to answer the call
obediently when it comes from those in authority.
Further deconstruction would no doubt disclose

44
additional nuances of meaning. We see here how so
simple a thing as a cup of tea can be used to conjure up
images and emotion-charged associations that promote
war.
Myth #5. By virtue of a closely related kind of
myth-making, historical conflicts, through a complex
process, become transformed into a fixed part of
national identity and infused with various
quasi-religious attributes.Historian George L. Mosse
describes how this happens as follows, in relation to the
two world wars of the twentieth century: “The myth of
war experience was designed to mask war and to
legitimize the war experience; it was meant to displace
the reality of war. The memory of war was fashioned
into a sacred experience which provided the nation with
a new depth of religious feeling, putting at its disposal
ever-present saints and martyrs, places of worship, and a
heritage to emulate.”32 We can all recognize how this
flight of fancy echoes today in our own national
consciousness and practices of remembrance.33 In
addition, as Noah Richler observes, countries such as the
United States and Canada, which are hungry for heroes
in uncertain times, tend to venerate people in uniform,
regardless of what they accomplish while wearing it.
According to the official line, no soldier ever “dies in
vain,” and it is unpatriotic to think otherwise. (Many
cenotaphs are dedicated “To our glorious war dead.”)
This is why more troops are committed to lost causes
that leaders lack the courage to identify as such, or as
having been a mistake in the first place. Meanwhile,
everyday civilian heroes, who hold families and society
together, teach our difficult children, create the culture

45
we enjoy, or put themselves at considerable risk to work
for peace and human rights, are largely ignored and
unheralded.34 Among others, this last group comprises
members of the Nonviolent Peaceforce, Peace Brigades
International, UN Volunteers, Witness for Peace,
Médecins Sans Frontières, Nonviolence International,
Christian Peacemaker Teams, Amnesty International,
and Human Rights Watch. Many of these organizations
operate in zones of active hostility, protecting people,
helping to enforce existing agreements, and monitoring
and publicizing human rights violations.
Myth #6. A final myth to be considered here is the
widely held view that human nature is inherently
aggressive and warlike. Because it is so well-established
that many consider it proven beyond doubt, we will
consider Myth #6 in greater detail. The claim it
embodies appears in two forms: (1) War is an
inseparable and permanent feature of our biological
endowment; and (2) Even though war is biologically
rooted in us and essential to our development as a
species, we may have begun to evolve beyond it.
Here is an example of outlook (1): “War in humans is
similar to war in other creatures, primates, social insects,
etc. War has always been a means of weeding out weak
groups, of redistributing resources among humanity, of
driving evolution and adaptability. Unless we develop
the economic tools to achieve redistribution without
violence, violence will always be the natural and
‘reasonable’ final solution of those who find themselves
to be stronger, yet who have less resources than
others.”35 This is a curious assemblage of ideas: war as

46
part of our biological makeup (comparably to other
animals); Social Darwinism (war as assuring that the
fittest survive); fact (war as an economic tool);
sociobiology (war as enhancing the victors’ gene pools);
and yet faith in freedom of choice (the possibility of
developing nonviolent means of resource redistribution).
Concerning the internal contradiction here between
biological determinism and freedom to select another
path for humanity, several decades ago, Ludwig von
Mises, a prominent member of the Austrian school of
economics and arch-defender of capitalism and
liberalism, observed the following: “We may also
assume that under the conditions of earlier ages the i
nclination for aggression and murder was favorable to
the preservation of life.… However, [as a being of
reason,] man has made his choice.… He has entered
upon the way toward civilization, social cooperation, and
wealth.… Wars, civil wars, and revolutions are
detrimental to man’s success in the struggle for existence
because they disintegrate the apparatus of social
cooperation.”36 This is an entirely plausible and more
consistent hypothesis, which, as we shall see in a
moment, accords well with recent empirical research. It
also
directs our attention toward the second outlook: that
although war is biologically rooted in us, and essential to
our evolution, we may have evolved beyond it.
A widely held theory “suggests [that] the cooperative
skills we’ve had to develop to be effective warriors have
turned into the modern ability to work towards a
common goal.”37 Some might infer that such a
perspective is perhaps merely another vaguely disguised

47
glorification of war, a coopting of our peaceful instincts
by a view about our inborn (biologically determined)
aggressiveness. However, it would be a mistake to draw
this conclusion, given that the theory in question stems
from research findings in a number of fields that
converge toward a consensus. More importantly, it tells
us that although cooperative tendencies evolved from
warlike ones, they have subsequently taken on a life of
their own and now play a real, independent role in
human affairs. Looking at the theory in this manner
helps us to avoid endorsing the fallacious belief that the
way things once were can tell us how they will be, ought
to be, or even must be. What has occurred or might have
occurred during the distant (and not so distant) past life
of our species is a very unreliable and not necessarily
desirable guide to how things might be or should be.
This is because humans are capable of choice, rational
reflection and analysis, and hence also of change. Unless
one accepts some form of rigid determinism, no
biological or anthropological account can provide
everything we require in order to understand the past or
plan for the future. Not only this, but humans at present
are actually showing signs of being able to control their
own future evolution. (“Being able,” of course, does not
entail that we are yet willing to take on the task in a
responsible manner, and to use this potential wisely.)
While some aspects of human nature may be relatively
constant, our species is noteworthy for having reinvented
itself many times over. As current brain research on
“neuroplasticity” keeps demonstrating, humans are not
so “hardwired” into stereotypical patterns of thinking
and response as many suppose.38 And we should not
neglect to record here that many human actions already

48
undertaken to change the way things are done in the
world serve as examples of nonviolent cooperation. We
will take a closer look at a number of these in later
chapters.
A century ago, William James, psychologist,
philosopher, confirmed pacifist, and proponent of the
idea that humanity exists in a state of unending war,
confidently proclaimed—as if it were a truism needing
no argumentative or empirical support—that “Our
ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and
marrow, and thousands of years of peace won’t breed it
out of us.”39 But, as we have seen above, this view is
being challenged on both historical and scientific
grounds. Many scholars now support the argument that
war is a sociopolitical construct and that it has come to
be seen as “inevitable” only within
the modern state system (and even more recently, in
relation to the so-called security state40). And if the
once-scorned idea that “environment can alter heredity”
eventually takes hold,41 this will open up still further the
possibilities for changing human behavior for the
better—if we so choose.
We can now begin to see more clearly that evolutionary
traits revealed in the human past do not license
inferences about the inevitability of war and other forms
of violent conflict in the future. The claim that “war is in
our genes” should therefore be rejected, as Chapters 2
and 4 will argue in greater detail. Leaving aside possible
supplements to the theory of natural selection, a growing
body of evidence tends toward the conclusion that, even
if humans’ evolution into peaceful beings is not

49
guaranteed, it is equally apparent that war cannot simply
be rationalized as a kind of “biological compulsion.”42
Furthermore, inasmuch as belief in the inevitability of
something tends to make that thing inevitable (a
self-fulfilling prophecy), we need to be on guard against
any such belief for it negates humans’ decision-making
capacity and consequently the ability to change the
course of events in which they are involved.
It is extremely significant that the myth of humans’
innate aggression has been coopted many times as a
propaganda tool for creating a mood that favors war.
One notable example is the work of Friedrich von
Bernhardi, a German general who states, in his
influential 1941 book Germany and the Next War, that
“aspirations for peace … threaten to poison the soul of
the German people,” and that “War is a biological
necessity.… It gives a biologically just decision, since its
decisions rest on the very nature of things.”43 This
shabby reasoning, of course, contributed to the
mythology that sustained Germany’s ill-fated
determination to succeed in World War II.
A very different kind of German thinker, the brilliant
Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, advanced a
very different and much more subtle theory about war.
According to Kant,

war itself requires no particular motivation, but appears

to be ingrained in human nature and is even valued as
something noble; indeed, the desire for glory inspires
men to it, even independently of selfish motives.
Consequently, courage in war (among American Indians

