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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK • BOSTON - CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
 NATIONS 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 G. E. PARTRIDGE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1919 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
3 it 
 
 "P3 
 
 copteight, 1919 
 Bt the macmillan company 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, November, 1019 
 
 ^ !0 1919 
 
 ©CI.A536906 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book contains two closely related studies of the 
 consciousness of nations. It has been written during the 
 closing months of the war and in the days that have fol- 
 lowed, and is completed while the Peace Conference is 
 still in session, holding in the balance, as many believe, the 
 fate of many hopes, and perhaps the whole future of the 
 world. We see focussed there in Paris all the motives 
 that have ever entered into human history and all the ideals 
 that have influenced human affairs. The question must 
 have arisen in all minds in some form as to what the place 
 of these motives and ideals and dramatic moments is in 
 the progress of the world. Is the world governed after 
 all by the laws of nature in all its progress? Do ideals and 
 motives govern the world, but only as these ideals and mo- 
 tives are themselves produced according to biological or 
 psychological principles? Or, again, does progress depend 
 upon historical moments, upon conscious purposes which 
 may divert the course of nature and in a real sense create the 
 future? It is with the whole problem of history that we are 
 confronted in these practical hours. At heart our problem 
 is that of the place of man in nature as a conscious factor 
 of progress. This is a problem, finally, of the philosophy 
 of history, but it is rather in a more concrete way 
 and upon a different level that it is to be considered here, — 
 and somewhat incidentally to other more specific ques- 
 tions. But this is the problem that is always before us, 
 and the one to which this study aims to make some con- 
 tribution, however small. 
 
 The first part of the book is a study of the motives of 
 
vi Preface 
 
 war. It is an analysis of the motives of war in the light 
 of the general principles of the development of society. We 
 wish to see what the causes of past wars have been, but we 
 wish also to know what these motives are as they may 
 exist as forces in the present state of society. In such a 
 study, practical questions can never be far away. We 
 can no longer study war as an abstract psychological prob- 
 lem, since war has brought us to a. horrifying and humiliat- 
 ing situation. We have discovered that our modern world, 
 with all its boasted morality and civilization, is actuated, 
 at least in its relations among nations, by very unsocial mo- 
 tives. We live in a world in which nations thus far have 
 been for the most part dominated by a theory of States as 
 absolutely sovereign and independent of one another. Now 
 it becomes evident that a logical consequence of that theory 
 of States is absolute war. A prospect of a future of absolute 
 war in a world in which industrial advances have placed 
 in the hands of men such terrible forces of destruction, an 
 absolute warfare that can now be carried into the air 
 and under the sea is what makes any investigation of the 
 motives of war now a very practical problem. 
 
 If the urgency of our situation drives us to such studies 
 and makes us hasten to apply even an immature sociology 
 and psychology, it ought not to prejudice our minds and 
 make us, for example, fall into the error of wanting peace 
 at any price — an ideal which, as a practical national 
 philosophy, might be even worse than a spirit of militarism. 
 What we need to know, finally, in order to avoid these 
 errors which at least we may imagine, is what, in the most 
 fundamental way, progress may be conceived to be. If we 
 could discover that, and set our minds to the task of making 
 the social life progressive, we might be willing to let wars 
 take care of themselves, so to speak, without any radical 
 philosophy of good and evil. We ought at least to exam- 
 ine war fairly, and to see what, in the waging of war, 
 man has really desired. A study of war ought to help us to 
 
Preface vii 
 
 decide whether we must accept our future, with its possibil- 
 ity of wars, as a kind of fate, or whether we must now 
 begin, with a new idea of conscious evolution, to apply our 
 science and our philosophy and our practical wisdom seri- 
 ously for the first time to the work of creating history, and 
 no longer be content merely to live it. 
 
 As to the details of the study of war — we first of all 
 consider the origin and the biological aspects of war; then 
 war as related to the development, in the social life and in 
 the life of the individual, of the motive of power. The 
 instincts that are most concerned in the development of 
 this motive of power are then considered, and also the 
 relations of war to the aesthetic impulses and to art. Na- 
 tionalism, national honor and patriotism are studied as 
 causes of war. The various " causes " that are brought 
 forward as the principles fought for are examined ; also the 
 philosophical influences, the moral and religious motives 
 and the institutional factors among the motives of war. 
 Finally the economic and political motives and the historical 
 causes are considered. The conclusion is reached that the 
 motive of power, as the fundamental principle of behavior 
 at the higher levels, is the principle of war, but that in so 
 general a form it goes but a little way toward being an 
 explanation of war. We find the real causes of war by trac- 
 ing out the development of this motive of power as it 
 appears in what we call the " intoxication impulse," and in 
 the idea of national honor and in the political motives of 
 war. It is in these aspects of national life that we find 
 the motives of war as they may be considered as a practical 
 problem. But we find no separate causes, and we do not 
 find a chain of causes that might be broken somewhere 
 and thus war be once for all eliminated. Wars are prod- 
 ucts of the whole character of nations, so to speak, and 
 it is national character that must be considered in any prac- 
 tical study of war. It is by the development of the char- 
 acter of nations in a natural process, or by the education 
 
viii Preface 
 
 of national character, that war will be made to give way 
 to perpetual peace, if such a state ever comes, rather than 
 by a political readjustment or by legal enactments, however 
 necessary as beginnings or makeshifts these legal and polit- 
 ical changes may be. 
 
 The second part of the book is a study of our present 
 situation as an educational problem, in which we have for 
 the first time a problem of educating national conscious- 
 ness as a whole, or the individuals of a nation with reference 
 to a world-consciousness. The study has reference espe- 
 cially to the conditions in our own country, but it also has 
 general significance. The war has brought many changes, 
 and in every phase of life we see new problems. These may 
 seem at the moment to be separate and detached conditions 
 which must be dealt with, each by itself, but this is not 
 so ; they are all aspects of fundamental changes and new 
 conditions, the main feature of which is the new world-con- 
 sciousness of which we speak. Whatever one's occupation, 
 one cannot remain unaffected by these changes, or escape en- 
 tirely the stress that the need of adjustment to new ideas and 
 new conditions compels. What we may think about the fu- 
 ture — about what can be done and what ought to be done, is 
 in part, and perhaps largely, a matter of temperament. At 
 least we see men, presumably having access to the same 
 facts, drawing from them very different conclusions. Some 
 are keyed to high expectations ; they look for revolutions, 
 mutations, a new era in politics and everywhere in the so- 
 cial life. For them, after the war, the world is to be a 
 new world. Fate will make a new deal. Others appear to 
 believe that after the flurry is over we shall settle down to 
 something very much like the old order. These are con- 
 servative people, who neither desire nor expect great 
 changes. Others take a more moderate course. While 
 improvement is their great word, they are inclined to believe 
 that the new order will grow step by step out of the old, and 
 that good will come out of the evil only in so far as we 
 
Preface ix 
 
 strive to make it. We shall advance along the old lines 
 of progress, but faster, perhaps, and with life attuned to 
 a higher note. 
 
 The writer of this book must confess that he belongs 
 in a general way to the third species of these prophets. 
 There is a natural order of progress, but the good must, 
 we may suppose, also be worked for step by step. The 
 war will have placed in our hands no golden gift of a new 
 society; both the ways and the direction of progress must 
 be sought and determined by ideals. The point of view in 
 regard to progress, at least as a working hypothesis, be- 
 comes an educational one, in a broad sense. Our future we 
 must make. We shall not make it by politics. The institu- 
 tions with which politics deals are dangerous cards to play. 
 There is too much convention clinging to them, and they 
 are too closely related to all the supports of the social 
 order. The industrial system, the laws, the institutions of 
 property and rights, the form of government, we change 
 at our own risk. Naturally many radical minds look to the 
 abrupt alteration of these fundamental institutions for the 
 cure of existing evils, and others look there furtively for 
 the signs of coming revolution, and the destruction of all 
 we have gained thus far by civilization. But at a differ- 
 ent level, where life is more plastic — in the lives of the 
 young, and in the vast unshaped forms of the common life 
 everywhere, all this is different. We do not expect abrupt 
 changes here nor quick and visible results. Experimenta- 
 tion is still possible and comparatively safe. There is no 
 one institution of this common and unformed life, not even 
 the school itself, that supports the existing structures, so 
 that if we move it in the wrong way, everything else will 
 fall. When we see we are wrong, there is still time to cor- 
 rect our mistakes. 
 
 Our task, then, is to see what the forces are that have 
 brought us to where we stand now, and to what influences 
 they are to be subjected, if they are to carry us onward 
 
x Preface 
 
 and upward in our course. Precisely what the changes in 
 government or anywhere in the social order should be is 
 not the chief interest, from this point of view. The de- 
 tails of the constitution of an international league, the 
 practical adjustments to be made in the fields of labor, 
 and in the commerce of nations, belong to a different order 
 of problems. We wish rather to see what the main cur- 
 rents of life, especially in our own national life, are, and 
 what in the most general way we are to think and do, if 
 the present generation is to make the most of its opportuni- 
 ties as a factor in the work of conscious evolution. 
 
 The bibliography shows the main sources of the facts 
 and the theories that have been drawn upon in writing the 
 book. Some of the chapters have been read in a little 
 different form as lectures before President G. Stanley Hall's 
 seminar at Clark University. More or less of repetition, 
 made necessary in order to make these papers, which were 
 read at considerable intervals, independent of one another, 
 has been allowed to remain. Perhaps in the printed form 
 this reiteration will help to emphasize the general psycholog- 
 ical basis of the study. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface . v 
 
 PART I 
 
 NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE MOTIVES 
 OF WAR 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I Origins and Biological Considerations .... 3 
 II Unconscious Motives, the Reversion Theories of 
 
 War, and the Intoxication Motive 17 
 
 III Instincts in War: Fear, Hate, the Aggressive Im- 
 
 pulse, Motives of Combat and Destruction, the 
 Social Instinct 38 
 
 IV Aesthetic Elements in the Moods and Impulses of 
 
 War 70 
 
 V Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor . . 78 
 
 VI " Causes " as Principles and Issues in War ... 97 
 
 VII Philosophical Influences no 
 
 VIII Religious and Moral Influences 117 
 
 IX Economic Factors and Motives 128 
 
 X Political and Historical Factors 142 
 
 XI The Synthesis of Causes 153 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL FACTOR IN THE DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF NATIONS 
 
 I Educational Problems of the Day 161 
 
 II Internationalism and the School 168 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 III Internationalism and the School {Continued) . . 184 
 
 IV Peace and Militarism 197 
 
 V The Teaching of Patriotism 211 
 
 VI The Teaching of Patriotism (Continued) . . . 226 
 
 VII Political Education in a Democracy 242 
 
 VIII Industry and Education 269 
 
 IX New Social Problems 290 
 
 X Religion and Education After the War .... 305 
 
 XI Humanism 309 
 
 XII Aesthetic Experience in Education 315 
 
 XIII Moods and Education: A Review 319 
 
 Bibliography 327 
 
 Index 331 
 
PART I 
 
 NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE 
 MOTIVES OF WAR 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY 
 OF HISTORY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ORIGINS AND BIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 The simplest possible interpretation of the causes of war 
 that might be offered is that war is a natural relation be- 
 tween original herds or groups of men, inspired by the pred- 
 atory instinct or by some other instinct of the herd. To 
 explain war, then, one need only refer to this instinct as 
 final, or at most account for the origin and genesis of the in- 
 stinct in question in the animal world. Some writers ex- 
 press this very view, calling war an expression of an instinct 
 or of several instincts ; others find different or more complex 
 beginnings of war. 
 
 Nusbaum (86) says that both offense and defense are 
 based upon an expansion impulse. Nicolai (79) sees the 
 beginning of war in individual predatory acts, involving vio- 
 lence and the need of defense. Again we find the migratory- 
 instinct, the instinct that has led groups of men to move 
 and thus to interfere with one another, regarded as the 
 cause of war, or as an important factor in the causes. 
 Sometimes a purely physiological or growth impulse is in- 
 voked, or vaguely the inability of primitive groups to adapt 
 themselves to conditions, or to gain access to the necessities 
 of life. Le Bon (42) speaks of the hunger and the desire 
 that led Germanic forces as ancient hordes to turn them- 
 selves loose upon the world. 
 
 3 
 
4 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 Leaving aside for the moment the question of the nature 
 of the impulses or instincts which actuated the conduct of 
 men originally and brought them into opposition, as groups, 
 to one another, we do find at least some suggestion of a 
 working hypothesis in these simple explanations of war. 
 Granted the existence of groups formed by the accident of 
 birth and based upon the most primitive protective and eco- 
 nomic associations, and assuming the presence of the emo- 
 tions of anger and fear or any instinct which is expressed 
 as an impulse or habit of the group, we might say that the 
 conditions and factors for the beginning of warfare are all 
 present. When groups have desires that can best and most 
 simply be satisfied by the exertion of force upon other 
 groups, something equivalent to war has begun. 
 
 If we take the group (as herd or pack) and the instinct 
 as the original factors or data of society, however, we prob- 
 ably simplify the situation too much. The question arises 
 whether the motives are not more complex, even from the 
 beginning, and whether both the tendencies or impulses by 
 which the group was formed or held together and the mo- 
 tives behind aggressive conduct against other groups have 
 not been produced or developed in the course of social rela- 
 tions, rather than have been brought up from animal life, 
 or at any point introduced as instincts. We notice at least 
 that animals living in groups do not in general become ag- 
 gressive within the species. Possibly it was by some peculi- 
 arity of man's social existence, or his superior endowment 
 of intelligence or some unusual quality of his instincts, per- 
 haps very far back in animal life, that has in the end made 
 him a warlike creature. Man does seem to be a creature 
 of feelings rather than of instincts as far back as we find 
 much account of him, and to be characterized rather by the 
 weakness and variability of his instincts than by their defi- 
 niteness. It is quite likely, too, that man never was at any 
 stage a herd animal ; in fact it seems certain that he was not, 
 and that his instincts were formed long before he began to 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 5 
 
 live in large groups at all. So he never acquired the mech- 
 anisms either for aggression or defense that some creatures 
 have. Apparently he inherited neither the physical powers 
 nor the warlike spirit nor the aggressive and predatory in- 
 stincts that would have been necessary to make of him a nat- 
 ural fighting animal; but rather, perhaps, he has acquired 
 his warlike habits, so to speak, since arriving at man's estate. 
 Endowed with certain tendencies which express themselves 
 with considerable variability in the processes by which the 
 functions of sex and nutrition are carried out, man never 
 acquired the definiteness of character and conduct that some 
 animals have. He learned more from animals, it may be, 
 than he inherited from them, and it is quite likely that far 
 back in his animal ancestry he had greater flexibility or 
 adaptability than other animals. The aggressive instinct, 
 the herd instinct, the predatory instinct, the social instinct, 
 the migratory instinct, may never have been carried very 
 far in the stock from which man came. All this, however, 
 at this point is only a suggestion of two somewhat diver- 
 gent points of view in regarding the primitive activities 
 of man from which his long history of war-making has 
 taken rise. 
 
 The view is widely held and continually referred to by 
 many writers on war and politics, that the most fundamental 
 of all causes of war, or the most general principle of it, 
 is the principle of selection — that war is a natural struggle 
 between groups, especially between races, the fittest in this 
 struggle tending to survive. This view needs to be exam- 
 ined sharply, as indeed it has been by several writers, in 
 connection with the present war. This biological theory or 
 apology of war appears in several forms, as applied to-day. 
 They say that racial stocks contend with one another for 
 existence, and with this goes the belief that nations fight 
 for life, and that defeat in war tends towards the extermina- 
 tion of nations. The Germans, we often hear, were fiehtinsr 
 for national existence, and the issue was to be a judgment 
 
6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 upon the fitness of their race to survive. This view is very 
 often expressed. O'Ryan and Anderson (5), military writ- 
 ers, for example, say that the same aggressive motives pre- 
 vail as always in warfare : nations struggle for survival, and 
 this struggle for survival must now and again break out 
 into war. Powers (75) says that nations seldom fight for 
 anything less than existence. Again (15) we read that 
 conflicts have their roots in history, in the lives of peoples, 
 and the sounder, and better, emerge as victors. There is 
 a .selective process on the part of nature that applies to 
 nations; they say that especially increase of population 
 forces upon groups an endless conflict, so that absolute 
 hostility is a law of nature in the world. 
 
 These views contain at least two very doubtful assump- 
 tions. One is that nations do actually fight for existence, — 
 that warfare is thus selective to the point of eliminating 
 races. The other is that in warlike conflicts the victors are 
 the superior peoples, the better fitted for survival. Con- 
 fusion arises and the discussion is complicated by the fact 
 that conflicts of men as groups of individuals within the 
 same species are somewhat anomalous among biological 
 forms of struggle. Commonly, struggle takes place among 
 individuals, organisms having definite characteristics and 
 but slightly variable each from its own kind contending 
 with one another, by direct competition or through adapta- 
 tion, in the first case individuals striving to obtain actually 
 the same objects. Or, again, species having the same rela- 
 tions to one another that individuals have, contend in a 
 similar manner. 
 
 Primitive groups of men, however, are not so definite; 
 they are not biological entities in any such sense as individ- 
 uals and species are. They are not definitely brought into 
 conflict with one another, in general, as contending for the 
 same objects, and it is difficult to see how, in the beginning, 
 at least, economic pressure has been a factor at all in their 
 relations. Whatever may have been the motive that for the 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 7 
 
 most part was at work in primitive warfare, it is not at 
 all evident that superior groups had any survival value. 
 The groups that contended with one another presumably 
 differed most conspicuously in the size of the group, and 
 this was determined largely by chance conditions. Other 
 differences must have been quite subordinate to this, and 
 have had little selective value. The conclusion is that 
 the struggle of these groups with one another is not essen- 
 tially a biological phenomenon. 
 
 The fact is that peace rather than war, taking the history 
 of the human race as a whole, is the condition in which 
 selection of the fittest is most active, for it is the power 
 of adaptation to the conditions of stable life, which are 
 fairly uniform for different groups over wide areas, that 
 tests vitality and survival values, so far as these values are 
 biological. It may be claimed that war is very often, if 
 not generally, a means of interrupting favorable selective 
 processes, the unfit tending to prevail temporarily by force 
 of numbers, or even because of qualities that antagonize 
 biological progress. Viewing Avar in its later aspects, we 
 can see that it is often when nations are failing in natural 
 competition that they resort to the expedient of war to com- 
 pensate for this loss, although they do not usually succeed 
 thereby in improving their economic condition as they hope, 
 or increase their chance of survival, or even demonstrate 
 their survival value. It is notorious that nations that con- 
 quer tend to spend their vitality in conquest and introduce 
 various factors of deterioration into their lives. The infer- 
 ence is that a much more complex relation exists among 
 groups than the biological hypothesis allows. Survival value 
 indeed, as applied to men in groups, is not a very clear con- 
 cept. There may be several different criteria of survival 
 value, not comparable in any quantitative way among them- 
 selves. 
 
 Scheler (77) says that we cannot account for war as a 
 purely biological phenomenon. Its roots lie deep in organic 
 
8 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 life, but there is no direct development or exclusive develop- 
 ment from animal behavior to human. War is peculiarly 
 human. That, in a way, may be accepted as the truth. 
 Warfare as we know it among human groups, as conflict 
 within the species is due in some way to, or is made possible 
 by, the secondary differentiations within species which give 
 to groups, so to speak, a pseudo-specific character. And 
 these differences depend largely upon the conditions that 
 enter into the formation of groups, — upon desires, impulses 
 and needs arising in the social life rather than in instinct 
 as such. These characteristic differences are not variations 
 having selective value, but are traits that merely differentiate 
 the groups as historical entities. These secondary varia- 
 tions have not 'resulted in the elimination of those having 
 inferior qualities, but have shared the fortunes of the groups 
 that possessed them, — the fortunes both of war and of 
 peace. War, from this point of view, belongs to history 
 rather than to biology. It belongs to the realm of the 
 particular rather than to the general in human life. War 
 has favored the survival of this or that group in a particular 
 place, but has .probably not been instrumental in producing 
 any particular type of character in the world, either physical 
 or mental. 
 
 Very early in the history of mankind, in fact as far back 
 as we can trace history, we find these psychic differentia- 
 tions, as factors in the production of war. There are sig- 
 nificant extensions and also restrictions of the consciousness 
 of kind pertaining to the life of man, as distinguished from 
 animals. Animals have not sufficient intelligence to estab- 
 lish such perfect group identities as man does, and they lack 
 the affective motives for carrying on hostilities among 
 groups. They remain more clearly subjected to the simple 
 laws of biological selection, and are guided by instincts 
 which do not impel them to act aggressively as groups to- 
 ward their own kind. Man proceeds almost from the be- 
 ginning to antagonize these laws, so that it is very likely 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 9 
 
 that the best, in the biological sense, has always had some 
 disadvantage, in human life, and may still have. The real 
 value that has thus been conserved by this human mode of 
 life consists in preserving a relatively large number of 
 secondary types or individual groups, rather than in insuring 
 the predominance of any one biologically superior type. 
 Man's work in the world is to make history. Even though 
 war were a means of making a biologically superior type 
 of man prevail we should not be justified in saying that it 
 is thus vindicated as a method of selection. 
 
 Many writers whom we do not need to review in great 
 detail have contributed to the objections to the biological 
 principle as an explanation of war. Trotter (82) examines 
 the doctrine that war is a biological necessity, and says that 
 there is no parallel in biology for progress being accom- 
 plished as a result of a racial impoverishment so extreme 
 as is caused by war, that among gregarious animals other 
 than man direct conflict between major groups such as can 
 lead to the suppression of the less powerful is an incon- 
 spicuous phenomenon, and that there is very little fighting 
 within species, for species have usually been too busy fight- 
 ing their external enemies. Mitchell (10) says that war is 
 not an aspect of the natural struggle for existence, among 
 individuals ; that there is nothing in Darwinism that explains 
 or justifies wars; that the argument from race is worthless 
 since there are no pure races. M'Cabe (76) maintains that 
 war is not a struggle between inferior and superior national 
 types. Dide (20) also discusses the question of differences 
 of race as causes of war, and the use that has been made 
 of this dogma. Chapman (39) says that no race question 
 is involved in the present war as has been supposed. There 
 is no conflict of economic forces, no nations compelled to 
 seek expansion. 
 
 Precisely how warfare originated (assuming that it arose 
 in one way) we shall probably never know, since we cannot 
 now reconstruct the actual historv of man. We think of 
 
io The Psychology of Nations 
 
 men as living at first in groups containing a few individuals, 
 and presumably for a long time these small and isolated 
 groups of men prevailed as the type of human society. We 
 can already detect the elements of conflict in these groups, 
 but whether warfare in the sense of deadly conflict origi- 
 nated there we cannot know ; or whether it was only in the 
 experience of men as large migrating hordes which 
 had been formed by the amalgamation of smaller groups 
 under the influence of hunger or climatic change, that war- 
 fare in any real sense came into the world. We do not 
 know to what extent the small groups of men we find in 
 conditions of savagery now represent primitive conditions. 
 Fortunately, however, some of these problems of origin are 
 of but little practical importance and their interest is chiefly 
 antiquarian or historical. 
 
 The assumption that in the behavior of original groups 
 of men war arose as a natural result of the life of the group 
 seems to be an allowable hypothesis. Whether warlike con- 
 duct came by some modification of the habits brought up 
 from animal life as instinctive reactions, or whether man 
 invented warfare from some strong motive peculiar to hu- 
 man life, and produced it intelligently, so to speak, under 
 stress of circumstances may have to remain an open ques- 
 tion so far as conclusive evidence is concerned. What we 
 lack is a knowledge of the type and form of the instincts of 
 man in his first stages, and the degree and kind of intelli- 
 gence he had. But the reconstructed pre-human history of 
 man so far as we can make it seems to show, as we have al- 
 ready suggested, that early man could have had no definite 
 herd instincts or pack instincts such as some of the animals 
 have, that his habits were plastic and guided by intelligence 
 rather than by impulse. His social life, his predaceous 
 habits, the habit of killing large game, his warfare must 
 have been a gradual acquisition, and from the beginning 
 have been very different as regards motive and development 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 1 1 
 
 from animal behavior which judged externally may seem to 
 be like it in character and to have the same ends. 
 
 There are already inherent in any group of human indi- 
 viduals that fits into such knowledge of man past and pres- 
 ent as we have, all the necessary motives of warfare in some 
 form. There are the reactions of anger made to any threat 
 or injury, fear, the predaceous impulse and habit, originat- 
 ing in hunger, the motives arising in sexual rivalry. These 
 motives are the source of behavior toward both members 
 of the group and outsiders. There is no absolute dis- 
 tinction between these objects. It is of the nature of man 
 to be both aggressive and social. One instinct or mo- 
 tive did not come from the other, since there are emotions 
 and desires at every stage that tend, some of them to unite 
 and some to disrupt, the group. The sense of difference of 
 kind and the fear of the strange on the one hand, and the 
 effect of propinquity and practical necessity in the conduct 
 in regard to the familiar on the other make the reactions 
 different in degree in the two spheres but not different in 
 kind. There is no aggressive instinct or war motive that 
 is directed exclusively toward the outsider. Certain tenden- 
 cies toward violence and strife, modified and controlled 
 within the group, become unrestrained when directed toward 
 the stranger. Among these motives are those of sexual 
 rivalry, fear, anger, desire, and the play motive as an ex- 
 pression of any instinctive habits of aggression that may 
 have been phyletically established. 
 
 Since every individual creature has his needs that can be 
 satisfied only by preying in some way upon other animals of 
 his own species or others, the motives for strife are original 
 in organic life. Every animal lives in a world of which he 
 is suspicious, and rightly so. He is suspicious toward the 
 members of his own kind and group, and toward all 
 strangers he shows watchfulness and fear. There are two 
 motives, therefore, of a highly practical nature that con- 
 
12 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 tribute to a general state of unfriendliness in animal life. 
 Both the motives of conflict within the group, the habit of 
 aggression and its complement, fear, and the jealousy and 
 display motive (the display itself probably having originated 
 as a show of ferocity on the part of males) must have been 
 transferred to relations between groups as a natural result 
 of the proximity of groups to one another, although this 
 process is not quite so simple as this would imply, since in 
 part the outside groups are produced by these very same 
 antagonistic motives in the group, for example the driving 
 out of young males because of sexual jealousy. The pres- 
 ence of other groups must have excited all the motives of 
 warfare at a very early stage, and this contrast had the 
 effect of stimulating the social feeling of the group and de- 
 veloping control of impulses on the part of individuals 
 within the group toward one another. So the motives of 
 combat, as shown within the group and toward outsiders, 
 developed, so to speak, by a dialectic process. 
 
 Fear and the predatory impulse, the sexual and display 
 motive, play or the hunting activity as a pleasure for its 
 own sake, with a desire perhaps to practice deception and 
 to exercise intelligence, presumably introduced some kind 
 and degree of definite warfare among primitive groups of 
 men at a very early stage of human life, although of course 
 such a conclusion can be only speculative. Increasing in- 
 telligence, the power of discriminating and of reacting to 
 secondary likenesses and differences, and especially the rec- 
 ognition of the nature of death, and the advantages of kill- 
 ing rather than merely overcoming an enemy, the discovery 
 of the use of weapons, introduced warfare into the world. 
 Warfare is, then, not simply the negation of some original 
 principle of mutual aid, nor yet an expression of instinctive 
 aggressiveness or cruelty, but it is a product of original en- 
 dowment, of conditions of life, and of intelligence all to- 
 gether. It is practical, but at no stage can it be said to be 
 wholly practical. Changes must have taken place in war- 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 13 
 
 fare as in other social reactions as men passed through a 
 number of stages from primitive wandering or a relatively 
 unstable life to a stable life, but the motives of conflict can- 
 not have been added to in any essential way. Through all 
 the course of history all the motives that originally made 
 individuals of a group or the groups as wholes antagonistic 
 have remained, although the mental processes have become 
 generalized, fused and transformed. If Gumplowicz is 
 right we can still detect in any great society to-day all the 
 primitive individual and group animosities, tempered down 
 and held in check by laws and customs, but still existent and 
 by no means overcome and made innocuous. 
 
 These motives of warfare might best be traced out in 
 four more or less definite principles of conduct, or four pur- 
 poses of war that appear throughout primitive life. These 
 are: 1) thievery, including wife capture; 2) the fear mo- 
 tive; 3) cannibalism; 4) the display motive, with the de- 
 sire to intimidate and to display power (more or less closely 
 associated with the play motive, the love of hunting, gaming 
 and the dramatic motive). 
 
 Cannibalism, of course, is a special expression of the 
 predatory motive in general, or it is mainly that. Canni- 
 balism was certainly established early in primitive life, at 
 least early enough to antedate all religion, and although its 
 origin and history are shrouded in mystery, the motive was 
 quite certainly practical. Evidently it was widespread if 
 not universal. Whether it was introduced as a result of a 
 failure of animal food, as some think, or has- a still more 
 simple explanation as a part of the original impulse which 
 led men at a certain stage of their development to become 
 hunters, cannot be determined. We know, however, that 
 the alien human being was to some extent included under 
 the same concepts as the animal enemy and prey, and pre- 
 sumably some of the strongest motives that led men to 
 attack animals also included man as an object, since the 
 alien group was regarded as in some degree different in 
 
14 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 kind from the in-group. It may have been in the great 
 migrations when all the aggressive motives were increased 
 that cannibalism became fixed as a habit. 
 
 Cannibalism may well have been the primitive motive of 
 warfare as serious deadly combat, but all predatory habits 
 must have contributed to establishing a more or less ha- 
 bitual state of warfare among all groups of men. The 
 predatory raid, with the reaction of defense, when carried 
 on as a group activity in any form, is in fact war, so far as 
 attack and defense were serious and deadly, and intelligence 
 and weapons were sufficiently developed to make man a dan- 
 gerous opponent. This predatory motive, of course, ex- 
 tended to all desired objects, and these objects must have 
 included all objects that could most simply be acquired by 
 stealing. They included food, women, and all other pos- 
 sessions. The custom of driving out young males from the 
 group, by the jealousy of the old males, and of preventing 
 males from obtaining females within the group must have 
 been one of the earliest and one of the strongest incentives 
 to predatory warfare. At first all property of the group, 
 for so long as groups were wandering, was to some extent 
 common, and attack and defense must have been common. 
 The objects of predatory raids which produced group com- 
 bat must have changed with the social life. When habi- 
 tation became fixed and property therefore more individual, 
 probably the predatory impulse itself became relatively a 
 less important factor in combat. 
 
 Two motives grow out of the practical motives of combat, 
 which we may assume to have been the original motives. 
 These are both emotional rather than instinctive. Fear and 
 anger, that is to say, become more or less detached motives 
 for attack. Fear is increased with the increase of intelli- 
 gence up to a certain point at least — with the increase 
 of the capacity for understanding danger, and of the 
 powers of man to become dangerous. All the experience of 
 combat engenders anger and hatred, and these moods of 
 
Origins and Biological Considerations 15 
 
 hatred toward enemies are cumulative, absorb all the de- 
 tached motives and feelings of antagonism between groups, 
 preserve and give continuity to the memories of conflict, 
 and so produce among groups the fear and hate motive. 
 The feeling of fear arouses the motive of aggression, and 
 the feeling of anger; and these in turn generate more fear, 
 until both the moods of anger and fear and a perpetual 
 state of animosity and warfare are induced among contend- 
 ing groups. Thus out of primitive motives of combat the 
 feud as a more generalized and psychical antagonism is pro- 
 duced, and these states are possible because of the powers of 
 generalization in man which extend to the emotions and 
 make possible the formation of deep moods. 
 
 In another direction, also, the practical motives tend to 
 be superseded by more abstract and more subjective mo- 
 tives. Both in the fear and anger reactions and in the mo- 
 tive that originates in the sexual impulse — display of males, 
 and combat with reference to females — consciousness of 
 prowess for its own sake, and the display of it in order 
 to intimidate the enemy, arise. Into this motive of war 
 there enter all the antagonisms that come from self-con- 
 sciousness, the whole force of the diathesis of developing 
 sexuality, with its jealousy and cruelty, and tendencies to 
 perversion. The force of this motive of prowess must at 
 some period of development have become very great. It 
 extends out into a love of combat for its own sake, reen- 
 forces other motives, and issues in the more abstract mo- 
 tives of honor and power that we see playing such a great 
 part in modern warfare. 
 
 These primitive motives of war are not merely numerous. 
 They fuse, reenforce one another, and almost from the be- 
 ginning, we must suppose, create complex states of con- 
 sciousness, and form moods. War very early, we say, must 
 contain all the motives that ever enter into it. The preda- 
 tory impulse, the love of deception, of conquest, the love 
 of combat for its own sake, the hunting impulse, the motive 
 
1 6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of power, of fear and anger, the impulse of display and the 
 more primitive sexual motives, the motives of courage and 
 jealousy, even a beginning of the aesthetic motive, are all 
 there. They become the warlike mood or produce war, in 
 the sense in which we now understand it, only when the 
 intelligence gives to the relations between groups definite 
 intentions and directions, and out of the many impulses that 
 lead to combat, a distinctive motive and mood are derived. 
 So we may say with all certainty that the making of war 
 is not a mere perpetuation of some alleged instinct of mur- 
 der, surreptitiously retained by man in his rise from an ani- 
 mal state, but it is quite as much a product of his whole 
 social nature. It becomes established as life grows more 
 complex, as specific desires increase in number. Man is 
 not, as thus seen in these genetic views of him, a self-tamed 
 animal. He has not arrived at a precarious and unstable 
 social condition out of a primitive individualism which is the 
 essence of his warlike nature. On the other hand, he has 
 not degenerated from some ideal pacific state. Ages ago 
 he was already divinely human, and possessed those capaci- 
 ties both for cooperation and antagonism out of which war 
 is created. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVES, THE REVERSION THEORIES OF 
 WAR, AND THE INTOXICATION MOTIVE 
 
 There are several interesting theories of the causes of war, 
 now in the field, most of them inspired by our recent great 
 conflict, all of which (but no one perhaps completely or 
 quite justly) may be described as based upon the view that 
 war is an outbreak of, or reversion to, instincts and modes 
 of activity which as primitive tendencies remain in the indi- 
 vidual or in the social life and which, from time to time, 
 with or without social cause, may break loose, so to speak, 
 and hurl man back into savagery. These theories of war 
 show us, in some cases, human character in the form of 
 double personality, or liken civilization to a thin and inse- 
 cure incrustation upon the surface of life, beneath which all 
 that is animal-like and barbaric still remains smoldering. 
 Some of these theories we need to review briefly here. 
 
 Bertrand Russell, in answer to the question, " Why do 
 men fight ? " which is the title of his book dealing with 
 the causes of war, says, in substance, that men fight be- 
 cause they are controlled by instinct (and also by authority), 
 rather than by reason. Men will cease fighting when reason 
 controls instinct, and men think for themselves rather than 
 allow their thinking to be done for them. This view does 
 not explicitly state that war is a reversion, for man may be 
 at no point better or more advanced than a creature of in- 
 stinct, but it lays the blame for war upon the original nature 
 of man. Man has instincts which presumably he has 
 brought with him from his pre-human stage, and some of 
 
 17 
 
1 8 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 these instincts are, on their motor side, the reactions of 
 fighting. 
 
