"
[10] The Border of Scotland and England was in ancient times, it has
been said, "a very Paradise for murderers and robbers." The war-like
spirit was there very keen and deeds of daring were not too scrupulously
effected, for the culprit knew that nothing was easier and safer than to
become an outlaw on the other side of the Border. Yet these were the
conditions that eventually made the Border one of the great British
centres of genius (the Welsh Border was another) and the home of a
peculiarly capable and vigorous race.
IV
MORALITY IN WARFARE
There are some idealistic persons who believe that morality and war
are incompatible. War is bestial, they hold, war is devilish; in its
presence it is absurd, almost farcical, to talk about morality. That
would be so if morality meant the code, for ever unattained, of the
Sermon on the Mount. But there is not only the morality of Jesus, there
is the morality of Mumbo Jumbo. In other words, and limiting ourselves
to the narrower range of the civilised world, there is the morality of
Machiavelli and Bismarck, and the morality of St. Francis and Tolstoy.
The fact is, as we so often forget, and sometimes do not even know,
morality is fundamentally custom, the _mores_, as it has been called,
of a people. It is a body of conduct which is in constant motion, with
an exalted advance-guard, which few can keep up with, and a debased
rearguard, once called the black-guard, a name that has since acquired
an appropriate significance.
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