"It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete..."

“Finally, commerce first taught nations to see with good will the wealth and prosperity of one another. Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries weak, poor, and ill-governed, but his own: he now sees in their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and progress to his own country. It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying the personal interests which are in natural opposition to it. And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race.”

~ John Stuart Mill, from his Principles of Political Economy (Book III, Chapter XVII, Section 14).

• Hat tip Stephen Hicks, who contrasts the pre-war German intellectual Werner Sombart, who believed "the German way of war will cleanse humanity and raise it to a sacred height."
• And 'shout out' to Richard Fulmer, who contrasts the sentiment with the "thinking" of some contemporary maggots: