■^ 
 
 ins
 
 THE 
 BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. G. F 1 .' NICOLA I 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY AT BERLIN UNIVERSITY 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM 
 
 THE ORIGINAL GERMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 CONSTANCE A. GRANDE 
 
 AND 
 
 JULIAN GRANDE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1919
 
 10S 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published, October, 1918
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 "The Biology of War" was written in German, by a Ger- 
 man, for Germans, written since the outbreak of war, in the 
 German fortress of Graudenz in which the author was im- 
 prisoned. If the German Government could have had its 
 way, the book would never have seen the light, at any rate 
 not so long as the war lasted ; but by a happy chance the 
 manuscript was conveyed to Switzerland, where it was 
 brought out by the leading German-Swiss publishing firm, 
 Orell Fussli of Zurich. 
 
 When the book appeared, it was promptly barred from 
 Germany, the reasons for which will soon be obvious to any- 
 one who reads it ; and the author was condemned to five 
 months' imprisonment in a common jail. At present he is 
 interned in Germany, and carefully watched. Indeed, were 
 it not for his position, he would probably still be in prison 
 like Liebknecht, or would have shared the fate of Edith 
 Cavell or Captain Fryatt. 
 
 Dr. G. F. Nicolai was born in Berlin in 1872. Before the 
 outbreak of war he was known throughout Germany as the 
 leading heart specialist, in which capacity he had attended the 
 German Empress, whom he is said to have saved from a 
 troublesome maladj'. He also held the chair of physiology at 
 Berlin University. He married a daughter of Admiralitat- 
 srat Buslay, and has one child, a daughter. 
 
 Even before the war Dr. Nicolai was opposed to Prussian 
 militarism, and when war broke out and Germany violated 
 Belgian neutrality, he openly protested. For this he was 
 degraded from his professorship and his property confis- 
 cated ; and finally he was sent to Graudenz fortress, occupy- 
 ing during part of the time the room famous as the "Fritz 
 
 v
 
 vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Reuter room." (Fritz Reuter, born 1810, died 1874, was 
 condemned to death in 1833 because he belonged to a German 
 students' society — a sentence commuted into one of thirty 
 years' imprisonment. In 1840, however, on the accession of 
 Frederick William IV of Prussia, he was liberated. His tales 
 and poems, mostly in Low German, some of which have been 
 translated into English, are still much read and appreciated.) 
 
 Professor Nicolai's property having been confiscated, his 
 wife and child were left penniless. Her father, who belongs 
 to a Prussian Junker family, offered her a home with every 
 comfort if she would renounce her husband. She replied that 
 she would prefer to become a charwoman or a street-cleaner 
 and earn her bread and that of her child in this way rather 
 than renounce her husband. 
 
 Professor Nicolai's friends, anxious to save him from hav- 
 ing his health ruined by long confinement, brought up his 
 case in the German Reichstag, but to no purpose. Those who 
 have seen him recently declare that his imprisonment and 
 suffering have greatly aged him, and that he now looks quite 
 a broken man. By nature, however, he is a very vigorous 
 man, whose health was nowise impaired by severe study or 
 by his wide travels before the war, although he sometimes 
 visited unhealthy climates. For instance, he has visited such 
 diverse countries as Malacca, the United States of America, 
 Russia, Lapland, and China. 
 
 "The Biology of War" is hardly a book that the average 
 European would be capable of reading even in his own lan- 
 guage. In the United States, however, it is likely, we think, 
 to find proportionately far more readers because of the high 
 general level of education and the scientific turn of mind of 
 so many Americans. This prevision is borne out by the 
 experience of Dr. Nicolai's Swiss publisher, who states that 
 "The Biology of War" has been much more read than he 
 expected even in Switzerland, but not so much by specialists 
 or biologists as by persons of good general education.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii 
 
 Although the English translation has been simplified as 
 much as possible without doing violence to the author's ideas, 
 nevertheless the fact remains that this book is not for the 
 intellectually indolent. Certain passages it has not been pos- 
 sible to make very simple because the ideas themselves are 
 profound, while the reasoning is throughout very close. The 
 whole book is written from the standpoint of a biologist, while 
 the medical man not infrequently appears in it as well : the 
 breadth of the author's knowledge and the variety of his quo- 
 tations, classical, literary, and historical, cannot fail to aston- 
 ish every reader. 
 
 The book has no affinity whatsoever with an ordinary paci- 
 fist publication, nor is Dr. Nicolai one of those who are the 
 friends of every country but their own. One of his main 
 contentions is that the dusk of the War Gods has come. An 
 animal, he says, just before it becomes extinct, usually grows 
 monstrously unwieldy and clumsy. War has done likewise : 
 it has grown beyond all bounds. Again, he contends that 
 there is no biological justification for war now, and in par- 
 ticular none whatever for the favorite German argument that 
 without war nations become degenerate and effeminate. Fi- 
 nally, he asserts that war is never to be regarded as a neces- 
 sary and inevitable part of nature, something which, like an 
 earthquake, is wholly beyond human control, and something 
 to which we must submit. On the contrary, war is in the 
 category of something not inevitable and to which we need 
 not submit. War ought to be regarded as we regard smallpox 
 or the plague, as something which we can and ought to eradi- 
 cate by taking proper preventive measures. 
 
 The book, of course, always refers specially to Germany, 
 and the effects of war are largely illustrated by showing 
 their action in Germany. The writer demonstrates, for in- 
 stance, the influence of Bernhard, Treitsehke, Moltke and 
 others on the German mind. But no one must imagine that 
 Dr. Nicolai condemns all war of every description : revolu-
 
 viii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 tionary and defensive wars he would put in a category by 
 themselves as justifiable. That wars may be prevented he 
 urges that a society of nations should be constructed; and 
 the brotherhood of man and the strengthening of all human 
 bonds, whether between the members of the family of nations 
 or between members of a human family, must become reali- 
 ties, not ideals. It may be that he does not regard the ques- 
 tion from precisely the same angle as President Wilson, but 
 his main lines of thought are the same. 
 
 The book, as we have hinted, is reasoned out like Euclid, 
 wherefore it is useless, interesting as it may be, to dip into 
 it and read a chapter here and another there. No real idea 
 of the author's meaning can be gained thus, and it would 
 be an injustice to what we think most readers will agree is, 
 beyond doubt, the most remarkable book which this war has 
 yet produced, a volume likely to live in history even when the 
 scientific ideas which it contains have been superseded by the 
 wider knowledge of generations to come. 
 
 Constance A. Grande 
 
 Julian Grande 
 
 Berne, Switzerland, 
 June, 1918. 
 
 Postscript — Since writing the above the world outside Ger- 
 many has been gratified to learn that Professor Nicolai has 
 escaped from Germany in a German aeroplane and has 
 reached Denmark. The aeroplane was the "Albatross 3415" 
 and of a somewhat old-fashioned type. Dr. Nicolai 's com- 
 panion on board was Dr. Silberhorn, a German subaltern. 
 A second aeroplane, the "F. 16," accompanied the "Alba- 
 tross 3415." On board were a lance-corporal and a pilot, both 
 Germans. As neither Professor Nicolai nor his companions 
 were armed, they have not been interned. At present it is 
 better to refrain from giving details of this escape.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 -THE ORIGIN OP THIS BOOK 
 
 § 1. — Its Condemnatory Tone as Regards Germany 
 
 The outward and visible cause why this book was written 
 was the manifesto to the civilized world published in the early 
 days of October, 1914, by ninety-three representatives of Ger- 
 man science and art. The unfortunate effects of this could 
 easily have been foreseen by any dispassionate person. Al- 
 though probably every one would now admit that the dispas- 
 sionate few of those days had right on their side, yet many 
 will disapprove of the selection of a German manifesto as a 
 peg on which to hang a book, urging that there are surely 
 enough reprehensible manifestos published outside Germany. 
 This German manifesto, however, was the cause of this work, 
 which, I hasten to insist, is written primarily for Germans. 
 Consequently, wherever isolated events are discussed, it is in 
 the main only German conditions which are under considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Apart from the fact that it is impossible to gain a correct 
 idea of foreign opinion from the fragmentary extracts quoted 
 from the foreign press, the only way to attain the necessary 
 independence of mind is not to inquire whether other nations 
 besides Germany have been to blame, and to endeavor to make 
 sure no one can cast a stone at us. More than ever is it to-day 
 incumbent on every person and every nation to shoulder his 
 or its share of responsibility for the war. Even supposing 
 that any foreign learned society had issued a more regrettable 
 manifesto than this hot-blooded appeal, which is excusable, 
 considering the anxious time when it was drafted; yet those 
 
 ix
 
 x INTRODUCTION 
 
 who have genuine German civilization at heart are the very 
 persons who need not concern themselves much about foreign 
 manifestos, since Germany and Germany alone is responsible 
 for her own words and deeds. 
 
 These preliminary observations are necessary because other- 
 wise the fact that it is mainly Germany which is instanced 
 as exemplifying the bad effects of war might have made it 
 appear as if this book were an unconditional acknowledgment 
 of the justice of the view that it is the German people who 
 have been guilty of by far the worst barbarities. 
 
 Again, every nation in the world can and even ought to 
 hope that it and its institutions will one day serve as a model 
 for a whole world full of reforming zeal ; for such a hope is 
 the strongest incentive to progress. But if Germany enter- 
 tains any such expectation, she must redouble her efforts to 
 revive the old German idealism and to keep it pure and un- 
 defined. 
 
 "Volk, o deutsehes Volk, die mussen am grobsten dieh schelten. 
 Die dich in Herzens Grand immer am meisten geliebt. 1 
 
 Now, just because this manifesto was apparently likely to 
 give the lie to our glorious past, it cannot fail to cause every 
 true patriot and friend of humanity (the one ought not to ex- 
 clude the other) to protest. 2 
 
 i "Epij.namme a'us Baden-Baden," by Th. Fischer, 1S76. Stuttgart. 
 "Hass und Liebe," p. 33. 
 
 2 For truth's sake it must be observed that, at any rate, some of the 
 signatories now regret their action. Even in December, 1914, they 
 wrote, telling me as much, so that it would seem as if the intoxication 
 which could so greatly obscure their conceptions of truth and impartial- 
 ity must have been comparatively short-lived. I may also state that in 
 June, 1915, when this manifesto was reprinted in the "Aktion," without 
 a word of comment, one of the signatories wrote to that journal, stating 
 that he must protest against such a document being reprinted, for "of 
 course" he no longer held such views, "and it was an insult to continue 
 to impute them to him." In itself such a rapid change of mind is cause 
 for satisfaction, but it is amusing that this signatory should consider it 
 an insult not to be instantly taken for a chameleon.
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 § 2. — The Manifesto to the Civilized World 
 
 The full text of this notorious document is as follows: 
 
 As representatives of German science and art we protest before 
 the whole civilized world against the calumnies and lies with which 
 our enemies are striving to besmirch Germany's undetiled cause in 
 the severe struggle for existence which has been forced upon her. 
 The course of events has mercilessly disproved the reports of fictitious 
 German defeats. All the more vigorous are the efforts now being 
 made to distort truth and disseminate suspicion. It is against 
 these that we are raising our voices, and those voices shall make 
 the truth known. 
 
 I. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT GERMANY WAS GUILTY OF THIS WAR 
 
 Neither the nation nor the Government nor the emperor wanted 
 it. The Germans did everything possible to avert it, documentary 
 evidence of which is before all the world. In the twenty-six years of 
 his reign William II has frequently shown himself the defender of 
 the world's peace, as has frequently been acknowledged even by 
 our enemies. Indeed, this same emperor, whom they are now pre- 
 suming to call an Attila, was ridiculed for twenty years and more 
 because of his unswerving devotion to peace. Not until our people 
 was attacked from three sides by superior forces, which had long 
 been lying in wait at the frontier, did it rise as one man. 
 
 2. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT WE CRIMINALLY VIOLATED BELGIAN 
 
 NEUTRALITY 
 
 It can be proved that France and England had resolved to violate 
 it, and it can be proved that Belgium had agreed to this. It would 
 have been suicidal not to have anticipated them. 1 
 
 i On August 14, 1914, llerr von Bethmann-Hollweg, then German 
 Chancellor, said in the Reichstag: "Gentlemen, we stand now perforce 
 on guard. Necessity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Lux- 
 emburg, possibly trodden Belgian soil. Gentlemen, this is contrary to 
 international law. ... In this way we have been forced to override the 
 justifiable protests of the Belgian and Luxemburg governments. We 
 shall repair the injustice which we are committing as soon as our mili- 
 tary object is attained."
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 3. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE LIFE AND PROPERTY OF A SINGLE 
 
 BELGIAN SUBJECT WERE INTERFERED WITH BY OUR SOLDIERS 
 
 EXCEPT UNDER THE DIREST NECESSITY 
 
 Again and again, despite all warnings, did the population lie in 
 ambush and fire on them, mutilating wounded men, and murdering 
 doctors even while actually engaged in their noble ministrations. 
 There could be no baser misrepresentation than to say nothing about 
 the crime of these assassins and then to call the Germans criminals 
 because of their having administered a just punishment to them. 
 
 4. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT OUR TROOPS BEHAVED BRUTALLY IN REGARD 
 
 TO LOUVAIN 
 
 They were forced to exercise reprisals with a heavy heart on the 
 furious population, which treacherously attacked them in their 
 quarters, by firing upon a portion of the town. The greater por- 
 tion of Louvain is still standing, and the famous town hall is quite 
 uninjured. It was saved from the flames owing to the self-sacrifice 
 of our soldiers. Every German would regret works of art having 
 been destroyed in this war or their being destroyed in the future. 
 But just as we decline to admit that any one loves art more than 
 we do, even so do we refuse no less decidedly to pay the price of a 
 German defeat for the preservation of a work of art. 
 
 5. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT WE DISREGARD THE PRECEPTS OF INTER- 
 NATIONAL LAW IN OUR METHODS OF WARFARE, IN WHICH 
 THERE IS NO UNBRIDLED CRUELTY 
 
 But in the East the ground is soaked with the blood of women 
 and children slain by Russian hordes, and in the West the breasts of 
 our soldiers are lacerated with Dumdum bullets. No one has less 
 right to pretend to be defending European civilization than those 
 who are the allies of Russians and Serbians, and are not ashamed 
 to incite Mongolians and negroes to fight against white men. 
 
 6. — IT IS NOT TRUE THAT FIGHTING OUR SO-CALLED MILITARISM IS 
 
 NOT FIGHTING AGAINST OUR CIVILIZATION, AS OUR ENEMIES 
 
 HYPOCRITICALLY ALLEGE 
 
 Without German militarism German civilization would be wiped 
 off the face of the earth. The former arose out of and for the
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 protection of the latter in a country which for centuries had suffered 
 from invasion as no other has done. The German Army and the 
 German people are one, and the consciousness of this makes seventy 
 millions of Germans brothers to-day, without regard to education, 
 rank, or party. 
 
 We cannot deprive our enemies of the poisoned weapons of false- 
 hood. All we can do is to cry aloud to the whole world that they 
 are bearing false witness against us. To you who know us, who, 
 together with us, have hitherto been the guardians of man's highest 
 possessions — to you we cry aloud, "Believe us; believe that to the 
 last we will fight as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a 
 Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant is no less sacred than hearth and 
 home." 
 
 This we vouchsafe to you on the faith of our name and our honor. 
 
 The manifesto was signed by the following seventeen artists 
 actually practising their profession : Peter Behrends, Franz 
 von Defregger, Wilhelm Dorpfeld, Eduard von Gebhardt, 
 Adolf von Hildebrand, Ludwig Hoffmann, Leopold Graf 
 Kalkreuth, Arthur Kampf, Fritz Aug. von Kaulbach, Max 
 Klinger, Max Liebermann, Ludwig Manzel, Bruno Paul, Fritz 
 Schaper, Franz von Stuck, Hans Thoma, Wilh. Triibner. 
 
 By these fifteen natural scientists: Adolf von Beyer, Karl 
 Engler, Emil Fischer, Wilhelm Foerster, Fritz Haber, Ernst 
 Haeckel, Gustav Hellmann, Felix Klein, Philipp Lenard, 
 Walter Nernst, Wilhelm Ostwald, Max Planck, Wilhelm Ront- 
 gen, Wilhelm Wien, Richard Willstiitter. 
 
 By these twelve theologians : Adolf Deissmann, Albert Ehr- 
 hard, Gerhard Esser, Adolf von Harnack, Wilhelm Herrmann, 
 Alois Knbpfler, Anton Koch, Josef Mausbach, Sebastian Mer- 
 kle, Adolf von Schlatter, August Schmidlin, and Reinhold 
 Seeberg. 
 
 By these nine poets: Richard Dehmel, Herbert Eulen- 
 berg, Ludwig Fulda, Max Halbe, Gerhard and Karl Haupt- 
 mann, Hermann Sudermann, Karl Vollmoller, and Richard 
 Voss. 
 
 By these seven jurists ; Lujo Brentano, Johannes Conrad,
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Tkeodor Kipp, Paul Laband, Franz von Liszt, Georg von 
 Mayr, and Gustav von Schmoller. 
 
 By these seven medical men : Emil von Behring, Paul Ehr- 
 lich, Albert Neisser, Albert Plehn, Max Rubner, Wilhelm 
 Waldeyer, and August von Wassermann. 
 
 By these seven historians: Heinrich Finke, J. J. de Groot, 
 Karl Lamprecht, Maximilian Lenz, Eduard Meyer, Karl Rob- 
 ert, and Martin Spahn. 
 
 By these five art critics : Wilhelm von Bode, Alois Brandt, 
 Justus Brinkmann, Friedrich von Dunn, and Theodor Wie- 
 
 gand. 
 
 By these four philosophers: Rudolf Eucken, Alois Riehl, 
 Wilhelm Windelband, and Willi. Wundt. 
 
 By these four philologists: Andreas Heusler, Heinrich 
 Morf, Karl Vossler, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. 
 
 By these three musicians: Engelbert Humperdinck, Sieg- 
 fried Wagner, and Felix von Weingartner. 
 
 By these two politicians: Friedrich Naumann and Georg 
 Reicke. 
 
 By this theatrical manager: Max Reinhardt. 
 
 § 3. — German Truth, Past and Present 
 
 This document, therefore, was signed altogether by ninety- 
 three German men, some of them very well known. Among 
 them were fifteen natural scientists. Even if this is not a 
 very large number in comparison with the seventy-eight 
 other signatories (thirty-five representatives of art and let- 
 ters, sixteen moral philosophers, twenty scientists of various 
 kinds, and seven medical men), yet it includes almost all 
 Germans of real celebrity in this branch of science. Now, 
 the wording of the manifesto alone ought to have horrified 
 any natural scientist even if he approved of its tenor. I 
 shall not discuss the fairness of rejecting the mendacities of 
 foreign newspapers without mentioning the lying war news of 
 the German press. The fact remains, however, that every 
 one then knew, for instance, how little the German Com-
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 mission of Inquiry into Belgian atrocities was really able to 
 ascertain. It might of course be argued that it was no busi- 
 ness of the signatories to have referred to this even although 
 the mere hint that the vile charges brought against enemy 
 soldiers were not believed made certain manifestos of foreign 
 intellectuals appear friendly. 
 
 Six times, however, does this manifesto contain the words, 
 "It is not true." Now, five of the six points raised unques- 
 tionably cannot be thus flatly denied. Whether a person has 
 or has not been guilty of a particular action (Paragraph 1), 
 whether he has committed a crime or acted under compulsion 
 (Paragraph 2), whether he is exercising reprisals brutally or 
 with a heavy heart (Paragraph 4), whether imperialism and 
 civilization are irreconcilable or go hand in hand (Paragraph 
 6), and finally whether a person has acted with or without 
 regard to the ill-defined, vague precepts of international 
 law (Paragraph 5), cannot be positively asserted by any one, 
 and in each individual case opinion depends upon individual 
 sense of justice. 
 
 Even in Paragraphs 3 and 5, where definite details were 
 cited as to what had been done in Belgium and East Prussia, 
 the categorical statement, "It is not true," seems for other, 
 but not less sound reasons, misplaced, since at best such evi- 
 dence can have been only hearsay "from a thoroughly trust- 
 worthy source." Above all, no one can with a good conscience 
 support the negative assertion that "the life and property of 
 not a single Belgian subject were interfered with except under 
 necessity." 
 
 Every one is naturally entitled to consider anything as 
 truth of the correctness of which he is morally convinced un- 
 less he is posing as a "representative of science"; for it is 
 the chief distinction of a man of science not to call anything 
 true unless he be convinced by impartial observation that it 
 is so. The recognition that there is such a thing as this im- 
 partially established truth is a debt which the present gen- 
 eration owes in part to German thoroughness, and the patriot-
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 ism of departing from it cannot be accepted without question. 
 
 The three main witnesses invoked, Goethe, Beethoven, and 
 Kant, would scarcely have signed such a manifesto, for all 
 three preserved their impartiality even in time of war. 
 Goethe, indeed, especially during the Wars of German Inde- 
 pendence, was often enough blamed for his impartiality, and 
 subsequently for his sharp condemnation of "German gush 
 about the Fatherland. ' ' * Once, in his irritation, he went 
 the length of saying, "The world may still have to wait a 
 couple of hundred years before it can be said of the Germans 
 that it was a long while since they were barbarians. ' ' 2 
 
 As for Kant, it was during the first Coalition War that he 
 published his plan for perpetual peace, in which, with praise- 
 worthy independence, he breaks a lance in favor of French 
 institutions, just then being opposed by his own country. 
 Moreover, the founder of critical philosophy would never 
 have described as truth what could be only a matter of opin- 
 ion. 
 
 Finally, Beethoven 's last great work, the Ninth Symphony, 
 is a hymn of praise to universal brotherhood, while he dedi- 
 cated the Third Symphony, the one which he himself con- 
 sidered his finest, to Germany's arch enemy, Bonaparte. 3 
 
 I agree with the signatories of the manifesto in believing 
 that German ideas will prevail if the legacy bequeathed to 
 the Germans by these three shining lights is to them "as 
 sacred as their worldly goods." To me, however, it seems no 
 mere chance that these three greatest Germans should have 
 differed from the present generation in their ideas about dis- 
 putes between nation and nation; for despite technical sci- 
 
 i Goethe's letter to Zelter, August 24, 1823. 
 
 a Eckermann's "Conversations with Goethe," Thursday, May 3, 1827. 
 Brockhaus, 7th Ed., Vol. Ill, p. 114. 
 
 s This is not inconsistent with the fact that afterward, when Napo- 
 leon became emperor, Beethoven revoked the "Dedication to the Con- 
 sul." He considered the Emperor Napoleon as an enemy of human 
 brotherhood.
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 ence, soldiery, and trade, the peculiar virtue of the German is 
 still a certain faculty of just appreciation. For us Germans 
 the upward path may be by way of Essen, Potsdam, and 
 Hamburg, but it must not leave Weimar out of account. 
 
 This manifesto, which was apparently the negation of every 
 great and fine quality which had hitherto been attributed to 
 and expected from men of science, was signed by Germany's 
 igreatest sons; and this was the sort of truth for which Ger- 
 many's most honored seekers after truth interceded. Some, 
 certainly, were able to excuse themselves, if it be an excuse, by 
 urging that they had never read the manifesto, but had allowed 
 their signatures to be appended to it on the strength of a tele- 
 gram from Herr Erzberger, the well-known Center party 
 deputy. Erzberger as an apostle of German science and 
 learning! In any case, it would be well to inquire some- 
 what more closely into the unquestionably very singular man- 
 ner in which this manifesto came to be launched. 
 
 § 4. — A Manifesto to Europeans 
 
 The fact remains, however, that this manifesto was pub- 
 lished and distributed broadcast ; and considering how the war 
 seemed to have metamorphosed men of science, it seemed de- 
 sirable, not to say necessary, to appeal to a wider public es- 
 pecially to maintain a uniform conception of civilization, just 
 then divided. For although only the few are capable of pro- 
 moting civilization, yet it is by the standard of popular feeling 
 that the maintenance of its continuity is insured. In mid- 
 October, 1914, therefore, together with Professor Albert Ein- 
 stein and Privy Councilor Wilhelm Forster, I drafted the fol- 
 lowing manifesto: 
 
 Technical science and intercommunication are clearly tending to 
 force us to recognize the fact that international relations exist, and 
 consequently that a world-embracing civilization exists. Yet never 
 has any previous war caused so complete an interruption of that
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 cooperation which should exist between civilized nations. It may, 
 of course, be that the reason why we are so profoundly impressed by 
 this is only that we were already united by so many ties the severing 
 of which is painful. 
 
 That such a state of things should exist must not astonish us. 
 Nevertheless, those who care in the slightest degree for this universal 
 world civilization are under a twofold obligation to strive for the 
 maintenance of these principles. Those who might have been ex- 
 pected to care for such things, in particular men of science and art, 
 have hitherto almost invariably confined their utterances to a hint 
 that the present suspension of direct relations coincided with the 
 cessation of any desire for their continuance. 
 
 Such feelings are not to be excused by any national passions. 
 They are unworthy of what every one has hitherto understood by 
 civilization, and it would be a misfortune indeed were they generally 
 to prevail among persons of culture; and not only a misfortune 
 for civilization, but, we are firmly convinced, a misfortune for 
 the very purpose for which, after all, in the last resort all the 
 present hell was let loose — the national existence of the different 
 countries. 
 
 Technical achievement has made the world smaller, and to-day 
 the countries of that large peninsula Europe seem brought as near 
 to one another as the cities of each individual small Mediterranean 
 peninsula used to be ; and Europe — it might almost be said the world 
 — is already one and indivisible, owing to its multitudinous associa- 
 tions. 
 
 Hence it must be the duty of educated and philanthropic Euro- 
 peans to make, at any rate, an effort lest Europe, owing to her not 
 being sufficiently strongly welded together, should suffer the same 
 tragic fate as ancient Greece. Is Europe gradually to be exhausted 
 by fratricidal war and perish? 
 
 The war raging at present will scarcely end in a victory for any 
 one, but probably only in defeat. Consequently, it would seem that 
 educated men in all countries not only should, but absolutely must, 
 exert all their influence to prevent the conditions of peace being the 
 source of future wars, and this no matter what the present uncertain 
 issue of the conflict may be. Above all must they direct their efforts 
 to seeing that advantage is taken of the fact that this war has thrown 
 all European conditions, as it were, into a melting-pot, to mold Eu-
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 rope into one organic whole, for which both technical and intel- 
 lectual conditions are ripe. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss how this new European order is 
 to be brought about. We desire only to assert in principle that we 
 are firmly convinced of the time having come for all Europe to be 
 united together, in order to protect her soil, her inhabitants, and 
 her civilization. 1 
 
 Believing as we do that the desire for such a state of things 
 is latent in many minds, we are anxious that it should everywhere 
 find expression and thus become a force; and with this end in 
 view it seems to us before all else necessary that there should be a 
 union of all in any way attached to European civilization; 2 that is 
 to say, who are what Goethe once almost prophetically called "good 
 Europeans." We must never abandon hope that their collective 
 pronouncement may be heard by some one even amidst the clash of 
 arms, most especially if the "good Europeans" of to-morrow include 
 all those who are esteemed and considered as authorities by their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 To begin with, however, it is needful that Europeans should unite, 
 and if, as we hope, there are enough Europeans in Europe, — in 
 other words, enough persons to whom Europe is no mere geograph- 
 ical term, but something which they have profoundly at heart, — 
 then we mean to attempt to found such a union of Europeans. 
 We ourselves wish only to give the first impulse to such a union; 
 wherefore we ask you, should you be in agreement with us, and, like 
 us, bent upon making the determination of Europe as widely known 
 as possible, to send us your signature. 
 
 This appeal was sent out privately, and although we re- 
 ceived many sympathetic letters about it, yet most of the 
 writers declined to sign it. One did not consider the reference 
 to Greece quite historically accurate, another thought that the 
 time had gone by for such a manifesto, another that it was 
 
 i Whether this protection is to be insured with weapons from the 
 armory of force or of mind, need not be discussed here. At all events, 
 Europe must learn to feel herself united into one. (Cf. Chapter III 
 •War and Natural Selection," Chap. Ill, 11 34.) 
 
 -' By European civilization I mean every endeavor, in the broad sense 
 of tlu- word, throughout the world the origin of which can ultimately 
 Le tracet 1 back, to Europe.
 
 xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 premature, and yet another that it was undesirable that scien- 
 tists should mix themselves up in the hurly-burly of the world. 
 Obviously it would not have been feasible to reconcile the views 
 of any considerable number of men of independent mind even 
 if in principle they might all be striving after the same objects. 
 Therefore, as a brief manifesto of this kind could have value 
 only if backed by well-known names, we allowed the plan to 
 drop. 
 
 § 5. — The Personal Sense of Individual Responsibility 
 
 In the circumstances it seemed to me that I was bound to 
 raise my individual voice and express what I honestly believed 
 to be the rights and the stern necessities of the situation, giving 
 the best reasons I could for the faith that was in me. There- 
 fore I announced for the summer term of 1915 a lecture on 
 "War as a Biological Factor in Human Evolution," and be- 
 gan to collect material for it. My being called up as a doctor, 
 and my subsequent imprisonment in the fortress of Graudenz, 
 made it impossible to carry out this plan ; and the only course 
 open to me was to work up into a book the notes intended for 
 a lecture. I am still of opinion that it is just during this war 
 that a peace book should be written. It is during this. fratri- 
 cidal European struggle that we must insist upon being con- 
 sidered as a single unit. This is necessary not because of a 
 handful of scholars who happened to wander a little from the 
 straight path, — they will soon recover themselves, — but be- 
 cause of the countless other persons who now do not know 
 what to do with their lives, who must begin again from the 
 beginning both literally and metaphorically. In the case of 
 all of them many ideals have been destroyed — ideals which 
 may have been confused, but were deep-rooted. For these 
 people I resolved to write a book, assuring them that here on 
 earth war is only a passing phase, to which too much im- 
 portance must not be attached. To achieve my purpose and 
 inspire fair-minded and right-thinking men with my own tri- 
 umphant assurance, I have also endeavored to set forth a vital
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 conception of the problem of war, in order that every one may 
 feel he has some solid ground under his feet and may again 
 know which way to turn. 
 
 Thus did this peace book come into being in the midst of the 
 military life of the Fortress of Graudenz. The small fortress 
 was both a hindrance and an incentive to its writing. It was 
 an obstacle because of the lack of books and the absence of 
 friends who could have advised me on matters of which I have 
 no expert knowledge. Nevertheless, some friends did do much 
 to help me, both by pointing out many defects and making 
 emendations, for which I desire once more to tender them 
 thanks. Again, unfortunately, there were some quotations of 
 which I had taken only hasty notes, meaning to base an oral 
 lecture upon them, and which I was now prevented from com- 
 paring with the full text. Yet this was just what I ought to 
 have been able to do, for what I wanted to prove was that 
 there has never been a single man of real eminence who has 
 seen anything great or beautiful in war. This I meant to 
 do by citing numbers of passages from poets and writers in 
 general, which I had taken much pains to collect; but the 
 mass of material was so overwhelming that I could give only 
 a small portion of it in the last part of my book. I admit 
 that, however great the quantity of material, it would not have 
 been possible to prove any such negative contention absolutely 
 conclusively, for some one would always have been able to say 
 that the enthusiasts for war had been left out of account. 
 But let any one of those intellectuals, carried away by the 
 intoxication of the moment, attempt to prove the contrary. 1 
 
 1 have referred to the obstacles with which I had to con- 
 tend. Let me now mention the incentive to my work. One 
 constant incentive was the Fritz Reuter room 2 in the fortress. 
 
 i Cf. Chapter XIV. 
 
 2 Fritz Reuter, German humorist, 1810-74. He was a member of the 
 German Students' Society, and in 1833 was arrested and condemned to 
 death, the sentence being afterward commuted to one of thirty years' 
 imprisonment. He was liberated in 1840, on the accession of Frederick 
 William IV of Prussia. — Translator.
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 This room, where this German patriot spent years in captivity 
 because he believed in Germany, has been converted into a 
 temple by his former jailers, which is a living instance of the 
 fact that reaction cannot endure forever. We may be quite 
 sure that the very same persons who to-day still continue to 
 decry as high treason Goethe's conception of the citizen of 
 Europe will in a few years' time be subscribing to it, even as 
 the successor of the commandant of Courbiere Fortress, once 
 Reuter's jailer, is now keeping his cell in order as a museum. 
 
 Just as certain of our forefathers in advance of their time 
 enthusiasticall}' advocated a united Germany, even so do we 
 mean to fight for a united Europe. That is the hope inspiring 
 this book; and if I should succeed in convincing even a few 
 persons that the term "citizen of Europe" is justified on 
 grounds alike of ethics and natural science, thereby render- 
 ing another war a shade less likely, then I should feel that this 
 was a reward for my work for which I scarcely ventured to 
 hope. 
 
 Come what may, however, this book had to be written. 
 
 Graudenz, in the summer of 1915. 
 
 g. p. N1COLAI. 
 
 2. — THE POINT OF VIEW OF THIS BOOK 
 
 § 6. — War as a Natural Phenomenon or Human Act 
 
 The so-called "objective methods of reasoning" seem to us 
 the highest achievement of modern science. The fact must 
 not be overlooked, however, that the methods alone ought to 
 be objective or impartial. The isolated facts must be impar- 
 tially collected, but the inferences therefrom will always con- 
 tain an element of hypothesis, and consequently a certain per- 
 sonal element as well. Poincare, 1 Lorentz, and Einstein, them- 
 selves leading mathematicians, — that is to say, representatives 
 
 1 Jules Henri Poincare, 1854-1912, French mathematician, in 1886 
 appointed professor at the University of Paris. — Translator.
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 of the most objective science, — recently pointed this out, but 
 the points of view they adopt could not be more divergent. 
 Now, if this is true of mathematics, how much more is it true 
 of physics, of natural science, and of all those branches of 
 knowledge in which efforts have been made to apply natural 
 science merely as a method? 
 
 It is just here that a false objectivity is harmful, as the 
 enemies of natural science know only too well. Thus, one of 
 them recently remarked that no one really knew for certain 
 who his father was ; that he cannot even positively rely upon 
 his mother's statements, for he has to depend upon what she, 
 the doctor, or the midwife say, which may or may not be 
 true. As we do not know even our own parents, it is argued, 
 how can we positively prove whether our remote ancestors 
 were descended from monkeys or not ? 
 
 It is easy to see that by thus overstraining the conception 
 of what constitutes proof, an obstacle is put in the way of all 
 increase of knowledge. Such overscrupulousness can never 
 do any good, and at best it helps only those who always see 
 two sides of a question, and who would fain rescue not only 
 truth for truth's sake, but many an article of faith besides. 
 
 In any case, our positive knowledge is more increased by a 
 courageous one-sidedness than by that elegant half-heartedness 
 which is everlastingly trying to adjust facts, and which is in 
 no circumstances capable of doing more than correct defects, 
 never of creating anything new. Every one, indeed, feels in- 
 stinctively that it amounts to an utter lack of either intellect 
 or style. Our age, however, always anxious to be impartial 
 and fair "all round," quite seriously imagines that faith and 
 science, beauty and fashion, art and money-making, war and 
 humanity, liberal and socialistic ideas, internationalism and 
 nationalism, and much else besides, are still reconcilable with 
 one another. Such impartiality is in itself never justified. 
 In the case of natural phenomena, however, it can, at any rate, 
 be partly understood, because there is no cogent reason why 
 we should apply one epithet to them and one only. Thus it is
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 allowable to describe the eruption of a volcano as both beauti- 
 ful and destructive ; we may note the grace of a tiger 's spring 
 without for a moment forgetting that it may cost the life of 
 a human being. The volcano is undoubtedly part of nature, 
 which has no choice but to obey certain fixed laws, and the 
 tiger may be considered in the same light. They are natural 
 phenomena, the effects of which we can change (for instance, 
 by not inhabiting volcanic districts and by exterminating the 
 tiger), but which themselves will never change. This is per- 
 haps why man as an onlooker is entitled to consider them from 
 whatever point of view he chooses. In the case of human 
 action it is quite different, for so long as we refuse to give up 
 the right of insisting upon our own individuality and pur- 
 suing our own purposes, so long must we judge man's acts 
 absolutely as those of an individual man. War, however, is 
 a human action, and must be judged accordingly. Any mid- 
 dle course would tend to confusion, and in short be almost 
 contrary to morality. 1 
 
 "We may love or hate war. Like good old Herbart, 2 we 
 may say that "we delight not in strife," or, like Ihering, in 
 his love of battle, that "we delight in strife"; but what we 
 may not do is to disapprove of it or excuse it in principle be- 
 cause of all its accompanying circumstances. War, like every- 
 thing else, should have light thrown upon it from every side 
 before being criticized, but to none but mediocrities would it 
 occur to criticize war from every point of view or even from 
 only two. 
 
 These preliminary remarks are essential in order to show 
 in what sense this book may claim to be impartial or ob- 
 jective. I have endeavored to collect the material as impar- 
 tially as possible, and while working it up afterward I had 
 always one main conception present to my mind — the con- 
 ception of humanity. This conception can also be objectively 
 
 i Cf . what Kant has said about the analysis of the Sublime ( "Critique 
 of Pure Reason," I, ^ 23). Cf. also § 153 of this present work. 
 2 German philosopher, 1776-1841. — Translator.
 
 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 expressed as the fact that there is only one human race, which 
 can be proved to form one organism. This, however, is an- 
 ticipating matters, for the main purpose of this book is to 
 prove that there is a sound logical basis for the conception of 
 humanity.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction v 
 
 THE ORIGIN OP THIS BOOK — Its condemnatory tone as regards 
 Germany — the manifesto to the civilized world — German truth, 
 past and present — a manifesto to Europeans — the personal Bense 
 of individual responsibility. 
 
 THE POINT OP VIEW OP THIS BOOK — War as a natural phe- 
 nomenon or human act. 
 
 Chapter I. War Instincts 3 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OP INSTINCTS — War instincts versus pacifism 
 
 — the value of instinct — advantages and disadvantages of instinct 
 
 — man as master of his instincts. 
 TRIBAL INSTINCTS — Man's original tendency to live in hordes. 
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST — The peaceable- 
 
 ness of animals — the impossibility of war without property. 
 THE NATURAL PRICE OP WAR- — War and slavery — the uses of 
 
 .mi lavement. 
 
 Chapter II. War and the Struggle for Life ... 25 
 
 THE BASES OF WAR — Darwinism — the fundamental law of growth. 
 
 and the limits of size — the impassable barrier. 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR ENERGY — Why this struggle is waged — 
 
 struggle in the animal world — human struggle on animal lines. 
 THE STRUGGLE OP MANKIND — Increase of vitality — the utilization 
 
 of extraneous energy — creative struggle and war of extermination. 
 FREEDOM AND NATURAL COMPULSION — Conformity to law and 
 
 unfettered harmony — the evolution of the brain — the autonomy of 
 
 the brain — war as a free human act. 
 
 Chapter III. Selection By .Means of War ... 60 
 
 SELECTION AND EDUCATION — Positive and negative selection — 
 the trend of selection — wise and foolish — the effect of war on the 
 development of intelligence — the futility of wars today- — what a 
 war of extermination means. 
 
 THE ALLEGED TONIC EFFECTS OF WAR — The hardening and ener- 
 vating effects of war and peace — war weariness — the injury done 
 to the brain by war — the influence of war on the birthrate — the 
 reinforcement of the sense of power. 
 
 THE SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF WAR — Its alleged cruelty — man as 
 subject and object of warfare — killing and dying — bloodthirstiness 
 — thi brutalizing effects of war. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL CHANGE OF ATTITUDE — The enemy's motives 
 — defective sense of responsibility — insults and libels — -training to 
 hate — training to lie — Franc Tireur warfare — war and art. 
 
 xxvii
 
 xxviii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter IV. The Chosen People 139 
 
 THE ADVANTAGE NATIONS ARE ALLEGED TO DERIVE FROM 
 WAR — The injury to the world in general — the advantages of 
 war to an individual nation — the unprofitableness of war to-day. 
 
 NATIONAL EXPANSION OR COLONIZATION — Necessity for and 
 advantages of colonies — colonial possessions and colonial domina- 
 tion. 
 
 WEAPONS OP LIFE AND WEAPONS OP DEATH — The victor's 
 empty laurels — the decay of world-wide empires — the economic 
 effects of war — national influence — the sword for the weak. 
 
 Chapter V. How War Is Being Metamorphosed . . 169 
 
 THE DUSK OF THE WAR GODS — The growth of armies — the death 
 agony of the war giant — defensive warfare and lying. 
 
 THE HUMANIZING OP WAR — The principle of humaneness — the 
 theory and practice of noble war — the value of humanitarian ef- 
 fort. 
 
 THE COMPARATIVE RETROGRADENESS OF WAR— Reasons for 
 this — what are the facts ? — the mischief of overestimating the art 
 of war. 
 
 WAR AND THE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY— The decline of comrade- 
 ship — results of the separation between officers and men 
 
 Chapter VI. How the Army has Been Transformed 214 
 
 NATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL ARMIES — The invincibility of a 
 national army — a question wrongly worded — the three reasons for 
 the introduction of professional armies. 
 
 DEFENSIVE MILITIA OR AGGRESSIVE ARMY — The origin and 
 meaning of militia — the rise of a hireling army in Germany — the 
 rise of an army of mercenaries in Prussia — the 1807 reorganiza- 
 tion committee — the reaction of the military party. 
 
 THE PRUSSIAN MILITIA— The people's militia — the royal militia — 
 the transformation during the wars of liberation. 
 
 MILITARISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY— The new militia — ■ 
 army and revolution — universal military service in Europe. 
 
 Chapter VII. Wherein Patriotism Is Rooted . . . 250 
 
 PATRIOTISM CONSIDERED AS AN INSTINCT — Inevitable deca- 
 dence — the commanding position of patriotism- — our love for our 
 native land — overcoming our love of our native soil — the organic 
 family instinct — the change in racial instincts. 
 
 THE SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS OP MANKIND — The explanation of 
 public spiritness. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Different Species of Patriotism . . 264 
 
 LOCAL PATRIOTISM — Natural Patriotism— true and false patriotism 
 
 DYNASTIC OWNERSHIP — The affection of subjects — Prusso-German 
 and Austro German — the free association of states. 
 
 RACE PATRIOTISM- — The problem of race — the value of race purity 
 — historical and linguistic races — physical racial characteristics — 
 the mixture of races in Germany — -Germans and Teutons — the Eu- 
 ropean race. 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND PATRIOTISM — The multiplicity of combina- 
 tions — states within a state — language as a formative element of 
 states — the ideal of European patriotism.
 
 CONTENTS xxix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter IX. Unjustifiable Chauvinism .... 302 
 
 SELFISHNESS AND LOVE — Love of one's country not real love. 
 MASS SUGGESTION — Mass feeling among animals — mass feeling 
 among men. 
 
 THE CONDITIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF CHAUVINISM— 
 There is no demarcation between patriotism and chauvinism — war 
 as a necessary condition — self praise and fear. 
 
 THE ANTITHESIS BETWEEN CIVILIZATION AND CHAUVINISM 
 — Civilization as an organism — the internationalism of civilization 
 — the effect of chauvinism upon civilization in general — the special 
 effect of war. 
 
 Chapter X. The Legitimate Individualism of Nations 334 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF PERSONALITY— The right to individuality— 
 
 the restriction of personality — the primacy of the reason — nations 
 
 as individual units. 
 THE INDIVIDUAL QUALITIES OF NATIONS— The excellences of in 
 
 dividual nations — the excellences of their defects. 
 THE PECULIAR QUALITY OF THE GERMAN SPIRIT— German 
 
 civilization — originality — the period of German greatness — German 
 
 adaptability — overstraining of adaptability. 
 
 GERMAN HUMANITY AND GERMAN MILITARISM— What is mili- 
 tarism — German love of liberty — three reasons why German liberty 
 has taken a wrong turn — "the absolute" — bethink yourself I 
 
 Chapter XL Altruism 379 
 
 OVERCOMING PESSIMISM — Germany's mission — the new empire — 
 natural right — right and cosmopolitanism. 
 
 RIGHT AND WAR — The law of nations — the right of reprisals — the 
 right of the stronger — evolution and revolution— war and the 
 judgment of God. 
 
 SOME PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS ON ALTRUISM— Natural 
 law and purpose — inborn rights — the right to war — the law of the 
 organism. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ALTRUISM — The twofold basis of altruism — the 
 development of the "English" doctrine of utilitarianism — the evolu- 
 tion of Kantian morality — the abuse of Kant's doctrine — a change 
 of parte and a comedy in consequence — the inadequacy of both bases 
 of moralitj. 
 
 PART II 
 
 HOW WAR MAY BE ABOLISHED 
 
 Chapter XII. The Evolution of the Idea of the 
 
 World as an Organism 431 
 
 THE HELLENIC PERIOD — The first presentiments of there being a 
 soul in this world — the Post-Socratics. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ERA — The scholastic victory over primitive Chris- 
 
 tendom — Renaissance and reaction. 
 THE MODERN PERIOD — Its forerunners — modern empiricism.
 
 xxx CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XIII. The World as an Organism . . . 447 
 
 THE PHYSICAL REASON FOR MANKIND FORMING AN ORGAN- 
 ISM — Hypotheses and facts — the continuity of germ plasm — earthly 
 love makes heavenly love possible. 
 
 THE APPROACHING MUTATION OF WAR — The meaning of muta- 
 tion — the mother of war instincts. 
 
 THE UNITY OF MANKIND AS REGARDS BOTH TIME AND 
 SPACE — Man's connections from the point of view of time — man's 
 connections in regard to space. 
 
 THE AGE ••WHEN MANY SHALL GO TO AND FRO" — Humanity 
 and intercommunication — speech as a means of intercommunication 
 — the results of intercommunication — the connection between inter- 
 communication and the greatness of countries — premature attempts 
 to attain a universal monarchy. 
 
 Chapter XIV. The Transformation in Human Judg- 
 ment 478 
 
 THE PERIODICITY OF OPINIONS — Contradictory views — the idea of 
 evolution as the solution of the difficulty — love of war, ancient and 
 modern. 
 
 THE VOICE OF NATIONS — The antique — more recent times — the 
 transition to modern times — soldiers and diplomatists. 
 
 WAR POETRY — Dramatic war poetry — lyric poetry — the three Ger- 
 man poets of war — the poet and liberty. 
 
 MODERN DELIGHT IN WAR — The renascence of delight in war — 
 Moltke and his school — instances from the writings of war advo- 
 cates. 
 
 Chapter XV. War and Keligion 528 
 
 RELIGION AND LOVE OF PEACE — The older religions — the old 
 Testament a Jewish National Book — the brotherhood of man. 
 
 THE DILUTION OF CHRISTIANITY — The practical compromise be- 
 tween Christian doctrine and war — the theoretical compromise of 
 the middle ages — the theoretical compromise of modern times. 
 
 THE WATERING DOWN OF KANT AND BUDDHA — The misuse of 
 Kant — the compromise of Buddhism. 
 
 THE NEW RELIGION — The meaning of every religion — the religion of 
 humanity — uniformity of moral law.
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 War Instincts 
 
 1. — the importance of instincts 
 
 § 7. — War Instincts Versus Pacifism 
 
 For thousands of years past war has been hateful. No 
 thoughtful person has ever yet had anything good to say for it ; 
 at any rate, not if he thought fit to take the responsibility for 
 his ideas to the extent of committing them to writing. And 
 now almost every one adores and glorifies war; at all events, 
 they did so in Germany at the beginning of this present war. 
 There is clearly something wrong about this. It is unlikely 
 that the German should suddenly have revolutionized his in- 
 stincts, thus creating a new variety of human being; and 
 hence it would simply seem as if either educated men of all 
 times or men of to-day had been mistaken. In reality both 
 were mistaken. Chaste ears cannot endure the mention of 
 what chaste hearts cannot dispense with ; but reason never will 
 and never can justify war, and all attempts of modern men 
 to justify it have failed miserably. The ancients knew that 
 war could not be justified, and therefore they cursed it; but 
 they did not realize how strong is the war instinct of man, 
 which is more deeply ingrained in him than any kind of 
 reason. The moderns have had practical experience of this — 
 an experience which filled them sometimes with horror and 
 sometimes with admiration ; but they again are mistaken in 
 
 3
 
 4 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 believing that because instinct is so strong in all of us, there- 
 fore it is commendable. 
 
 In even the sincerest opponents of war there is a certain 
 hankering after war. A primeval impulse, a something remi- 
 niscent of the most secret wellsprings of human strength, at- 
 taches us to it. Even the best of the Germans, for instance, 
 is at heart and always has been mildly proud of having made 
 his first appearance in history as the conqueror and destroyer 
 of the Roman Empire, which in itself does not mean much, 
 since all nations first entered their country as conquerors, and 
 even the Jews, assuredly not a warlike people, first had to 
 conquer Canaan. 
 
 Now, the fact remains that we still have these reminiscences, 
 and although we may be otherwise human, yet there is in all 
 of us a "tiny fragment of earth," which we in Germany quite 
 rightly describe as "furor teutonicus." In short, whoever 
 becomes involved in a war is always dazzled by the magnificent 
 aspect of so gigantic an event. Delight in war, like an oc- 
 cult instinct, is in a nation's very blood, and when the time 
 comes, it awakes and manifests itself. In time of peace such 
 intoxication must be artificially created, which in the case of 
 the Bavarian can be done by means of beer, and he becomes 
 rowdy. An English sailor uses his fists after drinking enough 
 whisky, the Russian in the joys of vodka beats himself or, at 
 any rate, his wife, and the southern Frenchman or Italian, 
 when wine has gone to his head, seizes his knife. 
 
 It is when nations are overcome by the intoxication of war 
 that rowdiness, blows, and the use of fists and knives become 
 general. Then the French are no longer "decadent praters," 
 the Britons as "passive as cows," the Russians "sickly 
 dreamers," the Italians "gambling Lovelaces," or the Germans 
 "idealists forever droning about humanity." One and all be- 
 come men of action, aflame and afire for war; and it is pre- 
 cisely the fact that the war fever has infected them all which 
 proves that it is an instinct innate in the human race, ever 
 ready to break out.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 5 
 
 Because delight in war seemed an instinct wholly uncon- 
 nected with the powers of reflection, it was considered sacred ; 
 ' ' for, ' ' we were told, ' ' instincts are man 's most valuable pos- 
 session, and if a nation once loses its right instincts and fol- 
 lows wrong ones, it is lost." Now, the second part of this 
 sentence contradicts the first, for if there are right and wrong 
 instincts, then we must not obey every instinct indiscrim- 
 inately, and in each individual case we must consult our rea- 
 son as to what we ought to do ; in other words, as to whether 
 in this instance the impulse is good or bad. But if, after all, 
 reason is to have the last word, it might be thought that the 
 whole question of instinct had no practical bearing upon the 
 lives of us human beings. This, however, is by no means the 
 case. Man's instincts are of even more importance in de- 
 termining his conduct than we have been accustomed to think. 
 Reason, it is true, can decide and direct us; it can develop 
 one instinct and suppress another : but strength to take action 
 proceeds from a whole series of unconscious impulses. And 
 even if we have a thousand times admitted warlike instincts 
 to be wrong, we shall never get the better of them unless we 
 replace them by other and pacific instincts. 
 
 In Part III of this book I shall show that the instinct of love 
 is more powerful than that of hate, but my present purpose 
 is to set forth what, after all, an instinct really is, and to 
 trace the origin of martial instincts. 
 
 § 8. — The Value of Instinct 
 
 Liebmann * once pregnantly observed that the conception 
 of instinct is like a railway junction : everything we know 
 about psychology runs into it. Without analyzing instincts, 
 indeed, it is impossible either to understand the human soul 
 or rightly to estimate man 's passion for war. 
 
 The instincts which we first noticed were just the most 
 marvelous, the most complex, and consequently the most dif- 
 ficult to understand. Hence imperfect knowledge has gradu- 
 
 i Otto Liebmann, German philosopher, born 1840. — Translator.
 
 6 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ally enveloped instinct with a veil of mystery. The proper 
 way to arrive at a right comprehension of instincts, however, 
 is to begin with the simplest. And here may I be permitted 
 to make a slight digression? We call an act instinctive which 
 an animal performs unconsciously and with mechanical regu- 
 larity. Such acts, for instance, are the sucking movements 
 of a newborn infant and the closing of the eyelids when the 
 eye is threatened with injury. Now, as a matter of fact, in 
 the immense majority of instinctive acts there is really an 
 astonishing element of expediency far beyond the degree of 
 understanding which can possibly be possessed by the animals 
 performing them. Hence it might be thought that an in- 
 stinct must of necessity serve some useful purpose. Men 
 noted how a bird, which had never seen a nest built, yet car- 
 ried out this difficult work without any one to teach it, lining 
 the nest warmly at the proper season for its nestlings, of 
 whose future existence it could nevertheless hardly have any 
 foreboding. They noticed how migratory birds unerringly 
 wended their way southward at the proper season, and how 
 the bee built itself six-cornered cells long before modern 
 statics had shown that of all possible constructions these were 
 the ones best suited to the bees' purpose. The instinct of 
 animals thus surpasses all human intelligence ; it is truer, less 
 liable to err, and apparently can see what is to come, for 
 which reason Jean Paul called it the "sense of the future." 
 
 This conception, which, as will be shown, is a wrong one, 
 gave rise to the opinion, which since Rousseau's time has be- 
 come popular, that all that is necessary is to recognize in- 
 stincts and follow them ; then everything would go right of 
 itself. Even instincts, however, can go wrong, as a little re- 
 flection will show. Thus, in the lowest animals all acts take 
 place absolutely automatically. Just as the light which strikes 
 a stone expands it, and does so forcibly and always in the 
 same way, similarly when it strikes certain low forms of life 
 such as bacteria, it forces them toward the light (positive 
 heliotropism, as it is called) or away from the light (negative
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 7 
 
 heliotropism). Similarly in such low forms of life all sorts 
 of influences produce definite, forcible reactions, which in 
 themselves merely obey certain laws, and are neither expedient 
 nor inexpedient. If, however, they are injurious to the par- 
 ticular animal in question, it becomes extinct. Hence it hap- 
 pens quite naturally that the only species of animals which 
 have survived were so constructed that they were led to do 
 what was good for them and preserved from what was bad 
 for them. The complex instincts of the higher animals arose 
 in precisely similar fashion, and no one need wonder at their 
 expediency. Now, certain of these reactions are obviously of 
 such importance for the preservation of life that they must 
 occur in all animals without exception. For example, it is 
 wholly impossible that any animal whose instinct it was to 
 eat poisonous substances could exist ; and it is equally obvious 
 that the only protoplasms and, in course of evolution, the 
 only animals that have come into existence are those which 
 absorb substances in themselves nourishing, and involuntarily 
 avoid substances that for them are poisonous. Hence we 
 must not be surprised that all animals should know how to 
 avoid plants poisonous for them. 
 
 § 9. — Advantages and Disadvantages of Instincts 
 Despite all this, however, if one of these "animals with 
 true instincts" is transferred from its accustomed surround- 
 ings to a region in which plants unfamiliar to it occur, it 
 frequently happens that it eats unwholesome plants and con- 
 sequently perishes. Thus in a different environment a "true 
 instinct" may become false. Such occurrences are far from 
 rare in nature. For instance, the instinct of the moth to fly 
 into the candle or lamp, or that of the female thrush to feed 
 the young cuckoo until it pushes her own nestlings out of the 
 nest, are harmful, though they were not always so. The moth 
 first began struggling to get to the brightness at a time when 
 there were no lamps, and its flight toward the sun and up- 
 ward did it no harm, but, on the contrary, good. To feed the
 
 8 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 young is an instinct without which it is inconceivable that 
 there could ever have been any birds ; and the fact that from 
 time to time the cuckoo lays her eggs in the thrush's nest can- 
 not and ought not to alter the latter 's instinct. 
 
 Hence in nature, besides many valuable instincts, there are 
 also many harmful ones; and the mere fact that an act was 
 performed instinctively is in itself no proof that in the par- 
 ticular circumstances it was useful. It may probably be 
 safely concluded, however, that at the time when the instinct 
 arose it was useful ; and if man has warlike instincts, this is a 
 proof that it was necessary to wage war, but no argument 
 whatever as to its still being necessary. For, as is proved by 
 the case of the moth flying toward the light, instincts are 
 uncommonly conservative, and persist long after the condi- 
 tions which produced them have ceased to exist; and there 
 are countless instances of such "rudimentary instincts." 
 
 Take the case of the dog. He was once an arrant thief, 
 though he has ceased to be so more quickly than his master; 
 so that it would seem as if the teachings of the whip went 
 home more than those of morality. Be that as it may, how- 
 ever, it was in the predatory period of his existence that the 
 dog acquired the habit of burying his excrements, a habit 
 which in the case of wolves is often praised as testifying to 
 great intelligence. At a time when the thief on his nocturnal 
 rambles desired to make it as difficult as possible to scent him, 
 there was a very good reason for this habit. As the dog, how- 
 ever, did not then realize that this was so, he has preserved 
 this unconscious habit even to this day, despite the fact of 
 his present occupation being much more peaceful; and it is 
 ridiculous to see our street dogs scratching for a time with 
 their hind legs on the asphalt pavement of some modern town 
 after relieving nature. Here is an instance of a senseless, 
 purposeless instinct. Now, it must not be thought that human 
 beings had no rudimentary instincts. When a monkey of old 
 set upon his enemy, he did what very many animals do : he 
 first showed him his means of defense in order to strike terror
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 9 
 
 into him. Raising his upper lip, he exposed to view his pow- 
 erful incisors, and clenched his fist threateningly. Similarly, 
 whenever we civilized Europeans, who have wholly ceased to 
 bite and almost ceased to make any use of our fists, get into 
 a passion, we raise the upper lip and clench the fist precisely 
 as did our ancestor, the old forest-dwelling monkey. 
 
 Thus, no instinct is useful in itself, its existence being justi- 
 fied only so long as the conditions which gave rise to it remain 
 unchanged. Just as an animal which in the course of cen- 
 turies wanders farther north gradually acquires a thicker coat, 
 even so must it adopt other habits and other instincts. 
 
 § 10. — Man as Master of His Instincts 
 
 What has just been said of animals applies more to us hu- 
 man beings, endowed as we are with the power of changing 
 our conditions by our own acts to an incomparably greater 
 extent than any animal ; and for this very reason it is our 
 duty as far as possible to suit our habits to these altered con- 
 ditions of life. This is no easy matter, for, as I have said, 
 instincts are conservative and tenacious. Thus, since the in- 
 vention of knives we no longer use our teeth upon our ene- 
 mies, though throughout all the centuries we have never ceased 
 to show them our teeth. When we realized how much there 
 was to be gained from an organization of the world, then was 
 the time to have subdued our once useful instinct for war. I do 
 not mean this as a reproach to a great many persons, because 
 in their ease this process is a very slow one ; but human beings 
 who still continue enthusiastically to abandon themselves to 
 their lust for war always involuntarily make me think I see 
 a dog on the asphalt. No one is readier than I am to admit, 
 what ought to be admitted, that instincts are important to 
 man, more important than many intelligently performed ac- 
 tions. After all, everything most essential to life is rightly 
 removed from the domain of understanding, which is easily 
 deceived. We are, it is true, aware of hunger and thirst, the 
 sexual impulse and maternal love, but all are regulated by
 
 10 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 instincts ; and what is still more important, the beating of the 
 heart, respiration, and digestion proceed safely and surely 
 without our being aware thereof. 
 
 The understanding may err, but never instinct ; at any rate, 
 not if its province be restricted to things which, being part 
 and parcel of the very physical constitution of man, are vir- 
 tually unchangeable. Unjustifiable generalization from this, 
 however, has induced many to deny any real progress in the 
 world. The bacterium, they argue, always acts rightly; man 
 mostly wrongly. Hence what has been the use of the whole 
 cycle of evolution from the primitive cell to the human being? 
 This point of view, however, is based, I should like to'say for- 
 tunately, upon imperfect knowledge; for although instinct is 
 indeed infallible, which is an advantage, it is also blind and 
 incapable of learning, and this is its doom. Whenever an 
 animal comes into new surroundings with instincts unsuited 
 thereto, it still continues doing what according to its nature 
 is right; but in so doing it dies out. Thus one species of 
 animal after another has died out because it cannot change. 
 And is man also to die out because he will not change? 
 Man, moreover, can change. He is not like a bacterium, al- 
 ways obliged to do what is "in accordance with his nature." 
 Man is able to act differently, and, being capable of perpetual 
 modification, to adapt himself to circumstances. Man alone, 
 in short, can achieve the impossible in that he can choose, in 
 doing which, of course, he may err. But this curse of liability 
 to error is the necessary result of liberty and the direct out- 
 come of the blessed capacity for change, in other words, for 
 learning. 
 
 Verily the old Bible is wiser than the panegyrists of instinct 
 when it makes man fall at the very outset of creation ; for 
 what constitutes a moral human being is precisely his being 
 free to "sin" or "to do right." As long as man struggles, so 
 long must he err; or, to put it the other way, were there no 
 error, there would be no possibility of struggle. 
 
 For thousands of years past our ideal has been a sober,
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 11 
 
 self-controlled human race. Nevertheless, we have still not 
 been able to rid ourselves of physical instincts such as raising 
 the upper lip, while the more complex mental instincts are 
 still more difficult to break with, it being in man's very nature 
 to consider the old as venerable; and this traditional over- 
 estimation of everything old can ultimately be traced back to 
 hereditary instincts which we have unconsciously come to re- 
 vere. Such instincts in themselves have a tendency to per- 
 sist, and since we do not clearly realize this, but merely vaguely 
 suspect it, we imagine that by religiously adhering to every- 
 thing old we are preserving what is of permanent value. 
 This imperfect knowledge explains why we think it nobler 
 and more honorable to be out of date, and consequently war- 
 like, than up to date and peaceful. 
 
 Enough has now been said, I think, to show that the com- 
 parative value of warlike instincts can be correctly estimated 
 only if it be known what conditions originally gave rise to 
 bellicosity. Otherwise it is not possible for any one to decide 
 whether these conditions still persist; that is to say, whether 
 the war instinct still serves any purpose, or whether, like our 
 rudimentary appendix, once also very important, it is now 
 merely a cause of disease. 
 
 2. — TRIBAL INSTINCTS 
 
 § 11. — Man's Original Tendency to Live in Hordes 
 
 We may begin by observing that warlike instincts are not 
 necessary or even characteristic attributes of the human race. 
 On the contrary, they rather tend to prove that the conception 
 of humanity has become debased, inasmuch as man, according 
 to his true nature, must necessarily have been a peaceful and 
 social animal. This, indeed, may be inferred from the very 
 anatomy of man, who, as every one is aware, is one of the 
 most defenseless creatures ever known to science, possessing 
 neither horns nor fangs, claws nor hoofs, hard outer shell nor 
 poison glands; so that his equally defenseless ancestors,
 
 12 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 monkeys, could survive only owing to their being, at any 
 rate, somewhat protected by dwelling in the swaying branches 
 of trees. A climbing animal, however, could not develop into 
 a human being, walking upright, except by coming down 
 from the trees and walking about the ground until it acquired 
 a foot. 
 
 Now, the foot being henceforth used for purposes of loco- 
 motion, the hand was free. The earliest vertebrate animals — 
 for instance, the frog — already possessed this primitive five- 
 fingered hand, which, however, in the case of all animals 
 became converted — or, if the word be preferred, perfected — 
 into a special organ, usually either a claw or a hoof for de- 
 fensive purposes. Only in the case of the defenseless monkeys 
 did it remain a hand and acquire skill in tree-climbing. The 
 hand, in its origin peaceful, since it could neither strike nor 
 scratch, but merely grasp and seize, 1 was superfluous as an 
 aid to locomotion on the ground, and thus became free and 
 able to lay hold of something besides trees. Consequently it 
 clenched and laid hold of tools, thus becoming the means and 
 symbol of all man 's future greatness. 
 
 What is even more important, however, is that had man 
 been a solitary animal when he first attempted to quit-the pro- 
 tecting branches of the tree-tops, he would never have been 
 able to do anything of the kind, as he would infallibly have 
 been exterminated by his very much stronger-armed enemfes. 
 The fact that he nevertheless did take this decisive step, as a 
 result of which he conquered the world, proves that even then 
 he must have possessed some means of defense ; and as he did 
 not find the stone which he used as an ax until he descended 
 to earth, his only "powerful means of defense" must have 
 been the fact that weak persons become strong by uniting to 
 help one another. Man, in short, could conquer only because 
 he was a social being. 
 
 Not a single serious argument can be urged against the 
 
 i Deep significance, into which it is impossible to enter in detail here, 
 is contained in the fact that the expression "grasp" in the sense of
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 13 
 
 social origin of the human race. The sole objection of which 
 I know is "that it is just the anthropoids (the so-called human 
 monkeys, the ourang-outangs, chimpanzees, and gorillas) 
 which live only in family and not in social communities. ' ' But 
 this is based on the long-disproved theory, wrongly ascribed to 
 Darwin, that man is descended from these monkeys. We 
 know that the anthropoids are only our cousins, and that we 
 must seek our direct ancestors in very much lower monkeys. 
 Now, all these lower monkeys live in hordes ; and how they 
 club together to rob plantations, at the same time setting some 
 of their number on watch, and how they perform other tasks 
 such as removing heavy stones, in order to get at the worms 
 beneath, are matters of common knowledge. Our ancestors, 
 therefore, were social animals living in hordes or nomadic 
 tribes, and we were social beings long before that family life 
 began, to which persons blinded by the traditional sacredness 
 of the family formerly endeavored to trace back our social 
 and government communities. Were this the case, then man s 
 deep-seated social aspirations would indeed be of secondary 
 importance. It is not so, however, for man did not voluntarily 
 unite to form any community (the family first, for instance, 
 then the tribe, then a class, then a community, and so on) ; 
 but it was the primeval community which made the evolution 
 of man possible. 
 
 In reality, the lowest peoples, such as Bushmen, Tierra del 
 Fuegans, Eskimos, Andaman Islanders, and whatever their 
 names may be, always live in nomadic tribes or hordes even 
 when they have still no tendency to form families. Similarly 
 all their habits are directly traceable to tribal instincts. For 
 instance, the chattering and grimacing of savages, repeatedly 
 described by travelers, are the most vivid reminder of the 
 behavior of animals that live in hordes, such as monkeys, 
 and of certain birds that go in flocks, such as parrots. Nat- 
 urally, nothing of the sort is ever observable in the case of 
 
 thoroughly understand comes from the use of the hand, just as does the 
 word npprrnilrre (learn) of the Romance languages.
 
 14 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 races originally living solitary lives. Savages in general are 
 extraordinarily gregarious, and for them solitude almost 
 always portends mental and physical ruin, just as solitary 
 confinement is still one of the severest punishments for the 
 European, no matter how fertile may be his mind. 1 The 
 vanity of savages and their capacity for imitation also clearly 
 and certainly are due to their having originally lived together 
 in communities; for to whom is the solitary person to 
 "show off," whom is he to imitate, and with whom is he to 
 chatter 1 
 
 How far, moreover, it is possible to trace back this tribal 
 nature and the habits arising therefrom in the gradations of 
 the human race is shown, for example, by Le Moustier 's skele- 
 ton of primeval man — a skeleton which, according to Klaatsch, 
 exhibits signs of having received most careful burial. Now, 
 as might be expected, we find all these primitive characteristics 
 in children, for, after all, we know that every person must 
 pass through the various stages of development that his fore- 
 fathers underwent. The first impulses of a child's mind, in 
 fact, find expression in vanity, desire to imitate, and chatter- 
 ing or babbling. 
 
 Perhaps the most decisive proof of man's originally tribal 
 nature, however, is speech. No one doubts or can doubt that 
 a human being without speech is no human being, and hence 
 that the capacity for speech, at any rate, was acquired not 
 later than the period when man became man, and probably 
 earlier. Now, there is absolutely no need to insist on the 
 self-evident fact that speech could never arise in the case of 
 beings living alone, but only from life in common ; and it is 
 only in the case of social creatures, such as parrots, frogs, 
 ducks, hens, dogs, horses, seals, and cows, that we find speech 
 or capacity for modulating the sounds uttered. On the other 
 hand, all creatures of solitary habits, even when, like birds 
 of prey, cats, and whales, they have comparatively highly de- 
 
 i These words were, I think, written while the author was in solitary 
 con iinement. — Translator.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 15 
 
 veloped brains, are mute and speechless, or at most can utter 
 only love sounds, such as the mewing of a cat, or sounds to 
 alarm their enemies, such as the lion's roar. In other words, 
 they never utter sounds save when they enter into some sort of 
 relations with creatures of their own kind, which they do 
 when in love or at war with them. Speech presupposes re- 
 lations of some kind, and the fact that man speaks proves that 
 these relations have existed from all time. 
 
 Man, as even Aristotle knew, is from his very nature a social 
 animal. Universal brotherhood among- men is older and more 
 primitive than all combat, which was not introduced among 
 men until later. 
 
 3. — THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST 
 
 § 12. — The Peaceableness of Animals 
 
 When a wolf attacks a sheep, or a lion a gazelle, neither wolf 
 nor lion is exposed to any danger. Similarly beasts of prey 
 in general do not become dangerous to their pursuers save in 
 exceptional cases. If, however, an animal attacks one of its 
 own kind, there is always a possibility that the aggressor may 
 be overcome by the almost equally powerful opponent. For a 
 creature to begin to tackle one of its own kind is thus no 
 light task; and as every animal instinctively avoids pain, it 
 is not surprising that wars or combats between animals of 
 the same kind should be of such extreme rarity that it may 
 almost be said that war, like so much else, is a human invention. 
 The argument in favor of this is the hypothesis, first sub- 
 mitted by the Englishman Pye-Smith, 1 that right-handedness, 
 which occurs only in human beings, is due to warlike habits. 
 It is the right arm which is used to fight with, in order that 
 the left arm "may be used to protect the left side, in which 
 the quickened heartbeats were visible." 
 
 i "On Lefthandedness," by Dr. Philip Henry Pye-Smith. Guy's Hos- 
 pital Reports, III Series," Vol. XVI, p. 141. Cf. al«o C-aupp, "On 
 Iliyhthandedness": Jena, 1904.
 
 16 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Even the ancients noticed the remarkably peaceable char- 
 acter of beasts of prey. Lucretius, for example, says: 
 
 Quando leoni 
 Fortior eripuit vitam leo? Quo neniore unquam 
 Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri? 
 
 (When did a stronger lion ever take the life of another lion? In 
 what wood did ever a swine end its life through the tusk of a 
 bigger swine ? x ) 
 
 This is also the opinion of Montaigne, 2 who says in his 
 "Apologie of Raymond Sebond," comparing the intellectual 
 attributes of beasts with those of man : 
 
 As for warre, which is the greatest and most glorious of all 
 humane actions, I would faine know if we will use it for an argu- 
 ment of some prerogative, or otherwise for a testimonie of our 
 imbecilitie and imperfection, as in truth the science we use to defeat 
 and kill one another, to spoile and utterly to overthrow our owne 
 kind, it seemeth it hath not much to make itselfe to be wished for in 
 beasts, that have it not. 
 
 Similarly Shaftesbury 3 points out that the phrase "homo 
 homini lupus" ("Man is a wolf to his fellow-man"), is alto- 
 gether absurd when we reflect that wolves are very gentle and 
 loveable creatures to other wolves. 
 
 It is, indeed, worthy of note that only a very few animals 
 wage genuine wars. In the case of most animals, for instance 
 young dogs and cats, the so-called fights of which they are 
 fond are merely sham fights, nowise intended to injure any 
 one else taking part, but only as training for future fights with 
 
 i Lucretius. "De rerum Natura," Book II, 1, 323. 
 
 2 Essays, fifth edition, 1588. Book 2, Chapter XII, Florio's transla- 
 tion. Nicolai, doubtless having no reference library at his disposal, 
 quotes from memory only. I have quoted the original passage. — Trans 
 lator. 
 
 3 "Moralists: a Philosophical Rhapsody," by Antony Ashley Cooper, 
 third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713. II, 5, German translation by 
 Karl Wolff: Jena, 1910, p. 86.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 17 
 
 other kinds of animals. If, therefore, they could be com- 
 pared with any other human institution, it would be only 
 with sport, which is man's way of playing. 1 
 
 § 13. — The Impossibility of War without Property 
 
 Except man, the only creatures that wage war properly so- 
 called among themselves (Homer's Polemon epidemion), are 
 stags, ants, bees, and a few birds. All these creatures live 
 social lives, and how they came to fight one another, which, 
 as we shall see in Chapter II, is contrary to the universal laws 
 of life, is what needs to be explained. One thing is clear 
 from the first, that to fight one's own kind is fraught with 
 danger ; and as an animal risks its life in so doing, the possible 
 reward in the event of victory must be sufficient to com- 
 pensate for such high stakes. At any rate, even allowing for 
 an animal being unable to estimate so exactly what is and what 
 is not worth while, there must be some possible reward in view 
 which induces it to fight. But what can induce a tiger to 
 fight another tiger? Tigers never eat other tigers, and in any 
 case scarcely any animals ever eat their own kind, cannibalism, 
 like war, being one of the blessings conferred by civilization 
 and peculiar to man. The poor tiger has really nothing but 
 his body which could tempt another tiger. The grounds over 
 which he hunts do not belong to him; and if another tiger 
 happens to covet them, he will go and hunt there, too. Then, 
 if he is swifter, and consequently catches all the prey, so 
 that the other tiger gets nothing, the latter, if he does not 
 want to starve, must go elsewhere ; but if the old tiger is 
 the swifter, then the new-comer will be forced to depart. Thus 
 the struggle goes on between the two without either needing 
 to kill the other and without the loss of any tiger flesh. 
 
 No conqueror, however, can rob the tiger of what really 
 belongs to him, — his strength, his swiftness, and his other 
 
 i Cf. Gross, "Die Spiele der Tiere" ("Animals' Games"). G. Fischer: 
 Jena, 1907.
 
 18 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 physical endowments, — for they all die with him. 1 War be- 
 tween creatures of the same kind is wholly unthinkable unless 
 they are either cannibals or possessed of something of which 
 it is worth while robbing them. This latter hypothesis is by 
 far the more important of the two. 
 
 War, therefore, cannot occur until a certain level of civiliza- 
 tion has been attained; - for man or beast, as the case may be, 
 must have, at any rate, reached the stage of feeling that he 
 or it has a right to possess some thing or other, whether it be 
 merely an old bone which a dog has buried and which he often 
 defends as vigorously as a human being his money-chest, or 
 whether it be a female for the possession of which stags 
 and cocks fight in truly human fashion. Genuine wars, how- 
 ever, did not begin except where actual property was accumu- 
 lated ; and as property is in a certain sense a sign of civiliza- 
 tion, war might likewise appear to be so. Accordingly, we find 
 that wars proper do not occur among animals except in the 
 case of ants and bees, and that they are waged for the sake 
 of honey, a habitation, and supplies. For such things man 
 fights also. The property may consist in fields laid out in all 
 manner of different ways, in weapons, tools, accumulated stores 
 of gold, or in anything whatsoever; or it may be flocks and 
 herds that are involved, or women, either as beasts of burden 
 or as sexual property; or even man himself, who is handed 
 over to the victor as a slave. Whenever there is nothing to 
 be had, however, no fighting takes place, and Hume 3 is quite 
 right in saying that a savage is but little tempted to turn 
 another savage out of his hut or rob him of his bow, being 
 himself already provided with these things. Propertyless 
 
 i The fact that man, having become superstitious, hoped to acquire 
 the physical characteristics of his fellow-men by eating them has al- 
 ways been cited by students of the lower races as one of the reasons 
 which led to cannibalism. Just as superstition is a human character- 
 istic, so also is the cannibalism resulting from it. 
 
 2 Even cannibalism, as modern ethnologists all agree, presupposes a 
 certain level of civilization. (Cf. infra.) 
 
 3 "Treatise on Human Nature." Vol III, pp. 2, 8.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 19 
 
 animals consequently live in peace one with another. In 
 other words, even the fiercest beasts of prey do not fight 
 among themselves save for quite exceptional causes, which 
 very seldom occur, and which are rightly considered as usually 
 betokening degeneration. 
 
 Would man but realize that there is nothing natural, noth- 
 ing great, and nothing noble about war, but that it is merely 
 one of the numberless consequences of the introduction of 
 property ! In short, war in its essence is a business, like 
 thousands of others, except that it is unnatural and assumes 
 certain violent forms. This, however, does not alter the fact 
 that it is essentially the same thing. 
 
 It is not so very long since that the head of a business 
 house as well as the leader of a troop of soldiers was called 
 captain 1 (capiiano), so that the lieutenant of to-day need 
 not look down so proudly on a mere clerk. 2 They are both 
 brothers. 
 
 4. — THE NATURAL PRICE OF WAR 
 
 § 14. — ~War and Slavery 
 
 For whatever purpose a war may be fought, however great 
 the spoils of the victor, mankind must always be exploited, 
 either because the accumulated results of his labor are forcibly 
 appropriated or because others are trying to use the results of 
 his future labor for themselves. Thus every war which has 
 any practical result, and is not wholly superfluous, must neces- 
 sarily result in the enslavement of a portion of mankind. 
 One consequence of this, however, is that war was justified 
 only so long as it was considered justifiable to impose some 
 
 i This word is in English in the original. — Translator. 
 
 2 Even the French word commis (clerk) (Herman, Kommis) is de- 
 rived from the Latin committers (fight), although this word can never 
 he proved to have had two meanings Compare, however, the two 
 meanings of compagnie, campagne, the same root as in Commerzienrat 
 | councilor of commerce, a German title conferred upon distinguished 
 financiers and business men — Translatorl and mercenarius. Both de- 
 me I heir name from the same root, capere (take)
 
 20 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 form or other of slavery upon the vanquished; while another 
 consequence is that there can be only any object in war so 
 long as it is possible to impose this slavery. 
 
 Even on superficial reflection it is obvious that the terms 
 of modern peace treaties likewise attempt to impose some 
 form of slavery. "What is a war indemnity if not part of the 
 labor of a vanquished foe, of which we as "exploiters" are 
 depriving hhn? It is the same thing under a finer name, and 
 Goethe * is not so very far wrong in thiukiug that there is 
 not much to choose between honest soldiers imposing a war 
 tax and a gang of thieves. 
 
 Private property to-day is supposed to be protected ; but 
 even if this is so, it is only to the extent of taking nothing 
 from the person directly, but merely indirectly by imposing a 
 burden on the entire conquered people, which, after all, 
 amounts to very much the same thing. 
 
 Moreover, what can the conquest of a province mean except 
 that we partly appropriate to ourselves what the enemy has 
 done there, and thus are again guilty of exploitation? This 
 is of course also the case if the conquered province is consid- 
 ered only as a colony to serve the purpose of national expan- 
 sion, save that in this case it is not the individual citizen who 
 is concerned, but the community as a whole, and that it is not 
 merely material property which is involved, but also to some 
 extent civilization and ideals. In principle, however, it is 
 the same thing. 
 
 Whether war really does make such exploitation possible is 
 another question. 2 At any rate, this is the object of war, 
 and therefore, if slavery were really abolished, there would 
 
 i Goethe, who makes Habebald, in "Faust," II, 4, say to the Kaiser's 
 myrmidons, who call him a low thief: 
 
 Die Redliehkeit, die kennt man schon, 
 
 Sie heisst: Kontribution, 
 
 Ihr alle seid auf gleic-hem Fuss: 
 
 Gib her! Das ist der Handwerksgruss. 
 2 Cf. § 52-54, about the advantages derived from war.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 21 
 
 be no longer any object in war; and as a matter of fact, there 
 is no object in it in so far as slavery has been abolished. 
 
 Now, slavery being forbidden by our present laws, and 
 being also to a certain extent rendered impossible by present 
 conditions, war has in a twofold sense lost all justification for 
 its existence. In law it is no less contrary to morality than 
 slavery, and there can be no greater advantages connected 
 with it than with slavery. True, numerous relics of slavery, 
 such as exploitation, still persist, and just so far as these 
 relics extend can there now be said to be any object in 
 war. Every one, however, who defends war under any con- 
 ditions whatever ought to know that in so doing he is advo- 
 cating slavery. 
 
 § 15. — The Uses of Enslavement. 
 
 This inevitable connection between war and slavery points 
 to the fact, however, that war, like slavery, had once some 
 use; for there can be no possible doubt that at a certain 
 phase of civilization it was not only a benefit, but probably also 
 a dire necessity, for the majority of mankind to be forced to 
 work for others. An animal's life is almost wholly taken up 
 by the business of feeding. Vegetable feeders are, after all, 
 obliged to swallow huge quantities of food, and when not eat- 
 ing, these are engaged in digesting the food or in chewing 
 the cud; and even beasts of prey spend their days in hunting, 
 rating, and sleeping, which merely means that they are rest- 
 ing so as to be ready for more predatory excursions. If to 
 this is added the time which animals require for the business 
 of love-making and for a certain amount of attention to physi- 
 cal cleanliness, there is hardly any spare time left. 
 
 Now, the life of primitive man can scarcely have differed 
 from that of animals, for he, too, spent the whole day in the 
 satisfaction of his physical needs. Man, however, in contra- 
 distinction to animals, has needs of a higher kind. When these 
 needs be^an to assert themselves, while mankind was still
 
 22 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 obliged to work virtually all day long in order to keep alive, 
 it was right and necessary that the great mass of men should 
 work rather more than was absolutely needful for themselves 
 in order that a select few, without themselves working, might 
 be enabled to live at leisure on the superfluity acquired by the 
 labor of others, and devote themselves to the promotion of 
 civilization. Similarly, it was equally necessary and desir- 
 able that a few people should be able to live on the product of 
 the labor of other peoples in order likewise to have leisure to 
 promote civilization. It is absolutely impossible that the mar- 
 velous civilization of the ancients could have existed without 
 there having been slaves. 
 
 The time came, however, when another kind of organization 
 rendered slavery superfluous. The community as a whole 
 voluntarily gave up part of its earnings to be devoted to 
 purposes of civilization ; for when the state hands over to the 
 ministry of public worship and education a portion of the 
 funds it raises by taxation, it is putting something in the 
 place of slavery. Again, a select few are enabled, as formerly 
 by slavery, to live at the expense of the generality. 1 
 
 Moreover, there is the fact that — at any rate, in principle — 
 a great deal of work once done by slaves can now be per- 
 formed by machinery; and if, as is unfortunately the case, 
 our requirements had not been increased so greatly by the in- 
 troduction of new technical expedients as always to be in ad- 
 vance of what can be achieved by machinery, — if, for in- 
 stance, we could still content ourselves, which would not be at 
 all a bad thing, with about thrice the output of labor of the 
 Greco-Roman period, — then workers would need to work only 
 a few hours daily. As I purpose to show, our machines, in 
 the hours worked at present, get through about ten times as 
 
 i The sums thus expended are, taken altogether, inconsiderable, al- 
 though the amount necessary for an individual contributor to the sum 
 of the world's knowledge works out fairly high. For example, in order 
 that one Sanscrit student may have the requisite leisure to pursue his 
 researches, from about 150 to 200 working-class families must indi- 
 rectly hand over to him their surplus labor.
 
 WAR INSTINCTS 23 
 
 much as human hands ; and therefore, in order to get through 
 thriee as much, they would need to work only one third as 
 long as is now the ease. Consequently the workmen would 
 require to work only one third as long as is at present eus- 
 tomary. 
 
 The world, however, will have none of such moderation, 
 and political economists, to suit many greedy people, in- 
 vented the phrase about national well-being increasing with 
 increased power of consumption. Possibly what is defined 
 as national well-being may be thus increased, which, however, 
 would only go to prove that the definition is meaningless; for 
 in reality national well-being does not become greater because 
 all manner of superfluous trash, such as oleographs and shell- 
 covered boxes, is palmed off upon the working-classes to- 
 day. But it is this artificially excited greed which in the end 
 still continues to bolster up slavery in the shape of exploita- 
 tion and war. 
 
 As property engendered theft, even so it has engendered 
 war and, in its train, all crimes, although here and there it 
 was an incentive to virtue. Thus, for feeble souls who will not 
 exert themselves save in the hope of becoming possessed of 
 some tangible object it is well that there should be something 
 in the nature of a stimulus. So matters remained, and, as 
 Greek and Roman heroic poets recognized, with true percep- 
 tion of the facts of life, the struggle went on for thousands 
 upon thousands of years for the sake of the world's precious 
 goods, for love, and for gold. Covetousness began with rob- 
 bery, which in turn aroused in its victim anger and vengeance. 
 The Iliad is the song of songs not only of a fight for a woman 
 (Paridis propter amorem), bringing death and ruin in its 
 wake, but likewise of the wrath of Achilles; while the burden 
 of the Nibelungen myth is the fight for the sparkling golden 
 treasure and the vengeance of Krimhild. 1 
 
 1 These poems have greater unity tlian seems to be the case at first 
 sight, for the wrath of Achillea was excited in the fight for the woman 
 (Briseis), and the vengeance of Krimhild also in its essence has to do
 
 24 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 True, for the time being, Venus had ceased to spur the 
 Crusaders on to tight, her place being taken by the divine 
 Virgin, and that red gold which once seemed the sole posses- 
 sion worth striving for is now merely the symbol of power 
 and, above all, of possession; but the principle remains un- 
 changed. Only very rarely does it seem as if a multitude of 
 people — for instance, the Albigenses — make an effort to fight 
 for a new idea. Even then I believe that they only seem to 
 do so, and that closer inspection would reveal other motives. 
 I cannot, indeed, conceive of men drawing the sword for an 
 idea pure and simple, an idea wholly unconnected with any 
 conception of power. For the conception of country and 
 nothing else it is probably possible to tight, by endeavoring to 
 express to the full in oneself, and therefore for others, the 
 genius of ones own people; but it will scarcely promote any 
 purely patriotic conception to begin shooting for it with 
 cannon. The value of such material arguments cannot become 
 clearly manifest until purely patriotic ideas have become 
 closely intermingled with impure and covetous conceptions 
 of power and property. 
 
 Fighting, in short, is intimately bound up with property 
 and slavery, and Goethe x knew what he was writing about 
 when he said: 
 
 ''Krieg, Handel und Piraterie 
 Dreieinig sind sie, nieht zu trennen." 
 
 with the possession of treasure. In the medieval Nibelungenlied, which 
 has been recast in a Christian sense, this appears less clearly. Wagner 
 brings it out more strongly. 
 
 i "Faust," Part II, 5. Mephistophcles's words when he hands over to 
 Faust the proceeds of a voyage. ("War, trade, and piracy are trinity 
 in unity, inseparable.")
 
 CHAPTER II 
 War and the Struggle for Life 
 
 1. — THE bases of war 
 
 § 16. — Darwinism 
 
 Eagerness to acquire property was originally the cause and 
 object of war. In the course of evolution, however, the 
 signification of any particular occurrence may change, which 
 is what is known as a change of function. When our ances- 
 tors, for instance, were still swimming about in ponds, our 
 lungs, which we now use for breathing, were a floating blad- 
 der ; and later on, when they were already living in trees, 
 our hands, with which now we grasp hammers, slate-pencils, 
 axes, and swords, were meant for climbing. Thus the function 
 of these organs of ours altered, and similarly the meaning of 
 our institutions altered. 
 
 To-day marriage and the stage are moral institutions, but 
 they arose, in the case of the former, from desire for posses- 
 sion, and in the case of the latter from pleasure in motion, 
 as witness dancing, music, and tragedy. The like is true 
 with regard to war. It arose as a means of robbery, but be- 
 ing virtually useless in this capacity at present, new func- 
 tions were discovered for it, and now it is stated to tend to 
 counteract materialism, degenerative tendencies, and so forth. 
 
 Love of possession, which was first aroused in man, merely 
 explains how man, forsaking the habits of his peaceful pro- 
 genitors, first came to wage war. Once this was done, how- 
 ever, war ceased to be a mere "action," and even became 
 "a factor in education." 
 
 Now, we first perform our actions and then cannot shake 
 
 25
 
 26 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 off the effects of them. Cain, who slew his brother Abel, 
 was never the same again, and to this day mankind still bears 
 the brand of Cain. In this respect war is nowise different 
 from any other human action. We have created speech, 
 agriculture, technical science, and much else besides, and 
 they are now educating us. A great many human institutions, 
 such as cannibalism, slavery, and idolatry, moreover, have 
 been only temporary; but they, too, have left indelible traces 
 on the human soul. Similarly, the fact that our ancestors 
 waged war continuously for more than ten thousand years 
 cannot be obliterated and leave no trace. It would be enough 
 to give the most pacifically inclined human being a warlike 
 bent. 
 
 The belief gained ground, however, that still greater in- 
 fluence might be ascribed to war, particularly an influence 
 upon human evolution. War, in short, as one form of the 
 struggle for life, was said to cause selection. Most of the 
 theoretical defenders of war to-day are wholly ignorant of nat- 
 ural science. They have nevertheless heard enough of Darwin- 
 ism to know that Darwin was said to have stated that all living 
 creatures achieve victory by means of struggle, and that 
 everywhere the unfit are exterminated and the fit survive, and 
 thus the race is perfected. What could be more obvious than 
 to apply this theory to war? The fit nations conquer, the 
 unfit perish. This may be terrible, and a constant hindrance 
 to progress in the case of individual nations, which is cer- 
 tainly regrettable, but it is the only way to sift the wheat from 
 the chaff. Moreover, by this method perfection is eventually 
 attained, even if the way thereto is long and leads over moun- 
 tains of corpses. In short, it was believed that the right to 
 make war was one of the so-called natural rights that are 
 part of our birthright, and that war, like the struggle for ex- 
 istence, is profitable to mankind. 
 
 Now, apart from the fact that the expression "innate nat- 
 ural right" means nothing, and that the struggle for exist- 
 ence need by no means always be profitable, war does not at
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 27 
 
 all come within the conception of "struggle for existence" in 
 the true sense of this phrase. This claim in behalf of war 
 is therefore reduced to virtually nothing. We must not be 
 surprised, however, at its having been advanced, for our gen- 
 eration can scarcely realize the feeling of enfranchisement 
 caused throughout Europe by the publication, on November 
 26, 1854, of "The Origin of Species." All branches of sci- 
 ence were immediately hypnotized by enthusiasm for the idea 
 of struggle, and efforts were made to apply it to chemistry, 
 astronomy, cosmology, and sociology. It is only with its ap- 
 plication to sociology that we are concerned, and this was 
 the most risky. Struggle, indeed, which is met with through- 
 out nature, does not cease just at the time when man comes 
 upon the scene, for he, too, is wholly subject to the law of 
 struggle, and no one has ever doubted this. 
 
 The saying that life is a struggle is found in the writ- 
 ings of all the three nations to whom we owe our civilization, 
 the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, and we moderns have 
 all realized this. A Frenchman, Beaumarchais, chose as his 
 motto, "My life is a fight"; 1 an Englishman, Darwin, was 
 the author of the phrase "struggle for life"; 2 but for us it is 
 a German, Goethe, who expressed it most finely, when he 
 said: 
 
 Denn ich bin ein Mensch gewesen, 
 Und das heisst ein Kampfer sein. 3 
 
 From Job's time to Goethe's, however, it probably never 
 entered into the mind of man that any one could conceive 
 of its being possible to fight out with muskets or cannon 
 the struggle which is supposed to fill man's life. 
 
 Struggle is everywhere: it is only the methods of carrying 
 it on which vary. The fox's way of struggling with the hare 
 
 ' Tn this form the phrase is due to Voltaire's "Mahomet," II, 4. 
 
 '-' Knglish in the original. Darwin generally says "struggle for exist- 
 ence " — Translator. 
 
 3 In his "Westostlicher Divan," 1819. (For I have been a man, in 
 other words a fighter. — Translator. )
 
 28 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 is to eat up her food ; two species of mice struggle one against 
 the other by one of them being, for instance, more capable 
 of resisting cold than the other. Thus the diverse kinds 
 of struggle in nature can by no means be compared out- 
 right; for every species of living creature struggles for its 
 existence in whatever way is best adapted to it. Similarly 
 it is a mistake to insist that struggle for existence must neces- 
 sarily be horrible or even brutal. Such terms are meaning- 
 less, and old Busch showed that he had more understanding 
 of nature than all the so-called Darwinian philosophers, whom 
 he put to shame by his lines : 
 
 Mensek mit traurigem Gesichte, 
 
 Sprieh nicht nur von Leid und Streit. — 
 
 Selbst in Brehms Xaturgeschichte 
 Findet sick Barmherzigkeit ! x 
 
 Darwin himself, in Chapter V of his "Descent of Man," ex- 
 plained that social instincts are present even in the lower 
 animals, thus admitting their importance. His successors, 
 however, neglected this aspect of his teachings, and above all 
 failed to realize that, if these social instincts are traced back, 
 a principle is arrived at which has been developed in and 
 owing to struggle, but cannot have orginated in it. 
 
 It is not chance that it should have been almost exclu- 
 sively Russians, the offspring of a race and inhabitants of a 
 country in which the social system of the mir (village com- 
 munity) still prevailed who insisted upon this aspect of Dar- 
 winian Darwinism, thereby opposing the excrescences of mod- 
 ern Darwinism. 
 
 Indications of a belief in the existence of social instincts 
 in the lower animals may even be found in Goethe 2 and in 
 
 i These lines, unless 1 am mistaken, are not by Busch, but by Bier- 
 baum or Hartleben. — Translator. 
 
 2 Goethe, writing to Eckermann on October 8, 1827, mentions that the 
 fact that a mother bird feeds interlopers [young cuckoos, for example] 
 is an indication of there being something "divine" underlying it. "If
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 29 
 
 the German philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, 1 
 while Espinas 2 cites a great number of facts bearing on the 
 subject. Lanessan 3 also described the chief aspects of the 
 social impulse in animals; but the first person to recognize its 
 importance as a corrective of so-called Darwinism was the 
 Russian zoologist Kessler, 4 who unfortunately died the follow- 
 ing year. His work, however, inspired the great Krapotkin, 5 
 to write in "The Nineteenth Century'' a series of articles 
 extending over seven years. 
 
 Finally, Novikow, 6 in many of his writings has dealt with 
 the same subject; but how slight has been the effect of all 
 their writings on orthodox science may be gaged from the 
 fact that such widely known names as those of Espinas and 
 Novikow are not to be found in the latest edition of Meyer's 
 "Konversationslexikon." I cannot, however, here do more 
 than refer generally to these writings; but I would like espe- 
 cially to recommend every one interested in sociology in the 
 true Darwinian sense of the term the works of Peter Krapotkin 
 and Novikow. 
 
 Like every other species of living creature, man also carries 
 on his struggle for existence, in which there is neither cruelty 
 nor benevolence, neither of which, for that matter, occurs 
 in insensible nature; and he carries it on in accordance with 
 
 this were a universal rule prevailing throughout uature, then it would 
 explain much that is inexplicable." 
 
 1 Krause's "L'rbild der Menschheit" ("The 'Human Prototype"): 
 Dresden, 1811. Ct also a number of his other works. 
 
 2 "Lea Societes aniinales" by A. Espinas: Paris, 1877. 
 
 3 Lanessan's "La lutte pour l'existence et l'asaociation pour la 
 lutte," 1832. 
 
 * Kessler's "Comptes rendus der naturwissensehaftlichen Gesellschaft": 
 • t Petersburg. Vol. XT, 1880 
 
 s 1890-96. This series of articles was afterward published in book 
 form, ami translated into German by Gustav Landauer. A popular edi- 
 tion was published by Thomas: Leipsic, 1908. 
 
 « Novikow's works, in particular, in "Les luttes entre societes hu- 
 tnaines" :5rd ed. : Paris, F. Alcan, 1!I04, and "Die Gerechtigkeit niul 
 die Rntfaltung des Lebens" ("Justice and the Development of Lite"): 
 I 1907.
 
 30 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 iron laws, rigid and eternal. But — and this is the main point 
 — it must be a struggle for existence, and not a struggle against 
 existence, which war is. Now, to make this distinction clearer, 
 it is necessary to expound the universal principle of struggle in 
 nature (See §§ 19-21), and then, to consider the special con- 
 ditions under which man has to struggle, (§§ 22-28). This 
 will show that the struggle for existence is concentrated upon 
 procuring free outlet for man's mental capacities, and thus 
 rendering the maximum amount of energy available for man- 
 kind. Every struggle which helps to do this is justifiable ; that 
 is to say, it falls into line with human progress, and every 
 struggle which does not so help or which hinders is un- 
 justifiable; that is to say, it diverts man from the upward 
 path of progress. Such justifiable struggles, alike productive 
 and prodigal of life, are those to which Laotse refers as be- 
 ing "waged with living weapons." Every other struggle, on 
 the contrary, is fought out with "hard, cut-and-dried weap- 
 ons," and with these no victory can be won. To which cate- 
 gory of struggle war belongs will presently appear. 
 
 - § 17. — The Fundamental Law of Growth and the Limits of 
 Size 
 
 The meaning of this universal principle of struggle in na- 
 ture cannot be understood without some knowledge of the 
 most primordial biological law ; namely, the law that every- 
 thing which exists, above all everything which lives, tends 
 to increase beyond all bounds. Struggle, indeed, can be ex- 
 plained only by the law of growth, for in itself the earth would 
 hai>e room for a great many things at once, but as each thing 
 tends to increase to an unlimited extent, they necessarily come 
 into collision. 
 
 We often meet with this law in the inorganic world. Owing 
 to the effect of gravitation, the heavenly bodies, once they have 
 taken shape, "grow" by attracting to themselves everything 
 coming within their sphere; and even a crystal "grows" so 
 long as sufficient mother-lye is present. In short, wherever
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 31 
 
 the phenomena of motion takes place there is an unmistakable 
 tendency to "accumulate like substances," 1 which is the 
 same thing as growth. Even now, at any rate, in the domain 
 of physics this can be accounted for theoretically, or at least 
 it may be made to appear plausible, Zehnder - in particular 
 having argued much on these lines. Whatever we may think 
 of his and similar arguments, it is nevertheless a fact that 
 everything, and above all every living substance, grows. 
 
 True, there are limits to this growth, three in number. A 
 single cell, the most primitive structure, can scarcel}' grow 
 beyond the size of a pin's head, because the interior of the 
 molecule no longer receives sufficient nourishment from 
 osmosis, 3 and a limit is thus set to the single-cell form of life. 
 The tendency to grow still persists, however, despite the fact 
 that the individual cell cannot increase in size. Hence further 
 growth is impossible unless the isolated cells join together to 
 form communities of cells. Thus it is that individual beings 
 or polycellular organisms come into existence. These, too, 
 have an inherent tendency to become larger and larger, as we 
 can see in tracing the development of animals. For instance, 
 the oldest horse with which paleontology has acquainted us 
 was about as large as a fox. Gradually, however, it grew, 
 and is probably still continuing to grow; and so it is with all 
 animals and likewise with us human beings. 
 
 But at length a limit is reached which even the individual 
 polycellular creature cannot overstep. For mechanical rea- 
 sons aquatic and swamp-dwelling animals very much larger 
 
 i Empedocles already had an inkling of this primeval law of growth, 
 for he says (see Diel's •Fragments of the Pre-Soeraties," 1st ed., Em- 
 pedocles, p 90) : "Thus did sweet seek after sweet, bitter make a rush 
 for bitter, sour after sour, etc." 
 
 -' Zehnder 's "The Origin of Life" ("Entstehung des Lebens"), 1910. 
 Published by H. Laupp, Tubingen. 
 
 8 All that is necessary is, of course, that one dimension should not be 
 exceeded. Cells can often expand to a comparatively large size in a 
 flat shape. Compare, for instance, Caulerpa, which attains a super- 
 ficies of several square centimeters. (Sap probably rises in plants ami 
 glands from their secretions through osmosis.)
 
 32 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 than a whale, land animals very much larger than elephants, or 
 aerial creatures very much larger than a swan cannot exist, 
 for they could no longer have sufficient strength and stability ; 
 and paleontology teaches us that this limit, which ilelmholtz 
 among others calculated in theory for birds, and which could 
 be equally well deduced for other creatures, is in practice not 
 overstepped. In the course of thousands of years all species 
 of living creatures gradually become larger, 1 and when they 
 have attained the limits of what is possible, they have become 
 extinct, as was the case with the mastodon of the Chalk Age. 
 
 Such creatures as the mastodon, however, enormous as they 
 seem to us, are yet small in comparison with the size to which 
 organic substance might grow and to which it tends to grow. 
 But as mechanical limits are fixed by mechanical laws, and 
 therefore cannot be overcome, individual creatures must do 
 exactly as cells do in a lower stage of development ; and, in 
 obedience to the tendency to grow inherent in each of them, 
 they must join together to form larger structures. 
 
 In a certain sense any number of creatures of the same 
 kind — for instance, all the mice in the world, all rodents, all 
 mammals, all animals, in short — may be considered as some 
 such larger structure, in other words, as an organism. The 
 fact, already mentioned that animals usually do not eat or even 
 attack their own kind may be instanced as indicating that 
 from the point of view of the struggle for existence an entire 
 animal species is a single organism. 
 
 Anything so loosely welded together, however, cannot prop- 
 erly claim to be an organism, but may be compared to some 
 extent with loose heaps of cells as they occur in Volvox globa- 
 tor. Unicellular forms of life, however, have developed into 
 organisms properly so called. Similarly there gradually arose 
 
 i This applies primarily to mammals, but even here there are notable 
 exceptions, although they can usually be explained by certain special 
 circumstances, as is the case with the diminution in size of unicellular 
 •fauna. An exception to the principle are insects, as I be'.ieve the still 
 living German zoologist Otto zur Strassen was the first to point out; 
 and they, with the brachiopodes, are the longest-lived breed on earth.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 33 
 
 out of and together with these loose conglomerations higher- 
 grade organisms represented by social communities. 1 Now, 
 aii organism is superior to a mass of cells; and likewise social 
 communities, more especially from the point of view of the 
 struggle for existence, present obvious advantages, the con- 
 sequences of which is that animals living a social life of some 
 sort certainly amount to more than nine tenths of the total 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 Just as not all unicellular creatures have evolved into poly- 
 cellular creatures, and an incalculable number of protozoa have 
 remained in the air, in the water, and on the earth, so there are 
 even now many creatures which live alone. The number of 
 kinds of animals which have risen quite sufficiently high to 
 unite together for social purposes is small, although many 
 certainly live in herds, which is a good beginning. Properly 
 constituted communities exist only among the highest insects, 
 such as bees or ants, and among human beings. Consistently 
 with the universal tendency toward growth, these communities 
 are likewise incessantly growing. In the case of man we shall 
 be able to trace this in detail, but even among animals we see 
 it clearly. To cite one instance, the most ancient species of 
 Hymenoptera (bees and bee-like insects) live solitary lives, 
 after which come others, the nest of which contains only a 
 very few compartments, whereas modern bees have hives with 
 thousands of combs. 
 
 § 18. — The Impassable Barrier 
 
 There is even a limit to the growth of these conglomerations 
 of isolated beings, for the reason that the earth affords sus- 
 tenance (in other words, energy) for only a limited number 
 of organisms. But whereas the osmotic limit to single-cell or- 
 ganisms and the mechanical limit to multicellular organisms 
 can be evaded by superior grouping, the limit fixed by the 
 amount of energy available is final and impassable. 
 
 Now, many kinds of single-cell creatures and many fully 
 
 i See Chapter XIII.
 
 34 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 developed species of animals could exist side by side and in 
 process of evolution increase and multiply to the utmost 
 possible extent. But if one kind were to attain its final stage 
 of organization as required by the law of growth, — that is to 
 say, if there were, for instance twenty-five billion elephants 
 or a thousand billion human beings, or one hundred thousand 
 billion guinea-pigs, or ten trillion mice, — then in every single 
 case there would be no longer any room on earth for any other 
 living creature besides. As every species, however, is striving 
 toward this end, the law of growth necessitates struggle ; but, 
 what is equally important, it likewise prescribes the conditions 
 of such growth. 
 
 At all events, this struggle must be incessantly carried on, 
 since there is an enormous risk of being outstripped ; and it 
 would require an incredibly short time for one species of 
 animal to increase to such an extent as to consume all existing 
 supplies. It is the bacteria which possess the greatest amount 
 of vital energy, and a single bacterium, which splits up every 
 hour, has in ten hours produced about a thousand 1 others. 
 In the ensuing ten hours each of these bacteria will again pro- 
 duce another thousand bacteria ; consequently in twenty hours 
 their number will be a thousand times one thousand, or one 
 million. And this process would continue, were it only pos- 
 sible — as, of course, after a time it cannot — to provide the 
 bacteria with the necessary quantity of food. That is to say, 
 at the end of every ten hours three naughts would have to be 
 added to the figure denoting the number of bacteria, whic-U 
 in 120 hours, or five days, would have attained a figure with 
 thirty-five naughts, and in ten days one with seventy-two 
 naughts. Taking even the smallest sphasrobacteria of 0.0001 
 millimeter 2 diameter, it is easy to calculate that in one day the 
 colony would be a just visible pellet of .0098425 of an inch 
 diameter; the second day it would already fill a tumbler, on 
 
 i Thus: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024. 
 2 About .00003937 of an inch.— Translator.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 35 
 
 the third a four-story house, and on the fourth be a mountain 
 as large as Mont Blanc. At the end of four days and four 
 hours it would have increased to such an extent that it could 
 cover the whole earth with a living coating of mucus of rather 
 more than seven and three quarters of an inch in thickness, 
 thus attaining the maximum quantity of living substance which 
 could exist on earth. 
 
 Continuing this calculation, we find that by the fifth day the 
 colony of bacteria would be as large as the moon, and that 
 from the sixth day onward it would exceed all terrestrial 
 measurements so rapidly that in ten days' time it would oc- 
 cupy the whole of the space visible with the aid of the best 
 telescopes — space with a diameter of more than one hundred 
 years of light. 
 
 Although the growth of the higher animals to-day does not 
 proceed at anything approaching such a pace, nevertheless, 
 supposing no impediment to exist to their increase, then one, 
 or, as the case may be, two specimens of bacteria would mul- 
 tiply in about four days ; rabbits and mice in twenty years ; hu- 
 man beings, with four children per couple, in one thousand 
 two hundred and fifty years; and elephants in about two 
 thousand years, at such a pace as to attain the maximum of 
 what is possible in this world. Thus in a comparatively short 
 period each species left to itself would be able so completely 
 to fill the whole world that there would be no room left for 
 anything else. That this has not yet happened is due to this 
 very fact that struggles occur between the different species, 
 and that in the nature of things these cannot but be severe. 
 
 Yet it seems amazing that in all the millions of years that 
 those struggles have been proceeding no single species should 
 have come anywhere near dominating the rest, and in fact that 
 all existing organisms absorb only a very insignificant portion 
 of the energy actually at their disposal. Whereas each square 
 meter of ground could accommodate 440 pounds of living sub- 
 stance, in reality it supports only about 0.4 grams of human
 
 36 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 substance, or only two inillionths of what is possible ; ten 
 
 5 
 
 grains of animal substance, only of what is possible; 
 
 and a thousand grams of plant substance, or only — — of what 
 
 is possible. 1 
 
 In order to understand why the organic world has availed 
 itself so little of the possibilities open to it, and in particular 
 why man, this world's master, should utilize only a smaller and 
 smaller fraction thereof, we must inquire more closely into the 
 origin of life. Not until we understand for what purpose we 
 are striving shall we realize that the reason why we have made 
 no progress in this "natural struggle involving all humanity" 
 is precisely because we have allowed our attention to be too 
 much absorbed by "interhuman wars." 
 
 2. — THE STRUGGLE FOR ENERGY 
 
 § 19. — Why This Struggle is Waged 
 
 The purpose for which this struggle is carried on is sus- 
 tenance, using the term in its broadest sense ; and the struggle 
 for existence might perhaps be more aptly described as a strug- 
 gle for sustenance. This alone explains why as yet no kind of 
 organism has succeeded in ousting all other forms of life ; for 
 the fox, for instance, needs the hare as food, and if he had 
 eaten up the last hare he must perforce starve. 
 
 Thus the eater has really far less to do with regulating the 
 numbers of the eaten than vice versa, astonishing as this may 
 seem at first to those who believe that they can regulate the 
 course of the world with the help of cannon. Moreover, a 
 
 i At present each square kilometer in the world is inhabited by 11.4 
 human beings, whose weight amounts to about 882 pounds avoirdupois 
 (that is, four grams per square meter). Owing to the absence of trust- 
 worthy statistics, the other figures are based on a comparatively arbi- 
 trary estimate, but as far as gradation of size is concerned they can- 
 not be wrong. Moreover, the precise figures are not of importance in 
 the question under discussion. Of the truth of the principle there can- 
 not be any doubt.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 37 
 
 similar, although generally a less simple, connection exists be- 
 tween all animals. Above all, however, every animal needs 
 plants, for plants alone are capable of extracting sustenance 
 from earth, air, fire, and water, the four elements of the an- 
 cients. Hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon, the elements 
 of which organisms are almost exclusively composed, are found 
 in superabundance in earth, air, and water, and also trifling 
 additions of other substances. A single shipload of iron, for 
 example, would suffice to supply every one in the world with 
 all the iron they require (that is, as a physical component), 
 if it were merely a question of materials; therefore there 
 would be nothing to prevent the entire globe gradually be- 
 coming converted into living substance, and henceforth re- 
 volving round the sun as a genuine organism. 
 
 What is lacking, however, is the fourth element, fire ; for if 
 the actual food be sufficient for fully one hundred trillion tons 
 of organisms, there is only enough of the fire which gives them 
 life and form (that is, the supply of energy in the narrow 
 sense of the word) for about one hundred billion tons of living 
 substance, or for the millionth part. Let me institute a com- 
 parison. Whereas the materials would suffice for a large Ber- 
 lin block of flats, the energy would suffice for only one brick. 
 Consequently the probability from the outset is that it is the 
 comparatively trifling amount of energy-producing sustenance 
 which will be the object of struggle. As a matter of fact, this 
 is so. Expressed in terms of physics, life is equivalent to 
 causing a current of energy to pass through a person. When- 
 ever man eats and breathes, he absorbs energy, and whenever 
 he works or thinks, he exhales it again, and the source of all 
 this energy, as is now known with absolute certainty, is the sun. 
 
 Now, of all organisms it is plants alone which are in a posi- 
 tion to utilize the radiating energy of sunlight, and with its 
 aid to construct out of earth, air, and water complex chemical 
 bodies, which, on combustion, like gunpowder, are capable of 
 performing labor. The powder hurls the cannon-ball out of 
 the barrel, and in like manner the sugar which I eat enables
 
 38 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 my muscles to throw a stone, living substance, particularly 
 that of animals, being capable of consuming the sustenance 
 created by plants and converting it again into labor. 
 
 This is commonly called the rotation of life, a misleading 
 phrase, because it is only the chemical substances of which 
 plants and animals consist that take part in this rotation. 
 The genuine life-giving principle, energy, however, does not 
 proceed in a cj-cle, its action being rather comparable to the 
 parabolic course of the comets. The energy liberated in the 
 sun radiates thence to the earth in eight minutes, remains 
 here a certain period, varying from seconds to millions of 
 years, and then slowly, but for us irrevocably, quits the earth, 
 and finally, transformed into heat, radiates into incommensur- 
 able space. 
 
 "While on earth the sun's energy collects water to form 
 clouds, raises winds, and gives rise to ocean currents, causes 
 plants to grow, and by means of plants feeds animals. With- 
 out the sun this earth would be a body ever in repose — the 
 repose of death. Not a breath of wind would ruffle the surface 
 of the water, not a cloud arise in the sky. No rain would fall, 
 and there would be neither trees nor shrubs, neither animals 
 nor human beings. The sun's energy may remain long on 
 earth, and in coal it has perhaps been lying for millions of 
 years ; but the day must come when it will leave the earth and 
 find its way out into the realms of space. 
 
 Now, what is needed is to utilize this transient force, ab- 
 sorbing as much or causing as much of it as possible to pass 
 through ourselves. This stream of energy, however, without 
 which life could not exist, is of course limited in size, and to 
 form an approximate estimate of its volume is by no means 
 impossible. Pouillet, in fact, has already done this. As it is 
 known how much energy must pass through every pound 
 weight so that it may live, so it is also known, as has just been 
 pointed out, that the earth cannot support more than a hun- 
 dred billion tons of living substance at most. This quantity, 
 however, could live; and if man were able to attract all the
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 39 
 
 available energy to his own race, then, instead of, as at present, 
 1.5 billions being able to live upon the earth, about three mil- 
 lion billions could do so. Mankind, therefore, might increase 
 a millionfold. Then, instead of only eleven human beings on 
 an average living on each square kilometer of earth, as is now 
 the case, twenty millions would do so, or, as some means 
 Mould probably then be discovered of living on the water, six 
 millions. In any ease there would then be six human beings 
 for each square meter, and mankind would therefore have to 
 emulate the ants, and live in buildings of many stories, one 
 above another. 
 
 Now, this number of human beings is attainable, although 
 for reasons presently to be explained we shall probably never 
 do more than approach it. At all events, not only is there 
 room on earth for all those at present inhabiting it, but for 
 countless billions besides. 
 
 Mankind is now in the midst of this colossal struggle, which 
 is literally a struggle for a place in the sun ; and this is the 
 struggle which ought to be fought out. Whatever assists it 
 means victory; whatever hinders it means defeat. 
 
 § 20. — Struggle in the Animal World 
 
 The object of this struggle for existence is thus made clear 
 beyond all possible doubt. Every animal and every species 
 of animal must aim at conducting through itself and its own 
 race the largest possible share of the universal stream of 
 energy; but there are very many different ways in which this 
 object might be attained. 
 
 The first and most primitive method consists in attempting 
 to deprive others of something by killing them and endeavor- 
 ing to utilize the energy formerly absorbed by them. If we 
 reflect that the entire animal world does not use up more than 
 one twenty-thousandth part of the energy available, it is evi- 
 dent that "theft" would be of even less use in this ease than 
 otherwise, and that this kind of struggle could not come into 
 consideration unless the hitherto unused energy were abso-
 
 40 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 lutely unusable. If all the bakers' shops were shut, it is con- 
 ceivable that some one might commit murder for the sake of 
 food ; but if loaves were lying about by the thousand, it would 
 be madness for any one to strike a wretched beggar dead to 
 get a dry crust. As will shortly be shown, man, more than 
 any other creature, is capable of utilizing for his own purposes 
 all the energy hitherto lying fallow, as it were ; and he, there- 
 fore, has absolutely no need to attempt to obtain it by any 
 foul methods. However, it was just such methods that were 
 invoked in order to popularize the struggle for existence, 
 which for most of us signifies simply killing one another. 
 
 In long-past times open combat was of considerable im- 
 portance, the means at the disposal of animals for the full utili- 
 zation of energy being very inadequate. Before man could 
 be lord of this world the big birds of prey had first to be ex- 
 terminated, which caused even the old Roman statesman and 
 philosopher Boetius * to ridicule war between man and man. 
 "Ye draw the sword against one another," he said, "while ye 
 yourselves are threatened by snakes and lions, bears and 
 tigers." Nowadays, however, this does not really hold good 
 any longer. Man, as if still an animal and with the ways of 
 animals, fought to a finish his struggle with the animal king- 
 dom; and all that he now remembers is his fight against 
 bacteria, which, characteristically enough, are the smallest 
 known living creatures. But this kind of struggle does not, 
 even in the case of animals, really count as part of the struggle 
 for existence, at any rate not in so far as it aims at effecting 
 selection ; for if one kind of animal destroys another, it does 
 not on that account become stronger or fitter. The destruction 
 merely proves that the victor was already stronger and fitter. 
 On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that wherever they 
 have no competition to fear, the old inefficient types have sur- 
 vived a remarkably long while. This is notably the case with 
 Australia, where there are no native mammals. 
 
 Increasing the race by merely insuring its increased fer- 
 
 i Amiciua M. S. Boethiua (470-525), "Consolatio PhilosoDhiaa."
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 41 
 
 tility might be considered a second form of struggle for life. 
 If every creature uses up one calory, 2 then one hundred will 
 use up one hundred, and one thousand will consume one thou- 
 sand calories. This is so simple an example that it is at once 
 clear to every one, and for a time the increase of the human 
 race was considered a universal panacea and the one object 
 to be attained. But the fact was forgotten that increase is 
 valuable only in so far as the race is at the same time im- 
 proved, and that greater fertility does little to promote selec- 
 tion unless more children are produced than can live under 
 existing conditions. Many would then of necessity die young, 
 and in accordance with universal law would be chiefly weak- 
 lings, so that the result would be a finer race than if few chil- 
 dren were born and all remained alive without discrimination. 
 
 In Germany to-day the population, despite a rapidly falling 
 birth-rate, increases in number, owing to decreased mortality, 
 which may be a testimony to the excellence of German sani- 
 tation and public health regulations, but biologically is cer- 
 tainly not an advantage. This desire to increase population 
 at any cost, this mad craze for numbers, moreover, is not due 
 to scientific reflection. At the back of it is rather the desire, 
 which I admit is often vague, for as many soldiers as possible. 
 It is thus not a direct, but only an indirect, result of Darwin- 
 ian teachings, traceable to the notion of struggle contained 
 therein. 
 
 Increased population is supposed to be the consequence of 
 higher evolution, but such increase is not itself likely to 
 promote evolution, since the individual organisms and the dif- 
 ferent species of animals have arisen independently of one 
 another, and their mutual dependence is so great that it is 
 scarcely ever possible for one to increase alone. If the lion is 
 to increase, then the gazelles must first do so also; if there are 
 to be swallows, then there must first be more flies. Beasts of 
 prey, in short, are dependent upon their prey, which in turn 
 
 i Term signifying the measure with which energy is measured. Man 
 requires twenty-five hundred calories daily.
 
 42 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 depends upon plants. Hence the old saw that in reality all 
 animals and human beings are vegetable feeders, except that 
 the ox digests the grass for us beforehand, which is only a way 
 of saying that the animal kingdom is dependent upon the 
 plant world. 
 
 Plants alone derive sustenance direct from the sun's rays, 
 and thus they alone in the whole creation ought to be able 
 to increase independently and on their own account. Even 
 they, however, are dependent on animals in an extraordinarily 
 large number of ways, of which here only the processes of 
 fertilization need be mentioned. In principle, at any rate, 
 they could .so increase, and it is a fact that by far the greatest 
 number of organisms upon earth are plant organisms. 
 "Whether animals are as one per cent, or more as compared 
 with plants is perhaps hard to say, but in any case plants are 
 in a very large majority. 
 
 § 21. — Human Struggle on Animal Lines 
 
 In general, even man has hitherto contrived to increase 
 only by breeding animals and cultivating plants. In this re- 
 spect, therefore, progress seems to move in a circle, whence 
 there is no escape, so that man can produce more only by mak- 
 ing other creatures produce more. By this means, however, 
 it is possible to make a sensible advance, for so long as man 
 lived simply like an animal and took whatever he could lay 
 hands on, probably at most one hundred million such human 
 beings, of comparatively modest requirements and likewise 
 comparatively unskilful, could have found conditions on earth 
 under which they could have lived. 
 
 Then came the time when man made himself master of this 
 world, although at first merely of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms. Now we arrange the world as we please, allowing 
 only such animals and plants to persist as are most serviceable 
 to us — cultivated plants and domestic animals. Thus man- 
 kind is enabled to take a good step forward, and so far we 
 have already increased fifteenfold since the barbarous age
 
 WAR AND 'rHE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 43 
 
 when man depended on what he could casually find; for in- 
 stead of about one hundred millions, the world now contains 
 fifteen hundred millions. Did we make the utmost possible 
 use of everything in this the agricultural period of develop- 
 ment, we might increase another fif teenfold ; for if the very 
 most were made of the whole world, probably one hundred 
 and fifty human beings could live on each square kilometer, 
 and the population would thus attain 22,500 millions. 1 There 
 is, however, still energy enough for 100,000 times more human 
 beings. 
 
 The following table is instructive: — 
 
 Population in round 
 
 numbers 
 
 which the earth 
 
 could 
 
 support 
 
 
 
 at different periods: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ..100 
 
 millions 
 
 Agrarian period 
 
 
 ) present . . . 
 
 .1,500 
 
 tt 
 
 it 
 
 « 
 
 
 ) maximum . . . 
 
 20,000 
 
 a 
 
 Period 
 
 of full utilization of 
 
 energy. ..3,000,000,000 
 
 a 
 
 We are, therefore, half-way through the agricultural period, 
 which must already have lasted about twenty thousand years, 
 perhaps longer; but we may rest assured that we shall be far 
 less long covering the second half of the journey, as we are 
 now directing our knowledge and efforts toward this end. 
 
 The reason why with agricultural methods we cannot rise 
 above a population of twenty billions is by no means merely 
 because we are obliged to provide sustenance for such vast 
 numbers of plants and animals in order in turn to obtain 
 sustenance ourselves, but mainly because we do not make ra- 
 
 i During the war Germany is proving that she is almost capahle of 
 supporting a population of 120 per square kilometer. But Germany is 
 neither a very fertile country nor is the very most made of it as yet. 
 Even China, not including Mongolia and Tibet, with her "unscientific 
 agriculture," has succeeded in supporting a population of ahout fifty- 
 two to the square kilometer, which, were the whole world equally 
 densely peopled, would be equivalent to a population of ahout seven and 
 a half billions.
 
 44 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tional use of energy, superabundance of which is nevertheless 
 available. Most important of all, however, is the fact that 
 we still continue to use plants in order, with their aid, to 
 utilize the sun's rays. Plants, it is true, are the gift of nature, 
 but they are, comparatively speaking, very imperfect, and we 
 know that there are better methods than to have resort to 
 them. 
 
 3. — THE STRUGGLE OF MANKIND 
 
 § 22. — Increase of Vitality 
 
 This new method of combat, which, in its highest and most 
 conscious form, at all events, is confined to human society 
 alone, depends on the opening up of fresh sources of energy, 
 which can be partly done by increasing the vitality of the in- 
 dividual person. 
 
 Animal organisms are capable of consuming vegetable food 
 and converting it into labor, — that is to say, using it to move 
 muscles, form secretions, and develop brain activity, — in short, 
 to do whatever is useful to the living creature in question. 
 But as life consists solely of such actions, it is clear that the 
 more of this current of energy an animal can utilize for itself 
 and its own purposes, the greater will be its vitality. 
 
 If an animal is to creep or run, jump or climb, swim or 
 fly, faster and better, then, other things being equal, it must 
 consume more energy; and if it becomes capable of reacting 
 more quickly or Avith less provocation, then it must be able 
 1 o use up its self-contained energy faster ; that is, to consume 
 more energy than before in a given period. Every advance, 
 in short, whether in perceptiveness or in capacity for work 
 is possible only by increased consumption of energy; and the 
 whole difference between us and the lowest form of animal 
 life crawling about sluggishly on the bottom of the ocean can 
 be expressed in terms of energy. 
 
 This example suffices to show how much living creatures 
 have already perfected themselves in the process of evolution; 
 for the living substance of the higher animals actually is
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 45 
 
 capable of increased output of labor ; that is, it consumes more 
 energy. In their case assimilation of nutriment is said to 
 proceed much more rapidly. The quantity of energy con- 
 sumed per kilogram in an hour by polyps, for instance, grow- 
 ing almost motionless at the bottom of the sea, is comparatively 
 trifling. The quantity of energy passing through insects, 
 cuttlefish, frogs, and reptiles is decidedly greater ; but not till 
 we reach the higher animals do we find this current of energy 
 attaining such intensity as permanently to warm the body. 
 Man, for instance, has acquired the capacity of using up be- 
 tween one and two calories per kilogram and per hour; and 
 one human being, therefore, consumes in an hour about a 
 hundred calories, or even very much more in case of severe 
 physical exertion. Although in course of millions of years 
 the power of assimilating energy may have increased, yet man 
 can scarcely be said to be better off in this respect than other 
 mammals. Mans superiority is based on something different. 
 By improving their physical substance and correspondingly 
 improving their organs, animals have acquired the power of 
 utilizing large quantities of energy. Thus, when the slowly 
 quivering muscle of a worm evolves into the rapidly quivering 
 muscle of an insect, the creature must simultaneously acquire 
 increased capacity for work, else there would be no object in 
 the improved muscle; and this principle obtains everywhere. 
 Every new organ is conditioned by and requires a capacity 
 for making use of increased and, if necessary, fresh sources of 
 energy, which sources the more highly developed creature finds 
 in eating more and consequently working more. It cannot, 
 however, eat more than it can use up, and thus in the organi- 
 zation of any particular creature a limit is set to the struggle 
 for energy. 
 
 § 23. — The Utilization of Extraneous Energy 
 
 Man, however, can do more than this. As I shall show 
 more in detail later on, 1 the highest animals possess about the 
 
 i See paragraph 20.
 
 46 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 maximum number of organs which they are in a position to 
 maintain. 1 also propose to show what an advantage it has 
 been to man from the psychological point of view to have been 
 able to use organs which can be laid aside or changed, as tools. 
 Here, however, I wish to lay stress upon another aspect of 
 this acquired capacity to use tools — the fact that it enables 
 man to utilize for his own purposes almost unlimited quan- 
 tities of energy. I admit that this is not absolutely without 
 precedent in the animal kingdom, for man, after all, is re- 
 sponsible for hardly any absolute innovation. 1 
 
 For instance, when a bird of prey high up aloft circles round 
 and round almost motionless, it is utilizing the energy of the 
 wind, and when ants keep slaves, they are utilizing part of 
 the latter 's vital energy; but it was man from whose groping 
 efforts something independent was first evolved. Man it was 
 who first developed and extended the struggle for energy by 
 learning to make use of extraneous energy without its passing 
 through his body. The beginning of this phase of develop- 
 ment may be traced even among the most primitive human 
 beings, who made the ox pull for them, the horse run for them, 
 the dog hear and smell for them, and the sheep protect them 
 from cold. Every domestic animal, indeed, that primitive 
 man tamed for his own ends became a factor in the production 
 of energy. Animals, however, were, after all, utilized only 
 by making them do that which was natural for them to do; 
 and a further difficulty very soon made itself felt, — a diffi- 
 culty which has become very manifest in Germany during the 
 present war, — that a horse which eats oats is thereby eating 
 man's food. If we can imagine the whole world ever being 
 so full of horses and human beings as is Germany to-day, then 
 it will be impossible any longer to import food from anywhere, 
 and even in times of peace there will be keen competition be- 
 
 i In reality tlie only innovation in principle and without parallel in 
 nature is the wheel, which, with its axle, cannot be formed by any 
 single organism. The realization of this fact would simplify many 
 problems, particularly in aeronautics.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 47 
 
 tween human beings and the horses that the}' themselves 
 have bred. 
 
 Obviously, if all horses were replaced by motor-cars, then 
 more human beings could live on earth than formerly. In this 
 case the motor-car represents the new principle according to 
 which man is able to compel almost whatever quantities of 
 energy he pleases to do his behests. Not domestic animals, 
 but tire, it is which makes man lord of the world. When man 
 first caused the solar energy stored up in plants to explode 
 and catch fire, he opened up for himself a novel source of 
 power, and thus lent such an extraordinary impetus to the 
 conversion of energy that we are quite entitled to speak of 
 things in general having taken a new turn, and to date the 
 mastery of nature from the kindling of the first fire. 
 
 Now, in process of time, but more particularly during the 
 last hundred years, this new principle has been developed to 
 such an enormous extent that we may even now say that in 
 future the old animal principles of struggle for existence will 
 be subordinate to others; for already it is possible to see almost 
 unlimited vistas of progress opening up, whereas, as has just 
 been shown, nature has everywhere set bounds to the animal 
 struggle for existence. 
 
 No one doubts that machinery has revolutionized the world, 
 and what has now to be proved is that, in accordance with 
 the general rubs of the struggle for existence, a machinery 
 victory is the only possible victory which man can still ivin 
 to-day. 
 
 At present almost all the so-called natural forces have been 
 pressed into our service, but in reality we still continue to use 
 solar energy. The water which is drawn up by the sun and 
 gradually Hows back again to the sea drives our mills. The 
 woods which grew up in the sunshine of prehistoric times, con- 
 verted into coal, propel our railways, steamers, and electric 
 works, or, changed into benzoin, our motor-cars and airships. 
 
 These are only a few instances out of many, and the original 
 amount of energy which man can pass direct through his own
 
 48 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 body has long been far exceeded by the amount which he in- 
 cludes in his own sphere of influence alone. In Germany, 
 for example, a human being consumes physically between two 
 and three thousand calories daily, whereas with the aid of 
 machinery he consumes on an average from twenty to thirty 
 thousand. 
 
 A great deal has been achieved in this way, but man can 
 still make scarcely any use of solar energy except indirectly 
 by taking it from plants, from waterfalls, from coal seams, or 
 from petroleum springs. These sources of energy are con- 
 siderable, and not yet fully exploited, but they are smaller 
 and smaller in comparison with the energy which radiates 
 from the sun to the earth, and most of which never assumes 
 forms in which we could easily utilize it, but remains as heat, 
 and in this way radiates, unused, back into space again. 
 
 In theory man can directly transmute solar energy into la- 
 bor, and that in practice he does not do this is partly to be 
 accounted for by his having found comparatively large quan- 
 tities of energy conveniently accessible in the form of water- 
 falls, pit coal, woods, etc. But in the meantime, at any rate, 
 he still needs plants, because they are the only machines in 
 which solar energy is transmuted into food. Only in plants 
 does carbon unite with water to form sugar, and if we could 
 succeed in producing sugar and other food-stuffs without the 
 help of plants, then we could really boast of having conquered 
 plants. Indeed, we should not only have "distilled" life from 
 the four elements, but at the same time solved the problem 
 of the homunculus. True, not a single human being would 
 be manufactured straight away in the retort, but there would 
 be sustenance for thousands of millions; and as soon as sus- 
 tenance is at hand, the spawn is not long in following. The 
 last thing which the blind Faust realizes is that man cannot 
 be made happy, but it is enough to open up a free way for a 
 free people. 1 
 
 i See the last act of "Faust." Part IT. The speech alluded to is the 
 one beginning, "Kin Sumpi' zieht am LJebirge bin." — Translator.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 49 
 
 Faust would fain wrest new ground from the sea, and not 
 rob others of what they have already occupied ; and the doc- 
 trine of rightful or wrongful struggle may be summarized 
 thus: wherever new ground is won, struggle is justifiable, 
 life-promoting, and good; but wherever it merely aims at de- 
 priving others of something, it is UNJUSTIFIABLE, death- 
 dealing, and bad. 
 
 For thousands of years the Netherlands carried on their 
 slow, life-promoting struggle against water, and at the same 
 time were a model of what a peacefully advancing people 
 should be. It would be more than usually regrettable were 
 a fine modern struggle such as this to be ended now by force. 
 
