THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WAR
I
No one, I fancy, doubts that, speaking generally, health is a good
thing and disease a bad one, that the first is normal and the second
anomalous. The only way to define health, indeed, is to call it the
normal state of the organism, and disease ‘the deviation of the
physiological life from its normal condition.’ This anomaly of the
physiological life, called disease, is not however a meaningless
accident or an arbitrary product of external evil forces. Not to speak
of the inevitable diseases of growth or development, the opinion of
all thoughtful medical men is that the true cause of all disease
lies in the inner deep-lying changes of the organism itself, and the
external immediate causes of illness (_e.g._ catching cold, exhaustion,
infection, etc.) are merely the _occasions_ for the inner cause to
manifest itself. Similarly, the abnormal phenomena which ignorant
people usually identify with the disease itself (_e.g._ fever and
shivering fits, cough, various pains, abnormal secretion) in truth
simply express the successful or the unsuccessful _struggle_ of the
organism against the destructive effect of the inner disturbances
in which the disease really consists; their ultimate nature for the
most part remains unknown, though they undoubtedly exist as a fact.
Hence follows the practical conclusion that medical art must have for
its main object not the external symptoms of a disease but its inner
causes. At any rate it must detect their presence and then assist the
healing work of the organism itself, by hastening and encouraging the
natural processes and not doing violence to them.
The position of the chronic disease of humanity--international
hostility, expressing itself in wars, is analogous. Its symptomatic
treatment, a treatment, that is, directed upon its external expressions
rather than its inner causes, would be at best a doubtful procedure;
a simple and absolute rejection of it would have no definite meaning
whatever. So long as there is moral disturbance within humanity,
external wars may be useful and necessary, just as in the case of
profound physical disturbance such abnormal phenomena as fever or
sickness may be useful and necessary.
In strictness, we ought to ask with regard to war three different
questions instead of one only. In addition to the moral value of war
in general, there is another question, namely, its significance in
the history of humanity--a history which is _not yet completed_, and
there is a third personal question as to how I (that is, how any human
being), recognising with reason and conscience the binding character
of moral demands, must regard _here_ and _now_ the fact of war and the
practical consequences that follow from it. The confusion or the wrong
division of these three questions--the generally moral or theoretical,
the historical, and, finally, the personally-moral or the practical--is
the chief cause of all misunderstandings and misconceptions with regard
to war which have of late become particularly prevalent.
Theoretical condemnation of war has long been a commonplace among
civilised people. Every one agrees that peace is a good and war an
evil. Our tongue automatically speaks of _the blessings of peace_
and _the horrors of war_, and no one would venture to say the
opposite--‘the blessings of war’ or ‘the horrors of peace.’ In all
churches prayers are offered for peaceful times and for deliverance
from the sword or wars, which are placed along with fire, famine,
pestilence, earthquake and flood. With the exception of savage paganism
all religions condemn war in principle. The Jewish prophets had
preached the coming of peace among men and peace in the whole realm
of nature. The Buddhist principle of compassion to all living beings
requires the same thing. The Christian commandment of loving one’s
enemies excludes war, since a _loved enemy_ ceases to be an enemy and
cannot be made war upon. Even the bellicose religion of Islam regards
war only as a temporary necessity and condemns it from the point of
view of the ideal. “Fight your enemies until Islam is established,”
and then “let all hostility cease” for “God abominates the aggressor”
(_Koran_, sura ii.).
II
Thus to the first question with regard to war there exists only one
indisputable answer: _war is an evil_. Evil may be either absolute
(such as deadly sin, eternal damnation) or relative, that is, it may be
less than some other evil, and, as compared with it, may be regarded as
a good (_e.g._ a surgical operation to save a patient’s life).
The significance of war is not exhausted by the negative definition
of it as an evil and a calamity. There is also a positive element in
it--not in the sense that it can itself be normal, but in the sense
that it may be actually necessary in the given conditions. _This_ way
of regarding abnormal phenomena in general is not to be avoided and
must be adopted in virtue of the direct demands of the moral ideal and
not in contradiction to it. Thus, for instance, every one will agree
that, speaking generally, it is godless, inhuman, and unnatural to
throw children out of the window on to the pavement. Yet in case of a
fire, if there were no other means of extricating the unfortunate babes
from the burning house, this terrible action would become permissible
and even obligatory. It is obvious that the rule to throw children in
extreme cases out of the window is not an independent principle on a
level with the moral principle of saving those in danger; this latter
moral demand still remains the _only_ motive of action. It is not a
case of deviation from the moral norm but of actual realisation of that
norm in a way which, though dangerous and irregular, proves from real
necessity to be the only possible one _under given conditions_.
It may be that war too depends upon a necessity which renders this
essentially abnormal course of action permissible and even obligatory
_under certain conditions_. This question can only be settled by an
appeal to history. Sometimes, however, it is mistakenly treated from
the wider naturally-scientific point of view, and the necessity of
war is connected with the alleged universal principle of struggle for
existence.
In truth, however, the struggle for existence neither in the human nor
in the animal kingdom has anything to do with war. When it is said
that a certain species was _victorious_ in the struggle for existence,
this does not at all mean that it had overcome any enemies in direct
encounters or real battles. It simply means that sufficient adaptation
to external environment enabled the species in question to survive
and to multiply--which all do not equally succeed in doing. In the
struggle for existence mammoths in Siberia disappeared and martens
were victorious. But this does not mean, of course, that martens were
braver than mammoths and exterminated the latter in open fight with
the help of their teeth and paws. In a similar way the Jewish nation,
which is comparatively small and was disarmed long ago, has proved to
be unconquerable in the struggle for existence, whilst many centuries
of military successes did not save from downfall the huge Roman Empire,
as well as other warlike states that had preceded it.
Just as the struggle for existence is independent of war and carried
on by methods which have nothing in common with fighting, so, on the
other hand, war has grounds of its own distinct from the struggle for
the means of livelihood. If the latter were the only ground of war, the
primitive epoch of history would have been the most peaceful of all.
For men were then few in number, their demands were of the simplest,
and each had ample room for satisfying them. Fighting and mutual
extermination would in that case involve great risks and bring no
advantages. In this respect the normal issue of all quarrels suggested
itself naturally. “And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I
pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen;
for we be brethren (_ki anashim achim anachnu_). Is not the whole land
before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take
the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the
right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and
beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere,
before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the
Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose
him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated
themselves the one from the other” (Gen. xiii. 8-11).
If such friendly agreement was, however, but a rare occurrence in
those days, and, speaking generally, the mutual relations of primitive
humanity were more like ‘bellum omnium contra omnes,’ according to
the well-known theory of Hobbes, this was due, not to the inevitable
struggle for existence, but to the free play of evil passions. The
fratricide with which history begins was caused by _envy_ and not by
_hunger_. And the most ancient poetical work that has been handed
down--the savage song of Lamech, a grandson of Cain, recorded in
the Bible--bears witness not to material need but to savage malice,
vindictiveness and ferocious pride. “And Lamech said unto his wives,
Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my
speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my
hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and
sevenfold” (Gen. iv. 23, 24).
III
The predominance of such feelings at a time when the human race,
multiplying slowly as compared with the majority of other animals, was
small in number, would have menaced it with speedy extermination were
not the war of all against all counterbalanced from the first by the
tie of kinship. This tie has its root in the maternal instinct, is
developed by means of family feelings and relations, and receives its
final sanction in the religion of ancestor-worship. The kinship-group
organisation (in the wide sense[174]), which resulted from all these
circumstances, may be regarded as the primitive stage in the historical
development of humanity, which had never consisted of separate
isolated entities at war with one another. The tie of kinship had
existed from the first, and the ‘war of all against all’ expresses
the mutual relation not between separate individuals, but between
distinct groups, each of which was held together by kinship. This
does not mean, of course, that each clan was as a fact at continual
war with other clans, but only that no clan was secure against, or
protected from, the possibility of war with any other clan. This state
of things, however, could not be permanent. It was only in rare cases
that war between clans ended in the extermination of the weaker.
Given a certain equality of power, the issue of war was a treaty
or contract sanctioned by religion. On the other hand, the weaker
groups, to avoid extermination in an unequal struggle, either severally
joined a stronger clan and became subordinate to it, or many of them
together formed a federated union. Thus war itself gave rise to rights
and treaties as a security of peace. Such unions of tribes are the
beginning of the _state_.
At the period with which continuous historical records begin for us,
a considerable part of humanity was already organised into states.
There were two fundamental types of state: the Western or Hellenic
_republic_, _i.e._ a small city commune, and the Eastern _despotic
monarchy_, an extensive organisation embracing either one (as in Egypt)
or many nations (the so-called world empires).
Without the state there could be no progress in human culture, based
upon a complex co-operation of many forces. Such cooperation was
impossible to any large extent for disconnected tribes, at constant
blood-feud with one another. In the state we find human masses for the
first time in history acting in concord. War has already been banished
from within these masses and transferred to the wider circumference of
the state. In the primitive social group all grown-up men are always
under arms. In the state warriors either form a special caste or
profession, or, in the case of conscription, military service is merely
a temporary occupation of the citizens. _The organisation of war_ by
the state is the first great step towards the _establishment of peace_.
This is particularly clear in the history of large states built up by
conquest--the so-called world empires. Each conquest meant in this case
the spreading of peace, that is, a widening of the circle within which
war ceased to be a normal event and became a criminal feud--a rare and
reprehensible accident. ‘The world empires’ undoubtedly strove, though
only half consciously, to give peace to the world by subjugating all
nations to one common power. The greatest of the states founded upon
conquest, the Roman Empire, directly described itself as _peace_--‘_pax
Romana_.’
But the older monarchies also aimed at the same thing. Inscriptions of
the Assyrian and Persian kings, discovered in the nineteenth century,
leave no doubt that these conquerors considered it their true vocation
to subdue all nations for the sake of establishing peace on earth,
though their conception of the task and of the means of fulfilling
it was, as a rule, much too simple. More complex and more fruitful
were the world-wide historical plans of the Macedonian Empire, which
rested upon the superior power of Hellenic culture deeply and firmly
rooted among the conquered races of the East. The idea of universal and
eternal peace became perfectly definite among the Romans, who firmly
believed that they were destined to subjugate the universe to the power
of one single law. This idea was particularly dwelt upon by Vergil.
Apart from the well-known ‘tu regere imperio populos,’ etc.,
But Rome! ’tis thine alone, with awful sway
To rule mankind and make the world obey.
Disposing peace and war thy own majestic way
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free--
he returns to it at every opportunity in his _Aeneid_, as the inspiring
motive of the whole poem. Thus, for instance, he represents Jupiter as
saying to Venus about her descendants:
“The people Romans call, the city Rome.
To _them_ no bounds of empire I assign,
Nor term of years to their immortal line....
Then dire debate, and impious war, shall cease,
And the stern age be softened into peace.
Then banish’d faith shall once again return,
And Vestal fires in hallow’d temples burn;
And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain
The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.”
_Aeneid_ i. 278-294.
The same god tells Mercury that the ancestor of the Romans, Aeneas, is
destined to conquer Italy throbbing with war, and to instal in power
the noble line of the Teucre, who ‘shall on the conquered world impose
the law’ (_Aeneid_ iv. 229-231).
In comparing the four ‘world empires’ we find that as they succeeded
one another they gradually approached the ideal of _universal_ peace
both from the point of view of their extension and of their inner
principles. The first empire, the Assyro-Babylonian, did not extend
beyond near Asia, was supported by constant devastating wars, and its
legislation was limited to military decrees. The second empire, that of
Cyrus and the Achaemenides, added to the near Asia a considerable part
of Central Asia on the one hand and extended to Egypt on the other;
its inner force was the light religion of Ormuzd, which sanctioned
morality and justice. In the third empire, that of Alexander and his
successors, historical East was for the first time united to historical
West, and the two were welded together not merely by the force of the
sword but also by the ideal elements of hellenic culture. Finally,
the progress made by the fourth--the Roman Empire, consisted both in
the fact that Romans extended the former unity as far as the Atlantic
Ocean, and that they gave it a firm political organisation and a stable
juridical form. War was inevitably the means and the armed powers the
necessary support of this work of establishing peace. War and peace
were correctly symbolised by the opposed but inseparable faces of the
Roman god Janus.
War unites more powerfully than anything else the inner forces of each
of the warring states and at the same time proves to be the condition
for subsequent coming together and mutual interpenetration of the
opponents themselves. This is most clearly seen in the history of
Greece. It was only three times in the course of their history that the
majority of independent Greek tribes and city-states united for the
sake of a common cause and manifested their inner national unity in a
practical way--and every time it was due to a war: the Trojan war at
the beginning, the Persian wars in the middle, and the expedition of
Alexander the Great as the culminating achievement, owing to which the
creations of the national genius of Greece finally became the common
property of humanity.
The Trojan war established the Greek element in Asia Minor, where,
nurtured by other civilising influences, it blossomed out for the first
time. It was on the shores of Asia Minor that Greek poetry was born
(the Homeric epos) and that the most ancient school of their philosophy
arose and developed (Thales of Miletus, Heracleitus of Ephesus). The
quickening of the united national forces in the struggle with the
Persians gave rise to another and a still more rich manifestation of
the creative genius of the Greeks. And the conquests of Alexander,
throwing as they did these ripe seeds of Hellenism on to the ancient
soil of civilised Asia and Egypt, produced that great Helleno-oriental
synthesis of religious and philosophical ideas which, together with the
subsequent unity established by the Roman Empire, was the necessary
historical condition for the spread of Christianity. Without the
Greek language and Greek ideas, as well as without the ‘Roman peace’
and Roman military roads, the work of preaching the Gospel could not
have been accomplished so quickly as it was and on so wide a scale.
The Greek words and ideas became common property solely thanks to the
warlike Alexander and his generals; the Roman ‘peace’ was attained
through many centuries of wars, and was guarded by legions; and it
was for these legions that the roads were made along which walked the
apostles. ‘Throughout the earth their voice was heard and to the ends
of the world their words went forth,’ sings the Church. This ‘earth,’
these ‘ends of the world,’ were no other than the wide circle (_orbis_)
which Rome drew round itself with its blood-stained sword.
Thus all the wars in which ancient history abounds served to increase
the sphere of peace. The heathen ‘kingdoms of the _beast_’ prepared the
way for the messengers proclaiming the kingdom of the Son of _man_.
Apart from this, however, the military history of antiquity shows
important progress in the direction of peace in another respect. Not
only did war serve the purposes of peace; as time went on, lesser
and lesser numbers of active military forces were required for the
attainment of these purposes, while the peaceful results became, on the
contrary, more and more important and far-reaching. This paradoxical
fact is beyond dispute. In order to take Troy it was necessary for
almost all the Greek population to be under arms for a period of ten
years,[175] and the direct result of this terrible effort was next
to nothing. But to accomplish the great catastrophe--the conquest
of the East by Alexander the Great, which crowned the whole of the
Greek history and had immediate consequences for the civilisation of
the world, all that was needed from the military point of view was a
three-year long expedition of an army of thirteen thousand men. If we
compare the results and, on the other hand, take into account the total
population of Greece and Macedon under Alexander and the small number
of the Achaean population which sent to Troy so large a contingent of
military force, we shall be struck by the relative _diminution_ that
has taken place in the course of these seven centuries in the number
of lives that had to be sacrificed for the attainment of historical
purposes. Another comparison leads to the same conclusion. The Persian
Empire, whose millions of soldiers could not secure to it military
success in the struggle with tiny Greece, was hardly able to exist
for two centuries. The Roman Empire, three times as great and with a
population of at least 200 millions, kept under arms some 400 thousand
legionaries to defend its endless frontiers, and existed three times
as long as the kingdom of Darius and Xerxes. And how immeasurably
more important to humanity were the blessings of culture guarded by
those few legions than the objects for the sake of which gathered
the innumerable hordes of the king of kings! The nature of military
progress exemplified in the advantages of the Macedonian phalanx
and the Roman legion over the Persian hordes, consisted, generally
speaking, in the preponderance of quality over quantity and of form
over matter. It was at the same time a great moral and social progress,
since it led to an enormous decrease in the number of human lives
swallowed up by war.
