The cost of this war would pay the national debts of all the

nations in the world at the time the war broke out, and this
aggregate sum of $45,000,000,000 for the world was all
accumulated in the criminal stupidity of the wars of the
nineteenth century
The cost of this war would pay the national debts of all the
nations in the world at the time the war broke out, and this
aggregate sum of $45,000,000,000 for the world was all
accumulated in the criminal stupidity of the wars of the
nineteenth century. If all the farms, farming lands, and
factories of the United States were wiped out of existence, the
cost of this war would more than replace them. If all the
personal and real property of half our nation were destroyed,
or if an earthquake of incredible dimensions should shake down
every house from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the waste would
be less than that involved in this war. And an elemental
catastrophe leaves behind it no costly legacy of hate; even the
financial troubles are not ended with the treaty of peace. The
credit of Europe is gone for one does not know how long. Before
the war, it is said, there were $200,000,000,000 in bonds and
stocks in circulation in Europe. Much of this has been sold for
whatever it would bring. Some of the rest is worth its face
value Some of it is worth nothing. In the final adjustment who
can know whether he is a banker or a beggar?

Association, and action, 149

chapter on, 144
development of centers, 57
laws of, 150
and methods of learning, 157
and memory, 146
nature of, 144
neural basis of, 145
partial or selective, 153
pleasure-pain motive in, 155
and thinking, 149
training in, 155
types of, 150

He next alludes to some prevailing misconceptions in regard to utility

He next alludes to some prevailing misconceptions in regard to utility.
One is the confusion of the _test_ with the _motive_. The general good
is the test, or rather the index to the ultimate measure or test, the
Divine commands; but it is not in all, or even in most cases, the
motive or inducement.

For some persons the inevitable mode of improvement will be by

substituting the milder drugs for the stronger--beer for spirits, weak
tea for beer
For some persons the inevitable mode of improvement will be by
substituting the milder drugs for the stronger--beer for spirits, weak
tea for beer. The exact extent to which the milder poisons are injurious
has not yet been scientifically settled. Tea, for instance, if very weak
and used moderately, is, presumably, not injurious to any marked degree
to healthy persons. The trouble is, however, that sensitive people do
not keep moderate. In fact, the natural tendency of drug-craving is in
the opposite direction, from weak drugs to strong ones, as from beer to
spirits. In actual fact, it is much easier to abstain than to be
moderate. It should also be noted that the lax spirit in which many
people make an exception to the rules of health in favor of some mild
indulgence is very likely to lead to the making of many other exceptions
until they are, without knowing it, carrying a heavy load made up of
scores of little items of harmful indulgence. Moreover, experiments at
the Pasteur Institute have shown that the long-continued use of very
minute doses of poison ultimately produces appreciable harm. Each person
must decide for himself how far he chooses to depart from previous
habits or common customs for the sake of physical efficiency. The object
here is to state exactly what, in our present state of knowledge, is
believed to be the truth.