Thomas Erskine Holland: “Without war the world would stagnate, and lose itself in materialism.”

This being so, it is necessary to recognise also that increased humanity in the mode of making war has in reality followed upon the gradual softening of manners.

If in our own day a law recognised by the civilised world forbids, in a general way, the soldier to make booty in warfare on land, we have here a great advance in civilisation, and the jurists have had their share in bringing it about.

Perpetual peace is a dream, and it is not even a beautiful dream.

Objections might, of course, be made to them as unlikely to produce their hoped-for effect, or as repugnant to our feelings of humanity or honour.