ices and fortunes are those of ordinary life; the tion of the Orestes or the Hecuba may be a rational d self-developing unity, but there is no feeling of reaciliation in the disaster. The conclusions of his plays ve us with the question, How can these things be? e dénouement does not give or renew confidence in life; e horrors and uncertainties of ordinary life are repeated sin upon the stage; the just suffer undeservedly, or to isfy the passions of the gods, and not from the nature their own characters. His men and women are 'as s to wanton boys.' Finally, the zest of action is failing fore the zest of debate and argument. Acceptance of and joy in it is clouded by intellectual doubt. ripides is pessimistic in the modern sense; his aracters are sicklied o'er with the pale cast of ought.' The Athenians no doubt relished the subtlety spirit that manifests itself everywhere in his plays; was not, however, in its proper place on the tragic age of the fifth century, when the will to live and rule as still vigorous. And it is consistent with this exanation that when the joy of immediate activity gan to fail, he became the most popular dramatist. rom the fourth century onwards he delighted audiences over the Greek world by those discussions of life's oblems, which replace in his plays direct action. In irit and in diction he is very close to the other most pular literary art of that period-the Middle and New medy. Sophocles, on the other hand, felt to the end his life the essential relationship between Greek agedy and life.

Tragedy has never again been able to attain the preme importance it exercised in Greece. The Shakeearean tragedy is not a synthesis of religious and thetic emotion. It is not rooted in the national conption of life. A modern audience does not look to gedy to justify the course of the world; it has ligious and spiritual convictions quite independent of tragic fact of life. The representation cannot be intense for us as for the Greeks, because we have ferent views about life, possibly a faith that this life only a very small part of a wider existence. The Brest approach that we have to Greek Tragedy in ensity of feeling and significance is the Gospel drama

of the Passion, and the memorial of it in the Roma Mass set to music by a great composer. Whether w are Christians or not, we are not dependent upon th drama of Hamlet or King Lear for reconciliation withe life. We may learn from them the magnificence of rat the nobility and the helplessness of man; we may forg Y in them for a moment our troubles and fears; they & not the only justification of life that we possess. Li Job, we believe that our Redeemer lives in our religion a faith as well as in various spiritual ideals, by which lin may acquire continuity and meaning. In their wide form we call them belief in the Kingdom of God or the progress of the world, and by those terms we c measure the great gulf between us and the Greeks the fifth century, for whom the ideas of indefin progress or a 'kingdom not of this world' did not exi Yet such differences do not lessen, they only emphasia vi the lonely splendour of Greek Tragedy, where, ford brief period, an art-form has been accepted by a peopo as a satisfactory interpretation of life.

t. 4.—THE STUDY OF WAR.

On War. By C. von Clausewitz. Translated by Col. J. J. Graham. Three vols. Kegan Paul, 1908.

The Art of War in the Middle Ages. By Sir Charles Oman. Two vols. Methuen, 1924.

The Great Illusion. By Norman Angell. Heinemann, 1909.

Essays and Addresses in War Time. By Viscount Bryce. Macmillan, 1918.

War and Armament Expenditure of Japan. Carnegie Endowment. Oxford University Press, 1922.

Report on the Education and Training of Officers. H.M. Stationery Office, 2031, 1924.

And other works.

OST young men who adopted the profession of arms in e Victorian and pre-Victorian days of territorial conest must have pondered, during their first campaign, on the problem of their personal responsibility for king human life. Although more than forty years sve since passed, I retain a clear memory of such roblems having confronted many who took part in e Soudan campaign in 1884, which culminated in the attles of El Teb and Tamaai. Most of us who were resent at those battles had no clear idea what the onflict was about, or any desire to kill the Hadendowa rabs, who were greatly admired by all ranks, until it ecame a question of choice between killing and being lled. Then we killed as many as we could, as quickly we could. It was not pleasant work, as they had no ance against our rifles and machine-guns; but we ere consoled by the thought that no responsibility sted upon ourselves. The people who sent us there be killed if we did not kill were responsible. This leads naturally to the widespread attitude of difference in this country towards the intelligent study war, and of everything connected therewith. It is nsidered an unpleasant subject, and the policy generally dopted is confined to paying soldiers and sailors—and, owadays, airmen to learn how to kill foreign soldiers ad sailors-and, nowadays, civilians—as soon as they e told to do so. That, however, is only one side of