IV
When the Roman world--and peace--came to be replaced by the Christian,
the problem of war remained essentially unchanged on its externally
historical side. True, by its absolute condemnation of all hatred and
enmity, Christianity abolished the principle, the moral root of war.
But cutting down the roots does not mean felling the tree; and indeed
the preachers of the Gospel did not wish to fell this Nebuchadnezzar’s
tree, for they knew that the earth needed its shade until out of the
small seed of true faith there would grow up, to replace it, ‘the
greatest of plants,’ under the boughs of which there would be secure
shelter both for men and beasts of the field.
The teachers of Christianity did not reject the state and its
destination to ‘bear the sword against the wicked,’ and therefore they
did not reject war. The followers of the new faith saw great triumph
in the fact that two victorious wars allowed Caesar Constantine to
plant the cross of Christ over the old unchanged building of the Roman
Empire. Under the unchanged external appearance of the state, however,
secret spiritual forces were at work. The state, even when surmounted
by the cross, ceased for the Christian to be the supreme good and the
final form of life. Faith in the eternal Rome, that is, in the absolute
significance of political unity, was replaced by the expectation
of ‘the new Jerusalem,’ that is, of the inner spiritual union of
regenerated men and nations. Apart, however, from human consciousness
being thus ideally raised to a higher level, the process of external
realisation of unity in the body of humanity continued unceasingly,
though at first slowly.
The Christian world (_tota christianitas_, _toute la chrétienté_),
which in the Middle Ages took the place of the ancient Roman Empire,
was considerably wider than it. True, there were frequent wars within
it--just as in the Roman Empire there had been insurrections of
peoples and mutinies of military leaders; but the representatives of
the Christian principles looked upon these wars as upon lamentable
feuds, and in every way tried to put a stop to them. As to the constant
struggle between the Christian and the Mahommedan world (in Spain
and the Levant), it undoubtedly was in the interests of progress and
culture. The defence of Christianity against the advance of Islam
preserved for historical humanity the possibility of higher spiritual
development which was in danger of being submerged by the comparatively
lower religious principle.[176] Besides, the interaction between
the two worlds, though based on hostility, could not be limited to
bloodshed alone and gradually led to a widening of the intellectual
horizon on both sides. It thus prepared the ground in the case of
Christians for the great epoch of the Renaissance of arts and learning,
and later on for the Reformation.
In modern history three general facts have the most important bearing
upon the question we are considering--namely, (1) the development
of nationality; (2) the corresponding development of international
relations of all kinds; and (3) the extension of the unity of culture
to the whole of the globe.
Having freed themselves from the tutelage of the Roman Church, and
rejected the impotent pretensions of the holy Roman Empire, European
nations became differentiated into independent political wholes. Each
national state recognised itself and was recognised by others as a
_perfect body_, as possessed, _i.e._, of supreme authority or absolute
fulness of power and therefore as unsubordinated to any other power on
earth. The direct consequences of this national segregation were not
favourable to the cause of peace. In the first place, it legitimised
war even among Christian states, since war proved to be the sole means
of settling disputes between separate and absolutely independent wholes
which had no supreme arbiter to appeal to, after the manner in which
in the Middle Ages they always could, and sometimes did, appeal to the
Pope and to the Emperor. Secondly, the national idea, when taken to be
the supreme principle in the life of nations, naturally became national
pride; patriotism lost its true character; active love for one’s own
people became idolatrous worship of it as of the supreme good, and this
in its turn passed into hatred and contempt for other nations, and led
to unjust aggressive wars and oppression of other peoples.
Concealed by these negative features, however, lies the positive
significance of nationality. Nations must live and develop in their
essential peculiarities as the living organs of humanity; apart from
them its unity would be dead and devoid of content, and this peace
of death would be worse than war. The true unity of mankind and the
hoped-for peace must be based not upon the weakness and subjugation
of nations but upon the highest development of their powers and a
free interaction between nationalities which serve as a complement to
one another. And in spite of all the efforts of national selfishness
which strives to bring about hostile estrangement between nations,
positive interaction among them exists, and is constantly increasing
in depth and in breadth. The former international relations have not
disappeared but have gained in inner force, and new ones have been
added to them. Thus in the West the Roman Church, in spite of losing
its external power, has considerately gained in spiritual authority;
it has been purged of many of the crude abuses of the Middle Ages, and
has made good by other conquests the damage it deservedly suffered
at the hands of the Reformation. By the side of this Church and
in opposition to it arose the equally wide-embracing and powerful
brotherhood of the freemasons, which, however enigmatic it may be
in other respects, is unquestionably international and universal
in character. Relations of another kind came to be established on
an unprecedented scale in the economic sphere. _World-market_ came
into existence. There is not a single country which is economically
self-sufficient, producing everything necessary for itself, getting
nothing from others and giving them nothing in return, so that the idea
of the state as ‘a perfect body,’ _i.e._ an absolutely independent
social organism, proves in this fundamental respect to be the purest
fiction. Further, constant co-operation of all educated countries in
scientific and technical work, the results of which immediately become
common property; inventions whereby distance is annulled; the daily
press, with its continual news from everywhere; finally, the remarkable
increase in the international ‘exchange of substances’ by the new means
of communication--all this makes civilised humanity one whole which
actually, even though involuntarily, lives one common life.
And civilised humanity tends more and more to become _the whole_ of
humanity. When at the beginning of modern history Europeans extended
their activity on all sides, taking America in the West, India in the
South-east, and Siberia in the North-east, the greater part of the
globe proved to be in their power. Now this power may be said to have
extended to the whole of the globe. The Mahommedan world is surrounded
and permeated through and through with European culture, and it is only
in the tropical deserts of the Soudan that it can, and that without
any hope of success, maintain its primitive independence (the kingdom
of the Dervishes). The whole of the African coast has been divided
between European Powers, and now the centre of the black continent has
become the arena of their rivalry. Mongolian Asia--China and Japan--had
alone remained outside the boundary of European influence, but this
last barrier between human races is being removed before our eyes.
With astonishing success and rapidity the Japanese, in the course
of a quarter of a century, acquired all the material and positively
scientific side of European civilisation and then at once proceeded
to prove to their Mongolian brethren, in the most convincing way
possible, the necessity of following their example. The Chinese, who
had already been shaken in their self-confidence by the English, but
were still rather slow at understanding these foreigners, understood
a fellow-nation at once; and henceforth the famous wall of China is
no longer a symbol of a continuing isolation but only a relic of the
irrevocable past.
We must now consider what bearing this curious process of ‘gathering
together of lands’ by means of a single material culture had upon
war. On the one hand, war played an _active_ part in it. The wars
of the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars are well known to have
had a powerful influence upon the advance and the dissemination of
universally-European ideas which conditioned the scientific, technical,
and economic progress of the nineteenth century and thus brought about
the material unification of humanity. In a similar way the final act
of that unification--its extension to the last stronghold of isolated
barbarism, China--began, in our eyes, with war and not with peaceful
persuasion. On the other hand, the universality of material culture,
realised partly through means of war, itself becomes a powerful means
and ground of peace. At the present time the enormous majority of
the population of the globe constitutes one connected body, between
the parts of which there is physical, if not moral, solidarity. This
solidarity shows itself in the sphere from which none can escape--the
economic sphere. Some industrial crisis in New York immediately makes
itself felt in Moscow and Calcutta. The body of humanity has evolved
a common sense-organ (_sensorium commune_), owing to which every
particular stimulus _sensibly_ produces a general effect.
Every prolonged and serious war is inevitably accompanied by profound
economic disturbances which are bound to be _world-wide_, now that the
different parts of the earth have become so closely connected. This
state of things was being evolved throughout the nineteenth century,
though it became clear to all only at the end of it. It is a sufficient
foundation for the _fear of war_, completely unknown in earlier times,
which has now taken possession of all civilised nations. During the
first half of the century wars became shorter and more rare. Between
Waterloo and Sebastopol, Europe had forty years of peace--a thing which
had not happened during the whole of its previous history. Later on,
special historical causes brought about several comparatively short
European wars in 1859, 1864, 1866, and 1870; the Russo-Turkish war
of 1877-78 could not be made into a general European war. The most
important of these wars--the Franco-Prussian--is very characteristic.
It left in the most civilised nation of Europe a feeling of national
injury and a thirst for vengeance--and yet for the last twenty-eight
years these feelings have not been able to pass into action solely from
fear of war. In the seventeenth or eighteenth century, not to speak of
epochs more remote, such prudence would have been quite inconceivable.
And what do the monstrous armaments of European countries indicate
if not the terrible, overwhelming fear of war, and consequently the
approaching end of wars?[177]
It would be irrational, however, to think and to act as though that
approaching end had already come. Although the common economic
sensorium does at present unite all the parts of the earth with a tie
of which the people themselves are conscious, yet this tie is not
everywhere of the same strength and the parts are not all equally
sensitive. There are still some nations left which in the case of a
world war risk little--and there are some which are prepared to risk a
great deal. The introduction of the Mongolian race into the sphere of
the material European culture has a twofold significance. This race,
the chief representatives of which, the Chinese people, number at least
two hundred million souls, are noted for great racial pride and extreme
contempt for life, both their own and other people’s. It is more than
probable that the now inevitable acquisition of the technique of
European culture by the yellow race will only serve it as a means for
proving in a decisive struggle the superiority of its spiritual powers
over the spiritual powers of Europe. This forthcoming armed struggle
between Europe and Mongolian Asia will certainly be the last war, but
it will on that account be all the more terrible. It will indeed be a
world war, and it is not a matter of indifference to the destinies of
humanity which side will prove victorious.
V
There is a wonderful system and unity in the general history of human
wars, the chief moments of which I have indicated. From the rosy mist
of historical childhood there stands out in the first place the clear
though half-fantastical image of the Trojan war--that first great
encounter of East and West, of Europe and Asia. This is how Herodotus
regarded the Trojan war, with which his history begins; and it is not
for nothing that the first inspired work of purely human poetry (the
_Iliad_) is connected with it too. This war was indeed the beginning of
the earthly, worldly history of humanity which throughout its course
turns round the fateful struggle between East and West, while its arena
is becoming wider and wider. Now that arena has reached its utmost
limit--the whole surface of the globe. In the place of the deserted
Skamander there is the Pacific Ocean, in the place of the smoking
Troy--the ominous mass of China, and the struggle is still as before
between the opposing principles of East and West. There was a moment
of crisis, a pause in the struggle, when, following upon the external
union of the historical East with the West in the Roman Empire--under
the power of the descendants of Aeneas of Troy,--the light of
Christianity abolished the ancient hostility from within:
And streaming afar the light that came
Out of the East arose,
And glimmering with portent and celestial power
It reconciled East and West.
But the old material and cultural union proved to be unstable, and the
spiritual is still awaiting its final realisation. True, in the place
of the political unity of the Roman Empire, modern humanity has evolved
another unity--the economic one, which, like the first, puts great
external obstacles in the way of armed struggle. But these obstacles
which have of late saved us from a _European_ war are unable to
prevent the last and the greatest struggle between the two worlds--of
Europe and of Asia. These now are no longer represented by separate
peoples, such as the Acheans and the Trojans, or even the Greeks and
the Persians, but appear in their true proportions as the two great
and hostile halves into which _the whole of humanity_ is divided. The
victory of one side or another will indeed give peace to the whole
world. There will be no more struggle between nations; but the question
still remains whether this political peace, this establishment of
international unity in the shape of a world empire--be it a monarchy or
some other form of state,--will indeed mean a real and lasting peace,
whether it will stop the struggle--sometimes an armed struggle--between
other, non-political elements of humanity. Or, maybe, it will simply
be a repetition on a vast scale of what has happened, within our
memory, in more narrow limits. Germany had once consisted of many
states at war with one another. The national body suffered from lack
of real unity, and the creation of such a unity was the cherished
dream of the patriots. It came to be realised after several wars--and
it proved to be insufficient. The Germans, of course, will never
relinquish their political unity, but they clearly see that it was
only one necessary step forward and not the attainment of the supreme
goal. The political struggle between small states came to be replaced
throughout the empire by a more deep-rooted struggle--religious and
economical. The Ultramontanes and the social democrats are proving
to be more formidable foes than the Austrian and the French. When
the whole of humanity is politically united, whether in the form of
a world empire or a world-wide federation of states, the question
still remains whether such union will put an end to the struggle of
freemasonry with clericalism, or appease the hostility of socialism
against the propertied classes and of anarchism against all social and
political organisation. It is clear that the struggle between religious
beliefs and material interests survives the struggle between states
and nations, and that the final establishment of external political
unity will clearly show its inner insufficiency. It will make plain
the moral truth that external peace is not necessarily a true good _in
itself_ and that it becomes a good only in connection with an inner
regeneration of humanity. And it is only when the insufficiency of
external union will have been known _by experience_ and not merely in
theory that the time will be ripe for spiritualising the united body
of the universe, and for realising in it the Kingdom of Truth and of
Eternal Peace.
VI
War, as we have seen, has been the chief historical means of bringing
about the external political unification of humanity. Wars between
clans and tribes led to the formation of the state which abolished
war within its own limits. External wars between separate states gave
rise to vaster and more complex political bodies possessing a unity of
culture, and seeking to establish peace and equilibrium within their
limits. At one time the whole mass of humanity, broken up and divided,
was permeated through and through with war which never ceased between
innumerable small groups. War was everywhere; but gradually driven
further and further back it now appears to be an almost inevitable
danger at one point only--at the dividing line between the two chief
races into which historical humanity is divided. The process of
unification is drawing towards its end, but that end has not yet come.
It is extremely improbable that the yellow race will peacefully enter
within the circle of European culture, and, from the historical point
of view, there is no reason to believe that war is to be immediately
and completely abolished. Is, however, this point of view binding upon
the moral consciousness?
The matter appears as follows: “Whatever the historical significance
of war may be, it is in the first place murder of men by men. But our
conscience condemns murder, and therefore we ought conscientiously to
refuse to take any part in war, and ought to persuade others to do
the same. To spread such a view by word and example is the true and
the only certain means of abolishing war, since it is clear that when
every one refuses to do military service, war will become impossible.”
