In the modern world, the principle of growth in most men and

WHY MEN FIGHT

_A METHOD OF ABOLISHING

THE INTERNATIONAL DUEL_

BY

BERTRAND RUSSELL, M.A., F.R.S.

Sometime Fellow and Lecturer in Trinity

College, Cambridge

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1920

Copyright, 1916, by

THE CENTURY CO.

_Published, January, 1917_

Le souffle, le rhythme, la vraie force populaire manqua à la réaction.

Elle eut les rois, les trésors, les armées; elle écrasa les peuples,

mais elle resta muette. Elle tua en silence; elle ne put parler qu’avec

le canon sur ses horribles champs de bataille.... Tuer quinze millions

d’hommes par la faim et l’épée, à la bonne heure, cela se peut.

Mais faire un petit chant, un air aimé de tous, voilà ce que nulle

machination ne donnera.... Don réservé, béni.... Ce chant peut-être à

l’aube jaillira d’un cœur simple, ou l’alouette le trouvera en montant

au soleil, de son sillon d’avril.

MICHELET.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE PRINCIPLE OF GROWTH 3

II THE STATE 42

III WAR AS AN INSTITUTION 79

IV PROPERTY 117

V EDUCATION 153

VI MARRIAGE AND THE POPULATION QUESTION 182

VII RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES 215

VIII WHAT WE CAN DO 245

WHY MEN FIGHT

I

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 circumstance; 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 without 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 necessary, an isolation, an almost unbearable

separation from the general activity, becomes unavoidable. At the

very moment when the universal disaster raises compassion in the

highest degree, 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 incur hostility, to be thought

unfeeling, to lose for the moment the power of winning belief. It is

impossible to prevent others from feeling hostile, but it is possible

to avoid any reciprocal hostility on one’s own part, by imaginative

understanding 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 view in this country is that it is due to the wickedness

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. Germans, and also the men who compose

Governments, 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 accepted 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 index to their impulses—not necessarily to

individual 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

reasonable 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 believe 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.

War, to those who see that it must necessarily do untold harm to all

the combatants, seems a mere madness, a collective insanity in which

all that has been known in time of peace is forgotten. If impulses

were more controlled, if thought were less dominated by passion, men

would guard their minds against the approaches of war fever, and

disputes would be adjusted amicably. This is true, but it is not by

itself sufficient. It is only those in whom the desire to think truly

is itself a passion who will find this desire adequate to control the

passions of war. Only passion can control passion, and only a contrary

impulse or desire can check impulse. Reason, as it is preached by

traditional moralists, is too negative, too little living, to make a

good life. It is not by reason alone that wars can be prevented, but by

a positive life of impulses and passions antagonistic to those that

lead to war. It is the life of impulse that needs to be changed, not

only the life of conscious thought.

All human activity springs from two sources: impulse and desire. The

part played by desire has always been sufficiently recognized. When men

find themselves not fully contented, and not able instantly to procure

what will cause content, imagination brings before their minds the

thought of things which they believe would make them happy. All desire

involves an interval of time between the consciousness of a need and

the opportunity for satisfying it. The acts inspired by desire may be

in themselves painful, the time before satisfaction can be achieved

may be very long, the object desired may be something outside our

own lives, and even after our own death. Will, as a directing force,

consists mainly in following desires for more or less distant objects,

in spite of the painfulness of the acts involved and the solicitations

of incompatible but more immediate desires and impulses. All this is

familiar, and political philosophy hitherto has been almost entirely

based upon desire as the source of human actions.

But desire governs no more than a part of human activity, and that not

the most important but only the more conscious, explicit, and civilized

part.

In all the more instinctive part of our nature we are dominated by

impulses to certain kinds of activity, not by desires for certain ends.

Children run and shout, not because of any good which they expect to

realize, but because of a direct impulse to running and shouting. Dogs

bay the moon, not because they consider that it is to their advantage

to do so, but because they feel an impulse to bark. It is not any

purpose, but merely an impulse, that prompts such actions as eating,

drinking, love-making, quarreling, boasting. Those who believe that

man is a rational animal will say that people boast in order that

others may have a good opinion of them; but most of us can recall

occasions when we have boasted in spite of knowing that we should

be despised for it. Instinctive acts normally achieve some result

which is agreeable to the natural man, but they are not performed

from desire for this result. They are performed from direct impulse,

and the impulse is often strong even in cases in which the normal

desirable result cannot follow. Grown men like to imagine themselves

more rational than children and dogs, and unconsciously conceal

from themselves how great a part impulse plays in their lives. This

unconscious concealment always follows a certain general plan. When an

impulse is not indulged in the moment in which it arises, there grows

up a desire for the expected consequences of indulging the impulse.