 §24. — Creative Struggle and War of Extermination 
 
 It is for us now to carry on in principle and on the largest 
 possible battle-field this struggle for new ground which the 
 Netherlands with their primitive means could begin only in 
 the literal sense of the words. 
 
 Moltke, 1 when a young man, once laid it down that to in- 
 crease population by one fourth in peace was of at least as 
 much value as to conquer a province one fourth as large as 
 the country. We might calculate on this basis the extent of 
 possible conquests in the war of the future; and to any one 
 who does so and who once realizes the billions of human beings 
 implicated therein, and moreover realizes that every one of 
 the present belligerents might, so to speak, conquer the entire 
 globe, the present cat tights 2 with cannon in which at most a 
 few millions are moved hither and thither will seem as insig- 
 nificant as they really are. 
 
 Once solar energy is rationally exploited and made to serve 
 
 i Letter from Moltke, written in 1S40. 
 
 '* By the expression "cat tights" no disrespect is intended toward the 
 victims of the battles now in progress, entailing as they do such trials 
 and sacrifices upon the individual combatant; but despite all the respect 
 we owe those taking part in them, such combats are. from the point of 
 view of natural science, cat fights, scrimmages for the most trivial of 
 objects.
 
 50 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 us directly, like a domestic animal, then every acre of land, 
 even land which at present scarcely supports a single human 
 being, will be able to provide sustenance for thousands. 1 As 
 regards direct utilization of solar energy as food not much 
 has been achieved hitherto, but apart from this we do already 
 utilize considerable quantities of extraneous energy. The 
 world is inhabited by one and a half billion human beings, 
 each of whom consumes every year not quite one million 
 calories. Now, the world's total production of pit coal is 
 about one and a half billion tons ; that is, one ton of coal per 
 inhabitant annually. As each ton produces about eight mil- 
 lion calories, it follows that by means of his coal-driven ma- 
 chines man already works about eight times as much as with 
 his arms. 2 If we include the utilization of water-power, of 
 animal labor, and of several other minor sources of power, it 
 is not too much to say that even now fully ten times as much 
 labor is done by machinery in this world as by man. More- 
 over, every extension of coal-mining, every fresh source of 
 energy opened up, confers increased vital powers upon man ; 
 and, were social conditions organized on anything approaching 
 a reasonable basis, might also mean a saving of labor. Were 
 the seventeen million horse-power energy contained in- the 
 Falls of Niagara profitably employed, about one third of all 
 human labor could be performed by this means alone. 
 
 Obviously, with such forces the burden of overworked man 
 could easily be lightened, as indeed has already been pointed 
 out. (Cf. § 15.) I have also indicated the reason why this 
 has hitherto not been done. All these problems, moreover, no 
 longer belong to the dim distant future, but, at all events in 
 
 i To this subject I have already referred in paragraphs 18 and 21, 
 where I quoted exact figures. 
 
 2 A very perfunctory calculation, for neither man nor machinery 
 transmutes into profitable labor the whole amount of calories received, 
 and in both cases the percentage of waste differs. The above estimate, 
 however, is sufficiently accurate to enable the reader to survey the 
 general results; and it is beyond doubt that even now the sum total of 
 labor performed by machinery many times exceeds the sum total of that 
 performed by man.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 51 
 
 principle, are already solved, and only awaiting practical ap- 
 plication. Thermo-electricity enables us to make direct and 
 rational use of solar energy, and the researches of modern 
 chemists, in particular of Emil Fischer and his pupils, have 
 already proved that the artificial production of food-stuft's is 
 possible. Already we have succeeded in artificially producing 
 most food-stuffs, in fact, everything except the synthesis of 
 albumen. Of late years, however, we have made great strides 
 towards producing this also. 
 
 But we cannot yet make practical use of these experiments 
 in the laboratory, and in order to do this we have still need 
 of struggle. Our object is within sight ; on this round ball 
 there is still room for great deeds, 1 and wherever we see "the 
 purposeless forces of undisciplined elements" at work, we 
 exclaim with Goethe: 
 
 "Hier wngt mein Gelst sieh selbst zu iiberfliegen, 
 Hier mocht' ieh kampfen, dies moelit' iek besiegen !" 2 
 
 Compared with this marvelous human struggle, how pitiable 
 does war appear! "What has it to do with the struggle for 
 existence? Assuredly nothing, save for the fact that it is per- 
 petually destroying a fraction, even if only a small fraction, 
 of mankind without in reality helping in the struggle. It is 
 therefore simply and solely due to degeneration, as for that 
 matter we have always considered it in the case of animals, to 
 which we adopt an altogether more impartial attitude. In this 
 human struggle alone have we an innate right to engage — a 
 struggle requiring all our physical, mental and moral energies; 
 and to "do our bit" in it is no less our inalienable right, 
 our bounden duty. 
 
 War is right. Not yesterday's obsolete war, that of man 
 against man, but rather a new life — dispensing war for man's 
 
 i "Nbch immer gewahrt der Erdkreis Raum zu grossen Taten" are 
 the words in the test. — Translator. 
 
 '-' Roughly: "Here does my spirit dare even to transcend itself; here 
 m something worth fighting for, here something worth overcoming. - ' — 
 1 i analator.
 
 52 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 mastery over the earth and its forces, an ever-youthful war, 
 of which we have probably not yet fought out a millionth 
 part, but which our era is preparing to tackle with quite 
 different methods from those which have prevailed in any 
 previous, era. Already, as I have hinted, we can catch a 
 glimpse of wonderful conquests over nature — conquests por- 
 tending victories such as no human being ever yet won. And 
 here comes some one and insists upon our going into raptures 
 over civilized human beings crawling about on the ground and 
 shooting at one another ! 
 
 Even Faust realized that a higher type of human being 
 can find satisfaction only in struggle with nature. He, too, 
 had dallied with love and waged wars for love. As philoso- 
 pher he had dealt in the wisdom of the ancients, and as mer- 
 chant with money and merchandize. In war and peace he 
 had rescued countries and their rulers, and thus he would 
 seem to have achieved the utmost that is possible for any one 
 in this historic world. Yet on looking back over it all he con- 
 fesses that all is vanity and vexation of spirit ; and not until 
 lie turns to the simple task of building a dike in order that a 
 new mankind may have new homesteads, does he experience the 
 divine bliss of creation. It is this creative struggle which we 
 have to substitute for the struggle for extermination. 
 
 Emil Fischer has produced an artificial substitute for sugar, 
 and may perhaps find one for albumen. He is the founder, 
 or at any rate the forerunner, of the new era of humanity, 
 and all generations to come will gratefully refer to him as 
 one of the great conquerors in the struggle for the foundations 
 of life, lie really practised that "divine art" of which 
 Archimedes speaks. Professor Haber, who has utilized his 
 scientific knowledge for the manufacture of asphyxiating 
 bombs, will perhaps not be forgotten either; but he need not 
 even dream of becoming as famous as Archimedes, "defend- 
 ing his native soil against the Roman legions." * First of all, 
 that was two thousand years ago, and, secondly, all Archi- 
 
 i Schiller, "Archimedes and the School-hoy."
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 53 
 
 medes really did was to defend Syracuse when it was be- 
 sieged, and in so doing he made no use whatever of poison, 
 which was still only used by certain classes of people; and, 
 finally, the fame of Archimedes does not rest upon his having 
 defended his native soil, which was allied with Carthage for 
 two whole years against European ideas, then embodied or at 
 any rate- dimly conceived by Rome. It rests upon the fact 
 that he was the first real physicist, and therefore all life-dis- 
 pensing victories of the future may be traced back to his 
 preparatory work. 
 
 4 — FREEDOM AND NATURAL COMPULSION 
 
 § 25. — Conformity to Low and Unfettered Harmony 
 
 It is the custom to say that the struggle for existence selects 
 from among living creatures those best suited to withstand it. 
 Such selection, however, takes place not only in the animate, 
 but also in the inanimate, world, and it is quite easy to see 
 that, after all, suitability for a particular purpose and con- 
 formity to law are identical, except that we are accustomed 
 to consider them from different points of view. Thus we 
 might say there was "suitability" in the fact that, owing to 
 the earth's comparatively slow rotation, centrifugal force is 
 smaller than force of attraction, otherwise everything on 
 earth would be hurled out into boundless space beyond hope 
 of recovery. Further reflection shows us, however, that there 
 is nothing really "suitable" about this for any purpose, but 
 that at best it "could not be otherwise." 
 
 Wherever centrifugal force is greater than force of gravity, 
 no central body at all can be formed; and if this were to be 
 the case throughout the cosmic system, then there would be 
 no fixed heavenly bodies, and the whole world would be dif- 
 ferent from what it now is; and in case any form of life had 
 developed, it must have acquired equilibrium with the help of 
 quite other forces, and must therefore have been quite differ- 
 ent from what it actually is. But if it were to exist, it must
 
 54 THE BIOLOGY OF Yv T AR 
 
 of course have been also adapted to this other kind of con- 
 stellation of force. Conversely, no one need wonder that the 
 shape of this world's mountains and edifices as well as the 
 rotation of water and of life should conform in their smallest 
 details and in every respect to gravitation ; otherwise all these 
 things could not justify their existence, or, to put it more 
 accurately, could not exist at all. 
 
 Similarly with regard to every detail of the organic world. 
 Undoubtedly it is important for vegetable feeders that there 
 should be plants, and for beasts of prey that there should be 
 prey ; but if, after all, there were no plants, then no such 
 animals as we now know could have been formed, and if there 
 were no hares, there would be no justification for the exist- 
 ence of foxes. 
 
 Thus it happens that* to any one who thinks along lines of 
 natural science, this unity of the world, which used to amaze 
 every one who contemplated it, seems a matter of course. 
 The natural scientist sees no cause for astonishment in "every- 
 thing being welded together to form one whole," knowing as 
 he does that this conformity to law, which strikes us as har- 
 mony, must ever recur under the influence of the all-powerful 
 force of nature. 
 
 Neither can man avoid this dependence upon others. For 
 instance, in a country in which there were no subjects there 
 could also be no kings. Nevertheless, in this harmony of na- 
 ture man produces the effect of something out of place, for 
 he with his free will takes upon him to withstand the com- 
 pelling force of nature. And this, moreover, he is able to do. 
 
 Much destruction has been wrought owing to this freedom 
 of man. Pie has everywhere carried pain and grief, unrest 
 and confusion, into the safe recesses of "perfect'' nature, war 
 between man and man being only one of the many forms of 
 error into which the human race has fallen. But as earnest of 
 good to come, man cherishes the belief in a new harmonious 
 order of things, which he himself will create according to his 
 own free will. True, animals' instinct can never err, while
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 55 
 
 with man, error and endeavors are inseparable. But it is not 
 less true that endeavor is made possible by error, and this 
 fact is worth more to us than any mechanically arranged 
 harmonious order of tilings, however perfect. With man came 
 sin into the world, but likewise virtue ; slavery, but also liberty ; 
 war, but also sweet peace. How can this apparent dualism be ? 
 How could man rise as it were above the laws to which he 
 owes his being? How was it possible for him to overcome the 
 force of nature ? 
 
 § 26. — The Evolution of the Brain 
 
 That there is some connection between this liberation of 
 man and the evolution of the brain cannot reasonably be 
 doubted. It is by his brain and by his brain only that he is 
 distinguished from every other living creature. For all our 
 other physical attributes there is not only some analogy in 
 the animal kingdom, but, as modern comparative anatomy has 
 shown, almost all of them have remained comparatively primi- 
 tive even, and most of all the extremities, although the con- 
 trary always used to be supposed. The human brain alone 
 has developed by leaps and bounds and with unexampled 
 rapidity until its size (that? is, as an organ of the intelligence x 
 compared with the weight of the body), is about a hundred 
 per cent, greater than that of the brains of all living creatures, 
 even those of the highest order. 
 
 This sudden advance, which seems doubly enigmatic when 
 we consider how particularly slow and steady has been the 
 development of the brain in other living creatures, must be 
 explained. All living creatures, as we have seen, are in- 
 tended to absorb the utmost possible amount of energy, which 
 with lower animals amounts to eating as much as possible. 
 
 iTliis organ of the intelligence does not mean something merely 
 proportional. It may be stated somewhat as follows: Brain weitiht:= 
 al plus /»/- plus cl* plus », I standing for the length of the animal, and 
 i for its intelligence, and a, b, and c being constant quantities to be 
 empirically fixed. Now (he limb i in man has become greater by leaps 
 and hounds.
 
 56 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 They achieve this by having developed organs of sense for 
 finding things, legs for running, arms for clasping, mouths 
 for swallowing, teeth for biting, glands for digesting, and so 
 on. Tims the animal body, with its manifold and apparently 
 many-sided organs, came into existence, but in order that it 
 may work as a complete whole, the legs must really run in 
 the direction in which the nose has scented prey, and the 
 mouth must snap where the eyes see prey; in short, every 
 muscle of the body must do what the organs of sense require 
 it to do. Some means of communication is therefore necessary 
 hot ween the organs of perception and the organs of action. 
 Hence the nervous system arose, and, in the higher animals, 
 for reasons which it would take too long to explain here, the 
 brain, not as an end in itself, but as something of secondary 
 importance. The brain was originally merely the servant of 
 the organs connected with the business of feeding. In this 
 capacity it was certainly important, but had no independent 
 influence on the real significance of life. 
 
 This dependence of the brain on the organs connected with 
 food persisted. Whenever the organs of sense or prehensile 
 organs improved, there was a corresponding improvement in 
 the brain. It readily kept pace with the development of the 
 body, but could not advance a single step beyond it. How 
 indeed could a special organ have been developed for under- 
 standing speech if man had had neither a mouth to speak with 
 nor ears to hear with? The development of the brain thus 
 was and is dependent on the development of organs the num- 
 ber of which is, after all, limited. 
 
 Even Aristotle knew that no animal with horns or antlers 
 has also the teeth of a beast of prey. In other words, that 
 animals are provided with only one means of defense. Simi- 
 larly, animals have either good eyes or good noses: they are 
 "seeing animals" or "smelling animals," but never both at 
 once. This economy is necessary, for if an animal were over- 
 provided with organs, it would no longer be able properly to 
 fulfil the purpose for which, after all, it exists — feeding.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 57 
 
 Thus throughout all these thousands of years the brain con- 
 tinued faithfully to serve its master until the revolution came 
 which first liberated it and then placed it on the throne. 
 
 Man alone has undergone this revolution, for man alone by 
 grasping a stone converted his unarmed hand into an armed 
 one. In so doing he may not have created any new bodily 
 organ, but, as Kapp, 1 unfortunately now almost forgotten, 
 phrases it, he planned an organic extension, thus acquiring 
 new capacities, just as if he had really added another organ 
 to his body. But — and this distinction is profoundly signifi- 
 cant — this acquisition does not inconvenience its owner. If 
 he no longer needs his new organ, he can lay it aside or even 
 exchange it for other organs, and is thus gradually enabled 
 to acquire a multiplicity of organs such as no living creature 
 would ever be able to carry about. 
 
 The human brain has been influenced to a quite extraordi- 
 nary extent by this circumstance. These new organs cannot 
 fail to affect and perfect the brain, just as the old organs did ; 
 but whereas the brain used to be forced to wait until the new 
 organs were there, now it acquires its new organs itself, and 
 perfects itself through them by its own force. By thus "cre- 
 ating organs for itself," therefore, the brain acquires freedom 
 and independence, first of all from its body, be it noted. 
 
 All animals depend greatly upon physical advantages, but 
 in man these are of comparatively little moment. Of what 
 use are the best eyes, since they cannot do what comparatively 
 inferior telescopes and microscopes can do? Of what use is 
 a good nose or tongue to us in comparison with the benefits 
 
 i Kapp's "Outlines of Technical Philosophy" ( "Grundlinien einer 
 Philosophic der Technik"), 1877. G. Westermann: Brunswick. Pp. 
 29-39. Cf. also Noire's "Tools and Their Importance in the History 
 of Human Evolution" ("Das Werkzeug und seine Bedeutung flir die 
 Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschleit"), 1880. J. Diemer: Mayence. 
 Both these works are based very largely on L. Geiger's "Origin and 
 Development of Human Speech and Reason" ("Ursprung und Entwick- 
 lung der mensehlkhen Sprache und Vermin ft") : Stuttgart, ISfiS. This 
 idea, however, was tirst expressed by Ferdinand Lassalle, who in 1880 
 said, "Absolute self-surlieienoy is the lowest pitch of humanity."
 
 58 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 conferred on us by chemistry? Our telephones and micro- 
 phones enable us to hear farther and better, our mechanical 
 scales and other metrical instruments to feel more than any 
 animal with the best special organs of sense. For what do 
 we need great physical strength when we have steam hammers, 
 hydraulic presses, and giant cranes to work for us? Or speed, 
 with railways and motor-cars to run for us? We need learn 
 neither to swim nor to fly, since our steamers and submarines, 
 our aeroplanes and airships can do so. Every achievement of 
 excellence produced at any time during millions of years in the 
 animal kingdom man's young brain has likewise produced and 
 brought to greater perfection. 1 We see more clearly than fal- 
 cons, smell better than dogs, hear farther than elephants, and 
 have a finer sense of touch than bats' wings. We are stronger 
 than the rhinoceros, while in speed we easily excel the horse 
 on earth, the eagle in the air, and the shark in the water. 2 
 
 § 27. — The Autonomy of the Brain 
 
 From henceforth the brain, now free and powerful, is the 
 decisive factor in the struggle for existence, for to-day in- 
 tellectual struggles are of more importance than hand-to-hand 
 fighting. Even if all the dwellers upon earth stuck knives 
 into one another, they could not, if the worst came to the 
 worst, do more than kill one another all out, and there would 
 be a billion and a half dead, which, after all, is scarcely con- 
 ceivable. If, however, a single person succeeded in directly 
 utilizing solar energy for the production of food, this would 
 mean enabling a billion and a half living beings to live (that 
 is, a thousand times as many), which will one day actually 
 come to pass. 3 Truly our tools are weapons, but to be used 
 
 i Even Helmholtz once said, "If an optician were to bring 1 me an eye, 
 I would refuse it as bundling work." 
 
 2 Our airsbips, however, cannot yet overtake the falcon, and the 
 dolphin is probablv swifter than even our latest racinc A'achts. 
 
 s The three thousand billions mentioned above are conceivable, and 
 the billion and a half mentioned here are probable, indeed, in so far as 
 such a statement can be made as to the future, they are a certainty.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 59 
 
 against nature and not against man. Our first tool, a stone, 
 was a weapon, but a weapon in the struggle for food, and a 
 tool for turning up the soil. 1 Afterward this weapon for at- 
 tacking earth and wood was used against animals, and finally 
 against man also. 
 
 But this is contrary not merely to morality, but also to 
 truth, for we are not simply a part of nature. In man's small 
 brain the whole of "creation" was pondered over and imi- 
 tated, and as a result of the freedom thus achieved we are 
 enabled to "live according to laws of our own." Therefore 
 it is that human action differs from any natural event, and 
 therefore it is that we must not consider war in the light of 
 an earthquake. Even were it true, which, as has been shown, 
 it is not, that war is nature's only outlet, this natural com- 
 pulsion would still not apply to us, for man ought not even 
 to draw his sword except of his own free will and with a sense 
 of his responsibility in so doing. The struggle for existence 
 is no excuse, nor does it afford any analogy. 
 
 Even the usages of war unconsciously admit this, for any 
 one who wants to fight to-day must arm others, since an 
 isolated person, be he never so brave, is too weak. Arming 
 others and winning allies, even among one's own people, can 
 be done only by persuasion, by influencing men's minds; that 
 is, by words. As this present war clearly shows, and as its 
 issue will show still more clearly, therefore, nothing is so im- 
 portant and essential as persuasion, as intellectual struggle, 
 
 Between one and two thousand years after the introduction of the 
 synthetic reproduction of food-stiitl's, they will have been reached, and 
 then the world in general would he as thickly populated as a garden city. 
 
 [Tn England and Germany a billion — a million millions (1,000,000,- 
 000,000; in France and America, however, the word (French milliard) 
 generally means a thousand millions = 1,000,000,000. In the case of 
 the first figure Dr. Nicolai uses the word milliarde, and in the case of the 
 second figure the word billion. — Translator.] 
 
 1 Cf. Lazarus Geiger's '"Origin and Development of Human Speech and 
 Reason" ("Ursprang and Entwicklung der menschlichen Sprache und 
 Vernunft"). J. G. Cotta: Stuttgart, 1808. Geiger shows that the 
 most ancient tool was used for turning up the soil.
 
 60 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 even if such struggle should appear to be temporarily in 
 abeyance. In any case, we must never lose faith in the free- 
 dom and omnipotence of the intellect ; and even now all who 
 hope for any improvement must in their heart of hearts be 
 convinced that the power of persuasion is mightier than that 
 of the brute force. 
 
 No one should take this comfort to his soul more than 
 the friends of peace, forsaken as they may at present seem. 
 It has been somewhat scornfully said of them that such a 
 handful of men attempting to withstand the war giant are 
 like a small dog barking at the engine of an express-train go- 
 ing at full speed : the engine would run straight over the dog 
 without being affected. No doubt, for the dog has at most 
 one millionth part as much living force as the express-train, 
 and if man could do nothing but throw his body in front of 
 threatening evil his power would not avail much either. 
 Man's will, however, is not bound down to the strength sup- 
 plied him by his body, but he has the power of releasing al- 
 most indefinite forces. Only think. One screw in the rails 
 loosened, and the whole stately express engine is a heap of 
 dust. No dog can do this; but man can. 
 
 The influence which man exerts upon his fellow-man cannot 
 be expressed in terms of energy. We know only that there is 
 no limit to the power of a word. 
 
 "Johannes Huss und andre Ketzer brieten, 
 Ihr Wort jedocli erklang von Ort zu Orte: 
 Welch eine Tugend ist die Kunst der Worte." 
 
 (Roughly: ".John Huss and other heretics burned; yet their words 
 resounded from place to place. Ah! the virtue lying in the art of 
 words ! " — Translator. ) 
 
 Christ, Darwin, Luther, and Voltaire all knew the art of 
 words, and they were to their time as a lightning flash setting 
 in motion the accumulated stores of energy of an entire world. 
 And the power of that one small word "war," how it trans- 
 
 i Platen, prologue to the " Abassiden," 1829; lines 102-104.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 61 
 
 forms all Europe and forces all mankind to abandon their ac- 
 customed ways for the sake of some new and unknown goal ! 
 This we all felt, to our joy and sorrow, in the summer of 1914. 
 
 "In the beginning was the word," always, and the word 
 alone, for the power is always in the hands of the "old, " and 
 the "new" at first never had any weapon save the word. 
 But the word need only be left to itself, and as yet it has always 
 come oli' victorious. And this conquest of the word which is 
 carried away by the wind over all worldly power is, after all, 
 merely what Kant meant by the autonomy of practical reason 
 and the dignity of mankind. True, there is an essential dif- 
 ference between the autonomy of practical reason and that of 
 the brain, to which alone I referred above; for that "abso- 
 lute autonomy" insisted upon by Kant cannot exist save as 
 an idea pure and simple. The autonomy of the brain is like- 
 wise limited, but it would be quite enough if we made full 
 use of such autonomy as it has. 
 
 In order to have finished with war, this freedom of the true 
 natural scientist, the freedom of the thinking brain, would be 
 quite sufficient ; and Frederick, in this respect really the Great, 
 was quite right in saying, "If my soldiers began to think, 
 not one would remain in the ranks." Unhappily, however, 
 Schopenhauer also seems to have been right in saying that 
 "Men arc not thinking beings." 
 
 Schopenhauer, however, w r as a pessimist, and to-day there 
 is cause rather for optimism, for we now know at any rate 
 one tiling that Schopenhauer did not know for a fact : that 
 even if men do not think, nevertheless their brains are capable 
 of thinking. It is one of the most interesting facts which 
 modern brain physiologists have taught us that the brains 
 of animals and man contain more extensive capacities than any 
 that have ever been evolved from them. As a matter of fact, 
 the brain is more developed than the soul, which is, after all. 
 only what is to be expected, for the instrument must first be 
 there before any one can play upon it. A calculating-machine, 
 for example, already contains within its iron framework the
 
 62 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 calculations 481 X 1617 = 777,777, and that 5621 X 13,857 
 = 77,777.777, although neither may ever have been actually 
 made. Similarly in every brain there are very many trains 
 of thoughts ready waiting that have never yet been used. 
 Nowhere is more striking proof of this afforded than in the 
 works of that Russian man of genius, the physiologist Ivan P. 
 Pawlow, works which open up an entirely fresh train of 
 thought, into which, however, it would take too long to enter 
 now. To make my meaning clear two examples will suffice. 
 Animals, particularly monkeys, which are much with human 
 beings can learn from them things which in themselves far 
 transcend the limits of their intelligence; but this causes no 
 modification of their brain, which consequently must already 
 have been in a state to undertake these new functions. Again, 
 the Japanese, who, if they had had to acquire Western civiliza- 
 tion by their own exertions, certainly would not have done so 
 under hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years, have copied 
 it from the Europeans in only a few years, just as they very 
 quickly copied Chinese civilization. Moreover, as soon as 
 either monkeys or Japanese have really adopted new habits, 
 they adapt themselves to these perfectly. "Missie" smokes 
 her cigarette no less elegantly than any Tauentzien girl, 
 and Soyen Shaku writes books on ethics, the arguments of 
 which lead to conclusions precisely similar to those at which 
 German ethical writers arrived independently. 1 
 
 Many things even in the lives of nations may be explained 
 by this fact of there being all manner of possibilities latent 
 in the brain without man having the slightest inkling of them. 
 This explains both the conservation whieh often drives us to 
 despair by its persistent adherence to antiquated grooves, and 
 likewise the suddenness with which a new order of things 
 comes about the moment any one once succeeds in opening up 
 these "dead tracks'' to traffic or in wresting a single sound 
 from these "slumbering bowstrings." 
 
 What we know of brain physiology, therefore, justifies us 
 
 i Cf. § 194.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 63 
 
 in being optimistic. However noisy and self-assertive the 
 impulses of hate may be, the social instincts, their opposites, 
 our oldest inheritance, have long been lying dormant in our 
 brain, although as yet they give out no sound. But one day 
 they will be touched, and then their sound will drown that of 
 all ghosts of the past, whether medieval or modern. That we 
 have "dead tracks" in us, and that love is older than hate, it 
 is the purpose of Part III of this book to prove. 
 
 § 28. — War as a Free Human Act 
 
 As long, however, as the world does not know this, and does 
 not believe that nature's organization, of which each person 
 is a part, makes it as it were physically incumbent upon us 
 to observe certain rules and mutual relations, so long might it 
 be objected that just because man is free and not subject to 
 natural force, he can make war because he chooses to do so ; 
 and that as he always has chosen so in the past, he will con- 
 tinue so to choose in the future, for "there always was and al- 
 ways will be war." It is not worth while examining such 
 arguments, for they could be equally well urged in defense of 
 cannibalism or of the Stone Age. 
 
 Now, war has indeed been called logos, ratio, or reason — not 
 human reason, it is true, but, characteristically enough, only 
 the reason or argument of kings. As Calderon 1 scornfully 
 wrote, in war powder and shot are the last word of kings. 
 But kings did not understand irony, and "ultima ratio 
 regum" was inscribed on the cannons of the Roi Soleil of 
 Versailles, and afterward upon those of Frederick the Great. 
 In France the National Assembly, on August 17, 1791, erased 
 these overbearing words; but in Prussia they still remain, 
 although, strangely enough, only on field guns, intended for 
 attack, and not on fortification guns, intended for defense, 
 thus still further emphasizing the fact that cannon are not the 
 argument of man, but merely that of kings. 
 
 i Calderon: "Ks osta vida todo es verdad y todo mentiia" ("Every- 
 thing in this life is truth and everything untruth").
 
 64 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 These words are not only engraved on the cannon for tra- 
 dition's sake, but only a few months ago, Loofs, 1 singularly 
 enough a theologian, referred to them as a valuable maxim, 
 llerr Loofs, who is probably a good monarchist, has no con- 
 ception of what a disservice he is thus rendering to kings, for 
 if war really does amount to " the last argument of kings," 
 then there would be all the more justification for the republi- 
 cans making a fittting rejoinder. There is, however, a grain 
 of truth in these words, and hence Kant insists on the neces- 
 sity for a federation of "free republican states" if perpetual 
 peace is to be maintained. 
 
 We hear it repeated over and over again that we are bound 
 in honor to go to war, and that "it is a worthless nation which 
 will not joyfully sacrifice everything for honor's sake." No 
 doubt ; but the only question is whether honor can be retrieved 
 by force of arms. A nation which can conceive of this being 
 possible has no more genuine honor in it than a good pistol- 
 shot who has made his notions of honor fit in with his sureness 
 of aim. 
 
 Does any one really believe that the distressingly deep 
 feelings of hatred, fear, and contempt with which the majority 
 of mankind at present regard Germany would not be greatly 
 increased if the Germans were to succeed in imposing their 
 rule upon still more non-German-speaking territories? It is 
 moral conquests which we need to make, and if Germany were 
 to win, and nevertheless to fulfil the elementary demands of 
 humanity (which would, of course, then be more difficult), 
 then she would have retrieved her honor. 
 
 Does any one believe that at the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century Germany lost her honor because she succumbed 
 before the Corsican's superior military methods? Or that 
 Denmark or Belgium have lost their honor because of having 
 had to yield to their stronger neighbor? Again, was it in any 
 sense an honor for Napoleon or William I to have conquered 
 
 1 Friedrich Loofs, "Internationale Monatsschrift fur- T. Wissenschaft, 
 Kunst, und Teehnik," 1915. Vol. IX, No. 1.
 
 WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 65 
 
 those weaker than themselves? Let man once ask himself 
 these questions impartially; there can be no donbt about the 
 answer. A man's honor depends upon the good opinion of 
 his fellow-men, a nation's honor upon the good opinion of 
 other nations ; and the time is past when this good opinion 
 can be earned by the possession of a stronger biceps. 
 
 Indispensable as war may seem regarded as an inherited 
 notion, as a reasonable act, or as the duty of every man of 
 honor, it cannot possibly be anything of the sort. For man 
 indeed nothing can be allowed to be a necessity except what 
 he himself, after free reflections, has recognized as a right. 
 This is the meaning of the proud words "Thou shalt," which 
 he, unfettered man, uses in contradistinction to fettered na- 
 ture's "Thou must." 
 
 No honor and no dignity could be defended by actions im- 
 posed by necessity. Hence any one asserting the necessity 
 of war, in so doing likens it to an animal act, and Fenelon 1 was 
 right in saying that it is the disgrace of the human race that 
 war sometimes seems inevitable. 
 
 » "C'est la honte rlu genre lnunain, que la guerre soit inevitable."' 
 161)!). Telemaque, Book XI.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Selection by Means of War 
 
 1. — selection and education 
 § 29.- — Positive and Negative Selection 
 
 \Yar, says Professor K. von Stengel, 1 is a touchstone of 
 nations, for in war everything rotten is destroyed ; and some 
 pastor or ecclesiastic whose name I have forgotten even goes 
 the length of asserting that war is God's great winnowing vane 
 with which He separates the wheat from the chaff. In this 
 or some similar fashion has the doctrine of selection being 
 effected by the struggle for existence been thoughtlessly and 
 blindly transferred by many persons to war between human 
 beings. 
 
 Undoubtedly war does effect selection, but for that matter 
 nothing in the world ever happens which does not to some 
 extent do so. If a new stock-exchange law is promulgated, 
 those persons perish, at all events as stock brokers, who can- 
 not accommodate themselves to the new regulations; and if 
 new riding rules are issued, the first riding prize will not be 
 won by the same person as would have won it under the old 
 rules, although this does not mean that any one will learn 
 to ride better under the new rules. Similarly with regard to 
 war. It must of course sift men, first of all sorting them 
 into living and dead; but how do these so-called Darwinians 
 know that it is the wheat which is left and the chaff which is 
 
 i K. von Stengel, "A World-wide State and the Problem of Peace," 
 C'W'eltstaat und Friedensproblem") , p. lllf. [A highly combative 
 character sent by Germany as technical delegate to the first Hague Con- 
 ference. — Translator.] 
 
 66
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 67 
 
 removed? Supposing it were the other way about? For in 
 the case of all selective influences the point is whether the 
 selection is positive or negative. It may have the effect of im- 
 proving the race or of deteriorating it. 
 
 Supposing every gazelle which neither sees nor hears the 
 lion lying in wait for it, or, seeing him, is not able to escape 
 quickly enough, were vanquished and killed, then after a time 
 the only gazelles loft would be those with sharp eyes, quick 
 hearing, and agile limbs. They alone would breed, and thus 
 the race would become clearer-sighted, quicker of hearing, and 
 nimbler. 
 
 If, again, every tortoise with too thin a shell is vanquished 
 and killed, then in time the only tortoises left will be those 
 with the thickest shells. It matters comparatively little 
 whether they have good eyes or ears, and as selection does 
 not take effect here, their senses, supposing no other selective 
 influences to intervene, would eventually become dulled ; and 
 owing to this negative selection we should have a race of 
 clumsy, apathetic creatures, with dull senses. Both gazelles 
 and tortoises, however, are admirably adapted to the peculiar 
 circumstances and conditions in which their species must live. 
 
 Similarly, if war were constantly man's chief occupation, 
 he would assuredly gradually become altogether adapted for 
 warfare. Fighting being what it is, however, it is not to be 
 expected that a specially brave, vigorous, or intelligent race 
 would arise, for, as we shall presently see, the effect of war 
 is to exterminate all who come within these categories; but 
 owing to modern trench warfare it would be a kind of rabbit- 
 like race that would come into existence. The new human 
 being would accordingly have no refined requirements, since 
 in holes in the earth it would be impossible to satisfy these; 
 he would have a defective sense of smell, if only in order to 
 enable him to endure the stench of decomposing corpses : but 
 he would be agile and nimble, and have good ears and eyes, 
 so as to be able to run fast in and out of holes at the right mo- 
 ment. He would also need his good eyes for taking aim, al-
 
 68 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 though, as experience teaches, in perpetual fighting the lust 
 of slaughter decreases, and fondness for taking cover increases, 
 owing to the simplicity and primitive nature of his occupa- 
 tion he would have but slender intelligence; he would despise 
 peaceful employments, because man is naturally inclined to 
 think highly of his own occupation ; he would care little for 
 comfort, his chief ideas about which would be connected with 
 eating and drinking ; and finally he would have a certain esprit 
 de corps toward his comrades, but above all he would hate 
 and fear his enemies. Such is the half idiotic troglodyte race 
 which would result from permanent trench warfare. An ap- 
 proximate analogy is afforded by the medieval mercenary, 
 whose modern counterpart, however, would be only a very 
 much reduced copy, owing to war having now become far 
 more stupefying. 
 
 § 30.— The Trend of Selection 
 
 No one either will or can deny what has just been said. 
 But what might be urged is that all men of this martial 
 rabbit-like type, such as is produced by war, would be healthy. 
 Such a statement is very difficult to contradict, because it 
 always is difficult to disprove such assertion as that the ex- 
 ception does not prove the rule and that a little never does 
 any harm. Telling a few lies (necessary lies), committing 
 a little murder, a little conjugal infidelity, 1 and an occasional 
 failure to honor thy father and thy mother, 2 — all this may be 
 defended. 
 
 Now, if any one has any belief at all in its being possible 
 by our own free will to influence human evolution, then any 
 such inclination to experiment is reprehensible ; for our de- 
 sires, our endeavors, and our tendencies will one day be ac- 
 complished facts for future generations. "What to-day is 
 merely hinted at will be an actual fact to-morrow. It is not 
 so much what we are which really signifies as the direction 
 
 i Cf. Luther. 
 
 2 Cf . The famous order to shoot.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OP WAR 69 
 
 in which we are tending ; and this is why we must think out 
 our thoughts clearly to the end. What we must ask our- 
 selves, therefore, is this, Do we mean through our institu- 
 tions to try to cause the vital struggle for existence to tend 
 to make man better or worse fitted for the complex conditions 
 of war? 
 
 Before answering this question we must clearly realize that 
 every war which a nation wages not merely makes it tempo- 
 rarily "a trifle" more warlike, but irrevocably gives it a for- 
 ward push in the direction of what is warlike in general. 
 Thus whoever inflames or even approves the warlike sense of 
 his own people must be prepared for that last state that all 
 warlike peoples have lived to see and will live to see. Con- 
 versely, every time war is averted, humanity tends to become 
 more inclined toward peace; and whoever endeavors to avert 
 a war is likewise bound to take into consideration a last 
 state which would probably be a state in which men would be 
 unfitted for war. 
 
 Any one attempting to reason this out logically and ration- 
 ally must make up his mind whether his aim is to train men 
 more and more to be soldiers or to be peaceful citizens, and 
 whether he hopes in the future, perhaps a still distant future, 
 that there will be peace or war. By our present actions our 
 race is being prepared for its future state, and I believe that, 
 had we always been aware of the effects of our resolves, we 
 might have realized far more clearly whither our pacific and 
 our national aspirations were leading us. The belief pre- 
 vailed, however, that it was possible to take side leaps. Just 
 as a man could occasionally get drunk without being afraid of 
 becoming a drunkard, so it was believed that men in gen- 
 eral could occasionally wage war without becoming warriors: 
 and some people even went the length of saying that there 
 must be something wrong with a man who had never got drunk 
 or been to war. Those who argue thus forget that, although 
 a person certainly can take side leaps without serious conse- 
 quences resulting, this is impossible for a race, unless what
 
 70 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 is called negative selection is to set in, which of course for the 
 person does not signify. 
 
 This can easily be proved. It is an ordinary commonplace 
 that man owes his position in the world to-day solely to the 
 evolution of his brain. I need do no more than recall what 
 has already been explained in Chapter II (Part 4) dealing 
 with freedom and natural selection ; namely, that this condi- 
 tion of evolution already prevailed when the forest-dwelling 
 savage made himself his first tool, and thus paved the way for 
 the development of his brain. Since then mankind has con- 
 tinued along the broad way leading to ever-increasing libera- 
 tion of the brain ; and in my view with this path of progress 
 we may rest content. Discontent, moreover, would be useless, 
 for we must continue in it. That is the terrible greatness of 
 nature, that she knows no turning back. Implacable neces- 
 sity will have it that what has once been begun must be gone 
 on with to the end. As in the legend of Orpheus, a legend 
 which in some form or other is common to almost all nations, 
 it would be death to look back. However much the savage 
 greatness of the Renaissance may attract us, however grand 
 the heroic combats before Troy may seem, however keen may 
 be the longing for our primeval home aroused in us by delight 
 in the innocent enjoyments of the savage or even of the animal, 
 all these delights are irrecoverably lost to us. We must learn 
 to take pleasure in a new kind of beauty, for in nature there is 
 no going back, but only going forward. 
 
 Now, nature, when she advances thus in one direction only, 
 owing to the influence of selection, is absolutely prevented 
 from ever making any experiments. This at first sight seems 
 strange, for has not nature alwa3 r s been experimenting ? Did 
 she not at first produce many round and many-cornered ani- 
 mals, until it became evident that the bilateral, symmetrical 
 formation was the best? Did she not make experiments with 
 aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals, until the terrestrial 
 creatures gained the upper hand? Did she not produce six- 
 footed insects, eight-footed spiders, ten-footed crabs, and
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 71 
 
 many-footed millipeds before she arrived at the practical 
 quadruped? All these and many more instances may cer- 
 tainly be justly cited, but on closer inspection we see that 
 nature's way was not our way. 
 
 For example, if we wish to learn to fly, we get wings, as was 
 always done throughout the Middle Ages ; and if this does not 
 answer, then they are laid aside, and a balloon is procured, 
 as was done by Montgolfier in 1783. After man had tor- 
 mented himself therewith for a while, and realized that it is 
 possible to steer such a construction only to a limited extent, 
 as Krebs and Renard discovered in 18S4, the balloon is also 
 put away in its shed, and the almost forgotten wings are 
 brought out again. This time, however, they are put to quite 
 another purpose ; that is, they are spread out as slides, as was 
 done by Le Briez, and more particularly by Otto Lilienthal 
 in 1890. And so matters go on, some trying to derive the 
 necessary force from steam-engines, as, for instance, Sir Hiram 
 Maxim did in 1893, or from accumulators, as did Krebs and 
 Renard in 1884, only to find that they did not answer: while 
 others tried the benzoin motor, as did the brothers Wright 
 in 1903, finding this answer. And ultimately, after many 
 experiments, we shall have a serviceable flying-machine. 
 
 It is easy to see that the possibility of experimenting in the 
 human sense of the word depends upon the possession of 
 detachable organs. Nature, however, has no detachable or- 
 gans, and is therefore compelled to experiment in some other 
 way. When the animal world made a conquest of the air, 
 various kinds of preliminary attempts were made. Some crea- 
 tures, such as squirrels, grew bushy tails, thickly covered with 
 hair, so that they might fall more slowly and be able to take 
 longer jumps: in the case of others the skin between leg and 
 arm became extended out so as to form a fulcrum, as in the 
 case of the Sciuroptene; in a third case — that of bats — a skin 
 grew and became stretched between the fingers, which had be- 
 come very long; and finally in a fourth case — that of birds — 
 feathers grew.
 
 72 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Although of these four methods only the last, feathers, has 
 proved satisfactory, yet the other creatures cannot now ex- 
 change their imperfect equipment for feathers. They must 
 proceed along the way on which they once set out, whether it 
 lead backward or forward. There is no turning hack for 
 them ; and so it is with everything. Should an animal be spe- 
 cially well adapted to night life, to tropics, or to mountains, 
 then from henceforth it must permanently live in the night, 
 in the tropics, or in the mountains, and the only way in which 
 it can possibly attain greater perfection is to become al- 
 together exceptionally well suited to its special surroundings. 
 
 Thus is the evolution of organisms restricted, and the evo- 
 lution of man would be restricted in just the same way were 
 not his brain free, so that he can change his organs at will. 
 
 § 31. — Wise and Foolish 
 
 It may therefore be considered an established fact that hu- 
 man evolution proper depends upon the evolution of our 
 brain, 1 indeed amounts to the same thing. For man, conse- 
 quently, many limitations imposed on animals do not exist. 
 Man can develop freely in every respect, but — and this is the 
 one limitation — if mankind is to progress, the development of 
 the brain mast be promoted. Or, in other words, every vic- 
 tory of the wise over the foolish means a step forward, and 
 is a sign of positive selection; every victory of the foolish 
 over the wise is a step backward, a sign of negative selection. 
 
 Now, it is a universal fact that wherever force decides, 
 
 i It is, of course, hardly necessary to say that our brain cannot be 
 thus developed unless the body be likewise developed at the same time. 
 Of the important facts connected with this, the most essential have 
 been cited in what has been said concerning freedom and natural com- 
 pulsion. Suffice it here to remark that the brain owes much to the 
 hand, and due note should be taken of the fact that everything which 
 refines the hand is promoting human evolution, whereas everything 
 which coarsens it has, to say the least, nothing to do with evolution. 
 Any one who has really understood these condensed reflections will per- 
 ceive no inconsistency in the fact that the laborer's callous fist is often 
 superior to the manicured hand of a dandy.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 73 
 
 whether it be the brute force of cannon or the no less great 
 force of intolerance, it is a hindrance to wisdom; in other 
 words, to positive selection based on intellectual superiority. 
 Every decision by means of force is therefore to be rejected. 
 
 Du bist im ruhmgekronten Morden 
 Das erste Land der Welt geworden ! 1 
 
 This is the one assertion which can be made with some show 
 of justification after a victorious war. No further inference 
 must be drawn, however. There is certainly nothing impos- 
 sible in those who are foremost in the art of killing likewise 
 attaining distinction in the arts of civilization: such a com- 
 bination of qualities is not unthinkable, albeit highly improb- 
 able. Probably no one has expounded this with so much 
 detail and logic as Steinmetz. 2 According to him, victory 
 is attained not by one virtue alone, but by a number of virtues 
 together. As such he instances fidelity, sense of solidarity, en- 
 durance, conscientiousness, education, inventiveness, thrift, 
 wealth, and physical health and strength. 3 
 
 Now, this motley collection of the most heterogeneous con- 
 ceptions is almost a classical instance of — pardon the word, 
 but it is not too strong — the absurdity of the argument of 
 these victory enthusiasts, who never inquire whether victory 
 promotes virtue, but simply call everything a virtue which 
 conduces to victory. In reality all the qualities just enumer- 
 ated are by no means virtues in themselves, but may be either 
 virtues or vices according to their motive. It is possible to be 
 faithful to something good or to something bad, just as we may 
 have a fellow feeling for what is good or for what is bad, and 
 so on. Thus all these virtues of Steinmetz 's are virtues only 
 
 i Georg Herwegh, "Germania," 1871. [The first country in the world 
 hast thou risen to be, but wearing blood-stained laurels.] 
 
 2 Dr. S. It. Steinmetz, "Philosophic des Krieges" (The Philosophy of 
 War). 1907: Bath, Leipsic. 
 
 3 In the ensuing pages I shall refer several times more in detail to 
 the question of whether there is any such connection between the virtues 
 of peace and those of war.
 
 74 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 so long as we consider war and its effects good. If we cease 
 so to consider them, then they become vices; for, as already 
 said, the conservative fidelity wherewith mankind clings to 
 its ancient instinct for war has now ceased to be a good thing, 
 and the way small groups of persons hold together, thereby im- 
 peding the solidarity of mankind, ought to be blamed, not 
 praised. It is worthy of note that no mention should be made 
 of virtues such as love and truthfulness. 
 
 Each one of these "virtues" will be estimated quite dif- 
 ferently by every person, according to his party. That a 
 victory is due to fidelity or conscientiousness will never be 
 admitted by the vanquished. "Why even now, whenever the 
 German war reports are forced to admit some success of the 
 enemy, they attribute it to asphyxiating bombs or some other 
 act of treachery and unscrupulousness. 
 
 That thrift should promote victory might also seem surpris- 
 ing ; at this time victory is supposed mainly to depend upon 
 who can squander most money in shells. Steinmetz, however, 
 is not referring at all to thrift in war-time, but to thrift in 
 peace-time, and herein most people will readily agree with him. 
 It is hard to see, however, why it should be a virtue to spend 
 little on education, this being the only respect in which a 
 martial state can economize. This particular philosopher, 
 moreover, also differs from his fellows in considering wealth 
 also as a virtue ! War and capitalism the modern virtues ! 
 Herr Steinmetz is, at any rate, logical. 1 
 
 Strangely enough, Herr Steinmetz makes no mention of 
 courage, which, in fact, is now no longer a warlike virtue. 
 The courageous, energetic lieutenants did harm rather than 
 good in the early days of the war, and matters did not mend 
 
 i Concerning education and inventiveness, health and strength, and 
 also the feeling of solidarity I shall have more to say hereafter. As i - e- 
 gards education Cf. §108-111 on patriotism and civilization; § 119-122 
 on the contrast between civilization and jingoism; and § 134-138 on 
 (Jerman humanity and German militarism. Concerning inventiveness 
 Cf. 68-70 about the tendency of war always to be behind the times. 
 Concerning health cf. § 35-39, "On the Alleged Tonic Effects of War."
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 75 
 
 until the reserve lieutenant gained control. An indirect con- 
 firmation of the worthlessness of courage is afforded also by 
 those who, in the excess of their enthusiasm, say that nowa- 
 days there are no longer any privileged heroes, but that every 
 one is a hero. Any one acquainted with human nature and 
 knowing how rare is real bravery will also know what this 
 means. Just as the individual leader is swallowed up in 
 the general staff organization, so the individual hero is swal- 
 lowed up in the trenches. There was a time when courage was 
 a warlike virtue. 
 
 If there is still a martial virtue, then it is a gift for 
 organization. Railways must work and movements of troops 
 proceed without a hitch; shells must be provided, and like- 
 wise food for hundreds and thousands of men. No one is read- 
 ier than I am to admit how well all this mechanism works, 
 especially in Germany, and to marvel thereat. In the capac- 
 ity to prepare for and carry out any action with this perfection 
 there is something which fills us with the most joyful confi- 
 dence. We have already reached the stage of being able to 
 organize men by the millions. But here again a gift of 
 organization in itself is not a virtue, but merely appears to be 
 one, and becomes one only because of the motives for which a 
 man organizes. 
 
 This war lias shown that we can organize. We organized 
 for war and for the destruction of others. This may please 
 those who consider there is virtue in destruction, but those 
 who see virtue in construction will insist on this proved gift 
 for organization being used for constructive purposes. Should 
 the war ultimately succeed in bringing this about, as I be- 
 lieve it will, and as I would do everything in my power to 
 insure its doing, then and only then would this last European 
 War mean the painful winding up of a bygone period and 
 the promise-laden beginning of a new future. 
 
 We always come back to the same point. Those who begin 
 by assuming that war and warlike qualities are good will think 
 that war breeds qualities which are warlike and therefore, in
 
 76 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 their opinion, good ; but those who dispassionately inquire 
 what are virtue and happiness and what is man's purpose 
 here below, and then, having once answered these questions, 
 proceed to ask whether one of them is promoted by war, must 
 unhesitatingly admit that war, particularly war under mod- 
 ern conditions, no longer promotes any positive virtue which 
 has anything whatever to do with civilization. 
 
 I might still be able to imagine a civilized fighting man 
 of Frederick the Great's or Napoleon's time, even so late as 
 1870, but not now, for the extreme subdivision of labor in all 
 departments of human activity has gradually caused civiliza- 
 tion and the art of war to adopt such absolutely dissimilar 
 forms that any connection between the two seems no longer 
 possible. 
 
 But what is both singular and disgraceful is that formerly, 
 when this might perhaps still have been admissible, no civilized 
 human being even thought of going to fight, and that only 
 now, when the gulf between war and civilization has widened 
 to the uttermost, has universal service been introduced, which 
 needlessly exposes the most highly differentiated human beings 
 to the same risks as mercenaries naturally predestined for 
 Avar's handiwork. This is like attempting to construct, a hu- 
 man skeleton out of brain-cells. There could be only one re- 
 sult : the brain-cells would be completely crushed, and the 
 bone-cells would alone remain. Such is the kind of choice 
 which will be made by modern warfare. Men of brain perish, 
 men of bone remain, which is also a form of selection, but 
 not one tending toward that kind of evolution which pro- 
 motes the development of the brain, quite apart from any 
 personal predilection, but from general consideration of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 In principle, therefore, it may be said that wherever force 
 and intolerance decide, there is no positive selection tending 
 to promote human evolution, for here not the wise man, but 
 the strong man, has the upper hand. But where justice pre- 
 vails, there the wise man, not the strong man, rules, talent,
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 77 
 
 and not brute force ; and consequently positive selection takes 
 place, tending toward human evolution. 
 
 Now we understand what every human means more or less 
 clearly by an "inborn natural human right." Even an 
 action which runs counter to the letter of the law seems to us, 
 nevertheless, justified "if it forwards the general deed of 
 man, ' ' * for right is right only if it exercises positive select' 
 assists talent, and furthers civilization. 
 
 § 32. — The Effect of War on the Development of Intelligence 
 
 Now, it is true that in general beasts of prey are considered 
 more intelligent than beasts preyed upon. Even the people 
 have got into the way of thinking it a greater compliment to 
 any one's intelligence to call him a dog or a cat than a sheep 
 or an ox. This also explains why lions, leopards, eagles, 
 griffins, and other creatures able to put up a fight ranked above 
 the rest and were chosen for coats of arms. 2 The elephant of 
 Siam, the llama of Peru, and the peacock of Burma are foreign 
 exceptions. In general, however, this popular belief that 
 predatory creatures are more intelligent is correct. The ex- 
 planation is that prowling after prey requires more intelli- 
 gence than running away. Now, although predatory habits 
 
 i Robert Browning, "By the Fireside." (This the author translates 
 by "ivetin sle die allgemeine Idee dcr Menschheit fordert," doubtless cor- 
 rectly. — Translator. ) 
 
 - An examination of European coats of arms, national and provincial, 
 gives the following approximate result: eagles occur thirty times; 
 hulls five: leopards, griffins, and horses each three times. Thus ani- 
 mals have been selected about seventy times obviously on account of 
 their nature appearing to be martial or fitted for war. True, the mar- 
 ten of Slavonia, the sable of Siberia, and the raven of Galicia are also 
 predatory creatures, but were evidently chosen for other and purely 
 local reasons. Similarly, the Icelandic stockfish, the he goat of the 
 Faroe Islands, the Istri.tn goat, and the Schafl'hausen ram must not 
 lead us to make any inferences as to peaceful tendencies, for here again 
 local causes determined their choice. These heraldic creatures must be 
 the only instances of "peaceful coats of arms" that Europe can show so 
 far as animals are concerned. On the other hand, in America and Asia 
 peaceful animals occur fairly frequently, although, it is true, generally 
 because of their representing some product of the country concerned.
 
 78 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 are sometimes essentially different from man's martial ways, 
 yet it might be thought that outwardly similar habits of 
 life might produce similar effects. 
 
 This, however, is not the case, for we find exceptions even 
 among animals. The very cleverest animals, monkeys and 
 elephants, are not predatory. How is this? So long as the 
 procuring of food is a creature's sole occupation, a beast of 
 prey must of course be more intelligent, it being more difficult 
 and requiring more attention and dexterity to track down a 
 mobile animal than to eat a motionless plant, which in turn 
 demands more intelligence than the plant needs, since it finds 
 its means of sustenance in earth, air, and water, and every- 
 where, without ever needing to look for it. 
 
 Thus we note here three stages. First, the plant, which 
 requires and has so little intelligence that this is not even 
 perceptible; secondly, the vegetable-feeder; and, thirdly, the 
 beast of prey. This scale, however, applies only so long as the 
 sole concern of an organism is eating ; in other words, its own 
 self. But directly it acquires interests in other things and 
 particularly in other creatures, it can educate itself by means 
 of its new interests, and a predatory creature ceases to be nec- 
 essarily any more intelligent than its prey. 
 
 These new and no longer purely selfish interests make even 
 higher demands on a creature's intelligence than the old 
 predatory instincts. For instance, when the cock himself 
 no longer eats up everything he finds, but also sees that the 
 hens get enough, since they have more need of food than he 
 as they have to produce the eggs, this is a social instinct. The 
 bird or animal itself need not be aware of the possession of 
 such an instinct, but in order to transmute it into action, it 
 must possess certain higher intellectual qualities. Above all. 
 the individual creature must be able to express what he wants. 
 That is, he must have some sort of means of communication 
 (speech), and he must respect the wishes of others, and there- 
 fore he must know in what they consist. Speech, understand 
 ing, and capacity for learning are now the factors which are
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 79 
 
 gradually being more and more developed. They it is which 
 form the intellect, and in comparison with them the distinction 
 between predatory and preyed upon sinks into insignificance. 
 Hence it is that after a certain period the social animals, such 
 as monkeys, beavers, elephants, wolves, etc., no matter whether 
 they hunt or are hunted, attain a higher degree of intelli- 
 gence than predatory animals did formerly ; and the degree of 
 this intelligence is in the main in proportion to the extent to 
 which they are associated together. 1 
 
 Monkeys, in particular, have an extraordinary faculty for 
 learning and imitation; they understand language well, and 
 have even an obviously not fully developed language of their 
 own, to investigate which attempts, not wholly successful, have 
 been made of recent years. 
 
 Whether social animals are predatory or preyed upon has 
 nothing whatever to do with their intelligence. On the con- 
 trary, the influence of predatory instincts tends rather to 
 retard the development of social instincts, and consequently 
 of the intelligence. Predatory instincts, therefore, after a 
 certain stage, must have injurious effects, because the slight 
 increase in intelligence due to them can no longer compensate 
 for the inevitable disadvantages resulting from any obstruc- 
 tion of social progress. 
 
 As regards mankind, all this is beyond possibility of doubt. 
 Observations made upon Malays and Indians have proved 
 that predatory and hunting tribes have not even keener senses 
 (better eyes, ears, and noses, etc) as was long believed; while 
 they are assuredly not more intelligent. In fact, civilization 
 has always been diffused by the settled, non-warlike peoples. 
 
 Of all the nations known to us the Greeks were the civilized 
 nation par excellence; and although, when necessity arose — 
 that is, when their civilization was menaced — they fought 
 most valiantly, nevertheless they were not at all warlike, at 
 any rate much less so than the nations with whom they fought 
 
 i Concerning the apparent exception in the case of the higher monkeys 
 cf. ill.
 
 80 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 and whom they also conquered, an important point. For that 
 matter, peaceful nations, being more intelligent, frequently 
 have overcome warlike nations. 
 
 Of the Greeks themselves the Spartans and, later on, the 
 Macedonians were the most warlike, but at the same time the 
 least highly civilized. Conversely, the Romans were a nation 
 of warriors, but they did little for civilization. AVe can ob- 
 serve a similar state of things everywhere, and there is prob- 
 ably hardly a better instance of it than the German nation. 
 In Tacitus 's time it was warlike and barbaric, but gradually, 
 alarmed by too many wars, it became peaceful, and at the 
 same time its civilization began to arouse the admiration of 
 the world. But again a reaction set in, and not content with 
 the blessings of peace, we lusted after war and national great- 
 ness. Simultaneously, the finest flower of our national civiliza- 
 tion began to droop. After all, however much Moltke and 
 Bernhardi, Rontgen and Emil Fischer, Gerardt Hauptmann 
 and Avenarius, may be worth, Hardenberg and Stein, Helm- 
 holtz and Liebig, Goethe and Kant, were worth more, or at all 
 events they were different — in order to avoid any disparaging 
 opinions, which may be merely personal. 1 
 
 These men had a freedom and delicacy of thought all their 
 own. Their ideas were the ideas of genius, and they left their 
 imprint on the whole world. All our industrious workers — 
 
 i This contrast, however, is not in any way intended to be disparag- 
 ing. I have said elsewliere how high an opinion I have, for instance, 
 of Emil Fischer. Bismarck is intentionally omitted, but the very fact 
 of many persons considering this great material politician as abso- 
 lutely the modern German ideal of a man is perliaps the strongest con- 
 firmation of the truth of what I have said. [Dr. Nicolai doubtless 
 here means the German philosopher Avenarius, who died in 18it6, and 
 not the contemporary poet and writer on art Hardenberg is of course 
 Karl August Fiirst von Hardenberg (1750-1822), the Prussian states- 
 man, who succeeded Stein as chancellor of state, continuing his policy 
 of internal reforms. He did a great deal for Prussia by abolishing 
 trade privileges, sweeping away serfdom, and in developing education. 
 Heinrich Friedrich Karl, Baron vom Stein, 1757-1831, was also a 
 strongly liberalizing Prussian statesman. — Translator.]
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 81 
 
 they might almost be called technicians — of to-day cannot at- 
 tain thereto. 
 
 § 33.— The Futility of Wars to-day 
 
 In olden times there may have been some truth in the say- 
 ing that war meant the survival of the fittest. First, from 
 natural causes the individual tribes, cities, or states were very 
 much the same size, for a country's sovereign rights extended 
 as the means of communication developed, and these were 
 probably everywhere much about the same. If two of these 
 tribes, cities, or states had a warlike encounter, the probability 
 therefore from the outset was that quality, not quantity or 
 numbers, would decide matters; that is, that the fitter of the 
 two would win. Now, the conqueror would kill out all the kins- 
 men of the conquered, — that is, be it noted, not merely the 
 select few sent to fight, but also the rest who had stayed at 
 home, — kill them out to the last man or else lead them away 
 into captivity. As for the enemies' women, they were either 
 killed or violated, and thus a "breed of conquerors" arose. 
 This particular kind of fight caused by or, at any rate, ending 
 in, a rape of women, was even to some extent a biological ne- 
 cessity, in order to avoid the mischievous consequences of in- 
 breeding, to which human beings dwelling in small tribes must 
 otherwise have been exposed. 
 
 In point of fact the result of these barbarous, but thoroughly 
 appropriate, methods of warfare was to rule the physically in- 
 ferior out of count ; and even if it might be questioned whether 
 this form of selection answered well or not, and whether other 
 methods would not have worked better, at all events, war did 
 not then mean negative selection. Now, however, the selec- 
 tion has become negative, and modern laws of war most clev- 
 erly prevent war from being of any biological value what- 
 ever. The effect of universal service in particular is to injure 
 just the very fittest. 
 
 In Germany there live some thirty-three million men, half of
 
 82 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 whom are too young or too old to take the field. Of the other 
 sixteen million half again are rejected because of some physical 
 or mental inferiority. There remain, therefore, about eight 
 million who are vigorous, healthy, and intelligent enough to 
 be allowed to take the field. Children and old men are pro- 
 tected by government ; but besides them the blind, deaf, and 
 dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, scrofulous and impotent persons, 
 imbeciles, paralytics, epileptics, dwarfs, and abortions — all 
 this human riffraff and dross, need have no anxiety, for no 
 bullets will come hissing against them, and they can stay at 
 home and dress their ulcers while the brave, strong young men 
 are rotting on the battle-field. 1 
 
 The morally inferior are also kept alive. To begin with, 
 all convicts, as a matter of principle, and also all cowards, for 
 in the long run no surgeon-major, however energetic, can do 
 anything to prevent shirking, so systematically is it carried 
 out, and to such a pitch of refinement is it brought. If shirk- 
 ers are called up at all, they are sent where there is no danger, 
 as sappers, clerks, or ambulance men behind the front, or else 
 they hang about the military hospitals; but most of them are 
 rejected for good and all. 
 
 For them, therefore, war amounts to insuring their lives; 
 and this "regiment of cripples," who in the open competition 
 of peace could hardly hold their own against its more capable 
 competitors, are now getting the best posts, and are highly 
 paid. The effect of this cannot be overestimated. It may be 
 assumed that in such a never-ending war as this fully twenty- 
 five per cent, of the healthy half of the population '- — that is, 
 about two millions — will either die or be seriously incapaci- 
 tated cripples. As the latter, about one million, must now be 
 classed with the unfit, these alone will number about thirty 
 per cent, more than the fit. 
 
 1 "1st der Krie£ ein wissenschaftliches Gesetz?" ("Is War a Scientific 
 Law?'") l>v Charles Richer, in the "Monistisches Jahrhundert" for 1912. 
 No. VI. Vol. 2. 
 
 2 That is, of Germany. These words were written in 1915. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 83 
 
 But what is perhaps still worse is that the unfit, stay-at- 
 home half of the population should be reaping exceptionally 
 great and permanent benefits from the war. The stay-at- 
 home lawyer or doctor is, of course, not necessarily inferior, 
 but even should he be so, he naturally gets the practice of his 
 abler competitor who has had to go, just as the stay-at-home 
 commercial man gets the customers of his perhaps biologically 
 superior competitor at the front. Thus the thoroughly healthy 
 portion of the population, even supposing they come back 
 from the war with unbroken bones, are often injured, per- 
 haps irreparably, in their business or profession. True, they 
 continue to live, but as far as the general public is concerned 
 they might as well be dead, since their former fields of labor 
 and activity are now no longer open to them. Moreover, 
 they will now be compelled to provide for the support of the 
 war cripples, war orphans, and war widows. It is estimated 
 that we shall have to spend 1,500,000,000 marks ($375,000,000) 
 annually for this, to which must be added no less a sum for 
 interest on war loans. Consequently the healthy worker in 
 future will have to give up about two hundred marks (fifty 
 dollars) of his income annually to the Government for this 
 purpose. 1 The biological injury thus inflicted upon the popu- 
 lation in general cannot be expressed in figures ; but one thing 
 must never be forgotten, and that is that all this ' ' curbed in- 
 telligence" can hardly fail to become anything but discon- 
 tented elements, which, again, can scarcely be for the good of 
 the community in general. 
 
 And, again, even among soldiers death the reaper cannot 
 reap quite as he chooses, for naturally even at the front the 
 brave, capable fellows are given harder and therefore more 
 dangerous tasks, and consequently are more decimated. There 
 was a time when their greater ability might have availed to 
 protect them somewhat against dangers, but hardly nowadays, 
 for bullets are no respecters of persons. In short, were the 
 
 »I should again remind the reader that this is only a 1915 estimate. 
 — Translator
 
 84 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 war to last long enough, it must infallibly result in a belliger- 
 ent people consisting solely of inferior elements, with the pos- 
 sible exception of a handful of commanders-in-chief, who are 
 usually less exposed to the dangers of war than other men. 1 
 
 Yet another point. It is the stay-at-homes, the idiotic and 
 sickly "indigenous race," which are producing the generation 
 to come, and this in particular is almost universally the ease 
 with a nation whose soldiers are in the enemy's countiy, and 
 who therefore appear predestined to conquer, whereas iu the 
 case of a nation who have the enemy within their borders, a 
 good many, at any rate, owe their being to the fittest elements 
 in the race, those capable of "taking the field." 2 
 
 § 34. — What a War of Extermination Means 
 
 Thus to-day the original conception of war is distorted until 
 it has become completely reversed, sinrply because there is 
 no longer anything natural about war; it is now merely a 
 romantic reminiscence. Now, it might be, and has been said, 
 that the benefits of war come afterward. It might be thought, 
 however, that any one thus contemplating the remote effects 
 of war ought seriously to reflect upon its inevitable results. 
 That is, he ought to think out his ideas to their logical con- 
 clusions, which seems easy, but is often very difficult. 
 
 The idea of war as a factor likely to favor the selection of 
 the fittest, and thus promote human evolution, is simple 
 enough. War is here looked upon as representing that re- 
 lentless, or rather that disinterested, justice which allows the 
 fit to survive and destroys the unfit. Those who consider this 
 right should act accordingly, and proceed to draw up rules 
 accordingly. They ought to adopt the usages of war of which 
 we read in ancient history, rules by which old men were killed 
 and also unborn children, but not the seemingly humane ( ! ) 
 rules of modern times — rules which make war a farce in the 
 
 i Thus, for instance, despite the enormous losses of this war, the 
 numerous royal families have lost very few indeed of their members. 
 2 Cf- the statistics in § 38.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 85 
 
 sense in which a natural scientist uses the word ; that is to say, 
 cause it to promote negative selection, and thus convert it into 
 a means of deterioration. 
 
 The gulf which apparently separates the selfish human be- 
 ing of to-day from the humane promoter of civilization is 
 merely apparent ; and here I would recall what I have already 
 said about struggle between animals and struggle between man 
 and man. Both are justifiable in themselves and both can be 
 carried on logically. Difficulties do not arise until we begin to 
 imagine that it is allowable to carry on an animal struggle 
 against human beings and by human methods. This is sense- 
 less, and therefore criminal ; for war as waged at present 
 can be considered only a justifiable form of struggle for exist- 
 ence if the nations against whom we are waging war are not 
 looked upon as human beings, at any rate not as human beiivs 
 on a level with ourselves ; that is, if it is desired to carry on a 
 war of extermination against barbarians so as to enable true 
 humanity to find room upon and spread over the earth. No 
 European will feel that he is justified in considering another 
 European as a barbarian. The utmost which might be asked is 
 whether we are not entitled to consider ourselves a superior 
 race in comparison with certain undeveloped races, such as the 
 Andamans or Tierra del Euegans. What will undoubtedly 
 occur is that these people will gradually be exterminated by 
 tlie white race, though it has loug been clear that it would be 
 extremely foolish to make war upon them. They die out of 
 themselves wherever they come in contact with whites, blood- 
 i warfare being always more effectual than bloody. 
 
 There is only one race for which this question of racial su- 
 periority might be profoundly important — the Mongolian. I 
 do not know who are the superior, the Mongolians or we our- 
 selves, but I can quite understand our looking on the Mon- 
 golian race as enemies, and that, for instance, Europeans on 
 the highest plane would not easily be induced to have a child 
 by a Mongolian woman, at any rate not to own it. I can there- 
 fore also fully understand that we or the Mongolians might
 
 86 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 say, ' ' Only one of ns two races can rule over the world, and 
 we want that race to be ours. ' ' 
 
 In this case the biologically weaker race — that is, the one 
 which may rest assured that in ordinary course it would fall 
 a victim to natural selection — might perhaps be justified in 
 saying, "As there is no chance of our getting the upper hand 
 by natural and lawful means, we will try to take by force 
 what nature withholds from us." This shows very plainly 
 that for the really strong war is superfluous ; and as obviously 
 it is generally folly for the weak, it is self-evident that, save 
 in the rarest instances, there can be no possible object what- 
 ever in it. 
 
 Now, it is possible that one such rare instance may be af- 
 forded by the Mongolians, for, unlike all the other colored 
 races, they seem to be in certain respects fitter than Europeans, 
 although it is impossible to know exactly how they will be af- 
 fected when once they are drawn into the vortex of modern 
 civilization. Meantime, however, the sons of Heaven have the 
 enormous advantage of being able to work equally well under 
 all heavens, whether in the icy wastes of the tundras or under 
 the burning sun of Sumatra. Apparently this is a special 
 Mongolian peculiarity, for even primitive Teutonic peoples 
 simply melted away under the Southern sun to which their im- 
 pulse led them, and negro races get consumption if transferred 
 to colder climates. 
 
 If all this is really the case, then the greater part of the 
 habitable world belongs to the Mongols, and likewise the over- 
 lordship thereof ; for it seems out of the question, seeing how 
 much going to and fro there already is and how much more 
 there is certain to be in the near future, that two races should 
 live side by side and yet apart. They will mix, and one will 
 prevail over the other. 
 
 But perhaps even the most humane of us all would not de- 
 sire this, and therefore I can imagine our pointing with par- 
 donable pride to our civilization, and saying that we are ready 
 to take up arms in defense of it. You Mongols may be better
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 87 
 
 than we are, we would say, but you are different. We do not 
 want to know anything about your civilization, even suppos- 
 ing it to be superior; we mean to keep our own. From this 
 point of view I can imagine a war, but then it must be really 
 a relentless, merciless war. 
 
 There are now in the world five hundred millions of us 
 Europeans or white men originally from Europe, and a thou- 
 sand millions of various colored races. I believe we have even 
 now the technical means at our disposal for exterminating 
 these thousand millions in the course of the next twenty years. 
 After twenty years, however, we shall no longer be in a 
 position to do this, as soon, that is, as China has armed her 
 whole population, constructs her own dreadnoughts, and manu- 
 factures her own cannon and shells, as Japan is already do- 
 ing. 
 
 In the ensuing twenty years, therefore, it is possible that 
 the fate of the world will be decided once and for all, and 
 the responsibility for this decision rests with the five hundred 
 millions of Europeans. The Mongolians need do nothing but 
 wait, for time and space are on their side. 
 
 At a time when the fate of so many men is hanging in the 
 balance, Europeans may, perhaps must, be asked whether on 
 careful consideration they mean to declare all colored races 
 barbarians, and then begin a struggle for existence, in other 
 words a war of extermination, and not a ridiculous war for 
 power, against everything non-European. When once so ter- 
 rible a conception as that of such a war is jxrasped, then, if 
 anything save senseless cruelty is to be the result, it also must 
 be thought out to the end, and there would have to be a war 
 sans treve et sans reldche. 
 
 We must not spare even the child in its mother's womb, and 
 must tolerate no bastards. Such a war would be ghastly, but 
 there would be some object in it. It is useless to talk of the 
 justice of a war, but in a sense this ghastliest of wars is the 
 justest because, at any rate, "it serves its own particular pur- 
 pose. ' '
 
 88 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 To me it seems at least conceivable that some such war 
 might succeed, although I certainly do not believe this. His- 
 tory, indeed, proves over and over that the despair of nations 
 fighting for their lives gives rise to strength which enables 
 them to triumph over all technical expedients. Here, again, 
 any attempt to interfere with the justice of history by such 
 brutal methods might only too easily hasten the downfall of 
 Europe. European nations, as I think, would do better to 
 concentrate all their economic, technical, and scientific re- 
 sources on increasing their internal vital energy, that is, on 
 promoting race hygiene in every respect, and thus endeavor to 
 become the equals and even the superiors of the Mongols. 
 
 This opens up vistas of victories not purchased with blood — ■ 
 victories which I am profoundly convinced are within the 
 bounds of possibility. This inextinguishable hope is due to 
 my proud European racial instinct. I will not, and I refuse 
 to, admit that the Mongols have in the long run greater vital- 
 ity than I. I trust that the majority of Europeans think as 
 I do, and that never shall Ave show the Asiatics such a sign of 
 weakness as to draw the sword against them. Even if the 
 European nations were faint-hearted, even if they were doubt- 
 ful of ultimate peaceful victory, and if nothing seemed to 
 stand in the way of their extermination by force, even then I 
 would shrink from resort to force, and I am convinced that 
 the majority of mankind agree with me. 
 
 Eveiy one, however, must compound with his own con- 
 science, and should any one be anxious to proceed to victory 
 by way of force, I will go a step further to please him. I feel 
 that all Europeans belong to the same race, and I am proud 
 of this. But others certainly feel this less keenly than I do, 
 and they let their wholesome race instinct run to waste in all 
 manner of fantastic and useless notions, such as the supposed 
 existence of a Teutonic race. 1 
 
 But there are those who believe in the Teutons, Germans, 
 or Prussians having a right to predominate. I shall not here 
 
 i Cf . §§ 99-105, about race patriotism.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 89 
 
 discuss the justification for such ideas, but those who would 
 fain lead such small aggregates of human beings to victory 
 must at any rate ask themselves whether they are able and, 
 if able, also willing, to fight out this fight in the only way in 
 which it can answer its purpose. 
 
 As for Teutonism, the question is as follows : take the one 
 hundred million Germans or, properly speaking, the twenty 
 millions more or less pure Teutons living in various parts of 
 Europe, most of whom will have nothing whatever to do with 
 the conception of Teutonism. Do they believe that they can 
 with any prospect of success embark upon a struggle against 
 forces from fifteen to a hundred times more numerous, and 
 do they really mean to destroy these? If they have made up 
 their minds to this, then let them make the attempt, and they 
 will be fighting for an idea, and for an object which is at 
 least conceivable. 
 
 We are therefore faced with the following alternative : we 
 must either resolve to live in peace with the French, Russians, 
 English, and whatever all their names may be, or we must 
 wage a war of extermination upon them, a war whose purpose 
 it is not to leave one of them alive. 
 
 Whoever, therefore, decides for war is, at any rate, no fool, 
 and has logic on his side. Nevertheless, I hope and believe 
 that even those who most delight in war will incline toward 
 peace when once they realize what is the inevitable alternative. 
 But this senseless playing at war which is now devastating 
 Europe must be the last of its kind. 
 
 2. — THE ALLEGED TOXIC EFFECTS OF WAR 
 
 § 35. — The Hardening and Enervating Effects of War and 
 Peace 
 
 It has actually been said that war directly tends to perfect 
 mankind! The notion that peace enervates men and war 
 hardens tliem seems to be taken as much for granted by most 
 persons as the view that becoming enervated is a crime against
 
 00 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 civilization and becoming hardened the contrary. Both opin- 
 ions are absolutely unproved commonplaces. 
 
 That these "hardening virtues" must not be carried too far 
 even the Germans have just realized ; for although we used to 
 envy the English their physical fitness, our hatred has taught 
 us that to resort to all manner of st lengthening devices is 
 mere "disgusting pride of muscle." That some good can be 
 learned even from hatred is likewise obvious, for after what 
 has already been said about selection based on intellectual 
 qualities it is not too much to say that we should not make 
 any one-sided attempts to strengthen the body at the cost of 
 the mind. British sports, which are popular throughout the 
 world, may be suited to the whole world, which matter little 
 to us; but their imitation in Germany was injurious to Ger- 
 man genius. 
 
 It is also idle to discuss, as is often done, whether we ought 
 to strive to attain to the Kalokagathic of the ancient Greeks, 
 the union of beauty and goodness. Personally I can scarcely 
 imagine anything tiner, attached as I am to the times and 
 people of ancient Hellas. But I realize that the finest flowers 
 of German intellect did not grow in the soil of Kalokagathic. 
 There is a certain delicacy of German thought perhaps in- 
 compatible with the iron muscles of a prize-fighter. I am not 
 referring to the mystics and romantics or even to Kant and 
 Schiller, for I know that I shall be told in reply that the days 
 are over when we have need of such dreamers; I am referring 
 to the most vigorous men of the nineteenth century, who have 
 rendered Germany great practical service, which is the one 
 thing which seems to matter now. Such men, for instance, as 
 Siemens, Krupp, Helmholtz, Abbe, Ballin, and Dernburg, cer- 
 tainly abided by the old Latin precept "mens sana in corpore 
 sano," but it is hard to picture them as prize-fighters or even 
 as exceptionally physically "fit." 
 
 Muscular training, therefore, should not be carried too far, 
 ami for this reason many physical exercises have been con- 
 <!e nned in Germany. English boxing, like Spanish bull-fight-
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 91 
 
 ing, is forbidden in Germany, owing to its alleged brutalizing 
 tendencies; and strong arguments have been urged against 
 foot-ball and base-ball, on the ground that both frequently 
 cause bloodshed. Nevertheless, there is apparently no ob- 
 jection to bloodshed in war, the moral element in which is 
 supposed to prevent the killing of men from having those 
 brutalizing effects which otherwise appear even if it be merely 
 animals which are killed. 1 That this is not really the case is 
 proved by the increase of crimes of violence observable after 
 all wars, even after the Franco-Prussian "War. "While wars 
 are actually going on, there is of course a decrease of absolute 
 figures, because most of those forming the criminal classes are 
 at the front. On the other hand, even in this war an alarming 
 increase of youthful offenders who have remained at home 
 is noticeable. Although owing to scarcity of magistrates and 
 other causes, all comparatively venal offenses are as much as 
 possible treated as such and left unpunished, nevertheless, the 
 number of juvenile offenders in Berlin, for instance, increased 
 by more than half, which clearly proves how out of hand 
 young people get in war. 2 
 
 But even if this moral deterioration were considered as of 
 no importance, is it in any sense true that war is even capable 
 of physically invigorating a nation ? For a long time past the 
 Swiss and the English have waged no wars, and yet they have 
 remained vigorous and warlike. 3 On the other hand, the 
 Turks and the French have always been held to be the most 
 warlike nations in Europe, and yet both nations are described 
 as being degenerate. The "Sick Man of the Bosporus" used 
 to be as proverbial as the "degenerate Frenchman." This 
 
 i An alarming instance of moral confusion is the formation of ani- 
 mal protection societies for the front. 
 
 2 F. von Liszt, in a lecture about juvenile offenders in war, delivered 
 in January, 1916, asserted that in 1913, 110!) young persons of the 
 male sex were charged and punished; in 1915, however, 1790. This 
 estimate was based on the three first quarterly reports of the Berlin 
 Head Office for the Protection of Young Persons 
 
 » Colonial warB, even the Boer War and the Crimean War, scarcely 
 affected the mass of the British people.
 
 92 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 general opinion is not affected because many persons to-day 
 regard Turkey with other eyes on account of her being their 
 ally, and also because, after the experiences of the Marne and 
 the Yser, they are no longer inclined to call the French de- 
 generate. 
 
 A famous example, however, to be found in all school books, 
 is the "winter in capua." Since Livy x stated that in such 
 a center of debauchery Hannibal 's armies became degenerate, 
 every one has repeated this. What? This army, which had 
 fought for years in Spain, which could claim to have per- 
 formed the incomparably difficult feat of crossing the ice and 
 snow-covered Little St. Bernard, a feat which caused the death 
 of one third of the men ; this army which won the great vic- 
 tories of Ticino, of the Trebia, and Lake Trasimeno, and in 
 the succeeding years the battle of Canna?, perhaps the most 
 glorious in the history of the world ; this army is said to have 
 become so much degenerated by a single winter in Capua that' 
 Marcellus was able to cut it to pieces at Nola? Then Jean 
 Paul must have been right in saying that "steeling warriors 
 by war lasts no longer than starching linen." 
 
 If this is really true, if half a year of peace suffices to de- 
 prive a tried and experienced army of all its strength, and if, 
 therefore, in order to be proof against such degeneration, we 
 must go to war at least twice a year, it would seem too high a 
 price to pay. Most of us would rather do without being hard- 
 ened than have to live in a perpetual state of warfare. 
 
 § 36. — War Weariness 
 
 Perhaps, however, it was not Capua at all, but the preceding 
 war which unfitted Hannibal's army for war. It is an actual 
 fact, known to all military writers, that after a certain period 
 of warfare soldiers attain their maximum of military efficiency, 
 a period estimated by the various authors at from about six 
 to twelve months. The reason generally alleged for this is 
 that the soldier, inured to battle, gradually becomes undis- 
 
 i Livy, "Histories," Book XXIII, Chapter XVIII.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 93 
 
 ciplined, owing to the freedom of life at the front and in camp, 
 and he acquires certain tricks 1 which help him to guard 
 against danger, and that therefore he cannot be ordered to 
 advance, regardless of everything, in the same way as the 
 youthful new-comer, who presses forward in defiance of death. 
 Then there is that negative selection which in time deprives 
 an army of all its bravest men. The famous Marshal von der 
 Goltz - writes, in reference to this subject : 
 
 It is natural that death should reap his richest harvest from among 
 the best men, tor the bravest go on in front, and they are the first 
 to fall victims to the bail of bullets. No one will hesitate to pay 
 this tribute to the dead or to admit that the value of an army de- 
 creases with every battle fought. 
 
 Thus, in the opinion of military men qualified to judge, 
 does war itself help to cause armies gradually to degenerate. 
 
 § 37. — The Injury done to the Brain by War 
 
 But there is yet another fact, perhaps the most important 
 of all. It was the Kusso- Japanese War that first called our 
 attention to the absolutely unparalleled way in which the 
 nervous system is shattered by modern warfare, even more 
 than by former wars. This was first noticed not by a military 
 man or a medical man, but by the young .Russian author An- 
 drejev, 3 whose book "Das rote Lachen" ("Red Laughter") 
 gives a distressing description of how men are broken down 
 by war and made incapable of enduring the manifold horrors 
 of another campaign. 
 
 Andrejev believes that this "red laughter," which then 
 resounded over Russia's vast plains, was equivalent to the 
 shattering of Russia's forces. He was admitted to be right, 
 
 i In English in the original. — Translator, 
 
 -('. von dor Cult/, "Leon Gambetta und seine Armeen," 1ST": 
 Berlin, F. Schneider & Co. M the time Goltz was reprimanded be- 
 < in e of this now universally admired book, and punished by beiny sent 
 to (Jera. 
 
 3 "Has role Lachen," by L Andrj'ev, 1905. Translated into German 
 b\ Scholz: Berlin.
 
 94 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 but people consoled themselves by sa} T ing that this nervous 
 collapse was something peculiar to the slackness of Slav char- 
 acter. Shortly after the outbreak of war, indeed, Bonhoeffer, 
 the German mental specialist, delivered an address repudiating 
 the expression "war mentality," which used to be frequently 
 heard, although he merely means that there is no difference 
 between the injurious mental effects of war and other mental 
 infirmities caused by physical and mental exertion and im- 
 pressions. But as war is for most persons the greatest physi- 
 cal and emotional experience of their lives, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that dormant tendencies to disease in those who enter 
 into it should be aroused and strengthened in war more than at 
 other times. 
 
 At all events, no one who has frequent opportunity of ob- 
 serving officers or men returning from the front can have 
 failed to observe the red laughter of war. Very often a man's 
 experiences on campaign have caused him to go mad, and 
 even when matters did not reach this pitch, nevertheless sol- 
 diers were ill ; they turned over in bed, unable to sleep, and 
 if they did fall asleep, they were tormented by bad dreams. 
 They lived through the battle over and over again, and 
 screamed aloud, sometimes in terror, sometimes in anger, some- 
 times even in a tone of command. Placid men were incred- 
 ibly irritable, so that their wives were unable to live with 
 them on the same happy terms as before. Strong men wept 
 at the least trifle, being themselves aware that they had lost 
 all self-control ; and deep down in the hearts of all was dread 
 of the horrors of battle, although training and custom pre- 
 vented them for the most part from admitting this. 
 
 The remarkable thing is that these serious mental and other 
 derangements almost without exception did not show them- 
 selves until the men had returned from the front and were 
 exposed to the contrast of their own peaceful homes. To such 
 a pass did matters come that something had to be done; and 
 the military authorities, seeing how difficult it was to induce 
 men, especially wounded men, to return to the front, once they
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 95 
 
 had been home again, in many cases curtailed soldiers' leave 
 to the utmost possible extent. 
 
 Now, these observations are based on absolute facts, and 
 they suggest that it was not Capua which ruined Hannibal's 
 army, but the hard fighting that army had previously gone 
 through, and that the rest at Capua was only the cause which 
 let loose so much evil, just as happens when a man goes home 
 to rest. 
 
 Of course a man on campaign must learn to ride and march 
 and to defy inclement weather and the discomforts of bad 
 quarters, and it is certainly true that in a sense this tends to 
 harden him physically. But it is no less true that man does 
 not win victories with his legs and arms, but with his brain, 
 and there is no doubt that war is injurious to the brain. 
 
 For the most important part of man, therefore, war is in 
 no sense a tonic or fortifying medicine, but on the contrary 
 has a lowering effect. 
 
 § 38. — The Influence of War on the Birth-rate 
 
 Now, as after a few wars a slight increase in the birth-rate 
 was noticed, it was thought that war must have a good effect 
 on national vitality. Such increase, however, is always slight, 
 and nothing like enough to compensate for the preceding de- 
 crease of the birth-rate. This appears very plainly from the 
 following diagram, showing the birth-rate curves during the 
 years 1868-1872, and also from Fig. 2 on page 98, showing 
 the birth-rate curves from 1830-1912. 
 
 The birth-rate of a nation is far from depending merely 
 upon its biological standing, for in reality every nation is 
 capable of producing an incomparably larger number of chil- 
 dren than is ever actually the case. The reasons for this are 
 in general prudential : people feel instinctively that there are 
 no adequate means of supporting more children. 
 
 Now, war makes room, first, because a certain number of 
 men die, and, next, because in war-time fewer children are 
 always born. The preceding diagram (Fig. 1) plainly shows
 
 96 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 that nine months after the outbreak of war the birth-rate be- 
 gins to fall suddenly, and that it remains low till about nine 
 months after the conclusion of peace. Now, the curve of the 
 birth-rate which might have been expected had there been no 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 Actual number of male births. 
 Probable number of male births 
 
 1 
 
 had there been no war. 
 •had the last-line troops 
 not been disbanded. 
 
 E2ME3 
 
 Total deficiency of births and of births of weaklings. 
 Period of mobilization and semi-mobilization. 
 The same period postponed for nine months. 
 Absolute number of male births in Prussia in the years 
 1S68-1872. 
 
 The figures are given in thousands per month, and are taken from the 
 Prussian Annual Statistical Reports. In order to make the diagram 
 clearer, the figures are calculated for months of equal length; that is, 
 the figures for the months of April, June, September, and November 
 
 31 
 are raised by — =1.033, those for February, 1SG9, 1870, and 1871 by 
 
 30 
 31 31 
 
 — = 1.12, and those for February, 1868 and 1872, by — = 1.07. 
 28 29 
 
 war (see the dotted line) is fairly accurately known from 
 the three preceding years (1868-1870). Consequently, it is 
 easy to see that the dotted part shows the numbers of those 
 who ought to have been born, but were not — more than a 
 hundred thousand children. Add a hundred thousand deaths
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 97 
 
 directly caused by the war, and we have a decrease of popu- 
 lation of altogether nearly one quarter of a million, a deficit 
 which cannot be made up in anything like the time in which 
 it arose. 
 
 Further consideration leads to the discovery of other im- 
 portant effects of war on the birth-rate. It is clear that even 
 in the first nine mouths of the Franco-Prussian War (1871) 
 relatively too few children were born. There may be various 
 causes for this, among them commercial depression owing to 
 acute danger of war, an increase in the number of premature 
 births owing to the excitement of the first months of the war, 
 and increase in the number of artificially induced miscar- 
 riages owing to anxiety and uncertainty. This, although not 
 a direct result of war, is nevertheless a direct result of prepa- 
 rations for war. 
 
 What is particularly remarkable, however, is that in No- 
 vember, 1871, the birth-rate should comparatively suddenly 
 have risen again to its former level; that is, even in April, 
 1871, very nearly the normal number of children were en- 
 gendered. But then only the garrison troops which had re- 
 mained in Germany had been demobilized, while the whole of 
 the great army on active service was still kept in France. 
 Therefore these comparatively unfit human beings actually 
 begot more children than they would have done in normal 
 times, in fact, nearly as many as are indicated by the striped 
 portion of the diagram, or about sixty thousand children. 
 This also strongly bears out my contentions, first, that the 
 birth-rate does not depend upon biological fitness, and, sec- 
 ondly, that one consequence of war is that a larger percentage 
 of children have unfit men as their fathers, and that the race 
 thus becomes deteriorated. 
 
 What momentous consequences will be those of such a long 
 war as the present, which, moreover, has been carried on under 
 conditions of universal service, it is difficult to forecast; but 
 some idea may be formed when it is reflected that in 1870 the 
 birth-rate fell only from forty to thirty-five, — that is, by
 
 98 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 about twelve per cent.,— but has already fallen by about half. 
 
 In the tirst two years of war about two million too few chil- 
 dren will have been born, and between one and two million, 
 besides, who are below par rather than normal. These four 
 millions, together with the two millions loss directly attribut- 
 able to the war, are in themselves enough to decimate the Ger- 
 man people. 
 
 It is therefore absurd to speak of war having a good effect 
 upon a nation's procreativeness. On the contrary, the curve 
 (See Fig. 2) showing the percentage of children born in 
 
 45. 
 
 35. 
 
 30. 
 
 25. 
 
 Births per 1000 Inhabitants War of 1855 
 
 £=± 
 
 Iwar of 1870-71 
 
 I I 
 
 ^c 
 
 -X 
 
 \ 
 
 1850 1900 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 Number of births per cent, in Prussia during the years 1830-1910. 
 
 Germany from 1830 to 1910 clearly indicates that the influ- 
 ence of war is nothing more or less than extremely unfavorable. 
 Between 1830 and 1870 the birth-rate slowly rose, then 
 comes the slight decrease owing to the war of 1866 and the 
 heavy falling off owing to the war of 1870, followed by a 
 clearly perceptible, but very transitory, compensatory increase. 
 This increase, as can easily be calculated, is nothing like suf- 
 ficient to make up for the decrease. Then follows a gradual 
 and continuous falling off, until in 1 91 4, just before the war, 
 we had reached figures which could not but alarm, and indeed 
 did alarm, every one who attached any importance to the
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 99 
 
 birth-rate; so that, as at one time in France, attempts were 
 made to remedy matters by legislative or administrative 
 measures. 1 
 
 Personally, I do not attach extreme importance to this birth- 
 rate question ; but, at all events, statistics clearly prove that 
 war does not have any sort or kind of good effect upon a 
 country's population. That even during the short time that 
 the compensatory increase of the birth-rate lasts the quality 
 of the births cannot be influenced for good has already been 
 proved in discussing the question of paternity in war. This 
 seems likewise borne out by a consideration of children born 
 in war. During what I admit was a cursory investigation I 
 have scarcely found a single person of eminence who was pro- 
 created in war-time or whose father was a returned soldier. 
 At all events, they are certainly fewer than they ought to be, 
 considering how many wars there have been and how many 
 men more or less eminent. 
 
 § 39. — The Reenforcement of the Sense of Power 
 
 War, therefore, invigorates nations from a purely physical 
 point of view, just as do sports sensibly engaged in, without 
 taking any account of the fact that millions perish owing to 
 excess of such invigoration. 
 
 Similarly, with regard to the effects of war on character, 
 the enormous upheaval caused by war certainly does more 
 harm than good, but it may perhaps happen that it arouses 
 a slumbering nation. Take a watch which has stopped. If 
 we bang it violently on the table, it will probably be broken 
 in two, but sometimes it begins to go again. The watch, how- 
 ever, if it does go at all, goes right, but a nation whose thirst 
 for power has been aroused by war does not know how to 
 
 * If this decrease was long unperceived by the majority of the public, 
 this is because of late years mortality has also greatly decreased; con- 
 sequently the absolute numbers of the population continued to increase 
 considerably. It need hardly be said tbat such an "increase of old 
 people" is only apparently a real increase of population, as every 
 statistician admits.
 
 100 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 satisfy that thirst. It is ready to do something, but there is 
 no one to direct its energies, and they may therefore lead to 
 all sorts of good or bad results. 
 
 A war, especially one ending with an easy victory like those 
 of 1864, 1866, and 1870, will generally make a nation warlike, 
 and through the influence of its baleful martial spirit drive 
 it along the road to ruin. 1 
 
 But matters often turn out otherwise. Have the rulers of 
 the people never reflected that serious consequences may re- 
 sult from wrenching the hammer from the workman's hand, 
 and putting a sword in its place ? The working-man, now ac- 
 customed to use a weapon that he once merely manufactured, 
 is put in a position in which the political fortunes of the 
 country depend directly upon him. No longer is he op- 
 pressed : he is fawned upon, and not in the street only, as 
 witness the commotion made about "our heroes," but also by 
 the Government. It was so in 1813, when the king promised 
 the people a constitution; it was so in 1870, when he really 
 did grant them universal suffrage ; it was so in 1914, when 
 the kaiser first recollected the constitutional ordinance which 
 places the crown above all parties ; and after peace it will be 
 so again. 
 
 Moreover, the working-man comes into closest contact with 
 cannon, which, Lassalle tells us, form an important constituent 
 part of the constitution ; and thus he realizes that in the world 
 to-day might is the mother of right. This might, however, 
 may take any turn ; and there are not a few who hope that 
 an after effect of this present war will be that Germany will 
 become stronger because they believe that the liberation move- 
 ment will be strengthened there. This is possible, but even 
 freedom might be attained by more direct means and with 
 far less bloodshed. 
 
 i Hence the Bible says, "Scatter thou the people that delight in war," 
 Psalms 68, v. 30, and hence the necessity for all who wish Germany 
 well to take a firm stand against any policy of annexation. If Ger- 
 many is to continue to exist, she must abandon the belief that any- 
 thing can be achieved by force.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 101 
 
 3. — THE SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF WAR 
 
 § 40. — Its Alleged Cruelty 
 
 Sentimental persons consider war wrong because it must 
 of necessity be cruel, whereas robust natures, on the contrary, 
 persist In seeing something good in training men in "whole- 
 some brutality." Apart, however, from the fact that neither 
 sentimental nor robust arguments are ever good argument, 
 cruelty and justice are by no means opposed to each other, 
 although they certainly do not mean the same thing. 
 
 When the wolf eats the lamb or man the ox, this is cruel 
 to the ovine and bovine races, though for the canines and 
 primates natural and right. But it has nothing to do with 
 justice. Both mining and navigation might be forbidden on 
 the ground of their cruelty, just as the manufacture of sulphur 
 matches has been forbidden, and yet they are all honest oc- 
 cupations. Needless cruelty is indeed needless, but necessary 
 cruelties are, after all, necessary; and however greatly we 
 may revere justice, this fact remains unaltered. 
 
 In Germany alone about thirty-five thousand persons annu- 
 ally die an unnatural or violent death, whether from an acci- 
 dent while at work, suicide, or crime. This makes a total of 
 one and a half million dead for the forty-four years of peace 
 immediately preceding the present war; and at any rate, as 
 yet the war has scarcely exceeded this number. 1 Now, impar- 
 tially considered, war is not at all particularly cruel. Statis- 
 tics prove that in the long run death takes a far higher toll of 
 railway employees, fishermen, miners, and sailors than of sol- 
 diers even in the cruellest war. The only reason why the 
 deaths in war make a great impression upon us is that they 
 are crowded together in a short space of time. Norman An- 
 gell '- says, basing his assertion on figures which I admit I 
 have not checked, that as much suffering and loss of hiunan 
 life has been caused by cod-fishing alone in Europe during the 
 
 1 These words were written in 1015. — Translator. 
 -Norman Angell, '"The Great Illusion,'* 1910.
 
 102 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 last century as by war, and he even goes the length of saying 
 that such peaceful occupations have actually been the cause 
 of almost as much brutality. 
 
 Our tropical administration in peace-time necessitates a not 
 less heavy toll in the form of the health of fine men ; and a 
 vast deal that goes on in Africa or South America means, sad 
 to relate, that human nature is being morally brutalized in a 
 way as bad as anything which can be charged to war. But, 
 above all, our present commercial system being what it is, 
 enormously more human beings die from injuries received in 
 commercial competition than from murderous war. 
 
 If we consider war from the point of view of the whole 
 human race, we are almost tempted to smile at the paltriness 
 of its effects. About every second one human being dies, but 
 even this murderous "World "War has hardly succeeded in 
 greatly raising this figure, for as a result of it about sixty-four 
 human beings die on an average every minute, instead of 
 sixty. 
 
 Our unconscious sentimentality, in fact, leads us to over- 
 estimate the number of war's victims. Of course it might 
 be said that it is young and vigorous persons who die in war, 
 which is certainly true; but the accident statistics just quoted, 
 according to which thirty-five thousand Germans perished 
 annually from accidents, prove that even in this case too much 
 is made of war. 
 
 This impression of the relative unimportance of war in 
 regard to its effect on the duration of human life is still fur- 
 ther deepened if we examine statistics more closely. The days 
 of man's life are three score years and ten, and as a matter 
 of fact Ave see that a great number of men in comfortable and 
 sufficiently remunerated occupations, such as those of scholars 
 and scientists, clergy, monarchs, statesmen, and others, do 
 reach this age ; yet the working-man on an average attains the 
 age of at most forty years. Of the inhabitants of Europe 
 twelve millions die everv vear. which makes more than 1.000,- 
 000.000 (a thousand million) in the last century. As these
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 103 
 
 deaths occurred on an average thirty years too soon, this 
 means that in the last century about thirty-six thousand mil- 
 lion years of human life have been thus destroyed in Europe 
 alone. 
 
 Now let us assume that during the last hundred years about 
 thirty million human beings have died in Europe as a direct 
 or indirect result of war, and that on an average twenty years 
 were cut off from their lives. This would give only rather 
 more than five hundred million years of life destroyed by war. 
 
 We see, therefore, that the lives sacrificed to war amount 
 to only one sixtieth part of those sacrificed on the industrial 
 battle-field. Verily, when faced with these figures, it cannot 
 be said that war is the cruellest and sternest form of struggle 
 on mother earth. Moreover, as a matter of fact the losses of 
 human lives were always very quickly made up again, and 
 the Franco-Prussian war produced a scarcely perceptible notch 
 in the German population curve. (Cf. the curve on page 98.) 
 
 It is true that other wars — wars fought long ago, for in- 
 stance the Thirty Years' War — have exercised a far worse 
 influence, owing to their indirect results. But just as a per- 
 son may quite justifiably go to sea and brave its dangers in 
 the hope of thereby attaining a life of greater comfort and 
 wealth afterward, even so nations might be allowed to face 
 the comparatively small risks of war in order that they may 
 become more prosperous afterward. 
 
 Moreover, a certain amount of cruelty is necessary, and 
 therefore also good. The life of a person is not of such im- 
 portance as to justify any advance in civilization being de- 
 ferred out of regard for it. Are we to cease traveling by 
 rail because trains may collide? Or are we to abolish motor- 
 cars because it may be impossible to avoid inoffensive pass- 
 ersby sometimes getting under their wheels? 
 
 Who did not rejoice over the piercing of the Gothard Tun- 
 nel, although many workmen lost their lives over the work? 
 Who would lament the construction of vessels of fifty thou- 
 sand tons burden, although if such a mammoth liner as the
 
 104 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Titanic, for instance, goes down, thousands of men find their 
 graves in a single hour? And would the conquest of the 
 air be possible without hundreds of thousands sacrificing their 
 lives in order to buy their experience? Many more such in- 
 stances might be cited, for the impulse to risk our lives is 
 innate in us, and thousands flock to climb mountains, albeit 
 this sport is foolhardy and of no use in itself. 
 
 And thank God that it is so. If civilization is to advance, 
 there must be men ready to sacrifice their lives, and the victims 
 claimed by war would be no reason for giving it up. Were 
 it justifiable in itself, there would be no reason to trouble 
 about mountains of corpses. 
 
 § 41. — Man as Subject and Object of Warfare 
 
 War in itself, abstractly considered, is an anachronism, and 
 continues to survive only because men carry it on and prepare 
 for it. Man's participation in war differs from his partici- 
 pation in anything else, because in war he takes both an 
 active and a passive part. In the case of a piece of music a 
 man can be either performer or hearer ; in an execution, either 
 executioner or criminal. In short, in all cases, even in legisla- 
 tion, man is either subject or object. In war, however, man 
 both shoots and is shot, and it is impossible for one person to 
 wage war without some one else doing likewise. 
 
 War has often been called the "great leveler," but never 
 has it leveled to such an overwhelming extent as during this 
 war of 1914. It has, in fact, made all human beings in Ger- 
 many of the same stamp, with the result that they are as 
 like one another as two peas. "Go ahead," "We '11 give it 
 them," "We must win because we have deserved to," — with 
 these and such-like phrases has every war been ushered for 
 ages past ; and it is not surprising that no one should be able 
 to show much originality in composing variations on so lim- 
 ited a theme. But that Sudermann and Richard Dehmel, 
 Ludwig Fulda and Arno Holz, were so like one another no 
 one would at one time have dreamed. There are no longer
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 105 
 
 any parties, and our political newspapers differ as little as 
 one egg from another. This effacement of individuality, so 
 that scarcely a shade of difference remains, between one per- 
 son and another, this uniform repetition of what has been 
 said a thousand times already, is perhaps of all forms of com- 
 monplaceness the most depressing. 
 
 The object of war, in short, both practical and intellectual, 
 is the destruction of the object by the subject, and at the same 
 time the destruction of the subject by the object. Now, this 
 being so, as no one doubts or even can doubt, it is really as- 
 tonishing that many persons should so very frequently ex- 
 press surprise at its inevitable results. The fittest symbols of 
 war are in reality two lions devouring each other, which can 
 be called in turn subject and object. 
 
 § 42. — Killing and Dying 
 
 This peculiar twofold effect of war manifests itself in an- 
 other manner. At the first glance there seems to be two 
 characteristics distinguishing war: we are determined to kill 
 and we are ready to die. The readiness to sacrifice their lives 
 for an idea is considered by almost all human beings as an act 
 denoting moral superiority, the Chinese being perhaps the sole 
 exception. On the other hand, readiness to kill another has 
 always been considered to denote moral degradation. Thus it 
 might be thought that here is a ease of superiority and in- 
 feriority pitted against each other, and that it is to some 
 extent left to the person to choose whether he will bring out 
 the good or the bad side of war the more strongly; indeed, 
 that it perhaps depends only upon the personality of the indi- 
 vidual soldier whether war has a morally invigorating or a 
 brutalizing effect upon him. 
 
 In practice this twofold possibility has never been lost sight 
 of, and even now we can read in almost every newspaper in 
 every European country that our soldiers to-day are a "band 
 of heroes uplifted by war," and those of the enemy a "rabble 
 of war-brutalized soldiery." Putting such thoughtless com-
 
 106 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 parisons aside, we might still think that there is something 
 genuinely good in war. We must put all such considerations 
 from us, however, for the one thing characteristic of war is 
 desire to kill. Only in war may we kill our fellow-mortals 
 unpunished, for the killing of a man in a duel, which comes 
 within much the same category, is now universally, albeit 
 mildly, punished. Man may sacrifice himself, however, for 
 the utmost possible diversity of objects. Christ sacrificed him- 
 self for mankind, Lucretia herself for her honor, Winkelried 
 himself for the deliverance of his country, Thekla herself for 
 love's sake: doctors sacrifice themselves for the sake of in- 
 vestigating the plague, mothers for their children, children for 
 their parents, and "noble characters" in general for their 
 fellow-men. In short, every one in his life has abundant op- 
 portunity of self-sacrifice, and there is no need for him to 
 select just that particular method which necessitates his first 
 endeavoring to sacrifice as many others as possible. 
 
 Hence we ought not to consider, as many do, that the sacri- 
 fice of life in war is a reason for retaining war, for there is no 
 lack of other occupations in which life may be sacrificed not 
 equally horribly, but more wisely, for instance, as a pioneer 
 of new discoveries, in the fight against disease or for lessening 
 danger of fire or loss of life at sea, in producing articles of 
 prime necessity, on the stormy ocean, or deep in the bowels 
 of the earth. Or is it perhaps one sort of heroism when an 
 officer, bearing aloft his country's flag, leads his regiment 
 onward under a hail of bullets, and another sort when Petten- 
 kofer intentionally swallows a cholera bacillus? And if, even 
 now, there are not many Pettenkofers, then an attempt should 
 be made to induce more to come forward — more Pettenkofers 
 and fewer soldiers. The sum total of heroism would remain 
 the same, but the sum total of human happiness on earth would 
 be increased. 
 
 No, it is not dying which is the characteristic act distinctive 
 of war, but killing, for war is the one occasion when twentieth- 
 century man thinks himself justified in killing his fellow-man.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 107 
 
 But killing is brutalizing, even for those men, like the hang- 
 man, who kill in accordance with legally prescribed forms. 
 Moreover, the hangman's calling used naturally to be looked 
 upon as ignominious, and even now he has to live, in self-im- 
 posed anonymity, a somewhat solitary existence. I do not 
 know a single hangman, and although I consider them thor- 
 oughly honorable men, I should not wish to know one. 
 
 Even the killing of animals has a brutalizing effect, and 
 popular opinion used to put the knacker on a level with the 
 hangman. Doubtless we feel, quite properly, that we must 
 draw a distinction between the hangman and the soldier, in 
 whose case the element of self-sacrifice atones for something. 
 But as self-sacrifice is nowise characteristic of war, its spe- 
 cific effect is, after all, only to brutalize the human race. 
 
 § 43. — Bloodthirstiness 
 
 Love of killing seems to be positively in man's blood. An 
 American writer, whose name I forget, says that we are not 
 descended from the "noble beasts of prey," but from cow- 
 ardly vegetable-feeders (graminiverous animals), which, being 
 too weak to kill one another, rage at one another owing to a 
 perverted instinct. In my opinion this is a wrong point of 
 view, first, because most vegetable-feeders never eat one an- 
 other, and, secondly, because it is easier for an animal to 
 fight one of a different species than one of its own. 
 
 But what is remarkable about this innate human love of 
 murder is that it reaches such a pitch that man is one of the 
 few creatures that actually devour their own kind. 1 True, it 
 is frequently noticed that among animals parents eat their 
 offspring (pigs, for instance, do so), but that it seldom hap- 
 pens that full-grown animals eat one another. At all events, 
 cannibalism is in this sense a purely human characteristic 
 
 i According to the careful calculations of Richard Andrees, in "Die 
 Anthropopha^ie": Leipsic, 1S87, the number of cannibals in particular 
 ahout the year 1870 still numbered nearly two million; that is, more 
 than one per thousand of mankind.
 
 108 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 (that is, a characteristic which was developed in a conipara. 
 tively recent period), because in the dwellings of the most 
 ancient human beings charred and split bones of all kinds of 
 beasts of prey have been found, but never human bones which 
 had been so treated. Then came a period, however, when al- 
 most all nations were cannibals, and all national epics contain 
 unmistakable reminiscences of this cannibalism. This is clear 
 from the legends of the Pelopidae, of Gaia and Polyphemus, 
 while even in the Bible there are indications of cannibalism, 
 and as children we used innocently to read about it in the 
 story of the juniper-tree. 
 
 In all these legends it is parents that eat their offspring, 
 which points to the fact that this was the most primitive form 
 of cannibalism, the biological significance of which was ob- 
 viously to do away as speedily as possible with weakly new- 
 born infants in order to make room for healthy offspring. 
 Similar reasons account for the exposure of children, which 
 is met with in the case of even such peoples as the Spartans 
 and Chinese, in some respects very vigorous. There were fre- 
 quently practical reasons for this also, since children are often 
 a great burden, particularly to nomadic peoples. That moth- 
 ers kill new-born infants to prevent their figures being spoiled 
 by suckling them, as is the case in the Solomon Isles, probably 
 seldom happens. 
 
 But all this is child murder. In reality nowadays almost 
 everywhere among primitive peoples old and superfluous folk 
 or captured enemies are killed or eaten, as the case may be. 
 Now, this can scarcely have been a primitive instinct, for the 
 fact that the sick and feeble are not simply left behind in 
 some thicket, but actually killed, proves that a certain sense 
 of responsibility is felt toward them. Only creatures com- 
 paratively highly developed from the social point of view, 
 such as storks, do anything of this sort, or at any rate they 
 are said to do it. Whether those killed were buried or de- 
 voured probably depended chiefly on practical considerations 
 of food-supply, for in countries with few wild animals this is
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 109 
 
 the most convenient way of procuring meat. This can be 
 proved to explain the former cannibalism of the New Zealand 
 Maori, and perhaps also of the industrious Aztecs. 
 
 Thus originally delight in killing others had, beyond doubt, 
 a purpose and rational cause. It was not long, however, be- 
 fore some admixture of superstition appeared. The belief 
 arose that by incorporating the bodily substance of good an- 
 cestors or valiant foes in one's own body, their good finalities 
 were also acquired; just as for a similar reason the Burmese, 
 Indians, Romans, Serbians, and ancient Teutons, and after- 
 ward during the whole of the Middle Ages almost all European 
 nations, used to wall up a living being in a newly built build- 
 ing in order that his soul might become its guardian spirit. 
 The existence of this mystical tendency in some living canni- 
 bals can be actually proved. 
 
 Superstition of this kind, of course, need not have been the 
 original motive, but on the other hand dogmatic religious tra- 
 ditions were undoubtedly the cause of murderous proclivities 
 having been handed down even into times in which there was 
 no longer any object in them. True, modern charges of kill- 
 ing children out of religious mania, charges formerly made 
 against the Knights Templars and now mostly against the 
 Jews, are unfounded. Philippe le Bel burned more than one 
 hundred Templars for this cause, but it would seem that de- 
 sire to get possession of the enormous wealth of their order 
 was his chief motive in bringing the accusation. 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck with the fact that canni- 
 balism and human sacrifice in general are very frequently 
 connected with religious ceremonies. It is enough to point 
 out 1 that even Christianity, in the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, shows traces of cannibalism, and that consequently 
 the derisive appellation of "mangeurs du bon Dieu" is not 
 wholly without justification. 1 
 
 In all religions, even in that of the Old Testament, there 
 
 1 For further details see Schurtz's "Urgeschichte der Kultur." ("An- 
 cient History of Civilization") : Leipsic, 1900.
 
 110 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 are references to human sacrifice, though in the Christian era 
 this was no longer permitted. Even here, however, the mur- 
 derous impulse was stronger than doctrinal principles, and 
 more human beings than ever were slain on pretext of having 
 been tried and condemned as heretics and witches. 1 
 
 Human sacrifice, however, has occurred in parts of the world 
 and at all times, even in the case of the more tolerant religions. 
 Chiuese and Hindus, Phenicians and Carthaginians, Jews and 
 Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Kelts, Teutons, and Slavs, 
 negroes, North American Indians, and South Sea Islanders, 
 all used to sacrifice human beings or still do so. 
 
 Nowhere was this abomination as prevalent as in Mexico, 
 where from twenty thousand to fifty thousand persons used 
 to be sacrificed annually on a special day set apart for the 
 purpose, while in the year 1186 fully one hundred thousand 
 human beings were, sacrificed at once. The breast of the 
 wretched victim was rapidly ripped open with well-sharpened 
 obsidian knives, the heart firmly seized and torn out and 
 thrown, still smoking, into the maw of an idol near by. This 
 hideous custom of sacrifice, however, was followed not by the 
 Aztecs alone, but by the in some respects highly civilized 
 Peruvian Incas, and also by all the other primitive American 
 races. Even now in the African Kingdom of Dahomey hun- 
 dreds of negro slaves are annually slain for sacrificial pur- 
 poses. 2 Stress must be laid upon these religious butcheries 
 just because they perhaps more than anything else show how 
 deep-seated in man is bloodthirstiness. 
 
 But in course of time man was deprived of one chance 
 after another of gratifying his love of blood, and in the 
 eighteenth century virtually all legitimate methods of human 
 slaughter had fallen into desuetude. True, the poor folk con- 
 
 i According to the estimate of Professor Thomasius of Halle, the 
 number of witches and heretics burned by ecclesiastical and civil courts 
 reached the almost incredible total of about nine millions. 
 
 2 "Kulturwandel und Volkerverkehr" ("Changes in Civilization and 
 Racial Intercourse") by Hermann Brunnhofer. YYilhelm Friedrich: 
 Leipsic, 1874.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 111 
 
 tinued to die for the nobles, but they died silently and no 
 longer in the arena. Only a few traces of the official exhibi- 
 tions of blood still lingered on. In Spain there were still 
 bull-fights; English sailors did not give up boxing, nor Ger- 
 man students duelling; in Russia there were various sects, 
 such as the Soschigateti, and the sect of the Spassow Sogolassie, 
 who used to kill themselves or their children; but generally 
 speaking the French Revolution had made it impossible in 
 Europe for the bloodthirsty instincts so deeply ingrained in 
 human nature to find satisfaction. Characteristically enough, 
 the French Revolution was attested by a great and unneces- 
 sary slaughter of human beings. 
 
 War alone remained, and all these primeval impulses were 
 concentrated upon it. What wonder, therefore, that the na- 
 tional genius should have created the so-called national army, 
 and that delight in war, the sole surviving form of blood- 
 thirstiness, should have assumed gigantic proportions. And 
 now we have a Richard Dehmel rejoicing over the death of as 
 many "German heretics (by which he means men who refuse 
 to admit German supremacy) as possible "in majorem gloriam 
 patrice," and doing so, moreover, with the same sort of pious 
 resignation wherewith an Innocent III used to rejoice that 
 as many religious heretics as possible should be burned "in 
 majorem gloriam Dei!" 
 
 § 44. — The Brutalizing Effects of War 
 
 War, which is fought out with cold steel, is, after all, a 
 bloody business, and the effect of blood must not be left out 
 of account. The saying about a "lion which has once tasted 
 blood" is not a mere phrase, and it is a principle deeply in- 
 grained in human nature that everything which we do a 
 second time comes easier than the first time. (i Ce n'est que le 
 premier pas qui coiite" and " L'appetit vient en mangeant." 
 This, indeed, is the foundation of all possibility of evolution, 
 for everything we learn is learned by practice. But it is 
 possible to learn evil as easily, perhaps even more easily, than
 
 112 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 good; and there is nothing good in considering man's life as 
 of no account, for in the end all civilization is based on respect 
 for life. 
 
 In war, however, life loses in value. In battle regiments of 
 a man's fellow-men are sacrificed, and civilians and soldiers 
 condemned to death by court martial for offenses which other- 
 wise would scarcely have been punished. And as for the lives 
 of enemies, an officer for whom as a man I had great respect 
 told me, with horror at the recollection, that he once threat- 
 ened his landlord that he would shoot him if a lost purse could 
 not be found. Human beings — hostages, for instance — of 
 whose individual innocence their executioners must be con- 
 vinced are shot in cold blood ; and when at the very outset of 
 the war a Prussian officer preferred suicide to carrying out an 
 oider of this kind, his fellow-officers spoke of this self-sacrifice 
 for conscience' sake as hypersensitive weakness. 
 
 Another instance of indifference is that we are not offended 
 when expressions generally used of animals only are applied 
 to human beings. Even our official reports speak of twenty 
 of the enemy having been "shot down," and trenches are 
 "cleansed of the enemy," just as an old coat used to be 
 cleansed of filth or vermin. 
 
 1 agree with our sticklers for the purity of the German lan- 
 guage, but even more important than attacking French words 
 seems to me the extermination of brutal expressions. Speech 
 is as a mirror reflecting the soul of a people. Let us there- 
 fore be on our guard, and not add to this list, which might be 
 very much lengthened. Perhaps these expressions will disap- 
 pear again of themselves. "War, indeed, must have a brutal- 
 izing effect, because it forces man to make the performance 
 of brutal actions his business, a fact which is gradually be- 
 ginning to be perceived. For instance, W. von Hollander, 1 
 a soldier who took part in the war for a year and a half, 
 writes as follows: 
 
 i "Der Kreig als Zustand" ("War as a State") by W. von Hollander, 
 in the "Berliner Tageblatt," .No 1U, of Jan 6, 1916V
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 113 
 
 Warfare has become for us both country and calling. The army 
 is a people apart; and the language of war is a language incompre- 
 hensible to any outsider, however excellent a linguist. The excep- 
 tional has become the habitual, and what used to be called insanity 
 or madness has in process become in the language of war not merely 
 a fact, but a matter of course. 
 
 No one who has lived through all of the live hundred days of war 
 without a break has been struck by this gradual transition from ex- 
 cessive tensiun to passivity. He has been aware merely of a sense 
 of numbness and resignation, of indifference, utter defiance, in short 
 of every physical sensation being accentuated ; and only now, when 
 almost every one not sent home wounded has got leave, — leave, the 
 official recognition of a state of war prevailing, — only now can the 
 man who has been taking part in the war, over whom the days, 
 hours, and seasons stole undesired and uncounted, realize that a bar- 
 rier has arisen between the past and ourselves, between Germany 
 and the land of war. 1 
 
 This wresting of a man from his home surroundings in the 
 way here described is the worst thing of all : it is treason 
 against the holy spirit of the German nation, which is worse, 
 more unpardonable, aud more inexpiable than infidelity to the 
 flag. 
 
 This general truth outweighs in importance any number of 
 individual instances. We may consider Kalisz and Louvain 
 and everything which has happened in real or alleged franc- 
 tireur warfare as justified by existing necessities, but the de- 
 cisive fact is this, that war confronts human beings with situu- 
 ttuns in which they must act inhumanly. This is the inevit- 
 able result. 
 
 As an example of such a situation, the refusal of quarter 
 may be mentioned. It is an absolute fact that as long ago 
 as the Boxer Rising the password was officially issued, "No 
 quarter." In the present war this, in fact, was referred to by 
 Prince Ruppreeht in a famous order of the day; and it is 
 
 i Note how Hollander bears out what has heen already said about war 
 beginning to exert its mental and moral effects just when a man re- 
 turns home
 
 114 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 now so generally known that Professor Jastrow, 1 for ex- 
 ample, concludes that the reason why the Germans did not 
 make more prisoners was that "our men do not like making 
 Englishmen prisoners. ' ' 
 
 Even though it be urged that "no quarter" is a painful 
 and unavoidable necessity, this nowise alters the fact that 
 such necessity is brutalizing. It might indeed be sophist ieally 
 argued that it is permissible to kill an enemy in battle be- 
 cause he voluntarily presents himself, and thus he is only 
 receiving the treatment he perhaps, after all, desires. Never- 
 theless, in the refusal of quarter even this apparent justifica- 
 tion vanishes, for if any one asks for parole, he gives it 
 plainly to be understood that in so doing no one has any 
 longer a right to kill him and then say that this was done with 
 his tacit consent. The refusal of quarter, therefore, whatever 
 military justification there may appear to be for it, is beyond 
 all doubt in principle the most serious of all crimes against 
 human dignity. 
 
 This disregard for human life, however, is only one bad 
 aspect of war, albeit the worst. The conception of property 
 is likewise abolished. A friend of mine, a thoroughly re- 
 spectable person, who used never to keep so much as a book 
 which was not his, ended one of his letters by saying that "he 
 must stop now, for he had to go commandeering, which used 
 commonly to be called stealing in Germany." It is just his 
 innocent way of expressing what in soldiers' slang is gen- 
 erally "provisioning," which shows that the writer had lost 
 all consciousness that such actions might in certain circum- 
 stances be wrong. 
 
 Even the old German poet Friedrich von Logan 2 says of a 
 soldier in the Thirty Years' War: 
 
 i "Eine Lehre aus der Zahl unserer Gefangenen" ("Lessons to be 
 Drawn from the Number of our Prisoners") by Professor .J Jastrow. 
 "Vossische Zeitung," No. .308, of June 19, 1915. 
 
 -Logan, "Sinnegedichte," ("Poems of the Senses"), quoted in Les- 
 sing's essay on Logau.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 115 
 
 Keinein bat er was gestohlen, 
 Derm er nahin es unverhohlen, 
 Was er von der Strasse klaubet, 
 1st gefunden, nicbt geraubet. 
 
 (Roughly: "He stole notbing from any one: be just simply took 
 it. Wbat be picked up in tbe street was found, not robbed.") 
 
 An officer enlightened me as to the technicalities of "pro- 
 visioning."' "You go into a shop and ask the price," he said, 
 "at the same time, for the sake of clearness, pointing with 
 your revolver at the object you want to buy or at the seller. 
 'A penny for that?' you say, and everything is honorably paid 
 for." 
 
 Enough of this, however. The wrong is much less in the 
 action itself than iu the fact that all this is considered neces- 
 sarily part and parcel of a "lively, merry war." Once more 
 to quote old Logau, who has hit the right nail on the head : 
 
 "Huren, Saufen, Spielen, Flucben 
 Heisst dem Mut Erfrischung sucben." 
 
 (Rougbly: "Whoring, drinking, gaming, cursing — tbat 's wbat is 
 called bucking up a man's courage.") 
 
 Every masterful impulse must perforce tend toward tyranny 
 and brutali/ation, whenever the power is in the hands not of a 
 master, but of a slave. And the great majority of mankind 
 are, after all, not masters. 
 
 4. — The Universal Change of Attitude 
 § 45. — The Enemy's Motives 
 
 "Side by side with the war on the battle-field there raged 
 in Europe a war of words, or, more correctly, a pen-and-ink 
 war. This war is being carried on by people who have man- 
 aged to insure the safety of their own skins and property. 
 True, the newspaper scribe does nothing but toss inoffensive 
 piles of paper at the printer's devil; but on this long-suffering
 
 116 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 paper he blackguards his adversary, derides him, and does 
 his best to put him in a contemptible light." 1 
 
 In this he succeeds only too well, and the newspapers of 
 191-1-15 2 have assuredly poisoned more harmless civilian 
 souls with hatred for all time than the war itself has done. 
 In itself this is not surprising, for as even Jeau-Paul 3 said, 
 "in the longest peace men do not say so many false and fool- 
 ish things as in the shortest war"; but it is none the less 
 regrettable, because the abyss created between the feelings of 
 the different nations remains. Men die, and others take their 
 places. The old cathedrals, destroyed by shells, cannot, it is 
 true, be rebuilt, though they can be restored. But as for the 
 outrages perpetrated upon the soul of the nation, they will 
 be part of the heritage of posterity, and all the more so be- 
 cause of late hatred of foreigners has been preached even in 
 schools. The ecclesiastical and educational department of his 
 Majesty the Kaiser's Government at Frankfort-on-the-Oder 
 issued a circular appealing directly to the school inspectors 
 under it "not to tolerate any efforts to prepare the way 
 for future conciliation between civilized nations." What is 
 aimed at is clearly a country shut in not merely commercially, 
 but also intellectually. 
 
 At all events, the press has left no stone unturned in order 
 to disseminate hatred and thirst for vengeance, all which is 
 bad for Germany and her aspirations to become the heart of 
 the world, which might perhaps come to pass; but the heart 
 of the world must be able to love. 
 
 The extraordinary thing was that to simply no one did 
 it occur, obvious as this is : that our enemies see the world in 
 a different light from ourselves ; that from their point of view 
 there is as much justification for Panslavism and the British 
 
 i Quoted from "Danzers Armeezeitung." 
 
 -' Owing to the severity of the German censorship, which exceeded 
 anything in any previous war, the decent papers could scarcely do any- 
 thing, at any rate could not make their influence felt. 
 
 3 "Friedspredigt an Deutschland" ("A Peace Sermon to Germany") 
 by Jean Paul Richter: Heidelberg, 1808, p. 54.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 117 
 
 Empire as for the Germans and their demand for a place in 
 the sun ; that for France the reconquest of her lost provinces 
 and revanche are national problems, just as the reincorpora- 
 tion of Alsace once was for Germany, that Belgium might 
 fight against Germany, and Serbia and Montenegro against 
 Austria, with the same sacred zeal for their country as the 
 Tyrolese or Liitzow 's Black Troops once did ; and finally that 
 the Italians' greater sympathy for the French, who are related 
 to them by blood, simply means that here national ideas have 
 won a decisive victory over medieval dynastic diplomatic arts. 
 Or is it possible that the Germans were really already so 
 greatly intoxicated by their own superiority as to deny other 
 nations any right to an independent nationality ? 
 
 Thus biassed opinions arose concerning our enemies' reasons 
 for having entered the war. Indeed, it is not to be wondered 
 at if the great mass of people throughout Germany accepted 
 these opinions, and they can hardly be blamed for having 
 done so. since they were only repeating the views of those they 
 were accustomed to regard in childlike trust as their leaders. 
 
 Now, England was bound to enter the war, legally bound, 
 by her solemn pledge of 1839 and morally bound by the fa- 
 miliar terms of the Entente; yet it was said of her that, as 
 Hermann Bahr, a German journalist, put it, she was making 
 war only "because selfishness and mercenary instincts are 
 stronger than ties of blood and sense of what is right and 
 proper.'' 1 As long ago as September 13, 1870, Framr, 
 through the mouthpiece of Ernest Kenan, had announced her 
 intention of waging a war of revenge, with Russia and Eng- 
 land ;is her allies. Yet no one believed she had any patri- 
 otic feelings, but every one said the war had been hatched by 
 a gang of unscrupulous politicians. 
 
 A 'jain. nobody believed that the Russians meant to defend 
 Serbia, and even such obvious reasons for war as Panslavism 
 
 i Cf. also tin* speech delivered by Professor Karl Rathgena in Ham 
 
 Inn" In his opinion the only real reason for the war was "England's 
 reprehensible policy, which aimed at capturing German trade."
 
 118 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 and desire for expansion toward the sea were simply pooh- 
 poohed. It was thought that the Russian people, without 
 knowing why, had been driven into the war by the grand ducal 
 party only, in short, led like "a lamb to the slaughter." 
 
 Impartially considered, the behavior of small states such 
 as Serbia and Belgium was admirable, but the abuse heaped 
 on both of them was indescribable. Scarcely any one would 
 so much as mention the fact that in Italy, especially since the 
 Berlin Congress, the Irredenta had become a power in the 
 land; but every one kept on harping on the small, but noisy, 
 and, it was insinuated, even venal, minority, representing the 
 whole war as having been brought about by the influence of 
 England's gold. 1 
 
 Similarly with regard to neutrals, whose sympathies are 
 not even gladly and gratefully accepted as a valuable offer- 
 ing, but are peremptorily demanded as a moral right. For a 
 neutral to be hostile to us seems to us neither more nor less 
 than immoral. Thus the "Kolnische Zeitung" 2 for instance, 
 infers from the phrase so often heard in Belgium even before 
 the war, " nos sympathies sont vers la France," that "in gen- 
 eral the Belgians have a strange conception of the word neu- 
 trality. " Even about America and the Balkan States we 
 have very often read that their sympathies for the Western 
 powers are foolish and criminal, and really positive treach- 
 ery to — well, to what? 
 
 This absolute lack of comprehension of our enemies' motives 
 ought to be all the more regretted by a German because the 
 power of just appreciation was once the national virtue by 
 which he set chief store. 
 
 i When Dr. Nicolai wrote this chapter Prince Lichnowsky's revela- 
 tions had, of course, not been published, nor is it probable that he knew 
 anything of the Journal of Dr Muehlon, formerly one of the directos 
 of Krupp's works. Both these undoubtedly historical publications, 
 however, entirely hear him out — Translator 
 
 - "Belgiens Neutralitat" in the "Kolnische Zeitung" of August 26, 
 1914, So. 959.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 119 
 
 § 46. — Defective Sense of Responsibility 
 
 We, on the other hand, expect neutral and even enemy for- 
 eign countries to understand and rightly appraise our motives, 
 although some of them are even now by no means obvious. 
 For instance, we expect them to see that a military exemption 
 which brought in thousands of millions was not a threat of 
 war: that the invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium was a ne- 
 cessity, and so on and so on. 
 
 Does any one really believe that our alliance with Turkey 
 is everywhere approved? Think of Graf Platen. 1 When the 
 Venetian Doge Leonardo Loredano remarked: "We do not 
 want to owe our victory to the Turks' fists," he replied: 
 "Certainly a splendid policy for the Venetians, and one which 
 ought to be held up to the Germans of 1813 as a model," a 
 reply that now sounds almost prophetic. 
 
 Equally one-sided are the attempts to divest ourselves of 
 the responsibility for the war, and saddle other nations there- 
 with. It is, after all, only natural that no one should admit 
 having begun ; but it is nevertheless a fact that of twenty-six 
 4 ' sovereign ' ' states in Europe sixteen 2 are now at war or hope- 
 lessly implicated in the war. That is, of the 450 million nomi- 
 nal Europeans, 300 millions, or eighty-seven per cent., are 
 actually at war, and only the very inconsiderable remainder 
 have their armies "peacefully mobilized." And not a soul 
 will accept the slightest responsibility for all these millions 
 being thus up iu arms against one another; and furthermore, 
 as proof of their innocence, every one continues inciting others 
 to war. 
 
 The attempt to represent the adversary as solely responsible 
 for the war is, impartially considered, an incitement. The 
 
 i "Die Liga von Cambray," by August Count von Hallermund Platen 
 1830, Xote 8. (Count von Platen, 1706-1S35, German poet, is now 
 chiefly remembered by bis lyric poetry ) 
 
 2 Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, England, France, Greece, Italy, Lux- 
 emburg, Monaco, Montenegro, Austria, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Tur- 
 key, and Hungary; and when this book appears, who can tell how many 
 more there may not be?
 
 120 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 charge of "having begun" was leveled fairly indiscriminately 
 at any and every adversary, although, as can be psychologically 
 explained, the latest adversary was generally stated to be the 
 worst; and it was perhaps only England's ill luck that it was 
 a comparatively long while before any one else declared war 
 after she did. A delightful instance of how dogs always bite 
 the last man was afforded by that excellent Austrian writer. 
 Baron Leopold von Chlumecky, 1 who, ten months after the out- 
 break of war, but precisely ten days after Italy's declaration 
 of war, discovered that "Italy is responsible for the World 
 AYar." 
 
 Now, it might certainly be said that words do not matter 
 so much, and that if one nation insists on considering itself 
 altogether better, more righteous, and less responsible for a 
 war than another nation, this does not do very much harm. 
 The harm, however, consists in the fact that a nation which 
 denies its share in the responsibility for the war will also do 
 nothing against war. Each nation believes, and believes seri- 
 ously, that the other nation has attacked it and will attack it 
 again in the future. Consequently, it also believes that the 
 only way to ward off war is to pile up armaments. 
 