50
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 The mineral was evidently born of a parent; it was identical with
this parent; its symmetry was the same under the same
circumstances. Similar results from numerous experiments with
other substances were obtained.
… Under the influence of agents whose masters we are,
molecules group themselves, following fixed laws, and arrange
themselves in their relative positions. Just as soldiers off drill, and
scattered throughout the camp, when the order of the commander is
given, obey and fall into line, so do molecules obey the forces in
command over them.
Stranger still, this crystal perfectly formed, seems sometimes to
have a conception of an ideal of beauty, a perfect symmetry, the
ellipsoid of the cubic system, which is a sphere; it seeks it, tries to
reach it, and if it can not be attained, it falls to acting a part. It
disguises itself, just as is sometimes done among men, and strives to
appear the being it is not. The crystal, no more than the man, will
ever assume a place in a lower rank; each seeks to appear better
than he is. To attain its object the crystal will unite itself with the
other crystals of the same kind; then these will gather into groups.
As they can not modify their own angles they will crowd one against
another. Let it cost what it may, if it is a possible thing they will have
their imperfections removed, and will improve their individual
appearance, and if any measure of success is attained, the little
crystals will enjoy in silence their usurped glory.
If science, with the apparent rigidity of her measures, weights
and figures holds for the scholar oftentimes disagreeable surprises,
she sometimes cheers him by rewards full of a strange grandeur.
Azote, or nitrogen in its free state, constitutes more than three
fourths of the volume of the atmosphere, and is in its appearance
the type of inertia. Its presence seems to have no other rôle than to
reduce the over-exciting action of the oxygen upon our organs of
respiration. In order to cause it to enter into combination with other
substances, it is necessary to have recourse to the most energetic
forces. Among these in nature only one, electricity, lightning, is able
to accomplish this result. But the union once effected, the gas is
capable of undergoing a thousand variations. As passive as it was
while free, so active does it become after entering into any
combination. As it is found in the constitution of all animal and
vegetable life, we find that without the storm-cloud no organic life
could exist. The origin of all creatures is to be found in a clap of
thunder.
Such examples as these show that imagination as well as science
derives great profit from the intimate study of the phenomena
presented by minerals. One commences their study by measuring,
by weighing, by carefully analyzing; one gathers now and then
slowly a little knowledge; then suddenly this apparently barren field
disappears to give place to large horizons, to vast generalizations of
majestic simplicity, resting upon the solid foundation of
experimentation. Let us not underestimate the rôle of the
imagination in scientific researches. It gives to the scholar
persistence in his daily toil; it is his hope at the moment he begins
an undertaking, his guide during the work, and his recompense
when he has finished. What a charm in the frequent discoveries of
analogies between the highest orders of beings and those which
occupy the lowest rounds in the ladder of perfection!
Similarity is to be observed also in the growth of individuals in the
different kingdoms. One sees at first crystal skeletons, then
gradually the crystals developing into perfection. Neither the chemist
with all his delicate tests, nor the physician armed with his accurate
instruments can decipher the feeblest trace of heterogeneity; the
child grown has become a man; the mineral fully developed has
reached also its age of virility.
Minerals may be hindered in their development, may become
irregular, imperfect, deformed; upon certain of their angles new
facets may appear, in other parts facets may slowly become
obliterated. As soon as the obstacle causing the trouble is removed
the wounds will heal over, perhaps leaving their scars, and the
crystals will pursue their normal course. Sometimes an accidental
circumstance, as that of too ardent a sun, or a season too wet, will
cause a fissure, and a malady commences. Oxydation or hydration is
produced, and the mineral begins to disintegrate; finally, as a result
of the accident, the last particles are lost to sight. We think it has
been destroyed. But it is dead; it has died just as a man dies. Its
elements are just as imperishable as are those of man’s body, which,
when it is laid away in the grave are not annihilated, but, as they are
resolved, enter again into new forms in the great torrent of life.
Their atoms are immutable, what they have been, they are, and will
be to all eternity; eternally young, eternally the same, moving
without rest, unmindful of time or of combinations. The ancient
symbol of the serpent with his tail in his mouth well represents the
cycle of life. Periods succeed periods.
The day ends in twilight and the night is followed by a new dawn.
All limits are effaced. The stone, the flower, the animal intermingle
their natures. With this thought in mind all life seems like a great
net-work, whose meshes are interlaced in countless ways, before
which the seeker after truth stands with ardent soul. But at the
moment he thinks to grasp the solution of the absorbing problem, he
is only made more deeply aware of his own weakness. And looking
forward over the great expanse stretching out before him to infinity,
he experiences only one sentiment, that of admiration; and his
desire ever increases to learn still, and to learn always.
 THE MACHINERY OF OUR FOREIGN
SERVICE.

Report of a lecture delivered by Hon. Eugene Schuyler in the

National Museum, Washington, D. C., on Saturday, February 28th.

