The Uncollected Writings
ects of R
, 18
essity of witnessing so much bloodshed-the hearths and the very graves of their fathers polluted by the slaughter of their countrymen-the acharnement which characterises civil contests (as always the quarrels of friends are the fiercest)-and the license of wrong which is bred by war and the majesties of armies. Doubtless this is part of the explanation. But is this all? Mr. Coleridge has referred to this subject in The friend; but, to the best of my remembrance, only noticing it as a fact. Fichte, the celebrated German philosopher, has given us his view of it (Idea of War); and it is so ingenious, that it deserv