Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/23



alone, among the higher animals, seems characteristically to fight his own kind to the death. Doubtless before there was law or morals the primitive savage often got the woman, the ox or the stone knife which he wanted simply by killing the possessor. With the organization of society, groups and tribes began to do the same thing collectively as a means of acquiring live-stock, wives, slaves or territory; and we had war. In primitive society, if we may judge from our study of existing savages, wars were often comparatively bloodless affairs, settled by a contest between two champions or by a few wounds. Whole groups and tribes may have lived on the pacifist theory, as do today certain African nations which will not keep cattle because cattle bring on raids and peace is with them preferable to property.

When the curtain lifts on recorded history, tribes were collecting into nations, and kingship was firmly fixed in human affairs. By now, war also was a permanent human institution; every throne was propped up by an army. The relation of warfare to