In order that this argument might be convincing, it would have in
the first place to be proved that war and even military service is
the same as murder. But this is not the case. Military service means
only a _possibility of war_. During the forty years between the
wars of Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. several million men in Europe
underwent military training, but only an insignificant part of them
had actual experience of war. Even when war does break out, however,
it cannot be reduced to murder, that is, to a crime which presupposes
evil intention directed upon a certain object, upon this particular
man whose life I take. In war the individual soldier has, generally
speaking, no such intention, especially with the present method of
fighting by means of guns and cannons against an enemy who is too far
off to be _seen_. Only in cases of actual hand-to-hand fighting does
the question of conscience arise for the individual, and then it must
be decided by each according to his conscience. Speaking generally,
war as a conflict between collective organisms (states) and their
collective organs (armies) is not the work of individuals who play a
passive part in it, and for them possible murder is _accidental_ only.
It might be said, however, that it is better to avoid the very
possibility of accidental murder by refusing to do military service.
This is undoubtedly true if it is a question of free choice. A man
who has attained a certain level of moral consciousness, or one whose
feeling of pity is strongly developed, will certainly not choose the
army as a profession, but will prefer to follow a peaceful calling.
But so far as compulsory military service required by the state is
concerned, it must be admitted that so long as it exists a refusal on
the part of the individual to submit to it is a _greater evil_ than
the institution itself, however much we may disapprove of the modern
system of universal military service, the disadvantages of which are
obvious and the efficiency doubtful. The person who refuses to serve
his time in the army _knows_ that the requisite number of recruits will
_in any case_ be gathered and that _somebody else_ will be called in
_his_ stead. Therefore he _consciously_ forces his neighbour, who would
otherwise be free, to all the hardships of military service. Besides,
the whole meaning of such a refusal satisfies the demands neither of
logic nor of morality, since this is what it comes to. For the sake
of avoiding a remote _future_ possibility of accidentally killing an
enemy in a war which will not depend upon me, I myself declare war
to the state _now_ and _compel_ its representatives to take a number
of violent measures against me _at once_, in order that I might save
myself from committing problematic and accidental violence in the
unknown future.
The purpose of military service is defined in our law by the formula
‘to defend the throne and the fatherland,’ that is, the political whole
to which a given individual belongs. The state may, as it often has
done in the past, abuse its armed forces, and, instead of self-defence,
undertake unjust and aggressive wars; but this is not a sufficient
ground for determining my own present actions. Such actions must be
solely determined by _my own_ moral duties and not by those of others.
The question then in the last resort comes to this: _Is it my moral
duty to take part in the defence of my country?_
Theories which take up an absolutely negative attitude towards war
and maintain that it is the duty of every one to refuse the demand of
the state for military service, altogether deny that the individual
has any duties towards the state. From their point of view the state
is simply a band of brigands who hypnotise the crowd in order to keep
it in subjection and to use it for their own purposes. But seriously
to believe that this account exhausts or in the least expresses the
_true nature of the case_ would be altogether too naïve. This view is
particularly ill-founded when it appeals to Christianity.
Christianity has revealed to us our absolute dignity, the unconditional
worth of the inner being or of the soul of man. This unconditional
worth imposes upon us an unconditional duty--to realise the good in the
whole of our life, both personal and collective. We know _for certain_
that this task is impossible for the individual taken separately or
in isolation, and that it can only be realised if the individual life
finds its _completion_ in the universal historical life of humanity.
One of the means of such completion, one of the forms of the universal
life--at the present moment of history the chief and the dominant
form--is the _fatherland_ definitely organised as the _state_. This
form is not, of course, the supreme and final expression of human
solidarity, and the fatherland must not be put in the place of God
and of His universal kingdom. But from the fact that the state is not
everything, it by no means follows that it is unnecessary and that it
would be right to aim at abolishing it.
Suppose that the country in which I live is visited by a calamity
such as famine. What is in this case the duty of the individual as
an unconditionally moral being? Both reason and conscience clearly
say that he must do one of two things--either feed all the hungry or
himself die of starvation. It is impossible for me to feed millions who
are starving, and yet my conscience does not in the least reproach me
for remaining alive. Now this is naturally due to the fact that the
state takes upon itself my moral duty to provide bread for all the
starving, and that it can fulfil it owing to its collective resources
and to its organisation intended for prompt action on a wide scale. In
this case the state proves to be an institution which can successfully
perform work that is morally binding but physically impossible for
the individual. If, however, the state fulfils for me my direct moral
duties, it cannot be said that I owe nothing to it and that it has
no claim upon me. If it had not been for it I would have been in
conscience bound to give my very life; can I then refuse to contribute
my small share towards the means which it needs for carrying out my own
work?
But, it will be said, the rates and taxes collected by the state may
be expended upon things which appear to me to be useless, and even
pernicious, instead of upon obviously useful work. In that case it will
be my duty to expose such abuses, but certainly not to deny, by word
and deed, the very principle of taxation by the state, the recognised
destination of which is to serve the general welfare.
Now the military organisation of the state is really based upon the
same principle. If savages such as the Caucasian mountaineers of the
old days, or the Kurds and the Black Flags of the present times,
attack a traveller with the obvious intention of murdering him and his
family, it is no doubt his _duty_ to fight them--not out of hostility
or malice against them, not to save his life at the expense of his
neighbour’s life, but to save the defenceless beings entrusted to his
protection. To help others in such circumstances is an absolute moral
duty, and it cannot be limited to one’s own family. But successfully
to defend all the weak and innocent against the attacks of evil-doers
is impossible for isolated individuals or even for groups of many men.