 Thus even this indirect effect of war tends to strengthen, the 
 anti-social side of a nation's character; and indeed it cannot 
 be otherwise with all effects of war. No improvement can re- 
 sult unless and until every individual man and every nation 
 assumes his or its due share of responsibility, and endeavors 
 to correct his or its defects. Whether this is possible, and how, 
 will be discussed in Part III of this book. An essential pre- 
 liminary condition, however, is that the different nations 
 should not continue to be so distressingly blind as each one is 
 to shovel all responsibility on to the others. This alarmingly 
 great lack of sense of responsibility would disappear of itself 
 if once a responsible European association were established ; 
 
 i "Die Agonie des Dreibundes — d;is letzte Jahrzehnt italienischer t'n 
 treue" ("The Death-throes of the Triple Alliance: the Last Ten Years 
 of Italy's Bad Faith") by Baron Leopold von Chlumecky, 1015.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 121 
 
 for the saying that ''as thy day is, so shall thy strength be" 
 virtually amounts to this, that on whomsoever responsibility is 
 placed becomes himself responsible. 
 
 But if the sense of responsibility is destroyed by proclaim- 
 ing that "everything is allowable in war if you arc only strong 
 enough to enforce it," this causes the individual human being 
 to degenerate and to swerve from his true destiny. 
 
 § 47. — Insults and Libels 
 
 Even Hume says : 1 
 
 When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them 
 under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust, and violent : but 
 always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate, and merciful. 
 . . . The treachery [of our commander] we call policy; his cruelty 
 is an evil inseparable from war. In short, every one of his faults 
 we either endeavor to extenuate or dignify it with the name of that 
 virtue which approaches it. 
 
 This was written two hundred years ago, but although na- 
 tions to-day have far more opportunity of getting to know 
 one another, things do not seem to have altered, save that there 
 is no longer a Hume to scoff at them or a George III to ap- 
 point any such scoffer under-secretary of state. 2 
 
 No, hatred and lying have become holy; and no effort is 
 spared to proclaim hate and contempt as brutally as possible, 
 whether by means of derisive proclamations dropped by air- 
 men (often strongly reminiscent of the "heroic speeches" of 
 the Trojan War), or by official proclamations. Discerning 
 persons may merely smile at these, but by the people they are 
 believed; and for a long time a great many really did look 
 upon their enemies as contemptible, inferior, and divided 
 among themselves. Reports of revolutions in Odessa and Paris 
 and of risings in India, Egypt, Ireland, and the South African 
 l T nion wore readily believed; but when the enemy in his turn 
 
 ' David Hume's "Treatise of Human Nature." 1740, II, 2, 3. Part 
 dealing with love and hate. 
 
 - Hume was for a slmrt time undersecretary of state in 1763. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 122 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 reported (with equally slight justification) revolts in Berlin, 
 this was considered despicable. 
 
 The British Army was supposed to be just a parcel of riff- 
 raff, with nothing better to show for themselves than "speed 
 records in running away" and who pinned all their faith 
 to stone-throwing Basutos or Afghans with their clubs. 
 
 As for the Russians, their army was supposed to consist 
 mainly of "cowardly deserters," their shells to be "filled with 
 sand," and their tins of preserves with "straw," while their 
 commissariat officers were described as thieves and rogues. 
 As for the French, they had only an army of "children and 
 old men," who went about in "patent-leather boots with holes 
 in them." The Serbians were demoralized ; they had no sup- 
 plies and no ammunition, and were only too glad to be made 
 prisoners by the Austrians. As for the Belgians, they were 
 represented only as rascally freebooters. 
 
 Then followed a whole series of calumnies, some of them 
 the traditional ones in use from time immemorial, some of 
 them new ones, often absolute inventions, but also sometimes 
 containing a grain of truth, albeit mostly a quite harmless 
 grain. Probably every war since the thirteenth century has 
 begun with the ever-successful attempt to persuade the masses 
 that their wicked enemy has been poisoning wells, 1 only it 
 would be difficult to prove that in former wars even university 
 professors helped to disseminate such rumors! In view of 
 the prevalent dread of bacilli, it is easy to understand why at 
 this time cholera germs should have been fixed upon ; but as a 
 medical man, I can scarcely say I am delighted that this un- 
 savory business should have been laid to the charge of French 
 doctors. 
 
 It was easy enough to explain why the Russians afterward 
 leveled similar accusations against the Germans; for a gen- 
 
 i Maria Theresa, for instance, wrote on July 22, 1778: "It is said 
 that near London a Bohemian has been hanged who was carrying ar- 
 senic on him for poisoning wells. This would be the last straw."
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 123 
 
 eral * who did uot know that the great numbers of vials con- 
 taining - cholera bacilli to be found in German military hospitals 
 were used for inoculations against disease, had jumped to the 
 conclusion that the Germans must be using them to poison 
 wells. 
 
 And now for the gouged-out eyes. In all military hospitals 
 they were said to have been seen. Here, again, it is possible 
 that those who nrst spread the report acted in good faith, and 
 may have been misled, for instance, by the frequency of in- 
 juries to the intersection of the optic nerve, which results in 
 absolute blinduess. But except for a very short time these 
 slanderers must have known better; for the most careful in- 
 vestigations were instituted in Germany by Provost Dr. Kauf- 
 mann - of Aix-la-Chapelle and by an anonymous writer on 
 the staff of the " Vorwiirts"; and in Austria, where the Serbi- 
 ans were alleged to have done the same thing, by Professor 
 Karl Brockhausen of Vienna. The last named even offered 
 a reward of fifty kronen for any information as to an au- 
 thenticated case of a German or Austrian whose eyes had been 
 gouged out, yet not one such authenticated case was brought 
 to Light. Energetic measures ought then to have been insisted 
 upon to prevent legends of this sort arising; but nothing was 
 really done, and large portions even of the educated German 
 public still believe that in Belgium German soldiers had their 
 eves gouged out. 3 
 
 o v 
 
 i Cf. General Cilinsky's proclamation. 
 
 -Letter from Dr Kaufmann, Provost of the Collegiate Church, to 
 the "Kolnische Zeitung" of Sept. 28, 1914. 
 
 3 At the end of August or beginning of September, 1014, a Swiss 
 hotelkeeper, a (.'erman l»y birth and a Swiss by naturalization onh, 
 showed me a letter which he had received from Diisseldorf, and the 
 writer of which said that he witli his own eyes had seen forty men in a 
 German hospital (I think that of Diisseldorf) whose eyes had been 
 gouged out by the Belgians. 1 asked this hotelkeeper whether he really 
 believed this. "Oh, of course I do," he said. At the time such letters 
 as this were being received by certainly hundreds and probably thou- 
 ands of Swiss people with friends, relatives, or acquaintances in Ger- 
 many.
 
 124 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Again, in Denmark and elsewhere Belgian children are said 
 to have been exhibited whose eyes the Germans were alleged 
 to have gouged out : and even if from here it is not so easy to 
 test such statements as it was to investigate allegations about 
 what was done in Germany, yet it may be at once assumed 
 that in all probability this is another instance of malicious 
 slander. 
 
 That persons have been seen with their hands crushed or per- 
 haps cut off is possible, although definite information on this 
 point is not obtainable ; but that Russians and Belgians sys- 
 tematically mutilated children in this way is something which 
 no one ought to believe and no newspaper write and publish 
 without having first convinced themselves of its truth. 
 
 In the case of the English nurse whose breasts were stated 
 to have been cut off by the Germans it was afterward shown 
 how such reports arise. An English court of justice, to which 
 we ought to be grateful for having traced this calumny to 
 its origin, was able to prove that this particular nurse suf- 
 fered from incurable cancer of the breast. 
 
 There is even a grain of truth in the statement published in 
 all the newspapers that the enemy incorporated convicts in 
 their armies; for in every nation it is the custom when war 
 breaks out, as on all other ceremonial occasions, to grant an 
 amnesty to those convicted of comparatively venial offences. 
 A similar charge, familiar to us from former wars, arose in 
 similar fashion. 
 
 In East Prussia a chief forester in charge of a German 
 patrol was shot by the Russians. This gave rise to the fable 
 
 Another report, which was also circulated by the Germans a little 
 later on, when the first Senegalese troops appeared in France, was that 
 the Senegalese soldiers had been seen returning from the front with long 
 strings of ears that they had cut oti' from German soldiers. This story 
 1 was also told by a Swiss hotelkeeper, who was Swiss by naturaliza- 
 tion only and German by birth; and he went so far as to name a cer- 
 tain Swiss who had recently returned from England via France and 
 had seen these strings of cut-off German ears. I took the trouble to go 
 to Lausanne to find this Swiss, but I never could trace him. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 125 
 
 that all the foresters in East Prussia had been shot, and a gen- 
 eral order by General Marto to that effect was even published, 
 and later on a radio telegram of General Rostowski. 
 
 There is, of course, a certain amount of justification for the 
 statement as to the enemy disregarding the Red Cross. The 
 range of modern cannon usually does not exceed from twelve 
 to thirteen miles of country, which is generally very imper- 
 fectly reconnoitered, and they must sometimes hit hospitals ; 
 and if it is nowadays positively dangerous to wear a Red 
 Cross armlet, this may be partly accounted for by there being 
 really nothing clearly visible to aim at because of the gray 
 uniforms worn, so that everything seen to be moving is shot 
 at. And the Geneva armlet can be seen a long way off. 
 
 § 48. — Training to Hate 
 
 The ugly aspect of these calumnies is that on both sides 
 they are increasing. Let us assume that behind the front a 
 drunken Iroquois kills a captured Mohican. 1 If no one is 
 any the wiser, there the matter will end ; but if it is published 
 far and wide among the Mohicans, then the latter will murder 
 the next three Iroquois taken prisoner, then the Iroquois, wish- 
 ing to be "justly avenged," will kill all prisoners. Thus, 
 owing to its having become known, an isolated action becomes 
 general, and thus even in 1914 atrocities were increased 
 owing to the one-sided nature of the statements given 
 out. 
 
 So it was and so it was found to be. Let us even assume 
 that the righteous Germun had none but chivalrous motives 
 for taking the field. Now he hears that the enemy sometimes 
 kill and sometimes do violence to defenseless women, old 
 men and children, and sometimes send them on in front in 
 order to protect themselves against German bullets. Next he 
 hears that vessels engaged in the dangerous work of mine- 
 sweeping are manned by defenseless German prisoners; or, 
 
 i Not knowing who in this war first committed these atrocities, I 
 select this fictitious instance of extinct races.
 
 126 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 as stated in a grand general staff report of May, 1915, that 
 the French, when digging trenches, made German prisoners 
 stand in a row, thus forming a living wall to protect them 
 against German attacks. Next he hears that the Turcos are 
 cutting off Germans' heads, and carrying them about in their 
 knapsacks as "war souvenirs," and exhibiting with a yell of 
 bestial triumph strings of cut-off noses and ears; that the 
 Russians are cutting off German children's hands; that Bel- 
 gian girls are gouging out our soldiers' eyes; that the Eng- 
 lish want to starve German women and children to death ; that 
 the Serbians are assassins, and the Montenegrins sheep-stealers, 
 the Italians a pack of scoundrels, and the Japanese half- 
 monkeys. In short, he is so overwhelmed by all these mean 
 and baseless statements which he hears that, however kindly 
 he may be by nature, he must inevitably be convinced that all 
 mankind except the inhabitants of the German Empire, the 
 Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the Sultanate of Turkey, and 
 the territories of the Turko-Tatar Bulgarian people 1 is rotten 
 to the core. 
 
 Even if a spark of respect for human nature still contrives 
 to persist, our newspapers chime in and tell people of what 
 sort of crew mankind really consists. No term of abuse is 
 abusive enough to describe the enemy. ' ' Fliegende Blatter 's ' ' 
 old joke about the subaltern who begged the rhinoceros's 
 pardon for having just compared it with his recruit Meyer 
 has not only been resuscitated in the "Deutsche Tageszeitung, " 
 which would not matter, but also in the speeches of German 
 professors. The ' ' Deutsche Tageszeitung ' ' once remarked that 
 to call Russians and Frenchmen swine was insulting the Ger- 
 man domestic animal of that name; and Professor Eucken, 
 after railing at the English as low Pharisees, adds that such 
 a comparison is positively insulting to the Pharisees. Simi- 
 larly, Ludwig Deinhardt says that any one calling Edward 
 VII a Mephistopheles is insulting Goethe. Why Goethe is a 
 
 i While 1 am writing this, the Rumanians are trying to make up 
 their minds whether they are a lofty or a debased people
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 127 
 
 question which will probably have to be dealt with in a chapter 
 on the influence of war upon the intellect. 
 
 Even worse things have been said than these, and every one 
 who reads the speeches of our German professors must, if he 
 take them seriously, come to the conclusion that we are wag- 
 ing war upon brutes, and that consequently the majority of 
 human beings are beasts. Whoever thinks thus, however, 
 cannot continue to have any respect for human dignity, and 
 the foundations of his own morality are consequently sapped. 
 
 Of course the Germans as a whole do not consist of wholly 
 lofty and morally perfect natures any more than does any 
 other nation. What has just been said, however, shows very 
 clearly that the present war has a brutalizing effect upon even 
 the most moral human being, and unhappily certain newspap- 
 ers intentionally aim at thus brutalizing their readers. For 
 instance, Herr Hugo Caeker, war correspondent of the "Stettin 
 Generalanzeiger," expressly states that he reports all atroci- 
 ties, so as to make an end of "all such fine things as pity." Is 
 this really so desirable? Or was not Mr. H. N. Brailsford 
 right when he wrote in the "Daily News" of mid-September, 
 1914, that long descriptions of atrocities have only one effect 
 — to whet the desire for retaliation, and that in time they 
 would create a Europe in which there was no longer any 
 room for such sentiments as fraternity and humanity. And 
 was not Professor Wilhclm Forster 1 also right when he wrote 
 as long ago as 1910 that the poisoning of men's imaginations 
 and the dissemination of damaging suggestions by too much 
 newspaper writing was threatening to become one of the great- 
 est dangers to civilized humanity? 
 
 The first year of the war, indeed, has proved both to have 
 been right, and no one can absolve our censorship, in other 
 respects severe enough, from the reproach of having intended 
 all atrocities to be reported ; for it would be absurd to pretend 
 that those at the head of it do not perceive what the ultimate 
 
 i Professor W. Forster, "The Daily Reporting of Sensational Occur- 
 rences/' in "Der Tag," January 19, 1910.
 
 128 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 effect of their measures must be. Now that a censorship exists, 
 it is part of the censor's professional duty to realize things of 
 this kind. 
 
 Furthermore, was the party truce in Germany alone re- 
 sponsible for virtually not a single voice having been raised 
 against the press saying : ' ' We are ashamed that there should 
 be German newspapers and German men, officials and others, 
 who made bold to resort to such methods, of rendering their 
 country an alleged service. Quite apart from the impression 
 produced abroad, both among neutrals and among our ene- 
 mies, did no one consider the effect which such proceedings 
 must have upon the moral sense of our own people?" 
 
 Yes, it will be replied, but the people had to be egged on 
 to make them determined to resist to the uttermost. For a 
 time this effort may have succeeded, but in the long run it 
 failed just because those who instituted this campaign of 
 calumny were not far-sighted enough to realize that it would 
 also have the indirect effort of driving the enemy to resist to 
 the uttermost. Thus the relation between the two belligerents 
 has not been changed, and the sole residue of this attempt to 
 influence popular feeling is mutual hate and boundless con- 
 tempt, which were wholly unnecessary. A certain Dr. Hanns 
 Floerke of Munich has even undertaken to collect and publish 
 the "Documents of Hate." 
 
 The real sufferer, however, is the people, whom the world 
 calls barbarous because their press and their Government 
 could not restrain themselves. Even if this epithet may still 
 be in general repudiated, yet it must unfortunately be ad- 
 mitted that in these last two years we have at any rate become 
 much more like barbarians. 
 
 Nothing is now heard about all these infamous deeds, and 
 it might be asked why am I unearthing so many ancient and 
 already half- forgotten stories? It is a remarkable peculiar- 
 ity of man, however, that the conclusions he draws from all 
 manner of isolated experiences sink deep into ,his soul, and 
 there persist long after he has forgotten how he ever came to
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 129 
 
 such conclusions. They persist, indeed, even if he has admit- 
 ted that the basis for them was false. 1 Hence my justification 
 for recalling what has happened in the recent past. What I 
 meant to convey to my readers was this: "You see, here are 
 the reasons for your being so full of hate. You see that 
 these reasons were bad, and you yourselves no longer believe 
 in therm Now will you not come to the only conclusion pos- 
 sible for a logical person, and give up hating? Will you not 
 have courage to think? Believe me, whoever thinks can 
 scarcely hate. At any rate, he cannot hate men, but only in- 
 stitutions." 
 
 § 49. — Training to Lie 
 
 This change of attitude to all old-established conceptions 
 must be called a form of mental affection which has seized upon 
 a whole people. This was discussed by Herr Albert Moll in an 
 article published in the very early days of the war, in which 
 he mentions the well-known fact that at times of universal 
 excitement even persons who believe themselves to be speaking 
 truth in reality bear false witness. He shows how the terrors 
 of war, the hatred artificially engendered by government 
 against those who began the war, people's desire to help their 
 country by accusing the enemy, and many other like tend- 
 encies cannot fail to have disastrous effects. He himself un- 
 wittingly affords a proof of how apparently omnipresent this 
 wholesale insinuation was by being himself unable to perceive 
 all these injurious effects except in the case of Germany's 
 enemies. 
 
 Herr Albert Moll, I admit, insists that those who signed the 
 report of the Belgian Committee of Investigation had certainly 
 no reputation for capacity for sifting evidence, and he hints 
 that he himself has some notion of how this should be done. 
 
 i In my work on the reasons for believing in a myogenous theory of 
 heart-heats, I gave a concrete and very instructive instance of this. 
 This work is in the Library of Anatomy and Physiology, Physiological 
 Department, 10 10. Page 64 of the separate reprint.
 
 130 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 He may rest assured that no one will assert that he erred con- 
 sciously. He, too, will be classed with those "who believe 
 they are speaking truth, although their evidence is in reality 
 wholly false. ' ' The hypnotizing effects of war, indeed, are ter- 
 rible, and no one can be reproached with lying when so many 
 others are doing likewise. Only no one ought to assert that 
 it is good to abandon oneself unconsciously to this frenzy of 
 
 lying. 
 
 It may be at once admitted that lying is often useful to 
 individual men, inasmuch as they can sometimes keep afloat 
 owing to a lie, when, had the truth come out, they must long 
 ago have gone under. Now, is there any object in keeping 
 afloat in this wise ? In certain circumstances assuredly there 
 is. If a particular human being (or a particular nation) is 
 passing through a critical time, and I know that if he can come 
 safely through it he will be able to take up his life again 
 energetically and perfectly normally, then I may try to help 
 him by a lie; and although this is perhaps not morally right, 
 yet it is justifiable on considerations of general humanity. As 
 every one knows, doctors very frequently do something of this 
 sort, but it is plain that there must be some unselfish consid- 
 eration at stake, for whoever lies in his own interest is simply 
 a liar and nothing else. 
 
 Now, the Government holds that it, like a skilful physician, 
 is entitled to tell the people lies, and therefore it has always, 
 and particularly during the war, endeavored to defend official 
 methods of reporting events. Over and over again we have 
 been told that we had been forced into a critical position, in 
 wh ich, to use the ' ' technical expression, ' ' we must ' ' hold out ' ' ; 
 and in such circumstances, it was added, there was only too 
 much justification for lying being considered allowable. The 
 belief prevailed that the people would be capable of more re- 
 sistance if they had no suspicion of the true state of affairs ; 
 and it was therefore considered justifiable to prevent their 
 becoming acquainted with the situation. War is thus a train- 
 ing in lying, and every conceivable subsidiary moral purpose
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 131 
 
 vanishes, since this lying is done solely for the benefit of our- 
 selves and our own nation. 
 
 The demoralizing effects of this lying are most strongly 
 marked in the case of the stay-at-home civilian population. 
 The soldier is less injuriously affected, for those who are 
 confronted with facts must face them in a manner both prac- 
 tical and to some extent, therefore, truthful. When the sol-, 
 dier at the front sees how his enemy also dies for his cause, 
 he learns to respect him. He may and probably ought to 
 think himself and his fellows better soldiers than the enemy; 
 but he is compelled by the severity of the struggle not very 
 seriously to underrate the latter. While in Germany the 
 enemy was still being blackguarded, the first news arrived 
 from the front. It mentioned how skilled were the Russians 
 in subterranean warfare, how perfect was their equipment 
 in many respects, and how honestly these "Moscovite hordes" 
 believed in the sacredness of their czar's cause. Tidings also 
 came of French bravery, of the doggedness of the British 
 and their contempt for death, and of the heroic courage of 
 the Serbians. Yet while one soldier was doing justice to the 
 other, the newspapers at home went on lying and libeling, 
 without reflecting that whoever belittles his enemy belittles his 
 own victory, and that, supposing he is defeated, his defeat be- 
 comes a disgrace. 
 
 § 50. — Franc-Tireur Warfare 
 
 There is no more crass instance of the odious and unjust 
 ideas about the enemy than the varying judgments passed 
 upon franc-tireur warfare. Has it never occurred to any one 
 that, while it is an insult to call a man a "franc-tireur," yet 
 to call him by the German translation of this word * is con- 
 sidered a compliment? What patriotic German heart does 
 not beat faster at the thought of Schill's volunteers in 1807, 
 or of Liitzow's volunteers in 1813? Who does not consider 
 both the shooting of Schill's eleven officers at Wesel on Sep- 
 
 i Freischdrler, or volunteer, armed insurgent.
 
 132 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tember 16, 1809, and the shooting of Andreas Hofer at Mantua 
 on February 20, 1810, wicked and tyrannical acts ? 1 Yet these 
 men had risen in wrath not only against their arch-enemy Na- 
 poleon, but also against their divinely appointed Prussian or 
 Bavarian king. 
 
 What was right for the Germans, however, is supposed to 
 be wrong for the French and Belgians, whose armed insur- 
 gents are perpetually referred to as the lowest dregs of hu- 
 manity. Thus in his report to the President of the United 
 States, his Majesty the German Emperor spoke of being obliged 
 to resort to the "sternest measures" in order to "terrify the 
 bloodthirsty inhabitants out of continuing their infamous 
 acts of murder and violence." And this despite the fact that 
 it is not even certain that we are not bound to consider these 
 "defenders of their country" as regular troops. According 
 to the Belgian military system, every male citizen between the 
 ages of twenty and forty belongs to the "militia," keeps his 
 arms at.home, and is not obliged to wear uniform, but merely 
 a badge. And, after all, to be quite honest, who in Germany 
 would consider the East-Prussian farmer as the dregs of hu- 
 manity were he to seize his rusty rifle and defend his village 
 if the Russians invaded the country ? 
 
 What is honorable for us is likewise honorable for the 
 enemy ; and if the defense of a country by national armies is a 
 sacred cause, it is none the less sacred albeit no uniform is 
 worn. Even Georg Herwegh scoffed at such sophistries in 
 the followi lines about the Greeks: 
 
 Sie taten, was sie mochten, 
 Die Frecbheit war enorm, 
 Sie siegten, wenn sie fochten, 
 Audi ohne Uniform. 
 
 i That the troops of Schill and Liitzow were, whenever possible, no 
 uniform makes no difference from the point of view of popular senti- 
 ment, which is alone under discussion. The Tyrolese did not wear uni- 
 form, and as for the Belgians, 1 shall deal with them later on. The 
 Tyrolese patriot Andreas Hofer was betrayed to the French, and shot 
 by order of Napoleon. — Translator.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 133 
 
 Those for whom Herwegh's name has too demagogic a sound 
 may be reminded of good old Riickert 's lines : 
 
 Der Bau'r ist nur ein schlechter Schuft, 
 
 Der nach Soldatenlnlfe raft. 
 
 Der Bauer, der sick selbst macht Luft, 
 
 Den Feind, den Schuft, selbst pufft und knufft, 
 
 Der Bauer ist kein sclilechter Schuft. 
 
 Here, again, the opinion of the soldier, who, after all, is 
 alone exposed to the franc-tireurs" bullets, is vastly the fairer. 
 Yet a so-called intellectual, Herbert Eulenberg, 1 styling him- 
 self a "representative of intellectual Germany of to-day," ac- 
 tually dares to say in his reply to Romain Rolland, "The Bel- 
 gians simply pounced upon the enemy like Paris Apaches, and 
 the Lion of Flanders would have utterly disowned such jack- 
 als." And Max Hochdorf, 2 once an esthete, attributes the 
 franc-tireur warfare to nothing but the drinking propensities 
 and religious fanaticism of the Belgian peasants. But, on the 
 other hand, we find an Austrian officer, writing in "Danzers 
 Armeezeitung" as follows: "Take the last enemy-armed in- 
 surgent who from mistaken, but profoundly exalted, patriot- 
 ism shoots at the Germans from his hiding-place, well aware 
 that they will afterward hang him and even burn his whole vil- 
 lage. In my eyes such a man ranks far above a newspaper 
 scribe blustering away with his bombastic, but worthless and 
 meaningless, phrases, and spitting at the enemy, but not 
 fighting him." 
 
 This abuse of Belgium is particularly hateful, she being pros- 
 trate and unable to defend herself. Her newspapers cannot 
 appear, her citizens — those who still live in their own country 
 — are silent as the grave, and her archives open to the con- 
 queror. "We scarcely insist to-day that the victor should be 
 magnanimous, but why heap insult on the defenseless ? Even 
 
 i Herbert Eulenberg:, in the "Kolnische Zeitung" of September 17, 
 1914, No. 1035. 
 2 Max Hochdorf in the "Berliner Tageblatt" of September 9, 1914.
 
 134 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Caesar said to Ptolemy, King of the Barbarians, who caused 
 Pompey to be murdered and then attempted to blacken his 
 memory : 
 
 Tout beau ! — Que votre haine, en son sang assouvie, 
 N'aille point a sa gloire, il suffit de sa vie. x 
 
 § 51. — War and Art 
 
 It has been said often enough that the human mind finds 
 congenial occupation in war and art, and that although a great 
 general needs intelligence and character, yet in the main 
 everything depends upon his intuitively grasping the situa- 
 tion as a whole, which is a task presenting difficulties un- 
 doubtedly calculated to appeal to an artist's nature. Hanni- 
 bal, Frederick II and Napoleon are constantly being consid- 
 ered as artists, and their battles as works of art. 
 
 No doubt there is much to be said for this point of view, and 
 a great deal might be urged concerning the connection be- 
 tween the "art of war" and other forms of art. For our 
 present purpose, however, this connection is of no impor- 
 tance, the one question concerning us being whether and to 
 what extent war affects the various fomis in which art finds ex- 
 pression, and whether this influence is good or bad. It will 
 be seen to be in any case very slight, and in virtually every 
 instance in which it can be traced it can be shown to be de- 
 leterious. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is artists whose enthusiasm for war has 
 generally been aroused more quickly than that of the members 
 of any other liberal profession. Or, rather, they are the first 
 to appear enthusiastic, because persons of an artistic tempera- 
 ment are accustomed to give freest play to every impulse of 
 the moment. Even Rabelais 2 says jestingly that the Latin 
 word helium is perhaps connected with the French word belle. 
 
 Probably no one believes it, but there are still people who 
 
 i Comeille, "La mort de Pompee," 1642. 
 
 2 Francois Rabelais, "Gargantua et Pantagruel," Livre II Prologue 
 1550.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 135 
 
 say and write that war and the national enthusiasm it creates 
 have caused art to blossom forth. True, this has not always 
 been asserted, for Mars and the Muses used to be represented 
 as opposites. Here, again, Germany has contrived to set the 
 fashion. Every one knows how Erich Schmidt not merely 
 curried favor in court circles, but even acquired Scherer's 
 professorial chair by showing that Frederick II, who used to 
 murder the German language, and his Seven Years' War were 
 the creator of German literature; and since this doubtful 
 achievement, which Mehring x in one of the best pamphlets iu 
 the world, reduced to its proper proportions, this glorifica- 
 tion of the influence of war on literature has become fashion- 
 able. In reality, there is no sign of anything of the sort; 
 and as regards lyrics and poetry I purpose to prove this in 
 dealing with war poetry. 2 Here, however, I will confine my- 
 self to a few remarks about the plastic arts. 
 
 Not many words need be wasted on the subject of battle- 
 pictures, beloved of crowned heads and the terror of directors 
 of picture galleries. In olden times, when hand-to-hand fight- 
 ing still took place, there might have been something in a battle 
 to inspire an artist. The "Gigantomachy" and "The Battle 
 of Alexander," for instance, are undoubted works of art, 3 
 which possess a value of their own, apart from their subject. 
 In the time of the great Flemish painters fine figures of war- 
 riors engaged in hand-to-hand fights were still painted. 
 Some of Rubens 's battle-pictures are magnificent, but even 
 in his time it was the animal painter Wouwerman 4 who was 
 most famous as a "battle-painter." For him a battle-picture 
 
 i Franz Mehring, "Die Lessing-Legende, eine Rettung," Stuttgart, 
 1893. 
 
 ^See § 182-185 
 
 a Whoever would fain realize the value of one such battle-picture 
 should lose himself in contemplation of Miehael-angelo's Florentine 
 little cartoon of 1504. which, just because it was a work of art, was so 
 far from pleasing those for whom it was executed, who wanted a battle- 
 picture. 
 
 * Philip Wouwerman, 1619-1608, was born at Haarlem, and is espe- 
 cially famous now as a painter of horses. He had two brothers, whom
 
 136 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 afforded an opportunity of showing his white horses to ad- 
 vantage, just as Terborch 1 in his pictures of soldiers thinks 
 only of showing of what fine material the foot-soldiers' trous- 
 ers were made, with which fact, as a painter, he is somewhat 
 reproached. 
 
 Then came the period of powder-and-smoke pictures, which 
 we are almost tired of hearing derided; and then the end of 
 the battle-picture proper had come. Any pictures of this kind 
 which have since been painted were produced not for their 
 own sake, but because they were patriotic in character ; and it 
 is no mere chance that not a solitary one of these patriotic 
 pictures has proved to be a real, original work of genius. The 
 old masters who painted the gold-framed Madonnas were 
 likewise inspired thereto by their subject, and how fine an 
 achievement was theirs ! Apparently it is true that the great 
 artists' minds were dominated by a desire to express their 
 conception of the Virgin, and the small minds only by enthusi- 
 asm for battles. 
 
 No one, moreover, has ever been carried away by the con- 
 ception of a battle as such, for the few notable nineteenth- 
 century battle-pictures were painted only when men's feel- 
 ings had been stirred by some special event. Two periods 
 can be distinguished, the French or Napoleonic period, and 
 the German period about 1870. The following painters be- 
 long to the former: Antoine-Jean Gros (1717-1835). Horace 
 Vemet (1789-1863), Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891), and 
 Kaffet (1804-1860). It is worthy of note, however, that Jean 
 Gros's most famous picture, "Les Pestiferes de Jaffa," (Na- 
 poleon contemplating those stricken with plague at Jaffa) 
 shows the emperor just at a time when he is doing something 
 which has no connection with war. 
 
 he taught and who were both artists, the one a landscape-painter and 
 the other a painter of landscapes and canals. — Translator. 
 
 i Gerard Terborch or Terburg was a Dutch painter born at Zwolle. 
 His great characteristics are accuracy and finish. His portrait, as a 
 town councilor of Deventer, is in the Hague Picture Uallery. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 SELECTION BY MEANS OF WAR 137 
 
 Among German war-painters may be mentioned Wilhelm 
 Camphausen (1818-1885), Carl Bleibtreu (1829-1892), An- 
 ton von Werner (1813-1915), Arthur Kampf (1867). Carl 
 Rochling (1855-1912), and Adolf von Menzel (1815-1905). 
 As every one knows, Adolf von Menzel is the only one of these 
 who is of any importance, and he drew his inspiration not from 
 the glorious campaign through which he himself went, but 
 from the vanished beauty of the Frederickian world. 
 
 Even allowing that here and there a painter of genius has 
 felt interested in great generals, nevertheless painting un- 
 questionably owes virtually nothing to war as war, at any 
 rate nothing which can be compared with what art owes to 
 Christianity. When we come to such a thoroughly social 
 art as architecture, we find that it owes even less to war than 
 does painting. The famous "barracks-like" style of building 
 is a synonym for a monotonous style. That soldiers, more- 
 over, even now live in tents or earthen huts, at any rate when 
 really on active service, is only another proof of the conserva- 
 tive and retrogressive nature of war. 
 
 Beyond this there is really hardly anything to be said about 
 the direct connection between war and art, for it is scarcely 
 worth while mentioning the beautifully ornamented cannons 
 of the so-called baroque period. Neither does the present war, 
 despite all the enthusiasm about it, seem as if it meant to do 
 much for art, although it affords no lack of possibilities of in- 
 spiration. As we all know, in its early days numbers of 
 photographers and cinematograph-operators were ordered to 
 the front, for those in command thought it would be a fine 
 thing afterward to rattle off a series of victories even faster, 
 if possible, than they had been won. 1 But even the cinema- 
 tograph system, like so much else, was found to require modi- 
 fication. It was soon perceived to be a mistake to have to rely 
 upon reproducing scenes with photographic fidelity; and in 
 order to lend the desired life to "empty battle-fields," a num- 
 
 i For instance, at the beginning of the abortive attack on Verdun, in 
 February, 19
 
 138 TITE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ber of artists were dragged to the seat of war. By means of 
 judicious instructions and discreet censoring it was not diffi- 
 cult to insure the pictures of these gentry fulfilling reason- 
 able patriotic demands far better than photographs ; but only 
 a very few of the artists taken to the front could be made to 
 produce pictures which, even from the artistic point of view, 
 were superior to the old photographs. This result may seem 
 regrettable, but, at all events, it proves that though war may 
 be able to make paintings more patriotic, it is not able to 
 make them more artistic, about which opinions will differ 
 according to what each person expects from art. 
 
 Now, these artistic gentry, whose names I do not wish to 
 mention, really did see something of war. They had free 
 access to all battle-fields, no matter how inaccessible these 
 were rendered by barbed-wire entanglements and other de- 
 fense works. Motor-cars were provided for them; they were 
 shown lacerated limbs and dead horses, men frozen to death 
 in the Carpathians and other drowned in the Masurian Lakes. 
 They could hear the roar of the famous motor batteries, and 
 even, fortune favoring them, of the still more famous 42 's. 
 Hindenburg and Mackensen, however unlike they might oth- 
 erwise have been, resembled each other in having each found 
 time to sit to them. In short, they were made free of all the 
 beauty and greatness which modern war has to offer. And 
 with what result ? None, except for the fact that we possess 
 no published pictures in which more German than enemy 
 dead can be counted. At best some of the better sort of 
 artists felt a little "seedy" afterward. 
 
 Thus does war transform all our notions of truth, goodness, 
 and beauty ; but it does not improve them.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Chosen People 
 
 i. — the advantage nations are alleged to derive from 
 
 WAR 
 
 § 52. — The Injury to the World in General 
 
 If war is to be considered as an episode in the struggle for 
 existence, then success in it would have in some way or other 
 to benefit not merely a single nation, but mankind as a whole. 
 That is, it must somehow promote man's welfare or comfort 
 or further his intellectual or material advancement. Hence 
 every grain of corn harvested, ever}- new kind of lamp in- 
 vented, every method of production which saves human 
 strength, everything which human labor or human genius 
 creates for the use of man, benefits the world in general. 
 Every grain of corn will feed some human being, every lamp 
 will give some one light some evening, and every improvement 
 in labor-saving machinery will afford him free time and leisure 
 for self-improvement. 
 
 But war creates nothing substantially valuable. Possibly 
 a war may once have enabled some nation to get some good out 
 of life which it could not otherwise have procured, just as 
 pocket-picking may have done for some person. This, how- 
 ever, cannot have happened often, and in any case the victor 
 cannot increase his well-being by more than the amount which 
 the vanquished loses by being deprived of the reward due to 
 him for his labor. At best, therefore, war may cause a trans- 
 ference of well-being, but assuredly not an increase of it, 
 
 quite apart from the fact that in general the less capable, but 
 
 139
 
 140 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 physically stronger, person is favored at the expense of those 
 who are more capable, but weakly. 
 
 In reality the results are still more deplorable, for war 
 destroys what is substantially valuable. Houses are shot to 
 pieces, crops ruined, and human beings killed ; but nothing of 
 the sort is produced. Hence, however much transference of 
 well-being there may be, the balance is on the wrong side, even 
 if, as Karl Weber 1 says, "a few ministers, tradesmen, and 
 Jews" may make handsome profits. Consequently not only 
 war itself, but also all work connected therewith, is a ivaste of 
 energy from the outset. Moreover, we ought to reflect that 
 whoever produces anything useful enables others to rest, but 
 whoever destroys anything useful obliges others to replace or 
 regain it. 
 
 The few who gain by war, however, who are mostly also 
 those who give the lead, have only too frequently no interest 
 whatever in preventing war. Even in a very unsuccessful war 
 they hardly stand to lose much. Whatever happens, they are 
 the gainers, and they it is who make wars. Bismarck once 
 said: 2 "The majority are usually not at all inclined for 
 war. War is kindled by minorities, or, in absolute monarchies, 
 by rulers or cabinets," which is self-evident. What is sig- 
 nificant, however, is that Bismarck should have said this, for 
 these words 3 prove him to have been convinced that, if the 
 peoples could always have their own way, there would be 
 no more wars. At any rate, only the people in general have a 
 real interest in making an end of war ; and if this is ever to be 
 done, then the peoples absolutely must take matters into their 
 own hands. 
 
 i Karl Weber: "Demokrit oder hinterlassene Papiere eines lachenden 
 Philosophen-. Abschnitt iiber den Krieg." ( "'Democritus, or the 
 posthumous papers of a laughing Philosopher. Chapters Dealing with 
 War.") 
 
 2 Bismarck's speech in the Reichstag on February 9, 1876. 
 
 3 Kant once made a similar observation, but in tbe form of a definite 
 claim. "To obtain peace the form of government ought to be republi- 
 can."
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 141 
 
 No one need imagine that Hague Conferences summoned by 
 Russian or other absolute monarchs will ever make serious 
 efforts to insure peace. None save those interested in the 
 realization of an idea are in a position to bring it about, and 
 as only mankind in general are uniformly interested in an 
 end being put to war, only mankind in general will be able 
 to effect anything. 
 
 Each individual nation may continue to hope that, with 
 the help of exceptionally good cannon, airships, or submarines, 
 it will be able to wrest to itself in war some special privilege 
 unconnected with labor, and therefore greatly coveted by the 
 majority of mankind. Such calculations may or may not be 
 correct, and are certainly sufficiently vague. But for the 
 world in general it is as clear as daylight, clear beyond possi- 
 bility of mistake, that war is bad business. For the world 
 in general war means loss. 
 
 When, therefore, the world in general really does wake up, 
 then will general and lasting peace be assured. Peace does 
 not mean the German "Empire," or the status quo, or the 
 "Holy Alliance," or the "European balance of power," but 
 international democracy; that, and nothing else. Interna- 
 tional democracy need not begin by enforcing peace, but if 
 ever it does exist, then it goes without saying that it will not 
 be able to subsist without peace. 
 
 § 53. — The Advantages of War to an Individual Nation 
 
 It is hard to say whether a war has ever helped any na- 
 tion to rise. In reality, during the perpetual wars of past 
 times, with their vacillating fortunes, every nation has won 
 some wars, to which fact its rise might be attributed. Never- 
 theless, it is a striking fact, and one which affords food for 
 reflection, that the Chinese and the Jews, the only nations 
 which have succeeded in holding their own for three thousand 
 years, have scarcely ever waged wars, and if they did, were 
 invariably beaten. 
 
 It can be positive!}' asserted that never has a nation perished
 
 142 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 because of having been beaten in war. An army of conquer- 
 ors in an enemy country can be destroyed, even in certain 
 circumstances absolutely exterminated, as happened to the 
 armies of Hannibal, Teja, 1 and Napoleon. But, after all, 
 this merely proves that their preceding conquests availed noth- 
 ing. A city can also be destroyed, and all its inhabitants 
 slain ; and the destruction of such a city as Carthage, to which 
 large tracts of territory had been in the habit of paying trib- 
 ute, produces the impression of the downfall of a great empire. 
 No true nation, however, has yet been exterminated by 
 war in its own country, although sometimes this may happen 
 afterward, for a declining, dying nation will of course lose 
 wars. But we must not extend this paradox so as to make 
 it mean that a nation which has lost a war is bound to rise 
 afterward. At all events, we know with absolute certainty 
 that in the case of all nations whose decline we are witness- 
 ing to-day, that decline was not caused by war. The red In- 
 dians, for instance, did not succumb to bullets, but to brandy 
 and disease. Similarly the Malayans are dying out, although 
 they have never been conquered. But the negroes, on the con- 
 trary, are by no means a declining race; and despite their 
 never having won victories, at any rate not in America, they 
 are beginning to become a danger there. 
 
 In this very broad sense, therefore, it is certainly not true 
 that war operates selection. It was believed, however, that a 
 nation could obtain so many advantages through a successful 
 war that afterward it would be able to live more easily, and 
 consequently to rise. Now, in times long past there were un- 
 doubtedly advantages in making war. A savage had only to 
 win a victory in order to obtain everything he wanted. From 
 his enemies' already prepared fields he could harvest crops 
 
 iTeja (Teja or Teias) was the last king of the East Goths. He 
 ■went to the assistance of his brother Aligern, who was besieged in 
 Cumse, and after fighting two months a desperate fight against su- 
 perior forces, he fell in 553, and with him the greater part of his men. 
 — Translator.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 143 
 
 which he had not sown, stolen herds of cattle supplied him 
 with food and clothing, and even his captured enemies were 
 useful as slaves. Later on accumulated stores or perhaps 
 treasures of gold and silver made war still more profitable. 
 
 Hence so long as wealth consisted solely or, at any rate, 
 mainly in accumulated and transportable stores and supplies, 
 wars continued to be profitable, and afforded a strong, brave, 
 and enterprising people great prospect of success. But now 
 the wealth of a person or a nation mainly depends on credit ; 
 that is, on the fact that his or its signature to a bill or 
 check is always honored. That is, it depends on things which 
 are not transportable or there and then transferable. This 
 of necessity means that robbery and violence have become 
 as uncertain and unprofitable as honest labor was in primitive 
 times, for it has become impossible to confiscate wealth. 
 
 Whether this statement, which Norman Angell ] endeavors 
 to prove theoretically, is of quite unlimited application would 
 be very difficult to determine. It would almost seem as if, 
 at any rate in private life, exploitation still continued profit- 
 able throughout the world. Large contractors and large 
 landed proprietors everywhere earn vast sums, in part cer- 
 tainly by means of labor performed not by themselves, but by 
 a thousand others dependent on them ; and many a tchinovik 
 still continues plundering, very often according to old and 
 time-honored methods. Might not what is possible for the in- 
 dividual man, however, be also in time possible for large com- 
 munities? The only question, therefore, is whether war is 
 really a practical method of personal enrichment. 
 
 § 54. — The Unprofitableness of War To-day 
 
 From the purely business point of view war is certainly not 
 a practical method of personal enrichment ; and in view of 
 the vast amount of capital swallowed up by a modern war, 
 not even the victor can hope ever to see his outlay again. 
 If we reckon only the direct expenditure on army and navy, 
 
 i Norman Angell's "The Great Illusion," Heinemann, 1910.
 
 144 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 together with the loss of valuable work which might have been 
 done by the recruits annually called up, and take no account 
 whatever of the enormous additional losses caused by con- 
 tinued upheaval, we find that since 1870 Germany has spent 
 on war and preparations for war a sum which, if capitalized, 
 would amount to-day to about two hundred thousand millions. 1 
 It is* quite obvious that such sums can never be recovered 
 either by war indemnities or by an annual tribute. In order 
 to collect an annual tribute, indeed, more millions would be 
 required for the armies whose duty it would be to wrest the 
 tribute from the population. 2 
 
 That there is no pecuniary advantage to be gained even from 
 the occupation of territory is also obvious so long as private 
 property is not interfered with, which probably no country 
 to-day would either wish to do or be strong enough to do. 
 As for stealing public property, commandeering the Bank of 
 England reserves, for instance, this would be a harmless pleas- 
 antry; for little would be found, since the basis of a country's 
 wealth is its credit. 
 
 It will perhaps be objected that it might be some advantage 
 to a poor nation to occupy a rich country, for the taxes in 
 its newly acquired territory would yield such large sums that 
 its own taxpayers would be relieved. Let us go to the utmost 
 possible length in our assumptions, and suppose, for instance, 
 that in the present war the 68,000,000 Germans, who on an 
 average pay forty marks per head in taxes, annexed 12,- 
 000,000 foreigners (which no one now believes possible), 
 
 i 200,000,000,000 marks, that is, taking the mark at its pre-war value, 
 or .$50,000,000,000.— Translator. 
 
 2 $50,000,000,000 is probably an underestimate, but my argument 
 would be unaffected were the amount only half or one quarter or even 
 only one tenth as large. It is a waste of time, therefore, to endeavor to 
 rectify these, or any other approximate estimates that may subse- 
 quently be cited, in order to make it appear that arguments baaed 
 on them can thereby be rectified. I believe I can confidently assert that 
 all figures quoted in this book are able to stand the test of close scrutiny, 
 in that they prove what they are meant to prove If this is not always 
 so, then it should be proved.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 145 
 
 and that these 12,000,000 foreigners, if similarly taxed, would 
 be able to pay sixty marks each. It is easy to calculate that 
 in this case we should actually save 2 marks 79 pfennige in 
 taxes; but as the war necessary to enable us to do so would 
 impose an additional burden of at least 100 marks on every 
 German, then 100 marks would have to be spent to earn less 
 than three marks. Consequently, on closer examination, even 
 this mode of saving turns out to be a great delusion. 
 
 War, in short, has ceased to be a paying concern. From 
 the point of view of natural science, however, this is a matter 
 of secondary importance. What Normal Angell has to say on 
 this subject is well worth reading. What is more important 
 is that war and militarism force a nation on to an absolutely 
 wrong tack. This cannot but do harm — harm which can, at 
 any rate, be partly expressed in terms of pounds, shillings, and 
 pence. 
 
 The construction of fortifications impedes the growth of 
 cities and causes land to be withdrawn from cultivation. The 
 fact that the state needs strategical railways, and plans its 
 railway system accordingly, means that not enough attention 
 can be paid to the convenience of railway time-tables. For 
 instance, it is military opposition which has hitherto pre- 
 vented the electrification of railways and the utilization of 
 the water-power of the Alps. Again, the fact that the state 
 supports only such industries as may be useful to it in time of 
 war causes the labor and abilities of millions of human beings 
 to be expended on things which are really superfluous. It 
 goes without saying that, owing to the possibility of war, all 
 kinds of property must be senselessly accumulated where it 
 ought not to be; that whole branches of industry are forced 
 into unproductive channels; and that, owing to continual un- 
 certainty, every one in general is hindered in the free and full 
 development of his capabilities. 
 
 But setting aside all this enormous loss and injury, let us 
 consider only the incontestable facts that about four per cent, 
 of the male working population of Germany are permanently
 
 146 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 withdrawn from their work owing to universal service, and 
 that about twelve per cent, of her total income is directly ex- 
 pended on military objects. This means that war directly ab- 
 sorbs, even in peace-time, about one sixth of man's entire ca- 
 pacity for work, and that war's demands are therefore higher 
 than those of the church, which, as we know, has been content 
 with one tenth. 
 
 Now, even this tenth was admitted to be ruinous, and one 
 day, when men look back on the past, what will be said of a 
 sixth, which, however, probably amounts to a third, owing 
 to the indirect losses entailed ? Were there no longer any risk 
 of war, all human beings would need to work from one and a 
 half to three hours less per day. That is, their daily leisure 
 would be increased by so much. We should then have, at any 
 rate, a seven-hours' day, probably even a five-hours' day, and 
 what this would mean for the progress of mankind is scarcely 
 conceivable. By working harder than formerly, which would 
 result in still further saving, these comparatively brief work- 
 ing hours could be confined to a single shift; and if a man 
 worked in the morning, then he would have the rest of his time 
 for physical and mental recreation and improvement. 
 
 These reflections are amply sufficient to show how diametri- 
 cally opposed to man's material and intellectual interests are 
 the consequences of a state of war prevailing in Europe. 
 War forces mankind to do what is unnatural, and fighting 
 like animals perpetuates the animal state in man, and makes 
 it impossible for him to develop along specifically human 
 lines. 
 
 This means that man's position in nature is not properly ap- 
 preciated. We know how much of the animal still lurks in us, 
 and for this very reason we ought daily and hourly to assert 
 our human qualities. The dying Pascal understood life when 
 he wrote, during the years of his long decline : "II est dan- 
 gereux de trop faire voir a l'homme combien il est egal aux 
 betes, sans lui montrer sa grandeur. II est encore dangereux 
 de lui faire trop voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. II est en-
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 147 
 
 core plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l'un et 1 'autre; mais 
 il est tres avantageux de lui representer l'un et l'autre. " 1 
 
 Any one who has understood this wonderfully profound 
 reflection will feel it only natural and logical that in another 
 passage (VI, 9) Pascal should describe war as a ridiculous out- 
 rage on the conception of humanity. 
 
 2. — NATIONAL EXPANSION OR COLONIZATION 2 
 
 $ 55. — Necessity for and Advantages of Colonies 
 
 When we speak of colonization we usually do not mean the 
 same thing as occupation. When it is desired to spare a peo- 
 ple, then, in accordance with present-day custom, their lands 
 are occupied. A colony, on the contrary, is at any rate so far 
 new territory that no one minds exterminating the inhabi- 
 tants, or else allowing them to live only in a state of inferior- 
 ity, such as slavery, for instance. This latter kind of coloniza- 
 tion was recently proposed by Herr Delbriick, in "Das afri- 
 kanische Indien." This he did because, owing to the heavy 
 drop in the German birth-rate, there seemed no prospect of 
 any territories outside Germany being settled by a popula- 
 tion of German race. We are here once more confronted with 
 the primeval law of growth. Everything tends to grow, even 
 every community, and if it can no longer do so by natural 
 means, it attempts to do so by unnatural means. 
 
 Formerly, when princes alone represented a state, lands 
 
 i Blaise Pascal, "Pensees," Part I, 7. 
 
 * In a courageous book on colonies and colonization ("Der englische 
 Gedanke in Deutschland. Zur Abwelir des Imperialismus," Reinhartlt : 
 Munich, 1015), the last publication of Ernst Muller-Holm, tbere are 
 many noteworthy and therefore "inopportune" sayings; but unfortu- 
 nately 1 was prevented from consulting it. 1 agree with everything 
 Miiller-Holm says about English and German colonizing imperialism, 
 old) it seems to me that the great change which has come about in the 
 last hundred years in the relations between England and her colonies 
 has not been sufficiently taken into account. They were once colonies 
 to be exploited for imperialistic purposes, but now they are colonies 
 aitaihed tu the mother country by bonds of sympathy. Later on 1 
 bhull refer to this at greater length
 
 148 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 were acquired by inheritance, purchase, or marriage, and oc- 
 casionally also by war, all which was consistent with the con- 
 ditions of law and order then prevailing. Nowadays a nation 
 as such is assumed to be entitled to an independent existence 
 and likewise to self -representation. Accordingly this tend- 
 ency to grow finds expression in an endeavor to make nations 
 grow. Strivings after national expansion, however, are quite 
 as indefinite as the conception of a nation. In the main a na- 
 tion is held together by community of frontiers, race, civiliza- 
 tion, and language, and because all its members recognize the 
 same frontiers. Now, every person's main desire will be either 
 for increased population, extension of the national language, 
 improved civilization, or enlarged frontiers, according to which 
 of these he considers most important. 
 
 It is now almost generally believed that all these require- 
 ments can be satisfied by the acquisition of colonies. They 
 would extend the country's frontiers, and afford room for 
 more population; and even if the latter were not there, it 
 would nevertheless be attracted eventually by the free space 
 afforded by colony. The national language would be spoken 
 over a wider extent of territory, and, as is proved by the ex- 
 ample of America, a nation cannot fail to profit by the wider 
 outlook which must result from its having colonial possessions. 
 
 Undoubtedly there is much truth in these views. 1 It is 
 easy to understand why every nation should wish to acquire 
 new lands for settlement, and it is well that this should be 
 so. After all, mankind can progress only by means of the 
 selfish, but justifiable, desire to be perhaps not sole victor in 
 the struggle for world-domination, but, at any rate, to take 
 part in this struggle with some prospect of success. Thus each 
 nation hopes that a good deal of its own national civilization 
 will be preserved, even if all nations should ultimately be 
 absorbed into one universal nation. 
 
 Since this struggle will be virtually confined to civilizations, 
 numbers will be of importance, as, for instance, in the strug- 
 
 iCf. Chapter VIII, 4 and X.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 149 
 
 gle for language-mastery. Whoever wishes to have any claim 
 even to enter the lists must be able to throw a large number 
 of fellow-countrymen into the balance. And as the Germans 
 are only one hundredth part of mankind and can claim only 
 three thousandths of the earth as their own, they must clearly 
 try to expand. 
 
 Now, even those who are fully aware that territorial an- 
 nexation is injurious to their own nationality because of the 
 admixture of foreign elements still believe that that national- 
 ity would be extended by colonization. Most colonies, it is 
 true, were acquired for other reasons; and Roscher, 1 in his 
 famous division of colonies into " Conquistador, mercantile, 
 agrarian, and plantation colonies," never once mentions this 
 reason for colonization. But it is no less true that certain 
 colonies, particularly in America, Australia, and South Africa, 
 have conduced to the spread of European races, even if they 
 may not have been originally founded for this purpose. On 
 the other hand, other European colonies, of which I inten- 
 tionally refrain from citing any instances, have conduced to 
 the spread of Mongol races. 
 
 Despite all these events of the past, however, every nation 
 can and ought to colonize for the sake of its own expansion ; 
 and all the territory in Europe being occupied, we must at- 
 tempt to get possession of colonies in foreign countries. All 
 this is so obvious as to need no insisting upon. 
 
 § 56. — Colonial Possessions and Colonial Domination 
 
 The only question is whether conqu-eri-ng a colony is the best 
 way to get possession of it. As Jaures once pointed out, co- 
 lonial possessions and colonial rule must not be identified, 
 "since it is quite possible to possess a cc'ony in which we do 
 not rule, and vice versa." 2 
 
 i Roscher und Janasch, "Kolonialpolitik und Augwanderung" 
 ("Emigration and Colonial Policy") : Leipsic, 1895. 
 
 s.laures, in reporting on the French colonial estimates in 1911. 
 "Journal ofhciel" of July 2, 1911.
 
 150 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 This distinction between possession and governance is self- 
 evident to any one personally acquainted with colonies. It is 
 most apparent in farther India, in that border territory for 
 which the white and Mongol races are always contending. The 
 Malayans were once owners and rulers here ; then came the 
 white man, anxious to turn the country to good account. But 
 as neither he nor the idle Malayans would work, they were 
 forced to introduce Chinese coolies. Since then there has been 
 a struggle in which Europeans, in their love of easily earned 
 profits, let loose Chinese expansion, and thus raised up a 
 mighty enemy unto themselves. 
 
 Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Dutchmen strive for the mas- 
 tery, and meantime the Chinaman is working his way grad- 
 ually up from coolie into proprietor. Indo-China still belongs 
 to the French, but the rice-mills, which are the wealth of the 
 country, belong to the Chinese. The Straits Settlements are 
 British colonies, but in Singapore the Chinaman is even now 
 all-powerful; and whenever it is desired to build English 
 schools there, it is the Chinese who have to give the money 
 needed, and consequently it is they who really decide matters. 
 Over the East Indian archipelago the Dutch flag flies, and 
 the Chinaman is sometimes even now cruelly and inhumanly 
 treated, but his influence is growing. 
 
 I myself witnessed an incident there which is characteristic. 
 A Chinaman and a Dutchman wanted to found a company. 
 To the haughty Dutchman the Chinaman appeared a negligi- 
 ble quantity, owing to the humble position conferred on him by 
 the local legislation. The Chinaman likewise humbly opined 
 that he would never venture to differ from his lofty partner; 
 but he submitted, as even he must keep control of his own 
 money, he would beg that a clause might be inserted in the 
 agreement to the effect that "your worship shall have no say 
 whatever in the company's affairs." The Dutch judge as- 
 suredly had not a light heart when presiding over the con- 
 clusion of the agreement, for in Holland the Chinese are 
 hated ; but there was probably no choice, for his fellow-coun-
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 151 
 
 tryman was merely a "his worship" and the Chinaman the 
 "humble proprietor." In the East Indian archipelago the 
 Chinese are beginning to be a nation, and the Europeans are 
 now merely the "ruling caste." 
 
 Not even England owns any colony because she one day 
 hoisted the Union Jack over it, but merely because people 
 live there whose feelings and language are English. The 
 British crown can scarcely be said now to own the British 
 colonies, but at most nominally to rule them. In the hearts 
 of her colonists, however, England lives, and likewise the 
 British conception of a world-wide empire. 
 
 Only those capable of tenaciously asserting their national 
 characteristics acquire colonies, and only those who know how 
 to win friends by just dealings can keep colonies. England 
 once made a mistake in this respect, and by her unjust treat- 
 ment of New York and Boston she lost the United States. She 
 has now learned better, and the very great majority of the 
 Boers who, hardly ten j r ears ago, were conquered by ex- 
 tremely brutal methods now believe in the justice of England. 
 For this reason and not because of any sort of compulsion, 
 which in any case England could not exercise, are these colon- 
 ies now helping the mother-country ; and America, who showed 
 her fist to the Englishman as a ruler, now that her brother is 
 in distress, is helping him more and perhaps better than if 
 England were governing the United States. 1 
 
 Despite the Star-Spangled Banner flying over Washington, 
 America is a British colony in the true sense of the word. 
 America is a British possession because in America also the 
 Anglo-Saxon idea lives. It is not fair to say that it is all due 
 to Yankee love of money-making, although this may have 
 something to do with it. But love of money-making is every- 
 where. The main point is whether the Americans wish to 
 speculate in German or in English stocks; and here unques- 
 tionably sentimental and ideal considerations come into play. 
 
 ' It must be remembered that tlipsp words were written before 
 America declared war on Germany. — Translator.
 
 152 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 "Whoever possesses the art of colonizing, whoever tenaciously 
 clings to the habits and customs of the homeland, has colonies, 
 whether he incidentally acquires them, as England has done, 
 or whether, like China, he merely conquers them by his labor. 
 These two instances afford admirable proof that colonies de- 
 pend only upon national character, and not on outward circum- 
 stances. 
 
 If colonies need not necessarily be acquired by force, what is 
 necessary is to have immigrants who do not go under in a 
 foreign nation, and a form of civilization to which a foreign 
 nation becomes attached. If, however, a people does not pos- 
 sess this national tenacity, it is useless for it to rule over a 
 foreign people or foreign colonies. Despite everything, they 
 would still remain foreign possessions. If, for example, the 
 Germans could colonize better than the British, they would not 
 first need to deprive England of her colonies ; they would be- 
 come German without that, even under the Union Jack. 
 
 It is therefore absolutely useless conquering a colony by war. 
 If the army of a European military state succeeded in occu- 
 pying the United States of America, this would not produce 
 much effect unless the entire mode of life and work and the 
 laws and rights there were altered. But if all these were 
 remodeled in accordance with the principles of a military state, 
 then the inhabitants of this state would quite naturally cease 
 emigrating thither, since the reason why they emigrated was 
 just so as to be able to enjoy American liberty. Thus it might 
 well happen that the only result of the military occupation of 
 America by a European military power would be that this 
 country's influence in America decreased. 
 
 It is not surprising that the colonies should afford the clear- 
 est proof of how little can be decided by force of arms. The 
 competition of the different countries anxious to settle on land 
 is necessarily freer in colonies than in old countries ; and, more- 
 over, the victory is to the people which proves the fittest, quick- 
 est, and most adaptable in the struggle for existence. In 
 short, whoever wants to know how genuine victories are won,
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 153 
 
 should go and visit colonies, where he may learn something 
 which will be useful to him even in the mother-country. 
 
 Let every German who earnestly desires the expansion of 
 his own nationality ask himself and answer the following ques- 
 tions: 
 
 1. Why did not the Boers help Germany? 
 
 2. Why do the majority of German emigrants go to America 
 and to British colonies and not to German colonies? 
 
 3. Why has German trade become so large in all British 
 colonies and not in a single German colony? And why has 
 it even become large in American colonies, despite the fact 
 that some of the latter are younger than German colonies? 
 
 4. Why have the people of Lorraine proved more lo3 r al to 
 Germany in this war than the Alsatians, despite the fact that 
 Lorraine contains a greater admixture of French elements, 
 and despite their having been far more systematically "Ger- 
 manized" than the people of Lorraine? 
 
 5. Why are the Austrian Poles more loyal than those of 
 Prussia ? And why did so many Austrian Czechs fail us ? 
 
 Any one once grasping the reasons for these facts will realize 
 that national ideas are most deeply ingrained where they are 
 most free from any idea of force, and have no connection with 
 anything but civilization; that is to say, where the fight is 
 carried on with weapons of life and not of death. 
 
 3. — WEAPONS OF LIFE AND WEAPONS OF DEATH 
 
 § 57. — The Victor's Empty Laurels 
 
 Deep down in the human mind a notion seems always to 
 have lurked that not only is right often on the side of the 
 vanquished, but also that it is they who mostly benefit from 
 the fight. It is, to say the least, astonishing that the legend of 
 Rome as ruler of the world did not father itself upon a victori- 
 ous people, but upon the Trojans, the most famous of all van- 
 quished peoples. The only inhabitant of the populous city of 
 I lion to escape the murderous sword of the Greeks was yEneas
 
 154 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 (according to others, Antenor as well), but the father avenged 
 this one and only descendant, and victorious Greece became 
 a province of the sons of the conquered sons of Troy. 
 
 Not many such legends, of which the moral is generally 
 that an unjust conqueror never enjoys the fruits of his vio- 
 lence, can be cited. Even the sober Montesquieu, however, 
 wrote only one chapter concerning the "Advantages Accruing 
 to the Vanquished" (Quelques avantages du peuple conquis) 1 
 and none about the advantages accruing to the victor, which 
 even modern war lovers seem to think right, at any rate, 
 as far as the past is concerned. Thus Steinmetz 2 calls at- 
 tention to the fact that Alexander's empire conferred the 
 benefits of Greek civilization on the races which it subjugated, 
 and that in the long run all that the victorious Roman Empire 
 did was to enable the conquered Jews to spread their religion. 
 Karl von Stengel 3 likewise refers to the benefits accruing to 
 Prussia from her defeats in 1806 and to France from her de- 
 feat in 1870. 
 
 As a matter of fact, if any one derives far-reaching benefits 
 from war, then it is the vanquished. True, there is a prevail- 
 ing notion that war is only a bad business for the loser. But 
 this is, at any rate, accounted for in part by the different 
 way in which war affects victor and vanquished. Every na- 
 tion worth anything at all, after losing a war has always re- 
 stricted its consumption of luxuries, whereas the victorious 
 nation, thinking how much it has gained by the war, has con- 
 sidered no such restraint necessary, and consequently become 
 overbearing and extravagant. 
 
 "War brings in its train a certain "superb disdain of life." 
 Whoever must daily risk his life must not take things too 
 seriously. Now, if the campaign ends gloriously, there is not 
 that moral shock which speedily forces a conquered people 
 
 i Montesquieu : "De l'esprit des lois," 1748. Livre X, Chapitre TV. 
 
 2 Dr. S. Rudolf Steinmetz, "Die Philosophic des Krieges" ("The 
 Philosophy of War"), 1907. Page 40. Barth, Leipsie. 
 
 s Stengel, "Weltstaat und Friedensproblem" ("World-Wide Empires 
 and the Problem of Peace") 1909. Pp. 108 and 112.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 155 
 
 to abandon the martial habits it has acquired in war. Thus 
 the victor, with his feeling of superiority, imagines that he can 
 go on not taking matters too seriously even under the altered 
 conditions of peace. 
 
 After all, war is a business like any other, and it is com- 
 paratively immaterial that it should be " cruel and violent." 
 Now, whoever learns one business forgets the others. A white 
 man who has been accustomed to be treated somewhat as a 
 superior being for a time in the tropics is often years before 
 being able to feel at ease again in his native land. Any one 
 who has played at being master, even for only a few days, 
 fights shy of being a servant again; and any one who has 
 played at soldiers for a time becomes a soldier. 
 
 If a nation is often at war, it becomes warlike, and unlearns 
 its peaceful occupations. "War, however, cannot do more than 
 protect civilization, which must be built up on peace; and 
 hence a time comes sooner or later to all martial peoples when 
 they have nothing left to protect. All they can then do is to 
 collapse. Usually a stronger nation has meantime appeared to 
 rob them of everything which they once stole from others; 
 but this need not happen, for a victorious nation perishes of 
 internal decay bred of trust in its own victorious armies. 
 Even the Psalmist realized this, and at a time when his sacred 
 books were still full of war and rumors of war. In the sixty- 
 eighth Psalm he rejoices that "dissipatae gentes, quae 
 bella volunt" — "he hath scattered the people that delight in 
 war." 
 
 Therefore the following sentence. Even more striking are 
 the words written by the Chinese philosopher Lao-tsze two 
 thousand five hundred years ago. This atheistical founder of 
 a religion says, "Is a man strongly armed; then shall he not 
 win." By this he means what he elsewhere explicitly states, 
 that as with plants, so it is with human weapons. Hard wood 
 is dead, but the young soft shoots at the top of the tree and at 
 its roots are alive. Now, it is by means of these living growths 
 that the plant makes headway ; by their means it spreads, pro-
 
 156 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 cures sustenance; grows, and perfects itself. Here already 
 we have the natural scientist's point of view about war. 
 
 So it is with man. What this virtually means was once ex- 
 plained with startling plainness by the shrewd Li Hung 
 Chang to General Waldersee, who wondered how the Chinese 
 could look on so calmly while European troops were killing 
 thousands, perhaps millions, of their compatriots. But Li 
 opined that this mattered comparatively little. Once upon a 
 time, he said, the Tatars (Mongols) came, not with cannon 
 and bayonet, but with what were then modern weapons, "bows 
 and arrows." The Tatars always won, and they, too, slew 
 millions of Chinese; indeed, the Chinese had never won a sin- 
 gle battle. "But," continued the disciple of Lao-tsze, smiling, 
 "where are the Tatars now?" 
 
 Yes, where are they ? China had no powerful weapons capa- 
 ble of deciding a single battle on the battle-tield, but she did 
 have those "living weapons" wherewith far more terrible and 
 cruel fights are won, wherewith the fate of nations is sealed, 
 and whereof we shall have more to say anon. 
 
 § 58. — The Decay of World-Wide Empires 
 
 The slightest consideration of history, however superficial, 
 confirms the fact that never has a nation reaped any fruits 
 from its victories. Luther clothed the same thought in the 
 fine line: 
 
 "Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts getan" ("Our power avail- 
 eth naught"), and elsewhere he quotes Hannibal as an instance 
 of this ; for despite the Battle of Canna?, perhaps the most glo- 
 rious in the history of the whole world, he afterward came to 
 a shameful end. Where are the empires of the unconquered 
 Alexander and the unconquered Tamerlane? Attila, the 
 scourge of God, was merely an episode, like Pugatschew, who 
 is already half forgotten, and who had no influence whatever 
 on the history of the world. What did it avail Charles XII 
 to have conquered Russia, Denmark, and Poland? Or Na- 
 poleon to have conquered Europe? Of what use were the
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 157 
 
 hecatombs of dead slain by order of Dschingkiskahn, and the 
 countless victims of the crusades? Or what was the result of 
 the irresistible onrush of the victorious Arab hordes who once 
 overflowed all the Mediterranean couutries? Even fairly 
 lasting conquests were in the end always in vain. The vast em- 
 pires of the East, built up on war and oppression, endured 
 but for a day and then crumbled to pieces, and those of the 
 West likewise perished. 
 
 The huge Spanish Empire, on which, in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the sun never set, has degenerated into a second-rate 
 power. At the beginning of the succeeding century the Dutch 
 States-General were the first sea-power in the world; but only 
 a few years after Admiral de Ruyter had again sailed vic- 
 toriously up the Thames with his fleet, Holland was obliged 
 to secede. Without force of arms, England won, owing to her 
 geographical position, her commercial system, and her ca- 
 pacity for adapting herself to modern conditions; and al- 
 though she was Holland's ally and close personal ties subsisted 
 between the two countries, for William of Orange, King of 
 England, was Statthalter of the Netherlands, nevertheless she 
 forced Holland out of her position as mistress of the seas. 
 At the end of the seventeenth century Sweden, after the vic- 
 tories of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, was admittedly 
 one of the foremost great powers; but by the time of the Revo- 
 lution she had already sunk to the level of a small, insignifi- 
 cant country. After all, Holland's naval and Sweden's ter- 
 ritorial ascendency were merely artificial constructions, which 
 did not owe their existence to any of the true elements of 
 power. They must have, and perhaps it should be said that 
 they ought to have, collapsed, which shows the folly of a na- 
 tion's straining itself to the utmost in war and thus wasting 
 its strength. 
 
 Further analogies might be drawn from Spain, Portugal 
 and Venice, whose colonial empires or, rather, empires made 
 up of their customers, increased out of all proportion to the 
 strength necessary to hold them together. Hence Machiavelli's
 
 158 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 apparently paradoxical saying that Venice had never been 
 more powerful than when she did not possess an inch of land 
 on the Italian peninsula. And what has it profited France 
 or Sweden to have been in occupation of German territory? 
 Or what has it profited Germany to have occupied Italian or 
 Polish territory? 
 
 Shakspere's historical plays and particularly a national 
 epic such as "Henry V" cannot be read now without a certain 
 feeling of pensive melancholy. In Shakspere's time Henry 
 V was "the mirror of all Christian kings," and Agincourt 
 "the greatest day in English history." It was symptomatic 
 for the history of the world that ten thousand citizen archers 
 should have shot to pieces the almost five times greater 
 knightly army of the Constable of France. But what were the 
 practical results of France's brown earth having drunk the 
 red blood of eighteen thousand of her best sons? For two 
 years England ruled over France, and it was just at this time 
 that the House of Burgundy, under John sans peur and 
 Philip the Good, attained the zenith of its power. Fourteen 
 years after Agincourt the Maid of Orleans freed and crowned 
 her king, and everything was once more as of old, save that 
 oceans of blood had been senselessly shed — senselessly and, 
 after all, ingloriously, too, for who now ever thinks of Agin- 
 court and the king who once won a battle there? 
 
 § 59. — The Economic Effects of War 
 
 But even leaving out of count a country's power and in- 
 fluence abroad, and considering only its internal conditions, 
 we nevertheless find that it is the vanquished rather than the 
 victor who comes off best. War has no beneficial effects on 
 national well-being. It neither raises a nation's standard of 
 civilization nor uplifts national sentiment. This of course 
 can be better observed in modern wars, because the direct 
 effects of war are here easier to survey. 
 
 As I have already hinted, the tendency of trade after a war 
 is so to develop that, although conditions may be almost equally
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 159 
 
 unfavorable for both combatants, yet it is almost always the 
 victor alone who has to endure economic depression, whereas 
 in the country of the vanquished a period of commercial pros- 
 perity usually sets in. Most instructive for Germany in this 
 respect are probably the results of the Franco-Prussian War, 
 since which time economic conditions generally in France, 
 now freed from the demoralizing rule of the empire, have 
 been noticeably prospering. All who know France have at- 
 tributed this to the fact that, after being invaded, she. who 
 before 1870 thought she, too, might attempt to domineer over 
 the whole world, learned to work again. 
 
 In Germany, on the other hand, the huge war indemnity 
 made every one imagine that all was going on very prosper- 
 ously, until the so-called "boom" came about in 1872. l A 
 great deal more champagne was drunk, and traces of this 
 period are even now observable in the showy and tasteless deco- 
 ration of the houses, furniture, etc., of the period. 
 
 All this extravagance, which had nothing substantial be- 
 hind it, led to an excessive desire for commercial expansion. 
 Hence the great "smash" and the ruin of thousands of peo- 
 ple. Even Bismarck said in the Reichstag, on May 9, 1872. 
 "We know that France is bearing the difficult commercial 
 conditions at present prevailing in the civilized world better 
 than we are; and that her budget has increased by a million 
 and a half, a sum not raised by a loan ; and we see that her 
 resources are better than ours, and that, in short, in France 
 there is less complaining about hard times." 
 
 As a result of the commercial depression, there was an enor- 
 mous increase in emigration from Prussia. Before 1866 this 
 amounted on an average to about 40,000 annually, but in 
 1873 it had reached about 150.000. This immense waste of 
 human material of course alone represents a capital very, 
 very much larger than all the thousands of millions received 
 from France. 
 
 What, therefore, did Prussia gain by her victory or from 
 
 i "'Die Griinderzeit" it is called ; the "business founding time."
 
 160 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 her war indemnities or from the commercial treaty in her 
 favor? .Merely to show what I mean and without laying any 
 undue stress upon this single instance, I give here the 
 following diagram, the curved line in which indicates the 
 number of vessels belonging to the Saxon-Bohemian Steamship 
 Company. The influence, small though it be, of the disturb- 
 ances which led to the war of 1859 is clearly traceable, as also 
 are the after effects of 1866 and 1870-71. The after effects 
 af 1866 were of course considerably felt by such' a company 
 as this. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 20 
 
 I Ships, 
 
 10 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 / fifi 
 
 -P" 
 
 • h # i rf ni l.r itit f ' i l I ' I l 
 
 1850 60 
 
 ' i i i I t i i i 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 Number of vessels owned by the Saxon-Bohemian Steamship Company 
 
 between 1850 and 1SS0 
 
 I should like to add that the number of steamers rose from 
 three to seventeen — that is, by fourteen — in the lifteen years 
 between 1850 to 1865; while in the next fifteen years (1865- 
 80) their number rose only to twenty, — that is, by three, — 
 which in absolute numbers is a nearly nve-tini£S-smaller in- 
 crease. In the years of peace, therefore, the increase was 
 almost five hundred per cent., while in the ensuing period, of 
 equal length, but broken by wars, it was only eighteen per 
 cent. 
 
 The following diagram, the curved line in whijcll indicates
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 
 
 161 
 
 the increase in the population of Berlin, should likewise prove 
 interesting. 1 
 
 1800 1850 1900 
 
 Increase in the population of Berlin in the nineteentli century. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate all the economic advantages 
 and disadvantages of a war, but there is one point to which I 
 wish to draw attention. The surest indication of a country's 
 industrial development is probably the increase in the number 
 of its steam-engines. Now, if we consider the multiplication 
 of steam engines in the period 1860-70 as compared with the 
 decade 1870-80, we shall arrive at the following diagram, 
 which throws the effects of war into strong relief: 2 
 
 Name of Country. 
 
 Increase or Decrease in num- 
 ber of Steam-engines used 
 
 Austria and Belgium 
 
 England 
 
 — 30 per cent. 
 
 — 20 per cent. 
 
 per cent. 
 
 15 per cent. 
 
 It is obvious that the heaviest decrease occurred in the 
 victorious Germany, whereas vanquished France at all events 
 maintained her former standard. The country which comes 
 out best, however, is England, the smiling onlooker who took 
 no part in the game. 
 
 i The figures are based on the Festival Publication of the Royal 
 Statistical Office of Prussia for 1905. 
 
 2 The figures are taken from an article by K. Th. von Heigel and 
 W. Hausenstein on "Das Zeitalter der nationalen Einigung" ("The 
 Period of National Unity"), to be found in J. von Pflugk-Hartung's 
 "Weltgeechichte" ("History of the World"), Vol. VI, p. 353.
 
 162 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 We are altogether far too often deceived by the fact that 
 diagrams frequently show how this, that, or the other national 
 source of wealth has increased in Germany since 1870; and 
 we forget that it generally increased still more before 1870. 
 What makes such comparisons more difficult is that before 
 this year the statistics of all the different component states 
 in Germany were issued separately, whereas after 1870 we 
 have generally only the statistics for the whole German 
 Empire. I have gone through numbers of reports from 
 chambers of commerce and commercial undertakings, and vir- 
 tually always found that the increase in their prosperity re- 
 corded before 1870 was greater than that recorded after this 
 year. To go all through this material, however, would greatly 
 exceed the limits of this volume, and indeed it would require 
 to be dealt with separately. 
 
 Even if we review the whole export and import trade of 
 the world, we arrive at the same result. In the thirty years 
 between 1870 and 1902, the world's total trade increased from 
 about £2,470,000,000 to about £4,710,000,000; that is, by 
 eighty-seven per cent. Mainly owing to the growth of 
 American, Japanese, and Canadian trade, the percentage of 
 trade in almost all European countries decreased ; but whereas 
 in France trade fell off only 3.7 per cent., in Germany it 
 decreased by 9.8 per cent., or nearly thrice as much. The 
 more exact figures for Germany, France, and England, and 
 also for the world as a whole, are shown in the following table. 
 Exclusive of the precious metals, the value of exports and 
 imports was as follows: 
 
 1872 
 1902 
 
 In thousands of millions of marks 
 
 (One thousand million marks = 
 
 £50,000,000 ) 
 
 In percentages of the world's 
 total trade 
 
 The 
 world 
 
 England 
 
 Germany | France 
 
 49.4 
 94.2 
 
 12.2 
 16.7 
 
 6.0 
 10.3 
 
 5.3 
 9.7 
 
 Decrease of the world's total trade by 
 
 England 
 
 24.7 
 17.7 
 
 28.3 
 
 Germany France 
 
 12.2 
 
 10.9 
 9.9 
 
 10.7 
 
 103 
 
 3.7
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 163 
 
 Here, again, therefore, the effect on the conquered nation 
 has been good. 1 
 
 Similarly with regard to agriculture. If we examine the 
 interesting curved lines showing the increase of domestic 
 animals in Prussia 2 we shall find that horses, pigs, goats, and 
 horned cattle begin to increase in or about 1855, and sheep in 
 or about 1864, and that thenceforth they continued steadily 
 increasing. After the Franco-Prussian War, no trace of any 
 considerable increase is to be found. When we keep to condi- 
 tions more or less reflected in all branches of trade and indus- 
 try, and avoid singling out special instances, we shall arrive at 
 similar statistical results. 
 
 The conditions after 1870 were not in any way due to mere 
 chance. After the Kusso- Japanese War the finances of vic- 
 torious Japan were completely shattered, while for the first 
 time in twenty years the budget of vanquished Kussia 
 showed a surplus. After the Boer War British consols fell 
 twenty per cent., while the conquered Boers, since losing the 
 war, have become a great power, whose wealth has increased to 
 an enormous extent. Even Spain's regeneration dates from 
 the time when' she was conquered and all her colonies taken 
 from her, among them the "Cuban Pearl." Spanish Govern- 
 ment stock speedily doubled in value. For further instances 
 Norman Angell should be consulted. 
 
 How, indeed, could this be otherwise, since as a rule victory 
 belongs to whosoever is best and most strongly equipped 
 for war? These military institutions are almost automatically 
 extended to the subject nation, and first of all, of course, to the 
 
 i Those figures afford all the more conclusive proof of the truth 
 of my contention because even in 1870 the value of Germany's total trade 
 exceeded the value of France's by 700 millions. Despite the very mu?h 
 greater increase of population in Germany, this difference has become 
 less in t he last thirty years 
 
 If British trade shows an even greater relative decrease per cent. 
 than that of Germany, this is because in 1870 England enormously 
 outdistanced the latter. In the intervening years Germany to some ex- 
 tent caught up. 
 
 'Jubilee Atlas of the German Royal Statistical Office, Xo. 58, p. 71.
 
 164 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 provinces taken from the enemy. The vanquished, in short, 
 think that in the next war they must have their revenge, and 
 therefore they endeavor to imitate their enemy's institutions, 
 seeing that these seem to answer well in war. 
 
 § 60. — National Influence 
 
 Thus in the case of every subjugated nation there is an 
 increase of the outward signs of civilization, such as wealth, 
 order, and health. If, therefore, such a nation has only a 
 latent tendency to increase, then it is likely to do so faster 
 than before. It has always been thus. In the Second Book of 
 Moses (Chapter I, v. 12) we find: "But the more they [the 
 Egyptians] afflicted them [the Jews], the more they multi- 
 plied and grew." Every one must know that this is also the 
 case with the Poles to-day, as can easily be proved by statis- 
 tics, although our official statistics unfortunately do not take 
 this important fact directly into account. In the eleven ad- 
 ministrative districts of Bromberg, Marienwerder, Oppeln, 
 Arnsberg, Dansic, Posen, Gumbinnen, Konigsberg, Breslau, 
 Koslin, and Miinster, in which more than ten per cent, of the 
 population is Polish, the average birth-rate is forty-two per 
 1000: but in the remaining administrative districts, where 
 there are only a few Poles, it is only thirty-six per 1000. 1 
 
 In the Polish provinces, therefore, 16^ per cent, more chil- 
 dren are born than in the German ones. Now, these so-called 
 Polish provinces are by no means purely Polish, the propor- 
 tion of Poles being only one third. But if this Polish third 
 causes a 16i/> per cent, increase in the birth-rate, then the Poles 
 themselves must have about fifty per cent, more children than 
 the Germans. That is, to a thousand Germans thirty-six 
 German children 2 are born. To a thousand Poles fifty-four 
 Polish children are born. Basing our calculations on the pro- 
 
 i Statistics (Jubilee publication) of the Royal Prussian Statistical 
 Office, 1905. II, p. 24. 
 
 2 This figure is taken as representing the average birth-rate in the 
 comparatively pure German administrative districts.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 165 
 
 portions of the Poles as proved by German statistics for Prus- 
 sia in the year 1910—357 Germans to 35 Poles, 1 — we get the 
 following algebraical equation: 
 
 Ig 357 plus n. Ig 1036 = lg 35 plus n. Ig 1054. 
 
 Here n equals the number of years, which is easily calculated ; 
 and the equation proves that in the year 2045 there will be as 
 many Poles in Prussia as Germans. 
 
 Besides these purely biological considerations, psychology 
 also intervenes, for in every oppressed people the national 
 sense becomes very much stronger. In general this, of course, 
 applies only to modern times, for except the Jews no ancient 
 nation had any genuine racial national sentiment; it merely 
 felt that it adhered to a particular form of civilization. (Cf. 
 Chap. VII.) This is quite understandable, since a people can- 
 not fail to think it would be better for it to become strong if 
 it has just had a practical demonstration of its being allow- 
 able for the strong to subdue the weak, and if the unpleasant- 
 ness of such subjection is daily impressed upon it by number- 
 less petty subterfuges. Moreover, it will naturally assume 
 that there must be many advantages in subjugating another 
 nation, and it will consequently strain every nerve to attain a 
 national prestige equal to that of the nation by which it has 
 been conquered. 
 
 We have seen this in the case of every oppressed nation of 
 modern times. Not till Poland was partitioned did the Poles 
 awake to national consciousness; at any rate their national 
 consciousness was incalculably increased thereby; while that 
 of the Italians can be proved to have been awakened by the 
 Irredentist movement, and France's national feeling now 
 mainly subsists by thinking of her "lost provinces." Even 
 Germany is no exception to the rule, and German national feel- 
 ing awakened under the oppression of Napoleon's foreign dom- 
 
 i Hulxr: "Geoprraphisch statistisolie Tabellen" ("Statistical Geo- 
 graphical Tables"), 1914. 63rd ed , p. 11.
 
 166 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ination. As Bismarck said to the Jena students: 1 "With- 
 out the oppression of foreign rule the awakening of German na- 
 tional feeling in Prussia would scarcely have been possible. 
 Even now, in Austria, German patriotism is the strongest, at 
 any rate the noisiest, where the German, although ruler in 
 name, must nevertheless fight for its existence against a for- 
 eign people. German patriotism is most noticeable in Prus- 
 sian Germany, where the German has to contend against 
 French and Frenchlings, Danes and Poles." 
 
 The practical lesson from all this, a lesson which might 
 assuredly have been arrived at more easily, is to annoy for- 
 eign peoples as little as possible. Any one not observing this 
 obviously common sense precept injures himself alone. 
 
 To cite one instance profoundly affecting every German, 
 how is Germany the better for the Poles being oppressed? 
 For Prussians and German-speaking Austrians, 2 Polish op- 
 pression simply means a thorn in their flesh. In Austria the 
 Poles have already to a certain extent the upper hand, while 
 in Germany their power is daily increasing. Even West- 
 phalian soil, where perhaps the most pure-blooded Teutons 
 live, is in danger of becoming a Polish wedge, and a West- 
 phalian Pole has already only very narrowly missed being 
 elected to the Reichstag. It is just those who believe in 
 the future of Germany and the "German idea" who ought 
 sorrowfully to contemplate Austria. In this land, which has 
 been built up only on dynastic principles and on contingencies 
 such as the celebrated Hapsburg marriages, millions of Ger- 
 mans are slowly going under simply because the conquerors 
 conquer too much and are now a minority as compared with 
 the mass of the people, who are of foreign origin. 
 
 Even Grillparzer, 3 Austria's greatest poet, who all his life 
 long believed in the significance and power of the sword, 
 
 i Kommers is the word used. Bismarck spoke at a students' con- 
 vivial evening or drinking bout. — Translator. 
 
 2 "Austrian Germany" is tlie peculiar phrase actually used. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 3 Grillparzer's "Samtlicke Werke," 1870. Vol. Ill, p. 23S, Cotta.
 
 THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 167 
 
 resigned himself at last to the melancholy conclusion that vic- 
 tory on the battle-field means nothing ; and his last poem, writ- 
 ten shortly before his death, and in celebration of Austria's 
 most famous victory, contains four lines testifying to this 
 conviction : 
 
 "Marehfeld ! So ist dein Sieg niebt wabr 
 
 Aus unseres Herrscherhauses friihesten Tagen! — 
 
 Kcinig Przemysl Ottokar 
 
 Hat den Rudolf von Habsburg gesehlagen. 
 
 Despite all the successes on the battle-field, two identical 
 conceptions — those of the internal strength of a nation and of 
 inalienable right — have carried the day. In vain were the 
 triumphs of cannon and battle-ship ; in the last resort it was 
 still living weapons which decided the issue. 
 
 § 61. — The Sword for the Weak 
 
 The fact that defeat has "tonic effects" and victory en- 
 ervating effects means that the scales of Justice, wherewith 
 war must weigh the nations, can never rest. The oppressed 
 are forever gathering together to avenge themselves in war 
 on their enemies; and again and again they will succeed. 
 Hence the wearisomeness and sameness of history, which is 
 merely a ceaseless ebb and flow of ever-ending wars. Over 
 and over again has it appeared, and it will appear again in 
 the future, that no country can in the long run be greater 
 than its people; and no changes can come about unless man, 
 perceiving that things cannot continue thus, makes a change 
 of his own free will. 
 
 It almost seems, however, as if no one would ever profit by 
 all these lessons, and Hegel rightly maintains that "the only 
 thing history teaches is that it has never taught any one any- 
 thing." In the case of the present war every nation is clearly 
 anxious to prove that it is still youthful and vigorous, and 
 therefore it behaves just like a child, scattering the teachings 
 of its elders to the winds and making experiments on its own
 
 168 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 account. And the experiments will be made, but it will be 
 too late ! 
 
 Empires have endured only when, as in Rome, the spade fol- 
 lowed the sword, or when, as in England's case, a colonizing 
 civilization has followed the cannon. Yet this does not go 
 to the root of the matter; for the most deep-seated cause for 
 the success of these two empire-building countries lies in the 
 fact, by no means fortuitous, that both Romans and Britons 
 called and still do call their conquered people not "subject 
 nations," but "confederates." A world-wide empire cannot 
 be welded together and govern itself except freely ; and wher- 
 ever this principle of liberty has not been respected, conquest 
 with the sword, no matter how thorough it may have appeared, 
 has never availed aught. Anything may be done with bay- 
 onets, only, as Lassalle once said, we must not sit down upon 
 them, and must not use them for trying to conquer countries. 
 Every people ought to try its best to colonize and to spread ; 
 but for this purpose it must endeavor to increase its vital 
 forces, its living weapons, to the utmost possible extent. Any 
 one imagining he can colonize with the point of the sword is 
 a fool and a weakling. None save the weak and foolish need 
 a sword; the wise and strong need none.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 How War Is Being Metamorphosed 
 
 1. — THE DUSK OF THE WAR GODS 
 
 § 62. — The Growth of Armies 
 
 The purport of this chapter is to show that, as time has 
 gone on, wars and war losses have become greater. Not much 
 can be claimed to have resulted from any attempts made to 
 "humanize" warfare, and that valuable sense of solidarity 
 that, used to prevail in armies is tending completely to dis- 
 appear. 
 
 These historical facts might at first seem to destroy all hope 
 of perpetual peace ever prevailing. On reflection, however, 
 it will be seen that in the complete change which is coming 
 over war there are so many obvious symptoms of decline that 
 a rapidly nearing end may be prophesied not only for the 
 present war, but for war in general. 
 
 That war once consisted of duels we are even now strongly 
 reminded by the name helium, which is derived from duelluin. 
 Then "friends" used to lend a hand, and even in Homer's 
 time it was an event of historical importance when a few dozen 
 Grecian princes with their servants besieged a medium-sized 
 provincial city such as Troy, round whose walls a good runner 
 (Hector) could run twice without being incapacitated, and 
 which, therefore, cannot have been very large. Originally, in- 
 deed, wars meant the administration of comparatively mild 
 thrashings, such as are unavoidable among peoples wandering 
 about in small gangs or living in remote villages. 1 In those 
 
 i Cf. the description of Ithaca. 
 
 169
 
 170 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 times it was already an event for a hundred men to be eon- 
 fronting one another. 
 
 Even when we come to ancient history we must not form 
 exaggerated conceptions of the size of the armies. 1 The ac- 
 counts of the vast armies of Darius and Xerxes are mythical. 
 At all events, they were beaten at Marathon by fifteen thou- 
 sand Greeks, all told, and the ten thousand Greeks who fought 
 at Cunaxa 2 were a mighty army according to the notions of 
 those days. Even the Roman armies were comparatively 
 small, and their actual numbers must mostly have varied be- 
 tween forty thousand and eighty thousand, since the total 
 number of men in the Roman garrisons in three parts of the 
 world did not exceed two hundred thousand. At present 
 this extent of territory produces about a hundred times as 
 many soldiers. 
 
 During the Middle Ages armies tended to become smaller; 
 indeed in most matters pertaining to external civilization this 
 period was one of general retrogression. Even the "vast 
 squadrons" of the famous generals of the Thirty Years' War 
 seldom exceeded thirty thousand men, and when fifty thou- 
 sand imperial troops were assembled together once at Nordlin- 
 gen, this was considered a very large number. Not till the 
 time of the Roi Soleil of Versailles (Louis XIV) were there 
 armies of a hundred thousand men, which the "Philosopher 
 of Sans Souci" (Frederick II) made slightly larger still. 
 Once, indeed, in the spring of 1757 he had. actually brought 
 150,000 soldiers together. 
 
 Then came the French Revolution, and the levee en masse 
 of 1793 produced an army of 700,000, while in 1812 Napoleon 
 
 i Cf . Hans Delbriick, "Geist und Masse in der Geschichte" ("Intellect 
 and Numbers in History"), 1912. Verlag der "Preussischen jahr- 
 biicher." Delbriick mentions the fact tbat at Hastings only four thou- 
 sand Normans fought, and not 1,200,000, as reported; and that the 
 Polish army at Tannenberg did not number 5,200,000, but only from 
 sixteen to seventeen thousand; and so on. 
 
 2 About sixty miles northwest of Babylon, on the Euphrates. The 
 battle was fought in 401 b. c, between Artaxerxes Mnemon, King of 
 Persia, and the rival brother, Cyrus the Younger, who fell. — Translator.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 171 
 
 had actually 750,000 soldiers under the colors in Russia and 
 Spain alone. Prussia, on the contrary, despite her consider- 
 able expansion, had in 1806 only 200,000 soldiers, including 
 the fortification garrisons, half of them foreigners. After the 
 peace of Tilsit, Scharnhorst * thought it out of the question 
 for Prussia, with her five million inhabitants, to have an army 
 exceeding 120,000 or at most 150,000; while in reality he did 
 not insist upon the army numbering more than 70,000 on a 
 peace footing and 87,000 on a war footing. According to 
 Scharnhorst 's principles, therefore, the strength of the Ger- 
 man Army on a war footing would even now be allowed only 
 slightly to exceed one million ; and in any case he would have 
 considered more than 1,600,000, or at most 2,100,000, out of the 
 question in Germany to-day. Even the mass levy of 1813, 
 when Germany's "whole military strength was strained to 
 the uttermost," did not succeed in raising her army beyond 
 128,571 men, 2 inclusive of men fit for garrison service, which 
 to-day would mean an army of only 1,700,000. 
 
 These facts therefore show the sudden and enormous in- 
 crease of armies within recent years. From time immem- 
 orial armies have been comparatively small, and now all of a 
 sudden we are overwhelmed by disaster. That it is a disaster 
 is manifest from the direction of the curved line, which in the 
 nineteenth century shows an upward tendency, and now seems 
 as if it would never cease mounting upward. This, however, 
 cannot be, and the following considerations will show that we 
 shall again be overtaken by disaster, and this within measur- 
 able distance of time. Thus, supposing the tendency of the 
 curve to remain the same as during the last century; that is, 
 supposing it to increase very much in accordance with the 
 equation: 
 
 the strength of an army ^= a x at 5 
 
 i "M^moires des Generals von Scharnhorst vom 21. 1807." 
 2 According to C. von Plotho in "Der Krieg in Deutschland und 
 Frankreich." ("War in France and Germany.")
 
 172 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 in which a stands for half a million and t for time. Then 
 in about three generations we should already have armies 
 numbering billions. Now, as these would exceed the popu- 
 lation of those days, even allowing for the utmost possible rate 
 of increase, it will be seen to be logically impossible for armies 
 to continue to increase as they have done during the last 
 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 -TO Millions 
 
 £*!2J4. 
 
 5 
 
 Homeric Army 
 
 Roman Army Modi* vol Army . Frederick JET 
 
 *-«■ 
 
 Gambetta 1871 
 
 . Fredericks, f*~. " 
 
 ^Germany 1870 
 
 JOOO 8.C 
 
 IOOO 2000 A.O. 
 
 The Growth of Armies. 
 
 hundred years. Some cause must come into operation 
 which will once more force the curved line to descend. 1 
 This is not merely a mathematical, but also a scientific, 
 necessity. 
 
 i Even assuming that all human beings increase faster in the next 
 hundred years than any nation has done hitherto, and that then all 
 nations upon earth will be involved in war, and all available men and 
 women take part in the war, there would still be nothing like enough of 
 them. On the other hand, it is worthy of note that, according to this 
 curve, still greater armies will be possible in the next few years.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 173 
 
 That wars now involve so much larger numbers, there- 
 fore, need not alarm any one, especially as this is, at any rate, 
 partly due to the growth of social impulses and to man's in- 
 creased tendency to form associations. Even Homer says that 
 fellow-countrymen do not make war on one another, and this 
 is still so. The only difference is that the aggregates of 
 people who feel as fellow-countrymen have grown larger. 
 Once it was the tribe, then it was the city, and now it is the 
 state, or rather, the union of states, which feels itself 
 a separate entity. The greatness of such entities must of 
 course always determine the greatness of war. That wars 
 should become greater is in itself no proof that human 
 beings have become more warlike and cantankerous, but 
 rather a sign that they have become more peaceful and con- 
 ciliatory. 
 
 § 63. — The Death Agony of the War Giant l 
 
 Bfut there is yet another cause for consolation in the fact 
 that wars continue to get bigger and bigger. Whenever any- 
 thing is to die a natural death, it must first grow great ; that 
 is, reach its maximum size. In Germany mice have not be- 
 come extinct, but first the aurochs died out, and the bison and 
 then the bear and the wolf ; and now even our proud stag is 
 kept alive only by artificial means. In nature it is only the 
 big creatures which die out; but everything which is big must 
 and will die, because, in conformity with the inevitable law 
 of growth, it will grow beyond the limits of what is possible. 
 
 i The word here used (that is, giganthasie) , signifying the death of 
 giants, hints at one of the most important principles of self-regulation 
 which can be deduced from paleontology. Bones found show that in 
 the course of centuries all living creatures except insects, which have 
 thus never become extinct, grow and grow, and then, when they have 
 become very large and apparently all-powerful, they suddenly become ex- 
 tinct. The facts can be proved, and the reasons for this phenomenon 
 have been hinted at in §§ 40 and 41. In reality it is the same tiling as 
 is called in the German legend "the dusk of the Gods" (Uotterdam- 
 merung) .
 
 174 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 This is the profound meaning which the natural scientist at- 
 taches to the phrase "the dusk of the Gods" — a meaning so 
 easy to understand and yet so full of mystery. Idolized as 
 war is, it, too, will be hurled from its pinnacle of power. In 
 my opinion, indeed, any one dispassionately contemplating 
 the spectacle of the present war cannot fail to see in it al- 
 ready many signs of the approaching downfall of wars. 
 Across the vast battle-fronts blows a chill, warning breeze, be- 
 tokening the approaching dusk of the gods. 
 
 Everything beautiful and characteristic about past wars has 
 vanished ; the gay camp life and the bright uniforms, the sol- 
 diers' wild spirits, the gorgeous heroism of the valiant "sum- 
 moners to the fray," the men who used to fight in glorious 
 single combats, and then, mounted on "white chargers" 
 visible from afar, show themselves to their men, and last of 
 all, standing on a distant hill, fix all eyes upon them, if only 
 because of the noise made by their trumpeters. 
 
 The general has left the battle-field, and now the soldier has 
 left it also, the former to sit in his villa, holding the telephone- 
 receiver to his ear, and the latter to keep watches in the 
 trenches. But the battle-field itself is empty and deso- 
 late, though the noise of battle can be heard for miles 
 around. 
 
 It is impossible not to think that the battle-field has ceased to 
 be the first consideration. Formerly the place of battle used 
 to be carefully selected ; now we lie down round the country- 
 side and dig ourselves in. Where we do so, after all. matters 
 not at all ; only there must be a nice long line, as straight as 
 possible, and there the armies lie, often, it is said, only a few 
 yards apart, and make "war." 
 
 The bulk of the work is done in quite another way. One 
 man calculates how much copper, gold, or iron there is ; an- 
 other, how best to make the supplies of corn, meat, fat, etc., 
 "hold out"; a third, how the railwavs must be run; a fourth, 
 where, according to the map, his missiles will hit; and a fifth, 
 the general himself, for how many troops he must ask in order
 
 HOW AVAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 175 
 
 to have the necessary "density" on a particular "space." 
 They must not be too few, otherwise the attacking columns 
 will not be deep enough, and there will be too few reserves; 
 and they must also not be too many, otherwise there will be 
 difficulty in feeding them. And many other persons are mak- 
 ing many other calculations. Whoever calculates best wins. 
 The fact that, instead of having a single man of genius as gen- 
 eral, we have now the impersonal mechanism of the general 
 staff may be taken as showing the extreme length to which 
 this new order of things, which first showed itself in Prussia, 
 has now been pushed. 
 
 Not for a moment do I assert that this mode of waging war 
 is easier than the old way. Quite the contrary; and I am 
 firmly convinced that it takes up more time. Frederick II 
 and Napoleon, when in camp, not infrequently spent some time 
 in "agreeable converse"; for Napoleon's many-sidedness, even 
 when on campaign, was admirable. But I am quite ready to 
 believe that Hindenburg does nothing but wage war. But 
 there has been a change since Napoleon's time, a complete 
 change ; and there can be no doubt that the old lively, merry 
 war is dead, its place having been taken by something new, 
 something which to me seems to show signs of approaching 
 decay, but which to others may seem to contain possibilities 
 of further developments. 
 
 And it may be that they are right, for war has not yet at- 
 tained its zenith. Once, while Freiligrath was still writing 
 good poems, he described a wondrous vision of the last battle 
 in Europe: 
 
 Zwei Lager heute zerkliiften die Welt 
 Und ein Hiiben, ein Driiben nur gilt. 
 
 This last die in the old game is not yet cast. Neutrals there 
 still are, and perhaps old Freiligrath was right that there must 
 first be some Armageddon, some battle in which the whole 
 world will take part. 1 
 
 i Cf . what has been said (§34) about Europeans and Mongols.
 
 176 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 If mankind does not recollect itself in time, then this last 
 battle will come to pass ; but then it will be an end of all things. 
 One thing is certain : if war ever does attain its utmost pos- 
 sible size, then its death must ensue; for if once one half of 
 mankind has had a victory over the other half, who is to go on 
 lighting? 
 
 The course, however, is laid down along which human evo- 
 lution, whether voluntarily or not, will proceed, and our good 
 railways and steamers, our airmen and radio-telegrams of the 
 future will insure this course being followed. The horrible 
 aspect of human evolution in the past was just this, that while 
 our technical knowledge and means of communication impelled 
 us to be constantly forming new and larger, more comprehen- 
 sive organizations, we crazy human beings, instead of using 
 them as a source of ever-increasing benefits, converted them 
 into a means of ever greater destruction. 
 
 However this may be, war will one day have attained its ut- 
 most limits, and another thing is certain : the last war will 
 also be the greatest and most terrible, even as the last Saurian 
 was the hugest of all. This being so, he who knows can af- 
 ford to smile calmly, despite all the horrors going on, and 
 even though he may perhaps feel the absurdity of these atroci- 
 ties more keenly than any one else. Our technical knowledge, 
 in brief, is causing war to grow to a gigantic size, and will 
 then slay it. In nature it is always so. ''Ajax fell through 
 Ajax' strength," and the enormous speed at which our tech- 
 nical knowledge is progressing affords us this consolation, that 
 the dusk of the war gods will not be long in coming. 
 
 § 64. — Defensive Warfare and Lying 
 
 We have yet another cause for confidence. War is no 
 longer accepted as a matter of course, but an attempt is made 
 to impose verbal limits upon it. Cabinet warfare and of- 
 fensive warfare, it is said, are wrong, and only defensive war- 
 fare is right. If those who talk thus meant what they said, 
 this would be already something to the good; for before any
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 177 
 
 one can claim the just right of self-defense he must first have 
 been attacked, and any one who approves of defensive wars 
 only is really condemning the possibility of wars occurring at 
 all ; and if every one held such views, there would really be 
 no more wars. But men in general do not yet hold such views. 
 All they do, as Thomas Upham 1 says, is to turn war out at 
 the front door in order secretly to let it in again at the 
 back. 
 
 But let us put ourselves in the place of some particular 
 nation which always believes that it was the other side which 
 began. The question still remains as to what may really be 
 justifiably defended. In primitive conditions it does not seem 
 to have been difficult to decide in such a case. If a band of 
 soldiers plundered and robbed in any district the farmers 
 from the neighboring villages clubbed together and killed the 
 peace-breakers, and this was looked on as legitimate self- 
 defense. Matters at present are far more complex, for this 
 apparently most legitimate kind of defense is now solely con- 
 fined to those "wild beasts in human shape" denominated 
 franc-tireurs. Moreover, for a long while past the defense of 
 one's native soil has not been considered a distinguishing 
 characteristic of defensive warfare any more than crossing 
 the enemy's frontier is supposed to be at all a distinguishing 
 characteristic of aggressive warfare, as Belgium's example 
 proves. 
 
 This love of lying makes the expression- ' ' defensive war- 
 fare" a mere phrase. It goes without saying that if any one 
 breaks into a house or invades a country, those concerned have 
 a right to turn him out, although in civilized countries the 
 police are generally used for such purposes. To have a police 
 force capable of hanging or executing justice not merely on 
 petty private individuals, but even on great generals and re- 
 publics is precisely what the chivalrous opponents of robber 
 barons are aiming at. 
 
 But who is to be considered the aggressor? He who fired 
 
 i Thomas Upham's "Manual of Peace."
 
 178 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 the first shot, he first crossed the frontier, or he who sent the 
 ultimatum? It is just he who will always say that he was 
 merely acting in self-defense. Hence to-day it is more usual 
 to seek for the aggressor and not for the guilty party. But to 
 find him is much more difficult. In my student days I once 
 wanted to defend myself against an obvious literary wrong 
 done me, but my revered professor, the great physiologist, 
 Ewald Hering, dissuaded me from doing so. "You say Herr 
 X — made a mistake," he argued, "but he will reply that you 
 are stupid. You object that abuse is no proof, but he will 
 retort that you began abusing him. And so it will go. You 
 will reproach each other with making misquotations, will 
 make unimportant side issues the main issue, and will gradu- 
 ally get more and more insulting, till at length you stop with- 
 out any result except that you will be enemies for life. ' ' 
 
 Most of the absolutely unnecessary so-called scientific con- 
 troversies actually do arise in this way, without any one being 
 really able to say who first began to adopt an unprofessional 
 tone. A tavern brawl or a street fight comes about in just 
 the same way, and so do wars. Men talk and act and misun- 
 derstand themselves into war. 
 
 From time immemorial the attempt has been made to con- 
 vert every war into a defensive war by shifting the question 
 of the blame from oneself on to some one else; but ap- 
 parently Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was the first 
 systematically to set about doing this. "When this monarch 
 sailed across the Baltic, to conquer Germany, he did so not as 
 an aggressor, but as "defensor fidei 1 ' — Defender of the True 
 Faith. This different point of view explains the many dif- 
 ferent opinions held about him. The wholly ignorant peas- 
 ants of those, days abided by hard facts only, and they have 
 preserved such evil recollections of the Swedish knights and 
 their Swedish jargon and other pious expedients that even 
 now in North Germany the time of the Swedes is synonymous 
 with a "time of terror." Historians, however, at all events 
 those of Protestant inclinations, "rightly" consider that Gus-
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 179 
 
 tavus Adolplms was on the whole greatly to be admired for 
 having gone to war. 
 
 A hundred other things can be just as well defended as 
 religious beliefs; and, to give only one instance, in wars all 
 over the world it is only too often evident that one combatant 
 is defending his so-called rights and the other his liberty. 
 Now, no one any longer attaches the least importance to 
 rights which are mere matters of form. York formally broke 
 the treaty of alliance existing with France, and in the middle 
 of the w T ar went over to Napoleon's enemies, thus instituting 
 the war of liberation, which afterward received the king's 
 sanction. Nevertheless, even in the opinion of still-living 
 F'renchmen, Prussia is undeniably entitled to speak of her 
 "Holy War" and of her defense, although it must never be 
 forgotten that the "tyrant of the French" also believed that 
 he was defending the civilization of Europe united under his 
 command against the threatening inroads of Asiatics, which 
 was his way of describing the hordes of Russian Cossacks. 
 And if we would now solve the questions then raised, we 
 should lind that the solution depended upon whether we adopt 
 the Russian, German, French, or European point of view. 
 The institution of just defensive warfare was considerably 
 extended by the introduction of preventive warfare, the chief 
 characteristics of which have been revealed to us with con- 
 siderable candor by Bismarck. 1 You must choose the time 
 for striking your blow, which, in parenthesis, is, after all, only 
 the "best way to cut a fine figure." For strategical rea- 
 sons this time must be that in which "it is more to our ad- 
 vantage for matters to come to a head quickly than for them 
 to drag on." 2 Skilful diplomacy must contrive to make out 
 that it is we who have been attacked. 3 Then, if things go ill, 
 there is nothing more to be done ; but if they go well, j^ou can 
 
 i Bismarck's "Gedanken und Erinnerungen" ("Reflections and Recol- 
 lections"), Vol. II, Cliap. XXII, about the Ems telegram 
 '■i Moltke's words, spoken at a luncheon on June 13, 1870. 
 3 Bismarck's "elucidation" on the same occasion
 
 ISO THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 throw overboard any such old wives ' tale as defensive warfare, 
 and proudly admit a flourish of trumpets in order to show 
 your statesmanlike qualities. 
 
 There are now such a host of conceptions which are pos- 
 sessions worth defending in consequence that every one now- 
 adays insists upon having gone to war solely for purposes of 
 defense. In proof of this we need only read the speeches 
 delivered by the ministers of the powers taking part in the 
 war of 1914. It should be noted that even if perhaps not all 
 the ministers of all the ten powers were really convinced of 
 the justice of their cause, yet obviously the overwhelming ma- 
 jority of the people were so. 
 
 Serbia is defending herself against "absorption" by Aus- 
 tria; Russia and Montenegro are defending their "brother by 
 race"; Austria her "prestige in the Balkans"; Germany her 
 "fidelity to the Nibelungen"; France is waging a war of 
 liberation and defending the annexed provinces against the 
 "conqueror"; England is defending the rights of neutrals; 
 Japan the "Mongolian Idea" in the far East: and Belgium 
 alone is defending her own soil, while as for Turkey, no one 
 yet knows what she really is defending, although it would seem 
 that, like Belgium, she did not enter the war entirely of her 
 own free will. 
 
 Additional support has been lent to the foregoing definitions 
 of war aims by the attitude of the socialist parties in the 
 belligerent countries. These parties are certainly pacifically 
 inclined and averse from any but defensive warfare. Hence 
 their whole-hearted cooperation proves that these official asser- 
 tions are really believed by the great mass of the people in 
 belligerent countries. The German Social Democrats are as- 
 suredly the best disciplined of all, yet their papers contained 
 statements to the effect that the only reason why Germany 
 began her defensive war against Russian czarism by attack- 
 ing Belgium was to be able to invade France by the line of 
 least resistance, and that even the military subjugation of
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 181 
 
 France was to be merely a strategical episode in the defense 
 of Germany against Russia ! 
 
 But it is not only the mass of the people who think thus; 
 even the educated classes do so. In England idealists of a 
 pacifist turn of mind stultify their appeals for peace by sug- 
 gestively intimating that (English) civilization must be de- 
 fended against Prussian militarism ; while their fellows in 
 Germany think they must defend German civilization against 
 English narrow-mindedness. 
 
 That all these views are subjectively true we are quite con- 
 vinced, but for this very reason we must not allow them to be 
 objectively true. Nothing could better show the impossibility 
 of accurately defining the conception of defensive warfare 
 than the constant repetition of such dicta. They simply 
 prove once more that from the purely national point of view 
 every war must be just and right if a nation enters upon it 
 of its own free will. It was really not necessary to write 
 any pamphlets on the subject, for they would never convince 
 "the other side," to whom, of course, "their war ,: appears no 
 less just and right. Whoever, therefore, desires to investi- 
 gate the justness and Tightness of war as war must adopt a 
 higher point of view, the point of view of humanity. But in 
 this ease a war seems neither just nor right unless it in some 
 way benefits mankind. 
 
 If therefore all these discussions concerning the defensive 
 character of wars are absurd, and merely prove the absence 
 of discerning, critical minds then every time any one attempts 
 to justify his eagerness for war this must be considered as 
 betokening that he is somewhat ashamed of himself. Fur- 
 thermore, it is a proof that our views concerning war are 
 undergoing a change, and that we are unconsciously condemn- 
 ing war for war's sake. A new truth may even be heralded 
 by a lie.
 
 182 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 2. — THE HUMANIZING OF WAR 
 
 § 65. — The Principle of Humaneness 
 
 Perhaps the most marked characteristic of modern wars is 
 that while, on the one hand, the scale on which they are waged 
 is increasing, on the other hand, an attempt is being made 
 to humanize warfare. All great men without exception have 
 told us about the beauty of humaneness. There is nothing 
 surprising in this, for, after all, the conception of humaneness 
 is the logical deduction from the scientific fact of there being 
 only one genus humanum, only one human species. 
 
 Among the dull mass of mankind there is probably a vague 
 notion that such ideas are great and fine, but they are no less 
 instinctively felt to be profound and terrible. Hence men 
 substitute for this dangerous living conception the safe dead 
 symbol of a transcendent, but unattainable, God, whom the}' 
 need neither resemble nor follow. Thus the deification of 
 Christ in the second century meant simply a falling away 
 from Him. Imitation of Christ had ceased, and a stage was 
 erected for revering Him. 
 
 Not one of us but is aware that society to-day does hateful 
 and inhuman things, but it is these very things which it is 
 thought possible to beautify by covering them with a cloak 
 of love of mankind, about which otherwise no one troubled 
 their heads ; else it could not have come to pass that the word 
 humaneness is now never used except in discussing the in- 
 human. No one talks of treating his own kind humanely ; but 
 when there were still slaves, we used to endeavor to be "hu- 
 mane" to them ; and even now the conquerors of a country are 
 "humane'' to the conquered. 
 
 No one considers the question of the desirability of main- 
 taining the death-penalty from the point of view of the laws 
 of humanity, but from that of practical expediency. It must, 
 however, be "humanely" carried out. The guillotine was a 
 "humane" invention, and the fact that we now only shoot,
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 183 
 
 hang, behead, or electrocute our fellow-men proves how much 
 "more humane" we have become since the Middle Ages, 
 when executions were sometimes performed by a wheel. 
 
 Thus we have invented humane warfare ! A general belief 
 prevails, in fact, that wars can be made juster and less unpleas- 
 ant by waging them according to methods sanctified by tradi- 
 tion, and now also established by the Geneva Convention of 
 August 22, 1864, by the Paris Convention of 1856, or the 
 Declaration of London of 1908, by the First or Second Hague 
 Convention (of 1899 and 1907), or by some other mutual 
 agreement. 
 
 True, some juggling with words is still needful. War in 
 general and in principle substitutes might for right, as all 
 great military writers, Clausewitz, for instance, quite candidly 
 admit as something which goes without saying. Consequently, 
 all manner of artifices must be resorted to in order to bring 
 in the right. Thus Kahl, the well-known authority on crim- 
 inal law, lays it down quite simply that "war is a struggle of 
 one state against another, but not murder committed by one 
 human being upon another." On this principle he adds, the 
 humaneness of modern wars is based. 
 
 Now, these are at best empty words, for as yet no one has 
 discovered how to carry on war between one country and an- 
 other without killing human beings in so doing. It might be 
 said that it is man's business to find out how to tight his wars 
 without needing to kill persons. But, then, modern warfare 
 would have to be condemned, since it is unthinkable without 
 slaughter on both sides and without one man murdering an- 
 other. In principle this view has always been put forward 
 even by the supporters of war. William Lloyd Garrison, 
 founder of the "Non-resistance Movement," scoffed at such 
 humbug when he wrote: "A man must not kill, else he is a 
 murderer. Two, ten, or a hundred men are murderers if they 
 kill. But a nation may kill, and for ten thousand men to 
 murder one another is even a good and praiseworthy action." * 
 
 1 I have not his exact words by me. — Translator.
 
 184 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Having stated this fact, he then innocently asks how many 
 human beings must there really be for them to be allowed to 
 break God's command? 
 
 Victor Hugo likewise asks, perhaps still more pointedly: 
 "When will nations realize that to magnify a crime can never 
 make it smaller? If killing is really wrong, then it cannot 
 possibly be an extenuating circumstance that it was done on 
 a large scale ; if stealing is disgraceful, then there can be 
 nothing glorious in taking a province." 
 
 In La Rochefoucauld's "Maximes" 1 the same opinion oc- 
 curs, ironically put: "II y a des crimes qui deviennent in- 
 nocents et mcme glorieux par leur eclat, leur nombre et leur 
 exces. De la vient que les voleries publiques sont des 
 habilites, et que prendre des provinces, s'appelle faire des con- 
 quetes. " 
 
 And now let us see what a German has to say. Schiller puts 
 similar words into the mouth of his Ficsco: "It is disgrace- 
 ful to empty a purse, impudent to embezzle a million, but in- 
 expressibly grand to steal a crown. The shame decreases with 
 the increase of the sin." Schiller's Genoese character, it is 
 true, does not mean this ironically, but he, too, has to die, 
 and just because he has said this. 
 
 Thus English, French, and German men of letters seem to 
 have agreed upon this question. Above all in Germany, the 
 land of justice, this reflection frequently occurs in one form 
 or another. For instance, Johann Gottfried Seume 2 has the 
 following striking lines: 
 
 Wenn Banditen nur mit Dolchen morden, 
 Bleicht man ihren Schadel auf dern Holz. 
 Aber wenn der Heldentross in Horden 
 Lander wiirgt, so sind die Helden stolz. 
 
 i La Rochefoucauld: "Maximes et reflexions morales," 1705. 
 
 - .T. G. Seume, "Aus der Elegie auf einem Feste zu Warschau," 
 ("From an Elegy on a Warsaw Fort"), 1794. Seume knew something 
 of war, having fought in the American War of Independence, although 
 as a German constrained to fight on the side of the English oppressors.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 185 
 
 Durch der Politiken schiefe Brille 
 1st Moralitat ein Possenspiel, 
 Und Gerechtigkeit nur eine Grille, 
 Die in Philosoplienschadel fiel. 
 
 Friedrich llebbel 1 phrases it still more pathetically when 
 he says mankind cannot but blush for its worst members : 
 
 Der Rjiuber braucht die Faust nur Inn und wieder, 
 Der Morder treibt sein Werk nicht ohne Grauen, 
 Du hast das Amt zu rauben und zu toten ! 
 
 § 66.— The Theory and Practice of Noble War 
 
 The privilege of theoretically explaining how it may be 
 right to apply force was, however, reserved for our own times. 
 We used to be content to describe the formalities connected 
 with placing might before right as legal, or at any rate as fair. 
 
 From time immemorial endeavors have been made to draft 
 rules which would enable an enemy country to be decorously 
 destroyed. In so doing the false analogy of "peaceful com- 
 petition" has often been quoted, or, as was done recently by 
 the German Emperor, Chrysippos's 2 words repeated, that ''in 
 running a race not even the runner must lay a hand on his 
 competitor's shoulder, or put out a leg to trip him up." 
 
 But even for sports these rules fluctuate, and the ldi Jidzu 
 allows a leg to be put out. War is assuredly no sport, but 
 deadly earnest, and the essential distinction between sport 
 and serious right is that in the latter there is no doubt about 
 its being allowable to put out a leg; at all events, it is done. 
 
 Whoever abides by rules and regulations, however, "saves 
 his face," and accordingly there has always been a code of 
 honor for belligerents; and the more horrible the methods of 
 warfare and the more highly civilized the combatants, the 
 more stress was laid on its outward application. "Thus in 
 the savage wars of the Diadochi a chivalry was observable 
 
 i Friedrich Hebbel, "Die menschliche Gescllschaft am Schleideweg" 
 ("Human Society at the Parting of the Ways"), 1841. 
 *Cf. Cicero "De Officiis," Book III, Chap.' 10.
 
 186 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 seldom found otherwise in fighting in ages long past. ' ' 1 This 
 code of honor, however, varied very greatly. In Alexander's 
 time night attacks seem to have been proscribed. At any 
 rate, he is reported to have said to Polyperchon, who advised 
 him to attack Darius by night, that "he would rather have to 
 bewail a defeat than blush for a victory" ("malo me fortunae 
 poeniteat, quam victoriae pudeat"). 2 
 
 The Florentines considered surprise attacks improper. At 
 any rate, Machiavelli 3 says how, four weeks before declaring 
 war, they rang the "Martinella," a particular bell kept for 
 the purpose; while as for the ancient Teutons, it is known 
 that they made sure that wind and sun were equally in favor 
 of themselves and their enemies. 
 
 The ancient Islamites were not allowed to wage war in the 
 holy month of Pihamasan, and in Christian countries not so 
 long since it was the general custom for fighting to cease on 
 Sundays and holidays. Similar customs are narrated of many 
 other peoples, but they seem to have been merely exceptions, 
 resorted to when victory was believed to be assured. In any 
 case, no such scruples prevented Alexander from crossing the 
 Danube by night in order to surprise the Getes, whom other- 
 wise he was unable to conquer, or from similarly attacking 
 the careless Illyrians by night. The Florentines, indeed, 
 never had much opportunity of ringing the .Martinella, for in 
 their palmy days they chiefly devoted themselves to science 
 and art, and did not wage any serious wars until the days of 
 the republic were numbered. Consequently they could not 
 become expert military strategists ; but, after all, Florence did 
 produce Machiavelli, and even supposing him to have been 
 as utterly unscrupulous as we were taught at school, yet the 
 tendencies of his "se^en books on the arts of war" and of 
 his "Prince" are very much against any such things as Mar- 
 
 i W. Wagner, "Hellas, Land und Volk der alten Griechen," II, p. 662. 
 Leipsic. 
 
 2Quintus Curtius TV, 13. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, "Istorie fiorentine": Florence, 1532.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 187 
 
 tinella bells. Even that greatly extolled Teuton Hermann 
 von Cheruskia, departing from what was supposed to be Ger- 
 man tradition, contrived skilfully to exploit the climatic condi- 
 tions of the Teutoburg wood to his own advantage. In order 
 to be able to make war even in the holy month, Mohammed 
 simply modified his religion, and Sunday rest in warfare has 
 long been abolished. Indeed, despite all the pope's efforts, 
 it was not possible to induce the belligerents to have a brief 
 armistice to keep Christmas, when, according to Christian 
 tradition, the angels announced "peace on earth." 
 
 Fine words in general were always chiefly reserved for of- 
 ficial ministerial utterances. In practice Lysander's 1 saying 
 was followed, that, "if a lion's skin is not enough, a fox's hide 
 must be taken." If strength did not suffice, then a little craft 
 was resorted to as well. 
 
 Any one trusting too much to international rules of war; 
 any one who went as a flag-of-truce man to the enemy, as for 
 instance Count Montfort went to the Count von Nassau at 
 the defense of the Pont-a-Mousson, which has again become 
 celebrated of late, was only accounted a fool, and taken pris- 
 oner.- Similarly even Napoleon on the Bellcropkon did not 
 find that "hospitality" for which he had hoped, and which he 
 was perhaps entitled to expect. 
 
 In reality it has always been thus. The oldest war was de- 
 cided by a horse being smuggled in, and Socrates 's pupil, 
 Xenophon, in his "Cyropaedia" recommends many and abom- 
 inable military stratagems, and, what is more, in his "Ana- 
 basis" he applies them. The Japanese attacked the Russian 
 fleet without having declared war; the Emden stuck on a 
 fourth funnel; the English use the flags of neutral countries, 
 etc. 3 But every one considers his own particular stratagem 
 allowable, and only those of the enemy not allowable. 
 
 iCf. Plutarch's "Lysander," C. IV, c. 
 
 2Cf. Montaigne's '"'Kssais,' Livre I, Chap. f>, 1580. ("Whether the 
 captaine of a place besieged ought to sallie forth to purlie") 
 
 3 Kven Ur. Xicolai does not seem always above repeating unproved
 
 188 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Non armis sed vitiis certatur — war is not waged with weap- 
 ons but with crimes. The victor is always right. 
 
 Fu il vincer sempremai laudabile cosa 
 Vincasi o per fortuna, o per ingenio. 1 
 
 And since this is so, and since strategy evidently always 
 succeeds better than strength, and nothing matters but success, 
 wars in all civilized nations are gradually becoming more 
 horrible and unchivalrous. 
 
 The "noble war" between Ctesar and Pompey, in which 
 neither general ever forgot his respect for the other, was fol- 
 lowed by the struggle between the triumvirs and Caesar's mur- 
 derers, which was carried on with every kind of slander and 
 contemptibleness. And will any one deny the Franco- Prus- 
 sian War having been more chivalrous than that of 1914 ? 
 
 Treaties, however sacred, make no difference, for, as Beth- 
 mann-Hollweg quite rightly told the British ambassador, in 
 war-time they are scraps of paper. In actual fact, even now 
 violations of the so-called Geneva Convention are the order of 
 the day in all armies. Doctors, military hospitals, and 
 churches are fired upon as often as "tactical conditions" re- 
 quire. Men anxious to surrender are killed, either "because 
 the enemy abuses the white flag," or even without any ex- 
 cuse, merely in obedience to instructions to "give no quar- 
 ter." Furthermore, every one is killed now if, in view of the 
 situation in general, it may be taken for granted that they 
 would surrender if only they were asked. Within the same 
 category of actions must be included the dropping of bombs 
 by airmen on undefended towns, and likewise the sinking of 
 trading-vessels without allowing the crews time to save their 
 lives. No one can be reproached for such actions; they are 
 the laws or, rather, the customs, of war; and it is no mere 
 chance that both the most modern weapons of war have made 
 
 and unprovable statements of the German press during this war. — 
 Translator. 
 
 i Ariosto, "Orlando Furioso," Canto XV, v. 1. 151G.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 189 
 
 it possible still further to enhance the horrors of war. "We 
 have not got used to such weapons yet," it is alleged, which 
 of all the surprises afforded by this war seems to me the most 
 melancholy. 
 
 Two innocent, age-old dreams of mankind are now fulfilled, 
 man, being the only genuine tribion, 1 has used his brain for 
 the invention of contrivances which make of him both a bird 
 and a tish, for he is master of both the heights and the depths, 
 lie can fly over frontiers and dive under them. The idea 
 germinates in the heads of the fortunate inventors, and the 
 frontiers collapse ; and what makes the inventors still prouder 
 is the consciousness of having promoted not merely technical 
 science, but also the brotherhood of man. But, lo ! the mili- 
 tary commandeer the invention, and use it solely to carry war 
 over those frontiers hitherto erected against it by man's free 
 will. 
 
 How little specialists thought of such a possibility before 
 the war came and more or less disturbed their mental balance 
 may be shown by a single instance. A few years ago, when 
 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 2 warned England to be prepared 
 for emergencies, urging that with the help of submarines her 
 supplies might be cut off and her people starved out, Admiral 
 C. C. Penrose Fitzgerald wrote that he considered any such 
 forward-looking measures unnecessary, for he did not believe 
 that any civilized nation wo.ikl torpedo unarmed and defense- 
 less trading-vessels. 
 
 Poor, sentimental Fitzgerald! So you, too, thought war 
 was a game to be played in accordance with the rules of some 
 congress or other, and now thousands of people must pay for 
 your folly. But it may be that there are still people who 
 would rather have been wrong with old Fitzgerald than have 
 won a victory by means of submarines. 
 
 i Ampliiljion is an animal living in two elements; as the frog, for 
 instance, lives in the water and on land A tribion is one living in 
 three elements, as man ran now do, and man only. 
 
 2 Conan Doyle. "Danger! A Story of England's Peril." Published in 
 1!H1 in the "Strand Magazine."
 
 190 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 § 67. — The Value of Humanitarian Effort 
 
 Despite all these absurdities, deep meaning and justifica- 
 tion underlie all efforts, even those of the lowest nations, to 
 make it appear as if there were a chivalrous side to war. 
 Even the military honor of barbarians, for instance, forbids 
 the use of poisoned weapons, though in the case of these primi- 
 tive folk this was not agreed upon by any convention, but 
 corresponded tQ deep-rooted and at the time very valuable 
 instincts. 
 
 The fighting on the plains of Troy and even the knightly 
 battles of the Middle Ages consisted mainly in hand-to-hand 
 fighting, in which the object was to vanquish your opponent 
 by physical valor and skill. A poisoned lance-point would 
 then have meant that victory would have been not to the 
 better warrior, but to him who had contrived merely slightly 
 to scratch his adversary. Hence the horror of "cowardly 
 murder by poison," which is an innate and ineradicable in- 
 stinct of all normal human beings. 
 
 For like reasons formerly the "insidious bow" was pro- 
 scribed in the wars of Teutonic peoples, and the Second Lat- 
 eral! Council in 1139 forbade the use of the crossbow, of course 
 only among Christians. To cause the death of heretics by 
 this means was permissible. 1 
 
 Even then this was of very slight avail, for only fifty years 
 later Richard Cceur de Lion founded the first Crossbow Shoot- 
 ers' Companies, and the crossbow soon became the favorite 
 weapon of the Germans. It must be admitted, however, that 
 these nations, in thus disregarding the papal injunctions, gave 
 proof of a sound instinct; for even then fighting was begin- 
 ning to develop into battles involving numbers of human be- 
 ings and in which chivalry could no longer exercise any 
 selective influence. Now and not till now did such prohibi- 
 tions become meaningless, for an enemy miles away is fired 
 
 2 A Demmin, "Die Kriegswaffen" ("Weapons of War"), 1869: Leip- 
 sic. P. 69.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 191 
 
 upon or the trenches are "peppered" with machine-guns, 
 more or less at a veuture, and therefore it must be a mere 
 chance whether any particular man is hit. The plain truth 
 is that the more effective a projectile is to-day, the better it 
 is for use in war. 
 
 Yes, say the advocates of these wonderful humane theories, 
 but all that is wanted is to put the enemy out of action ; he 
 ought not to be killed unnecessarily. In their wars against 
 the Hottentots, the}* say, the British noticed that these sav- 
 ages, if wounded only in the arm or even in the body with 
 our modern small-caliber rifles, often continued to advance. 
 In such case it was needful to have more powerful rifles ; but 
 in Europe they are not needed. 
 
 Now, first, it often happens with us that wounded men 
 continue to fight or at any rate to shoot, and in particular 
 experience shows that these slightly wounded men return to 
 the front after a few weeks. In Germany eighty per cent, 
 of all men included in war losses are said to be "slightly 
 wounded." Now, even if they are out of action for the time 
 being, they are by no means incapable of taking any further 
 part in the war, and indeed they continue fit for service until 
 at length, even without Dumdum bullets, they are shot dead 
 or crippled. At best, therefore, a "humane bullet" may be 
 compared for mercifulness with cutting off a dog's tail bit 
 by bit. The operation is not over till a certain amount of 
 the tail is cut off, or, as the case may be, a certain proportion 
 of the nation is out of action. 
 
 Even those who do not or will not see the brutal logic of 
 this, however, ought to be ashamed thus to tamper with the 
 conception of humaneness. To-day, when all the most refined 
 technical methods are in use, when wolves' lairs are dug, in 
 which soldiers get impaled on stakes, and then slowly expire ; 
 when barbed-wire entanglements are constructed, which are 
 then "cleared" with machine-guns when enough "stuff" has 
 got cau?ht in them ; when wire trellises are made, charged with 
 electricity, and men left hanging dead in them like flies; when
 
 192 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 the enemy's trenches are syringed with petroleum, so as to 
 burn the people in them, or their unsuspecting occupants 
 blown into the air by subterranean mines; to-day, when 
 poisoned bombs are used; when "airmen's arrows," dropped 
 from the air, pin the enemy, "like a frog,'' flat to the ground ; 
 to-day, when shrapnel and grenades, prepared with the ut- 
 most care in view of an explosion on the largest possible scale, 
 are employed, and human beings are torn to pieces therewith ; 
 to-day it is insisted that the Dumdum bullet is the acme of 
 brutality. A German journalist, Herr Binder, calls it "besti- 
 ally cruel," "one of the most barbarous methods of warfare 
 known to history," as it is put in the telegram of his Majesty 
 the German Emperor to President Wilson. 
 
