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no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent for war,analogous one might say to the mechanical equivalent for heat, so longthey fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation. 2And so James proposed a conscription of youth for a war uponnature. But James had not put his finger on the mark. It is not waras a discipline and a field of glory for which we must find a substitute.It is war as a source of economic energy for which apparentlywe must find a substitute, if we are to look upon the subject in thatway. Mr. Carr examines this subject more intelligently. "War as aneconomic instrument is possible because it is possible to work up amoral support for war—or for national defense. War produces itseconomic effects wholly by sending the government off upon a giganticspree of spending borrowed funds. It would be possible to obtainthe same effects by spending borrowed funds on any other sort ofproject. But there is, as yet, no project behind which the necessarymoral energy can be generated. Mr. Carr thinks it can be found. Andthe eternal liberal or liberal-radical, whatever is the precise name forhim, toys dangerously with this idea—dangerously to the point offalling out of whatever cloud he happens to be riding into the militaristband wagon when his support is most helpful to his warriorbrothers. Thus such a journal as the New Republic, which, betweenwars, cries out with indignation and scorn every time the Navy asksanother yard of rope for a warship, has to find a crack in its philosophythrough which it can squeeze when militarism becomes a moreor less realizable ideal. The New Republic allowed, when the issuewas presented, that it would like to see something different from theconscription of 1917. It wanted conscription organized as a sort ofglorified CCC that would teach young men arts useful in peace aswell as in war. However, it had to concede—falling into step withits intellectual predecessors of Italy and Germany and France—thatafter all democracy was safer with a citizens' army rather than aprofessional one. If worst comes to worst democracy is safer "wheneveryone knows how to shoot than when only a professional minorityknows." This last incredible morsel belongs to the age when everycitizen knew how to handle a rifle and had one over the mantel or'The Moral Equivalent of War, by William James. American Association for InternationalConciliation, February 1910, No. 27.2IO