Histoire de l'internationalisme

JONATHAN SWIFT
elle vise tout d'abord à montrer combien une guerre entre ces nains
apparaît méprisable, et le phénomène de la guerre ne devient pas en
soi moins méprisable parce que les belligérants ont six pieds de haut.''
Nous retrouvons cette opinion clairement exprimée dans la description
du voyage de Gulliver à Brobdingnag, où le héros fait au roi des géants
l'éloge de tous les engins de guerre si efficaces inventés par les hommes
et lui propose de l'aider à les introduire dans son royaume. (Chap. VIII).
Voici comment Swift décrit la réaction du roi à cette proposition :
„ The King was struck with horror of the description I had given of
those terrible engines, and the proposai I had made. He was amazed
how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I could entertain such
inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner as to appear wholly unmoved
at ail the scènes of blood and désolation, which I had painted as the
common effects of those destructive machines, whereof he said, some
evil genius, enemy to mankind, must hâve been the first contriver.
As for himself, he protested, that although few things dehghted him
so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather
lose half his kingdom than be privy to such a secret, which he commanded
me as I valued my life, never to mention any more ".
Enfin — dans le Voyage aux Pays des Chevaux (Chap. V) Swift
nous donne un exposé et une énumération de causes de guerre dont
la violence et l'amère im-onie n'ont pas d'égal dans la littérature pacifiste.
,, Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they hâve
land or people enough to govern ; sometimes the corruption of ministers,
who engage their master in a war in order to stifle or divert the clamour
of the subjects against their evil administration. Différence in opinions
hath cost many millions of hves : for instance, whether flesh be bread,
or bread be flesh ; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine ;
whether whisthng be a vice or a virtue ; whether it be better to kiss
a post, or throw it into the fire ; what is the best colour for a
coat, whether black, white, red or gray ; or whether it should be long
or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean ; with many more. Neither
are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance, as those
occasioned by différence in opinion, especially if it be in things indif-
fèrent.
' Leslie Stephen, 1. c, p. 176.
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