 The immense excitement caused in September by this Dum- 
 dum bullet question, whereby even the German Emperor was 
 induced to take the unusual step of addressing a formal pro- 
 test to the President of the United States, can be explained 
 only by man's instinctive craving for genuine humaneness — a 
 craving which has assumed such proportions, owing to this 
 most cruel and horrible of all wars, that even the smallest 
 "token of humaneness" appears worth striving after. 
 
 Even Sternickel, the murderer who committed in cold blood 
 a dozen murders and robberies combined, was proud of never 
 having caused the death of a child, thinking this a sufficient 
 concession to justice. Thus in every human being there is 
 some trace of a sense of shame, and even the combatants to- 
 day say, "True, we do murder and set on fire, plunder and 
 pillage, and offend against the laws of Christian and human 
 justice, but — we do not use Dumdum bullets" ! 
 
 Such reasoning is not merely foolish, but even dangerous, 
 for it makes men think that war is consistent with humaneness, 
 and thus helps them to become accustomed to a horrible state 
 of things. But we must not become accustomed to anything 
 of the sort. If we want to remain members of the society 
 of human beings we must consider war as at any rate some- 
 thing extraordinary and abnormal. ' Modern humanitarian en-
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 193 
 
 deavors to lessen the horrors of war are, it is true, frequently 
 charity misdirected, but still they do proceed from charity, 
 and a charity which, as might be proved, is fundamentally 
 sound. 
 
 Now, just as the war instinct shows that courage and love 
 of action still survive in mankind, — courage and action which 
 only need directing into other channels, — so does this longing 
 for humaneness prove the existence of something in mankind 
 which is a guaranty for the future. We may, for instance, 
 consider rules about Dumdum bullets virtually useless and 
 possibly even ridiculous; yet we may and even ought to 
 do everything in our power to insure the observance of such 
 rules. However small may be the concession made, it still is 
 a concession, and we are thereby rid of a bit of war. 
 
 From this point of view even the Geneva Convention and 
 the prohibition of Dumdum bullets are valuable; and it is 
 some satisfaction to be able to state that no nation seems pur- 
 posely to have infringed this prohibition. True, such bullets 
 have been found in the hands of subjects of all nations. 
 Dumdum bullets, indeed, are manufactured by government 
 ammunition factories in all countries, 1 for hunting and other 
 purposes for soldiers' rifles. Whenever towns are conquered, 
 parcels of such bullets are of course found, in Government 
 wrappers. Besides this, it has happened in all armies that a 
 few men, particularly officers who procure their own ammuni- 
 tion, were intentionally provided with such cartridges ; but 
 it is one thing to make this statement and quite another to 
 assert, as has been done by both belligerents, that the enemy 
 systematically makes use of such bullets. 
 
 There are other reasons, however, why such regulations are 
 valuable. They are self-imposed limitations, adherence to 
 which is a recognition in principle of the fact that the attain- 
 ment of its objects in war is not a nation's highest goal. 
 
 In 1839, when Belgium's "perpetual neutrality" was pro- 
 
 iThe official name for them in Germany is "Halbmanttlgeschossc," 
 which might be rendered as "half-length cheat bullets " — Translator.
 
 194 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 claimed, Germany and France in particular made war be- 
 tween each other more difficult ; and from that day forth they 
 knew that an impassable wall was erected along the frontier 
 of this neutral land — a wall based on their own agreement. 
 
 In 1856, when the Declaration of Paris insured captured 
 vessels being brought before a proper prize court, 1 man made 
 it impossible for himself clandestinely to sink vessels, of which 
 the old naval ballads of all seafaring peoples used to boast 
 as a heroic action. 2 
 
 In 1899, when the Second Declaration of the Hague Con- 
 vention forbade the use of asphyxiating or poisonous gases, 
 mankind voluntarily deprived itself of one of the most ef- 
 fective weapons, and one which, with the ever-increasing 
 discoveries of modern technical science, promised every day to 
 become more valuable. 
 
 But whatever our opinion of the value or importance of 
 such conventions, the fact remains that, once they have been 
 concluded, discussion about them must cease ; for henceforth, 
 if they are violated, not merely is harm done to the enemy, 
 but the violator's own honor is irreparably injured. Nothing 
 in this war, therefore, is so deplorable as the violation of Bel- 
 gium neutrality, submarine warfare, and the use of asphyxiat- 
 ing gases ; for thereby not merely are human lives destroyed, 
 but human honor. 
 
 3. — THE COMPARATIVE RETROGRADENESS OF WAR 
 
 § 68. — Reasons for This 
 
 It takes two players to play chess, and to play at war it 
 takes only two generals, though the armies in this case do not 
 
 i The details were enacted for Germany by the law of May 3, 1884. 
 ''Short proceedings" are perhaps allowable on board captured vessels in 
 certain circumstances, but at any rate their papers must be properly 
 examined. 
 
 2 Cf. for instance the English ballad, "There was a ship that sailed," 
 in which the captain's boy swims up to and secretly bores a hole in a 
 Spanish galleon.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 195 
 
 consist of wood or ivory figures, but of flesh-and-blood human 
 beings. True, of late even war has become an industrial un- 
 dertaking, and thus even here machinery to a certain extent 
 competes with the laboring classes, so much so that those per- 
 sons ever anxious to find catchwords, and wrong catchwords, 
 for everything have even spoken of a "machine war." But 
 mankind has not yet got so far. In other branches of life 
 machinery, it is true, has become marvelously independent of 
 assistance from human hands; but in war the musketeer is 
 still more important than the musket, and the gunner than the 
 gun. 
 
 That war should be so surprisingly retrograde, considering 
 the high standard of our technical knowledge, is due to quite 
 simple and universal human characteristics. First, there cer- 
 tainly does still lurk in men's minds an instinctive feeling 
 that war to-day is some kind of degenerate sport, which is 
 scarcely worth while unless one is actually there oneself. 
 Moreover, sportsmen have an " antipathy*' to all modern im- 
 provements. Thus a "true yachtsman" would rather be in 
 constant danger of capsizing than get a practical patent reef. 
 There are many more of these harmless sportsman-like preju- 
 dices, such as the huntsman's preference for his double-bar- 
 reled gun rather than a modern "Browning," and the old 
 angler's preference for his lob-worm rather than an artificial 
 fly. A rider of the good old school despised the comfortable 
 English trot, 1 which until recently was actually forbidden in 
 the German Army; while, as for the South Sea Islander, he 
 does not even think of exchanging his bow for a modern rifle. 
 
 Now, the soldier takes a similar point of view, thereby mak- 
 ing himself more indispensable, and hindering the develop- 
 ment of military science. Another instance of the soldier's 
 tendency to lag behind the times is the following. Two re- 
 markably practical inventions, such as torpedoing in the dark 
 and destroying whole regiments by poisonous cases, meet with 
 
 i For a year it has been called a 'Might trot," but riding-masters 
 sometimes make slips of the tongue.
 
 196 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 considerable resistance, for the soldier continues to lag behind 
 technicians and chemists, who are bound by no chivalrous 
 traditions. 
 
 What has chiefly stood in the way of military science being 
 vigorously developed, however, is that the modern soldier is 
 so cheap. Formerly a soldier had a certain value. A gen- 
 eral had, let us say, fifty thousand soldiers, and used them, 
 and when they were all shot down, the war was simply lost. 
 Consequently, he was careful how he made war, and sacrificed 
 as few men as possible. Now, however, he has an inexhaust- 
 ible reservoir to draw upon in the shape of the nation as a 
 whole; and wherever this reservoir is largest, as in the case 
 of the Russians, then, judging from the reports of the gen- 
 eral staff, men are sacrificed most senselessly and cold-blood- 
 edly. Even in Germany, especially in the early days of the 
 war, there was not much economy of human lives, at all events 
 in comparison with former wars. Cheap human material, 
 however, is always and everywhere used for all manner of 
 things that could quite well be done by machinery, just as 
 the cheapness of the coolie in China at present has hitherto 
 prevented modern machinery being used to any very great 
 extent. 
 
 In naval warfare alone, with its torpedoes, floating mines, 
 etc., machinery is now perforce somewhat used to replace hu- 
 man labor, although in this case ships are involved of which 
 each dozen cost about $250,000,000 to build, and therefore 
 represent very considerable sums. 
 
 Moreover, war is essentially unproductive. " Necessity 
 teaches man to pray," it is said, and perhaps it really has 
 taught many to pray. But, at all events, necessity teaches 
 man to work, and necessity is the mother of invention; for, 
 as Goethe says, "necessity is the best counselor." Professor 
 Ostwald even thinks that necessity was the mother of all great 
 inventions, because the only inventions ever made have been 
 those necessitated by circumstances. 
 
 Now, necessity being so good a teacher, it might be thought
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 197 
 
 that the great necessities of war must necessarily have pro- 
 duced great inventions. This, however, is not the case, for 
 the method and purpose of war are to appropriate the fruits 
 of others' work without working oneself. War therefore, 
 does not teach man to work, and consequently does not teach 
 him to invent either, inventions being always the fruit of 
 
 labor. 
 
 Again, war is generally merely a passing phase, and there 
 is not time to profit by the necessity it brings, which, more- 
 over, is too great, and too great necessity acts as a check. For 
 instance, arctic peoples, who have had to contend too much 
 against the severity of nature, and have produced no original 
 inventions of their own. Of course if a war lasts as long as 
 this one, and absorbs all the intellectual and material forces 
 of the nations, it is not surprising if there should be a 
 few inventions while it is going on. There can be not the 
 slightest doubt, however, that future statistics will prove that 
 the average annual number of inventions in Europe during 
 the war was smaller — much smaller in comparison — than in 
 any correspondingly long period we may select in the last few 
 decades. At any rate, it is a fact that not a single past war 
 has ever anywhere been the cause of any noteworthy invention, 
 which again is but one more proof of the comparative unim- 
 portance of war for the human race. 
 
 Hunger and anxiety about daily bread have sought out 
 many inventions. They taught man how to cultivate the soil 
 and how to breed domestic animals; they invented the plow 
 and all other agricultural implements and machinery; they 
 taught man to hunt and to fish, and even effected improve- 
 ments in firearms. And it was love, that other great necessity 
 to which man is subject — love and the impulse to make ad- 
 vances to others, which led to speech and writing, to the build- 
 ing of roads, the equipment of ships, and eventually to all 
 modern means of communication. War, however, as I shall 
 now proceed to show, has virtually taught mankind nothing. 
 
 The one astonishing result of this war is that the economic
 
 198 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 distress caused by it is not giving rise to more inventions ; but 
 this is understandable when it is reflected that men of high 
 attainment used to take scarcely any interest in war, and 
 that workshops and laboratories are now mostly deserted. In 
 particular the young meu, whose ideas are still young and 
 new, 1 are all at the front. 
 
 Moreover, upheaval in all commercial life must of course 
 stand in the way of any really serious efforts to promote civili- 
 zation. 
 
 § 69.— What Are the Facts? 
 
 When first invented, the sword, in the true sense of the 
 word, was meant for a plowshare, and not used by men of 
 war until later. 2 But now that they had their weapon, 
 they were actually incapable of improving it; it is an ascer- 
 tained fact, to which Peschel 3 first drew attention, that Aveap- 
 ons requiring some skill in their management, such as bows 
 and arrows, have been evolved only among hunting peoples, 
 while agricultural peoples fight with the spear, which is much 
 easier to handle. 
 
 This continued to be the case even in historical times. 
 Between ancient times and the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century war material hardly improved at all, and military 
 science hardly developed at all. Even the use of black powder 
 for shooting, which came into vogue in Europe in the thir- 
 teenth century, made little difference; and after the first 
 blunderbusses reechoed at Crecy in 1346, there was no further 
 change in anything for half a century. 
 
 Moreover, firearms came into use very gradually, and no- 
 where did they produce any far-reaching effects. James Feni- 
 more Cooper's Indian novels made us imagine that the "rifles 
 
 i As the contemporary Swedish physiologist Tigerstadt has shown, 
 virtually all men of genius made their principal discoveries hefore the 
 age of thirty, and. we may certainly add, before their forty-fifth year. 
 
 2 Cf . Ludwig Noire's "Das Werkzeug" ("Tools"). 
 
 sOskar Pesohel's "Volkerkunde" ("Ethnology"). 1874, fifth edition, 
 1881, pp. 183-186.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 199 
 
 of the palefaces" conquered the redman. There is of course 
 some truth in this, but the importance of the rifle is over- 
 estimated. Cortez, for instance, after his " noche triste" 
 (''night of sorrow") had not a single rifle left, and the victory 
 of Otumba 1 was decided in his favor by "crossbows and 
 Toledo swords." 
 
 It is likewise significant that, even at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, Machiavelli, 2 according to his "Art of 
 War," would have had half the infantry armed in "Roman 
 fashion" with sword and shield. Of the other troops he would 
 have provided some "with pikes, like the Swiss," and some 
 with long-distance weapons, such as "crossbows or muskets." 
 In the Spanish armies shields were not given up till some time 
 in the seventeenth century, and in the armies of the Thirty 
 Years' War there were, on an average, twice as many pikesmen 
 as musketeers; consequently only about one third of the foot 
 soldiers can have been provided with firearms. Only grad- 
 ually did the proportion of soldiers with firearms increase, and 
 in the Wars of Liberation the first file of the Prussian last line 
 — one third of the whole number — were originally armed with 
 pikes. In general, however, at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century the pike had been replaced by the bayonet, at all 
 events in regular armies. 
 
 Lances, or weapons resembling them, such as scythes, how- 
 ever, continued to be used till far on in the nineteenth 
 century in revolutionary armies, volunteer corps, and when- 
 ever the last line was called up. Every one has heard of 
 the Paris pikesmen of the French Revolution, and of the 
 Polish and Hungarian scythesmen, and even in this war, for 
 instance, in the fighting near Arras in the autumn of 1914, 
 dismounted French cavalrymen, armed with lances, have taken 
 part in infantry bayonet-fights. Even now there are good 
 "military instructors" who assert that the most important 
 engagements are decided only by hand-to-hand fighting; and 
 
 i July 7, 1520, over the Mexicans. 
 
 -Machiavelli's ••Dell' arte della guerra," 1535. 1, VII.
 
 200 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 if, owing to a quite natural tendency to overestimate modern 
 military science, there may have been an inclination to doubt 
 this, there are our general staff reports to prove that in this 
 war there really has been a reversion to methods of fighting 
 which are comparatively very primitive. 
 
 Thus on June 14, 1915, the Austrians attempted to destroy 
 the Italians, as the latter were advancing in the gorges of 
 the Cima Xorre, by means of boulders, which thev hurled down 
 on them from the rocky sides of the Belliore. Now, history 
 teaches us that this is a method of fighting to which even the 
 anthropoids used to resort. Again, the German colonial 
 forces in East Africa are said to have used bees as a means of 
 defense, 1 which is unquestionably practical, but which had 
 been forgotten in Europe since the Thirty Years' "War, and, 
 as far as I know, had never been used in the interval save by 
 a few Australian blacks. As to whether the statement of our 
 general staff that Russian troops were armed with "oaken 
 clubs" is to be taken literally or not, no opinion need be offered 
 here. After all, certain present-day methods of warfare are 
 absolutely medieval. 
 
 Let us consider how much has been invented since the 
 year 1300. Compasses, clocks and watches, thermometers, 
 barometers, telescopes and microscopes, enable observations to 
 be made with an accuracy undreamed of before. Prom Ger- 
 many the art of printing spread over the whole world ; the 
 primitive weaver's loom was replaced first by Cartwright's 
 mechanical loom, and afterward by that of Jacquard. The 
 magical science of alchemy became metamorphosed into scien- 
 tific chemistry. Galilei and Newton laid anew the base of 
 physics; the foundations of electrical knowledge were estab- 
 lished, and it was speedily put to practical use in the lightning- 
 conductor; steam-engines and balloons were invented: gas was 
 introduced for lighting purposes ; the technical processes of 
 glass and porcelain manufacture were modernized: in short, 
 
 i Beehives are thrown into the enemy's ranks, and the angry insects 
 cause disorder among the soldiers by stinging them.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 201 
 
 science and technical knowledge everywhere advanced. War, 
 however, had neither part nor lot in all this, albeit in this 
 period there was no lack of war. Nor did any one even take 
 any trouble to utilize a single one of these inventions for 
 military purposes. Matters continued thus until about the 
 end of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century 
 national armies came into existence, and the average middle- 
 class man had to devote his wits to the noble business of war- 
 fare. This did not have the effect of making war more crea- 
 tive, but at all events military men learned from thenceforth 
 to take advantage of inventions already made. 
 
 Accordingly, explosives were considerably improved. In 
 1800 an Englishman, Edward Howard, invented fulminate of 
 mercury, and eighteen years later Egg, the engineer, con- 
 structed percussion-caps from it. In 1S46 the German chem- 
 ist Schonbein invented gun-cotton, and a French chemist, 
 Sobrero, the following year invented nitro-glycerin. Twenty 
 years later Alfred Nobel produced the first dynamite. All 
 these inventions, however, were nowise intended for war, but 
 for mining and mining only; and it was almost as if he 
 wished to atone for the disastrous use — a use which he did 
 not intend — made of his invention for the wholesale destruc- 
 tion of human beings that Nobel founded his peace prize. 
 
 Meantime not only explosives were being perfected, but 
 also firearms. Napoleon's soldiers still fought with the old 
 flintlock, in which scarcely any improvement had been effected 
 since the Thirty Years' War. Drevse's needle-gun of 1S27, 
 Colt's revolver of 1831, the Mauser ritle in 18G3, and Maun- 
 licher's repeating-rifle of 1878, are all phases in this new 
 development. At the same time in cannon the transition to 
 breech-loaders was proceeding, calibers were tending to be- 
 come larger and larger, and resort was being had to technical 
 inventions, such as recoiling-barrels. The invention of the 
 Whitehead torpedo in 1867 must also not be forgotten. 
 
 That war had an indirect influence on these improvements 
 in firearms cannot perhaps be denied, although in war itself
 
 202 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 no improvement has ever been made ; but here again it would 
 be necessary to inquire how much must be ascribed to improve- 
 ments in- guns for hunting purposes. Even if we set every- 
 thing down to war, however, this would be the sum total of 
 what war has achieved in the domain of inventions; and what 
 is that in a century of such unparalleled technical advance ? 
 
 It is true that war has gradually learned to utilize inven- 
 tions for its own purposes. Here, again, war is a Moloch, de- 
 vouring everything, and usurping for himself inventions made 
 for peace. Just as war commandeers wheat and gold, so 
 does it take possession of ideas, which is perhaps the worst 
 thing about it. The telegraph and the railway, steamers and 
 motor-cars, have been drawn into its service. Hardly had 
 Monier suggested making buildings of concrete than fortifica- 
 tions began to be built of it. Graham Bell's telephone and 
 Marconi's wireless telegraphy were immediatel}* utilized for 
 war. When Schuckert constructed his search-light, or Gruson 
 or Krupp invented some new steel composite material, all 
 were instantly used for some military purpose. Some few 
 modern inventions, indeed, such as airships and submarines, 
 are used almost exclusively for war. If it occurs to our mili- 
 tary men, however, to use the airships presented to them for 
 attacking England, they are no more inventors on that ac- 
 count than Mr. Brown when he has his private house connected 
 by telephone with his office. 
 
 § 70. — The Mischief of Overestimating the Art of War 
 
 To apply inventions in this way is cheap ; and just because 
 the European military spirit has suffered a great many in- 
 ventions to be reserved for military purposes, and because a 
 new invention can scarcely ever command any goverenment 
 assistance unless it seems as if it might be of some importance 
 in war, an erroneous impression might prevail that war in 
 some way or other promotes technical advance. There is 
 no doubt whatever that in a sense the science of arms, which 
 is very handsomely supported by government, can develop
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 203 
 
 in quite a different way from the peaceful science of me- 
 chanical construction, which is embarrassed by considerations 
 of what will pay and what will not. Circumstances have so 
 greatly favored the manufacture of iron plates, for instance, 
 that it has really been the case of many improvements, by 
 which the business of iron foundries in general and, indeed, 
 all technical science have benefited. 
 
 Hut it would be wrong to call technical science an enemy 
 of civilization because it has been responsible for various 
 murderous contrivances. Similarly it would be wrong to 
 ascribe to war as war a beneficial effect on technical science. 
 If government would pay the iron industry as much for its 
 peaceful products as it now pays for its warlike ones, the 
 results would be fully as satisfactory. True, the largest in- 
 comes in Europe were those of Krupp, the Cannon King, 
 and Nobel, the Dynamite King ; but in more peaceful 
 America there are wheat kings, steel kings, pig kings, and 
 beer kings. 
 
 Airships and aeroplanes are a melancholy confirmation of 
 the truth of what has just been said. They are a new means 
 of getting about, whereby men are brought closer together. 
 Zarathustra's dream of the overstepping of all boundaries 
 seemed on tlie eve of fulfilment, and, lo ! militarism intervenes 
 and converts this admirable instrument of peace into a 
 weapon of war, albeit at present not a very dangerous one; 
 and it seems as if every future success must have to do with 
 war. We are still under the same delusion as that which 
 led the youth athirst for knowledge to ask Archimedes to be 
 good enough to initiate him into the "divine art wherewith 
 he had defended the walls of Syracuse against the Roman 
 attacking machinery." But we have never yet understood 
 what. Archimedes meant by his reply that art was indeed 
 "divine," but that was "before it was in the service of the 
 state." 
 
 Inventions which serve a warlike purpose are no less over- 
 estimated than war itself. The invention of powder alone has
 
 204 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 actually passed into a proverb, 1 which would never have been 
 the case had people known that Berthold Schwarz did not in- 
 vent it for any warlike purpose, but that gunpowder was a 
 very ancient invention of the Chinese, who used it for pur- 
 poses of amusement and for fireworks. 
 
 The enormous quantities of materials used in war have 
 deeply impressed many persons, but even from this point of 
 view war will not stand the test of serious criticism. Our 
 estimating a country's technical development by the number 
 of dreadnoughts which it is able to construct simultaneously 
 merely proves that in our iron age there is no money for peace- 
 ful works of civilization. Moreover, large as men-of-war may 
 be, modern liners are larger. A forty-two centimeter 
 Morser is assuredly huge, but our own telescopes, rotary 
 presses, etc., are still huger. Architecture has certainly added 
 more to its laurels by building churches and modern market 
 buildings than by building fortifications and barracks. "With 
 the two and half million cubic meters of stone from the 
 Pyramid of Cheops alone it would be possible to build thrice 
 over the Aurelian "Wall encircling the Eternal City — a wall 
 which is one of the most powerful defense works that have ever 
 existed. 2 
 
 Even the very extensive excavations necessitated by mod- 
 ern trench warfare are as nothing compared with what was 
 needed in the construction of the Panama Canal, for instance. 
 If Germany were entirely surrounded with a triple line of 
 trenches, each six feet six inches deep by two feet six inches 
 broad, it would only be necessary to throw up 20,000,000 
 cubic meters of earth, not much more than was dredged up out 
 
 * For instance, "Er hat das Pulver nicht arfunden" ( French : "II li'a 
 pas inrente la poudre"), which may be rendered as "He'll never set the 
 Thames on fire"; and "er ist keinen tichuss Pulver wert," "he is not 
 worth powder and shot." — Translator. 
 
 - According to Diodorus, indeed, 15.000,000 cubic meters went to build 
 the walls of Nineveh, but his statements, as Rich and Ainsworh have 
 shown, are pure invention. Still more fantastic and equally untrue are 
 Heredotus's statements about the Avails of Babylon, which were supposed 
 to have required about 80,000,000 cubic meters of material.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 205 
 
 of the Panama Canal every year. In short, even in the 
 matter of vastness war has no remarkable achievement to its 
 eredit. 
 
 War utilizes all technical expedients, but did not create 
 them. Even so astonishing a construction as the forty-two- 
 ceutimeter howitzer is not really in any sense a revolutionary 
 invention, but at best an enlargement of and perhaps also an 
 improvement on something already existing. Even the old 
 Mongol chief Batu Khan * knew that those who throw stones 
 had best throw as large ones as possible ; and he is said to 
 have caused the fall of the fortress of Kieff 2 in an amaz- 
 ingly short time merely because of the enormous size of the 
 stones from his stone-throwing machines. Yet no one has 
 ever called this ancient Mongol prince a ''Goethe of action'' ; 3 
 and all I should like to know is whether the newspaper scribe 
 who once ventured to insult the German people by comparing 
 one of Krupp's officials with Goethe can now even remember 
 the former's name. 
 
 Can even asphyxiating bombs be considered an invention? 
 Why, even Hannibal ordered the throwing of earthen vessels 
 tilled with poisonous snakes, and later on beehives were fre- 
 quently used for the same purpose. Consequently, it is no 
 very epoch-making idea to replace an animal poison by a 
 chemical one. Moreover, here again the Mongols were before 
 us, for it is narrated that even in 1241 they caused confusion 
 in the ranks of the Polish and German armies by the use of 
 
 i Died 1256. Grandson of Jenghiz Khan. — Translator. 
 
 2 Kietf fell in 123U. 
 
 s My friend Kosemeier has succeeded in proving by very painstaking 
 investigations that the Tatars (Mongols) were by no means the nation 
 of barbarians they were long thought to be. They were far in advance 
 of their age, and rive hundred years ago had already attained a degree 
 of military efficiency which the European nations of to-day are slowly 
 Struggling to attain. In this respect they were doubtless even in ad- 
 vance of Prussia. [Dr. Nieolai's friend, Dr. Hermann Kosemeier, who 
 until Septemher, li)14, was political editor of the "Berliner Morgenpost," 
 was forced, because of his democratic views, to take refuge in Switzer- 
 land during the war. — Translator.
 
 206 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 asphyxiating gases. This cannot be absolutely vouched for, 
 but there is nothing incredible in it. Even supposing it were 
 not true, however, the fact of the idea having been handed 
 down by tradition proves it to have existed in past times; 
 and if it were not put into practice, this would merely indicate 
 that the Mongols shrank from doing certain things from which 
 we to-day no longer shrink. Let us hope, therefore, that this 
 particular Mongol story is true. 1 
 
 And what else is there? Airmen's bombs, petroleum 
 squirts, trenches, felt-covered helmets, held gray or khaki uni- 
 forms — these are the other most remarkable "inventions." 
 The fear of a shortage of food and raw materials generally has, 
 it is true, given rise to all manner of suggestions in Germany. 
 Hans Friedenthal of Berlin recommended making flour out of 
 straw, and Professor Grabner of Dahlem making it from bul- 
 rush heads. Professor Jacoby, an analytical chemist, of Tu- 
 bingen, "discovered" that "reindeer moss" could be used as a 
 substitute for starch; Dr. Kobert, a Rostock professor, urges 
 having bread baked out of blood, adding as a recommendation 
 that blood-cakes taste better than black puddings, 2 but without 
 stating how black puddings do taste. Yet another suggestion, 
 in which there is nothing new, is that sugar, if fermented, 
 can be converted into albumen, in doing which, however, a 
 great deal of nutriment is wasted. All which has hitherto 
 proved of scarcely any practical value. Moreover, the sug- 
 gestions quite obviously relate to comparatively unimportant 
 trifles. 
 
 "What really might be argued with some reason is that the ex- 
 traction of ammonia from the air with the aid of electricitv, 
 a process long known to science, has become of more practical 
 importance owing to the exhaustion of the supplies of salt- 
 peter, and that in this respect our industry really has ad- 
 
 i "Tartarennachricht" is the German word, which means a blood- 
 curdling story. The play upon words is impossible to give back. — 
 Translator. 
 
 2 The word used for ''black pudding" is "Blut pudding." — Translator.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 207 
 
 vaneed during the war. Similarly the substitute for man- 
 ganese in steel production, 1 the substitution of home-grown 
 india-rubber for india-rubber proper, and many other sub- 
 stitutes all betoken progress. But here again it must be left 
 to the future to decide whether these war substitutes 
 will be able to hold their own in the open competition 
 of peace. In any case they are only a very indirect result 
 of war, and their true cause, like that of all inventions, 
 was economic necessity. 
 
 War, in short, is the enemy of the civilian and of all civilian 
 labor. 
 
 4. WAR AND THE SENSE OP SOLIDARITY 
 
 § 71. — The Decline of Comradeship 
 
 Solidarity and soldiery are two words which sound much 
 alike, and also mean much the same thing. Even the ancients 
 held that fighting brought men nearer one another, which 
 Diodorus explains thus, "When primitive men were attacked 
 by animals, they used to lend one another assistance, as ne- 
 cessity taught them to do." There can be no doubt whatever 
 that old Diodorus was right. Man's utter defenselessness 
 forced him to help his fellow-man, and thus stern Nature 
 forged for her poorest child the weapons wherewith that child 
 afterward ruled his teacher. 
 
 Modern man is not such a conscientious thinker as Diodorus. 
 He does not believe that the struggle against animals and the 
 elements gave rise to the oldest form of association, but ac- 
 tually presumes to talk of association when a handful of hu- 
 man beings join together in order to oppose the conception of 
 human solidarity. The army, which is there to give prac- 
 tical demonstration of man's not yet having reached the level 
 of considering every one his neighbor, is instanced as the 
 best and most striking expression of good fellowship. 
 
 i The new hard tempered kinds of steel are said to he much superior, 
 making it possible to bore big guns now much faster than formerly.
 
 208 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 The things of this world, however, are such a topsy-turvy- 
 mixture, that even here there lurks a grain of truth ; and al- 
 though the army has not been a school of brotherly love, we 
 can still, as time goes on, trace the growth of brotherly love 
 in connection with and about it. One thing is certain: not 
 until two combatants' friends go to their help does a duel be- 
 come a war (duellum become helium) ; and the assembling of 
 an army proves at all events the presence of social impulses, 
 and is assuredly one of the oldest ways consciously adopted by 
 human beings of acting in concert. 
 
 That others come to the assistance of a single combatant, 
 moreover, proves that they consider his claims justifiable, and 
 for this cause war is on a higher rung of the social ladder 
 than is a dispute between persons. But this fundamental idea 
 of obtaining justice, which quite probably led to the forma- 
 tion of the tirst armies, was afterward lost sight of. Grad- 
 ually a separation came about in the army, and the old duke, 
 whom the peoples once chose as primus inter pares, became an 
 officer belonging to a special caste apart from the mass of 
 the people : and as in the army this severance is more rigidly 
 enforced than anywhere else in the social scale, and splits it 
 up into two entirely distinct parts, it may now be described 
 as something more like a model of bad fellowship. 
 
 Frederick William I knew what he was about when he abol- 
 ished the principle "that to obtain a commission in the army 
 all that is necessary is considerable skill in dealing with army 
 mechanism," 1 thus converting the officers from merely a 
 superior class of soldiers into a "class apart," whose mem- 
 bers were as a matter of course not common soldiers from the 
 ranks, but scions of the nobility (pages or squires). 
 
 This is still the case to-day, and the system is more or less 
 imitated in other armies also, even in France, where every 
 soldier is supposed to carry a "baton de marechal" in his 
 knapsack, any private can, at all events in theory, still attain 
 
 i "Geschiclite des preusischen Landwehr" ("History of the Prussian 
 Militia"), by R. Brauer. Mittler & Sohn: Berlin. P. 25.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 209 
 
 to the highest dignities, whereas in the German Army this is 
 not even legally possible. That the nobility were originally 
 specially selected to become officers ought not to surprise us. 
 Perhaps there was nothing else to be done because the com- 
 paratively well-educated middle-classes would then have flatly 
 declined to degrade themselves by becoming drill sergeants of 
 the despised soldiery. 
 
 German Liberals are fond of ventilating the question 
 whether the nobility is favored in the army, and wmether the 
 prerogatives of nobility are or are not identical with an offi- 
 cer's prerogatives; but this is of comparatively little impor- 
 tance. Xo one doubts that the officers as a body are absolutely 
 exclusive. True, there is no legal basis for this exclusiveness, 
 nor indeed any other basis beyond the fact that an officer has 
 a right of precedence at the Prussian court. This privilege, 
 however, trifling as it may seem, has sufficed to cement court 
 and officers together for all eternity ; and as the higher officers 
 could be absolutely depended upon, it eventually became pos- 
 sible to utilize the whole nation for manning the regiments 
 without the latter developing into a people's army. The 
 officers as a whole remained the cornerstone of reaction, pre- 
 venting the "democratic institution of a nation in awns" 
 from really getting into the people's hands. Hence it can 
 now truly be said that "the world is not so firmly fixed on 
 Atlas's shoulders as Prussia on the shoulders of her army." 
 
 Whenever there was any real work to be done — in war, that 
 is to say, — even in early days ordinary citizens appeared 
 among the officers as if by magic, and in 1813 these humbly 
 born officers were even suffered to lay down their lives for their 
 country, which they did with enthusiasm, albeit often without 
 due recognition. Shortly after the regeneration of Prussia, 
 for instance, we find the more recent official military writers 
 endeavoring to prove that in 1806 the Prussian nobility was 
 equal to the occasion, and that in 1813 it was not the people 
 who saved the ruling caste, but, on the contrary, the ruling 
 te which saved the people. It is characteristic that an
 
 210 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 attempt should just now be made to prove that a citizen, 
 Friccius, Major in the militia, is wholly undeserving of the 
 monument erected to him at the Grimma Gate in Leipsic, and 
 that it is Mirbach, a noble and an officer of the line, to whom a 
 monument ought to have been erected. It must not be for- 
 gotten, however, that even such men as Treitschke blamed 
 ''the anxiety to screen the Prussian Guards, who as long ago 
 as 1814 created so much ill feeling." 1 
 
 This recent division among the officers themselves grad- 
 ually increased, for we must now look for good-fellowship 
 even within the German officers corps. Some German regi- 
 ments are composed of nobles and others of ordinary citizens, 
 some of guardsmen and linesmen, and others of members of 
 the general staff and troopers. Then there are the grada- 
 tions of cavalry and artillery, infantry and convoy-men ; 
 officers properly so called and ambulance officers, non-com- 
 missioned officers and commissariat officers, subalterns and 
 military officials; and each one of these classes and "class- 
 lets" is a world in itself, anxiously defending its preroga- 
 tives. 
 
 But this is not all. In the incalculably long and de- 
 structive war of 191-4-1917 capable men are needed, not 
 merely ordinary middle-class citizens, but even Working- 
 class men. But in peace-time what on earth is to be done witli 
 people "who themselves admit that their father was a carpen- 
 ter"? So, as the favorite deputy officers had not enough 
 authority, the temporary expedient was resorted to of creating 
 color-sergeant lieutenants for show T , as it were. That is, they 
 were officers only as far as the enemy was concerned. 
 
 § 72. — Results of the Separation Between Officers and Men 
 
 Now, the overwhelming majority of the German people con- 
 sider this separation between officer and "ranker" as quite 
 right and proper. Therefore this state of things, regrettable 
 
 1 Heinrich von Treitschke's speech at the War Memorial Celebrations, 
 July 19, 1895. Hirzel: Leipsic. P. 9.
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 211 
 
 as it may be, is not really unjust, though it does prove how 
 little the army has done to promote the universal equality of 
 man. Indeed, it proves how it has actually eradicated every 
 vestige of feeling of equality. Moreover, as Germany has the 
 best army, this has of course been done there more thoroughly 
 than elsewhere. 
 
 Among the common soldiers equality does exist, but an 
 equality without liberty, the equality of a pack of slaves, 
 all of them tools in the hands of their superiors. Such equal- 
 ity, of course, must not be confounded with the instinct of 
 human solidarity to which armies owe their origin. 
 
 Formerly, when tribes were too distant to be able to exert 
 any influence on one another, tribal community was the high- 
 est form of association that man was able clearly to imagine; 
 and this he defended, as a tribal community, as a nation, or 
 as an army. Man felt that there must be some such asso- 
 ciation, and if the internal conditions of the different coun- 
 tries had only continued as free and natural as when army and 
 nation were one, then military associations would quite nat- 
 urally have become enlarged as intercourse with other human 
 beings began to produce effect. Meanwhile, however, the 
 army, which was originally a product of the people, had be- 
 come independent of its creator and a tool in the hands of 
 the ruling class; and continued so, even although of late popu- 
 lation has constantly increased, and likewise the army was con- 
 stantly increasing. The people, in short, no longer decide 
 issues but are themselves decided upon. 
 
 Genuine social sentiments can never exist without the two- 
 fold check of liberty and responsibility. Soldiers in general, 
 however, are not free, nor are they, taken as a body, respon- 
 sible. Hence the organization uniting them can not be called 
 social. However much comradeship in the army may be 
 talked about, it can be only a matter of outward form. 
 
 Now, it may be argued that this may be the case in time of 
 peace, but that in time of war a new kind of comradeship is 
 treated between officers and men owing to the existence of
 
 212 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 a common danger; but this is only true to a limited extent. 
 Of course both officers and men do their very utmost at present 
 to rub along well together while the war. lasts and each de- 
 pends on the other. Often enough it happens in "trench 
 casinos" that men give so much rein to their feelings that the 
 distance between officer and private is undeniably to some 
 extent bridged over. But this is all, and when peace does 
 come it will not need to prove that in reality the distance be- 
 tween man and man is just as great as ever. On the con- 
 trary, the fear of spies in this war has added one more par- 
 tition to the many that divide up modern Germany, and one 
 which even splits up the army. Every one believes himself 
 to be the repository of specially important secrets. 
 
 For instance, when acting as army doctor, I once asked a 
 sailor who said he had injured his heart by overstraining it 
 how he had done this. He stood at attention and said, "Beg 
 pardon, a sailor must n't tell secrets." Unfortunately, such 
 answers are very characteristic nowadays. A hundred times 
 have I read in an officer's eyes, when a brother officer was 
 asking him some harmless question, the anxious query, "Per- 
 haps, after all, you 're a spy, too?" 
 
 Very often this mystery-making showed itself in strange 
 ways. Thus at first the radio-telegraphists in a certain place 
 did a little innocent bragging about the important telegrams 
 they received. Afterward, when they themselves no longer 
 knew the contents of telegrams, they took refuge in "pro- 
 fessional secrecy." Probably there have been many such 
 instances, but the fact that there is nothing behind these 
 uncommunicative official visages does not make matters bet- 
 ter. This uncommunicativeness, in short, is a characteristic 
 of mankind to-day. 
 
 Does no one wonder what is to be end of all this? The 
 army is on the high road to convert our people into a kind of 
 Jesuitical order. The Jesuits also have a chief college, which 
 every one of them blindly obeys. None knows why he does 
 so : he simply obeys. Not a soul speaks of what he is doing :
 
 HOW WAR IS BEING METAMORPHOSED 213 
 
 he does it; every one keeps a relentless watch on every one 
 else, and every individual impulse is stifled for the good of 
 the order in general. Man ceases to be an individual person, 
 and becomes a mere wheel in an organization. 
 
 The Jesuits also talk of comradeship, and even call them- 
 selves brothers, and this Brotherhood of Jesus has achieved 
 something in the world, in fact, a great deal. Time was when 
 we did not envy them their success, and if we used to say we 
 meant to be a nation of all brothers, we did not mean that 
 we wanted to be Jesuits or to belong to any organization con- 
 sisting of officers and common soldiers. We meant something 
 which might perhaps best be defined as the opposite of both. 
 We meant a free brotherliness, in which, of course, there would 
 be room for both Jesuits and officers, but which as a rule was 
 not ruled on the principles of either.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 How the Army Has Been Transformed 
 
 1. — NATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL ARMIES 
 
 § 73. — The Invincibility of a National Army 
 
 The wheel of time, therefore, has come full circle, and the 
 old days have returned in which every man must be armed. 
 Once again the world bristles with arms ; once again every 
 man has become a soldier, and this condition we Germans 
 proudly call that of a nation in arms, and talk about our 
 national army. 
 
 Now, it is certainly beyond doubt that despite all their 
 faults, national armies have given a better account of them- 
 selves on the whole than professional armies. Even the 
 Theban militia of Epaminondas were superior to the Spartans, 
 a special caste of whom had been trained to be soldiers, as 
 witness the battle of Leuktra, in 371 b. c. ; and in 275 b. c. the 
 Roman peasant militia conquered both the Greek mercenaries 
 of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus at Beneventum and the profes- 
 sional armies of Carthage, although they had a genius such as 
 Hannibal to lead them. (At Cannae, characteristically 
 enough, comparatively few Punic citizens took part in the 
 fighting.) Even the Sicilian city militia had already beaten 
 the proud Africans. 
 
 The vast national armies of the Albigenses and Hussites 
 were for long invincible, and the latter, under their great gen- 
 eral Ziska, had no difficulty whatever in utterly routing the 
 Emperor Sigismund and his experienced knightly armies, as 
 for instance at Deutsch-Brod, in 1422. 
 
 Similarly the Swiss peasants at Morgarten conquered the 
 
 214
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 215 
 
 knightly hosts of Leopold of Austria, the people of Ditt- 
 marschen • conquered the flower of the Danish Imperial 
 Army, and the Steding peasants yielded only to a feudal army 
 enormously superior in numbers. Even in Germany the very 
 ill-equipped peasant armies could not be conquered until the 
 city militia joined the knightly armies, which had everywhere 
 been beaten. 
 
 Under the popular leadership of Jeanne d'Arc the citizen 
 defenders of Orleans conquered the English Army, although 
 the latter had utterly routed the French knightly armies at 
 Agincourt. As long as the Swedish Army was a truly na- 
 tional people's army, it was invincible; and in a single year, 
 after an unparalleled succession of victories, it even reached 
 the Danube. Not till afterward did the Swedes also become 
 professional soldiers, 2 and then there was an end to their 
 conspicuous good fortune. 
 
 The American militia under Washington, although at first 
 heavily defeated, eventually won the brilliant victory of Sara- 
 toga over the British regulars. Similarly the disorganized 
 masses of soldiers of the French Revolution very soon managed 
 to overthrow the experienced armies of Austria and Prussia. 
 On the other hand, in 1813 and 1815 Prussia's insufficiently 
 trained masses proved superior to Napoleon's Old Guards. 
 
 The value of national armies, however, has been tested a 
 hundred times, and although since the outbreak of war Prus- 
 sian military experts in particular have succeeded in exalting 
 the achievements of "professional soldiers" as compared with 
 those of civilian soldiers, it is only in the pages of biassed 
 historians that their so-called "successes" need be sought. 
 Apparently it is not really so very difficult to master the busi- 
 ness of war. The last linesman who had never served in the 
 army and who was trained in from four to six weeks, has once 
 
 i Marshland coast region of Germany, now part of the Prussian prov- 
 ince of Schlesswig-Holstein. — Translator. 
 
 i Toward the close of the Thirty Years' War a large part of the Swed- 
 ish Army and almost all of the cavalry consisted of Germans.
 
 216 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 more learned virtually the same things as Used to take twenty 
 times as long to learn. 1 
 
 A set of soldiers with experience in war, on the other hand, 
 have very often failed to give a good account of themselves. 
 The German journalist Karl Bleibtreu, for instance, writes 
 that at Gravelotte and Colomby it was among the Old Prus- 
 sian troops that panic broke out. It was they who took to 
 flight and who shirked, and similarly with regard to the Old 
 Bavarian troops at Loigny. Even Frossard's picked French 
 troops conducted themselves badly at Eezonville and Grave- 
 lotte, and Canrobert's did likewise on the terrace of St. Privat 
 and at Sedan. By this it is not intended to assert that troops 
 differ essentially according to the kind of training they have 
 received. Instances, though not so many, could be alleged 
 to prove the contrary. 2 But it undoubtedly does show that 
 an army's real superiority must be based on something else 
 than technical training. 
 
 The reason why it is so difficult to perceive wherein lies that 
 principle of invincibility which manifests itself throughout 
 all the hurlyburly of victory and defeat is that hitherto men 
 have been firmly convinced of the necessity of deciding all 
 
 iNor does it seem so very difficult to "learn to be a general," as was 
 proved by the Napoleonic marshals of France. Lannes was a dyer, and 
 Murat, a waiter; Ney, Bottcher, and Oudinot, clerks; Soult a copy- 
 ing clerk : and Massena a vagabond. And they all understood their busi- 
 ness: and were far more capable than Augeran, who had served as a 
 professional soldier in the Prussian Army, or than such persons as the 
 Marquis de Grouchy and Count La^alle, who had served in a like 
 capacity in the Bourbon Army. Even von der Goltz, in passing judg- 
 ment from the point of view of a German military man on Gambetta, 
 the lawyer, says that in many respects it would have been much better 
 for France had she listened only to him. It goes without saying that, 
 since old DerfHingers time, it has not been possible to cite any Ger- 
 mans as instances of this superiority of non-professional soldiers. 
 
 2 Cf. Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the 
 Wealth of Nations," V, I, 1 (1776). Adam Smith's view is that only 
 a very small percentage of soldiers are possible and necessary in a civ- 
 ilized community, and that they had best be a police force, paid a fixed 
 salary. In proof of the truth of his contention he cites instances in 
 which well organized armies have beaten badly organized ones.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 217 
 
 their great struggles by lighting like animals. Thus they have 
 generally fought and fought until at length, after varying 
 successes, the victor on the battle-field was the combatant pre< 
 destined to victory from the first — namely, the combatant with 
 the stronger vitality. Hence the delusion that anything can 
 be decided by a battle being won. In reality, however, it was 
 the national army which won, not the flower-decked hosts 
 which, armed to the teeth, go to meet death on the battle-field, 
 but that national army of workers and inventors, artists and 
 scientists, whose vital force creates new life. 
 
 That fine nations, especially in former times, should like- 
 wise often have been fine soldiers is not surprising, but has 
 helped to obscure the truth, since it thus frequently happened 
 that victory on the battle-field and genuine victory coincided. 
 For this very reason the exceptions are all the more instructive. 
 Perhaps the most striking instances of nations which have 
 obtained a foothold without having ever won a victory are 
 the Chinese and the Jews. And modern Italy, proof of whose 
 efficient labor is that Italian workmen may be found shoveling 
 up the ground all round the globe, has she not won something 
 from each one of her lost wars? And have not Russia, Ger- 
 many, and Austria, the three empires concerned, all promised 
 the Poles autonomy? Polish workmen are to be found, like 
 Italian, all over the world; yet the Polish people have never 
 waged Avar on their own account ; indeed whenever they have 
 attempted to bring about a revolution by force of arms, they 
 have failed miserably. And is not Hungary also a case in 
 point ? In 1849 she was cut to pieces, and to-day she has the 
 decisive voice in the Dual Monarchy. 
 
 Why cite all these examples, however, since any one who 
 keeps his eyes open will find in the history of nations proofs 
 and to spare of my contentions? Moreover, no one will be 
 able to adduce any fact to disprove them. 
 
 It is national superiority which decides issues, and not 
 military success; and this is the sense in which the nation 
 decides, or, if you prefer, a national army. The founders of
 
 218 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 modem armies had an inkling of this truth, but, spellbound 
 by tradition, they thought they must equip the people with 
 rifles. We shall never attain our object until this delusion 
 has vanished, and until the "fighting army" is identical with 
 the nation at work. Then will we try to help our people by 
 making them fitter for life and no longer fitter for bearing 
 arms. Then will the true, genuine struggle begin, one which 
 will perhaps be far more terrible, but more worth fighting, 
 because it will mean the survival of the fittest and not of those 
 most skilled in bearing arms. Thus one day will militarism 
 be overcome, and by an army of the nation. 
 
 §74. — A Question Wrongly Worded 
 
 In order that this may one day come to pass, however, it 
 was perhaps first necessary for the people to be admitted into 
 the professional army. It is regrettable, but may have been 
 unavoidable, that the number of soldiers in Europe should 
 have increased since the Middle Ages by from two thousand 
 to four thousand per cent. ; for whereas in the Middle Ages 
 out of a thousand human beings not more than four to eight 
 were soldiers, at present from 120 to 150 are so. 
 
 Now, this increase, which is absolutely senseless and useless, 
 since all countries have done the same thing, must be explained, 
 if it cannot be justified. It is the one solid fact from which 
 everything else has resulted. Hardly any one refers to this 
 main fact, however, but only to all manner of absolutely im- 
 material side issues. For instance, we argue as to whether the 
 recruited soldier or the mercenary is the better. True, the 
 German word soldier {Soldat) is derived from "Sold" (pay) ; 
 but in general it is imagined that the soldier to-day fights 
 voluntarily for his country, which the mercenary (or Soldner) 
 does not. When Frederick the Great died, in 1786, this dis- 
 tinction may have existed ; and it was a symptom of the great 
 changes then preparing in Europe that public opinion severely 
 condemned those petty German princes who, in return for 
 "subsidies," allowed their mercenaries to fight for England.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 219 
 
 Only twenty 3 r ears earlier public opinion saw nothing to con- 
 demn in transactions of this kind. Even in 1813 the "new" 
 Prussian army consisted, at all events a small part thereof, of 
 enthusiastically patriotic volunteers, whereas the "old" army 
 was raked together by craft or forced from all parts of the 
 world. 
 
 But now it is the English who are dubbed "hirelings," 
 although, at any rate in the first twenty months of the war, 
 they were all volunteers, whereas in Germany the troops are 
 invariably compulsorily recruited. 1 On either side are none 
 but German-born or British-born, as the case may be. Both 
 receive pay also, and that the German is paid less is quite 
 beside the point. 
 
 From the purely technical point of view, the professional 
 soldier will, of course, achieve more, but this scarcely matters. 
 The one really important point is the "spirit animating the 
 army." This, in an army based on universal service, may be 
 "bad," as was proved in the case of the Russians during the 
 Japanese War; and in an army voluntarily recruited it may 
 be "good," as Americans and British have frequently shown. 
 The contrary, however, may be the case ; and although volun- 
 tary service as existing in England until recently is preferable 
 for other reasons, this does not affect the quality of the army. 
 
 Even the question whether "standing armies" or militia are 
 the better is due to a play upon words, for in reality in every 
 country to-day there is a compromise between these two sys- 
 tems. The ancient profession of a mercenary no longer exists 
 except for officers, beginning with generals, who still some- 
 times die in harness. All other soldiers, after more or less 
 training, are transferred to the "reserve," which, after all, 
 is the principle of the militia. Officers serve about twenty 
 
 1 The only persons in (Germany who can be compared with England's 
 volunteer hirelings would be the comparatively well paid officers, who 
 in war-time are even very well paid. But from the political point of 
 view this is very much more dangerous, of which Spinoza was aware, 
 when, in his political tractate, chap. VI, S 31, lie particularly insisted 
 that soldiers should receive pay, but officers not. Cf. below.
 
 220 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 years, subalterns twelve, the Russians, four, German and 
 French cavalry, three, and German infantry, two years. 
 "What may be called upper lif th-f orm boys, or what corresponds 
 to them in Germany, serve one year; German doctors and the 
 Serbians, six months ; the Dutch, three months ; and the Swiss, 
 ten weeks. Here, then, we have all grades. How greatly the 
 meaning of all these military titles varies, moreover, even 
 among experts, is proved by the fact that in the "1824 Mili- 
 tary Hand-book" * the Prussian Army of Jena is described as 
 an "organized militia." 
 
 All these alleged contradictions in terms, such as soldiers 
 under obligation to serve in the army or hirelings, professional 
 or national army, standing army or militia, matter nothing 
 to-day. Every nation tries to squeeze as much as possible out 
 of the material at its disposal, and for this purpose universal 
 service is of course the best. No reasonable person can be in 
 any doubt about this. 
 
 The only possible question, therefore, is whether it is worth a 
 nation's while to sacrifice its best sons for a purpose attainable 
 by means of an army. For this is what it all amounts to, and 
 this must determine the purpose for which an army is used. 
 Originally, it is true, an army really was meant for war, and 
 existed only in war, which simple folk probably took -to be a 
 matter of course. Indeed, when the business of war was not, 
 as it is now, something wholly apart from man's ordinary 
 habits of life, it would naturally have been absurd to have 
 kept an army together even in peace-time. Every one used 
 to go about his business, and if war came, then every one used 
 to take up arms. 
 
 § 75. — The Three Reasons for the Introduction of Profes- 
 sional Armies 
 
 This gradually changed. First of all a change, often 
 wrongly called degeneration, came about in man. Peaceful 
 citizens, whose days were tilled up with work, forgot how to 
 
 i "Militarisches Taschenbuch 1842."
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 221 
 
 ride and fight, and consequently were obliged, even in peace- 
 time, to practice the increasingly difficult art of war, for which 
 they had no time. Thus professional soldiers came into 
 existence, most of them "international artisans," who traveled 
 from place to place, carrying on their occupation at the same 
 time. Such familiar names as Xenophon, Pyrrhus, G. von 
 Frundsberg 1 and Gattamellata prove that this arrangement 
 was not peculiar to any nation or to any period. 
 
 Secondly, as time went on, the community was constantly 
 requiring a larger and larger police force, as the number of 
 prohibitions was continually increasing, and the minority en- 
 gaged in perpetually exploiting the masses more and more were 
 forced to maintain troops for their individual protection. 
 That this and not by any means fondness for waging war was 
 the main reason for the introduction of standing armies is 
 plain from the fact that almost without exception these can 
 be proved to have originated in a mere princely bodyguard, 
 of which Ave have a reminder of this in the names of the oldest 
 divisions of the standing armies — Pretorians, Guards, body- 
 guard, "Maison du Roi," myrmidons, gentlemen-at-arms, and 
 others. 
 
 For this very reason standing armies were virtually never 
 recruited from the country's own sons, since it was against 
 the latter that they were to be used. The Roman Pretorians 
 were Germans or Parthians; the French Guards were Swiss; 
 the first army of the Ilohenzollerns consisted of South Ger- 
 mans; and up till the Prussian Wars of Liberation recruiting 
 abroad' was preferred. Indeed Frederick William I, the real 
 founder of the Prussian Army, expressly forbade any attempt 
 to induce the country's sons to take their places beside "com- 
 mon fellows." Accordingly, no one thought it strange that 
 scions of the same fatherland should fight against one another. 
 Thus at Malplaquet, Swiss were pitted against Swiss, and at 
 Pavia, in 1525, German mercenaries under Frundsberg fought 
 
 1 (ieorg von Frwndsberpr, 1 47.'i- 1528, leader of the German free lands 
 under Maximilian and Charles V.
 
 22-2 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 against the French "Black Band," which, for that matter, 
 likewise consisted of Germans under the leadership of a Lower 
 Saxon junker. 
 
 Thirdly, there was yet another cause for the establishment 
 of standing armies, and this, strange as it may sound, was 
 men's longing for peace. At a time when there were as yet 
 no standing armies, old Cicero 1 innocently wrote: "we must 
 wage war one day in order afterward to be able to enjoy 
 peace," thereby correctly describing what is at present actu- 
 ally a fact. In the Rome of Cicero's days there were still so 
 many savage elements, that he was obliged, in making such an 
 observation, to hold forth some attractive subsidiary prospect. 
 But when Rome became more highly civilized, and conse- 
 quently, perhaps partly under the influence of the Christian 
 conceptions of fraternity then spreading over the world, not 
 enough men were anxious to become soldiers, Vegetius, 2 a 
 Christian, wrote that whoever desired peace ought to pre- 
 pare for war, connecting this statement with Cicero's word-, 
 but absolutely reversing their meaning. 
 
 Thus we ought to prepare for war in order to avoid it, 
 whereas otherwise no one prepares for anything unless he 
 wants to bring it about. An analogy to this can be found only 
 in the confused reasoning of scholastic theologians. Here 
 also we find the assertion that as no one can positively know 
 that it is not, after all, dangerous to deny God, therefore it is 
 safer, especially for His enemies, to believe in Him, "since 
 then He cannot be angry with them. ' ' 
 
 Lessing has already admirably exposed this "safety" kind 
 of argument. He describes a Jew, who, being asked whether 
 he would prefer to believe in a living or a dead Christ, re- 
 plies: "Rather in a living Christ, for he could always be 
 killed afterward; but it is difficult to make the dead live 
 
 i Cicero: "Quare, si pace frui volumus, helium gerendum est." Phil. 
 VII. 6, 19f. 
 
 - Vegetius: "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." Epitome just, 
 rei milit. 3 p. vol.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 223 
 
 again." It has been just the same with war. Timorous per- 
 sons think it dangerous to believe even in the possibility of 
 peace, for then war might come like a thief in the night and 
 devour them ; and therefore, for safety's sake, an ever-living— 
 that is, a standing — army must be kept. Else the other armies 
 would kill it. 
 
 These standing armies for peace, therefore, a condition 
 which even Logau * stigmatized as an "armor-clad peace," 
 arose for the following reasons: 
 
 1. — As a result of war having become unnatural and nations 
 being engaged in peaceful occupations. 
 
 2. — As a sign of princes' dread lest the disinherited should 
 take vengeance upon them. 
 
 3. — As a sign of the people's dread of the horrors of war. 
 
 Armies, therefore, were not at all created for war, but for 
 peace ; and they are not a warlike, but a peaceful, symptom. 
 But since, perhaps, nothing could be less adapted to the 
 awakening desire for peace, all they have succeeded in doing is 
 to make wars ever greater and more horrible. This is always 
 so when we try to cast out the devil by Beelzebub, which, for 
 that matter, is not generally a sign of particularly great 
 wickedness, but always one of particularly great stupidity. 
 Thus modern armies in themselves are not wicked, but they are 
 the ne plus ultra of human folly. 
 
 2. — DEFENSIVE MILITIA OR AGGRESSIVE ARMY 2 
 
 .6. — The Origin and Meaning of Militia 
 
 I hardly know a single book on militia which docs not begin 
 by asserting that originally the principle of universal service 
 
 i Logau's "Sinnegedichte," No. 1802, 1654. 
 "Krieg hat den Harnisch weggelegt, der Friede zeucht ilina an. 
 
 YYir wissen, was der Krieg verlibt, wer weiss, was Friede kann'.'"' 
 
 (War lias put off its armor, and peace puts it on. We know what 
 mischief war can do; who knows what peace can do?) 
 
 -' Where not otherwise stated, I have relied for my facts mainly upon 
 "Die Geschichte der preussischen Landwehr" ("History of the Prussian
 
 224 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 prevailed in Germany, in accordance with the old feudal sys- 
 tem. In one sense this is true, though it is both saying too 
 much and too little. It says too little because universal service 
 existed not in Germany alone, but throughout Europe and even 
 throughout the world. After all, it is quite natural that the 
 inhabitants of a country should have defended themselves 
 against enemy invasion, as they would generally have done ab- 
 solutely of their own accord in order to avoid being killed, and 
 which they were everywhere bound to do. Almost all primi- 
 tive states have been founded on some such necessity for de- 
 fense and offense. 
 
 But it also says too much. "Whoever goes to the roots of 
 that patriotic feeling from which ancient Germany sprang 
 ought never to forget how marvelous rich and expressive is 
 our mother tongue. In Germany there is no "conscription 
 generate," which might mean anything, but only the quite 
 clearly defined "universal military service." This does not 
 mean that it is every one's duty to attack or inflict chastise- 
 ment on others, but simply and solely that it is every man's 
 duty to bear arms. More clearly it cannot be expressed. 
 
 The Ottoman is commanded by his religion to attack, but the 
 German's duty was only to protect hearth and home, and it 
 was left to his own free choice whether he would take part in 
 military excursions into other countries. No one was com- 
 pelled to take part in the "Ver sacrum," and this ancient 
 Teutonic custom survived longest in free England, where 
 until quite recently every one was liable for home defense only, 
 while the yeomen voluntarily obeyed the king's call to attack, 
 partly because they hoped for plunder (though now they can 
 hope only for pay), and partly from patriotism. 
 
 Originally this system prevailed in Germany, as everywhere 
 else : and in Prussia, which is somewhat off the beaten track, 
 it survived a particularly long while. When the word militia 
 (Landwehr) first occurs in Prussian documents, it is used to 
 
 Militia"), by the Prussian Minister Briiuer. Mittler & Sohn: Berlin, 
 1863.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 225 
 
 mean a model peaceful institution, which, it is true, the Hohen- 
 zollerns were not long in abolishing. 
 
 In the old monastic country of Prussia, after its seculariza- 
 tion, the militia formed an integral part of the so-called "de- 
 fense works." As Polish was at first spoken there, they were 
 called "Wybraniek," 1 and there is no official mention of 
 militia until 1613. Ten years later the Elector George Wil- 
 liam and the Prussian Estates of the Realm came to an agree- 
 ment concerning this militia, "whereby every tenth man was 
 destined to go to the frontier, while the rest were to remain 
 in the interior of the country to defend it." 
 
 Had this idea of utilizing the inexhaustible reserves of uni- 
 versal service only for home defense been further developed, 
 wars would have become impossible. For instance, if to-day 
 only one soldier in ten were allowed to cross the frontier and 
 the recruiting systems were all alike, then even if all Europe 
 united in an attack on the Central empires, there would be 
 only one man available for attack as against more than four 
 for defense at the disposal of the Central empires. Contrari- 
 wise, every soldier of the Central empires would encounter 
 about thirty enemies on the defensive. Indeed, even Germany 
 alone, defending herself against all Europe, would have more 
 than twice as many troops as her aggressors could put in the 
 field. 
 
 This "sacred duty of bearing arms," which would almost 
 automatically have prevented any attack, became so completely 
 metamorphosed in the course of ages that now nothing but 
 the name is a faint reminder, and this only for the learned, 
 that the civilization of the German nation was once peaceful 
 in character. 
 
 It was Charlemagne who first attempted to force the German 
 people into aggressive warfare ; and we ought to reflect, espe- 
 
 1 Wybraniek means selected. Here again, therefore, the fine title and 
 meaning of the militia is not traceable, though it is characteristic that 
 those who translated the word did not do so literally, but freely adapted 
 it, being mindful of the trend of ancient German civilization.
 
 2L!6 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 cially just now, that even he did not succeed in calling out the 
 whole nation for more than a few decades, and then only by 
 dint of great difficulty. Charlemagne wanted to uplift and 
 protect the peasant class. Hence he gave his people whatever 
 land he conquered, hoping thereby to induce them to defend 
 it of their own accord. If he freed the peasant class, he hoped 
 to have a nation capable of bearing arms ; but he very soon 
 perceived that this was like arguing in a circle, for the per- 
 petual wars ruined the very class of peasants they had orig- 
 inally created. 1 
 
 Thus this agrarian reform of Charlemagne, which aimed at 
 establishing a class of peasant soldiers, failed because it was 
 essentially inconsistent. Similarly all agrarian reforms had 
 failed, in ancient Greece (the Spartan reforms of Agis and 
 Cleomenes, for instance), and likewise in Italy, from those of 
 Servius Tullius up to and including those of the Gracchi ; and 
 similarly all such reforms were destined to fail in the future, 
 even those of Frederick "William III of Prussia until 1813. 
 
 § 77. — The Rise of a Hireling Army in Germany 
 
 Even under the Carolingians men raised by general levy 
 proved unsuited for fighting abroad ; but in the long run the 
 vassal army likewise failed. In this army the vassal was not a 
 proper professional soldier, but pursued his soldier's calling 
 as a permanent secondary occupation. 
 
 Attempts to conquer foreign countries with vassal armies 
 failed utterly, for the German people could not be induced 
 to dream dreams of conquering Italy, as did its emperors. 
 Henry the Lion, 2 for instance, flatly declined to fight Barbaros- 
 
 i When the wars ceased, indeed, when one nation was at length vic- 
 torious, then perhaps it might have been possible to discuss whether it 
 was all worth while; but even in those days the conquered were wont 
 to revenge themselves. 
 
 2 Henry the Lion (1129-1195), Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, cousin 
 of Barbarossa. Married Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England, 
 and spent three years in England. He founded Munich, and did much 
 to promote the development of Hamburg, Lubeck, and other towns. 
 Owing to his having acted disloyally to Barbarossa in 1175, the latter
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 227 
 
 sa's battles, and even the second Frederick von Hohenstaufen 
 was obliged to employ foreigners, mostly Saracens. Subse- 
 quently the question whether the "obligation to serve" might 
 be enforced for some object outside the empire, and, if so, to 
 what extent, gave rise to endless dissensions. Indeed, to 
 describe these would mean writing a large portion of medieval 
 constitutional history. At all events, the rulers did not as yet 
 have their own way, and as they cared little about a "uni- 
 versal obligation to serve in peace," they allowed universal 
 service in general gradually to fall into disuse. 
 
 A middle course was then agreed upon, which suited both 
 parties concerned. The citizen bought himself free for good 
 and for all from the obligation to serve; and with the pro- 
 ceeds of this tax the lord of the soil bought himself a smaller, 
 more convenient army, one which was not always wanting 
 to go home, but, ready either for peace or war, could be used 
 for making wars on foreign countries as well as on the rights 
 of the lord of the soil's fellow-citizens, irrespective of all 
 ordinances concerning the duty of military service. Thus it 
 was that in England and Denmark German mercenaries were 
 used to quell the risings of the harassed peasantry, while the 
 Ilapsburgs in the Anti-Reformation movement used Italian 
 and Walloon troops against their Protestant knights, cities, 
 and peasants. General levies of the people lingered on only 
 in a few democracies, such as Switzerland; and except in 
 Poland, even the nobility were not always called upon to 
 serve. Thus national armies were abolished by the ruling 
 caste, because it was still impossible to exploit the nation's 
 strength in the interests of any dynasties. What softened 
 this blow for the rulers was that early in the Middle Ages 
 firearms began to be used now, and not every one was skilled in 
 the use of these; hence the necessity for "trained soldiers" 
 again arose. At all events, just at this time princely guards, 
 
 put liim to tlie ban of the empire and forfeited his lands. As he suli- 
 mittiil in [181, however, he was suffered to keep Liineburg and Bruns- 
 w ick — Translator.
 
 228 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 gentlemen-at-arms, bodyguards, or whatever their names may 
 have been, began almost everywhere being converted into gen- 
 uine armies of mercenaries, for the most part a scourge 
 rather than a protection to the country in whose pay they 
 were. 
 
 Once the princes found they could depend upon their hire- 
 lings to support them steadfastly and independently of the 
 people, they hardly ever kept to their agreement with the 
 latter, but repeatedly demanded not merely their money, but 
 their blood also. Wars were very frequent, but those who 
 delighted in war comparatively few. Thus demand exceeded 
 supply, and an army of foreign mercenaries cost a pretty 
 penny. Hence the thoughts of any prince anxious to man- 
 age " economically " could not but be perpetually reverting 
 to universal liability to military service, which, after all, 
 was a way of getting soldiers comparatively cheap. But 
 sometimes he realized that, at any rate in those days, there 
 was danger in making his fellow-subjects fire on their own 
 fathers and brothers; and sometimes he perceived that, after 
 all, these fellow-citizens of his could be better employed for 
 other purposes. Then he sorrowfully reverted to the plan of 
 recruiting his soldiers abroad. So matters went on, never 
 for long the same. 
 
 § 78. — The Rise of an Army of Mercenaries in Prussia 
 
 Conditions did not become more stable until Frederick Wil- 
 liam I's time. This "soldier-king," who loved parading 
 about with his "set of longlegs," first disbanded the militia 
 established by his predecessor for home defense, alleging that 
 it was "insufficiently trained." To this militia it was "ex- 
 pressly promised that it should never be taken out of the 
 country." Under penalty of a hundred ducats' fine, he even 
 forbade the word militia to be used, and he also forbade any 
 homeland recruiting, which, however, he afterward allowed 
 from pecuniary considerations. But an edict of 1721 re- 
 stricted it to "such subjects as may come forward of their
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 229 
 
 own free will, and are not already engaged in the cultivation 
 of the soil, in the promotion of commerce," and in certain 
 other occupations. 
 
 The twenty-seven years of Frederick William I's reign 
 were, by the way, among the most peaceful which Prussia has 
 seen. With a small "show guard'' of soldiers it was impos- 
 sible to make war, for, as the impartial historian cannot fail 
 to notice, that to whomsoever God gives an army, He sooner 
 or later gives the war belonging thereto. 
 
 Frederick William I's army was small and consisted solely 
 of "mercenaries," being thus as unlike our present monstrous 
 national armies as possible. Yet he is universally, and rightly, 
 regarded as the founder of the Prussian military system. 
 To him is traceable the root principle of the Prussian Army, a 
 principle which all modern prating about national or hireling 
 armies, one year's or three years' service, etc., merely ob- 
 scures. He it was who caused the Prussian Army to be clas- 
 sified into "common soldiers" 1 and officers, and since his 
 time it has been impossible for any soldier to become an 
 officer. 
 
 All who speak of this monarch as the founder of the Prus- 
 sian Army testify, perhaps unwittingly, to the fact that this 
 contempt for the "common soldier," which in no other army 
 is so marked, is really characteristic; for this sharp delimi- 
 tation is all that is now left of his system, and to-day it is 
 sharper than ever; and this monarch's contempt for "common 
 fellows" (.that is, foreigners or, later on, the good-for-nothing 
 dregs of his own people), has in course of time become trans- 
 ferred to the mass of the German people. They are still good 
 enough to be "common soldiers," while promotion to be an 
 officer is reserved for the rich or noble. 
 
 This standing army proper remained much the same until 
 the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, but in times of real na- 
 tional danger, the people also alwaj^s used to fight for their 
 country. Thus, after the dangerous concentric attack of the 
 
 1 "Cmeine" — common soldiers, commoners. — Translator.
 
 230 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Allies on Prussia began, the Pomeranian Estates equipped five 
 thousand yeomanry and offered them to the king, and the 
 provincial cities of the Marches and of the domains of Madge- 
 burg and Halberstadt did likewise, adding, it is true, the stipu- 
 lation that these troops should be maintained only for the du- 
 ration of the war and used only for the defense of the country. 
 But what a king has, he has, and in the last years of the war 
 these troops were unlawfully employed as reserves. The great 
 king, however, unlike his successors, did disband these bat- 
 talions on the conclusion of the war, although his empty treas- 
 ury may certainly have had something to do with this. 
 
 § 79. — Attempts at Organization Before the Battle of Jena 
 
 After the death of Frederick II no change took place 
 until the cannonading of Yalmy, the victory of the French 
 at Jemappes in 1792, and the conquest of Toulon made the 
 Allies realize that with the French Revolution new forces had 
 gained the upper hand. When we are in a tight place, we 
 always think of the people. Consequently in 1794 an edict of 
 the Prussian Military Department 1 approved the offer of 
 the president of the chamber, Stein, to collect a militia. The 
 following year, indeed, even the imperial court at Vienna be- 
 gan to discuss the question of a "universal arming of the 
 people." But the Prussian Government, which in 1795 still 
 believed in Frederick the Great's army, opined that such a 
 general levy of the people would not suffice to get the better 
 of the enemy and, moreover, was dangerous. Once more did 
 the Prussian bureaucrats prove that they knew better how 
 to attain their end than did the Viennese; for, after all, the 
 whole century of German reaction is contained in these few 
 words of August 25, 1795, "a people in arms is a danger in 
 itself." 
 
 Yet the time came when even Prussian bureaucrats were 
 forced to appeal to the people in arms, which, for the time 
 being, did not get beyond the stage of plans. For eight long 
 
 i Ober-Kriegs-Kollegium. — Translator.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 231 
 
 years, moreover, nothing was said about it, and meanwhile 
 Napoleon's new armies were turning the world upside down. 
 Then, in 1803, we suddenly hear of General von Ruchel's 
 scheme for raising fully fifty thousand yeomanry, who, sig- 
 nificantly enough, were to be under the command of "semi- 
 invalids." General von Courbiere had also a plan, which, 
 however, left the militia wholly out of account, and merely 
 proposed to call up more recruits, and dismiss on leave an 
 equal number of experienced soldiers, thus creating a supply 
 of "thoroughly trained" men to increase the standing army 
 for war purposes. 
 
 A high and mighty military organization committee, which 
 had been sitting since 1795, was particularly incensed over 
 Major von Knesebeck's plan for the introduction of a genuine 
 militia, to be called the "Patriotic Legions." Degrading pun- 
 ishments, moreover, were to be abolished. The committee 
 angrily pointed out that the Prussian military constitution 
 was a "venerable original document and of matchless perfec- 
 tion," something which could not be meddled with without 
 everything collapsing. When such principles prevailed, the 
 wonder is not that the organization committee should have 
 kept silence so long, but why it should ever have existed at 
 all. 
 
 General von Ruchel's scheme was supposed to be accepted, 
 but in reality nothing whatever was done; and when war 
 broke out, only a few Polish battalions could be scraped to- 
 gether, and then in Silesia. Fruitless as the labors of the mil- 
 itary organization committee were, however, they cannot be 
 ignored when the value of soldiers is being inquired into. 
 There is again an inclination to consider that at Jena the 
 officers did not fail so very badly, "for, after all, such a lot 
 of them did stick to their guns," as if the value of a human 
 being depended on some one else shooting him dead. If this 
 were the case, then hares would make the best officers. The 
 really important fact is that until the Peace of Tilsit the army 
 was entirely in the hands of high-born military men, who,
 
 232 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 as their organization committee proved, were absolutely in- 
 capable. 
 
 § 80. — The 1807 Reorganization Committee 
 
 When the bill for all this incapacity had been settled at 
 Jena, and the State of Prussia was prostrate, then it was 
 seen that something must be done. Accordingly the organi- 
 zation committee was converted into a reorganization commit- 
 tee, and, what was of more importance, civilians were ap- 
 pointed members of it. To them it is due that afterward some 
 vestige of a new spirit prevailed. It was, however, only a 
 vestige, for in this reorganization committee two opinions 
 fought for predominance. Every one was agreed as to the 
 desirability of having as many soldiers as possible, and as to 
 its being the duty, if practicable, of all citizens to enter the 
 army. That is, something resembling a national army was 
 desired. The question, however, was whether the people or 
 the army should be the first consideration. On the reorgani- 
 zation committee were such men as Baron von Stein x and 
 the financial expert Schon. Under the fructifying influence 
 of French Revolutionary ideas, they wanted to create a 
 genuine national army, based on moral qualities. But they 
 had the military party against them, and particularly Gneis- 
 enau, who wanted to have as few changes as possible, and 
 to resort to universal service merely in order to squeeze out 
 a larger contingent of recruits for the standing army. 
 
 An interesting memorandum 2 has been preserved, sub- 
 mitted by Herr von Schon on December 4, and then handed 
 to Herr von Gneisenau for his expert opinion thereon. Herr 
 von Gneisenau made marginal notes on it, which clearly show 
 that he and his colleague, eminent men as they both were, 
 
 i Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl von Stein, 1757-1831. In 1804 he 
 was appointed to the Prussian Department of Trade and Manufactures, 
 where he introduced apparently too many reforms to please Frederick 
 William III, and in 1807 he resigned. — Translator 
 
 2 Printed in the Supplement to the "Militarwochenblatt," for 1846, pp. 
 68 and 69.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 233 
 
 were as wide apart as the poles. One citation is enough to 
 show this. The civilian committee member says that soldiers 
 in general must be considered as the. flower of the nation, 
 righting all wrongs, and consequently having the highest vo- 
 cation. This did not please the military men, and Von Gneise- 
 nau made a marginal note insisting "that the whole nation 
 must realize that the only way to maintain its national exist- 
 ence is to uphold its military honor. ' ' 
 
 Two fairy godmothers, therefore, stood together by the 
 cradle of the new Prussian Army. The gift which one wanted 
 to bestow upon it was the power of righting wrongs ; while the 
 other wanted to raise it above the rest of mankind by endowing 
 it with ' ' a soldier s special honor, ' ' a phrase which must, then 
 have, been newly coined. 
 
 Prussia, therefore, was faced by the problem of whether she 
 meant to become a national army or to remain a military 
 state. These two phrases show quite clearly that we have 
 here a distinction which cannot be expressed in concrete terms. 
 Both signify that army and people are one and indivisible, 
 and yet we know that the two notions are worlds apart. The 
 result of the one is Switzerland, that of the other Prussia 
 and Germany, the other countries lying somewhere between 
 these two extremes. 
 
 It is easy to divine- why the democratic tendencies of Stein 
 and his followers were not allowed to prevail. General von 
 Boy en, 1 many years Prussian minister of war, once expressly 
 stated that "the example of the free States of North America 
 and of Switzerland proves that even now it is possible to 
 manage by arming the people in this way." The militia, 
 indeed, he continued, must not be considered as "resulting 
 from the republican form of Government - in these two eoun- 
 
 i "Beitriige zur L'harakteristik des Generals v. Scharnhorst" 
 ("Side Lights on the Character of General von Scharnhorst") by H. 
 von Boy en. 
 
 -' I have added the word "republican" in order to make the quotation 
 from Boyen intelligible. The author himself is very careful not to 
 u»e any such word, and leaves it to the reader to guess.
 
 234 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tries." Other republics, for instance Holland, Carthage, 
 Genoa, and Venice, have maintained considerable standing 
 armies, as Boyen himself quite truly observes. 
 
 Thus, although Boyen arrives at no result, nevertheless 
 his few words of comparison contain the truth, indeed the 
 whole truth. He did not, indeed, express it, but possibly 
 he suspected it. The kind of government matters no more 
 than the particular kind of army. What matters is what 
 is intended to be done with the armies. Carthage wanted to 
 conquer Spain and Sicily; Holland to conquer the East Indies 
 and neighboring territory; Venice and Genoa fought for 
 the predominance in the Mediterranean. Switzerland and 
 North America, however, do not want to conquer anything; 
 they use their armies only for defense, and consequently man- 
 age with truly national armies. 
 
 Boyen must have held some such opinion, for he was a great 
 student of Scharnhorst, and Scharnhorst expressly states that 
 militia is only suitable for defensive warfare. It is obvious, 
 indeed, that a national army composed of citizens all engaged 
 in various occupations ought never to take up arms except 
 when compelled to do so in self-defense. The robber attacks, 
 the citizen defends himself. 
 
 Now, in every country peacefully inclined persons are in 
 the majority, and the circumstance that aggressive armies were 
 formed from these peaceful citizens did much to deprave 
 politics in the nineteenth century. Imaginary contrasts had 
 to be drawn, and, at any rate, some enthusiasm artitically 
 created, which partly explains the enthusiastic attachment to 
 the hereditary monarchical principle and the racial patriot- 
 ism characteristic of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Genuine national armies, however, and true militia are in 
 reality eminently peaceful institutions, being in their very 
 nature, suited to home defense, but not for aggression. What 
 causes the professional soldier to look down on them, causes 
 the civilian to admire them. And these are the kind of 
 armies we must»have if we are serious in our desire for peace.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 235 
 
 Whoever advocates other armies is forging instruments of 
 war, and is therefore responsible if his instruments in their 
 turn do not infallibly bring about war. 
 
 § 81. — The Reaction of the Military Party 
 
 Scharnhorst, however, wanted armies for war, and it was his 
 plans which were approved by King Frederick William III, 
 in whose absolute power the ultimate decision lay. The peo- 
 ple about this time were beginning to think of themselves as 
 Germans; and in 1813 they went to war not to maintain 
 Prussia, but to obtain Germany. Then and even later it would 
 have been easy to have had a large German National Army, 
 if it had been desired to do so. But nothing of the sort was 
 desired, and the only concession to the new era at length wrung 
 from those in power was craftily to allow the people to imagine 
 themselves to be forming a national army. 
 
 It has often been scornfully observed that the only demo- 
 crat ic idea which has gained a foothold is that of national 
 armies, and that they fought the battles of 1914. Such a re- 
 proach does not apply to Germany ; she has never had a true 
 national army, and what feeble attempts at anything of the 
 sort were made during the troublous times of the Wars of 
 Liberation were strangled by professional soldiers before they 
 could really come to anything. 
 
 The military party is to be admired for the logical persist- 
 ency with which it has succeeded in enforcing its will. In 
 the first period of alarm civilians were appointed to the re- 
 organization committee; and the first thing done was to bow 
 them out with vast politeness. Thus the military men were 
 by themselves once more, and could reorganize. True, it was 
 not upon extremists such as Gneisenau that the work of reor- 
 ganization fell, but on the more moderate Scharnhorst, who, 
 however, was always, as Ilerr von Schon called him, a "regu- 
 lar" (soldier of the line). 
 
 In his first memorandum of -Inly 21. 1807, 1 Scharnhorst still 
 
 ■ Reprinted in the "Militiirwochenblatt" for 1846, pp. 88-90.
 
 236 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 insists absolutely on the aristocratic importance of the stand- 
 ing army, which he thinks ought to continue to be obliged to 
 serve twenty years. Besides this, however, he wished to or- 
 ganize a provincial militia or yeomanry, but solely for the 
 purpose "of maintaining order in the country itself, assisting 
 the police, protecting the country from the depredations of 
 marauders, and preventing enemy incursions." He also 
 thought it possible that later on the militia "might defend 
 the country, together with the regular troops." 
 
 Scharnhorst therefore, is chiefly thinking of somewhat bet- 
 ter organized citizen guards, and it certainly never occurred 
 to him that such a national army could be used for purposes 
 of aggression. Gradually, however, this "militia," as it was 
 intended to be, became increasingly diverted from its original 
 purposes of defense pure and simple. The verjr next year 
 he completed his "Preliminary Draft Constitution for Pro- 
 vincial Troops," 1 in w T hich he goes a step further. In § 8, 
 for instance, he says: "The Provincial Troops are intended to 
 insure order within the country itself, and to defend it against 
 enemy attack. They shall only leave the province when the 
 safety of the monarchy requires them to do so." Here we 
 have the troops already permitted to leave their province and 
 available for use throughout Prussia. There is still no word, 
 however, of their being employed outside the kingdom. More- 
 over, certain democratic guaranties are provided, as, for in- 
 stance (§ 17), that the militia should be under officers chosen 
 by themselves, chosen first of all by "all the members in a 
 regiment," and so forth. 
 
 But nothing came of all these projects. The only thing 
 which did come about was the so-called Scharnhorst system, 
 the sole purpose of which was to increase the standing army. 
 The military men had failed to keep abreast of the new times. 
 
 i Reprinted in the supplement to the "Militarwochenblatt" for 1846 
 (Jan.-Oct) pp. 62-67. The number of soldiers provided for would 
 correspond to about two millions in modern Germany, taking account of 
 the population.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 237 
 
 3. — THE PRUSSIAN MILITIA 
 
 §82.— The People's Militia 
 
 In January, 1813, came the astonishing news that Napo- 
 leon's great allied army had perished in the arctic Russian 
 winter, and, as can be imagined, all German patriots imme- 
 diately desired to fall upon the prostrate tyrant. But the 
 standing army was not large enough, and there was no militia. 
 Then the estates of East Prussia set to work, and what the 
 Government, with all its discussion, had not been able to do 
 in twenty years, the people achieved in ten weeks. 
 
 On December 30, 1812, York von Wartenburg had gone 
 over to the Russians, and on January 8 he reached Konigsberg 
 with his troops, thus conferring a certain amount of freedom 
 of movement on the citizens. On January 31, Minister von 
 Stein arrived in Konigsberg, and although he lost no time in 
 falling out with York, and was in fact officially ruled abso- 
 lutely out of count ; still, in the ensuing deliberations, there is 
 no mistaking his influence and likewise that of President von 
 Schon, who was also in Konigsberg. On February 5, Privy 
 Councilor von Brand being in the chair, a meeting of deputies 
 of the estates was held, which appointed a committee of seven, 
 consisting of Dohna, Heidemann, Hinz, Keber, Lehndorf- 
 Steinorth, and Schimmelpfennig ; and on February 7 the 
 "Konigsberg Decisions," together with the complete draft of 
 a scheme of organization, were sent to the king. Thus the 
 deliberations were over in four days, and in four months the 
 troops were levied, thoroughly trained, and already confront- 
 ing the enemy. 
 
 These militia regiments were welcomed. To be grateful for 
 anything long being distasteful, however, military men soon 
 set about proving that it was not the estates who suggested 
 the training of the militia, but the king. It was actually as- 
 serted that Scharnhorst was the father of the militia ; that he 
 had discussed his project for it with his disciple Clausewitz,
 
 238 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 who had worked it out in detail and afterward taken it to 
 Kussia; that then he had gone with the Russians to Konigs- 
 berg, aud thus Count Dohna had come to know of the plan. 
 For us, however, this question of who was first is of small 
 interest. 
 
 As already stated, there were many projects for a national 
 levy; and in any case it can hardly be called particularly 
 original to suggest that, if an army is destroyed, the surviving 
 civilians should come to the rescue. Everything depended 
 on the spirit which was to animate this new army. Stein and 
 Schon wanted it to be as far as possible purely for defense, 
 and therefore a factor in the promotion of civilization : whereas 
 Scharnhorst wanted it to be for attack, and consequently 
 something which many consider opposed to civilization. 
 
 Eventually the military party was victorious ; and this being 
 so, and Stein being, after all, merely an episode in Prussia, it 
 must unquestionably be admitted that it is not he and Schon 
 who were the fathers of the modern army, but Gneisenau and 
 Scharnhorst. 
 
 The main points of the Konigsberg decisions are as follows : 
 
 The militia was not to be called up unless and until the 
 enemy was advancing over the frontier, and it was to be em- 
 ployed only in its own province (§1). 
 
 It was to be based on universal liability to serve ; but men 
 in holy orders and all descriptions of teachers were absolved, 
 except officiating priests exceptionally highly qualified for 
 their office (§2). 
 
 The military authorities must have a say in the appointment 
 of officers (§7). 
 
 § 83.— The Royal Militia 
 
 In course of time all these regulations were modified. The 
 king and his advisers took only six weeks to revise the de- 
 cisions; but this was long enough to enable them to abolish 
 the purely defensive purpose of the militia. Being still anx- 
 ious, however, to get something out of the people, they were
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 239 
 
 careful not to let their intentions be known. Hence, quite 
 contrary to custom, the royal ordinance of March 17, 1813, 
 contains no indication whatever as to the object of the new 
 army regulations. The ordinance, indeed, is so very skilfully 
 worded as at first sight to create an impression that the 
 militia were in general to be employed only in the country 
 itself. Thus in § 1G it is expressly stated that the militia 
 may also be employed "outside their own district," which 
 every sensible person would interpret as meaning that they 
 could be employed anywhere in their native province, as stated 
 in the Kbnigsberg Decisions. But any sensible person would 
 have been wrong, and the Government quite right. France, 
 for instance, and all the rest of the world, are also outside 
 any particular district. 
 
 A few unimportant apparent liberties were temporarily 
 maintained, but election only by the soldiers themselves was 
 manifestly a farce, and of the 237 higher and staff militia 
 officers only two per cent, were civilians, and not a single 
 brigadier was so. Moreover, in § 17 it was decreed that the 
 militia was subject to the discipline of the standing army, 
 which amounted to its being virtually wholly at the mercy of 
 the caprice of the chief war lords. This set the final seal to the 
 fate of the militia as a defensive organization. It was now 
 to develop into the most powerful instrument of attack ever 
 known in the history of the world. 
 
 In the succeeding century the Prussian militia was syste- 
 matically transformed into an instrument of war. It had 
 acquitted itself admirably of its original task; but even when 
 it mustered the advantage of the voluntary system was clear. 
 Those who did not come spontaneously, like the East Prus- 
 sians, did not come willingly in obedience to the king's com- 
 mand six weeks later. In Pomerania the militia took a very 
 long while to assemble; in West Prussia hardly any one re- 
 sponded to the call to arms; in parts of Silesia and also in 
 Brandenburg rebellion broke out. 1 
 
 i Thus lien Fit m ht\ chief uf police, reported on April 10, 1813,
 
 240 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 In the West Elbe provinces, however, where the general 
 level of education was higher, particularly in Westphalia, 
 matters went very badly. Here the people knew not only 
 what French occupation, but also what French democratic 
 rule, meant, and the Prussian commissioners met with angry 
 resistance everywhere. Moreover, when the line troops and 
 gendarmes at last succeeded in hunting up the people, they 
 forthwith began to desert. It is important to form a true 
 idea of how matters really stood then. Some certainly did 
 volunteer, but the great majority of the army followed the 
 drum only because compelled to do so. 
 
 Nevertheless, the militia did free and protect the country, 
 and it did achieve distinction (and likewise suffered heavily) 
 in the battles of 1813. When the year ended, the enemy had 
 been driven back across the Rhine, and the work of the militia 
 was over. 
 
 § 84. — The Transformation During the Wars of Liberation 
 
 Meanwhile the guardians of the country, who ought to have 
 been standing keeping faithful watch upon the Rhine, had 
 come "to think there was something very fine about hunting," 
 and on January 1, 1814, when the first army corps under 
 Bliicher crossed the Rhine and thus advanced into enemy ter- 
 ritory, it included about seven thousand militiamen. They 
 were thus actually employed even outside the country for of- 
 fensive purposes, although they did not give a particularly 
 glorious account of themselves. Indeed, the 1814 campaign in 
 general added little to the glory of Prussian military annals. 
 
 Gradually, however, even the decision that universal liability 
 
 from Potsdam, "that a large proportion of the militiamen did not 
 appear, and those who did ventured to manifest their displeasure by 
 making a noise. Some did not take the oath at all, and tried to en- 
 courage those about them to do likewise." The chief of police was 
 grieved "to have to say this about the inhabitants of a city which 
 at all times has enjoyed the favor of your Majesty to quite an ex- 
 ceptionally great extent" Most other people, however, will think it 
 scarcely astonishing that the very town to rebel was the one which 
 knew better than any other what militarism meant.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 241 
 
 to serve should be merely a temporary expedient for the war 
 was evaded. True, after the Allies had taken Paris, after 
 Napoleon's abdication and the return of the troops to their 
 own country, Frederick William III would fain have kept his 
 promise, and repealed the ordinance imposing on every young 
 man the obligation to present himself for military service. 1 
 The king's loyal intention, however, caused a revolution in 
 the palace: there was a change in the ministry of war, and 
 his Majesty was informed once for all that kingly promises 
 must not be put on an equality with those of other mortals. 
 Consequently on September 3, 1814, a law was promulgated, 
 countersigned by all the ministers (Stein, of course, was no 
 longer minister), and enacting, without any beating about the 
 bush, that "the institutions therefore, to which this great 
 success is owing, and the maintenance of which is desired by 
 the whole nation, shall form the main principles of the coun- 
 try's military constitution." 
 
 Now, if a national army had been then introduced, per- 
 haps there would have been some justification for speaking of 
 the desire of the nation; but the Government had realized 
 that the popular institution of a militia could quite well be 
 utilized to increase the army proper, and this new law was 
 intended to cover the transition from the defensive militia to 
 the large and offensive army. 
 
 First, in the preamble to the bill, the character of the militia 
 is clearly defined even for peace-time. 
 
 Secondly, reservists who had served their full time were 
 consigned to the militia (§ 8, b. and c). Hitherto the militia 
 had been an independent institution, and it was allowable sud- 
 denly to put it on a level with the standing army, especially in 
 view of popular sentiment. From henceforth this distinc- 
 tion begins to disappear. 
 
 Thirdly, it was expressly decreed (§ 8) that the first-line 
 militia (up to the thirty-second year) was to be employed 
 abroad, though it is true that the second-line militia (up to 
 
 i Order in cabinet of May 27, 1S14.
 
 242 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 the thirty-ninth year) might be employed in general only in 
 the country itself, and the last-line (thirty-nine and over) 
 only in their native province. 
 
 Many passages of this law are by no means clear, which is 
 not surprising when it is remembered that the people had not 
 yet forgotten the freedom promised them in 1813. It was 
 first put in force in 1815. In 1811 the militia overstepped its 
 original limits only because the military rendered this im- 
 perative. But now that Napoleon was for the second time on' 
 the throne of France the Allies determined to attack that 
 country; and although on this occasion the seat of war was 
 territory which was and always had been outside the country, 
 yet the militia were instantly called up and sent abroad. It 
 was thought needful to tell them in extenuation that, "having 
 won their independence, it was now necessary to fight to insure 
 it." Thus still more of the defensive nature of the militia 
 was laid aside. 
 
 4. — MILITARISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 § 85. — The New Militia 
 
 Here endeth the history of the old militia. Its place was 
 taken by another, new in almost every respect save the name 
 and the cross, as Brauer himself admits in his "History of the 
 Prussian Militia." It was an adroit piece of statesmanship 
 on the part of the Prussian Government to have used the popu- 
 lar name of militia in order, in the course of half a century 
 of peace, to forge therefrom a keen-edged, passive instrument 
 of aggression. That it meant to do this and did it justifies 
 the charge of militarism against the Prussian Government ; 
 but its success also proves that there must have been some 
 militarism among the Prussian people. 
 
 The authorities behaved as if they still conformed to the 
 1814 law, and on November 21, 1815, they issued a "Militia 
 Ordinance." Even here provision is made for the civilian 
 authorities having a voice in the election of officers, but with
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 243 
 
 restrictions. The preamble still states that militia exists for 
 home defense, and the second-line militia are still to be em- 
 ployed only in their native provinces. .Moreover, a few un- 
 trained men were still included in the militia, thus making it 
 appear more or less an improvised force intended for defense. 
 But already the metamorphose was being prepared. Whereas 
 in 1814 it was frankly stated that the militia were to be dis- 
 banded in peace, the staff-officers and a few soldiers are now 
 retained, about fifty per regiment; but these staff-officers 
 were before long developed into so-called nuclei of about 150 
 men per battalion. Each year this standing army was en- 
 larged, until by 1819 their number had risen to 635. And all, 
 as the king used to say, "in recognition of the splendid en- 
 thusiasm shown by the inhabitants with regard to the militia." 
 By ordinance of March 25, 1814, even the militia uniform 
 was altered, "in order intimately to connect them, even in 
 externals, with the standing army." 
 
 The game could now begin, and, after all, its rules were very 
 simple. As the entire "nation in arms" could not be included 
 in a standing army, or in any other organization of the kind, 
 at all events not all at once, the militia was first of all re- 
 iluced{ !), and then assimilated to the standing army. Then, 
 after the public had had time to get used to this measure, the 
 militia was increased again. In principle the same thing hap- 
 pened afterward almost every time that the standing army 
 was increased. New regiments were created without adding 
 to the number of troops, but merely by transferring them 
 from one regiment to another. For instance, three regiments 
 of four battalions would be converted into four regiments of 
 three. Then after a certain lapse of time these small regi- 
 ments were declared "unsuitable for active service," and men 
 were called tor to make up the missing four battalions. 
 
 Thus militia reserve regiments, militia instruction battal- 
 ions, and other new formations came into existence, and in 
 1821 tin' Government could already dispose of over 126,000 
 militia so-called, besides 136,000 troops of the line. The mi-
 
 244 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 litia were intended for incorporates in the army for active 
 service, and thus were quite openly included in the offensive 
 arnry. There were besides some 100,000 second-line troops, 
 mainly militia, described as an army of occupation. 
 
 § 86. — Army and Revolution 
 
 These organizations were- altogether very adroitly created 
 to insure closer connection with the troops of the line. In 
 this there was a twofold object : to acquire one uniform weapon 
 against the foreigner, and also, as must never be forgotten, at 
 the same time to glue the "enemy at home," utterly routed 
 as he was, so firmly into the army as to be able to use them as 
 a weapon for fighting this very enemy. That is, to fight the 
 militia system with militiamen. Thus officers in the militia 
 guards were entirely abolished, and their places taken by 
 officers of the guards who had served their time. Yet con- 
 servative soldiers of the stamp of General von der Marwitz 
 still spoke of the whole military system as a damned demo- 
 cratic idea, and although the militia gave a good account of 
 itself in suppressing the Polish insurrection of 1830, even 
 until 1848 it was a question as to how it would behave in case 
 of a revolution of the German element in it, despite all the 
 officers of the guards. 
 
 As a matter of fact, even when the militia was called up 
 in 1848, a large number of them proved refractory, and "out- 
 rageous excesses" occurred, resulting in many bodies of militia 
 being deprived of their colors, in token of their unworthiness. " 
 But now that they stood in battle-array between the soldiers of 
 the line, they learned fast enough to fight against their fellow- 
 citizens. Indeed, it seems as if the militiamen bore a par- 
 ticular grudge against those who had caused "unseemly tu- 
 mults" and thus obliged them to do anything so much against 
 the grain as to join the colors. Brauer (Vol. II, p. 162) even 
 states that this hatred frequently found vent in "shooting 
 prisoners dead and massacring enemies found concealed in 
 conquered places.
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 245 
 
 At this period, indeed, the German militiamen do not seem 
 to have lost all sense of shame, for Lieutenant-Colonel von 
 Bonin says, describing the evacuation, of some insurgents' 
 houses: "The invading parties came out again with blood- 
 stained bayonets without boasting further of their perform- 
 ances. This testified to a certain bashfulness on the part of 
 the young soldiers, as if they were not sure whether they 
 had done right." 
 
 To cure such bashfulness, the authorities had a good remedy. 
 They recollected that in general it was better in civil wars 
 to employ soldiers from other parts, and indeed the Prussian 
 militiamen in Posen, in the Rhenish Palatinate, and Baden 
 could not have been accused of any lack of dash. Moreover, 
 it was the militia who were most energetic. Thus Staroste 
 writes : * 
 
 I have endeavored to ascertain the feeling and opinions of Prus- 
 sian military men concerning the Palatinate movement. I have not 
 found a single real democrat among them, at all events not one who 
 would hare expressed his democratic leanings. Whenever they 
 catch sight of a tattered individual, they at once call him a demo- 
 crat. Even the Rhinelander is boiling over with hatred of democrats 
 and political agitators, and the Prussians are still worse; hut worst 
 of all are the militia! 
 
 The so-called "Baden" campaign at least proved the capa- 
 bility of Prussian militia. There was no doubt whatever that 
 it was not really militia at all or a peoples army, but a 
 princely guard. Old Marwitz and men of that sort, were "idi- 
 otic pessimists," and thus nothing any longer stood in the way 
 of the militia bring speedily and very greatly enlarged. 
 
 A beginning was made by simply not entirely disbanding 
 
 I; when this ought to have been done, after the mobilization 
 
 of 1850, but keeping baek two hundred men as the "nucleus 
 
 :i company." Then followed events too well known to 
 
 Staroste'a "Tapebuch iiber die Ereignisse in der Pfalz and in Baden" 
 I ;.. ... the I .1 I in the Palatine and Baden"). Vol. I, p. 199.
 
 246 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 recapitulate, the organization of 1S71, which led to another 
 dispute, and then the enormous increases of the army after 
 1871, which led to no more disputes. And then the German 
 Empire's wonderful military mechanism was ready, emperor 
 and princes, parliament and people, having all slaved together 
 hard to bring it about. 
 
 It took precisely a hundred years. In 1814 the militia in- 
 vaded France. In 1914 even the last-line troops were em- 
 ployed in attacking the enemy abroad. A year ago, when this 
 first happened in Belgium, a reassuring notice was issued 
 about its being "merely to occupy the newly acquired parts 
 of the country, which were already as good as German terri- 
 tory." Since then, however, last-line troops militia and line 
 troops have been used absolutely indiscriminately, thereby 
 effacing the last reminiscences of the militia having once been 
 an integral part of the country's "system of defense." 
 
 The German last-line troops now are virtually nowhere 
 fighting on German soil. The majority of the German people 
 are glad about this, as they are quite entitled to be; but in 
 so far as they have still any desire to think for themselves, 
 they must admit that it means that the militia are being 
 employed for purposes the opposite of those for which they 
 were originally created. There may be a great deal to be 
 said for this, but from the point of view of peace and 
 progress it is singularly regrettable. 
 
 § 86a. — Universal Military Service in Europe 
 
 In all countries, free Albion excepted, events have taken a 
 similar course, thus bringing about the institution of stand- 
 ing armies, which theorists ignorant of the world and self- 
 seeking politicians * have described as guaranteeing peace, 
 and which could not fail to lead to the disaster of 1914. 
 
 I have endeavored to describe how this singular institution 
 
 i Real Politiker. 1 have intentionally chosen this courteous epithet, 
 but future generations are more likely to call them, more aptly, 
 "fools and criminals."
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 247 
 
 actual]}' came into existence, and in particular to show that 
 in reality universal liability to serve is merely a great historical 
 misconception of the universal duty of bearing arms. This 
 is so clear from the facts cited that the attentive reader will 
 perhaps even believe it ; but I am convinced that a dry record 
 of facts and figures cannot possibly touch any one's feelings. 
 But as 1 want such events to stir the conscience even of the 
 dullest mortal, I am recapitulating all the facts in this chapter, 
 clothing them in the words of a poet * trying to make a foolish 
 w T orld give ear to his words of wisdom and despair. As for 
 his chief character, Choulette, in his view "le regime acturl 
 n'etait qu'hypocrisie et brutalite. Le militarisme lui faisait 
 horreur. '' Choulette says: 
 
 "La caserne est une invention hideuse des temps modernes. Elle 
 ne remonte qu'au XVII siecle. Avant, on n'avaid que le bon corps 
 de garde ou les soudards jouaient aux cartes et faisaient des contes 
 de Merlusine. Louis XIV est un precurseur 2 de la Convention et 
 do Bonaparte. Mais le mal a atteint sa plenitude depuis Finstitu- 
 tion monstrueuse du service pour tous. Avoir fait une obligation 
 aux liomnies de tuer, e'est la bonte des empereurs 3 et des repub- 
 liques, le crime des crimes. Aux ages qu'on dit barbares, les villes 
 et les princes confiaient leur defense a des mercenaires qui faisaient 
 la guerre en gens avises et prudents: il n'y avait parfois que cinq ou 
 six morts dans une grande bataille. Et quand les chevaliers alla- 
 ient en guerre, du moins n'y ctaient-ils point forces; ils se faisaient 
 tuer pour leur plaisir. Sans doute n'etaicnt-ils bons qu'a eela. 
 Personne, au temps de saint Louis, n'aurait eu l'idee d'envoyer a la 
 bataille un homme de savoir et d'entendement. Et Ton n'arracliait 
 pas non plus le laboureur a la glebe pour le mener a Tost. Main- 
 tenant on fait un devoir a un pauvre paysen d'etre soldat. On 
 I'exile de la maison dont le toit fume dans le silence dore du soir, 
 
 i "Le Lys Rou^e," by Anatole France. Calman-L4vy: Paris, pp. 116- 
 118. 
 
 - Anatole France is a Frenchman, a good Frenchman, too. and tlms 
 naturally feels doubly keenly t lie responsibility of bis own country. 
 Consequently it is mainly France which he accuses. 
 
 '■<■ Did Anatole France perhaps intentionally omit to mention the 
 United "Kingdom" of Great Britain?
 
 248 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 des grasses prairies ou paissent les boeufs, des champs, des bois 
 paternels; on lui enseigne, dans la cour d'une vilaine caserne, a 
 tuer reguherement des hommes; on le menace, on l'injurie, on le 
 met en prison; on lui dit que c'est un honneur, et, s'il ne veut point 
 s'honorer de cette maniere, on le fusille. II obeit parce qu'il est 
 sujet a la peur et de tous les animaux domestiques le plus doux, le 
 plus riant et le plus docile." 
 
 In this last sentence of Anatole France there is much truth ; 
 it may be the whole truth. I do not wish to detract from the 
 weight of his words by dissecting them; I would merely ask 
 the reader to reflect for ten minutes on the following — that 
 universal service is a sign of man's fearsomeness and docility, 
 of his willingness to obey and his ever-read iness to smile. 
 
 As I write, the last act of the drama is coming to an end. 
 England seems inclined to introduce universal service. "Only 
 for the war," it is added soothingly; but in Prussia it began 
 in just the same way — "only for the war." It is not for me 
 to advise England, but I would remind her of Schiller's ref- 
 erence to tier in his "Fleet Invincible," the finest utterance of 
 a free man to a free people: 
 
 "Soil -wirklich denn mein Albion vergehen, 
 Erlosehen meiner Helden Stamm, 
 Der Unterdriickung letzter Felsendamm 
 Zusammenstiirzen, die Tyrannenwehre 
 Vernicbtet sein von dieser Hemisplihre? — 
 Bang schaut auf dicb der Erdenball 
 Und aller freien Manner Herzen scblagen, 
 Und alle guten, schbnen Seelen klagen, 
 Teilnebmend deines Ruhmes fall." 
 
 This time, however, matters are more serious. A foreign 
 military power then menaced England's coast, and it was 
 scattered to the winds, as happens to all military power ; but 
 this time militarism is gnawing at England's marrow from 
 the inside outward. It is even ready to throw open the door
 
 HOW THE ARMY HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED 249 
 
 to the tyrant, and then the last bulwark against tyranny will 
 be overthrown. 
 
 It may be that England's trial to-day is severer and her 
 position more difficult than ever before; but all the more 
 does it become the bounden duty of all Europeans to assert 
 their proud determination to break in pieces their old swords 
 and to forge no more new ones. 
 
 For if England now introduces universal military service, 
 all Europe is her accomplice, and every man in Europe is as 
 much responsible therefor as for the "unavoidable conse- 
 quences of the militarism of 1914."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Wherein Patriotism Is Rooted 
 
 1. — patriotism considered as an instinct 
 
 §87. — Inevitable Decadence 
 
 War is wrong, harmful, and needless. Then why do we 
 wage war, we twentieth-century mortals? And why do we 
 even love war? 
 
 The external causes for this love of war have already been 
 set forth, but there is the further fact that, without our being 
 fully aware of it, war stirs us to the very depths of our being; 
 and that it is perhaps the last great carouse of which even a de- 
 generate nation can dream. Such simple things as truth and 
 beauty, freedom and progress, evoke merely a tired smile, 
 like that of an old man recalling his youthful follies. Some- 
 thing stronger and more tangible in the way of a stimulant 
 is now needed to arouse the enthusiasm. Such a stimulant for 
 a nation is war, for an old man, wine. Verily, war is as sweet 
 wine, and should a nation drink itself young again with wine, 
 this is what Goethe meant by a "precious quality." It is a 
 reminder of its youthful days, with their wonderful light- 
 heartedness, their pardonable selfishness, and their boundless 
 capacity for self-sacrifice. 
 
 This intoxication is what is great about war. This it is 
 which has inspired poets and painters, and any one who has 
 ever witnessed the outbreak of war will admit that the ele- 
 mental force of sudden enthusiasm with which vast num- 
 bers of people are suddenly carried away creates absolutely 
 the impression of their acting instinctively, but never of their 
 acting intelligently. Yet no one will own to having warlike 
 instincts, for it is with war, as with wine, which we love not 
 
 250
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 251 
 
 for wine's sake, but for the sake of the feeling which it pro- 
 duces in us. Similarly human beings, at any rate superior 
 human beings, do not love war for its own sake, but because 
 it awakens primitive and hallowed sentiments in us — senti- 
 ments which we collectively call patriotism. AVe love war be- 
 cause we think it necessary to our mother-country, but without 
 patriotism war would be inconceivable to-day. Tolstoy x is 
 right : so long as patriotism survives there will always be war ; 
 for, as Maupassant- says, it is "the egg of wars.'" The war 
 giant, like Antaeus, cannot be vanquished as long as it is per- 
 petually deriving fresh strength from contact with that love of 
 country wherein it has its source. 
 
 To-day patriotism seems more powerful than ever. Even 
 nations which have no historical claim whatever to love their 
 country are behaving as if this were not the case. All the 
 separatism of past centuries has been revived again in this 
 patriotism which even the smallest tribes, hitherto held to- 
 gether by nothing whatsoever, have suddenly discovered in 
 themselves. Even the Jews, who for two thousand years were 
 scattered about among all peoples that on earth do dwell, have 
 found out that they, too, have a patriotism, and are becoming 
 national Zionists; even the Americans, who are, after all, 
 quite a recent conglomeration of miscellaneous peoples, are 
 becoming patriots and imperialists. Such a paroxysm of 
 patriotism, however, is suspicious, and resembles the flaring 
 up of a candle before it flickers out. 
 
 Men did not become really fond of yachting and horse- 
 racing until sailing-ships and horses had been superseded by 
 better methods of communication. Similarly patriotism did 
 not grow out of bounds until it had already ceased to be a 
 valuable factor in civilization. The principle, "my country 
 right or wrong" 3 could not get a hold on the world until there 
 
 i "Patriotism and Government," in Tolstoy's religious and ethical 
 pamphlets, Vol. II. 
 
 -".Mon oncle Sosthene," by Guv de Maupassant. 
 
 s In English in the original, but in bad English. — Translator
 
 252 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 was no longer a law student in existence, not even the 
 humblest, who would have ventured seriously to defend such 
 a dogma; aud "the Country" never became a conception 
 transcending all others, and throwing all others into the shade, 
 until mankind had already begun to create "universal unions" 
 and other "world-wide institutions." 
 
 Such is the fate of decadence. But though a man should 
 speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and prove with 
 flawless logic that war is foolish and despicable; and then 
 were another to come and say, "Quite true, but the country 
 wants it," there would be nothing to be done. The second 
 man would come off victorious. 
 
 § 88. — The Commanding Positioyi of Patriotism 
 
 Being in the nature of an instinct, patriotism seems as if 
 it could neither be exterminated nor overcome. The reason 
 why war against war is so hard is just because virtually 
 every one loves his own country more devotedly than anything 
 else whatsoever. The thorough bass of patriotism drowns or 
 silences all other sentiments. In peace the Christian may 
 love God before all else, and the free-thinking monist the 
 brotherhood of man ; the esthete may put art and its wondrous 
 works before everything else, and the workman place socialism 
 first: yet so soon as war breaks out against God's ordinance, 
 when cathedrals are reduced to dust, and the international 
 bonds uniting the working-classes and men of science 
 throughout the world are broken in sunder, Christian and 
 freethinker, esthete and working-man, all look on and ap- 
 prove, while all our other conceptions of truth, goodness, and 
 beauty dissolve before the magic words, "for the sake of the 
 country" — that country which men put before religion and 
 art, science and politics, and therefore even before civiliza- 
 tion, which, after all, is only an abstract fusion of them all. 
 
 In thus setting the country on high, we forget one thing. 
 At best our country cannot be more than the form in which, 
 in our opinion, religion, art, science, and politics, civilization
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 253 
 
 in short, can best prosper. "Who would really stoop so low as 
 to esteem a people more highly merely because he himself 
 belonged to it unless he were profoundly convinced of its 
 being in every respect superior to other nations? This is so 
 self-evident as far as any patriotism which can be taken seri- 
 ously is concerned that I do not believe any one will venture to 
 assert the contrary. 
 
 But this being so, then the noblest love of country, after all, 
 merely amounts to setting too high a value on the form in 
 comparison with the contents. This is the commonest mis- 
 take that half-educated people make, they being fundamentally 
 incapable of distinguishing inward reality from outward 
 show. With patriotism, in short, as with religion and science, 
 it is the same thing: if allowed to go too far, it becomes a 
 dogmatic commonplace. 
 
 When a man has once realized, however, that all patriotism 
 which can be taken seriously must to a certain extent in- 
 evitably do away with patriotism, or at any rate set a limit 
 to its growth, then, despite all instinctive enthusiasm, he may 
 perhaps set about inquiring more closely into what patriot- 
 ism is really based upon. 
 
 We want to be just to patriotism. It is not the "greatest 
 thing in the world," neither is it such an altogether bad 
 thing as extreme Internationalists endeavor to make it out. 
 Just because they did so represent it, however, they failed to 
 carry with them the sane-minded mass of the people, or even 
 to make them see how much there is wrong and unjustifiable in 
 so-called "modern patriotism." There is, in short, no uncon- 
 ditional patriotism, for it, too, depends on circumstances, and 
 cannot be judged aright save by taking these into account. 
 
 Patriotism is three-rooted in three sentiments Two of 
 them, a man's love of his native land and family love, are 
 hereditary instincts, which we can all easily understand and 
 which are probably common to us all, because of our common 
 past. But the third root reaches out into the future: it is 
 man's social longing, his desire to join with other men to form
 
 254 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 large associations. Now, as no two persons view the future 
 alike, it is here that patriotism divides, and here that the good 
 parts company with the bad. 
 
 2. — OUR LOVE FOR OUR NATIVE LAND 
 
 § 89. — An Animal's Love for His Native Surroundings, and 
 a Human Being's Love of Them. Attachment to Surround- 
 ings Indicates Suitabiltiy for Them. 
 
 Our love for our native land is an inheritance, originally 
 transmitted to us by animals. The less an organism is 
 adapted to the general conditions of the world and the more 
 it is suited to the special conditions of its own surroundings, 
 the more deeply rooted may it be said to be in its native land. 
 In this respect the history of evolution shows ups and downs. 
 The lowest forms of life, for instance, many bacteria even 
 now, need only certain omnipresent conditions such as air, 
 light, water, and some few food-stuffs which occur everywhere 
 in order to exist. Thus, being cosmopolitan, they do not need 
 to be limited to a native element. 
 
 Gradually, however, every creature becomes more and more 
 closely adapted to peculiar conditions. The fish must swim in 
 water, and the trout, if it is to thrive, even requires spring 
 water; the monkey can live only in warm woods, and the 
 orang-outang, indeed, only in the primeval tropical forests of 
 the East Indian archipelago ; birds need air, but the condor 
 needs certain special conditions besides, which he can find in 
 the Andes alone. This increasing adaptation to a specific cli- 
 mate and this growing disinclination to depart from a certain 
 area, which may be compared with growing attachment to our 
 native land, are interrupted when the youthful human race 
 makes its first tool. 
 
 This is not the place to show how man used his tools to 
 acquire freedom in every respect. I shall content myself 
 with pointing out the obvious fact that the use of tools abol- 
 ishes the natural compulsion exerted by love of country, since
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 255 
 
 with the aid of tools (using this word in the broadest sense) 
 man learns to adapt himself to the most varied conditions. 
 Unlike the countless tools of animals which have grown to be 
 part of them, such as beaks, teeth, prehensile tails, probosces, 
 burrowing feet, etc., human tools can be laid aside or 
 changed at any moment. With his clothing of various thick- 
 nesses man can live in the tropics and at the north pole, 
 whereas an animal has either a bare skin or a thick coat. 
 
 The tiger must fall upon his prey, and consequently in- 
 habit a district where prey abounds; for his claws are part 
 of himself. The mole must dig, and consequently creep into 
 the earth, being unable to lay aside his burrowing foot. The 
 horse must be a fleet animal, and therefore cannot quit the 
 steppes ; for he cannot put his hoof to any purpose except run- 
 ning. Man, however, can exchange his sword for a plowshare, 
 and be both farmer and warrior at once. By making a tool of 
 the horse, and hoisting himself on to his back, he can even 
 appropriate his swiftness; and he can actually intensify this 
 speed by building railways and steamers, airships, and motor- 
 cars. Thus he is able to live everywhere. 
 
 Owing to man's free intellect, therefore, the foremost person 
 is no longer he who is best adapted to certaiii surroundings, 
 but he who has most unlimited control over the outer world. 
 Man's attachment to his native soil, therefore, is a relic of the 
 animal in him, and originated in the savage's dread of the 
 unknown. Xo one, moreover, who has endeavored to judge 
 human nature impartially can have failed to observe that love 
 of country is in the case of most of us a romantic senti- 
 ment, strongly tinctured with the influence of Chateaubriand 
 and the many others who have invented modern love of nature 
 for us. We love German forests not merely for their own 
 sake, but because from Diirer to Leistikow thousands have 
 painted them ; because, from Walter von der Vogelweide to 
 Eichendorff, thousands have sung their praises; because 
 Tieck coined the phrase lonely as the woods: because there 
 the German oak grows and the German lime-tree, too. In
 
 256 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 short, we love the forests not only for their own sake, but be- 
 cause they have come to be a symbol to us. 
 
 Honest love of country, however, is wholly different. It is 
 a genuine necessity, and is greatest among backward peoples, 
 A\ho have really grown up part and parcel of their native land. 
 Once forcibly transplanted therefrom, they can never settle 
 down properly anywhere else. "Who are the people in 
 Europe most famous for their attachment to their native soil 
 before ever modern affectation 1 had insisted on every one's 
 worshiping the art of his own country? They are first and 
 foremost the Swiss mountain peasants, who could not live 
 without their mountains and cows ; the fishermen of the Volga, 
 to whom Mother Volga means the world ; and the Icelanders, 
 who prefer their stern native land to all the luxury of central 
 Europe. All these folk have remained comparatively primi- 
 tive, and the lower we descend the scale of ethnology, the 
 stronger we shall find this unconquerable attachment to the 
 ways and customs of the mother-country. 
 
 Surprise has often been felt that the sons of primitive 
 peoples^ Indians and Maoris, for instance, whom supposed 
 good fortune has transferred to comfortable European sur- 
 roundings, could yet never be at home there; in fact, that 
 even many civilized savages, who had apparently become quite 
 inured to European ways, having even completed their courses 
 as university students with distinction, should yet have taken 
 the first opportunity to go back to the bush and become naked 
 savages again. But there is nothing surprising in this, for 
 their primitive brains are simply incapable of feeling at home 
 in such complex new conditions. Hence there are absolutely 
 natural reasons why they should be attached to their native 
 soil in a way which to us at first seems incomprehensible. 
 
 i "Snobbismus" is the word used, but all students of modern French 
 will perceive that Nicolai means what the French call "snobisme" 
 rather than what we call "snobbishness." There is, so far as I know, no 
 exact English translation of "snobisme," but it is, I think, nearer 
 "affectation" than snobbishness. — Translator.
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 257 
 
 § 90. — Overcoming our Love of Our Native Soil. 
 
 If I mistake not, it was Macaulay who first pointed out that 
 although love of a man 's native soil and patriotism were identi- 
 cal in small communities, such as the Greek republics, the 
 Swiss cantons, and the German imperial cities, for here the 
 narrow confines of "home" really represented a definite con- 
 ception, yet in the larger communities of to-day this is no 
 longer so in the least. As Ratzel * truly says: "Meantime, 
 the German's associations are only with his country or bit of 
 country. In the case of the Old Bavarian, however, this 
 country does not extend to Franconia, and in the case of the 
 Prussian not necessarily west of the Elbe." On the other 
 hand, the dweller in the low-lying plains of North Germany 
 finds what is to him a more kindred homelike land in the 
 Asiatic lowlands as far as the Yenisei than in all southern 
 Germany. 
 
 The natural mother-land of the South German, on the 
 contrary, extends far beyond Germany southward and west- 
 ward ; indeed, the dweller in the low-lying plains of the upper 
 Rhine would more easily feel at home in Lombardy than on 
 the Liineburg Heath. 
 
 Thus a man's natural attachment to his native soil must of 
 necessity tend toward narrowness, and really it is just the 
 highly, far-seeing nations who have grown beyond this innate 
 love of their native soil ; for they have learned not to dread the 
 unknown and to have open eyes and ears for appreciating 
 beauty throughout the world. The educated Greeks of a later 
 day were at home everywhere in the then known world; the 
 Romans, again, were more attached to Greece than to their 
 own country. Indeed, they not infrequently called them- 
 selves barbarians ; and Tacitus and others even discovered per- 
 petual beauties in the misty land of Germania. From time 
 
 i "Deutsrliland. Einfiihrung in die HeimatkiiTide" ("Oermany. An 
 introduction to the Knowledge of our own Country), by Friedrich Rat- 
 zel, p 312. Leipsie, 1898.
 
 258 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 immemorial we Germans have had an uncontrollable long- 
 ing for the South, and it is just the "most highly civilized" 
 nation on earth which is freest from this kind of love of 
 country, for the proud Briton knows that in a sense he is 
 able to take his country round the world with him. He has 
 conquered the world just because he hunts elks in Scandi- 
 navia, tracks bears in Russia, shoots tigers in India and lions 
 in Africa, always like an Englishman. He has conquered 
 the world, in short, just because "Home, sweet home" for him 
 is no longer anything but a romantic idyll. 1 
 
 Thus this primitive root of patriotism, love of our native soil, 
 or native heath or native steppes, has in process of time ceased 
 to be of any value as a factor in evolution. Even Gottfried 
 Keller, 2 whom assuredly no one would accuse of want of at- 
 tachment to his mountains and to everything German, recog- 
 nized that modern patriotism was becoming a clog upon the 
 minds of men. 
 
 Volkstum und Sprache sind das Jugendland, 
 Darin die Volker wachsen und gedeihen. 
 Das Mutterhaus, nach deni sie selinend schreien, 
 Wenn sie verseblagen sind auf fremden Strand, 
 Doch maenhmal werden sie zum Giingelband, 
 Sogar zur Kette um den Hals der Freien ; 
 Dann treiben Langsterwaehsene Spielereien 
 Genarrt von der Tyrannen schlauer Hand. 
 Hier trenne sich der lang vereinte Strom! 
 Versiegend schwinde der im alten Staube, 
 Der andere breche sich ein neues Bette! 
 Denn einen Pontifex nur fasst der Dom, 
 Das ist die Freiheit, der polit'scbe Glaube, 
 Der lost und bindet jede Seelenkette ! 
 
 i Dr. Nicolai, like every one else, is entitled to his own opinion. His 
 writing affords much more proof of knowledge of biology than of 
 knowledge of English character, his notions of which seem to be 
 purely theoretical. — Translator. 
 
 2 "Nationalitat," in Gottfried Keller's "Collected Poems." 1889. 
 Wilhelm Herz: Berlin.
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 259 
 
 § 91. — The Organic Family Instinct. Nomadic Tribe or 
 Family? 
 
 The primitive tribes which human beings united to form in 
 olden times owe their origin partly to the human tribal 
 instinct and partly to the family instinct. Neither were ever 
 wholly separate, nor are they now. The family instinct 
 gradually widened until it became a racial instinct, if it be 
 allowable to speak of a race all of whose members spring from 
 a common stock. The tribal instinct simply compelled a fairly 
 large number of human beings to club together to form warlike 
 nomadic tribes, and therefore has really nothing to do with 
 their having sprung from a common stock. It merely indi- 
 cates that human beings feel more at ease with a number of 
 their fellows than alone. 
 
 Originally the family instinct was confined to maternal af- 
 fection, which, with the impulse to feed, is perhaps the oldest 
 instinct known to us. But whereas feeding is purely selfish, 
 maternal affection is the most primeval impulse which is not 
 devoid of "altruism" and which has nevertheless not ceased 
 to be selfish ; for although the child is already another being, 
 yet the mother feels it to be something belonging to her own 
 self. Not till maternal affection expanded into family af- 
 fection and finally into universal fraternal affection did the 
 altruism in it become manifest. The original nature of the 
 .sentiment, however, remained unchanged. Once more we see 
 that in nature there is no beginning, and even what seems to be 
 new and wholly unlike anything in the past is in reality only 
 a development of the old. It was long believed, indeed, that 
 maternal affection was solely due to the mother's feeling a 
 child is flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. But something 
 similar to maternal affection can be proved to have existed 
 even before any question of sentiment can have arisen, since 
 the parents did not as yet know their own offspring, indeed 
 often never saw them. 
 
 In common parlance, it is true, we no longer speak of
 
 260 THE BIOLOGY OF AVAR 
 
 maternal affection or even of maternal instincts, bnt of 
 "nature's maternal forethought." For this Autenrieth intro- 
 duced the fine and appropriate name of "organic instinct," by 
 which he virtually means that as a matter of fact in creatures 
 on so low a level no modification takes place in the rest of 
 the organism. There are countless instances of such organic 
 maternal instincts. The fact that the more offspring an ani- 
 mal produces, the smaller and more helpless these offspring are 
 must not be forgotten, for the only object in these vast num- 
 bers being born is that, despite all persecution, some may 
 still survive. The creation of pectoral glands which secrete 
 suitable nourishment, of birds' crops for the purpose of pre- 
 digestion and of pouches for carrying young, are all facts 
 proving how mother love has triumphed. 
 
 Then comes a series of facts which may, indeed, be connected 
 with instincts, but which are also wholly and solely attributable 
 to mother love, although at first sight they seem to have noth- 
 ing to do with it. Among these facts are rutting periods, 
 which are always so timed that the young are not born in 
 the cold of winter, but when young, juicy plants or young, 
 easily digestible animals are to be found. 
 
 Countless instincts of insects serve similar purposes. When 
 laying their eggs, many insects seem to exercise almost incredi- 
 ble foresight, so that the future larva? may be able to creep 
 forth in suitable conditions ; and yet no such insect has ever 
 survived the birth of its offspring. In the case of the higher 
 animals, particularly birds and mammals, such compelling 
 instincts constantly tend to become freer, that is, to depend 
 more and more on the intelligence. As their brain constantly 
 increases in activity it must learn to think for the offspring; 
 and if this is to be the case, some feeling must necessarily 
 exist. Such a feeling is mother love. 
 
 § 92. — The Change in Racial Instincts 
 
 Thus mother love, like most of our sublimest sentiments, can 
 be traced backward through the animal kingdom to the time
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 261 
 
 when it was still an organic instinct ; that is, a purely animal 
 quality. This in nowise detracts from the value of such 
 a sentiment, but once we perceive that, after all, it 
 merely represents the equivalent of former physical quali- 
 ties already partly extinct, we shall cease to be con- 
 vinced there and then that such sentiments are eternally 
 valuable. To offend against them, therefore, becomes no worse 
 than inflicting bodily injury; and we realize that in certain 
 circumstances even maternal love may have to yield to some- 
 thing higher. If mankind in general should one day care 
 for all children, as is not beyond the bounds of possibility, 
 because it has realized that this would be a good thing, then 
 maternal affection would be nothing but a rudimentary in- 
 stinct, perhaps even in the way, just as the appendix, once use- 
 ful, is now useless, and merely a cause of disease. 
 
 If, however, this applies to maternal affection, how much 
 more does it apply to its derivative family affection and, above 
 all, to racial affection! Both family and racial affection are 
 of very mixed origin. Thoroughly human and occasionally 
 anything but desirable elements are intermingled with both. 
 The reason why maternal affection could expand into family 
 affection was that not only did the mother love her child, but 
 the man his descendants. Modern research long since ascer- 
 tained that monogamous marriage is no natural institution. 
 Man is by nature polygamous and philoneistic. Originally 
 promiscuity prevailed between all men and women belonging 
 to migratory tribes, just as all animals living in herds are 
 polygamous, and only a few creatures living alone — a num- 
 ber of birds, for instance — are monogamous. We now know 
 with absolute certainty that everywhere the monogamic period 
 succeeded the so-called matriarchate period only after the wife 
 had become the slave of the husband, w r ho regarded her as a 
 valuable domestic animal and wished to make sure of his right 
 to own her, as if she had been a cow or a sheep. At the same 
 time that the woman was enslaved and taken possession of by 
 the husband, private ownership of other property began to
 
 262 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 come in. To inherit this legitimately the husband then de- 
 sired to found a "legitimate" family within certain well- 
 defined limits. The sacredness of the family, therefore, is 
 really based merely on the sacredness of private property ; and 
 the very nations that to-day set most store by the possession 
 of material property (the Jews, for example), are those who 
 still consider the family most sacred. The sources of family 
 affection, therefore, have at all times been not only the pure 
 well-springs of mother affection, but also the turbid waters of 
 slavery and property ownership. 
 
 As for racial affection, it is, after all, nothing but expanded 
 family love. We love human beings whom we believe to be 
 descended from the same ancestors as ourselves, and whom we 
 therefore suppose to belong to the same great family. Thus 
 we see that even the second source of patriotism consists of 
 troubled waters, and how foul they often are we shall realize 
 more clearly in analyzing race patriotism (§ 99). 
 
 3. — THE SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS OF MANKIND 
 
 § 93. — The Explanation of Public-Spirited ness 
 
 An association of human beings seems to us more important 
 than an individual man, and by general consensus of opinion 
 the origin of associations is put at a later date than that of 
 human beings. Some thought sex accounted for the formation 
 of associations. A human being, it was said, founded a fam- 
 ily, branches of this family then arose, and these formed into 
 villages and towns and afterward into states. Others saw the 
 explanation in civilization, arguing that certain occupations, 
 such as agriculture, or, as Schiller says, Ceres, caused man to 
 associate with his fellow-man. 
 
 As was shown in discussing man's original tendency to 
 herd together, and as anthropologists long ago proved, these 
 views do not really go to the root of the matter. It was not 
 man who founded society, but society, which was his primary 
 state, was the collectivity which first produced the individual
 
 WHEREIN PATRIOTISM IS ROOTED 263 
 
 man. In other words, society is older than man, and man's 
 ancestors lived in herds when they were still in an animal 
 state. Man, therefore, always has been of Aristotle's Zoon 
 politikon — the social animal. The universal brotherhood of 
 man and humanitarian ideas generally are in no sense ab- 
 stract notions, but the most solid facts. Thus what we have 
 to explain is not how bloodthirsty animals became peace-loving 
 human beings, but, contrariwise, how it happened that man, 
 the social animal, should have become warlike. 
 
 But deeply rooted and at all times innate as is this humani- 
 tarian instinct of man's, yet it must everlastingly be strug- 
 gling against the no less inborn instinct of egoism. We are 
 inwardly cast in human form, and the instrument for using 
 our humanity to the uttermost is at hand, only we human 
 beings do not yet know how to play upon it. Hitherto the 
 pure sound of this music of harmony to come has never been 
 heard on earth; only the favored few heard the soft strains 
 of the future and delighted therein. 
 
 Mankind's social aspirations, therefore, are beckoning to him 
 to advance toward an ideal which is not something vague and 
 unknown, enveloped in the mists of ages to come, but some- 
 thing which we can already see as clear as daylight before us, if 
 only with the mind 's eye.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Different Species of Patriotism 
 
 1. — local patriotism 
 
 § 94. — Natural Patriotism 
 
 German patriotism, like every other, is something large 
 and complex, containing very many almost indefinable ele- 
 ments. There is, first, attachment to our native tongue, in 
 whose accents we first learned to make our wants known, 
 which first made us feel intelligent beings, and in whose 
 accents we first learned about goodness, truth, and beauty 
 in our childhood's years, when we were still sensitive to beauty 
 and goodness. This attachment includes others — attachment 
 to all the kind people whom we knew when we were children, 
 and who were almost all Germans; to all the great men who 
 first aroused our enthusiasm, Goethe, Kant, Beethoven, and 
 many hundreds of others; to much that is beautiful; to our 
 forests and lakes, our old churches and ballads. We are not 
 always aware of this, but so it is, and the patriotism of those 
 very persons who are now declaring that it is unpatriotic to 
 like the Lorelei song because Heinrich Heine wrote it is 
 partly based on this oft-sung song. Then there is also the 
 recollection of many things endeared to us merely by trivial 
 custom, and not simply such things as German beer and 
 German jollity. A great deal else besides for which other 
 nations envy us — for instance, German thoroughness and love 
 of order. German music and German humor — cannot be under- 
 stood or judged aright save by those born just on the little 
 spot between the Rhine and the Memel ; while Silesian and 
 Bavarian dumplings help to develop another and more special 
 
 264
 
 ' DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 265 
 
 local attachment. German forests and Strasburg cathedral, 
 the Colmar Crucifixion and the North German steppes are 
 all integral parts of our German patriotism. 
 
 French patriotism is altogether different. In it traces of the 
 Renaissance survive, and of the great Revolution, of Bur- 
 gundy and champagne, of the marvelous delicacy of a Corot 
 and the Gallic wit of a Voltaire. The Napoleonic legend 
 also intervenes, the cupola of the dome of Les Invalides 
 glows in the setting sun, and the Provencal troubadour sings 
 freely of the "Donna franca et cortezza," and extols the 
 "gesta del per francos,'' the divine deeds of the Franks. 
 