If some of the consequences which are reasonably to be expected are

clearly disagreeable, a conflict between foresight and impulse arises.

If the impulse is weak, foresight may conquer; this is what is called

acting on reason. If the impulse is strong, either foresight will be

falsified, and the disagreeable consequences will be forgotten, or, in

men of a heroic mold, the consequences may be recklessly accepted. When

Macbeth realizes that he is doomed to defeat, he does not shrink from

the fight; he exclaims:—

Lay on, Macduff,

And damned be him that first cries, Hold, enough!

But such strength and recklessness of impulse is rare. Most men, when

their impulse is strong, succeed in persuading themselves, usually by

a subconscious selectiveness of attention, that agreeable consequences

will follow from the indulgence of their impulse. Whole philosophies,

whole systems of ethical valuation, spring up in this way: they are

the embodiment of a kind of thought which is subservient to impulse,

which aims at providing a quasi-rational ground for the indulgence of

impulse. The only thought which is genuine is that which springs out

of the intellectual impulse of curiosity, leading to the desire to

know and understand. But most of what passes for thought is inspired

by some non-intellectual impulse, and is merely a means of persuading

ourselves that we shall not be disappointed or do harm if we indulge

this impulse.[1]

When an impulse is restrained, we feel discomfort or even violent pain.

We may indulge the impulse in order to escape from this pain, and

our action is then one which has a purpose. But the pain only exists

because of the impulse, and the impulse itself is directed to an act,

not to escaping from the pain of restraining the impulse. The impulse

itself remains without a purpose, and the purpose of escaping from pain

only arises when the impulse has been momentarily restrained.

Impulse is at the basis of our activity, much more than desire. Desire

has its place, but not so large a place as it seemed to have. Impulses

bring with them a whole train of subservient fictitious desires: they

make men feel that they desire the results which will follow from

indulging the impulses, and that they are acting for the sake of these

results, when in fact their action has no motive outside itself. A man

may write a book or paint a picture under the belief that he desires

the praise which it will bring him; but as soon as it is finished,

if his creative impulse is not exhausted, what he has done grows

uninteresting to him, and he begins a new piece of work. What applies

to artistic creation applies equally to all that is most vital in our

lives: direct impulse is what moves us, and the desires which we think

we have are a mere garment for the impulse.

Desire, as opposed to impulse, has, it is true, a large and increasing

share in the regulation of men’s lives. Impulse is erratic and

anarchical, not easily fitted into a well-regulated system; it may be

tolerated in children and artists, but it is not thought proper to

men who hope to be taken seriously. Almost all paid work is done from

desire, not from impulse: the work itself is more or less irksome,

but the payment for it is desired. The serious activities that fill

a man’s working hours are, except in a few fortunate individuals,

governed mainly by purposes, not by impulses towards those activities.

In this hardly any one sees an evil, because the place of impulse in a

satisfactory existence is not recognized.

An impulse, to one who does not share it actually or imaginatively,

will always seem to be mad. All impulse is essentially blind, in the

sense that it does not spring from any prevision of consequences. The

man who does not share the impulse will form a different estimate as

to what the consequences will be, and as to whether those that must

ensue are desirable. This difference of opinion will seem to be ethical

or intellectual, whereas its real basis is a difference of impulse.

No genuine agreement will be reached, in such a case, so long as the

difference of impulse persists. In all men who have any vigorous life,

there are strong impulses such as may seem utterly unreasonable to

others. Blind impulses sometimes lead to destruction and death, but

at other times they lead to the best things the world contains. Blind

impulse is the source of war, but it is also the source of science,

and art, and love. It is not the weakening of impulse that is to be

desired, but the direction of impulse towards life and growth rather

than towards death and decay.