 Le Bon (42) speaks of a conscious and an unconscious 
 will in nations, and says that the motives behind great na- 
 tional movements may be beneath all conscious intentions, 
 and may anticipate them. The Englishman in particular 
 lives, in a sense, a divided life, since there is a manifest in- 
 consistency between what he really is and what he thinks. 
 What these instincts are, Le Bon does not specify; presum- 
 ably they may be either better or worse than the conscious 
 motives. 
 
 Trotter (82) and also Murray (90) consider war from a 
 biological standpoint, regarding it as a herd phenomenon. 
 Trotter's view, especially his interpretation of Germany, 
 which we are not to consider here, is original and important. 
 War is a result of the action of a herd instinct, a specific 
 instinct which is peculiar in one respect, in that it acts upon 
 other instincts but has no definite motor reactions of its 
 own. War is the result of the action of the herd instinct 
 in man upon the old instinct of aggression. At least aggres- 
 sive war is. Men in all their social relations show the 
 play of these instincts ; in war it is the old aggressive instinct, 
 the old passion of the pack, that dominates them; and it is 
 the ancestral herd- fears that overcome them in their panics. 
 It is the herd instinct that makes men in groups so highly 
 sensitive to the leader, whose relations to the herd or pack 
 are always dependent upon their recognizing him as one of 
 the group ; that is, as acting in accordance with the desires 
 of the herd. 
 
 It is by the union of the herd, Murray says, or through 
 the herd instinct, that suppressed unconscious impulses are 
 given an opportunity to operate ; when the human herd 
 is excited by any external stimulus, the old types of reaction 
 are brought into play. Curiously, in such times, leadership 
 may be assumed by eccentric and even abnormal members 
 of the group — by those who are governed by perverted in- 
 
Unconscious Motives 19 
 
 stincts ; by men who are touched with the mania of suspicion, 
 or who even suffer from homicidal mania. 
 
 The essential point of these biological views is that, when 
 the human herd is subjected to any influences that tend to 
 arouse the herd instinct — that is, to unite the herd in any 
 common emotion or action, the old instinctive forms of re- 
 sponse are likely to be brought to the front. Whatever the 
 stimulus, the tendency is for the herd to fixate its attention 
 upon some external object, which at once is reacted to with 
 deep emotion. Plainly, if this be true, if herd instinct does 
 throw human society from time to time and from various 
 causes into attitudes of defense and offense with the appro- 
 priate emotional reactions, and if in such times leaders are 
 likely to appear, having exaggerated instinctive tendencies, 
 there is always close at hand and ready a mechanism by 
 which war can be produced, war being precisely of the type 
 of mass action, under strong emotion, of a group closely 
 united under spectacular leadership, with attention cramped 
 upon some external object hated or feared. 
 
 Nicolai (79), who believes strongly that war is wholly 
 useless, compares it to the play we turn to when the actions 
 performed in the play are no longer in themselves practical. 
 War is a great debauch, perhaps now the last the race will 
 experience. War is like wine : in it nations renew their 
 youth. It is not the war itself, but the mood it produces 
 that we crave, and this mood is longed for because in it old 
 and sacred feelings of patriotism are aroused, and these 
 feelings are themselves survivals, something romantic, 
 archaic, no longer needed in the present stage of social life. 
 
 Novicow (83) says something very similar to this. War 
 is a survival, like the classical languages, for example. Men 
 begin to find beauty and glory in these things only after 
 the activities they represent are useless. The principle of 
 their survival is nothing more or less than that of habit. It 
 is habit that keeps war alive; wars are a concession to our 
 forebears, a following in the footsteps of a dead past. 
 
20 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 We are presenting these views in a somewhat loose and 
 illogical order, but let us look at still a few more of them. 
 Patrick thinks of war as precisely a plunge into the prime- 
 val. War is a reaction, a regression, but still it is some- 
 thing more than a mere slipping of the machinery of life. 
 It is craved; and it is craved because it offers relief from 
 the tension of modern life. It is not quite clear whether it 
 is because we are tired and want rest for our over-worked 
 functions, or are merely dull and need renewed life, but in 
 any case, when the desire has accumulated enough, back we 
 fall into the primeval. Then all the tensions and inhibitions 
 of civilized society disappear. Society, relieved of its cross- 
 tensions, is resolved and organized into an harmonious and 
 freely acting whole, seeking a definite object. Life is sim- 
 plified, and becomes again primitive. Old and vigorous 
 movements take the place of the cramped thinking of our 
 civilized life. All that keeps us modern and evolved is 
 relaxed. 
 
 Naturally the Freudians have their own explanation of 
 war in terms of subconscious wishes, repressed feelings and 
 instincts. Freud (78) himself says that war is a recrudes- 
 cence (and a mastery over us) of a more primitive life 
 than our own. The child and the primitive man, as we 
 have long known them in the Freudian theories, live still in 
 us and are indestructible. We have supposed ourselves to 
 have overcome these primitive impulses, but we are far from 
 being so civilized as we thought. The evil impulses, as we 
 call them, which we supposed had at least been transformed 
 are changed only in the sense that they have been influenced 
 by the erotic motive, or have been repressed by an outer 
 restraint, an educational factor, the demands of what we 
 call civilized environment. But let us not deceive ourselves ; 
 the old impulses are still alive ; the number of people who 
 have been transformed by civilization is less than we 
 supposed. All society is at heart barbaric. Judged by our 
 unconscious wishes, we are a band of murderers, for the 
 
Unconscious Motives 21 
 
 primitive wish is to kill all who oppose our self-interests, 
 and war is precisely a reversion to the method of free ex- 
 pression of our desires in action. Society and the authority 
 of government have suppressed these primitive reactions in 
 the individual, but instead of eliminating them altogether 
 from human nature (which, of course, no legislation can 
 do in any case), government and society as a whole have 
 appropriated all these primitive actions to their own use. 
 
 Jones (37), the Freudian, distinguishes two quite differ- 
 ent groups of causes of war: the conscious causes, all ex- 
 pressed in the feeling of patriotism ; and the unconscious 
 causes, which grow out of the desire to release certain orig- 
 inal passions — the passions of cruelty, destruction, loot and 
 lust. 
 
 The central thought of all these views, it is plain, is that 
 war belongs to the past. It is a return to something that, 
 in a significant sense, is the natural man — is his instinctive 
 and unguarded self. It is also plainly implied in these views, 
 here and there, that modern man, by thus lapsing into war, 
 is renewing his stock of primitive nature. The modern 
 man is in unstable equilibrium, and whatever upsets that 
 equilibrium sends him back through the ages. MacCurdy 
 (37), having Jones and Freud in mind, protests against 
 these views to this extent : he says that the present state of 
 man, rather than the past, is the natural state, and that at 
 least in reverting to the primitive state man becomes un- 
 natural. 
 
 The question upon which our discussion of this aspect 
 of war is going to hinge is whether, or in what sense, the 
 activities and the feelings aroused in war are reversions. 
 Wars, beyond a doubt, do involve to a greater extent than 
 peaceful life certain instinctive reactions. Wars are so 
 impulsive and so persistent that we must suppose very deep 
 motives to be engaged in war ; and the fact that in all wars, 
 and on both sides of every war, the feelings and the reac- 
 tions are fundamentally the same, indicates that war is some- 
 
22 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 thing less differentiated than the peaceful life. But that 
 war can be explained in terms of instinct as such, or that 
 war can be disposed of as a mere recrudescence of old im- 
 pulses and types of conduct buried beneath civilization, is 
 very much to be doubted. War, in the first place, in its 
 moods and passions, appears to be too complex, too synthetic 
 a process to be quite what this view would imply. It is too 
 intimately related to everything that occurs and exists in 
 present day society. It means too much, concretely and 
 with reference to objects specifically desired for the future. 
 War is related to the past, but to a great extent, it may be, 
 wars represent and contain the present and look toward the 
 future. The distinctions and differences in the interpreta- 
 tion of war thus implied, and the conflicting understanding 
 of facts about society and individual life cannot be very 
 clear at this point, but that there are involved fundamental 
 problems of psychology, and perhaps divergent ways of 
 thinking of history and society, and of such principles of 
 philosophy at least as are implicated in aesthetics, and finally 
 of the practical questions that are of most interest in these 
 fields to-day, may begin to be evident. 
 
 There is one aspect of war, or one question about war, 
 that seems to suggest that its problems are more subtle and 
 less simple than the instinct-theories imply. War has been, 
 and still is, the great story of the world, the center of all 
 that is dramatic and heroic in life. Its mood — and that is 
 the essential thing in it, whatever else war may have been, 
 and in spite of all its horrors — is ecstatic. War produces, 
 or is produced by, states of mind that affiliate it with all the 
 other ecstasies — of love, religion, intoxication, art. We 
 may well doubt whether any explanation of war can ever 
 be satisfactory that does not take this quality of it fully into 
 account. One may say, of course, that war is ecstatic just 
 because it does satisfy instincts, that the satisfaction of all 
 instincts is pleasant, or that pleasure is the satisfaction of 
 instincts. But there is more in the problem than that. 
 
Unconscious Motives 23 
 
 Love, the source of the other great romance of the world, 
 is not exhausted by calling it a gratification of the sexual 
 instinct, or a primitive tendency of all organic life. It is 
 at the other end of the process of development of it, so to 
 speak, its place as a present motive in life, that it is most 
 significant, and it is by no means explained by calling it a 
 product of sexuality. 
 
 So with war. Made out of instincts, it may be, but it 
 is not explained as the sum of instinctive reactions. That, 
 at least, is our thesis. It is the fact that war is a great 
 ecstasy of the social life, that it holds a high place in art, 
 that history — our selective way of reacting upon human 
 experience — is in a large measure the story of war, that 
 its representations in dramatic forms are almost endless in 
 variety; it is such facts that give us our clew to the nature 
 of the problems of war, and also to the practical questions 
 of its future. 
 
 Hirschfeld (98), in a short study of war, has enumerated 
 and briefly described some of the forms in which the ecstasy 
 of war appears, or some of the ecstasies that appear in war. 
 He speaks of the ecstasy of heroism, and the ecstatic sense 
 that accompanies the taking part in great events, the con- 
 sciousness of making history. On a little lower plane there 
 is the excitement of adventure and of travel that gives 
 allurement to the idea of war in the mind of the soldier, and 
 which also glorifies the soldier ; the sensation hunger ; the 
 cupidus rerum novarum; the ecstasies of nature and free- 
 dom, suggested by the very term " in the field." Add to 
 these the ecstasies of battle and of victory, the Kampfs- 
 rausch and the Siegestrunkcnheit , and the mood of war in 
 which acts unlawful for the individual become not only 
 lawful but highly honorable when done collectively. There 
 is also in the mood of war the social intoxication, the feeling 
 on the part of the individual of being a part of a body and 
 the sense of being lost in a greater whole. The lusts of con- 
 quest, and of looting, and of combat, all contribute to this 
 
24 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 spirit of war. And finally, summing up all the other ecsta- 
 sies, the strong inner movement of the soul expressing itself 
 in strong external movements, and in the sense of living 
 and dying in the midst of vivid and real life. 
 
 Hirschfeld's analysis of the ecstasy of war discloses deep 
 and powerful motives in the individual mind and the social 
 life. We can find this ecstasy everywhere in the history of 
 war, sometimes as a national exaltation, sometimes as a 
 more restricted phenomenon. Villard (54), speaking of 
 the first days of the war, says that in Germany then one 
 could see " the psychology of the crowd at its noblest 
 height." The exaltation of a people, whatever its content, 
 or its purpose, is an awe-inspiring spectacle. There can 
 be no greater display of the sources of human power. In 
 this particular time of exaltation we can see in action reli- 
 gious ecstasy, the cult of valor, and the stirring of more 
 fundamental and more primitive feelings. This exaltation 
 has its imaginative side. There is a dream of empire in it. 
 There is an exhibition of the forms of royalty, its display, 
 its color and its dramatic moments. There is the spirit of 
 militarism and of great adventure, the excitement of chance, 
 of throwing all into the hands of fate, the aesthetic and the 
 play motives which are never separated from the practical 
 passions in times of great exaltation. 
 
 This mood of war differs, of course, at different times 
 under different circumstances. The French people cer- 
 tainly went into the great war with no such exaltation. 
 We should have to look elsewhere in French history for the 
 ecstatic war spirit, when the French are moved by the mo- 
 tives of glory and prestige, or by the vanity and eroticism 
 which Reuthe thinks are the essential qualities of the spirit 
 of France. But taking history as a whole there is no lack 
 of ecstasy in the spirit of war. We find in this ecstasy 
 exalted social feeling, joy of overcoming the pain of death, 
 the exultation of sacrifice, love of display, feeling of trag- 
 edy, the ecstasy of exerting the utmost of power, love of 
 
Unconscious Motives 25 
 
 clanger, the gambling motive, the love of battle, love of all 
 the dramatic elements of military life. These separate 
 ecstasies, taken all together, make up the exalted mood of 
 war. They represent war in its most significant moments. 
 
 In this mood of war instincts are exhibited, but they 
 seem to be in some way transformed, so that the whole has 
 a meaning different from the parts. The mood of war is 
 not a mere effect, a reaction to events. It is a longing — 
 plastic and indefinite it may be — but looking toward the 
 future. It is a craving, not for the release of definite in- 
 stincts, but is' rather a force or a desire which, however mis- 
 guided the expression of this mood or this energy may be, 
 is the essence of what individuals and society to-day are. 
 We may find in this mood, upon superficial examination, 
 mere emotions, but in a final and deeper analysis, we may 
 suppose, its content and its meaning will be found to be 
 specific — purposes which constitute what is deepest and 
 most continuous in the individual and in society, but which 
 at the same time give to this mood its generality of direction 
 and of form. 
 
 It is the war-mood, then, that must be explained, if we 
 wish to understand the motives and causes of war. And 
 this war mood, so it appears, is related to all the other great 
 ecstasies — of art, religion, intoxication, love. It is, of 
 course, then, a psychological problem, and one having many 
 radiations and deep roots. The view that we are going to 
 take is that in the mood of war we have to do essentially 
 with what, relying upon previous studies of the principles 
 of art and of the motives that are at work in society that 
 produce the phenomena of intemperance we may call the 
 intoxication motive. That this intoxication motive is a 
 plastic force, a mood containing desires and impulses that 
 may be satisfied in a variety of ways, since as a sum of de- 
 sires it is no longer specific and instinctive, is the main im- 
 plication of this view. It is this generic quality and com- 
 positeness of the purpose of the individual and of the spirit 
 
26 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of society that obscures the meaning of history and often 
 makes individual lives so enigmatical, and which also makes 
 these purposes of individuals and nations so persistent, 
 sometimes so terribly forceful and insatiable. 
 
 As contrasted with instincts, the motive of intoxication 
 we say, is plastic, and its object — and this is one of its 
 most significant characteristics — is to produce exalted 
 states of consciousness mainly for their own sake. At least 
 this experience of exaltation is the main or central thing 
 sought. It is a tendency to seek exalted states, but at the 
 same time, we should say, specific instincts gain some kind 
 of satisfaction, although not at all necessarily by the per- 
 formance of the external movements appropriate to them. 
 They may obtain a certain vicarious satisfaction. The 
 mood gives conduct a general direction, it provides a mo- 
 tive and the power, it is the source of interest and of de- 
 sire, but its objects may be indefinite and variable. 
 
 Some general aspects of the moods that we have to con- 
 sider have already come to light, and these may prove to be 
 valuable clews to a psychological analysis of their content. 
 There is the ecstatic state, and the craving to experience it, 
 the love of excitement, the desire to have a sense of reality, 
 the impulse to seek an abundant life, the love of power and 
 of the feeling of power. These are all related, and at least 
 they have something in common, but it is the last mentioned, 
 the motive of power, that seems to be the most definite and 
 to have the clearest biological meaning and implications. 
 Indeed this motive of power (and we must here again de- 
 pend upon previous studies of the aesthetic motives and 
 other aspects of ecstasy), appears to be fundamental in art, 
 in religion, and in history. It is a concept that gives us a 
 vantage ground for the interpretation of some of the most 
 significant parts of life. The idea of power and the craving 
 for power as a general motive, but also containing and ex- 
 ploiting specific purposes and desires, runs through all the 
 history of art and religion and also through history itself. 
 
Unconscious Motives 27 
 
 Religion is based upon the desire to exert and to feel power, 
 and it is the manifest and indeed the expressly acknowl- 
 edged purpose of all primitive art, and is concealed and 
 implied in all later art. Art is practical, an effort to realize 
 a sense of power, to become a god (just as in his motive of 
 play the child desires more than anything else to realize 
 himself as a man), to influence people, or objects, or gods, 
 to exert magic somewhere in the world. In the feeling of 
 power which the ecstatic state produces, the belief in the 
 power of art is established, and at the same time deep and 
 hidden impulses are exploited. On the feeling side, and 
 indeed in every way, this ought to explain how art, religion, 
 and all states of intoxication have a common element, if 
 they are not primitively the same. 
 
 A psychology of the war moods must undertake to trace 
 the history of the motive of power, considering its begin- 
 nings as the desire and sense of satisfaction connected with 
 the performance of definite instinctive acts, and with their 
 physiological results, with the exertion of power and the 
 production of effects upon objects. It is in the performance 
 of instinctive acts, in which superiority is inborn, that ani- 
 mal and man obtain their original sense of power or supe- 
 riority. As capacities are differentiated and multiplied, the 
 experiences of achievement generate a mood and a more 
 general impulse, a desire to exert power for its own sake. 
 The sensory or organic elements tend to predominate in this 
 generalized motive, simply because the specific actions in 
 which the sense of power is obtained cannot so readily, or 
 cannot at all, be generalized. Such an organization of ac- 
 tions and states in consciousness demands nothing new in 
 principle, implies nothing different from that found on the 
 intellectual side when concepts are formed from concrete 
 experiences. The associative processes and the selective 
 principles everywhere present in mental action are all that 
 are necessary to be assumed here. We may take advantage, 
 however, of the special investigations of affective logic, and 
 
28 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the like, as giving evidence in support of such a conception 
 of the formation of moods as is here being worked out. 
 We are likely to make the mistake of thinking the specific 
 instincts and the impulses and pleasure states that we find 
 in human experiences, such as ecstasy, as the whole of these 
 experiences, and to overlook the constant process of gen- 
 eralization that goes on in all the mental activity of the in- 
 dividual. For example, we may think of various plays 
 which involve instinctive actions as being wholly explained 
 by, or to be made up of, these instinctive acts alone, whereas 
 in most plays that take the form of excitement, abandon or 
 ecstasy, there are being employed processes which are gen- 
 eral in the sense of reenforcing all the specific acts alike, and 
 are yet specific in the sense that they are themselves, or have 
 been, practical : that is, they are in reality processes that 
 belong to the fundamental strata of consciousness — to the 
 nutritional and reproductive tendencies. Out of these tend- 
 encies the more complex processes of which we speak are 
 made, but they are no mere repetition of old forms. That, 
 at least, is the way these ecstatic moods appear from our 
 point of view. 
 
 It is precisely because ecstatic moods are presumably thus 
 general and -composite, and involve fundamental instincts 
 (but in such a way that they are transformed, and no longer 
 present in body, so to speak, but are represented by their 
 organic processes rather than appearing as specific concate- 
 nated chains of motor events), with their purposes changed 
 and their whole meaning determined by the present states 
 to which they belong, that we should be inclined to say that 
 to explain any great and powerful movement in the lives 
 of individuals or nations as merely reversions is very in- 
 adequate and indeed wrong. They are emotional forces 
 that are at work, composite feelings and moods rather than 
 instincts. They are aspects of the continuity of the life 
 of the present, rather than of the fragmentary past that 
 lives in the individual. These forces are plastic, complex 
 
Unconscious Motives 29 
 
 and organized, rather than haphazard and suppressed. 
 They are directive, creative, but incidentally they make 
 amends for and satisfy and exploit the past. 
 
 If these principles be valid, their application to the psy- 
 chology of war seems plain. The central purpose or motive 
 of war to-day is a craving for the realization of the sense of 
 power. This is the subjective side of it, the unconscious, 
 instinctive, mystical motive so often observed. The ques- 
 tion of the actual power exerted or displayed is not the most 
 essential point of this war mood. It is the manipulation 
 and the satisfaction of inner factors that make the most 
 significant aspect of these moods. History, we should 
 hold, is in great part an unfoldment of this motive. Na- 
 tions crave, as collective or group consciousness, the feeling 
 of power. Just as we say the child in his plays wants to 
 be a man, and the individual in his art feels himself a god, 
 so nations in their wars and in their thoughts of wars, feel 
 themselves more real, realize themselves as world powers, 
 and as supreme and divine. To be first and all is indeed 
 the purpose that runs in these moods, and this we believe 
 is true, in its way, of the most insignificant and hopelessly 
 decrepit of peoples. This must be taken account of in the 
 interpretation of history, and in that larger pedagogy, the 
 pedagogy of nations to which we just now look forward. 
 
 These moods which, slumbering, become the ecstasies of 
 war are vague, even secretive. They contain aggressive 
 thoughts that are disavowed, vanities that are concealed, 
 fears that present a quiet front. But we must not think 
 that the war mood always intends war. Nations have their 
 subjective lives and inner history, and their vicarious satis- 
 factions. A nation in arms already feels itself victor by 
 reason of its sense of power. Otherwise few wars would 
 be entered upon. Dreams and talk of war may incite to 
 war, but they may also satisfy the desire and need of war. 
 There is a certain narcissism in nations, and this is due pre- 
 cisely to the fact that patriotism as a feeling and impulse 
 
30 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 necessarily lacks in the group consciousness the mechanisms 
 for externalization, except indeed in war. War is an es- 
 cape, for a people, from a kind of subjectivism, from the 
 evils of a self-love to perhaps the greater evils of self- 
 assertion. 
 
 Nations in war, and even in the thought of war realize 
 their own potentiality, take account of stock of their pow- 
 ers, and create an ideal, romantic and dream world. They 
 make castles-in-air, and these castles-in-air always take the 
 form of empires. War, precisely like art, is at first more 
 and then less practical, and sought for practical purposes. 
 More and more there is a craving for glory, for prestige, 
 for subjective satisfaction and symbols of power. Nations 
 take lands that they cannot use for any good purpose, 
 inflict indemnities that may ruin themselves rather than 
 their enemies, exploit economic relations that are dangerous 
 to the nations' very existence. It is power that they seek, 
 and it is power they thus create, but it is often different in 
 form and in value from what the conscious purpose holds. 
 They are really seeking general and subjective states in part 
 for their own sake. Psychologically it is all one and the 
 same whether we realize this power by actually killing an 
 enemy, or believe we overpower him by the performance of 
 some mystic and ecstatic act, or in some more modern way 
 become confident in our own power and prestige. National 
 life, in order to maintain its integrity, must move upon a 
 plane of intense feeling. It must have objectives, but these 
 objectives are not necessarily of value in themselves. This 
 is the delusion and enigma of history. Peoples enact 
 dramas in their own subjective lives, and these things they 
 do have reference to the desires for inner experiences. We 
 may say that nations, like individuals, crave for luxuries of 
 the emotional life, but to think of these experiences as 
 merely static pleasure-states, after the fashion of a certain 
 conception of the emotions, would be wholly to misunder- 
 stand this view which we have been trying to present. 
 
Unconscious Motives 31 
 
 These subjective states are full of meaning and of purpose. 
 They are not reactions, but rather, in so far as these col- 
 lective lives are normal and progressive, these moods and 
 ecstasies are more of the nature of crucibles in which old 
 reactions and feelings are fused, given new direction, new 
 forms and in a certain way a new nature. History is made 
 in these moods of war. They are subjective forces, but 
 they are also objectively creative. 
 
 What is it that nations really desire? What is it, we 
 might ask, that an individual desires? On the side of ex- 
 perience it is an abundant life, a life full of the feeling of 
 power. This craving for an abundant life is a craving for 
 the satisfaction of many desires, instinctive and acquired, 
 but it is also a craving, in some sense, for more desire. It 
 is not merely to satisfy desires, but to realize more life by 
 creating more desires that experience is sought. That is 
 the philosophy of the life of the superior individual; it is 
 also the principle of the larger individual — the nation. 
 The creation and the satisfaction of desire are the motives 
 of art. They are also the motives of life. 
 
 In history, it is the intangible value, the unconscious pur- 
 pose, the desire to realize empires that are only in part ma- 
 terial, the desire for glory and prestige and opportunity that 
 seem to be the guiding motives. There is a general and 
 plastic purpose beneath all the special tendencies and desires 
 directing interest toward specific objects, and also some- 
 times making the objectives sought indefinite and the pur- 
 poses in seeking them seem mystical. It is the desire to be 
 a power in the world, or rather to have power over the 
 world, and to experience all the inner exaltation these de- 
 sires inspire that appears to be the creative force in history. 
 These things, moreover, are not the desires and impulses of 
 the geniuses among nations alone ; they seem to be inherent 
 in all national life. 
 
 Study of the intoxication motive in the individual and 
 as a social phenomenon shows that it is not an expression 
 
32 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of the need of relaxation from strain, or a reversion, or 
 something that occurs by a mere release of primitive in- 
 stincts. It occurs in the great periods of history, and in 
 the strong years of the life of the individual, rather than in 
 times of weakness. It is always a spirit of the times rather 
 than of some past reverted to. It may occur in times of 
 disorder or of repression, but it is an experience in which 
 energy and power are expressed. We see it most dominant 
 when life is most abundant, when there is also a craving to 
 make life more abundant still, when there is already power 
 and more power is longed for. It is true, however, that 
 two opposite conditions may produce the strongest mani- 
 festations of this intoxication motive. Something analo- 
 gous to these conditions we see in the lives of individuals, in 
 the phenomena of intemperance, which belong in general to 
 the virile years. Social ecstasy is produced in times when 
 there is already a free expression of energy, but also under 
 conditions that cause pain, disorder and repression. Under 
 the latter conditions we think of it not as desire for relief 
 from strain but desire to be released from obstacles that im- 
 pede the expression of the growth force. If all this be 
 true, we see war in a somewhat different light from that in 
 which it is ordinarily regarded. It is not, in its typical 
 forms, a reversion to barbarism, and it is not a political 
 mishap. It is rather a readjustment of tendencies or forces 
 and an expression and product of the living and progressive 
 forces of society — not necessarily a good or even a normal 
 expression of them, but an awakening and a realization of 
 such desires as are to-day at work in everything we do — 
 forces which for the moment are raised to a white heat, so 
 to speak, in which purposes are for the moment fused and 
 it may be confused — but still an expression of what, for 
 better or for worse we are, not of what in some remote past 
 time we were. We cannot explain war or excuse ourselves 
 for waging wars by saying that we lapse for a time into 
 barbarism, but on the other hand the heroism we suddenly 
 
Unconscious Motives 33 
 
 find in ourselves as nations or as individuals, is not so dif- 
 ferent from that of ordinary life as we may have supposed. 
 We have perhaps no right to say that all war is thus to be 
 characterized. War is a very complex and a widely vari- 
 able phenomenon, but this is the explanation of that aspect 
 of the motive of history which in general produces war. 
 War may have its abnormalities, if we may speak of a worse 
 in that which is already bad enough. War may satisfy the 
 desperate mind ; it may, on occasion, be a narcotic to cover 
 up worse pain, or an evidence of decadence ; or even be what 
 those who think of it as a reversion believe. But all these 
 aspects of war, if our view be sound, are the eccentricities 
 rather than the essence of war. 
 
 The conditions preceding our recent great war will doubt- 
 less in the "course of future historical and sociological re- 
 search, be minutely scrutinized, in the effort to find the 
 causes of the war — factors deeper than and different from 
 the political and economic causes and the personal intrigues 
 that are now most emphasized. If we believe that the war 
 was made in Germany rather than elsewhere, we might look 
 there, especially for these psychological factors of war — 
 for our intoxication motives and unconscious impulses and 
 our causes of reversion, but we should probably not find 
 anything different in kind there from what we should dis- 
 cover in other great countries. Those who have seen in 
 modern industrialism dangers of coming disaster, or who 
 now look back upon it as a genuine cause of the war were 
 probably not mistaken. Industrialism has been producing 
 rapidly, and in an intense form, what we may call the mood 
 of the city, and this mood of the city contains all the con- 
 ditions and all the emotions that tend to bring to the surface 
 the deep-lying motives of the social life that we are trying 
 to point out. There are both the joy of the abundant life, 
 the craving for new experiences, and the sense of reality, 
 and also the disorganization of interests and motives, the 
 stress and fatigue and monotony which prepare the mind 
 
34 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 for culmination in dramatic events. There is, in a word, 
 a deep stirring of all the forces that make for progress and 
 expansion, and also conditions that disorganize the indi- 
 vidual and the social life. Lamprecht (59) of all German 
 writers seems to have appreciated this. He has written be- 
 fore the war, describing a condition in Germany which he 
 says began in the seventies of the preceding century — a 
 change of German life in which there is a great increase of 
 the activities of the cities, with haste and anxiety, unscrupu- 
 lous individual energy, general nervous excitement, a condi- 
 tion of neuro-muscular weakness (and he might have added 
 as another sign, over-stimulation of the mind by a great 
 flood of morbid literature). 
 
 In Lamprecht's opinion, this period of excitement, this 
 strong tendency to the enjoyment of excitation in general, 
 is a form of socio-psychic dissociation. It is a period of 
 relative disorganization, when the individual is subjected 
 to a great variety of new experiences, when outside influ- 
 ences prevail over the inner impulses of the individual, in 
 which the individual is unsettled and there is a tendency to- 
 ward pessimism and melancholia. Lamprecht thinks of 
 this state as something transitory, and already as he writes 
 (in 1905) nearing an end. This state of continuous excite- 
 ment, with its shallow pathos of the individual and its con- 
 stant and superficial happiness, its worship of the novel and 
 the extraordinary, the suggestibility and the receptivity of 
 the masses, automatic action of the will and the emotions — - 
 all this Lamprecht thinks will pass. It is a stage in the proc- 
 ess of a new formation. The very elements of dissociation 
 are positively charged, so to speak, and contain creative 
 power. A new system of morals, a new philosophy, new 
 religion begin to emerge. There is a strong effort to reach 
 a new dominant. 
 
 This is Lamprecht's psychological interpretation of re- 
 cent German history. This view and the various aspects 
 of the condition which Lamprecht describes, the relation of 
 
Unconscious Motives 35 
 
 the materialism, the pessimism and the melancholy of such 
 a time to the optimistic trends and the deep forward move- 
 ment need a closer study than we can here give it, but may 
 we not see in it the truth that such conditions as these are 
 prone to cause wars as a phase of the process of the inner 
 adjustment of national life? Wars occur as forms of ex- 
 pression of those impulses which appear in the individual 
 life in times of rapid growth and relative dissociation as 
 outbreaks of intemperance and passion — a culmination, 
 according to our view and terminology, of the intoxication 
 motive. Industrialism itself is perhaps but one manifesta- 
 tion of deep impulses in the life of nations; it is at once an 
 intensification and a formalizing of life. Hence perhaps its 
 paradoxical appearance as an increase of both joy and dis- 
 tress. There is nothing in it that is wholly satisfying. 
 
 Germany, says Lamprecht, was seeking, in this transition 
 period, a new dominant, a new religion and a new philoso- 
 phy. But Germany, let us help Lamprecht to say, since he 
 does not himself draw this conclusion, has failed to emerge 
 upon the level of an exalted ecstasy, failed to produce the 
 philosophical, the moral and religious fruit of its new im- 
 pulses, failed, in a word, to find its dominant on a high level, 
 precisely as often the promising individual fails and has ex- 
 pressed his truly great nature in low forms of activity. So 
 Germany, and the world, dominated by industrialism and all 
 the desires and forces that the rapid development of indus- 
 trialism has brought into action, has come to a culmination 
 of its efforts in an outbreak unparalleled in history. On 
 the side of Germany we see a nation governed by a mood 
 of war in which the chief modes of thought and action rep- 
 resented are the pseudo-mystical and religious longings for 
 new empire, romantic love of the past, militarism, and all 
 the motives of the new industrialism and the new science. 
 The best motives of the old feudalism and the new indus- 
 trialism tried to unite, as we might say, into a new and very 
 great civilization — and they failed. What has happened 
 
36 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 is that the material powers and the cynical moods of indus- 
 trialism have combined with the mystical elements and the 
 superficial aestheticism of the old feudalistic regime to create 
 a philosophy of life, a temporary stage it may be, in which 
 force and fanaticism and the uncompromising ideals of na- 
 tional honor and brute strength prevail over those of a 
 wider efficiency and a broader devotion which might have 
 inspired a greater and a better Germany. Convention and 
 political motives have done the rest. 
 
 Bergson says that in the war spirit of Germany one sees 
 matter arrayed against spirit. One can see some truth in 
 this, but spirit and matter are not two armies pitted against 
 one another. In Germany, as we may believe elsewhere, the 
 spiritual in the sense of creative forces in the subconscious 
 life of nations does try to organize the practical life, with 
 its routine and convention, into an onward moving prog- 
 ress, in which, necessarily, exalted moods (if energies are 
 to get themselves expressed at all) must prevail, and must 
 be full of possibilities, both of great good and of great evil. 
 Life in its collective form will be abundant, because that 
 is its most fundamental craving. It may be terribly and 
 destructively abundant, or benignly, but progress, as his- 
 tory seems to show us — if reason and psychology do not 
 — can never be orderly and complacent. Order and con- 
 vention must break down to introduce new spirit and new 
 desires which are continually being created in the inner life. 
 These forces may be old instincts which are continually up- 
 setting civilized life, but the desires they produce and the 
 mechanism of their operation seem to be different from 
 what our customary psychology and interpretation of his- 
 tory imply. Just as these moods make the child play and 
 be wholly unpractical when one might suppose he could be 
 useful, and the individual, as man, live a certain life of ad- 
 venture rather than in security and routine, so this spirit 
 or mood that dominates nations makes them imperialistic, 
 and causes them to crave those things which lead toward 
 
Unconscious Motives 37 
 
 war, if they do not crave war itself, when we might think 
 they ought to be most concerned about the economic wel- 
 fare of the world as a whole. 
 
 . Whether this spirit of nations be an evil to be overcome, 
 and to suppress, or an untamed force to direct to right ob- 
 jects, or a good that by some logic of events which we do 
 not understand works out the right course of history, we 
 do not know. But here, of course, we come to problems, 
 which, if they are problems at all in any real sense, are 
 philosophical and ultimate. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 INSTINCTS IN WAR: FEAR, HATE, THE AGGRESSIVE IMPULSE, 
 MOTIVES OF COMBAT AND DESTRUCTION, THE SOCIAL 
 INSTINCT 
 
 We have found that the essential, and we might say, pri- 
 mary psychological datum of war is a war-mood, that the 
 central motive of this war-mood is a general impulse which 
 we called the intoxication motive, and that this intoxication 
 motive, considered generically, and in regard to its specific 
 meaning is a craving for power and for the experience of 
 exerting and feeling power. The war-mood is not a mere 
 collection of instincts ; it is a new product, in which instincts 
 and emotions have a place. There are several reasons, 
 practical and theoretical, for regarding it as a highly im- 
 portant problem to discover what the actual content of this 
 war-mood is. This mood, being one of the greatest of all 
 powers of good and evil, and one most in need to-day of 
 education and re-direction, it may be, it will probably be 
 controlled, if ever, upon the basis of a knowledge of what 
 it means as a whole, and of what its elements are which ap- 
 pear in the form of fused, transformed, truncated, general- 
 ized and aborted instincts and feelings. 
 