 The solid basis for these human aspirations will be dis- 
 cussed in Chapter XIII on "The World as an Organism." It 
 is enough to point out here that mankind can never be com- 
 pletely in harmony unless all human beings feel as brethren 
 and comrades. Thus man's primeval impulse to look forward 
 is not only the root of all patriotism, but also the crowning 
 point of all genuine, true, and eternal love of country. 
 
 § 95. — True and False Patriotism 
 
 True and false patriotism here part company, and do so of 
 their own accord. Wherever local patriotism, however local 
 it may be, tends to make humanity more human, or, if the 
 phrase be preferred, to promote patriotism of the human race, 
 it is justified; but wherever it tends to hinder this one great 
 aim of man, it is reprehensible. 
 
 This idea is part and parcel of mankind. It was not real- 
 ized all at once, however, for first the egoism of the individual 
 man had to be overcome, and for this it was necessary for men 
 to unite together. Municipal patriotism was justified in over- 
 coming the selfish designs of the robber barons. The concep- 
 tion of a state triumphed when it had to be applied to whole 
 civilizations, such as modern national governments. Hence 
 no one will ever succeed in undoing what has been done once 
 and for all by the struggles of the nineteenth century, in which 
 men patriotically joined together, thereby insuring the victory
 
 266 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 of national patriotism. National states now exist, needing 
 only to be perhaps slightly improved. Hence national patriot- 
 ism would not now be justified save in a few oppressed terri- 
 tories. 
 
 New problems are now awaiting us, only we are attempting 
 to solve them by the same methods as answered in the case of 
 the old problems. Patriotism is no longer a springboard for 
 man in his endeavors to take heaven by storm, for its 
 aims are no longer progressive, but retrogressive. The pa- 
 triotisms involved in the present conflict bring us no nearer 
 the final patriotism of mankind ; there is no genuine patriotism 
 about them. 
 
 What of England and English patriotism? it may be asked. 
 Newton and Faraday, Cromwell and Shakspere, the Habeas 
 Corpus Act, the World's First Parliament, Scottish ballads, 
 whisky, British soldiers in the desert, Trafalgar and Aboukir 
 Bay, a world-wide empire, and plum pudding — all these 
 create a feeling against which no Britisher could ever be quite 
 proof. And this is as it should be, for this absolutely natural 
 attachment to those who were young with us to the place of 
 our birth and the habits with which we grew up needs no ex- 
 planation, and is nowise disrespectful to any other place, any 
 other human being, or any other habits. 
 
 As every man loves and ought to love his wife,- albeit he 
 knows that other women are perhaps more beautiful, wiser, 
 and better, even so every human being not only may, but 
 ought to, love his own country. Only he must not forget that 
 this is a matter of personal predilection, and that other men 
 are just as much entitled to have predilection for another 
 country. 
 
 Above all we must reflect that patriotism is not a simple, un- 
 varying sentiment, but is variable and composite. Certain 
 elements, such as attachment to our mother-tongue, are almost 
 invariably present, but apart from this we must realize the 
 fact of a glow of pleasure and satisfaction coming over us all 
 at the sound of our native country's name has many and
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 267 
 
 complex causes. The sources of the sentiment of ''home," 
 although in general traceable to the three cardinal causes I 
 have set forth above, vary immensely in the case of each in- 
 dividual person. Every one fixes upon what seems to him 
 most essential, and makes his patriotism symbolical thereof. 
 In this universal form the sentiment of home is one of the 
 sacred mysteries of mankind — a priceless possession, like art 
 and beauty. 
 
 2. — DYNASTIC OWNERSHIP 
 
 § 96/ — The Affection of Subjects 
 
 Such vague love of our homeland, however, is not of much 
 practical value. It is only in ballads that kings talk as 
 Henry did to Douglas: 
 
 Der ist in tiefster Seele treu, 
 Der die Heimat liebt, wie Du! 
 
 They generally demand an outspoken attachment to one 
 well-defined fatherland. By old Roman law the father was 
 he whose name was mentioned in the marriage contract {Pater 
 est quern nuptiaxdemonstrant). Similarly, whatever country 
 is to be accounted a man's fatherland or his mother-country 
 must have the proper colors flying over it. Countless elements 
 go to make up patriotism, yet here we have the least important 
 selected as its distinctive characteristic. 
 
 Almost everywhere in Europe for about a thousand years 
 we have known none but railed-off countries on a d3 r nastic 
 basis. Thus, owing to unconscious association of ideas, at- 
 tachment to the hereditary ruling house has become almost 
 the same thing as patriotism ; and modern Prussia, where this 
 dynastic patriotism is most strongly marked, was quite right 
 in substituting the motto "With God for king and country' 1 
 for the old motto "pro patria ct gloria," thus placing king 
 before country. 
 
 This time-honored fidelity to a dynasty really meant some-
 
 26S THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 thing so long as a prince represented or symbolized a com- 
 munity not dependent on him for its existence, as was formerly 
 the case with the Teutonic dukes, and is still so with the 
 English King. But when princes began making considerable 
 territorial and tribal acquisitions by conquest, purchase, or 
 marriage, then genuine love of country and dynastic patriot- 
 ism excluded each other, and there were not a few who realized 
 this. What had attachment to the Bourbons to do with the 
 Spaniards', Neapolitans', or Sicilians' attachment to their 
 country? How could Burgundy, Spain, and the Nether- 
 lands be attached to the House of Austria, which for them 
 was represented by the insignificant house of Hapsburg, of 
 Swiss origin? Or what has the patriotism of the Poles, Alsa- 
 tians and Danes to do with attachment to the Prusso-German 
 Empire of the Hohenzollerns ? 
 
 The bonds uniting a nation together, however, are so vague 
 and indefinite, and the state with its ruler and the often very 
 beneficial array of officials representing it, are something so 
 impressively real, that as time went on, attachment to the stale 
 everywhere supplanted patriotism. Indeed, history proves 
 the awakening of patriotic sentiments to have always been con- 
 nected with attachment to some particular ruler. 
 
 In the eighteenth century what we now call patriotism was 
 still unknown, but the Roi Soleil was looked on as the glory of 
 France, and Frederick II as foreshadowing Germany's great- 
 ness; Maria Theresa was loved as representing the new unity 
 of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and even now the 
 Russian peasant would have no conception of Russia were it 
 not for the influence of the Orthodox Church and the idea 
 of the czar as the Little Father. This state of things con- 
 tinued till the great Revolution, after which the "subject" 
 gradually became more important as compared with his ruler. 
 Consequently, at any rate in advanced countries, the concep- 
 tion of nationhood and of a national state became more and 
 more vivid and clear. Meanwhile the irresistible historical 
 tendency of the nineteenth century to unite Europeans into
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 269 
 
 national states became increasingly manifest. Yet the con- 
 ception of nationhood remained only a sentiment, and no at- 
 tempt was made to define it more exactly. 
 
 § 97. — Prusso-German and Austro-German 
 
 Pure and unadulterated medievalism is still not defunct, 
 and in Germany, to go no further, it is obvious that even in 
 the nineteenth century the dynastic principle can win the 
 day. After the upheavals of Napoleon's time there were in 
 Germany two powerful dynasties, the Hohenzollerns and the 
 Ilapsburgs. Behind both lay a long and glorious past. The 
 influence of French conceptions of liberty gave rise to dreams 
 of welding all territory "so far as the German tongue is 
 heard" into one great nation; but this could be done only if 
 one of the two dynasties were abolished. Traditional ideas, 
 however, got the better of modern ones, sanguinary wars 
 set the seal upon dismemberment. The old German Empire 
 was turned into the country of the Hapsburgs, and beside it 
 the youthful Prussia grew up into the new and vigorous Ger- 
 man Empire of the Hohenzollerns. Neither country repre- 
 sents any distinctly defined nation. The German Empire, 
 however, aproaches thereto, inasmuch as, according to German 
 statistics, it contains only nine per cent, of non-Germans 
 (Poles, Frenchmen, and Danes). On the other hand, a large 
 number of Germans live abroad, particularly in the Austro- 
 Ilungarian monarchy, uhere, however, they are greatly in 
 the minority. Indeed, they number only about twenty per 
 cent, of the total population as compared with the Poles, Slavs, 
 Magyars, and Romance nations. But in German territory 
 the dynastic idea has so completely prevailed over the national 
 that instead of condemning Bismarck as the "disrupter" 
 of Germany, we extol him as its "uniter." Yet he it was 
 who. in the interests of Prussia, his smaller fatherland, really 
 brought about the present state of things. 
 
 If we would see Germany a great power on a national basis, 
 then first, of all we should have to liberate the millions of
 
 270 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Germans who, as becomes daily more apparent, are gradu- 
 ally perishing in that chaos of nations called the Hapsburg 
 monarchy. That is, matters being as they are, the ancient 
 dream of German unity cannot be realized save by Austria be- 
 ing broken up and the German Empire annexing what is really 
 German property. 
 
 Fanciful dynastic notions, however, are so closely inter- 
 woven with our national conceptions that we do not even 
 perceive what a violent contradiction in terms it is that, at 
 any rate according to the official explanation following on 
 the ultimatum to Serbia, we should have taken up arms in 
 1914, full of enthusiasm and with flying colors, for the support 
 of our Austrian ally. Imagining that she was drawing her 
 sword for the so-called national unity of Teutonism, Germany 
 really drew it in the interests of Austria, which is composed 
 of more than a dozen nations, and is an outrage on the very 
 notion of race purity. 
 
 In reality the existence of Austria is the sole obstacle to the 
 constitution of a German nation wherever the German tongue 
 is heard. The German, therefore, as is so often the case, 
 stands in his own light by maintaining the Austrian dynasty. 
 But apart from these facts, the inevitable result of this alliance 
 between the protagonists of dynastic and those of national 
 patriotism is that neither honestly believes his own kind of 
 patriotism to be the wisest possible. Nor can any one seri- 
 ously believe in the ultimate possibility of these two divergent 
 kinds of patriotism being fused into one, for the very existence 
 of Austria makes it impossible for Germany to develop into 
 a single united nation. 
 
 Hence we are confronted with two alternatives. Either 
 Germany has once and for all abandoned the idea of becoming 
 a single united nation, or else she went to war intending after- 
 ward to attack and dismember her present ally. 1 
 
 1 If such an intention exists at all, it can only be latent in the sub- 
 consciousness of the nation Naturally I have no thought of even 
 referring to any "mala fides."
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 271 
 
 The inward signification of this war is the conquest of pa- 
 triotism. As has so often been the ease, Germany is fighting 
 against her own self, and there can be no doubt that in course 
 of time the small Germanies will disappear and their place 
 be taken by one great united mother-country. So long 
 as the small dynasties exist, however, attachment to the newer 
 and greater country will be considered treason to them. The 
 patriot Jahu, 1 Georg Herwegh, Freiligrath, Fritz Renter, and 
 many others besides were forced into exile or imprisoned be- 
 cause of their love for Germany. And even now every one 
 who hopes for a united German mother-country is outlawed 
 by Prussia and Austria, to the applause of the senseless 
 mob. 
 
 The very men who talk about Germany's world-wide expan- 
 sion dread her becoming united, and urge all manner of 
 reasons why she should not do so. The adjunction of Austria 
 would mean too many clericals in the Reichstag : the break up 
 of Austria must mean that many alien nationalities would 
 break away, and then Germany would be too weak from the 
 military point of view. German territory as a whole is incon- 
 venient from the point of view of trade, and so forth. All 
 this may be true; but if so, then it simply proves that Ger- 
 man national sentiment is a mere phrase, adopted whenever 
 it is desired to pick holes in the Jews, Social Democrats, 
 Poles, or French, but immediately thrown overboard if it 
 threatens to become applicable to ourselves. Let us be frank. 
 Let no one say he is a German to the core, but rather that he 
 is a Prussian and a Ilohenzolleru to the core. 
 
 If modern patriots talked in this wise and were not always 
 confusing everything with their wrong notions of nation- 
 ality, it would be possible to come to some sort of understand- 
 ing with them, and readily to admit that for a nation to be in 
 a sort of water-tight compartment is no longer the one thing 
 worth striving for, but that beyond all doubt the conception 
 
 i Kriedrkli Ludwig Jahn, known as the " Turnvater," father of gym- 
 nastics
 
 272 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 of the state as the only true form of association is daily becom- 
 ing more important. 
 
 § 98. — The Free Association of States 
 
 The association to form a state is a strong and essentially 
 valuable bond of union, and wherever it has been based upon 
 libert}' it has proved even stronger than any nationality or, as 
 they are now so often called, racial bounds, stronger even than 
 the ties of religion. 
 
 In Switzerland Germans, French, Roinansch, and Italians 
 have united to form one free state. Every one being entitled 
 to his own language, religion, and convictions, attachment 
 to these is not lashed up to such a pitch as to supplant loyalty 
 to the state. Moreover, the conception of the state imposes 
 no fetters, but merely serves a useful purpose. Modest in its 
 demands the state acquires solid power. 
 
 Similarly in the United States there dwell a medley of 
 associated nations, Germans and Russians, Poles and Magyars, 
 Italians and Englishmen, Irish and Balkan subjects, all living 
 peacefully together and beginning to unite together to form 
 a new race. In this case a medlej 7 of nations is strong and 
 can maintain itself, whereas in Austria, held together as she 
 is by force, it spells disaster. Furthermore, a new patriotism, 
 American patriotism, is being formed, for, like everything else, 
 patriotism cannot exist unless it be based on moral sentiment ; 
 in other words, on free will and free determination. 
 
 The British Empire, of which the conquered Boers have 
 become absolutely loyal citizens in an incredibly short time, 
 likewise seems to be standing the test. The Boers, after all, 
 remain Boers. Not a word is said about the necessity of 
 everything in the British Empire being English ; it is recog- 
 nized that the empire is merely a bond of union. 
 
 Both the German and Austrian empires also exist merely 
 for a purpose, but we make the mistake of endeavoring to de- 
 lude ourselves and others into believing that the German Em- 
 pire is a national state, which of course annoys a great many
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 273 
 
 over whom the black, white, and red banner floats, since they 
 neither can nor will become Germans by nationality, but would 
 undoubtedly be excellent members of a German union. 
 
 Whenever an empire puts forth no extravagant claims, such 
 as to be a sort of center to which enforced sympathies must 
 gravitate, then it is far easier to see how far it can help to cen- 
 tralize material interests. Unfortunately, however, every one 
 who disapproves of certain institutions, especially those to 
 which the rulers for the time being attach importance, is 
 called an enemy of the empire ; and thus every one who really 
 thinks for himself is tempted to regret being a member of that 
 empire. All great imperial conceptions, indeed, originated 
 with the opposition parties. Germany now prides herself 
 upon her social legislation, and indeed we owe it to applied 
 state socialism that our economic life goes on smoothly even 
 during the war. But time was when Liberals and Socialists 
 alike were the country's enemies. The opposition will not and 
 cannot demand that its advice should be followed, for then 
 it would cease to deserve its name; but it is justified in in- 
 sisting on being heard and on its opinions, like every one 
 else's, being respected. 
 
 To-day there are also some whose views of the war differ 
 from those of the majority, and who believe that it would 
 not be for Germany's good to win a victory. It is of course 
 their duty to do whatever work their fellow-citizens in the 
 majority demand of them ; but equally of course they are en- 
 titled, indeed, they are bound, to remain true to their convic- 
 tions. In 1850 King Frederick "William IV actually said to 
 the British envoy that he considered it the greatest blessing 
 that a victory of Prussia over Austria had then been avoided, 
 for, he added, in view of Austria's internal dissensions this 
 would have been inevitable. Similarly every citizen of the 
 country should now be allowed to say what he considers most 
 in the interests of its greatness. Patriotism, in short, should 
 be a moral sentiment, and this is possible only in a state of 
 freedom
 
 274 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 3. — RACE PATRIOTISM 
 
 § 99.— The Problem of Race 
 
 The obstacle to us Europeans developing this free patriot- 
 ism at present is the so-called race patriotism of the small 
 European countries. This has become far too petty for mod- 
 ern world politics, and, after all, it has nothing whatever to do 
 with race. Now, this question of race is one of the mast melan- 
 choly chapters in the history of human knowledge. Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, knowledge, supposed to be impartial, 
 has never placed itself so unconditionally in the service of am- 
 bitious and self-seeking politicians as in this race question. 
 Indeed, it might almost be said that the various theories of 
 race have really never been put forward except with the object 
 of advancing some claim or other. The writings of Houston 
 Stewart Chamberlain, an Anglo-German, afford perhaps the 
 most distressing example of this. 
 
 As we all know, this author has been endeavoring to claim 
 every eminent man throughout the history of the world, Christ 
 and Dante included, for the Teutonic race. It may seem sur- 
 prising that other demagogic representatives of other races 
 did not make a similar attempt, and that they did not is a 
 testimony to the good sense of foreign men of science. The 
 French anthropologist, Paul Souday, on the other hand, re- 
 cently endeavored to prove that probably all Germany's 
 eminent men are of Celtic origin ; and as a matter of fact South 
 Germany, to which most of them belong, was originally a 
 Celtic country, while the foreign origin of some of the few 
 eminent North Germans can be proved. Thus Nietzsche Avas 
 a Slav, and Kant's family emigrated from Scotland. It is 
 worth while to refer to a French edition of Houston Stewart 
 Chamberlain such as Paul Souday, for it may perhaps make 
 even deluded neutrals realize the worthlessness of such argu- 
 ments. But most Germans hold some such views as this. 
 True, they say that they feel as German patriots ought to
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 275 
 
 feel, just because they are Germans; but in reality they be- 
 lieve in a German race because they think it their patriotic 
 duty to do so. Now, if we consider the foundations on which 
 these race theories are based, we shall see that they are very 
 slender. They are, first, that in general it is not proved that 
 a pure race is superior to a mixed one, and, secondly, that it is 
 impossible exactly to define what a human race is. 
 
 § 100.— The Value of Eace Purity 
 
 A pedigree dog is said to be worth more than a mongrel, 
 and this probably explains the strange view that a human 
 being of pure race is worth more than one of mixed race. 
 In the case of dogs, and to a less extent in that of other 
 domestic animals, this can be understood; for man originally 
 selected for breeding such dogs as he liked or as were useful 
 to him. Thus he bred a small, long-bodied race, with crooked 
 legs suited for scratching holes in the ground, a dog spirited, 
 strong, and rapacious, the Dachshund, which he used for hunt- 
 ing animals living in holes or caves. Then he bred another 
 kind, tall and slender, with long legs, the greyhound, to hunt 
 hares for him ; and similarly he has bred vigilant Pomeranians, 
 sharp-nosed setters, bloodhounds, and so on till we come to 
 life-saving St. Bernards. 
 
 Now, each of these kinds has its own peculiar qualities, and 
 in other respects its capacities have become quite deadened. 
 Thus the greyhound cannot smell, and bulldogs are inclined 
 to bite. In short, a biologist would say that these pure-bred 
 dogs were by no means particularly well equipped for life; 
 but man will have them so, and therefore he attaches less 
 value to cross breeds, in which the special characteristics of 
 particular kinds of dogs of course vanish. The proof that, 
 from the purely biological point of view, pedigree dogs are 
 inferior is simply that the most highly bred usually die out 
 before long. Thus St. Bernards survived only for four gener- 
 ations, and there are no longer any absolutely pure-bred 
 pug-dogs; but to atone for this, new pedigree kinds are con-
 
 276 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 stantly appearing. It is certainly remarkable that police 
 dogs, which from the nature of their employment must be 
 highly trained, are not called "pedigree dogs." Such dogs, 
 in short, are useless except for some special purpose, and as 
 only dogs are used for so many purposes quite foreign to their 
 nature, it is chiefly in their case that purity of race is greatly 
 insisted upon. 
 
 In the case of all other domestic animals, whether horses, 
 cows, goats, pigs, or what not, skilful crossing, or what breed- 
 ers call improving the breed, is considered of more importance 
 than anything else; and whenever a particular breed is bred 
 comparatively true, new blood must be from time to time in- 
 troduced into it. The sole exceptions to this rule are race- 
 horses, which are kept for sport only, and a few fancy breeds 
 of pigeons; but for work none but half-blood horses can be 
 used. German horse-breeders, moreover, have had to pay 
 dearly for having acted on the suggestion of Bruce Low, and 
 for a time bought none but pedigree horses. It must not be 
 forgotten also that the strain of English pure-blood pedi- 
 gree horses has not been known for more than two hundred 
 years at the outside, and therefore is still comparatively 
 young. 
 
 Thus in the animal kingdom we find scarcely any warrant 
 for the assertion that people of unmixed race are superior to 
 others, and in mankind no warrant whatever for it, since there 
 are absolutely no pure-bred races, with the possible exception 
 of a few peoples on a very low level. Europe, at all events, 
 is an absolute national medley, and any one who does not 
 consider the Jews the flower of the human race should not 
 make such foolish assertions as that concerning the superior- 
 ity of unmixed races. 
 
 Suppose now that it is asserted that although nations owed 
 their origin to crossing, yet in course of time a uniform race is 
 formed from these crossings, and that these ancient races are 
 superior to more recent conglomerate races. Even this 
 would not be true. On the contrary, it is a remarkable fact
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 277 
 
 that the legends of all peoples which have attained greatness 
 tell of their having entered their countries as conquerors. 
 Doubtless this is a reminiscence of another fact of which his- 
 tory affords repeated confirmation — that powerful nations 
 which leave their impress on the world always arise just where 
 two national migrations came into collision, and a new young 
 empire resulted. This is also true of the ancient empires 
 of the East. But — not to depart from Europe — Hellas and 
 Rome arose out of that great migration which we describe as 
 the Doric migration and the Greek colonization of the Mediter- 
 ranean. The Roman Empire was, moreover, very closely con- 
 nected with the Etruscan migrations. 1 Again, the German 
 medieval empire took its rise from the onslaughts of popular 
 migration. It was Arab invasions which, in Spain (and 
 therefore in a foreign land) gave rise to that Arab empire 
 w T hich was in every respect the most important ; and subse- 
 quently the Spanish Empire arose. The Norman invasions of 
 France and England in the tenth century gave the impetus to 
 the greatness of both these countries. Prussia arose precisely 
 where there was the greatest blending of Teutons, advancing 
 from the tenth to the twelfth centuries over the Eastern 
 marches, with the conquered Slavs. 
 
 Quite possibly everything must not be set down to mixture 
 of blood, but something to dormant energies being aroused. 
 The foregoing brief historical summary, however, suffices to 
 disprove older races having in any way the advantage. 
 Those who urge that all these instances are taken from an- 
 cient history, may be referred to the unexampled progress of 
 the United States. Here we see actually before us the rise 
 of a young, vigorous nation composed of the leavings of old 
 Europe, sometimes inferior leavings, with a clash of negro and 
 Indian blood, which, though slight, nevertheless cannot be ig- 
 nored. Here is a nation which might well be called New Eu- 
 rope. Now many, it is true, will say that, though America 
 
 i Mommaen'a opinion differed radically from this, but will not stand 
 the teat of modern research.
 
 278 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 has progressed, she has not done so in the right way; but 
 probably such things have always been said by those over 
 whom the wheel of blooming civilizations has passed. 
 
 § 101. — Historical and Linguistic Races 
 
 It is by no means too much to say, therefore, that there is 
 nothing to prove the superiority of a pure human race over 
 a mixed one, and that this is not even probable. 
 
 Now, as regards the differentiation of the various races, 
 the unfortunate thing is that we have no absolute criterion 
 for the definition of a race. All manner of expedients have 
 therefore been resorted to. Thus an attempt has been made 
 by historical investigators to separate human beings into com- 
 munities having a like origin or into groups speaking cognate 
 languages, and to classify them according to various similari- 
 ties or differences of civilization ; and finally an endeavor 
 has been made to base a definition of race on physical char- 
 acteristics. There is some justification for all these attempts, 
 and all appear to be successful so long as we confine ourselves 
 to the one special line of investigation. But unfortunately 
 these diversely formed national groups do not coincide. 
 
 There are peoples, whose existence is historically attested, 
 such as the Teutons of the migratory period, whose descen- 
 dants might be sought in Italy, Africa, Spain, and Byzantium. 
 Again, there are linguistically allied races, for instance, the 
 ''Germans," to which not only Teutons, Slavs, and Celts, but 
 even negroes and Mongols belong. Finally, there are anthro- 
 pological races, for instance, the long-headed North European 
 type, who chiefly live around the Baltic and the North Sea 
 (except Pomerania, West Prussia, and Finland). 
 
 Now, as nobody knows what is really the proper method of 
 classifying races, every one can select whichever best suits his 
 own particular inclinations ; and what is worse, and what has 
 led to hopeless confusion, is that every one who has pegged out 
 a "nation" in accordance with one set of characteristics only 
 tries to make all other characteristics conform thereto Thus
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 279 
 
 some persons have attempted to find the same specific charac- 
 teristics prevailing over the whole territory formerly subject 
 to the inroads of national migrations, while others have tried 
 to prove all German-speaking or all Slav-language territory 
 to be inhabited by one single race, and even to consider the 
 Jews or the Teutons as all belonging to one type of civilization 
 only. All these attempts show but too plainly the cloven foot 
 of partiality. 
 
 Historical research in particular has been misapplied, and 
 extravagant claims made in its name. The Italian believes in 
 an Italian people extending as far as the sound of Roman leg- 
 ionaries' footsteps were once hoard, or, as they prefer to put 
 it now, as far as the Lion of St. Mark's once roared. The Ger- 
 mans would fain claim for themselves all territory over which 
 the hosts of the migratory period once passed. The French 
 Napoleonic Empire alone is still historically too young to have 
 any traditional justification for its claims. These need not be 
 expected for a few centuries to come; that is, unless in the 
 interval the world becomes wiser. 
 
 Now, as regards the question of race, historical research 
 may be left absolutely out of account. Suppose that in a 
 territory inhabited by millions of people only one single person 
 of foreign race has survived or immigrated. Now, if this 
 solitary person has characteristics such as are invariably trans- 
 mitted in case of his crossing with another race, then, owing 
 to continuous crossing, in a few hundred years the entire 
 population would possess these characteristics. 
 
 In order to realize this, we must consider that, allowing four 
 children to a generation, a single human being has in the fifth 
 generation — that is, after 125 years — one thousand descen- 
 dants ; ' after 250 years this number has increased to a million, 
 and after 375 years the number of his descendants would 
 equal that of all living human beings. 2 The historical fact 
 
 i After 25 years. 4: after 50 years, 16; after 75 years, 64; after 100 
 years, 256; after 125 years, 1024 descendants 
 
 2 In the ease of physically vigorous national elements it is scarcely 
 too much to allow four children. But allowing only 3 children, a
 
 280 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 that at any given time a nation was racially pure and has not 
 since received any considerable infusion of foreign blood is 
 therefore of comparatively small importance. 
 
 Linguistic researches have likewise led to no definite results, 
 for we know that it may happen that nations, almost to a man, 
 adopt a new language in a short time. Thus the Slavs in the 
 East. Elbe provinces almost all speak German well, and, it 
 might be added, feel quite German. The Bulgarians, origin- 
 ally a blend of Turk and Tatar, have become so much im- 
 pregnated with Slav civilization and the Slav language as to 
 forget all about their origin ; while Slavs who have emigrated 
 to Greece have become just like Greeks. The Goths in Spain 
 and Lombardy likewise soon absolutely forgot their Teutonic 
 origin. Any number of like instances could be adduced. 
 Moreover, all other civilized institutions can be shown to have 
 altered even more rapidly than language. 
 
 § 102. — Physical Racial Characteristics 
 
 The physical characteristics of animals are studied almost 
 solely with the object of classifying them into species. In 
 the case of man it is also the only method of attaining any 
 practical results, and it has proved a reliable method of 
 dividing the great human races into white and black, yellow 
 and red. In the demarcation of the small European sub-spe- 
 cies frequently described as races it has, on the whole, not an- 
 swered, and for the following reasons : 
 
 1. — These peoples probably never were genuine species. 
 They had not time to develop so much because they did not 
 split off from the so-called Indo-Germanic race until a com- 
 paratively late period. 
 
 2. — A great hindrance to investigation is that it is not known 
 whether the original inhabitants of Europe, the race whom 
 the immigrants encountered, were homogeneous or not. This 
 
 billion ia reached in 10 generations (475 years). Allowing 2 children 
 it would be reached in 30 generations, or 750 years; that is, not even 
 then in such a very Ions: time.
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 281 
 
 point, however, will be gradually cleared up when we become 
 better acquainted with prehistoric discoveries. 
 
 3 — Most important of all is the fact that, in historic times, 
 there has been so much crossing and recrossing that no one 
 need expect to find more than the ruins of any particular 
 nation anywhere. Rome's legions penetrated as far as the 
 Pontus, to Ultima Thule, and Heaven knows where besides; 
 and what is more, they founded numerous colonies, to which 
 the altogether Roman names of Rhenish cities and the Roman 
 cast of countenance frequently noticeable in Rhineland girls 
 afi'ord eloquent testimony. 
 
 Again, before the migrations, some inexplicable impulse to- 
 ward expansion drove Cimbrian migratory tribes far south- 
 ward. Then came the period when the Teutons as Roman 
 mercenaries encircled the known world, until finally they be- 
 came independent nations, and as such took part in the 
 migrations which overwhelmed all Europe. These migra- 
 tions have not yet ceased, especially in eastern central Europe, 
 between the fifteenth and thirteenth parallel of longitude, 
 that is, in the Balkan regions and in the quadrangle erected 
 upon them, including the corners of Stettin, Triest, Petro- 
 grad, and Constantinople. The Courland and Siebenbiirgen 
 Germans in Slav and Rumanian territory, the Sezkler Magyars 
 in Rumanian territory, and the Wends and Czechs in German 
 territory may be cited in proof of what I say. 
 
 But war and peace brought about many changes besides 
 these. All the nations of Europe and the surrounding ter- 
 ritory, Mongols, Moors, Finns, and Magyars included, fought 
 battles, particularly in Germany. Frequently, however, espe- 
 cially in the case of Spaniards, Frenchmen, Swedes, and Poles, 
 troops were garrisoned in Germany, often for a long time, or 
 else German and Swiss mercenaries were garrisoned all about 
 the world, leaving descendants behind them, sometimes forci- 
 bly begotten, sometimes not. 
 
 Besides this, religious and commercial persecution caused 
 people to emigrate to freer or more enlightened countries.
 
 282 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 The refugees in Ansbach and Brandenburg, the Palatinate 
 and Holland, and the Salzburg people in East Prussia, Den- 
 mark, and Sweden are instances of religious colonization ; the 
 Italians in Germany and the Poles in the Rhine country and 
 Westphalia, of commercial colonization. 
 
 Besides the historical difficulties of sorting out the different 
 races, there is another difficulty, this time biological. For 
 example, the examination of skulls is in itself an absolutely 
 reliable method of race classification, except that we do not 
 know whether the characteristics of skulls, like other physical 
 peculiarities, are variable, and if so, why they vary. Thus if 
 by means of skulls found and statistics it is easy to prove that 
 in Germany the round-headed (or brunette) type is grad- 
 ually increasing, or if in America a certain Indian type has 
 lately somewhat frequently occurred among the whites, we 
 still do not know, or at any rate we cannot ascertain from 
 skulls, why this is so. Is it because a certain portion of the 
 population, originally in the minority, but possessed of char- 
 acteristics which are always transmissible, is gradually forc- 
 ing its way to the front ? Has it to do with the signs of adap- 
 tation to certain outward conditions at present unknown to us ? 
 Or is the increase due to unsuspected immigration ? 
 
 In the face of these difficulties it might justly be said that, 
 were ethnology to demonstrate the racial purity of the people, 
 this would be convincing proof of its worthlessness. In real- 
 ity, however, recent investigations have made an end of all 
 such racial purity. Whereas most nations used to pride them- 
 selves on being of racially pure origin, tracing their descent 
 usually to a god or demigod, or at any rate to some famous 
 hero, to-day it is probably only the Russians and Germans who 
 passionately lay claim to racial purity. Or, rather, it is 
 claimed by a limited part of both these nations, and one taken 
 far too seriously by both, — the Panslavists and Pan-German- 
 ists and their scientific protagonists. 
 
 As for the Russians, they, like the Scandinavians, have re- 
 mained fairly isolated in their Eastern seclusion ; and it is a
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 283 
 
 fact that in Scandinavia the north European type (the Teu- 
 tons) and in Russia the East European type have remained 
 purest. 
 
 § 103. — The Mixture of Races in Germany 
 
 To claim race purity for Germany, where all European types 
 come in contact with one another as in a melting-pot, is ab- 
 solutely preposterous. Perhaps she owes her cosmopolitan ca- 
 pacity for understanding ''the voices of the nations" better 
 than do other nations to this very circumstance that in her 
 the descendants of all European nations live. At any rate, 
 there is more justification for such a contention than for 
 asserting that every racial conglomeration — what Houston 
 Stewart Chamberlain would call a chaos of nations — must nec- 
 essarily be inferior. 
 
 It matters not, however, whether the results of this mix- 
 ture of races be good or bad. We have to put up with it, 
 since there is no doubt about the fact. But as Chamberlain's 
 bulky volume is very much read in Germany, and as this un- 
 justifiable race pride is one of the worst evils of modern Ger- 
 many, I do not wish to pass it over in absolute silence. More- 
 over, its false, but seductive, reasoning is or appears to aim at 
 proving that the Teutonic race is a pure race. 
 
 All race theorists assume that among mensurable physical 
 attributes the most important ethnologically are the formation 
 of the skull, the color of the hair and skin, and the dimensions 
 of the body. Now, the German anthropologist Deniker, 1 bas- 
 ing his conclusions on principal, external attributes, has at- 
 tempted to explain the present race distribution in Europe by 
 the measurements of school-children and recruits, of which in 
 some cases there are a great many. He assumes the existence 
 of ten races altogether, including six main races; and shows 
 how they are distributed quite indiscriminately, without re- 
 gard to language or frontier delimitation, over the whole 
 
 i "Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris." Tome VIII, 4me 
 Serie, pp, 189 and 291.
 
 284 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 European continent. Certain races, however, seem chiefly to 
 be found in districts bordering on the sea. Thus the Teutons 
 mainly live around the Baltic and the Irish Sea. 
 
 The results of these investigations, which may be found 
 in a valuable work by the German anthropologist Hirt, are of 
 interest to all European nations. I shall refer to them, how- 
 ever, only in so far as they relate to Germany, and then only 
 so far as the district within the boundaries of the present 
 German Empire is concerned. As for the complete racial mix- 
 ture of Austria, no one would probably question this. The 
 map on the opposite page gives an approximate idea of con- 
 ditions as the}'' actually are. The colored portions represent 
 districts where one of the ten European races to some extent 
 preponderates; the white portions indicate territory where 
 there is a heterogeneous mixture of races. [Diagram between 
 pp. 242 and 243.] 
 
 This diagram can be comparatively easily brought into line 
 with ascertained historical facts. The ancient Teutons (red) 
 w T ere settled about the Baltic, whence they advanced into other 
 countries. In so doing they encountered Celts (yellow) in 
 South Germany, and Slavs (blue) toward the southeast. As 
 for the Slavs, who still predominate greatly in Posen and 
 Silesia, they have also occasionally made considerable ad- 
 vances, particularly toward the sea. It is easy to understand 
 this advance seaward, and it accounts for the fact that in 
 Pomerauia and Westphalia the Teutonic elements have now 
 no longer the upper hand, as they had originally. The Teu- 
 tons mostly passed through South Germany, and then before 
 long utterly perished in the far South, which was obviously 
 unsuited to them. Consequently the Celtic race has remained 
 comparatively pure in Baden and Wiirtemberg (South Ger- 
 many), while elsewhere it is apparent that there has been an 
 immigration of the Adriatic races (green) as a result of Ro- 
 man rule and of the round-headed "homo alpinus." Ap- 
 parently the Romans found the kind of life here to their 
 taste. Most of central Germany, however, is peopled by a
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 285 
 
 mixture of races, or, as Houston Stewart Chamberlain neatly 
 phrases it, by a national chaos. Wilser 1 bears out this fact 
 when he says, "Scarcely one in a hundred of our fellow- 
 countrymen to-day has a type of skull or framework like the 
 skeletons found in the rows of graves of the migration pe- 
 riod." Elsewhere he says, "If to-day we would discover 
 true Teutons, we must go to our Northern sister nations — to 
 Sweden, the Netherlands, and England." 
 
 § 104. — Germans and Teutons 
 
 We call German those common characteristics and traits 
 which have arisen out of this mixture of races by reason of a 
 common language and civilization. We call Teutonic those 
 original and primary qualities which were inherent in a peo- 
 ple of unknown origin. This people is to-day so intermingled 
 with other peoples that, at least in Germany, it no longer 
 exists. 
 
 Germany consequently is a civilized state built up on the 
 basis of a common speech. It is not a national state 2 built 
 up on a common race. The identification of Germans with 
 Teutons is entirely misleading. It is true that this new com- 
 plex of peoples has taken its most important formative element, 
 its language, essentially from its Teutonic element. The Ger- 
 man is therefore justified in designating himself as the spirit- 
 ual descendant of this people. But this very fact shows how 
 much more important civilization is than race. 
 
 i "Rassen und Volker" ("Races and Peoples"), by Ludwig Wilser, 
 1912. Theodor Thoma: Leipsic 
 
 - A civilized state and a national state are not antitheses. The word 
 "national" does not fundamentally imply merely a racial affiliation. 
 The words "people" and "nation" no longer retain a clearly detined 
 meaning, because intentionally and unintentionally their dist i n«ruisliin^ 
 characteristics have been confused. It would easily lie possible to define 
 these words; others have done so. This seems superfluous, not to say 
 harmful, to me. The fact that no one really knows what a people and 
 what a nation is, proves more conclusively than any words that peoples 
 and nations are no Longer definite realities. There is no such confusion 
 about the conception of state. From this conception the future develop- 
 ment will take its departure.
 
 286 THE BIOLOGY OF AVAR 
 
 It is difficult to see how men like Chamberlain have arrived 
 at their conclusions. In the case of Chamberlain, in particu- 
 lar, I believe that he often writes things of the correctness 
 of which he himself is not convinced. For instance, for the 
 fantastic statement, "that the Goths in large numbers have 
 accepted Judaism," he gives as his authority "a learned 
 specialist of the University of Vienna," but he does not give 
 his name. 1 Again he quotes letters, 2 which he claims to have 
 received, and their contents supplement one another in an 
 extraordinary fashion. The impartial, critical reader cannot 
 help but feel that in such cases the author was more interested 
 in giving a pleasing artistic form to his work than in facts 
 themselves. It might have been preferable, if, like his great 
 master, Gobineau, he had chosen a purely fictional form of 
 presentment. 
 
 It is also possible that the entire Pan-German theory de- 
 pends upon nothing more than a most regrettable misunder- 
 standing. The claim is made that the various European na- 
 tions have resulted from a mixture of the original primitive 
 inhabitants with the Teutons who overran them during the 
 later migrations. In Germany, on the other hand, Teutons 
 were merely mixed with Teutons, and that thus the race here 
 remained pure. 
 
 In fact, however, skeletons and other remains show con- 
 clusively that there was a race of primitive inhabitants in 
 Germany as well, going back as far as the diluvial period. 
 At the time of the Cimric invasion and later, when the stream 
 of the Teutonic migrations burst upon them, this population 
 partly emigrated, or at least withdrew into the mountainous 
 regions, partly perished, and partly mingled with the new- 
 comers. A primitive population dwelt here as well as in the 
 other European countries at a time when the rhinoceros and 
 
 iH. St. Chamberlain's "Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts" ("The 
 Foundations of the Nineteenth Century") : Munich, 1904, 5th Edition, 
 vol II, p. 104. 
 
 2 Ibid. (1915), "Neue Kriegsaufsiitze" ("New Essays on the War"), 
 pp. 17, 18.
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 287 
 
 the elephant still roamed through Europe. A mixture of these 
 primitive inhabitants and Celts seems to have lived along the 
 Rhine at the time when the Romans arrived. However dear 
 Scheffel's old song, "Es wohnten die alten Germanen zu bei- 
 den Seiten des Rheins" ("The ancient Germans lived on both 
 sides of the Rhine"), may be to us, it is not a fact. Ariovistus 
 racially was not a Teuton, but a Celt. If at that time any one 
 lived on both sides of the Rhine, it was the Celts. But 
 Tacitus called these people Germani, and this name was later 
 applied to the tribes which broke forth from the region in 
 which Ariovistus had lived. They were Ostrogoths, Visigoths, 
 Vandals, etc. The error dates from that time. The Germani 
 of Tacitus and those of the Teutonic migrations are some- 
 thing quite distinct. For a long time no one definitely knew 
 what the Germans were. Even as late as the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries the French were the more likely to be called 
 Germans. 1 
 
 In the meantime another name arose. In France a dis- 
 tinction had been made at an early period between the lingua 
 romana rustica in the West and the lingua theodosica in the 
 East (that is, in Germany). These words designated a lan- 
 guage only and not a people, just as to-day, when we say 
 some one speaks High German, we do not mean to imply that 
 he belongs to a definite racial division. 
 
 Later in the eleventh centur}' the substantive Teuton 2 was 
 formed from theodisk, which was used only as an adjective, 
 merely resembling the other in sound, but in no wise related 
 to it. 
 
 This word denoted from the very beginning a cultural 
 and linguistic, not a racial, relation. The absurd legend of 
 the giant Theuto, as the common ancestor of all Teutons, in- 
 
 i Joh. Kinnamos (circa 1200) T. II, c. 15, 18 (ed. Meineche: Bonn, 
 1H36, p 77 and S4 ) talis the Germans "Allemanni" and the French 
 "Germani." 
 
 2 MHllerhof and many others with him regard the term Teutonic as a 
 Celtic word.
 
 288 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 vestigation has shown was not invented until the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 This linguistic division accords with the fact that a transi- 
 tion had taken place in the mean time. The Teutonic hordes 
 had become inhabitants of German territory. The Teutons, 
 Celts, and Slavs were German in so far as they spoke the 
 German language. In this way the German nation was 
 founded ; but we canuot reiterate it often enough that the 
 element of race had nothing to do with it. 
 
 The facts to which attention is here called are in no way 
 complex ; they are accepted as established by the unprejudiced. 
 The difficulty for ordinary readers arises through the con- 
 tinual confusion of Teutons with Germans. For instance, 
 Ratzel 1 in his popular work states, "There was a time when 
 the greater part of our country was not inhabited by Ger- 
 mans"; and again, "it is historically established that southern 
 and western Germany were not inhabited by Germans when 
 the Romans first penetrated into those regions." Despite this, 
 he maintains that the people described by Tacitus must have 
 been Teutons. Of course, Ratzels conception of "Germania" 
 is broader than " German," but no matter how comprehensive 
 the term, even Ratzel would hardly include the Celts among 
 the Teutons. Conflicting statements like these, however, 
 simplify things only for writers like Chamberlain. 
 
 § 105. — The European Race 
 
 In a broad general w y ay there are no pure races in Europe, 
 no true species in the zoological sense, not even constant varie- 
 ties. 
 
 The only question that may arise is whether there is a 
 "European race," which can be distinguished from the Asiatic 
 Mongols, the African negroes, the Australasians, and the 
 American Indians. Even this would hardly be the case if 
 race meant to us some clearly defined or even zoological con- 
 
 iFr. Ratzel, "Deutschland" ("Germany"), p. 273.
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 289 
 
 ception. The old traditional division according to geographi- 
 cal regions is to-day discredited. It was easy to show that the 
 actual relations were often dependent upon something quite 
 different. The unfortunate term, "Indo-Germanic peoples," 
 was largely responsible for this, for this term was based not 
 upon race, but upon language. Linguistic relationship has 
 been made the keystone of the problem of race. Without 
 wishing to underestimate the scientific importance of this re- 
 lation, we must nevertheless confess that it has caused a 
 complete shift in the meaning of the word "race." 
 
 It may be true, and probably is, that pure races no longer 
 inhabit definite regions of the world. But by a geographical 
 arrangement we may at any rate obtain human groups which 
 in a broad general way have certain relatively uniform char- 
 acteristics in their history, civilization, language, and physical 
 attributes that differentiate them fairly sharply from other 
 races. 
 
 The concept, a people, a nation, a group of peoples, and 
 even that of a race, depends not only upon a common origin, 
 but also upon common language, civilization, morals, and 
 habits of life. It would be absurd to exclude, for instance, 
 the Finns and Hungarians, the Welsh and Basques, the Prus- 
 sians and Mechlenburgians, from the community of Europe 
 simply because they unquestionably are racially distinct from 
 the other Europeans. No German would ever think of regard- 
 ing the Mechlenburgians and Prussians as anything else but 
 Germans, and of stressing his relationship to the Hindus. 
 
 There is no such thing as a patriotism based upon racial 
 descent. Just because it is vague and indefinite, extrava- 
 gant claims are made for it. They are usually grotesque and 
 irritating in effect. It is likewise impossible to establish 
 German patriotism on a racial basis. But if we say that the 
 German peoples have been welded into a new unity by their 
 common civilization, we are within the range of possibility 
 and fact. But more of this will be said in the next section.
 
 290 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 There is one thing to which I wish to call attention. Since 
 Germans have no common ethnological origin, Germanism is 
 not an inherited possession. A common civilization has to 
 be won and secured anew every day. It is well that this is so. 
 
 4. — CIVILIZATION AND PATRIOTISM 
 
 § 106. — The Multiplicity of Combinations 
 
 The national and racial kinships which we have so far 
 considered constitute only two forms of an infinite number of 
 possible combinations. 
 
 The combination of human beings into larger groups can 
 as a matter of fact take place on the basis of innumerable 
 common interests. Eeligion and art, science and occupation, 
 similar predilections, and similar antipathies, divide human- 
 ity into larger or smaller circles. These circles will never 
 entirely correspond ; on the contrary, they frequently intersect. 
 For instance, a man may feel a kinship with a thousand other 
 men through the bond of his religion, with other thousands 
 through the bonds of a common belief in art or interest in 
 sports, or merely through a common occupation. Fig. 7 shows 
 how numerous such combinations may be. Germans and 
 French and Catholics and Evangelicals are each represented 
 by a circle. The overlapping parts of circles show the num- 
 ber of separate combinations resulting from this pair of op- 
 posites. It is furthermore assumed that there are only bonds 
 between Germans and French (Lorrainers), but not between 
 Catholics and Evangelicals; consequently, four groups are 
 excluded : the Catholic-Evangelical Germans, French, Lorrain- 
 ers, and other human beings. 
 
 The term in the second column indicates the concept that 
 imight result. This term does not fully comprehend the con- 
 cepts proper, formed solely out of the two opposites. There 
 are many additional circles representing nuances, and the 
 number of possible combinations rises very rapidly, as fol- 
 lows:
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 291 
 
 1 pair of opposites results in 5 possibilities 
 o « " " » » 15 " 
 
 3 « u a u « 63 « 
 
 4 " « " " « 255 " 
 
 5 " " " " " 1023 " , etc. 
 
 Let us consider some of the applications according to which 
 people in Germany may be grouped. There are those who 
 speak German, Polish, French, or Danish ; there are Catholics 
 and Protestants, Jews, and dissenters, nationalists and cos- 
 mopolitans, materialists and idealists, employees and employ- 
 ers, professional men, state officials, conservatives, and liberals, 
 social democrats and non-voters, and those who have artistic, 
 scientific, technical, or philosophical tastes. These are only 
 a few of the fundamental applications, but they allow for a 
 vast number of possible combinations. Accurately worked 
 out, there are 16,770,215, and in this list many determining 
 factors have been omitted, such as whether a man is a col- 
 lector or sportsman, a vegetarian or prohibitionist, or any 
 other "ist." 
 
 However great the diversity when it comes to the issue of 
 one's country, each one is supposed to be cut to the same 
 measure. We are supposed to shed everything that gives indi- 
 vidual distinction to a human being. The abstract "average 
 German" alone is supposed to remain. He is represented by a 
 circle which in itself has perhaps the smallest actual contents. 
 It seems important only because for a multitude of people it 
 serves as a substitute for many other circles. 
 
 Rumelin x feels this conflict. He indicates the different 
 relations, and then continues: "One motive may draw us to 
 one circle, another to a different one. . . . But we feel and re- 
 gret every such division and incompleteness of our mood. 
 There is always a silent yearning for a full and complete 
 community of life." But he fails to offer a solution when 
 he demands that human beings shall renounce their individual 
 
 i Rumelin, "Uber den Begriff des Volkes" ("On the Conception of 
 People"). "Aufsiitze" ("Essays"), I., p. 103.
 
 292 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 desires and attach themselves to the fatherland as the "cen- 
 tral group which embraces all objects of life." The present 
 form of fatherland, essentially built up by historical force, 
 no longer satisfies the claims of free men. A fatherland must 
 be a living organism, capable of change. It must represent, 
 as Eduard Meyer 1 once said, "A conscious, active, and crea- 
 tive will." For this reason a nation which we can respect 
 must be reconstructed day by day by the plebiscites of a 
 free people. 2 
 
 Each human being is an individuality ; no two are exactly 
 alike. More is required than mere co-citizenship in one and 
 the same state. 
 
 "Even in our fatherland we must have the power of choice, 
 though our sympathies should lie on the other side of the 
 frontier. ' ' 3 
 
 A human being ceases to be a human being — that is, a per- 
 sonality — when he has to praise his country simply because it 
 is his country. 
 
 § 107. — States within a State 
 
 A Goethe student — I think it was Bielschowsky — once justly 
 said that every one who has read Goethe has become in part 
 German. So, too, every one who loves Beethoven's music, 
 who has studied Kant's philosoplry, or who admires Robert 
 Koch's technic, is in part German, even if he does not know 
 the work of these men directly, but merely follows the paths 
 which they have laid out. It is just as much true that who- 
 ever admires Shakspere, Newton, or Darwin is in part Eng- 
 lish, and he is part Russian who puts high store on Tolstoy, 
 Pawlow, or even the Russian folk-song. Whoever has been 
 
 i Eduard Meyer, "Die Anfange des Staates" ("The Beginnings of the 
 State"). 
 
 2 Ernest Renan, "L'existence d'une nation est un plebiscite de tous des 
 jours." ("Q'est-ce gu'une nation," p. 27.) 
 
 3 Arnold RiiRe, "Zwei Jahre in Paris, Studien und Erinnerungen" 
 ("Two Years in Paris, Studies and Recollections"), vol. II., p. 221. 
 Jurany: Leipsic.
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 293 
 
 brought up on Homer, or, as was frequently the case during 
 the Middle Ages, on Aristotle, or more recently on Plato, is 
 a Hellene. Whoever believes in the liberty which resulted 
 from the French Revolution is French. Our admiration for 
 Dante or the Cinquecento makes us to a degree Italian, and 
 Cervantes beguiles us to become Spanish. 
 
 The nationality of a civilized human being is very diverse. 
 Richard Dehmel was quite correct when he once said that 
 he owed his little bit of brains to ten nations. Each human 
 being is his own world. The more highly cultivated, the 
 more differentiated two human beings, the more difficult it is 
 for one to say to the other unreservedly, "You, too, are of 
 my world.'' Great men especially feel the weight of the lone- 
 liness which results from their exceptional endowments. Is 
 there any one who has not felt the resignation of Schubert's 
 song, "The folk that my tongue speaks, the distant folk, I 
 find it not," at moments when music has borne him above the 
 level of every day, or who has not applied to himself Schiller's 
 phrase, "I, too, was born in Arcady." 
 
 This sum-total of civilization is too individualistic to have 
 been able to serve as the foundation for states. Certain par- 
 ticular elements were selected. There is no common heritage 
 of present-day civilization which has not at some period in his- 
 tory served as an element in the formation of states. 
 
 The nations of Islam owe much to their common religion. 
 The contrasts and similarities resulting from it are still an 
 important political factor in the near East. The Christian 
 Church also at first tended strongly in this direction. It an- 
 nounced the communion of saints and the kingdom of God 
 upon earth. The latter was surely conceived as a religious 
 state. It failed, perhaps, for the very reason that its aims 
 were in advance of their time, and in that it sought the broth- 
 erhood of all men. Indeed, at the time of the crusades there 
 was the beginning of a homogeneous Christian Europe. The 
 Thirty Years' War, on the contrary, showed that Christianity 
 Was not adapted to be the groundwork of a single unified state.
 
 294 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 During the period of the Reformation diversity in religion 
 was, nevertheless, sometimes a more powerful motive than 
 diversity of state or nation. Swiss Catholics fought on the 
 side of Spain, and French Huguenots on the side of England. 
 To-day religion plays usually only a subordinate part. In 
 countries like Poland, Alsace, the Trentino, and the Baltic 
 Provinces, where the nationalities are mixed, it is quite true 
 that the priest employs religious enthusiasm for national ends, 
 but the importance of such efforts should not be overestimated. 
 
 This has again been shown in Italy. The hopes based on 
 the old conflict between the Clericals and the House of 
 Savoy, which were fostered especially by Erzberger, failed 
 completely. Even intransigent cardinals like Ferrari have 
 prayers said in the churches for an Italian victory. The jihad 
 also was a blow into the blue. This holy war, of the fright- 
 fulness of which people have been telling marvelous tales for 
 decades, appears not even to have lured a single dog from be- 
 hind the stove. It seems as if the utmost possible fanaticism 
 was for the time being concentrated among the civilized 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 During the Middle Ages the groupings according to occupa- 
 tion or trades played an important role. The gilds and 
 crafts were efforts that extended far beyond the boundaries of 
 individual states. They formed simultaneously a state within 
 a state or between different states. A genuine tendency 
 toward the formation of a state occurred in the Hanseatic 
 League, the league of the Rhenish cities, and the peasant 
 movements. Whether the international endeavors of the pro- 
 letariat will lead to further developments is questionable. 
 The occupational instinct was completely vanquished by the 
 national instincts at the outbreak of the War in 1914. 
 
 That the various castes form states within a state or be- 
 tween the different states is well known. So the church is in- 
 ternational, and so are the proletariat, the nobility, and the rul- 
 ers of nations. It is not every German who is the equal in birth 
 of the German Kaiser; his equals are a large, very mixed
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 295 
 
 class of international old families. We may abuse Russia as 
 a "louse-land" to our heart's content, but its "louse-prince" x 
 remains the kaiser's equal in birth, and no German, how- 
 ever high his position, can ever become so. There are no 
 national princely dynasties, only international ones. During 
 the course of the war the English have often been taunted 
 with the fact that their kings have German blood. German 
 princes usually have also much English, or at least foreign, 
 blood. The czar himself was not a Russian by blood. This 
 likewise is true of the greater and lesser nobility. 
 
 Purely negative elements like antipathy or hatred may 
 likewise tend to form states or leagues of states. There have 
 been many wars of coalitions in Europe. The special object 
 of the coalition against France was to attack the French con- 
 ception of liberty. 
 
 It is by no means necessary that such coalitions should al- 
 ways be directed against liberty. In America representatives 
 of the most diverse nations flock with a new love about the 
 Stars and Stripes. This is partly due to the weariness and 
 aversion with which the European immigrants view their 
 old home. It would be desirable if some such coalition could 
 be organized against the various medievalisms of Europe. If 
 it once came into being, it would prove more lasting than 
 previous coalitions have been. 
 
 It seems as if all these forms of patriotic civilization would 
 have to remain ineffective because there is too much dispersed 
 effort. Religion and art, occupation and preference, rarely 
 make a complete human being. They are not determining fac- 
 tors in the history of mankind. 
 
 V 
 
 § 108. — Language as a Formative Element of States 
 
 There is one factor in civilization which is of superlative 
 importance. It is more comprehensive than any of those 
 hitherto mentioned. It is so exclusively designed for definite 
 
 i Alluding to the last syllable of Nico/aws (English Nicholas), the 
 name of the last c^ar. — Translator.
 
 296 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 groups of men that it automatically brings about a certain 
 natural grouping. This is language. It is the depositary in 
 which man places as permanent legacy all the conceptions 
 that he has acquired in the course of time. It is to him art and 
 religion and science and more ; for this reason it is self-evident 
 that a socieiy built up on the basis of language must be of 
 incomparable importance. 
 
 Every one feels that a man who speaks his own language 
 is a fellow-countryman, and that he who speaks another lan- 
 guage is a foreigner. It is natural that when German patriot- 
 ism began to stir the first desire was to have a German coun- 
 try coextensive with the regions where German was spoken. 
 In his address of welcome at the first Congress of Gerraanists 
 at Frankfort on the Main, Jacob Grimm, its first president, 
 said : 
 
 "By a people is understood an aggregate of men who speak 
 the same language. This declaration should fill us Germans 
 with pride, for it indicates that inevitably linguistic boundar- 
 ies will win the victory over boundaries arbitrarily set." All 
 those present acclaimed this statement. Among them were 
 poets like E. M. Arndt and Ludwig Uhland, politicians like 
 Dahlmann and Beseler, jurists like Welker and Mittermaier, 
 Germanists like Lachmann and Wilhelm Grimm, historians 
 like Ranhe and Gervinus, as well as Falk, who later became 
 Prussian minister. 
 
 This elemental feeling of homogeneity among those who use 
 the same language exists everywhere. The Italian irredentist 
 is indifferent to the fact that Germanic descendants of the 
 ancient Longobards dwell in the plain of the Po, or that the 
 region of the upper Isonzo is inhabited by descendants of the 
 homo alpinas, who was anything but Italian. He merely says 
 that wherever Italian is spoken the Italian flag should wave. 
 Even he who for political reasons opposes this interpretation 
 cannot help but feel in his heart that his opponents are in the 
 right. 
 
 It is more or less correct that since the beginning of Euro-
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 297 
 
 pean history we have understood by a German one who 
 speaks German, and by a Frenchman one who speaks French. 
 "We may assume that this will continue to be so. The line of 
 historical development has been in this direction ever since 
 the great French Revolution for the first time virtually enunci- 
 ated the doctrine of human liberty and self-determination. 
 The only states which exist at present are those whose bounda- 
 ries are reasonably in accordance with language. The only ex- 
 ception is unfortunate Austria, and it is a relic of medieval 
 times. All geographical rearrangements which have occurred 
 since then, such as the unification of Italy, the partial unifica- 
 tion of Germany, and the creation of national Balkan States, 
 have been made in the sense of linguistic uniformity. Nice, 
 Lorraine, and northern Schleswig are exceptions. 
 
 In addition to these three anti-national events, there are 
 Switzerland, Luxemburg, and Belgium. Here the linguistic 
 boundaries overlap as the result of the diplomatic shifts of 
 earlier days. A certain recognition of the abnormal status 
 of these countries is seen in the fact they are not fully ac- 
 cepted as countries, but are neutralized. That language is the 
 reason for their neutralization rather than their relative unim- 
 portance is apparent when we consider that many much 
 smaller countries are not neutralized. 
 
 § 109. — The Ideal of European Patriotism 
 
 Formerly people were devoted to an ideal, or, when they 
 had no ideals, to material advantages. Whenever there was 
 any likelihood of realizing this ideal or these advantages in 
 or through one's country, people loved their country. It rep- 
 resented the ideal. They fought and sacrificed themselves for 
 it. But when a man's country failed to realize his ideal, he 
 could repudiate the country, stand apart sadly, for no one likes 
 to be alone, or he could even fight against his country. The 
 noblest men in history have acted in this way. 
 
 In ancient Greece the exiles, whether they were oligarchs or 
 democrats, calmly fought against their native country. They
 
 298 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 placed a higher value upon the imperishable ideal than upon 
 the accidental place of birth. Coriolanus fought against 
 Rome. This has been the case for thousands of years. In 
 Germany especially there have been innumerable instances; 
 in England also. Just to mention a few examples, the Stuarts 
 accepted the help of France, that is to say, the help of the 
 arch-enemy. During the period of the Reformation all the 
 world was divided according to religion, quite independent of 
 country. Swiss Catholics fought on the side of Spain ; French 
 Huguenots supported Protestant England. Dante in all tran- 
 quillity and without being blamed for it rose against his native 
 Florence. Algernon Sidney, the great English republican, 
 entered into negotiations with Louis XIV. 
 
 Even after the French Revolution the French nobility 
 fought on the side of the Allies against the republic, and, 
 conversely, later many French republicans fought for Ger- 
 many during the struggle against Napoleon, as, for example, 
 Moreau at Leipsic. And even later, in times which we to-day 
 would call full of a stirring nationalism, as during the Greek 
 War of Independence, the motive force was liberty, not a gen- 
 eralized love of one's country. Miaoulis of Hydra, the great 
 victor over the Turks, for reasons of petty particularism 
 burned the entire Greek fleet in order that it might fall into 
 the hands of the opposing party under Capodistria. 
 
 If in those times, when liberty of decision was still possible, 
 a man felt patriotic, his patriotism was an ethical act, be- 
 cause it depended on liberty and the primacy of reason. To- 
 day such liberty of decision is almost unthinkable. No mat- 
 ter what a person's ideals may be, it is in all seriousness 
 demanded that he regard the country of his birth and the in- 
 stitutions which surround him as the best possible. Such a 
 patriotism is no longer an ethical demand; it is the slave- 
 like or, better still, the animal-like, gregarious love of an ant- 
 hill or bee-hive. No one can escape the pressure of this mod- 
 ern idol. Even the most radical Russians, who probably hate 
 czarism more vehemently than anything else, released their
 
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 299 
 
 adherents to join in the battle against Germany. This was 
 only done after considerable reflection, but was not due to 
 external pressure. The leaders who made the decision lived 
 at liberty abroad, partly in neutral Switzerland. They did 
 it because to-day patriotism as such is regarded as more 
 precious than the most sacred rights of man. 
 
 This excessive and exclusive patriotism is scarcely more than 
 one hundred or one hundred and fifty years old. Let us cease, 
 therefore, to compare our present-day patriotism with that of 
 the ancients. Even those who appraise the modern type of 
 patriotism highly should at least realize that it is something 
 different. Let us grant that it has its roots in venerable tra- 
 ditions, but it is not identical with those roots. Let us hope 
 that it is merely a flower which will not blow for more than a 
 season. 
 
 May the old type of patriotism return. It did not love with- 
 out the liberty of choice, but only after stern testing. Let it 
 be rooted in the old, let it include love of one's native coun- 
 try ; but do not let it degenerate into hatred. Let it take 
 into consideration the old elements of religion and morals, 
 but let it pay heed also to the new, young convictions which 
 are in a state of development. Above everything else, let 
 it turn the dynastic patriotism into a belief in a democratic 
 citizenship. 
 
 Let it be the completion of what has gone before; let it be 
 love for that which is individualistic, which, nevertheless, will 
 not exclude the love for that which benefits all. 
 
 In this final generalization both the high aim and the diffi- 
 culty are apparent. The timid may feel that the one excludes 
 the other. But here fundamentally, as in everything else, the 
 question is merely one of liberty. Let there be a general 
 cohesion and development in accordance with the principle of 
 liberty. Let there be, on the individualistic side, an unques- 
 tioned possibility to exercise one's interest in the general 
 good, even beyond the narrower boundaries of one's country. 
 Compel no larger group of people to be part of an alien state.
 
 300 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 By these means the possibilities of conflict will be removed. 
 
 "Before science and art all barriers of nationality disap- 
 pear," says Goethe. "The re-birth of Poland is identical 
 with liberty in Europe," says Brandes. 
 
 These two statements are so self-evident that they can 
 hardly be disputed. Whoever has really accepted them need 
 have no fear concerning the vitality of patriotism. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it already lives on the other side of the 
 Atlantic. In America the meaning of this new cosmopolitan 
 patriotism is already evident ; there the restrictions that are 
 still necessary also appear. 
 
 The old tiny nationalities have grown too narrow for a free 
 patriotism, just as in Germany Hessian, Bavarian, and Prussian 
 patriotism was too limited. The time for a universal brother- 
 hood of man has not yet arrived. The clefts which separate 
 the white race from the yellow and black are still too deep. 
 In America this European patriotism has awakened. It will 
 doubtless be the type of the immediate future, and we should 
 like to be its precursors. When Americans say, "America 
 for Americans," what they really mean is America for the 
 free descendants of white Europeans. Despite all the enthu- 
 siasm for the emancipation of slaves, racial antagonism toward 
 non-Europeans is more marked in America than anywhere else. 
 In the Southern States it often assumes ridiculous and gro- 
 tesque forms. 
 
 In America they have understood what the struggle is about. 
 It was possible for the new patriotism to be born there, because 
 the old dynastic patriotism of European states was there trans- 
 muted through liberty and responsibility into a true civiliza- 
 tion patriotism, even if it is still inseparable from race. The 
 new Europe is already born not in Europe, but in America, 
 where there are no ruined castles, no worn-out and grotesque 
 medievalisms. 
 
 The new Europe is born. We who have remained here 
 in Europe should take heed that it may also become a living 
 force in the older countries. Otherwise civilization will be
 
 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PATRIOTISM 301 
 
 permanently transferred to America. This would be hu- 
 miliating to us, though objectively considered not nearly as bad 
 as if might were permanently transferred to the Mongolians, 
 Both civilization and might require a European patriotism.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Unjustifiable Chauvinism 
 
 1. — selfishness and love 
 
 § 110. — Love of One's Country not Real Love 
 
 Like goodness, justice, and the feeling for beaut}', love can 
 become so idealized that no trace of defect can be found in it. 
 No one can call the love that Christ preached and practised 
 evil. When, in contradiction to its essence, love is directed 
 toward one's self, accentuating the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion, it may become a vice. Its normal function is to mitigate 
 this instinct. 
 
 These kinds of selfishness are called love only because of 
 the poverty of our language. People in general, who have 
 a fine instinct in such things, have invented new words to 
 designate them, apparently because the word "love" had a 
 deeper significance to them. Whoever loves himself is not self- 
 loving, but self-seeking. Excessive love of one's family is 
 called "monkey-love 1 '(doting affection). Excessive love of 
 one's country is called not patriotism, but "chauvinism." 
 Such linguistic usages disclose the fact that love of one's 
 self and of one's own interests, and consequently, in cer- 
 tain circumstances, of one's country, can be exaggerated. It 
 is only relatively a virtue, at least at the time when these 
 terms arose. This was the opinion of the overwhelming mass 
 of mankind. 
 
 We have already gone beyond the naive over-estimation 
 
 which children and savages have of themselves. No one with 
 
 good taste or education will boast excessively about himself. 
 
 If he does so, he becomes a ludicrous figure. But to him as 
 
 302
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 303 
 
 the one sixty-seven millionth part of an entire people any 
 amount of boasting and self-praise is permissible. 
 
 It is a human trait to believe in one's own virtues and in 
 another's vices; consequently we call only the patriotism of 
 other countries chauvinism. Only the greatest men retain 
 impartiality enough to admit that there is also chauvinism at 
 home. Goethe ridicules the "fatherland" talk of the Ger- 
 mans, Chateaubriand and Taine that of the French, and 
 Shakspere and Shaw that of the English. Lessing calls pa- 
 triotism a "heroic weakness," an expression which probably 
 gets at the root of the matter best of all. 
 
 Christ and Tolstoy have discarded patriotism ; as a matter 
 of fact there is no truly great man who has ever been patriotic 
 in the current sense of the word. Not even great statesmen 
 like Frederick II and Napoleon, who surely were ready to die 
 for their country, were patriotic in this sense. Frederick II 
 lived and thought in the literature of his enemies; Napoleon 
 was perhaps the first one who, beside Goethe, dreamed of the 
 Europe to be. Bismarck, who knew better than any one else 
 how to play on the patriotic passion as on the keys of a 
 piano and whose life-work consisted in wisely making use of 
 such feelings, was much too wise to yield himself up to such 
 passions. This Brandenburgian Bismarck, who loved his 
 home as no one else; Bismarck, the junker, more wholly de- 
 voted to his family, rank, and people than any one else; 
 this Bismarck, who grew to maturity in the storms of 1848, 
 who understood the necessity for national unity better than 
 any one else — this man never uttered a patriotic or chauvin- 
 istic word of the caliber that is now heard on every side. 
 
 Not even his principal enemies can deny that Bismarck was 
 a man of exceptional intelligence. Any one who will only 
 superficially study his life will recognize that excessive patriot- 
 ism is less a vice than an error of thought. Bismarck's life 
 will show better and more clearly than I can do it that love of 
 one's country is not a real love, but a means for agitation. 
 Love for Prussia, love for the German Empire, and love for
 
 304 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 the dream of a national state of all Germans were all jumbled 
 together in his many-sided brain. He drew upon each spe- 
 cialized love wherever he could put it to best use. 
 
 Many will say that this was permissible to a statesman 
 sure of his ground, who wished to bring about a realization of 
 his plans through the passions of others, but that a "subject" 
 should dutifully have only the kind of patriotism which may 
 be proper at the time. To argue this point is useless. When 
 the conception of "subjects" disappeared, the duty of a sub- 
 missive love likewise disappeared. Just as we demand liberty 
 in all things, so we must also be free in our affections. Love 
 may be blind, but only after it has chosen with seeing eyes. 
 If it is condemned to blindness before choosing, it is not love, 
 but madness. 
 
 2. — MASS SUGGESTION 
 
 § 111. — Mass-Feeling Among Animals 
 
 Patriotism grows out of love of home, the family, and the 
 social instinct. When we know these three sources, we know 
 its essence. But if our knowledge is restricted solely to this 
 threefold origin, we shall never know its full greatness and 
 its far-reaching effects. A certain excess quality seems always 
 to be associated with the functioning of patriotism. This 
 tendency "to run to leaf" can be explained only by mass 
 suggestion, which, like a tropical sun, always fructifies anew 
 and poisons love of one's country. 
 
 It is a peculiar phenomenon, when several animals or men 
 undertake to perform something in common, that this very 
 fact of acting in common causes a change in the action of 
 the individual units. The ancients already knew this. There 
 is the well-known story of the legendary king who, on his 
 death-bed, had a bundle of twigs brought to him. He tied 
 them together, and then asked his sons to break the bundle 
 in two. Not one of them could accomplish this. He loosened 
 the string, and with his feeble, dying hand easily broke the in-
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 305 
 
 dividual twigs one after another. ' ' By this you can see that in 
 union there is strength," he said. 
 
 We have begun to appreciate these mass effects. We know- 
 that two men can carry more than twice as much as each one 
 alone. We have long since learned from physics the reason 
 for this. We know why a large ship can make greater speed 
 than a small one, and why the hundred horse-power of an 
 automobile, concentrated upon one point, can produce a more 
 powerful and intensive effect than a hundred individual 
 horses. With these facts we may compare the fact that a 
 mass of men reacts in quite a different fashion from an in- 
 dividual man, and usually much more powerfully. 
 
 We know that the same thing occurs among animals. Every 
 horseman knows that his horse in column formation can per- 
 form deeds and overcome obstacles that alone it would have 
 failed to accomplish. Every huntsman knows that a pack of 
 hounds is more courageous than an individual dog. Forel 
 states that among ants the courage of the individual ant in- 
 creases in direct proportion to the number of friends and com- 
 panions, and similarly decreases the more isolated the in- 
 dividual ant is. As proof he instances that fact that a 
 worker-ant among its fellows will undergo a tenfold death, 
 but grows timid when alone. Even within twenty steps of 
 the nest it will take flight before a much weaker ant. He 
 also states that generally the inhabitants of a populous 
 ant-heap are much braver than individual ants of the same 
 species from a very small community. 
 
 Rouget reports similar facts among wasps. According to 
 him, the greater their number, the more excitable they are. 
 He also believes that the sentries which wasps post here and 
 there can transmit their excitement to their companions in 
 some intensified form. In this way only can we explain the 
 frightful intensity which an enraged hornets '-nest sometimes 
 assumes.
 
 306 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 § 112. — Mass Feeling Among Men 
 
 These observations among animals are likewise confirmed 
 among men. The reaction of an individual man is augmented 
 in an extraordinary way by the feeling of mass. We can see 
 this effect in the case of public speakers. If we estimate the 
 intensity with which a speaker addresses an assembly at unity, 
 the response which his words call forth may be ten or a hun- 
 dred times as great. This is the unique effect of the spoken 
 word. Nordau aptly points out that often speeches that had 
 a tremendous effect upon an audience seem very commonplace 
 when later read in stenographic report. This is also true of 
 the theater. A play which seemed rather indifferent on read- 
 ing, may, when produced, have an unprecedented success or 
 be a complete failure. Even the most experienced director 
 rarely dares trust, his judgment before the first performance. 
 
 The same thing is shown in the reports of latter-day mir- 
 acles. Some one in a crowd sees a gleam of light which he 
 interprets as the Holy Virgin, and promptly the entire as- 
 semblage sees the phenomenon just as clearly. Probably no 
 one can wholly escape such mass suggestion. An Indian 
 jungle tale, whose author, unless I am mistaken, was Kipling, 
 is very characteristic. Several Europeans are sitting together 
 in a forest toward eventime. An old Hindoo magician ar- 
 rives with his son. He plants a bean, and to all appearance 
 the stalk grows endlessly upward toward the dark sky. The 
 boy climbs up it, and disappears in the darkness. The old man 
 dances a wild dance, then cuts the stalk, which collapses, and 
 at the feet of the spectators lies the crushed body of the boy, 
 which his father covers with a mantle. After a few minutes 
 father and son take leave in perfect health. Every one of 
 those present, however, is firmly convinced that he has ac- 
 tually witnessed the horrible scene with his own eyes. This 
 is a significant example of mass suggestion. An illusion like 
 this would never succeed if the performers attempted to im- 
 pose it on a single nerson.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 307 
 
 Among animals this mass feeling depends upon inherited 
 instincts ; among men in part surely upon acquired suggestion. 
 While the causes have not as yet been investigated with suffi- 
 cient thoroughness, it is nevertheless comparatively easy to 
 obtain an approximate idea of the origin of such mass sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 When we hear an incredible report for the first time we 
 are skeptical. When we hear it repeated a second time or 
 still more frequently the thought begins to grow in us that 
 there may be some truth in it, after all. Thus by the simple 
 fact of constant repetition our belief grows stronger and 
 stronger. An anecdote, was once published in "Fliegende 
 Blatter." Some one meets a group of school-children, and 
 says to them, "Co to the Braugasse; a fish is taking a walk 
 there." In the next street he meets hurrying servant-girls, 
 and in reply to his question where they are running so fast 
 they say, "To the Braugasse; a fish is taking a walk there." 
 Then he meets soldiers and students, all of whom are hurry- 
 ing to the Braugasse, because a fish is taking a walk there. 
 Finally he says to himself, "Confound it all, I fancy I had 
 better take a look in at the Braugasse ; maybe a fish is really 
 taking a walk there." 
 
 There is a serious substratum in this anecdote. We may 
 express an opinion under external compulsion, knowing that 
 it is untrue. Then every one about us, perhaps under the 
 same external compulsion, repeats it. Finally we come to a 
 point where we are more and more firmly convinced of the 
 correctness of the opinion, though originally we had very 
 little faith in it. 
 
 Intercommunication between people takes place not only by 
 means of words, but also through gestures. In this way 
 instinctive gestures alone, rightly interpreted, may call forth 
 a certain feeling in us or accentuate one already present. 
 
 This is most clearly seen when a speaker addresses a large 
 assembly. At his first words a small part of the speaker's 
 excitement is communicated to each one of his auditors. Let
 
 308 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 us say that it is on the average a one one-hundredth part. 
 If the audience consists of a thousand persons, there will be 
 present in the assembly a total amount of excitement ten times 
 that of the speaker. It will be manifested in increased at- 
 tention and visible tension, and perhaps ultimately in applause. 
 The sum-total of these sudden activities will bring about a 
 certain excitement, which in its turn reacts upon each indi- 
 vidual auditor, in whom it calls forth greater excitement. 
 The greatest effect is upon the speaker himself, who is car- 
 ried away by the sight of his emotion-swept crowd. A direct 
 speech, even a poorly prepared or improvised speech, is usually 
 more effective than the most carefully thought-out speech read 
 from manuscript, because the former is modified by the direct 
 contact between speaker and audience. This reflex action is 
 the reason why so many inexperienced speakers lose the 
 thread of their discourse by the very success of their words. 
 The effect which they produce is reflected back upon them so 
 powerfully that it overwhelms them, as it were. If, however, 
 a speaker can control his own emotion, and cause it to react 
 upon the crowd, there must inevitably arise a series of recipro- 
 cal shocks, resembling electrical shocks, between him and his 
 auditors, causing both to transcend their customary moral 
 equilibrium at certain moments. 1 
 
 3. — THE CONDITIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF CHAUVINISM 
 
 § 113. — There is no Demarcation between Patriotism and 
 Chauvinism 
 
 Where is the line of demarcation between patriotism and 
 chauvinism? In all soberness, I do not believe there is any 
 real line of demarcation. If chauvinism is only patriotism in 
 excess, how can there be such a line ? It is always a perilous 
 matter to draw a line between too much and too little. Ac- 
 cording to ordinary usage, chauvinism is said to be perverted 
 
 i.The last sentence is a quotation, I believe from an English author, 
 but 1 have lost the source.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 309 
 
 patriotism; but what does this mean? If I am permitted 
 to discuss the question of love of one's country, if this love is 
 to be subordinated to my other perceptions of good and evil, 
 patriotism loses the uniqueness which is said to be its dis- 
 tinguishing feature. It is merely a love like any other love. 
 If I am to reject chauvinism, I must have the right to regard 
 as objectionable that which other people call patriotism, for 
 no one ever calls himself a chauvinist. 
 
 If, indeed, there is a difference between chauvinists and pa- 
 triots, it is this: a chauvinist loves his country in all cir- 
 cumstances, whether it is good or bad. He regards this love 
 as the greatest thing in life, and, if he is a courageous and 
 moral man, he serves his country with every means at his dis- 
 posal. A patriot, on the contrary, is he who loves and sup- 
 ports whatever is good in his fatherland, as in everything else, 
 and who hates and opposes whatever is bad. By reason of his 
 instincts, habits, and reflections he has come to the conclusion 
 that for him personally it is most advantageous and best to 
 live in that particular country and to serve it according to the 
 best of his powers and abilities. 
 
 This latter type of man may be intensely and passionately 
 devoted to his country ; but he will not let his love carry him 
 away to the extent of committing a wrong, for the very reason 
 that he respects himself and his country. Men of this type, 
 however, are not as a rule called patriots. 
 
 The other type of man, who is ready to commit wrong for 
 his country, may act, of course, according to ethical prin- 
 ciples, provided his ethical principles are such as to permit 
 him to commit wrongs. Usually he does not act in accord- 
 ance with ethical principles, and it is in no way necessary 
 for him to love his country, and often he does not love it. He 
 is either too weak or too cowardly to withstand mass sugges- 
 tion. Often his cowardice goes so far that without for a mo- 
 ment intending to do so he gives his life for his country. 
 Such men call themselves patriots, and their compatriots do 
 so likewise
 
 310 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 In what follows I call them chauvinists and patriots. It is 
 now necessary to explain how men may become chauvinists. 
 There are two reasons. 
 
 The first is the inability to hold out against mass suggestion. 
 Its influence in heightening the feelings of a person is more 
 powerful in the case of patriotism than in any other field. 
 By its very nature patriotism can be built up only on this 
 feeling of number. 
 
 Furthermore, every weakling seeks support from others, and 
 feels himself strong only when he acts in conjunction with 
 others. It is only the truly strong man who is strongest alone. 
 In general all these weaklings have no real personal civiliza- 
 tion value; they have no feeling of solidarity in civilization. 
 Whoever is without intelligence cannot have any intellectual 
 kin. Therefore, in order to be able to attach themselves to 
 anything, these people will have to seek some external bond. 
 And what could be more adapted for this than nationalism? 
 Every blockhead feels himself uplifted when, with several 
 dozen millions of other blockheads, he can form a majority. 
 Thus in the course of time this need for attachment on the 
 part of several dozen millions becomes an unconquerable force. 
 
 Ein Vorzug bleibt uns ewig unverloren, 
 
 Mann nennt ihn heute Nationalist ! 
 
 Das heiszt, dasz "irgendwo" der Menscb geboren, 
 
 Was Freilich sieh von selbst versteht. — Gnllparzer. 1 
 
 The less character there is in a nation, the greater, naturally, 
 is such a nation's patriotism. Never did the civis Romanus 
 sum sound more proudly than during the decadence of the 
 Roman Empire. 
 
 This is the positive condition of chauvinism; negative con- 
 ditions are chiefly hatred and envy for what is foreign. The 
 most intense love of one's country, filling a human being so 
 
 1 (Roughly: "One advantage we can never lose; it is to-day called 
 nationality. That is to say, that 'somewhere' a man was born, which 
 after all is something obvious.")
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 311 
 
 completely that there is room for nothing else, will remain 
 clean, provided there is no hatred toward other nations mixed 
 with it. 
 
 This inability to overcome with one's intelligence the mass 
 suggestion of one's people or with one's character the hatred 
 toward the enemy — these two factors stamp a man as a false 
 patriot, or as a chauvinist. 
 
 § 114. — War as a Necessary Condition 
 
 "War is the solvent, and at the same time the sounding-board. 
 For without war no one would be interested in patriotism or 
 chauvinism. The man who loved his country would have 
 an additional form of happiness, but if a man did not love it, 
 no one would disturb him. The merchant and manufacturer 
 of their own accord try to increase their trade and sales, and 
 thus add to the national welfare. The scientists and artist 
 do their best by reason of some power within them, and thus 
 add to national civilization. They do not require a special 
 stimulus. 
 
 When money is to be appropriated for a school, theater, 
 harbor, or canal, certain questions are considered, or at least 
 should be considered, such as whether the costs will be pro- 
 portionate to the increased comfort, wealth, civic improve- 
 ment, or any other advantage that may ensue. In accordance 
 with this the decision is made; no patriotism is required. In 
 short, patriotism does not play the slightest practical role in 
 any of the activities of peace. 
 
 But whenever the question is one of an army increase, of 
 new cannons, or of new battle-ships, we have to appeal to 
 patriotism, because such armaments are per se unproductive, 
 and demand deprivations on our part. Therefore even dur- 
 ing peace patriotism has to be stirred up by the threat of 
 possible war. As a rule the glowing spark is just barely kept 
 alive. Were it to flare up too brightly, it might disturb the 
 activities of the diplomats, and governments are almost as 
 proud of them as they are of the deeds of warlike valor.
 
 312 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 "When war has once begun, such considerations are superflu- 
 ous, for war generally puts many deprivations upon a popula- 
 tion both in respect to mental and material necessaries of life. 
 Consequently, patriotism must be augmented, for only the 
 highest patriotic tension can bring about long-continued and 
 voluntary self-denial in a people. 
 
 This augmentation automatically comes into being through 
 the sudden common activity of a people, which in its turn 
 calls forth an increased sense of action; this again conditions 
 an increased mass feeling. Then, too, the uncertainty and 
 the fear with which the possible horrors of war are viewed 
 brings about a closer association of all those who are weak. 
 
 Both these feelings are played upon and artificially stimu- 
 lated. A closer study of the press shows that the wire-pullers 
 have an empiric understanding of the instincts of the crowd. 
 Probably few people, except perhaps the late Mr. Barnum, 
 would envy them this understanding. The whole performance 
 essentially amounts to this. Either there is exaggeration of 
 things favorable to one's own country or of those favorable 
 to the opponent. In the one case the desire is to stimulate 
 the mass feeling by the feeling of activity ; in the other to in- 
 crease the need for cohesion. 
 
 § 115. — Self-Praise and Fear 
 
 In time of war people apparently can put up with any 
 amount of self-praise. We have taunted the French for a long 
 time because they believed that they marched a la tcte de la 
 civilization ; but the fact remains that for a hundred years all 
 Europe followed the French lead, one might say almost slav- 
 ishly followed it. To-day we calmly accept statements like 
 the following, ' ' Germany is the most perfect thing ever created 
 by history." — Lasson. 1 W. Rein 2 calls it the "heart," and 
 
 i Lasson, "Zwei Briefe an die holliindische Zeitsehrift" "De Amster- 
 damer" ("Two Letters to the Dutch Journal 'De Amsterdamer.' ") 
 
 :\V. Re ; n in "Der Tag" ("The Day"), August 18. This furthermore 
 is a parody of II older 1 in, who once in an entirely different sense said that 
 "Germany was the nations' sacred heart."
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 313 
 
 G. Hauptmann, 1 "the soul of Europe.'' According to R. Eu- 
 ken, 2 Germany is "complete civilization," in contrast with 
 the French formal and the English material civilization. Ac- 
 cording to Kohler, 3 all foreign countries owe "the best of their 
 culture" to Germany. Among others there is an over-abun- 
 dance of epithet. Lassou,' for example, says, "Sincerity and 
 idealistic depth are peculiarly German qualities, and all really 
 vital feeling for nature is German. Peculiarly German, too, 
 is truth and fidelity, the overcoming of difficulties and love of 
 work, thought and conscience, will, scientific impulse, and jus- 
 tice." With similar pleonasm R. Dehmel 5 declares "Ger- 
 many is more humane, has better discipine, morals, intellect, 
 soul, and imagination." 
 
 Statements like these could be found daily in the newspa- 
 pers during 1914. Usually they were much worse. The 
 passages above quoted are those of well-known personalities; 
 we do not give any of those of journalists, which by reason 
 of their anonymity were wholly unrestrained. 
 
 This self-praise was accentuated by calumniation of the 
 opponent. It is comprehensible that Euken and his asso- 
 ciates should speak of Russia's brutal despotism, and make 
 the people responsible for a government which they formerly 
 highly regarded. Opinions like these were prevalent even 
 before the war. It is incomprehensible, however, when R. 
 Dehmel calls it a barbarous state par excellence or a mon 
 strosity of primitive instincts and imported refinements. A 
 poet should at least respect creative literature sufficiently not 
 to call barbarous a nation which has produced a trinity like 
 
 1 G. Hauptmann, "An meine amerikanisehen Freunde ("To my Ameri- 
 can Friends"), Berliner "Tageblatt," Oct. 21. 
 
 -' R. Euken, "Erster Vortrag in der Urania" ("First Discourse in the 
 Urania"). 
 
 8 Kohler, Berliner "Tageblatt," Sept. 18, 1914. 
 
 * Lasson, "Fiinfte Rede in achwerer Zeit" ("Fifth Address in Serious 
 Times"), according to the Berliner "Tageblatt," September 26, 1914. 
 
 5 Dehmel, "Brief an meine Kinder" ("Letter to my Children"), Ber- 
 liner "Tageblatt," October 10, 1914
 
 314 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Lermontov, Dostoievsky, and Tolstoy. Besides, R. Dehmel is 
 personally acquainted with a sufficient number of Russians 
 whom he knows to be men of unprecedented delicacy and fine- 
 ness of feeling. Why, then, all this talk about a "monstros- 
 ity"? 
 
 Most of them were more friendly toward France, but the 
 half-pitying smile with which men like Carl Hauptmann, 
 Roethe, and Richard Dehmel tried to dispose of the poor 
 Gauls was hardly dignified. Wholly unworthy of German 
 liberality of thought were the insults heaped upon the Japan- 
 ese, Serbians, and Belgians. I omit further reference to them 
 because every reader, if he has not unfortunately repeated 
 them himself, has, at any rate, heard them a dozen times over. 
 
 The things said of England are almost unbelievable. Har- 
 nack x called the English traitors to civilization ; Haeckel, 2 said 
 they were the greatest criminals in the history of the world ; 
 Gustav Roethe said the Englishman was the great cold hypo- 
 crite. England's actions were motivated, according to Euken, 
 by a "repulsive frivolity" and, according to C. Hauptmann, 
 by "a shopkeeper's envy," and so on, almost ad infinitum. 
 Here, too, Richard Dehmel achieved the masterpiece. In addi- 
 tion to calling the English a "wild beast," he did not hesitate 
 to declare that Shakspere and Byron "were cynics when you 
 really fundamentally analyzed them." 
 
 If such statements could come from men of letters and 
 thinkers, it is not difficult to imagine how far Philistines and 
 journalists went. As far as I can judge among the daily news- 
 papers, the prize goes to the "Deutsche Tageszeitung"; 
 among other journals "Simplizissimus" and "Jugend" 3 are 
 close competitors. 
 
 The daily reading of things like these results inevitably in 
 
 i Harnaok, Rede im Berliner Rathaus am 11 August, 1014, und Brief 
 rom 10 September ("Speech in the Berlin city hall on August 11, and 
 Letter of September 10, 1914"). 
 
 2 Haeckel, England's "Blutschuld" ("England's Blood-guilt"). 
 
 s Two well-known Munich humorous weeklies. — Translator.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 315 
 
 that a man considers his own people the best, and that its de- 
 fense will not only further his own interests, but also those 
 of mankind at large. In this way war and chauvinism re- 
 ciprocally augment each other. Here is the reason for the 
 declaration of 3016 high-school teachers, 1 that ' ' the welfare of 
 the civilization of all Europe depended upon a German vic- 
 tory," or for Carl Hauptmann's 2 statement that "only by 
 the complete victory of German arms can the independence of 
 Europe be established." Juliusburger 8 aptly says, and men 
 like Haeckel and Ostwald support this, "It is Germany's his- 
 toric task to organize Europe under its leadership." 4 
 
 The one-sided reports concerning the bravery of our own 
 troops and the cowardice of the enemy belong to the same cate- 
 gory. Here, too, belongs the more or less skilful attempt of 
 both sides to put the blame for the war upon the other side. 
 This has been characteristic of all wars. A thousand other 
 things also belong here; used all together they condition the 
 horrible campaign of calumniation, which, unfortunately, al- 
 ways runs parallel with the campaign of arms. 
 
 This boasting and assumption of a terrifying aspect is an an- 
 cient animal heritage. The lion roars before he attacks, the 
 elephant tramples down the ground while awaiting the enemy, 
 the serpent distends itself and hisses ; the Trojans made long 
 speeches, full of self-praise and belittlement of the enemy. 
 
 On the other hand, the attempt to stimulate patriotism by 
 exaggerating the danger is purely human. This attempt has 
 a rational purpose only when its aim is to cause a half-way 
 intelligent citizenry, apparently of their own free will, to sub- 
 
 i Erklarung der Hoehschullehrer des Deutschen Reichs" ("Declara- 
 tion of the High-school Teachers of the German Empire"), October 10, 
 1914. 
 
 2 C. Hauptmann, "Gegen Unwahrheit" ("Against Untruth"), "Tiigliche 
 Rundschau," August 26, 1914. 
 
 s Otto Juliusburger, "Europa untcr Deutscher Fiihrung" ("Europe 
 under German Leadership"). "Monistisches Jahrhundert" (•.Monistic 
 Century"), November 13, 1914, p 657. 
 
 * Cf. § 16 in regard to the germ of truth in this unjustifiable assertion.
 
 316 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 scribe money, endure privations, or furnish soldiers. Voli- 
 tion does not exist in the animal kingdom. 
 
 This method was employed chieny by the world-powers. 
 In England the Zeppelius were used for this purpose, and 
 entire sections of cities were darkened. In general all the 
 clamor about the cruelty and barbarity of the Germans was 
 raised for this purpose. In Germany it was possible to em- 
 ploy this principle only in the early days of the war, be- 
 cause later the military situation appeared relatively too favor- 
 able, or was made to appear so. But at first the attempt was 
 made to spread fear and trembling in our own camp by all 
 manner and means of wild reports. The figures ' ' four against 
 one" were hammered into us by way of suggestion, just as 
 though there were no Austria or later Turkey and Bulgaria. 
 Even Adolf von Harnack seems to have succumbed to this sug- 
 gestion, for on September 10, 1914, he wrote, quite contrary 
 to facts, in order to excuse the invasion of Belgium, that, 
 "one hundred and ninety millions had attacked sixty-eight 
 millions." The Austrians were entirely left out of his calcu- 
 lations, despite the fact that they nominally were the main 
 issue. The enemy and his might were exaggerated, especially 
 in their more loathsome aspects. His spies were said to be 
 omnipresent. They were blowing up our tunnels and bomb- 
 ing our cities even far in the interior of the country. ' French 
 physicians were poisoning our wells, and huge masses of gold 
 were being shipped through Germany. 
 
 It is not immaterial whether such senseless stories are be- 
 lieved or not. The fact remains that the story about the pois- 
 oned wells was for the time being believed by at least seventy- 
 nine million men, assuming that there are approximately 
 eighty million Germans in Germany and Austria. 
 
 § 116. — The Consequences of Chauvinism 
 
 The form of suggestion described in the preceding para- 
 graphs was everywhere successful. The preparations for the 
 War of 1914 had been more thorough than those for anv other
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 317 
 
 war hitherto. Patriotism rose to unmeasured heights. There 
 was also another result, an unintended one, let us hope. The 
 hatred of nations simultaneously rose to unmeasured heights. 
 The saddest part of this is that the suggestion will disappear, 
 but the hatred remain. 
 
 This wallowing chauvinism concentrates every human ca- 
 pacity for love upon one's self and one's own country; for 
 others only hatred remains. There is no room for 
 any other potentiality of the human soul beside these two 
 passions. The results cannot be described in detail. Every 
 one who will re-read the newspapers of the first year of the war 
 can for himself find a fullness of melancholy facts. A few ar- 
 bitrarily selected instances will show what is meant. 
 
 Reasoning power broke down completely. Everything 
 was believed. No one seemed to notice that the passage of 
 an automobile through closed borders was impossible, or that 
 it was impossible to transport the weight of the sums men- 
 tioned in an automobile. The authorities, at least indirectly, 
 unfortunately aided in the building up of such legends. 
 There was no timely official denial of the rumors of the arrest 
 of French physicians who were said to have been caught in 
 the act of poisoning wells, or of the shooting of the innkeeper 
 Nikolai. Despite the censorship, the demonstrably false re- 
 ports about gouyed-out eyes, chopped-off hands, assassinated 
 gamekeepers, etc., were allowed to circulate through the press, 
 and their success was unexampled. Gradually no rumor was 
 absurd enough not to find believers. This paroxysm of denial 
 of the intelligence seized German science also, where surely 
 there should have been the habit of exact investigation of 
 truth. In the proclamation by the German savants to the 
 world of culture, the statement, "it is not true," is repeated 
 seven times. And this document is signed by thirty-five 
 scientists, despite the fact that in each of the seven cases the 
 question involved is one which by its very nature makes it im- 
 possible to give a categorical judgment concerning its truth or 
 falsity.
 
 318 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 That there is no room for ethics in war is evident per se. 
 Yet the chauvinist tries to lay claim to it for himself and his 
 side, entirely without reason, entirely a tout prix. A charac- 
 teristic article is one by Paul Ernst. 1 It deals with the 
 question, "whether Yorck's action in the Convention of Tau- 
 roggen was unethical and whether he committed treason to- 
 ward his confederates." Paul Ernst's conclusions are as fol- 
 lows. Yorck was a German, a pious, moral German, stand- 
 ing firmly on the foundation of Kant 's ethics. Such Germans 
 commit only ethical acts, and consequently his treason toward 
 his king and his confederates was an ethical act. Verbatim 
 Paul Ernst writes, "A Southerner, even a Frenchman, can- 
 not understand the conflict; Yorck, the man of iron and of 
 stern, inflexible honor was permitted to take this step. It is to 
 his personality we owe the fact that at the apex of our na- 
 tional liberation there is not an iniquity, but a great, heroic 
 sacrifice." The deed, consequently, was bad in itself, and 
 would have been if a Southerner or a Frenchman had com- 
 mitted it, but done by a German, it was heroic. I hope the 
 time will soon come when Germans, even Paul Ernst himself, 
 will look back upon such times with deep shame. For a 
 chauvinism under the cloak of philosophical considerations is 
 doubtless the most dangerous of all, because it is most likely to 
 lead innocent persons astray. They do not even notice the 
 cloven hoof. 
 
 Certain German daily newspapers have demanded that 
 prisoners and pigs should be fed together. Others have com- 
 mented on the report of our general headquarters that "numer- 
 ous German sailors were rescued by the English, ' ' that rescue 
 by this English riff-raff should be forbidden. This is chau- 
 vinistic immorality of the grossest and crudest kind. If a 
 person is not nauseated by it on his own accord, further argu- 
 ment is useless. 
 
 Unfortunately, there are to-day still very few with whom 
 argument would be worth while. Not long ago one of our 
 
 i Paul Ernst in "Der Tag" ("The Day"), March 25, 1915.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 319 
 
 most highly educated military men asked me whether it might 
 not be possible to hurl bombs loaded with cholera germs or 
 plague bacilli behind the lines of the enemy. I suppress his 
 name on account of his great services, and also because, after 
 peace is reestablished, he will probably regret his question. 
 When I told him that this seemed rather purposeless and 
 hardly humane, he replied, with a contemptuous wave of the 
 hand, that humanity had nothing to do with this war; that 
 Germany had full license for whatever it wished to do. 
 
 Unfortunately, millions of people think like this particular 
 man of high achievement ; only, usually, they are much worse. 
 For instance, the chief of the medical staff at Graudenz told 
 me that he had often considered whether it might not be pos- 
 sible to steal through the Russian lines and inoculate the 
 Russians with living bacteria. He held that the employment 
 of any means was justifiable against such vermin. Degener- 
 ates like these no longer see in the enemy human beings like 
 themselves; or, more correctly, they see in him a reflection of 
 themselves — that is, only an animal. To them hatred has 
 become a religion. It is a hatred without reflection, without 
 meaning or reason, without justification. 
 
 In Lissauers "Chant of Hate against England," this 
 absurd person does not even try to tell us why he hates Eng- 
 land. The entire so-called chant consists of a reiterated, shrill 
 protestation that he hates England, and when we have read 
 to the end of the verse, we might feel inclined to ask the 
 author, ''And now tell us, why do you really hate England?" 
 Lissauer himself once correctly remarked that his verses should 
 not be spoken, but hissed. Admirable self-criticism! The 
 breed of serpents and vipers has always existed, but hardly 
 any one would have believed that so many of them also under- 
 stood German. Julius Floras, 1 the Roman historian, reports 
 that the ancient Germans were in the habit of tearing the 
 tongue of the mouths of such people with the words, "to the 
 
 i Julius Florus, Tandem, vipera, sibitare desiste (Epitome rerum 
 romanorum, lib. IV. cup. XII).
 
 320 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 end that the poisonous serpent may cease to hiss. ' ' At present 
 our measures are milder. But let us hasten to forget as soon 
 as possible that such a song was ever popular in German, or 
 that words like "Hiddekk" 1 and "Gott strafe England" 2 
 ("God punish England") had currency. 
 
 In antiquity foreign languages were unknown, and with 
 the best will in the world it was impossible to understand the 
 foreigner. Consequently it was only natural that the for- 
 eigner should come to be looked upon as a barbarian ; that is, 
 one speaking a strange language. No contemptuous secondary 
 signification was originally associated with this word before 
 the time of the Persian "Wars. Plato still writes, "Great also 
 are the races of barbarians," but to Aristotle 3 it already 
 seems self-evident that the Greeks are the superiors of the 
 barbarians. At the present time the intellectual life of a 
 foreign nation is almost as accessible to every one as is that of 
 his own country, and to-day the mania of calling "foreigners" 
 barbarians is merely a sign of defective education. 
 
 AYhen the ordinary citizen over his beer boasts with booming 
 voice that we are the most moral, bravest, most chivalrous, 
 most intelligent, in short the best people in every respect, we 
 can let that pass, with the assumption that his circle of vision 
 does not extend beyond the walls of his beer-house. The case, 
 however, is different when a man like Richard Dehmel declares 
 that only Germans have a true title to world-dominion, quite 
 forgetting that he, too, once held the belief that the world's 
 ultimate purpose was not that of being dominated ; or again, 
 
 i According to the ordinary interpretation, H. 1. D. D. E. K. K. is said 
 to mean: "Hauptsache ist, dasz die Englander Keile kriegen" ("The 
 important thing is that the English get a drubbing." Jn the pro-entente 
 circles of German Switzerland it was translated by. "Hauptsache ist dasz 
 Deutschland englische Keile kriegt" ("The important thing is that Ger- 
 many get an English drubbing"). 
 
 - It is said that the English change this to ''Gott rerzeihe Deutsch- 
 land" ("God forgive Germany"). 
 
 3 Aristotle, "Politica," 1-2. Cf. also Roth, "Uber Sinn und Gebrauch 
 des VVortes Barbar" ("On the Meaning and Use of the Word Bar- 
 barian'*) : Nuremburg, 1843.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 321 
 
 when a man like Cohen 1 states that only Germans can be 
 philosophers, quite forgetting how much Kant owes to Berke- 
 ley, merely to give an example which may interest Cohen. It 
 is in cases like these that we must confess, alas ! that chauvin- 
 ism has done its cruelest work. It has succeeded in reducing 
 minds, noble and liberal in themselves, almost to the level of 
 those who, except for their mug of beer, know nothing else 
 of the world. 
 
 4.— THE ANTITHESIS BETWEEN CIVILIZATION AND CHAUVINISM 
 
 § 117. — Civilization as an Organism 
 
 "What has been said so far touches only certain individual 
 cases. They illustrate how injurious and hostile to civiliza- 
 tion the tendency of a chauvinistic point of view is. They 
 may not be convincing, because they may possibly be merely 
 exceptional instances. But it can easily be shown that civiliza- 
 tion and chauvinism, we may even say civilization and patriot- 
 ism, are in and of themselves incompatible antitheses. 
 
 There is doubtless, as will be shown in the next chapter, a 
 national civilization which must be preserved. Such a civil- 
 ization, however, is possible only when we subordinate our 
 national feeling to the ideal of civilization as a whole, but not 
 when we reverse the order. 
 
 Nietzsche z once said that war made the victor stupid and 
 the vanquished barbarous. This probably merely means that 
 war destroys civilization, for Nietzsche does not indicate why 
 in the one instance intellectual civilization, and in the other 
 that of the feelings, should suffer. This voluntary division 
 seems doubly odd in the case of Nietzsche, who more firmly 
 than any one else clung to the belief in the possibility and 
 necessity of a common civilization in the sense which obtained 
 
 i Cohen, "Das Eigentiimliche des deutschen Geistes. Yortrag in der 
 Kant-Gesellschaft" ("The Distinctive Quality of the German Mind. Dis- 
 course before the Kant Society"), 1914. 
 
 2 Nietzsche, "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches. Der Krieg'' (Human, 
 All Too Human. War").
 
 322 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 hitherto only among the ancient Hellenes when they opposed 
 kalokagathia (nobleness) to the conception of barbarians. 
 
 It is true that many earnest thinkers have felt that a "spe- 
 cialized civilization" is not a true civilization. So, for in- 
 stance, Kant 1 says that civilization is "the adaptation of the 
 capacity of a reasonable being to its appropriate function"; 
 and Fichte - similarly, but not quite as clearly, maintains that, 
 "civilization is the exercise of all forces to the object of com- 
 plete liberty." Most definite and satisfactory, however, is 
 Nietzsche 's statement, ' ' civilization is the harmony of mutually 
 opposed forces." 
 
 A painter, musician, or sculptor can as little wholly repre- 
 sent civilization as a scientist, technician, or a philosopher. 
 Not even the sum-total of a particular profession can by itself 
 produce a civilization. The huge structure of a period in 
 civilization consists in the combination of all those forces which 
 have been mentioned, and many others, into a single organism 
 within which no check will be placed upon the free develop- 
 ment of the individual parts. There are indeed certain 
 periods in which one or the other of these tendencies of mind 
 was predominant. The Middle Ages were predominantly re- 
 ligious, the Renaissance was primarily artistic, the eighteenth 
 century (the period of rationalism) was scientific, the present 
 time is technical, and the French Revolution was. political. 
 But when this predominance is so powerful as to suppress the 
 other impulses of the human spirit, such a period can no 
 longer be called civilized. 
 
 Let us consider an organism like a human being. "We can- 
 not cut off a hand without simultaneously involving the brain ; 
 we cannot injure the brain without at the same time produc- 
 ing a detrimental effect on the hand. In general no individual 
 part can be changed without producing a change in the whole. 
 In the same way civilization becomes inferior when one of its 
 
 i Kant, "Kritik der Urtheilskraft" ("Critique of Judgment"), § 83. 
 2 Fichte, "Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre" ("Foundation 
 of the Whole Theory of Science"), VI, p. 86.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 323 
 
 individual elements suffers. Any one who will reflect for a 
 moment will see how intimately music is bound up with all 
 other arte and sciences. Let us merely think of the origin of 
 tragedy and lyric poetry, of Pythagoras, and of the various 
 religions. 
 
 If there is any unifying principle amid the disruptions of 
 the present time, that principle is civilization. It is such, and 
 will remain so. However great the disruptions, civilization by 
 necessity and by its inherent force makes for unity. Civiliza- 
 tion cannot be disrupted either in space or in time. Neither 
 the burning of Alexandria nor the burning of Byzantium; 
 neither torture-chamber nor chair of St. Peter; neither war 
 nor self-chasen emasculation on the part of certain so-called 
 leaders of civilization can destroy it. A hand will always 
 be there to pass on the torch from to-day to to-morrow, from 
 country to country. 
 
 It is only as an individual part that a person can become 
 faithless to civilization, and, perhaps, not even that is pos- 
 sible. It may be that what the war has shown is merely the 
 falling away of a civilized shell, which we mistook for civiliza- 
 tion, from a dissolute heart. There is no question that civiliza- 
 tion is a homogeneous organism whose arms encircle the world. 
 
 Every organism can be subdivided in several different ways 
 according to the mode in which it is viewed. A division can 
 be made according to bodily regions (arms, legs, trunk, head, 
 etc.), or according to systems of organs (blood-vessels, nerves, 
 digestive organs, etc), that is according to systems which 
 more or less uniformly traverse all the bodily regions men- 
 tioned above. 
 
 Civilization as an organism can be similarly subdivided ac- 
 cording to regions, as into Greek and Roman, German and 
 Romance, Slavic and Chinese civilization, or we can divide it 
 into systems, like intellectual, scientific, or technical civiliza- 
 tion, which in their way more or less uniformly traverse all 
 the regions. 
 
 For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the scien-
 
 324 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tific conception of an organism we have added the schematic 
 Fig. 6. In it Germany, France, and England represent bodily 
 regions, and the differently shaded ramifications represent sys- 
 tems of civilization. The latter are indicated by the names 
 Newton, Kant, and Napoleon. In place of these, or rather 
 in addition to these, any other names or intellectual currents 
 might be put. It is readily seen from the figure that neither 
 a system of organs (as Kant, or philosophy in general), nor a 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 Newton 
 
 German y 
 
 Franco. 
 
 1 1 "W ' " "* m " El*^> > ' — .i i 
 
 Kant- 
 
 Napoleon 
 
 bodily region (as France), can be removed without doing 
 injury to the whole. If France disappeared, certain ramifica- 
 tions which Kant's German philosophy has there produced 
 would simultaneously disappear. In other words, if Germany 
 should destroy France, it would at the same time irretrievably 
 destroy certain flowers of its own most inherent civilization. 
 This intertwining of one zone of civilization with another, this 
 "cross-stratification" of civilization, has, especially in more 
 recent times, assumed greater and greater importance, because 
 of the increasing possibility of international intercommuni- 
 cation.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 325 
 
 § 118. — The Internationalism of Civilization 
 
 In the matter of technical civilization, limitation to the 
 boundaries of a country is virtually unthinkable. The posts, 
 telegraphs, railroads, and steamship lines are in their very 
 essence institutions for all the world. The regulations con- 
 cerning them show a distinct tendency toward a more and more 
 far-reaching unification. Where such international regula- 
 tions are still lacking even in relatively unimportant matters, 
 such as whether an automobile is to turn out to the right or 
 to the left, every one concerned feels that this is an anach- 
 ronism. 
 
 Scientific civilization also has not been national for a long 
 time. Meteorology, the international determination of atomic 
 weights, international archaeological study, seismology, and 
 astronomy are merely examples selected at random. They 
 adequately establish for every one familiar with the respective 
 science that here certain organizations are spread throughout 
 the entire world, irrespective of nationality. A national medi- 
 cine, jurisprudence, or pedagogy would be an absurdity. 
 
 The condition described is officially recognized in that there 
 are already numerous international bureaus, 1 administered 
 by the totality of nations. The most important of these, 
 which have a political complexion, were distributed, in order 
 to guard their inviolability, among the three states, Switzer- 
 land, Belgium, and Holland, whose neutrality was guaranteed 
 (alas! in vain). 
 
 In Bern are the Bureau of Telegraphs (1865), of the Inter- 
 national Postal Union (1871), for the Protection of Industrial 
 Property (1863), and of Copyright (1886). 
 
 In Brussels are the Bureau of Tariffs (1890), of Slave Trade 
 (1890), and of the Sugar Commission (1902). 
 
 In The Hague are the Court of Arbitration and the Superior 
 Prize Court. 
 
 i In what follows only the official bureaus and those under a per- 
 manent administration are given. There are in addition, of course, 
 countless international associations and official agreements
 
 326 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 In the case of the international institutes it was assumed, 
 unfortunately incorrectly, that the precaution of locating them 
 in neutralized countries would not be necessary. For who 
 would have believed that men of scieuce would ever renounce 
 their international labors? 
 
 Consequently, there are in Germany two bureaus: "The 
 Institute for Earth-Measurement (1864), at Potsdam, and that 
 for seismology (1903), at Strasburg. 
 
 In France there are also two : the Bureau of "Weights and 
 Measures at Sevres (1875), and the International Bureau of 
 Public Hygiene, at Paris (1803), with several branches in the 
 Orient. 
 
 The international Institute for the Study of the Sea (1902) 
 is situated at Copenhagen, and that for Agriculture (1905) at 
 Kome. 
 
 There are besides numerous international agreements which 
 govern the administration of individual countries. Fried * 
 cites eighty-six, dealing with commerce and trade, law and 
 police regulations, science and social endeavors, and war and 
 politics. 
 
 A large part of modern civilization, such as manners, 
 fashions, dances, popular songs, is international. No one can 
 escape this. But every time Germans rush into war, those 
 who remain behind determine to create distinctive Ger- 
 man fashions. The attempt never met success. With the 
 stubbornness of an unteachable mule the same campaign was 
 started again in 1914, but, despite its noise, the movement 
 broke down more quickly than ever before. The facts of in- 
 ternationalism are more powerful to-day than ever before, and 
 cannot be denied. Manufacturers remembered that ready- 
 made articles of dress had to be shipped to South America; 
 others in a half-ashamed way pointed to our exports to Eng- 
 land, and recalled how many people were dependent upon 
 them for their livelihood. Then those came along who remem- 
 
 i Fried, "Handbuch der Friedonsbiwegung" ("Handbook of the Peace 
 Movement"), I, 121 et seq., Leipsic, 1911.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 327 
 
 bered something of history — the former distinctively German 
 shag hats and Jager underwear, and the fact that it was onee 
 regarded as unpatriotic to wear these. Next came the upper 
 ten thousand, who remembered that at some time in the future 
 they might perhaps want to play again at Monte Carlo and 
 engage in sports in the Engadine, and that on such occasions 
 the wearing of distinctively German styles might be a disad- 
 vantage. So even during the period of the war the movement 
 broke down despite the protests 'of the Gartenstrasse, and the 
 winter of 1914-1915 saw Berlin wearing the same costumes as 
 Paris. "What is to-day called "German styles" is merely cun- 
 ning advertising adapted to the present time. In this the 
 power of internationalism is disclosed in an almost excessive 
 degree, for there can be no real objection to ai^ one's dressing 
 as individualistic-ally as he pleases. 
 
 Habitations, like human beings, are also international and, 
 unfortunately, colorless. Except for its historic buildings, 
 Paris to-day can hardly be distinguished from London. Petro- 
 grad, Bukharest, Constantinople, and Madrid may perhaps 
 still have individual characteristics, but here, too, the tendency 
 to conform to an international type is unmistakable. With- 
 out the street-signs, it would be impossible to distinguish mod- 
 ern quarters in Milan, Berlin, or Stockholm from one another. 
 
 The water-front sections in Hong-Kong and Hamburg, in 
 Port Said and New York, except for certain externals, are 
 almost identical. There are the same dives for sailors and the 
 same motion-pictures, the same international prostitutes and 
 the same types of seafaring men. Wealthy sections, like 
 Uhlenhorst (Hamburg) and Hong-Kong Hill, bear a closer 
 resemblance to each other than they do to the respective har- 
 bor-sections of St. Paul (Hamburg) and Hong-Kong Harbor. 
 
 There is the plaint about the tourist who intrudes every- 
 where. Unless we bury ourselves in the solitude of the 
 pampas, the steppes, the tundras, or the primeval forests, it 
 is almost impossible to escape Cook's standardized hotels. 
 
 Art, then, remains. It also has in reality become interna-
 
 328 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tional. The latest operetta is produced almost simultaneously 
 in the various capitals of Europe. It is hardly possible any 
 longer to designate Caruso as an Italian. Tolstoy, Ibsen, and 
 Bernard Shaw have founded schools in all countries. 
 
 There are cross-strata, like Naturalism, Impressionism, and 
 the recent Futurism, which became dominant in all countries 
 almost simultaneously. Even the local-color school in art is 
 in reality merely a form of international snobbishness which 
 appeared simultaneously in all countries. In the case of art 
 one might perhaps seriously speak of a national intensifica- 
 tion, for art is something traditional, and points toward the 
 past. But the men are lacking who could create such a retro- 
 spective art. Education is international. A boy sees and 
 studies the same things everywhere. Even if he has grown up 
 in the most forlorn district, his intellectual sustenance has 
 been very much alike everywhere. Richard Dehmel, who grew 
 up in a solitary forester's lodge in the swamps of Branden- 
 burg, justly says that he owes his bit of brains to ten nations. 
 As soon as a young artist has become famous, the interna- 
 tional modern life irrevocably seizes hold of him. 
 
 The attempt on the part of the "Werdandi League to revive 
 the old characteristically German national art failed, as did 
 similar efforts in other countries. An art like this would 
 develop only in the narrowly isolated cities of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 Thus to-day civilization as a whole has become international 
 in its essence. Of course there are exceptions. But let us 
 have no illusions ; they are unimportant. 
 
 § 119. — The Effect of Chauvinism upon Civilization in Gen- 
 eral 
 
 Since civilization and patriotism are each an ideal which by 
 its nature must wholly fill a human being, a man cannot serve 
 both. A man may be a patriot or a civilized human being. 
 A man may say, "To the deuce with all civilization, if only 
 my country hasn't forgotten how to strike with the sword."
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 329 
 
 Whoever says this is at least a logical barbarian ; he is illogical 
 only in so far as he protests against the term barbarian. But 
 whoever holds that his own country's civilization lies close to 
 his heart should remember that it is joined by a thousand 
 secret threads to foreign countries, and consequently is in- 
 jured by the break of international relations. 
 
 If a monarch or a military person returns the distin- 
 guished Order of the Golden Fleece, this may be a matter of 
 indifference to the world, just as was the fact that at some time 
 or other he received it. The purpose of such an order is not 
 to promote international civilization. The case is different, 
 however, when men of science renounce foreign academic 
 honors or when academics expel enemy members. Such an 
 act is contrary to what an academy is supposed to stand for. 1 
 When Privy Medical Councilor Schwalbe issues an appeal 
 that no further international congresses be summoned and 
 advocates non-attendance at such as may be called, this fact 
 concerns mankind at large. The purpose of international 
 medical congresses is, or should be, the discussion of the 
 "health of mankind," just as at international meetings of 
 lawyers 2 the "rights of man" are, or ought to be, discussed. 
 Neither Mr. Schwalbe nor Mr. Kohler have any authority to 
 express an opinion concerning this because of their personal 
 or national sensitiveness. They are, provided they are en- 
 titled to be heard as spokesmen at all, put in their high po- 
 sitions by the totality of mankind. Just as the soldier prefers 
 to die at his post rather than to leave it on the approach of 
 danger, so it simply is the duty of such men to hold out stead- 
 ily at their posts. If they do not do this, they are bad soldiers. 
 
 The best proof of the hostility between civilization and 
 patriotism lies in the following fact. Patriots in all serious- 
 
 i Waldeyer says (reprint from "Nord und Siid," p. 6) : "When the 
 question concerns the honorary commands of regiments and the like it 
 is perfectly proper to hand in one's resignation. But in my opinion it 
 is quite a different matter when it comes to the rejection of honori 
 obtained in a purely scientific sphere." 
 
 2 Compare Kohler's actions in this respect.
 
 330 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ness believe that they can rout out of civilization everything 
 that does not conform to the higher demands of patriotism 
 and yet leave civilization unimpaired. He who with con- 
 temptuous gesture of the hand disposes of all civilization prior 
 to August 1 by calling it estheticism or mannered decadence 
 acts not only irreverently toward his own past, but also sins 
 against the conception of civilization. 
 
 It is not a matter of indifference that teachers to-day, in- 
 stead of instructing youth, are in military service; that pro- 
 fessors, instead of teaching, are drilling recruits; that our 
 technicians, instead of aiding the progress of German in- 
 dustry, are building military telegraphs and manufacturing 
 gas-bombs ; in short, that all of a sudden the activities of our 
 entire male population have been turned to a different end. 
 
 If of all the manifold endeavors of civilization that we 
 formerly considered precious, we now pursue only those 
 which are of value for the carrying on of war, this voluntary 
 turning aside dismembers civilization. We shall, and in- 
 evitably must, pay the penalty. 
 
 § 120.— The Special Effect of War 
 
 War encourages the tendencies which are hostile to civiliza- 
 tion, for war changes the character of man. As long ago as 
 300 b. c. Menander * declared that not even a god could make 
 a decent civilized human being out of a soldier ; there is no 
 difference to-day in the reverse after a soldier has been made 
 out of a civilized human being. Only a cultivated man, for 
 whom the conditions of life are more markedly altered, is 
 more profoundly influenced than is the uncultivated man. 
 Whether a Polish miner digs coal or trenches, and whether a 
 German or English sailor serves on a merchant-ship or war- 
 ship, is relatively immaterial. When a teacher is torn from 
 his school, a banker from his office, a scholar from his study, 
 and put gun in hand in the trenches there is in every case a 
 
 i Menander: Ko / ui/'6s arpaTi(bTi]<s ou5' d.v el 7rAdTTet ovdels yivoir hv.
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 331 
 
 great transformation. When a poet or artist is snatched 
 from his dream-land and set amid the reality of cannons the 
 contrast is absolute, quite independent of the question whether 
 it is for the better or worse. This applies likewise to all other 
 so-called leaders in civilization. 
 
 In the case of the physician alone, except in the matter of 
 certain personal comforts, we are proud to say no change is re- 
 quired. Even in war he fights war, whose wounds he heals. 
 That the cured are employed again to prolong the war is a fact 
 for which the physician as such cannot be held responsible. 
 
 For every one else war means an overturn. Everything 
 that the civilized human being has previously believed in is 
 now valueless. The point now is to act, and so men of 
 thought turn into men of action. But only the most ex- 
 ceptional among mortals can, like Goethe, who even under 
 the thunder of the cannons of Jemappes retained his equable, 
 cheerful calm, keep their self undivided. By this we mean, 
 combine their intellect and will at any given moment to make 
 of themselves a strong personality. Most people are either 
 men of thought or men of action, and since the war relent- 
 lessly forces them to deeds, there is no longer room for thought. 
 
 These deeds, so hostile to civilization in themselves, we per- 
 form because of patriotism and because of patriotism alone. 
 Professor Gerhard Gran 1 of Christiania indicates this when 
 he declares that patriotism causes a tremendous augmentation 
 of the human power for action, but simultaneously a tremen- 
 dous diminution of the capacity for thought. The harmony 
 of a true civilization arises only out of congruity between 
 thinking and acting. In general it may even be said that 
 thinking should precede. 
 
 Those who have remained behind are worse off than those 
 in the field. The man who has been out there has subsisted 
 
 i Gerhard Oran, "Krie™, Wissensohaft, und Yaterland: Rede in der 
 Universitiit von Christiania" ("War, Science, and Fatherland: Discourse 
 at the University of Christiania"), October, 1914.
 
 332 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 on poor and often inadequate food; his drink has been poor, 
 but he has often drunk too much; he has marched in dust 
 and heat; he has lain in mud and wet; he ias hardly had 
 any other thought but the purely vegetative one of self-preser- 
 vation and of destroying his opponent. We may at least 
 imagine such a man, when he returns home as after a long 
 horrible dream, as looking at the alien life out there as 
 something unreal, and as taking up his former life where 
 he has left off. 
 
 But with the man at home it is different. Lecture-rooms are 
 empty ; schools are poorly conducted, and in them instruction 
 only too frequently is subordinated to dubious celebrations 
 of victory and to the organization of the pupils into a mili- 
 tary reserve. The theaters are in large part given over to 
 patriotic plays of inferior value. The political and scientific 
 journals cannot keep away from the war. Factories for. 
 steel pens manufacture bullets, and electrical works grenades. 
 Former actors sell the " Kriegszeitung " ("the Army Jour- 
 nal"), and painters paint only war-pictures. Gradually all 
 the activities of peace become disintegrated, and the entire 
 mechanism, though primarily destined for peace, is converted 
 into a huge machine for war. Whoever has seen all this no 
 doubt will deeply respect the stern will power of the nation, 
 but at the same time a vast number of things will be broken 
 in his soul, just as civilization has been broken before his 
 eyes. We leave out of consideration entirely the miserable 
 and demoralizing campaign of calumniation which he is com- 
 pelled to view at much closer range than the soldier at the 
 front. 
 
 The direct destruction of the works of civilization is rela- 
 tively unimportant in comparison with this subjective modi- 
 fication of the human capacity for civilization. And yet 
 how much there is of this destruction ! The fields are devas- 
 tated, and cities are burned; industries are destroyed, and 
 works of art are laid in ruins. Perhaps this is inevitable, 
 but things also which have nothing to do with war are sense-
 
 UNJUSTIFIABLE CHAUVINISM 333 
 
 lessly and purposelessly destroyed. Humboldt ' complains 
 that his travels around the world were destroyed by war. 
 The eclipse of the sun in 1914 went by, and it was impossible 
 to take advantage of the opportunities offered despite all 
 the preparations that had been made. The observations in 
 southern Russia in particular were impossible, and the}- were 
 to have been the decisive test of Einstein's theory of gravity. 
 This is the senseless logic of war. On the one side it sac- 
 rifices millions of men, and on the other side it holds that a 
 single soldier is worth more than the most magnificent beauty 
 of a cathedral, or the highest truth which might have com- 
 pleted the work which Newton began. 
 
 i Humboldt, Letter to F. Bollmann, October 15, 1799 (in the possession 
 of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh).
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Legitimate Individualism of Nations 
 
 1. — the conception of personality 
 
 § 121. — The Right to Individuality 
 
 Probably never before have the friends of Europe and 
 the opponents of a fratricidal European war felt as lonely as 
 they do to-day; for this latest war has taken on an incon- 
 ceivable magnitude. Of the 450,000,000 inhabitants of Eu- 
 rope almost 400,000,000 dwell in the countries at war. Almost 
 ten per cent, of these, or 40,000,000, are under arms, and of 
 these again ten per cent., or 4,000,000/ are probably already 
 put out of action. These are numbers with which all the bat- 
 tles of the Roman Republic might have been fought. 
 
 A little more than ten per cent, of Europeans still live in 
 neutral countries. But these seem so fascinated by the domi- 
 nating vision of this all-pervading death that they, too, are 
 yearning to enter the war, though, of course, only under the 
 most favorable conditions. An intoxicating enthusiasm for 
 war is running through the countries, as at the time when 
 Peter of Amiens screamed his deus lo volt out into the world 
 and made of it for two hundred years such a madhouse that 
 finally even the children went forth to war. The shrill pipe 
 of the rat-catcher is once again blowing its lure, and this time 
 it is not pro Deo: it is pro patria. Mankind is always ready 
 quickly to carve for itself a god or an idol. But never before 
 have 400,000,000 rats fallen into the snare. 
 
 If it was possible for such an unheard-of fury of war to rage 
 
 i Since this was written, this number has doubtless grown much 
 larger. 
 
 334
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 335 
 
 throughout all lands, it was quite to be presupposed that 
 our conception of right and honor would be turned into ridi- 
 cule, that our differently understood love of the fatherland 
 would be treated as high treason, and that our belief in hu- 
 manity would be reviled as folly. Only too clearly do we 
 feel the destroying effect of aloneness, the opposite of mass 
 feeling. We are in the position of the little ant which is 
 left to fight companionless within a hundred paces of her nest. 
 
 Our point of view, because it is shared by few, seems to us 
 for that very reason already discredited. It is of little use 
 to gird ourselves in the pride of a deeper understanding and 
 to wait for justification by the future. It will surely come 
 when once the headache has followed the intoxication; but 
 for the present we feel abandoned and lost. The vital force 
 of the temporary majority is so overwhelming that it seems 
 almost impossible to hold one's own against it. There are 
 very, very few men for whom the rat-catcher blows in vain, 
 who go through life wise and unmoved, like children or very 
 old people. But even they are not to be envied, for very 
 often it is just they who secretly yearn for once to participate 
 in the folly of all mankind. 
 
 These are the men who stand apart, or rather walk apart, 
 for it is just they who are making progress. They may have 
 been anointed with a drop of democratic oil, and they may 
 have been in the habit of regarding the impulses of a people 
 as possessing in their general tendency a valuable capacity 
 for evolutionary development, however misdirected this po- 
 tentiality may be in individual instances. Such a man must 
 almost despair, for it must seem to him as if this impulse of a 
 people toward war damned utterly his unwarlike ideals. 
 
 The "thousand good Europeans" of whom Dostoievsky 1 
 once spoke are proof against all the fair and foul words of 
 
 i Dostoievsky, "Ein Werdender," Book III, oh. VII. These twenty 
 pages contain some of the most beautiful things ever said by a writer 
 about the coming European patriotism. 1 cannot very well quote them, 
 and I do not wish to disfigure them by condensation But every one 
 should read them.
 
 336 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 love of one's country and treason toward one's country. They 
 know very well the value of this patriotism of the beer- 
 garden, money-chamber, and school-bench. They know very 
 well how easily a people is moved, crying "Hosanna!" one 
 day, and ' k Crucify ! " the next. They are not afraid of being 
 called men without honor and without a country. But when 
 the dark hours of doubt come which must come to every one 
 who goes his way alone, the question again and again arises 
 whether he as an individual man has the right to stand out 
 against an entire people, or whether, after all, there is not, 
 perhaps, a certain value in quantity, and even if right were 
 a thousand times over on the side of the individual man, 
 whether ultimately the emotional outburst of 400,000,000 is 
 not worth more than the reason of a single person. 
 
 Is, perhaps, a people as a whole permitted to commit what- 
 soever follies it pleases? Perhaps it is one of the legitimate 
 properties of group of humans that regards itself as a nation 
 to put without punishment its emotions in place of its reason. 
 
 A dog may eat whatsoever it wishes; only a whip or a 
 larger dog can keep it from doing so, never reason or law. 
 It may be that human beings when they act in large groups 
 still move on the level of dogs and are permitted to follow 
 their inclinations provided the larger cannon of the opponent 
 do not prevent them. 
 
 Why, then, this seemingly purposeless struggle? Why 
 make oneself ridiculous and even undergo perhaps the risk 
 of imprisonment? And yet there are people who, despite 
 all these very good reasons for faint-heartedness, feel the im- 
 perative impulse of courage. They consider it necessary to do 
 and say certain things even if they cannot conceal the fact 
 from themselves that it is to no immediate practical purpose. 
 They would rather act absurdly than dishonestly. They feel 
 the right and the duty to declare themselves and to defend 
 their own individuality. If a person has this right, perhaps 
 a people also has the right and duty to defend its own legiti- 
 mate individuality against every one.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 337 
 
 § 122. — The Restriction of the Personality 
 
 This is, in fact, the case, and is often difficult to decide both 
 in a people and in an individual man whether individualism is 
 legitimate or not. But the very conception of individualism 
 seems to imply that each one may wear it according to his 
 own taste. If no judge superior to the will of the person 
 or of a people is recognized, this would indeed be the case. 
 In general, however, a person ordinarily believes that reason, 
 at any rate, must not be neglected. Otherwise the deviation is 
 called not legitimate individualism, but illegitimate insanity. 
 
 "We know both from the past and the present that insanity 
 may affect large groups of people and nations. The dancing 
 mania and St. Vitus dance, the children's crusades, and the 
 suicide epidemics in ancient Rome and present-day Russia, 
 the witchcraft trials and many other things, are counted by 
 modern science as cases in point, as were also the sadistic orgies 
 of the Roman circus and the self-torments in medieval cloisters. 
 Every generation was always very liberal in this respect and 
 always very much inclined to designate as insanity any hostile 
 belief. This is meant not only figuratively, but literally. 
 Heathendom once looked upon Christianity as a form of in- 
 sanity, and when Christianity became dominant, it in its turn 
 looked upon modern heresy as an insane delusion. Even 
 in the last century (it is true, at a period of the worst 
 reaction) a medical student wanted to offer as his graduating 
 thesis a dissertation entitled, De morbo democratico, nova 
 forma insanio?. It was only due to Rudolph Virchow's oppo- 
 sition that a German university was spared this extraordinary 
 doctor's thesis. 
 
 To-day people are very much inclined to interpret the war 
 passion of the enemy as insanity. We in Germany were able 
 to observe this at our leisure in the case of Italy. Ten months' 
 experience in war had taught us. We recognized that the fear 
 of spies, persecution of foreigners, overstraining of the censor- 
 ship, poetic war rhapsodies, grandiloquent national pride.
 
 33S THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 in short, "the whole outward show of war enthusiasm," really 
 belongs in a lunatic asylum. In order not to appear ridicu- 
 lous, for the present in the eyes of their enemies and later, 
 no doubt, in those of the world at large, nations should temper 
 their capacity for enthusiasm by the employment of reason. 
 
 In Germany it is customary to distinguish two kinds of 
 reason pure and practical reason. 1 This distinction is per- 
 haps the most characteristic German quality. It would not 
 be wholly incorrect to call "Germany the nation of divided- 
 ness produced out of itself. ' ' By this I mean not only political 
 dividedness, but also intellectual and moral. 
 
 But more of this later (Cf. § 134). For the present we 
 shall discuss this twofold reason only in so far as it offers us a 
 means for separating legitimate individualisms from those 
 that are unwarranted. All difficulties ultimately arise from 
 the fact that one reason prohibits some particular individual 
 quality that according to the other is permissible. Man, the 
 unhappy creature v, ith the two reasons, does not know what to 
 do. 
 
 This difficulty was not invented by Kant; at the most he 
 merely formulated it anew. The belief has always been com- 
 mon that there were two ways of viewing the world, but they 
 were not both designated as "reason." Either we might 
 try to understand it in accordance with our reason or we 
 might comprehend it with love. The logical side of this was 
 of principal concern to science, and the emotional side chiefly 
 concerned religion, which by force of the feelings have at- 
 tempted to arrive at some world view complete in itself. 
 