The complete control of impulse by will, which is sometimes preached

by moralists, and often enforced by economic necessity, is not really

desirable. A life governed by purposes and desires, to the exclusion

of impulse, is a tiring life; it exhausts vitality, and leaves a man,

in the end, indifferent to the very purposes which he has been trying

to achieve. When a whole nation lives in this way, the whole nation

tends to become feeble, without enough grasp to recognize and overcome

the obstacles to its desires. Industrialism and organization are

constantly forcing civilized nations to live more and more by purpose

rather than impulse. In the long run such a mode of existence, if it

does not dry up the springs of life, produces new impulses, not of

the kind which the will has been in the habit of controlling or of

which thought is conscious. These new impulses are apt to be worse in

their effects than those that have been checked. Excessive discipline,

especially when it is imposed from without, often issues in impulses

of cruelty and destruction; this is one reason why militarism has a

bad effect on national character. Either lack of vitality, or impulses

which are oppressive and against life, will almost always result if the

spontaneous impulses are not able to find an outlet. A man’s impulses

are not fixed from the beginning by his native disposition: within

certain wide limits, they are profoundly modified by his circumstances

and his way of life. The nature of these modifications ought to be

studied, and the results of such study ought to be taken account of

in judging the good or harm that is done by political and social

institutions.

The war has grown, in the main, out of the life of impulse, not out of

reason or desire. There is an impulse of aggression, and an impulse of

resistance to aggression. Either may, on occasion, be in accordance

with reason, but both are operative in many cases in which they are

quite contrary to reason. Each impulse produces a whole harvest of

attendant beliefs. The beliefs appropriate to the impulse of aggression

may be seen in Bernhardi, or in the early Mohammedan conquerors, or,

in full perfection, in the Book of Joshua. There is first of all a

conviction of the superior excellence of one’s own group, a certainty

that they are in some sense the chosen people. This justifies the

feeling that only the good and evil of one’s own group is of real

importance, and that the rest of the world is to be regarded merely as

material for the triumph or salvation of the higher race. In modern

politics this attitude is embodied in imperialism. Europe as a whole

has this attitude towards Asia and Africa, and many Germans have this

attitude towards the rest of Europe.

Correlative to the impulse of aggression is the impulse of resistance

to aggression. This impulse is exemplified in the attitude of the

Israelites to the Philistines or of medieval Europe to the Mohammedans.

The beliefs which it produces are beliefs in the peculiar wickedness of

those whose aggression is feared, and in the immense value of national

customs which they might suppress if they were victorious. When the war

broke out, all the reactionaries in England and France began to speak

of the danger to democracy, although until that moment they had opposed

democracy with all their strength. They were not insincere in so

speaking: the impulse of resistance to Germany made them value whatever

was endangered by the German attack. They loved democracy because they

hated Germany; but they thought they hated Germany because they loved

democracy.

The correlative impulses of aggression and resistance to aggression

have both been operative in all the countries engaged in the war.

Those who have not been dominated by one or other of these impulses

may be roughly divided into three classes. There are, first, men whose

national sentiment is antagonistic to the State to which they are

subject. This class includes some Irish, Poles, Finns, Jews, and other

members of oppressed nations. From our point of view, these men may

be omitted from our consideration, since they have the same impulsive

nature as those who fight, and differ merely in external circumstances.

The second class of men who have not been part of the force supporting

the war have been those whose impulsive nature is more or less

atrophied. Opponents of pacifism suppose that all pacifists belong to

this class, except when they are in German pay. It is thought that

pacifists are bloodless, men without passions, men who can look on and

reason with cold detachment while their brothers are giving their lives

for their country. Among those who are merely passively pacifist, and

do no more than abstain from actively taking part in the war, there may

be a certain proportion of whom this is true. I think the supporters

of war would be right in decrying such men. In spite of all the

destruction which is wrought by the impulses that lead to war, there is

more hope for a nation which has these impulses than for a nation in

which all impulse is dead. Impulse is the expression of life, and while

it exists there is hope of its turning towards life instead of towards

death; but lack of impulse is death, and out of death no new life will

come.

The active pacifists, however, are not of this class: they are not men

without impulsive force but men in whom some impulse to which war is

hostile is strong enough to overcome the impulses that lead to war. It

is not the act of a passionless man to throw himself athwart the whole

movement of the national life, to urge an outwardly hopeless cause,

to incur obloquy and to resist the contagion of collective emotion.

The impulse to avoid the hostility of public opinion is one of the

strongest in human nature, and can only be overcome by an unusual force

of direct and uncalculating impulse; it is not cold reason alone that

can prompt such an act.