 Primitive Tendencies 
 
 First of all, the highly complex emotions, moods and 
 impulses we find in the social consciousness as expressed 
 in the moods of war, do contain and revert to instincts and 
 feelings that are part of the primitive equipment of organic 
 life, and are usually identified as nutritional and reproduc- 
 
 38 
 
Instincts in War 39 
 
 tive tendencies. The part played in war by the migratory 
 impulse, the predatory impulse and the like indicates the 
 connection of the war-moods with the nutritional tendencies ; 
 and the display elements found already in primitive war- 
 fare and, as we have already inferred, in all forms of 
 ecstasy contain factors that are at bottom sexual. We no 
 longer eat our enemies, and we do not bring home their 
 heads to our women or practice wife stealing, but it is 
 easy to observe the remnants of these old feelings and in- 
 stincts in war. Trophy hunting continues, and we may 
 suppose that even the moods of primitive cannibalism have 
 not entirely been lost. The ready habituation of soldiers 
 to some of the scenes of the recent war seems to suggest 
 a lingering trace of this motive, while the looting impulse 
 which plays such a part in war, and some aspects of the de- 
 structive impulses and the like that are displayed, are, with 
 a high degree of probability, closely related to instincts that 
 were once specifically practical and belong to the funda- 
 mental nutritional motives. Nor is it a mere euphemism, 
 perhaps, when we speak of the greed of nations, nor solely 
 analogical when we compare the ambitions of peoples with 
 certain adolescent phenomena in the life of the individual. 
 Plainly the social consciousness, as a collective mood, does 
 not command the specific reactions connected with sexuality 
 and nutrition, but we may observe the presence of these 
 instinctive reactions in two phases of war. We see them 
 in the tendencies of various individuals, who under the 
 excitements of the war moods are controlled more or less 
 specifically by instinctive reactions. We see also frag- 
 ments of instinctive reactions and primitive feeling woven 
 into the total states of social consciousness. The hunger 
 motive may, and probably does, supply some of the ele- 
 ments of the fear and the aggressive moods of war; just 
 as the sex motive provides some of the elements of anger 
 and hatred, and some of the qualities of combat itself. 
 
40 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 The Aggressive Instinct 
 
 A natural, but somewhat naive explanation of war is 
 that it is a survival of the aggressive instinct that man has 
 brought up with him from animal life, in which he orig- 
 inated, and that very early in his career was directed to- 
 ward his fellow men. This aggressive instinct as expressed 
 in the modern spirit of war does not need, on this view, 
 to be thought of as something reverted to. It is still ac- 
 tive throughout the social life. Both the purposes and the 
 methods of it remain. We have referred to one aspect 
 of this before, and to the objection that can be made that 
 the ancestry of man does not show us such an aggressive 
 instinct. The nearest relatives of man are mainly social 
 rather than aggressive in their habits. Even the habits of 
 hunting other animals and eating animal food appear to 
 have been acquired during man's career as man, and he 
 never has had the aggressive temper that some creatures 
 have had. Man has acquired a very effectual and very com- 
 plex adjustment to his environment by piecing together, so 
 to speak, fragments of his original conduct, and developing 
 mechanisms that have been produced in the race as a means 
 of satisfying fundamental needs. Modes of reaction pro- 
 duced originally for one purpose have apparently been 
 utilized by other motives. Of course the more specific ani- 
 mal instincts are not wholly lacking, but it is also true that 
 man through his social life has produced habits that re- 
 semble or are substitutes for primitive instincts. The love 
 of combat, especially as it is shown in play indicates the 
 presence of instinctive roots, but it does not show the ex- 
 istence of a definite instinct of aggression. This play is in 
 part an off-shoot of the reproductive motive. These fight- 
 ing plays of children are in part sexual plays, and we see 
 them clearly in their true light in some of the higher 
 mammals most closely related to man. 
 
Instincts in War 41 
 
 One aspect of the aggressive habit of man has been 
 too much neglected. It is highly probable that aggression 
 in man has been far more closely related to the emotion of 
 fear than to any assumed predatory instinct. It is a 
 question whether the predatory habit of man, ending in can- 
 nibalism and the hunting of animals for food, did not orig- 
 inate in the time of the long battle man must have had with 
 animals in which the animals themselves for the most part 
 played the part of aggressors. It was not for nothing, at 
 any rate, that our animal ancestors took to the trees, and it is 
 certain that the fear element in human nature is very strong 
 and very deeply ingrained. We see throughout animal life 
 fear expressed by aggressive movements, by the show of 
 anger, as well as by flight. This is seen especially clearly 
 in the birds. With all their equipment for the defensive 
 strategy of flight they express fear instinctively by attack- 
 ing, and this is apparently not a result merely of the habit of 
 defending the young. The great carnivora also attack 
 from fear, and seem normally never to attack such animals 
 as they do not hunt for prey unless they are frightened. 
 The charge of the rhinoceros and other great ungulates is 
 probably always a fear reaction. They appear to have no 
 other aggressive impulses, certainly none connected with the 
 nutritional motives since they are herbivorous in habit. 
 
 The fear motive is probably much deeper in human na- 
 ture, both in the lower and the higher social reactions than is 
 commonly supposed, the concealment of fear being precisely 
 a part of the strategy of defense. Fear has created more 
 history than it is usually given credit for. The aggressive 
 motive alone, in all probability, would never have made 
 history such a story of battles as it has been. Nations 
 usually attribute more aggressive intentions and motives to 
 their neighbors than their neighbors possess, and war is 
 certainly often precipitated by an accumulation of mutual 
 distrust and suspicion. Nations are always watching one 
 
42 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 another for the least signs of aggression on the part of their 
 supposed enemies, an attitude which of course is inspired 
 only by apprehension. 
 
 Moods of fear and pessimism we say are deeply im- 
 planted in the consciousness of man, and we must interpret 
 both his optimism, and all its expressions in philosophy and 
 in religion, and also his aggressive behavior as in large 
 part the result of a conscious or an unconscious effort to 
 overcome his fear. The social consciousness is full of 
 marks of age-long dread and suspicion. Fear of fate, fear 
 of losing identity as a nation, fear of being overrun by an 
 enemy, fear of internal disruption, are strong motives in 
 national life. Fear runs like a dark thread through all the 
 life of nations, and gives to it a quality of mysticism, and a 
 touch of sadness which is so characteristic of much of the 
 deepest patriotism of the world. 
 
 Fear is one of the most powerful motives of all aggres- 
 sive warfare in the world. We find it in every nation, even 
 those which are naturally most aggressive, and in them 
 perhaps most of all. In the history and in the war moods 
 of Germany the fear motive is unmistakable. America is 
 not without it. Nations conceal their fears, presenting a 
 bold front to the foreigner ; but beneath the display one can 
 always detect suspicion, dread and intense watchfulness. 
 America has in the past feared Germany, and America fears 
 the Far East ; we look furtively toward Asia, the primeval 
 home of all evils and pestilence, for something that may 
 arise and engulf us. Small countries fear; large countries 
 with their sense of distances, have their own characteristic 
 forms of apprehension. Fear is the motive of preventive 
 wars. It makes all nations desire to kill their enemies 
 in the egg. It creates the death wish toward all who thwart 
 our interests or who may in the future do so. 
 
 This fear motive runs through all history. Parsons says 
 that men fight not because they are warlike, but because 
 they are fearful. Rohrbach thinks that if Germany and 
 
Instincts in War 43 
 
 England could each be sure the other would not be aggres- 
 sive there would be no war between them. It is this aspect 
 of the foreign as the unknown that especially plays upon 
 the motive of fear. This fear is like the child's dread of 
 the dark ; it is not what is seen, but what is not seen that 
 causes apprehension. It is the stranger whose psychic na- 
 ture we cannot penetrate, who causes fear. In small coun- 
 tries having only land borders, this attitude of suspicion and 
 fear must become an integral part of the whole psychic 
 structure of the national consciousness. Fear becomes mor- 
 bid; nations have illusions and delusions based upon fear. 
 There are reasons for believing that all aggression contains 
 a pessimistic motive, or background, and that this pessimistic- 
 background is based upon the emotion of fear. Countries 
 that are most positively aggressive have such a pessimistic 
 strain. Pessimism is a shadow that lies across the path of 
 progress of modern Germany. This fear motive, the qual- 
 ity of the animal that charges when at bay, is to be seen 
 throughout all German history. Germany's fear of Russia 
 must certainly be blamed for a great part of the pessimistic 
 strain in the temperament of Germany, and therefore as an 
 important factor among the causes of the great war. Every 
 war appears to the people who conduct it as defensive, pre- 
 cisely because every war is to some extent based upon fear, 
 and fear in national consciousness is a persistent sense of 
 living by a defensive strategy. It is existence that nations 
 always think and talk of fighting for; it is existence about 
 which they have apprehensions. Beneath all group life 
 there is this sense of fear, since fear itself was a large factor 
 in creating that life. When people live together, repress in- 
 dividual desires and participate in a common life we may 
 know that one of the strongest bonds of this social life is 
 fear. The need of defense is a more fundamental motive 
 in national life than is aggression. A " shudder runs 
 through a nation about to go to battle." The lusts of war 
 are aroused later by the overcoming of fear. 
 
44 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 Germany's inclination to preventive wars, her incessant 
 plea of being about to be attacked, can by no means be in- 
 terpreted as pure deception, or as an effort to make political 
 capital. Germany's army was primarily for defense, be- 
 cause a defensive strategy is the only strategy that Germany 
 with her position and her temperament can adopt. Ger- 
 many's great army was Germany's compensation, in con- 
 sciousness, for the insignificance of her territory. It was 
 for defense. It was also a compensation for a feeling of 
 inferiority, in Adler's sense. Fanaticism, envy, deprecia- 
 tion of others, aggression, morbid and excessive ambition 
 were all fruits from the same stem. The gloom which 
 many have found in German life, and the pessimism in Ger- 
 man philosophy, we may explain in part by the experi- 
 ences of Germany as the scene of so many devastating wars. 
 Upon the background of fear, in our interpretation of ag- 
 gressive motives, is erected German autocracy, German am- 
 bition and the conception of the absolute State, which may 
 be interpreted as almost a specific fear reaction. It comes 
 in time to have other meanings, and like many instinctive 
 reactions, it may be put to uses for which it was not or- 
 iginally produced, but there is fear concealed in the heart 
 of it. How action can be both defensive and strongly ag- 
 gressive, then, is no mystery if we see that aggression may 
 be a fear reaction, that even the most ardent imperialism is 
 based in part upon fear, upon the consciousness at some 
 time of being weak and inferior. 
 
 Fear and suspicion cause aggressive wars even when the 
 fear may be, in all reason, groundless. There is no more 
 dangerous individual in the community than the one hav- 
 ing delusions of persecution, for his mania is naturally homi- 
 cidal. So with nations. Fear is a treacherous and de- 
 ceptive passion. We may see this fear, if we choose to 
 look for it, even in the ecstatic mood of war and the 
 spiritual exaltation of Germany during the first few weeks 
 or months of the war. This exaltation was in part a re- 
 
Instincts in War 45 
 
 action of fear — or a reaction from fear. Germany was 
 afraid, feared for her existence, and the exaltation was in 
 part a sense of taking a terrible plunge into the depths of 
 fate. Germany was afraid of Russia and afraid of Eng- 
 land, and that fear had to be overcome, because the pres- 
 ence of the fear itself was a matter of life or death. 
 But the exaltation did not merely succeed the fear. It 
 contained it. And why should Germany, even with all 
 her preparedness and her resources not be afraid? An in- 
 herited fear is not so easily exorcised. Germany arrayed 
 against all Russia and all the British Empire, Germany no 
 larger than our Texas experienced a state of exaltation, 
 overcoming fear. But it required something more than 
 courage to overcome the fear; and that other element was 
 mysticism. To the sense of throwing all into the hands 
 of fate which, by all physical signs must be adverse, was 
 added, as a compensating element, Germany's mystical be- 
 lief in her security as a chosen nation. Fear, by its in- 
 tensity and depth may, like physical pain, become ecstatic 
 and thus be overcome. 
 
 Hatred 
 
 Hatred must be considered both as a cause of war, and 
 as an element in the war moods. Many authors have called 
 hatred one of the deepest roots of war. This hatred be- 
 tween nations even Freud says is mysterious. But Pfister, 
 referring to Adler's theory, says that war must be under- 
 stood precisely as we understand enmity among individuals. 
 A sense of inferiority is insulted, and thus aggressive feel- 
 ings are aroused. The nation, like the individual, is 
 spurred on to make good its claim to greatness. It is a 
 feeling of jealousy based upon a sense of inferiority that 
 causes hatred. O'Ryan and Anderson (5), military writ- 
 ers, say there are two causes of war : those based upon an 
 assumed necessity, and those based upon hatred. Nus- 
 baum (86) also finds two causes of war, the expansion im- 
 
4-6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 pulse and the egoism of species, which leads to long en- 
 mities. 
 
 History shows that we must accept hatred as an under- 
 lying cause of war. The reaction of deep anger which may 
 he aroused by a variety of situations that arise among na- 
 tions, especially when it is, so to speak, an outbreak 
 of a long continued hatred, is a proximate cause of wars. 
 Hatred, the reaction of anger prolonged into a mood, differs 
 as national or group emotion from the anger of the in- 
 dividual in part by being subject strongly to group sug- 
 gestion, and in part because in the group consciousness there 
 is only rarely a means of expression, on the part of the in- 
 dividuals of the group, of the feelings of hatred. Enemies 
 are far away and inaccessible. Therefore hatred may be- 
 come deep and chronic. 
 
 Hatred between nations is usually based upon a long 
 series of reprisals and a history of invasions. These inva- 
 sions are primarily physical invasions, but later invasions 
 in the sphere of invisible values, offenses to honor and the 
 like are added. These ideal values come to be regarded as 
 more vital than material values. Hatred between groups 
 becomes chronic and often seems to be groundless because 
 the values concerned have thus become intangible. The 
 chronic moods of hatred and dislike become explosive forces, 
 ready to be excited to action whenever any difference arises. 
 Veblen (97) says wars never occur except when questions 
 of honor are involved, which is of course equivalent to 
 saying that the reaction of anger is always required as 
 an immediate cause of war. Veblen maintains also that 
 emulation is always involved in the patriotic spirit, that 
 patriotism always contains the idea of the defeat of an 
 opponent, and is based upon collective malevolence. The 
 range of these occasions of crisis is so great, and the feel- 
 ings of hatred so persistent and volatile, that the mechanism 
 for the production of war is always present. These causes 
 range all the way from violation of property to offense to 
 
Instincts in War 47 
 
 the most abstract ideas of national etiquette. Violation 
 of international law, of moral principles, we see now, may 
 have very far-reaching effects as infringing the sphere of 
 honor of nations not directly concerned, since the prestige 
 of all nations as participants in creating law and becoming 
 upholders of it is affected. 
 
 If hatred and its crises are causes of war, they do not 
 fit into the moods in which warfare is generally conducted. 
 Hatred belongs to the periods of peace and of strained rela- 
 tions, when the cause of war is present, but the means of 
 retaliation are not at hand or not in action. The prevalence 
 and persistence of hatred in war is a sign of imperfect 
 morale. Hatred cannot remain in the war mood of a na- 
 tion acting with full confidence in its powers. Hatred al- 
 ways implies inferiority or impotent superiority. Dide 
 (20) says that the spirit of hatred does not fit into the sol- 
 dier's life. It goes with the desire for revenge and is 
 strongest among those who stay at home and can do noth- 
 ing. Hatred is a phase of apprehension. Hatred is a prod- 
 uct of the fear that cannot be taken up into the optimistic 
 moods, and thus be transformed. It remains as a foreign 
 body and an inhibition. It arises when obstacles appear to 
 be too great, when there are reverses, and the enemy shows 
 signs of being able to maintain a long and stubborn resist- 
 ance, or flaunts again the original cause of the disagreement. 
 Scheler (77) says that revenge, which is a form of hate, 
 is not a justifiable war motive. We should say also that 
 it is not a normal war mood, that it has no sustaining force, 
 but causes a rapid expenditure of energy which may be ef- 
 fectual in brief actions, but is even there wasteful and in- 
 terferes with judgment and efficiency. Morale based upon 
 hatred is insecure. 
 
 Hatred must have been a very early factor in the rela- 
 tions of groups to one another, and presumably we should 
 need to go back to animal life and study antipathies there 
 in order fully to understand the nature of racial and national 
 
48 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 antagonisms, some of which may be based upon physiolog- 
 ical traits and primitive aesthetic qualities. The very fact 
 of the existence of groups, segregated and well bound to- 
 gether for the purposes of offense and defense implies al- 
 ready a strong contrast of feeling between that of in- 
 dividuals of the group toward one another and that directed 
 toward the outsider. This contrast developed not merely 
 as a reaction, but as a necessity, for groups in the beginning 
 must have had to contend against their own feeble social 
 cohesion, and existed only by reason of strong emotions of 
 fear and anger felt toward the stranger. Hatred toward 
 all outside the group must at one stage have been highly use- 
 ful as a means of cementing the bonds of the group and 
 maintaining the necessary attitude of defense, at a time 
 when all outsiders were likely to be dangerous. Feelings of 
 friendliness toward strangers were dangerous to the life 
 of the group, and so hatred possessed survival value. 
 
 The main root of group antipathy is in all probability 
 fear. Hatred is an aspect of the aggressive defensive to- 
 ward the stranger. Hatred is a part of the aggressive re- 
 action. As an expression of ferocity toward all who 
 are not known to be friendly, it belongs to the first line 
 of defense. Hatred is likely to be strong in the female 
 because the attitude of the female is universally defensive. 
 
 In the beginning, as MacCurdy (37) says, the contrasts 
 between groups were sharp, and these definitely separated 
 groups must have felt toward one another not only antagon- 
 ism but a sense of being different in kind. Intensity of 
 feelings of opposition tends to magnify small differences 
 into specific differences. This sense of specific difference 
 is never lost, not even in the consciousness of enlightened 
 nations in regard to one another, and we may see it to- 
 day displayed as a mystic belief, on the part of many 
 peoples, in their own superiority. Nations are always out- 
 siders to one another, and the sense of strangeness peren- 
 nially sustains defensive attitudes and moods of hatred. 
 
Instincts in War 49 
 
 The friendship of nations can never be very secure, be- 
 cause the old idea of difference of kind is never quite aban- 
 doned. Some degree of enmity seems always to be felt 
 toward the foreigner ; that is, toward all who are not inter- 
 ested in the protective functions of the group. MacCurdy 
 thinks the intensity of suspicion and hatred of peoples to- 
 ward one another belongs to the pathological field, and 
 that one expression of this is the peculiarity of the mental 
 processes by which nations always justify their own cause in 
 war. This, however, is perhaps an exaggeration, since we 
 can trace these states of mind in all the history of the 
 race. 
 
 How deep-seated the enmities and the sense of strange- 
 ness among nations may be is seen in the fact that national 
 groups living in close proximity to one another tend to 
 become less friendly rather than to become affiliated. These 
 feelings gradually produce conceptual entities, which stand 
 for the reality of the foreign. These concepts are de- 
 posits, so to speak, from a great number of affective re- 
 actions, and they always contain imaginative content based 
 upon enmity and suspicion. This underlying enmity be- 
 tween neighboring peoples is not something rare in the 
 world. All foreigners, even in the minds of the most 
 intelligent of peoples, are reconstructions, caricatures. 
 These feelings and attitudes are strong and deep and they 
 prevent genuine friendship among nations. We tend to 
 think of all foreigners as in some degree malicious, as de- 
 signing, and lacking in the good qualities and right habits 
 which we ourselves possess. 
 
 Many authors have commented upon the entire inabil- 
 ity of nations to understand one another. There is a deep 
 reason for this, which we have already suggested. They 
 do not wish to understand one another. It is a part of 
 the archaic system of defense to maintain an attitude of 
 distrust and misunderstanding and even fear. The fear of 
 the enemy is a protection — against invasion from without 
 
5<d The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and disruption within. Nations do not dare to relinquish 
 their fear of one another, and we see something of this 
 voluntary cherishing of fear and enmity in the present 
 hesitation about entering into leagues on the part of many 
 nations. Nations really wish to hate one another, it would 
 seem. Other evidence of this we have observed in the cult 
 of hate that has been promulgated to keep up morale in the 
 recent war. We see enmity maintained when the differ- 
 ences among the peoples holding it are superficial and must 
 indeed be exaggerated and caricatured in order to make them 
 support feelings of dislike. Small differences in the cus- 
 toms of closely related peoples are sufficient sometimes to 
 maintain intense antagonism. As Collier (68) says, it is 
 precisely the bad manners of a people that cause conflict. 
 These bad manners are of course manners that are different 
 from our own. 
 
 Germany's outburst of hatred and its frequent exhibition 
 during the war and its promulgation as a cult and a re- 
 ligion appear to have excited the interest of many writers 
 on the war. As a chapter in the psychology of war it has 
 suggested new problems and points of view, and it has also 
 appealed to many as an interesting problem of national 
 psychology. If our explanation of hatred as especially 
 related to fear and to the sense of inferiority is correct 
 Germany of all nations must have been affected with a 
 disorder of morale, or some perversion of national con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The hatred of Germany for England is not the only 
 example of international enmity in the world, but its ex- 
 pression in the war has made it peculiarly interesting. The 
 grievance against England is first of all that England is 
 great and prosperous, and lives in comfort upon the un- 
 earned fruits of empire, while the German has toiled hard 
 through the centuries and has caught nothing. England 
 is hated because in many ways she has stood squarely in 
 the path of Germany's progress and because in the history 
 
Instincts in War 51 
 
 of European diplomacy, doors leading to wider empire 
 have been again and again slammed in Germany's face, 
 usually by the hand of England. Germany hates England, 
 according to German writers, because England, a kindred 
 race, tried to betray western civilization into the hands of 
 barbarism. Germany hates England because, to the Ger- 
 man mind, England is hypocritical. The Englishman criti- 
 cizes in others precisely what he does himself; Puritanical 
 talk covers a sinful heart. Germany hates England because 
 in her sea-policy England has been high handed and arro- 
 gant. The Germans often call England a robber nation, 
 with the morals of a burglar who, having enriched himself 
 by his trade, and having retired from business, now preaches 
 honesty. 
 
 It is not merely the hatred of England on the part of 
 Germany that is of interest for a psychology of war but 
 the fact that Germany has taken her hate for England with 
 a peculiar seriousness, believed it unique, has been to the 
 pains of justifying it morally, has covered it with religious 
 exaltation, made it a cult and even expressed it in a formula, 
 and made it an educational program. There are many Ger- 
 man writings justifying the hatred of England and encour- 
 aging hate as a weapon of righteousness. Smith (47) (64) 
 has given us the titles of forty-four German publications 
 in his own possession, having for subject Germany's hatred 
 of England, and says that there are sixty-five more known 
 to him. Some of these expressions of hatred are extreme. 
 There is, or was, a pastor in Hamburg who declared from 
 his pulpit that his people were doing God a service in hating 
 England and in taking every step possible to wipe so pes- 
 tiferous a nation from the face of the earth. Frau Reuter 
 says that it is impossible now more than ever to love our 
 enemies, that England who professed love for Germany and 
 then betrayed her love must be hated. Stern, in his studies 
 of hate in children found that hate may be strong without 
 any clear content, in the minds of German children. That 
 
52 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 some of this hatred of England is a direct effect of the teach- 
 ings of Treitschke can hardly be doubted, when we recall 
 the great influence his teachings have had, and the peculiar 
 bitterness of that dramatic personage for England, for 
 England's pretentiousness, her middle class satisfaction, her 
 insular conceit. 
 
 The further details of the cult of hatred in Germany 
 need not detain us, since the purpose is only to suggest 
 here the connection of hatred with the national pessimism, 
 the fear and the inferiority motive of Germany. We see a 
 similar attitude in Austria, where there is a violent race 
 hatred toward the Serbians, which Le Bon has regarded 
 as the motive from which Austria went to war. Ferrero 
 comments upon the fact that hatred is conspicuously absent 
 in America, and says that the greater hatred in Europe is 
 due not only to the obvious result of nations being crowded 
 together, but also to the caste system which limits the free- 
 dom of the individual and tends to engender deep passions. 
 Dide (20) says that in Germany preoccupation with the idea 
 of injustice is a cause of war, and Chapman (39) also 
 remarks that Germany had gone mad thinking of her 
 wrongs. That jealousy and fear are in general the sub- 
 stratum of national hatred is deeply impressed upon one 
 in studying the psychology of Germany. All the hate 
 motive of the late war might well be found in Germany's 
 prayer " Gott strafe England." Germany appealed to God 
 to punish England, of course, because Germany herself could 
 not. Both the appeal and the hatred are reactions of fear 
 and a sense of impotence. Germany hated England because 
 England was secure behind her navy, upon her island, be- 
 yond the reach of the war machine which is Germany's 
 symbol of power and the compensation for her sense of 
 inferiority and weakness. 
 
Instincts in War 53 
 
 The Instinct of Combat 
 
 We may distinguish in the motives of war between the 
 aggressive tendency, which we have already discussed as a 
 reaction of fear or of anger, and a more specific instinct of 
 combat as a possession of the individual, less subject to 
 suggestion, less closely related to the phenomena of the 
 herd. The aggressive reaction we associate, or some writ- 
 ers do associate it, with the predatory instinct, practical in its 
 motive, having in part an economic basis. The love of 
 combat which appears especially as a play motive in the 
 child and the youth is expressed as a desire for conquest 
 and in the pleasure of overcoming an enemy. 
 
 Some see in war a recrudescence of the instinct of com- 
 bat, and indeed think of war as mainly such a return to 
 primitive instinct. The life of peace represses this motive 
 too much, they think. Life is too organized and co- 
 operative and the individual craves release from it. The 
 general objections to such an interpretation of war we 
 have already stated. We think rather of certain specific 
 movements as avenues of approach to highly complex states 
 of ecstasy, and of these states of ecstasy as representing or 
 containing the real craving for war, so far as there is 
 one. The war mood exploits these movements and gives 
 room for instincts to display themselves, and these instincts, 
 in their expression, are pleasure-toned because they are 
 archaic and have once been well organized and habitual 
 forms of activity having practical objects. But to say that 
 men have a profound but concealed desire to kill one an- 
 other, that the fighting impulse remains intact in some 
 original animal form, is a travesty upon human nature. 
 It is precisely because in war killing is depersonalized, so 
 to speak, that it is a moral duty and is performed under 
 conditions in which there is a summation of many strong 
 motives leading to the act that, as we see it, men find 
 joy in battle. The instinct of attack, or the hunting in- 
 
54 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 stinct that is involved in this activity, can become pleasure- 
 toned only because of the presence of other motives, and 
 because the object is dehumanized for the time. Otherwise 
 we should expect all soldiers, once having their aggressive 
 instincts aroused in battle, to become dangerous to the com- 
 munity. 
 
 That there is, however, a residue of pure love of physical 
 combat and a survival of the instinctive movements of 
 combat is shown in play, although here too the motives 
 are mixed. The desire to fight, to kill, to hunt are still 
 present but for the most part are sublimated in adult life 
 into desire for competition in general, love of danger, and 
 the hunting and gambling impulse. But we can here and 
 there in human conduct see certain roots of pure instincts 
 having definite coordinated reactions. These undoubtedly 
 do play a part, but probably a very small part in the present 
 moods of war. So far as they remain purely instinctive 
 their place as a general motive of war seems negligible. It 
 is a question, in fact, whether even in the state of savagery 
 any pure instinct for killing ever played a considerable part. 
 There were already practical motives, motives of fear and 
 anger, and presumably also complex states of pleasure con- 
 nected with beliefs, customs and ceremonies as well as with 
 battle, so that even then men cannot be said to have acted 
 upon anything like purely instinctive impulses. 
 
 Numerous accounts have come from the scenes of the 
 great war about men who appear for a time to be domi- 
 nated by irresistible instincts. Gibbs (80) says there are 
 some men in every army who like slaughter for its own 
 sake. They find an intoxication in it. They love the hunt- 
 ing spirit of it all. We have the story of a French soldier 
 of peaceable disposition who appeared to experience an 
 ecstasy of delight as he lay concealed in a shell hole and 
 was able to pick off many of the enemy. This was not the 
 exhilaration and abandon experienced by men while making 
 attack, when violent muscular exertion produces an intoxica- 
 
Instincts in War 55 
 
 tion of mind, but a dominance of the mind by something 
 which seems very much like the hunting spirit, under cir- 
 cumstances in which, we may suppose, the enemy had un- 
 dergone some process of dehumanization in the mind of 
 the hunter. We may suppose also that there are individ- 
 uals in every army who have pathological impulses or per- 
 versions, which show themselves in instinctive reactions 
 of a specific nature and in excess of the normal. 
 
 Both the Germans and the French are accused by French 
 and German writers respectively with being the real lovers 
 of battle. German writers say that the Germans are pecu- 
 liarly peace-loving and by nature lacking in the battle spirit, 
 but that the French love battle for its own sake, and that 
 this is shown clearly by their history. Others see love 
 of conflict, aggressiveness and cruelty in the German dis- 
 position. Boutroux (13) wishes to place among the causes 
 of the great war the native brutality of the German disposi- 
 tion, a trait existing from long ago, and now become a dis- 
 ciplined cruelty — a zuchtmaessige Grausamkcit, regarded 
 as right and meritorious. Many think they find this love 
 of fighting, bloodthirst and love of destruction in the Ger- 
 man soul. Many attribute pure aggressiveness of a pro- 
 nounced type or an exaggerated predatory instinct to the 
 Germans. Chapman (39) says that the war is a flaming 
 forth of passions that have covertly been burning in the 
 soul of Germany for several decades. He adds that with 
 the Germans war is instinctive ; there is no casus belli at 
 all. War is for war's sake, and is a need of nature with 
 the German. Smith (64) declares that the German is in- 
 nately brutal, and as one proof of this he shows the sta- 
 tistics of brutal crimes in Germany. He writes of the 
 truculent aggressiveness of the Teutonic race, of the hatred 
 and love of destruction displayed by the robber knights of 
 the Middle Ages, and regards quarrelsome aggressiveness as 
 innate in German character. Dide (20) thinks that such 
 aggressive warfare as is practiced by the Germans always 
 
56 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 goes with a pessimistic disposition. Thayer (58) con- 
 nects bloodthirstiness with the paganism of Germany, and 
 says that bloodthirstiness crops out again and again in 
 German history. Nicolai (79) also refers to the craving 
 for blood in the German character, and says that it has 
 been shown throughout the history of the Germans. The 
 old sacrifices which grew out of cannibalism and are due 
 to the persistence of the craving for blood show an in- 
 stinctive desire for slaughter, or at least a confirmed habit 
 of killing that dies hard. But in all these characterizations 
 of national temperament there is no clear distinction among 
 various motives of conduct. Anger and fear reactions, 
 love of combat itself, the motives of display are all inter- 
 mingled. 
 
 There can of course be no precise way of estimating 
 the place of a pure instinct of combat among the causes 
 of war, or in the war moods. We have seen reason for be- 
 lieving that although these instincts remain as fragments in 
 the individual and especially are utilized in higher processes 
 of the social life, they are less influential in determining 
 motives and conduct than is sometimes believed. We can- 
 not at least explain war as a sudden release of these in- 
 stincts. That primitive passions for violence, as Mac- 
 Curdy (Z7) maintains, reenforce the herd antagonism, and 
 in the midst of the apprehension at the threat of war, 
 give rise to a desire for war, may be true, but such primi- 
 tive passions are not all of the forces that are at work 
 in causing modern wars. To say that in the individual of 
 modern society a savage still lives is an exaggeration, and 
 does not properly express what social consciousness is or 
 has done. The social life is not a balance in which primi- 
 tive instincts are held in leash by other instincts or feelings, 
 but a new product in which there is a synthesis of impulses 
 in which the original form of the impulses may be greatly 
 transformed. We live in composite situations to which 
 there correspond composite moods. Often motives which 
 
Instincts in War 57 
 
 clearly reveal to analysis their instinctive character have 
 no tendency to express themselves in the definite instinctive 
 movements corresponding to this instinct-feeling, having 
 permanently become dissociated from the primitive re- 
 actions, either by a process of generalization and fusion 
 of states and processes in the individual, or by the inherit- 
 ance of structural changes. There are, it is true, all de- 
 grees of amalgamation of old and new elements or of trans- 
 formation of old elements, but to think of instincts as re- 
 maining intact and unchanged in modern life seems wholly 
 wrong. 
 
 After all man is no longer an animal, and even the 
 distance between man as a member of the present com- 
 plex organized society and man as primitive or savage is 
 considerable. The difference is not entirely in the associa- 
 tions themselves but in all that the associations have done, 
 or that they represent, in modifying instincts, which no 
 longer exist in their original form and distinctness. Man 
 is a creature of feeling, but not of instinct we say, and 
 this distinction is important in many ways. All analogies 
 between animal and human life have an element of danger 
 in them. To explain human conduct in terms of herd in- 
 stincts — instincts of aggression and the like — is mis- 
 leading, since the instincts that are assumed do not exist 
 as such, and perhaps never did. The psychology of the 
 crowd, and the psychology of war, cannot be contained in 
 the psychology of the herd, however attractive the sim- 
 plicity of these concepts may be. That primitive instincts 
 may remain as remnants, that the crowd shows some of 
 the characteristics of the herd and the pack cannot be de- 
 nied, and that in the spirit of war these fragments and 
 traits play a certain part may well be believed. But the 
 synthetic and highly complex mood we call the war spirit, 
 and the causes of war, however archaic some of their 
 elements may be, are very different from any mere sum of 
 instincts. There is no specific craving for combat that 
 
58 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 we can call a cause of war, or that, in our view, plays 
 any considerable part in the causes of war — combat as 
 apart from practical motives and the complex moods into 
 which, in its modern form, it enters. Some writers ap- 
 pear to be deceived because they assume that war is it- 
 self primitive, and do not see that in spite of its conven- 
 tions and its old forms, it is not far behind civilization, 
 not because civilization has made no progress, or is so 
 insecure, but because war, chaos though it be, in some 
 respects contains all our modern feelings. Kerr says that 
 war is due to a superfluity of animal force that must vent 
 itself, but such explanations of war seem certainly to be 
 very far from the truth. That theory is far from being 
 adequate as an explanation of play. It is much less so as 
 an explanation of war. The other theory of play that is 
 most prevalent and which is offered as a theory of war — 
 that play and war are reversions to primitive instincts, is 
 also insufficient. War is neither an overflow of energy 
 nor a reversion to primitive states. Rather it is caused 
 by and involves all the present and active motives of man 
 and all his essential human qualities. 
 
 Social Instincts 
 
 Whatever the specific causes of war may be, war is of 
 course possible only because there exists a mechanism or 
 instinct or feeling, because of which great groups of people 
 act as a unit in the common interests of all. We usually 
 speak of this collective action as the result of social instincts 
 or a general social instinct. It is the place of this " in- 
 stinct " in the causes and moods of war that we must con- 
 sider. War is a social phenomenon : it is a movement di- 
 rected toward an object, but the force that drives the move- 
 ment is of course social. 
 