 Modern philosophy since the time of Socrates has tried 
 to mediate between the two, but necessarily failed in the at- 
 tempt. The latest and greatest attempt at a mediation of 
 this sort was Kant's. In a certain sense we may designate 
 this as final. 
 
 Kant meant to show, and in reality did show, that no true 
 mediation was possible between these two ways of viewing the 
 
 i If we include judgment, there are three.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 339 
 
 world, provided, of course, that we once had become cognizant 
 of them. This is quite self-evident. That in his later years 
 he tried again to deny this contrast, which in a certain sense 
 he himself had created, merely shows the instinctive hunger 
 of mankind for an all-embracing explanation. In his sublime 
 system of antinomistic philosophy he showed that these two 
 world views were simultaneously possible and simultane- 
 ously necessary. Since they are also simultaneously contra- 
 dictory and irreconcilable, a bit of metaphysics must be 
 dragged in, and in the mystical concept * of personality, the 
 inapprehensible synthesis finds its completion. 
 
 This attempt failed, as is to-day probably generally admit- 
 ted. At any rate, the practical difficulty remains as to which 
 of the two intuitions at any given moment is the legitimate 
 one. Let us grant that in the case of freedom, God, and im- 
 mortality the standard of decision should lie in the primacy of 
 practical reason (basically, that is, of the emotions) ; and, in 
 the case of mathematics, the primacy of pure reason. Never- 
 theless, there is an extensive real world between God and 
 Pythagoras. Where it belongs we must seek to discover in 
 each individual case. 
 
 This rather inadequate result is what might have been ex- 
 pected. If we recognize two kinds of reason as simultane- 
 ously independent, there naturally can be no real permanent 
 primacy. It must change just as an attentive host, who has 
 two men of equal rank as guests, serves first alternately the 
 one and then the other. 
 
 A decision can be had only if we recognize as a judge some- 
 thing that is higher than these two individual principles. 
 Kant knew no such higher judge, and could not know one, 
 for according to him the human spirit is something inviolable, 
 and in a certain sense something which cannot be discussed. 
 
 i A concept is called mystical because it seeks to combine things which 
 are of themselves incompatible. Such a concept can become real only 
 if we can pruve the existence of a new concept of personality. Person- 
 ality must be primarily complete; its completeness muat not be sec- 
 ondarily constructed.
 
 340 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 He found in it these two irreconcilable principles, which he 
 necessarily had to regard as innate ideas. It is a proof of 
 the strength of his intellect that he did not try to explain 
 away these things by hair-splitting, at any rate not in his 
 "Criticism of Practical Reason." He put them side by 
 side, hard and direct, as things of reality are. 
 
 For us, in this sense, at any rate, inexplicable things no 
 longer exist, because there are no longer inborn qualities. All 
 these inborn ideas under the weight of which science formerly 
 dragged itself along have to-day become accessible to analysis 
 in accordance with evolutionary theory. We know that two 
 living beings, however disparate they may be, can always be 
 joined if we go far enough back in the evolutionary series. 
 There is always a point where the origins of these divergent 
 evolutionary series meet in a single trunk. This applies to 
 organisms and organizations as well as to the functions of life 
 which are built upon them. 
 
 Our psyche did not spring complete from the head of Zeus 
 like the fully armed Athene. It slowly and gradually de- 
 veloped in accordance with those laws and forces to the com- 
 bined effort of which she ultimately owes her almost imper- 
 ceptible origin (cf. § 163). 
 
 These laws consequently precede all human reason, and are, 
 if one so will, above it and higher than it. At any rate, we 
 must take our bearings in accordance with them if we are 
 to decide which of the various possibilities of thought is legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 In Kant the idea of evolution had not yet become a living 
 force, though in many ways he anticipated it. For him, 
 therefore, certain phenomena had to remain unexplainable. 
 As a fruit is unexplainable when certain characteristics of 
 the flower are unknown, just so the characteristics of the 
 human spirit in its present isolated completion remain dark 
 and obscure. 
 
 The prevalence of a rational view is to-day so firmly estab- 
 lished that it seems at least possible to trace back all the high-
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 341 
 
 est ideas which fill mankind to things which can be rationally 
 understood. This disposes of the question with which we 
 started out. Virtue and the capacity for enthusiasm are not 
 isolated domains of themselves ; they are subject to the control 
 of the general laws of a thinking reason. Virtue, like every^ 
 thing else, can be taught. 
 
 § 123. — The Primacy of the Reason 
 
 This idea of the unique primacy of the reason is very an> 
 cient. Even the primitive man exerted his reason to the 
 utmost. He preferred to invent spirits and dryads rather 
 than to relinquish the employment of the law of causality. 
 This belief was a vital element in fair Hellas. Socrates, the 
 most splendid representative of the clear soul of Greece, an- 
 nounced the dominance of reason over all metaphysics even 
 before that word was invented when he said that virtue can 
 be taught. 
 
 We have no wish to preach a belief in authority, but we 
 are happy to know that we are in harmony with this type of 
 wisdom, for the "wise Socrates" is the only one to whom the 
 infallible instinct of the people has given this title of honor. 
 
 Socrates not only declared that virtue could be taught, 
 but he also indicated the way by which it could be learned 
 when he called attention to the old Delphic words "Know thy- 
 self." 1 
 
 Virtue can be taught, bat only through self-knowledge. 
 This settles the subjective aspect of the matter, for there is 
 no virtue which is identical for all. Every virtue, like every- 
 
 i JSocrates himself never in this way hrought into direct association 
 with each other these Ins two most famous sayings. It would lead too 
 tar afield were we to show in detail that in all his works he supports 
 this point ut view, especially in reference to civic virtue and in reference 
 to the memory of a previous existence. Every one will he surprised 
 at the modernity of this ancient (Jreek if he puts in place of the Socratic 
 conception, "memory of a previous existence, - ' the modern conception of 
 an inherited predisposition, these two conceptions are fundamentally 
 identical, and heme it is quite appropriate to claim the designation 
 "Socratic" for the explanations which follow.
 
 342 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 thing else, is dependent upon the individuality of the one. 
 But this subjectivism has its limitations. There is an objec- 
 tive and general principle of virtue that plainly proclaims 
 that it is impossible for a virtue or even a characteristic to 
 develop if the rudiment of it is not present in us. 
 
 Out of this natural impossibility grows a positive demand. 
 All men should recognize as clearly as possible the powers and 
 potentialities that lie within them and develop them to their 
 highest perfection. The individual man should consider how 
 or by what means he can accomplish a maximum achievement 
 and best serve mankind. Shall he, if he has skilled bauds, 
 become a goldsmith or a mechanician; or, if his eyesight is 
 sharp, a seaman or a huntsman; or, if he has intelligence, a 
 man of science? This rule of virtue seems nothing more 
 than the homely wisdom of the ancient proverb, "Cobbler, 
 stick to your last, ' ' and Socrates often enough has been called 
 middle-class. But people forget that Socrates adds, "Perfect 
 thyself." By this he means a cobbler who indeed sticks to his 
 last, but who in the sense of to-day founds, let us say, a shoe- 
 factory. This example can likewise be transferred into the 
 ethical sphere. The modern Socratic theory of evolution does 
 not require a man to remain permanently in the place where 
 a rational or irrational destiny has placed him ; rather, it de- 
 sires a man to seek out his place in the world in such a way 
 that it will have meant progress to him. 
 
 In other words, man, too, is subject to the law of evolution. 
 A person, a people, or mankind at large under its compulsion 
 can accomplish something worth while only when they do it 
 in the direction indicated to them by their hereditary mass, 
 or, as Socrates calls it, their memory. 
 
 In the section on positive and negative selection (§ 29) 
 we have already shown that this inescapable direction is, as a 
 matter of fact, present, and that it is the only objective scale 
 by which we can determine the value of all events and all en- 
 deavors. 
 
 Let us grant that for the rest of the world, both animate and
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 343 
 
 inanimate, such a natural compulsion also exists, but there it 
 is not called virtue. 
 
 Man, indeed, has the possibility, as has been shown in § 30, 
 of raising himself above this natural compulsion, because 
 he can lay aside his implements. He can do this only in so 
 far as he uses whatever existing forces there are ; he cannot 
 create new forces in himself. He can build machines and 
 other aids for himself, but he cannot augment indefinitely 
 within himself his capacity for building machines and aids. 
 If a man has a special talent for mathematics, he cannot volun- 
 tarily transform this talent into one for writing good poems ; 
 and vice versa, the best poet, however much he tries, cannot 
 become a good mathematician. But every one has the capacity 
 to stimulate by intensive effort his inborn capacities to their 
 highest point. The Goethean phrase that one-sidedness alone 
 can produce a master has become a commonplace. But this 
 means exactly the same thing as when Socrates says that vir- 
 tue can be taught through self-knowledge, ^'hen every one of 
 us follows his inborn laws, 1 he in his way best serves mankind. 
 
 § 124. — Xatwns as Individual Units 
 
 What has been said applies to each one individually, but 
 in a still higher degree to people in general. The latter are 
 naturally more conservative, and it is more difficult to turn 
 them into a new direction, because this requires a uniform 
 variation of the majority. This, however, occurs only in 
 very rare cases. Even the most many-sided nation can and 
 will accomplish useful things only in the direction which 
 conforms to it# genius. A nation which attempts all things 
 exhibits not virtue, but dilettantism. 
 
 This principle of the division of labor, which from our 
 present view of nature we accept almost as a matter of course, 
 was vaguely foreseen by the genius of Socrates. It supplies 
 the bond between individualism and objectivism ; it permits 
 
 i That is the dairnon of Socrates, the Holy Spirit of the Bible, the 
 hereditary mass (germ-plasm) of science.
 
 344 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 unlimited individualism, but trains it in the direction of the 
 most useful socialism. 
 
 Nations doubtless are individual units also in a certain sense. 
 In the preceding chapter we have tried to show that a common 
 home and a common level of civilization produces common 
 traits among the individual units of nations, which in their 
 totality and similarity constitute the individuality of a nation. 
 If a nation consists predominantly of people who are predis- 
 posed toward mercantile pursuits, it will be a commercial 
 nation. Such a nation would act wisely if it stimulated these 
 potentialities as far as possible. It may be sure that this 
 will result in the greatest advantages for itself and for other 
 nations. It is an absurdity (or in the Socratic sense a non- 
 virtue), if a man who has a natural aptitude for stone-cutting 
 studies jurisprudence. In the same way, it is as a matter of 
 course a non-virtue if a nation specially endowed in some 
 particular direction turns its aspirations into an entirely 
 different field. 
 
 People, indeed, speak of a harmony of nations, and under- 
 stand by this the fact that each one of the nations in its way 
 gives the best that it possesses. To what purpose would it be 
 if the English should set up the pretension of wanting to 
 teach the world music; or the French, quiet comfort; or the 
 Finnish, mathematics; or the Tatars, painting? There surely 
 are many things which are not inherent in a particular nation 
 and which it cannot master; but every nation brings some 
 particular gift that may be acceptable to all. 
 
 It may be objected that one-sidedness in the long run is 
 injurious, and that one might very well remain a master in 
 one's particular field without of necessity having to put aside 
 all other things. That this is not true in the case of in- 
 dividual persons is to-day generally admitted. The very two 
 men who are usually regarded in Germany as the two greatest 
 Germans have taught us this. Goethe showed this theoretic- 
 ally when, as has already been stated, he said that without 
 one-sidedness no one would become a master; and Bismarck,
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 345 
 
 practically, who, as is well known, deliberately refused to 
 know anything about subjects which did not concern his pro- 
 fession. Among all novels he was fondest of "Die Familie 
 Buchholz, ' ' 1 and, if 1 am not mistaken, he declared that 
 Anton von Werner s pictures were works of art. Goethe, in- 
 deed, did not always follow his own advice ; he painted, and 
 occupied himself with the study of physics. Apart from the 
 fact that the great outlines of the man appear in all his 
 works, his pictures are not particularly distinguished, and his 
 theory of colors is incorrect. It is erroneous for the very 
 reason that he was an artist, and did not wish to see the law 
 running through the variegated manifoldness. He was on 
 the contrary interested in each individual phenomenon. 
 
 The lack of one-sidedness certainlv has never led to the 
 highest achievements. Let us admit that those with an ency- 
 clopedic knowledge are often pleasant companions, and that 
 journalism also is an occupation. But whoever is not merely 
 looking for entertainment must prefer the one-sided, and this 
 even more especially in the case of a nation. 
 
 In the case of an individual man we might excuse a tempo- 
 rary trying out of this and that by the fact that he must test 
 out whatever potentiality there is in him in order that his 
 best qualities may not be stunted. There is no such danger 
 in the case of a nation, for it can try out its powers in quite a 
 different fashion from the individual man. While each person 
 must follow his own personal destiny, a nation, on the other 
 hand, tests itself from within to discover those things which 
 are suitable for the average members of this nation ; that is, for 
 the people as a whole. In a nation nothing can become 
 stunted. Even if something is destroyed in thousands of its 
 citizens, it will continue to live in thousands of others. Since 
 they will be successful, their mode of action will be imitated 
 and become law. Far more than for the individual man it is 
 
 i A famous German novel of lower middle-class life in Berlin, by 
 Julius Stinde. A condensed English version by E. V. Lucas has recently 
 been published under the title "The Hausfrau Rampant." — Translator.
 
 346 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 necessary for a people as a whole to follow unalterably the way 
 which has been indicated by the past. It is in this direction 
 only that progress can be made, and for that reason it is 
 important clearly to see the way, for then, and only then, 
 will progress be more rapid. Every attempt arbitrarily to 
 seek out new ways can only delay progress. 
 
 2. — THE INDIVIDUAL QUALITIES OP NATIONS 
 
 § 125. — The Excellences of Individual Nations 
 
 Just as a person should be possessed not with selfishness, 
 but with self-reliance, not. with haughtiness, but with pride, 
 so it is with nations. Just as the individual man, on the basis 
 of his definite inherited qualities, and on the basis of his 
 destiny and education, can almost always produce certain 
 things which no one else can imitate, so it is with nations, 
 and even in a much higher degree. 
 
 There are billions of human beings, and in each of the 
 civilized nations of the present day there are millions of hu- 
 man beings. Schleriden once said that no leaf was exactly 
 like another; so, too, each human being in all these millions 
 has some particular quality which makes him appear unques- 
 tionably unique as a personality (cf. chap, xiv, 4). Yet, in 
 view of the very large number of human beings, these differ- 
 ences cannot be very great, and finally, in reference to the 
 practical utilization of the individual for the benefit of the 
 totality, every human being can be replaced. It is different in 
 the case of nations. Owing to the fact that all human beings 
 included within them have usually grown up under approxi- 
 mately similar conditions, each person has received a certain 
 common impress. This impress we may regard as the peculiar 
 quality of the pauiicular nation. 
 
 There are at the most a dozen of these civilized nations. 
 Not one of this dozen is indispensable. It would be vain to 
 believe that any single nation exists which is superior to all 
 other nations in religion as well as in art, in science as well
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 347 
 
 as in polities, in technical progress as well as in commerce; 
 in short, in every human sphere. Can French wit be replaced 
 by English comedy or German humor; or vice versa? Would 
 we want to do without a Faraday because wo have a Helmholtz, 
 or without a Lamarck, because a Darwin was born? Can 
 Bismarck replace Napoleon, or Washington replace Crom- 
 well? Jesus of Judea and Francis of Assisi can as little be 
 left out of the Christian religion as Luther, the German, or 
 Tolstoy, the Russian. The German Mathias Griinewald saw 
 the Good Friday tragedy from a different angle than the Flem- 
 ish Rubens, and Mantegna, the Italian, saw it differently from 
 Greco, the Spaniard. But who shall say which vision was 
 the deepest ? The decision is just as impossible as is that 
 whether the grapes of Burgundy, the Rhine country, or Spain 
 produce the best wine. All these things, like Russian caviar, 
 the char of the Konigsee, the amber of East Prussia, and 
 much else, are specific products of a particular country, which 
 flourish nowhere else. 
 
 In an industrial way also each country may be notable for 
 certain special products. The silk of Lyons, the linen of 
 Silesia, the calicos of England, the furs of Russia, are, or at 
 least were, famous. 
 
 It is true that industries may change, owing to certain tech- 
 nical advances in different countries. Thus once the Damas- 
 cus blade was the most famous, while later that of Toledo was 
 regarded as the best. It is true that in many fields of in- 
 dustry Germany need not fear comparison with other nations, 
 but that is no reason why we should forget the nations which 
 were our teachers in these matters. Something will always 
 turn up again, even if it is only temporarily, in which they are 
 in advance of us. Let us think for a moment of the appli- 
 ances of modern intercourse. Automobiles came from France, 
 the aeroplane from America, submarines and wireless telegra- 
 phy from Italy. 
 
 Certain particular products are always procured from 
 abroad, as, for instance, Lumiere plates from Lyons, tabloids
 
 348 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 from England, gumboots from Russia, and straw hats from 
 Italy. Some things are bought abroad because we do not 
 care to produce them at home ; other things because we cannot 
 produce them, not for lack of raw materials, but because in 
 certain respects the technical skill of other countries has pro- 
 gressed further. Many countries of a younger civilization 
 have already caught up with Germany in many respects, and 
 perhaps even have outdistanced it. It would be idle to make 
 specific comparisons as to what certain nations do better than 
 others. America's extraordinary achievements in the field of 
 machine construction (instruments of precision and in elec- 
 tricity) are perfectly obvious. 
 
 As the individual man long since has been unable to make 
 a living without the help of others, so nations have also be- 
 come interdependent. Above all, it would mean impoverish- 
 ment if each nation would not gladly learn and receive from 
 every other. It is regrettable that in recent times the mischief 
 of crediting every invention to some particular national in- 
 ventor has become more and more prevalent. Yet this is at 
 most harmless vanity ; it would be worse if every invention had 
 to be invented a dozen times over. 
 
 § 126. — The Excellences of Their Defects 
 
 All this is so self-evident that Guizot, though he wrote the 
 history of European civilization entirely from the French 
 point of view, nevertheless says of civilization: "Though in 
 general it is relatively uniform in the different countries of 
 Europe, it is nevertheless infinitely diverse, and complete in 
 no country. Its elements must be sought now in France, 
 now in England, now in Germany, and now in Spain." x 
 
 This diversity amid relative uniformity is still to-day the 
 most patent fact. The question of the justification of an ex- 
 clusive patriotism does not deserve discussion among sober 
 thinkers. No one but a madman would do away with the total- 
 ity of nations to put his own solely in their stead. 
 
 i Guizot, "Histoire de la civilisation en Europe."
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 349 
 
 In addition to its excellences, every nation has its defects. 
 The English are bigoted and stubborn, the French are vain 
 and fickle, Spaniards are proud, and Hollanders are phleg- 
 matic ; the Turks are indolent, and the Corsicans vengeful, 
 the Russians drink, and the Germans love titles and liveries; 
 the Cretans lie, and the Greeks cheat, the Americans put their 
 feet on the table, and the Chinese spit. 
 
 All these things are proverbial, even if they are not always 
 appropriate; nations, nevertheless, usually have other and 
 serious defects — the defects of their excellences. There is 
 hardly a single good quality which does not also have its 
 shadow side or disadvantage. "Whoever is very philanthropic 
 cannot be economical ; whoever has made goodness the prin- 
 ciple of his life cannot always follow the dictates of wisdom; 
 whoever makes a god of success cannot embody within himself 
 the finest flower of civilization ; and much more like this. 
 
 The Semitic race, for example, is predisposed toward tran- 
 scendental dialectics and ethical legislation. In it was incor- 
 porated at an early period the relatively purest expression 
 of the idea of God. It forbade the making of an image of its 
 God, and so put art under the ban. It would have stoned 
 Phidias, the sculptor of divinities, as Emil du Bois Reymond 1 
 once said. So it is everywhere, and every nation has its good 
 and bad qualities, each necessarily conditioned by the other. 
 For this reason a nation usually cannot put aside its defects 
 without simultaneously losing its excellences. 
 
 The possession of all excellences is contrary to the economic 
 law which runs throughout all nature. Even if the desire 
 to achieve mankind's crown may be the best part of us, every- 
 thing cannot be accomplished with Faust's words, "I will." 
 A Mephistopheles always comes and whispers in our ears that 
 we cannot. 
 
 Alle edlen Qualitaten 
 Auf euren Elirensclieitel haufen, 
 
 i Emil du Kois Reymond. Uber eine Akademie der deutschen Sprache 
 ("Concerning an Academy of tlie German Language"), p. 11.
 
 350 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Des Loweii mut, 
 
 Des Hirsches Schnelligkeit, 
 
 Des Italieners feurig Blut, 
 
 Des Nordens Dau'rbarheit, 
 
 Laszt ihn Eueh das Geheimnis finden, 
 
 Groszmut und Arglist zu verbinden, 
 
 Und Eueh, mit warmen Jugentrieben, 
 
 Nach einem Plane zu verlieben. 
 
 Mbchte selbst solch einen Horren kennen, 
 
 Wiird' ihn Herrn Mikrokosmus nennen. 1 
 
 No one who has recognized this actual impossibility will 
 believe that all good qualities are combined in his nation, 
 neither will he blame another nation because he discovers 
 ignoble qualities in it. On the contrary, he will rejoice in 
 goodness and beauty wherever he sees it, and he will ulti- 
 mately arrive at the Goethean wisdom, and be able to say even 
 of foreign nations: 
 
 Was je ikr gesehn, 
 es sei wie es wolle, 
 es war doeh so schon. 
 
 (Roughly : Whatever ye have seen, be it what it may, it neverthe- 
 less was beautiful.) 
 
 i Wear the crown, and ahow it, 
 Of the qualities of his creation, — 
 The courage of the lion's breed, 
 The wild stag's speed, 
 The Italian's fiery blood, 
 Tbe north's firm fortitude! 
 Let him find for thee the secret tether 
 That binds the noble and mean together, 
 And teach thy pulses of youth and pleasure, 
 To love by rule, and hate by measure! 
 1 'd like, myself, such a one to see : 
 
 Sir Microcosm his name should be. — Bayard Taylor's trans- 
 lation, "Faust," Sc. IV.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OP NATIONS 351 
 
 3. — THE PECULIAR QUALITY OF THE GERMAN SPIRIT 
 
 § 127. — German Civilization 
 
 It is difficult to grasp the spirit of a people. We must base 
 a judgment not upon a single person, but upon a vast number. 
 We must select not what would be characteristic for one per- 
 son, which would be relatively simple, but the characteristics 
 of something of a hitherto unknown greatness; that is to say, 
 of a people. 
 
 This has never been completely successful. What sense is 
 there if the farmer philosopher Hermann Cohen J declares 
 that "the peculiarity of the German spirit lies in its combina- 
 tion of rationalism and idealism; all mysticism is un-Ger- 
 man"? And his colleague Lasson 2 says exactly the opposite, 
 stating that, "the mystic trend is the most inherently Ger- 
 man." Or again Lord Haldane 3 says that the German acts 
 "in accordance with a concept," in contrast to the English- 
 man, who acts "in accordance with an idea"; whereas Scho- 
 penhauer* implies exactly the opposite when he writes, "the 
 Englishman believes in the abstract concept of justice, while 
 the German is a friend of the to him current idea of equity. ' ' 
 
 There is another interesting contrast. The lectures given 
 by Cohen and Lasson during the course of the war seek to ap- 
 propriate all the noble qualities for the German. Schopen- 
 hauer and Lord Haldane, on the other hand, seek to praise 
 the foreign nation.' In general the man of education is 
 likely to overestimate the foreigner, because he also under- 
 stands that which is different. If Germans formerly carried 
 this to a further degree than the English, it was a national 
 
 i Cohen, "Kriegsvortrag" ("Lecture on the War"). 
 - Lasson, "Kriegsvortag" ("Lecture on the War*'). 
 
 3 Lord Haldane, "Great Britain and Germany," Oxford Address, Au- 
 gust 3, 1911, in "Universities and National Life," 3rd Edition: London, 
 
 1912, p. 112. 
 
 4 Schopenhauer, "fher die Grundlagen der Moral" ("The Foundations 
 of Morals"), III., § 17. Frauenstadt's Edition, vol. IV., p. 222.
 
 352 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 virtue, which in the highest measure was the envy of all edu- 
 cated foreigners. 1 
 
 It would be easy to extend the list of national virtues which 
 counterbalance one another. German fmnkyism and love 
 of liberty have been supported by equally good reasons. Ger- 
 man faith and the gratitude of the house of Hapsburg 
 are both proverbial. The belief in the purity of the German 
 woman has not kept them from accepting a fallen girl 
 ( Gretchcn) as her ideal type. Only very few, as Kolliker, 2 
 for example, have noticed this conflict at all. 
 
 Precise definitions of this nature are usually too narrow in 
 view of the unlimited diversity of civilization. Just as we 
 cannot describe a face, but have to paint it, so, for instance, the 
 picture of German civilization becomes clearly perceptible 
 only when we think of certain definite men like Goethe and 
 Kant, Keppler and Helmholtz, Beethoven and Mozart. It 
 may be held that these are exceptions. Let us, then, view 
 such things as German philology and esthetics, German chem- 
 istry and optics, German steel and electrical industries. 
 
 The German is unquestionably entitled to regard these 
 things as unique products of civilization. They cannot be 
 omitted from the civilization of mankind at large. If a civi- 
 lization could be based upon or overthrown by wars, the 
 cruelest war itself would be worth the price for their- sake. 
 But in addition to this right the German has the duty to con- 
 sider whence this civilization really derives. 
 
 The German spirit did not just happen to drop from the 
 moon. It can be accounted for in, and owes its origin to, a 
 very definite terrestrial environment. No other nation can 
 ever repeat the distinctive features of this development. 
 
 i Karl von Holtei in "300 Briefe aus zwei Jahrhunderten" ("300 Let- 
 ters of Two Centuries") : Hanover, 1872, vol. 2, p. XVI., once aptly said, 
 "To me the highest degree of education of a nation lies in the fact that 
 it enables its men to recognize adequately the value and meaning of other 
 nations." 
 
 - Kolliker, "Goethes Faustschlag ins Gesicht der deutschen Sittlich- 
 keit" ("Goethe's Blow in the Face of German Morality").
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 353 
 
 They are based on the unique combination of circumstances 
 that Germany formed the center between older civilizations. 
 It received stimuli from all sides, and was able to develop the 
 highest degree of civilization even before it was politically a 
 nation. Just because all the barriers, conditioned by a politi- 
 cally important role, were absent, the German was able to ac- 
 chieve his world-embracing universality. And no one can 
 deny that this is, or at least was, the peculiar quality of his 
 spirit. 
 
 § 128. — Originality 
 
 Gladly and gratefully all great Germans have tried to digest 
 and elaborate within themselves the totality of the civilization 
 of their period. Even if no nation is thinkable without for- 
 eign influences, this is especially true of Germany. Its civili- 
 zation is so deep and glorious and original just because it is 
 not autochthonous, but embraces all the world. 
 
 Richard Wagner was one of the first to maintain this. In 
 respect to German music, which is the German soul laid bare, 
 he said, "German genius seems destined to search among its 
 neighbors for that which is not inborn in its motherland, 
 but it carries this beyond its narrow limits, and so creates 
 something universal for all the world." 
 
 This is particularly true of Bach, the founder of German 
 music. He lived under the pressure of a narrow middle- 
 class life, and hardly saw anything beyond his Thuringian- 
 Saxon home. Nevertheless, his point of departure was not in 
 the folk melodies of his country, as it was the case with artists 
 of other nations when they created their national music. He 
 was a true German. Laboriously he gathered what was best 
 from all the world, and created with it the art that is most 
 characteristicallv German. With tremendous industry he 
 studied all the material at hand, Italian vocal and violin 
 music, as well as French instrumental music and opera (espe- 
 cially the orchestral suites), and also whatever was musically 
 valuable in the Netherlands and England. He acquired all
 
 354 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 these things to make them his own. On their basis he created 
 works which were already distinctly German, though in ex- 
 ternals (gigue, air, saraband, etc.) they still showed the old 
 forms, and in many occasional pieces suggested very imich the 
 Italian manner. Out of this he created ultimately new forms, 
 like the cantata and the German passion play, and finally 
 the Prussian (or, as it has also been called, the "Frilzian") 
 fugue, his most characteristic contribution to music. But 
 even in this fugue there are distinct reminiscences of Italv and 
 France; "he merely combined in himself the advantages of 
 the French and Italian masters-." 1 
 
 It is generally known that the same thing is true of Mozart, 
 and no one will contradict Wagner who said of him, "He 
 was a German who raised the Italian school to the ideal of 
 perfection, and in this way gave it universality and ennobled 
 it." 
 
 The same thing applies to German philosophy, which is the 
 second distinctively German branch of endeavor. It is only 
 necessary to point out that Windelband used almost the same 
 words of it that Wagner used of music. "Kant," he says in 
 his well-known "History of Philosophy," 2 "has made his 
 own the various motives of thought of [foreign] philosophical 
 literature, and from the way in which they supplemented one 
 another worked out from them an entirely new conception." 
 Kant depends equally much upon German popular philosophy, 
 the psychological analysis of the English, and the honest liber- 
 alism of the French. He mentions as the special inspirers of 
 Kant, Wolf among the Germans, Hume, Newton, Toland, and 
 Shaftesbury among the English, and Rousseau and Voltaire 
 among the French. 
 
 The same thing might be shown in reference to all other 
 arts and sciences. German Gothic architecture and German 
 
 i Spemann, "Goldenes Buch der Musik" ("Golden Book of Music"), 
 chap. 328. 
 
 2\V. Windelband, "Gesehichte der Philosophie" ("History of Philos- 
 ophy"), VI., 1, p. 418 et seq.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 355 
 
 niinnesong have their roots in France, but they reached their 
 highest development on this side of the Rhine. If this ulti- 
 mate completion was denied to German painting, the essential 
 reason probably is that it failed of a harmonious working out. 
 German painters, with certain exceptions, remained "copy- 
 ists of the Italians," or they could not rise beyond the gro- 
 tesque of the German fifteenth century. 1 
 
 In general Schlegel 2 is correct when he says of the German : 
 
 Was in Kunst und Wissenschaft 
 Freumder Himmel Grosses schafft, 
 Ward von ihm alsbald erkannt, 
 Wuchs so machtiger seiner Hand. 
 
 (Roughly: Whatever of greatness foreign skies have created in 
 art and science, he recognized at once, and in his hand it mightier 
 grew. ) 
 
 The narrow exclusiveness that to-day so eagerly and noisily 
 loves to pose as patriotism is particularly unbecoming to the 
 German, because in his case it has the effect of particular 
 ingratitude. 
 
 German dependence on what is foreign has surely often 
 been carried too far. For this reason, though Germany has 
 been a power with which the world had to reckon for at least 
 fifteen hundred years, it has never, as Dostoievsky once said, 
 given the world a "new word." The German has either made 
 the foreign a part of himself or he has protested against it. 
 He destroyed ancient Rome, and later the new Roman-Catholic 
 world idea, and he has put nothing in their place. Dostoiev- 
 sky 3 develops this thought into an overpowering vision. He 
 writes that in the future something exceeding strange might 
 perhaps occur. It is this, that some day when Germany has 
 
 i Cf. the chapter on "National Herman Art" in Muthor's "History of 
 Painting," vol. II. 
 
 * Fr. v. Schlegel, "Gedichte" ("Poems"), p. 334. 
 
 8 Dnstoievski. "Drei Ideen" ("Three Ideas") in the January issue of 
 the "Grazdinin," 1877.
 
 356 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 destroyed everything against which it has protested for 
 nineteen centuries, it will suddenly have to die spiritually 
 itself soon after the enemy, simply because there will then 
 be no longer a reason for its existence. There will be nothing 
 left against which it can protest. No one who is not wholly 
 blind can easily escape the demonic terribleness of this idea. 
 There surely is a grain of truth in it, and the present day 
 shows all too clearly the greatness of the danger. 
 
 But Dostoievsky was in error when he thought any nation 
 could or had the duty to give the world a new idea. Dostoiev- 
 sky hopes that it may be Russia. The world is too large and 
 has become too diverse for this. If any nation of the present 
 day desires to do something essentially important for the fu- 
 ture, it must teach the world to see its own many-colored di- 
 versity and it must put it to good account. 
 
 This is just what Germany can do. The same instinct which 
 made the German somewhat contemptible as a protestant in 
 the world of conflicts will make him welcome as a mediator 
 in a united world. 
 
 This is what all good Germans have long since expected and 
 hoped for. 
 
 § 129. — The Period of German Greatness 
 
 One of the first to grasp this clearly was, as always, Goethe. 
 He called the "fatherland talk of the Germans," which began 
 after the "Wars of Liberation, a disease that produced an at- 
 mosphere in which we ' ' daily wasted away like a consumptive 
 with uncertainty, and merely to live and manage to get along 
 had to lie to ourselves in the most miserable way." 1 Goethe 
 is so unhappy over this decay of German greatness and is so 
 anxious to save any precious universal spirit that he makes the 
 almost fantastical proposal "to scatter the Germans like the 
 Jews throughout all the world, for only abroad are they 
 bearable." 2 
 
 i Goethe, letter to Zelter, August 24, 1S23. 
 
 2 I.etter of W. von Humboldt to his wife, November 17, 1S08.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 357 
 
 In order to estimate this proposal at its right value, we 
 should remember that Goethe stood above nations and con- 
 ceived himself as a European, not with his reason, but also 
 with his emotions, which is more important. For this, too, he 
 has given us the decisive test in his demand that we ' ' feel the 
 good fortune or the woe of a neighboring country as though it 
 had happened to our own." 1 Just as Christ does not mean 
 to exclude a legitimate egoism when he says, "Love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself" (for only a madman can love another more 
 than himself), so according to Goethe we are to love other 
 nations like our own. If something happens to our own, it 
 comes first. At the same place Goethe says that, of course, 
 though he "did not hate the French, who are among the most 
 civilized nations of the world," he nevertheless thanked God 
 "when we had gotten rid of them." 
 
 Now, many may object that Goethe did not have any sense 
 of patriotism. It is therefore important to point out that 
 Schiller felt exactly the same in this respect. He surely has 
 described in glowing enough colors the patriotic yearning for 
 liberty of enslaved Switzerland and of occupied France. Even 
 to-day it is still a favorite theme for school essays to show how 
 "the Maid" prepared the ground even in Germany for the 
 awakening of patriotism. 
 
 This latter may have been actually the case, but it is not so 
 in Schiller's sense. Schiller recognized the distinctive quality 
 of the German spirit just in this that, in contrast with the 
 spirit of other nations, it was not nationally restricted. 
 
 Wo der Franke, wo der Britte 
 Mit dern stolzen siegerschritte 
 
 (Roughly: When the Frank, when the Briton with proud vic- 
 torious step.) 
 
 Dare the German, he once asked. 2 now determine our 
 destiny, still be proud of and take joy in his name? Yes, 
 
 i Goethe, "Conversations with Eckermann." 
 
 * Schiller, "Entwurf zu einem Gedietit" ("Draft for a Poem").
 
 358 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 he dare do so. He may leave the battle in a wretched 
 state, but that which gives him his true worth he has not 
 lost. The German Empire and the German nation are two 
 separate things. The German has created his own worth, and 
 even if the empire should fall, German honor would remain 
 unassailable. It is an ethical greatness, indwelling in the 
 civilization and character of the nation, and is not dependent 
 on its political fate. As the political realm trembles, the 
 spiritual one has gro«wn larger and larger. 1 
 
 In these words there is a clear recognition of the fact that 
 German originality can be explained only by the political im- 
 portance of the German Empire. And exultingly he adds that 
 Germany will be victorious when morals and reason are vic- 
 torious and when rude force yields to form. 
 
 Who can seriously deny that we might be at least as proud 
 of such a victory or even prouder, without indicating a lack 
 of modesty, than France is of Austerlitz or England of 
 Trafalgar? 
 
 All German civilization-patriots hoped for such a victory. 
 It was held to be quite impossible that Germany could pos- 
 sibly lose its world-embracing idealism. Jean Paul merely 
 expressed the opinion of his time when he said, "It is not 
 possible for us many-sided Germans (as it is for the French 
 and English) to hold our eyes shut and to feel nothing of 
 Europe except our own eye ; it is impossible for us so to limit 
 our view." 
 
 Nor was this alone the opinion of our classical writers of 
 1813; the romantic writers after 1813, when it was already 
 clearly apparent whence the road was leading, felt this even 
 more. It was toward such a victory that the enthusiasm of 
 the old students' associations (Burschenschaften) was di- 
 rected, and Herwegh's German song was meant for it. He 
 
 i Of the more recent Germans, Moritz Carriere, for example, says 
 "Wechselbeziehungen deutscher und italienischer Kunst," ("'Interrela- 
 tions between German and Italian Art," Breslau, p. 5), "What Germany 
 lost in external power ace-rued to its advantage in art."
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 359 
 
 believes that through modern technical improvements (the 
 "German fiery chariots") a homogeneous European civiliza- 
 tion will become possible, and with proud patriotism he calls 
 upon his people: 
 
 Wenn alle welt den Mut verlor, 
 
 Die Fehde zu beginnen, 
 
 Tritt du mein Volk, den Volhern vor 
 
 Lasz du dein Herzblut rinnon ! 
 
 Gib uns den maun, der das Panier 
 
 Der neuen Zeit erfasse, 
 
 Und durch Europa brecben wir 
 
 Der Freiheit eine Gasse. 1 
 
 (Roughly: When all the world lose courage to begin the strife, 
 stand forth, thou my people, at the other people's head, and let 
 your heart's blood flow. Give us the man who will seize the standard 
 of this new time, and let us through Europe breach a road for 
 liberty.) 
 
 In general at that time the fatherland was conceived as a 
 humane, ethical figure. It is characteristic that two thirds 
 of the patriotic songs in the common German students' song- 
 book give expression to the desire for liberty. At that time 
 all endeavors in the direction of the realization of a unified 
 Germany were identical with the general striving of nations 
 for liberty and progress. In those happy days the German 
 ideal and the ideal of mankind were bound up closely with 
 each other. 
 
 But matters took a different turn. Forgotten was the beau- 
 tiful song which Treitschke said was so often sung when he 
 was still young: 
 
 i Georg Herwegh in 1841 published " Gedichte eines Lebendingen" 
 ("Poems of a Contemporary"), which were were republican or liberal 
 in tendency and extremely popular. In 1847 he raised a German 
 democratic legion for the invasion of Baden and the establishment of 
 a revolutionary government there; but failing, he fled to Switzerland. 
 He translated several of Shakspere's plays. — Translator.
 
 360 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Wenn die Deutsehen Deutsche werden, 
 Griinden sie das Reich auf Erden, 
 Das der Welt den Friesden giebt. 1 
 
 (Roughly: When the Germans German will become, they will 
 establish the realm upon earth which will give peace to the world.) 
 
 But "we no longer feel as simply as that." And yet the 
 old saying, by force, force is overcome, is to-day no longer as 
 absolute as it was. If there is one thing certain in this world, 
 it is the fact that a people to-day can win victory only when it 
 concentrates all its forces upon the peaceful competitive strug- 
 gle between nations, and when it strives to become a force that 
 will bring peace to the world. The time has come when crude 
 force no longer will decide, but the capacity for civilization. 
 There is no question that Germany was far in advance of all 
 other nations in this respect. It would have been only neces- 
 sary to wait ; and the ripe fruit would of its own accord have 
 fallen in its lap. 
 
 The country was then always conceived as some great 
 human moral force, and it is characteristic that in the case of 
 two out of every three patriotic poems in the "Universal Book 
 of German Drinking Songs" the note is a longing for liberty. 
 All the efforts then made to bring about a united Germany 
 were identical with the general efforts of nations toward lib- 
 erty and progress. In those happy days the German ideal and 
 the ideal of humanity were inseparably bound up together. 
 Then came the time when everything changed, and the fine 
 ballad that Treitschke 2 tells us was often sung in his young 
 days was forgotten : 
 
 i H. v. Treitschke, "Zum Gediiohtnis des groszen Krieges" ("In Mem- 
 ory of the Great War"), §28. This "'truly German" is already found 
 in the earliest German novel in Grimmelshausen's "Simplizissimus" (HI, 
 4 ) : "Of the German hero who would conquer the whole world and 
 establish peace among the nations." 
 
 - Heinrich von Treitschke's "Zum Gediichtnis des grossen Krieges"' 
 ("In Memory of the Great War"), p. 28. This "genuinely German" 
 idea occurs in the oldest German novel, in Grimmelshausen's "Sim-
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 361 
 
 "Wenn die Deutschen Deutsche werden, 
 Griinden sie das Keich auf Erden, 
 Das der Welt den Frieden gibt." 
 
 ("When the Germans become Germans, then will they found that 
 empire upon earth which will give the world peace.") 
 
 "Such innocent thoughts are ours no longer." Yet the old 
 saying about force being overcome by force is no longer alto- 
 gether true ; and if one thing is certain in this world it is the 
 fact that the only way in which a people can conquer to-day 
 is by concentrating all its strength on peaceful competition 
 between nation and nation, and endeavoring to attain a posi- 
 tion from which it will be able to give the world peace. The 
 time has come when brute force no longer decides, but capacity 
 for civilization. 
 
 § 130. — German Adaptability 
 
 It can easily be shown that what underlies Germany's 
 progress is adaptability. The German virtue of being inter- 
 ested in other countries besides Germany, which makes Ger- 
 mans virtually citizens of the world, accounts for the fact 
 that Germany is the birthplace of comparative esthetics and 
 philology as well as of scientific geography. A century ago 
 we in Germany already possessed the best geographical jour- 
 nal, and we still have the best maps and atlases and most 
 descriptions of travels. It is owing to the German's desire 
 to become acquainted with the literature of all nations and to 
 his knowledge of foreign languages that Shakspere, Ibsen, 
 Tolstoy, and Brandes are better loved and perhaps better 
 understood than anywhere else in the world ; that we have a 
 Shakspere Society and a Dante Society, and ten English books 
 are translated into German for one German book which is 
 translated into English. Just because the German has ab- 
 sorbed all the world's ideas and deepened them was it pos- 
 
 plizisairnus" (III, 4). "Of the German hero who overcame the whole 
 world and will establish peace among all nations."
 
 362 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 sible for a Luther to succeed a Huss, a Kepler a Galilei, a 
 Helmholtz a Faraday, and a Kant a Berkeley. How much 
 do we not owe in Germany to the conceptions of such genuises 
 as Darwin, Jenner, Lister, and Pasteur? Yet in all their 
 special branches of science we in Germany have now pro- 
 gressed at least as far as the countries where their discoveries 
 were made. 
 
 The special qualities which in the ideal Germany the in- 
 vestigator and the man of art or letters used to benefit in the 
 Germany of ideals still benefit the technician and the com- 
 mercial man in the material Germany of to-day. Our techni- 
 cal science is capable of picking up ideas everywhere and of de- 
 veloping them. Hardly had Marconi discovered wireless tele- 
 graphy than the Telefunken (Wireless) system was working 
 admirably. France may for a time have been ahead of us in 
 the construction of motor-cars and aeroplanes, but our techni- 
 cians have long since caught up with her. We did not invent 
 submarines, but at present ours seem to be the most serviceable. 
 
 Our commercial men proved no less adaptable. Unlike 
 British merchants, they did not compel 1 foreign nations to 
 learn their language, but learned the language of those with 
 whom they wished to trade. Again, they did not try to force 
 their goods on the foreigner, but manufactured whatever spe- 
 cial articles each country needed. Even in quite minor mat- 
 ters, such as fancy goods and light fiction, we readily took the 
 vast number of hints which we picked up all over the world 
 
 i Not literal compulsion, which England has hardly ever applied in 
 such a case, but the much more effectual negative and passive resist- 
 ance, which, being based on incapacity for acquiring anything foreign, 
 could naturally never be laid aside, and for this very reason irresistibly 
 forced others to learn English. Precisely because we do not pos- 
 sess this innate passivity, we resort to measures of compulsion which 
 must of necessity fail. Time was when any one was glad to be able to 
 speak Oerman in Petrograd, Brussels. Warsaw, Triest, Budapest, Copen- 
 hagen, Prague, and Strasburg. This encouraging symptom, noticeable 
 at the beginning of the nineteenth century, became almost automatically 
 changed into its opposite since we attempted to force Germanism upon 
 the world.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 363 
 
 wherever we turned. In short, there was nowhere anything 
 that we did not turn to good account. 
 
 Thus did the German adapt himself, and because of his 
 having done so, Germany has progressed until in a sense she is 
 now the most up-to-date nation in Europe. Her originality, 
 in short, consists, as already said, in the lack of a certain 
 kind of originality, 1 that kind which might be called provin- 
 cialism. And for that future which is to unite all nations to- 
 gether nothing augurs better than this. The modern "nihil 
 me alienum puto" is absolutely incompatible with the old idea 
 of originality. It was the proud aim of our approaching vic- 
 tory to be able to say, knowing what it meant and that it was 
 true, ' ' nothing human is foreign to us. ' ' 
 
 It may not be without interest to recall the fact that such a 
 genius as Dostoyevsky, in his political writings and in his novel 
 "Ein Werdender," lays claims to these qualities on behalf of 
 Russia, alleging that owing to her being still comparatively 
 primitive, she had preserved the power of assimilating foreign 
 civilizations. That primitive people are capable of much in 
 this respect has certainly been proved by Japan, which in an 
 incredibly short time has assimilated first Chinese and then 
 European civilization. This may perhaps have been a good 
 thing for Russia and Japan, but not for the world and for 
 civilization in general. 
 
 The Russians have also improved and developed foreign 
 inventions and ideas, but in so doing have as yet achieved 
 nothing of world-wide importance. This is not meant as a 
 reproach, but merely as the statement of a fact. It may be 
 that Tolstoy will mean something to the world to come, but 
 then it would be only his own actual experiences which would 
 survive, not anything based on some one else's experience. 
 Any Russians who have been devoted to foreign literature and 
 
 i Dr. Nicolai uses the word "originality" in two senses. In this case 
 it has more the sense of the French "un original," an eccentric person. 
 Nothing is more difficult to render than an English word with a Ger- 
 man tail and an umlaut or two thrown in. — Translator.
 
 364 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ideas have never risen to a great height. The Germans alone 
 have grown really great on "a foreign foundation." As Sir 
 William Ramsay is said to have unfortunately remarked, 
 "They do not steal from foreign nations," but adapt from 
 them, transform what they have adapted, and then return 
 it as something new and improved. Let us hope that this was 
 what Sir William Ramsay meant. At any rate, once the hyp- 
 notic effects of the war are over, this is the sense he will attach 
 to his words. In a century in which modern means of com- 
 munications have literally enabled men to unite together, this 
 German capacity for continued and wide-spread development 
 and improvement, capacity which no one seriously denies, 
 would have made central Europe also the center of Europe. 
 
 § 131. — Overstraining of Adaptability 
 
 The future of Europe, indeed perhaps of the world, seemed 
 within our grasp. And we threw it away because — well, 
 simply because we also have the defects of our qualities. 
 "Can be done," indeed, and "must be done" often mean the 
 same thing, and any one who can adapt himself as the Germans 
 can must do so. It is this with which the Germans are re- 
 proached, or, rather, it is this with which they usually re- 
 proach themselves. They have not the stubborn tenacity of 
 the Englishman, who gets a footing everywhere and bis Eng- 
 lish civilization with him. They are easily swamped in a 
 foreign nation, and they like what is foreign. Readiness to 
 learn and capacity for learning foreign languages lead to 
 fondness for using foreign words ; and as we did not trouble 
 much about trifles, we did not consider it absolutely essential 
 to have fashions of our own. 
 
 There was no harm in all this, if also no particular good; 
 and in any case it was of no real importance. Now, however, 
 we are going decidedly too far in our adaptability, for we 
 would fain adopt not only foreign virtues, but even foreign 
 vices. In short, we are so eager to be like the foreigner that 
 we shall end by being forced to throw overboard the root
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 365 
 
 principle underlying our national habits. Other nations were 
 political nations; we want to be so, too. They had colonies; 
 we also want to have some. They were jingoes and nation- 
 alists, and therefore we thought we must also be jingoes and 
 nationalists. In short, because others are retrograde, we think 
 we must become so; and with the pious fidelity of copyists we 
 are endeavoring out of the patriotic vanity of the French, 
 England's obstinate isolation, Spain's national pride, and 
 Russia's brutality to forge a coat of mail to cover up our 
 former aspirations. It almost seems as if we had succeeded 
 in this, and as if Theodor Vischer's lines had come true: 
 
 Was der Corse begann, das hat der Marker vollendet; 
 Rohe Gewalt fur Recht, ist die Parole die Zeit. 1 
 
 This is bad, and however justifiably we may pose as victors, 
 we shall not permanently succeed in making the world believe 
 that we have done otherwise than surrender our most valuable 
 possession and our most vital weapons, receiving nothing in 
 exchange. No human being and no people can really suffer a 
 sea change into something which, after all, they are not. 
 It is with capacities as with good fortune ; a man either has 
 them or not, and whatever he strives to do against his nature 
 and by mere force of will is never anything but unreal and 
 ineffectual. 
 
 Good patriots are becoming anxious about Germany now, 
 and are casting a glance at the future ; but they are doing so 
 for the same reason as the Pan-Germanists are raising an out- 
 cry. That is, they fear that Germany will not prove capable 
 of asserting her own individuality. But, then, they do not 
 consider that her individuality consists in brute force, but 
 in plastic intelligence. As long ago as 1873 Dostoyevsky 2 al- 
 
 i Friedrich Theodor Vischer's "Epigrarrune aus Baden-Baden," pub- 
 lished anonymously in 1SG7, p. 27. Viseher was a German esthetieist. 
 ("What the Corsiean Napoleon bepan, the Man of the Marches [Bis- 
 marck! finished: brute force for right is the watchword of the day.") 
 
 2 "Thoughts on Europe," in Dostoyevsky's "Political Writings." 
 1873.
 
 366 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ways far-seeing, feared some such sudden reversion. In the 
 Russian periodical "Grazdanin" he wrote that it was clear 
 that in Germany, after her recent triumph over France, the 
 feeling of national self-sufficiency had such a pitch of absurd- 
 ity that even science showed traces of jingoism. A year later, 
 when this new tendency was actually noticeable, Emil du Bois 
 Reymond, the well known Berlin physiologist, went still 
 further. "Thorough as we are in everything," he said, "let 
 us beware against falling into the other extreme (of which 
 there are numberless signs), and instead of being a nation 
 which used to be likened to a book-worm, become so much ab- 
 sorbed in politics as to be the least literary of all the great civ- 
 ilized nations." 1 
 
 There is still more ground for this fear to-day. It is a 
 tragedy that, just at the fateful moment when Germanism 
 seemed destined to conquer, indeed it might be said to save, 
 the world, we should risk losing the inheritance bequeathed to 
 us by our great forefathers. Such hopes for the future 
 transcend in importance anything in the past. The German 
 historian Meineke may believe that "the supposition that 
 cosmopolitan and national conceptions harmonize" can be 
 set aside because such harmony "was not always present," 
 which no one denies. But the very notion of such a thing 
 should spur us on to make every effort to be prepared for it, 
 for come it must. All Germany would need to do would be 
 to remember her old traditions, crystallized by Johann Eduard 
 Erdmann 2 in the words, "To be merely German is anti-Ger- 
 man." 
 
 i Address delivered before the Academy of Science by E. du bois Rey- 
 mond, on March 20, 1874. 
 
 2 "Das Nationalitatsprinzip" ("The Principle of Nationally") and 
 "Ernste Spiele" ("Serious play"), in J. E. P^rdmann's "Collected Lec- 
 tures." Fourth ed. 1890, originally delivered in 1802, p. 221. [Erd- 
 mann was a German theologian and philosophical writer. "Ernste 
 Spiele" are essays. His "History of Philosophy" has been translated 
 into English.] — Translator.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 367 
 
 4. — GERMAN HUMANITY AND GERMAN MILITARISM 
 
 § 132.— What Is Militarism? 
 
 The word militarism comes from the Latin miles, which in 
 turn comes from mille (thousand). There is no trace of con- 
 tempt about the word, as there is about "soldier" (Soldat), 
 which means Soldner (mercenary) ; it merely signifies that 
 a man is one of thousands, one of a number. There is some- 
 thing in the word, as in the German word for arniy (Heer), 
 which may be said to mean the same thing as people ; and in 
 the form "militia" (Miliz) this meaning has been preserved. 
 Yet now militarism is often used to denote only aberrations 
 from the real meaning of the word; for instance, the fact 
 that armed man lords it over a man unarmed. Those who 
 use the word in this sense are thinking of officers' preroga- 
 tives, of compulsory service and subordination, or of smart 
 uniforms; but they are also thinking of a wide-spread organi- 
 zation, working without a hitch, embracing in an astounding 
 manner the forces of an entire people, and likewise of glory 
 and contempt of death. In short, it is possible to read into 
 the word militarism either a fine meaning or an evil one. 
 
 All that concerns us is the sense originally attaching to 
 the word, the belief that it is possible to achieve something in 
 the world by means of a host numbering thousands, in other 
 words by force. Militarism in this sense, therefore, is a par- 
 ticular conception of the world. It is the belief that animal 
 struggle, with fangs or cannon, can do more than human strug- 
 gle with words and convictions. 
 
 Now, there is not the slightest doubt that the overwhelming 
 majority of Germans believe this, which is all the more singular 
 because, as explained in Chapter I, all great Germans have 
 hoped for the victory of reason and anathematized war. Now, 
 this contradiction must be explained, and, if possible, traced 
 to its one source. 
 
 The Germans say that they make excellent soldiers simply
 
 368 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 because the German does everything best, and that this is a 
 good thing. Other nations also say that the Germans make 
 excellent soldiers, only they think that this is because people 
 in Germany have been too much taken up with soldiering, and 
 that this is not a good thing. It is clear that here again every 
 one agrees about the main facts, and disagrees only as to the 
 inferences to be drawn from them. 
 
 Yet even here the disagreement is not hopeless, for probably 
 no Germans, save for a handful of Hotspurs, believe that their 
 martial qualities are really what is best in them to-day. The 
 modern German, they say, can certainly fight well, just as 
 he can do a great many thing's well ; but this does not prevent 
 him from doing the work of peace as admirably as he would 
 do it even were it no longer necessary to appeal to arms. Mili- 
 tarism, in short, they say, is only a kind of outside husk with 
 which German all-round capability has become overgrown ; 
 it is by no means the chief characteristic of German life, as 
 fanatical German-haters think. Moreover, uniforms are only 
 an outer cloak, put on for the time being, but afterward to be 
 put off. Beneath this cloak is the real kernel of German 
 civilization. The word "civilization" is then more closely 
 denned as meaning science, particularly chemistry, manufac- 
 tures, especially iron constructions, trade, and more particu- 
 larly ready-made clothing, organization, and above all obedi- 
 ence. 
 
 Now, it is far from easy to decide in detail what is kernel 
 and what is husk, for we have gradually come to realize 
 that nothing in this world is due to mere chance. If Belgium 
 has the densest system of railways and Denmark most news- 
 papers ; if most letters and telegrams are sent in England ; 
 if America has the most schools, and Bosnia the fewest; if it 
 is Serbia in which the largest proportion of people are mar- 
 ried and in Sweden the smallest — all this is no less significant 
 than the fact that Germany and France have the largest per- 
 centage of people belonging to the army or navy (ten and 
 fourteen per thousand respectively), and America and Swit-
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 369 
 
 zerland the smallest (one and five tenths per thousand respec- 
 tively). 
 
 There is nothing in the world which does not matter, and 
 everything which a human being or a people does is significant. 
 The attentive observer will perceive, at any rate, the essential, 
 origial cause for everything which the man in the street de- 
 scribes as accidental, and thus come to see beauty even in what 
 considered by itself, seems ugly. 
 
 German militarism must be considered in this way; and 
 then, even in this distorted form, the German ideal will be 
 clearly perceivable; and we shall see the path which is lead- 
 ing Germany to a nobler future. 
 
 § 133. — German Love of Liberty 
 
 It has often been wrongly thought that by their insistence 
 on civilization and militarism being one and the same thing, 
 the Germans were attempting to justify one by the other or 
 correct one by the other. In general all that is meant is that 
 both spring from the same root. There are very few persons 
 who do not realize that an upright man may have a brother 
 who is a criminal ; and hence they think that if one side of the 
 German is good, the other must likewise be so. Persons thus 
 attempting to save their honor of course tend to be ridiculous, 
 but after all such apparent opposites as militarism and civiliza- 
 tion are really only different forms which, as a biologist would 
 say, "German substance" can assume. To endeavor to trace 
 them to a common source and really to explain Clausewitz by 
 Kant, cannot but be fascinating. 1 
 
 All the peculiarities said to distinguish the German from 
 other nations, whether advantageously or not, may probably 
 
 i See "Kants Finfluse auf die deutsehe Kultur" ("Kant's Influence 
 on German Civilization"), by H. Cohen. Official address at Marburg, 
 1883. Diimler: Berlin, p. 31. But Cohen did not go deeply into the 
 question, and in order to overcome the difficulty of making the contents 
 of the Peace Book agree with those of the War Book he makes the far 
 from satisfactory statement that the one dealt with principles and the 
 other was emnirical.
 
 370 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 be traced to his strongly marked sense of individuality. In 
 the most ancient times, as Tacitus tells us, this found expres- 
 sion in love of liberty, and also in an unmistakeable thirst for 
 vengeance, about which we find a great deal in the writings 
 of the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus. Most of all, how- 
 ever, it showed itself in excesses, a fact which both these writ- 
 ers confirm. Kleist's superlatively fine description of the 
 Battle of Hermann shows all these un-German characteristics 
 in chaotic savagery. 1 Purged of all impurities, they reappear 
 in Luther's defiant saying, "Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht 
 anders." 2 The impression of German strength is merely en- 
 hanced if we think of Galilei, that other great reformer, who 
 likewise "could do naught else," yet merely murmured, "Ep- 
 pur si muove." Galilei's achievement may have been greater 
 and of more permanent value for mankind, but Luther strikes 
 us as having been humanly finer at that particular moment. 
 
 The Germans of that day were a savage and self-willed folk, 
 and tended to become still more so owing to the conditions of 
 their country. Whoever wished to settle in Germany, the 
 land of forests, cleared a few acres for himself, and squatted 
 down thereupon, not troubling about any one or anything else. 
 It is characteristic that in a German village a house and its 
 surrounding fields are quite complete in themselves, and 
 that nowhere else in the world are there such straggling, and 
 therefore such large, villages as in Germany. And as it be- 
 gan with the house, so it continued up the ladder of social 
 community. True, the free peasant farmers, except in Fries- 
 land and the fen districts, were soon degraded into subjection. 
 But every knight was free; in most cases he even exercised 
 the lowest judicial functions, and could announce or renounce 
 quarrels for himself and his men-at-arms. Then there were 
 the free cities of the empire, the earldoms, and principalities, 
 electorates and bishoprics; for since the Emperor Otto had 
 
 i Heinrieh von Kleist, German dramatist of the Romantic school. 
 The "Hermannschlact" was written in 1810. — Translator. 
 2 "Here I stand : I can do naught else."
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 371 
 
 played off the church against the principalities there were ec- 
 clesiastical principalities even in Germany. 
 
 All these miniature states had their own laws and their 
 own coinage, and Germany has never succeeded in freeing 
 herself from this absurd caricature of her quondam love of 
 liberty. Had not the iron hand of the Corsican smashed up 
 all this hallowed tomfoolery, who knows if we ourselves would 
 have not laid hands on these relics of the Middle Ages? 
 There is something in provincialism beyond doubt suited to 
 German ways, like the countless associations which he loves 
 forming. 
 
 Such was the people on whom the new era burst, with its 
 social demands, first in the form of the doctrine of the broth- 
 erhood of man, and afterward in the far more effective form 
 of profitable commercial connections. 
 
 § 134. — Three Reasons why German Liberty Jias Taken a 
 Wrong Turn 
 
 When solitary human beings began to consort and associate 
 together, first in Europe and afterward throughout the world, 
 each individual family, clan, or tribe, as the case might be, 
 could not, even in Germany, continue to insist on keeping to 
 itself. In Germany, however, this new tendency encountered 
 very peculiar conditions — conditions which have had a decisive 
 influence on the subsequent development of German mentality. 
 
 First, in Prussia, which then became the decisive factor 
 in Germany's history, a thin surface sprinkling of Teutons, or, 
 more correctly speaking, Germans, ruled over a backward and 
 consequently not easily led mixture of races consisting of Obo- 
 trites, Sorbians, Varini, 1 Wends, Pruzzi, Masurians, Kaschubs, 
 Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, and Letts, besides other Slav peo- 
 ples. It was quite easy to maintain the comfortable position 
 of overlords here, and the enslavement of the subject peoples 
 made Prussia politically very prosperous. Hence the belief 
 
 * German Warnen, a Germanic tribe mentioned by Tacitus. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 372 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 arose that this mode of government left nothing to be de- 
 sired. 
 
 Secondly, the Renaissance, which caused a revival of liberty 
 and civilization and culture in general throughout Europe, 
 subsequently indirectly led to a diminution of the church's 
 power in Europe. But in Germany, owing to her strong re- 
 ligious bent, it all passed off in religious disputes; and the 
 humanists properly so called never had much influence 
 there. Hence in Germany all the liberalizing tendencies 
 of the new era were from the very first driven into a 
 side channel. Men were so taken up with religious liberty 
 that the}' forgot there was any such thing as civil liberty ; 
 and so busy were they about spiritual affairs that they forgot 
 all about intellectual matters. Above all, however, Germany 
 got into the habit of considering the world on which she, after 
 all, depended as something far away above the clouds, and 
 anything "on this side" or "here below" as of small moment. 
 
 Thirdly, in his comparative indifference with regard to ter- 
 restrial concerns the German did not expect anything on this 
 earth to be complete or perfect, and accordingly he frittered 
 away whatever individuality he still possessed in all manner of 
 absurd trivialities. 
 
 Germany thus became the country of differences in rank. 
 The nobility in all countries used, indeed, to lay great stress 
 on questions of etiquette; but whereas in the rest of Europe 
 the knights had ceased to have any importance as a separate 
 class as early as the fifteenth century, in Germany they con- 
 tinued a recognized class on into the nineteenth century. 
 Moreover, ordinary citizens used to ape the nobility, gilds 
 and corporations flourished, and every one endeavored to ob- 
 tain some rank, position, title, or order, which would confer 
 on him a distinction, albeit a trifling one, above his fellows. 
 
 The ordinary Philistine, therefore, satisfied his yearning "to 
 be somebody" by acquiring stars and titles, while the culti- 
 vated German found satisfaction for his aspirations in philoso- 
 phy, which accordingly began to develop along specific lines.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 373 
 
 Thus, while British and French philosophy turned increas- 
 ingly toward practical questions, German philosophy became 
 more and more abstract. 1 What German genius needed was 
 that in the free world of thought each person should be able 
 to be a law unto himself, while in the world of hard facts he 
 was forced to bow the knee to his superiors. A noteworthy 
 instance of this is Kant, than whom no one followed a more 
 independent line of thought and who yet lived in dependence 
 on others. He who, as Karl Lehrs 2 says, wrote the Marseil- 
 laise of philosophy, gave way afterward in theological ques- 
 tions, and disavowed Fichte's doctrines so as not to incur the 
 suspicion of atheism. Kant was then old, and therefore we 
 shall not blame him, but only those who forced him to take such 
 a step. 
 
 It was Kant's philosophy and none other which decided 
 Germany's future. In answer to liberty he brought forward 
 transcendental idealism, and in answer to subjection empirical 
 realism, urging that both transcendental idealism and subjec- 
 tion were equally justified and equally necessary. We may 
 think of this dual answer as we please; we may urge that the 
 question ought not to have been put so; and we may also con- 
 sider Kant or one of his followers to have succeeded in their 
 attempt to bring about harmony by means of dialectics. The 
 fact remains t hat in practice this "antinomy" 3 was treated in 
 most un-Kantian fashion. Men learned to find in transcen- 
 dental philosophy satisfaction for their aspirations after lib- 
 
 i ]• A Lange, in his "weschichte des Materialismus" ("History of 
 Materialism"), publi*hed in 1875, says, "Those countries which are the 
 home of modern philosophy are turning to practical life, while meta- 
 physics are left to Germany." Book II, pp. 417-4U8 of this work are 
 singularly interesting. 
 
 -"Die Philosophic und Kant gegeniiber dem Jahre 1848" ("Kant 
 ami Philosophy about the Year 1848"), by Karl Lehrs, 1886. "Altpreus- 
 Bische Monatschrift," XXXII, p. 91. 
 
 3 Antinomy is a Kantian term, meaning an apparent conflict of rea- 
 son with itself. Thus it may be argued, apparently equally reason- 
 ably, that the nni\erse is infinitely vast and that it has spatial limits 
 - — Translator
 
 374 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 erty, while in other respects they became politicians of the most 
 material order. 
 
 This crass inconsistency is the illegitimate offspring of the 
 thrice-outraged Teutonic longing for liberty. Once it was 
 outraged by being in the bonds of slavery, once by a Christi- 
 anity that had become abstract, and once by misinterpreted 
 transcendental philosophy; and the inconsistency runs through 
 the whole of German intellectual life. 
 
 In fact and practice the German's notion of civilian liberty, 
 a notion which had already had to suffer from the "liberty of a 
 true Christian," gave way for good and all to the "intelligible 
 liberty of a philosopher." In practice he became brutal and 
 the reverse of free ; yet Germany, as far as thought was con- 
 cerned, continued the freest, and, we may say with pride, the 
 most humane country. 
 
 §135.— "The Absolute" 
 
 As this liberty, however, existed only as far as thought and 
 ideas were concerned, and was consequently unlimited, it de- 
 generated. Germany, to put it briefly, became the land of 
 absolutism. It was believed that there was an absolute lib- 
 erty, an absolute happiness, and an absolute knowledge. It 
 was believed that a formula had been discovered by which 
 men could be made free, happy, and wise even against their 
 will ; and it is no mere chance that German philosophy should 
 have produced dogmatic Marxianism, which advocated a fu- 
 ture state to be absolutely governed, while at the same time 
 German social democracy should be, generally speaking, the 
 most faithful reflection of the German people, which is com- 
 pounded of doctrinaire idealism and practical militarism. 
 
 Kant believed that by setting up the categorical imperative 
 of duty he could create a moral code which would be at once 
 absolute and binding on all human beings alike. Later on 
 Karl Marx hoped to endow the whole world with happiness 
 and prosperity by first overthrowing it and then reconstruct- 
 ing it on right principles. Similarly the Germans really and
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 375 
 
 honestly believe that the world would be happy were it forced 
 to do their bidding. We have carried organization to a high 
 pitch, and we think the whole world could not but be content 
 were it similarly organized. "Do or die" is a German pro- 
 verb, and the pleasing saying, "Well, if you won't be my 
 brother, I '11 bash your head in" has become another German 
 proverb. 
 
 And the German thinks this is the receipt by which he can 
 redeem the world. He may be wrong, but that does not alter 
 the fact that this is his belief. This being the case, the Ger- 
 man, although not really more uneducated or uncivilized than 
 the Briton or the Frenchman, coolly comes along with his 
 cannon and his bombs, having made serious preparations be- 
 forehand for this as if it were the most important business of 
 his life. 
 
 A Frenchman will never understand this ; he is too frivolous 
 and materialistic. He thinks that a dead man is just a dead 
 man, an asphyxiating bomb is just an asphyxiating bomb, 
 and so on; and he orders his life accordingly. But the Ger- 
 man knows that behind both there lurks something else — an 
 idea. In his opinion cannon and bombs are something where- 
 with he is to pursue his civilizing mission ; hence he plays 
 with such things as innocently as children with crackers. 
 The ideas lurking behind the things themselves are the excuse 
 for everything, and behind the bombs every German seeks and 
 finds what he wants to find. The Christian finds his God, 
 the philosopher his Kant, the philanthropist his love of hu- 
 manity, and the Philistine universal order; and the quint- 
 essence of all these "moral ideas" is always the same — the 
 proud words, "We '11 give them a good drubbing." 
 
 Led by force, the German has grown pious and good, rich 
 and contented, and because he has learned to believe in the 
 absolute, he thinks that whatever is good for his own country 
 must also be good in itself and can in time be thrashed into 
 people. Besides this, Germany has become great because 
 from everywhere she has taken what is good, and therefore
 
 376 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 she would only be paying: a debt of gratitude by forcing her 
 virtues — order and organization — upon others. The one 
 thing she overlooks, however, is that no one can endure to 
 accept such gifts unless of his own free will. 
 
 Here we have certainly an instance of strange things com- 
 ing to pass; and even if the direct introduction of German 
 order into Belgium meets with difficulties, yet Germany is in- 
 directly, perhaps even against her will, forcing the whole 
 world to organize after the fashion of the Germans. The 
 world sees that German organization has answered well in 
 war, and it tries to imitate it. A very great deal will cer- 
 tainly be organized on German lines. After the war we shall 
 see whether this is a good thing or not, for with foreign na- 
 tions likewise working their hardest, the only result can be 
 that the German will have to work even harder than before 
 in order to keep up with the keener competition. It may be 
 very salutary, but it is none the less regrettable that five 
 million people had to die in order that this result may be 
 brought about in Europe by militarism. 
 
 Still more regrettable is it, however, that, in order to achieve 
 it, German humane aspirations should have become so much 
 misdirected. The fact must certainly not be ignored that 
 worship of success and lust of power have had something to 
 do with the rise of what we- call Prussian militarism, yet this 
 cannot be of more than secondary importance. The main 
 and decisive cause seems to me to have been misdirected hu- 
 mane aspirations which, the Germans, anticipating events, 
 w r anted to create that w 7 orld-organization the necessity for 
 which is obvious ; only, unfortunately, they wanted to do this 
 not by the power of reason, but by that of force. 
 
 § 136. — Bethink Yourselves! 
 
 There is a wonderful picture by Anselm von Feuerbach, 1 
 "The Battle of the Amazons," which hangs in the Nuremberg 
 
 i 1829-1890. Feuerbach represents modern German classical paint- 
 ing. — Translator.
 
 LEGITIMATE INDIVIDUALISM OF NATIONS 377 
 
 picture gallery, but has never taken the fancy of the public, 
 to whom it seemed too lifeless to represent a battle. Yet 
 every fiber is brimful of the truest life. Men and women are 
 seen interlaced in an extraordinary manner, and it is impos- 
 sible to say whether this is due to love or hatred. Thus a 
 boy is shown kneeling before a woman. Is this because of 
 her beauty, or was he knocked down by a passing horse? 
 Both sides are holding back their weapons and looking each 
 other in the face, and if they lift them up now, it will be in 
 love. Then in the center two are embracing each other as in 
 the very ecstasy of love, and yet in their hands an ax and a 
 lance are flashing. In the foreground lies a maiden mortally 
 wounded, but her outstretched arm is holding back the man, 
 even as a woman might seek to detain the husband hastening 
 to leave her after the nuptial night. And on all sides are 
 yearning looks, enraptured gestures; everywhere, in short, 
 love, which seems turned to hatred, and which is in reality 
 combat. 
 
 I could not help thinking of this picture when our merry, 
 laughing German youths left for the front. They did not 
 hate the enemy, as did our ill-advised intellectuals, and they 
 loved the world throughout its length and breadth ; and with 
 this vague love of the world and of mankind in their hearts 
 they went forth to battle. 
 
 In order to understand how cruelly hard these gentle souls 
 have become "at the front," I was forced to think of Kleist's 
 Penthesilea. 1 He, too, shows how closely akin is love to hate, 
 and the extremes to which misguided love can go. Penthesi- 
 lea, the love-sick Amazonian woman, is determined to possess 
 Achilles, but dazzled by false pride, she marches upon him, 
 surrounded by her yelping dogs, with her elephants and all 
 the pomp and circumstance of glorious war. And yet 
 Achilles was willing to surrender voluntarily to her. 
 
 i Heinrich von Kleist, German romantic dramatic writer. "Pen- 
 thesilea," pub. 1808, is one of the plays by which he is still remembered. 
 — Translator.
 
 378 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Even so the German Army, with its 42-centimeter Morsers, 
 its asphyxiating bombs, its poisonous gases, and its submarines, 
 is marching upon the young world that is ready to accept and 
 believe the old German legend of the humanity of man. 
 
 Penthesilea murders the youthful son of the Gods, and dies 
 as a result of having done so. But we do not wish the young 
 divine idea to die, nor yet that Germany should perish. There 
 is still time ; therefore, ye Germans, bethink yourselves ! Be- 
 think yourselves of your own selves !
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Altruism 
 
 1. — overcoming pessimism 
 § 137. — Germany's Mission 
 
 That men must and do associate with one another no one 
 will deny. The only question is whether their association is 
 best promoted by fighting one another or by helping one an- 
 other, and whether love or hate, unselfishness or selfishness, 
 right or might, prevail or ought to prevail in the world. 
 
 No human being is so utterly devoid of all humanity as not 
 to fancy, at any rate in his best mood, that it is permissible 
 to believe in such things as right and unselfishness, love and 
 mutual aid ; but afterward away he goes and acts as if he did 
 not believe in them at all. Indeed, he does not believe in 
 them as realities, but in his haughty infatuation imagines they 
 are some ideal creation of his own, something which can ac- 
 cordingly be laid aside at will as soon as it is no longer com- 
 patible with practical politics. Now, there is nothing on 
 earth more contemptible than practical politics when they 
 conflict with idealism. 
 
 Germany, as I hinted at the beginning of the last chapter, 
 is here in a peculiarly difficult position. She dreams herself 
 into a moral world, and appeals to the idealism of a man such 
 as Kant, and she acts in a tangible world and pursues prac- 
 tical politics after the manner of such a man as Bismarck. 
 The gulf between these two, however, seems still bridgable. 
 But Kant degenerated into Cohen, 1 and Bismarck into Bern- 
 
 1 It is characteristic that Cohen should be almost of the school of 
 Berkeley. 
 
 379
 
 380 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 liardi; and just because the German has conceived the loftiest 
 possible conception of morality did he depart from them ut- 
 terly in practice. Perhaps, indeed, he could not do otherwise. 
 "Whoever endeavors to square the circle, very easily manages 
 to forget even his rule of three. 
 
 Nevertheless, efforts which in themselves have no prospect 
 of success are scarcely ever quite in vain. Thus when it be- 
 came impossible to find a rational expression for numbers, the 
 new science of irrational numbers arose. Similarly, idealism 
 was not in vain. Thus, when it became impossible to act 
 morally on the basis of idealism, the duty arose of seeking 
 another basis of action. If Kantian Germany, without being 
 false to her name, became imbued with "practical politics" 
 to the very marrow of her bones, this merely proves that we 
 are not meant to expend our energies in expressing pious as- 
 pirations, that the most magnificent castle in the air can 
 never hold out against terrestrial attack, and that morality 
 based on ideals simply has no solid basis. 
 
 The collapse of idealism, which became manifest in 1914, 
 must be our justification for seeking some such solid basis. 
 This collapse occurred just when all discerning persons 
 considered it an intellectually incomprehensible anachronism; 
 for this very reason it has proved more forcibly than any 
 past event that the ordinary idealistic morality is wholly in- 
 adequate, since it failed to make its followers act morally. 
 This applies to Kantian and Christian morality alike, whether, 
 as Kant will have it, morality is to be compared only with the 
 star-spangled heavens, or whether, as the church teaches, it 
 is above the heavens. 
 
 No nation in the world has more cause to set off in quest of 
 this new earthly morality than Germany, for none has set up 
 such high moral pretensions. It may be, however, that those 
 who ascend to great heights must first be profoundly abased. 
 Jena may have been necessary that Leipsic might occur ; and it 
 may also have been necessary to declare that right was a scrap 
 of paper in order that mankind might be induced to seek some
 
 ALTRUISM 381 
 
 better guaranty. Were this to be so, then even this war 
 might be something which future generations would gladly 
 remember as the birth-throes of a new society, which, as 
 Browning put it in "By the Fireside," "forwards the gen- 
 eral deed of men," rightly thinking that in so saying he has 
 said the most that can be said of any event. 
 
 Perhaps, however, no people in the world is so well adapted 
 as the Germans to discover this new social order, because of 
 the training they have received from two such contradictions 
 as "Kant's idealism and Bismarck's practical politics," both 
 of which collapsed in this war because there was no connection 
 between them. We may now consider it Germany's future 
 work to reunite these apparently incompatible characteristics 
 of hers, which have already been shown to be of common 
 origin ; but to do this work she must shake herself free from 
 the vague and indefinite aspirations forced upon her from 
 without. 
 
 That this is possible and that firmly fixed ideal, based on 
 solid facts, are conceivable, it is the purpose of the present 
 chapter to prove. This natural morality, as it might be called, 
 will one day become a reality; and it seems as if its day were, 
 so to speak, predestined to dawn in Germany. And this not- 
 withstanding the events of the last half-century, but because 
 of the peculiar temperament of the Germans themselves. 
 Then Germany, that terra nehulosa in which the sun can yet 
 shine with such wondrous clearness, will have fulfilled her 
 mission, per aspera ad astra. That mission does not consist 
 in sending calico to Bagdad, but in giving the world peace. 
 It may, I grant, seem foolhardy to cherish any such hope in 
 the midst of the unparalleled horrors of this war, and many 
 persons will rather incline to agree with Heinrieh Mann. 1 
 when he took as a motto for his book, "This nation is hope- 
 ess. 
 
 Still, it is better to be optimistic than in too great haste to 
 abandon our only hope. Even I fully admit the immense 
 
 i Contemporary (lerman writer. — Translator.
 
 382 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 power of those who have made the progress of a whole nation 
 center round the sale of calico in Bagdad; and I, too, am 
 well aware that self-knowledge cannot be attained save in a 
 hard school. But somehow or other it will come to pass that 
 the German again becomes German, and in another fifty years 
 there will again be a Germany that realizes her own true 
 sphere, and whose pride is in her own characteristics and not 
 in her armaments. 
 
 For at all times it has been believed, even by those who have 
 not "dipt into the future, far as human eye could see," that 
 the war-drum must one day throb no longer and the battle-flag 
 be furled," 
 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 
 
 There the comnionsense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 
 
 § 138. — The New Empire 
 
 Some semblance of justice, indeed, is weaving and working 
 in all this murder and horror. It all depends whether we can 
 see this semblance. Man to-day lies bound upon the ground, 
 with the war vultures devouring his vitals. But man to-day 
 need be no less optimistic than his prototype, Prometheus 
 bound, whom nearly two thousand five hundred years ago 
 iEschylus made say that, as his mother Themis had taught 
 him, the day must come when might would be overcome and 
 wisdom prevail. 
 
 Prometheus, it is true, is not yet unbound, and the Titans 
 and the Forces of all still bid him defiance; but we may con- 
 sole ourselves with the reflection that even the oldest tragedian 
 possessed this optimistic belief. For the secret of Prome- 
 theus 1 is no cabalistic or magic formula, as the Scholastics 
 used to believe; rather is it the triumphant faith in that 
 future when 
 
 i Prometheus knows a secret, and Zeus is ready to free him if he re- 
 veals it. Prometheus, however, is silent, feeling assured that even 
 without this he will be set free.
 
 ALTRUISM 383 
 
 The man remains, — 
 Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man: 
 Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, 
 Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king 
 Over himself; just gentle, wise: but man. 
 
 Time was when the gods were a savage, primeval folk, and 
 their "peace" was based only "on dark Fate's perpetual 
 night"; that is, not upon free understanding, but on natural 
 compulsion, which is independent of all personality. Yet per- 
 sonality prevailed, first, because of the selfishness of tyranni- 
 cal Zeus, 1 who represented the age of selfishness and war in 
 which yEschylus lived. But this was only a transition stage, 
 and Pro-metheus, who endowed the world with the beginnings 
 of all science and all art, all technical knowledge and all civili- 
 zation, knows that these forces will overthrow the kingdom of 
 selfishness and self-will, and that the conception of humanity 
 will then prevail. To symbolize this conquest of self, Pro- 
 metheus is to be free if another, out of pure love of man- 
 kind, descends into Hades and sacrifices himself for Prome- 
 theus; that is, for mankind. 
 
 We have not yet reached this point. War still goes on, 
 but peace will come. That is the secret of Prometheus. As- 
 suredly he will be free: Either Zeus will learn to understand 
 the sacred mystery, and then he will voluntarily break his 
 brother's bonds in sunder, or he will never learn to honor 
 Mother Themis. 2 Then will "Zeus be hurled from his 
 throne," and Prometheus will receive "his freedom, long de- 
 sired and long delayed." 
 
 What is marvelous about this Prometheus legend of ^Eschy- 
 lus is the instinctive faith in the progress of mankind — a faith 
 which produces that optimism which is ever casting a glance 
 forward toward the future. 
 
 i yEschylus says that Zeus "by the force of will has founded a new 
 kingdom in the domain of the gods." 
 
 v Themis was wedded to Zens, to whom she bore the Horce. She 
 personilies law and order, and was worshiped as a goddess of prophecy. 
 — Translator.
 
 384 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 § 139. — Natural Right 
 
 The pessimist sees nothing but a meaningless "up and 
 down" and "hither and thither" in history, which is to him, 
 as to Schopenhauer, 1 merely a series of events, a nightmare 
 of the human race, without any sort of system. Yet we may 
 proudly say, even although the actual basis in fact for such a 
 conception has but lately been supplied by recent natural 
 science, that almost all mankind have always been optimists 
 hitherto, and thus unconsciously adhered to the conception 
 of evolution. Except for Schopenhauer, after all only a single 
 person, and the Sophists, all serious thinkers have held it 
 true that the world might rise on stepping-stones of its dead 
 self to higher things. Despite their imperfect knowledge, a 
 certain definite scheme of evolution could be traced. They 
 actually believed in the prevalence of a law which was grad- 
 ually bringing us nearer to an ideal, and, however widely their 
 opinions may otherwise have differed, all sought what they 
 desired in right. All followed after Heraclitus, that wise man 
 of old, who proclaimed that what nations had to do was to 
 tight for the right. 
 
 Unhappily these efforts have taken two different directions. 
 Those which have extended in the so-called idealistic direction 
 have endeavored to bring about a spiritual kingdom, the king- 
 dom of God ; the others, those with a material trend, have 
 endeavored to bring about social evolution. But instead of 
 mutually assisting each other, these two tendencies have op- 
 posed each other; and what is now needed is to unite them. 
 
 Since Heraclitus and vEschylus proclaimed struggle and 
 promised victory, mankind has taken a considerable step for- 
 ward. True, as Deussen says, we see even now that the 
 "principle of the right of the stronger, which has been dis- 
 placed in the individual countries, is the only one still pre- 
 
 i "Die Welt ala Wile und Yorstellimg" ("The World as Will and as 
 Idea"). By Arthur Schopenhauer, 1819. Vol. I, § 35. Cf. also the 
 tame work, Vol. II, Chap. 38.
 
 ALTRUISM 385 
 
 vailing between one country and another. 1 But between man 
 and man the goddess of law and order has prevailed, and, at 
 any rate in principle, the "right of the stronger has ceased 
 to exist." 
 
 To this we must hold fast, for any one considering the his- 
 tory of nations really might think that to look for justice 
 upon earth is looking for Utopia. Everywhere it is "Ym 
 victis" — "Woe to the vanquished"; again has Brennus - cast 
 his sword into the scales of Justice, and the Old Testament 
 words, "the law is slacked," still hold good. 3 
 
 How comes it, then, that man has nevertheless persisted in 
 believing in eternal rights, in love of his neighbor, in altru- 
 ism, human dignity, and whatever all the other ways may be of 
 stating the fact that man respects every other man as being 
 one of his own kind ? From time immemorial it has been a 
 disputed question whether this principle of right is naturally 
 existent in us as an element in our souls, as it were, or has 
 arisen in us, so to speak, artificially, having been agreed upon, 
 owing to reflection and the dictates of reason. 
 
 For thousands of years this question has been discussed 
 without any one ever having asked whether this "communion 
 of men" may not perhaps be a function of their physical 
 constitution, and therefore an actual demonstrable fact, 
 Were this so, it would of course be absurd to describe right as 
 man-made. On the other hand, to say that it is implanted by 
 nature or God in men's souls is the same thing as instinctively 
 recognizing that it is subject to laws which are, after all, 
 
 i"Die Elemente der Metaphysik" ("The Elements of Metaphysics") 
 by Paul Deussen, 2nd ed., p. 233 f. by Paul Deussen. The writer adds, 
 "From this may be inferred how immature our race still is, for it may 
 be probably certainly foretold that the time will come when we shall 
 look back on war as a horrible piece of barbarism belonging to long-past 
 dark ages." 
 
 8 The leader of the Gauls must be meant here, who invaded Greece 
 in 279 B.C. He and his men were checked at Thermopylae, then devas- 
 tated ^itolia, and advanced on Delphi, but were completely defeated 
 when Brennus killed himself. — Translator. 
 
 a Habakkuk 1, 4.
 
 386 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 independent of our personal desires and superior to all human 
 wisdom. 
 
 Here again it can be seen how wisely and unconsciously 
 justly mankind in general feels; for except for a short pe- 
 riod when the Sophists taught that right is not anything 
 natural, but only something agreed upon, — that is, established 
 by man, — every one has believed in a divine or innate right, 
 — that is, a right independent of any human will, something, 
 as it were, impersonal and yet a fact. Socrates in particular 
 insisted that if there were no absolute right, then there never 
 could be any right at all ; and if we reflect upon this, it seems 
 and is so self-evident that since Socrates 's time no one has 
 questioned this principle. Only in one respect do the post- 
 Socratic philosophers differ from their master, very unfortu- 
 nately for them. They forgot that in the meantime the 
 <f>v<ns had been replaced by the /tera <f>v<nv, that which lies be- 
 hind nature. Men ceased to perceive the primeval cause of 
 everything absolute in Socrates 's simple natural facts, and 
 thought it needful to take refuge in the metaphysics of Aris- 
 totle or even of the latter 's inferior successors. Thus what 
 was subsequently proclaimed as "natural right'' had nothing 
 to do with nature, but was, on the contrary, metaphysical 
 right, which had come about by human ordinance. 
 
 Once we have recognized this misconception, the. question 
 inevitably arises whether the time-honored difference between 
 Socrates and his opponents does not vanish if we simply trace 
 back absolute right to absolute natural laws. I believe that this 
 is so. There is an absolute right, based upon the conception 
 which natural science proves true, that mankind is an organ- 
 ism; and hence this right is no less absolute than mankind 
 itself. (Cf. Chap. XII.) This must suffice for us, for none 
 can penetrate beyond his own race and the natural conditions 
 to which it is subject. But if mankind once realizes the neces- 
 sity of this absolute right for the human race, then will it have 
 understood the secret of Prometheus. Then will pessimism 
 be overcome, and the vision of Christ be a reality.
 
 ALTRUISM 387 
 
 § 140. — Right and Cosmopolitanism 
 
 But even if we reject all metaphysical basis for right, we are 
 nowise entitled to consider the efforts of two thousand years as 
 having been of no avail. Natural science did not then exist, 
 and to develop the idea of right, it was unquestionably of most 
 importance to prove that a right was unconditionally a right. 
 Without metaphysics this would hardly have been possible. 
 
 Now, we must note the fact that all these great moral philos- 
 ophers of olden times were already thorough cosmopolitans. 
 This, though much too often forgotten, after all could not have 
 been otherwise, for absolute right cannot but apply to all hu- 
 man beings. Christ was by no means the first citizen of the 
 world. Socrates before him taught that all men were broth- 
 ers, and in return for this the people of Athens handed him a 
 draft of hemlock, even as the people of Jerusalem at a later 
 date nailed Jesus to the cross, and as even now any one who 
 does not see eye to eye with the mass of his fellow-citizens is 
 outlawed by them. But the death of Socrates served as an 
 example and a warning, and his disciples, to whom alone we 
 owe our knowledge of him, consequently kept very quiet about 
 his dangerous new philosophy. Nevertheless, the great Athe- 
 nian's cosmopolitan ideas must have been very popular even 
 five hundred years after his death, for the comparatively 
 ignorant Epictetus, 1 when expressing his belief in all men 
 having one and the same country, quotes Socrates. If, he says, 
 what philosophers say about the relationship between God and 
 man be true, what is man to do, when asked to what country 
 he belongs, but answer as Socrates did, not, "I am an Athenian 
 or a Corinthian," but "I am a citizen of the world." 
 
 This idea, however, prevailed not in Greece only, where it 
 was principally advocated by the schools of the Cynics and 
 Stoics, but among enlightened men throughout the world. An- 
 cient Indian and Chinese literature affords numerous proofs 
 of this. Now, about the time of Christ this conception of 
 
 i Conversations. Book I. 9.
 
 388 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 world-citizenship, which hitherto had only flashed like light- 
 ning across the minds of a few geniuses, seems suddenly to have 
 come to life in the form of a "variation on the conception of 
 humanity. ' ' The time was fulfilled, as the Bible says. While 
 Seneca in Rome was preaching the doctrine of world-wide love, 
 the Jewish scholar Hillel was committing it to writing, and 
 Confucius proclaiming brotherly love in the far East, while 
 at the same time Christendom was coming into being. It 
 may seem immaterial which of these teachers we follow pro- 
 vided we do follow one. 
 
 Even St. Paul makes clear references to such ideas, and so 
 do the patriarchs and all the later Scholastics. The "kiDg- 
 dom of God," however, was more and more interpreted as 
 meaning life in the world to come, a fact which in time cer- 
 tainly prevented this conception from having the revolution- 
 ary effects which at first it undoubtedly produced. But even 
 the worldly philosophers of every school were all at bottom 
 cosmopolitans, and hoped in one way or another to break down 
 the barriers separating man from his fellow-man. In the fol- 
 lowing table the only moderns I have quoted are, intentionally, 
 Germans, because it seems, or at any rate did seem, the spe- 
 cial vocation of the German nation to rescue these eternal con- 
 ceptions of Christianity from the scholastic chaos of the 
 church. 
 
 In the Christian era all serious thinkers were also agreed 
 that a perpetual peace must of course be the object of all 
 this chaos and confusion. To discuss this in detail would lead 
 me too far away from my point, and therefore I give the fol- 
 lowing table. I would merely add that, with the possible ex- 
 ception of St. Augustine, those mentioned in it all believed 
 in peace on earth and in the community of all living beings. 
 
 Then came the period when misinterpreted Darwinism al- 
 tered awakening national sentiment and men's ideas gener- 
 ally. First in England and France, afterward in Germany, 
 and now in the smallest aggregates of people speaking the same 
 or allied languages, for instance, the Czechs and Ukrainians,
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 389 
 
 Author 
 
 St. Paul. 
 
 St. Augustine (De Civi- 
 tate Dei XIV, 28). 
 
 St. Thomas. (De rcgim. 
 princ. ) 
 
 Lessing. ("Erziehungdes 
 Menschengeschechts.") 1 
 
 Herder. ("Ideen zu einer 
 Philsophie der Ge- 
 schichte der Men- 
 schheit.") 2 
 
 Kant. ("Ideen zu einer 
 allgemeinen Geschich- 
 te," 1784.) 3 
 
 Fichte. ("Grundziige des 
 gegenwiirtigen Zeitalt- 
 ers," 1806, VII, 18 ff.) * 
 
 Schelling. ( " Vorlesungen 
 iiber die Methode der 
 akademischen studien,', 
 p. 153, and "System 
 des transcendentalen 
 Ideals," p. 417.) 6 
 
 Hegel. ("Philosophieder 
 Geachichte," gesam- 
 melte Werke, IX, 11.) 6 
 
 Object to be attained. Method of attaining it 
 
 The kingdom of God 
 on earth. 
 
 "Everlasting Rest in 
 God." 
 
 "A Universal Chris- 
 tian Monarchy," 
 with the Pope at its 
 head. (Like Dante.) 
 
 The Eternal New Gos- 
 pel. 
 
 Humanity. 
 
 Perpetual Peace. 
 
 Perfected Society. 
 
 Universal legal consti- 
 tution. 
 
 Absolute Right. 
 
 Through Christ. 
 
 Through Cbrist. 
 
 Through Christ. 
 
 Through the religion 
 of the spirit and of 
 love. 
 
 Through the rule of 
 love and reason. 
 
 Through a league of 
 nations united to- 
 gether by moral ties. 
 
 By mutual improve- 
 ment. 
 
 By the union of lib- 
 erty and necessity. 
 
 By progress in the 
 realization of lib- 
 erty. 
 
 1 "The Education of the Human Race," published in 1780. — Translator. 
 
 2 "Thoughts on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind," English 
 translation 1800, originally published 1784-91. — Translator. 
 
 3 "Outlines of Universal History." 
 
 * "Characteristics of the Present Epoch," published 1806. 
 s "Lectures on the Method of Academic Study," published in 1803, and 
 "System of Transcendental Idealism," published in 1800. — Translator. 
 «"The Philosophy of History," Collected Works.
 
 390 THE BIOLOGY OF AVAR 
 
 the masses began to believe that a nation's rights depend upon 
 its might alone. No jurist, it is true, ventured actually to 
 admit this in so many words, though Felix Dahu, 1 who, after 
 all, is mainly a novelist, did once make certain concessions to 
 nationalism ; but even he does not dare to go to too great 
 lengths. 
 
 True, in quite recent times, especially after 1870, there 
 was a change even in this respect, and now almost every one 
 denounces his former ideals. No one, for instance, any longer 
 ventures to call himself a citizen of the world ; at most he says 
 he is international. 
 
 2. — RIGHT AND WAR 
 
 § 141. — The Law of Nations 
 
 Thus if the mere possibility of there being a right necessar- 
 ily implies world citizenship, it follows of necessity that right 
 and war cannot exist side by side. 
 
 But it is in human nature -for every one to be convinced of 
 the justice of his cause. The Castilian or Sicilian robber 
 who plunders the rich considers himself only an essential 
 element of impartial justice ; and the savor of the truth con- 
 tained in Gerhard Hauptmann's "Biberpelz"' 2 consists sim- 
 ply in showing that there is honor even among the lowest 
 thieves. There is probably hardly a single genuine passion- 
 ate criminal who could not produce, from the depths of his 
 subconsciousness, some moral justitication for his actions; and 
 even the cool, collected criminal, who, narrowly escaping 
 prison, becomes a wealthy, respected citizen, can excuse him- 
 self by urging that he "keeps within the law." 
 
 And if this is true of the individual man, how much more is 
 it true of the masses. Whenever a hundred persons do the 
 
 i Julius Sophus Felix Dahn, poet, novelist, and historical writer. 
 One of his chief novels, "A Fight for Rome," published in 1876, was 
 translated into English two years later. — Translator. 
 
 ^ Gerhard Hauptmann's •"Biberpelz" ("The Beaver") is a comedy pub- 
 lished in 1S93. — Translator.
 
 ALTRUISM 391 
 
 same thing, the person instinctively feels as if what so many 
 are doing could not but be right. But nowhere do greater 
 numbers of persons act in concert than in war, and never does 
 this feeling of being one of a number come out more strongly 
 than in war-time. We must therefore never expect any na- 
 tion to doubt the justice of "its" war even for a moment. 
 Now. is there any criterion by which the justice of a war 
 might be impartially tested? "Inter arma silent leges"; 
 when war breaks out, laws keep silence, as the unsentimental, 
 but logical, Romans put it. And they were perfectly con- 
 sistent, for war as war means that the notion of right is sus- 
 pended ; and an appeal to arms proves the refusal to recognize 
 that right is any longer the supreme court of appeal, and the 
 determination to place might before right. 
 
 It is clearly important to realize this. "We may urge any 
 and every reason for war. We may say it is a natural neces- 
 sity, a disease which there is no warding off, a salutary medi- 
 cine, a means of race expansion, or anything else we please; 
 but let no one call it just. To do so would be to destroy the 
 conception of right, for there is no worse injustice than one 
 which assumes the aspect of right. 1 
 
 Ihering - says that resistance to wrong is a duty. Does it 
 really need any further proof that war against war is resist- 
 ance to wrong? That is, that resistance to war is a duty? 
 Is it not a commonplace for Weber's laughing philosopher to 
 say that the conception of right already includes that of 
 peace ? a A cause may be as just as possible, but as soon as the 
 
 i Plato's Republic, II, 4, 361. Dr. Nicolai also quotes Livy XXXIX, 
 16, an indictment against hypocritical religion and using it as a cloak 
 for crimes 
 
 - Ihering or Jhering, Rudolf von. German jurist, who was a professor 
 at various places, including Basel and Vienna. The work here quoted. 
 "Der Kampf urns Recht," pub 1872. has been translated into English as 
 "The Battle for Right." He was celebrated as an independent and clear 
 thinker, and propounded a fresh view of Roman law as furnishing the 
 basis of a new and adapted system of jurisprudence. — Translator. 
 
 » "Demokrit," by Karl Jul. Weber, Vol. X, -Der Krieg" ("War").
 
 392 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 sword is drawn for it, it ceases to be so, for then it is no longer 
 right which is championing it, but might. 
 
 In order that right may prevail between two persons, they 
 must conclude an agreement. This, however, they can do 
 only because, as the jurists say, they are already legally quali- 
 fied to do so; or, as the natural scientist would phrase it, be- 
 cause they already instinctively feel that they are members of 
 a community. But now states come on the scene as repre- 
 senting the collective determination of a whole community. 
 Like individual human beings, they are living legal entities, 
 endowed with a will of their own. The individual man, how- 
 ever, is not merely an individual man, but also a citizen ; and 
 similarly every state is a member of the human race. Hence 
 it is juridically possible for individual nations to unite to- 
 gether to form a universal human association for right. 
 
 These premises are obvious. But it necessarily follows from 
 them that right between human beings is impossible without 
 the recognition in some form or other that they belong to the 
 same state ; and right between states is no less impossible with- 
 out the recognition of some form of association which is above 
 states. Thus every dispute about "mine" and "thine," and, 
 for that matter, every criminal lawsuit, proves that both par- 
 ties, even if unwillingly and perhaps only under compulsion, 
 submit to the state, and consequently admit that they are 
 brothers in a sense. All self-help, however, is a negation of 
 the state. 
 
 Similarly with regard to inter-state matters. All self-help 
 on the part of a state — every war, that is — means that the 
 particular state ceases to recognize any superordinate organi- 
 zation, thereby destroying the only possible means of insuring 
 right. In the juridical sense, a "just war," therefore, is a 
 contradiction in terms. 
 
 From a higher point of view, however, war is justified under 
 the same conditions as justify self-help in general. When- 
 ever an attempt is made to incroach upon the innate and in- 
 alienable rights of an individual man or a nation, then both
 
 ALTRUISM 393 
 
 resort to self-help against whomsoever it may be. This is revo- 
 lution, and is permissible even in the case of a minority 
 against a majority. War will die out so soon as the organiza- 
 tion of the world is strengthened. Revolutions there will al- 
 ways be. 
 
 Now, after all and despite all, a law of nations does exist, 
 the enactments of which remain in force even during war. 
 True, as yet it has always been violated in every war; but 
 even were breaches of this law of nations the rule and not the 
 exception, this would no more overthrow the conception of it 
 than the conception of civil law would be overthrown in a state 
 if the majority of its citizens happened to be criminals. 
 
 The mere fact of a law of nations existing, at least in theory, 
 is cause for satisfaction, since it proves that a supra-state com- 
 munity already exists, and that certain component parts of the 
 different states have already ceased to cooperate in making 
 war. After all, what else does a rule or enactment of inter- 
 national law mean but that certain things are outside war, 
 "extrabellical" even during war, just as a legation in a for- 
 eign country is extraterritorial? Where international law 
 is in force, there is no war. 
 
 International law may continue in force during war and 
 side by side with it, but wherever it does exist it restricts war, 
 and the time may one day come when it will have restricted 
 it to the vanishing-point. But where war is, international 
 law is not. Whether the cannons of one belligerent aim better 
 than those of another depends upon a thousand things, but 
 not in the least upon right. 
 
 § 142. — The Right of Reprisals 
 
 That no man really takes international law seriously is 
 obvious for many reasons. Nothing shows this so plainly, how- 
 ever, as the constantly repeated announcement that reprisals 
 have been or else are to be exercised. The bread rations 
 of French prisoners of war in Germany, for instance, are cur- 
 tailed, which may seem only natural, since, owing to the action
 
 394 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 of Germany's enemies, there is beginning to be a shortage of 
 bread. As a matter of fact, however, it is not natural at all, 
 for if any country undertakes the obligation to treat prisoners 
 of war in a particular way, it is bound to do this, even should 
 it be suffering from scarcity itself, just as an ordinary citizen 
 must pay his debts, even if this entails his going hungry to bed. 
 A French officer complained of there being no light of an eve- 
 ning, and when told that there were neither gas-works nor elec- 
 tricity-works in the place and that there was a great scarcity 
 of petroleum throughout Germany, he remarked that that had 
 nothing to do with him, and that if Germany could not give 
 her prisoners any light, then she ought not to take any one 
 prisoner. This was meant merely as a joke, but it is a strik- 
 ing instance of how little we in Germany are entitled to talk 
 about right. 
 
 But to refer to the reduction of bread rations. As matters 
 are now, no one can seriously reproach Germany for having 
 taken such a step. The French, however, consider it a piece 
 of barbarism, and would be quite within their rights in so 
 doing ; but at the same time, according to the newspapers, they 
 are resolving to put their German prisoners of war on a diet 
 which, in their opinion, is insufficient, despite there being not 
 the slightest pretext for so doing, for France is said not to be in 
 the least short of food, indeed she cannot be so. 
 
 Again, owing to the crews of our German submarines hav- 
 ing attacked trading-vessels, the British have not treated them 
 as prisoners of war, but have imprisoned them. The Germans 
 consider this unjust, "because our sailors were captured by 
 the British while faithfully doing their duty/' which is un- 
 doubtedly true as far as the individual sailor is concerned, 
 whatever may be our opinion as to the sinking of trading- 
 vessels. Germany, however, not content with protesting, puts 
 thirty-nine British officers under military arrest, knowing full 
 well all the while that, even in the opinion of the Germans, 
 they have done nothing dishonorable. Were the infringement
 
 ALTRUISM 395 
 
 of the Geneva Convention really considered as a breach of law, 
 and therefore as wrong, it would be impossible to act thus, for 
 no one steals because some one else has done so, and no one 
 treats a criminal except in accordance with right and law. 
 
 Reprisals, however, are never "right." Yet the only peo- 
 ple to adopt this point of view, which it might be thought was 
 absolutely obvious, were the Russian intellectuals, who, in 
 their appeal, stated that although the war was certainly accom- 
 panied by a great deal of barbarity, yet it was for the Russians 
 to protest only against such barbarities as were committed by 
 the Russian Army; anything else was the concern of other 
 nations. 1 All other nations, on the contrary, have protested 
 only against "atrocities" committed by their enemies, and 
 endeavored to put the doings of their own armies in the best 
 possible light. 
 
 Furthermore, no one will deny that, for instance, the in- 
 vasion of Belgium, the torpedoing of trading-vessels, the use 
 of poisonous gases, and much else besides are contrary to 
 international law ; but that, as Bethmann-Hollweg openly ad- 
 mitted in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, supposing war 
 to be allowable at all, international law is not unconditionally 
 binding on a nation fighting for its existence. However much 
 all right thinking men may deplore this, it is impossible to 
 say straight away that there is no justification for such an 
 opinion. But it proves that the law of nations is simply not 
 law, as is proved by these examples; but that in the opinion of 
 every normal man there are exceptions and special cases in it. 
 There ought to be no exception to right, however. In any case 
 it is not anything which can be measured out or made better 
 or worse by something being added to or taken from it. 
 
 i So far as can yet be told, it is the Russian Army, contrary to 
 the view generally prevailing, which is making more efforts than that 
 of any other nation to act in accordance with the precepts of morality, 
 and likewise to take advantage of this war to compel other nations to 
 recognize Russia as a civilized power. This, of course, does not do away 
 with the fact that Cossacks have committed gross excesses.
 
 396 THE BIOLOGY OF AVAR 
 
 § 143.— The Right of the Stronger 
 
 True, there is yet another kind of right — the right of the 
 stronger, which certainly is a night only in name, and has 
 nothing whatever to do with any right for which there is any 
 moral basis whatsoever. But combating prejudice is only too 
 often neither more nor less, than combating the misuse of 
 words; and the fact of the same word being used for a right 
 based on strength and a right based on a responsibility has 
 assuredly done a great deal of mischief. 
 
 Now, the German word Recht (right) contains two wholly 
 diverse notions: moral right, and prevailing right (law). 
 Finally there is the attempt made to combine the two senses in 
 the word justice, man's subjective virtue. 
 
 This of course easily gives rise to misconceptions, such as 
 the right of superior strength, or "la raison du plus fort," 
 as the French say. Now, that in actual fact strength often 
 does create right even the ancients were well aware, and 
 Pindar speaks of "the victorious hand of law sanctifying the 
 grossest violence. ' ' x Even in his time attempts were made to 
 justify this right by natural science, Darwinistically, as it 
 were. Callicles, 2 for instance, says: "In the state, as in na- 
 ture, the stronger must rule over the weaker, for natural se- 
 curity consists therein." Even Socrates 3 and Plato 4 assure 
 us that "the right at present prevailing is based on the acci- 
 dent of power," but they claim, on moral grounds, that this 
 ought not to be the case. 
 
 Since Socrates 's time the question whether man shall be a 
 practical politician or an idealist has divided the world into 
 two opposite camps ; but although every one claiming the name 
 of human being theoretically strives for that right which he 
 vaguely feels to be his immutable ideal, yet most men abide 
 by the precept of the sober Aristotle, who was content to note 
 the fact that right, properly so called, did not exist on earth. 
 
 i Pindar in the laws of Plato. 3 "Memorabilia," IV, 4 ff. 
 
 2 Plato's "Gorgias," 38. * Plato's "Laws," IV, 4.
 
 ALTRUISM 397 
 
 Only in the brief period when primitive Christianity pre- 
 vailed did large numbers of human beings venture to dream 
 dreams of justice, but the brutal facts of this rough world 
 soon put an end to any such extravagances. Even Spinoza * 
 finally admitted that the right of each individual man ex- 
 tended as far as his might, adding, in order to make this seem 
 less brutal, that the divine spark lurking in every person 
 might be trusted to prevent too great encroachments on the 
 part of might. 
 
 This state of pessimistic irresolution continued a long while, 
 as the writings of Hobbes, Malejbranche, 2 and others testify ; 
 while the sharp distinction between this ''vale of tears" and 
 "celestial bliss" made the mass of the people consider any 
 discussion of the question in principle impossible. Not till 
 recent times did the masses evince a desire for "enjoying 
 celestial bliss while still on earth," and again they began to 
 wonder what, after all, their rights really were. But the revo- 
 lutionaries of to-day fell into the mistake of the feudal oppres- 
 sors of yesterday, and built up right upon might. 3 
 
 That there should be a transition period is understandable, 
 but unfortunate, not merely because the bloodshed, for in- 
 stance, during the French Revolution must be ascribed to this 
 theory, but also because it prevented the innovators from 
 really going to the root of matters, that is, from being con- 
 sistent. We shall see the reason for that inconsistency which 
 
 i "Quia unus quisque tantum juris habet, quantum potentia valet." 
 Spinoza's "Tractate," 1670, Caput II, § 8, "Tractatus theologico poli- 
 ticus." 
 
 2 Nicole Malebranche. French, philosopher, who became a Roman 
 Catholic priest. His philosopher has a certain resemblance to that of 
 Berkeley, but his chief connection with English philosophy is through 
 his pupil John Norris, an acute critic of John Locke. Malebranche's 
 "Recherche de lat Verite" appeared in 1674, and his "Entretiens sur la 
 Mrtaphysique" in 1688. The former was translated into English in 
 1604. — Translator. 
 
 3 Auguste Comte has some very wise words about this, the funda- 
 mental mistake of all modern revolutions. In "Legon 46," Vol. IV, p. 
 27 et seq. he shows the founders of a new era always set to work with 
 the methods of the old era.
 
 398 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 has struck every one in such men as Robespierre and Saint 
 Just, if we reflect that they, too, wanted to base right on 
 might. 
 
 Again, Ferdinand Lassalle is to-day popularly considered 
 the first man to have advocated a future state based on justice. 
 Yet it is singular that he should at the same time have once 
 more proclaimed the ancient doctrine of the right of superior 
 strength; and also that, despite his having strongly opposed 
 the notion of acquired or inherited rights, he should once 
 more have raised the question whether might or right comes 
 first. In his speeches and writings on constitutionalism, he 
 adopted the attitude that constitutional questions, or, to use 
 a more comprehensive word, questions of right, are questions 
 of might, arguing that right, in so far as it exists, always 
 depends on actually existing conditions of power, and that 
 therefore written law cannot be lasting or of value except it 
 exactly expresses these actually existing conditions of power. 
 
 Now, this would seem to justify all violence, war, plunder, 
 and what not besides, as the reactionaries of that day were 
 astute enough to observe. Thus the "Kreuzzeitung" 1 wrote 
 that the revolutionary Jew's instinct had led him to hit the 
 right nail on the head. Roon,'- then Prussian Minister of 
 War, stated that "what history is mainly concerned about — 
 the history not only of individual countries, but also, the in- 
 ternal history of each country — was neither more nor less than 
 the struggle for and increase of power." Finally Bismarck, 
 then prime minister, 3 to a certain extent admitted that his 
 socialist opponent was right, opining that "such questions of 
 right are usually settled not by confronting one contradictory 
 theory with another, but only gradually, by the practice pre- 
 vailing in constitutional law." That is, considering who it 
 was who used these words, it all depends on how powerful the 
 country or countries concerned may be at the time. Whether 
 
 iThe "Kreuzzeitung" for June 8, 1862. No. 1862. 
 
 - Roon's speech in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, Sppt 12, 1862. 
 
 3 Bismarck's speech at the meeting of the Chamber on Oct. 7, 1862.
 
 ALTRUISM 399 
 
 Bismarck actually used the words "Might comes before right" 
 was long disputed. 1 
 
 § 144. — Evolution and Revolution 
 
 Whether these words were actually uttered or not, the phrase 
 "Might conies before right'' has long become a fact, and the 
 only question is whether it is to be a guiding principle. 
 
 If a man have been killed, however unjustly, no right can call 
 him back to life ; but this recognition of a fact does not mean 
 that we think it justified, and even if what is done cannot be 
 undone, we may still insist on its not happening again. 
 Unless th« killing of a human being does not offend any one's 
 sense of right, as is the case with the execution of a murderer 
 the matter does not end there. Society tries as far as it can 
 to protest against the fact of the murder by punishing the 
 murderer. 
 
 Hence the words "Might comes before right" merely mean 
 that it may happen that the conceptions of right alter so 
 radically that another right has now generally succeeded in 
 prevailing, although of course only with the help of might. 
 Of course it may be said that in the French Revolution might 
 prevailed. Bu^ the only reason why might was able to pre- 
 vail, and why the whole Revolution did not soon fizzle out, 
 but revolutionized all conceptions of right, was because men 
 were already thinking of some such radical upheaval. It 
 was generally felt that conditions before the Revolution were 
 wrong. A small minority were endeavoring to enforce alleged 
 rights that really no longer existed. Hence the victory won 
 by the might of revolutionary ideas was in reality a victory 
 of the new conceptions of right. In a certain sense right and 
 might, are identical ideas, although only if it be realized that 
 true rip-ht alone has the might permanently to prevail. In 
 
 i In 186.'! they were altrilmted to him by (Jvaf Schwerin. and the re- 
 port spread everywhere. Bismarck protested, hut it must lie admitted 
 that this was undoubtedly the sense of his speech, even although the 
 words are not actually in the shorthand report of it.
 
 400 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 this sense the saying ' ' Might comes before right ' ' is justified ; 
 but it can also be reversed into "Right comes before might," 
 which would mean that the new right is actually more power- 
 ful than the old vested might, however powerful the outward 
 means by which it may be supported. 
 
 Modern right will always struggle against ancient might, 
 and this it is which justifies revolutions. But modern right 
 will never succeed in prevailing unless the people, the mass 
 of mankind, actually accept it; and before they can do this 
 they must greatly modify their conceptions of right. In 
 other words, a revolution, which is always the work of some 
 far-seeing genius, cannot come about unless evolution has 
 already educated the world to be prepared for it. 
 
 All revolutions, whether fought out with spiritual weapons 
 or with weapons of iron and steel, have had forerunners. 
 These forerunners failed simply because the new right had 
 not yet become might. Socrates died without having had any 
 influence worth mentioning on the world in general ; and 
 henceforth the great revolution of mankind is inseparably 
 bound up with the name of Christ. Huss perished, but Luther 
 prevailed, Galilei had publicly to abjure his owu philosophy; 
 but Newton followed, and with him modern science begins. 
 Even the French Revolution could never have taken place 
 unless Voltaire, Rousseau, and many others had prepared the 
 way for it. 
 
 Thus these forerunners personified the right to a new order 
 of things; the old order was corrupt even in their da}': but 
 the time had not yet come, mankind was not yet ripe, and 
 there had not been a sufficient change in the conception of 
 right either from the political, scientific, or ethical point of 
 view. 
 
 That outward development of power which causes the final 
 collapse of an already decayed structure is usually of merely 
 secondary importance. It is not a cause, but a symptom ; but 
 because many people do not look below the surface and 
 see only outward causes and effects, they imagine that it is this
 
 ALTRUISM 401 
 
 new development of power which has really caused a new 
 conception of right to prevail. Thus and in no other way- 
 could the saying "Might comes before right" have arisen. 
 The decisive factor, however, is always evolution, not revolu- 
 tion ; the new conception of right will and must prevail with or 
 without revolts. But impatient man often wants to make 
 events move faster, and though sometimes he may have suc- 
 ceeded in so doing, he has quite as often merely delayed mat- 
 ters. 
 
 Similarly with regard to war. // the German people pos- 
 sesses the physical and psychical qualifications for ruling the 
 world, it will succeed in doing so without any war; and if it 
 does not possess such qualifications, the winning of any num- 
 ber of wars will not alter this fact. 
 
 As far as the settlement of actual questions of power is 
 concerned, the war is merely an insignificant temporary dis- 
 aster ; and in no case is the saying ' ' Might comes before right, ' ' 
 rightly interpreted, calculated to justify a display of force 
 on a scale, as it seems, hitherto unprecedented. 
 
 § 145. — War and the Judgment of God 
 
 Only a good Christian can be a good soldier. This may 
 seem like contempt of the Christian doctrine of "love thy 
 neighbor as thyself"; yet these words contain a truth which 
 explains much that has happened and may serve as an indica- 
 tion of what is to come. One thing, indeed, is certain. 
 Among moral beings none may draw the sword save he who 
 believes in God. None save he who is firmly convinced that 
 God awards the victory to him whose cause is just can be 
 at once a soldier and a moral person ; for if no God directs 
 the shot, then it is might, not right, which wins. 
 
 Now, there is really no necessity to insist on moral consider- 
 ations in war, which we are not accustomed seriously to take 
 into account in any other human transactions. We might 
 be content with saying, like Voltaire, 1 that a trifle more or 
 
 i "Candide ou l'Optimlsme," by Voltaire. 1759.
 
 402 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 less wrong- in this most glorious of all worlds matters devilish 
 little; and that when millions of men are being destroyed in 
 the hideous struggle for supremacy, we can hardly grudge 
 those who like such emotions as the pleasure of killing a few 
 thousands in honest warfare. In any case, what 's in a name ? 
 A man dies of a cancerous swelling, even if the doctor consoles 
 him by calling it non-malignant ; and the results of a war 
 are equally inevitable, whether we call it just or unjust. 
 Even were it proved justifiable, this would not alter the fact 
 of its being hideous. 
 
 Yet for most men there is a great deal in a name. Other 
 beings endowed with reason do not understand this. The 
 lunar Princess Domiladosol, 1 for instance, rightly asks, 
 "But in war why do not men appeal to arbitrators, if they 
 believe right is on their side?" But it is just the men of to- 
 day who seem not to perceive the irony of such a question, 
 and they lay more stress than ever on a war being "just." 
 Frivolous and criminal wars, they say, ought to be prevented, 
 and in these they include religious and dynastic wars and 
 wars of conquest. Only a "fight for the fatherland" is just, 
 in which category people in Germany specially include the 
 wars of 1813, 1870, and 1914. 2 But if even a professor of 
 law such as Wilhelm Kahl passes over 1864 and 1866 in 
 silence, which can hardly be wholly unintentional, yet most of 
 his fellow-countrymen consider wars of conquest also just ; 
 and only a handful of them would allow the fact of Belgium 's 
 being annexed or not in any way to affect their opinion of the 
 War of 1914. And though the Sultan of Turkey proclaimed 
 the hetwah, or holy war, — that is a religious war, — this does 
 not make him any less valuable as an ally than Austria. Yet 
 Austria, which is held together only by the Hapsburg dynasty, 
 could scarcely wage any save a dynastic war. And religious 
 
 i "Histoire comique, on voyage dans la Lune." Par Cyrano de 
 Bergerac, 1050 Chap. 111. 
 
 2 "Vom Recht zum Krieg und vom Siegespreis" ("On the Right to 
 Make War and the Fruits of Victory") by Professor Dr. Kahl, 1914.
 
 ALTRUISM 403 
 
 and dynastic wars are supposed to be frivolous and criminal. 
 
 No, it matters not what epithet we apply to war, but for 
 this very reason is it worth while going into "the justice of 
 war" in order to prove that the few who have ever seriously 
 and impartially called war just have in reality always relied 
 upon the "right of the stronger," that is, on a sort of sup- 
 posed justice based on natural science. 1 This, as I purpose 
 to show, has nothing whatever to do either with right or nat- 
 ural science, which at once answers the objection that war 
 and peace cannot be determined by natural science alone, 
 and that there are also profound ethical causes underlying war. 
 
 Moreover, it is a fact that man has considered war not merely 
 as a test of power or strength, but always as a means of ascer- 
 taining who is in the right. It was the deluded mystics, 
 who used to make the judgments of God an integral part of 
 the institution of law, who have sanctified war, as it were. 
 It used to be believed that in a duel God gave the victory to 
 the combatant with right on his side, and that an innocent 
 person did not sink in water, and was not scorched by red- 
 hot iron nor affected by poison. Similarly it was believed 
 that the heavenly hosts placed their shield in front of that 
 army which was waging the war desired by God. 
 
 The world has long since ceased to believe in God's personal 
 intervention in war. It is known that "God is ever on the side 
 of the big battalions." But the notion that there is still 
 some sort of justice in war seems ineradicable, despite the fact 
 that the least reflection shows that any possibility of the just 
 man winning must be based on the intervention of a higher 
 principle representing justice. The educated believer will 
 assuredly hardly believe that this omnipotent principle can be 
 modified by force of arms ; but the uneducated and supersti- 
 tious, who imagine they can use their God for selfish ends, will 
 invoke His name on behalf of their real or imaginary right. 
 
 i Dr Kahl, the authority on criminal law, for instance, expressly 
 states in one of his addresses, "War is a -natural force in the history 
 of the whole world."
 
 404 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 3. — SOME PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS ON ALTRUISM 
 
 § 146. — Natural Law and Purpose 
 
 It would seem an impossibility to insist on natural duties, 
 since nature knows neither right nor wrong. Even the phrase 
 "natural law" is, after all, misleading. The ancient Greeks 
 racked their brains a long time as to whether this, that, or 
 the other was a "natural" or a "human" institution. Not 
 till a fairly recent period was it thought possible to settle the 
 question by deciding that it was "a natural" institution. 
 
 In modern science the phrase natural law is now one which 
 every one understands. Nevertheless, it is still a reminder 
 that we once believed in something which laid down laws for 
 nature. According to a man's point of view, he considered 
 these laws just or unjust, and then a belief in the existence 
 of a natural law of course necessarily arose. In reality, how- 
 ever, there is neither law nor right in nature, but only facts 
 and necessities, or, to put the matter in a nutshell, conditions 
 under which something happens or does not happen. Were 
 it a law that iron follows a magnet, then of course the one 
 must always follow the other; but in reality magnetism is 
 only one of the conditions by which iron can be moved, and if, 
 for example, in any particular case gravitation preponderates 
 over magnetism, then iron does not obey this so-called law. 
 * Given the right conditions, anything is possible; but, as a 
 matter of fact, possibilities are mostly so much reduced by all 
 manner of "necessary" conditions that one particular pos- 
 sibility of necessity intervenes. A stone in any position in 
 space can, so far as itself is concerned, move in any direction 
 whatsoever if only it receives the proper impulse ; but as 
 gravitation acts everywhere on earth, the stone will always 
 tend to move toward the center of the earth unless there is 
 a special cause why it should not do so. 
 
 Similarly in the nature of things every human being has 
 the power of doing everything within the limits of his physical
 
 ALTRUISM 405 
 
 strength. He can, if he pleases, call this power his inborn 
 right. Thus, to quote one instance, there is undoubtedly no 
 natural law to prevent any human being from killing others, 
 stealing their belongings, violating women, idling, getting in- 
 fectious diseases, and dying. In this sense also each person 
 and each nation has a "right" to wage war. 
 
 But to call the possibility of doing all this "a right" can 
 at best create confusion, for such a possibility has nothing in 
 common with what we call a right. Indeed, in the case of war 
 it is opposed to every conceivable right. Broadly and gener- 
 ally it may be said that, in order to choose the legitimate course 
 from the heterogeneous collection of possible courses open to 
 us, we must have some object or purpose in view to guide us. 
 But such a purpose transcends nature. It is probably within 
 the province of natural science to note that some such regard 
 for moral obligations is present in the case of a certain pro- 
 portion of human beings. Similarly it can note the fact that 
 magnetism occurs in certain substances. Natural science does 
 not know what magnetism is or what moral obligations are, 
 but in both cases it can inquire "under what conditions they 
 occur." 
 
 § 147. — Inborn Eights 
 
 For instance, it is a fact that most human beings (or, for 
 the sake of prudence, let us say, some of them) shrink from 
 committing murder. Whether the word right or fact be 
 applied to this shrinking does not matter. Similarly it is an 
 undeniable fact that certain persons do not feel any such 
 horror, and that such persons are to be found not only among 
 primitive peoples, but even among modern Europeans. Some 
 of them have insane or criminal tendencies, but others seem 
 absolutely normal. At times, indeed, it seems as if almost the 
 entire population of a country absolutely cease to feel such 
 horror. All this is a fact, and, if we please, an inborn right. 
 In any case no one is in a position to restrict this right, and 
 to this extent it is really inalienable. If a man's brain is so
 
 406 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 constructed that every murder seems to him necessarily sinful, 
 then no written law in the world, no persuasion, and no pun- 
 ishment would enable me to deprive him of his conviction. 
 But probably the exercise of such a right can be prevented; 
 and in fact the state generally does prevent its citizens from 
 giving way to any inclination to enrich themselves by murder- 
 ing another; but on the contrary, for a short period it com- 
 pels men, even men who have a horror of blood, to kill others. 
 In the first case the result is that in Germany scarcely 400 
 cases of murder or manslaughter occur in a year ; that is, one 
 in every 250,000 of the population. In the second case, it 
 may probably be said, although no exact statistics are avail- 
 able, that during the war the number of men who refused to 
 kill to order has hardly been more proportionately, that is, 
 one in 25,000, in both cases a wholy insignificant percentage. 
 
 Now, individual men have of course just as much an inborn 
 right to love killing or to hate it as to order or forbid others 
 to kill ; but even here it is seen to be more fitting to refer to 
 such variations not as rights, but as divergent possibilities of 
 human nature. In particular, to order and forbid anything is 
 to place limitations on it in precisely the same sort of way as 
 limitations are placed on every natural phenomenon. Every 
 stone falls; that is, it must fall, or, if you will, it has a right 
 to fall. Indeed, we have become accustomed to describe this 
 as a natural law. But we need only put a sufficiently strong 
 support beneath it, and the stone, although still having a 
 right (!) to fall, ceases to do so. We may say that it has now 
 merely a tendency to fall. 
 
 If now I place limitations on a stone on every side, — in 
 other words, if I build it into a building, — then I deprive it of 
 a number of possibilities of movement, though not of all. It 
 still expands when the sun shines on it and trembles when 
 sounds are made. Indeed, owing to its cohesion with the 
 other stones it has actually acquired more stability and force 
 of resistance, but it is no longer possible for it to fall down at 
 will, or, for instance, to bash in a man's head.
 
 ALTRUISM 407 
 
 Even so are human beings welded together into large or- 
 ganizations. Their "tendencies" or "inborn rights" still ex- 
 ist, but it has become impossible for them to give way to these 
 tendencies. Thus any one belonging to a state can no longer 
 murder at will, because by so doing he ceases to be a member 
 of that state. 1 It is therefore merely idle to refer to these so- 
 called inborn human rights. They are far too numerous, 
 and being altogether peculiar to the person, cannot be made 
 the same for every one. 
 
 Conversely we may claim that any one feeling absolutely 
 impelled to wage Avar has a right to feel thus, and is also en- 
 titled to act upon his impulse, provided society in general 
 does not prevent him from so doing. But any one feeling ab- 
 solutely impelled to protest against war has also an inalienable 
 right to do so, and is also entitled to protest openly, pro- 
 vided society in general do not prevent him from so doing. 
 To put it briefly, it is open to every living thing, everything 
 that exists at all, to gain a foothold for itself, and it tends to 
 do this, and therefore has a right to do so. But this means 
 struggle; and it is this innate, inalienable right to struggle 
 which is the highest tiling known to mankind. Now, not a 
 single one of all these rights for which we may struggle is pre- 
 ferred before any other. Hence it does not seem possible to 
 make any general deduction from them. The right to strug- 
 gle is the one thing ever present; and it might be contended 
 that it is the only truly natural right which can be recognized. 
 
 § 148.— The Right to War 
 
 Here we come in contact with the unique problem of war; 
 and it would seem as if this unrestricted struggle of all against 
 all must mean hopeless anarchy and never-ending war; but 
 this is only apparently so. Suppose we are determined to 
 
 i Even Seneca compares human society to a stone vault which would 
 collapse if uiie part did not support another (Sotietas nostra lapidivn 
 fornicationi simillima est: </tt<ic casura, nisi invicem obstarent, hoc ipso 
 suslvnetur. Seneca, "Epistolse," 95J
 
 408 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 exercise this right to struggle and to survive, but not after 
 the manner of a stone or a bomb, which flies on its way and 
 attains its aim by senseless destruction of every obstacle, un- 
 less it meet with equally senseless destruction by encountering 
 too severe resistance. Suppose, rather, that we mean to exer- 
 cise our right as thinking persons, knowing what we want. 
 Then we must be quite clear as to what we are really fighting 
 for, and for love of whom — for ourselves, for the country, for 
 civilization, for our God, or for whatsoever else. Further- 
 more, we must consider the means wherewith we are going 
 to wage our struggle, for struggle does not necessarily mean 
 war. War is only one of the many possible variations of 
 struggle, which can be carried on in all manner of ways — 
 by persuasion or by force, by labor or by destruction, by the 
 work of the head or by that of the hand. 
 
 Hence there are many objects of struggle and many ways 
 of struggling, and in each individual case the question arises 
 whether a particular weapon will serve to attain any particu- 
 lar purpose. For instance, even the most narrow-minded 
 theologians must have perceived by now that, if a man wishes 
 to fight for his God, he had best not have recourse to cannon, 
 as for many hundreds of years was thought to be the case. 
 In fact, it is altogether questionable whether war is the best 
 means of attaining any human object whatever, whether na- 
 tional or cosmopolitan. 
 
 Now, supposing we admit a natural right to struggle, and 
 see the Alpha and Omega of all progress in "inspiring war." 
 Then, I say, we are obliged to ask of what use war has been 
 and of what use it can be. It is this practical aspect of the 
 question of war with which I hope to deal, and I trust I shall 
 show that war is not a suitable method of attaining any con- 
 ceivable purpose. This, however, does not quite go to the 
 root of the matter, for then we must assume that all human 
 beings act with a definite purpose. But there may be people 
 who refuse to admit the need for having a set purpose, saying 
 that just as they take delight in a woman's embraces without
 
 ALTRUISM 409 
 
 any consciousness of an "inspiring purpose," similarly they 
 take delight in war, and mean to wage war, even were there no 
 object in so doing, but merely for war's sake. Was not the 
 Venus Hetaira always more beloved than the Venus Genetrix ? 
 Such persons must be accepted as a fact, and we have no 
 right to criticize them even if we dislike them. The only way 
 to get the better of them is by natural science, which sets out 
 from no preconceived ideas whatever. Now for the first time 
 the full advantage of this method will appear in the matter of 
 the dissemination of truth. 
 
 Natural science asks under what conditions a stone falls, 
 and under what conditions it does not fall, taking no account 
 of whether in falling it does harm or not. So must we pro- 
 ceed in regard to war, first, purely inductively and empir- 
 ically stating the conditions which, considering how many out- 
 lets there are for human energy, have yet made war a ne- 
 cessity. No other method of procedure would lead us to a 
 clear issue. Frischeisen-Kohler, 1 for instance, tries to prove 
 deductively that it is possible for the world to live at peace, 
 and comes to the conclusion that "no natural evolution can 
 cause the disappearance of wars," and this precisely because 
 "they are not a natural necessity." 
 
 At first we are inclined to think that here is a misprint, and 
 that the word "not" ought to have been omitted; for if war 
 is really a necessity, then it can not become extinct, whereas, 
 on the contrary, if it is not a necessity, then it has no real 
 justification for its existence, and may very easily become 
 extinct. Frischeisen-Kohler, however, really means what he 
 writes, and hence his deductions are not so wholly illogical. 
 If we assume that anything in the world is there by chance, 
 then its further evolution must also be chance, and nothing 
 definite can be predicted about it. The Berlin philosopher's 
 conclusion, therefore, is wholly unimportant. His premises 
 
 i "Das Problem des ewipen Friedens" ( "The Problem of Perpetual 
 Peaee"), by the. still living German philosopher Frischeisen-Kohler. 
 Miiller: Berlin, 1915.
 
 110 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 are that war is a chance event, but from this it neither follows 
 that it will continue to exist nor that it will pass away. 
 