Impulses may be divided into those that make for life and those that

make for death. The impulses embodied in the war are among those that

make for death. Any one of the impulses that make for life, if it is

strong enough, will lead a man to stand out against the war. Some of

these impulses are only strong in highly civilized men; some are part

of common humanity. The impulses towards art and science are among the

more civilized of those that make for life. Many artists have remained

wholly untouched by the passions of the war, not from feebleness of

feeling, but because the creative instinct, the pursuit of a vision,

makes them critical of the assaults of national passion, and not

responsive to the myth in which the impulse of pugnacity clothes

itself. And the few men in whom the scientific impulse is dominant have

noticed the rival myths of warring groups, and have been led through

understanding to neutrality. But it is not out of such refined impulses

that a popular force can be generated which shall be sufficient to

transform the world.

There are three forces on the side of life which require no exceptional

mental endowment, which are not very rare at present, and might be very

common under better social institutions. They are love, the instinct

of constructiveness, and the joy of life. All three are checked and

enfeebled at present by the conditions under which men live—not only

the less outwardly fortunate, but also the majority of the well-to-do.

Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by

closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that

we can endure the oppressions and unfairnesses by which we profit. The

conventional conception of what constitutes success leads most men to

live a life in which their most vital impulses are sacrificed, and the

joy of life is lost in listless weariness. Our economic system compels

almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their

own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to secure a

certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor

of the community, the expansive affections of individuals, and the

power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary

and can be ended by wisdom and courage. If they were ended, the

impulsive life of men would become wholly different, and the human race

might travel towards a new happiness and a new vigor. To urge this hope

is the purpose of these lectures.

The impulses and desires of men and women, in so far as they are of

real importance in their lives, are not detached one from another, but

proceed from a central principle of growth, an instinctive urgency

leading them in a certain direction, as trees seek the light. So long

as this instinctive movement is not thwarted, whatever misfortunes

may occur are not fundamental disasters, and do not produce those

distortions which result from interference with natural growth. This

intimate center in each human being is what imagination must apprehend

if we are to understand him intuitively. It differs from man to man,

and determines for each man the type of excellence of which he is

capable. The utmost that social institutions can do for a man is to

make his own growth free and vigorous: they cannot force him to grow

according to the pattern of another man. There are in men some impulses

and desires—for example, those towards drugs—which do not grow out of

the central principle; such impulses, when they become strong enough

to be harmful, have to be checked by self-discipline. Other impulses,

though they may grow out of the central principle in the individual,

may be injurious to the growth of others, and they need to be checked

in the interest of others. But in the main, the impulses which are

injurious to others tend to result from thwarted growth, and to be

least in those who have been unimpeded in their instinctive development.

Men, like trees, require for their growth the right soil and a

sufficient freedom from oppression. These can be helped or hindered

by political institutions. But the soil and the freedom required for

a man’s growth are immeasurably more difficult to discover and to

obtain than the soil and the freedom required for the growth of a

tree. And the full growth which may be hoped for cannot be defined

or demonstrated; it is subtle and complex, it can only be felt by a

delicate intuition and dimly apprehended by imagination and respect.

It depends not only or chiefly upon the physical environment, but

upon beliefs and affections, upon opportunities for action, and upon

the whole life of the community. The more developed and civilized the

type of man the more elaborate are the conditions of his growth, and

the more dependent they become upon the general state of the society

in which he lives. A man’s needs and desires are not confined to his

own life. If his mind is comprehensive and his imagination vivid, the

failures of the community to which he belongs are his failures, and its

successes are his successes: according as his community succeeds or

fails, his own growth is nourished or impeded.

In the modern world, the principle of growth in most men and women

is hampered by institutions inherited from a simpler age. By the

progress of thought and knowledge, and by the increase in command over

the forces of the physical world, new possibilities of growth have

come into existence, and have given rise to new claims which must be

satisfied if those who make them are not to be thwarted. There is less

acquiescence in limitations which are no longer unavoidable, and less

possibility of a good life while those limitations remain. Institutions

which give much greater opportunities to some classes than to others

are no longer recognized as just by the less fortunate, though the

more fortunate still defend them vehemently. Hence arises a universal

strife, in which tradition and authority are arrayed against liberty

and justice. Our professed morality, being traditional, loses its hold

upon those who are in revolt. Coöperation between the defenders of the

old and the champions of the new has become almost impossible. An

intimate disunion has entered into almost all the relations of life

in continually increasing measure. In the fight for freedom, men and

women become increasingly unable to break down the walls of the Ego and

achieve the growth which comes from a real and vital union.