This topic is especially interesting from the fact that so little is

known of it except by those in the service of the government whose
duties are connected with the foreign service. The government of
the United States, in uneventful times at least, is a despotism in the
hands of five or six men, working under and through constitutional
forms, and subject only to the penalty which is always exacted from
very grave mistakes. These men are the President, the Secretary of
State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, the chairman of the standing Committee on
Appropriations, and the chairman of the standing Committee on
Ways and Means. In times of disorder, others are added to this list,
both from the Senate and from the Cabinet officers. The chairmen of
committees for other branches of the service also, at such times, rise
into prominence. Without the consent of some one, two or three of
these dignitaries no important step in public affairs can be taken.
The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury are the
only Cabinet officers who in ordinary times can influence, not only
the policy of the government, but also the welfare of the country,
without the permission of Congress; it may be, even without the
knowledge of the President.
The currency question, the silver coinage, the position taken
recently by the Clearing House in New York, and the state of the
gold market, show how a sudden emergency may induce, if not
compel, the Secretary of the Treasury to take action which might
strongly affect for good or for evil the most vital interests of the
nation. Nor is it otherwise with the Secretary of State, who by an
intemperate or ill-timed insistence on national or individual rights, or
by even a want of tact may cause irritations hard to be appeased.
On the other hand, by an ignorance of precedence, an unguarded
admission or an act of good nature, he may give up rights which the
nation has jealously claimed for a century, or has held in reserve for
future use. However, judging by the past, I think our Secretary of
State will do none of these things. This official is selected with
greater care than any other public officer. He is usually a statesman
of high rank or of long experience, and frequently a cautious and
shrewd lawyer into the bargain. The possibilities of diplomatic
mistakes, however, are such that it is necessary for the Secretary of
State to be surrounded by thoroughly trained and skilled
subordinates. This department is among the earliest of the great
divisions of the administration created by Congress in 1789 for
facilitating public business, and during the first forty years of our
national existence was in reality, as now in rank, the leading
department of the government. Years ago, indeed, our foreign policy
was of far more consequence to the country than our domestic
policy, although we still had to struggle, if not for our existence, at
least for our position and our national rights. The Secretary of State,
therefore, is the leading statesman of the party, and at one time in
the nation’s history was almost sure of succeeding to the presidency.
The duty of the Secretary of State not only is the supervision and
management of all the foreign relations of the United States, but
also those duties which in other countries are generally given to the
Keeper of the Seals, or to the Minister of Justice: such, for instance,
as the keeping, promulgation, and publication of the laws; the
custody of the great seal, and the preservation of the government
archives, as well as the charge of all special relations between the
general government and the several states. The first Assistant
Secretary is to be considered as a political officer, in the full
confidence of his chief, able to advise him, and even at times to
replace him; while the second and third Assistant Secretaries have
by necessity and custom become permanent officers. The affairs of
the department are managed with great secrecy, not only because
the officials are careful and trustworthy persons, but because the
general public, as a rule, is but slightly interested in matters
pertaining to our foreign relations, save when some great subject is
under dispute. In England, France or Italy the case is different, since
the Minister of Foreign Affairs has a place in Parliament, and can be
interrogated at any time with regard to particular questions arising
with foreign countries, by which means the public can not help being
more or less informed on such matters, even though the progress of
negotiations may be kept secret. Here the only method for obtaining
such information is by a resolution of either house of Congress,
asking from the President the papers on the question in point, and
making an investigation, if considered necessary, through the
Committee on Foreign Affairs. These papers, however, may be
refused, if thought by the President that their publication would be
disadvantageous to the interests of the government. There is
probably no other country, even Russia or Germany not excepted,
where so little is known by the public of the negotiations carried on
at any one time by the Secretary of State. This has great
advantages, enabling the government to conduct with tranquility a
negotiation which may be extremely necessary, and often to settle
disputes which, if public opinion were excited, might result in a
breach of friendly relations. On account of this quiet way of doing
business, many people are of the opinion that very little work is
done by the State Department. Clerks often work till late at night
and all Sunday, sometimes, preparing commercial and statistical
information in response to a question asked in Congress. The work
of the chief clerk, in one sense, is the hardest of all, for he has to
work in a public room, accessible to all, must inspect every paper
that comes in or goes out, must carry the whole business of the
department in all its details in his head, must see every one who
calls, assist those who have legitimate business, listen to others,
giving “suave answers, but no information,” and withal be patient
and keep his temper. During the last fiscal year the real expense of
the State Department to the nation was less than $400,000; since
the total sum expended ($1,288,355.28) was in great part met by
the fees, which amounted to $899,652.67.
The State Department has not sole authority for the
administration of foreign affairs, for the consideration and approval
of the Senate is required, not only regarding nominations to
diplomatic and consular posts made by the President, but also
regarding treaties made with foreign powers before they can be
ratified. It is fortunate, however, that the Senate can only affirm or
reject a treaty; but, owing to the wording of the article of our
Constitution, which says that the President “with the consent and
advice of the Senate shall conclude treaties,” the Senate considers
that it has the right to amend a treaty already negotiated, a practice
which causes great difficulty, as frequently a Senator to whom the
subject under discussion is not quite clear, insists on the addition of
two or three words to an instrument, which causes a long delay and
frequently protracted negotiations. Treaties are discussed in secret
session, partly because the Senate is acting as a privy council to the
President, and partly because, if the debates were open, things
might be said which would give offense to foreign governments. As
to this latter point, I can only observe that the practice of debating a
treaty in open session has not been found to work badly in those
countries in which it is the habit.
A feeling of jealousy has been growing up between the House of
Representatives and the Senate, and has become very evident
during the last few months, the House maintaining that, as it alone
was empowered to initiate measures touching the revenue, the
President had no right to negotiate a commercial treaty without
previously consulting that body. I do not think that this contention is
supported by the Constitution, but at the same time the practice of
our government has changed so much of recent years, in giving
larger and larger powers to the lower House, that it is not without
some reason that such a view is supported. In order to obviate such
disputes, the Secretary of the State Department, before making a
commercial treaty and engaging the country in a new commercial
system, should, as was done in the negotiation of the Mexican
treaty, ask Congress for authority to conclude it. Again, the powers
allowed by the Senate to its standing committees form another
obstacle to the ratification of treaties, since it is impossible, except
by an actual vote of the Senate, to compel the committee to report
to the full Senate a treaty which has already been referred to it for
consideration. In the Senate committees are elected; in the House
they are named by the Speaker. The sub-committee of three, which
is in charge of the appropriations for the diplomatic and consular
service, is generally named by the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, and in nine cases out of ten is composed of persons
possessing no previous acquaintance with the subject. To the sub-
committee are presented the estimates made up by the Secretary of
State, and a bill is then prepared. It can raise a grade here, establish
a consul there, pare down a salary in one place, or abolish a mission
in another. Of course some of the changes made by this sub-
committee are often very excellent, and even necessary but its main
idea seems to be to reduce the appropriation to the lowest limit from
motives of economy; not that the nation at large cared for a saving
of ten or twenty thousand dollars, but because by gaining the
reputation of being economical, constituents might believe its
members worthy of a new election. The bill is next reported to the
House, where party strength is drilled to support the committees.
Every amendment is there voted down, for the men whose salaries
are sometimes retroactively voted down, are too far away to be
heard. From the House the bill is passed to the Senate. The general
theory of the Senate committees is to reject every change made by
the House, and to hold pretty closely to the law of the last Congress,
restoring what had been omitted, and adding some appropriations
for unforeseen expenses, secret service money, or as technically
expressed, for “expenses in carrying out the Neutrality Act,” etc. The
Senate generally passes the amended bill with slight debate, except
in unusual cases. The House next, on motion of the sub-committee,
is wont to reject without debate all the Senate amendments, and
very often suggests a committee of conference. In like manner the
Senate refuses to recede from its amendments, and accepts the
conference. Then a secret meeting is held of the two sub-
committees, who bargain with each other, giving and taking, each
yielding part, and reporting the results to their respective houses in
such a technical form that it is impossible to understand it without a
careful examination of all the papers. This the clerk reads hastily,
and it is passed without debate, often containing new matter never
before proposed in the open House. I am not blaming either body,
but simply explaining a system which is becoming the habitual way
of passing all appropriation bills. How can an already underpaid
consul perform his duties properly and vigorously, when every few
