The trouble with such statistics is that, instead of leading us toward the truth, they lead us into error. It may be perfectly true that for every year of general peace there have been thirteen years when there was a war somewhere on the earth; but this does not imply in the least that peace was not more general than was war, even during those thirteen years when there was a war. We must remember that the history of nations does not tell us much about the affairs of the people in times of peace; it is their wars that have made history.
As we look back through time at the large number of wars, we clump them together in perspective. We place the wars, as it were, all on the map at once, instead of placing them years and centuries apart.
Just as there is always in human life more joy than sorrow, more pleasure than pain, more good than ill; so, in the history of the world, there has been more of peace and prosperity than there has been of war and calamity.
John Ruskin possessed the rare ability to perceive truth that pointed one way, while his feelings pointed in the opposite direction. Although he had an emotional nature and a highly artistic temperament, he was still a man of so broad views, with so comprehensive a mind at the other end of the optic nerve, that he could ratiocinate in spite of his emotions. The following is what he had to say on war:
"_All the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great art ever rose on earth but among a nation of soldiers. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which is based on battle. When I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. It was very strange for me to discover this, and very dreadful, but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and the virtues of civil life flourished together I found to be utterly untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish together. We talk of peace and learning, of peace and plenty, of peace and civilization; but I found that these are not the words that the Muse of History coupled together: that on her lips the words were peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and death. I found in brief that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war and wasted in peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace._"