 Several writers, among them MacCurdy (37), Murray 
 (90), and Trotter (82), have dealt with this social aspect 
 
Instincts in War 59 
 
 of war, and have interpreted war as a herd reaction. All 
 these theories are simple. Trotter maintains that in man 
 there are four instincts and no more : self-preservative, re- 
 productive, nutritional, and herd instincts. The peculiarity 
 of the herd instinct is that it does not itself have definite 
 motor expression, but serves to intensify and direct the 
 other instincts. This herd instinct is a tendency, so to 
 speak, which can confer instinctive sanction upon any other 
 part of the field of action or belief. The herd instinct, for 
 example, gives instinctive quality to the social organiza- 
 tion and social proclivities of three different types of so- 
 ciety, which appear as national characters. These are the 
 wolf, the sheep, and the bee types. The aggressive type of 
 social organization is represented by the Roman and now 
 by the. German civilization. This is a declining type, but it 
 was because moral equality could not be tolerated in Ger- 
 many that the rulers were obliged to cause Germany to re- 
 vert to the primitive aggressive form of gregariousness. 
 China would be a good example of Trotter's herd of the 
 sheep type, for here the defensive instinct seems to be the 
 dominating social reaction. War becomes, in such a herd, 
 a great stimulus when, and only when, it is a threat to the 
 whole nation, and when, therefore, the individual fears for 
 the whole herd rather than for himself. 
 
 The third type is the bee type, well represented by Eng- 
 land, although still imperfectly. This is the type toward 
 which the world as a whole tends, but as yet there is no 
 complete form of it. At present the capacity for individual 
 reactions to the same stimulus has far outstripped the capac- 
 ity for intercommunication. Intercommunication in the 
 biological sense has been allowed to run at haphazard. 
 When once a great gregarious unit of this type shall have 
 been thoroughly organized, and be subject to conscious di- 
 rection as a whole, there will appear in the world a new 
 kind of social mechanism and a new biological form. The 
 interest in war will give way to a larger and more dramatic 
 
60 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 field of interest and of conquest than the mere taking and 
 re-taking of land. But there is as yet no such society. 
 Even in times of a great war, there is an internal differentia- 
 tion that cannot be overcome, an individualism that creates 
 antagonism, and a type of leadership which is conservative 
 and static rather than progressive. 
 
 If we may safely apply Trotter's generalization to the 
 present antagonism among groups (within nations, and also 
 national groups) we might say that the rapid differentiation 
 of the human species has had an effect of creating within 
 the species man a large number of types of sub-specific 
 value, and in this respect man differs greatly from any other 
 species. Differences recognized by groups of the same 
 species of animals are generally not sufficient to create an- 
 tagonism among the groups, but in the case of man these dif- 
 ferences have had precisely the effect of marking off groups 
 with antagonistic interests. The animal society dom- 
 inated by a few instincts directed for the most part toward 
 external objects preserves a state of peace within the species. 
 Man by reason of his intelligence and his capacities for 
 specialization and the great number of his desires tends 
 to prey upon his own kind. This segregation is in part 
 artificial, becomes conventional and is subject to the effects 
 of leadership that tends to fixate artificial distinctions, but 
 it is also in part an effect of the exigencies of the wider life 
 of man, of his superiority of which variability of conduct 
 is an essential aspect. This differentiation is one of the 
 conditions of a firmer organization in the society of man 
 than any animal society can attain, but at the present time 
 the two processes of differentiation and organization are 
 to some extent antagonistic to one another. 
 
 Trotter maintains that the tendency of nature is to in- 
 crease and maintain the homogeneity of the species, but 
 we should say rather that the whole process of differentia- 
 tion and organization is upon a level in which the biological 
 processes that make for or against homogeneity have but 
 
Instincts in War 61 
 
 little effect. The task before man is social. It is not so 
 much a consciousness of his destiny as a species that man 
 requires, but of his work as an organized group. It is 
 due to a rapid differentiation and increase in man's desires 
 that he has become a species in which there is internal war- 
 fare. It must be by the control of these desires in a con- 
 scious process of organization that he will become, if ever, 
 a well-ordered and homogeneous group. Trotter thinks 
 of such a change as a biological phenomenon, as being one 
 of those momentous steps which a very few times have been 
 taken in the development of organic life in the world. 
 
 We cannot discuss fully here these biological views, as 
 they relate to the future organization of the world. That 
 the explanation of wars within the human species this view 
 affords is correct so far as it goes one would admit. 
 Men fight among themselves as animals do not, because of 
 their differences. We should prefer to think of these dif- 
 ferences, however, neither as a phase of biological differ- 
 entiation as structural change nor as functional adaptation 
 by differentiation of reactions to the same stimuli, but 
 as the effect of the new consciousness of desires that came 
 with the rise of man from the animal stage, and the condi- 
 tions under which these desires could and must be realized. 
 It is the complexity of interests that has given to man his 
 antagonisms and his differences, and these secondary dif- 
 ferences have been utilized as a means of still further de- 
 veloping the desires and satisfying them, or justifying their 
 satisfaction. It is man's intelligence and his capacity for 
 being governed in his conduct by many desires that teaches 
 him to make war upon his own kind, and the very same 
 qualities make his associations firm and lasting. But just 
 in this way the human group ceases to be a herd and to 
 be dominated by herd instincts. To interpret war, there- 
 fore, as an effect of social instinct or herd instinct upon 
 the instincts of aggression or of self-protection, or as the 
 effect of aroused instincts of aggression and self-protection 
 
62 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 exciting the herd instinct, is unsatisfactory because it is 
 too simple, and erroneously undertakes to explain human 
 life in terms of instinct and also carries biological analogies 
 too far. These views, if we understand them, seem to have 
 the characteristic faults of all purely biological sociology. 
 
 That, however, the " herd instinct," or the social feeling 
 or the cohesive force in groups, whatever it may be, is 
 exceedingly strong and persistent is shown by the recent 
 war. We see a world highly differentiated, and with wide 
 associations which seemed to have become permanent be- 
 coming at once a world in which the lines of cleavage 
 are based upon propinquity and political organization. All 
 ties, except national ties, were broken up. The nation, con- 
 scious of itself, becomes a unit or personality, and the 
 sense of personality of a nation becomes greatly intensified 
 in time of war. The individual becomes unimportant, both 
 in his own estimation and in the eye of the law. It is the 
 life of the nation as a whole that is felt to be threatened 
 and under this threat the group as a whole becomes an ob- 
 ject of devotion and solicitude. Nicolai (79) comments 
 upon this Massengefuchl and says that, when not counter- 
 balanced by higher elements of social consciousness, it may 
 be a low and dangerous element in the consciousness of 
 groups. Sumner (70) also speaks of the extraordinary 
 power of gregariousness, and says that when the movement 
 is upon a vast scale, the numbers engaged being very large, 
 there is always an exhilaration connected with the move- 
 ment, and that if the causes involved are believed to be 
 deep and holy, the force of this gregarious mood may be- 
 come demoniacal. 
 
 There are two especially remarkable changes that take 
 place in the social life in war or in the act of going to 
 war, and which represent the social instinct or feeling at its 
 highest point. These phenomena are types of social re- 
 action, but the question may be raised whether they do 
 not represent something more than reactions in the ordinary 
 
Instincts in War 63 
 
 sense. We see in times of war, first, a greatly increased 
 sensitiveness to leadership, a craving for devotion to a 
 leader, indeed, which is sometimes pathetic in its effort to 
 transform really commonplace men into religious objects. 
 The leader as a concept and an ideal is a product of the 
 social mood itself, which does for him precisely what roman- 
 tic love does for its object, exerts a creative effect upon 
 him. The leader is magnified to heroic size and held up 
 before the enemy as a threat. It is plain to be seen that 
 this devotion to leader and imaginative treatment of him 
 is in part a defensive reaction. The individual hides be- 
 hind this colossal figure, and thus feels himself safe. But 
 this protective impulse that creates the invincible leader is 
 not the only motive ; at least it is probably not the only one. 
 The leader represents the ideals and the ambitions of the 
 people, and his prestige and the forms that surround him, 
 especially everything that is aesthetic or suggests the heroic, 
 symbolize the craving for power in a people. The strength 
 and the peculiar abandon and perversity, one may say, of the 
 affections of a nation toward the leader in time of war 
 make the rise of such a leader dreaded by the political powers 
 in every country. Newspapers, in every war, find some 
 heroic figure whom they exploit as a coming dictator, and 
 changes of leadership in the field apparently sometimes 
 have reference to these popular currents. But a nation in 
 love with its leader is strong in defense, and readily be- 
 comes aggressive, and this relation of mass to leader is 
 of course one of the main foundations of military morale. 
 The second universal social phenomenon of war is the 
 greatly intensified feeling of solidarity as -shown in com- 
 radeship and united feelings on the part of the people. 
 This too is in part, and only in part, a protective reaction. 
 The individual becomes safe by becoming a part of a whole 
 which then alone seems to have real existence and true 
 value. The individual loses himself in the whole, but the 
 whole group also becomes absorbed and taken into the sphere 
 
64 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of protection and interest of the individual. The individual 
 becomes highly sensitive to everything that happens to the 
 group, and peculiarly affected by the social mood of com- 
 radeship. This spirit of comradeship becomes one of the 
 most conspicuous qualities of the social life in time of war. 
 Comradeship in arms is of course the highest point of 
 this social solidarity. The mass action, the close physical 
 relationship, subjection to the same narrow routine and 
 the common experiences of danger, induce social states 
 that represent the most complete expression of pure social 
 feeling, and excite moods which, upon occasion may reach 
 the highest degree of ecstasy or intoxication and lead to 
 acts of the most exalted heroism. 
 
 These changes in the social life in time of war are 
 striking and fundamental. To explain them would mean 
 to explain social feeling itself. We may say that these 
 phenomena of the social life are precisely the herd reactions 
 the biological writers speak of, but to do so would mean, 
 from our point of view, to ignore some very significant 
 aspects of human social life. It would ignore first of all 
 the ecstatic quality of the higher social life, which is indeed 
 the essential quality of the social spirit of war. Instead 
 of saying that this intensity of feeling is merely a reflex 
 of an instinctive reaction, we should say that it is the 
 expression of, and in part the satisfaction of, desires that 
 are fulfilled in the social experience of war. The intense so- 
 cial life is craved, not as an instinctive reaction, but as a 
 complex state expressing explicit desires. The craving 
 for this social solidarity and ecstasy of social feeling is a 
 factor in the causes of war. What we experience socially 
 in times of peace is a society in which social feeling is 
 narrow and provincial, in which we are conscious of many 
 antagonistic motives. This social life fails to satisfy the 
 desires which are seeking expression in the social life. 
 That war is in part a creation of the social impulse seeking 
 expression may be assumed from the nature of the social 
 
Instincts in War 65 
 
 feelings that are excited in war. That such social feel- 
 ing is a creation in the sense that it is desired, we see if 
 in no other way in the fact that social ecstasy is the most 
 universal form of satisfaction of all those impulses which 
 fuse in the intoxication impulse, where we recognize it as 
 the craving for an abundant or real life. Life is most real 
 in its intensely dramatic social forms. Social ecstasy is 
 in part a conscious adaptation. It is something that is de- 
 sired and induced, and artificially cultivated in various ways, 
 especially by a variety of aesthetic social experiences, and 
 in the cults of intoxication. Alcohol has been used specifi- 
 cally throughout the world and from the beginning at least 
 of the historical period for the purpose of creating social 
 feeling. Patriotism is in part, we may say, a cultivated so- 
 cial emotion, and in the art of manners we see the social life 
 given forms which will increase its susceptibility to sug- 
 gestion, its persuasive force and its organized expression. 
 Such facts show us social emotion which is something more 
 than the feeling side of an instinctive reaction. 
 
 This is hardly the place to try to elucidate the funda- 
 mental principles of the psychology of the social feelings 
 or instincts, but it may be helpful to suggest in outline cer- 
 tain divergences in the theory of the social life that seem to 
 be in point. We see on one side many writers who tend 
 to regard social phenomena as mainly the result of instinct, 
 as the expression either of a single instinct or of a combina- 
 tion of several specific instinctive tendencies. Contrasted 
 with these views are the theories according to which social 
 life is something that is mainly created by reason, based, so 
 to speak, upon the observation that in union there is strength. 
 Neither of these views seems to be satisfactory. That so- 
 cial feeling is based upon instinct is clear, but that it is also 
 something created, synthetic, and subjected to selective proc- 
 esses seems also evident. Precisely what the instinctive 
 basis of the social life is, perhaps one cannot with any cer- 
 tainty determine, nor can we say how many specific in- 
 
66 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 stincts enter into it. But that social feeling in its higher 
 levels is a very complex mood, in which, although there 
 are several instinctive reactions or feelings, there is to be 
 discovered no social instinct as such, is the conclusion which 
 we reach. 
 
 Social behavior is a development of all the fundamental 
 tendencies of the organism. It has its roots both in the re- 
 productive and the nutritional motives. These fundamental 
 tendencies have issued phylogenetically in specific reac- 
 tions that enter into the social life at all its levels, and in 
 the life of the individual these reactions, expressing needs 
 and desires, issue in highly complex moods, in which funda- 
 mental feelings are present but do not constitute the whole 
 of the social moods. The individual does various specific 
 things with reference to his fellows which are of the nature 
 of instinctive reactions, but both in the phyletic develop- 
 ment and the development in the individual, elements that 
 enter into the modern social life as instincts have tended 
 to lose their specific character, have become general or 
 merely organic, have been transformed and have to some 
 extent lost their original significance. 
 
 The motives of hunger, the reactions of the reproductive 
 mechanisms, reactions to visual impressions and to sounds, 
 warmth reactions, the huddling of fear, the influences of 
 suggestion, susceptibility to all the stimuli of the social 
 object enter into social feelings, and remain to some extent 
 as instinctive reactions in the higher social processes. But 
 we do not seem to find any general social instinct, or any 
 specific herd instinct or any definite and broadly acting pro- 
 tective and aggressive instincts. As compared with some 
 other views of the social feelings ours assumes in one way 
 more and in another less of instinct in the social life. 
 There is more instinct in the sense that more specific in- 
 stinctive reactions are recognized in it, but less in assuming 
 that these reactions are derivatives of primitive reactions 
 of the organism, and also because they become transformed 
 
Instincts in War 67 
 
 and fused and lose their original forms. They have come 
 from common sources in organic life, we might say, and 
 they meet again in the general moods which they help to 
 create. 
 
 Conclusions 
 
 It is an important point to observe that most if not all 
 of the specific instinctive reactions and feelings engendered 
 in war, or occurring as an incitement to war, are capable 
 of inducing ecstatic states. There are several of these 
 movements and states, each of which can become, so to 
 speak, a foundation for the development of ecstasy. 
 Combat may and must do this, and probably war could 
 never be carried on at all unless danger and death had quali- 
 ties which arouse ecstatic moods. There is a joy in fight- 
 ing, in killing, and in the tumult of battle that becomes one 
 of the most important of military assets, and is one of the 
 main elements of morale in the field. This capacity of 
 human nature to make over that which is intrinsically pain- 
 ful into the pleasurable is one of the paradoxes of human 
 life to be explained and taken into account in the study 
 of the psychology of war. Fear itself may induce an 
 ecstasy, both in the individual, as we know from many re- 
 ported cases from the late war, and as a social mood in 
 which the fear contributes a quality of intensity and ferocity 
 to patriotism. The gambling mood, which is in part a play 
 with fear, is another ecstatic reaction seen in war, and it 
 is often the means of clearing the way, so to speak, for 
 free and uninhibited action. 
 
 Of course all the purely aesthetic elements in the social 
 life have this effect of arousing exalted moods, and indeed 
 that is precisely their function. All social impulses tend 
 in this same direction, and there is induced in all intense 
 social states an intoxication mood. In these social states, 
 the reproductive motive is often clearly discernible, but 
 partly by common consent and convention, and partly be- 
 
68 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 cause of the composite and fused form of impulses in the 
 social mood, robbed of its specific reactions and converted 
 into a new product, regarded both as conduct and as feel- 
 ing. 
 
 All religious states aroused in war tend to become 
 ecstatic. Their work is to overcome the sense of tragedy 
 of war, and it is only by becoming intense and voluminous, 
 so to speak, that they can accomplish their work at all. 
 Either they must end in a mysticism which includes or 
 takes the form of exalted moods, or they must, as can be 
 accomplished in some temperaments, become dynamic states 
 by inspiring a fatalistic attitude, which is at bottom a sense 
 of throwing oneself unreservedly into the hands of fate. 
 
 We may best think of these complex war moods as the 
 forces out of which wars are made, and the spirit in 
 which they are conducted, but not as by their own initia- 
 tive creating wars. These intoxication moods or ecstasies 
 are forces which contain desires that are general, we say; 
 they are mental processes that act as a means of greatly 
 increasing the volume of all social actions. When we 
 analyze them we find specific desires in them, and evidences 
 of instinct and primitive feeling, but they are not in them- 
 selves tendencies toward specific reactions and in fact the 
 motor tendencies they contain more or less inhibit one an- 
 other. 
 
 In general, these war moods of which we speak are 
 precipitated by definite and incisive reactions of fear and 
 anger. These emotions of fear or anger seem to be the 
 necessary positive stimuli to induce the moods of war. 
 Fear and anger, no one can maintain, are the sole causes of 
 war, and they are far from being the sole factors of the 
 war moods, but they are the usual precipitants of war. 
 
 Fear and anger as social emotions cannot sustain organ- 
 ized and effectual social activity upon a large scale ; we see 
 them always, in war, taken up, transformed, absorbed in 
 moods which are at once more practical, and more exalted 
 
Instincts in War 69 
 
 and which, as complex processes, can be sustained over 
 long periods of time. But these primitive reactions of 
 anger and fear enter into the ecstatic moods, become asso- 
 ciated with or induce aesthetic and religious states of con- 
 sciousness, gain moral justification or religious exploitation, 
 become aspects of directive and dynamic moods and so give 
 force and efficiency to morale and strategy. 
 
 War appears as a breakdown of certain modes of volition. 
 Certain types of conflict are abandoned, and aggressive ac- 
 tivities become more simple and powerful, but war is no 
 reversion to primitive instinct, or to any number of in- 
 stincts. The resulting states of mind are too rational as 
 means, and too exalted and ideal to be thus primitive. New 
 content is introduced into social consciousness and new 
 purposes come to light in these ecstasies, even though the 
 consciously sought objectives may be archaic and conven- 
 tional and the mental states traceable to more elementary 
 states, and the conduct be similar in purpose and type to the 
 simpler forms of conduct we find in the animal world. 
 What we are trying to impress here is the well known truth 
 that the whole of a thing is not necessarily contained in 
 its parts. It is the meaning of the war-mood as a whole, 
 as a summation of many factors of the mental life, and as a 
 direction of social consciousness as a whole that is its most 
 important characteristic. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AESTHETIC ELEMENTS IN THE MOODS AND IMPULSES 
 OF WAR 
 
 That experiences and motives which belong to the field 
 of the aesthetic play an important part in war can hardly 
 be doubted. The whole history of war shows this, and 
 even in the beginning war seems to be an activity carried 
 on in part for its own sake, and not entirely for its prac- 
 tical results, and thus has qualities which later are ex- 
 plicitly aesthetic. We cannot of course separate sharply 
 the aesthetic motive from everything else in studying so 
 highly complex an object as war, but that war does partake 
 of the nature of what we call the beautiful, and that the 
 craving for the beautiful is a factor in the causes of war 
 seem to be certain. The relation of art to war is of course 
 no new theme. War has often been praised because of 
 its aesthetic nature, and its dramatic features. It is called 
 a beautiful adventure. It is reproduced in pictorial art, 
 represented in music, and thus glorified and adorned, show- 
 ing at least that it can readily be made to appear beautiful if 
 it does not in itself possess beauty. Those who think of 
 war as related to play also connect it with art. Nicolai 
 (79), who condemns war, says that it is when war as an 
 instinctive action is no longer useful, but is performed for 
 its own sake that it becomes beautiful. 
 
 We cannot undertake to enumerate all the aesthetic quali- 
 ties of war, or to show all the relations of the aesthetic as- 
 pects to other motives of war in detail, since to do so would 
 mean to work out some of the fundamental principles of 
 aesthetics. We may begin, however, by saying that war as 
 
 70 
 
Aesthetic Elements of War 71 
 
 a whole, as a movement in which there is complete organiza- 
 tion of social forces shows already the marks of aesthetic ex- 
 perience and of art. As such a unification of interest in a 
 strong and uninhibited movement, as a coordinated ex- 
 pression of deep desires, a multiplicity of action with a 
 unity of purpose, so to speak, war is aesthetic in form 
 although to mention such very general qualities does not go 
 very far toward characterizing an object. 
 
 In its meaning as tragedy war contains and exerts a 
 strong aesthetic appeal. With all its horrors, war fasci- 
 nates the mind. As fate, death, history it inspires awe, 
 and creates a sense of the inevitableness of events and of the 
 play of transcendental and inexorable forces in human life. 
 When, under any influence, these feelings appear as an ac- 
 cepting and willing of evil, we have the tragic movement as 
 we find it in art. The death motif in war is the center 
 of a variety of states which are ecstatic and have aesthetic 
 quality. The religion of valor, the passion that is aroused 
 by abandoning oneself to fate, the absolute devotion of 
 service are aesthetic in form as experience, whatever else 
 they may be. The relation of these motives to love and 
 to the reproductive impulses has often been noticed. De- 
 votion and death appear as beautiful; their representation 
 in art is in part a recognition of this fact ; in part it is an 
 effort to transform them into the forms of the aesthetic. 
 Art celebrates, but also creates, this luxury of feeling, and 
 war also in its own dramatic movement transforms ugly and 
 plain facts of life by including them in ecstatic states, and 
 surrounding them with glory. 
 
 The ideal of glorified death plays a large part in the 
 spirit of war. In war the fear of death is not only in 
 great part stilled, but there is a longing to tempt fate and 
 also to experience death itself, and this desire may be- 
 come ecstatic. Here we see in effect one of the most im- 
 portant functions of the aesthetic, which is to carry on a 
 drama of the will in which something that is in itself pain- 
 
72 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ful becomes pleasant and desired. The desire for war is 
 to some extent a desire for death, a longing for a form of 
 euthanasia in which the individual dies but in a sense 
 lives — lives as glorified in death, and also in the con- 
 tinuance of the life of the group and of the country into 
 which he has been absorbed. It is of course its relation 
 to death that more than anything else has made it neces- 
 sary that war should appeal to art, and take an aesthetic 
 form, and without the aid of the aesthetic, war could not 
 maintain itself in the world. As a sheer fulfillment of 
 duty war could not survive. By the strength of its aesthetic 
 appeal war must control and overcome the instinct of self- 
 preservation. 
 
 War appeals to the human mind as the great adventure of 
 life. To the healthy normal man this appeal, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, may be compelling in its power. Man 
 feels the call of adventure in his blood. War may seem 
 at times the natural expression of what is most real and 
 most essentially masculine in human nature. War is the 
 essence of all the dramatic and heroic story of the world. 
 The past lives most vividly in this theme of war, and the 
 sense of remoteness in time lends an aesthetic coloring to 
 all the story of war, and is in part its fascination. The dead 
 heroes of to-day are glorified by linking their names with 
 the great heroes of the past. 
 
 To the glory of the individual, which is an aesthetic ap- 
 peal, is added the still stronger appeal of the ideal of na- 
 tional glory. The image created in the mind which sus- 
 tains the devotion of the individual is also an aesthetic 
 form. It is the idea of a nation transformed by story, sym- 
 bol and eloquence that is established. The dimness and 
 mysticism of the long ago, all dramatic scenes of the na- 
 tional life, the forms of royalty are used in transforming 
 reality into an ideal. The consciousness of a nation is in- 
 deed an artist which creates an ideal nation, glorifying 
 and transforming the past, and painting a vivid picture of 
 
Aesthetic Elements of War 73 
 
 the empire that is to be. No little part in the German idea 
 of the fatherland has been taken by the revived image of the 
 old German Empire, and the story of Charlemagne, the 
 Ottonides, the Hohenstaufen and the Hohenzollern which 
 has been woven into the life of the present and has become 
 an aesthetic setting for the idea of future greatness. 
 
 In the religion of valor, also, we may find aesthetic ele- 
 ments. Valor represents in this cult the spirit of the supe- 
 rior man. It is an aristocratic idea. Military life is full of 
 this theme. The ideals of noblesse oblige, honor, the spirit 
 of sportsmanship, enter into it, and all these concepts are in 
 part aesthetic in nature. It is neither as moral nor as practi- 
 cal ideas that they have so deeply influenced society, but 
 because of their appeal to the sense of the beautiful. All 
 this aspect of war and military life, both in its motives and 
 in its forms, is closely related to the pure beauty of art. 
 The play spirit also, which in some of its developments at 
 least is aesthetic, enters into the motives of war. War, we 
 say, is the great adventure. It is the realization of power. 
 It is an expression of the love of the sense of freedom. It 
 is the great game, in which everything is staked. The love 
 of danger and the love of gambling with life that it con- 
 tains have roots that are also roots of various forms of 
 art. 
 
 Another element, aesthetic in motive and form, obviously 
 related to the reproductive functions of the individual, is the 
 display motive. This motive of display is concerned espe- 
 cially with the idea of courage. It is of course a deep 
 desire of the male to display courage before the female. 
 This display motive must be the main motive of the uniform 
 and all the other ornamental aspects of military life. Rank, 
 titles and decorations belong to the same movement. They 
 are indications of the advancement of the man in those es- 
 sential qualities of the soldier, the chief of which is cour- 
 age. The aesthetic forms in which courage is represented 
 help to sustain it, and are an important element in morale, 
 
74 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and they also serve a purpose in creating or adding to the 
 allurement of the service and the fascination of war. It 
 is the craving for the display of courage, the desire of the 
 man " to show the stuff that is in him," that gives to war 
 some of its most persistent aesthetic forms, and these 
 aesthetic forms help both to make the display of courage 
 effective and to create courage. 
 
 Among these aesthetic elements of war must be considered 
 of course the rhythms, the forms, all the concerted action, 
 the marching (which may be regarded as one of the forms 
 of the dance), the parade, the maneuvering and drill that 
 enter into military life. Already in primitive warfare these 
 aesthetic forms begin to appear and indicate clearly both 
 their practical significance as means of affecting the will, and 
 their relations to the religious and to the reproductive mo- 
 tives. The warrior tries to create in his person the appear- 
 ance of power, and also by the aesthetic forms he introduces 
 into his warfare, the feeling of power. He believes indeed 
 that through these aesthetic forms he actually creates or 
 exerts power. This is the motive of the war dance, which 
 as an aesthetic form produces this ecstasy of the feeling of 
 power. This power is often conceived to be magical ; the 
 women dancing at home are supposed to exert an influence 
 upon the men in the field or upon the enemy, and the sav- 
 age believes that in his own displays he actually overcomes 
 the spirit of his enemy. Art is here plainly serving a pur- 
 pose. Display is a means of creating an impression in the 
 minds of the enemy. It also has the purpose of creating an 
 effect in the mind of the soldier himself. The art in mili- 
 tary life is, indeed, to give the impression of power to all 
 who must be affected by the exhibition of force. 
 
 All social life contains elements that appeal to the aesthetic 
 sense, and these aesthetic elements are by no means solely 
 ornamental. The universal development of etiquette and 
 manners has reference to very practical aspects of the social 
 life. Their function is to influence the will. The highly 
 
Aesthetic Elements of War 75 
 
 developed etiquette of military life is not merely to facilitate 
 the military functions, and it is no explanation of the for- 
 malism of the military life to say that this is a sign of its 
 archaic nature. Formalism in this life is one of the means 
 taken to cover up all the details of militarism that are re- 
 pugnant: the hardship, the lack of freedom and the like. 
 Etiquette acts persuasively upon the will, it helps to make 
 military life desired, and to make men submissive under 
 control of absolute leaders. All formalism in social life, 
 considered in one aspect of it, is a symbol of the resigna- 
 tion of the will of the individual. As thus a symbol it may 
 either convey or mediate social feeling, and when social 
 feeling is absent the art of manners may become a substitute 
 for this social feeling, and in both these ways it is a means 
 of giving to society cohesion, order and form. 
 
 Such considerations as these help to explain the longing 
 for war or its equivalent which persists in the human heart. 
 It helps us to realize the truth of Cramb's (66) assertion 
 that the whole history of the world shows that man has 
 lacked not only the power but the will to end war and estab- 
 lish perpetual peace. There are still motives in the mind of 
 man that make him approve of war. War is perpetuated 
 because of its heroic form, as a form of experience in which 
 the meaning of life is felt to be exploited, in which life is 
 transformed and glorified, in which the tragedy of life, 
 which in any case is inevitable, becomes a tragedy which, 
 because it bears the form of art, is acceptable and even 
 longed for. This is the allurement of war, its persistent 
 illusion, perhaps. The aesthetic forms of war take war out 
 of the field of reason, and on occasion make it transcend 
 or pervert reason. So we may understand why it is true 
 that sometimes those who but little understand why they 
 are to die on the field of battle may display the greatest 
 courage and the greatest enthusiasm for war, and we must 
 not say that these causes are fatuous because they exist in 
 the realm of aesthetic values. 
 
j 6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 If we take war too realistically, with reference to its 
 practical motives, its mere killing and looting, which we 
 may suspect are related to the nutritional motive that we 
 always find running through human conduct, and leave out 
 of account those aspects of war which seem to belong mainly 
 to the reproductive motive, to the enthusiasm and intoxi- 
 cation and art of the world, we shall to that extent misun- 
 derstand it. These motives cannot, of course, be separated 
 definitely from one another in analyzing conduct, but we 
 cannot be very wrong in differentiating phases of war which 
 belong predominantly to the reproductive motive. It is 
 because, at least, all deep tendencies of life are in- 
 volved in war that it is so hard to eliminate it from experi- 
 ence. If war were an instinctive reaction it might be con- 
 trolled by reason. If it were an atavism or a rudimentary 
 organ some social surgery or other might relieve us of it. 
 But war is a product of man's idealism, misdirected and 
 impracticable idealism though it may be, but still something 
 very expressive of what man is. It is this idealism of na- 
 tions, leading them to the larger life, that makes them cling 
 to war, whether for good or for evil. It will avail little to 
 prove to the world that war is an evil, so long as war is de- 
 sired, or so long as something which war so readily yields 
 is desired. Statistics of eugenics and proofs that war ruins 
 business will not yet cure us of our habit of war, and not 
 at all so long as there is a vacancy in life which only the 
 dramatic experiences of war can fill. When war is aban- 
 doned, it will be given up probably not because economists 
 and sociologists vote against it, and we see that peace is 
 good, but by the consent of a world which, once for all, is 
 willing to renounce something that is dear to it and held to be 
 good, if for no other reason, because it symbolizes what life 
 and reality are. The world appears to have two minds 
 about war, or at least it does not hold consistently to any 
 one attitude toward it. Beneath all judgments about the 
 
Aesthetic Elements of War 77 
 
 evils of war, there is the allurement of these aesthetic mo- 
 tives which must be reckoned with in any psychology of 
 war, or in any practical plan for eliminating war from the 
 future experience of the race. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PATRIOTISM, NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL HONOR 
 
 Many authors find in patriotism or in national honor the 
 chief or the sole cause of war. Jones (37), the Freudian, 
 for example, says that patriotism is the sum of those causes 
 of war which are conscious as distinguished from the re- 
 pressed motives. Nicolai (79) says that patriotism and 
 chauvinism would have no meaning and no interest without 
 reference to war, and that for the arts of peace one needs 
 no patriotism at all. Hoesch-Ernst (32), another German 
 writer, says that patriotism has made history a story of 
 wars. It has developed the highest virtues (and the worst 
 vices), but it creates artificial boundaries among peoples, 
 and gives to every fighter the belief that he is contending 
 against brute force. Veblen (97) says that patriotism is 
 the only obstacle to peace among the nations. MacCurdy 
 (37) speaks of the paradox of human nature seen in the 
 fact that the loyalty we call patriotism, which may make 
 a man a benefactor to the whole race, may become a menace 
 to mankind when it is narrowly focussed. Novicow says 
 that what shall be foreign is a purely conventional matter. 
 Another writer remarks that patriotism is the guise under 
 which the instincts of tiger and wolf run riot. 
 
 Several writers, Powers (75), and especially Veblen, place 
 questions of national honor among the main causes of war. 
 Veblen would hold that wars never occur unless the ques- 
 tions involved are first converted into questions of national 
 honor — and are then, but only then, supported as moral 
 issues. Other writers are to be found who make the same 
 
 78 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 79 
 
 claims for honor, saying that wars are always over ques- 
 tions of national honor — honor always meaning here, let 
 us observe, not moral principle but prestige, dignity, analo- 
 gous to what we call personal pride in the individual. 
 
 Broadly speaking, we may say that such views of war base 
 it upon the fact that nations are individuals, having per- 
 sonality and self-consciousness, and are moved by emotions 
 such as dominate the individual, although such analogies 
 between individual and group are never free from objec- 
 tion. But that the consciousness of the group as an indi- 
 vidual may be exceedingly intense, full of aggressiveness, 
 intolerance and pride, of great sensitiveness to all outside 
 the group, is, of course, obvious from the history of nations. 
 Groups thus endowed with a sense of solidarity and sensi- 
 tiveness become highly vitalized and persistent personalities 
 which stalk through the pages of history with tremendous 
 power and tenacity of purpose. Nations thus live intensely, 
 and in their intense feelings and personal attributes there 
 are expressed purposes and ideals, conscious and uncon- 
 scious, analogous to those which make the individual also 
 an historical entity. 
 
 There seem to be two aspects of group personality that 
 need to be investigated in detail in any study of war, and 
 which must be distinguished from one another, as they may 
 be by referring to the primitive or central emotional quality 
 which each has. These are patriotism and the sense of 
 honor, the former, for our purposes, to be regarded as the 
 sum of the affections a people has for that which is its own; 
 the second a sum of those feelings and attitudes, the emo- 
 tional root of which is pride. These feelings are the af- 
 fective basis of the idea of nationalism. 
 
 Patriotism, or love of country or feeling of loyalty to- 
 ward country, is a highly complex emotion or mood, and 
 its object, an ideal construction, is formed by a process of 
 abstraction in which certain qualities of home, environment, 
 social objects selected by those feelings are made over into 
 
80 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 a composite whole. Patriotism is immediately connected 
 with the fact that men, by some biological or other neces- 
 sity are formed into groups, in which the consciousness of 
 the individual in regard to the group and its members and 
 its habitat is different from the consciousness in regard to 
 everything outside. Patriotism is devotion to all that per- 
 tains to the group as a separate unit, and its form and in- 
 tensity are dependent upon what the group as a unit does. 
 The size and organization of the group to which the patri- 
 otic feeling may go out may, it is obvious, differ widely. 
 
 There appear to be five more or less distinct and different 
 factors in patriotism ; or, we might say, five or more objects 
 of attachment, the love of which all together constitutes 
 patriotism. These objects are: home, as physical country; 
 the group as collection of individuals ; mores, the sum of 
 the customs of a people ; country as personality or historical 
 object, and its various symbols ; leaders or organized gov- 
 ernment or state, its conventions and representations. 
 
 The deepest of all strata in the very complex feeling of 
 patriotism, one which is concerned in every relation among 
 nations, is the devotion to, or habituation to — or we might 
 say identity with — the great complex of ideals, feelings, 
 and the like which make up the customs, folkways, mores 
 or ethos of a group. The individual as a conscious per- 
 son is to such an extent created by these conscious factors 
 that we find that the reality sense is in part produced by 
 them. We have already referred to the belief on the part 
 of many peoples that they alone are real. Foreigners with 
 different mores probably always seem less real than our 
 own people : they may even be looked upon as automata, 
 as not being moved by the feelings and purposes that we 
 ourselves have. The language of the foreigner, the unedu- 
 cated man is inclined to think of as having no meaning. 
 Every group has its own ways, and whatever else war may 
 be, it is in every case an argument for the superiority of the 
 ways of the group. Each group in war feels that its own 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 81 
 
 most intimate possessions, its morality and its genius are 
 attacked. It guards these instinctively, and a part of the 
 purpose of aggression is the desire to make these things pre- 
 vail in the world, because they are felt to be the only right, 
 true and sensible ways. This preference for our own ways, 
 and participation in them, is the basic fact of nationality. 
 