months he has to consider the chances of having his salary cut
down, or when engaged in an important investigation by order of his
government, he is quietly informed that his salary ceased a month or
six weeks before?
The interests of our country demand that our diplomatic and
consular service should be fixed by a general law, subject of course
to necessary changes, to be recommended by the department, and
not undergo this annual tinkering, to which no other branch of the
government and no other class of officials are subjected.
Let us next consider the duties of the agents of the government
under the control of the State Department, which belongs to one of
two classes, those in the consular and those in the diplomatic
service.
Consuls differ from diplomatic agents (by whatever name they
may be known), in that while the latter are the representatives of
one state or government to another, consuls are the representatives
of the individuals of the nation sending them, empowered to protect
individual interests, and to procure for their fellow-citizens, as far as
possible, the same protection to their rights that they enjoy at home.
They represent commercial interests only. They can address
themselves directly to the local authorities when the rights of their
fellow-citizens are infringed, but if redress be not given, they can not
apply to the supreme government, except in cases specially provided
for by treaty. They must refer the matter to legation or their own
government. In other words they have no diplomatic or
representative rights, powers or privileges. Formerly consuls had
power as arbitrators, but gradually the legal jurisdiction over
disputes was withdrawn in nearly all except non-Christian countries,
although for purposes of wills or intestate property this jurisdiction
has still been in some measure preserved. With regard to maritime
matters the case is different; and here, for the purpose of avoiding
protracted disputes in the courts of the country, the consuls are still
allowed large jurisdiction. This is nowadays in most cases regulated
by special treaties.
Consuls are in a certain way charged with watching over the
execution of treaties, for they must protect any of their countrymen
whose rights are invaded, and must immediately bring to the
attention of their government any such infringement. In general,
they observe the movements of naval forces of all nations on the
coast near the port in which they are placed, and it is their duty also
to watch over the dignity of their own country in maintaining the
rights of their flag. Not only are they obliged to give aid, advice, and
assistance to the ships of their commercial marine, but they should
in their correspondence with their government report all events
touching the navigation, the various changes in the commerce of the
countries where they live, and especially anything touching the
special commerce with the country which sends them. In fine, they
are bound to keep pace with the state and progress of
manufactures, the rise of new branches of industry, and in general,
the increase or diminution of the public wealth, taking especial care
to be well acquainted with all matters where other countries may
gain advantage over their own. They are given a sort of police
jurisdiction over the commercial vessels of their own country; they
are generally charged with the duty of investigating shipwrecks and
saving property from the wrecked or stranded vessels; with all
disputes between captains and sailors; with arresting deserters; and
with sending back shipwrecked or discharged seamen. In time of
war their duties in these respects are still more important, for they
are obliged, so far as the international law, the special treaties, or
the laws of the country in which they are placed will permit them, to
protect at all hazard the commercial and naval interests of their
country against arbitrary acts, whether committed by the country to
which they are sent, or by the nation at war with it.
On the death of one of their countrymen they in general take
possession of his effects, and in case of property left in the country,
manage, keep, and dispose of it for the benefit of the heirs. They
are charged, beside, with notarial duties of all kinds, and in most
cases they are the only authorities who can validate legal
instruments between citizens of their country, or others to be used
at home.
In addition to the general duties of a consul various special duties
are imposed on American consuls by our tariff system, which do not
generally exist in the services of other countries.
It is necessary for our consuls to verify in triplicate every invoice
of goods sent to the United States. Not only is he obliged to take the
oaths of the manufacturer or exporter, but he is expected to have a
special knowledge of the trade of the place and of the actual value
of the goods, so that he can control the statements made to him; for
our system does not accept the valuations of goods always at the
actual price paid for them, but at the market value of the place
where they are manufactured or chiefly sold. Besides keeping a
number of official records, registers, and fee books, carrying on his
ordinary correspondence with the Department of State, and carefully
prescribed forms relating to the business of his office, and of
everything of interest of a commercial nature to the government, the
consul is obliged to make quarterly, semi-annual and annual returns,
both to the State Department and to the Treasury. He must, for
instance, at the end of each quarter give a digest of the invoices
verified by him during that period; of the arrivals and departures of
American vessels, a return nowadays exceedingly simple; of
deceased American citizens; a record of his notarial services, or
unofficial fees; a summary of the whole consular business; and, in
case the consul has extraterritorial jurisdiction, a return of the
business of the consular coast, and also a record of his official fees.
Still other duties are the submitting of quarterly, semi-annual, and
annual reports. The consul at Shanghai has such duties placed upon
him as give him supervisory control over all consulates in China, vest
him with semi-diplomatic powers, cause him to participate in the
municipal government of the foreign settlement, make him a judge
in civil causes, give him charge of the gaol in which American
prisoners are confined, constitute him judge of a criminal court, of a
court of probate and divorce, of an equity and nisi prius court,
appoint him United States postmaster, give him the duties of a
seaport consulate, and place under his control the protection of the
revenue of his government.
Diplomats are agents of a higher class and with different
functions. According to Caloo, who is now generally accepted as the
best modern writer of international law, diplomacy is the science of
the relations existing between different states, such as result from
their reciprocal interests, the principles of international law, and the
stipulations of treaties and conventions; or, more concisely,
diplomacy is the science of relations, or simply the art of
negotiations. According to Caloo, the essential nature of diplomacy is
to assure the well-being of peoples, to maintain between them
peace and good harmony, while guaranteeing the safety, the
tranquility, and the dignity of each of them. The part played by
diplomatic agents consists principally in conducting negotiations
relative to these important objects, in watching over the execution of
treaties which follow from them, in preventing anything which might
injure the interests of their fellow-citizens in the countries where
they reside, and in protecting those of them who may be obliged to
ask for their assistance. According to rules adopted by the Congress
in Vienna in 1815, diplomatic agents were divided into three classes:
(1) Ambassadors, legates, or nuncios; these two latter being sent
only by the Pope; (2) Envoys, ministers plenipotentiary, or other
persons accredited to a sovereign or sovereign state; and, (3)
Chargés d’Affaires, who are accredited only to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. According to the old custom, ambassadors represented the
person of the sovereign, and accordingly enjoyed higher ceremonial
honors than were paid to other diplomatic agents. They could also
address themselves personally to the sovereign or chief magistrate
of the country to which they were sent for matters of business,
instead of having to negotiate with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
Nowadays ambassadors differ from other diplomatic agents only in
rank and precedence. The United States having no ambassadors,
and but few envoys and ministers plenipotentiary, does not always
receive equal privileges of rank with some other countries. Our
interests certainly demand that in every country we should be
represented by agents of the highest title known or accepted there.
More questions are settled by a few informal words at a dinner table
than by a formal process of correspondence, although, of course,
when great principles are at stake a formal mode of procedure is
necessary. It is therefore evidently to be desired that diplomatic
agents in a given place should be of equal rank and on a friendly
footing with each other.
There are several cases in which the Minister of the United States,
if he had more official authority, could manage to have matters
arranged which ultimately affect our interests. At Constantinople, for
instance, where there is an effort to undermine the treaty rights of
all foreigners, the ambassadors have of late adopted the habit of
meeting one another in an unofficial way, and of laying down rules
and taking action regarding extraterritorial matters, which are then
proposed to the rest of the diplomatic body. In general, the
representatives of the smaller states are asked for their approval or
dissent, but given no chance to suggest or argue. Three years ago,
indeed, our government found it necessary to protest against this
course, for it was beginning to be tacitly understood that only the
ambassadors of what were called the Signatory Powers—those who
were represented at the Congress in Berlin in 1878—should have
any voice in matters which affected the interests of all foreigners in
Turkey. Our protest had the theoretical result of bringing about
occasional conferences of all foreign representatives, but the
practice remains much as before.
Foreign ministers of the United States should be enabled to live in
a style suitable to their rank. Nor is this simply a question of display,
but for a minister to be useful he must make acquaintance with the
leading persons of the country, and entertain them at his house.
The necessary qualifications for employment in the diplomatic
service are a knowledge of French, and generally at least of one
other language; a good acquaintance with history, treaties and
international law. It is also necessary that he be a gentleman: i. e.,
acquainted with the ways of the world, and the usages and manners
of the best society in each capital in which he is expected to move.
The word “gentleman” does not necessarily imply a man of good
birth, or belonging to a well known family, although the son or
grandson of the President of the United States would always have
more credit and influence in the place to which he was sent than
one of whom nothing was known.