All our institutions have their historic basis in Authority. The

unquestioned authority of the Oriental despot found its religious

expression in the omnipotent Creator, whose glory was the sole end of

man, and against whom man had no rights. This authority descended to

the Emperor and Pope, to the kings of the Middle Ages, to the nobles

in the feudal hierarchy, and even to every husband and father in

his dealings with his wife and children. The Church was the direct

embodiment of the Divine authority, the State and the law were

constituted by the authority of the King, private property in land grew

out of the authority of conquering barons, and the family was governed

by the authority of the pater-familias.

The institutions of the Middle Ages permitted only a fortunate few

to develop freely: the vast majority of mankind existed to minister

to the few. But so long as authority was genuinely respected and

acknowledged even by its least fortunate subjects, medieval society

remained organic and not fundamentally hostile to life, since outward

submission was compatible with inward freedom because it was voluntary.

The institutions of Western Christendom embodied a theory which was

really believed, as no theory by which our present institutions can be

defended is now believed.

The medieval theory of life broke down through its failure to satisfy

men’s demands for justice and liberty. Under the stress of oppression,

when rulers exceeded their theoretical powers, the victims were forced

to realize that they themselves also had rights, and need not live

merely to increase the glory of the few. Gradually it came to be seen

that if men have power, they are likely to abuse it, and that authority

in practice means tyranny. Because the claim to justice was resisted

by the holders of power, men became more and more separate units, each

fighting for his own rights, not a genuine community bound together

by an organic common purpose. This absence of a common purpose has

become a source of unhappiness. One of the reasons which led many men

to welcome the outbreak of the present war was that it made each

nation again a whole community with a single purpose. It did this by

destroying, for the present, the beginnings of a single purpose in the

civilized world as a whole; but these beginnings were as yet so feeble

that few were much affected by their destruction. Men rejoiced in the

new sense of unity with their compatriots more than they minded the

increased separation from their enemies.

The hardening and separation of the individual in the course of the

fight for freedom has been inevitable, and is not likely ever to be

wholly undone. What is necessary, if an organic society is to grow

up, is that our institutions should be so fundamentally changed as

to embody that new respect for the individual and his rights which

modern feeling demands. The medieval Empire and Church swept away the

individual. There were heretics, but they were massacred relentlessly,

without any of the qualms aroused by later persecutions. And they, like

their persecutors, were persuaded that there ought to be one universal

Church: they differed only as to what its creed should be. Among a

few men of art and letters, the Renaissance undermined the medieval

theory, without, however, replacing it by anything but skepticism

and confusion. The first serious breach in this medieval theory was

caused by Luther’s assertion of the right of private judgment and the

fallibility of General Councils. Out of this assertion grew inevitably,

with time, the belief that a man’s religion could not be determined

for him by authority, but must be left to the free choice of each

individual. It was in matters of religion that the battle for liberty

began, and it is in matters of religion that it has come nearest to a

complete victory.[2]

The development through extreme individualism to strife, and thence,

one hopes, to a new reintegration, is to be seen in almost every

department of life. Claims are advanced in the name of justice, and

resisted in the name of tradition and prescriptive right. Each side

honestly believes that it deserves to triumph, because two theories

of society exist side by side in our thought, and men choose,

unconsciously, the theory which fits their case. Because the battle is

long and arduous all general theory is gradually forgotten; in the end,

nothing remains but self-assertion, and when the oppressed win freedom

they are as oppressive as their former masters.

This is seen most crudely in the case of what is called nationalism.

