Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/165

Rh superior brain, and sometimes perilously near the surface, there lies a vast network of inherited dispositions connecting the man of to-day with his warlike savage ancestors.

In place, then, of this unreal social unit, the peace-loving, land-tilling citizen, we have the real man, the restless and aggressive man, who loves the city rather than the country, frequents the stock exchange, the theater and the moving-picture show, likes to speculate and gamble, is fond of rapid transit by means of steam or trolley car, automobile or aircraft, passes much of his time indoors, reading, writing, planning and contriving, delves into new problems of philosophy, science and invention, exploits new lands and new routes of trade, invents new guns and new explosives, devises new methods of rapid communication and transportation, is addicted to the use of tobacco and alcohol and strong coffee and tea, is subject to chronic fatigue, has a tendency to the use of poisonous drugs and to insanity and suicide and small families.

This is our typical man of to-day and beside him and living in close proximity to him, there is another class, likewise neither peace-loving nor land-tilling, namely, the class of dependents, delinquents, and defectives.

This then is the material we have to work with, and now, given this material, let us suppose that international rivalries should cease, that our colossal modern armies and navies should disappear and that the vast number of men and the enormous amounts of capital involved in military armaments should be turned into productive channels, and let us suppose further that the burden of taxes hitherto required for armies, navies, and pensions should be lifted and with it lifted also the fear of invasion,—what then would happen? Something very different, no doubt, from that condition of idyllic happiness and peace which one infers from the arguments of the pacificists.

The fact is, the causes of war lie much deeper than in any political conditions. They are to be sought in the constitution of the human mind. The question, therefore, is a profoundly difficult one and demands a different method of approach. It must be approached from the biological and psychological as well as the sociological point of view. The following attempt to approach the subject from its psychological side is submitted in the belief that the facts here presented, while no doubt partial and incomplete, are facts which the student of the causes and remedies of war will have to consider.

To understand the psychology of war, it is necessary to go back and trace the actual history of the development of the human being. Here lies the trouble with all our schemes of pacificism and all our Utopias and all our pleasure and peace economies. They deal with an ideal human being, not with actual men. Sociologists will make futile contributions to human progress except as they keep in close touch with the facts of human evolution and of human history.