"At this point, here is a parenthesis about the life of the author, which joined the deed to the word: Hélène included to the book on her father, a very short Appendix, "Le devoir d'abolir la guerre", which was taken from the second volume of the Germen works or Spir, and had previously been reproduced, I quote, "in the Jounal de Genève, 15 November 1920, at the time of the maiden Assembly of the United Nations, which Spir has, lately so much called for of all his wishes." . The following is a footnote added to this text, that Spir published in the first edition of Recht und Unrecht, in 1879, as an Appendix, under the title of "Considération sur la guerre" - and which was published again in 1931, in Propos sur la guerre. : "To declare that the establishment of international institutions intended to settle conflicts among people without having recourse to war, this is purely gratuitious affirmation. What sense can it be to declare impossible, something that has been neither wished seriously, nor tried to put into practice ? In truth, there are not any impossibility here, no more of a material order than of a metaphysical order. . Supposing that all responsible potentates, ministers and leaders were to be warned to agree concerning the establishment of international organizations with peaceful workings , they would not be very long to come to an agreement on the ways and means to come to settle the problem. And, indeed, how insoluble could be a problem, that requires nothing else than some good will here and there ? It is not a question here of fighting against a terrestrial power, hostile to human beings and independent of their will; it is only for men a matter of overcoming their own passions, et their harmful prejudices. In this, would it be more difficult than to kill one's fellow men by the hundred of thousands, de destroy entire countries et inflict crushing expanses to one own people ?"
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"There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the t…"
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