Note 97 — Chapter V · THE STATE.

It is to be noted that the term war is commonly applied only to the more extreme forms of extrajudicial force. Rioting would not be termed civil war, although the difference between them is merely one of degree. Nor would the punitive expedition of an armed cruiser against a village in the South Sea Islands be dignified with the name of war, though it differs only in degree from the blockade or bombardment of the ports of a civilised state. To be perfectly accurate, therefore, we should oppose the administration of justice not to war, but to the extrajudicial use of force, counting war as the most important species of the latter. War, however, so greatly overshadows in importance all other forms of such force, that it is more convenient to take it as representing the genus, and to disregard the others.