The Great Illusion Part 9

Homer Lea's thesis is emphasized in the introduction to his work, written by another American soldier, General John P. Storey:

A few idealists may have visions that with advancing civilization war and its dread horrors will cease. Civilization has not changed human nature. The nature of man makes war inevitable. Armed strife will not disappear from the earth until human nature changes.

"Weltstadt und Friedensproblem," the book of Professor Baron Karl von Stengel, a jurist who was one of Germany's delegates at the First Hague Peace Conference, contains a chapter ent.i.tled "The Significance of War for Development of Humanity," in which the author says:

War has more often facilitated than hindered progress. Athens and Rome, not only in spite of, but just because of their many wars, rose to the zenith of civilization. Great States like Germany and Italy are welded into nationalities only through blood and iron.

Storm purifies the air and destroys the frail trees, leaving the st.u.r.dy oaks standing. War is the test of a nation's political, physical, and intellectual worth. The State in which there is much that is rotten may vegetate for a while in peace, but in war its weakness is revealed.

Germany's preparations for war have not resulted in economic disaster, but in unexampled economic expansion, unquestionably because of our demonstrated superiority over France. It is better to spend money on armaments and battles.h.i.+ps than luxury, motormania, and other sensual living.

We know that Moltke expressed a similar view in his famous letter to Bluntschli. "A perpetual peace," declared the Field-Marshal, "is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream. War is one of the elements of order in the world, established by G.o.d. The n.o.blest virtues of men are developed therein. Without war the world would degenerate and disappear in a mora.s.s of materialism."[43]

At the very time that Moltke was voicing this sentiment, a precisely similar one was being voiced by no less a person than Ernest Renan. In his "La Reforme Intellectuelle et Morale" (Paris: Levy, 1871, p. 111) he writes:

If the foolishness, negligence, idleness, and short-sightedness of States did not involve their occasional collision, it is difficult to imagine the degree of degeneracy to which the human race would descend. War is one of the conditions of progress, the sting which prevents a country from going to sleep, and compels satisfied mediocrity itself to awaken from its apathy. Man is only sustained by effort and struggle. The day that humanity achieves a great pacific Roman Empire, having no external enemies, that day its morality and its intelligence will be placed in the very greatest peril.

In our own times a philosophy not very dissimilar has been voiced in the public declarations of ex-President Roosevelt. I choose a few phrases from his speeches and writings, at random:

We despise a nation, just as we despise a man, who submits to insult. What is true of a man ought to be true of a nation.[44]

We must play a great part in the world, and especially ...

perform those deeds of blood, of valor, which above everything else bring national renown.

We do not admire a man of timid peace.

By war alone can we acquire those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.

In this world the nation that is trained to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound to go down in the end before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities.[45]

Professor William James covers the whole ground of these claims in the following pa.s.sage:

The war party is a.s.suredly right in affirming that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only specifications of a more universal and enduring compet.i.tive pa.s.sion.... Pacifism makes no converts from the military party.

The military party denies neither the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, nor the horror, nor the expense; it only says that these things tell but half the story. It only says that war is worth these things; that, taking human nature as a whole, war is its best protection against its weaker and more cowardly self, and that mankind cannot afford to adopt a peace economy.... Militarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood, and human life without hardihood would be contemptible.... This natural feeling forms, I think, the innermost soul of army writings.

Without any exception known to me, militarist authors take a highly mystical view of their subject, and regard war as a biological or sociological necessity.... Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us.[46]

Even famous English clergymen have voiced the same view. Charles Kingsley, in his defence of the Crimean War as a "just war against tyrants and oppressors," wrote: "For the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Prince of Peace, He is the Prince of War, too. He is the Lord of Hosts, the G.o.d of armies, and whoever fights in a just war against tyrants and oppressors is fighting on Christ's side, and Christ is fighting on his side. Christ is his captain and his leader, and he can be in no better service. Be sure of it, for the Bible tells you so."[47]

Canon Newbolt, Dean Farrar, and the Archbishop of Armagh, have all written not dissimilarly.

