Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/575

 TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR 5^9

��THE PSYCHOLOGY OP WAB

Bt Db. D. B. PHILLIPS

UNITXBSITY OF DBNTBB

MY intention is not to discuss the causes^ economic or political, of the present incomprehensible conflict in which some of the lead- ing nations of the world are each unconsciously committing suicide. Neither do I intend to attempt a justification or condemnation of any of the parties now in arms. I seize this opportunity of trying to con- vince the public that the forces that move humanity are so deep and so subtle that we are constantly substituting surface and relatively unim- portant causes for the deeper and real causes.

Spencer long ago showed that every form of human conduct has its roots and earliest manifestations in primitive man. Even human sympathy, the only force on which the anti-war spirit can safely build, and the only one that has wrought any inner change for real human- ism, is not absent in the lowest savages.

However, it is not enough to say that war is founded on human in- stincts as old as the race. Many then jump to the conclusion that man is hopelessly doomed to war until the Judgment Day. Of course we are, if we properly understand the Judgment Day. Does not every organism struggle to live and to live at any cost? But you say: '^Do people really war to live ? ^' Not in this day. This impulse is joined with other impulses. There is an instinct of pugnacity manifested in nearly all people. You explain this in yourself as *^ righteous indigna- tion.'* It is all right for us to fight, but never right for our enemy to fight.

Again, can we not trace ever3rwhere the human impulse to excite- ment, to adventure, to insatiable achievement, to deeds of daring? There is also the instinct of emulation closely allied to the instinct of imitation. Perhaps the early forms of emulation are akin to the pow- erful forces of envy and jealousy, known to animals and common to all mankind. Bace hatred is surely an instinct.

Nearly all individuals and all races have been dominated by the instinct of revenge. Let even a hereditary defective kill some of your friends, and then stand by and watch the course of vengeance. It is stiU not imlike savage vengeance. The life of the criminal is de- manded on the respectable objective grounds of the good of society, but uppermost in the heart of the offended is vengeance. The savages always avenge any wrong done any individual of their group by indis- criminate punishment of the whole tribe. This is war. Later, this

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