Nationalism, in theory, is the doctrine that men, by their sympathies

and traditions, form natural groups, called “nations,” each of which

ought to be united under one central Government. In the main this

doctrine may be conceded. But in practice the doctrine takes a more

personal form. “I belong,” the oppressed nationalist argues, “by

sympathy and tradition to nation A, but I am subject to a government

which is in the hands of nation B. This is an injustice, not only

because of the general principle of nationalism, but because nation A

is generous, progressive, and civilized, while nation B is oppressive,

retrograde, and barbarous. Because this is so, nation A deserves to

prosper, while nation B deserves to be abased.” The inhabitants of

nation B are naturally deaf to the claims of abstract justice, when

they are accompanied by personal hostility and contempt. Presently,

however, in the course of war, nation A acquires its freedom. The

energy and pride which have achieved freedom generates a momentum which

leads on, almost infallibly, to the attempt at foreign conquest, or

to the refusal of liberty to some smaller nation. “What? You say that

nation C, which forms part of our State, has the same rights against

us as we had against nation A? But that is absurd. Nation C is swinish

and turbulent, incapable of good government, needing a strong hand if

it is not to be a menace and a disturbance to all its neighbors.” So

the English used to speak of the Irish, so the Germans and Russians

speak of the Poles, so the Galician Poles speak of the Ruthenes, so

the Austrians used to speak of the Magyars, so the Magyars speak of

the South Slav sympathizers with Serbia, so the Serbs speak of the

Macedonian Bulgars. In this way nationalism, unobjectionable in theory,

leads by a natural movement to oppression and wars of conquest. No

sooner was France free from the English, in the fifteenth century,

than it embarked upon the conquest of Italy; no sooner was Spain freed

from the Moors than it entered into more than a century of conflict

with France for the supremacy in Europe. The case of Germany is very

interesting in this respect. At the beginning of the eighteenth century

German culture was French: French was the language of the Courts,

the language in which Leibnitz wrote his philosophy, the universal

language of polite letters and learning. National consciousness hardly

existed. Then a series of great men created a self-respect in Germany

by their achievements in poetry, music, philosophy, and science.

But politically German nationalism was only created by Napoleon’s

oppression and the uprising of 1813. After centuries during which every

disturbance of the peace of Europe began with a French or Swedish or

Russian invasion of Germany, the Germans discovered that by sufficient

effort and union they could keep foreign armies off their territory.

But the effort required had been too great to cease when its purely

defensive purpose had been achieved by the defeat of Napoleon. Now, a

hundred years later, they are still engaged in the same movement, which

has become one of aggression and conquest. Whether we are now seeing

the end of the movement it is not yet possible to guess.

If men had any strong sense of a community of nations, nationalism

would serve to define the boundaries of the various nations. But

because men only feel community within their own nation, nothing but

force is able to make them respect the rights of other nations, even

when they are asserting exactly similar rights on their own behalf.

Analogous development is to be expected, with the course of time, in

the conflict between capital and labor which has existed since the

growth of the industrial system, and in the conflict between men and

women, which is still in its infancy.

What is wanted, in these various conflicts, is some principle,

genuinely believed, which will have justice for its outcome. The tug

of war of mutual self-assertion can only result in justice through an

accidental equality of force. It is no use to attempt any bolstering

up of institutions based on authority, since all such institutions

involve injustice, and injustice once realized cannot be perpetuated

without fundamental damage both to those who uphold it and to those who

resist it. The damage consists in the hardening of the walls of the

Ego, making them a prison instead of a window. Unimpeded growth in the

individual depends upon many contacts with other people, which must

be of the nature of free coöperation, not of enforced service. While

the belief in authority was alive, free coöperation was compatible

with inequality and subjection, but now equality and mutual freedom

are necessary. All institutions, if they are not to hamper individual

growth, must be based as far as possible upon voluntary combination,

rather than the force of the law or the traditional authority of the

holders of power. None of our institutions can survive the application

of this principle without great and fundamental changes; but these

changes are imperatively necessary if the world is to be withheld from

dissolving into hard separate units each at war with all the others.

The two chief sources of good relations between individuals are

instinctive liking and a common purpose. Of these two, a common purpose

might seem more important politically, but, in fact, it is often

the outcome, not the cause, of instinctive liking, or of a common

instinctive aversion. Biological groups, from the family to the nation,

are constituted by a greater or less degree of instinctive liking, and

build their common purposes on this foundation.

Instinctive liking is the feeling which makes us take pleasure in

another person’s company, find an exhilaration in his presence, wish to

talk with him, work with him, play with him. The extreme form of it is

being in love, but its fainter forms, and even the very faintest, have

political importance. The presence of a person who is instinctively

disliked tends to make any other person more likable. An anti-Semite

will love any fellow-Christian when a Jew is present. In China, or the

wilds of Africa, any white man would be welcomed with joy. A common

aversion is one of the most frequent causes of mild instinctive liking.

