The Human Boy and the War

After the war had fairly got going, naturally we thought a good deal about it, and it was explained to us by Fortescue that, behind the theory of Germany licking us, or us licking Germany, as the case might be, there were two great psychical ideas. As I was going to be a soldier myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas were also interesting, because Fortescue said that often the cause won the battle. Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany. I always thought the best men and the best ships and the best brains and the most money were simply bound to come out top in the long run; but Fortescue said that a bad psychical idea behind these things often wrecks the whole show. And so I asked him if we had got a good psychical idea behind us, and he said we had a champion one, whereas the Germans were trusting to a perfectly deadly psychical idea, which was bound to have wrecked them in any case--even if they'd had twenty million men instead of ten.