 The feeling of patriotism is thus primarily an aesthetic 
 appreciation (or at least an immediate and intuitive one) 
 of the totality of the life of the group. Just as standards 
 of normality and artistic form in regard to the human per- 
 son and its adornment vary from group to group, and are 
 produced in the consciousness of the group, so there is a 
 reaction of pleasure to, and attachment for, the whole of the 
 life that surrounds the individual. This appreciation is 
 wider than moral feeling, which indeed is in part based 
 upon it, and is a sense of the fitness of any act to belong to 
 the whole of the conduct that promotes the welfare of the 
 group. 
 
 Patriotism is best known, or at least it is most celebrated, 
 as an attachment to the native land as place. This is the 
 poet's patriotism. It is, however, something more than a 
 mere love of the homeland as landscape, and we cannot, in- 
 deed, separate out any pure love of physical country. The 
 love of country seems to be an expansion of the attachment 
 to home, as the place in which the family relations are ex- 
 perienced. The sense of place is the core of the love of 
 home, but it is supplemented and reenforced by the personal 
 affections. The attachment to place has also its biological 
 roots, the sense of familiarity of place being, of course, as 
 the basis of orientation, a deep element in consciousness. 
 Fear of the unknown increases the attachment to the known. 
 The land as the source of livelihood is loved, and there are 
 also older elements in the love of the land as is shown by 
 myths and folklore. There is in it the idea of ownership 
 but also the idea of belonging to the land. So there is both 
 the filial and the parental attitude in patriotism. As father- 
 
82 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 land or motherland country is superior to and antecedent 
 to us; as possession it is something to hold and to transmit, 
 to improve and to leave the impress of our work upon. As 
 historic land there is the idea of sacred soil, of land which 
 persists through all time. Ancestor worship enters; the 
 soil as the resting place of forefathers acquires not only a 
 religious meaning, but there is attached to it such feeling 
 of an aesthetic nature as is attached to everything that is 
 full of tradition. The protective attitude is prominent in 
 this patriotic love of land. There is in it the fear of inva- 
 sion, a sense of the sacredness and inviolability of the body 
 of a country when it has once been established as an his- 
 torical entity. A study of the psychology of invasion and 
 of homesickness would no doubt throw further light upon 
 the still unknown aspects of the intricate moods of home 
 love. 
 
 A third element in patriotism is social feeling. This is 
 primitive, but whether it is a herd consciousness or a radi- 
 ation of the social feelings connected with blood relation- 
 ship and community of immediate practical interests it is 
 not especially important to decide in this connection, except 
 that the assumption of a specific herd instinct as distin- 
 guished from social feeling or instinct appears to be un- 
 necessary. Loyalty of the individual to the group, which is 
 accompanied by or is based upon intensified or ecstatic feel- 
 ing is one of the strongest elements of patriotism. Social 
 feeling as an attachment to the widest group, the nation, is 
 in general a latent feeling or an undeveloped one. We see 
 it becoming active and intense only under circumstances in 
 which the whole group is threatened or for some other rea- 
 son is compelled to act as a unit. The recent psychology 
 of the soldier shows us that absolute devotion to or absorp- 
 tion in the whole may be produced automatically by the 
 proper stimuli, and may be controlled as the mechanism of 
 morale, and that elementary sensations enter into it. The 
 wider social consciousness as devotion to the whole group, 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 83 
 
 the nation, is based upon such reactions, and can probably 
 not be fully developed without them. 
 
 This transformation of the individual is something de- 
 sired and sought by the individual. It comes as a fulfill- 
 ment of impulses that are latent in the social life, and these 
 impulses are tendencies to seek exalted states of social feel- 
 ing, rather than to perform specific social functions. War 
 is seized upon by the social consciousness, so to speak, as 
 an opportunity to extend itself and become more intense, 
 and indeed in war we see the social consciousness perform- 
 ing a work of genius, overcoming apparently insurmount- 
 able obstacles and aversions. Under such circumstances, 
 social feeling becomes strongly fortified against many sug- 
 gestions that tend to break it down. An intense ferocity 
 is directed toward any disloyal member of the group, a fic- 
 titious character may be attributed to the enemy, and there 
 is an imaginative interpretation of all his acts in a manner 
 favorable to uniting the sentiment of the group. This does 
 not appear to be merely a defensive reaction or a result of 
 fear, but an awareness of the precarious condition of the 
 social feeling itself, when it is widely extended. In its 
 moments of most extreme and fanatical intensity it is likely 
 to be most unstable. It has been said that the surest way 
 to break down social feeling is to make it include too much. 
 The conditions of war always create that danger. Patriot- 
 ism is greatly intensified, but it is in danger of collapse. 
 The mild patriotism and yet secure cohesion of peace is re- 
 placed by a social consciousness increased in breadth and 
 depth, but which is liable also to sudden contraction. All 
 nations when at war appear to be quite as much afraid of 
 themselves as they are of the enemy. It is in part this sus- 
 ceptibility of social feeling to rapid and extreme variation 
 that makes patriotism so mysterious a force. It may be 
 extended in a moment to unite supposed incompatibles, or 
 again apparently strongly cemented groups may fall into 
 disunion. This seems to be due to the fact that social feel- 
 
84 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ing is plastic and is subject to control and is a force and not 
 merely an instinctive reaction. 
 
 The fourth element of patriotism is devotion to leader, 
 to government, or to the idea of state. Devotion to leader 
 must have been one of the earliest forms of loyalty. The 
 prestige of the leader is acquired as the result of any action 
 of the group under stimuli that produce either fear or anger. 
 Just as the necessity for strong action creates the leader out 
 of average humanity, so continuation of this necessity, that 
 is the whole historical movement of the life of the group 
 such as a nation continues to add elements of prestige to 
 leadership. The exaltation and typically to some extent 
 the deification of the leader is a natural consequence or 
 aspect of the dramatic life of the group. The leader be- 
 comes symbolic of the group, and of its purposes and mean- 
 ing, so that in devoting itself to a leader the people do 
 more than sustain an emotional relation to a superior per- 
 son. They transfer their own individual nature, so to 
 speak, to the leader so that he becomes the essence or the 
 spirit of the people. 
 
 The dynasty is the connecting link between the leader as 
 the object of devotion of a people and the abstract idea of 
 the state as an entity. The prestige and all the supernatu- 
 ralism contained in the ideas of divine rights and divine 
 descent that have become attached to the idea of kings are 
 transferred to the government, or extended to the govern- 
 ment or state. The illusion of superiority and remoteness 
 is kept up by various forms and ceremonials. Becoming 
 an abstract form, the organization or the office remaining 
 while its personnel changes, the state acquires the character 
 of a religious object. It takes on the character of the eter- 
 nal, while still it retains all the persuasive and suggestive 
 qualities that belong to individuals. The idea of state thus 
 commands a very high degree of loyalty, and is in a sense 
 itself a product of the feeling of loyalty. Once established 
 the state becomes a medium through which patriotism may 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 85 
 
 be subjected to control and also be manipulated for politi- 
 cal ends. It can be extended, transferred, contracted ac- 
 cording to what at any time may be subsumed under the 
 government that has thus come to be the central and co- 
 ordinating factor in the object of patriotism. 
 
 Another element of patriotism appears in the form of a 
 deep reaction of the mind of the individual, usually under 
 the influence of social stimuli that take the form of artistic 
 or dramatic situations, to the idea of country as a historical 
 personage. This stimulus may be symbolic — the flag or 
 any other emblem signifying the life or the spirit of a coun- 
 try; or it may be concrete, historic, a story, and this story, 
 which is the content of the idea of country, is in general a 
 narrative assuming a certain artistic form in which facts are 
 treated at least selectively, and usually imaginatively. This 
 work of portrayal of the life of a nation by its story is con- 
 sciously or unconsciously an appeal to the will; it is given 
 artistic rather than scientific form for this reason. Its pur- 
 pose is to present a national spirit, or ideal, or principle, 
 and also to persuade the mind to become loyal to this spirit 
 of country. 
 
 All countries, as the object of the feeling of patriotism, 
 tend to be personified, and it is thus as a person that coun- 
 try commands the deepest loyalty of the individual. Hence 
 the personified representation of country whenever the will 
 of the individual is appealed to most strongly. Redier 
 (30), a French writer, illustrates this very clearly when he 
 pleads that the interest of the motherland must be placed 
 first. It is not for liberty, or for the civilization of the 
 world that the French are fighting, he says, but for France, 
 " that most saintly, animated and tragic of figures." It is 
 by this process of personification of country that the patriot- 
 ism of the individual becomes most complete. He thus be- 
 comes loyal to a living reality representing an idea, a spirit. 
 To defend the honor and the integrity of this person, one is 
 willing to sacrifice everything that is individually possessed, 
 
86 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 in causes that can affect one materially in no important way. 
 The desire for personal identity and immortality may be 
 transferred to country as thus idealized, and the individual 
 is satisfied to lose himself that country may live. The com- 
 mon man realizes in a simple and concrete way, in regard to 
 country, the Hegelian conception of state as the reality of 
 mind in the world. About this idea of country held by the 
 truly patriotic mind, as we find it expressed in history and 
 in literature, there grows up a religious sentiment, which 
 protects from criticism the qualities of the ideal personage. 
 A certain pathos of country attaches itself to all who as 
 great individuals represent country, and to all its portrayals 
 and symbols. All these symbols acquire a high degree of 
 suggestive force because of the depth of sentiment and the 
 richness of the content of the ideas that have produced them. 
 
 Patriotism, then, is a very complex idea and feeling which 
 we realize as love of country — or, as we might better say, 
 it is an animation by the idea of a very complex object which 
 is country. It is a profound attachment, rooted in the most 
 original and essential relations, and appears to be natural 
 and necessary to every normal mind. The individual con- 
 sciousness is complete only by including the attachments, in 
 narrower and broader relations, to precisely the elements 
 that enter into patriotism — to place, to the fundamental 
 ways and appreciations of the social surroundings, to per- 
 sons, to authority, to traditions. The composite effects of 
 these attachments may be greater or smaller, as determined 
 by a totality of conditions, but the foundations of patriot- 
 ism, whatever its object, are deep in consciousness. 
 
 The presence and persistence of patriotism in the world 
 as a deep and intense feeling raises questions that are of 
 both theoretical and practical importance. Here we are 
 interested mainly in the relation of patriotism to war. 
 There is a widespread view that may be expressed some- 
 what as follows. Patriotism and internationalism or cos- 
 mopolitanism are two opposites. Patriotism delimits 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 87 
 
 groups, whether rightly or wrongly, and therefore produces 
 antagonism in the world, and either causes wars directly or 
 maintains a continual threat of wars. On the other hand 
 there is cosmopolitanism, a very little too much of which 
 might destroy civilization by removing the inspiration that 
 country gives. Patriotism, standing for the integrity of 
 historic entities, makes the world a world of nations having 
 separate and conflicting wills. Thus we have a choice of 
 evils — between a world of ardent, quarrelsome, but effi- 
 cient groups and a world in which the chief motive of prog- 
 ress, the vital principle of national growth, is left out. 
 
 What is the truth about this? What is the relation of 
 patriotism to war? Confusion and difference of views are 
 likely to arise from a failure to distinguish in the idea of 
 nationalism as a whole, between two very different emo- 
 tions and purposes. Psychologically, patriotism is a sum 
 of affections. As such, it has a distinct character, consti- 
 tutes a mood, the possession of which may characterize an 
 individual, and dominance by which may be the main fact 
 in life. As a devotion to certain objects, this motive of 
 patriotism enters into the sphere of motives of war, but it 
 does so mainly, in our view, as a powerful and highly sug- 
 gestible energy which becomes aggressive only under the 
 stimulus of threat to its objects. Patriotism is indeed tol- 
 erant by nature, and one may well doubt whether a genuine 
 love of country is possible without a profound realization 
 of the value of other countries as objects of devotion, and 
 of the validity of the patriotism of every group. True 
 patriotism must always be to some extent devotion to pa- 
 triotism itself as a progressive force in the world, and it is, 
 therefore, by the very fact of becoming intense and pure, 
 a motive of internationalism. 
 
 Such patriotism seems to be free from most of the delu- 
 sions of greatness that affect national consciousness. Its 
 mood is optimistic and its spirit tolerant and just. We 
 should say that, instead of causing wars, by any initiative of 
 
88 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 its own, it is itself caused by wars. It grows in a medium 
 of defensive attitudes. It may, of course, play into the 
 hands of all the aggressive motives of war; there are al- 
 ways circumstances creating the illusion of danger, and it 
 is possible, even, that there would be little war if there were 
 no patriotism as love of country to support it. But on the 
 other hand patriotism itself does not seem to be a cause of 
 war. We should say, indeed, that patriotism, to the extent 
 that it becomes intelligent and is a devotion to an ideal of 
 country, and so is not dominated and influenced by other 
 motives is a factor of peace in the world, and is moral in its 
 principles and its nature. This is not the place in which 
 to speak of internationalism as an ideal, but we may at least 
 observe how, conceivably, patriotism may be cultivated, be 
 greatly deepened and intensified, while at the same time 
 and indeed because of this deepening of patriotism all inter- 
 national causes are also served. Such patriotism may leave 
 us with the danger of wars, since it leaves us with a world 
 of individuals having wills and self-interests. But this 
 world, with such a danger of wars, would be better after 
 all than a certain kind of cosmopolitanism in a world such 
 as, for example, might be arranged by an unintelligent so- 
 cialism. 
 
 National Honor 
 
 There is another aspect of nationalism, which is psycho- 
 logically distinct from patriotism as love of country, be- 
 cause primitively it is based upon a different motive. Emo- 
 tionally it is expressed finally as national pride, as we use 
 the word mainly with a derogatory implication. Just as 
 patriotic feeling is intensified and crystallized by fear, and 
 is in a sense an overcoming of fear, by devotion, so this 
 motive of pride rests upon a basis of jealousy and of hatred, 
 and is essentially a movement in which display is used to 
 obtain prestige, to overcome opposition and to defend con- 
 sciousness against a sense of inferiority. As a display mo- 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 89 
 
 tive it contains the feeling of anger, and the impulses of 
 combat, and its relation to the reproductive motive is obvi- 
 ous. It is as an aspect of a deeply pessimistic strain in 
 national life, as a process in which an original and naive 
 sense of reality and superiority, challenged and attacked 
 and brought into the field of opposition and criticism and 
 thus negated by a feeling of inferiority, that this motive be- 
 comes of special interest to the psychology of nations and 
 of war. 
 
 The roots of this pride and honor process we can find 
 in the impulses which lead groups to demonstrate power and 
 prowess to one another, and in the original feeling of reality 
 which is accompanied by the belief on the part of the group 
 that its own ways are normal and right. We might men- 
 tion as significant the widespread belief on the part of very 
 primitive peoples that they alone are real people, or are 
 the superior people of the world. The Lapps, Sumner (70) 
 says, regard themselves as " men " as distinguished from 
 all other peoples, a form of self-consciousness which lingers 
 in all such antitheses as Jew and Gentile, Greek and bar- 
 barian, and the like. This basic idea of difference in reality 
 is not confined to a few peoples, but there is a tendency for 
 every group to divide the world into two parties : selves and 
 outsiders, and this feeling of difference readily develops 
 into the moods in which there is a mystic sense on the part 
 of a people of being the chosen people, and into those spe- 
 cific theories of superiority that run through the history of 
 most if not of all nations. It belongs to the psychology 
 of Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese, and also to 
 Americans as well as Germans ; and we learn that Russian 
 books and newspapers sometimes discuss the civilizing mis- 
 sion of Russia. 
 
 That the motives of display and pride have been peculiarly 
 active in Germany in the last few decades has been main- 
 tained by many writers. German writers are inclined to 
 believe that the motive for the " attack upon Germany " 
 
90 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 was jealousy on the part of her enemies, that Germany was 
 supreme in everything and other countries could tolerate 
 this no longer. Germany has talked about her virtues, her 
 rank, her coming place in the world. Bergson says that 
 Germany's energy comes from pride. Some see the source 
 of this alleged conceit of Germany and her excessive self- 
 consciousness in Germany's hard experiences — the recent 
 slavery, Germany's position as the battle ground of Europe, 
 her late arrival among the great nations. Germany still 
 lacks, they say, the quiet assurance that an old culture gives. 
 Some call Germany morbid and quarrelsome. Again we 
 hear the pride of Germany called an adolescent phenomenon, 
 and they say that Germany is fighting not for principle but 
 to see who is superior. Bosanquet (91) thinks that the 
 lack of political liberty in Germany has had the effect of 
 producing self-consciousness, and a morbid interest in small 
 distinctions of title and rank, and that it is thwarted na- 
 tional ambition that has expressed itself in such writers as 
 Treitschke and Bernhardi. Bourdon (67) thinks Germany 
 is jealous of the culture and the glory and the political and 
 literary prestige of France. Collier (68) says that Ger- 
 many is forever looking into a mirror rather than out the 
 open window and even sees herself a little out of focus. 
 The seriousness of the Germans, others think, is an indi- 
 cation that Germany takes herself too seriously. 
 
 But national vanity, we see, is certainly not confined to 
 Germany. The Germans at least think France is highly 
 self-conscious, always thinking of her dignity, glory, pres- 
 tige and of revenge. Wundt (85) feels much the same 
 about the English. He says they always want to be first 
 in everything, and to dominate the earth. We know that 
 the Confederacy of the United States, at the outbreak of the 
 Civil War, appealed to the world on the ground that it had 
 reached the most noble civilization the world had ever seen. 
 The Japanese (73), we have heard, believe that they are 
 of divine descent, and that they are supreme in manliness, 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 91 
 
 loyalty and virtue. Every nation presumably has some- 
 where in the back of its mind a belief in its own supremacy 
 in something, and has a sense of being or having something 
 that makes it unique in the world. 
 
 We can now see in part how the idea of national honor 
 arises out of the pride of nations. Certain fundamental 
 feelings issue in the form of claims of superiority or su- 
 premacy, which may be either vague and unclear or very 
 definite and self-conscious. This claim to superiority is 
 precisely what we mean by national vanity. With this con- 
 sciousness there goes a knowledge that these claims are in 
 general not recognized by other nations, or that the pres- 
 tige which the recognition of this superiority presupposes is 
 at least insecure. Since, of course, these claims to su- 
 premacy cannot all be valid, there must be a great amount 
 of inferiority parading in the world as superiority, many 
 fictitious and presumably half-hearted assumptions that 
 must not only be defended against outsiders, but must also 
 be internally fortified. The pride and the conceit must be 
 justified by the creation of a fictitious past, and of an im- 
 possible future. The motive of these falsifications on the 
 part of race consciousness is clear. A nation is defending 
 its claim to superiority by first establishing the claim in its 
 own mind. These claims being really unfounded must be 
 placed beyond criticism. They must be given a religious 
 form. But also external forms and relations of an artificial 
 nature must be established. Nations always hide behind 
 barriers of formality. They make displays to one another. 
 In this way the feeling and the appearance of superiority 
 are kept up. Everything external to the group and not 
 participating in its illusion of supremacy must be kept ex- 
 ternal to it. The belief which the nation itself assumes in 
 regard to its virtue must be demanded from all outsiders 
 with whom the nation has relations of any kind. At least 
 the forms of the recognition of the claim must be insisted 
 upon. This is the principle of national honor. It is a de- 
 
92 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 fense of certain ideal or fictitious values in which nations 
 insist that others should recognize these claims and values. 
 National honor is an artifice for defending a claim to supe- 
 riority and concealing an actual inferiority, and it relates 
 to values which, in general, do not exist. Its work is con- 
 cerned with the maintenance of prestige. 
 
 These ideal values and the integrity of the appearance of 
 supremacy, are sustained by the assumption of the forms of 
 empire or the imperialistic attitude. Empire is indeed what 
 is dramatized in the forms which nations assume, and this 
 dramatization of imperial form is the background of all 
 the ideas of honor. The maintenance of the integrity of 
 the imperial form, as an ideal realization of the supremacy 
 a nation assumes, becomes more important than even the 
 securing of material possessions, for the imperial form is 
 the very reality and existence of the nation. It is at bottom 
 merely the assertion that its own mores are supreme and 
 entitled to be universal. To admit that this is not so 
 would be to become to some extent unreal, and to lose some- 
 thing essential to a sense of personality. Therefore, there 
 can be thus far no intimate relations among nations. They 
 must present to one another symbolic representations of 
 themselves. It is their flag, the symbol of their place in 
 the world and of their military prowess and courage ; their 
 ambassadors, the representatives of their dignity and the 
 symbol of their pretended friendliness ; their display of royal 
 forms, which is the sign of their prestige and their im- 
 perial nature, about which they are most sensitive. Of- 
 fenses to these symbols of what a nation assumes itself to 
 be and demands that others should think it, tend to be 
 mortal offenses, because they invade the sphere of what 
 nations hold to be their reality. So the relations of nations 
 to one another must, as we say, always be formal. Nations 
 can allow no intimacy. Why they cannot one can readily 
 see, for it is not difficult to detect the fear, the jealousy, 
 and the inferiority motive behind all this assumption and 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 93 
 
 display. Treitschke shows us what national honor may 
 mean when it is carried out into a philosophy of state. 
 Here is the idea of national self-consciousness at its greatest 
 height. The state must not tolerate equals, or at least it 
 must reduce the number of equals as much as possible. The 
 state must be absolutely independent. The state, further- 
 more, cannot have too keen a sense of its dignity and posi- 
 tion. A state must declare war if its flag is insulted, how- 
 ever slight the circumstances may be. 
 
 National honor, its codes and standards and its justifica- 
 tion and vindication by combat, present so many resem- 
 blances to the practice of dueling and the idea of personal 
 honor once so generally held by the upper class, and still 
 existent where the military spirit prevails, that we ought 
 to study the dueling code with reference to the psychology 
 of war. There are psychological features that appear to 
 be identical. The idea of personal honor is associated with 
 a feeling of superiority that must be defended. Any of- 
 fense or affront to the individual was a mortal offense. 
 The superiority in question was first of all superiority of 
 ancestry ; it was this that constituted the value of the indi- 
 vidual and set the standards that he must maintain. This 
 superiority was to be judged not so much by conduct as by 
 an assertion of it represented by certain external forms. 
 The individual by his manners declared himself a gentle- 
 man, and laid claim to forms and considerations that must 
 not be omitted in relations with him. The virtues he de- 
 fended so rigorously did not exist as a rule in calculable 
 or practical form, since they did nothing objective. They 
 might be ornamental or purely fictitious. They existed in 
 the form of claims, and the values assigned to them were 
 arbitrary. The man declared himself possessed of supe- 
 riority, and was ready uniformly to prove this claim by acts 
 purporting to indicate willingness to die. 
 
 This code and belief belonged to a day when relations 
 among individuals were simple and, so to speak, external. 
 
94 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 They were relations that were readily codified and made 
 invariable, since they had no essential practical content or 
 function. Manners were significant as substitutes for 
 friendly relations, since the system was lacking in moral 
 and social sentiments. Manners were a means of fitting 
 together individuals who really belonged to no functioning 
 whole, except when, for example, they might be united in 
 military exploits. Everything was unitary and independent 
 of everything else in this society. 
 
 Now this code and this philosophy of life have declined 
 precisely to the extent that the conception of ideal human 
 life has changed, from that of something ornamental and 
 personal to that of something useful and moral. Life has 
 become organized, and relations have become more practi- 
 cal, so that the values of conduct may now be estimated, and 
 one no longer may maintain a claim to virtue based upon 
 forms expressing intangible or subjective or unreal virtues. 
 The virtues of a man in a democratic society are, indeed, 
 more or less obvious and open. Pride of family, an orna- 
 mental mode of life, and a scorn of death are no longer 
 necessary and sufficient guarantees of worth. Evidence of 
 value is both possible and required ; before value is admitted 
 it must be shown. Self-defense in a legal and moral so- 
 ciety are in the main superfluous, and the values of indi- 
 viduals are so changed that to justify them by the duel would 
 seem out of place. Its service being to defend artificial or 
 arbitrary claims to distinction, it ceases or it falls into disuse 
 when the individual's reality and value come to depend upon 
 his functional place in society. It would be highly illogical 
 to put to test social values by a process that appears to have 
 nothing but anti-social elements in it. 
 
 That nations exhibit the same type of relation toward 
 one another that we find in dueling and its code seems to 
 be clear, although we must always avoid pressing any anal- 
 ogy between individual and nation too far. A claim to 
 superiority that is deep and irrational, and which appears on 
 
Patriotism, Nationalism and National Honor 95 
 
 the surface as sensitiveness in regard to honor and vanity, 
 keeps nations always in defensive attitudes, quite apart from 
 the actual fear of aggression. This superficiality or at least 
 externality of relations is the source of actual conflict. The 
 forms employed to maintain these relations are obviously 
 ornamental, are elaborations of the forms of courtesy among 
 individuals, are little dramas of friendship, so to speak, 
 little plays representing friendliness, while the diplomatic 
 motives are simply to obtain everything possible, each na- 
 tion for itself, without war, and to maintain prestige. 
 These relations are substitutes for social feelings that do not 
 exist. Generally speaking, nations are never friends. 
 They never really share in anything. They are all highly 
 conscious of their own prestige and dignity, and they al- 
 ways communicate with one another in a formal way. In 
 it all, we see the signs of emotions and habits that extend 
 far back to the beginnings of social life and indeed into 
 animal life. The display which takes the form of social 
 relations among nations, represented well by uniformed 
 diplomats, is so plainly archaic and its real meaning so obvi- 
 ous that we can hardly fail to understand what it is all about. 
 That the attitude is really defensive, and the purpose to 
 keep up appearances before strangers, so to speak, can 
 hardly be doubted. 
 
 The fact that these questions of national honor are in 
 some respects detached from the main realities of political 
 relations, and are, indeed, fictitious and exist in the re- 
 gion of the imagination, that they pertain to the conven- 
 tional and ornamental sides of national life, might be sup- 
 posed to indicate that they could easily be done away with, 
 and all these fertile causes of war be eliminated. That must 
 not be assumed. Vanity has deep roots. The ornamental 
 in life symbolizes the real. It is the point of entrance to 
 the deepest motives. Conventional and archaic forms do 
 not die out, just because we discover that they are irrational 
 and harmful, and the causes they serve seem to us to be 
 
g6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 unreal. This kind of unreality in the consciousness of na- 
 tions is in fact the ideal for which nations live. Nations 
 play at being great, and fight to defend their prestige — but 
 this play, as we know, is oftentimes terribly real. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 " CAUSES " AS PRINCIPLES AND ISSUES IN WAR 
 
 The causes for which wars are fought, or which are as- 
 serted to be the causes, make one of the important psycho- 
 logical problems of war. Sometimes these causes are elu- 
 sive, sometimes they may give occasion for cynicism and 
 a pessimistic view of national morals ; again we see self- 
 deception, again ideals seeking for light, peoples trying 
 to find something to live for or to die for. We see in the 
 recent great war as in other wars, a great variety of causes 
 for which men are said to be fighting. Some would say 
 that the war was entirely a war of principles; some take a 
 purely political point of view and say that principles are not 
 involved at all, and others that nothing was displayed at all 
 of motives except primitive passions which are equally de- 
 void of moral issues or any principles. 
 
 It would be interesting from the psychological point of 
 view to make, if possible, a complete collection and classi- 
 fication of the causes that have been brought forward as 
 the fundamental things fought for in the late war. Many 
 widely different and divergent views are held. The forms 
 in which the issues of the war have been stated are almost 
 innumerable. New definitions and new statements of old 
 conventional ideas appear continuously. Every writer 
 seems to see the war from a different point of view from 
 all others. Eventually, w r e may suppose, all this will be 
 clear, since these " causes " of the war will be one of the 
 great themes of future philosophical history. At present 
 we can only formulate such a view as may be suggestive 
 
 97 
 
98 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 with reference to general interpretations of the place of 
 principles and causes in war. 
 
 Let us examine a few of the opinions about the issues 
 fought for in the recent war. MacFall (56) says that the 
 whole strategy of the civilized world is bent upon creating 
 permanent peace. Many speak of the war as a war to over- 
 come war; we are told that one of the most conscious mo- 
 tives of the soldiers in the field has been to make the great 
 war the last war the world should ever see. Something of 
 the same idea is involved in the view each nation has that 
 it was attacked, and that the purpose of the war was to 
 defeat and punish aggressors. Apparently every nation 
 and every army engaged in the war has had the feeling that 
 it was fighting in the interests of world peace. 
 
 The German explanations of the war and of its issues 
 have been very numerous and widely varied. The German 
 has had his own interpretation of the " white man's bur- 
 den." Tower (57) calls attention to the German hybrid 
 word " Sahibthum," expressing the mission of a people. 
 Each nation has its essence, which becomes a deep impulse. 
 The German's impulse is translatable in the words " Be 
 organized." The German has been eager to organize the 
 world. He believed in all seriousness that he was fighting 
 the fight of order against chaos. It was the fight of the 
 spirit against that which is dead and inefficient. The Ger- 
 man believed that the systematic exploitation of the world 
 was his peculiar mission. Ostwald is the great apostle of 
 this view. He said that the war was a battle of the higher 
 life against the lower instincts. Germany represents Euro- 
 pean civilization. The German emperor said that Germany 
 should do for Europe what Prussia had done for Germany 
 — organize it. In the German philosophy of life this prin- 
 ciple of order had become a serious principle. An ineffi- 
 cient and disorderly world had need of Germany. Every- 
 where there was waste and stupidity, and a want of reason 
 in the world. System was to be the cure. The fundamen- 
 
" Causes " as Principles and Issues in War 99 
 
 tal fault in all this disorder the German mind recognized as 
 an excessive individualism. Individual instinct and the 
 social order were in eternal conflict, as Dietzel expressed 
 the issue, and Germany stood for the social order, for rea- 
 son, since reason is precisely the denial of the instincts and 
 the desires of the individual in the interest of a foreseen 
 result. 
 
 Shortly after the beginning of the war, we remember, a 
 manifesto appeared signed by three thousand German uni- 
 versity professors and other teachers, saying that they, the 
 signers, firmly believed that the salvation of the whole of 
 European civilization depended upon the victory of German 
 militarism. Hintze (49) said that Germany was fighting 
 for the freedom of everybody, meaning presumably accord- 
 ing to the German principle that freedom consists in volun- 
 tarily submitting to order. This freedom is also in Hintze's 
 view a principle of freedom and equal rights for all nations, 
 in so far as these nations have reached the necessary stage 
 of civilization. The mission of the coming central manage- 
 ment of mankind {Menschheitzentralverwaltung) implied in 
 the most ideal theory of Germany's mission is the true Ger- 
 man burden. Haeckel says that the work of the German 
 people to assure and develop civilization gives Germany the 
 right to occupy the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria, and Meso- 
 potamia, and to exclude from those countries the races that 
 occupy them. Schellendorf says that Germany must not 
 forget her civilizing task, which is to become the nucleus 
 of a future empire of the west. Koenig says that the spir- 
 itual life of Europe is at stake, Germany's fight is the fight 
 of civilization against barbarism — against Russian bar- 
 barism he means. This ought to be the cause of all West- 
 ern Europe, but England and France have betrayed the 
 western civilization into the hands of the East. This belief 
 gave to Germany's cause a deep impulsion (12). 
 
 Another way in which Germany's cause was frequently 
 stated was that Germany was a pure, virile and young race 
 
ioo The Psychology of Nations 
 
 which was fighting the older civilizations of the world. 
 Vigor was assured of victory in any case, but young life 
 had a duty to perform — that of clearing the way for new 
 growth. This has found numerous forms of expression 
 among German writers, some of them highly dramatic and 
 exaggerated; as, for example, that the human race is di- 
 vided into two species or kinds, the male and the female, 
 assuming that the German is the male among the national 
 spirits. 
 
 With these views of the nature of the German ideal or 
 cause there have gone, of course, interpretations of the 
 conscious motives and principles of other nations. In gen- 
 eral other nations had no principle. German writers have 
 tended to believe that both England and America were 
 hypocritical and that their pretended democratic cause was 
 at heart only party and political aspiration. These nations, 
 they said, claimed to desire the world to enjoy the rights of 
 democracy, but each country assumed that it itself must be 
 the controller of that democratic principle. Another fre- 
 quently expressed view of the purposes of England and 
 America is that they have purely sordid interests, that they 
 are capable of fighting only for advantage and material gain. 
 
 Many of these German views of the war imply a principle 
 that runs through many fields of German thought — that 
 values are something to be determined objectively. It is a 
 scientific principle. Its conclusions rest upon proof, rather 
 than upon subjective principles of valuation. There is 
 another argument which is in part based upon an interpre- 
 tation of scientific principles, but is in part also a fatalistic 
 doctrine — confidence in the issues of battle as a means of 
 testing the right and the validity of culture. The right 
 will prevail, on this theory, because the right is the stronger 
 or because in some sense strength is the right, and because 
 the method of selection of the best by struggle is a basic 
 principle, and may be applied to everything that is living or 
 is a product of life. 
 
"Causes" as Principles and Issues in War 101 
 
 If the German interpretation of the German cause has 
 been dominated by an ideal of objective proof, we hear on 
 the other side much about subjective rights and subjective 
 evaluations — the right, for example, of every people to de- 
 termine its own life, to have its own culture, to decide upon 
 its own nationality. The Allies have believed that they 
 were fighting to establish this principle throughout the 
 world, and that this principle is diametrically opposed to 
 the German principle. The thought of centralization, of a 
 hierarchy of nations and the like, is wholly foreign to this 
 democratic principle. Bergson (17) finds in the idea of in- 
 dustry the cause of the war and the principle of opposition 
 in it. The Allies, he says, have been fighting against ma- 
 terialism with the forces of the spirit. Germany's forces 
 are material. A mechanism is fighting against a self-re- 
 newing spirit. The ideal of force is met by the force of 
 the ideal. 
 
 Boutroux (13) says that France, in the war, has had 
 before her eyes the idea of humanity; France was fighting 
 for the recognition of the rights of personality — rights of 
 each nation to its own existence. France is a champion of 
 freedom ; she wants all the legitimate aspirations of peoples 
 to be realized. Germanism, with its ideal of force, is con- 
 trasted with the ideal of Greek and Christian culture and 
 philosophy. A cult of justice and modesty is contrasted 
 with the cult of power; in the former, sentiment and feeling 
 have a place as criteria of values ; in the latter the appeal 
 is to science and to reason. 
 
 Hobhouse (34) says that the war is a conflict of the 
 spirit of the West against the spirit of the East (precisely 
 the same as the German view, we see, but with a very dif- 
 ferent identification of the champions). Germany has 
 never felt the spirit of the West. The war is for some- 
 thing far deeper than national freedom ; it is a war to justify 
 the primary rules of right. Burnet (18) thinks that the 
 great conflict was a conflict between Kultur as nationalistic, 
 
102 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and humanism as something international — that Germany, 
 in recent years, had abandoned an ideal of culture for that 
 of specialization in the service of the State. England's an- 
 swer to the call was not to the specific need and appeal of 
 Belgium, but because England felt that there was something 
 in Germany incompatible with Western civilization. 
 