Men differ enormously in the frequency and intensity of their

instinctive likings, and the same man will differ greatly at different

times. One may take Carlyle and Walt Whitman as opposite poles in this

respect. To Carlyle, at any rate in later life, most men and women were

repulsive; they inspired an instinctive aversion which made him find

pleasure in imagining them under the guillotine or perishing in battle.

This led him to belittle most men, finding satisfaction only in those

who had been notably destructive of human life—Frederick the Great,

Dr. Francia, and Governor Eyre. It led him to love war and violence,

and to despise the weak and the oppressed—for example, the “thirty

thousand distressed needlewomen,” on whom he was never weary of venting

his scorn. His morals and his politics, in later life, were inspired

through and through by repugnance to almost the whole human race.

Walt Whitman, on the contrary, had a warm, expansive feeling towards

the vast majority of men and women. His queer catalogues seemed to him

interesting because each item came before his imagination as an object

of delight. The sort of joy which most people feel only in those who

are exceptionally beautiful or splendid Walt Whitman felt in almost

everybody. Out of this universal liking grew optimism, a belief in

democracy, and a conviction that it is easy for men to live together

in peace and amity. His philosophy and politics, like Carlyle’s, were

based upon his instinctive attitude towards ordinary men and women.

There is no objective reason to be given to show that one of these

attitudes is essentially more rational than the other. If a man finds

people repulsive, no argument can prove to him that they are not so.

But both his own desires and other people’s are much more likely to

find satisfaction if he resembles Walt Whitman than if he resembles

Carlyle. A world of Walt Whitmans would be happier and more capable of

realizing its purposes than a world of Carlyles. For this reason, we

shall desire, if we can, to increase the amount of instinctive liking

in the world and diminish the amount of instinctive aversion. This

is perhaps the most important of all the effects by which political

institutions ought to be judged.

The other source of good relations between individuals is a common

purpose, especially where that purpose cannot be achieved without

knowing its cause. Economic organizations, such as unions and political

parties are constituted almost wholly by a common purpose; whatever

instinctive liking may come to be associated with them is the result

of the common purpose, not its cause. Economic organizations, such as

railway companies, subsist for a purpose, but this purpose need only

actually exist in those who direct the organization: the ordinary

wage-earner need have no purpose beyond earning his wages. This is a

defect in economic organizations, and ought to be remedied. One of the

objects of syndicalism is to remedy this defect.

Marriage is (or should be) based on instinctive liking, but as soon

as there are children, or the wish for children, it acquires the

additional strength of a common purpose. It is this chiefly which

distinguishes it from an irregular connection not intended to lead to

children. Often, in fact, the common purpose survives, and remains a

strong tie, after the instinctive liking has faded.

A nation, when it is real and not artificial, is founded upon a faint

degree of instinctive liking for compatriots and a common instinctive

aversion from foreigners. When an Englishman returns to Dover or

Folkestone after being on the Continent, he feels something friendly

in the familiar ways: the casual porters, the shouting paper boys, the

women serving bad tea, all warm his heart, and seem more “natural,”

more what human beings ought to be, than the foreigners with their

strange habits of behavior. He is ready to believe that all English

people are good souls, while many foreigners are full of designing

wickedness. It is such feelings that make it easy to organize a nation

into a governmental unit. And when that has happened, a common purpose

is added, as in marriage. Foreigners would like to invade our country

and lay it waste, to kill us in battle, to humble our pride. Those

who coöperate with us in preventing this disaster are our friends,

and their coöperation intensifies our instinctive liking. But common

purposes do not constitute the whole source of our love of country:

allies, even of long standing, do not call out the same feelings

as are called out by our compatriots. Instinctive liking, resulting

largely from similar habits and customs, is an essential element in

patriotism, and, indeed, the foundation upon which the whole feeling

rests.

If men’s natural growth is to be promoted and not hindered by the

environment, if as many as possible of their desires and needs are to

be satisfied, political institutions must, as far as possible, embody

common purposes and foster instinctive liking. These two objects are

interconnected, for nothing is so destructive of instinctive liking

as thwarted purposes and unsatisfied needs, and nothing facilitates

coöperation for common purposes so much as instinctive liking. When a

man’s growth is unimpeded, his self-respect remains intact, and he is

not inclined to regard others as his enemies. But when, for whatever

reason, his growth is impeded, or he is compelled to grow into some

twisted and unnatural shape, his instinct presents the environment as

his enemy, and he becomes filled with hatred. The joy of life abandons

him, and malevolence takes the place of friendliness. The malevolence

of hunchbacks and cripples is proverbial; and a similar malevolence

is to be found in those who have been crippled in less obvious ways.