war. Many histories have been written about it; fe are really war histories. To one of these, on the Art d War in the Middle Ages, I propose to refer in due cours Most of them are only histories of naval and militar operations. There is in the English language no book War in the abstract which approaches in importance t work of Clausewitz, and even that suffers from two faul It is not a book, but a collection of rough and illuminati notes, made by the author, and put together by his wi after his death. It cannot therefore be read as a histo though no student of war can dispense with it as a bo of reference. The other fault is that the author, li most soldiers of the continental school of warfare, tak little if any account of war upon the high seas. notes must, therefore, be read in conjunction with t writings of Mahan, Sir Julian Corbett, and others w have specialised in this aspect of warfare.

rende

To revert, for a moment, to the British attitu towards war. About the year 1906, the Directing St of our leading educational establishment in the Arr found out for certain-from indications offered by n railway construction-that, if the great European W came, Germany would attack France through Belgium. then became the ambition of nearly all the officers at t Staff College, and of a large number of other officers the Army, to persuade their employers, the British publ to realise what might have to be faced in the immedia future, and for that reason to learn something abo war, about its nature, and about its conduct. Th attitude of the public in those days can best be cor pared to that of the people of the great 'Land Hearsay,' in Charles Kingsley's 'Water-Babies,' who of whole strategy and art military consisted in the same and easy process of stopping their ears and screamin 'Oh, don't tell us!' and then running away. Maj Stewart Murray of the Gordon Highlanders attempte three years later, to impress the principles of Claus witz upon the public in a small book entitled 'T Reality of War.' He had a strong backing from Oxfor University, but his book failed in its purpose unt America joined in the Great War eight years later, whe the Americans bought up every copy, and a speci paper-covered edition was brought out to satisfy th

blic demand. That, however, was too late for the

iginal purpose.

There is, unfortunately, a wide gulf between the ilian and the military mind in this country, partly e to the apathy of the educational authorities in the st to this danger to the body politic, and partly to uses for which students can find numerous clues in ferent periods of our history. For instance, we have en reminded recently by Sir Charles Oman of King hn's foreign mercenary soldiers, who were such a rse to England. Their evil memory is enshrined in e fifty-first clause of Magna Carta, which binds the ing to banish the 'alienigenos milites, balistarios, et rvientes, stipendarios' who 'venerunt cum equis et mis ad nocumentum regni.' We can thus trace the rigin of anti-military sentiment in England at least so r back as the twelfth century. Even the Great War 48 not bridged the gulf; but it may be that there has ot yet been time for its influence to be felt. There Ave been faults on both sides, on the civilian, and on 18 military or naval; but the outlook for the future is nproving. If it is not so in this country, it is certainly nproving in America. The American Historical eview' published recently some interesting correpondence between the Chief of the Historical section f the Army War College at Washington (who at the ime was acting as Chairman of the Military History ommittee of the American Historical Association) and rof. W. E. Lingelbach, one of the representatives of at Association on the Joint Commission on the resentation of Social Studies, which was formed ecently in America. The correspondence, with a note ereon by General Pershing, is worthy of attention. he arguments therein for the more intelligent study of War history in all schools in America are so overwhelmg that they are bound to carry weight in time. The riginator was good enough to ask for my opinion upon he documents, which was given in these words:

'I agree with your opinion that the military man and the vilian do not understand each other as they should, and at it is highly desirable to break down the barrier between lem. . . . The solution, to my mind, is a simple one. We ust, in order to enlist the interest of the civilian, broaden