It is hard to create among a Christian people, enthusiasm for an

infidel, however talented he may have been, or however much good
he may have done; for his revelation to man, even if true, is an
unwelcome and painful revelation, adding nothing to his happiness
or comfort in life or in death; while the faith of the believer is an
inspiring one, filling his life with the sunshine of hope, and
surrounding it with a halo of imperishable glory. Most people have
an instinctive dread of the man who with ruthless hand, attempts to
destroy all those sacred hopes and fears which have been instilled
into their minds by their nearest and dearest benefactor, their
mother.—“How to Get On in the World,” by Robert Waters.
 MADURA AND ITS PAGODA.

BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST.

When I was buying my ticket at Tuticorin for Madura, the station

agent was kind enough to say:
“Don’t you know there is cholera in Madura?”
“What, real Asiatic cholera?”
“It’s real Asiatic cholera, and nothing else,” he answered.
“I have not heard it before,” I replied. “I have only this moment
landed from the steamer ‘Nerbudda,’ and have had no news of any
kind. Many deaths?”
“Oh, no. Nothing compared with last year. Five thousand died
during the season. Only about ten die a day just now, and we don’t
consider that anything.”
I mused a moment on the mortality of ten cholera patients a day
in a place of fifty thousand, and then asked: “Do you think it safe to
go?”
“I can’t answer that. It all depends.”
Two facts now came to my relief. One was, that few people in
India think cholera contagious. There are no separate hospitals for
such cases. Cholera patients are put in the same wards with patients
suffering from fever and other diseases. The other fact was, that two
weeks before, when I was in Puna, there had been a cholera case in
the native bazar, and yet I had a most pleasant ride through that
part of the city, and had suffered no harm, and saw no alarm
anywhere. The truth is, nobody thinks of cholera as any more likely
to happen than any mild disease. Dr. Waugh told me only yesterday
that cholera prevailed more or less in all Indian towns, but that
nobody minded it. It might be next door, but it frightened no one.
The only thing is to watch its beginning, and manage it, as you can,
with care and caution. Another is, to take care of one’s diet. This
must be said, however, that when cholera does come, and its first
stage is neglected, the collapse is very sudden.
Taking all things together it did not seem much of a risk to spend
my intervening day, before meeting an engagement at Bangelore, in
the Mysore, in making a halt in Madura, and using my only
opportunity to see the famous Pagoda there—the largest, not only in
India, but in the world.
Long before reaching Madura one can see the great towers which
rise above the Pagoda, and dominate not alone the city, but the
whole surrounding country. In many of the Indian cities the temple
is in the suburbs, and even completely alone, in the country, having
been left by the drift of the population far out into other directions.
But this is not the case in Madura. The Pagoda is in the very heart of
the old city. The bazars lead directly toward it, and overflow into it.
It is the city in miniature, with its dirt, ill odors, poverty, wealth,
superstition, and infamous idolatry. All the surging tide of tradesmen
drifts toward and about it. No adequate conception of an Indian
temple can be formed from any European illustration of sacred
places. Perhaps the Troitskoi Monastery in Russia, where many
cathedrals are grouped around one central sacred place, making the
whole a very Canterbury, is as near an approach to an Indian temple
and its spaces as can be found anywhere west of Asia.
Madura has long been celebrated for this Pagoda. There are
conflicting opinions as to its antiquity. It is probable that the place
itself was regarded sacred, and was the site of a temple long before
a city was built here. It is not unlikely that the temple was the first
building, and that the city grew out of it, and all about it. The
immense structure gives clear evidence of its own antiquity. It was
built in the third century before the Christian era, by King Kula
Shekhara. It is evidently a case where the city has sprung into life
from religious associations, and become the capital of a large
territory. Some parts of the Pagoda are modern, and were built by
Nurmala Nark, in the former half of the seventeenth century, but one
can easily distinguish the newer from the older. The effect,
throughout, is one of great and undisturbed antiquity.
The Pagoda space is an immense parallelogram, extending 744
feet from east to west, and 847 feet from north to south. This area
is enclosed by a light wall, and is flanked, at various points, by nine
colossal towers. These towers are of peculiar structure, all after the
same model, and so disposed toward each other as to form a
symmetrical combination. Each constitutes a kind of gateway, for
entrance from different sides of the wall. As you enter you find
yourself passing through a great open corridor. The gopura is shaped
like a tent, and on every side is ornamented with carvings. These
represent the fabulous doings of the god Shiva and his wife,
Minakshi, and ascend in lessening rows, or stories, until the apex is
reached, which is sharp and curved, and reminds one of the general
form of an old Roman gallery. The colors of these gopuras are very
rich, and, in the case of several, shine like fine tiling, or even gay
enamel. The blue is especially rich, and is fairly dazzling in the bright
sunlight. While Shiva is the god to whom the temple is supposed to
have been dedicated, the more frequent representations of his wife
Minakshi prove her to be the favorite of the people.

THE SCENE IN THE MADURA TEMPLE.