Real freedom, if it could be brought about, would go a long way towards

destroying hatred.

There is a not uncommon belief that what is instinctive in us

cannot be changed, but must be simply accepted and made the best

of. This is by no means the case. No doubt we have a certain native

disposition, different in different people, which coöperates with

outside circumstances in producing a certain character. But even the

instinctive part of our character is very malleable. It may be changed

by beliefs, by material circumstances, by social circumstances, and by

institutions. A Dutchman has probably much the same native disposition

as a German, but his instincts in adult life are very different owing

to the absence of militarism and of the pride of a Great Power. It is

obvious that the instincts of celibates become profoundly different

from those of other men and women. Almost any instinct is capable of

many different forms according to the nature of the outlets which

it finds. The same instinct which leads to artistic or intellectual

creativeness may, under other circumstances, lead to love of war. The

fact that an activity or belief is an outcome of instinct is therefore

no reason for regarding it as unalterable.

This applies to people’s instinctive likes and dislikes as well as

to their other instincts. It is natural to men, as to other animals,

to like some of their species and dislike others; but the proportion

of like and dislike depends on circumstances, often on quite trivial

circumstances. Most of Carlyle’s misanthropy is attributable to

dyspepsia; probably a suitable medical regimen would have given him a

completely different outlook on the world. The defect of punishment,

as a means of dealing with impulses which the community wishes to

discourage, is that it does nothing to prevent the existence of

the impulses, but merely endeavors to check their indulgence by an

appeal to self-interest. This method, since it does not eradicate the

impulses, probably only drives them to find other outlets even when it

is successful in its immediate object; and if the impulses are strong,

mere self-interest is not likely to curb them effectually, since it is

not a very powerful motive except with unusually reasonable and rather

passionless people. It is thought to be a stronger motive than it is,

because our moods make us deceive ourselves as to our interest, and

lead us to believe that it is consistent with the actions to which we

are prompted by desire or impulse.

Thus the commonplace that human nature cannot be changed is untrue.

We all know that our own characters and those of our acquaintance are

greatly affected by circumstances; and what is true of individuals

is true also of nations. The root causes of changes in average human

nature are generally either purely material changes—for instance, of

climate—or changes in the degree of man’s control over the material

world. We may ignore the purely material changes, since these do not

much concern the politician. But the changes due to man’s increased

control over the material world, by inventions and science, are of

profound present importance. Through the industrial revolution, they

have radically altered the daily lives of men; and by creating huge

economic organizations, they have altered the whole structure of

society. The general beliefs of men, which are, in the main, a product

of instinct and circumstance, have become very different from what

they were in the eighteenth century. But our institutions are not yet

suited either to the instincts developed by our new circumstances, or

to our real beliefs. Institutions have a life of their own, and often

outlast the circumstances which made them a fit garment for instinct.

This applies, in varying degrees, to almost all the institutions which

we have inherited from the past: the State, private property, the

patriarchal family, the Churches, armies and navies. All of these have

become in some degree oppressive, in some measures hostile to life.

In any serious attempt at political reconstruction, it is necessary

to realize what are the vital needs of ordinary men and women. It

is customary, in political thought, to assume that the only needs

with which politics is concerned are economic needs. This view is

quite inadequate to account for such an event as the present war,

since any economic motives that may be assigned for it are to a great

extent mythical, and its true causes must be sought for outside the

economic sphere. Needs which are normally satisfied without conscious

effort remain unrecognized, and this results in a working theory of

human needs which is far too simple. Owing chiefly to industrialism,

many needs which were formerly satisfied without effort now remain

unsatisfied in most men and women. But the old unduly simple theory of

human needs survives, making men overlook the source of the new lack

of satisfaction, and invent quite false theories as to why they are

dissatisfied. Socialism as a panacea seems to me to be mistaken in this

way, since it is too ready to suppose that better economic conditions

will of themselves make men happy. It is not only more material goods

that men need, but more freedom, more self-direction, more outlet for

creativeness, more opportunity for the joy of life, more voluntary

coöperation, and less involuntary subservience to purposes not their

own. All these things the institutions of the future must help to

produce, if our increase of knowledge and power over Nature is to bear

its full fruit in bringing about a good life.

II

THE STATE