 Le Bon (42) says that we must always remember that the 
 Teuton is the irreconcilable enemy of the civilization of the 
 French and of all it stands for, and that he must always 
 be kept at a distance. Durkheim's view is that Germany's 
 ambition and energy and will antagonize the freedom of the 
 rest of the world, and the rest of the world felt this and 
 the war was the consequence. Dillon (55) says that the 
 future for which Germany has been striving is a future 
 incompatible with those ideals which our race cherishes and 
 reveres, and that we must make a definite choice between 
 our philosophy and religion and our code on one side and 
 those of the German on the other. Drawbridge (19) says 
 that the war has been a conflict between the ideals of gen- 
 tleness and tact, on one side, and of brutality and ruthless- 
 ness on the other. It is the Christian spirit against the 
 Nietzschean. 
 
 Again we have been told that the war was simply a war 
 of autocracy against democracy, of medievalism against 
 modern life, of progress against stagnation, of militarism 
 and war against peace, of the Napoleonic against the Chris- 
 tian spirit. Occasionally we hear more personal and sub- 
 jective notes. Redier (30) says that France was fighting 
 solely to retain mastery of her own genius, in order to draw 
 from it noble joys and just profits. 
 
 The American point of view has been expressed in sev- 
 eral forms by the President of the United States. For 
 example, he has said that we are one of the champions of 
 the rights of mankind. The world must be made safe for 
 democracy. And again, that America is fighting for no 
 selfish purpose, but for the liberation of peoples everywhere 
 
"Causes" as Principles and Issues in War 103 
 
 from the aggression of autocratic powers. This view that 
 the war was remedial, that it was in the interest of prog- 
 ress, to prevent that which is belated in civilization from 
 gaining the upper hand, and that it is on the part of Amer- 
 ica a war of participation and aid in a cause which though 
 supremely good might otherwise be lost, is the prevailing 
 idea. That this spirit of the championship of causes and 
 of justice to other nations is a stronger motive in the Anglo- 
 Saxon peoples than in others appears to be an opinion that 
 history on the whole can confirm. 
 
 It is relatively easy to obtain the opinion of philosophers 
 about the " causes " represented in the war; it would be of 
 interest also to know what the millions of men in the field 
 think. Data are not altogether wanting, but there appear 
 to be no general studies. That many men, in more than 
 one army, have no clear knowledge of any cause for which 
 they have fought, except as these causes are nationalistic 
 is certain. That there is ignorance even among the men 
 of our own army in regard to the causes and purposes of 
 the war has been made evident. Knowledge and enlighten- 
 ment can hardly have been greater elsewhere. German sol- 
 diers are credited with believing that they are defending 
 Germany from attack. The French soldier was fighting 
 for France. The invasion of his country left him no doubt 
 and no choice. The English soldier has often said that 
 he was doing it for the women and the children, and one 
 writer says that the deepest motive of two thirds of the 
 British army was to make this war the last. The American 
 soldier, from the nature of the circumstances under which 
 he himself entered the war has been more conscious of a 
 motive of helpfulness and of comradeship with other peo- 
 ples who are in distress and danger. Probably the idea of 
 America's honor, and the more abstract idea still of the 
 cause of freedom, even though this idea has been, so to 
 speak, our watchword, have not been the most influential mo- 
 tives in the mind of the individual. Germany was attack- 
 
104 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ing people who were in distress, and the American soldier 
 went over to make the scales turn in the direction of victory 
 for the oppressed. 
 
 There is, of course, a literature of the war produced by 
 the soldier in the field, in which there are expressed high 
 ideals, abstract conceptions and firm principles. The 
 French soldier has written about liberty, the German soldier 
 has had considerable to say about a Kultur war. An Amer- 
 ican volunteer in the British army has written, " I find my- 
 self among the millions of others in the great allied armies 
 fighting for all I believe right and civilized and humane 
 against a power which is evil and which threatens the exist- 
 ence of all the right we prize and the freedom we en- 
 joy " (24). But in general the consciousness of the sol- 
 dier, from all the evidence we have, was concerned, as pre- 
 sumably was that of most of us, mainly with the most obvi- 
 ous qualities of opposing forces, their concrete actions, and 
 the personal motives of rulers. 
 
 Leaving aside so far as one can one's own partisanship 
 and mores (which is not a very easy task), what causes can 
 we say, with a considerable degree of certainty, have actually 
 been issues in the present war? To some extent what one 
 thinks these causes are will remain matters of personal 
 opinion and preference. Are there also principles which, 
 when once observed, will be accepted as the fundamental 
 "causes" of the war? There seem to be three at least 
 which characterize wide differences in the ideals and the 
 civilization of the opposing forces. 
 
 There is, first of all, an issue between the ideals of a rela- 
 tively autocratic form of government and a relatively more 
 democratic form of government. This was a cause of the 
 intellectuals, but it was also a popular cause. Men in gen- 
 eral like the form of government under which they live. 
 From the standpoint of those who hold that a democratic 
 form of government is right, the war seemed to be a con- 
 flict between a modern and progressive regime and an old 
 
"Causes " as Principles and Issues in War 105 
 
 and vicious one. So far as this autocratic principle aimed 
 to suppress the rights of individuals, or to menace the liber- 
 ties of small nations, so far as it was aggressively mili- 
 taristic and had imperial ambitions, which could be achieved 
 only by force, it stood clearly opposed to democracy. De- 
 mocracy and autocracy were plainly at war with one an- 
 other, and yet if we look closely we shall see that neither 
 one can offer any actual demonstration of its validity as the 
 most superior or the final form of government. In part 
 they may appeal to the observable course of history for 
 their justification, but the final source of judgment seems to 
 rest in the mass of opinion in the world. Questions of 
 form and taste are not wholly absent. But the believer in 
 democracy and the believer in autocracy will both assert 
 that deep differences in principle are involved. They will 
 not admit that democracy and autocracy are superficial 
 forms, and are questions of taste, and they will not agree 
 with Munsterberg, who says that the two forms tend in- 
 evitably toward a compromise, by a process of alternation 
 in which first one and -then the other is the dominant form 
 in the world. 
 
 The war, in another aspect of it, has been a conflict be- 
 tween the idea of nationalism and that of internationalism. 
 It is a conflict between an ideal of state, represented in the 
 German philosophy of state by the principle of complete 
 autonomy of the individual nation, and one which assumes 
 that states, while retaining their rights of sovereignty are to 
 be governed by laws which regulate their conduct as func- 
 tioning members of a society of nations. The difference 
 is that, relatively, between a state of anarchy among nations 
 and a state of order. To some extent there has been a con- 
 flict between the idea of rights and the idea of duties of 
 nations. This internationalism is not merely a sociological 
 principle, something academic and scientific, as a theory of 
 state or society; it is an ethical principle, which contains 
 some recognition of justice as a subjective principle. It 
 
io6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 has some roots in theory, but it is also based upon the imme- 
 diate recognition of the rights of peoples to their own indi- 
 vidual lives. Its ideal is a world containing many nations, 
 coordinated by natural processes and not a world in which 
 a single nation or a few may hold the supreme place, ex- 
 cept as this supremacy might come by a process of natural 
 development. 
 
 The third conflict of the war was one which we may call 
 a psychological conflict. It was a conflict between two 
 ideas of life, one based upon a belief in the supremacy of 
 reason, the other implying that the final test of values in 
 life remains in the sphere of the feelings, or is a matter of 
 appreciation. Germany, in her recent history, has stood 
 conspicuously for the belief that human society may and 
 indeed must be controlled and regulated by definite princi- 
 ples — principles that must be determined according to the 
 methods of science. These principles take the place, in this 
 philosophy of life, of certain typical human reactions that 
 are believed to be demonstrably irrational. In its visible 
 and most practical form the application of this principle is 
 through organization. 
 
 This characterization of German life reveals something 
 very much like a paradox in the principles of the war. We 
 see a conflict in one direction between a certain medievalism 
 in government and social forms and a more modern and 
 progressive type ; we see also a conflict of a modernism of 
 an extreme form, represented by a scientific civilization, 
 united with this medievalism, and in opposition to a con- 
 ception of life which is in some respects more naive and 
 more primitive. The explanation of this paradox is that 
 Germany offers an illustration of a phenomenon of develop- 
 ment that has been seen before in history, of an excess of de- 
 velopment and specialization in a direction that appears 
 to be off the main line of progress, or at least is an 
 anachronism. Germany has shown us the effects of ra- 
 tionalism, some would say a morbid and hypertrophied 
 
"Causes" as Principles and Issues in War 107 
 
 reason. This rationalism is certainly in part a product of 
 systematic education and propaganda, a conscious exploita- 
 tion of science, and it is in part temperamental. Such a 
 result is always possible in a small state with a highly cen- 
 tralized form of government. It is a notorious fact that 
 Germany's type of civilization can be spread neither by 
 persuasion nor by force. If we may apply a biological 
 analogy we may say that German Kultur in its modern form 
 cannot survive. That this German civilization has been felt 
 by the world at large to be abnormal and of the nature of a 
 monstrosity we can hardly doubt, and that therefore to some 
 extent there has been a sense, on the part of the enemies of 
 Germany, of fighting to root out a dangerous and rank 
 growth. Germany, seeing in her own civilization only the 
 appearance of modernism, has been inclined to regard all 
 other civilizations as decadent. 
 
 Germany, governed by the ideals of rationalism, has as- 
 sumed that history can be made, wars conducted, life regu- 
 lated in accordance with a program. On the other side 
 we see a very general acceptance of a philosophy of life 
 in which many evils of disorder and waste and the necessity 
 of an experimental attitude toward life are accepted as nec- 
 essary consequences of the life of freedom. We see implied 
 in this philosophy of life a belief in a morality and a reli- 
 gion that are based upon feeling rather than upon objective 
 evidences, and a way of judging conduct more or less naively 
 and simply or according to methods of appreciation that are 
 essentially aesthetic, using the term in a wide sense. This 
 mode of life is accepted in the belief that order in due sea- 
 son will come out of relative disorder, by a natural process 
 or by a gradually increasing organization and voluntary 
 adjustment. If we accept the validity of this attitude in 
 life we shall be inclined to regard rationalism as it is mani- 
 fested to-day in German life as an evil. We may believe 
 that in the end the cure for this rationalism will not be less 
 reason but rather more, but we shall see also that it is pos- 
 
108 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 sible for reason to outstrip and pervert life, and indeed in- 
 volve life in an absurdity, simply because as a method of 
 dealing with the whole of life it cannot be sufficiently com- 
 prehensive. 
 
 Are these and all such issues that we find in war, causes 
 of war? Do nations fight for principles? Opinions cer- 
 tainly differ on this point. Some think of wars, we say, 
 as essentially conflicts of principles; some interpret wars 
 wholly in terms of political issues. We should say that 
 the truth lies between these assertions or is the sum of their 
 half-truths. Wars are not in their origin wars of princi- 
 ple. The political, the personal, the concrete aspects of the 
 relations of nations are always in the foreground in causing 
 wars. Wars become wars of principle after they have been 
 begun for other reasons. Sanctions and motives appear 
 after the fact. Fundamental differences of mores which 
 include the raw material, so to speak, of principles and 
 causes are factors in wars in so far as they create misunder- 
 standing and antipathy, but in so far as these differences of 
 nature and of principle do not enter into the sphere of 
 politics and of national honor, they do not as such cause 
 wars. Those deep moods which accumulate in the minds 
 of peoples and enter into the causes of war are not convic- 
 tions about principles. They are more generic and natural. 
 History does not seem to show us wars caused by pure 
 principles. We sometimes say that the Civil War in our 
 own country was fought over a principle, but that is some- 
 thing less than the truth. The fundamental question at 
 issue was plainly that of the rights of certain states at a 
 particular time to be independent and free. 
 
 Principles emerge in war, we say, and then they become 
 secondary causes. And it is precisely this emergence of 
 principles from fields of battle that perhaps constitutes the 
 greatest contribution of wars to the civilization of the 
 world. We need to reflect upon this deeply, since the whole 
 philosophy of history is concerned in it. The virtues that 
 
" Causes " as Principles and Issues in War 109 
 
 nations discover in themselves in war they elaborate in 
 peace. Nations at war become conscious of their spiritual 
 possessions. Since their existence, they believe, is at stake, 
 it is a part of their self-defense to justify their value in the 
 world. They discover in themselves that which is most 
 characteristic of them, and this becomes their principle. 
 The principle of a nation is that which the national con- 
 sciousness fixates itself upon as the title of the nation to 
 continued existence. Nations do not go to war over their 
 causes, or about their distinctive virtues and missions in 
 the world. Rather it is their likenesses that precipitate 
 wars, — their resemblances and identities in being the same 
 in ambition, and having the same conceptions of national 
 honor and the same motives for war and desiring the same 
 objects. Nations in general do not go to war over prin- 
 ciples because they are not motivated by principles in their 
 historical course. The principles of nations are aspects of 
 their inner development. The " causes " of nations at war, 
 according to our view, are these inner qualities of which 
 they have become conscious. Nations discover them in the 
 stress of war, and it is quite natural also that in such times 
 they should not always judge them fairly, and that they 
 should often make for themselves a fictitious character. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES 
 
 Philosophy, in the minds of many writers, must be given 
 a high place among the causes of war, and a considerable 
 fraction of the literature of the late war is devoted to the 
 problem of discovering, in the field of abstract thought, the 
 influences that led to the great conflict. Nietzsche, espe- 
 cially, seems to have been held responsible for the European 
 conflagration. As the philosopher of the New Germany, as 
 the chief expositor of the doctrine of force, the inventor 
 of the super-man and of the idea of the beyond-good, 
 Nietzsche seems to stand convicted of furnishing precisely 
 the concepts that have become the German's gospel of war; 
 and since the German is prone to be guided by abstractions, 
 the evidence, even though circumstantial, seems to many to 
 be convincing. 
 
 Schopenhauer, also, as the great pessimist ; Hegel, with 
 his doctrine of the supremacy of the State as the representa- 
 tive of the Idea on earth ; Kant, as the discoverer of the 
 subjective moral principle; English utilitarianism as the 
 doctrine of the main chance; empiricism, as the philosophy 
 of inconsistency and dual principles of thought and con- 
 duct; even the whole spirit of the English philosophy, which 
 Wundt says is nothing but an attempt to reconcile thought 
 with the ideas of peace and comfort — all these have been 
 charged with being instigators of the war. 
 
 Bergson (17) takes a different view. He says that the 
 desire comes first, the doctrine afterwards. Germany, de- 
 termined upon war, invokes Nietzsche or Hegel. Germany 
 in a moral temper would appeal to Kant, or in still a differ- 
 
Philosophical Influences 1 1 1 
 
 ent mood to the Romanticists. Le Bon (42) says that na- 
 tions are pushed forward by forces which they cannot un- 
 derstand, and that rational thoughts and desires play but 
 a little part in war. That appears to be true. We can- 
 not say that philosophies do not enter at all into the causes 
 of -war, but among these causes they must be insignificant 
 as compared with other causes that neither arise from ab- 
 stract thought nor are greatly modified by reason in any 
 way. Consider the influence of Napoleon (himself so little 
 a product of any philosophical influence), as compared with 
 Hegel; or of Bismarck as compared with Nietzsche, and 
 this will be apparent. There are in the course of the cen- 
 turies books and men that, as rational forces, do exert pro- 
 found effect upon the practical life, but they must be rarer 
 than is sometimes supposed. It is all too easy to assume 
 a relation of cause and effect when there is only a similarity 
 between thought and subsequent conduct. Rousseau may 
 or may not have inspired the French Revolution. Probably 
 he did not. The recent great war, we might say, has oc- 
 curred in spite of philosophy, and if Nietzsche's influence 
 gravitated toward war, it can hardly be thought to have 
 had any deciding force in turning the scales already so over- 
 loaded by fate. Philosophy failed to prevent war. 
 Nietzsche's philosophy did not cause it. His philosophy 
 affords a convenient phraseology in which to express a 
 philosophy of war, granting sufficient misinterpretation of 
 his philosophy. Probably w r hat influence he has had has 
 been due rather to his literary impressiveness than to his 
 thought as a contribution to philosophy. 
 
 Darwin, as the great force behind a new and varied de- 
 velopment of science, has had the fate to be, in some sense, 
 a factor in the moods and the new habits of life that led 
 toward the final issue in the great war. It is not so much 
 that his principle, misapplied, or applied uncritically may 
 become a justification of war or even its basic principle 
 that has made him so great an influence, but precisely be- 
 
ii2 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 cause his thought, by becoming one of the great coordinat- 
 ing principles of all the natural sciences has given power 
 to a movement which has had various practical consequences, 
 not all of them good, or at least not all yielding fruit for 
 our own age. Darwin's great influence as a force turning 
 scholarly interest toward naturalism and away from classi- 
 cism, as a factor in modern materialism and even pessimism, 
 as a background, if no more, for the Haeckels and Ostwalds 
 of science is no inconsiderable factor in the scientific and 
 objective spirit of the day. 
 
 Facts must be faced. It is not such influences as that 
 of Schopenhauer, who expresses a logical or at least an 
 abstract and we might add literary form of pessimism, that 
 in the generations just past have transformed most of the 
 conceptions of religion, with all the effects upon the practical 
 life that have followed, but the force of our modern science 
 combining with tendencies which it fosters but perhaps does 
 not create, giving momentum to industrialism and specializa- 
 tion, — it is this change in the ideas of men that we must 
 suspect of being implicated in the present catastrophe of the 
 world, if any influence from the rational life is to be counted 
 at all. Hegel and Kant hover in the background. The 
 author of the plan for universal peace provides us with 
 a subjective principle of morality which can be distorted 
 into a philosophy of moral independence and even of in- 
 dependence from morality, and Hegel must have helped to 
 establish the German theory of the State, although with 
 Treitschke and with the practical state-makers like Fred- 
 erick the Great and his followers, we can hardly believe 
 Hegel indispensable. The causes of war are too general, too 
 old and too fundamental to be greatly added to or de- 
 tracted from as yet by philosophy. Philosophy is the hope 
 of the world, it may be, and by no means a forlorn hope, 
 but it is not yet one of the great powers. When philosophy 
 is a mere endorsement by reason of some motive that has 
 arisen in the practical life, or is a literary expression of 
 
Philosophical Influences 113 
 
 views about life, it may give the appearance of being a 
 profound force in the world. But this is not real philoso- 
 phy, in any case. Philosophy has not as yet shown itself 
 highly creative even in the calm fields of education and the 
 moral life. 
 
 No! Philosophy is a factor in the motives of war rather 
 by reason of what it has not done, than because of its 
 positive teachings. To-day we ought no longer to be un- 
 der illusions on that point. Neither Christianity nor 
 philosophy can make or prevent wars as yet. They have 
 not been able to cope with the practical forces of the 
 world which make for nationalism, partisanship and per- 
 sonal interests. It would require a greater amount both of 
 religion and of philosophy than we now can bring to bear 
 upon the world to offset the influence of Napoleon alone in 
 the practical life of nations. It is the Napoleonic spirit 
 that still governs Europe. Philosophy has been thus far a 
 science of being an explanation of the world after the 
 fact, and not even to any great extent a science of its 
 progress, except in so far as, we may say, beginning with 
 Hegel and with Spencer, there has been some develop- 
 ment of the methods and the most formal conceptions of 
 such a science. It is asking too much of philosophy, in its 
 present stage, to expect it to preach the gospel, or to teach 
 school, or to direct politics, and for the same reason it is 
 unjust to charge philosophy with having created the great- 
 est catastrophe of history. If philosophy cannot wield 
 any great power now in those parts of life that are by 
 their nature presumably most amenable to reason, its effect 
 upon those events that express the supreme force of human 
 passions and the totality of life will not be very important. 
 The influences of philosophy are academic, and presumably 
 any doctrine of life that preaches achievement, virility and 
 immorality will include in some degree war among the in- 
 terests that it will affect, within the limits of its academic 
 nature. But youth is inherently warlike, because above 
 
H4 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 everything else it seeks to realize life in its fullness, and war 
 at least does symbolize this reality and abundance of life. 
 A philosophy which preached peace would hardly become a 
 great influence with youth. A philosophy advocating the 
 cause of war would form a natural background for the es- 
 sential motives of youth. If the scales were evenly bal- 
 anced, it might turn them. It is hard at least to see the 
 relations of philosophy to the practical life in any other 
 light to-day. Philosophies are tenuous and adaptable 
 things. We see them used to support opposite causes, and 
 they change color under the influence of strong desires. 
 Bosanquet (91) shows us how Hegel's noble conception 
 of the State, if we but substitute for its central thought of 
 welfare of the State, that of selfish interest, may be made 
 to change before our eyes into the meanest of maxims. 
 This process is, however, not unique in the history of the 
 relations of thought and life. 
 
 A detailed study of the relations of intellectual factors 
 to war would need to consider the effects of a great number 
 of more or less philosophical ideas which throw their weight 
 on the side of war. So far as these ideas are simple and 
 clear, and especially if they can be conveyed in the form of 
 the phrase, their influence cannot wholly be ignored. Some 
 we have already referred to. The doctrine that might 
 makes right, the conception of state as supreme, the belief 
 in the divine right of kings, the belief in the ordained rights 
 of aristocracy, belief in militarism as a social institution, 
 the doctrine that life may be controlled by reason, all in- 
 tellectual pessimism, skepticism, any form of concept-wor- 
 ship, whether Hegelian or other, acceptance of the methods 
 of science and the results of science as applicable to all 
 the problems of life — all such principles which inhabit the 
 region, so to speak, between philosophy and the practical life 
 manifestly have some relation to the spirit of war. In a 
 very general way they may be counted as philosophical 
 factors in war. For the most part, however, those ideas 
 
Philosophical Influences 115 
 
 that have been accused of abetting war are exaggerations 
 and perversions of philosophical ideas. Nietzsche, Darwin 
 and Hegel have all been exploited and made to stand sponsor 
 for specific philosophies of war. In the new philosophy of 
 life which Patten thinks has greatly influenced German con- 
 duct, and which may be expressed in the words Dienst, 
 Ordnung, and Kraft, we can see both the effects of impulses 
 that have grown out of the new life itself, and the influences 
 of formal philosophy. That such ideas have had relatively 
 a greater influence in Germany than elsewhere must be ad- 
 mitted, but that either this devotion to ideas or the ideas 
 themselves have been derived from philosophical interests 
 and from philosophies that have played any important part 
 in the history of thought we may well doubt. We should 
 suspect that the same practical interest that works unceas- 
 ingly to distort and popularize philosophy would help to 
 create such pseudo-philosophy. 
 
 Von Biilow (65) says that the German people have a 
 passion for logic, and that this passion amounts to fanati- 
 cism : — that when an intellectual form or system has been 
 found for anything, they insist with obstinate perseverance 
 on fitting realities into the system. Durkheim (16) says 
 that the Germans' organized system of ideas is a cause of 
 war. It is also true, we should say, that the tendency to 
 organize ideas and even the fundamental ideas by which 
 the Germans have been guided are deeply rooted in tem- 
 perament, in history and in the social order of the past. 
 Boutroux (13) says that the Germans themselves regard 
 the war as the culmination of their philosophy. We should 
 say on the contrary that the whole war philosophy of Eu- 
 rope is almost wholly a product of strife and comes from 
 impulses that arise irresistibly in the practical life. Into 
 these movements philosophy fits or may be made to fit, 
 and the presence of ideas in a society in which the academic 
 life has great prestige, ideas which coincide with beliefs 
 readily gives an illusion of an order governed by the higher 
 
n6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 reason. The fact that Germany's recent wars had all 
 been highly successful, the fact that Germany had learned 
 to depend upon her good sword in time of need are the 
 chief sources of Germany's doctrines of war: the Hegelian 
 background in the light of what we have learned in recent 
 times about the psychology of nations, must seem to be 
 rather of the nature of the ornamental. The ideal of the 
 Prussian State to be a power directed by intelligence sug- 
 gests Hegel, but it seems highly improbable, to say the least, 
 that Hegelian philosophy has had much to do with shaping 
 this ideal. Behind all this is the necessity of shaping 
 German life in the form which it has taken — necessity if 
 we accept, at least, Germany's national temperament itself as 
 a necessity. That other belief, widely held by German in- 
 tellectuals and officers that war is the testing of the validity 
 of national cultures would also probably never have ap- 
 peared on the scene had not Germany been secure in the 
 belief that she herself had both the right and the might 
 on her side. It is possible, of course, that the war has dis- 
 torted our vision so that the relations of the practical life 
 and the life of reason have all been thrown out of focus, 
 but when we see what forces have been at work, and what 
 they have done, it is difficult to escape the conviction that 
 we have been inclined to believe too much in the power of 
 mere ideas. This may be the great lesson of the war. We 
 may learn from it how to make ideas become the power that 
 hitherto they have failed to be. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND MORAL INFLUENCES 
 
 That war and religion have always been closely asso- 
 ciated with one another is one of the outstanding facts of 
 history. This is true both of primitive warfare and of 
 warfare to-day. Yet we cannot say that religion as such 
 has been a cause of war. Religious wars are almost in- 
 variably also political wars, and as soon as religion and 
 politics are separated, religion no longer appears to be a 
 war motive. When religion becomes associated with 
 worldly ideas which it supports and makes dynamic it may 
 become a strong factor in the spirit of war, but as a means 
 of segregating men, and giving them unity of action religion 
 can no longer be regarded as a power, if it ever was. Any 
 motive that will not so segregate men and break up all 
 other bonds cannot be said to be a very fertile cause of war. 
 Religion as a cause of war belongs to a day in which the 
 spirit of nationalism was weak, and when religious empire 
 had a visible and political position in the world. National- 
 ism, growing stronger, became the supreme force dominat- 
 ing the motives and interests of men and governing the 
 formation of groups, or at least the actions of groups as 
 interrelated units. In the recent war we have seen how 
 the sense of national unity has been able to hold in check 
 all other motives. Neither religion nor any class or clan 
 or guild interests could trace the faintest line of cleavage so 
 long as the motive of war remained. 
 
 The mood of war always contains a religious element. 
 Not only is this shown in primitive wars, where the rela- 
 tions of religion, war and art are indicated in such phenom- 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ena as the war dance, which is of the nature of a magic 
 weapon, but we see it also in the complex moods of the 
 present war spirit of the world. The idea and mood of 
 valor have a religious significance. Cramb says that we 
 can trace in Germany before the war, showing through the 
 transient mists of industrialism and socialism, the vision of 
 the religion of valor which runs through all German his- 
 tory. The craving for a valorous life, for reality, the de- 
 sire to lose one's own individuality — these moods of war 
 are religious or mystic whatever else they may be or con- 
 
 /tain. The inseparable relation of war and death necessar- 
 ily inspires a religious consciousness. Without exalted 
 moods which in some way contain religious faith — faith on 
 the part of the individual in the eternal values which he 
 represents and in his own security in the hands of fate, and 
 in the immortality of the country which he serves, war could 
 not exist. 
 
 The mood of war always contains a religious sanction, 
 and every important religion sanctions war. This explicit 
 relation between religion and war is seen very early. 
 Wherever there is ghost worship, and the warriors justify 
 war and fortify themselves for it by believing that their 
 ancestors still participate in the combats of their children, 
 and that in waging war they are doing a duty in keeping 
 up the traditional feuds of their race there is found the 
 root of the relation between war and religion. Every war 
 is a holy war; it is but a change in degree from these primi- 
 tive wars in which the ideas of ghosts must have had al- 
 most the clearness of reality to our modern wars with 
 their deeper but more indefinite religious sanctions. Since 
 war always creates the need of moral justification, the 
 war mood at all times tends to seek religious sanctions. 
 Christianity, the doctrine of peace and good will, very 
 readily lends its support to war, since wars are almost 
 invariably regarded as defensive by all who participate in 
 them. War in the service of the weak and endangered 
 
Religious and Moral Influences 119 
 
 can always invoke the spirit of Christianity. The logical 
 ground for this has been laid for us by many writers ; 
 Drawbridge (19), one of the most recent, finds no support 
 in Christianity for the doctrines of pacifism. All nations, 
 when they fight, fight for God, for liberty and the right, 
 with the implied belief that their own country has a mission 
 in the world, supported by divine authority. 
 
 All governments have in them a strain of theocracy. 
 We see this in many degrees and forms, from the original 
 totemistic belief in descent from animals that are also gods 
 to the vaguest remnants of the habit of interpreting na- 
 tional interests as guarded by divine powers that we often 
 see in the language of practical statesmen. The doctrine 
 of the divine rights of kings of course had its origin in 
 that of divine descent. The most striking revelation of 
 the place such theories may have, even in modern times 
 and in enlightened nations, is to be seen in the revival and 
 deliberate use of the doctrine of divine descent as a funda- 
 mental principle of the government and theory of State 
 in the New Japan. All nations hold something of this 
 philosophy ; God and State are always related and all wars, 
 whatever else they may be, are waged in the service of re- 
 ligion and with the sanction of it. This spirit is not want- 
 ing even in the most modern democracy. The historians of 
 Germany have shown us to what an extent the theory of 
 the divinity of state and its divine mission may be inter- 
 mingled with practical politics and have helped to bring 
 to light the psychology of this movement in history. 
 
 Several writers, but especially Le Bon (42), have written 
 about the relation of mysticism to war. Le Bon said indeed 
 that the main causes of war, including the most recent 
 one, are mystical causes. By mysticism he means un- 
 conscious factors which are religious in quality and which 
 contain a race ideal which is both powerful and irrational. 
 German mysticism appears to have attracted much atten- 
 tion during the years of the war. Germany has presented 
 
120 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the picture, we are told, of a people becoming dangerous 
 by couching national ambition and honor in terms of re- 
 ligion. ' This mysticism of the German contains a power- 
 ful belief in race superiority, and in the supremacy of the 
 culture of their own nation, beliefs which have the clear 
 marks of mysticism about them. The traces of the theory 
 of divine origin still cling to them. Boutroux (13) says 
 the Prussian State is a synthesis of the divine and the 
 human. Another writer observes that the Germans be- 
 lieve in the altogether unique and quasi-divine excellence of 
 the German race, and of Germanism, and that the Germans 
 have a new religion which they believe in spreading by the 
 sword. Some see in Germany a serious demand for the 
 revival of. the religion of Odin and Thor, the religion of 
 conflict of primeval forces, and of the triumph of might. 
 Literary expressions of this religion are certainly to be 
 found, and it may fairly be maintained that Germany has 
 never become Christianized to the extent that most modern 
 nations have. 
 
 That mysticism has been a large factor in the war spirit 
 of the Germans in the late war can hardly be doubted, or 
 at least that a religious element of some kind has played 
 a great part in it. The war began as Germany's holy war. 
 A cult of State and of self-worship are involved in it. If 
 not, innumerable expressions of Germany's cause among 
 German writers are simply literary exaggerations. The 
 Germans have believed that they are God's chosen people, 
 that they represent God, and since the German civilization 
 grew up in antagonism to the Graeco-Roman civilization, 
 God must have adopted the one and discarded the other. 
 One German writer says that we .must eliminate from our 
 belief the last drop of faith in the idea of a progressive 
 movement of humanity as a whole. Reality is represented 
 in one nation at a time, and the chosen nation is the leader 
 of all the rest. 
 
 While such mysticism as this (if it be mysticism) is most 
 
Religious and Moral Influences ill 
 
 conspicuous in aristocratic and imperialistic nations, we 
 find it elsewhere. It is a powerful force in imperialistic 
 Japan and in Russia. We find it everywhere in history in 
 some form. In France it is still the " saintly figure " of 
 France that inspires the soldier and induces a religious 
 mood. There is no longer a vision of an empire of the 
 future, perhaps, and this mysticism of France has not in 
 recent history shown itself in the form of aggression, but 
 French mysticism clings to the ideal and the hope of a 
 glorious future for a deathless France soon to be renewed. 
 All peoples that have declined 01; suffered an adverse fate, 
 even the pathetic remnants of the American Indians, expect 
 the return of their lost power. Such mysticism is, we may 
 think, the only condition under which national life in many 
 cases can continue. The religious or the mystical mood 
 of nations is created by the need of making belief dynamic, 
 of overcoming doubts and fears. Hence the exaggerated 
 and irrational claims peoples make in regard to the value 
 of their culture and about their mission on earth. By their 
 mysticism nations justify their aggressive wars and fortify 
 themselves in their defensive wars. Thus nations acquire 
 a feeling of security. They believe in their star of destiny. 
 They feel that their life which is of supreme value to the 
 world cannot perish. It is this spirit that nations take with 
 them into battle. It is a mystic force, and this mystic force 
 is, in great part, we may believe, one of the by-products 
 of the tragedy of history. Faith and hope have one of 
 their roots at least in fear and pessimism. 
 
 Moral Motives and War 
 
 That the attitude of nations toward one another is not, 
 generally speaking, an ethical attitude and that moral prin- 
 ciples do not motivate the conduct of peoples we have al- 
 ready suggested. Sumner (70) says that the whole history 
 of mankind is a series of acts open to doubt, dispute and 
 
122 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 criticism as to their right and justice. Differences end in 
 force, and the defeated side always protests that the re- 
 sults are unjust. And yet wars are always conducted with 
 moral justification and in the belief that moral principles are 
 involved. These moral principles, however, are not the 
 points of difference upon which the beginning of wars de- 
 pends. Nations never go to war for purely moral reasons. 
 Moral feeling may coincide with the interests of state, and 
 a defensive war may of course be conducted in the spirit of 
 deep moral right and duty, but plainly it is never the sense of 
 right and duty alone that is the motive of defense. Perhaps 
 after all this question of the moral element in the causes 
 of war is a futile one, and leads to casuistry. There are 
 always political and other practical questions involved, 
 whenever strain occurs between nations, so that wholly 
 moral issues can never arise. 
 
 If wars are not moral in the making they are always 
 justified morally, whatever the motives may have been 
 that caused them. Without this moral sanction it is doubt- 
 ful whether wars could be conducted at all, although this 
 moral sanction may be based upon very superficial grounds. 
 The higher patriotic feeling runs, says Veblen (97), the 
 thinner may be the moral sanction that satisfies the public 
 conscience. On the other hand moral sentiment may often 
 be strong and deep in the minds of the masses of people 
 in a nation, and the public feeling of obligation to enter a 
 war may be strong, but in general such moral feeling does 
 not lead to war. Righteous indignation lacks initiative. 
 Honor as moral obligation requires the aid of honor as na- 
 tional pride and dignity. The relations among allies may 
 at first thought seem to be moral relations, but when we 
 observe closely we see that usually nations go to war 
 together because their common interests are endangered. 
 When their common interests are not involved they usually 
 break treaties and so do not stay together. Actions di- 
 rected offensively against one member of a coalition are 
 
Religious and Moral Influences 123 
 
 usually directed against the others, so that in most cases 
 the allies of a nation have no choice, but must defend them- 
 selves. 
 
 The relative importance of moral principles in the mo- 
 tives of war may be observed by comparing the motives 
 assigned by the nations that participated in the late war with 
 the motives which a study of the history and political sit- 
 uations of these countries reveals. There are wide dis- 
 parities between these historical causes and the assigned 
 causes. These need not, however, lead us to take a cynical 
 view of history as many sociologists and students of politics 
 do. We have as yet no organized world in which moral 
 principle can operate. The world, we might say, is still 
 infantile or immature. The world is still unmoral. We 
 cannot say that nationalism as the principle of the conduct of 
 nations is a wholly selfish principle as contrasted with a 
 moral or altruistic motive, since such an analogy with in- 
 dividual morality fails to take into account the complex 
 nature of nationalism, and overlooks the social qualities 
 of patriotism. 
 