Two gopuras constitute the great entrances. Through one of
these I went, with a crowd of about fifty ill-clad beggars following
me. They held high carnival as they passed around and against me,
and called for alms. I noticed many sleepers in the darker corners, in
various parts of the temple spaces. They lie in every position. It
seems a habit of the Maduran when he gets thoroughly tired in his
tent, or in the bazar, to drop into this temple and fall down for a
good nap at the feet of Shiva, or some other idol, for Madura is a
spot which for ages has been held strangely sacred by the Hindoo
worshiper. Having passed through the gopura, and completed the
passage of the great corridor, you see the beginnings only of this
wonderful temple. There stretch out before you great reaches of
passages, and halls, and still farther corridors, in all possible
directions. But for my safe guide, who added to his other duties the
good one of keeping off the crowd of ragged and starving and ill-
smelling beggars with a stout bamboo rod, I should have lost my
way at once. At your right you see an immense hall, the Hall of One
Thousand Columns, which extends far away until it is lost in such
dark and distant spaces as I cared not to explore. But, beyond it—
for I came back that way—there is a special temple sacred to the
ruling god, Shiva. At your left are venders of images, sweetmeats,
toys, and various other articles, which, for some reason, are
permitted to be sold within the sacred walls. The men who sell them
are squatted over the floor, on mats of palm, and their wares lie
about them. Think of a seller of small wares, in a temple, sitting or
standing, with his goods arranged on a counter or row of shelves!
Such a thing would be preposterous beyond measure. The drift is
downward. No Hindoo will stand if he can possibly drop on the floor.
He doubles up his legs under him. That is his normal position. He
may be talking with you this moment, and as much interested in
standing or walking as any one. But a sudden change comes over
him. Down he drops, and no boy ever closed the two blades of a
jack-knife more quickly than the Hindoo doubles himself up, either
on the temple floor, or at the side of the street, or in his own
doorway. And there he can sit by the hour, nay, the whole day, and
be as calm as the serene face of Buddha himself.
Perhaps these sellers in the Madura Pagoda have some ancestral
claim on the favors of the authorities, by which they receive the
privilege of spreading out their wares in the holy place. Over your
head there flies about a flock of doves. They are sacred, and woe to
the hand that would hurt a feather on their sweet heads! The
worshipers feed them. It is a sacred privilege. Yonder, to your left,
three sacred elephants are feeding and frisking their trunks about as
if they really knew that they were picking up great wisps of straw
and hay within the most holy place in all this region. Come, I must
hasten, or their priestly keepers will loosen the chains of one of
them in a trice, and have the mammoth dropping down on all fours,
and pulling me up on his back, to take an elephant ride through this
labyrinth of marvels. Imagine the absurdity of an elephant ride on a
temple floor! Yet that is what you can do here, and take a long
promenade, and never have him repeat his pathway. I have had two
elephant rides, and want no more for a decade, at least. But by
going through this first doorway I get away from the venders, and
the elephants, and pass out of sight of the Hall of a Thousand
Columns, and its great, interminable spaces. Here one is in a
corridor nearly two hundred feet long, with pillars groaning beneath
a wealth of sculptured images. Now comes a brazen door. The frame
is vast and heavy, and is entirely surrounded with brazen lamps, all
of which are lighted during a festive season, perhaps the Tailotsava,
“the oil festival.”
Monier Williams happened to visit the Madura Pagoda at the time
of the “oil festival,” and thus describes the wretched scene: “A
coarse image of the goddess (Minakshi), profusely decorated with
jewels, and having a high head-dress of hair, was carried in the
center of a long procession, on a canopied throne, borne by eight
Brahmans, to a platform in the magnificent hall, opposite the
temple. There the ceremony of undressing the idol, removing its
ornaments, anointing its head with oil, bathing, redecorating and
redressing it was gone through, and shouting, singing, beating of
tom-toms, waving of lights and cowries, ringing of bells, and
deafening discord from forty or fifty so-called musical instruments,
each played by a man who did his best to overpower the sound of all
the others combined. At the head of the procession was borne an
image of Ganesa. Then followed three elephants, a long line of
priests, musicians, attendants bearing cowries and umbrellas, with a
troop of dancing girls bringing up the rear.
 “No sight I witnessed in India made me more sick at heart than
this. It presented a sad example of the utterly debasing character of
the idolatry which, notwithstanding the counteracting influences of
education and Christianity, still enslaves the masses of the
population, deadening their intellects, corrupting their imaginations,
warping their affections, perverting their consciences, and disfiguring
the fair soil of a beautiful country with hideous usages and practices
unsanctioned by even their own minds and works.”—“Religious
Thought and Life in India.” Part I, pp. 442-443.
You are now introduced into a darker corridor, and then again into
a broad and pillared space, where the columns are sculptured, being
cut through and through into figures of dancing gods, like Shiva
when he played his flute to the shepherds. You now look out upon a
little sheet of water with a miniature temple in the middle of it. This
is the Lake of the Golden Lilies. Near by it is the little chapel where
Queen Mangammal’s subjects starved her to death in 1706, having
placed food so near that she could see and smell it, but not taste it.
We now enter another department of the temple; above there are
stone images, up around the pillars, in all corners, and hanging
down over you wherever you go, near walls or archways. These
images are not grave and majestic, but, in the main, grotesque,
bacchanalian, in fantastic attitudes, and often combining the bodies
of man and beast. They represent, for the most part, the escapades
of Shiva. Every now and then one comes to a shrine, where
worshipers lie prostrate before it, and remain motionless for a long
time. No one knows how long it has taken these poor dusty pilgrims
to reach this sacred place. Perhaps they have been three months on
the journey. They come from the very base of the Himalayas, or the
borders of Thibet, and now that they have reached the end of their
pilgrimage, would die with a happy heart. There are several gold
plated images, veiled from view, which represent the god Shiva, or
his wife, in some part of their marvelous career. The representations
in stone, both of men and the brute world, are frequent everywhere.
Elephants, horses, cattle, and every kind of animal held sacred in the
Hindoo mythology, are cut out of stone, and made to portray the
supposed divine attributes of Shiva and his wife. Here, too, are the
very vehanas, or great chariots, plated with gold, in which the god
and his wife are taken out on special days in the year, to ride. Beside
these there are silver litters, which serve the same divine purpose on
other days.
One grows weary of the procession of splendid but gross images
and idols in this vast space. Now you are out for a time in the open
air, where a vacancy has been left in the roof, and the beautiful sky
throws down its blessed sunlight upon this terrible picture of idolatry.
But very soon you are brought again under the shadowing and lofty
ceiling, and before you are aware of it, you are almost lost in a dark
labyrinth of sculptured pillars, black idols in gold wrappings, dusty
and absorbed pilgrims, cheerful doves, and the constant crowd of
men and boys, who follow you, either to sell you their sweets, or
beg for your loose coppers. All at once you come out from a corridor
to the marble steps of a miniature lake. Be careful now. Only the
real Hindoo dares to step down into its waters. For every drop is
sacred, and must touch only the skin of Shiva’s children. Over the
calm surface the towers stand as gay sentinels, from century to
century. Turning again, you must look carefully, or you will tread
upon a sleeping form, which has dropped in from the hot air, and let
fall its burden, and eaten its crust, and now rests an hour. There is a
mother, with a nose-ring so large that it hangs down over her
mouth, and she must eat through it, or starve. Her ankles are
encircled by heavy silver anklets, cut like serpents. Her toes are
glittering with jeweled rings. She has led her child up before an
image of Shiva’s wife, and is explaining what it all means. Poor
woman! Little she knows the truth. The One Name above all others
she has never once heard. Here is a dwarf, who stands beside a
shrine, and holds out his withered hand for an anna. Here, in a place
where the statuary has given way to the wear of ages, are workmen
in stone, who are making new pillars, with sculptured flutings, to
take the place of the old. All the work, every stroke of mallet and
chisel, must be done right here, where everything is holy, and Shiva
smiles down upon the labor.
 Anecdote of Jerrold.—His heart was as kindly a one as ever beat in
a human bosom; and his hand most liberal, and often far more
liberal than his means might have justified. He was once asked by a
literary acquaintance, whether he had the courage to lend him a
guinea. “Oh, yes,” he replied, “I’ve got the courage; but I haven’t
got the guinea.” He had always the courage to do a kind action, and
when he had the guinea it was always at the command of the
suffering, especially if the sufferer was an honest laborer in the field
of literature.—“Personal Traits of British Authors.”
 GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR MAY.

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.

THE SUN.
Although at the time these lines are written the sun has not in his northern
course reached the equator, and with us here in the north the ground is covered
with snow, yet by the time our readers see these words in print a great change will
have taken place in the face of nature; the beautiful green of the winter wheat will
cover the fields, the tulips and hyacinths exhibit their brilliant colors, and our forests
begin to display their refreshing foliage, and “Old Sol” himself will have completed
half his journey to the tropics and have measured for us many days of the “little
span” allotted to the life of man.

“Men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.”

And thus are we ever reminded of the “flight of time.” The days grow longer and
the shadows shorter; but “all too soon” the shadows begin again to lengthen and
the nights increase. Of this, perhaps, we should not complain; for the many long
days of summer give us ample opportunity to perform our duties during the “noble
sunlight,” and we shall probably be glad of the rest that comes with the “shortening
hours.”
During May our time is slow, the sun coming to the meridian about three minutes
before noon, as indicated by our clocks. Sunrise occurs at 4:58, 4:42, and 4:32 a.
m., on the 1st, 16th, and 30th, respectively, while sunset is at 6:55, 7:10, and 7:22
p. m. on the corresponding days. Day breaks on the 16th at 2:43 a. m., and twilight
ends at 9:09 p. m., giving eighteen hours and twenty-seven minutes from “early
dawn to dewy eve.” The length of day varies from thirteen hours fifty-seven minutes
to fourteen hours fifty minutes. Increase in right ascension, north 6° 36′.

THE MOON’S
Phases occur as follows: last quarter, on 7th, at 3:35 a. m.; new moon, 14th, at
10:09 a. m.; first quarter, 21st, 12:37 a. m.; full moon, 28th, 3:22 p. m. Rises on
the 1st, at 9:16 p. m.; sets on the 16th at 9:29 p. m.; rises on the 30th at 8:49 p.
m. Farthest from the earth (in apogee) on the 4th, at 5:18 a. m., and again on the
31st, at 6:54 p. m. Nearest to earth (in perigee) on the 16th, at 4:54 a. m. In
latitude 41° 30′, least elevation on the 3d, amounting to 30° 11′ 56″, and again on
the 30th, amounting to 30° 5′. Greatest elevation on the 17th, equal to 66° 51′ 38″.

MERCURY
Affords sharp-eyed early risers before and after the 25th, a few days’ opportunity to
get a glimpse of his countenance, as he reaches his greatest western elongation at
7:00 a. m. of the above named date. On the 11th, at 4:00 a. m., he is farthest from
the sun; same date, at 2:00 p. m., stationary; on the 12th, at 10:59 p. m., 22′ south
of the moon; on 13th, at 3:00 a. m., 2° 27′ south of Mars, and again on the 30th,
at 4:00 p. m., 2° 56′ south of same planet. Motion 2° 27′ 12″ retrograde up to the
11th; and from 11th to end of the month, 14° 54′ 35″ direct. Diameter diminishes
from 12″ on the 1st to 7.4″ on the 31st. The times of his rising are as follows: On
the 1st, 4:49 a. m.; on the 16th, 3:59 a. m.; and on the 30th, 3:36 a. m.

VENUS.
During the month the beauty of this planet is quite overshadowed by the superior
light of the sun. Her times of rising and setting are nearly his own, and her diameter
ranges from 9.8″ to 10″. On the 4th, about noon, the sun is between her and the
earth (in superior conjunction). On the 11th, at 6:00 p. m., she is 1° 15′ north of
Neptune; on the 14th, at 1:17 p. m., 3° 47′ north of the moon; motion direct,
amounting to 39° 15′ 47″. On the 1st, she rises at 5:05 a. m., and sets at 6:45 p.
m.; and on the 16th, rises at 4:59 a. m., sets at 7:21 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at
5:03 a. m., sets at 7:53 p. m.

MARS,
Like Venus, keeps near the sun during the entire month, rising on the 1st at 4:24 a.
m.; on the 16th, at 3:43 a. m., and on the 30th, at 3:25 a. m., and setting on the
corresponding days at 5:22, 5:21, and 5:19 p. m. respectively. His diameter is 4.4″,
and his motion 22° 14′ 33.6″ eastwardly (direct). On the 12th, at 10:55 p. m., he is
2° 3′ north of the moon; on the 30th, at 4:00 p. m., 2° 56′ north of Mercury.

JUPITER,
Now that Venus “hides her diminished head,” “does himself proud,” attracting the
eye of the most casual observer. His proximity to the star Alpha Leonis (Regulus),
particularly on the 30th, when he is about two thirds of a degree north of the latter,
detracts nothing from his prominence; but on the other hand, rather renders him
more conspicuous. On the 17th, at 10:00 a. m., he is just 90° east of the sun; and
on the 20th, at 9:37 p. m., 4° 17′ north of the moon. His diameter decreases during
the month from 37.2″ to 34.2″ and he makes a direct advance of 2° 3′ 51″. On the
1st, he rises at 12:25 p. m., and sets next morning at 2:03; on the 16th, he rises at
11:30 a. m., and sets on the 17th at 1:04 a. m.; on the 30th, rises at 10:42 a. m.,
and sets at 12:14 a. m. on the 31st.

SATURN.
Those who wish to see in all his grandeur this planet with his rings, must not
longer delay. Each day brings him nearer the sun, so that by the close of the month
his time of setting is only about one hour after sunset. His diameter decreases four
tenths of a second of arc, and his motion is 3° 44′ direct. On the 16th, at 9:35 a.
m., he is 4° 2′ north of the moon. He rises on the 1st at 7:23 a. m. and sets at
10:05 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 6:31 a. m., sets at 9:15 p. m.; on the 30th, rises
at 5:44 a. m., sets at 8:28 p. m.

URANUS.
This planet will be an evening star, and afford a fine opportunity for observation
to those who have the means at hand profitably to view it. Our limited knowledge
of its physical properties make it, to the ordinary observer, a matter of little interest.
It rises on the 1st at 3:15 p. m., and sets on the 2nd at 3:21 a. m.; on the 16th, it
rises at 2:15 p. m., and sets at 2:21 the next morning; on the 30th, it rises at 1:18
p. m. and sets on the 31st at 1:26 a. m. It maintains the same diameter, 3.8″,
throughout the month, and makes a direct motion of 2° 13′ 45″. On the 23d, at
4:38 a. m., will be 1° 11′ north of the moon.

NEPTUNE.
And now we come to the “last but not least,” by any means, of our planets—a
planet, however, that interests us but very little, as we can only see it through a
quite powerful telescope, and then only as a small, pale disk. Yet its movements are
ascertained and recorded just as those are of other planets, and so far as we know
them, we are just as confident of the obtained results. As much so as we are of the
some two hundred and twenty small bodies that are so much nearer to us, whose
orbits lie between that of Mars and that of Jupiter; more confident than we are of
the orbits of those erratic bodies we call comets, which seem to come and go at
pleasure, and were formerly the terror of all who beheld them; and of those other
bodies known as meteors, meteorites, or aerolites, which not only terrify those who
behold them, but frequently injure and destroy the beings with which they come in
contact. In fact, we know that Neptune, although apparently so small, is a globe
34,500 miles in diameter, and so far away as to do us no harm, while there may be
thousands of little invisible globes flying around our earth waiting for some
favorable opportunity to break away from their restraints and hurl themselves, as
those did at Stannern in 1812, or at Orgueil, in France, in 1864, upon our devoted
heads or our cherished treasures. Let us, then, respect our obscure and distant
friend, with whom we are definitely acquainted, and record his acts as follows: For
the first part of the month he will be an evening star; from the 13th, on which date
he will be in conjunction with the sun, he will be a morning star; and on the 14th,
at 7:47 a. m., will be 2° 15′ north of the moon. His motion will be direct, and
amount to 1° 10′; his diameter 2.5″. On the 11th, at 6:00 p. m., he will be 1° 15′
south of Venus. On the 1st he will rise at 5:44 a. m. and set at 7:42 p. m.; on the
16th, rise at 4:48 a. m., set at 6:48 p. m.; on the 30th, rise at 3:54 a. m., set at
5:34 p. m.
 THE HOMELIKE HOUSE.

BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.

CHAPTER IV.—THE BEDROOM.