The whole case may be summarized thus:

1. Nations fight for opposing conceptions of right: it is the moral conflict of men.

2. They fight from non-rational causes of a lower kind: from vanity, rivalry, pride of place, the desire to occupy a great situation in the world, or from sheer hostility to dissimilar people--the blind strife of mutually hating men.

3. These causes justify war, or render it inevitable. The first is admirable in itself, the second is inevitable, in that the peoples readiest to fight, and showing most energy in fighting, replace the more peacefully inclined, and the warlike type tends thus permanently to survive; "the warlike nations inherit the earth."

Or it may be put deductively, thus: Since struggle is the law of life, and a condition of survival as much with nations as with other organisms, pugnacity, which is merely intense energy in struggle, a readiness to accept struggle in its acutest form, must necessarily be a quality marking those individuals successful in the vital contests. It is this deep-seated, biological law which renders impossible the acceptance by mankind of the literal injunction to turn the other cheek to the smiter, or for human nature ever to conform to the ideal implied in that injunction; since, were it accepted, the best men and nations--in the sense of the kindliest and most humane--would be placed at the mercy of the most brutal, who, eliminating the least brutal, would stamp the survivors with their own brutality and re-establish the militarist virtues. For this reason a readiness to fight, which means the qualities of rivalry and pride and combativeness, hardihood, tenacity, and heroism--what we know as the manly qualities--must in any case survive as the race survives, and, since this stands in the way of the predominance of the purely brutal, it is a necessary part of the highest morality.

Despite the apparent force of these propositions, they are founded upon a gross misreading of certain facts, and especially upon a gross misapplication of a certain biological a.n.a.logy.

CHAPTER II

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE

The s.h.i.+fting ground of pro-war arguments--The narrowing gulf between the material and moral ideals--The non-rational causes of war--False biological a.n.a.logies--The real law of man's struggle: struggle with Nature, not with other men--Outline sketch of man's advance and main operating factor therein--The progress towards elimination of physical force--Co-operation across frontiers and its psychological result--Impossible to fix limits of community--Such limits irresistibly expanding--Break up of State h.o.m.ogeneity--State limits no longer coinciding with real conflicts between men.

Those who have followed at all closely the peace advocacy of the last few years will have observed a curious s.h.i.+fting of ground on the part of its opponents. Until quite recently, most peace advocacy being based on moral, not material grounds, pacifists were generally criticized as unduly idealistic, sentimental, oblivious to the hard necessities of men in a hard world of struggle, and disposed to ask too much of human nature in the way of altruistic self-sacrifice on behalf of an idealistic dogma. We were given to understand that while peace might represent a great moral ideal, man's evil pa.s.sions and cupidity would always stand in the way of its achievement. The citations I have given in Chapter II. of the first part of this book prove sufficiently, I think, that this was, until quite recently, overwhelmingly the point of view of those who defended war as an unavoidable part of human struggle.

During the last few years, however, the defence of war has been made for the most part on very different grounds. Peace, we are told by those who oppose the pacifist movement, may embody the material interests of men, but the spiritual nature of mankind will stand in the way of its ever being achieved! Pacifism, far from being branded as too idealistic and sentimental, is now scorned as "sordidly material."

I do not desire, in calling attention to this fact, merely to score a cheap jibe. I want, on the contrary, to do every justice to the point of view of those who urge that moral motives push men into war. I have never, indeed, taken the ground that the defender of war is morally inferior to the defender of peace, or that much is to be gained by emphasizing the moral superiority of the peace ideal. Too often has it been a.s.sumed in pacifist advocacy that what is needed in order to clear up the difficulties in the international field, is a better moral tone, a greater kindliness, and so forth--for that a.s.sumption ignores the fact that the emotion of humanity repelling it from war may be more than counteracted by the equally strong moral emotion that we connect with patriotism. The patriot admits that war may occasion suffering, but urges that men should be prepared to endure suffering for their country.

As I pointed out in the first chapter of this book, the pacifist appeal to humanity so often fails because the militarist pleads that he too is working and suffering for humanity.

My object in calling attention to this unconscious s.h.i.+fting of ground, on the part of the advocate of war, is merely to suggest that the growth of events during the last generation has rendered the economic case for war practically untenable, and has consequently compelled those who defend war to s.h.i.+ft their defence. Nor, of course, am I urging that the sentimental defence of war is a modern doctrine--the quotations made in the last chapter show that not to be the case--but merely that greater emphasis is now placed upon the moral case.

Thus, writing in 1912, Admiral Mahan criticizes this book as follows:

The purpose of armaments, in the minds of those maintaining them, is not primarily an economical advantage, in the sense of depriving a neighboring State of its own, or fear of such consequences to itself through the deliberate aggression of a rival having that particular end in view.... The fundamental proposition of the book is a mistake. Nations are under no illusion as to the unprofitableness of war in itself.... The entire conception of the work is itself an illusion, based upon a profound misreading of human action. To regard the world as governed by self-interest only is to live in a non-existent world, an ideal world, a world possessed by an idea much less worthy than those which mankind, to do it bare justice, persistently entertains.[48]

Yet hardly four years previously Admiral Mahan had himself outlined the elements of international politics as follows:

It is as true now as when Was.h.i.+ngton penned the words, and will always be true, that it is vain to expect nations to act consistently from any motive other than that of interest. This under the name of Realism is the frankly avowed motive of German statecraft. It follows from this directly that the study of interests--international interest--is the one basis of sound, of provident, policy for statesmen....

The old predatory instinct, that he should take who has the power, survives ... and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments are corporations, and corporations have no souls ... they must put first the rival interests of their own wards ... their own people. Commercial and industrial predominance forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderating force, the ultimate expression of which is possession ... an inevitable link in a chain of logical sequences: industry, markets, control, navy bases.[49]

Admiral Mahan, it is true, antic.i.p.ates this criticism by pleading the complex character of human nature (which no one denies). He says: "Bronze is copper, and bronze is tin." But he entirely overlooks the fact that if one withholds copper or one withholds tin it is no longer bronze. The present author has never taken the ground that all international action can be explained in the terms of one narrow motive, but he does take the ground that if you can profoundly modify the bearing of a const.i.tuent, as important as the one to which Admiral Mahan has himself, in his own work, attributed such weight, you will profoundly modify the whole texture and character of international relations. Thus, even though it were true that the thesis here elaborated were as narrowly economic as the criticism I have quoted would imply, it would, nevertheless, have, on Admiral Mahan's own showing, a very profound bearing on the problems of international statecraft.

Not only do the principles elaborated here postulate no such narrow conception of human motive, but it is essential to realize that you cannot separate a problem of interest from a problem of right or morality in the absolute fas.h.i.+on that Admiral Mahan would imply, because right and morality connote the protection and promotion of the general interest.

A nation, a people, we are given to understand, have higher motives than money or "self-interest." What do we mean when we speak of the money of a nation, or the self-interest of a community? We mean--and in such a discussion as this can mean nothing else--better conditions for the great ma.s.s of the people, the fullest possible lives, the abolition or attenuation of poverty and of narrow circ.u.mstances; that the millions shall be better housed and clothed and fed, more capable of making provision for sickness and old age, with lives prolonged and cheered--and not merely this, but also that they shall be better educated, with character disciplined by steady labor and a better use of leisure; a general social atmosphere which shall make possible family affection, individual dignity and courtesy and the graces of life, not only among the few, but among the many.

Now, do these things const.i.tute, as a national policy, an inspiring aim, or not? They are, speaking in terms of communities, pure self-interest--bound up with economic problems, with money. Does Admiral Mahan mean us to take him at his word when he would attach to such efforts the same discredit that one implies in talking of a mercenary individual? Would he have us believe that the typical great movements of our time--Socialism, Trades Unionism, Syndicalism, Insurance Acts, Land Reforms, Old Age Pensions, Charity Organization, improved Education--bound up as they all are with economic problems--are not the objects which, more and more, are absorbing the best activities of Christendom?

