Why men fight: a method of abolishing the international duel

THE PRINCIPLE OF GROWTH
To all who are capable of new impressions and fresh thought, some modification of former beliefs and hopes has been brought by the war. What the modification has been has depended, in each case, upon character and cir cumstance; but in one form or another it has been almost universal. To me, the chief thing to be learnt through the war has been a certain view of the springs of human action, what they are, and what we may legitimately hope that they will become. This view, if it is true, seems to afford a basis for political philosophy more capable of standing erect in a time of crisis than 'the philosophy of traditional Liberalism has shown itself to be. The following lectures, though only one of them will deal with war, all are inspired by a view of the springs of action
which has been suggested by the war. 'And all of them are informed by the hope of seeing such political institutions established in Europe as shall make men averse to war—a hope which I firmly believe to be realizable, though not with out a great and fundamental reconstruction of economic and social life.
To one who stands outside the cycle of beliefs and passions which make the war seem neces sary, an isolation, an almost unbearable separa tion from the general activity, becomes unavoid able. At the very moment when the universal disaster raises compassion in the highest de gree, compassion itself compels aloofness from the impulse to self-destruction which has swept over Europe. The helpless longing to save men from the ruin towards which they are hastening makes it necessary to oppose the stream, to in cur hostility, to be thought unfeeling, to lose for the moment the power of winning belief. It is impossible to prevent others from feeling hos tile, but it is possible to avoid any reciprocal hos tility on one's own part, by imaginative under standing and the sympathy which grows out of it. And without understanding and sympathy it is impossible to find a cure for the evil from which the world is suffering.
There are two views of the war neither of which seems to me adequate. The usual views in this country is that it is due to the wicked- j ness of the Germans; the view of most pacifists ( is that it is due to the diplomatic tangle and to the ambitions of Governments. I think both these views fail to realize the extent to which war grows out of ordinary human nature. Ger mans, and also the men who compose Govern ments, are on the whole average human beings, actuated by the same passions that actuate others, not differing much from the rest of the world except in their circumstances. War is ac cepted by men who are neither Germans nor diplomatists with a readiness, an acquiescence in untrue and inadequate reasons, which would not be possible if any deep repugnance to war were widespread in other nations or classes. The untrue things which men believe, and the true things which they disbelieve, are an in dex to their impulses—not necessarily to indi vidual impulses in each case (since beliefs are contagious), but to the general impulses of the community. We all believe many things which we have no good ground for believing, because, subconsciously, our nature craves certain kinds of action which these beliefs would render reas-
enable if they were true. Unfounded beliefs are the homage which impulse pays to reason; and thus it is with the beliefs which, opposite but similar, make men here and in Germany be lieve it their duty to prosecute the war.
The first thought which naturally occurs to one who accepts this view is that it would be well if men were more under the dominion of reason.