Page:Justice in war time by Russell, Bertrand.djvu/41

Rh homo sapiens. Owing to the activities of the police, opportunities for these pleasures are much curtailed in civilised countries. For this reason, when war is coming there is a liberation of a whole set of instinctive activities normally repressed. This brings with it an exhilaration comparable to that of falling in love. Instead of being oppressed by the prospect of the horrors of war—friends and relations killed or maimed, countries ravaged, civilisation bleeding in the mire—most men, in the first days, were excited and happy, feeling an unusual freedom, and inventing, with unconscious hypocrisy, all sorts of humane reasons to excuse their joy. In this mood there is no great hatred of the enemy: he has his uses, since without him there could be no fighting. The injury to him is a merely incidental and almost regrettable result of the battle. Primitive poetry is full of this mood, and the early days of August showed that it is still possible to civilised men.

But when, as in this war, neither side wins decisive successes, and the utmost effort is required to avert disaster, the honeymoon intoxication of the first moments is soon succeeded by a sterner mood. Checks cause fury, and injuries suffered produce hatred. More and more men's thoughts become concentrated on humbling the pride of their enemies. If the war remains undecided for a long time, if the new levies on both sides are exterminated without either victory or defeat, there will be a growing ferocity, leading to horrors such as even this war has not yet brought into the imaginations of men. One by one soldiers will pass suddenly from ferocity to apathy: the spring of will will break, leaving millions of derelicts fit only