In the pages which follow, I have attempted to show that the activities which lie outside the range of these things--the religious wars, movements like those which promoted the Crusades, or the sort of tradition which we a.s.sociate with the duel (which has, in fact, disappeared from Anglo-Saxon society)--do not, and cannot, any longer form part of the impulse creating the long-sustained conflicts between large groups which a European war implies. I have attempted roughly to indicate certain processes at work; to show, among other things, that in the changing character of men's ideals there is a distinct narrowing of the gulf which is supposed to separate ideal and material aims. Early ideals, whether in the field of politics or religion, are generally dissociated from any aim of general well-being. In early politics, ideals are concerned simply with personal allegiance to some dynastic chief, a feudal lord, or a monarch; the well-being of a community does not enter into the matter at all. Later the chief must embody in his person that well-being, or he does not obtain the allegiance of a community of any enlightenment; later, the well-being of the community becomes the end in itself, without being embodied in the person of an hereditary chief, so that the people realize that their efforts, instead of being directed to the protection of the personal interests of some chief, are as a matter of fact directed to the protection of their own interests, and their altruism has become communal self-interest, since the self-sacrifice of the community for the sake of the community is a contradiction in terms. In the religious sphere a similar development has occurred. Early religious ideals have no relation to the material betterment of mankind. The early Christian thought it meritorious to live a sterile life at the top of a pillar, eaten by vermin, just as the Hindoo saint to-day thinks it meritorious to live an equally sterile life upon a bed of spikes. But as the early Christian ideal progressed, sacrifices having no end connected with the betterment of mankind lost their appeal. Our admiration now goes, not to the recluse who does nothing for mankind, but rather to the priest who gives his life to bring a ray of comfort to a leper settlement. The Christian saint who would allow the nails of his fingers to grow through the palms of his clasped hands would excite, not our admiration, but our revolt. More and more is religious effort being subjected to this test: Does it make for the improvement of society? If not, it stands condemned. Political ideals are inevitably undergoing a similar development, and will be more and more subjected to a similar test.[50]

I am aware that very often at present they are not thus tested.

Dominated as our political thought is by Roman and feudal imagery--hypnotized by symbols and a.n.a.logies which the necessary development of organized society has rendered obsolete--the ideals even of democracies are still often pure abstractions, divorced from any aim calculated to advance the moral or material betterment of mankind. The craze for sheer size of territory, the mere extent of administrative area, is still deemed a thing deserving immense, incalculable sacrifices.

Even these ideals, however, firmly set as they are in our language and tradition, are rapidly yielding to the necessary force of events. A generation ago it would have been inconceivable that a people or a monarch should calmly see part of its country secede and establish itself as a separate political ent.i.ty without attempting to prevent it by force of arms. Yet this is what happened, a year or two ago, in the Scandinavian peninsula. For forty years Germany has added to her own difficulties and to those of the European situation for the purpose of including Alsace and Lorraine in its Federation, but even there, obeying the tendency which is world-wide, an attempt has been made to create a const.i.tutional and autonomous government. The history of the British Empire for fifty years has been a process of undoing the work of conquest. Colonies are now neither colonies nor possessions; they are independent States. England, which for centuries has made such sacrifices to retain Ireland, is now making great sacrifices in order to make her secession workable. To each political arrangement, to each political ideal, the final test will be applied: does it, or does it not, make for the widest interests of the ma.s.s of the people involved?

It is true that those who emphasize the psychological causes of war might rejoin with another distinction. They might urge that, though the questions dividing nations had more or less their origin in an economic problem, the economic question becomes itself a moral question, a question of right. It was not the few pence of the tax on tea that the Colonies fought about, but the question of right which its payment involved. So with nations. War, ineffective to achieve an economic end, unprofitable in the sense that the cost involved in the defence of a given economic point exceeds the monetary value of that point, will still be fought because a point, trifling in the economic sense, is all important from the point of view of right; and though there is no real division of interests between nations, though those interests are in reality interdependent, minor differences provoking a sudden and uncontrolled flash of temper suffice to provoke war. War is the outcome of the "hot fits" of men, "of the devil that is in them."

Although militarist literature on this, as on most similar points, shows flagrant contradictions, even that literature is against the view that war is the outcome of the sheer sudden temper of nations. Most of the popular, and all of the scientific, militarist writers take the contrary view. Mr. Blatchford and his school normally represent a typical militarist policy, like that of Germany, as actuated by a cold, deep, Machiavellian, unsentimental, calculated opportunism, as diverse from a wild, irrational explosion of feeling as possible. Mr. Blatchford writes: