Thus Ruskin says that his whole scheme of political economy is based on the moral assimilation of industrial action to military.

"Soldiers of the ploughshare," he exclaims in one of his works, "as well as soldiers of the sword! All my political economy is comprehended in that phrase." So, too, Mr.Frederic Harrison, the English prophet of Positivism, following out the same train of thought, has declared that the soldier's readiness to die in battle for his country is a realised example of a readiness, always latent in men, to spend themselves and be spent in the service of humanity generally.

Again in the same sense, another writer observes, "The soldier's subsistence is certain.

It does not depend on his exertions.

At once he becomes susceptible to appeals to his patriotism, and he will value a bit of bronze, which is the reward of valour, far more than a hundred times its weight in gold"-- a passage to which one of Mr.Sidney Webb's collaborators refers with special delight, exclaiming, "Let those take notice of this last fact who fancy we must wait till men are angels before socialism is practical." Now, the arguments thus drawn from the facts of military activity throw a special light on the methods and mental condition of those who so solemnly urge them; for the error by which these arguments are vitiated is of a peculiarly glaring kind.