 England's purpose in entering the war has been freely 
 discussed in England. The popular impression is that 
 England declared war upon Germany in order to defend 
 Belgium and to keep her treaty obligations. If we con- 
 sider conduct in a certain abstraction from the practical 
 setting in which it is performed such a conclusion can be 
 drawn. There was a moral stirring in England, and sev- 
 eral writers have commented upon the fact that England 
 subverted her own conscious purposes by her unconscious 
 and instinctive morality. There was a strong feeling 
 against war, even a widespread moral sense that England 
 had become too civilized to wage war. There was a 
 shrinking from the economic hardships that war would 
 entail. Against these strong tendencies there prevailed, at 
 least in popular sentiment, a profound feeling that in some 
 way Germany's civilization was incompatible with Eng- 
 
124 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 land's, and this feeling was in part of the nature of moral 
 aversion. Dillion (55), at least, sees a profound ethical 
 motive in Italy in the late war. After a pro-German party- 
 had won out in favor of war, he says, a deus ex machina in 
 the shape of an indignant nation descended upon the scene. 
 But after making allowance for all moral feeling and the 
 unusual and dramatic manner in which moral issues, to a 
 greater degree than ever before in modern history, were 
 brought to the front, we must admit that the political and 
 diplomatic interests and manners of nations have taken 
 their usual course in the war. Nations have been governed 
 by the motives that have always dominated the relations of 
 groups to one another. 
 
 Germany presents the most glaring example of the con- 
 trast between public opinion and expressed motives and 
 political facts. Such expressions as these : that Germany's 
 ideal is one that does violence to no one; that humanity 
 and all human blessings stand under the protection of Ger- 
 man arms ; that, where the German spirit obtains supremacy, 
 there freedom reigns ; that in regard to England's down- 
 fall, there can be but one opinion — it is the very highest 
 mission of German culture ; that Germany's war is a holy 
 war — such expressions as these, which are psychologically 
 explicable without questioning their sincerity, seem out 
 of harmony, to say the least, with what we know of Ger- 
 many's political aspirations. Germany's desire for Eng- 
 land's downfall does not appear to us to be based upon a 
 moral motive ; Germany's war seems far from being a holy 
 war, and it is hard to see in it a means of spreading cul- 
 ture abroad in the world. We cannot give any place in 
 the causes of this war to a moral desire to make the world 
 better. However much Germany may have been convinced 
 that Germany was destined to be a civilizing force in the 
 world, the moral obligation thus aroused, we may be sure, 
 did not become the real motive of the war. 
 
 The moral justifications of war are very numerous, 
 
Religious and Moral Influences 125 
 
 and that this belief in war has some effect upon the spirit 
 of war and helps to perpetuate it, and is not a mere reflection 
 of the warlike spirit itself, may of course be admitted. 
 Many believe that war accomplishes work in the world; 
 war is a great organizing force. There is also a view that 
 war is good as a moral stimulant, or as a creative moral 
 force. War is often regarded as the means of moral re- 
 vival of a people that has become sordid and dull. Schmitz 
 (29) says that war gives reality to a country. War 
 strengthens national character, some think. It purges na- 
 tions. In war people grow hard but pure. Irwin (25) 
 says that such war philosophy as this is to be heard broadly 
 in Europe, chiefly in Germany, but also in France and in 
 England. Mach (95) says that disintegration takes place 
 in times of peace. Schoonmaker says that war has taught 
 men socialization. Again we hear that wars are just and 
 right because they are necessary. Redier (30) says that 
 war is a way of giving back courage to the men of our 
 times. This praise of war which comes from the depths 
 of feelings, we must suppose helps to give continuity and 
 force to these feelings. 
 
 Institutional Factors 
 
 If the spirit of war is to any extent educable, and is 
 created in national life and is not merely something in- 
 stinctive, it is presumably modified in one way and an- 
 other by all those institutions that are educational in their 
 effect. Perhaps one of the most pressing problems of edu- 
 cation in the near future will be that of the relation of edu- 
 cation to war. We shall need to know what the school 
 has done to cause wars, what changes should be made in 
 the future with reference to this influence of education upon 
 the fundamental motives of national life. The school- 
 master has been indicted among other instigators of war. 
 We must see how much truth there is in this allegation. 
 We must understand also how the whole educational process, 
 
126 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 as we may see it now after the war, may be made if possible 
 to become a greater factor in life than it has been in the 
 past, if it is at all an important element in the development 
 and the control of the psychic powers of nations. 
 
 Schmitz (29) says that the eighteenth century and the 
 French Revolution were dominated by the phrase, the nine- 
 teenth by money, and that there was a danger that the twen- 
 tieth century would be dominated by the schoolmaster and 
 by the concept, but that this danger is past because life 
 has become so full of realities. Russell says, we know, that 
 men fight because they have been governed in their beliefs 
 and in their conduct by authority. If this be true the au- 
 thority exercised upon the mind of the child by all his teach- 
 ers may be suspected of having been in one way or an- 
 other an influence in creating the moral attitudes that pre- 
 vail in regard to war and peace. We have heard the ques- 
 tion raised as to whether in the past the teaching of history 
 as the story of wars, and the presentation of the facts of 
 history from the nationalistic point of view, have not been 
 morally wrong. 
 
 German schools, and the method of public education the 
 sinister effects of which we have abundantly felt — that 
 is, the propaganda, show us educational phenomena that 
 are psychologically of great interest and which are also 
 unique from the educational point, of view. The influence 
 of schools seems in general so negative, and there is so 
 little connection between what is learned as fact and conduct 
 in the practical life that, even in the case of the German 
 teaching of war philosophy we must suspect that this teach- 
 ing has been successful only because it has gone with the 
 strong tide of feeling in the popular mind. That the Ger- 
 man schools have directly and indirectly fostered the de- 
 velopment of ideas that lead in the direction of war there 
 is no doubt. Even more influential than the specific ideas 
 that have been implanted, is the spirit of these schools: 
 it is their militaristic and routine life, the great authority 
 
Religious and Moral Influences 127 
 
 assumed by the teacher, the specialization, that has helped 
 to nourish the warlike spirit of Germany, quite as much 
 as the fact, for example, that Daniel's Geography teaches 
 that Germany is the heart of Europe, surrounded by coun- 
 tries that were once a part of Germany and will be again. 
 German education, we say, seems to be unique in the 
 extent to which it influences public sentiment and national 
 conduct. In general, education has appeared among the in- 
 fluences that lead to war rather by default of positive teach- 
 ing than by anything positive it has done. Even in Ger- 
 many, we should say, the spirit of war has been made to 
 flourish less by the teaching of a narrow nationalism, by 
 inculcating hatred, and implanting wrong conceptions of 
 German history than by failing to provide youth with means 
 of deep satisfaction, by failing to coordinate deep de- 
 sires of the individual, and to organize individuals in a 
 normal social life. This is true everywhere. Education 
 has not affected life as a whole, and it has not thus far 
 been an influence which, to any appreciable extent, has ac- 
 celerated the development of peoples in their especially 
 national aspects and relations. It has nowhere fostered 
 any conception of the whole world as an object of social 
 feeling. It has everywhere accepted a certain provincialism 
 as natural and necessary, and has tacitly assumed that na- 
 tional boundaries are the horizon of the practical life of 
 the child. The school has in fact failed to take advantage 
 of its unmatched opportunity to use the imagination of the 
 child to develop his social powers. Sociologists say that if 
 sociologists had been more diligent in spreading abroad 
 information about the social life, the great war would 
 perhaps never have happened. That we may certainly 
 doubt; something more profound must be done by educa- 
 tion than to disseminate knowledge, if it would undertake 
 to be a power in the world and to do anything more than 
 add its influence to the tendencies of the day, or perhaps 
 temporarily change the direction of these tendencies. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ECONOMIC FACTORS AND MOTIVES 
 
 Thus far we have considered the motives of war mainly 
 from the psychological point of view, discovering its main 
 movement and development in the world to be a product 
 of the psychic forces in the social order. This method, 
 however, did not exclude the objective facts, and did not 
 ignore the practical motives. We found that war is a 
 manifestation of many tendencies, and in fact is related 
 to all the deep movements in the life of society and of the 
 individual. War comes out of the whole of life in a way 
 to preclude the interpretation of it in terms of any single 
 principle, or at least to prevent our finding a single cause 
 of war. We ought to try to see now how such a psy- 
 chological view of war stands in relation to certain more 
 objective views of it, which in a very general way may 
 be said to be centered in two closely related views. One 
 is that war is almost exclusively an economic phenomenon, 
 and the other that war is the work of individuals. One 
 is the economic interpretation of history, and the other is 
 the great man view of history. 
 
 We still see a lingering theory that war is a result of 
 the ancient migratory or expansion impulse — that over- 
 population and the pressure of various economic condi- 
 tions are the source of the impulses that lead to war. We 
 have seen reasons for believing, however, that war, even 
 in the beginning, has not been a wholly practical matter. 
 Hunger, pressure of population, migratory movements be- 
 cause of economic conditions, will not explain the origin 
 and the persistence of wars. Wars are not simple as 
 
 128 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 129 
 
 these views would imply, at any stage. That at the pres- 
 ent time economic advantage, whether or not it be the 
 motive of war, is in general not gained seems to be very 
 clearly indicated. The taking of colonies and other lands 
 may be a detriment rather than a gain to the conquering 
 nation. The industry and the finance, of all concerned 
 in war, are likely to suffer disaster. Peace is the great 
 producer of wealth. War is a terrible destroyer of it. 
 Ross says that as industry progresses, wars become con- 
 tinually more expensive and less profitable, that the drain 
 is not upon man power so much as upon economic power; 
 nations bleed the treasure of one another until some one of 
 them is exhausted and must yield. 
 
 The theory that war is caused by the pressure of popu- 
 lation, especially as applied to the recent war, now appears to 
 have been very naive. It was maintained that Germany 
 needed more room for her growing population, that Ger- 
 many must have more land at home and more colonies. 
 Claes (46), among several writers, shows that this is not 
 true. Germany had no pressing need of more land, except 
 for political purposes, or such land as provided the raw 
 materials for her military industries. Bourdon (67) 
 maintains that it is not true that Germany's population 
 was becoming excessive. Le Bon (42) says that this 
 theory of over-population is a myth. Still others have 
 shown that in a country that is rapidly becoming industrial, 
 as was Germany, where population is becoming massed in 
 the great cities, emigration ceases; and that actually, in 
 Germany's case, labor was imported every year, and that 
 there are great tracts of arable land in Germany still but 
 sparsely populated. Nicolai (79) also attacks the theory 
 that war is sought for economic gain and says that an 
 economic war among the European states is an absurdity. 
 
 The need of colonies is often put forward as a real 
 and also a legitimate motive for war. Colonies must be 
 provided, they say, for the overflow of population from the 
 
130 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 homeland; colonies are the foundation of the trade of 
 nations — trade follows the flag. They think of colonies 
 as the offspring of nations, and nations without colonies 
 seem sterile and destined to extinction. We know that 
 Germany's desire for colonies is one of the causes of the 
 European crisis, and that the colonial question has been 
 a fertile cause of trouble in Europe for many years. And 
 yet we have evidence that in the present economic stage of 
 the world, colonies do not perform to any great extent 
 either of the functions that are claimed for them. Trade 
 does not in general follow the flag ; industrial nations do not 
 need colonies either to provide for over-population or for 
 commercial reasons. The acquisition of colonies does not 
 as such benefit the great industrial and financial interests. 
 Why, then, do nations so ardently desire colonies; and 
 why, without colonies, do they feel themselves inferior and 
 at a disadvantage? Why, in a stage of industry, in which 
 it is presumably more to their advantage to conduct ag- 
 gressive campaigns in countries already densely populated, 
 are nations so willing even to fight to obtain colonies? 
 Powers (75) says that the desire for colonies comes 
 from the idealistic tendencies of nations. This appears 
 to be true. Correspondingly we find that colonies are of 
 more interest to general staffs and admiralties than to cap- 
 tains of industry. Colonies are wanted for military rea- 
 sons, more than for trade reasons. Colonies are desired 
 as bases of operation in the game of empire building by 
 conquest. There is still another reason. The race for 
 colonies perpetuates an ideal which has grown out of an 
 earlier stage of the life of nations. Colonies were once 
 actually the means of the greatness of nations. The long- 
 ing for colonial possessions, for the extension of commerce, 
 the great jealousy and apprehension of peoples in regard 
 to their trade routes, and the fear nations have for their 
 commerce, quite out of relation to present needs and condi- 
 tions, hark back to an old romance of the sea. The water- 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 131 
 
 ways of the world, the islands and new continents have a 
 traditional appeal, which comes down to us from the days 
 when the small countries of Europe, one after another — 
 Portugal, Holland, Spain, England — became great in 
 wealth, and grew to be world powers, by their commerce 
 and their colonial possessions. In those days the expansion 
 of nations was not at all due to economic pressure at home. 
 The landowners, the rulers, the privileged class in general 
 were interested in colonies, because in that direction 
 stretched the path to fabulous wealth, and because over the 
 seas were the lands of adventure. The seeking of colonies 
 was both the business and the pleasure of the nations. To- 
 day the gaining of colonies may be only a loss to nations 
 economically, but they satisfy the craving for visible em- 
 pire, and also a longing that is deep and intense because tra- 
 dition and romance are deeply embedded in it. 
 
 Probably no one now believes that war among modern 
 nations is due to a pure predatory instinct or to a migratory 
 instinct which is supposed to have led primitive hordes to 
 seek new habitats and to prey upon other peoples. Hunger 
 does not now drive people in companies from their homes 
 and pour them into other lands, although it is true that any 
 threat which excites the old hunger-fear tends to arouse 
 the war spirit and to stir the migratory impulse ; and a deep 
 sensitiveness to climatic conditions and a claustrophobia of 
 peoples have remained long after the need of land has 
 ceased to be vital. But we still find the need of land urged 
 as the main cause of war, and we hear war justified on 
 the ground that crowded peoples require more land. This 
 land hunger is an old motive and it still remains deep in the 
 consciousness of peoples long after its economic significance 
 has ceased. Just as we say the threat of hunger is often 
 imagined, and the fear of hunger and a deep and persistent 
 fear of peoples and the sense of danger of being engulfed 
 and destroyed by other peoples linger in consciousness, so the 
 consciousness of the old struggle for land remains as one of 
 
132 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the most powerful of traditions, and any threat, near or 
 remote, to a nation's land arouses all the forces of the war 
 spirit, and the thought of aggression as a means of conquest 
 of land is always alluring. 
 
 Land was once the main possession and the main need. 
 To-day it is the chief symbol of the power of a nation. The 
 possession of it is desired when it gives nothing in return, 
 certainly when there are no valid economic reasons for tak- 
 ing it. This land hunger becomes the excuse of nations for 
 their sins of aggression. A differentiated society, so organ- 
 ized that only the few, if any at all, can by any possibility 
 profit by the taking of lands still hungers for this primitive 
 possession. To a great extent land as a national possession 
 has an ideal rather than a practical value. It was one of the 
 original sources of prestige and distinction, having become 
 the main material interest of man as soon as he came to 
 have fixed abode. The whole historic period of the world 
 has been a story of a struggle for land. It is the memory 
 of this land struggle, which is one of the deep motives of 
 war, which often determines the strategy of war, and the 
 policies of nations. 
 
 Precisely how the system of great land ownership orig- 
 inated is obscure. Sumner (70) says that the belief that 
 nobles have always held lands, and are noble by reason 
 of this possession, is false. Nobles have in one way and 
 another enriched themselves and bought land ; or rather 
 having acquired land they have succeeded in acquiring titles 
 of nobility, and establishing their lines. In all nations 
 which have retained any traces of the feudalistic form, 
 and to some extent everywhere, land continues to be the 
 basis of wealth, and also of power, and the land-owning 
 classes are still mainly the ruling classes. This land-own- 
 ing class is still dominated by the old traditions of the landed 
 aristocracy. It is the fighting class, and supplies great num- 
 bers of officers for the armies. It upholds the idea of 
 national honor in its ancient forms as related to private 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 133 
 
 honor; it provides the great number of diplomatic and 
 decorative officers. Japan, Russia, Germany and to some 
 extent England, at least up to the time of the war, have 
 retained feudalistic institutions, and the land interest still 
 remains as a motive of war. In all these nations, certainly 
 in those which have remained feudalistic in fact, it is the 
 aristocratic and owning class that usually represents the war 
 interest. It both rules and owns. It sends out the peasant 
 and the worker to extend the state. It is the protected class. 
 Laws and constitutions favor it. Taxes fall lightly upon 
 it. Originally this was the class that received all the benefits 
 of war. To-day it suffers less from war than do other 
 classes. Even when it does not gain by war in a material 
 way, it is likely to gain in power (100). 
 
 We have seen this system of class rule at work in very 
 recent times, and it is a question whether the old ideal of 
 land possession did not work to the ruin of Germany 
 economically, and indirectly antagonize the industrial in- 
 terests of the nation. German politics had been trying to 
 serve two masters, who were not entirely in agreement. 
 Germany was still a country of landed proprietors, and 
 these proprietors always have thrown their weight to the 
 side of war. They were by no means dominated by a 
 motive of pure greed, and they did not seek war entirely 
 for their own advantage, but because, we might say, they 
 are ruled through and through by motives that can be 
 satisfied only in a militaristic state of society. Their gain 
 from a successful war is mainly a gain in prestige and dis- 
 tinction. An unsuccessful war, as we have seen, threatens 
 their extinction as a class. All democratic movements tend 
 toward land division, or is indeed in part precisely this 
 process. Aristocracy without land cannot maintain itself. 
 
 The economic theory of war comes to its own in the 
 view that industry now controls the world, that industry is 
 the power behind politics, and that industrial needs are 
 the real energies that make wars. We live in an industrial 
 
134 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 age, they say, and industry rules. Plainly to find the whole 
 truth about this relation of industry to war is no simple 
 matter. There are at least three more or less separate ques- 
 tions involved in it. We need to know whether an indus- 
 trial state of society, or the industrial stage of economic de- 
 velopment, is especially prone to cause wars, as distinguished 
 from more general political and economic interests. We 
 need to know whether wars, in an industrial stage, do really 
 serve either the interests of industry or countries as a whole. 
 Finally, there is the question whether those who control in- 
 dustry and finance do actually create wars. 
 
 In the industrial and financial stages of economic de- 
 velopment new conditions arise which certainly must be 
 taken into account in any theory of war. There are deep 
 changes in national life. The moods of the city become 
 a new force or a new factor in national life. Socialistic 
 ideas and new aspects of nationalism and patriotism ap- 
 pear. There is a spirit of unrest; both pessimistic and 
 optimistic tendencies in society are increased ; the motive of 
 power takes new forms, and there is a deep stirring of 
 fundamental feelings and impulses. The crowd instincts, 
 the old hunger motives, are felt beneath the surface of life. 
 This is the effect of industrialism upon the psychic forces 
 of peoples in their collective aspects. Nations also become 
 as wholes more specialized in the industrial life; they are 
 dependent upon one another as never before. All the 
 ancient motives of commerce are stimulated, and the minds 
 of nations revert to the old fears and the old romance con- 
 nected with the thought of the seas. The growing in- 
 terdependence of nations produces a peculiar and para- 
 doxical condition. Competition in regard to markets 
 arises, with all the complications and strains that we have 
 seen in recent years. There are new motives of aggression, 
 but at the same time the need and motives for peace are 
 increased. Industries in general thrive best in an era of 
 assured peace. They live upon the wealth and prosperity 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 135 
 
 they themselves create. Intrigue, not force, is their proper 
 weapon. Le Bon (42) says, that the desire to create 
 markets was not the cause of the great war, because expan- 
 sion went on very well in the time of peace. Germany had 
 no aggressive designs except commercial designs we are 
 told. Mach (95) tells us Germany's whole future, the 
 success of her carefully laid plans for industrial develop- 
 ment and supremacy, depended upon continued peace. 
 
 That such views of the relation of industry to war are 
 in the main correct can hardly be doubted. Industrial rela- 
 tions create strains among nations, but when as a result 
 of these strains war occurs it must be regarded as a dis- 
 aster from the point of view of the industrial interests. In- 
 dustry we say thrives upon the wealth that it creates. A 
 war which destroys half the wealth of the world must be 
 a calamity for all great industries except at the most a 
 very few having peculiar relations to the activities of war. 
 
 But there is another aspect of the relations of industry 
 to war. Industrialism as a great institution and movement 
 of modern life becomes in itself a political power. Howe 
 (100) says that with the end of Bismarck's wars per- 
 sonal wars and nationalistic wars came to an end. The 
 old aristocracy of the land merged with the new aristocracy 
 of wealth and this wealth has become the great political 
 power in the world. But this is only a half truth. Industry 
 has become a factor in the foreign relations of nations, and 
 has become a power in politics, but the motives and powers 
 we call political are exceedingly complex, and the interests 
 of business, industry and finance are by no means the whole 
 of or coincident with political interests. There are of 
 course certain industries and financial interests which may 
 even instigate wars, and some writers give them a high 
 place among the causes of war. Especially the makers of 
 munitions and armaments are credited with a baneful in- 
 fluence in the world. With their international understand- 
 ings, their influence in legislative bodies, their control of 
 
136 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 newspapers, they are open to the charge of manipulating 
 public sentiment, and bringing influence to bear upon gov- 
 ernments. They are accused of equipping small countries 
 and setting them against one another, of deliberately en- 
 couraging the race for military and naval supremacy. No 
 one can doubt that their opportunities for trouble-making 
 are many and enticing, but to think of these influences as 
 anything more than the incidental and secondary causes of 
 war seems to be a curious way of understanding history 
 (100). 
 
 The inside history of the great financiering projects 
 would no doubt give us some of the main clews to the 
 present diplomatic relations of nations to one another. If 
 we take into account the various intrigues in connection 
 with the building of the Bagdad route, the financing of -the 
 Balkan States in their wars, the bargaining of the Powers 
 in Turkey for financial concessions, the great business inter- 
 ests involved in the Russo-Japanese war, the loans to China 
 and all the rest of the financial history of a few decades we 
 should have in hand materials that no one could deny the 
 importance of for an understanding of current history. 
 Diplomacy has had added to its already complex duties the 
 art of securing financial advantages. In general the art of 
 this diplomacy is to secure these advantages without war, 
 but there can be no doubt that financial relations have mul- 
 tiplied the points of contact and strain among peoples, and 
 that these financial relations have become the main occa- 
 sional causes of wars. Howe (100) thinks that surplus 
 capital is to blame for a great many of the great disasters 
 of modern times — that it destroyed Egyptian independ- 
 ence, led France into Morocco, Germany into Turkey, and 
 into the farther East, embroiled the Balkan States ; and that 
 the great war has been a conflict over conflicting interests 
 of Russia, England and Germany in Turkey. Under the 
 guise of expansion of trade this invisible wealth has been 
 exploiting the most vital interests of foreign countries. 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 137 
 
 Veblen would go so far as to say that wars are govern- 
 ment-made, that patriotism is exploited by governments 
 in advance of pre-arranged hostilities to produce the spirit 
 
 ° If we hold that these economic causes are now the most 
 important causes of wars, it is easy to accept the conclu- 
 sion that the most fundamental, and even perhaps the sole 
 cause of war is the evil principle of ownership, as is actually 
 maintained by many economists. If men in cliques and 
 men as individuals did not own privately great parts of 
 the wealth. -of the world, these conflicts in which wealth 
 and its distribution are the .most vital interests would not 
 take place Many socialists, we know, hold these views, 
 asserting that wars are due solely to industrial competi- 
 tion among nations, and to the fact that industrialism is 
 based upon the wholly wrong principle of private owner- 
 ship Hullquist, a socialist, -says that wars are likely to 
 become more frequent and more violent as the capitalist sys- 
 tem of production approaches its climax. The working 
 classes the socialists say, who have nothing permanent, are 
 the natural enemies of war; the capitalists, who have much 
 and want more, are constantly placing peace in jeopardy. 
 The protective system of tariff also receives much abuse 
 from these writers. Novicow (71 ) places the tariff sys- 
 tem high among the causes of war. The belief that it is 
 good to sell and bad to buy, he says, is the great trouble 
 maker in the world. This was also the principle of Cobden 
 the zreat English free-trader of the middle of the last cen- 
 tury The Manchester school of which he was the leader 
 would do away with wars by making the world economically 
 
 1 Veblen (97) charges the price system with being a fun- 
 damental cause of war, and says that it must now come 
 up for radical examination and perhaps modification, the 
 theory of the rights of property and contract which have 
 been taken as axiomatic premises by economic science may 
 
138 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 itself fail, or at least be thrown open to question. Either 
 the price system will go, or there will be wars between na- 
 tions in the future as there have been in the past, because of 
 the need of protection of ownership rights, and because of 
 the nationalism these rights create. To some extent these 
 rights of property have been curtailed, Veblen remarks; 
 the old feudalistic rights have in large part been annulled, 
 and the world is at least owned by more people than was 
 once the case. That these changes and readjustments of 
 property rights will be carried still further he thinks there 
 can be no doubt. 
 
 Stevens draws similar conclusions about the evil effects 
 of property rights. The great war and all wars, he asserts, 
 are based upon existing social conditions — upon the or- 
 ganization of the family, the school, the state, the church, 
 upon the institution of property, with its corollaries of 
 foreign markets and other industrial relations. Protec- 
 tion of trade, which works in the interest of the owner 
 classes, indirect taxes which fall upon the consumer, the 
 labor system by which, at the present time, the laborer re- 
 ceives but a small share of the profits, but must become 
 when necessary the defender of the interests in which he 
 does not share — all these things we hear being charged 
 vigorously with being the causes of wars, including the 
 recent great conflict. This system is blamed not only for 
 our great international wars, but it is looked upon as the 
 germ of wars to come, internal wars, when international 
 wars shall have ceased, or temporarily have been abated. 
 When, perhaps, the restrictions that assume that the gain 
 of one country is the loss of another have satisfactorily been 
 adjusted, the system that maintains that the capitalist can 
 prosper only at the expense of the laborer will come up for 
 final settlement (97). 
 
 All these views, from a psychological point of view, seem 
 to be open to the criticism that they tend to consider the 
 world one-sidedly and by a certain abstraction. They are 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 139 
 
 dealing with a world governed only by economic laws. It 
 is easy to construct these ideal worlds. They are simple 
 and they lend themselves readily to the purposes of a 
 political calculus. Finding economic motives in individual 
 life, in the social life and in politics, and in history it is 
 tempting both to explain the past and plan the future in 
 terms of the entities and principles of economics. But 
 after all it is only when we consider economic motives in 
 their relations to all the motives behind human conduct that 
 we are likely to see the economic motives in history in their 
 true light. Then we shall very much doubt whether prop- 
 erty has been in any real sense the cause of wars, or that 
 the abrogation of property rights will be the means of estab- 
 lishing perpetual peace. We shall see that economic mo- 
 tives themselves are but aspects of deeper motives, and 
 involve desire for objectives that are not sought for their 
 material value, and also objectives that are not material at 
 all. The process of development of present human society, 
 so far back as we can see, and as far into the future as we 
 can with any confidence predict, seems to contain as a neces- 
 sity some form and degree of human slavery. This ap- 
 pears to be inherent in the fact itself of the existence of in- 
 dividual wills, having in any degree individual or personal 
 interests as they must, and the impossibility of devising any 
 social order or government that will give to the individual 
 an ideal freedom, if such a conception be indeed possible 
 at all. We may conjecture at least that in a world in which 
 every trace of an economic motive had been removed, if this 
 were possible, there would still be slavery of some kind, and 
 the inexorable logic of individuality would in the end pro- 
 duce conflict and war. 
 
 Nations, like individuals, live, and they pass through 
 certain stages that seem in a general way to be necessary 
 phases of their development. During this process of de- 
 velopment certain objects become, one after another, of the 
 most vital concern because they are necessary to the satisfac- 
 
140 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 tion of the motives which guide the lives of these nations. 
 But these objects are never so definitely marked off that 
 they become to the exclusion of other motives the causes 
 of wars. The social life is never so simple as this would 
 imply. The past is always involved in the present. One 
 after another certain types of economic objects become more 
 or less central in the interests of nations, but the minds of 
 nations, like those of individuals, are always influenced by 
 the tradition. Objects are desired with reference to the 
 satisfaction of motives that represent complex and general 
 desires. There are ideal objects as well as material objects; 
 and the material object is often sought because of its possi- 
 ble use as a means of satisfying the desire for ideal values. 
 First food, then land, then commerce, then industry, then 
 wealth itself, — this has been the order in which eco- 
 nomic values have become objects for the consciousness of 
 people as groups, and have become involved in and more 
 or less completely represent the relations among peoples 
 we call political. That which is, relatively speaking, an 
 object of necessity at one stage tends to become an ideal 
 or romantic object of the next stage. The relations of 
 economic objects to the desires of nations and to war are 
 complex and not precisely what they may on the surface 
 appear to be. Nations, like individuals, do not know what 
 they need, and they do not even understand clearly what 
 they desire. Their desires are complex : elementary eco- 
 nomic motives, political motives, personal motives, the 
 motives of industry and finance, the motive of power and 
 the craving for certain states of consciousness all exist to- 
 gether, and to some extent antagonize one another. The 
 present practical desire is confused by the traditional ob- 
 ject. The will of a nation is a composite will, and its his- 
 tory is full of contradictory impulses, and also full of sur- 
 prises. Nations often think they are fighting for economic 
 reasons when their real motives are plainly to gain military 
 distinction. The reputation is quite as satisfying as any 
 
Economic Factors and Motives 141 
 
 material prosperity gained. There is an illusion and a 
 delusion about it all. All these economic advantages that 
 nations are always seeking have something unreal about 
 them. Nations seek them long after they represent real 
 values. Nations seek colonies when, if business is what 
 they want, it could better be obtained nearer home. Finance 
 looks for advantages overseas, when there are quite as 
 safe investments at home paying quite as large profits. Na- 
 tions have desires to do great things, not merely to live and 
 prosper. 
 
 That is the way these economic problems of war appear, 
 at least when they are examined in relation to other aspects 
 of war and of society. These economic problems are 
 merged into and subordinate to the political or the historical 
 problems, and economic causes of war must be considered 
 with reference to the psychological principles that are at 
 the bottom of all social development. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL FACTORS 
 
 We think of political causes of war mainly as an aspect of 
 the fact that nations desire always certain geographical ob- 
 jectives. These desires are represented in part by the poli- 
 cies of governments and leaders, but we must also think of 
 nations as a whole as having desires, and as being moved by 
 profound purposes. At once the question arises whether 
 we shall think of these political objectives, and the wars 
 the desires for them cause, as essentially the objects and the 
 work of individuals. Do individuals in any real sense cre- 
 ate history? This, of course, is a profound question and 
 involves fundamental theories of history. Shall we accept 
 the " great man " theory of history, and say that history is 
 mainly the work of a few who are able to shape events with 
 reference to policies of their own, or shall we think that 
 forces that determine history reside rather in the instincts 
 or desires of the common life of the people? 
 
 A psychological study of history inclines us to the belief 
 that the forces that make history are mainly forces that do 
 not exist as conscious purposes and are therefore not essen- 
 tially political forces. One of the conditions of leadership 
 seems to be that the leader shall seek his own personal ends 
 and realize his own purposes for his country only within 
 the field of the traditional and common objectives which are 
 held by the people as a whole as their purpose in history. 
 These are the materials with which the leader must work. 
 Historically his work may seem decisive. Psychologically 
 it is to be regarded as a complex effect of lawfully related 
 social reactions. The motives of leader and people must 
 
 142 
 
Political and Historical Factors 143 
 
 have large common factors. The leader holds his power 
 and his prestige by embodying in his own will and repre- 
 senting in his own conscious policies the will of the people 
 and their idea of country as an historic entity. The leader 
 is leader only in so far as he is recognized as representing 
 the will of the " herd." As genius, this leader is manifestly 
 creative, but the true genius in statesmanship is even rarer 
 than genius elsewhere. The great leader is an artist. He 
 must take certain vague or clear ambitions of the people, 
 must accept the nation's historic objectives as the founda- 
 tions of his policies, and working with these objects and de- 
 sires make his own page of history. His glory and his pres- 
 tige depend upon his fulfilling deep desires of his people. 
 The forces with which he deals are plastic, but only within 
 narrow limits. Leadership at best is a fragile thing. 
 However autocratic the power, it is after all dependent upon 
 the good will of the people, and the acceptance of the leader 
 as one who is serving the interests of the people. 
 
 When we consider the nature and the objects of the am- 
 bitions and desires that the statesman or leader must fulfill, 
 we see why the relations of ruler to people are difficult to 
 understand. Nations do not know with clearness either 
 what they desire or why at heart they desire the objectives 
 that seem of most importance. People give economic and 
 political reasons, but the consciousness of nations is subject 
 to deep moods, and is influenced by remote events and tra- 
 ditions. Nations have generic desires as well as specific 
 ones. They always crave empire; they all desire to have 
 rank. They are always ambitious, jealous and watchful of 
 one another. These general and more or less subconscious 
 desires make their desires for specific objects intense, but 
 they also make them peculiarly irrational. The heroic ex- 
 amples of history, hereditary emotions and the effects of 
 specific events in the history of peoples complicate their 
 politics, and often make rational politics impossible. Na- 
 tions will not act in their own best interests, because they 
 
144 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 are governed by irrational motives. In this way certain 
 disparities are often produced between the people and their 
 practical statesmen, but history seems to show us that when 
 these disparities exist in the region of fundamental desires 
 and policies it is the leader who must yield. History seems 
 to show us also that wars, coming in general out of the 
 deeper motives of nations, do not belong to such an extent as 
 is often supposed to the realm of politics. Political causes 
 are often incidental causes and determine the time and place 
 of wars but do not create them. Cramb (66) says that 
 wars persist in spite of their unreason, because there is some- 
 thing transcendental that supports them, and this transcen- 
 dental purpose is the desire for empire. Powers (75) says 
 that nations fight for tangible things and also for intangible 
 things. The tangible things are existence, commerce, inde- 
 pendence, territory; nations also desire objects that are not 
 useful, the worth of which consists in their satisfaction of 
 taste. The ambition to own colonies, Powers thinks, is of 
 this nature. Colonies are quite as much ornamental as they 
 are useful. They convey the feeling and impression of 
 power. 
 
 That these deep desires of nations as expressed in the am- 
 bition to reach certain geographical objectives are exceed- 
 ingly strong, often if not always irrational, brutally arro- 
 gant and tenacious, the whole course of history teaches us. 
 These desires are indeed the forces behind historical move- 
 ments. They create politics and policies. War preexists 
 in these irrational purposes. These purposes are charged 
 with emotion, with prejudice, and tradition. It is with 
 these motives that all practical politics must contend, and 
 these motives are the forces that the statesman must use and 
 make more rational. 
 
