Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/79

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Vainglory and Shortsight
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soldiers serving with the enemy, is likely not so much to fall unheeded on our ears as to awaken a perverse resentment, which will prevent us from accepting just those strictures which it is most important that we should accept.

Closely linked with this vainglory is a complete cancelment of all sane, normal grasp of the laws of moral causation; as the one rests on a distortion of vision, the other rests upon a shortening of vision. The child and the savage live in and for the present. So does the Jingo. This is the real explanation of his view of 'settlement' – a short, sharp display of physical force stamping out 'rebellion,' and attended by an administration of 'good government' under autocratic rule. This 'settlement' is no result of reflection; it ignores all the moral or 'sentimental' factors which practically direct history; it is simply the hot-headed resentment of a victorious foe eager to quit the field of conflict and retire to rest or revelry. A formal settlement, a superficial pacification, can be effected by such means; but to speak of 'finality' in connection with a settlement which feeds every root of hostility in the conquered people, and merely prevents ill-feeling from finding vent in violent conduct, is simply to turn our back upon the plainest

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