Collective organisation of such defence is precisely the destination of
the military force of the state, and to support the state in one way
or another in this work of pity is the moral duty of every one, which
no abuses can render void. Just as the fact that ergot is poisonous
does not prove that rye is injurious, so the burdens and the dangers of
_militarism_ are no evidence against the necessity of armed forces.
The military or indeed any compulsory organisation is not an evil,
but a consequence and a symptom of evil. There was no trace of such an
organisation at the time when the innocent shepherd Abel was killed by
his brother out of malice. Justly fearing lest the same thing should
happen to Seth and other peaceful men, the guardian angels of humanity
mixed the clay with copper and iron and created the soldier and the
policeman. And until Cain’s feelings disappear from the hearts of men,
soldier and policeman will be a good and not an evil. Hostility against
the state and its representatives is, after all, _hostility_--and this
fact would alone be sufficient to justify the _necessity_ of the state.
And it is strange, indeed, to be hostile to it for the sole reason
that the state merely limits by external means and does not inwardly
abolish in the whole world the malice which we are unable to abolish in
ourselves!
VII
Between the historical necessity of war on the one hand, and the
abstract denial of it on the other, lies the duty of the individual
to the organised whole--the state--which, down to the end of history,
conditions both the existence and the progress of humanity. The
unquestionable fact, however, that the state possesses the means
both for preserving human society in its present condition, and also
for moving it forward, imposes upon the individual other duties with
regard to the state than a mere fulfilment of its lawful demands. Such
fulfilment would be sufficient were the state a perfect embodiment of
the normal social order. But since in truth it is only the condition
and the means of human progress, and is itself gradually becoming more
perfect in different respects, it is the duty of the individual to
take, so much as in him lies, active part in this general political
progress. The individual is the bearer of the absolute moral
consciousness, of the perfect ideal of truth and peace, or of the
kingdom of God. This consciousness he received, not from the state,
but from above and from within. The ideal, however, cannot be actually
_realised_ in the collective life of humanity except by means of a
_preparatory_ state organisation. Hence for every individual who really
adopts the moral point of view there follows the direct positive duty
of helping the state by persuasion or preaching to fulfil in the best
possible way its preliminary function. _After_ this function has been
discharged--but not _until_ then--the state itself will of course
become superfluous. The individual both can and must thus influence
society both with reference to war and to all other aspects of the
political life.
The evil of war is in the extreme hostility and hatred between the
_disjecta membra_ of humanity. In personal relations bad feelings are
not justified by any one, and it is useless to denounce them. In the
case of international hatred, however, the bad feeling is usually
associated with false opinions and erroneous reasoning, and is indeed
often created by them. To struggle against this deception is the first
duty of every man who truly desires to bring humanity nearer to a good
peace.
As to the future decisive struggle between Europe and Asia, probable
as it is, it does not threaten us as an unavoidable impending doom.
The future is still in our hands. The first condition which could
render the peaceful inclusion of the Mongolian race within the circle
of Christian culture possible--though not very probable--is that the
Christian nations should themselves become more Christian, and that in
_all_ relations of the collective life they should be more guided by
moral principles than by shameful selfishness and evil economic and
religious hostility.
Not long ago at the world congress of religion in Chicago some Asiatic
men--Buddhists and Brahmanists--addressed the Europeans with the
following words, expressive of the popular opinion of the East: “You
send to us missionaries to preach your religion. We do not deny its
merits, but having got to know you during the last two centuries we
see that your whole life is opposed to the demands of your faith. You
are moved, not by the spirit of love and truth which your God revealed
to you, but by the spirit of greed and violence, natural to all bad
people. It must then be one of two things: either your religion, in
spite of its inner excellence, cannot be practically realised, and
therefore is of no use even to you who profess it; or you are so bad
that you do not want to fulfil the demands which you can and you ought
to fulfil. In either case you have no advantage over us and you should
leave us in peace.” The only convincing answer to this criticism are
deeds and not words. Asia would be neither justified in fighting nor
capable of conquering a Europe that was inwardly united and truly
Christian.
War has been the direct means of the external and the indirect means of
the inward unification of humanity. Reason forbids us to give up this
weapon so long as it is needed, but conscience compels us to strive
that it should be _needed no longer_, and that the natural organisation
of the human race divided into hostile parts should really become a
moral or spiritual organisation. Such an organisation has its source
in the nature of man, is inwardly based upon the absolute good, and
attains complete realisation through means of the world history. The
description of this moral organisation, or of the totality of the
moral conditions which justify the good in the world, must be the
coping-stone of moral philosophy.
FOOTNOTES:
[174] See above, Chap. X.
[175] The number of Greek forces given in the _Iliad_ cannot, of
course, be taken as literally exact, but as an approximate estimate.
This number (110,000 men) seems to be entirely probable. It should be
noted with reference to the _Iliad_ generally that recent excavations
have re-established the historical value of the poem, allowing, of
course, for its mythological setting.
[176] See above, Part III., Chap. V.
[177] The three last half-European wars do not contradict this
statement. The Servo-Bulgarian war of 1885, the Greco-Turkish of 1897,
and the Spanish-American of 1898 all came to an end before they had
really begun.