 Hence, in order to form a profitable conception of war, it 
 was needful first and foremost to endeavor to conceive it as a 
 necessity in isolated instances; for only when we see under 
 what conditions it is necessary can we decide under what con- 
 ditions it is superfluous, or, rather, impossible. 1 
 
 § 149. — The Law of the Organism 
 
 "We know now that war was, so to speak, a passing phase in 
 man's strivings after higher things ; we know that that day has 
 really gone by, and that it survives only by virtue of a right 
 sanctified by custom. And now we can inquire what is the 
 real, and, as we think, indestructible and eternal principle of 
 man. It may, it is true, be asked whether there is, after all, 
 any such principle, and whether, beyond the categorical im- 
 peratives of the individual human being, there exists an auto- 
 cratic, superordinate imperative that applies to all human be- 
 ings alike, and by which the justifications of individual im- 
 peratives may be gaged. Now, we shall find that there is such 
 a universal moral law, and, strange as this may at first sight 
 appear, it is based upon man's physical nature. Hence it is 
 categorical in quite another sense than that in which Buddha, 
 Christ, or Kant could insist on their moral laws being cate- 
 gorical. Its precepts, however, are identical with those of 
 these three teachers. 
 
 This universal moral law, moreover, could be inferred as 
 soon as the conception of natural law was made clearer. A 
 right based on the decision of an individual man alone must 
 always be questionable so long as it may conflict with other 
 rights. The basis of such a natural right or natural tend- 
 ency must therefore be some independent organism which has 
 no need to respect any rights but its own. 
 
 Now, here on earth, first, the individual man, and, secondly, 
 
 i Cf. the chapters on the justification for war from the point of view 
 of the natural scientist.
 
 ALTRUISM 411 
 
 the human organism as a whole alone fulfil these conditions. 
 The individual man owes his privileged position to the fact, 
 which no one can well deny, that his functions form together 
 a comparatively complete and independent whole. The com- 
 plete human organism, supposing it to exist at all, which is 
 what we mean to prove, has of course the same privileged sit- 
 uation. Humanity as a whole, indeed, is upon earth virtually 
 entirely cut off from ancient superordinate cosmic influences, 
 and thus is not obliged to respect any rights of others. 
 
 All connecting terms, however, such as the family or the 
 state are only casual and mutable products of our changing 
 customs, and can therefore not be considered as natural, but 
 at most as conventional agglomerations. The only organisms 
 which are immutable, and consequently above all conventions, 
 must be the individual man and mankind in general. They 
 therefore form the basis of all right, and there is only the right 
 of mankind in general and the right of the individual man who 
 is aware that he is in the right as regards all the world. Then, 
 but only then, is he justified in being a revolutionary. 
 
 The sensation which we experience because we feel we all 
 belong to one vast organism we call altruism; but that which 
 we experience because of the fact that we as personalities 
 to a certain extent form distinct individual organisms we call 
 egoism. Altruism and egoism are therefore not unconditional 
 opposites, but the same sentiment directed to a different object. 
 Egoism we need not stop to consider; it flourishes like the 
 green bay-tree: altruism must be proved to be the necessary 
 equivalent of something actually genuine. 
 
 4. — THE HISTORY OF ALTRUISM 
 
 § 150. — The Twofold Basis of Altruism 
 
 All morality is based on the presence of altruism. 
 The word itself is new, having been coined scarcely a 
 hundred years ago by Comte, 1 who rightly considered it as 
 
 i This is according to the German philosopher Fisler.
 
 412 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 embracing all the conditions of civilization and morality. 
 
 The term is used by every one in much the same sense, for, 
 after all, it is merely a verbal difference whether a desire 
 be called altruistic if it be likely to benefit others, 1 or to satisfy 
 them, 2 or in general to do them "good." 3 The only point of 
 disagreement is how far altruism serves a good purpose or is 
 allowable. It is possible to be altruistic without limit, as 
 certain Christians would fain have us be; but altruism can 
 also be restricted by declaring it contrary to morality unless 
 it promote human evolution, or, in the words of the German 
 philosopher Cornelius, 4 if it takes account of the emotional 
 experiences of our individual fellow-men, but only of what 
 is permanently beneficial to the world in general. 
 
 It is not till we come to the basis of altruism that opinions 
 are divided. Can altruistic sentiments arise in man ? And if 
 so, how? And can an individual man, apparently apart, put 
 himself, as it were, absolutely in the place of another? And 
 if so, how ? These questions are generally answered in two dia- 
 metrically opposite ways. The simpler way of getting out of 
 the difficulty is to say that altruism, like so much else, is in- 
 nate. We can understand why the ancients said this, since 
 they knew nothing about the history of evolution. Aristotle 5 
 calls man simply a £wov 7roAirxov ; the Stoa G believed that man 
 was a social animal for the good of the nations in general; 
 and, finally, Hume speaks of man having an innate sense of 
 what is generally for the best. All this we can understand, 
 but when Spencer 7 says that altruism is as primogenial as 
 
 i As does Herbert Spencer in his "Principles of Morality," § 72, 1892. 
 
 2 As does the German philosopher Theodor Lipps in "Ethisehe 
 Grundfragen" ("Root Questions of Ethics"), p. 11. 1889. 
 
 3 As does the Gorman-Galician philosopher Alexius Meinong in 
 "Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie" ("Investigations into the Theory of 
 Values"), p. 99. 1899. 
 
 4 "Einleitung in die Philosophie" ("An Introduction to Philosophy") 
 by the German philosopher H. Cornelius. 1903. 
 
 s Aristotle's "Politica," I, 2. 
 
 e Cf. Seneca, L. A. 5, de Ira II, 3. 
 
 t "Principles of Morality," § 76. 1892.
 
 ALTRUISM 413 
 
 egoism ; when John Stuart Mill 1 and Wilhelm Wundt repeat 
 almost precisely the same thing; and when Simmel 2 calls 
 altruism an inherited instinct, but Ribot, 3 says the altruistic 
 instinct is inherited, then we can only say they might have 
 known that they were really saying nothing at all. 
 
 Those who consider altruism as egoism in disguise are more 
 logical ; but even this view is old, and in reality it is held by all 
 religious, which certainly do insist on altruism; but probably 
 because their founders are mostly intellectual weaklings, they 
 consider the satisfaction of a selfish sentiment of happiness 
 as the sole motive for morality. Thus they try to encourage 
 altruism by first appealing to egoism, by promising either 
 earthly bliss (as in the fourth commandment of Moses), or 
 bliss in a visionary immortality. 
 
 We have three direct testimonies 4 to the fact that Christ said 
 that self-sacrifice — that is, altruism — is in reality the sublimest 
 form of egoism. "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; 
 but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, 
 the same shall save it." (Mark viii, 35.) There could not be 
 a grosser tribute to the egoism innate in every human being; 
 but almost all religious doctrines are alike in this respect. 
 Christ finds eternal bliss in the "beyond," and the Buddhist 
 blessed oblivion, the Mohammedan finds houris, and the Indian 
 well stocked hunting-grounds. Even the religious Seneca 5 
 says, with an egoistic undertone, "Wilt thou truly live for 
 thyself, then must thou live for others." 
 
 Even if in religions the egoistic impulse appears only in 
 disguise, yet it is afterward frankly and consciously expressed, 
 
 i Collected Works, 1809. 
 
 - •Einleitung in ilie Moiahvissenschaft" ('"Introduction to Moral Sci- 
 ence") by the still living (Jerinan philosopher Simmel, published lS'J^. 
 1, 92. 
 
 8 "Psychologic des Sentiments," 1890, by Theodule Armand Ribot, 
 § '325. ( Translated into English as "The Psychology of the Emotions") 
 
 * Matthew X, 39; Mark VIII, 35; Luke XVII, 33; John XII, 25. 
 
 B"Alt*?ri vivere oportet, si vis tibi vivere." Seneca's "Epistolse," 48, 
 II Cf. also 60 IV.
 
 414 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 particularly by British writers. For instance, Hobbes x at- 
 tributes right and morality to selfish impulses toward self- 
 preservation and to the fact that we are all mutually dependent 
 on one another. Hobbes agrees that as man soon perceived 
 that he got along better if he took others' interests into con- 
 sideration, he acts altruistically from egoistic motives. 
 
 Those who argued thus are in general the same as those who 
 attributed right to utility. (Cf. § 151.) What they have is 
 all very well as far as it goes. Yet all high-sounding phrases, 
 such as Ihering's "egoism of groups" and Meinong's "self- 
 less egoism" 2 are mere definitions, and explain nothing. 
 Also it matters little whether we love or hate egoism. Kant, 
 for instance, 3 says it is the self-seeking element in man's 
 sensual nature which is ' ' radically wrong. ' ' Duhring 4 even 
 says that egoism is nowise natural, but a product of degeneracy 
 and corruption. On the other hand, Schopenhauer r ° describes 
 egoism (that "impulse toward being and well-being") as the 
 mainspring of action both in human beings and animals. 
 Stirner 6 declares that the Ego is autocratic ; and finally Niet- 
 zsche 7 insists that the egoistic view of the world is the ruling 
 morality and above the altruistic morality of slave. All which 
 views and definitions matter equally much or equally little. 
 
 §151. — The Development of the "English" Doctrine of 
 Utilitarianism 
 
 In reality these two possible bases of morality are no longer 
 
 i Hobbes, "De Cive" C I, § 2. 
 
 2 Alexius Meinong, 1 c, p. 103. 
 
 s Kant's "Kritik der praktischen Vernunft" ("Critique of practical 
 Reason"), 1788. Part 1, Vol. 1, 2, and "Anthropologic," I, § 2. 
 
 4 "Wirklichkeitsphilosophie" ("Philosophy of Reality") by Eugen 
 Duhring, 1878, p. 139. 
 
 & "Uber die Grundlagen der Moral" ("The Foundations of Morality) 
 § 1840. 
 
 6 "Der einzige und scin Eigentum" ("The Individual and his Prop- 
 erty") by Max Stirner (real name Kaspar Schmidt), 1845. 
 
 7 In "Zarathustra," but the idea is more definitely expressed in 
 "Jenseits von Gut und Bose," by Friedrich Nietzsche.
 
 ALTRUISM 415 
 
 of much interest to-day. But the antithesis between the two 
 points of view to a certain extent still concerns us, because 
 we in Germany have been accustomed proudly to insist on the 
 fact that, instead of a utilitarian morality fit only for a na- 
 tion of shopkeepers, we possess an absolute morality based on 
 a categorical imperative ; and that this morality ordains that 
 every one shall act morally, "however much he may injure 
 himself or others in so doing." 1 Even those who do not be- 
 lieve in such an absolute morality may think it desirable, at 
 any rate, to apply some form of morality, even should it be on 
 a false basis. 
 
 Now, we may readily admit that Kant's transcendental mo- 
 rality is scarcely suited to serve as a basis for conduct on the 
 battle-field; and the German 1902 "Rules of Land Warfare" 
 are accordingly utilitarian, whether they mean to be so or not. 
 Above all, however, this war has proved that it is just the 
 most cultivated persons who are likely to say to themselves 
 that, as they cannot now follow Kant's moral precepts, al- 
 though these are the only true ones, therefore they conform 
 to no morality, but do what it is their business to do as de- 
 structive machines under the stern compulsion of iron neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Now, it is out of the question to base a war morality on 
 Kant's "dignity of man." Hence w T e ought, and indeed a na- 
 tion at war must, try to discover some other basis for its mor- 
 ality. That is, unless it is to be altgoether at sea. Thus the 
 exigencies of war quite naturally lead us toward that so-called 
 "selfish system" which we, not wholly without justification, 
 are accustomed to consider a somewhat contemptible speciality 
 of our relatives across the channel. But instead of endeavor- 
 ing to view 1 it impartially, our pillars of civilization are just 
 now doing their utmost to pour contempt upon it. 
 
 The chief reason for the scorn with which utilitarianism was 
 
 i "Uber ein vermeintliches Recht, aus Menschenliene zu liigen" ("On 
 the alleged right to lie out of considerations of humanity), by Kant, 
 1797.
 
 416 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 received is probably that its opponents considered that utility 
 must necessarily presuppose a selfish motive, which is both 
 wrong and unjust. I have already shown, and in Chapter 
 XII purpose to show in more detail, that in the last resort 
 egoism and altruism by no means exclude each other, but are 
 really identical. Now, this modern view it is which is mainly 
 based on the works of British philosophers. They success- 
 ful^ endeavored to combat egoism by centering all their re- 
 flections around the race, and then laying down "natural laws 
 of benevolence." 
 
 The fact that in Germany we are still violently opposed to 
 the British is probably mainly due to the Christian conserva- 
 tive philosophers, particularly Professor Immanuel Hermann 
 Fichte, 1 the son of the great Fichte, and Fredrich Julius 
 Stahl, 2 member of the High Consistory Court. Both these 
 men, in the worst reactionary period, blackguarded the Eng- 
 lish because of their philosophy, which, as Stahl neatly puts it, 
 tends toward revolution. Moreover, both always attribute 
 purely egoistic views to Englishmen whenever the latter refer 
 to the greatest good of the greatest number (that is, to altru- 
 ism). In so doing, however, they utterly ignore Hume, to 
 whom this scarcely applies at all, and also Hutchinson. But 
 a word to the wise is sufficient, and it was the opinions of 
 Fichte and Stahl concerning British philosophy which pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 Now, the doctrine propounded by Hobbes 3 in the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, that morality was due to utility, 
 was far from being absolutely new. The Epicurean natural 
 philosophers had already prepared men's minds for it. Again, 
 
 i "Die philosophischen Lehren von Recht und Sitte in Deutschland, 
 Frankreich und England" ("The Philosophical Doctrines of Law and 
 Morality in Germany, France, and England), by J. H. Fichte, 1850. 
 
 2 "Philosophie des Rechtes nach griechischer Anischt" ("The Philos- 
 ophy of Right according to the Views of the Greeks"), by Friedrich 
 Julius Stahl, 1830. 
 
 3 "De oive," Paris, 1642; "De hominis natura": London, 1650, and 
 "Leviathan," London, 1651.
 
 ALTRUISM 417 
 
 at almost the same time Spinoza 1 was teaching similar doc- 
 trines at Amsterdam, which, it is true, had for some years 
 past ceased to form a part of the German Empire, but was 
 still very much under the influence of German ideas. Nev- 
 ertheless, it is true that Hobbes was the first systematically 
 to base morality on utility. English philosophers, such as 
 Butler 2 and Paley, 3 Priestley, 4 Hartley, 5 and particularly 
 Jeremy Bentham," who in 1802 first used the word "Utilitari- 
 anism/' certainly developed this doctrine ; but at the same time 
 they did more and more to efface the egoistic substratum of 
 the so-called selfish system by substituting the good of the 
 community in general for the good of the individual man. It 
 is likewise true that such British writers as Chesterfield 7 
 and Jonathan Swift 8 popularized this system, sometimes be- 
 cause they agreed with it, and sometimes ironically. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that the impulse given 
 by Hobbes determined the whole trend of ideas throughout 
 the civilized world in the ensuing period, and that none of 
 the succeeding philosophers in any civilized country could 
 shake off his influence. Among those who have drawn prac- 
 tical inferences from his works, sometimes pushing them to 
 extremes, the Germans were well to the fore ; and in particular 
 I might mention Thomasius, 9 Christian Wolf, 10 Frederick II, 11 
 
 i The chief writings of Spinoza which here come into consideration 
 were not published till after his death. 
 
 2 "Three Sermons on Human Nature," by Bishop Joseph Butler, 1726. 
 
 sPaley's "'Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," 178.> 
 
 * Joseph Priestley's "Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity," 1777. 
 
 s Hartley's "Observations of Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His 
 Expectations," 1749. 
 
 « "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," by Jeremy 
 Bentham, 1789. 
 
 7 Particularly in his "Letters to his Son," 1774. 
 
 s Particularly in his "philosophical travel romance," "Gulliver's 
 Travels," 1726. 
 
 » Christian Thomasius, a Saxon philosopher and jurist, "Einleitung 
 zur Sittenlehre," ("Introduction to the Doctrine of Morality") 1692. 
 
 io "Philosophia moralis," by the Silesian philosopher, Christian Wolf. 
 
 ii "Examen du prince de Machiavel," 1739, by Frederick II of 
 Brandenburg. See also many passages from his letters to Voltaire.
 
 418 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 and Nicola i, 1 also Holbaeh, 2 who wrote in French, down to 
 Nietzsche. And modern German jurists, such as Beueke, 3 
 Ihering, 4 and Gizycki, 5 to say nothing of such men as Kohler, 
 adopted an out and out utilitarian standpoint. 
 
 On the other hand, Englishmen, especially Locke, 6 but also 
 Henry More, 7 Cudworth, 8 Richard Price, and most of all 
 Shaftesbury, 9 have protested against this utilitarian doctrine. 
 
 Most important of all, however, David Hume, 10 one of the 
 most brilliant thinkers whom not only England, but the world, 
 has ever known, succeeded in showing, basing his arguments 
 on Hobbes's writings, that even without metaphysics it is pos- 
 sible, at all events, to recognize the fact that morality may be 
 wholly disinterested. He took sympathy as the mainspring of 
 his ideas, unconsciously reverting to the Peripatetics, and 
 Stoics' conception of it. These schools looked upon the world 
 as being held together by sympathy and as simply the ex- 
 pression of a single great organism. Hume is therefore really 
 
 i Christoph Friedrich Nicolai German litterateur and bookseller. 
 See especially many volumes of his "Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek," 
 ("Universal German Library"), in which he voiced the opposition to 
 Kant, Fichte, and Goethe; that is, to the then new movement of thought. 
 
 2 "'Elements de la morale universelle," by Paul Heinrich Thyry d'Hol- 
 bach, 1776. 
 
 3"Griindsatze der Zivil — und Kriminalgesetzgebung" ("Principles of 
 Civil and Criminal Legislation") by M. Beneke, 1830. 
 
 *"Kampf urns Recht" ("The Fight for the Right"), in particular 
 "Der Zweck im Recht" ("The Object of Right"), by Rudolf von Ihering, 
 pp. 77-83. 
 
 5 "Philosophische Konsequenzen der Lamarek-Darwininschen Entwick- 
 lungstheorie" ("The Philosophical Consequences of Lamarck's and Dar- 
 win's theories of Evolution"'), by G. von Gizycki, 1876. 
 
 e "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," by John Locke, 1000. 
 
 7 "Enchiridion ethicum," by Henry More, 1667. 
 
 s "Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality," by Ralph 
 Cudworth, 1731. 
 
 9 "Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions and Times," by Anthony 
 Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1713. 
 
 io Hume ventilated such arguments even in 1738 in his "Treatise upon 
 Human Nature," published at the age of twenty-seven. In his later 
 works he was constantly departing from modern utilitarianism and 
 reverting to these contentions.
 
 ALTRUISM 419 
 
 the founder of modern morality, which is no longer based on 
 metaphysics, but applies to all human beings indiscriminately. 
 His doctrines were afterward developed, particularly by John 
 Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Adam Smith, and Charles Dar- 
 win, and to some extent also by the German natural philoso- 
 phers. 
 
 1 have instanced all these authors, and I might have in- 
 stanced many more, to show how wrongly men's writings are 
 frequently interpreted. The modern doctrine of utilitarian- 
 ism may, in short, be summarized as "that the aim and object 
 of our actions is the greatest possible happiness of the greatest 
 possible number of human beings." 1 Now let us see how 
 Germany insures this. 
 
 § 152. — The Evolution of Kantian Morality 
 
 To this practical maxim Kant 2 opposed his categorical im- 
 perative. He based it on doctrines extending back as far as 
 Plato, although on practical reason as well. According to 
 Kant's "categorical imperative," "Man ought to act in accord- 
 ance with a maxim which may at the same time prevail as a 
 universal law." 
 
 Now, without expressing an opinion as to the value of and 
 basis for these two maxims, it is certain that any one desirous 
 of acting morally can do so without infringing either ; but it 
 is not so certain that any one following only one of them 
 must act morally in all circumstances. At all events, no gen- 
 eral injustice could ever result from the so-called English 
 doctrine, although from the "German" doctrine a good deal 
 inevitably follows which, leaving objective justice out of ac- 
 count, seems to us, after all, subjectively right and reasonable. 
 
 Hence the English doctrine is undoubtedly more practical 
 than that of Kant, because an objective test can be applied to 
 it; whereas, however much we may try to avoid it, there will 
 
 i "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," by 
 Jeremy Bentham, II, chap. 17, p. 234 
 
 2 Kant's "Metaphysik der Sitten" ("Metaphysics of Morals").
 
 420 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 always be a subjective remainder in the case of a categorical 
 imperative. Besides this, Kant's doctrine, strictly interpreted, 
 cannot be carried out in practice. Human beings, after all, 
 vary greatly, and there is no universal maxim applicable alike 
 to a weak-brained person and to a genius. For instance, a 
 genius has a right to revolt, but if every human being claimed 
 such a right, the result would be universal anarchy. Whether 
 a person, however, has a right to resist this sluggish world, he 
 alone can decide ; and if he does so without regard to the inter- 
 ests of people in general, then he drifts about aimlessly on the 
 ocean of limitless subjectivity. 
 
 Now, it is certain that an upright man will act uprightly 
 quite apart from Kant, Hobbes, or Hume; while a rogue will 
 remain a rogue, whether he call himself a Kantian or a dis- 
 ciple of Hobbes. It does not seem a mere chance, however, 
 that Hobbes should have been born in England and Kant in 
 Germany, although he was of British descent. The Germans 
 have always considered independent, original thought as their 
 speciality, and often as their privilege as well. In this respect 
 they believe themselves superior to all other nations ; whereas 
 the Englishman's love of tradition and of old-established law 
 was often ridiculed as a feeling akin to that of slaves ac- 
 customed to be driven in gangs. Your Englishman, it was 
 said, is, after all, a slave, despite his political liberty. 
 
 Some such distinction there would really seem to be, and 
 its causes are probably to be found deep down in the edu- 
 cation and peculiar genius of the German and English nations. 
 It profoundly influences all the external aspects of life, par- 
 ticularly those practical notions of right which have developed 
 in both nations as time has gone on. Schopenhauer assuredly 
 manifested extraordinary psychological perspicacity when he 
 said 1 that the German is all for equity, but the Briton is for 
 justice, adding, "that equity is the enemy of justice, and 
 often grossly conflicts with it." 
 
 i "Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik" ("The Two Root Problems of 
 I'thirs"), by Sehopenbauer, II, § 17, p. 222.
 
 ALTRUISM 421 
 
 This is not the place to discuss which is the nobler quality, 
 objective justice or subjective equity, although personally I 
 incline to Schopenhauer's view that if human beings are to 
 be able to live together, justice is of much the more impor- 
 tance. In any case, justice is more suited to everyday life. 
 
 It is interesting to trace what has happened in Germany. 
 Setting out from Kant, we have gradually, by a circuitous 
 route, via equity, come utterly to deny laws of universal ap- 
 plication and wholly to accept a utilitarian doctrine. In Eng- 
 land, on the contrary, men have set out from Hobbes, and have 
 arrived, by a circuitous route, via Hume's "sympathy," un- 
 conditionally to admit established standards. 
 
 Kant's morality is based on the subjective categorical im- 
 perative, and it is no chance that such a pessimist as Schopen- 
 hauer, such an ultra-radical as Stirner, and such a superman 
 as Nietzsche, all alleged that the basis of their philosophy was 
 Kant. Even if it cannot for a moment be suggested that the 
 ideas of any one of these three were unethical, the fact remains 
 that it is their school which has produced such men as Moltke 
 and Bernhardi, who proclaim the doctrine that for the strong 
 man every means, even forcible means, of getting stronger is 
 allowable. 
 
 §153. — The Abuse of Kant's Doctrine 
 
 Now. even in the "Handbook of the Usages of Land War- 
 fare," published by the German General Staff, the principle is 
 always adopted that the necessities of war override any writ- 
 leu law introduced by international conventions. The attitude 
 to be adopted toward restrictive legislation of this kind de- 
 pends on the judgment of the persons concerned. 
 
 It is easy to see that such instructions, which take no count 
 of anything except of possible advantage, strike at the very 
 roots of all international agreements, and in particular they 
 make the precepts of the Hague Convention about the laws 
 and customs of land warfare virtually illusory. As I have 
 frequently pointed out, war is restricted and in a sense im-
 
 422 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 peded by such conventions. But if a nation signs them, then 
 in so doing it binds itself thenceforward to wage war under 
 these more difficult conditions. 
 
 No one denies that the general staff was justified in assum- 
 ing that, judging by the experience of warfare, France would 
 be most successfully attacked by a march through Belgium. 
 The chief ground for this assumption, however, must have 
 been that France, relying somewhat on international conven- 
 tions, had fortified this part of her frontier less than any 
 others. But whether France could be most successfully at- 
 tacked via Belgium or not was no longer the question. By the 
 neutrality law of 1839 Germany had become a guarantor of 
 the inviolability of Belgium, and in so doing she herself 
 erected an insurmountable wall along the Belgian frontier. 
 She herself had put an obstacle in the way of war, just as 
 France had done, although this is now beside the point. And 
 now it was for Germany to fight under these more difficult 
 conditions. 
 
 She did not do so. She set herself up above objective justice 
 as laid down by conventions, arguing that there was so much 
 at stake for Germany that it was allowable for her to do what 
 best suited her own purposes without troubling about law. I 
 am firmly convinced that both the grand general staff and 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, who defended Germany's action, were 
 subjectively absolutely convinced that in this particular case 
 they did right to substitute Germany's advantage for Ger- 
 many's duty and that the laws of equity justified their action. 
 But these laws of equity can never be definitely ascertained, 
 and Germans must not be surprised if others, both nations 
 and individual men, do not altogether appreciate them. Eng- 
 land, however, declared war as a guarantor of the inviolability 
 of Belgian neutrality, as it was her duty to do in accordance 
 with the wording of the law which guaranteed it. 
 
 Since the war began there have been more cases of objective 
 violations of law. I omit all mention of horrible isolated acts, 
 which may be excused on the ground of fear, confusion, lack
 
 ALTRUISM 423 
 
 of discipline, or absence of supervision; but some proclama- 
 tions of General von Biilow, Lieutenant-General von Nieber, 
 and Field-Marshal von der Goltz cannot be explained except as 
 deliberate violations of law. It is to be hoped that the authors 
 of these proclamations knew that they flatly conflict with the 
 regulations of the Second Hague Conference. 1 For instance, 
 according to Article 50 of the Hague Convention, no general- 
 ized punishment in money or otherwise may be inflicted ; 2 the 
 torpedoing of merchant vessels conflicts with the convention 
 concerning prize courts ; the use of poisonous gases is expressly 
 forbidden, etc. All which is bad, but not the worse. 
 
 War is not a moral action. Now, whoever says A must also 
 say B, and he cannot be reproached even if he does so with 
 dogged determination. There is no excuse, however, for the 
 hypocrisy of those who have remained at home — a hypocrisy 
 now coming to light everywhere. We can understand men 
 losing their heads when they see the sky illuminated with the 
 light of burning villages, but there is no excuse whatever for 
 those who write their proclamations by the peaceful light of 
 their study lamp. Those who assert that German militarism 
 and German civilization are not a contradiction in terms are 
 quite right. Even in peace-time, under the influence of mili- 
 tarism, there were many who used to advocate individualist 
 or, at any rate, social "Eudamionism" of the most outrageous 
 description, and only too frequently the}' concluded by an 
 appeal to Kant. 3 Now, in war-time, this has become every- 
 where the fashion in Germany. 
 
 But let us leave this wretched bastard, the product of the 
 womb of Athene, goddess of wisdom, impregnated by Mars — a 
 
 i "To be hoped," because, let us hope, that German generals are ac- 
 quainted with the Hague Conference regulations. 
 
 - Cf. the late Professor Emile Waxweiler's "Hat Belgien sein Schick - 
 sal verdient?" ("Did Belgium deserve her Fate?") Orall Fiisste: 
 ZQrieh. 
 
 8 Kudumionism means happiness or well-being, and in modern ethics 
 is used to denote a general type of ethical theory equally removed from 
 the extremes of hedonism and abstract rationalism. — Translator.
 
 424 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 union which horrified even the imagination of the ancients, 
 none too fastidious when it came to a question of the illegiti- 
 mate intercourse of the gods. 
 
 It may be, indeed, that there is neither an absolute nor even 
 any relative morality, and that consequently we need abide by 
 no sort of moral laws whatever. Our martial philosophers are 
 perhaps more nearly right than they will even confess to them- 
 selves in the coming time of calm consideration and reversion 
 to the eternal Kant. But one thing is certain: Kant's own 
 country is already conquered. 
 
 § 154. — A Change of Parts and a Comedy in Consequence 
 
 In conclusion, let me cite a curious parallel. If we set out 
 from the delusion that Kantian ethics prevail in Germany, and 
 utilitarianism in England, then just now both nations seem to 
 have changed places. A dramatic instance of this is the inter- 
 view x which the British ambassador had on the evening of 
 August 4 with the German Imperial Chancellor, which is, so 
 to speak, a confirmation of how seldom any human being's 
 actions are influenced by his theoretical morality. Bethmann- 
 Hollweg, who likes to be called a Kantian, says that, Would 
 Great Britain for a mere word "neutrality," a word often 
 disregarded in war-time, for a mere scrap of paper — would 
 Great Britain wage war with a nation akin to her in blood, 
 whose greatest wish it was to be friends with her? For purely 
 strategical reasons it is a matter of life and death for Germany 
 to march through Belgium and violate her neutrality. 
 
 In his despatch No. 160 to Sir Edward Grey, dated August 
 8, 1914, from London, Sir Edward Goschen says:- 
 
 I protested strongly against that statement [that is, that Great 
 Britain was responsible for all the terrible events that might hap- 
 pen], and said that, in the same way as he and Herr von Jagow 
 wished me to understand that for strategical reasons it was a matter 
 of life and death to Germany to advance through Belgium and violate 
 
 i Report of the British Ambassador in Berlin to Sir Edward Grey. 
 Despatch No. 160 of August 8, 1914.
 
 ALTRUISM 425 
 
 the latter's neutrality, so I would wish him to understand that it 
 was, so to speak, a matter of "life and death" for the honour of 
 Great Britain that she should keep her solemn engagement to do her 
 utmost to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked. 
 
 The chancellor then asked : 
 
 "But at what price will that compact have been kept? Has 
 the British Government thought of that?" 
 
 Sir Edward Goschen's despatch then proceeds: "I hinted 
 to his Excellency as plainly as I could that fear of conse- 
 quences could hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking 
 solemn engagements." 
 
 Every word here which the British ambassador says seems 
 dictated by the conception of duty, and every word which the 
 German says, by the conception of utility. 
 
 The German philosopher Vorlander 1 probably had a pre- 
 sentiment that this would be so, for as long ago as 1851 he 
 wrote: "Those who pursue only the divine ideal of human 
 nature without at the same time taking into account the real- 
 ity and truth of human life, as we see it in English ethics, lose 
 themselves only too easily in an empty, confused idealism, 
 which leads to no good in life and does not even enrich our 
 knowledge. But whatever be our views on morality, the im- 
 portant point for statesmen, more than for any other human 
 beings, is not why they do their duty, but that they should 
 do it, as even the 'ethical' Spinoza said, 2 Nee ad imperii 
 securitatem refert, quo animo homines inducantur ad res 
 publicas recte administrandas, modo recte administrentur.' 
 
 In view of the facts, I think that our professors of philoso- 
 phy ought at any rate to cease prostituting themselves and 
 Kant and their own nation, and should rather say with Beth- 
 
 i "Rechtsphilosophie und Moral der Engllinder im 17. und 18 Jahr- 
 hundert" ("The Philosophy of Right and Morality of the English in the 
 Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries"), by the nineteenth century 
 German philosopher Vorlander In the "Allg. Monatsschrift fur Wis- 
 senschaft und Literatur," p. 356. Cf. also p. 460. 
 
 2 Spinoza, "Tract politic," cap. I, §56.
 
 426 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 mann-Hollweg, "Pater, peceavi." We have sinned against 
 the conception of duties undertaken by thinking altogether too. 
 much of our own advantage, albeit, perhaps, in the circum- 
 stances there was some excuse for this ; but we hope to do our 
 best to set matters right again afterward. 
 
 § 155. — The Inadequacy of Both Bases of Morality 
 
 Whether we base our love of our neighbors on religion or 
 on egoism, we can certainly live quite morally; but then in 
 neither case have we anything really to keep us from egoism. 
 If altruism were only a God-given, inborn sentiment, for which 
 there is no visible cause, then of course it can extend only so 
 far as this inborn sentiment extends ; and if any one in a par- 
 ticular case is inclined to be not altruistic, but too egoistic, then 
 it is useless to reason with him, for there is no modifying any 
 inborn sentiment. Neither philosophy nor God can change it. 
 
 But if altruism is egoism in disguise, then the original ego- 
 ism may of course be entitled, indeed must, to follow altruistic 
 sentiments only so long as it seems right to the superordinate 
 egoism so to do ; and in each individual case egoism may say 
 that altruistic impulses are misplaced. In both cases, in short, 
 if any one behaves decently, this is only because he happens to 
 be well disposed. On the other hand, if the other person is 
 to have an absolute right to proper treatment, this right must 
 be based neither on a subjective feeling, nor must it be any- 
 thing in the nature of a right voluntarily conceded, as it were, 
 from motives of expediency. It must be a right which has 
 nothing to do with my personal feelings or my own will. 
 
 So long as morality is not based on actual demonstrable prin- 
 ciples, it is simply something in the air, and the modern man 
 realizes this only too keenly. Thus Drews, 1 the well known 
 German student of the life and teachings of Christ, says that 
 there is no empirical morality, and that morality would be in 
 
 i The modern German religious philosopher Drews made this state- 
 ment in 1910 in an address delivered in Berlin. Whether this has been 
 printed or not, I do not know.
 
 ALTRUISM 427 
 
 any case inconceivable without God ; but that as morality is a 
 necessity, we must, even against reason, hold fast the concep- 
 tion of a God, as if for most human beings this were such an 
 easy matter ! And Karl Jentsch 1 actually makes the mon- 
 strous assertion that "political economy exists for the indi- 
 vidual human being." Even he thinks that without belief in 
 God there would be no higher aim than the welfare of the 
 individual human being, and as political economy must, he 
 argues, be independent of belief in God, there is no other 
 course left but to base it on the individual human being. 
 
 Clearly the disinclination to bring morality to the plane of 
 this earth has very unsatisfactory results. Instead of drawing 
 the only possible conclusion from the fact of there being such 
 a thing as political economy, something higher than the wel- 
 fare of the individual man here below, Jentsch would rather 
 deny the fact ; for, after all, it is denying political economy to 
 assert that it exists for the individual human being. 
 
 And all this because a morality brought down to and applied 
 to this world seems to him positively dreadful! To me it 
 seems that the antimonist trend given to our ideas, or, rather, 
 the regrettable popularization of antimonist philosophy, is 
 responsible for this moral laxity, many more instances of which 
 might be given. It is always imagined that if morality is 
 not based on categorical imperatives, then it is not morality at 
 all, and not worth discussing. 
 
 Let us now see whether it is not possible to find in nature 
 the conditions of an objective morality, one which would have 
 the incalculable advantage of being independent of our sub- 
 jective feelings, be they commendable or the reverse. This is 
 possible because of the fact that mankind can be proved to be 
 an organism. 
 
 i"Zukunft" ("Future"'), by the German historian Karl Jentsch.
 
 PART TWO 
 HOW WAR MAY BE ABOLISHED
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Evolution of the Idea of the World as an Organism 
 
 1. — the hellenic period 
 
 § 156. — The First Presentiments of There Being a Soul in 
 This World 
 
 If a natural scientist is to be able to describe any process 
 or occurrence, he must first be able to show how it could come 
 about. He can understand the secretion of bile only through 
 our anatomical knowledge of the liver. If we are to under- 
 stand psychic processes, we must have some knowledge of the 
 brain, and to account for altruism in man we should be obliged 
 to prove some corresponding organic basis for it. The fact of 
 the existence of a personality maintained by a homogeneous 
 consciousness explains egoism, indeed in a sense necessitates it. 
 Similarly the undeniable existence of altruism means that 
 there must be some organic substratum on which it is based, 
 and which could consist only in the fact of mankind as a whole 
 being also a homogeneous organism and possessing a kind of 
 collective consciousness. If this could be proved, then we 
 should, at any rate, have some foundation to go upon. 
 
 That mankind is not a mere notion, but a solid fact, may 
 seem absurd to many persons ; but there is no denying that the 
 noblest representatives of mankind have at all times believed in 
 there being a soul in this world. All the higher religions may 
 ultimately be traced back to the imperative feeling that an 
 isolated human being is not capable of the highest, which he 
 can attain only by means of organization. Man is instinc- 
 tively felt to belong to some larger association or community. 
 True, he cannot clearly grasp this fact, and he is therefore 
 
 431
 
 4.32 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 irresistibly impelled to endeavor to express his vague divina- 
 tion by the mystical word God. 
 
 Here we have the moral — that is, the human — foundation of 
 all religion, and not until such a God of man becomes deified 
 is there anything contrary to morality in it. Obviously, if 
 God no longer represents mankind, but is something extra- 
 human, so to speak, then the individual man has a God who is 
 "too sublime" for him, and he acquires a right to lord it over 
 everything, with an egoism knowing no bounds. In fact, this 
 is exactly what has come to pass everywhere. 
 
 But when attempts were made to comprehend this dimly 
 conceived divinity by means of the intellect, or at any rate to 
 bring it into line with the intellect; when, for instance, the 
 Hellenes first began to indulge in philosophic speculation, even 
 then we find references to this soul of the world, as if it were 
 something needing no explanation. 
 
 Everything, in fact, which we continue to say, with half- 
 melancholy resignation about the vanished harmony of the 
 Greek conception of the world may be traced back to the fact 
 that the divine idea of a world one and indivisible still sur- 
 vived in this Greek people, so simple, yet so wise. In reality, 
 the hylozoism of Thales 1 and the other six wise men of Greece 
 is nothing but the belief that the whole world is a single great 
 organism. Even for Heraclitus 2 everything had a soul and 
 was full of demons; even he believed that everything had a 
 consciousness and did its share of thinking; 3 he believed there 
 to be a universal "world fire" common to everything, which 
 
 i Aristotle, "De Anima," I, 2, says expressly of Thales that he taught 
 that even stones had a soul. [Thales was the chief of the seven wise 
 men of ancient Greece, was a native of Miletus, and flourished from 
 about 600 to 540 B. c. In philosophy he sought for a single element out 
 of which the whole world was formed. This he thought to be moisture. 
 — Translator.] 
 
 -' In Diogenes Laertes, L. 9. 7. [Heraclitus of Ephesus is said to 
 have been the first philosopher to proclaim the absolute life of nature, 
 and the conception of an unconditional rational law governing the 
 whole course of nature. — Translator] 
 
 3 Sextus Empiricus, ad math. VIII 286.
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 433 
 
 for him also meant universal intelligence, a conception prob- 
 ably similar to that of the Brahman of the Upanishads. 1 All 
 the pre-Socratic thinkers held such views, as did also the whole 
 Greek nation, which expressed its aspirations by creating for 
 itself the world of Greek divinities, the lost beauty of which 
 has been touchingly lamented by Schiller. 
 
 With Socrates, to whom we otherwise owe much, first came 
 strife into the world. He first began to set man on a pinnacle. 
 He believed that man, owing to his moral greatness, could 
 be contrasted with the rest of nature. True, he also ex- 
 pounded ethical doctrines of a wondrous pathos which have 
 endured to this day and seem destined to endure for all time. 
 But perhaps precisely because of these doctrines and his con- 
 viction of their profound value, although he could not fully 
 establish them, Socrates believed that ethics could not in any 
 case be explained or proved, but at best only taught. All 
 post-Socratic religion and ethics, in so far as they were dog- 
 matic, never did more than attempt to supply this lack of basis 
 or justification. 
 
 Now, certainly no one ought to think that in Socrates him- 
 self this great cleavage is always clearly perceivable. In his 
 "Daimonium" there still survives something of that old Fate 
 which his ancestors had revered, that superhuman Fate which 
 created Greek tragedy, and which even the ancient Teutons 
 revered under the form of that sway of the Norns to which 
 even gods must bow. 
 
 § 157. — The Post-Socratics 
 
 All these doctrines and ideas are mystical symbols of the pro- 
 foundly realized fact that the destiny of us human beings, 
 despite all our self-seeking and self-will, nevertheless works out 
 in accordance with great laws, eternal and unbending. But 
 men then were trying not merely to feel the world, but also 
 to understand it, and they found it extraordinarily hard to 
 
 i Upanishad, or Vedanta, a system of ancient Hindu philosophy which 
 endeavors to investigate the true nature of the human soul. — Trans- 
 lator.
 
 434 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 understand what had hitherto been simply felt and taken on 
 trust. Hence they thought they could overcome the difficulty 
 by coining the phrase, "Man's freedom as a moral being is 
 something outside the constraint to which nature is subjected. ' ' 
 The glorious effects, fraught with vast consequences, of man's 
 having thus insisted on his freedom must not blind us to the 
 fact that in so doing he put himself so to speak "outside 
 nature." 
 
 So long as the cause of this contrast between man and 
 nature was not absolutely cleared up, all attempts to unite the 
 two inevitably ended in mysticism or rationalism. Such at- 
 tempts continued until Kant 's time, yet even he did not quite 
 explain the enigma. He did, however, prepare the way for 
 its solution by contrasting the opposite conclusions reached by 
 considering matters from the point of view of pure reason and 
 of the actual hard fact. If Kant had not at last attempted a 
 mystical or transcendental solution of the problem, the world 
 would have probably perceived more clearly than it did that 
 his point of view was nearest the truth. 
 
 Two thousand years separate Socrates from Kant, and all 
 this time that superordinate principle survived which the 
 wise men of old accepted and believed in as the soul of the 
 world; but gradually it developed into a conception of divin- 
 ity removed from human comprehension. Gradually, there- 
 fore, the harmony of the terrestrial world, as taught by the 
 Pythagoreans, degenerated into a harmony of a purely supra- 
 sensual world. 
 
 Even in Plato's writings the homogeneousness of the world 
 is generally represented only by the demiurgos, 1 who created 
 the world homogeneous, and whose visible emanations are the 
 celestial bodies. Man, on the contrary, is a miniature God 
 unto himself, an imitation or image of the immortal gods. 
 
 Even in Aristotle we get only glimpses of the world's soul 
 as conceived by his predecessors. For instance, he refers to a 
 
 i Demivrpos is the name applied by Plato to the creator of the uni- 
 verse. — Translator.
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 435 
 
 plant soul. 1 For him, as for Plato, even each separate state 
 is a living being, a soon, a substance "bearing in itself the 
 principle of its motion and having a tendency to change." 
 Thus did the state come within the province of natural science, 
 and become something to be investigated by the same methods 
 as all animate beings; that is, by experimental analysis. - 
 Many other references to some such idea may be found. Tims 
 Aristotle says that a slave is an organ of the family, "a part 
 of his master, as it were, a part of his body, but with a separate 
 existence and a soul." Of a popular assembly he says that 
 it is a single consciousness, a single intelligence. The discus- 
 sions preceding a collective decision precisely resemble the 
 way in which an individual man takes counsel with himself, 
 except that the collective person, having more organs at its 
 disposal, and wider and more varied experience, is correspond- 
 ingly wiser. Aristotle also expressly states that whether the 
 different parts of an organization are in contact with one an- 
 other or not is comparatively immaterial ; for the real basis of 
 the organization is rather the mutual relationships of life. 
 
 Similarly many hints occur in Aristotle that groups of 
 human beings are to be considered as organisms, but the broad 
 general idea of humanity was then waxing dim, and he sa}'S 
 nothing about a collective soul of the world. This conception, 
 indeed, survived in a far more definite form among the Stoics, 
 whose " pneuma" — a something which can move of itself and 
 think for itself — embraces the entire world, and is therefore 
 merely the old hyolozoist soul of the world, only more vigor- 
 ously conceived. The Stoics were afterward joined by Plo- 
 tinus 3 who insists on the homogeneity of individual souls ; by 
 
 i Aristotle, "De Anima," IT, 2, 413. 
 
 - Idem, I, 113. 
 
 s Plotinus, founder of the Xeo-Platonie system of philosophy. He 
 held that the soul is the one source of knowledge, that the Deity can 
 be grasped by intuition only; that after the Deity, the productive of 
 all existence, comes the universal soul or spirit; and out of the spirit 
 is developed the soul. Kingsley's "Hypatia" gives some idea of Plo- 
 tinus's philosophy. — Translator.
 
 436 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 the Manicheans, 1 the Christians, and, above all, by Origen. 
 
 2. — THE CHRISTIAN ERA 
 
 § 158. — The Scholastic Victory Over Primitive Christendom 
 
 The Christians believed in the pneuma hagion, in a sacred, 
 vivifying, inspiring force, uniting together every individual 
 soul. 2 This pneuma hagion was the world soul, but a body 
 was likewise attributed to this world. Thus St. Paul says : 
 
 ' ' For as we have many members in one body, and all mem- 
 bers have not the same office : 
 
 "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one 
 members one of another. ' ' 3 
 
 This last sentence is perhaps the best and assuredly the 
 most searching definition ever given of an organism and the 
 mutual relations of its parts or members one with another. 
 
 In amazement we might well ask ourselves how the plain 
 men who wrote the sacred Scriptures attained to such wisdom. 
 They probably knew nothing of the conception of an organism, 
 nor even of human society. And yet they could define both 
 with the utmost clarity ! But how did they do so ? This ap- 
 parent marvel can be understood only if we take the fact 
 which we would fain prove as being already proved, "Uni- 
 versal human love is the feeling which testifies to the health of 
 the universal human organism." Both these things are in- 
 separably bound up with each other, and primitive Christian- 
 ity was so profoundly penetrated with charity, or man's love 
 
 i Manicheism, whose originator was Mani, born in Babylon about a. d. 
 216, and put to death by crucifixion and Haying, taught that the spirits 
 of light send a succession of prophets to earth — Noah, Abraham, 
 Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus patibilis, who is a pure spirit, and his 
 body merely a phantom. Mani himself claimed to be the last such 
 prophet, destined to carry on the work of Christ and Paul — the separa- 
 tion of light from darkness. — Translator. 
 
 2Cf. p. 451 et seq., concerning the conception of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 3 Romans XII, 4 and 5. This conception developed in process of time 
 into the purely dogmatic and in reality quite incomprehensible modem 
 conception of the "Holy Ghost."
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 43? 
 
 of his fellow-man, that this sacred love was the source whence 
 it derived the strength intuitively to perceive the practical 
 effect of such love. Without laying too great stress on intui- 
 tive perceptions of truth, we may yet say that every one who 
 believes in the power of the soul to elicit the truth should in- 
 scribe in letters of gold these verses from the Epistle to the 
 Romans. 
 
 The close and obviously inevitable connection of this Pauline 
 precept with the conception of universal human love is also 
 clear from the fact that even Seneca, 1 who in this respect 
 thought absolutely as a Christian, agrees with St. Paul in con- 
 sidering individual human beings as members of one great 
 superordinate living body. 
 
 Christianity, therefore, seemed destined to make widely 
 known the ancient Hellenic idea of harmony in the world, and 
 in the first centuries after Christ even the millenarians hoped 
 that, at any rate at some future time, the kingdom of God 
 would prevail on earth. Tertullian in particular did so ; and 
 even Origen, who disagreed with the millenarians in this re- 
 spect, holds similar views ; for he expressly states that 2 ' ' The 
 whole world is like a great animal animated by one soul and 
 one only." Herein he shows his affinities with St. Paul, at the 
 same time laying down that principle which the writer would 
 fain have seen recognized. This principle can be expressed in 
 up-to-date language as follows: the cells in an animal, taken 
 together, form a single large organism. Similarly all isolated 
 individuals taken together form a superordinate organism, a 
 statement which is to be understood quite literally, and not 
 metaphorically. 
 
 In the interval, however, the world came under the influence 
 of the Christian scholastics, and for centuries this conception 
 survived merely as a symbol, overgrown and hidden by tran- 
 
 i "Omne hoc quod vides, quo divina atque humana oonclusa sunt, 
 mi urn est: membra sumus corporis ma^ni." Seneca, Letter 95. 
 
 2 Origen, "De Princip., I, 1, 3, says: "Unirersum mundvm velut ani- 
 mal quuddam immensam atque opiniandum puto, quod quasi db una 
 anima xirtute dei ac rutiunr teneatur."
 
 438 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 seendental Christian mysticism. Even Augustine * trans- 
 formed an idea, which after all is based only on natural sci- 
 ence, into something purely spiritual and religious. This 
 great father of the church was unfortunately succeeded by the 
 entirely Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages, of whom 
 Abelard may be specially mentioned. Thomas - alone is a 
 notable exception. These philosophers systematically ignored 
 the clear definitions of Aristotle, whom otherwise they es- 
 teemed highly, as was always the case with those who could 
 not apply his teachings. Human society was stated not to be 
 a natural, but only an artificial, mechanism, possibly a creation 
 of the devil. With it was contrasted, as being a true organ- 
 ism, the heavenly kingdom of God, and here again that actual 
 kingdom of which men dreamed created a confusion in their 
 conceptions of life. 
 
 § 159. — Renaissance and Reaction 
 
 Thus matters remained until the natural philosophers of the 
 Renaissance once more reverted to the pan-psychic ideas of 
 Grecian mythology. Then, when the world seemed wholly 
 given over to killing and fighting, the best mortals, who rightly 
 called themselves humanists, once again became aware of a 
 longing for humane ways and ideas. They remembered Greek 
 harmony and unity, or, as they occasionally called it, equality. 
 From the teachings of the church they selected the fraternity 
 of the early Christians, and they even had an inkling of the 
 liberty which knowledge was one day to confer on them. 
 
 Since then liberty, equality, and fraternity have unmistak- 
 ably progressed. True, the mass of mankind have neither 
 Greek, Christian, nor scientific leanings, and consequently are 
 not humane either. They oppress their inferiors and bow 
 down to their superiors ; and as regards the human race, it is 
 just the same. They imagine that a God rules over them and 
 that the animal kingdom is subject to them. 
 
 i St. Augustine in his "De Civitate dei libris, XXII," XIV, 28. 
 2 Thomas, "De regim. print." I, 1.
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 439 
 
 Since the Renaissance, however, man has begun to feel that 
 there exists an inward link between himself and nature; and 
 when Leibnitz died some notion of man's resemblance both to 
 God and beast had already filtered through even to the darkest 
 regions of Europe. This trend of thought it was which was 
 destined to be decisive in the future, but as yet such ideas did 
 not generally prevail. The potentates of those days were still 
 equally alarmed at the notion of man resembling God and at 
 that of his resembling the beasts of the field; and although 
 these heretical views first made their appearance decently in 
 the garb of orthodox Christianity, yet the church was astute 
 enough to perceive the young swan in the duck's egg almost 
 before it was hatched. 
 
 AVe need not here discuss what was done with God. He be- 
 came more and more fined down and exclusive, with less and 
 less of the human about Him, until at length, in 1854, the 
 dogma was put forth that the birth even of the mother of God 
 was stainless. Similarly animals were represented as having 
 no resemblance to human beings, a school of thought of which 
 Descartes, who said they were machines, is a typical instance. 
 St. Francis of Assisi was not exactly placed on the index, but 
 the sense of his poems to Brother Wolf and Brother Sun was 
 scouted. After all, that period was beginning in which the 
 church helped to erect barriers between different categories of 
 human beings. How, therefore, was it to recognize our 
 brothers in trees and shrubs or in air and water? 
 
 Thus began a time when the natural man, and with him 
 natural society, was once more combated as in the darkest 
 period of the Middle Ages, only more systematically and more 
 strictly in accordance with dogmatic principles. There was 
 even opposition to those who from purely religious sentiment 
 would fain have been brothers in Christ or in nature. Yet 
 such men were many — a whole series of them, indeed, from 
 St. Francis of Assisi to Angelus Silesius 1 and from Christian 
 
 i Johannes Angelus Silesius, whose real name was .Tohnnn Soheffler, 
 was induced by the writings of Bohme and other mystics to join the
 
 440 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 to Goethe. The conception of mankind as an organism seemed 
 forgotten. 
 
 The seventeenth century had still not shaken off these in- 
 fluences, when men were continually endeavoring to prove that 
 although man had natural qualities, he had also purely spirit- 
 ual gifts, which put him on a plane above nature. Thus 
 Hobbes, 1 in his "Leviathan," expressly states that natural 
 animal societies, such as the communities in which bees, ants, 
 beavers, and other creatures live, have nothing in common 
 with human society, which is based on human intelligence. 
 Spinoza, 2 indeed, as is well known, believed the whole world 
 to have a soul, "qaamvis diversis gradibus animata" ; and 
 elsewhere he says that whenever a large number of human 
 beings act in virtue of a right that they all have in common, 
 it seems as if they all had a soul in common. Thus he reverts 
 to Aristotle 's views ; but the ' ' soul of a state " is to him merely 
 a creation of the human mind and its conscious reflection, not 
 the other way about. 
 
 The reversion to Grecian harmony would have been easiest 
 for Leibnitz, for according to his theory each individual body 
 consists of an unlimited number of separate monads. Conse- 
 quently, nothing would have been simpler than to apply to 
 society this conception of individuals separated by space, but 
 yet forming a unit. Leibnitz says somewhere that every plant 
 and every animal may be considered in the light of a large 
 garden full of flowers or a pond full of fish. But every branch 
 of a plant and every limb of an animal, indeed every drop of 
 its secretions, can also be considered in the light of such a 
 garden or such a pond. Yet, so far as I am aware, Leibnitz 
 never directly hints that he looks upon the world as an organ- 
 Roman Catholic Church. His mysticism has much in common with 
 Schopenhauer's philosophy. 
 
 i Hobbes' "Leviathan," 1650. Published in German in 1794. p 165 
 (of German edition). Similar views were held by Bossuet, for in- 
 stance {de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme" IV, 11), Locke, 
 and others. 
 
 2 Spinoza's "Ethics," II, prop. XIII, dealing with politics.
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 441 
 
 ism, perhaps because he saw no necessity to express in words 
 what he undoubtedly thought quite obvious. Leibnitz was a 
 thorough cosmopolitan not only because, owing to his prin- 
 ciples, he could hardly be otherwise, but for other reasons also. 
 Born in Leipsic, he wrote in French, and his "Monadology" 
 is an attempt to combine "English and French philosophy." 
 His correspondence shows him to have been the trusted friend 
 of persons of all nationalities, and indeed his greatness con- 
 sists partly, at all events, in his having been truly a man at 
 home in many lands. It would certainly never have even 
 occurred to him that a thinking being, least of all any one 
 styling himself a philosopher, could take sides in the War of 
 the Spanish Succession, in which his various home-lands were 
 involved. Leibnitz, indeed, did not see danger in men being 
 biased in favor of one particular land, and therefore did noth- 
 ing to prevent being so. In short, he overestimated men's 
 intellects, even as, a hundred years later, Bonaparte overesti- 
 mated nations. 
 
 Thus matters went on for a long time, and even Rousseau 
 based his "reversion to nature" on no considerations of nat- 
 ural science or even of nature. To him the word nature, in 
 conformity with which he wanted his society to be ordered, was 
 still altogether an idea in the Platonic sense. This idea Rous- 
 seau modified very much as it suited him to do. Whereas, in 
 reality nature is everywhere bound by her own laws, for him 
 nature is merely a symbol of liberty. 
 
 3. — THE MODERN PERIOD 
 
 160. — Its Forerunners 
 
 Yet the belief persisted that this world here below is in a 
 certain sense an organism complete in itself and by itself ; and, 
 despite the church and its quest of heavenly bliss, the torch of 
 knowledge was passed from one to another, and the smoldering 
 spark thus kept alive. The history of the idea of the world 
 as an organism, and how it arose, would be undoubtedly one
 
 442 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 of rare fascination to write; but here it can be given only in 
 broadest outline. 
 
 About the year 1500 Nicolas Leon Thoimeus 1 was already 
 insisting that there must be some link between individual 
 human beings, which he used as an argument for the possibility 
 of second sight and "natural prophecy." About 1550 Car- 
 danus - ascribed to the world a real life of its own (propriam 
 et vcram vitam) ; in 1581 Giordano Bruno 3 wrote of natura 
 naturans, and Paracelsus 4 the great regenerator's "Consen- 
 sus" and Patritius's "Panpsychia" 5 are all merely different 
 ways of expressing their common belief in the world being an 
 organism. 
 
 These few instances, however, can scarcely afford any idea 
 of how prevalent throughout the sixteenth century was the 
 idea of the world as an organism ; and to cite further instances 
 would take me too far. I shall confine myself, therefore, to 
 quoting the words of Rixner and Siber, 6 who have devoted a 
 bulky volume to nothing but the opinions of these courageous 
 "innovators" in the domain of natural science. The con- 
 clusion to which they come is that, however widely different 
 may be the views, characteristics, knowledge, education, and 
 mode of life of the sixteenth century scientists and thinkers, 
 they all agreed in considering nature as a living thing. All 
 
 i Thomffius, quoted from Rixner. 
 
 2 Cardanus's "De subtilitate rerum," 1550 V. opp. Ill, 374 and 439, 
 and XVIII, p. 491 ed. 1G63, "utramque esse in rebus veramque eamm 
 constituere eitam." 
 
 s Giordano Bruno. Extract from his works bv F. H. Jacob, 1789, p. 
 263. 
 
 * Paracelsus, "Archido," Vol. I. According to Paracelsus, a Swiss 
 physician and naturalist, human beings take part in the universal life 
 by means of their sidereal or astral body. 
 
 s Patritius, "Nova de universis Philosophia." Ferrara, IV, 54, and 
 V, 58. 
 
 6 Thaddeus A. Rixner and Siber's "Leben und Lehrmeinungen be- 
 ruhmter Physiker am Ende des XVI. und am Anfang des XVII Jahr- 
 hunderts. Heft: Paracelsus XV." ("Life and Doctrines of Famous 
 Physicists at the Close of the Sixteenth and Beginning of the Seven- 
 teenth Centuries.")
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 443 
 
 nature was to them a universal organism, instinct with joyous 
 life in all its component parts. The principal philosophers 
 quoted are Theophrastus Paracelsus, Hieronymus Cardanus, 
 Bernhardinus Telesius, Franciscus Patritius, Jordanus 
 Brunus, Thomas Campanella, and Johann Baptist van Hel- 
 mont. 
 
 In the seventeenth century these ideas were more clearly 
 formulated. Suarez, 1 for instance, says that the individual is 
 only a partial manifestation of the genus ; Francis Bacon 2 as- 
 serts that there is sensibility everywhere ; and Campanella 3 
 does likewise ; while Fielnus 4 proves that civilization is ever- 
 living and immortal, whence he concludes that the world must 
 have an immortal soul. Even Pascal 5 warns us against insist- 
 ing too much on the difference between man and animals, alleg- 
 ing that this makes us overbearing; and in a famous passage 
 he expressly compares mankind to an individual person ; while 
 Newton, 6 who actually compiled laws of the world as an organ- 
 ism and who was very much disposed to favor such ideas in 
 general, once, for purely physical reasons, refers to the earth 
 as a "lazy animal." 
 
 i "Metaphysic. disputat.," by the Spanish Jesuit theologian Francisco 
 Suarez. 
 
 - "Ubique est perceptio," in Bacon's "De dignitate," IV., 3, 1 G 2 ."> . 
 
 3 "Omnem naturam sentire amrmandum est," in Campanella's "De 
 sensu reruin," I, i, 13. 
 
 * "Theologia Platonica," Book XVIII, by Marsilius Ficinus (or Mar- 
 silio Ficino, as he is more often known in English, tbe Italian physician 
 and Platonic pbilosopher, born Florence, 1433, died 1499. His book 
 referred to was published in 14K_!, and intended to show Platonism to 
 be the essence of Christian belief. — Translator). 
 
 5 Pascal, "Pensees sur la religion." 
 
 8 Sir Isaac Newton's "Philosopliiae naturalis principia mathematical 
 published 1087. Even the attractive principle, in Newton's writings, 
 and still more in those of his disciples Muschenbroek, for instance, has 
 a strong tendency toward animism, and describes the attractive prin- 
 ciple as "amitia" (friendship). Lichtenberg says quite plainly that 
 gravitation is the longing of the heavenly bodies for one another. Cf. 
 further the phrase "living force" or ris viva, which, I believe, was first 
 used by Leibnitz.
 
 444 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Early in the following century Shaftesbury 1 went the 
 length of saying that however perfect an organism (system) 
 an individual human being may be, yet in order to see real 
 perfection he must be placed in relation to the organism of his 
 race. On the whole, however, the rationalistic eighteenth cen- 
 tury was less favorable to speculations of this kind, which, in 
 the state of learning at that time, could not but be slightly 
 tinctured with mysticism. This somewhat sentimental point 
 of view is found even in Fechner, 2 who not only believed in a 
 humanity being an organism, but who looked on all the stars 
 and solar systems as living beings. Dreamy speculations such 
 as these, however, have done more harm than good. Poets, it 
 was thought, had a right to endow everything about them with 
 a soul, but thinkers ought to leave such matters alone. 3 In 
 modern times men came to realize the value of empirical in- 
 vestigations, for the time had more or less gone by for philo- 
 sophical speculations, and men were beginning to look out for 
 facts pointing to the necessity for there being some link be- 
 tween one human being and another, and to the existence of a 
 great human organism. 
 
 It is well known that the "suitability and wisdom of the 
 institutions of nature" had always been instanced as arguing 
 the presence of a supreme being, who, however, was usually 
 thought of as God only. Even Parker, 4 for instance, thought 
 it needful, because of the reason and purpose which he every- 
 where perceived in nature, to infer the presence of a God. 
 Ralph Cud worth, 5 also, while remarking that the constant 
 maintenance of a proper equilibrium between births and 
 deaths in the matter of numbers and differences of sex pointed 
 
 i "Moralists" II, 4, by the third Earl of Shaftesbury. Translated 
 into German apparently in 1910. 
 
 2 "Zendu vesta," S. VI, by Gustav Theodor Fechner, pub. 1851. Cf. 
 also "Tagesansicht," p. 29. 
 
 3 ''Zur Einfiihrung in die Philosophic der Gegenwart" ("Introduction 
 to the Philosophy of the Present day"), by Alois Riehl, p. 161, pub- 
 lished in 1903. 
 
 4 Parker, "Disputatio de Deo," p. 114. 
 
 5 "The True Intellectual System of the Universe," by Ralph Cudworth.
 
 EVOLUTION OF IDEA OF ORGANISM 445 
 
 to the existence of a supreme wisdom, guiding the apparently 
 fortuitous course of this world, saw nothing but God in this 
 wisdom. 
 
 § 161. — Modern Empiricism 
 
 Empirical facts, however, accumulate as time goes on, and 
 Kant took advantage of this. 1 But he ceased to have anything 
 to do with a deus ex machina, thereby being probably again the 
 tirst to enter upon the way which leads to modern science. He 
 took as his starting-point the contradiction between man's fet- 
 ters and the freedom of which he dreams, and asserted from 
 the outset that the organic laws of mankind clearly limit free- 
 dom. Human actions, like everything else in nature, are 
 determined by natural laws. At first sight, for instance, it 
 seems that marriages and consequently births and deaths 
 could not be subject to any rule, because they are so greatly 
 dependent on man's free will. Yet statistics in large coun- 
 tries prove that they, too, are under the influence of fixed nat- 
 ural laws. Kant compared this unvarying regularity, which 
 is independent of man's will, with the weather, which is so 
 uncertain that no one can arrange it beforehand, but yet in the 
 main it is so certain that the growth of plants, the course of 
 streams, and other natural phenomena always go on in the 
 same way without interruption. 
 
 Climate, however, can be explained by the laws which govern 
 the earth considered as a homogeneous heavenly body; and 
 similarly these laws of humanity, in themselves inexplicable, 
 can be explained by considering humanity as an organism. 
 Kant, it is true, had no idea of any such explanation. He 
 says that individual human beings and even whole nations 
 persist in thinking that, by each pursuing his or its own ends 
 each in his or its own way, and often pulling different ways, 
 they are tending insensibly to fulfil nature's ends, despite the 
 
 i "Idee v\\ einer itlljjemeinen Geschichte in weltblirgerlicher Absicht" 
 
 ("A Forecasl of a History of the World from the Point oi View of a 
 Citizen of the World") by Kant
 
 446 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 fact that nature's ends are unknown to them. They persist- 
 ently believe that nature's ends are their guiding principle, 
 and that they are helping to further these ends. Yet even if 
 they did know what nature's ends are, they would trouble but 
 little about them. Kant also recognizes that the actions of 
 individual human beings cannot be wholly explained by their 
 individual characteristics, but he does not say what would 
 explain them. As is so often the case with Kant, however, two 
 frankly admitted contrasts are clearly stated, and thus further 
 scientific investigation is simplified. All that was now re- 
 quired was, if possible, not merely to represent the divergence 
 between restrictions collectively imposed and personal liberty 
 as a virtually insoluble problem, but to bridge the gulf be- 
 tween the two. 1 
 
 i Here I would request the reader to re-read the paragraph concerning 
 freedom and natural compulsion, in which it is shown how this can be 
 done by the fact of the brain having been actually freed from the 
 body. I now purpose to prove that the freedom thus acquired is again 
 restricted by the long-suspected fact, which natural scientists did not 
 clearly recognize till the last century, that mankind as a whole forms 
 an organism in the strictest sense of the word.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The World as an Organism 
 
 1. — the physical reasons fur mankind forming an organism 
 
 § 162. — Hypotheses and Facts 
 
 If anything in this world is not instantly traceable to facts, 
 recourse is had to a hypothesis. For example, when it is found 
 impossible to explain certain phenomena in connection with 
 light, we postulate an ether, or small particles moving with 
 extraordinary speed, or something of the kind. Such a hy- 
 pothesis is all the more generally accepted, the greater the 
 number of demonstrable facts which can be explained by it; 
 but if a fact is found which conflicts with such a hypothesis, 
 then the latter must of course be dropped. 
 
 Thus the theory of the emission of light was overthrown 
 when the phenomena of polarization could no longer be recon- 
 ciled with it ; and at present the theory of undulation is being 
 questioned because certain electric phenomena, undoubtedly 
 connected with light, conflict with it. Every theory, there- 
 fore, remains uncertain until the phenomenon on which it is 
 based can be directly observed. Could we succeed in proving 
 the existence of actual light particles or of ether, this would 
 be a much more direct proof than any theory deduced there- 
 from. 
 
 Similarly with regard to the theory of mankind being an 
 organism. Even if there is much in the life of man and na- 
 tions to indicate that there must be some connecting-link be- 
 tween individual human beings, and the number and varied 
 nature of the relations between man and man make it probable 
 that there is some such organism, nevertheless, the smallest 
 
 447
 
 448 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 direct proof would be perhaps not actually more important, 
 but more decisive from the point of view of science. 
 
 Modern men, indeed, although most of them would deny this, 
 are mostly infected with the belief that all solid fact must be 
 material. The proof of dynamic effects between human be- 
 ings — effects which Aristotle thought sufficient and which in 
 fact still are sufficient, to prove that mankind must be consid- 
 ered as an organism — seems to us almost immaterial, and we 
 noisily insist on the proof of an actual physical connection. 
 Every reader will here derisively object that mankind as a 
 whole surely cannot be compared with a single animal. Be- 
 tween the tip of an animal's nose and the tip of its tail there 
 certainly exists a vital physical connection, but what connec- 
 tion is there between a European and a Tierra del Fuegian, 
 between Kant and Eucken, between Frederick II and William 
 II, between the man in the trenches and Hindenburg, or be- 
 tween Hindenburg and Joffre? 
 
 Now, although it would not be absolutely necessary to prove 
 that a bridge of some actual substance exists between all these 
 individual persons, for the dynamically living bridge would 
 suffice, yet in conformity with the materialistic requirements 
 of the present day, it must first be shown that there does actu- 
 ally exist a uniform continuously living connection which has 
 always subsisted, between all human beings in all ages and all 
 lands, and that, moreover, it is actually in operation. 
 
 Not till this has been done can the connections between the 
 various forces be investigated, which, resting on this substan- 
 tial basis, make mankind into an organism which can be taken 
 into practical consideration. Unlike the substantial basis, 
 which remains almost unchanged, these connections between 
 forces develop as time goes on, and every day make the human 
 organism more of a unity and of more importance. 
 
 § 163. — The Continuity of Germ-Plasm 
 
 The continuity of germ-plasm points to some such physical 
 link between one human being and another. As long ago as
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 449 
 
 1878 Jager 1 advocated this idea, and two years later Nuss- 
 baum 2 did likewise. It did not become generally known, how- 
 ever, until Weissmann 3 made his comprehensive investigations 
 of Hydromedusce. This doctrine of Weissmann 's is now so 
 thoroughly admitted everywhere that Delage and Goldsmith 4 
 speak of the "difference between soma and germ-plasm" as a 
 fact of common knowledge. They explain that soma dies with 
 the individual, whereas germ-plasm lives on in posterity, and 
 is thus "immortal and continuous." Hypothesis does not 
 come in, they say, except in the particular deductions made 
 by Weissmann from this fact — deductions which do not con- 
 cern us. What does concern us is the "fact of common knowl- 
 edge," which can be easily understood by means of the ac- 
 companying diagram. 
 
 Every egg-cell (thus Cell A in Fig. 9), out of which an 
 animal or human being is afterward developed, first splits up 
 once into two parts, of which one, the dark half, grows rapidly, 
 forms the entire body, dies with that body, and disappears 
 with it. This is indicated by the arrow turned toward space. 
 The other light-colored half of the cell, however, does not 
 grow, but remains living germ-plasm, merely arranging itself 
 differently, and converting itself into seed-cells or egg-cells. 
 In Cells Bl and B2 in the diagram this process is indicated by 
 the uninterruptedly light coloring of the germ-plasm. The 
 seed-cells or egg-cells which subsist in the testicles or ovaries 
 of a human being are therefore not merely symbolically, but 
 
 i .Taper's "Lehrbueh dor allgemeinen Zoologie" ("Handbook of Uni- 
 versal Zoology"), 1*7*: Leipsic. 
 
 -"Hie Differenzierung dcs Gcschlechts im Tierreich" ("The Differ- 
 entiation of .Sex in the Animal Kingdom"), by M. Nussbaum (1880). 
 In the "Archives for Microscopical Anatomy,'' XVIII. 
 
 3 "Die Entstehung der Sexualzellen bei den Hydromedusen" ("The 
 Origin of sexual cells in the Hydromedusse" ) , by A. Weissmann, 1883. 
 Cf. a later work by this German zoologist, which is very comprehensive, 
 "Das Keimplasma, eine Theorie der Vererbung" ("Germ Plasm, a The- 
 ory of its Inheritance"). 1898: Jena. 
 
 < "Die Entwicklungstheorien" ("Theories of Evolution"), by Delage 
 and M. Goldsmith. (An authorised translation exists in German.)
 
 450 
 
 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 quite genuinely, living pieces of his or her parents. And as 
 they are transmitted unchanged and alive to our children 
 (CI to C-4), and then to our children's children (Dl to D8, 
 etc.), it is a fact that a portion of grandfather, grandchild, 
 great-grandchild, etc., does consist of the same living sub- 
 stance. And as we can and must continue in this way indefi- 
 nitely (as indicated by the side branches of cells A and D left 
 open), it is clear that the tree shaded light, which is all one 
 and is constantly putting forth fresh branches, represents a 
 single organism all parts of which are connected together. 
 
 From this the individual human beings (tinted dark and 
 designated as individual beings by letters) grow, just as apples 
 do on a tree. They are like particles of this organism; in 
 time they fall away, and in so doing become individual units, 
 and die. 
 
 But the tree of germ-plasm which confers form and exist- 
 ence on the different individual units, and is consequently the 
 principal important part of humanity, lives on forever as a 
 homogeneous organism. A portion of this homogeneous or- 
 ganism, however, lives also in each individual unit, physically 
 connecting us permanently with mankind in general. True,
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 451 
 
 it can be eliminated from the human body without utterly de- 
 stroying life, but what there is left of the man is proved by 
 such deplorable beings as eunuchs and castrated persons. All 
 recent experiments, indeed, clearly show that all those instincts 
 of life which make a human being into a human being are in- 
 separably connected with this remnant of mankind in general 
 which we have in us. It lives in us and manifests itself in us. 
 Egoism represents, so to speak, physical self-consciousness, and 
 altruism represents self-consciousness of the germ-plasm. 
 Others have, therefore, as we see, a right represented in me, 
 for a portion of their living substance also lives in me. 
 
 Whoever first spoke of the slaying of egoism as a slaying of 
 the flesh had a foreboding of more than he expressed. For 
 the flesh is the perishable body, which falls from the universal 
 tree of humanity. That which remains, however, that which 
 makes men capable of love (that is, of morality in the broadest 
 sense of the word) is germ-plasm, or what the Holy Scripture 
 calls the sacred pneuma "capable of procreation." Luther 
 translated this by "der Geist, dcr lebendig macht" ("The 
 spirit that quickeneth"), thus attributing a purely symbolical 
 meaning to it. The conception of pneuma, however, goes be- 
 yond this, and cannot be understood save by those acquainted 
 with its origin in Greek philosophy. Into this I am unable 
 to enter in detail, but Diogenes Laertes expressly states, "That 
 which causes the procreation of us all is the pneuma, ' ' 1 thus 
 meaning precisely what we may now call germ-plasm. More- 
 over, just as we must now make up our minds that an almost 
 imponderable quantity of germ-plasm ~ influences the whole 
 body, even so the men of old imagined the mysterious workings 
 of the "Holy Spirit." 
 
 In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, verse 63, we 
 read, "It is the spirit [pneuma] that quickeneth; the flesh 
 profiteth nothing." Thus the Bible also must really be refer- 
 
 i Diogenes Laertes VII, 156. 
 
 - The body of a human being is about one thousand billion times 
 greater than the germ-plasm from which it has arisen.
 
 452 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ring to germ plasma. Now, there is no need to state that this 
 pneuma is never clearly expressed either in Greek writings 
 or in the Bible what we now mean by germ plasm. Neverthe- 
 less, it is important to recollect that those who wrote the Bible 
 felt, as it were, intuitively, that it existed. The concep- 
 tion of the crucifying of the flesh, indeed, has been grossly mis- 
 interpreted. Flesh was identified with sensuality and with 
 love, — indeed, after a time, almost altogether with love, — and 
 the pneuma with the "higher" attributes of the soul. That 
 this is wrong is clear from I Corinthians, xv. 44 1 where the 
 soul is mentioned in contradistinction to the pneuma. It is a 
 pneumatic body to which reference is here made ; and this 
 body, if we hold fast to what is known to have been the mean- 
 ing of the pneumatic in ancient times, actually materially 
 passes through the body of all human beings. Thus we have 
 here again the exact notion of germ plasm. 
 
 The pneuma, in short, is something above mankind, which 
 unites mankind together. It creates the relations between 
 man and man, and also love between man and wife and be- 
 tween man and his neighbor. It creates eternal life and it 
 creates morality. The victory of the pneuma is the victory 
 of germ plasm over somato plasm, the victory of the concep- 
 tion of humanity over individual consciousness, and of altru- 
 ism over egoism. In this sense we all can and all ought to 
 believe in the Holy Ghost, the pneuma hag ion. 
 
 The habit of combating and pouring contempt on "earthly 
 love," as it is called, is all the worse because it helps, and 
 helps very materially, to bring about heavenly love. 
 
 § 164. — Earthly Love Makes Heavenly Love Possible 
 
 There has been a vast deal of speculation as to why pro- 
 creation must take place by means of a man and a woman, 
 and why the children of human beings cannot simply be cut 
 away from an unsexual procreator, as is, at any rate for the 
 
 i Luther here translates spiritual (psychic) by natural, which is 
 certainly not the sense.
 
 THE WORLD AS AX ORGANISM 453 
 
 time being, the case with the lowest animals. The question 
 of the causes for this may be put aside here, but not that of 
 the consequences. 
 
 Whenever a creature produces six new creatures by par- 
 thenogenesis, experience proves that each one of them is 
 slightly different from the rest; and if we imagine these six 
 offspring producing six species, again by parthenogenesis, 
 then these will become more and more dissimilar, for each spe- 
 cies will always be inheriting more and more new qualities 1 
 in which the others can necessarily have no part, On the 
 other hand, they in turn are exposed to other influences. 
 Each individual one, in short, invariably becomes the ancestor 
 of a new species. 
 
 Thus the organisms become increasingly split up, and even 
 if at a particular time one branch had succeeded in domi- 
 nating the world, as man is now doing, yet from that very 
 day they would begin to divide up again. In that case we 
 should still actually have the sinful sons of Cain with us, 
 and the good children of Abel. But if the sons of Cain 
 had murdered all the descendants of Abel, then the race of 
 Cain would again be split up into several divisions, which in 
 course of time would have become quite dissimilar. Between 
 these two types of men a fight would again have become nec- 
 essary. In short, the inevitable result of this type of pro- 
 creation would be an everlasting war waged by every one 
 against every one else, for, as time went on, the transmitted 
 qualities would decrease almost to the vanishing-point, ami 
 would be quite unable to keep the other qualities under con- 
 trol. 
 
 But we are sexually begotten, and although when parents 
 have six children, each one is certainly different from the 
 rest, yet these differences always counterbalance one another 
 because the children's children intermarry, and thus the 
 
 i How this occurs is of no moment. It is a fact that animal species 
 alter in process of evolution, and this is the only fact here alleged in 
 support of any statements.
 
 454 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 varying accumulated inheritance of qualities has never time 
 to become very different. Sexual love and sexual intercourse, 
 therefore, are both the means of insuring the preservation of 
 the uniformity of germ substance in any animal species in 
 so far as the animal has an opportunity of sexual union with 
 others of its species. They constantly bring the entire or- 
 ganism of a whole race into contact and keep it together. 
 Indeed, to the extent to which such an entire organism necessi- 
 tates altruism, earthly love is the mother of heavenly love. 
 
 The basis for the opinions just set forth has already been 
 known for a considerable time. In 1853 the German zoologist 
 Rudolf Leuckart discussed the tendency of sexual procrea- 
 tion to prevent the degeneration — that is, the dispersion — ■ 
 of a race. In 1859, Charles Darwin J stated plainly that 
 crossing, as opposed to unsexual reproduction, is of great im- 
 portance in nature, inasmuch as by this means the individual 
 units belonging to a species or variety are kept pure and uni- 
 form in character. His ideas were adopted in the main by 
 Spencer (1864), Nageli (1866), Hatscheck (1887), Hertwig 
 (1893), Strassburger (1900), and Weismann (1902). Weis- 
 mann, with his theory of ideas and determinants, created use- 
 less confusion, while others think, for instance, that the for- 
 mation of different varieties is the very reason for bisexual 
 procreation. 
 
 But it is the Russian biologist Janicki 2 who most strongly 
 insisted on the importance of sexual reproduction. He 
 writes : 
 
 The world, if I may say so, has not been broken up into a mass 
 of independent fragments, which then, forever isolated from one 
 another and mere parts of the whole, must strike out for themselves 
 on straight courses, with only side branches. On the contrary, 
 
 i "Origin of Species," Chapter IV. 
 
 - "Uber Ursprung und Bedeutung der Amphimixis Ein Beitrag zur 
 Lehre der geschlechtlichen Zeugung" ('"On the Origin and Significance 
 of Amphimixis. A Contribution to the Doctrine of Sexual Procre- 
 ation"), by C. von Janicki, 1906. "Biolog. Zentralblatt," XXVI, No. 
 22.
 
 THE WORLD AS AX ORGANISM 455 
 
 owing to bisexual procreation [amphimixis], the image of the 
 macrocosm is periodically, but incessantly, set up as a microcosm 
 in each part, and the macrocosm resolves itself into a thousand 
 microcosms. It is as if nature, by introducing bisexual procrea- 
 tion, had made a compromise between individualization and the 
 hypothetical condition of panmixis [procreation by many]. The 
 individual units are meant to be as independent as possible, to be 
 able to move about freely and independently, etc., but, on the other 
 band, to be materially and continuously connected with one another, 
 and remain in constant contact, like strawberry-plants, the runners 
 of which are joined together. There is no way out of this save 
 the periodica] admixture of germ substances, whereby the necessary 
 material continuity is transferred into each single individual unit. 
 paradoxical as this may sound, for the continuity is present only 
 on a miniature scale. But it is there. Each separate individual 
 develops, as it were, on an invisible system of rhizomes [root sub- 
 stances], which unite together the germ substances of countless 
 personalities. This means the negation of that individualization 
 which for vegetative purposes is indispensable; and if we look at a 
 paramaeeium under the microscope, we do not at first suspect how 
 something endlessly complex and multifarious, a whole, is to be 
 found in this particle of living plasm. This whole is most inti- 
 mately connected by invisible threads with the sum total of in- 
 dividuals who compose the particular species in question, and who 
 live or have lived a separate existence under the most diverse eon- 
 ditious. 
 
 And on page 789 he says: 
 
 But let us return to amphimixis. As in the case of unicellular 
 creatures, so also in that of polycellular ones, periodically occur- 
 ring bisexual procreation is a physiological necessity. In both cases 
 bisexual procreation affords each individual a constantly renewed 
 connection with that form of life as a whole in which the species 
 consists. In this close connection with the whole the simplest mono- 
 plastid becomes modified periodically as time proceeds, and how- 
 ever often it is divided up, it never meets with a natural death and 
 consequent complete new formation apart from its growth ; its body 
 is simply remodeled, as in the case of a plastic substance. In the 
 same connection with the whole, in a condensed primeval plasm, as
 
 456 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 it were, the life of polyplastids is rooted. The continuity of life, 
 however, is assured by germ substances [plasms] alone. Somata 
 appear in the light of a series of disconnected curves, which arise 
 one after another from a continuous curve, that of the germ sub- 
 stances taken together. The bodies have lost their plasticity, and 
 each time bisexual procreation takes place they are formed anew in 
 ontogenesis. 
 
 To this there is scared}' anything to add. Janicki has ex- 
 hausted the problem, and all that now remains is to draw the 
 necessary inferences and apply them to man's moral actions. 
 
 2. — THE APPROACHING MUTATION OF WAR 
 
 § 165. — The Meaning of Mutation 
 
 First and foremost it must be proved that the practical 
 importance of this purely physical connection in the life of 
 nations does not end with its being the solid basis of altru- 
 ism. If, owing to any influence, this living substance should 
 at any time have acquired the capacity of changing after 
 a certain lapse of time, for instance a thousand years, then 
 we must not be surprised if after this time all who have some 
 of this living substance in them suddenly undergo a corre- 
 sponding change. 
 
 The enormous importance of this phenomenon need not be 
 insisted upon. It means neither more nor less than that the 
 future history of mankind is already present as a func- 
 tional occurrence in the bodies of contemporary humanity. 
 That this is true of the brain on a smaller scale was explained 
 in § 26 ; but it now becomes clear that this may be an abso- 
 lutely universal principle prevailing throughout the organic 
 world. 
 
 Now, such changes and sudden variations do actually oc- 
 cur, and in the case of plants, where investigation is easier, 
 owing to generations succeeding one another more rapidly, 
 it has been carefully studied. The Dutch botanist Hugo de
 
 THE WORLD AS AX ORGANISM 457 
 
 Vries * has shown that in a field of mullein, in which for 
 centuries past the flowers had never varied, noteworthy dif- 
 ferences suddenly began to appear. As a matter of fact, this 
 is what happened. In a field of mullein each year a few 
 plants show certain abnormalities, such as longer or shorter, 
 thicker or thinner leaves, than the rest. Generally speak- 
 ing, such abnormalities are of no importance, but suddenly 
 in one particular year one of these abnormalities — long leaves, 
 for instance — occurs in a great many cases of plants (Pro- 
 fessor de Vries 's fifth law). These long leaves are quite 
 constant at once; that is, they are fully transmitted, inde- 
 pendently of external conditions. The following year, there- 
 fore, this new kind of mullein occurs generally, and thus, as 
 Professor de Vries says, a new kind of mullein has arisen by 
 sudden variations, or so-called mutation. 
 
 How this change comes about, whether really by what 
 Professor de Vries calls mutation, or whether, as others state, 
 it is only a case of latent qualites becoming again manifest, 
 is of no moment here. What does matter is the actual fact, 
 which simply proves that some connection must exist between 
 the individual mullein-plants, and that this connection is still 
 strong enough to affect them. Thus between the individual 
 mullein-plants there is an actual cooperation of forces. That 
 is the mulleins as a whole, despite their individual peculiari- 
 ties, form an organism as a whole. And the fact of the con- 
 tinuity and immortality of the germ plasm proves that such 
 an organism is conceivable-. 
 
 Now, beyond doubt a similar connection exists between hu- 
 man beings, and as we human beings, like all other animals, 
 vary mainly with whatever organ has of late undergone the 
 greatest changes (that is, with the human brain), most in- 
 stances of variation will be found in the psychic domain. 
 
 i "Arten und Varietaten und ihre Entestehung dureh Mutation." 
 ("Species and Varieties and their origin owing to Mutation"), by H. 
 de Vries, 1906.
 
 458 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Here it is, however, that the striking similarity between the 
 mullein and man occurs. In each year human beings are 
 present with brain variations. These variations are the ex- 
 pression of abnormal ideas, and may be described as signs of 
 madness or of genius, according to whether they are capricious 
 or reasonable. Whether they really portend genius or mad- 
 ness does not depend on the human beings themselves, but 
 on the future, or rather on the mutations already latent in 
 millions of their fellow-men, at present apparently entirely 
 normal. 
 
 Now, if the elongation of the leaves is already present in 
 the germ plasm of the mullein, it matters not that there 
 should be abnormal mulleins, with too short, too thick, or too 
 thin leaves: they are bound soon to die out. It is the long- 
 leaves species of this particular year which are the geniuses 
 heralding the coming change. And so it is with men. If 
 the time is not yet fulfilled, if brain variations are not yet 
 latent in us, it is of no use for men of genius to arise and 
 prophesy changes. But when the time is fulfilled, then there 
 is no longer need for prophecy. The least trifle is sufficient 
 to give the needed impetus. Huss could achieve nothing 
 where Luther carried all before him. Socrates took poison, 
 but the crucified Christ left behind Him a religion which has 
 influenced the whole world. 
 
 Suddenly, at much about the same time, in Germany, 
 France, and England men took to flying, just as formerly the 
 conception of charity arose almost simultaneously in the most 
 diverse parts of the world. 
 
 § 166.— The Mother of War Instincts 
 
 These series of evolutions are concluded, and we can sur- 
 vey them. Others are still awaiting completion by evolu- 
 tions to come. Thus, for instance, Moltke discovered the 
 ethical value of war, while Tolstoy insisted, as no one else 
 had ever done, on the absolute necessity for its abolition. For 
 the present it cannot be said which of these two variations
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 459 
 
 represents madness variation and which genius. That de- 
 pends on the direction in which the majority of our descend- 
 ants mutate in the future. I should merely like to observe 
 that the enthusiasm with which the War of 1914 is being car- 
 ried on is absolutely no proof of Moltke's having been pos- 
 sessed of genius ; for in any organ which is shortly to undergo 
 a mutation great and frequent variations occur some time be- 
 forehand. The fact on which I insisted in my first chapter, 
 that nowadays our opinions about war are more widely di- 
 vergent than ever before, seems to me a proof that before 
 long our opinion of it will radically change. And the only 
 one of the different mutations which will be able to endure 
 will of course be the one best suited to actual present condi- 
 tions. Consequently all that has been said in preceding chap- 
 ters about the injuriousness of war at the present period jus- 
 tifies us in coming to the conclusion that man will one day 
 be transmuted once for all into a peaceful creature. The 
 opinions of Moltke and his satellites down to Bernhardi, after 
 all, wholly differ from those of the average mortal, and may 
 be considered merely as a good omen for this mutation being 
 no longer far off. 
 
 Indeed, everything points to the fact that the dusk of the 
 war god's day has already set in. 
 
 3. — THE UNITY OF MANKIND AS REGARDS BOTH TIME 
 
 AND SPACE 
 
 § 167. — Man's Connections from the Point of View of Time 
 
 it is impossible to conceive of man as an insolated being, 
 and this not merely because of his being the product of a 
 succession of ancestors who extend back perhaps for millions 
 of years, and whose gradual perfecting he represents. On 
 this fact, however, I do not purpose to touch further here, as 
 it can be looked up in any history of evolution. Note, how- 
 ever, the unusual complication of the mechanism resulting 
 from this fact. Man lives on directly by his germ plasm in
 
 460 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 his children and children's children. Hence, supposing there 
 are three children on an average in a family, by the twenty- 
 first generation (that is, in about five hundred years) his 
 vitality will be represented in a number of live human be- 
 ings which will about correspond to that of the whole of 
 mankind. 
 
 Or, conversely, each individual human being has in him 
 a drop of blood of each human being who lived five hundred 
 years ago. The result is such an infinite number of connec- 
 tions that at present there seems not the slightest chance of 
 completely following up any single case. Houston Stewart 
 Chamberlain says every important achievement we owe to 
 men of Teutonic blood. Possibly, but it is just as possible 
 that, as the modern French anthropologist Paul Souday says, 
 we owe everything of importance to Celtic blood. And if any 
 one arose and said everything good is due to Slavonic blood, it 
 would be scarcely possible to disprove his assertion. 
 
 No one can state in which of the ancestors of a man of 
 genius the germ plasm was so much modified that the said 
 man of genius was the result. Only one assertion can be 
 made with absolute assurance, and that is that he did not be- 
 come a genius of himself, but is the product of unknown an- 
 cestors, who must be considered as a whole for the simple 
 reason that they are not individually known. 
 
 Perhaps even more important than these direct physical 
 links with the past is very often the intellectual influence 
 of a human being — an influence, of course indirectly, also 
 physical. It is a commonplace to say that man survives in 
 his works, but what is remarkable is how even anonymous 
 human beings have survived in this way. Thus some insig- 
 nificant diluvial human being, whose body and whose very 
 skeleton are probably long since dust and ashes, covered the 
 walls of the caves in the beautiful Valley of the Vezere with 
 primitive markings intended to represent mammoths and 
 bisons. Perhaps he did so only because he was bored, but 
 on his scratchings we to-day are basing theories as to the
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 461 
 
 origin of art. Thousands of years ago an unknown, perhaps 
 idiotic, female slave at play imprinted her five fingers for 
 the first on a clay vessel, and in so doing kept the brains of 
 thousands of inquirers busy in the nineteenth century. The 
 half-monkey or half-man the roof of whose skull chanced to 
 have escaped decomposition at Trinil in Java certainly never 
 ventured to dream that after a fabulous lapse of time he 
 would become a personage of importance for all our scien- 
 tists and would even influence our whole attitude to life. 
 
 No one knows or can foretell how much an individual man 
 is influencing or may influence mankind, and in historic 
 times there has been no change in this respect. Have we 
 any idea what occurrence, what saying, or even what gesture 
 of some unknown human being may possibly have enabled 
 human beings such as Jesus or Socrates first to utter thoughts 
 which have decisively influenced the fate of mankind for 
 thousands of years, have influenced it, indeed, for all time? 
 Yet it may be that at the outset of these thoughts is some 
 vanished human being whose very name is forgotten, but 
 whose works live after him. 
 
 It would be idle to speculate as to what may have been, 
 but not idle clearly to realize that such things are possible. 
 We see an endless series of effects and causes, which in de- 
 tail we do not know, and which for that very reason we are 
 obliged to consider as a whole. Mankind would be incompre- 
 hensible if we did not look upon it as a homogeneous organism. 
 
 Now that thoughts, once expressed, lead among mankind 
 a life so to speak apart from their author, penetrate into 
 others, as it were, and are a living influence on them, just 
 as is physical germ plasm, there can be not the slightest 
 doubt. These thoughts, like germ plasm, are endowed with 
 eternal life, and proclaim aloud the primeval Orphic wisdom 
 of the harmony of all life and the fact of mankind being an 
 organism. 
 
 As a wise man of old, Empcdocles, sings, in this sense 
 there is neither birth nor death: "Yet another truth will I
 
 462 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tell unto thee. Not a single mortal thing is truly born, and 
 Death the destroyer is not the end. There is naught but 
 intermixture and exchange of what is intermixed. Only 
 among men is it customary to call this birth." 
 
 Thus material and dynamically intellectual connections are 
 transmitted through boundless periods of time, binding man- 
 kind together ; nor can any one say which are of the more 
 moment, the physical or the intellectual connections. 
 
 § 168. — Man's Connections in Regard to Space 
 
 Easier to prove is the existence of an intellectual bond be- 
 tween man and man — easier, at any rate, up to a certain 
 point. Still more obvious is this intellectual bond if we 
 consider the spatial relations of contemporary human beings. 
 Even in this respect no living man can be considered as other 
 than part of an organism. 
 
 Now, a man talks and learns only because he sees others 
 doing so ; that is, because he has some connection with these 
 others. He can work only because he relies on the work of 
 other men. For instance, I can write only because some- 
 where men have felled trees, other men have cut them up, 
 others again converted them into paper, and finally a whole 
 series of men have conveyed the finished product to me. An- 
 other endless series of men furnish me with a pen,, another 
 with a pen-holder, and yet another with ink. But in order 
 that these words may be printed, that is, exert any effect, 
 more endless hosts of men throughout the world have been 
 busy. Some mined the lead for the type, others the iron for 
 the machines, others, again, produced the oil and dye-stuffs 
 for the printers' ink; and each of these workers requires tools 
 and food, the production of which again has employed more 
 enormous groups of people. 
 
 Thus, if we go back to ultimate causes, perhaps the whole 
 world may have had to help in order that even the smallest 
 thought of an author may be transmitted to his reader ; while 
 as for the thought itself, it proceeds from millions of brains,
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 463 
 
 and in the end can produce effect only because it is somehow 
 predestined to do so in the brain of the recipient. In short, 
 neither intellectually nor physically would man be conceivable 
 except regarded as part of a great organism. 
 
 We call the principles on which mankind works division 
 of labor; but division is possible only if there is some whole 
 which can be divided ; that is, the labor of all mankind. This 
 sum total of labor, however, is and must proceed from an 
 entire body. That this division of labor is demonstrably 
 present in many human actions unknown to us is all the more 
 proof that there actually is something present which is su- 
 perior to the will of the individual man. 
 
 Kant already pointed out that there are many purely 
 physical qualities which obey great laws, the result being, so 
 to speak, an "average human being" who in reality has no 
 existence at all. This average human being in Germany is 
 50.6 per cent, man and 49.4 per cent, woman ; he or she en- 
 ters into .8 marriages, has 2 1 /. children, consumes 2500 cal- 
 ories, commits .0002 suicides, .00001 murders, lives 40.5 years, 
 and so on. 
 
 We believe that it is of our own free will that we marry, 
 beget a child, get drunk, etc., whereas in so doing we are 
 unconsciously merely fulfilling a law in order to fulfil a par- 
 ticular case of the universal law. Moreover, it must not be 
 forgotten that correlative growth, or, rather, correlative 
 variability, can be proved to occur in the individual organ- 
 ism as also in mankind. Darwin * has defined this phenom- 
 enon as follows: different parts of an organism are so con- 
 nected in some unknown way with one another that, if one 
 part modifies, the other does likewise, and if modifications oc- 
 cur very frequently in one part, owing to selection, then other 
 parts become modified. 
 
 Xovv, it is quite easy to show that, if a new power-press 
 is invented in America, a change occurs in European news- 
 papers; that, when the number of people in Europe increases 
 
 'Descent of Ma*" Introduction to Vol. I.
 
 464 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 too much and there is consequently more emigration, this 
 has its effects on conditions generally in America and Aus- 
 tralia ; and that whenever Armenians are murdered by the 
 Turks this has its effect on the decisions taken in Washing- 
 ton. Many more similar instances of cause and effect might 
 also be cited. All which proves that just as not a cell can 
 change in the human body without the whole body suffer- 
 ing therefrom or being affected thereby, similarly no one on 
 earth can do or suffer anything without all mankind, and 
 therefore every single person, being affected in some way, 
 though often unperceivable, it is true. 
 
 Furthermore, just as a single cell forcibly removed from 
 its surroundings cannot long survive alone, even so man, alone 
 and isolated, perishes. 
 
 As far as children are concerned, this is obvious, but even 
 adults, who have already benefited by the influence of man- 
 kind in general, cannot survive unless perhaps under alto- 
 gether exceptionally favorable conditions; for instance on 
 a solitary island where there are neither savage beasts nor any 
 other special hazards. 
 
 4. — THE AGE "WHEN MANY SHALL GO TO AND FRO" 
 
 § 169. — Humanity and Intercommunication 
 
 All mankind, therefore, is one organism physically and ma- 
 terially united together by the fact of germ plasm, and intel- 
 lectually and dynamically by the fact of action and reaction. 
 But whereas the connections due to germ plasm are immuta- 
 ble, the reciprocal relations are perpetually changing. In- 
 deed, it is beyond doubt that their numbers increase with 
 time ; that is, with their help mankind is developing into a more 
 and more perfect organism. Hence it is these dynamic rela- 
 tions, this interchange of intellectual forces, on which the 
 pitch of organization attained by the human organism de- 
 pends in the last resort. Were these relations, therefore, ab- 
 solutely clearly set forth, then we should know what point
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 465 
 
 in its development the human race has already attained, and 
 what degree of universal brotherhood could be demanded of it. 
 
 Hence nothing perhaps would be so well worth doing as to 
 describe these relations ; but this is impossible within the limits 
 of this volume, owing to their being absolutely limitless in 
 number. Everything which we call civilization or culture, 
 language, morals, law, or rights, technical achievement, art, or 
 science, and much else besides, are merely ways of expressing 
 such relations and the means of continuing them. There are 
 two ways, however, and only two, of hindering everything of 
 the kind. One of these ways is crime, and war is the other. 
 
 All these relations taken together may broadly and gener- 
 ally be described as humanity, for the possibility of such rela- 
 tions is precisely that which confers on the human race its 
 unique, dominant position in nature. This humanity, how- 
 ever, thus considered, ceases to be a vague conception of any 
 remote ideal of our dreams, but an absolutely real embodiment 
 of an existing link. The ideal and the future are to be found 
 only in the perfecting and further development of what al- 
 ready exists, and in opposing everything tending to obstruct 
 such further development; that is, in opposition to crime and 
 war. 
 
 To some, however, the fine word humanity still does not 
 convey a sufficiently definite idea, which is partly due to its 
 being so frequently misused. To others again the phrase 
 "human relationships" seems too colorless. They should 
 therefore select the tangible relationship, — intercommunica- 
 tion, — which does not include merely trade, post, and railways, 
 but, after all, everything forming a tie between man and man ; 
 and a survey of the history of evolution would soon prove that 
 all this springs from the same origin — love. Humanity, love, 
 and intercommunication accordingly all mean the same thing. 
 
 What, therefore, really ought to be done is to write a history 
 of intercommunication from the point of view of humanity, 
 and likewise to promote it. Suffice it here to say, however, that 
 in this respect we are undoubtedly passing through a critical
 
 466 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 period. During the last century all technical means of travel 
 and communication were perfected by leaps and bounds, and 
 it is inconceivable that this should not produce any moral 
 after effects. 
 
 This striving after perfection of means of communication 
 finds unconscious expression in the socialist movement of the 
 nineteenth century, the so-called revival of the Christian 
 spirit, and in pacifism. 
 
 But just because man was not aware of these aspirations of 
 his, the masses, with their instinctive conservatism, rebelled 
 against the inevitable new order of things and the regrettable, 
 but probably inevitable, reaction was the War of 1914. 
 
 The war, however, is only an episode, and intercommunica- 
 tion — going to and fro — is an epoch. When, on January 7, 
 1891, the Emperor William II wrote to Dr. von Stephan, 
 Secretary of State for the German Imperial Post-Office, that 
 ' ' The world at the close of the nineteenth century is under the 
 sign of intercommunication," he merely expressed a common- 
 place. It is satisfactory to note the assurance with which he 
 proceeds to say, "This intercommunication breaks down the 
 boundaries separating nations, and forms new connections be- 
 tween them." It would not have been difficult to perceive, 
 arguing from these premises, that all military preparations, all 
 excitation of jingo passions, and all suppression of methods by 
 which nations can express their desires could do nothing but 
 hinder this process of international union of which the emperor 
 clearly had at least a premonition. 
 
 § 170. — Speech as a Means of Intercommunication 
 
 Now, the movement tending to develop the dynamic relations 
 between man and man has certainly never come to a stand- 
 still. Language was the first means of communication and 
 mutual understanding, and even now it is the most delicate 
 intellectual sediment and a touchstone of culture and civiliza- 
 tion. True, there are still peoples who manage with a few
 
 THE WORLD AS AX ORGANISM 4u7 
 
 hundred words, but the vocabulary of a Shakspere runs into 
 tens of thousands of words. Beyond doubt this increased 
 facility of expression has an extraordinarily refining influence 
 on relations between man and man ; or, rather, these additions 
 to our vocabulary prove that such relations have become more 
 intimate. 
 
 Now, it may certainly be objected with reason that this 
 applies only to the individual persons of one nation, that is, to 
 people all speaking the same language. But it is nevertheless 
 a fact that as civilization advances, the divergencies of lan- 
 guage over a large extent of territory decrease. In America 
 the number of languages is greatest, 1 for none of the small, 
 itinerant Indian tribes can be understood by a neighbor tribe. 
 After America comes Africa and Asia, while Europe, which, 
 like China, that vast aggregate of races, has long been in- 
 habited by civilized peoples, early attained comparative unity 
 of language. Thus in Europe only about fifty (that is five 
 per cent.) of the thousand odd languages in the world are 
 spoken. This is partly due to the fact that wherever civiliza- 
 tion is high, and consequently there is a great deal of inter- 
 communication, languages mix, becoming enriched in the 
 process, and thus all the more easily supplant the poorer and 
 more backward languages. England, in fact, owes the rich- 
 ness of her language, and perhaps also her civilization, to the 
 fact of almost all Teutonic and Romance families of languages 
 being here included in one speech. The assimilation of for- 
 eign words, in fact, is not only a linguistic gain, but likewise 
 signifies an advance in civilization. For instance, in the Mid- 
 dle Ages, when the German language borrowed from Latin 
 and Greek the words Brief (letter, breve), Tinte (ink — 
 tingere), schreiben (write — scribere), Kirche (church — kyria- 
 kon), Pfarrer (pastor — parochius), and Monch (monk — 
 
 i Tn Australia the same conditions probably prevailed, but here many 
 languages have partly died out, together with the natives speuking 
 there
 
 468 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 inonachus), it not merely enriched itself in so doing, but like- 
 wise proved that the Germans had learned to write and become 
 Christians. 
 
 Similarly to-day. The craven fears of the language purists 
 not only impoverish the German language, and make it less 
 resisting, but also show that the purists are nowise disposed to 
 accept the consequences of technical achievement as tending 
 to make all men brothers. The fact of the word "telegraphy" 
 being international merely means that when it became acclima- 
 tized in the different countries it was everywhere instinctively 
 felt that telegraphy was a means of bringing nations together 
 not merely outwardly in their bodies, but inwardly, in their 
 souls. And to-day, when we Germans are endeavoring to 
 supplant the word "auto" by "Eraftwagen," in itself a 
 felicitous choice, this proves that we to-day have ceased to 
 realize how much such modern inventions tend to unite nations 
 together. The question of foreign words, indeed, is not merely 
 a question of taste, but a moral question. It betokens ingrati- 
 tude in us to accept the foreign invention and then try to 
 find a German name for it. 
 
 At the outset of the Middle Ages, when German mercenaries 
 used to go about the world serving foreign nations, they took 
 their words with them, and even now in France numberless 
 expressions used in war are of German origin without anybody 
 taking this amiss. The lansquenet is the German Landsknecht 
 (mercenary), and the Marechal de France owes his name to 
 the German word Mahrenschalk, 1 meaning a man who holds 
 some one's horse. The French word arquebuse 2 is the Ger- 
 man Hakenbiichse; canon is the German Kanone, and flam- 
 berge 3 (sword) is the German Flamberg; and even the most 
 
 i The German word Mahre now about corresponds to the English word 
 "jade" — a contemptuous, old fashioned word for a horse. — Translator. 
 
 - The word arquebuse is more properly harquebus, and meant an 
 early form of firearm. — Translator. 
 
 3 Flamberg e is a word which now survives only in certain expres- 
 sions, such as "metfire flamberge au vent" to draw one's sword, and 
 "Flamberge au vent," with drawn sword. In German it means the
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 469 
 
 modern French weapon, fleches (arrows, airmen's arrows) is 
 derived from the German word Flitz-(J)ogen)} It is not 
 without interest that the word for war in all modern lan- 
 guages (guerra, guerre, war) is not derived from the Latin 
 helium, but from the German word Wehr (defense). 
 
 In the case of an unsophisticated people this process of as- 
 similation goes on almost automatically. The new product or 
 new invention, as the case may be, comes together with the 
 foreign name, and at the same time civilization is enriched. 
 Soon every one is quite used to the innovation, and it is not 
 till patriotism has been artificially inflated, that, aware of its 
 own innate weakness, it seeks for external indications of an 
 internal strength of the absence of which it is aware. 
 
 Considering what powerful arguments may be urged against 
 any dread of foreign words, other arguments for them simply 
 do not count ; such an argument, for instance, as that the use 
 of international expressions make every kind of travel very 
 much easier. In any case the outcry against foreign terms 
 that arose in the nineteenth century is merely the expression of 
 the artificial barriers put in the way of all efforts to promote 
 whatever tended to humanize the world. But besides the 
 effect of mixture of languages in civilized countries, however, 
 we must not forget that people soon learned to write their 
 language here, which also tends to lessen diversity of lan- 
 guages in advanced continents. 
 
 Once language is, so to speak, fixed by being committed to 
 writing, it can penetrate further than the human voice, for 
 writing is also one of the technical achievements by which we 
 have overcome the cramping effects of natural compulsion. 
 Not only does the w til ten word, which is also the fixed word, 
 wander all around the globe, whereas the spoken word 
 scarcely penetrates beyond the confines of the speaker's native 
 valley; but man, having once learned to write, achieves the 
 
 broadsword of a knight, and is still used poetically to mean sword. — 
 Translator. 
 
 i The word FlUzbogen now means a boy's crossbow. — Translator.
 
 470 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 apparent impossibility of making the fleeting moment lasting. 
 Writing united mankind beyond the bounds to which the indi- 
 vidual human tribes wandered, and writing likewise joined 
 race to race for all time. 
 
 § 171. — The Results of Intercommunication 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the power 
 of the written word to cement nations together did not become 
 a reality until the introduction of modern postal arrange- 
 ments in the nineteenth century. When the Greek hemero- 
 dromes, the tabellarii of the Roman Republic, or the Withingen 
 of the Order of German Knights had to carry letters, perhaps, 
 at a rough estimate, about 100,000 crossed the frontier of the 
 various countries in the year throughout the world. But even 
 had it been a million, this would still not work out at nearly 
 as much as one letter for every thousand human beings, 
 whereas at present in Germany alone nearly a billion (1,000,- 
 000,000) letters, post-cards, etc., go through the post annually; 
 that is, about fifteen for each person on an average. 1 
 
 The number of letters, etc., has increased especially during 
 the last few years. About forty years ago, when the World 
 Postal Union was founded in those countries now belonging 
 to this association, about 3,000,000,000 letters, etc., were posted 
 annually, whereas even in 1906 this number had risen to 35,- 
 000,000,000, and before war broke out it cannot have been less 
 than 50,000,000,000. This means that each person on an 
 average probably receives something through the post every 
 ten days (in England every three days). 
 
 Moreover, letters reach their destination now far more 
 quickly than formerly. At the beginning of the medieval 
 period a letter took nearly a month to go from Germany to 
 Italy. Now it takes forty hours ; 2 and the invention of the 
 
 i The number of letters going through the post in the United King- 
 dom in 1911 was 3,047,500,000. Taking the population of Great Britain 
 and Ireland in that year (45,216,665), this gives an average per year 
 of rather over 67. — Translator. 
 
 « This is true despite the fact that in certain places, even compara-
 
 THE 1 \YORLD AS AX ORGANISM 471 
 
 telegraph means that for the written word distance no longer 
 counts, and in a certain sense the entire world (at any rate, 
 the entire civilized world) is already reduced to a single 
 large room, in which it is possible to communicate almost as 
 we please with any one we please, or very soon will be so 
 reduced. 
 
 It is a fact of importance that words travel faster than 
 those who carry them. So long as letters had to be sent, a 
 courier was necessary, and sometimes a great deal depended 
 on him. Thus when a sea-captain used to sail with a ship to 
 some far distant part of the world, the owner of his ship could 
 not get at him. This of course made him very independent. 
 No one at home could know how circumstances were when the 
 captain reached his destination ; consequently the latter had 
 generally to be not only a navigator, but also a merchant. He 
 accepted new cargoes, and sometimes even selected his route 
 when there did not happen to be any agency of his ship-owner 
 on the spot. In such circumstances there must of course have 
 been a great deal left to the agents. 
 
 Now, however, a sea-captain, on reaching his destination, 
 finds telegraphic instructions awaiting him. He has become 
 merely an employee; but any one who has seen with what a 
 very bad grace an old East Indian captain, for instance, who 
 was proud of his independence, conforms to the new order of 
 things, can realize that here is a case of the telegraph destroy- 
 ing a part of a man's own personality in order that universal 
 organization may be promoted. 
 
 Similarly with regard to a country's foreign diplomatic 
 representatives, commercial travelers, commercial agents per- 
 manently stationed abroad, and also superior and inferior offi- 
 cers of the army and navy Whereas formerly they could not 
 be reached, and therefore had to act on their own responsibil- 
 
 tively civilized places, such as Siberia or Morocco, the post still crawls 
 with snail-like slowness. Even in some parts of Germany this is still 
 the case Thus the post in East Prussia between Johannesburg and 
 ].<it/en (thirty-five miles) even now takes almost a whole day, or 
 seven hours.
 
 472 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 ity, now they are in telegraphic communication with head- 
 quarters, and have thus gradually degenerated into a kind of 
 marionette. No disrespect is intended to them, but it is merely 
 desired to prove how much man's self-will is diminished by 
 technical science in order that the world's total output may be 
 increased. The possibility of asking for more detailed instruc- 
 tions of course relieves the person of responsibility, and con- 
 sequently lessens his sense of responsibility. 
 
 But there is another respect in which modern means of 
 communication detracts from a man's individual attributes, 
 and that is this. They cause somewhat the same sort of con- 
 ditions to prevail everywhere. The Virginian planter and the 
 Mecklenburg farmer used to live after their own peculiar 
 fashion, and hardly knew anything of the outside world. But 
 now the daily paper, letters, and travelers connect both with 
 the world in general, and make even the backwoodsman some- 
 what of a cosmopolitan. This may be regrettable, but cer- 
 tainly cannot be helped. 
 
 § 172. — The Connection Between Intercommunication and 
 the Greatness of Countries 
 
 The increased speed with which men can cover space, how- 
 ever, cannot fail to affect a country's greatness in a much more 
 direct way. Up to a certain point this has assuredly some- 
 thing to do with the rapidity of its means of communication. 
 Experience proves that the only countries which were really at 
 all vigorous organisms have been those in which the different 
 component parts could be reached in at most a few days from 
 a single center. Hence it is possible to trace some connection 
 between the greatness of countries and the development of our 
 means of intercommunication. Let us consider the following 
 figures : 
 
 Miles 
 In one day a traveler in the backwoods covers about 121/2 
 " " " the ordinary post " " 62 
 
 " " " a mail-coach " " 125
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 
 
 473 
 
 Miles 
 In one day a railway (about 1850) covers about 375 . 
 
 " " "a modern railway " " 1250 
 
 " " "an express train within the 
 
 limits of technical possibilities " 6250 
 
 Here we have a scale showing how man has slowly advanced 
 from being only able to get across a town in one day to a 
 speed which enabled him to fly across the quadrant of this 
 planet in the same time. 
 
 Modern Empire 
 
 Fig. 10. 
 
 Had countries increased in the same proportion, then their 
 diameter would have had to increase in the proportion of 
 1 to 500 ; that is, their size must have increased 25,000 times. 
 
 Fig. 10 shows this. The small black square in the middle 
 represents the empire which men would be able to found with- 
 out any assistance from technical science. The square striped 
 with black indicates the size of a country which can be gov-
 
 474 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 erned with the help of horses, good roads, and correspondingly 
 good postal communications. This refers to the whole period 
 up to the Napoleonic Wars. Now, however, with the beginning 
 of modern technical science, empires might have expanded ac- 
 cordingly, and we might have expected some large enough to 
 fill up the big white square. 
 
 Translating these reflections into actual facts, we find that a 
 mountain valley may be the natural limit set to the range of 
 power of a barbarian, technically speaking, that is, a man with 
 no means of locomotion save his feet. To the men able to 
 travel by mail-coach were apportioned countries about the size 
 of those which arose at the outset of the Middle Ages and still 
 exist. But these antiquated miniature countries are already 
 far too small for the present time, for which some such coun- 
 tries are appropriate, as have already been formed in America, 
 Australia, South Africa, Russia, etc., and which will probably 
 before long be compulsorily formed in Europe. In the future, 
 Avhen we can get from one part of the globe to any other in 
 only one or two days, the Avorld can and will be one homo- 
 geneous state. 
 
 It is useless for man to invoke the memory of his beautiful 
 old traditions, and resist with all his might such inevitable 
 evolution. The spirits he has once raised will never depart 
 from him. All these vast means of intercommunication 
 created by the human mind during the last hundred years are 
 now working together of their own accord, in conformity with 
 laws of their own, and forcing reluctant mankind to come to- 
 gether. This homogeneity of organization will and must come, 
 and it is probably needless to attempt to hasten it, for we must 
 all complete the circle of our existence in accordance with laws 
 rigid and eternal. But man can actually achieve the impos- 
 sible. He can understand and love this necessary evolution, 
 and then complete, as it were of his own free will and creation, 
 what must needs come, and what all other creatures do only 
 in obedience to iron necessity. 
 
 No profounder intern^eta-tinn can probably be given to
 
 THE WORLD AS AX ORGANISM 475 
 
 Socrates 's saying that virtue can be taught. In this sense 
 virtue means understanding our evolution sufficiently to be 
 able to anticipate the future, and from this anticipation to 
 forge the unbreakable weapon with which it is possible to make 
 a stand alike against opinions which may chance to prevail for 
 a time and against such trivial obstructions and hindrances as 
 war and pestilence. 
 
 Thus virtue is likewise happiness, and it is only the Euro- 
 pean to-day who can possess such happy virtue. 
 
 § 173. — Premature Attempts to Attain a Universal 
 Monarchy 
 
 If we adopt these ideas as our own, and realize that the 
 fusion of all Europe into one must necessarily result from our 
 slowly moving evolution, then we shall also perceive that it 
 was idle to broach the problem of universal peace and a uni- 
 versal world monarchy at a time when conditions were not yet 
 ripe for such conceptions. This is nowise derogatory to those 
 dreams of the future which the best men have always dreamed. 
 Such men were geniuses, precursors of a future which they 
 understood by intuition. But we must not be surprised if such 
 projects were never realized, the time being not yet ripe. 
 After all, men were always dreaming of and anticipating the 
 day when they would be able to fly, but this dream was des- 
 tined to remain unfulfilled until there were machines weighing 
 only a few pounds per horse-power. 
 
 The Roman Empire, which, after being reorganized by 
 Diocletian and Constantine, was in reality merely a federation 
 of comparatively independent provinces, was doomed to perish 
 on this account. It has been urged that its fall was due to its 
 having had no representative constitution, which may be true. 
 But such a constitution was impossible in view of the state of 
 technical achievement at that time, and hence the Roman 
 Empire was bound to perish, because it was an impossibility. 
 
 The conception of a United States of Europe, however, has 
 never quite disappeared. Apart from the fact that popes and
 
 476 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 emperors were always insisting on something of the sort on 
 principle, there was no lack of direct and exceedingly diverse 
 attempts made to bring about something of the sort. The most 
 important of these attempts are set forth below : 
 
 1095. Pope Urban II, at the Ecclesiastical Council of Clermont, 
 proclaimed the Arenga dei for all Christendom. 
 
 1253. Thomas Aquinas published his "Summa Theologiae." 
 
 13UU. Dante Alighieri published his "Tractatus de Monarchia," 
 first printed in Basel in 1559. Republished in Vienna, 
 by Witte, in 1874. 
 
 1306. Peter Dubois' "De recuperations terre Sante," E. H. Meyer's 
 "Die Staats — und volkerrechtlichen Ideen von Peter Du- 
 bois" ("Peter Dubois's Ideas on National and Interna- 
 tional Law"), Marburg dissertation, 1908. 
 
 1466. Georg von Podjebrad proposed an Alliance of Christian 
 princes, the first proposal for a federation. Sewitzki's 
 "Der Europaische Fiirstenbund" ("The Union of Euro- 
 pean Princes"), Georg von Podjebrad: Marburg, 1907. 
 
 1495. The Emperor Maximilian I, at the Diet of Worms, pro- 
 claimed perpetual public peace. 
 
 1600. Sully (1638) in his "Economies royales" refers to a project 
 of Henry IV and Elisabeth of England for establishing 
 a Christian European monarchy. M. Kiikelhaus, "Der 
 Ursprung des Planes von Sully" ("The origin of Sully's 
 Project") : Berlin, 1893. 
 
 1677. Leibnitz, in a work entitled "De jure suprematus ac lega- 
 tions principum Germanie," proposed a European con- 
 federation. 
 
 1713. The Abbe Bernardin de Saint-Pierre published his "Projet 
 pour rendre la pais perpetuelle en Europe." Drouet, 
 "L'Abbe de St. Pierre. L'Homme et l'oeuvre": Paris, 
 1912. 
 
 1789. Jeremy Bentham published his "Plan for an Universal and 
 Perpetual Peace on Principles of International Law." 
 
 1795. Kant published his "Zum ewigen Frieden, ein Philosophischer 
 Entwurf" ("Perpetual Peace"). 
 
 In long past times it was hoped to govern the world from 
 one single center. Thomas Aquinas wanted it to be ruled by
 
 THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM 477 
 
 the pope. Dante by the emperor, and Dubois by the King of 
 France ; but since the fifteenth century it was recognized that 
 this could not be. From that time forth all proposals have 
 mentioned only a confederation of states, all on an equal foot- 
 ing. Not till we come to Napoleon the Great, dazzled and led 
 astray by the ease with which he won his military laurels, do 
 we find any one hoping once more to become the sole ruler of 
 Europe and thus to unite it. More recently still — that is, after 
 1870 — Germany cherished similar aspirations, although she 
 was more cautious in expressing them, alleging that she merely 
 wanted to organize Europe. But the shade of the mighty 
 Corsican should be a warning to us all. Europe can only be 
 freely welded together.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The Transformation in Human Judgment 
 
 1. — the periodicity op opinions 
 § 174. — Contradictory Views 
 
 Owing to mistaken impartiality, our age is peculiarly in- 
 clined to refrain from delivering itself of clear and unambigu- 
 ous judgments ; but it is significant that war should never have 
 been discussed from one point of view and one only. In olden 
 times it is true men simply accepted facts as they came, and 
 invented a formula to suit the occasion. Thus they compro- 
 mised with war because it was discovered to have beneficial 
 effects on the health of the population. It seemed a bad thing, 
 but it also seemed a thoroughly effective remedy against some- 
 thing still worse. 1 It was looked on as a sort of blood-letting, 
 so as to get rid of superfluous strength, as a tonic preserving 
 us from effeminacy, or a stimulant to arouse nations from 
 brooding moodily over matters. Every one held such opin- 
 ions, but as it was known that all good medicines, such as 
 quicksilver, arsenic, and quinine, are also poisons; the utmost 
 divergency of opinion consisted in the fact that one man looked 
 on war mainly as a tonic medicine and another mainly as a 
 poison. Not till our own times did these differences of opinion 
 become really extreme, and some people begin to extol war for 
 war's sake, while others were peace-at-any-price men. 
 
 i Even a modern war advocate such as Karl Braun, the Liberal Ger- 
 man deputy, wlio lias nothing but ridicule for the pacific aspirations of 
 others, nevertheless says, in "Wahrend des Krieges" ("During the 
 War," Dunker: Leipsic, 1871, p. 17) : that "war is a disease." and hopes 
 with the singular and incomprehensible illogicalness which characterises 
 all war advocates that "war may soon lead the way to a lasting peace." 
 
 478
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 479 
 
 How confused are the notions on which both sides base their 
 opinions is obvious from the fact that the most convinced 
 advocates of one set of views are just those who most fre- 
 quently go over to the other side. Thus Albert Thomas, 
 Jaures's old friend, entered the French Ministry of War, and 
 Gustave Herve, the most popular of all anti-militarists, sup- 
 ports war on the battle-field zealously and sometimes too zeal- 
 ously in his "Guerre sociale," afterward rechristened "La 
 Victoire. " The British pacifist Frederic Harrison wrote a 
 letter to the "Times" advocating new dreadnoughts being con- 
 structed with the utmost possible speed, and Ostwald, once the 
 apostle of Esperanto as a means of bringing all the world to- 
 gether, is now crying out for war between the nations. On 
 the other hand, generals, when getting old, have very often 
 cursed their "damned job." 
 
 If the only result of this modern cleavage should prove to 
 be that extremists on both sides were further apart now than 
 ever, then there would be a good basis for future discussions ; 
 but. unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of mankind 
 praise and exalt war and peace in the same breath. Peace, 
 they say, is delightful, but all honor to war. And certain 
 aspects of war are praised, such as the awakening desire of 
 men to sacrifice themselves for a great cause, which is described 
 as the most magnificent aspect of man's character ; while other 
 aspects, such as the inevitable neglect of the sciences, are de- 
 plored, and certain wars — for instance, the socalled defensive 
 wars — are considered necessary and good, whereas others say 
 that offensive warfare is the greatest disgrace of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Thus it could happen that the socialists in all countries, 
 though in theory in favor of peace, were as much in favor of 
 the war as any one else when it actually broke out. But in the 
 case of the socialists, as in that of the pro-war intellectuals, it 
 might be urged that the influence of others' enthusiasm for the 
 war and of suggestion counted for something; and for this 
 reason we must never forget that there always have been ex-
 
 480 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tremists who have endeavored to see the good and bad side 
 of war simultaneously. 
 
 Thus Napoleon said, "I love this business of war and I 
 hate it," and a hundred years afterward the German poet 
 Johannes Schlaf 1 said the same thing in a book which is, 
 after all, nothing but a lengthly paraphrase of Napoleon's 
 brief utterance, which to me personally is unknown. Schlaf, 
 an author of much delicacy, who, despite his frequent and re- 
 grettable lack of clearness, has often shown a real power of 
 interpreting the feelings of his day, writes literally that "to 
 condemn war is to blaspheme, indeed positively to outrage 
 every truly religious thought and feeling, and likewise every 
 human entity and destiny." Here, therefore, is one who 
 loves war and holds it sacred, but who also hates it, for, as he 
 says in so many words, he would like "to prove that this 
 wicked pacifist blasphemy is based on reason and necessity." 
 
 This dual view of war was expressed by a man of such iron 
 nature as Napoleon in order to give vent to his subjective senti- 
 ments. But it seems very closely akin to madness in the ap- 
 parently objective dress in which Schlaf tries to clothe it. Yet 
 not one of us is wholly free from this inward contradictoriness, 
 and the chief reason for my quoting Schlaf is to show in what 
 a tight corner the world has gradually landed. Like Schlaf, 
 we instinctively feel that war is something fine and glorious, 
 but no less instinctively that it is something horrible. A man 
 of action such as Bonaparte or a man of feeling such as Schlaf 
 set these two sentiments over against each other as an antithe- 
 sis, but a man of science studying war must endeavor to arrive 
 at some sort of explanation as to why these two diametrically 
 opposite points of view about war should exist. 
 
 § 175. — The Idea of Evolution as the Solution of the 
 Difficulty 
 
 It is easy enough to see how this divergence might be ex- 
 
 i "Der Krieg" ("War") by Johannes Schlaf, 1907. Marqnardt & Co.: 
 Berlin.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 481 
 
 plained. There is hardly any occurrence or phenomenon 
 about which we need always be of the same mind if we trace 
 it back through the ages. That is, no evil was originally an 
 evil, but only became so. Even Borne, 1 despite his having 
 opposed gilds and nobility all his life long, believed that 
 originally both rendered great service. Gilds were necessary 
 organizations to oppose the once too powerful landed pro- 
 prietors, while the nobilit}' as the original champions of intel- 
 lect and virtue waged war upon folly and low ideals. The 
 fault, he urged, lay in the fact that gilds and the privileges of 
 the nobility persist even now, although no one now interferes 
 with the occupations of citizens, and intellect and virtue are 
 not the monopoly of any one class. 
 
 Many more such instances of things originally good, but 
 which have survived their purpose, could be quoted, and 
 among them perhaps we might include war. Like everything 
 which has life, war never remains at rest, but is always de- 
 veloping. Animals did not wage war, but human beings did, 
 and our descendants, the "supermen," as Goethe and 
 Nietzsche call them, will cease to do so. This, at any rate, is 
 what we believe. But let us leave the future to take care of 
 itself, for, after all, the war with which history has acquainted 
 us was once born. It was young and now is old. But just 
 as the love of a maid seems lovely to us and that of an old 
 woman repulsive, even so is it with war. We cannot and must 
 not judge alike two tilings which from their very nature and 
 meaning are wholly different. There is nothing whatever in 
 common between Achilles's eternal "Song of Hate" and Lis- 
 sauer's "Hymn of Hate" to England, and similarly there is 
 the profoundest difference between the battles in the Scaman- 
 der Valley and the fighting between the Meuse and the 
 Moselle. 
 
 Again, universal experience shows that what once used to 
 be necessary and a matter of course seems as beautiful to man 
 
 i "Nouvelles lettres provinciates," by Ludwig Borne (Loeb Baruch), 
 1825. In his Collected Works, 2nd ed., VII, p. 45.
 
 482 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 owing to tradition. Only to the few is it given to perceive 
 the beauty of what is to come. The ideal of beauty of most 
 of us is the retrospective ideal of the past. Thus we can ex- 
 plain the origin of the Biblical paradise and the Golden Age 
 of the ancients, as well as the fondness of Tacitus and Rousseau 
 for primitive peoples. Even our ideal of human beauty is 
 that of the Middle Ages, when physical strength and skill were 
 of use, whereas now they are merely "beautiful." 
 
 As regards all art, indeed, we think that there must neces- 
 sarily always be a conflict going on between new tendencies 
 and that "classical art" on which every one, even trained 
 critics, rightly set great store. In fact, we never learned to 
 esteem the different artistic periods aright until we began to 
 consider them historically; that is, from the point of view of 
 their place in the scale of evolution. 
 
 If therefore we wish rightly to appreciate the many and 
 wholly contradictory judgments passed on war, w r e must take 
 into consideration the fact that w r ar has changed, and that, 
 owing to tradition, most of us still judge it particularly from 
 the esthetic point of view as it deserved to be judged in the 
 preceding epoch. 
 
 § 176. — Love of War, Ancient and Modern 
 
 In dealing with the evolution of war I gave the reasons why 
 our peaceful primitive forefathers turned into warriors, show- 
 ing also how division of labor gave a set-back to the soldiers' 
 profession until in the nineteenth century it acquired a new 
 lease of life. As we do not know : what primitive man thought 
 about w y ar, the ensuing period naturally divides up into three : 
 
 1. — The archaic period, when men simply accepted war as 
 a fact, and when all had to fight as a matter of course. This 
 began in the earliest ages, and had probably come to an end 
 everywhere before a single nation entered upon the stage of 
 history. 
 
 2. — The period of civilization and cultivation of the ground, 
 which was comparatively inclined toward peace, when only a
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 483 
 
 limited number of professional soldiers used to bear arms, but 
 otherwise mankind tried to engage in labor tending to civil- 
 ize and cultivate. 
 
 3. — The period of sentimental glorification of war, the 
 archaistic period, when, owing to the newly created "people's 
 armies," all men again became warriors. This begins with 
 the great revolutionary struggles at the end of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 However peacefully inclined our still half -animal primitive 
 forefathers may have been, and they certainly seem to have 
 been pacific, nevertheless, when once fratricide had occurred, 
 a latent, but universal, state of war must have prevailed. At 
 any rate, at first all human beings, although after a very 
 short time men only were forced to be ever ready to take up 
 arms. Just as to-day there is still no protection for the rights 
 of individual states, so at that time there was none for the 
 rights of the individual human being. As is the case with the 
 state to-day, so it was the case with the individual man then : 
 possession was nine points of the law, and he might at any 
 moment be forced to defend his rights against those of others, 
 even others who were brutal, overbearing, or crazy. Indeed, 
 there being no sort of guaranty for any one's rights, these 
 could not be defended save in war. 
 
 Thus it was almost inevitable that the opinion should have 
 arisen that war is the natural state, and as primitive people 
 in general think that what they are accustomed to do is right 
 and proper, it may be assumed that our slightly more highly 
 developed forefathers really did consider a state of war lawful 
 and good. No such opinion has come down to us in written 
 documents; we know it only in the watered down, familiar 
 version that war is something natural, and that we have al- 
 ways had war with us. 
 
 This view is a wrong one, but we can understand it. Even 
 old Heraclitus believed that war had always existed. He 
 called it the father of all things, and looked on it as the 
 motive force that kept the world going. But just as primitive
 
 484 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 man certainly did not take up arms save under compulsion, 
 even so for Heraclitus war was only a means to an end, and 
 the end of the world seemed to him to be peace. Moreover, he 
 did not identify his "struggle" with war and its bloodshed 
 any more than Nietzsche did; for he expressly states that 
 ' ' Man can cleanse himself neither with filth from filth nor with 
 blood from bloodguiltiness. ' ' 1 
 
 Not only law and right, however, but also phrases, are in- 
 herited and transmitted like an ineradicable disease, and 
 Heraclitus 's axiom, taken far too literally, has been perpetu- 
 ally repeated. Although he was the one solitary instance of a 
 philosopher delighting in war, — if even he really did do so, — 
 he was taken as a paradigm. Plato, 2 it is true, in his "Laws," 
 makes Kleinias say that all states are in fact perpetually at 
 Mar with all others ; but he adds that this ought not to be so. 
 Similar statements occur also in the subsequent period. Not 
 till man had grown weary of endless wars, with their ever in- 
 creasing horrors, did Hobbes, 8 in his tractate "De Cive" 
 wrench this sentence from its meaning so as to make it mean 
 that not only did war actually subsist between all human be- 
 ings, but that this was even the natural state of things. But 
 even Vorlander 4 pointed out that this very phrase is only an 
 abstract scientific hypothesis, and is not to be considered as 
 historically exact. Moreover, he of course insisted on the 
 necessity for abolishing this so-called natural state. 
 
 If the literature of the world is searched for passages glori- 
 fying war, astonishingly little will be found up to the nine- 
 teenth century ; but we must not. forget that love of war was 
 probably universal only in the period when man could still not 
 write. Thus we find everywhere the memory of legends tell- 
 
 i Heraclitus, "Fragmente der Vorsokratiker von Diels," 1903, page 
 67. No. 5. 
 