“The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber whose windows
opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace,
where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang.”—John
Bunyan.
It is impossible to treat of house furnishing and decoration without some allusion
to what hygiene requires of the house builder. In the properly constructed house
the bedroom will be light, airy, and if possible, sunny, like the pilgrim’s chamber. The
bedroom windows should not be so heavily hung with curtains as to obstruct the
free passage of air. Thin curtains of chintz or muslin are better for sleeping rooms
than heavily lined damask or cretonne, as sunlight and pure air are bedroom
essentials.
The cheapest and most convenient treatment for the wall is paper hanging; but
Dr. Richardson, the well known English writer of house and health papers, inveighs
against wall paper upon bedroom walls, and specially against the practice of
papering one layer over another, on the ground that germs of disease are liable to
be cased up behind wall paper, and to remain a source of danger in after years. No
doubt a painted or washable surface is best from a hygienic point of view, but with
proper care paper can be risked.
Light, airy patterns are preferable, of varying tints, but the same general color as
the ground, for the bedroom should never be gloomy, and the less sunshine it gets
from without the more sunny should be the paper that decks its walls. Violent
contrasts in color, and spotty or staring designs are a source of irritating annoyance
to the sick. Let the purchaser, in selecting wall paper, stand at a distance of a dozen
feet or so and look with half closed eyes, and he will get much more of the general
effect, and will see more as the invalid will who may occupy the room when the
paper is hung.
Then, in the matter of drainage and plumbing, there has been a great
overturning in the past few years. People began to discover, about ten years ago,
that their modern improvements were followed by a long train of sore throats,
diphtheria, and typhoid fevers, and the wise householder was led to study the
various systems of pipes and drains. Thanks to our boards of health, and to the
efforts and writings of such men as Col. Waring, much has been done to improve
and perfect the drainage of city houses, but in spite of the advance that has been
made in this direction, modern conveniences often prove in the end to be
inconvenient, if not pernicious, and the fewer set washbowls and water closets with
which our houses are furnished the safer we may feel. With faucets for hot and cold
water on each floor from which to replenish the water jugs, no reasonable servant
could complain of the extra drudgery, much less the sensible woman who “does her
own work,” and all could sleep sounder at night without fear of being haunted by
any of those frightful demons of the drain pipe which were represented in a number
of Harper’s Weekly some years ago, as issuing from a set washbowl and hovering
over the innocent slumberer.
Upon this point all the writers upon house decoration are as one, and Mr. Cook,
in his “House Beautiful” says: “Seeing no certain way to prevent the evil so long as
drain pipes are allowed in bedrooms, many people nowadays are giving up fixed
washstands altogether, and substituting the old fashioned arrangement of a
movable piece of furniture, with movable apparatus, the water brought in pitchers,
and the slops carried away in their native slop jars.” Whether healthier or not, I
think there can be no doubt that the old way is more comfortable by far.
Setting both health and comfort to one side for a moment, there can be no doubt
that the movable washstand, with its paraphernalia of bowls and pitchers, is a more
sightly and decorative object in the bedroom than any set washbowl arrangement
that has yet been contrived. Of course I am referring to the introduction of waste
pipes into the bedroom proper, not to toilet or bath-rooms outside its walls.
In cold weather the bedroom air should be a little cooler, perhaps, than that of
the living rooms of the house, but not many degrees lower.
Our fathers and mothers, when boys and girls, slept in rooms freezing cold, and
broke the ice in their water pitchers in the morning; but they lived in spite of this,
not because of it. There is a deal of loose thinking on this subject. Cold air is no
healthier than warm. It is impure air, warm or cold, that is unhealthy, the cold being
specially pernicious; witness the church influenza, that most obstinate and
unconquerable of all colds, because contracted by sitting in a chilling atmosphere
after the body’s vitality has been reduced through breathing air that has not been
renewed since the last service held in the room.
There was a clever story called “Lizzie Wilson,” published in Littell’s Living Age,
years ago, in which a clergyman’s poor widow is represented as bringing up
satisfactorily, through many straits, a family of young children. As their bedrooms
were not heated, they had a joint dressing room, where the boy of the household
first lighted the fire, and then dressed himself, his mother and sisters occupying the
room later, in turn. This indulgence in the way of comfort, which might have been
deemed an extravagance by others as poor as themselves, was paid for by going
without dessert three days of the week; and the children, when cosily warming their
backs before the dressing room fire, were pleased to call it “taking a slice of
pudding.” A wise household economy of this sort, less pudding and pie and more
fires, would not be amiss in many American homes. To keep one room intolerably
hot, and all others without any heat, is a wasteful retrenchment, which must be
paid for in doctors’ bills and funerals.
The question of single or double beds is also one of some hygienic importance.
When a room is to be occupied by more than one person, the European custom of
placing two single beds side by side has great advantage over the English double
bed fashion. I have known mothers to assert that they observed a marked
improvement in the health and temper of nervous, irritable children, after the little
ones had been removed to single beds, where they could rest without disturbance
from a bedfellow; and no one doubts that sickly or delicate people should occupy
single beds.
As to color, I confess to a stout prejudice against getting up rooms all in one hue.
I would banish altogether the young-ladyish dainty pink or blue room, and confine
the green room to the theater. It is very hard to so manage a symphony in blue, for
example, that it shall be truly symphonious. The cretonne furniture covers are apt
to contain some analine dyes that fade to forlorn and sickly hues in place of their
original smartness. The blue of the wall paper will never agree with that of the
carpet, and the cheap paper cambric or stouter jean that peeps through the muslin
toilet cover grows paler with age, and each passing day increases the general
discord.
White rooms with snowy and spotless walls, curtains and bedcovers, such as
certain nun-like story-book young ladies affect, are chilling in the extreme. Their
immaculate purity alone renders them endurable, and even then the obtrusiveness
of their Dutch-like cleanliness is exasperating. A dingy white room is even more ugly
than an ill-assorted blue one.
If the walls are plain, let the curtains be figured with various colors; if the walls
are papered with figured polychrome hangings, let the curtains be plain, but
harmonizing with some one color of the wall paper. That same color can be
emphasized and repeated in carpet, rugs, and table or bureau cover, but no one
color should be used to the exclusion of all others, as the eye wearies of neutral
tints unrelieved by positive color without a large proportion of neutral tinted space.
A bedroom should look as if intended for the use of its occupants. Much millinery,
quilled and ruffled muslin, and toilet tables in fine petticoats are only allowable in
the room of a dainty young girl who has plenty of time to spend in renewing and
freshening up her ephemeral finery, or in a guest chamber that is seldom used, and
is thus made to look pretty at slight expense. Knick-knackeries of this sort provoke
the righteous wrath of sturdy men, and they are quite out of taste in that most
home-like of all gathering places, the mother’s room. For the name of that chamber
should always be Peace and Comfort. It should be of all bedrooms the most
commodious, the most convenient of access, with the largest of drawers, the
roomiest of closets, the most restful of chairs, and a boundless welcome to all the
household.
Closet room should be struggled for in the building of a house. This is a point
where the masculine intellect shows its weakness and the feminine its strength. A
quick-witted woman will suggest to her architect, nook after nook of waste space to
be utilized as closet room which would altogether escape his notice. No bedroom
should be unfurnished in this regard. When closets are not built in, portable
wardrobes should be supplied.
There is fallacy in the supposition that the most attractive portion of the house
should be reserved as a “spare room” for the casual guest. The family should first
be made comfortable; when that has been done, if one would use hospitality
without grudging, it will be necessary to imitate the great woman of Shunem, and
at least furnish a little chamber with the necessary bed, table, stool and candlestick.
Moving out of one’s own room and doubling up with another for a night or two does
very well in the holiday season, when the spirit of hospitality and good nature is in
the air; but, ordinarily speaking, it is quite a task to empty the upper drawer of
one’s bureau, and leave one’s own comfortable quarters.
So far as health, neatness and style are concerned, brass bedsteads are the best.
They are very simple in form and construction, and so are some of the iron
bedsteads, which can be kept absolutely nice and clean in any climate, and are,
unlike brass, quite inexpensive. The most objectionable of all bedsteads is that

“Contrived a double debt to pay,

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day,”

which is only to be tolerated where a parlor must serve temporarily as sleeping

room. A well made bed is the essential piece of bedroom furniture, which may be
hidden from view by a screen or curtains, but should not be slammed up and boxed
in against the wall, or made to stand upon anything but its own merits.
Wire net springs are probably as good as can be got, and a feather bed under
the mattress is an improvement to the best modern bed, if properly aired, turned
and shaken daily. Mattresses should be remade and their contents pulled lightly
apart before they grow matted or ridgy. Curled hair mattresses are, of course, the
best, but English flock, excelsior, and straw, all make respectable beds, and can be
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