 2 Plato's "Laws," I, 2, p. 625. 
 
 aHobbes. "De Cive," I, llf., and "Leviathan," II, 17. 
 
 4 Vorlander, in the "Allgemeine Monatsschrift fiir Wissenschaft und 
 Litteratnr," chiefly quotes the passage in Hobbes's "Leviathan," chap- 
 ter 13.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 485 
 
 ing how gods and men fought, but nowhere is it stated that 
 such combats were right or praiseworthy. Perhaps even in 
 later times there were occasional cases of some one really fond 
 of war, but it would seem as if this primitive fondness went 
 hand in hand with a primitive dislike of writing. Soldiers 
 who were also literary men — for instance, Xenophon and 
 ( !a>sar— have never loved or praised war. In fact, if we wish 
 to realize how these hypothetical primitive human beings, our 
 ancestors, thought, we must go back a very little way indeed, 
 not beyond quite modern times. 
 
 2. — THE VOICE OP NATIONS 
 (a) SCIENCE AND ART 
 
 § 177._7^ e Antique 
 
 "When once division of labor had created various occupa- 
 tions, the world began to perceive that the farmer could dress 
 his fields better if he were merely a farmer, and was pro- 
 tected in his peaceful employment by the "soldier." Both 
 were thus equal, but they gradually became unequal, because 
 the armed man of necessity got the power into his own hands, 
 and became the master. Of course this power was often mis- 
 used, the defenders of the country and its food producers were 
 •set over against each other, and thus the warrior became not 
 exactly beloved, and war partook of his unpopularity. 
 
 This period, which includes almost the whole historical time 
 known to us. must on principle be divided into the time before 
 and that after Christ. Although war was not popular even 
 before Christ, nevertheless it was accepted as a necessity of 
 nature : and not till the doctrine of loving thy neighbor as thy- 
 self was announced did men begin consciously to make war 
 upon war. In practice, however, no such division of time can 
 be insisted upon, because this Christian concept had already 
 taken root in many persons before it was preached, whereas 
 afterward it seemed to produce absolutely no effect on most
 
 486 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Christian people. Religions, in short, the position of which in 
 regard to war is in any case quite exceptional, must be con- 
 sidered by themselves. 
 
 The oldest epic poem, the Iliad, is certainly a war epic, full 
 of innocent delight in the heroic deeds of the heroes. But 
 there is not a single passage in which Homer says the least good 
 of war as war. Indeed, in the introductory part, he says by 
 way of a confession of faith : 
 
 Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
 Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing! 
 That wrath which hurls to Pluto's gloomy reign 
 The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain ; 
 Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore, 
 Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore. 1 
 
 And in Book II, when Agamemnon advised the soldiers to 
 return home, the warlike Achaians ran so that 
 
 their trampling feet 
 Beat the loose sands, and thicken to the fleet. 2 
 
 And even Ulysses, who calls them back, is not angry with the 
 Greeks for so desiring to return to their homes, but says : 
 
 As many birds as by the snake were slain, 
 So many years the toils of Greece remain; 
 But wait the tenth, for Ilion's fall decreed. 3 
 
 Elsewhere, too, the only epithets which Homer applies to 
 war show him to have had the profoundest horror of it. He 
 calls it a blood-stained human vampire, and speaks of a war 
 debauchee who did not even care for whom he fought, and in 
 the Fifth Book of the "Iliad" Zens says that he would have 
 long since have hurled war far deeper down than the Titans 
 
 i Homer's "Iliad," opening lines of Pope's translation of Book I. 
 2 "Iliad," Book II, Pope's translation. 
 8 Ibid., Pope's translation.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 487 
 
 had not Mars chanced to be his own son. 1 Even as at the pres- 
 ent day the kings of men love war for dynastic reasons. 
 
 Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly born. 
 Else singed with lightning hadst thou hence been thrown 
 Where chain'd on burning rocks the Titans groan.- 
 
 Yet even considered as a whole, this war epic is not warlike 
 in the modern sense. True, it sings of war being brought to a 
 close, but also hints at its being overcome. It may, indeed, be 
 said to contain the program of humanity. Even the object of 
 the Trojan War points to the future, for it was waged to avenge 
 a violation of the time-honored human right of hospitality, 
 which is equivalent to citizenship of the world. (Compare 
 Kant's ''Perpetual Peace.") And who is making war? All 
 Hellas, which in reality was so torn asunder. Any such idea 
 could have been only a dream of the future for Homer. From 
 Taygetos and from Pindos the Hellenes came on a thousand 
 ships to Troy. The tiny states of Lacedasmon and Argos, 
 Messina and Athens, were at one. From all the isles did they 
 come, from Rhodes and Crete and all the Greek colonies. For 
 Homer this was the world, and thus it is that the war which 
 he describes for us is one which the world has as yet never 
 witnessed — a war for which we, too, long, as the war of the 
 future, the only possible war, one waged by the federation of 
 man against the rebel who has violated the law of nations. 
 
 Homer may begin with the maenads of Achilles, but from 
 his wrath he comes to Irene, to peace; and the Homeric chants 
 end in the words of Zeus, in the last lines of the "Odyssey": 
 
 None now the kindred of the unjust shall own; 
 Forgot the slaughtered brother and the son: 
 Each future day increase of wealth shall bring, 
 And o'er the past oblivion stretch her wing. 
 
 i "Iliad," Book 5, at the very end. 
 "-' Pope's translation.
 
 488 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Long shall Ulysses in his empire rest, 
 His people hlessing, by his people bless'd, 
 Let there be pea.ce. 1 
 
 But "old Homer" has done yet more. Not merely did he 
 sing of a far-off, misty future, which he only faintly antici- 
 pated, but he clearly says how such a future is to be brought 
 about. In the lines selected as the motto for this book he says 
 that fratricidal warfare on earth must be impossible. 
 
 Between Homer's time and now we have climbed every rung 
 of the ladder. First, kinsfolk realized that they were brethren, 
 then towns, and finally states. To-day one alliance of states 
 is already opposed to another, and to-morrow mankind, united 
 into a single alliance, will look on every war as a "war between 
 men of kindred race," and will do what Homer wanted — re- 
 fuse law and help and protection to its engenderer. Herein 
 lies the true meaning of this most ancient of war epics. 
 
 Herodotus, the father of history, also writes of nothing but 
 wars and rumors of wars, but war is abhorrent to him, "for 
 there can hardly be any one so devoid of all reason as to prefer 
 war to peace ; for in peace the children bury the fathers, but 
 in war the fathers bury their children." And being wholly 
 unable to account for such things, he adds, "But probably 
 some demons or other like wars to occur." 
 
 And in Herodotus 's da} T s nations in general thought as he 
 did. No one would ever have dreamed of seeing anything 
 good in war. It is significant that all commentators erro- 
 neously derive the Latin word for war (bellum) from bellus 
 (beautiful), explaining that this was meant sarcastically, and 
 that war was called bellum because it was not beautiful. 2 
 
 War seemed to every one a scourge of humanity. In the 
 
 i Homer's "Odyssey," Book XXIV, Pope's translation. 
 
 * Of. Rabelais, Prologue to Book III of "Pantagruel :" "Je crois, en 
 effet, que la guerre est dite belle, en latin, non par antiphrase. ainsi 
 que le croient certains rapetasseurs de vieilles ferrailles latines, inais 
 parce qu'en guerre apparaft toute espece de bien et de beau et que toute 
 laideur et tout mal y sont casches."
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 489 
 
 Revelation of St. John the Divine the four riders have "power 
 given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with 
 sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of 
 the earth," thus representing war, 1 and even now we pray, 
 "Give peace in our time, Lord," and "from plague, pesti- 
 lence, and famine, Good Lord, deliver us." It seemed such a 
 matter of course that war could not be otherwise than bad that 
 as a rule it is not thought worth while mentioning the fact. 
 Not even the bellicose Romans wrote a single pa?an in praise 
 of war ; and Horace, 2 in his ode to Maecenas, when enumerating 
 pleasures which to him do not seem worthy the name, but in 
 which others take delight, particularly mentions war. But 
 this is the only time when he adds any epithet, and in this case 
 the epithet is "detestata" — "hateful" — war. And matters 
 continued thus throughout the centuries, for as to medieval 
 delight in war very many people have an altogether wrong 
 notion about that. 
 
 For instance, Walter von der Vogelweide, 3 who is constantly 
 singing the praises of the knights and princes of Germany, 
 extols their valor and good breeding, their clemency and readi- 
 ness to make peace, their constancy and diligence. He hopes 
 that it may be granted the Emperor Otto 4 to be just, and to 
 Ludwig of Bavaria, to have plenty of good hunting; 5 he 
 
 i Revelation 6, v. 1-8. — Translator. 
 
 2 Horace, "Carmen ad Cilnium Mivcenatern," v. 25. Some will retort 
 by quoting Horace's well-known "Dulce et decorum est pro patri.'i 
 mori," but they must not forget to quote the following line also: 
 ".Mors et fugacem persequitur virum," for without it Horace's real mean- 
 ing escapes us, which is that "as deatli strikes even a fugitive, it is 
 always better, when a man is once on the battle-field, to die a fine and 
 glorious death for the country than to die as a coward." 
 
 s Walter von der Vogelwuide, Simrock's translation, quoted from 
 Bard's edition. Berlin, 1906. 
 
 ■» Cf. in particular "Gefiihrdetes Geleit,"- ("Escort Imperiled"), p. 
 125: "An die Fiirsten" ("To Princes"), p. 147; "Mass und Ubermass") 
 i '.Moderation and Excess"), p. 179; "Vier Tugenden" ("Four Virtues"), 
 p. 184; and "Die drei Stiihle" ("The Three Chairs"), p. 189. 
 
 6 "Das IVschenk Ludwigs von Bayern" ("The Gift of Ludwig of Ba- 
 varia"), p. 140
 
 490 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 praises Philip's wisdom and clemency, 1 and accounts it a 
 virtue in the Landgrave Herrnian 2 that he never indulged in 
 caprice. But not once does he praise a prince for having won 
 a war. Moreover, it is characteristic that, when he appeals to 
 men to join the crusades, he never invokes any human being, 
 but always the three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and 
 Raphael ; and when Leopold returned from the crusades in 
 1219, though he certainly extols him, it is for having kept order 
 and returned "unsullied." 3 Only once, and then in his last 
 poem, "Heimkehr" ("Home-coming"), does he say that a 
 wave of boundless sorrow has come upon the world, and now 
 he, too, would fain seize his lance and with it win a heavenly 
 crown. But this is resignation, and nowise delight in war; 
 for he knows full well that it is after all the church's duty 
 to be at peace, and that the conception of the crusades is un- 
 christian. Thus in his poem "Der Klausner" 4 ("The 
 Anchorite"), he says that the reason for so much ruin and 
 desolation is that the church itself has become warlike. 
 
 § 178. — More Recent Times 
 
 That no one should have had a good word to say of war 
 while the religious wars were devastating Europe is not sur- 
 prising. In Friedrich von Logau's "Epigrams," 5 for in- 
 stance, war comes off so badly that even his editor, Lessing, 
 assuredly no lover of war, says that Logau "may perhaps have 
 
 i"Leitstern" ("Guiding Star"), p. 137, and "Die Milde" ("Mercy"), 
 p. 140. 
 
 - "An Landgraf Herrmann," p. 156. 
 
 a Walter von der Vogelweide's "Leopolds Riiekkehr vom Kreuzzuge" 
 ("Leopold's Return from the Crusades,") p. 1G7. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 190. 
 
 s "Epigrams" ("Sinngedichte") by Friedrich von Logau, 1654. Cf. 
 Lessing's reviews of Logau, which contain five of his characteristic 
 war poems, "Der verfochtene Krieg," "Des Krieges Raubsucht," "Krieg 
 und Hunger," "Eine Heldentat," "Jupiter und Mars," ("War and its 
 Champions," "Ravenous War," "War and Starvation," an "Act of Hero- 
 ism," and "Jupiter and Mars.")
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 491 
 
 exaggerated the evil aspects of war." The German novelist 
 Grimmelshausen, 1 who himself took part in the Thirty Years' 
 War, also has hardly a page in which he does not express his 
 horror of war, the irresistible power of which nevertheless 
 seems to him so great that his hero can see nothing for it but, 
 like his father, to become a hermit. On the other hand, it is 
 characteristic that, as already mentioned, the only person who 
 asserts that war is something natural, though not precisely 
 good or desirable, should be an Englishman — Hobbes. 2 But 
 Hobbes, living on his sea-girt isle, resembled Englishmen of to- 
 day in the fact that he saw comparatively little of the horrors 
 of war, particularly those of the Thirty Years' War. Hobbes, 
 it is true, lived through the English civil wars of Cromwell's 
 time, although the devastation wrought by them must have 
 been far behind that wrought by contemporaneous Continental 
 wars, if only because they were civil wars, and no foreign 
 armies were involved in them. 
 
 Moreover, intercommunication and travel were increasing, 
 and confirming men in the belief that war between modern 
 constitutional states was not merely horrible, but foolish and 
 useless. Even Erasmus 3 calls war "senseless," and though 
 his contemporary Luther began by calling cannon "damnable 
 machines and works of the devil," he afterward, as in so many 
 cases, made great concessions to the war lust of the age. 4 
 Suarez B explains that a community of interests and civiliza- 
 tion subsists between the different nations, and that this ought 
 
 i Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen was captured by the 
 Hessians in 16H5, and probably was a soldier in the ranks in 1638, 1H4H, 
 and 1648. His "Simplicissimus," pub. in 1G69, is considered the first 
 German novel of permanent value, and is an appalling description of 
 the misery resulting from the Thirty Years' War. — Translator. 
 
 2 Hobbes, "De Cive," 1642, I, 11. 
 
 3 "Encomium moriae," by Erasmus. Cf in particular "Militis Chris- 
 tian] Enchiridion" and "Charon." 
 
 <Cf. § 188 and ISO. 
 
 e Francisco Suarez, Spanish Jesuit. James 1 ordered his "Defensio 
 Catholicae Fidei contra Anglicanae Sectae Erores" to be burned by the 
 common executioner. — Translator.
 
 492 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 to he furthered by community of legislation ; and Hugo Gro- 
 tius, 1 in his famous work on the laws of war, which long re- 
 mained the code of international law, made the first attempt 
 to restrict war. Montesquieu remarks that wars in his day 
 had become quite different from those of the ancients as re- 
 gards their effect on trade, intercommunication, and civiliza- 
 tion generally. Holbach, the French philosopher, wrote that 
 Avar did not even spare the victor, and that even the most suc- 
 cessfully waged war was a calamity. 2 
 
 We must not be surprised, therefore, that all the great men 
 of this period, if they referred to war at all, should have done 
 so with the greatest contempt, sparing no pains to flagellate its 
 useless immorality, cruelty, and barbarity. Suffice it to quote 
 only a few instances. In any case, it does not seem even to 
 have entered into the heads of most writers of the period that 
 there was any need to allege serious reasons for opposing war. 
 They agreed with Leibnitz, 3 who during the war of the Spanish 
 Succession, in which his country was involved, wrote to 
 Foucher, saying that "Philosophers have no concern with 
 war," and in general their one desire was to keep as far from 
 the battle-field as possible. True, they did not all express this 
 desire with the Diogenes-like simplicity of Gellert, 4 who, when 
 he ought once upon a time to have sued for some favor from 
 Frederick II, exclaimed, "Fall down at his feet and recom- 
 mend him in my name to keep the peace," and then hastily re- 
 treated into his lecture-room. 
 
 People of those days believed that, as civilization progressed, 
 war must disappear of its own accord, and therefore for the 
 most part contented themselves w T ith abusing it. Thus Hume 5 
 
 i "De jure belli et pacis," by Hugo Grotiua, 1025. 
 
 2 Quoted according to N. van Suchtelen, "Das einige Europa" ("Eu- 
 rope United"), 1915. Published by the Committee for the United States 
 of Europe (der europiiische Stiaatenbund) . 
 
 3 Leibnitz, "Philosophische Schriften," Gerhardt, Vol. I, p. 420. 
 
 4 Gellert's "Letter to a Noble Damozel," 1758. Cf. H. Prohle, "Fried- 
 rich der Gosse und die deutsche Literatur": Berlin, 1878. 
 
 5 "Treatise upon Human Nature," 1738.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 493 
 
 compares two nations at war with two drunken fellows belabor- 
 ing each other with clubs in a china shop. Quite apart from 
 the bruises, which would keep them doctoring themselves for 
 a long while to come, they would also have to pay for all the 
 damage done. 
 
 Pascal ' gives it as his opinion that ' ' theft, incest, infanti- 
 cide, and patricide all once were included in virtuous actions, 
 but war never; for can there really be anything more ridicu- 
 lous than that a man should have a right to kill me because he 
 lives across the water and his ruler has a complaint against 
 mine, although I have nothing whatever against him?" On 
 which Voltaire remarked sarcastically that "ridiculous" was 
 not the right word, and "infamous madness' was much nearer 
 the mark. 2 Moreover, this friend of Frederick the Great con- 
 siders all wars began only that men might be enabled to steal, 3 
 which on another occasion he condensed into the epigram that 
 the first king was a successful thief (un heureux voleur). 
 Schopenhauer went one better, 4 and asserted that "lust of 
 thieving" was the origin of all war. And even the "laughing 
 philosopher" 5 becomes wholly serious when the word war is 
 mentioned. 
 
 "War," he says, "is a word as heavy as lead. It is the 
 scourge of humanity and of nations, the antithesis of all rea- 
 son, although not seldom a harvest for the great, for ministers, 
 generals, contractors, and Jews. War is mankind's obscene 
 picture, and war first begot despotism. War begot the feudal 
 system. War made of free men the first slaves." And Klop- 
 stock says in one of his poems that "war is the most hideous 
 
 i Pascal, about 1650. 
 
 -Voltaire's "De la paix perpetuelle," about 1750. 
 
 3 "Dans toutes les guerres il ne s'agit que de voler." to which Schopen- 
 hauer adds the comment, "And let the Germans take warning by that." 
 
 ♦ Schopenhauer's "Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit," ("Aphorisms on 
 the Philosophy of Life," 1850. Chap. V, C, 29. Cf. also "Parerga und 
 Paralipomena!" II, !), "Zur Rechtslehre und Politik," ("On Jurispru- 
 dence and Politics"), § 125. 
 
 s Weber's "Democritus," Vol. X, p. 216.
 
 494 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 laughing stock of the human race. ' ' * Elsewhere he says that 
 Cerberus had three jaws, but war has a thousand. 
 
 1 could fill thousands of pages with such quotations. But it 
 would be unfair to pass over in silence the three shining lights 
 of German humane philosophy — Herder, Kant, and Goethe. 
 I shall have to refer so frequently to Goethe afterward that I 
 will here merely remind the reader of the fine passage in 
 "Egmont." As for Herder, he says: "Mere endeavors for 
 the betterment of mankind can scarcely succeed in any coun- 
 try so long as the spirit of conquest has the upper hand there, 
 dominating everything. In such a case we are and remain 
 what we were even in Tacitus 's time — barbarians, armed for 
 war even in peace." 2 All noble-minded human beings, he 
 urges, should do their utmost to disseminate such views, if 
 only because they are human beings. Parents should do their 
 best to instil them into their children, so that the dread word 
 "war," so lightly uttered, may not only come to be detested 
 of men, but that in time we may scarce dare to pronounce or 
 write it, save with the horror with which we speak of St. Vitus' 
 dance, pestilence, starvation, earthquakes, or the Black Death. 
 
 Finally, Kant 3 writes: "We are civilized till we have be- 
 come a burden to ourselves, with every kind of social refine- 
 ment and decency. But we are a very long way from being en- 
 titled to look upon ourselves as moralized. For ... so long 
 as governments concentrate all their strength on frivolous de- 
 signs for forcibly extending their power, thus continually put- 
 ting obstacles in the way of the slow efforts their people are' 
 making to think for themselves, so long need nothing of the 
 kind be expected." 
 
 i Klopstock, about 1770. 
 
 2 "Briefe zur Beforderung der Humanitiit ('"Letters in Advocacy of 
 Humanitarian Ideas"). 
 
 3 Kant's "Idee zu einer allegemeinen Gescliichte in weltbiirgerlicher 
 Absicht" ("Outlines of Universal History from the Cosmopolitan 
 Standpoint"), Part 7, pub. in 1784. Cf. also and particularly his 
 "Perpetual Peace," 1795.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 495 
 
 § 179. — The Transition to Modem Times 
 
 In the preceding pages I have cited only writers fairly gen- 
 erally known, and whose importance is beyond dispute. In so 
 doing, however, I have left the extensive pacifist literature 
 properly so called wholly out of account. It is from no lack 
 of deference that I have not mentioned, for instance, Alfred 
 H. Pried, and Professor Wilhelm Foerster in Germany, the 
 Baroness Bertha von Suttner in Austria ; Baron d'Estournelles 
 de Constant and M. Jaures in France ; Alfred Nobel in 
 Sweden; Andrew Carnegie in America; M. Jean de Bloch ; 
 above all, that great apostle of peace, Tolstoy, in Russia ; and 
 very many more besides. We all honor their faith and ideal- 
 ism, but what they said might be considered preconceived 
 opinions, and what I wanted to show was that these pacifist 
 utterances were not by any means isolated, but that in general 
 everything that hath breath and understanding is in agreement 
 with them. 
 
 The "Aktion" is shortly to publish a large number of quo- 
 tations in proof of this, although these will by no means ex- 
 haust the list, which would fill many volumes. I will merely 
 refer to the anthologies of pacifist quotations made by Leopold 
 Katscher x and Alfred Fried, 2 which contain many quotations 
 from authors not named here, unfortunately almost always 
 without an exact indication of the source. 
 
 A great many quotations, some of them very valuable, have 
 already been collected and published in the "Aktion." 3 
 They are from a great diversity of writers, including Wil- 
 liam Lloyd Garrison, Herder, Swift, Adin Balu, Charles 
 Letourueau, Channing, Flammarion, Alphonse Karr, and 
 
 i "Friedensstimmcn, eine Anthologie," ("Voices of Peace. An An- 
 thology"), collected by Leopold Katseher, the Hungarian pacifist, with 
 an introduction by K. F. Meyer and Bertha von Suttner. Leip9ic, 
 1S!I4. 399 pp. 
 
 '-' "Handbnch der Friedensbewegung," ("Handbook of the Peace 
 Movement") by Alfred Fried, 1911. Leipsic and Berlin. 
 
 3 "Die Aktion," August 7, 1911. No. -J5
 
 496 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Emile Rod. Many more quotations may be found in Tolstoy's 
 "Do penance." * 
 
 1 should also refer the reader to the quotations given by 
 Dr. Herman Wetzel, the German philosopher, whose book can, 
 unfortunately, no longer be bought. 2 Then there are of 
 course a large number of thinkers and authors who scarcely 
 deal directly with war, but whose brief, pithy sayings, torn 
 from their context are made use of by war advocates. Here I 
 shall confine myself to mentioning two instances only. The 
 German writer on art, Fredrich Theodor Vischer, after 1870 
 enlarged his work on esthetics by a chapter on "War and 
 Art," lauding war to the skies; and Friedrich Nietzsche, the 
 philosopher, is everywhere instanced as having incited the 
 world to the present war. 
 
 True, Vischer said after 1870 that "all the idealism of a 
 Teutonic existence is bound up with war." (Literally he said 
 "lay" in war, but those of like mind with him are right in 
 saying that the context shows that he believes his assertion to 
 be true of the present.) His words, therefore, bring grist to 
 the mills of the Germanophobes. In my next chapter, how- 
 ever, which will also be my last, he will not be quoted, for it 
 deals with war-lovers proper, and it can be proved that this 
 love of war is merely an overflow from the feeling everywhere 
 engendered by the Franco-Prussian War. When Vischer was 
 in the prime of life, and aged thirty-seven, he thought differ- 
 ently. Not only did he consider the "enormous sums swal- 
 lowed up by standing armies" to be the chief evil in the 
 state ; 3 not only did he think it "not lawful to speak" of the 
 "triumphant success of Becker's 'Rhine Chant' without blush- 
 
 i"Besinnt Euch" ("Bethink Yourselves"), by Leo Tolstoy. (Dealing 
 with the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 2 "Die Verweigerung des Heeresdienstes und die Verurteilung des 
 Krieges in der Geschichte der Menschheit" ("The Eefusal to Serve in 
 the Army" and the "Condemnation of War in Human History"), by 
 Dr. H. Wetzel; Potsdam, 1905. 
 
 sViseher'a "Kritische Gange" ("Essays in Criticism"), 1844, Vol. 
 II, p 293.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 497 
 
 ing for the Germans" '; 1 not only does he scoff at Herwegh and 
 his hopes of making everything better by war, 2 but in 1844 in 
 his ' ' Proposals for an Opera ' ' he directly states that his reason 
 for proposing the Nibelungen legends as the words of an 
 heroic opera 3 was because in opera it is not necessary to prove 
 that the characters ever actually existed. Nibelungen operas, 
 however, he says, are no longer possible now, because the pres- 
 ent age is "incomparably greater than the remote past." In 
 our century, when Germany's narrow interests have extended 
 so as to embrace the whole world, the Nibelungen characters 
 would remind us too much of the "artificial efforts of Teuto- 
 mania, ' ' which Vischer hated from the bottom of his heart. In 
 short, he still believed then that in the two thousand years 
 which have elapsed since the origin of this ancient legend, the 
 German people "had wrested a new form of culture from 
 Northern asperity. ' ' 
 
 In 1870, however, when Vischer recanted, he thought it nec- 
 essary expressly to state that we were still in the midst of this 
 "Northern asperity" and that the warlike ideal still continued 
 to be the German ideal. But although Vischer will not hear of 
 historical evolution, yet we, in criticizing his writings, must not 
 forget that there is such a thing. Considered from this point 
 of view, the words which he wrote after 1870, in war-time and 
 when he was growing old, acquire a wholly different meaning. 
 
 And now to come to Nietzsche. He, the war philosopher par 
 excellence, was never warlike at all. Victories on the battle- 
 field never obscured the clearness of his vision, and he w T as 
 perhaps the first to perceive the effect which such unparalleled 
 military successes must have upon German feeling, the more 
 so as they were almost uninterrupted, quite unaccustomed, and 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 302. (8ie sollen ihn nicht haben, den freien deutchen 
 Rhein) — ("The free Rhine, the German Rhine, never shall they have 
 it"). 
 
 2 Vischer's "Gedichte eines Lebendigen" ("Poems of a Living Man"), 
 "Jahrbik'her der Gegenwart," 1843, No. 1. 
 
 s Vischer's "Vorschlag zu einer Oper," ("Proposals for an Opera") 
 in his "Essays in Criticism," II, p. 397 et eeq.
 
 498 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 quite unexpected. His prophetic soul saw in anticipation 
 how these military successes would change the heroic sense into 
 a military sense, a change which even during the war he deeply 
 lamented. Apart, however, from its special aspects, he in- 
 variably opposed war with the utmost vigor ; and in his ' ' Ecce 
 Homo" he specially denies that by necessary struggle he had 
 ever meant war. He does indeed advocate war, he says, but 
 war without powder and smoke, without the striking of mar- 
 tial attitudes, without pathos, and without sprained limbs. 1 
 His war is the war which Voltaire waged, the war of free minds 
 against false idealism, in which he, like the German philoso- 
 pher Stirner, included first and foremost ordinary patriotism. 
 Shortly after the outbreak of war, and when hypnotized 
 by it, Frau Foerster, 2 it is true, in a so-called apology for her 
 brother, did accuse him of having been out of his mind when 
 he wrote "Ecce Homo." Yet this same Frau Foerster once 
 on a time declared that all men were criminals who opposed 
 her brother's philosophy on the ground of his having lost his 
 reason in his later years. 3 Fortunately, however, in the days 
 when there was as yet nothing the matter with him, in 1886, 
 Nietzsche expressed his views of war in absolutely unmistak- 
 able terms ; and any one wishing to know what this supposed 
 martial philosopher really thought about war need only read 
 "War as a Medicine" and "How to Insure True Peace." 4 
 Here Nietzsche says that war is of no use except for sick 
 peoples: a healthy nation does not need war, and, secondly, 
 that a nation in arms (universal service) is unhuman, and 
 worse than war, and that he hoped one day a nation would 
 
 i "Ecce Homo Menschliches, allzumenschlches," Nietzsche's "Col- 
 lected Works." (Vol. XV, 2nd set of German edition.) 
 
 2 "Der 'echt preussische' Freidrich Nietzsche," by Elisabeth Forster 
 Nietzsche, in the "Berliner Tageblatt" for Sept. 16,*1914. (Frau Fors- 
 ter-Nietzsehe wrote a life of her brother, translated into English in 
 1912).— Translator. 
 
 3 Nietzsche lost his reason in 1889, at the age of 35. — Translator. 
 
 4 "Der Wanderer und 9ein Schatten," 1886. Nietzsche's Works, Vol. 
 XJI of Series I, German edition-
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 499 
 
 arise "which would voluntarily exclaim, "We will break our 
 sword in pieces" and which would raze its whole military sys- 
 tem to the ground, and "rather perish twice over than make 
 itself hated and feared." And he solemnly adds that "this 
 must one day be the ruling maxim of every single state." 
 
 And people even dare to drag Nietzsche into their po- 
 lemics ! 
 
 The lying spirit has grown powerful in Germany, and ap- 
 pears to have got a hold of every one ; otherwise such a thing 
 could never have happened. 
 
 § 180. — Soldiers and Diplomatists 
 
 It is by no means only peace-loving scholars and authors 
 who have hated war, however. Soldiers have done so, and 
 among them often even the greatest generals, strange as this 
 may seem to us to-day. 
 
 Of "educated soldiers" of comparatively modern times we 
 may take as an example Cyrano de Bergerac, probably the most 
 bellicose of all authors. He actually killed more than a dozen 
 men in duels, and served with distinction between 1638 and 
 1640, first in the Nobel Guards and afterward in the gendar- 
 merie corps of Prince Conti. If ever there were a man who 
 delighted in battle, it was this Gascon, made so real to us by 
 Rostand. Yet he hated war, saying that "all beings are born 
 to associate together, but man will not have it so. ' ' ' He is 
 forever poking fun at war. "Does not each side say it is in 
 the right?" he exclaims. "And if they believe this, then why 
 do they not go before an arbitrator?" - And in another pass- 
 age he says that "it is no more discreditable to lose in war than 
 at dice," and he sets far more store by a victory of knowledge 
 than by the winning of any battle whatsoever. 3 Cyrano, in- 
 deed, had already comprehended the great and wise modern 
 
 i "Histoire comique du soleil," by Cyrano de Berg-erac, 1G61. Chap. 
 IV, p. 259. "(Euvres Completes": Paris, Mereure de France, 1908. 
 2 Ibid., p. 176. 
 a Ibid., p. 178.
 
 500 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 conception that war is now no longer a suitable form of human 
 struggle, and he condemns war "because it testifies to human 
 cowardice. ' ' 
 
 From Cyrano de Bergerac to Colonel Hugo von Gizicky and 
 to the Saxon Lieutenant-Colonel Moritz von Egidy, 1 who had 
 the courage to say in 1890 that "war is incompatible with true 
 Christianity." there is a long succession of men whose anti-war 
 views were due to their actual experience of the battle-field. 
 Above all we must never forget that Tolstoy, the greatest gen- 
 ius of them all and likewise the most ardent hater of war, began 
 his career as an officer in the guards, as did Prince Peter Kro- 
 potkin, that other great Russian pacifist. In the same category 
 must be placed Garibaldi, who, although ever ready to fight, 
 nevertheless said that the first thing Europe ought to do was 
 to make war impossible. Even Frederick II of Prussia 2 was 
 of this way of thinking, for he refers to war as "this brazen- 
 headed monster, the War Demon, athirst for blood and for 
 destruction," while elsewhere he calls Bellona "that woeful, 
 wild woman, beloved of ancient Chaos." 
 
 That these and similar utterances are not merely the exag- 
 gerated phrases of an eccentric form of poetry tending to 
 hyperbole, and that the philosopher of Sans Souci really did 
 often feel a horror of the mode of life he was forced to live 
 is proved by his insistence, even in 1749, that a distinction must 
 be drawn between a man's situation and the man himself, 
 "particularly where war is concerned." True, he was not 
 quite logical, perhaps could not have been so because of his 
 position. He does, indeed, insist that "we must not satirize 
 war, but get rid of it, as a doctor gets rid of fever" ; but very 
 often, as for instance in his famous letter to Voltaire, 3 he 
 merely makes gruesome fun of himself. "Do not imagine," 
 he writes, "that it is a pleasure to go on leading this absurd 
 
 i "Zura Ansbau der ernsten Gedanken," ("Serious Reflections Made 
 still More Serious") by Moritz von Egidy, 1891, VIII, p. 17. 
 
 2 "L'ode de la guerre" and other passages by Frederick II of Prussia. 
 3Fr«derick II's "Letter to Voltaire," Nov. 27, 1773
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 501 
 
 life. Seeing men one does not know dying all round one, and 
 even handing them over to Death. ' ' 
 He then goes on : 
 
 Can any prince who clothes his men in blue cloth, gives them hats 
 ■with white strings, and orders them to right about and then to left 
 about, make them go through a campaign for honor's sake without 
 deserving the honorary title of an instigator of good-for-nothings 
 who only become hired executioners from dire necessity, so as to 
 fulfil the honorable calling of highway-robbers? The philosophers 
 must send out missionaries to convert people, and to rid the coun- 
 tries of their great armies, without this being noticed. These armies 
 are hurling the countries downward into the abyss; they must be 
 reduced until gradually not a single fighting man is left. No lord 
 of the soil and no people will any longer have any such luckless 
 passion as that for making war, the consequences of which are so 
 disastrous. Every one will utter only reason, things as demonstrable 
 as a proposition in Euclid. I deeply regret that I am too old to 
 hope to witness so fine a sight; indeed, I shall scarcely live to see 
 the first blush of the dawn of that day. I and my contemporaries 
 will be pitied for having lived in an age of darkness, at the end of 
 which, but not before, the first streaks of light were seen breaking 
 unto the perfect day of wisdom. 1 
 
 Is it possible to be theoretically a more convinced pacifist 
 than this great military sovereign, even although he declined to 
 believe in the peace organization proposed by the Abbe de 
 Saint Pierre ? 2 
 
 That other crushing remark of the great king, "If my sol- 
 diers began to think, not one would stay in the ranks," is cer- 
 tainly famous; but no one has ever tried to put it into prac- 
 tice. Or have the nations never yet begun to think in the sense 
 meant by Frederick the Great? 
 
 Not even Napoleon, who is called the Soldier Emperor, who 
 was a soldier by profession, and who unquestionably owe/. 
 
 i Frederick II, "E'mige Gedanken Friedrich TI aus Herders Briefen 
 zur Beforderung der Humanitat." ("Some Reflections of Frederick 
 II from Herder's Letters in "Advocacy of Humanitarian Ideas") 
 
 t Frederick II, "Totengespriiche" ("Conversations with the Dead").
 
 502 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 everything to war, saw anything necessarily great about war. 
 Even when still a young officer he complained that he had 
 missed his vocation, an idea which never quite left him. I 
 have already quoted his saying that "he hated this business 
 and he loved it"; and although he waged more wars and won 
 more victories on the battle-field than any other mortal, he over 
 and over again showed that for him war — this barbarous busi- 
 ness, as he calls it — was at best a means to an end, never an 
 end in itself. He considered it his mission "to establish civil 
 order on a firm footing, side by side with the military and 
 ecclesiastical power which, until his time, alone prevailed"; 
 and when he founded the Legion of Honor, the first order for 
 all classes of the people, he said that "time was getting on, and 
 soon the greatest general would feel honored by being per- 
 mitted to wear the same order as a scholar and an author." 
 Indeed, he even thought seriously of abolishing the profes- 
 sional soldier and introducing a militia. "In peace-time," he 
 said, "I will manage to induce the sovereigns not to have any 
 soldiers except their own guard." 
 
 Even his enemy, the Austrian Field-Marshal the Archduke 
 Charles, 1 the only man who in those topsy-turvy times con- 
 quered the revolutionary armies and once even Napoleon him- 
 self, at Aspern and Essling, this only general of the Germans 
 of that day, expressly states that "unduly large armies are a 
 curse to humanity, and cause the ruin of countries." 
 
 It is narrated of James Wolfe, 2 the stubborn and apparently 
 cruel conqueror of Quebec, that on his death-bed he was read- 
 ing a poem by Gray ("The Elegy in a Country Churchyard"), 
 and said, "I had rather have written such lines than have 
 conquered Quebec"; and even Bismarck, a contemporary of 
 Moltke and in one sense his colleague, said, before beginning 
 his third war, 3 that "he considered even a victorious war al- 
 
 i "Aphorisms," by the Archduke Charles, 1816. 
 
 2 Wolfe. Cf. R. Wright's "Life and Correspondence of Major General 
 James Wolfe," 1864. 
 
 3 Bismarck's "Rundschreiben an die diplomatischen Vertreter de, a
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 503 
 
 ways an evil in itself, and one which statesmanship ought to 
 endeavor to spare the nations." And when he had brought 
 his wars to a victorious conclusion, he, so to speak, apologizes 
 for them, saying that "the last two wars were an unavoidable 
 historical event come down to us from past centuries. ' ' 1 
 
 It is perhaps also worth while mentioning that the Crown 
 Prince Frederick William, even during the Franco-Prussian 
 War, in which he gave an excellent account of himself both as 
 soldier and strategist, expressed his "horror of war," and 
 once actually said, "We really must feel ashamed ever to look 
 at barbarians, because they do neither more nor less than what 
 we do." He was truly of the same mind as his great ancestor 
 Frederick II, to whom he is well known to have been greatly 
 attached. 
 
 What I have done here is to collect the pacifist sayings of 
 the very men from whom such utterances might not have been 
 expected to proceed. It would be superfluous to add to the 
 list. Every one knows that all the great British ministers con- 
 demned war. Whigs and Tories agreed in this. A Liberal 
 such as Gladstone described militarism as the greatest tyrant 
 of our age, and a Conservative such as Lord Salisbury believed 
 that the triumph of civilization lay in the overcoming of war. 
 Even Crispi said that rone but fools or ambitious men desire 
 war. 
 
 It may be objected that the history of nations proves this to 
 have been mere hypocrisy, for, after all, they have almost all 
 waged wars, from Frederick the Great's to Lord Salisbury's 
 wars. But it must not be forgotten that modern militarism is 
 based not on the fact of wars being waged, but on the convic- 
 tion of there being something great about war, something 
 which is cause for rejoicing, and for which preparation must 
 I e made. It is this conviction which must be opposed, and 
 
 no/ddentschen Bundes" (Circular to the Diplomatic Representatives of 
 the North German Association), July 9, 1870. 
 
 1 Bismarck's speech in the Reichstag of Jan. 11, 1887.
 
 504 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 when men's views have changed, then a new set of facts will 
 arise of their own accord. 
 
 But I have given instances enough. Every one who studies 
 literature even superficially will admit that there has never 
 yet been any man of eminence who has loved war for Avar's 
 sake. Subsequently (§ 187) I hope to mention the modern 
 men Avho do so, among whom, however, is only one, Moltke, 
 whose achievements entitle him to claim to be numbered among 
 the great ; and even Moltke was induced, from practical consid- 
 erations, one day to declare that the cessation of war was some- 
 thing worth striving for. 
 
 3. — WAR rOETRY 
 
 § 181. — Dramatic War Poetry 
 
 It might be thought that the quotations hitherto given were 
 specially and not fairly selected. Anything so horrible as war, 
 it might be argued, must have opponents, but certainly sup- 
 porters also. Let those who think so test things for themselves, 
 however, and they will find it is quite true that until the 
 French Revolution, and indeed even until the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, there were never any genuine friends of 
 war. True, the oldest epic poems are war poems, but despite 
 there being such an immense deal about battles in the Iliad and 
 the Nibelungenlied, in Firdusi and the Bible, and in Greek and 
 Roman mythology, not a single one of all these contains the 
 slightest trace of enthusiasm for war. As regards the Iliad I 
 have already gone into»this in detail ; but the tendency of even 
 the German national epic, the Nibelungenlied, is in realty 
 against war, and when at last the Germans have torn one an- 
 other to pieces (Burgundians against Bernese) to the last man, 
 and Theodoric alone remains, there can hardly be any one who 
 does not feel the wearisome folly of war. 
 
 Xo doubt many poets afterward succeeded in giving tine 
 descriptions of battles, such as the account of the battle of 
 Waterloo in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" or Tolstoy's de-
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 505 
 
 scription of battle in "War and Peace." But it is just in 
 books with a peaceful tendency written by men of peace that 
 we find these vivid descriptions. What a gulf really separates 
 poets and soldiers can best be realized from the fact that a 
 poet or dramatist has never yet succeeded in a drama the cen- 
 tral figure of which was a soldier or the plot of which was a 
 battle. The Napoleonic tragedy has never been made the sub- 
 ject of a successful play or poem, and only quite lately has an 
 attempt been made to use Napoleon in private life {Napoleon 
 intime) as material for comedies. Nor is there any drama of 
 Frederick the Great; in Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm" he 
 merely forms a background. Similarly Schiller preceded his 
 Wallenstein trilogy by "Wallenstein's Camp," which is des- 
 tined to throw into relief Wallenstein's human side, and, as 
 Schiller quite properly adds, explain his inhumanity. Even 
 in olden times it was just the same, and the "Seven Men be- 
 fore Thebes" is not a war drama. 
 
 This neglect of wholesale slaughter might seem surprising, 
 because, after all, murder and assassination have been frequent 
 themes in all tragedies since Grecian times. The reason for it, 
 however, is simply the endless uniformity of all battles ever 
 fought as yet. If a private person strikes another dead, he 
 has some sort of reason for so doing which may possibly in- 
 terest a poet ; but if a soldier strikes any one dead in battle, he 
 has no reason whatever for so doing, and it would really be 
 hard to say what a poet or dramatist would make of such an 
 incident, Battles, indeed, are not merelj- superfluous, but also 
 deadly dull, and deadly dull they remain even when drama- 
 tized, and, be it remarked in parenthesis, when they are painted 
 on canvas. 
 
 But beyond all doubt there are fine war-songs, by which we 
 rightly set much store, and many poetical lines glorifying war. 
 But the circumstances in this case are peculiar. The poet be- 
 lieves, or did once believe, it to be his duty to put himself in 
 the shoes of as many different people in as many different cir- 
 cumstances as possible. For instance, Schiller is particularly
 
 506 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 praised for having been able to pen his masterly description 
 of the Alps in ""William Tell" without ever having been in 
 Switzerland ; and similarly he did his best to feel as his charac- 
 ters would have felt and speak as they would have spoken 
 without himself really sharing their feelings. 
 
 Schiller wrote " Nadowessiers Totenlied" and die "Kind- 
 moderin" (the "Child-Murderess"), and yet he was neither 
 an Indian nor a child-murderer. In like manner he thor- 
 oughly appreciated the soldier's free and easy life, and he it 
 was who wrote what is perhaps the most splendid cavalry song 
 in the world. The lines 
 
 Und setzet Ihr nicht das Leben ein 
 
 Nie wird Euch das Leben gewonnen sein, 1 
 
 and 
 
 Der dem Tod ins Angesicht schauen kann; 
 Der Soldat allein ist der freie Mann, 2 
 
 contain the highest moral tribute which it is possible to pay to 
 war. Yet it would be a mistake to insist that Schiller had any 
 trace of enthusiasm for war in him. He knew only too well 
 that, as he says in "Max Piccolomini, " "war is a cruel, brutal 
 business," and he also knew that "war carries off the best," as 
 he says in ' ' Siegesf est. ' ' 
 
 War is so far from appealing to Schiller's finely sensitive 
 personality that, perhaps unintentionally, he often does not 
 even refer to it when he might have been expected to do so. 
 In his "Song of the Bell," in which the whole of life, and even 
 the Revolution, is made to pass before us, there is no descrip- 
 tion of war; there is merely a negative reference to it: 
 {"Moge nie der Tag erscheinen," etc. — "May the day never 
 dawn"). In the "Eleusian Festival" the savages come and 
 
 i That he who dc?s no+ stake his life shall never have it won from 
 him. — Translator. 
 
 2 That the soldier alone looks death ir the face; the soldier alone il 
 a free man. — Translator.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 507 
 
 "cast their blood-stained weapons from them"; and even 
 though he says that all the heavenly beings descend, Mars, the 
 god of war, is not among them. Similarly the war gods are 
 not in the "Gods of Greece," although thirty deities are 
 named, and although, as is well known, Mars was one of the 
 twelve chief gods. (In the second edition he even omitted 
 Zeus, the "Thunderer," because this epithet seemed to him to 
 sully the "hellenic harmony.") Finally, in the "division of 
 the earth," in which, according to prevailing opinion, the sol- 
 dier would have the chief share, only the peasant and mer- 
 chant, junker, abbot, and king, but not the man of war, are 
 mentioned; and in the poem "Johanniter" Schiller expressly 
 says the watchman's garb adorns a knight better than a coat 
 of mail. But in principle the passage alread}' cited is most 
 important. Here Schiller expressly extols the German for not 
 prancing about like a Frank or a Briton, after the manner of a 
 proud conqueror. Only once, in the poem 1 "Wilhelra Tell" 
 does he admit justification for a just war ; but this war of the 
 Swiss was not a war at all in our sense of the word, but a revo- 
 lution against a legitimate ruler, and, as we shall see, revolu- 
 tions are not at all the same thing as wars. In any case, at 
 that time they were put on quite a different footing, and a 
 typical instance of which is the fact that Kant, although in 
 
 i In his dramas "Wilhelm Tell," "The Maid of Orleans," etc., Schiller 
 of course allows certain characters to praise war. Thus in the "Bride 
 of Messina," in accordance with the impersonal nature of the antique 
 chorus, he makes his chorus sing that "Beautiful is Peace, that lovely 
 boy," and afterward that "war hath her victories," war "which decides 
 the fate of man." Similarly in "Henry V" (Act II, Scene 4) Shaks- 
 pere makes the Dauphin of France say that peace "dulls" a kingdom, 
 while in the last act we have the Duke of Burgundy's marvelous 
 speech about the blessings of peace, "dear nurse of arts, plenties and 
 joyful births," and the injury done to "our fertile France" by war, with 
 all her husbandry "lying on heaps," her vines unprun'd, her meadows 
 unmown, and her vineyards grown to wildness. But it is worthy of 
 note that even this play, this "dramatized triumph song of the British 
 nation," as Gildemeister calls it. ends with the words (V. 2) spoken by 
 (Jueen Isabel of France, "That English may as French. French English- 
 men, receive each other. God speak this Amen!" [A/J.] "Amen!"
 
 508 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 principle an opponent of war, genuinely admired the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 My reason for devoting so much space to Schiller is to prove 
 that it is by no means always the man who writes good war 
 lyrics who can be claimed as a friend of war. But the same 
 thing applies more or less to all dramatic poets, for example, to 
 Shakspere, although he has written enough and too much about 
 wars and rumors of war, and although there are characters in 
 his plays who praise and love war. Although Shakspere has 
 many a vigorous passage about war, yet he himself was nowise 
 a war-lover, but a peace-lover, as is clear from the character- 
 istic passage in "Henry V" in which the Duke of Burgundy 
 extols peace. But above all his sonnets prove this, for, as 
 Bodenstedt says, in them we see the man in the poet before us. 
 Read sonnets 19, 25, 66, 94 and particularly 107, which is one 
 of the finest of odes to perpetual peace. It is impossible not to 
 admire the assurance which enabled Shakspere even then to 
 say: 
 
 Incertainties now erown themselves assured, 
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 1 
 
 § 182. — Lyric Poetry 
 
 Even the war lyrists, however, must not be judged indis- 
 criminately by their verses, for they did not always take 
 Goethe's warning to heart and put nothing in their poetry save 
 what they themselves had inwardly experienced. Referring to 
 war lyrists in particular, Goethe - once said : 
 
 i Tn sonnets 19 and 94 I really cannot find much indication of Shaks- 
 pere's preference for peace. In Sonnets 25 and 66 and particularly in 
 Sonnet 107 it is clear. Dr. Nicolai admits that he is quoting Boden- 
 stcdt's translation, which appeared in Berlin in 1S62, with the numbers 
 of the sonnets all changed. Consequently lie may be wrong in his num- 
 bers as regards Shakspere. But No. 107 is evidently the sonnet he 
 means, as he quotes the above two lines in a free German translation. 
 I have consulted Dowden's edition. — Translator. 
 
 -' lukermann's "Conversations with Goethe," March 5, 1830. Cotta's 
 edition. Ill, p. 217 et sec/. (Theodor Korner, was a writer of the fieriest 
 patriotic songs. — Translator. .
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 509 
 
 Writing war-poems and sitting in a room — that would not have 
 done for me! To sally forth from a camp where at night you could 
 hear the horses of the enemy's advance posts — that I could imagine 
 myself enjoying. But my life and work were cast in different lines, 
 and I left such things to Theodor Korner. His war-songs absolutely 
 suit him, but in my case, I being in no sense a warlike disposition, 
 war-songs would have been like a mask which did not fit. 
 
 I have never touched upon or expressed anything in my poetry 
 save what I had personally gone through and what clamored for 
 expression in me and occupied my thoughts. I have only written 
 love-poems when I was in love. How could I have written hate- 
 poems, then, without hate? 
 
 Here we have the real truth. Most writers concoct their 
 hymns of hate without hating'. They write to order, and de- 
 scribe a battle when they had rather be doing* something else, 
 or, as Theodor Korner once said, "with the enthusiasm of a 
 coward they shout out their delight to their conquering 
 brethren." * Their place is with those who sit at home in the 
 chimney-corner, and who were an abomination to this young 
 hero. 
 
 Even the verses of the old war lyrist, TyrtaBus, limped. We 
 will not concern ourselves, however, with the martial poetry 
 of other nations, but only with that of Germany. Here again, 
 we find the same old story — war lyrics only too obviously writ- 
 ten not by the light of a camp-fire, but by that of a study lamp. 
 Take the poet Gleim, for instance, whose celebrity is mainly 
 due to his "Songs of a Prussian Grenadier," published in 
 1756 and 1757. His poem going over all the wars of Frederick 
 the Great and entitled "To the Eighteenth Century" is suffi- 
 cient proof of his not having been of martial disposition. 
 
 Old Father Gleim excluded war from the category of the 
 virtues, but above all he says that men make war of their own 
 free will (Cf. § 6), and this must always be counted unto him 
 for righteousness. 
 
 i Korner having volunteered to fight for Prussia against Napoleon 
 in 1813 was entitled to such a sneer. He fell in battle the suuie year. — 
 Translator.
 
 510 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Friedrich Riickert, who afterward became a distinguished 
 Orientalist, merely held the mirror up to the nature of his age 
 in his famous "Sonnets in Armor," in writing which he cer- 
 tainly did not draw on his own personal experience. In 
 treating of the wisdom of the Brahmans he was not so martial. 
 Even the people felt the want of sincerity of his sonnets, and 
 even Major Beitzke 1 says that "sonnets are not a vehicle for 
 the blaring of trumpets and the roar of cannon. " In so saying 
 he is thinking of Schenkendorf and Fouque, 2 although they did 
 go through the campaign as lieutenants of volunteer marksmen 
 (Jager). 
 
 Platen, it is true, also served as a lieutenant in the last cam- 
 paign against Napoleon, although he did not reach the firing- 
 line ; and his at first obviously trumped-up hatred of Napoleon, 
 which found vent in feeble rhymes, was under the influence 
 of this campaign, speedily converted into a feeling exactly the 
 opposite. 
 
 As for the Wars of Liberation, indeed, in which, neverthe- 
 less, the nation was said to have arisen as one man, hardly a 
 single person who fought in them afterward achieved any im- 
 portance in science or art. Yet at the time those who ought 
 to have constituted Germany's subsequent greatness were 
 young. 
 
 There was one who of course did not draw the sword at this 
 time, although he had formerly served in the Prussian Army, 
 and that was the Franco-German, Chamisso. Yet we must not 
 forget his prophetic utterance just then. "I have as yet no 
 country," he said, thinking of the time when all Europe would 
 form one great civilized community. But of all the other 
 poets, many of whom both before and after wrote many a 
 battle-poem, hardly a single one served in the army ; and as for 
 those representing the other arts and the sciences, if possible 
 fewer still of them were in the fighting-line. Fouque came 
 
 iQleim's "Lieder fur das Volk" ("Songs for the People"), Halber- 
 stadt, 1772. No. 66. 
 
 * Fouque, author of "Undine."
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 511 
 
 from an old general's family; and he, Chamisso, Platen, and 
 Zedlitz were all officers. They therefore really ought to 
 have been obliged to go to the war; yet Chamisso and Zedlitz 
 did not go; Immermann was ill in 1813; Eichendorff led a 
 somewhat inactive life guarding fortifications at Torgau ; and 
 Schenkendorf, who could not use his right hand, was employed 
 at headquarters. This exhausts the list of those who delighted 
 in the war. Nevertheless, Wilhelm Miiller, Justinus Kerner, 
 the brothers Grimm, Ludwig Uhland, Gustav Schwab, Ludwig 
 Tieck, Rtickert, Vamhagen von Ense, Ludwig Borne, Graf von 
 Puckler-Muskau, and Grillparzer were then between twenty 
 and thirty years of age: and Achim von Arnira, Clemens 
 Brentano, and Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, not to mention 
 any others, were not much over thirty. It would seem, there- 
 fore, as if, when it is really left open to a man whether he will 
 join the army or no, those who feel themselves capable of really 
 achieving anything in any direction are not willing to go to 
 war. 
 
 § 183.— The Three German Poets of War 
 
 There remain therefore these three: Ewald and Heinrich 
 von Kleist, and Theodor Korner. But was Theodor Korner 
 really a poet? I believe that even his most enthusiastic ad- 
 mirers now no longer think so. Early arrived at maturity, he 
 wrote some comedies which created a certain stir in good 
 society in Vienna, where light literature is much appreciated. 
 Then he wrote a few mediocre tragedies, and then he was 
 suddenly involved in the war, although he had never before 
 given it or military enthusiasm a thought. Romantic notions 
 of the greatness of Roman heroes, particularly Decius's 1 divine 
 sacrifice of himself, stirred his feelings. He went to war an 
 innocent child, and out of his enthusiasm for it he wrote a 
 handful of poems which are rightly remembered, whereas the 
 rest of his writings are mere literary ballast. But, after all, 
 
 i Kbrner's letter to his father of December 19, 1812.
 
 512 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 it is not really the poet Korner who is remembered, but the 
 .youth who, full of fine enthusiasm, fell for his country. 
 
 He went to war an innocent child, and the views of this 
 twenty-year-old youth hardly count in trying to arrive at an 
 estimate of what the nations really thought. We do not know 
 what life might have made of him, though we may guess at 
 this. When Korner, as he said, "had to spend rather a long 
 time at headquarters against his wish and contrary to expecta- 
 tion," he wrote to Frau von Pereira in Vienna, on July 28, 
 1813, referring to this period, "If you have had a glance at the 
 kitchen, you can hardly help having a horror of what is cooked 
 there." A few weeks later he fell on the field near Gadebusch, 
 and was thus prevented from giving further expression to this 
 horror. 
 
 There remain, therefore, only the two Kleists. It is scarcely 
 necessary to argue that Ewald von Kleist was no poet, but a 
 patriot. His patriotism, moreover, was merely devotion to the 
 groat king, and not at all to his mother-country, Germany. 
 How could it, indeed, have been otherwise with a man who used 
 to travel about Switzerland pressing recruits into the service 
 of his king, a sovereign enthusiastically devoted to French cul- 
 ture? Nor did his enthusiasm for the war go very deep, for 
 the German historian Maximilian Lenz, when addressing the 
 annual meeting of the Goethe Society in 1915, and endeavoring 
 to discover traces of "German national sentiment in the period 
 of our classical writers," actually says of Ewald von Kleist 
 that "Even for this poet poetry and serving in the army were 
 really two different worlds." There remains, therefore, only 
 Heinrieh von Kleist, who Avas a poet and who wrote war-songs 
 of an outrageous savagery equalling that of any modern writer. 
 
 Impartially considered, however, this so-called martial en- 
 thusiasm appears in a singular light. It is somewhat stagger- 
 ing to find, for instance, that among the twenty-odd poems of 
 his which have come down to us is one of the finest "peace- 
 songs" in all literature. This poem, "Der hohere Frieden" 
 ( ' ' The Higher Peace ") may be quoted in full ;
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 513 
 
 Wenn sieh auf des Krieges Donnerwagen 
 Mensehen waffnen auf der Zwietracht Ruf, 
 Menschen, die im Busen Herzen tragen, 
 Herzen, die der Gott der Liebe schuf. 
 
 Denk ich, kcinnen sie doch mir nichts rauben, 
 Nicht den Frieden, der sicb selbst bewahrt, 
 Nieht die Unscbuld, nicbt an Gott den Glauben, 
 Der dem Hasse wie dem Sebreeken wehrt. 
 
 Nicbt <les Ahorns Schatten wehren, 
 Dass er mieh im Weizenfeld erquickt, 
 Und das Lied der Naehtigall nicht storen, 
 Die den stillen Busen mir entziiekt. 
 
 This song- was written in 1792 or 1793, during the Rhine 
 campaign, when Ileinrich von Kleist, still a young "man, was a 
 lieutenant in the Prussian Guards, but, as it clearly shows, 
 war and soldiering did not suit him, and he soon bade fare- 
 well to both. The next thing he did was to write his 
 "Schroffenstein Family," which is an outspoken descrip- 
 tion of the folly of war. Indeed, did we not know that it 
 appeared in 180:1, it might easily be taken for a parody on 
 the present war. Two nations, who really have a great affec- 
 tion for each other, fall out and go to war because they have 
 prepared for this war so long, and each side thinks it must 
 break out some day or other. Added to the war are all kinds 
 of misunderstandings, particularly telegrams which have been 
 wrongly interpreted, sometimes intentionally, sometimes un- 
 intentionally. The first country which must needs believe in 
 these telegrams is a neutral stale (Hieronimus), which would 
 like to intervene between the respective parties. Then the 
 insane war begins, and when it is over both sides perceive 
 that all they have been doing was to murder their own 
 children. 
 
 Xo, Heinrich von Kleist was never, never a warrior. He 
 loved the right and hated force. Every line he has written 
 can be explained in this way and in this way only. We need
 
 514 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 only recall all his famous writings: "Der Zerbrochene 
 Kmg" ("The Broken Pitcher"), "Prinz von Homburg," 
 "Michael Kohlhaas," "Marquise von O," etc. But Heinrich 
 von Kleist saw that the right does not prevail in this world, 
 and this put him beside himself. There is something in his 
 old Michael Kohlhaas about him: "The sentiment of right" 
 made a "robber and a murderer" of him, too, and his war 
 lyrics and his play "Die Herrmannschlacht" are protests 
 against that unjust war of which for him Napoleon was the in- 
 carnation. They are not hymns in praise of any just war. 
 
 Life made him cruel, and he makes his Herrmann kill 
 "good and bad" indiscriminately and murder prisoners and 
 envoys; while he makes Thusnelda cause her former lover to 
 be torn in pieces by a bear. Then there are scenes such as 
 that in which Herrmann and Fust thrash each other in order 
 to decide who shall have the honor of killing Varus, who is 
 standing by, looking on; or the scene in " Penthesilea, " where 
 Achilles is torn to pieces by the dogs of his lady-love. Such 
 scenes are a sign that the writer's imagination, although that 
 of a genius, was, nevertheless, over-excited. Moreover, his 
 crazy war-lyrics were not written till 1809, and consequently 
 at a time when the poet's mind was already unquestionably 
 unhinged. One effect produced another, and the poet, having 
 lost that "higher peace" to which he has such fine lines, came 
 to love murder and horror, and thus in darkness and night 
 took his own life. Verily, when we look back calmly upon 
 this German's life, we cannot but conclude that he had to pay 
 a heavy price for his estrangement from peace. Heinrich von 
 Kleist, indeed, is no argument for war, but rather one against 
 it. 
 
 § 184. — The Poet and Liberty 
 
 One more point I wish to bring forward, but it is my main 
 point. In all war-poems composed by any genuine poet it is 
 never war as such which is brought in, but always "wars 
 unknown to any crowned heads" — revolts of oppressed man-
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 515 
 
 kind against some usurper or other. 1 Any one instancing 
 war-lyrics as proving poets' enthusiasm for war, therefore, 
 must be logical : he must first become enthusiastic for liberty ; 
 and then, and not till then, for war. 
 
 This is never more clearly manifest than when comparing 
 German, war-lyrics of former times with those of this war, 
 from whose beneficial influence on art very much was hoped. 
 The result can already be seen in a number of anthologies, 
 but it is. just the true patriots who are likely to be somewhat 
 distressed about this. Most of them would probably agree 
 with Friedrich Lienhard 2 in "deploring the precocious and 
 extravagant doggerel of the present day"; and even the much 
 praised "Hymn of Hate" against England, millions of copies 
 of which were sown broadcast, is now rejected as smacking too 
 "much of the Old Testament," and rejected by the very per- 
 sons who did their best to procure it its short-lived celebrity. 
 
 In an astute article in the "Kunstwart," moreover, the 
 German art critic Wilhelm Stapel pointed out, quite rightly, 
 that to compare the patriotic poems of 1813 and those of 
 1870 is like first tapping the body of a violin and then a box 
 of cigarettes; the difference is not merely striking, but alarm- 
 ing. The cause of the inferiority of the 1870 war poetry was 
 that the old expressions were used again and an attempt made 
 to outdo them. Moreover, in 1813 the protagonists of liberty 
 expressed their innocent quest in the future; and in 1870 
 every one was basking in the sunshine of German's great- 
 ness and of self-satisfaction. The true note of patriotism was 
 ;il ready wanting, and there was instead an ebullition in honor 
 of Bismarck, the emperor, and the empire. 
 
 Freiheit, die ich meine, die mein Hcrz erfiillt, 
 Komm mit Deinem Scheme, susses Engelsbild, 
 
 wrote Schenkendorff in 1813. 
 
 i Cf § 130. 
 
 -"Deutscli lands Europiiische Sendung" ("Germany's European Mis- 
 sion") by Friedrich Lienhard, 1914: Stuttgart.
 
 516 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Hurra, Du stolzes sehones-Weib, hurra Germania, 
 
 Wie kiihn mit vorgebeugtem Leib am Rheine stehst Du da, 
 
 wrote Freiligrath in 1870. 
 
 And what about the German poets of 1914? Stapel, whose 
 article just referred to was published shortly after the out- 
 break of war, hoped that, "unless appearances are altogether 
 deceitful, we may now be on the eve of another great ex- 
 perience which will prove the inspiration of a finer patriotic 
 poetry, as was the case a hundred years ago." Doubtless the 
 first year of war robbed him of his illusions, for all competent 
 judges agreed that never before were the verses of Fulda, 
 Halbe, Hauptmann, Dehmel, Arno Holz, and Ludwig Thoma 
 so meaningly lacking in sincerity as now. Even the humor- 
 ous verse written since August, 1914, by Leo Leipziger and 
 Georg Freund, Gottleib and Caliban, shows only too plainly 
 a striving after effect, and is only too obviously written to 
 order. Finally we come to the new poets produced by the war, 
 Fritz von Unruh, Dr. Klemm, and others. They may, indeed, 
 be martial, but as poets they are worth little. In short, all 
 the characteristics which distinguished the lyric poetry of 1870 
 from that of 1813 (not to the advantage of the former) are 
 still more manifest in the war poetry of to-day. 
 
 This continuous deterioration may be accounted for in two 
 ways. Either Germany's capacity for producing poetry has 
 decreased, or wars, the impetus for such poetry, are fought less 
 for an idea or ideal and more for the hope of material advan- 
 tage. We will deal with the second of these suppositions only. 
 
 In the Wars of Liberation 1 the people were fighting for 
 liberty — liberty in all respects, civil, political, military, and 
 social, and likewise for freedom of association. We. need only 
 
 i It is significant that we have recently begun to call the "Wars of 
 Freedom" (Freiheitskriege) "Wars of Liberation," (Befreiungskriege) , 
 as if the main object had been liberation from the yoke of Napoleon. 
 Lamprecht recently called attention (in "Krieg nnd Kultur" ("War and 
 Civilization") : Leipsic, Hirzel, 1914, p. 13, to this "remarkable twist- 
 ing" of a word; for the winning of freedom of thought and opinion, 
 which occurred at the same time, was, he says, fully as important.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 517 
 
 think of Schiller's "Riiuber" or "Kabale und Liebe," which 
 were essentially "topical" plays. What a complete trans- 
 formation has come about is proved by the impossibility of 
 imagining the events on which these dramas are based as hav- 
 ing happened after 1813. In the Franco-Prussian War the 
 people were fighting for national unity. This was no longer 
 unconditional progress, and the very men who had formerly 
 championed the conception of unity, such as Georg Herwegh, 
 stood resentfully aside, as also did Bebel and Liebknecht, the 
 champions of the new order of things. 
 
 But what happened in the War of 1914? For what are the 
 people fighting now? Our Government tells us that it is a de- 
 fensive war. But mankind has never waxed enthusiastic 
 about anything negative. Others talk about the acquisition of 
 land, and not always for purely commercial reasons. In this, 
 too, there is nothing to inspire poets. And what about the 
 "place in the sun"? Great heavens, the poet's sun, — at any 
 rate, the sun of a poet who writes good poems — is a wholly 
 different thing from the sun which is meant here. 
 
 As Goethe rightly observed, war-poems are poems on par- 
 ticular occasions, and if they are to be good, the occasions must 
 be good : and our present day war-poems are bad for the same 
 reason as Goethe's poems on special occasions were bad, when, 
 for instance, he wrote a poem on the birth of some uninterest- 
 ing princess of Weimar. 
 
 The failure of German war-poetry must be accounted for 
 by some other cause than that the occasion was not favorable. 
 Hundreds of thousands of poets put a bridle on Pegasus, and 
 there was assuredly no lack of choice of writers. The noisy 
 enthusiasm of the first months of the war ought to have been 
 able to supply the necessary inspiration ; and, in fact, 
 even the German General Staff reports were transfused with a 
 poetic strain. 1 And then what direct possibilities of inspira- 
 
 i [f is sufficient to recall tlie dramatic intensity with which, for in- 
 stance, the conquest ot Liepre was described in the German General 
 Staff reports. First an attempt was announced, which very nearly
 
 518 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tion! It is with somewhat scant courtesy that Brutus rid 
 himself of a poet who went to the front. "What should the 
 Avars do with these jigging fools? Companion, hence I" 1 
 But to-day we think differently of jigging fools. 
 
 Richard Dehmel was in the trenches, as a thousand odd 
 "new poets" also were, and Ludwig Ganghofer was at head- 
 quarters; but most of the others, including R. H. Bartsch, IT. 
 Eulenberg, B. Kellermann, Aage Madelung, and C. Vollmoller, 
 oscillated between these two extremes, some of them as offi- 
 cers, others as war correspondents. 
 
 No, the outward circumstances were favorable to poetry, 
 and if, nevertheless, none was produced ; if, as every one is 
 agreed, Fulda, Halbe, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Arno Holz, 
 and Ludwig Thoma, never before wrote such insipid verses, 
 we may at any rate console ourselves with the reflection that 
 the German people's unconscious sense of fitness and right is 
 still sufficient to prevent it being really profoundly stirred by 
 events not likely to promote any ideals. 
 
 4. — MODERN DELIGHT IN WAR 
 
 § 185. — The Renascence of Delight in War 
 
 In times past premature war advocates were only very oc- 
 casionally to be found. Machiavelli was an instance of one 
 
 succeeded; then, on the seventh, the actual conquest: "The fortress of 
 Liege is taken." And then, on the tenth, came the "Truth about 
 Liege," according to which the town was now so firmly in our grip that 
 heaven and earth could not wrest it from us again. This way of putting 
 it caused even simple-minded people to think that there must be some- 
 thing still not quite as it should be; and, sure enough, on the eighteenth 
 came the official announcement that now the "mystery of Liege could be 
 unveiled." But probably not quite unveiled, for there were still droll 
 episodes to come when the commandment was captured and a Zeppelin 
 dropped bombs on the fort of Liege, two announcements which were 
 omitted from the Wolff telegrams, as subsequently issued. Then think 
 of the really epic description of Belgian atrocities, particularly gouged- 
 out eyes, which the German Chancellor gave the representatives of the 
 "American United and Associated Press." And think of such poetic 
 neologisms as "colored Englishmen," "Black Frenchmen," and so forth. 
 i " Julius Caesar," IV, 3.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 519 
 
 such. In his "Prince" he praises or excuses murder and bad 
 faith, treachery and brutality, everything, in short, which may 
 lead a man to power. Thus he praises and excuses war, and 
 even if he does not go to such lengths as men to-day, and insist 
 upon the advantages of war, still, he glosses over its evils w r ith 
 the infamous grace of a pupil of the Borgia. 1 
 
 But although Maehiavelli extolled war, he was, after all, 
 alone in doing so, and even those who acted upon his principles 
 had sufficient sense of shame to oppose him in theory. Even 
 during his life this was the case. The Medici disavowed him, 
 so that he was forced to join in the conspiracy of Cosimo 
 Rucellai in 1523 ; and in 1527, when the people had really 
 fought for and won their freedom, they, too, would have 
 nothing to do with him, and he was not even elected a city 
 councilor. Thus matters continued a long while, and not 
 till the nineteenth century, and even then not until the second 
 half of it, did any one venture openly to side with Maehia- 
 velli ; and then, sad to say, mainly in that very Prussia whose 
 king once wrote against the famous Florentine. 
 
 To use the terms customary in the history of art, this essen- 
 tially sentimental reversion to the simple-minded point of 
 view of the oldest and most primitive human beings, might be 
 spoken of as archaistic. But it will be more easily understood 
 when it is seen to have been due to a threefold misunderstand- 
 ing. First, it is a fact that in the nineteenth century the 
 condition of "a nation in arms," which had long been a thing 
 of the past, was resurrected. Formerly only a limited number 
 of professional men of arms were involved in war ; but now the 
 entire people were so. It is humanly comprehensible, there- 
 fore, that the civilian fathers learned to love the soldiers, 
 their sons, who were actually in the fighting-line; and hence it 
 was that first the army became popular, and, finally, war itself. 
 
 i Cf. in particular his sixth chapter (of new dominions which have 
 oeen acquired by one's own aims and power), in which lie lays it down 
 tliat conquest with arms, in itself useless, is really the beginning of con- 
 quest properly so called.
 
 520 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Yet national armies, which owed their origin to the Revolution, 
 were originally inclined to be altogether anti-war-like ; for they 
 were armies against war, nations as a whole protesting against 
 the irresponsible system of government based upon the exist- 
 ence of the old professional soldiers. 
 
 In the American War of Independence undrilled militia 
 commanded by Washington had won a victory over British 
 regulars. Then came the French Revolution, in 1793, with its 
 levee en masse and its national armies, with their irresistible 
 onslaught. These armies, originally justified by the fight for 
 freedom, were afterward increasingly used by Napoleon for 
 wars undeniably more or less dynastic in character, or, at any 
 rate, wars waged for purely personal considerations. Then 
 they failed, but, on the other hand, when France's enemies in 
 their fight for freedom introduced that same universal con- 
 scription for which the} r had so often blamed France, this de- 
 cided the issue, first in Austria, under the Archduke Charles, 
 and later on in Prussia under Scharnhorst. But here again, 
 precisely as happened in France, a temporary institution, 
 originally intended only for the war and for freedom, was 
 converted into a permanent one, in order to conform to Met- 
 ternich's ideas. 1 
 
 The enormous armies of modern times, therefore, originally 
 used for fighting out revolutions, gradually came to be used 
 to serve the purposes of reaction. Their origin was speedily 
 forgotten, but the fact of their existence could not fail to 
 incline the peoples to delight in war, for everything which 
 exists clamors to be used. There is something tragic in this 
 fate which has befallen the one and only democratic idea which 
 took possession of almost the whole world. Charles Fourier, 
 however, the socialist and Utopian, extraordinarily able despite 
 all his eccentricities, perceived that the arming of whole na- 
 tions would tend to reaction, and accordingly looked upon it as 
 
 i Cf. § 75 on the rise of standing armies, for details of the conversion 
 of territorial defense forces into an army of aggression.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 521 
 
 an alarming reversion to the habits of Tatars and Indians. 1 
 Secondly, Darwin's 2 biological theory that in struggle for 
 life are comprised the conditions of racial progress, was fre- 
 quently used to explain the awakening of delight in war. 
 True, this theory has often been disputed, but in its broad 
 general Hues it can scarcely be contested. Since then many 
 persons, mostly professional soldiers, it is true, have imag- 
 ined that they could perceive not only beauty, but also a use- 
 ful purpose, indeed even morality, in war and struggle. 
 
 Thirdly, it was almost universally assumed that German 
 unity was a direct result of Germany's three wars, in par- 
 ticular of the Franco-Prussian War. Thus for the first time 
 in the history of the world an undoubted benefit seemed really 
 to have been wrought by blood and iron ; and this of course 
 also tended to raise people's estimate of the value of wars. 
 
 § 186. — Moltke and his School 
 
 This could not fail to be particularly the ease in Germany. 
 Hence it is not surprising that the first voice ever heard 
 from time immemorial praising war for war's sake should 
 have been that of a German. It was Hellmuth von Moltke, 
 the conqueror in the three wars to which I have just referred, 
 who wrote, in his famous letter to Bluntschli: " Perpetual 
 peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream, and war 
 is a link in God's universal ordinance. In war man's noblest 
 qualities are developed — courage and resignation, fidelity to 
 duty and readiness to make sacrifices, even when it comes to 
 laying down life. Without war the world would become 
 swamped in materialism." 3 
 
 We can scarcely believe our eyes when we see war recom- 
 mended as a remedy for materialism in the very same lan- 
 
 1 Cf. § 84 on the very doubtful claims of modern armies to be consid- 
 ered democratic institutions. 
 
 8 "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." 1859. 
 
 3Cf. Bluntschli's "Collected Minor Writings," Vol. II, p. '111. Nord- 
 lingen, 1881.
 
 522 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 guage as that in which Herder, Goethe, and Kant wrote ad- 
 vocating German idealism. But such is the fact; there is no 
 doubt about the genuineness of this letter, and it has borne 
 fruit, although the plain and unadorned simplicity of Moltke's 
 language has never since been attained. 
 
 Unhappily, it is by these words that Moltke will probably 
 live in history ; but we must in justice point out that they 
 are perhaps not wholly consistent with the character of a 
 man of such profound feeling, and ought perhaps to be con- 
 sidered merely as an after effect of the war. Before war 
 had conferred on Moltke the utmost which it can confer on 
 any one in Germany, that is, when he was yet a mere cap- 
 tain, he wrote that "increased prosperity by means of peace 
 is better than military conquests," and he hoped "it would 
 be possible to reduce standing armies in Europe," and save 
 "the thousands of millions swallowed up in war expenditure 
 and the millions of men in the prime of life torn from their 
 occupations, in order to be trained for use in war, should 
 war occur," and "to make an increasingly productive use of 
 these incalculable sources of strength." Once he even said: 
 "We frankly admit that we are in favor of the much-ridi- 
 culed idea of peace between all the European nations. Is 
 not the trend of the history of the world to approach such a 
 peace?" In any case, however, he had a sufficiently prosaic 
 notion of the causes of this approximation to the "ideal," 
 for he thought the only reason why wars were becoming less 
 frequent was that they were becoming more costly. 1 
 
 The immense influence of the Franco-Prussian War on Eu- 
 ropean ideas can be traced in the writings of the theologian 
 and philosopher Ernest Renan even better than in the case 
 of a general such as Moltke. 
 
 When we see what a transformation has occurred, after 
 only a few months of war, in a peace-loving man such as 
 Renan, who has given us books about Christ full of the most 
 
 1 Cf. Rhanon's ''VoHoerrecht und Volkerfriede," ("International Law 
 and International Petoe"), 1881, p. 43.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 523 
 
 genuine excellence, we need no longer wonder at a pastor 
 who turned martial during the Crimean War, nor at the 
 change in men's minds in 1914. In general no one need 
 trouble about any books written during war or shortly after 
 it by a citizen of a belligerent country. 
 
 This is to some extent true even of Dostoyevsky 's famous 
 article on the war, written in 1876, when war was threaten- 
 ing again to break out between Russia and Turkey. This 
 is the only time that a really eminent man has written any- 
 thing which could be interpreted as coinciding with Moltke's 
 views. It is clear that Dostoyevsky 's is the mind of a genius, 
 although, as we now know, a genius on the point of collapse, 
 playing with the notion that, alter all, there might be some- 
 thing good in the threatening war. But Dostoyevsky, who 
 set murderers and prostitutes on a pedestal, had at least so 
 far preserved his reason as to put his poem in praise of war 
 into the mouth of a man who, as he writes, "was known to 
 hold very paradoxical opinions, and who probably defended 
 war merely for the sake of paradox." I repeat, therefore, 
 that Dostoyevsky by no means defends war. On the con- 
 trary, he introduces himself as a speaker and is perpetually 
 contradicting paradoxes. 
 
 Many others, not so great as he, have, it is true, followed 
 in Moltke's footsteps. This is mainly attributable to the 
 three causes I have already enumerated : the existence of na- 
 tional armies, misinterpreted Darwinism, and the fact that 
 the after-effects of the Franco-Prussian War were represented 
 as morally a step forward. 
 
 § 187. — Instances from the Writings of War Advocates 
 
 Presumably certain natures have at all times experienced 
 direct, so to speak, physical, pleasure in war; * and they were 
 
 i If T may bo allowed to cite an example of a contemporary. I would 
 mention Count Rcventlow as an instance of this type of man; but lie 
 seems wholly devoid of any such bash fulness as used to prevail at one 
 time.
 
 524 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 assuredly not the least noble persons who did so, especially 
 as for a time a certain sense of moral reticence seems to 
 have withheld them from expressing their feelings. Other- 
 Avise there is no explaining the fact that in early times this 
 martial point of view should absolutely never have been rep- 
 resented in literature. The war advocates of those days, in 
 fact, were on the defensive, and ventured to come forward 
 only whenever some new piece of Utopianism made belief 
 that the conception of perpetual peace was on the point of 
 being realized. These humanists, as they might be called, 
 were indeed far too sanguine, and the war advocates made a 
 vast deal of cheap fun of them. Not one of the latter, how- 
 ever, has succeeded in making his name known, not even to 
 specialists. Who knows anything about the opponents of the 
 Abbe de Saint Pierre? Who knows anything of such a per- 
 son as Alexander Lamotte, Valentin Emser, Frederic Ancil- 
 lon, Riihle von Lilienstein, Luden, or Tzchiener? Anselm von 
 Feuerbach and Hegel ought alone to be mentioned in this 
 category; for though they opposed Kant, they were men of 
 some note. Yet despite their having considered war necessary, 
 they never asserted that it was useful or even good. 
 
 It was left to modern times to do this. True, not nearly 
 all those whom I have in mind are out and out martially dis- 
 posed; but the endeavor to represent war as morally justi- 
 fiable may be seen running through them like a red thread. 
 Thus the German military writer S. R. Steinmetz 1 calls war 
 ''an institution of God, Who is weighing the nations on His 
 scales." War, he says, is "the main form which a state as- 
 sumes, and the only means which nations have of putting 
 forth all their strength at one time and for the same pur- 
 pose." Victory is not won because of any one good quality, 
 but because of a number together; and there was never a 
 defeat which could not be traced to some kind of crime or 
 weakness. Fidelity, sense of solidarity, endurance, conscience, 
 
 i"Die Philosophie dea Krieges" ("The Philosophy of War") by S. 
 Pi. Steinmetz; Barth: Leipsic, 1907.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 525 
 
 education, inventiveness, thrift, wealth, physical health, and 
 strength — all these and every other kind of moral or intellec- 
 tual superiority count before "God's great judgment seat" 
 and when "He hurls the peoples one against another ' ; 
 
 But the more recent writings of Lasson * and Kattenbusch,- 
 of Homer Lea and J. P. B. Storey, of Ratzenhofer 3 and Sten- 
 gel, 4 of Professor Wilkinson s and Admiral Mahan, 8 will be 
 read in after times only with a certain feeling of amazement. 
 All in good time I purpose to refer to their writings in detail. 
 
 But the book in which this modern conception of war was 
 undoubtedly most uncompromisingly and boldly expressed 
 was "Germany and the Next War," by the German General 
 Bernhardi, which appeared in 1912. The fact of its author 
 being a recognized authority on strategical questions lent the 
 book additional importance. Bernhardi argues that Germany 
 must fight for predominance, without any regard for the 
 rights and interests of other nations. He speaks of the "duty 
 of waging war," and describes the German peace movement 
 as "poison," being firmly convinced that the business before 
 the German people could not be carried out save by resort to 
 the use of the sword. The duty of self-assertion, according 
 to him, is by no means confined merely to repelling the ene- 
 my's attacks, but includes insuring the existence of the en- 
 
 i "Das Kulturideal und der Krieg" ("War and the Ideal of Civilisa- 
 tion") and "War," by Adolf Lasson ; Berlin, 1868. 
 
 2 "Das sittliche Recht des Kriegea" ("The Moral Right to Make 
 War"), by F. Kattenbusch : Oiessen, 1906. 
 
 3 "Die soziologisehe Erkenntnis und die 'positive Enthik' " ("Recog- 
 nition of Sociology and 'Positive Ethics'"), by General Ratzenhofer: 
 Leipsic, 1901. 
 
 4 "Weltstaat und Friedensproblem" ("A Universal State and the 
 Problem of Peace"), by Karl von Stengel: Berlin, 1900. [This Stengel 
 was a delegate to the first Hague Conference, on which occasion he gave 
 such proofs of his bellicosity as highly to delight the caricaturists of 
 the day, who represented Mm as a particularly obstreperous goat 
 standing on its legs, butting the gardener, who is trying to cultivate the 
 peace flowers. — Translator. 1 
 
 s "War and Policy," by Professor Spencer Wilkinson, 1900. 
 « " The Influence of Sea-Power upon History," 1890.
 
 526 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 tire community included within the confines of the state, and 
 making it possible for them to develop and expand. Further- 
 more, he asserts the desirability of conquests being achieved 
 by war and not by peaceful means. Silesia, he adds, would 
 not have been worth so much to Prussia if Frederick the 
 Great had acquired it by the decree of an arbitral tribunal. 
 Attempts to abolish war are not merely "immoral and un- 
 worthy of mankind," but also attempts to rob man of his 
 chief good — the right to risk his life for ideal objects. The 
 German people, he concludes, must learn to realize that the 
 maintenance of peace cannot and never ought to be the aim of 
 politics. 
 
 Perhaps the only other man who has expressed himself so 
 clearly is Ex-President Roosevelt in America. He says 
 that he despises nations and human beings who calmly pocket 
 insults, and does not admire the love of peace of timorous per- 
 sons. America, he continues, if she is to play a part in this 
 world (sicl) must perform those sanguinary deeds of heroism 
 which have brought glory to a nation in the past; for only 
 in war can a nation acquire the energy which is necessary in 
 the struggle for existence. If, on the contrary, it were to live 
 in peace and comfort, it must give way before other nations 
 which have not yet lost the valor and love of adventure of a 
 true man. 
 
 All which is nowadays familiar enough. Roosevelt does not 
 seem to have let any trace of his real spirit transpire, and 
 this is particularly the case with his warlike enthusiasm. In- 
 deed, it all reads rather like an electoral speech. The sole 
 source of satisfaction seems to us to be that the Americans 
 obviously think differently on such matters, and they did not 
 reelect Mister Roosevelt. 1 
 
 It is plain, however, that even lately, at any rate before 
 the outbreak of hostilities, delight in war has not very fre- 
 
 1 1 translate Dt. Nicolai in full. The time when he wrote this must 
 always be remembered. The notes of exclamation in the citation of 
 Mr. Roosevelt are, of course, the author's. — Translator.
 
 TRANSFORMATION IN HUMAN JUDGMENT 527 
 
 quently found expression in literature ; but that it was latent 
 in the people was proved only too clearly by their general 
 state of mind after August 4, 1914. After all, such people as 
 Bernhardt merely had the courage to say what thousands 
 of others were thinking, sentiments which were even being 
 vaunted over a glass of beer, only in an undertone. I hope 
 and believe that Bernhardi's book does not express the opin- 
 ions of the best Germans, but assuredly it expresses those of 
 the majority and of the most influential. His views are the 
 views held by the Pan-Germanists and by members of the 
 navy and of the defense leagues. Large portions of the popu- 
 lation, indeed, do now really place military virtues before all 
 others, a point of view which I do not need to discuss, since 
 this whole book was written to oppose it.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 War and Religion 
 
 1. — religion and love of peace 
 
 § 188.— The Older Religions 
 
 The discrepancy between the fact of war and dreams of 
 peace never appears so acute as when we consider religions 
 and their connection with war. True, the oldest religions did 
 not much feel the inconsistency of war and religion, for they 
 created a special divinity for each category of emotions. 
 Hence, with so many gods, they could easily set a god of 
 peace side by side with a god of war, or do as the practical 
 Romans did, and arrange to have a two-headed god, who was 
 simply turned round one way when war was declared and 
 turned round the other way when peace was concluded. 1 
 
 When men became converted to the worship of one God 
 only, however, Who was to unite all attributes in Himself, a 
 certain difficulty arose; but it has seldom happened that a 
 religion has laid down its military aspirations as a matter of 
 principle, as was the case with Mohammedanism, for instance. 
 Islam, indeed, was actually invented by Mohammed and his 
 warlike men of Medina for the express purpose of waging war, 
 and they invented their new rules in order to be able to attack 
 and plunder Mecca even in the holy month. This religion 
 never shook off the effects of its origin in robbery, and just as 
 
 i What is here said about the two-headed Janus, whose temple was 
 closed on the conclusion of peace, is only symbolically meant. In reality 
 we do not even yet clearly understand the significance of Janus. It is 
 noteworthy, moreover, that in so highly civilized a country as Greece, 
 Ares, the god of war, had virtually no temple, and there are very few 
 statues of him extant. 
 
 528
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 529 
 
 Mohammed could always ferret out some verse of the Korau 
 to prove that he might have as many strange women as he 
 pleased, 1 so he invariably contrived to find texts to reconcile 
 slavery and warfare with the will of God. 2 It is significant 
 that in the Koran the chapter on "The Right to Own Slaves" 
 should be followed by the chapter on the "Right to Make 
 War"; and again it is only too plain what an intimate con- 
 nection there is between these institutions. It was the re- 
 sultant close union of brute force and priestly fanaticism, 
 culminating in the harem, the regime of hosts of janissaries, 
 and the slave-market of Aleppo, on which the strength of the 
 Osman Empire depended. , 
 
 There was a time when it was believed that this Turkish 
 trinity was inferior to the Christian trinity. That was when 
 Osman armies heavily oppressed Europe. To-day the Turk 
 is outwardly driven back almost into Asia, but morally he has 
 conquered Europe, and the green standard of the prophet is 
 flying invisible over every house in which there is talk about 
 that "holy war" which used to be known to Islam only. 
 Formerly other religions were peaceful, at any rate in theory, 
 and waged war only in practice. Buddhism and Christianity 
 in particular, however, are essentially pledged to the concep- 
 tion of the prevalence of a world-wide harmony; and conse- 
 quently for them war must be an anomaly, as it were, an 
 infringement of their principles. Nevertheless, all have come 
 round in some circuitous fashion to approve war, as we shall 
 prove more in detail as far as Christianity is concerned. 
 
 § 189. — The Old Testament a Jewish National Book. 
 
 The Old Testament says in so many words, "Thou shalt not 
 kill." This commandment is older and more sacred than the 
 nine others, for after the Flood, when God made a new 
 
 » Cf. Weil's "Geschichte der islamitischen Volker" ("History of 
 Moslem Peoples") : Stuttgart, 1866, p. 11. 
 
 -Just as Henry VIII of England introduced the Reformation into 
 England in order to marry the beautiful Anne Boleyn.
 
 530 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 covenant with Noah, He said, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, 
 by man shall his blood be shed'' (Genesis ix, 6), a command 
 which is repeated many times, for instance, Exodus xx, 13 ; 
 xxi, 12; xxi, 14; and in Numbers xxxv God says that 
 whoever kills any one with an instrument of iron or by 
 throwing a stone or "with an hand weapon of wood," "he is a 
 murderer ; the murderer shall surely be put to death. " 1 No 
 mercy is to be shown, for "ye shall not pollute the land 
 wherein ye are : for blood it defileth the land : and the land 
 cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by 
 the blood of him that shed it. " 2 
 
 Thus taking man 's life is very often forbidden in the Bible, 
 but according to the sacred writings God makes from the 
 very outset a clear distinction between theory and practice, 
 for when God theoretically by his new covenant with Noah 
 forbade man to slay his neighbor, he had in practice long 
 since sanctioned fratricide. Cain, who had slain his brother 
 Abel, becomes afraid, thinking he will be forced to take to 
 flight, for he will be killed wherever he is found. The Lord 
 sets his fears at rest, however. "Whoever slayeth Cain, ven- 
 geance shall be taken on him sevenfold." (Genesis iv, 15.) 
 This announcement that in practice murder is to go unpun- 
 ished is remarkable, and Cain would seem to have been the 
 first "murderer pleasing to God," a description which now 
 applies in the main to soldiers only. In this connection the 
 fact may be mentioned that modern militarists — that is, 
 agrarians and iron magnates — are reputed to be descendants 
 of Cain; for in the Bible it is said that the descendants of 
 Cain are "such as have cattle," while Tubal Cain was "an 
 instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." (Genesis, 
 iv, 20-22.) 3 It is not wholly without significance that, as 
 
 i Numbers, xxxv, 16-18. 
 
 2 Numbers, xxxv, 33. 
 
 3 As recently as 1856 Pastor Euen (in "Der wissenschaftliehe Mater- 
 ialismus") ("Materialism Based on Natural Science"): Berlin, p. 31) 
 wrote that the descendants of Lamech, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain (Cain's 
 gons) all went the same way, and with them sin increased. Thus even
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 531 
 
 is well known, the breeding of cattle makes men boorish, and 
 that armorers should always have had a special interest in 
 the perpetuation of war. 
 
 Apart from this strange story of Cain, however, murder is 
 forbidden in the Bible, and very sternly forbidden. But — it 
 is only the murder of Jews. As is natural, considering the 
 period from which it dates, the Bible is absolutely national in 
 character. Only the Jew is really considered as a human 
 being; cattle and strangers might be slain without the slayer 
 himself being slain. In this case there was a ransom. Ac- 
 cordingly, war was of course allowed also, and the Jews were 
 no more illogical than the Moslem who kills the outlander. 
 Of late years the Jews and the Old Testament have often been 
 reproached for their contempt for those who were not Jews ; 
 and in practice even Christ acted in precisely the same way. 
 
 § 190.— The Brotherhood of Men 
 
 There is this difference, however, that in the meantime, 
 through Christ Jesus, the Jewish national church has become 
 the religion of mankind. Since Lessing explained the pro- 
 gressive character of religion so finely in his "Erziehung des 
 Manschengeschlechtes " ("Education of the Human Race"), 
 thousands of apologists for Christianity have repeated, with- 
 out turning a hair, that "the reason why the Christian faith 
 is the highest is that, like heaven, it can include the whole 
 world," and it is implied that such a faith lays certain obli- 
 gations on those who hold it. 
 
 In Christ's time the old principle was still in force, that 
 "he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the 
 sword." 1 Christ himself even goes further, and says "All 
 they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." 2 St. 
 John says that "whosoever hateth his brother is a mur- 
 
 after such a long period as this Cain's sin is considered a sin by the 
 church. 
 
 i Revelation, xiii, 10. 
 
 * Matthew, xxvi, 52.
 
 532 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 derer" l ; and St. Matthew, that "whosoever is angry with his 
 brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." 2 
 But in the main Christ puts the duty of love in place of the 
 right of vengeance. We are most familiar with this new 
 doctrine, which Christ was not the first or the only one to 
 proclaim, from the Sermon on the Mount ; and if there is any- 
 thing in the world of which Christianity may be proud, it is 
 that in the very early Christian times this brotherhood of all 
 men, which hitherto had been advocated by only a few phi- 
 losophers, should have been realized by the mass of mankind. 
 
 Since the days of the Sermon on the Mount there ought to 
 have been no more wars, for "war is a satire on the New 
 Testament." 3 But here we must remember that even if to- 
 day the Sermon on the Mount is no longer considered as the 
 sole source of all morality, nevertheless for two thousand 
 years it was so, and European Christianity must answer for 
 what it has done during this long period with the pound of 
 brotherly love entrusted to it. 
 
 No one can seriously doubt that the Christianity of the 
 Gospels was not only peace-loving both in its ideas and its 
 principles, but in practice wholly opposed to war. When 
 Christ says He came not to send peace on earth, but a sword, 4 
 it is clear from the context that all He means is that conscien- 
 tious scruples would and were meant to destroy much peace 
 and happiness. 
 
 If this passage, therefore, is not an incitement to actual 
 warfare, but at best to struggle, all other new Testament pas- 
 sages, but most of all those which Martin Luther 5 quoted to 
 justify the wars of his day, cannot be used to advocate wars 
 
 i I, St. John, iii, 15. 
 
 2 Matthew, v, 22. 
 
 3 Diary of the Emperor Frederick III, 1870. 
 
 4 Matthew, x, 34. 
 
 5 "Ob Kriegsleute auch in einem seeligen Stande aein konnen," 
 ("Whether soldiers can also be in the realms of the blest"), by Martin 
 Luther. The passages Luther quotes in justification of war are Romans, 
 xiii; I Peter, ii, 14; Luke, iii, 14; and John xviii, 36.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 533 
 
 except by wholly distorting their meaning. They all mean, 
 indeed, just the contrary, and the thirteenth chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans says that love is the fulfilling of the 
 law (verse 10) ; in the first Epistle of Peter we find it said 
 (verse 19, chap, ii), "for this is thankworthy if a man for 
 conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully"; 
 in Luke (chap, iii, verse 14) it is stated outright that a soldier 
 must "do violence to no man"; and in John's Gospel Christ 
 says, ' ' My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom were 
 of this world, then would my servants fight." (John xviii, 
 36.) Thus these undoubtedly hypocritical quotations of 
 Luther ' go directly to show that Gospels and the early Chris- 
 tians w 7 ere eminently opposed to war. 
 
 The earliest Christians were in earnest about their religion. 
 They courageously refused to serve in the army, and the 
 Romans consequently persecuted them. As peaceful com- 
 batants, intentionally unarmed, they went forth to meet the 
 lions in the Roman arena. Even in Christian writings there 
 is a great deal against the state, and in the early days this was 
 the case with official writings also, whereas now it is so only 
 in the case of those of an excommunicated person such as 
 Tolstoy Thus Tertullian 2 condemns any participation in the 
 services of the state, stigmatizing military service in particu- 
 lar as "the service of the devil"; while Origen 3 says that no 
 servant of Almighty God may take up arms, and that no 
 Christian may even legally carry out sentence of death on any 
 one. 
 
 1 I, at any rate, think that, despite our being prejudiced in favor of 
 so valiant a champion of God as Luther, we cannot implicitly admit his 
 pood faith when we find such sentences, for instance, as this: "For 
 supposing tht- sword to have been a wrong thing in fighting, so would 
 it likewise have been wrong supposing it to keep the peace." 
 
 '-' Tertullian's "De idolatria." Cf. also "de Corona militis." 
 
 a Origen's "Contra Celsum," Libri VIII, III, 451.
 
 534 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 2. — THE DILUTION OP CHRISTIANITY 
 
 § 191. — The Practical Compromise Between Christian Doc- 
 trine and War 
 
 But this was not for long, and in practice men soon went 
 over into the camp of the militarists. Christ could not quite 
 abolish the sword even during His own lifetime, for according 
 to the Biblical legend, Simon Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, 
 the high priest's servant, and had Christ not intervened, he 
 would probably have used his sword still more. (John, 
 xviii, 10, 11.) But it was Peter whom the church chose 
 as its symbol, and it was from the chair of St. Peter that that 
 same Christianity at whose birth the angels sang "Peace on 
 earth" was converted more and more into a church militant, 
 until Pope Julius II finally exchanged his pallium for armor. 
 It is too well known to require any proof that, with the pos- 
 sible exception of the atrocities of such a man as Jenghiz Khan, 
 there has never been so much desolation wrought in the world 
 with poison, fire, and sword as during the Christian era, partly 
 by the Christian church itself, through the Inquisition and 
 Courts of Inquisition, and partly in the church's name, 
 through the crusades against the Turks, Albigenses, Hussites, 
 and others, and through the religious wars of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries. 1 
 
 But apart from this, the main reason why enthusiasm for 
 war attained greater dimensions among the proud white civil- 
 ized peoples than among any others is probably that at a 
 period when the people still needed a religion Christianity 
 proved unable to make a strong enough stand against the mur- 
 derous propensities unchristian in the truest sense of the word, 
 of the mighty men of this world. From this reproach Chris- 
 
 i The contemporary German philosopher Max Scheler, it is true, says 
 in his war-book, p. 268: "In reality the Christian world knows nothing 
 of any such institution as that of a Holy War for the forcible dis- 
 semination of the Faith."
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 535 
 
 tianity will never be able to clear itself. Tua culpa, tua 
 maxima culpa. 
 
 So cowardly a compromise between principles and practice 
 cannot be approved, but it is understandable. The energy in- 
 spired by a new conception almost always dies away after 
 the death of those who watched its birth and were transported 
 by enthusiasm for it. The Christians, owing to long-con- 
 tinued persecution, became weary and cowardly, and ceased 
 to refuse to kill, if ordered to do so by the state; and thus 
 the legions of Rome actually fostered the new sect. At first 
 Christ's famous precept, "Render therefore unto Caesar the 
 things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are 
 God's," was probably obeyed, in the belief that in this con- 
 flict of duty a "middle course" could be found. But it was 
 impossible to continue in this way; and Constantine by a. d. 
 312 had already learned to pray to the god of peace for vic- 
 tory in battle. Twelve years afterward, under Sylvester I 
 (a. d. 324), when the Christian Church debased itself to be- 
 come a state church, 1 it was all over with the peace of Chris- 
 tianity. About the year 400, Mars, the ancient war god, was 
 received among the saints and called Martinus, and it was not 
 long before the peaceful missionaries of the first centuries of 
 the Christian era were followed by others who made conver- 
 sions at the point of the sword. 
 
 These conversions began in the Saxon wars of Charlemagne, 
 and then, probably owing to the Moslem advance, reached 
 their climax in the crusades and the Inquisition, and at length 
 gradually dwindled down into colonizing missions to convert 
 the heathen, and into powerful home missions, which in turn 
 gradually degenerated from funeral pyres into dragooning 
 people into religion, and then into the refined irritation of at- 
 tempting to convert them by exercising a purely economic 
 pressure on them. Of Russia and Germany it is best to say 
 nothing, but even in England the test acts, preventing Roman 
 Catholics from holding public office or sitting in Parliament, 
 
 i Luke xx, 25. Also Matthew, xxii, 21, and Mark xii, 17.
 
 536 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 were not abolished until 1829. A Christianity with so much 
 must about it, forcing atheistical university professors on to 
 their knees (and in Russia making them absolutely prostrate 
 themselves), plays the very devil with all true religious feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Among heretics, it is true, some remnant of the old spirit 
 of Christianity still survived ; and the modern Manicheans 
 and Catharists, 1 the AValdensians 2 and Albigenses, 3 the Mo- 
 ravians 4 and Quakers all, in their best days, refused military 
 service. 
 
 Thus even those sects the essence of whose doctrines was the 
 refusal of military service gradually degenerated. To-day 
 the Mennonites in Germany, the Doukhobors in Russia, the 
 Panlicians, the Nazarenes, and whatever all their names may 
 be, are lying in trenches side by side with socialistic free- 
 thinkers, shooting at one another. In their views of the world 
 in general they were enemies, in their belief in pacifism they 
 were friends. But all this is now forgotten, and they are all 
 alike in their inconsistency in joining in the present whole- 
 sale slaughter. 
 
 Menno Simons, the founder of the Mennonites, who died 
 in 1561, condemned war and vengeance, basing his condem- 
 nation on the passages in St. Matthew: "All they that take 
 
 i Cf. Hahn's "Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter" ("History of the 
 Medieval Heretics"), 1845. [The Catharists, or Cathari, held views vir- 
 tually identical with those of the Albigenses, with whom they were 
 often confounded, and in whose sufferings they shared. They held that 
 matter is intrinsically evil, and that men's bodies are evil; therefore 
 they aimed, by an ascetic life, at freeing themselves from the control 
 of the body. — Translator.] 
 
 2Cf. Dieckhoff's "Die Waldenser im Mittelalter" ("The Waldenaes 
 in the Middle Ages"), 1853. 
 
 3 According to Schmidt's "Histoire et doctrine de la secte des 
 Cathares," even "legitimate self-defense" was forbidden to the Al- 
 bigenses. 
 
 4 The best-known writers of the Bohemian Brethren (or Moravians) 
 are Peter Chelcicky, who wrote in the sixteenth century, and Johann 
 Amos Comenius, whose chief work was published in 1639.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 537 
 
 the sword shall perish with the sword" (xxvi, 52), and 
 ''resist not evil" (v, 39); and for centuries his disciples 
 faithfully abided by his teachings. Even in 1813 the strength 
 of their moral convictions was still so great that, despite the 
 patriotic excitement of that year, even so ruthless a soldier as 
 York absolved them, by rescript dated February 18, from 
 joining the territorials. But in 1915, G. Mannhardt, 1 the 
 preacher of the Dansic community of Mennonites, actually de- 
 livered an address glorifying feats of arms and martial heroes. 
 Any one" who impartially compares the principles of church 
 doctrine with church practice will feel no surprise that the 
 church councils should have forbidden the reading of the 
 Bible, and we can only rejoice that it was a revealed book in 
 the most orthodox sense of the term. Otherwise the church 
 would not merely have prohibited, but also burned it. 2 
 
 § 192. — The Theoretical Compromise of the Middle Ages 
 
 Thus in practice did the religion of love gradually become 
 overlaid. But whereas formerly men at any rate felt scruples 
 about allowing this to happen, and finally yielded only to 
 pressure from without, even this has now ceased to be the 
 case, and it proves how little influence Christianity really 
 exerts on the masses that it is to-day considered wholly im- 
 material whether Christianity is peaceful and humane or 
 not. What has Christian love to do with us? it is argued. 
 We are good soldiers and good patriots ! 
 
 This indifference to the claims of morality is worse even 
 than religious wars. To what straits the few persons are 
 driven who still think of their religion at all appears from the 
 following poem, published in the "Generalanzeiger" of Bonn, 
 when trench warfare had long been going on, with varying 
 fortune, but with no result : 
 
 i "Taten und Helden, eine Rede zur Kriegszeit" ("Deeds and Heroes; 
 a War-Time Address") by H. G. Mannhardt, 1015. 
 
 2 Karl Lehrs' "Kleine Sehriften" ("Minor Works"), 1902. P. 508. 
 Lehre is a contemporary German philosopher.
 
 538 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 Warum der Kampf jetzt steht? 
 Zum heil fiir unsre Sache! 
 Dass Dein verloseht Gebet 
 Zu neuer Glut erwache. 
 
 Dein Gott die Welt durcheilt 
 Und aueht und spaht und sichtet 
 Ein Volk, das ungeteilt 
 Die Herzen auf ibn richtet. 
 
 The writer therefore quite seriously believes that Gott is 
 prolonging the present slaughter merely in order to see which 
 European people is the most pious. ("Why do we still 
 fight?" He asks, and answers: "For the sake of our good 
 cause!") A conception of God which is assuredly tit only 
 for a pickle-herring farce or perhaps for a worshiper of 
 Moloch. 
 
 Originally, at any rate, Christian philosophy was peaceful 
 in principle, and the doctrine that war is consistant with 
 man's natural state was directly opposed by some, who then 
 inclined to accept the Biblical conception of paradise. I do 
 not purpose to discuss in detail the extensive number of works 
 by scholars on this subject, but I should like to quote the words 
 of Alberic Gentilis, 1 who expressly asserts that "no war ever 
 came about naturally" (a naturd helium esse nullum). 
 Whenever war was going on, it was looked upon as a work 
 of the devil or a "Divine chastisement," and accepted as 
 calmly as was the devil. 
 
 Thus with the help of a little sacerdotal duplicity the diffi- 
 culty was solved, and all went well until it was desired to 
 reconcile monistically that contrast between war and Chris- 
 tianity which the plain man could not but feel. So long as 
 peace was sought in a remote past or only hoped for in a 
 far distant future, perhaps only in heaven, the inconsistency 
 could be ignored ; but when it was asserted that peace ought 
 also to prevail in the present, then the time-honored longing 
 
 i Albericus Gentilis, "De jure belli libri tres," I. 15. 1558.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 539 
 
 for peace could not fail to degenerate into the grotesque con- 
 ception formed by the masses of Leibnitz's "harmony in the 
 best of worlds." On the other hand, those who, like Vol- 
 taire's Candide, declined to continue crying peace, peace, 
 when there was no peace, simply denied that such a thing as 
 peace was possible; and asserted that everything centered 
 round the struggle for existence. 
 
 Finally every ideal was abandoned, and men fell back upon 
 a vague, shadowy electicism. They ceased to see, as old 
 Heraclitus saw, that the object to strive for was successive 
 evolution from war, as the father of all, to peace. They went 
 almost blindly from war to peace, and from peace to war, and 
 it is felt to be almost illogical that those who insist on the 
 value of life and likewise all friends of peace, and even re- 
 ligious people, should long since have become reconciled to 
 war as to something natural and inevitable. 
 
 § 193. — The Theoretical Compromise of Modern Times 
 
 Not till the Reformation, probably under the influence of 
 Luther, did men begin to justify war theoretically also, from 
 the Christian point. of view. To most people, however, war 
 still did not. seem exactly a Christian institution, despite its 
 being systematically decked out with Christian symbols. 
 Thus army chaplains* (or their equivalent) were appointed, 
 flags and cannon were* consecrated by priests, and battle-ships 
 were baptized. Hume, indeed, still maintains 1 that between 
 a soldier and a priest there is an eternal and unvarying con- 
 tradiction. For the time being, indeed, the conception of 
 Christianity had merely been "enlarged," somewhat after the 
 manner of the great and unprejudiced King of Prussia - who 
 remarked that he considered whoever helped him as a Chris- 
 tian, and whoever meant to injure him as merely a heathen. 
 
 i Hume's "Essay on National Characters." Philosophical Works, 
 Edinburgh, 1826. Vol. Ill, p. 22f». 
 
 *"Uber die Bosheit der Menachen" ("On Human Wickedness"). By 
 Frederick IT, written November 11, 1761.
 
 540 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 But this "enlargement" of the conception of Christianity 
 had not yet led to its abolition. For instance, Charles 
 Kingsley in his defense of the Crimean "War as a "just war 
 against tyrants and oppressors," wrote that Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ is not only the prince of peace, but also the prince of 
 war and the lord of armies. Whoever fights in a just war 
 against tyranny and oppression, he added, is fighting for 
 Christ, and Christ, as captain and colonel, is fighting for him ; 
 for so it is written in the Bible. But though he found many 
 to agree with him, Tom Hughes, for instance, yet on the whole 
 people disagreed profoundly with him. In excuse for Kings- 
 ley it may be argued that these words were written during 
 war, that is, while the hypnotic effects of war were being felt. 
 
 But the wheel of time revolved rapidly, and scarcely half a 
 century after the Crimean War the main conception of 
 Christianity, after vainly endeavoring for two thousand years 
 to get possession of the world, had so utterly disappeared, 
 and the illogical absurdity of "Christian warfare" had so 
 thoroughly taken possession of mankind hody and soul, that 
 now nothing any longer surprises us. Here and there a 
 Christian theologian still attempts to combat this new Chris- 
 tianity, as was notably the case with Herr Rade of Marburg, 
 whose proud saying about Belgium, "I openly defy any one 
 to approve of what we have done there," will never be for- 
 gotten any more than will be his phrase, "the bankruptcy of 
 Christianity. ' ' But it is the Gottfried Traubs and Immanuel 
 Heyns who preponderate, in proof of which I will adduce only 
 two facts. Professor Baumgarten, 1 the theologian of Kiel, 
 does, it is true, note the contradiction between the martial 
 ethics of the German nation and the Sermon on the Mount, 
 but tells us that "at the present time we ought to pay more 
 attention again to Old Testament texts," and smilingly and 
 consciously throws Christianity overboard. Secondly, the 
 
 i Baumgarten's "Twenty-ninth German Address for Serious Times." 
 See the "Berliner Tageblatt" of May 13, 1915.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 541 
 
 German pastor and theologian Artur Brausewetter x writes 
 that "we never knew what the Holy Ghost was till this 
 year of war, 1914." 
 
 But in Prussia probably they could not do otherwise than 
 write thus. Did not the President of the Prussian Chamber 
 of Deputies 2 a short time before call the House to order and 
 upbraid those who described war as an outrage on Christian- 
 ity? And long before this did not a mighty man of to-day 
 venture to say, without any one protesting, that only a good 
 Christian could be a good soldier, even as a great German 
 philosopher recently stated in a lecture on the war that only 
 a good Kantian could be a good soldier? And yet when Christ 
 was born choirs of angels sang "peace on earth." And yet 
 Kant wrote his wondrous plea for "perpetual peace." 3 
 
 15. — THE WATERING DOWN OF KANT AND BUDDHA 
 
 § 194.— The Misuse of Kant 
 
 The way Kant has been misused is even more repellent to- 
 day than the way religion has been misused. It is, however, 
 typical of the whole miserable business of the compromise be- 
 tween religion and war, and therefore I cannot but refer 
 briefly to it. Some of those who thus misinterpret Kant must 
 be presumed to have read his writings. They know, there- 
 fore, that in his preliminary articles Kant would forbid the 
 following : 
 
 1. — Peace treaties which contain the seeds of future wars. 
 
 i "Pfingstbetrachtung" ("Whitsuntide Reflections") by Pastor Artur 
 Brausewetter. Published in the "Weserzeitung" No. 24, 649, of May 
 23, 1915. 
 
 ^ Herr von Erffa in the seventh year of grace, 1012. 
 
 3 This same German philosopher, Herrmann Cohen, in a volume writ- 
 ten in collaboration with Houston Stewart Chamberlain, wrote what 
 was obviously intended to be a work in support of the ideas of bis 
 great master. But while Kant hoped and longed for "perpetual peace," 
 his disciple has already had enough and more than enough of it, and 
 turns his back on it accordingly.
 
 542 THE BTOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 2. — Annexations (even in the form of voluntary cession of 
 territory). 
 
 3. — Standing armies. 
 
 4. — Loans for purposes of armaments. 
 
 5. — Interventions (interference in the concerns of foreign 
 states). 
 
 "What Kant would like to see established are the following : 
 
 1. — The republican form of government in all countries. 1 
 
 2. — A federation of free states only. 
 
 3. — Citizenship of the world (in the form of universal hos- 
 pitality). 
 
 They know, therefore, that in the war which the Kingdom 
 of Prussia fought against the Republic of France, Kant had 
 the courage openly and unreservedly to champion the enemy's 
 institutions. Further, they know that we in Germany to- 
 day have not yet attained one of Kant's eight objects; and 
 yet they appeal to Kant more than to any one else. 
 
 It might be possible to connect the moral regeneration of 
 Prussia, which culminated in the Wars of Liberation, with 
 Kant. Indeed, even he, old man as he was, might have 
 shouldered a rifle to tight for what the people then achieved 
 and above all for what the best men of that day hoped to 
 achieve, unless he had been wiser than the 1813 idealists and 
 had known from the first that an ideal can never be attained 
 by force of arms. But apart from this, does any one really 
 believe that the ideas of a man who formulated the above 
 eight demands can be consistently quoted by the Germans as 
 their main justification for the War of 1914? 
 
 But they say that Kant knew nothing about war. As if 
 any one needed to understand anything about the methods of 
 a Rinaldo Rinaldini in order to condemn robbery as immoral! 
 
 ] The contemporary German philosopher Max Seheler, on page 23 of 
 his hook on the war, says that in the nineteenth century "Republics 
 waged far more wars than monarchies"; hut it is hard to know ex- 
 actly what he means by this, for the great military powers of Europe to- 
 day are. with the sole exception of France, monarchies, and France did 
 not become a republic again till 1870.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 543 
 
 In order to understand this kind of controversy, we must 
 reflect that modern critics of Kant are people over whom a 
 complete change came the moment the cannon's roar was 
 heard, and who obviously think everybody else can veer round 
 about with the same facility. Thus they think that the Kant- 
 ian Hamlet is mad only about peace when the wind is north- 
 northwest, but whenever it shifts to the south, he can dis- 
 tinguish a legitimate war from an illegitimate. These 
 Rosencrant/--and-(iuildenstern-like military philosophers think 
 that they can entice any tune they happen to need out of the 
 Konigsberg flute, and quite seriously imagine that they can 
 exploit the conception of duty of the ' ' half-cracked apostle of 
 peace" in order to inveigle him into the service of the army. 
 The Prussian army, they say, in short, is Kantian because it 
 is the living incarnation of Kant's sense of duty. 
 
 Now, however high a value we may set on an army's sense 
 of duty in the literal meaning of the term, this merely means 
 that we respect the individual soldiers as human beings. 
 I?ut for us all that can matter, for us Kantians all that ought 
 to matter, is whether the army as a whole is doing its duty 
 in Kant's sense, not in letter, but in spirit. That is whether, 
 in the sense of Kant's philosophy, fitting up human beings 
 for the purpose of war is an object worth striving for. 
 Kant himself has supplied a sufficiently clear answer to his 
 question not merely in his peace manifesto, which was not 
 the outcome of any mere passing fancy, but in the logical in- 
 ference from his whole moral teaching. Is it not at once 
 obvious that of all conceivable moral maxims none could be 
 so unsuitcd to war as the injunction, "act so that thy ac- 
 tion might become a universal maxim*'? For if I shoot an 
 enemy, I cannot do so, according to Kant, unless I also desire 
 him to shoot me. 
 
 Kant's philosophy is absolutely irreconcilable with wir. 
 True, Kant himself once 1 called war sublime, in a passage 
 which is quoted by Soheler and which, especially in a popu- 
 
 i"Kritik der Urteilskraft" ("Critique of Pure Reason") §28.
 
 544 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 lar book, might easily mislead people into thinking that Kant 
 approved of war, unless it be added that what Kant calls 
 sublime is the subject of negative pleasure, a fact of which 
 probably only a very few who read Scheler have any no- 
 tion. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that his particular 
 sentence is given as an instance in a discussion of the sub- 
 lime in nature. Not till five years later, when the French 
 Revolution had taught him that nations could be free, and 
 are therefore responsible as nations for their actions, did 
 Kant write his "Perpetual Peace" manifesto, in which he 
 dealt with war as a moral problem. But then, in 1790, war 
 still appeared to him in the light of a fate from which there 
 is no escape — a fate caused by princes with their subjects, 
 and with which the people were bound to put up as with 
 some natural event. War thus seemed to him a part of na- 
 ture. 
 
 Now, according to Kant, nature can absolutely never be 
 sublime. If we call it sublime, this merely means, according 
 to Kant, that we human beings are aroused to sublime 
 thoughts by the very contrast between us and nature, what 
 he calls negative pleasure. If we perceive the unconsciously 
 terrible aspects of nature and yet feel that as moral beings 
 we are superior to any such compulsion, then we apply the 
 word sublime to what is evoked in us by this feeling. 
 "Something otherwise without form or purpose," which 
 "merely strikes terror into the ordinary human being," is 
 sublime to the philosopher, if he is, which Kant insists on 
 as important, himself in safety and therefore does not "look 
 upon such an occurrence as anything before which man need 
 quail. ' ' 
 
 Now we can understand why Kant calls war sublime. 
 For that matter, indeed, all he actually says is that "even 
 war has something sublime about it"; and he really looks 
 upon it as an unconsciously terrible event, which he did not 
 then think it possible to avert, but which he even then ad- 
 mits had no power over him. There is nothing here incon-
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 545 
 
 sistent with perpetual peace; it is merely the preliminary 
 groping after it. It is already liberation from war, though 
 not yet its conquest. 
 
 But it is Kant or war. There is no possibility of recon- 
 ciling both, although in itself this need not abate any one's 
 enthusiasm for war, for, after all, Kant is not the Alpha 
 and Omega of all wisdom. But the Kantiaus ought to have 
 more fidelity to Kant, and above all to be truer to their own 
 selves. Any one, indeed, who, faced by such facts, does not 
 lose faith in the supremacy of human reason must needs be 
 very sanguine. 
 
 § 195. — The Compromise of Buddhism 
 
 I have already referred to the virtual identity of Buddhism 
 as regards its main doctrine of human brotherhood with 
 Christianity. Buddha also speaks in simple language of the 
 brotherhood of men, of the sacredness of life, and of love and 
 pity. His doctrine is neither harder nor easier to under- 
 stand than that of Christ, but it seems to have met with a 
 somewhat better fate. When Christ was about to die, Peter 
 seized his sword; and when Buddha died and was cremated, 
 there immediately appeared, according to the Acvagoshas, 1 
 the princes of seven countries, with mighty armies, in front 
 of Kucinagara, to take possession of his ashes. But when 
 the Brahman Drona tells them that "every believer commit- 
 ting a hostile act is sinning against the principle of his faith," 
 they come to an understanding; and in general the Buddhists 
 really have lived much more at peace than their brethren in 
 Christ. 
 
 After Schopenhauer's glorification of Buddhism, quite 
 excusable in view of the state of knowledge of his day, 
 Buddha's tolerance and love of peace were certainly for a 
 considerable time greatly exaggerated. As long ago as the 
 seventeenth century the* Buddhist priests of Japan had en- 
 tered into a close alliance with the major-domo's office under 
 
 i Acvagoshas; "Buddha's Life and Deeds."
 
 546 THE BIOLOGY OP WAR 
 
 the Tokugawa to destroy non-Buddhists ; and to-day, when 
 the Mongols are aroused from their supposed slumber, even 
 the East has begun not merely to tolerate murder, but, what 
 is even worse, hypocritically to justify it. 
 
 When Japan had fought out her great war with Russia, a 
 few faithful Buddhists may perhaps have protested, but 
 Soyen Shaku, 1 one of the highest Buddhist dignitaries in Ja- 
 pan, wrote as follows in justification of the war: "Buddha 
 once said 'the world in its triple form belongs to me; all 
 things in it are my children, and all are the image of my 
 Ego, for all come from one origin, and are thus parts of my 
 body. Hence I cannot rest so long as the smallest particle 
 of everything existing has not fulfilled its destination.' 
 
 And on this last sentence, imbued through and through 
 with anxious, pitying and world-embracing love, this mod- 
 ern disciple of Buddha has contrived to base his martial en- 
 thusiasm. He argues as follows: Buddha himself says that 
 everything which exists has not yet fulfilled its destiny. 
 Therefore the world is not as it ought to be. Many a hu- 
 man being, even now, is ruined and cheated, and becomes 
 wicked through ignorance. Against this ignorance we 
 Buddhists must wage war. All which is comprehensible, and 
 certainly what Buddha meant; but, according to Soyen 
 Shaku, Buddha's disciples ought to rid the world of ignorance 
 not by instructing it, but by cannons, and ought in fact to 
 wage a merciless war to the knife. ' ' They shall exterminate 
 the roots whence all misfortune arises." 
 
 Not that Soyen Shaku is to be reproached for defending 
 war, but what is repellent is the hypocrisy with which he 
 twists the meaning of the teachings of his god. 
 
 Heine said only that the priest and the rabbi both stink 
 alike. To-day we may confidently include the bonze as well, 
 for all have bowed the knee to Baal, that great Moloch who 
 swallows up hecatombs of human bodies. 
 
 i "Buddhist Views of War," by Soyen Shaku in the "Open Court" 
 for May, 1904.
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 547 
 
 It would not matter about the words of such men as Christ, 
 Buddha, and Kant having been wrenched from their true 
 meaning, for there have always been weak characters; but 
 what does matter is that no one blushes scarlet or is even 
 wrathy about it. It almost seems as if mankind had long been 
 content not to be able to make theories agree with practice. 
 Quite apart from whether war is good or bad, it is accepted 
 as a necessary fact, which may indeed be discussed, but which 
 no one feels morally strong enough to get rid of or even to 
 alter. It is as if war was not the work of man, which could 
 be influenced by educating men, but a product of nature, 
 against which there is no rising up. 
 
 There are still men who feel in what a painful dilemma 
 their illogical train of thought has landed them, but even they 
 are now hardly waiting for some Alexander to cut this 
 Gordian knot of contradictions for them. They and their 
 reason have both long surrendered to supposed facts. 
 
 3. — THE NEW RELIGION 
 
 § 196. — The Meaning of Every Religion 
 
 It cannot be that any religion aims at causing men to 
 believe in the unreality of an abstract or even concrete con- 
 ception of God or at supporting the power of some church 
 or other. If there is any justification at all for religion, 
 this can be only to procure for man what is ethically valua- 
 ble; that is, in plain language, to increase man's respect for 
 the dignity of his fellow-man and tend to promote brother- 
 liness. 
 
 Now, this is just where all religions have failed, and their 
 failure is attested by, among other things, the fact that, as 
 I have shown, they have all come to deny brotherliness; in 
 other words, to sanction war. 
 
 For this failure of religions there is a natural cause. The 
 word religion is derived from religere to bind, and all re- 
 ligion is rooted in tradition, and binds man to something old
 
 548 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 and sacred which has been handed down to him ; that is, to 
 the past. Religion, therefore, is of necessity unable to adapt 
 itself to new conditions, and despite all that may be hoped 
 from the future, it is in its very nature retrospective. We 
 may found new religious and protest against existing re- 
 ligions, but to the very name of religion there clings a trace 
 of the curse of constraint. The utmost any one has ever 
 succeeded in doing is to pour new wine into old wineskins, to 
 adapt new doctrine to an old form. But it is often said, 
 and not without reason, that this in itself would not matter 
 so much, for new wine improves in flavor and quality by be- 
 ing put into old wineskins, if mankind in general only did 
 riot continue to cling to outside matters, and always attach 
 too much importance to them in comparison with what is 
 within. Every religion therefore must dwindle down into 
 dogmatism, and in course of time obstruct further progress. 
 Without being in some way or other bound, however, no one 
 can act morally. True, a man can freely impose restrictions 
 on himself, but he must believe in some sort of law or being 
 which is higher than himself, and which guides him. 
 
 Yet no one should endeavor to believe in anything if he 
 knows that it has no real existence. Thus any one who does 
 not know that the good God has no real existence may de- 
 rive his morality from Him, nay, can and ought to do so. 
 But any one who does know that God does not exist, and 
 yet forges for himself some fanciful notion of force which 
 he defines as God is acting foolishly ; and in this sense the 
 most innocent idolator is far more reasonable than many 
 deeply learned philosophers. 
 
 Let there be no confusion about this. That undefinable 
 aspiration which tells all good human beings that there is 
 something higher than their own petty selves, that there is 
 a starry firmament and a moral law, is the highest sentiment 
 which man can feel ; and if only he does feel it, this is quite 
 enough. But it is folly — may I be pardoned for so appar- 
 ently harsh a word? — to attempt to consolidate this unde-
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 549 
 
 finable aspiration into something of which we know has no 
 existence. 
 
 Now, let us inquire what such a basis of morality must be 
 like, absolute and yet mutable, above humanity and yet hu- 
 man, ideal and yet real. This is antinomistic philosophy, 
 and yet some such thing there is which fulfils all these re- 
 quirements : 
 
 That thing is humanity. 
 
 § 197. — The Religion of Humanity 
 
 If it were desired to found a religion which is, so to speak, 
 unchangeable in its eternal youth and yet capable of modi- 
 fication, so as to meet the needs of mankind, then it must be 
 based on something unchangeable and yet capable of change. 
 "We know, and we need not here repeat, that there is per- 
 haps nothing really absolute in itself, but it is a common- 
 place to say that for us men man himself is something absolute. 
 Our organization, with all its different ways of comprehend- 
 ing the outer world, — man, that is, together with his sur- 
 roundings, 1 is for us an actual tangible fact, a fact which, 
 it is true, progresses, which in the course of centuries has 
 altered, and in the course of countless thousands of years will 
 alter again, but which at any particular moment represents 
 for us something absolute. 
 
 Humanity, therefore, is sufficiently absolute and mutable 
 for our purposes. Moreover, it also rises above man and is 
 yet human. 
 
 Humanity has evolved and is evolving still further, in a 
 course and direction which may be chance, but which has 
 been fixed once for all. We were animals, and we became 
 human beings, and the human being of to-morrow is some- 
 thing different from the human being of to-day, albeit the 
 one may be potentially contained in the other. 
 
 Thus the superman is nothing new, but merely something 
 
 i Cf. 'Tmwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere" ("The Surrounding and 
 Ideas of Animals";, hy J. von UexkUll: Berlin, 190!).
 
 550 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 different. It is idle to speculate whether this evolution is 
 good. It is a fact, and therefore to oppose it is folly and, it 
 might even be said, criminal. Animals and man, and in the 
 future the superman, are all one, only united together by 
 time. Consequently even the superman is and remains some- 
 thing purely human, even if he is above man. 
 
 Similarly man and superman are one, if the superman is 
 considered as uniting in himself all actually living human 
 beings, as the totality of mankind, in short. Thus we have 
 unity in space. Hence the conception of the superman in 
 time and space transcends the individual human being, 
 and yet remains a human being. Finally, however, the 
 conception of humanity is both real and ideal at the same 
 time. 
 
 An attempt has been made to prove that humanity is ob- 
 jectively a reality; but for ns it is an idea, for as we are 
 only a part of it both as regards time and space, we do not 
 possess the necessary organs to enable us fully to compre- 
 hend it. For us it remains the idea of a perfecting process 
 which, taken as a whole, effects on a large scale "what the 
 best human being does or would fain do on a small scale." 
 "We are uplifted by the wave, sucked under by it, and 
 sink"; but without the conception of the "eternal stream" — 
 the onward-flowing stream of humanity — it is inconceivable 
 that this should be so. 
 
 Thus humanity fulfils all the conditions for the basis of 
 a lasting religion. This, after all, need hardly be said, and 
 every great thinker of the past who has yearned for a re- 
 ligion has found it within himself. Modern science has also 
 shown that even the most primitive peoples did likewise, for 
 in the likeness of man did men make their gods. But 
 men gave a more or less absolute life to these creations in the 
 image of God, or, in the case of higher human beings, divine 
 conceptions. This life thus became independent of what 
 takes place in ourselves and thus the danger inevitably arose 
 and constantly recurred of these divine images becoming
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 551 
 
 stark corpses no longer capable of taking part in the life of 
 men. 
 
 § 198. — Uniformity of Moral Law 
 
 Whoever would fain have a real religion must base it in 
 the reality of man and not on visionary ideals. The natural 
 result of this ever-changing human reality, which in course 
 of time becomes ever more and more perfect, is that the fu- 
 ture will seem to us an ever higher reality, in which we can 
 believe, on which we may legitimately set our affections, and 
 to which we must pin our hopes. The three cardinal virtues 
 of Christianity are in truth the main supports of every true 
 religion ; but we must not believe in anything unreal, nor 
 set our affections on anything past, or our hopes on any mere 
 visions. 
 
 It may be asked, Do such views deserve to be called a reli- 
 gion? 
 
 They do and they do not. In actual truth they do, for 
 they mean nothing more or less than that we feel ourselves 
 inseparably bound up with that with which we are, after all, 
 inseparably bound up ; that is, with our bodies and their sen- 
 sations. But, after all, this is so obvious, or at any rate ought 
 to be so obvious, as to need no special name. 
 
 In Chapter XIII an attempt was made to inquire how it 
 is that, from the fact of our being quite certainly organized 
 human beings, certain necessities have arisen which we can 
 define as moral requirements. But these moral requirements 
 are merely based on the fact that we are, after all, human, 
 beings, and all the deductions which we can make from this 
 fact we are accustomed to sum up under the name of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 To be humane, however, simply means that we have com- 
 prehended the history of the evolution of mankind; that we 
 know whence we come; that we have an inkling of whither 
 we are going; and that we are accordingly trying to conform 
 to the geueral scheme of nature, which for us means the
 
 552 THE BIOLOGY OF WAR 
 
 progress of human evolution. We believe in this progress 
 of evolution; we love mankind, and we hope for further 
 progress ; in other words, for that superman who is daily and 
 hourly slowly coming into being. This recognition of self- 
 evident facts embraces every moral law. Were we to express 
 the ten commandments in accordance therewith, they would 
 read somewhat as follows: — 
 
 1. — There is no morality without belief in the superhuman. 
 
 2. — Thou shalt not try to believe in anything of which thou 
 knowest that it has no real existence. As nothing super- 
 human really exists except the community of mankind, let thy 
 morality be based on this. 
 
 3. — Inwardly to realize that mankind as a whole is a real- 
 ity means feeling thyself bound up with this world, means 
 having religion, and means loving thy neighbor. 
 
 LOVE AND HONOR 
 
 4. — The forms and symbols of the community of mankind-^ 
 thy family and thy country. 
 
 5. — Human life and the life of mankind. 
 
 6. — Good traditions, instincts which still serve a purpose. 
 
 7. — Labor. 
 
 8.— Truth. 
 
 9 and 10. — Oppose evil traditions, instincts which no longer 
 serve a purpose. 
 
 How we formulate our morality, however, is no matter; 
 all that matters is that we should bethink ourselves of our- 
 selves and understand that man is an individual unit and 
 at the same time a part of a superordinate organism. Who- 
 soever knows this, and realizes it not merely as a truth which 
 can be acquired, but as a living law in him and a feeling, is 
 & human being indeed and in truth. But whosoever does not 
 realize this is no true human being, no matter how much he 
 may outwardly resemble one, or, as Kant puts it, how civil- 
 ized he may be; for he lacks that essential thing which dif-
 
 WAR AND RELIGION 553 
 
 ferentiates man from all other living beings — the feeling of 
 belonging to the genus humannm. 
 
 Scio et seiito genus humanum esse simplex et unum, 
 Scio et volo me esse hominem, 
 Scio et spero nunquam oblivisci. 
 
 Whoever is a human being at all is also a moral human 
 being. In face of this truth no isolated occurrences have any 
 importance save as phenomena, and so it is with war. If hu- 
 manity wins, the death-knell of war will have sounded, but 
 only then; for man cannot and will not break his sword in 
 sunder so long as he does not know that a sword has neither 
 part nor lot in the conception of mankind, but is merely a 
 tool to be laid aside like any other. 
 
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