 The purposes of nations are usually if not always we 
 say obscure and deep, existing in the form of ideals and 
 tendencies, and likely to take the form of visions of empire 
 wholly unrealizable. And yet there are always certain per- 
 
Political and Historical Factors 145 
 
 fectly clear objectives upon which all the force of these 
 half understood motives impinge. These objectives may or 
 may not be economically rational or morally justifiable. 
 We always know with certainty certain of these objectives 
 for which any nation will if necessary fight. These objec- 
 tives have often a long history behind them. They are 
 surrounded by tradition, sincerely and even religiously 
 sought. They are ideal objects which nations feel they 
 have a right to possess. Every nation apparently believes 
 itself the logical possessor of something it does not now 
 hold (99). All peoples have their longings for these pos- 
 sessions, which are their vision of a greater self. These 
 objects are often desired for reasons that are clear enough 
 to all ; but they are also often but the symbols of deeper de- 
 sires. As such, nations act toward them with almost in- 
 stinctive compulsion. 
 
 We may suppose that no great historical event is ever 
 enacted that is not determined more by traditional desires 
 than by conscious politics. A thousand years of strife have 
 provided the motives for the great European war. Mem- 
 ories of time-honored objectives have arisen in the con- 
 sciousness of many peoples, and these memories cannot be 
 recalled without exciting passions that make all rational 
 politics unavailing. Europe has been fighting over again 
 her battles of the past, and at the moment of the present 
 writing is carrying them into the conference of peace. The 
 plans of statesmen and the intrigues of finance have but lit- 
 tle success in contending against these forces. Since the 
 leaders themselves are not free from the prejudices and the 
 compulsion of traditions and the unconscious desires and 
 deep impulses which move their people, they can with but 
 dubious success bring international politics into the sphere 
 of reason. They do not represent merely the selfish de- 
 sires of their people. They are not merely spokesmen of 
 the interests of class or individual. They are embodiments 
 of the whole history of their nations. 
 
146 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 All history, and all the present relations of nations to 
 one another may, of course, be considered in terms of the 
 desires for specific objectives caused by the imperial desires 
 of peoples, these desires themselves being regarded as a 
 sum of motives, the effects of past political relations, and 
 containing both rational and irrational elements. The 
 world is a vast field of stress in which the powers at work 
 are national wills rather than political forces as the projects 
 of rulers and the diplomats. These powers, when fully 
 aroused, are quite beyond the control of statesmen acting in 
 their ordinary capacities, and their final issues no historian 
 ought now to try to predict. History has been full of sur- 
 prises because of the nature of the forces which create his- 
 tory, and these surprises seem to have been sometimes the 
 greatest for those who were most intimately concerned in 
 making history. Events seldom run smoothly according to 
 well laid plans. 
 
 It would not fall within the scope of a psychological study 
 of war to describe or analyze the complex system of strains 
 that exist in the world to-day, and to point out the condi- 
 tions that led to the great war would be for the most part 
 unnecessary, since they must be obvious to all. The main 
 items in such a study of history, however, may well be re- 
 called to mind. One would need to show the effects of Eng- 
 land's irresistible development through several centuries; 
 the struggle for the control of the Mediterranean; Ger- 
 many's efforts to extend her empire toward the East, and 
 the closing of doors against Germany's advance ; Russia's 
 pressure upon the Teutonic peoples, the ancient and terrible 
 dread of Russia on the part of the nations of Western Eu- 
 rope, the shadow under which Turkey, Germany, and Eng- 
 land had lived because of the presence of the great Slavic 
 state, with its mysticism, its dynastic ambitions and its great 
 growth force, its need of open ports, and vital interest in the 
 amalgamation of the South Slavic peoples, and the determi- 
 nation to own Constantinople and to succeed to the place of 
 
Political and Historical Factors 147 
 
 the Turkish Empire. We should need to take into account 
 the long history of the struggle for colonies, the colonial 
 trust of Russia, England and France, the ambitions of 
 France for empire in Africa, the operations of French 
 finance in the Balkans and elsewhere, Austria's aggressive 
 hatred of Serbia, and her effort to prevent the revival of 
 Poland, the conflicts of Germany and Austria with Italy 
 in regard to the yEgean and the Adriatic and their shores, 
 the fierce irredentism of Italy, and the ambitions of Italy 
 that have brought her into conflict with the Teutonic pow- 
 ers and with Turkey, all the conflicting purposes and am- 
 bitions of Greece, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, and the 
 added strain in the Balkans because of the vital interests of 
 all the Great Powers there, and many other conflicts and 
 causes of conflicts. These conflicts we see repeated in kind 
 in the relations of Japan, China and Russia and the other 
 powers interested in the geography of Asia, and in the 
 waters of the Pacific, and once more in the growing strains 
 between the East and the West (99). 
 
 Taking our world as we find it, and viewing the nature 
 of nations in the light of their history and of their per- 
 sistent antagonisms, one might readily believe that the causes 
 of war and war itself will continue into a far future. No 
 war, the pessimist might well argue, will destroy national 
 vitality or neutralize the many points of strain. There 
 may be great coalitions and even Leagues of Nations, but 
 these may only make wars more terrible when they come. 
 The friendship of nations will still be insecure and shjjiiag. 
 The great strategic points of the world will remain. Small 
 countries will continue to be ambitious and jealous of one 
 another. Island countries will still be faced by coasts that 
 contain possibilities of danger. The Constantinoples and 
 the Gibraltars will remain; Suez and Panama will be left, 
 and Verdun will still be something more than a historic 
 memory (99). 
 
 That these objectives might all be brought into a perma- 
 
148 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 nent state of equilibrium, by some ideal world politics, that 
 nations ought to abandon their ideas of empire or at least 
 see how crude these ideas are, how out of relation to our 
 modern ideas of value, and how out of place in a practical 
 world — all this we can readily understand, but who will 
 expect nations to become very different from what they 
 are now, and who shall say how many imperial eggs there 
 are in the world yet to be hatched ? There are many ways 
 of justifying these ambitions — Germany justifies hers by 
 reason, and the researches of her great historians — the 
 Treitschkes and the Mommsens; Russia bases her claims 
 upon her religion and her ethos; Japan brings her divinity 
 and her traditions, her vitality and her intelligence ; England 
 offers her justice and above all her proved genius for gov- 
 ernment as a justification of empire. But after all, these 
 desires for empire lie deeper than proof and reason can go. 
 Poetic, dramatic and religious elements enter into them. 
 There are geniuses among nations. The creative force in 
 a nation is its life force, its essence and its reality. In some 
 sense the desire to be an empire is the whole meaning of a 
 nation, for without the ambition to be supreme, peoples, 
 some of them, would be nothing. It is the vision of empire, 
 however forlorn and hopeless, that keeps many nations alive, 
 perhaps all. Nations seek to express in visible form the 
 evidence of their inner and potential greatness. The his- 
 toric and time-honored art of empire-building is the only 
 art they know. Whether this is the tragedy of history, the 
 world's fate and the condemnation of it to perpetual war- 
 fare — or is but a term in the logic by which nations rise 
 to other and higher forms ; or finally is a crime or a mistake 
 which it is within the power of the will of man to abandon 
 or amend — these are problems of the philosophy of history. 
 
Political and Historical Factors 149 
 
 Historical Causes 
 
 Historical causes of war are in part the sequences of 
 events that the political causes of war produce (political 
 as the causes inherent in the wills of nations), and we must 
 suppose they are mainly this. History, from this point of 
 view, is the working out of the motives or the desires con- 
 tained in these national wills. The causes of our late war, 
 for example, are to be sought mainly in the wills of the 
 great powers that are concerned in it. Economic forces, the 
 laws of the growth of nations (both psychological and 
 physical laws), the conditions of the geographical distribu- 
 tions of peoples over the earth — all these are involved in 
 the cause of wars. There are also great personages whose 
 actions must to some extent be considered apart from these 
 general laws; these personages contribute factors to the 
 causation of any given war that are not entirely inherent in 
 the laws of growth or the psychology of nations. Shall we 
 say also that there are fortuitous factors, historical causes 
 that are not contained in any logic of human desires? Can 
 we say, perhaps, that these fortuitous causes are indeed the 
 main causes — in a word that wars are not desired, mainly, 
 but are the product, indeed, either of the mere logic of 
 chance, or of a design that transcends human will alto- 
 gether? Are wars willed, or are they the results of the 
 complex, the illogical and uncontrollable factors of the 
 world's existence and movement? These may not be prac- 
 tical problems, but they are serious problems, since in the 
 end they implicate the whole of philosophy. 
 
 What place shall we give, in the laws of history, to the 
 sudden and chance turn of affairs; to the quick shift of the 
 wheels of fortune; to the incidents, the accidents, the mis- 
 judgments of rulers and the slips of the diplomats? Are 
 wars after all a product of the logic of life, or are they 
 mere fortuitous syntheses of events which in their particu- 
 lar combination make a total that is not involved, either as 
 
150 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 desire or as tendency, in the sum of the particulars that enter 
 into the whole? How completely, in a word, do the inter- 
 ests and purposes of nations determine wars? May we 
 speak of motives that always tend to produce wars, but never 
 seem to will them? 
 
 History seems to show us that wars are less directly willed 
 than we have sometimes supposed, and perhaps that there 
 is a large element of chance in them as regards a given war 
 at any time and in any place. War in general is inherent in, 
 or is a natural effect of, the laws of development of nations. 
 Wars as historical events are not completely describable in 
 terms of these laws. It is the old contrast between the his- 
 torical and the scientific explanation of things that appears 
 here. Nations have deep and vague desires, we say. They 
 want satisfaction of their honor; they crave a dramatic life, 
 even military prestige and glory, but we do not often find 
 war itself definitely willed. The desires of nations, we re- 
 peat, tend to be too fundamental to be specific. Their spe- 
 cific desires are indeed and for that reason likely to be con- 
 tradictory. They desire both war and peace at the same 
 time, and have interests that may be served by both. They 
 live in indecision like individuals. Motives conflict. They 
 hesitate, and doubt, and fear. They shrink from taking the 
 plunge. It requires the sharp and clear event, the chance 
 event, most often, to precipitate them into wars. It is al- 
 ways to-morrow that they are to wage wars. So wars dp 
 not usually occur by the rational plans and devices of any 
 man or any historical sequences of men, we may believe, and 
 it is a question whether wars are very often intended in a 
 real sense by any one. Wars occur as crises in events. 
 The strains that produce them are certainly inherent in the 
 relations of nations at all times, and even in the motives of 
 personal politics, but in general these relations as consciously 
 governed relations are in the direction of seeking the greatest 
 advantage with the least show of force. The conditions 
 must all be present, both the match and the powder, before 
 
Political and Historical Factors 151 
 
 war can take place. There must be a condition of strain, 
 having certain psychological features none of which can 
 be missing, the condition being something complex and not 
 readily analyzable, at any given time. In addition to these 
 strains events must take place which, in all their appear- 
 ances, are fortuitous. 
 
 One might argue from this that the cure of war consists 
 in eternal watchfulness to see that the match does not touch 
 the powder, that we must watch these events that precipi- 
 tate wars and safeguard peoples from being affected by 
 them. This, of course, is more or less the method of 
 diplomacy; to some minds the league of nations is a device 
 for doing this on a larger and more systematic scale. But 
 when we study history and see what these war-causing inci- 
 dents are, how numerous and how variable, we can see that 
 diplomacy and statesmanship undertake an impossible task 
 when they try to steer the world along its narrow historical 
 course, with only historical landmarks for guides. 
 
 The war that is so vividly in mind now furnishes us with 
 an illustration of the complexity of the causes of war, and 
 allows us to see clearly contrasting views of the causal fac- 
 tors in great wars in general. We see here a closely fitting 
 series of events, each in itself having but little reference to 
 the great crisis, all fitting together, and for want of any one 
 of which, if one takes the purely historical view, we might 
 suppose the war would never have happened, or might have 
 been postponed indefinitely. If Venezelos, to go back no 
 further than that, had remained in Crete and had been con- 
 tent to be an island politician, would not the course of 
 events in the Balkans have been very different? Out of his 
 course came events which no one could have foreseen, but 
 which, without similar actions on the part of individuals 
 producing other links in the chain, would not have taken 
 place. If some diplomat or some foreign office had made a 
 decision slightly different from what was actually decided ; 
 if the three emperors had had a little more reliable infor- 
 
152 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 mation about one another; if the statisticians of the German 
 service had computed a little better England's resources, 
 and had put the moral factor into the sum — would the 
 war have happened at all ? 
 
 In this direction, of course, lies the chaos of history and 
 its madness — and also its philosophy. We may be driven 
 on the one hand to think of all history as a matter of the 
 chance relations of individuals and of detached particular 
 events, having significance as a series but never planned or 
 controlled as a whole, or we may resort to the opposite way 
 of thinking, and say that all of history, in every particular 
 and detail, is divinely planned and prearranged, and each 
 event fits into a rational whole. This, of course, is our 
 final problem of history, we say, as it is the final problem 
 of every question that considers life as concrete events 
 having value precisely as the particular sequence that it is — 
 when we view life historically, in a word, rather than by the 
 methods of the quantitative sciences, or by the genetic 
 methods such as are used mainly in the psychological sci- 
 ences, and which we may say stand between history and the 
 sciences of matter. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SYNTHESIS OF CAUSES 
 
 It appears to be no very difficult matter to discover causes 
 of war, and indeed a considerable number of causes. In 
 fact the problem seems to yield an embarrassment of riches, 
 especially if our chief interest happens to be a practical 
 one, and we wish to find the causes of war in order to see 
 how they may be controlled. We might even have discov- 
 ered all the causes of war and still be as far as before from 
 any real understanding of the cause of war. Unless one 
 can know the relative importance of the causes, and the 
 manner in which the causes combine to produce wars ; unless 
 the results give in some way a synthetic view of the causes 
 of war, show dominating causes, or reveal a total cause 
 which is not merely a summation of stimuli, but is both 
 a necessary and a sufficient situation for the production of 
 war; unless we have shown some fundamental cause and 
 movement in the social order, we are still left in search of 
 the cause of war. 
 
 We have, indeed, found a number of causes of war, but 
 at the same time the causes have not appeared to exist as 
 separate causes. We are always catching sight of a move- 
 ment in the development of nations and of the world — of 
 certain fundamental motives, the most basic of all, the most 
 general, being the motive of power. These causes of war 
 do not appear, however, to be of the nature of a chain, giv- 
 ing us the impression that in order to break the habit of 
 war, all we need do is to discover the weakest link in the 
 chain of causes, break the chain there, and so interrupt the 
 whole mechanism of war-making in the world. Above all, 
 
 153 
 
154 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 although fortuitous events as causes of war must not be 
 overlooked, war is not continually being made anew by the 
 appearance again and again of accidental situations, which 
 are thus to be regarded as the cause of war. 
 
 War is, first of all, a natural expression of the social life, 
 resting primarily upon the fact of the existence, universally, 
 of groups of individuals acting as units. But here cause 
 and effect are lost in one another. Conflict cements the 
 group, and the existence of the group, again, is the cause 
 of conflict. War is an aspect of the social solidarity of 
 the group acting under certain conditions, and these condi- 
 tions are the presence of deep desires that can, in general, 
 be satisfied only by the exertion of force on the part of com- 
 munities acting as wholes. 
 
 These primitive motives and moods of war that we find 
 in the nature of the social group itself, emerge finally in 
 three aspects of the life of nations, and it is these aspects 
 of the life of nations that appear to us as the causes of war. 
 They are not separate and independent features of the 
 social life, and it is in part only for the sake of convenience 
 that they are sharply separated at all. They are all at 
 bottom manifestations of the motive of power that runs 
 through all history, and all the social and individual life. 
 On one side this motive appears in moods and impulses that 
 we called the " intoxication " moods and impulses. Na- 
 tional honor was found to be another effect of it. The 
 political motives of war are its concrete expression. These 
 motives all together — all being but phases of a deep, pow- 
 erful energy and purpose, are the source of the main move- 
 ment in history out of which war comes. In this movement 
 all the motives of the social life are always present and 
 active at the same time. The good and the bad of national 
 life are phases of a single purpose and are not two con- 
 trasted principles or moments. The past is always con- 
 tained in the present. 
 
 War, then, is the result of certain motives which are 
 
The Synthesis of Causes 155 
 
 fundamental to the group life. It is a natural form in which, 
 given a certain degree of intelligence and of complexity of 
 the social life, these motives express themselves. All the 
 motives and forms of expression are present in germ at 
 least from the beginning of the development of the social 
 life. Considering the whole history of war we see that it 
 is a part of a very complex movement in human society, and 
 yet that no war appears to be the final term of a process of 
 inexorable logic. Taking history as a whole, we see that 
 the natural laws involved and the nature of the social con- 
 sciousness make a state of war from time to time highly 
 probable, but war is not a necessary consequence of any 
 natural law. Nations are self-conscious personalities. 
 Perhaps in the future they may change their ways, abandon 
 voluntarily their desires, subject themselves to discipline, or 
 deliberately invent a plan of international relations that will 
 have the effect of eliminating war from their lives alto- 
 gether. 
 
 It is always dangerous, but at the same time it is always 
 tempting to try to explain national life, or all life and his- 
 tory, in terms of the individual and his experience. Once 
 more, however, we may yield to that temptation and say 
 that the world to-day is in a stage of development which 
 has many traits that show its relation in some very signifi- 
 cant ways to certain undeveloped conditions found in indi- 
 viduals, which in fact always appear as phases of the 
 life of all individuals in some degree and form. Nations 
 have acquired a high degree of subjectivism, partly on ac- 
 count of the geographical conditions under which they have 
 lived, and the many barriers between nations due to differ- 
 ence of origin and of language, and the fundamental emo- 
 tions of fear and jealousy which, as we have seen, play so 
 large a part in the life and conduct of groups. Nations, 
 however close to one another, have remained isolated in 
 spirit: they have lacked both the initiative and the means 
 for becoming definitely related to one another in purposive 
 
156 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and sustained activities. Therefore all their relations have 
 remained highly emotional, subjective, influenced by mysti- 
 cism, filled with hatred and fear, hero worship and illusion. 
 Nations have lacked both the power, and we might say, the 
 organs, for externalizing their spirit. They have dreamed 
 dreams and played plays, and followed their illusions of 
 empire. Even their wars have not, until perhaps now, be- 
 come wholly real and serious in a measure commensurate 
 with their powers and resources. The present war more 
 than any other, and more than any other event in history, 
 represents an escape on the part of nations from their sub- 
 jectivism, and a beginning, it may be, of the realization of 
 a more mature, or shall we say more normal conception of 
 the world. Nations have played at being great and have 
 really produced but little true greatness. Now, let us say, 
 their dream is over. We see that these nations can no 
 longer play. Their wooden weapons have at last been 
 turned to steel. They can fight no longer indeed without 
 destroying one another. They must now live in practical 
 and moral relations, give up their bright dreams of empire 
 after the old heroic order, and be content to be imperial (if 
 they are born to be imperial) by performing distinguished 
 service in the world, by their own genius of leadership. 
 There is work in the world for nations to do ; there are em- 
 pires of the spirit, it may be, greater than have yet been 
 dreamed of in the nations' childish philosophies of life. 
 The consciousness of nations contains, it may be, unsus- 
 pected powers, suppressed in the past by narrow national- 
 ism, by fear, habit and convention. These powers may 
 now, if ever, blossom forth ; they have been wasted too 
 long in patriotic feeling and in idle dreamery. They must 
 now show what they can do in a practical world that will 
 have no more of mere assertions. 
 
 The world stands to-day balanced between two ideals. 
 Human spirit, the spirit of nations, is a free and plastic 
 force ; it is also a sum of motives and desires ; but most 
 
The Synthesis of Causes 157 
 
 fundamentally of all it is a growing, living, creative and 
 personal spirit. It still clings to its luxuries of feeling, to 
 its provincial life, it is still fascinated by its beautiful ro- 
 mance of empire. On the other hand we see the stirring 
 of a new idea. A new world arises, less dramatic in its 
 appeal than the old world, but a world appealing by its 
 practical problems both to the will and to the intellect. 
 Shall we yield to the fascination of the old romance and go 
 back to our hero worship; or shall we be inspired now by 
 this vision of a new and greater social order, create out of 
 our own powers of imagination the forms this world must 
 assume if it is to appeal to the deepest feelings of all peo- 
 ples, and make this new world real by our own intelligence 
 and determination? 
 
 We stand to-day at a dramatic moment in history ; a more 
 dramatic moment than when the victory itself hung in the 
 balance. Perhaps our sense of responsibility for the future 
 is an illusion ; perhaps we are driven by an inexorable logic 
 of history, and we do not after all choose what our world 
 shall be. But certainly the sense of human power in the 
 world has never been greater than now nor seemed better 
 justified; nor, if we are deceived, has the reality ever been 
 more out of harmony with the ambitions of man. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL FACTOR IN THE DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF NATIONS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS OF THE DAY 
 
 Education, like all other institutions, has been charged, 
 we know, with having contributed its share to the causes of 
 the war. The Prussian school system, we have been told, 
 was mainly a school of war ; all the emotions and ideas nec- 
 essary to produce morbid nationalism, distorted views of 
 history, and a belief in and a love of war were there fostered 
 and deliberately cultivated. There is, of course, some truth 
 in this; it is a truth that is deceiving, however, if we regard 
 it as at all indicating the true relation between education and 
 practical affairs. If the school was a factor in the late 
 war, such a creative effect of education appears to be rare 
 in history. In general it is the negative effect of the school 
 that is most conspicuous. It is what the school has not 
 done to prevent war, what it has failed to do in not bringing 
 nations out of their perverted nationalism into a life of 
 more practical relationship with one another that really best 
 characterizes the school. 
 
 It is difficult or impossible for us now, of course, to 
 perceive what the war has done — in what way, all in all, 
 the future will be different from the past. It is very easy 
 and natural to look at everything dramatically now, see 
 revolution everywhere and believe that all institutions 
 are now to be radically changed. Or, going to the other 
 extreme, we may become cynical, and say that, human na- 
 ture being unchangeable, we shall soon settle down into the 
 old routine and we shall see presently that nothing revo- 
 lutionizing has transpired. Some will say, and indeed are 
 saying that education must now be entirely remodeled; 
 
 161 
 
1 62 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 some will think that education had best go on as before — 
 that nothing has happened certainly to require any new 
 philosophy of the school, or any profound change in its 
 form. We see these two tendencies in many phases of our 
 present situation : in politics, in education, and in the busi- 
 ness world. 
 
 It is impossible, we may repeat, to make wholly safe 
 judgments now about the future, but still something must 
 in the meantime be done. We must either stand still or go 
 forward — or backward ; we must act either with a theory 
 or without one. The school is involved in this necessity. 
 There is a new content of history that we cannot ignore, 
 but must in some way teach. We must say something about 
 the war ; current events can hardly be kept out of the school, 
 and to understand current events there must be a wider 
 content of history than we have had in the past. There 
 are new, or at least disturbed, conditions in the industrial 
 and in all the social life, and these conditions cannot fail 
 to have some effect upon the school. The school must 
 adjust itself to them, and it must surely take into account 
 new needs that have arisen. Patriotism may need to be 
 taught now, or taught in a different manner. There is a 
 problem of war and peace, the question of what ideals of na- 
 tional life we are to convey. Internationalism demands 
 some recognition on the part of the school. It seems prob- 
 able, therefore, and even necessary that a new interest in the 
 function of education will be felt and must be aroused. 
 Must we not indeed now examine once more all the founda- 
 tions upon which our ideas about education rest ? Certainly 
 there will never be a more favorable time, or more reasons 
 for such a task. 
 
 It is the impending internationalism, or the idea of in- 
 ternationalism now so vividly put before us all, that most 
 incites new thought about education, and about all the 
 means of controlling the ideas and feelings of the people. 
 We hear much about reconstruction and readjustment, and 
 
Educational Problems of the Day 163 
 
 these terms obviously imply the old ways and the old in- 
 stitutions. But internationalism is something new, having 
 many possibilities; it means new relations among peoples; 
 it opens up new practical fields and new phases of sociology 
 and economics. It is because of this new phase of the 
 social life and social consciousness of man, we might sup- 
 pose, that education is most likely to be affected in its 
 foundations, so that no mere readjustment will be enough. 
 A new politics and a new science of nations appear, and 
 we cannot fail to see that there is at the present time 
 something decidedly lacking in education ; that there is a 
 larger life perhaps for which our present ways of educating 
 children would not sufficiently prepare, and that to prepare 
 for this larger life something more would be needed than 
 an added subject in the curriculum. This is because inter- 
 nationalism is not simply more of something we have al- 
 ready; it is a turn in the road, and a turn which, it can 
 hardly be denied, will finally affect all institutions. If 
 internationalism has come to stay, it will need, and it must 
 have, powerful support from all educational forces. It 
 will need something more than support ; education must 
 produce creative habits of mind, which shall make and 
 nourish new relations in the world, and it must make 
 people intelligent, so that they can understand what the 
 new and larger relations mean and what must be accom- 
 plished by them. 
 
 A casual observation of the educational situation might 
 indicate that education is limited in two ways, so far as 
 being a means of meeting our present needs is concerned. 
 It is lacking in pozuer; it treats children and youths still in 
 a fragmentary way, and the process of learning is some- 
 what detached from the totality of living. There is a lack 
 of richness of content, and a lack of responsiveness in the 
 school to the stirring life outside the school. If we may 
 say that history now turns a new page, and that society 
 stands at a change of tide, education is also in a peculiar 
 
164 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and interesting position. The school may, from now on, if 
 our view of it be at all just, be expected to do one of two 
 things : it may settle down to a relatively successful work, 
 in a limited sphere of usefulness, training children well, 
 especially fitting them to enter into our present social 
 order; or, on the other hand, the school may now become 
 a much greater power, and may seize hold upon fundamental 
 things in life and society under the stimulus of new con- 
 ditions — find a way to a deeper philosophy, a more con- 
 sistent theory, attain a more exalted mood and higher pur- 
 pose, and become a far more potent factor in civilization. 
 
 That education will remain unaffected in profound ways 
 by the war, is difficult to believe. One may very readily, 
 as we say, see these impending changes in too dramatic a 
 way, and begin to talk about profound upheavals and 
 ideals that certainly will never be realized (and w T e ought 
 to guard against this easy idealizing, which leaves human 
 nature out of the reckoning) ; still we cannot but feel that 
 in some way a new dimension has been added to the social 
 life as a result of the war, and that education, in dealing 
 with this greater society, must itself be raised to a higher 
 power. If we think, educationally speaking, in terms of 
 a world at all, rather than in terms of individuals, or com- 
 munities, families and nations, we are quickly impressed 
 by the sense of living in a new order of educational prob- 
 lems, and possessing, it may be, a new variety of self-con- 
 sciousness. Nations in this new view are thought of as 
 parts of a world, as having many external relations, whereas 
 formerly almost all education has had reference at the most 
 to the internal life of nations. Patriotism has been the 
 expression of its most distant horizon. 
 
 If we believe that anything new is about to be realized 
 in education, it might seem natural to begin to think about 
 changes from the standpoint and in the terms of the old 
 chapters and topics. We might ask what this or that sub- 
 ject of the curriculum means or must produce that it did 
 
Educational Problems of the Day 165 
 
 not mean and did not produce before; or we might consider 
 the old and the new requirements in the education of the 
 feelings, the will, the intellect ; or we might take any other 
 of the educational categories as a basis for a discussion of 
 the philosophy of the school. These programs, however, 
 do not seem to be very inspiring. Would it not be better 
 now to try to distinguish the main fields of life and the 
 main interests in regard to which new questions and new 
 needs have arisen, and see what changes in our educational 
 thought are really demanded by them ? On such a plan, in- 
 ternationalism itself would first demand attention, and 
 indeed most of all. In a sense all questions about educa- 
 tion must now be considered with reference to international- 
 ism in some way. Then there are the problems already 
 raised during the war and widely discussed, about the teach- 
 ing of patriotism. Patriotism becomes a new educational 
 problem, a chapter in our theory of education, in which we 
 become conscious of ourselves in a new way, and are aware 
 of our larger field and changed conditions. There are 
 questions, too, about the teaching of the lessons of the war, 
 what we shall think about war in general as a good or an 
 evil, how we shall conceive peace and its values. Changes 
 are taking place in government, and in our ideas of govern- 
 ment, and governments are being put to new tests. Political 
 education can hardly fail to be now one of our most serious 
 concerns. Democracy appears to be our great word; the 
 control and education of the democratic forces and the 
 democratic spirit becomes an urgent need. Industry ac- 
 quires new meanings ; we must take up again all the theory 
 of industrial education, for we have seen of late that in- 
 dustry contains possibilities of evil we did not before un- 
 derstand. Social problems arise in changed forms. The 
 new world-idea or world-consciousness becomes an educa- 
 tional problem of the social life. Class difference can never 
 again be ignored as it has been in the past in the schools. 
 Moral, religious and aesthetic education seems to have a 
 
1 66 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 different place in the school, just to the extent that all life 
 has become more serious on account of the war. These 
 demands made upon the deepest elements of the psychic life 
 suggest the need once more of a new philosophy of educa- 
 tion, or, at the least, a greatly increased recognition and 
 application of the philosophy we already have. 
 
 Before the war there was a sense of security and the 
 feeling that our education was adequate to meet all de- 
 mands. We were proud of our educational system. Our 
 democratic ideals, people said, were safe in the hands of the 
 public school. Industrial education was meeting fairly 
 well the needs of the industrial life. There were no very 
 pressing class problems. The troubles of capital and labor, 
 although always threatening, seemed to demand no educa- 
 tional interference. The religious problem was temporarily 
 not acute. Aesthetic forms had been attended to in the cur- 
 riculum sufficiently to meet the demands of the day. Hy- 
 giene and physical education and individual attention seemed 
 to be making rapid advances. All of these had been in- 
 fluenced by the scientific methods of treating educational 
 questions. On the whole we seemed to have a good school. 
 But now the question must be asked whether this school of 
 yesterday will be adequate to meet the needs of to-morrow; 
 whether new conditions do not call for new thought, new 
 philosophy, new schools. These things of course cannot 
 be had for the asking. We cannot give orders to genius 
 to produce them for us. But a generation that does not 
 hope for them, we might suspect of not having realized 
 what the war has cost. For so great a price paid have 
 we not a right to expect much in return, especially if we 
 are willing to regard the war as a lesson rather than as 
 a debt to us, and bend all our energies to make it count 
 for a better civilization? 
 
 W r e may already see in a general way what the effect 
 of the war is to be upon the mind of the educator. The 
 journals begin to be filled with plans for the participation 
 
Educational Problems of the Day 167 
 
 of the school in the work of reconstruction. There are 
 many suggestions for the improvement of the school. In- 
 dustrial education, the classics, history, military education, 
 social education are all being discussed. Evidently many 
 minds are at work. Some of them, indeed many of them, 
 are apparently most concerned about what changes we 
 shall make at once in the day's work of the school. Many 
 wish to know what we are going to do now with Latin, 
 or history, and how we can improve the method of teach- 
 ing in this or that particular. But there are some deeper 
 notes. Thinkers are asking elementary questions about 
 the whole of human nature. They wish to know what the 
 original nature of man is, and what the limits of our con- 
 trol over human nature are. Such books as Hocking's 
 " Human Nature and its Re-making " and Russell's " Prin- 
 ciples of Social Reconstruction," which grapple with the 
 basic problems of human life, are signs of the times. No 
 one can yet predict what the final result of the increased in- 
 tellectual ardor that has come out of the war will be, but it 
 seems certain that that striving of the mind which has made 
 the literature of the war so remarkable a page in the history 
 of the human spirit will continue, and in the field of educa- 
 tion as elsewhere in the practical life there will be new 
 vitality and earnestness. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 INTERNATIONALISM AND THE SCHOOL 
 
 If we take a serious and an optimistic view of education 
 as a social institution, and think of it at all as standing 
 in functional relationships with the social life as a whole, 
 we must conclude that internationalism as a new move- 
 ment and idea, and the school as an institution in which 
 changes in the social order are reflected (but in which also 
 changes in the social order are created) are closely related. 
 Adjustment is a relatively easy matter; it is the conception 
 of the school as a creative factor that challenges our best 
 efforts. Let us think of the school as a workshop in which 
 there must be created the forces by which we must make 
 a desired and an otherwise unrealizable future come to 
 pass and we have a new and inspiring view of education. 
 The school perhaps must do even more than educate the 
 forces; it must help even to create the vision itself by 
 which the future is to be directed. The school becomes, so 
 to speak, the working hypothesis of civilization. In it the 
 ideas and the desires by which nations live must be made 
 to take shape. 
 
 The idea of internationalism implies certain changes in 
 the external relations of nations which, whatever the form 
 internationalism will take on its political side, are not 
 difficult to perceive. These in turn imply internal changes. 
 We might readily outline or psychologically analyze what 
 could be called the mood of internationalism, in order to 
 see its relations to education. It contains a number of 
 factors, more or less related to one another. First, there 
 is a recognition of a world of growing, living historical 
 
 168 
 
Internationalism and the School 169 
 
 entities which we call nations ; and this recognition implies 
 new understanding and an enrichment of knowledge. Sec- 
 ond, there is a change in the consciousness of nations, 
 slow but visible, by which they become more willing to in- 
 vestigate freely and fairly their own place in history, under- 
 stand their own desires, functions, virtues, faults, the value 
 of their culture and civilization. Without such an attitude 
 all talk of internationalism in any real sense is idle. Third, 
 there is a new and different prac ical interest. We begin 
 to conceive our world as a world of complex practical rela- 
 tions, and this idea of a practical world is likely to become 
 one of the leading thoughts of the future. Fourth, by ex- 
 tending, so to speak, this idea of a world of practical 
 relations, we idealize a world in which there is a common 
 interest in great international achievements, — a world de- 
 voted more than it is now to coordinated efforts to accelerate 
 progress, more conscious of the needs of a distant future, 
 perhaps, or even of an ideal of universal efficiency as a 
 means of realizing some one world purpose or many good 
 purposes. This is not now, as it once might have been 
 called, merely an Utopian dream. In some slight degree 
 it is already being accomplished. Fifth, social and moral 
 feelings are widened in scope, and must be still further ex- 
 tended ; it is in the form of the democratic spirit, that these 
 feelings must find expression. And this democratic spirit 
 is on one side practical, but it is also something more than 
 the emergence of the common mind ; it is the aristocratic idea 
 carried out universally that we look forward to, an en- 
 thusiasm for all true values, -a mood and activity in which 
 all people participate. Sixth, there is a necessary attitude 
 toward world organization or world government, according 
 to which we think of world government or world organiza- 
 tion as a means of accomplishing results which fulfill funda- 
 mental desires and purposes of the peoples of the earth; 
 as a growing structure, something to be added to and im- 
 proved. Seventh, if so general a tendency and demand may 
 
170 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 be made clear, there is a philosophical mood, which must 
 be made a part of the ideal and the attitude of the future, 
 if that future is to realize even the practical hopes of the 
 world. This philosophical attitude is first of all a way of 
 living comprehensively and more universally, in the world 
 both of facts and of ideas. It means a less provincial and 
 a more widely enriched life for all. It means also an 
 ability to choose the good not according to preconceptions 
 and narrow principles, but according to the wisdom con- 
 tained in the experience and the selective powers of man- 
 kind as a whole. This means a life in which men live, so 
 to speak, more collectively. 
 
 These factors of the idea of internationalism, whatever 
 we may think of the possibility of their realization, make 
 in their totality an educational problem : they are specifica- 
 tions, so to speak, laid before us for the making of a new 
 educational product. If we say that it is useless to think 
 of such things, we are saying merely that it is useless to 
 hope to be a factor in conscious evolution, or that the world 
 as a whole has no purpose and no goal. If we believe educa- 
 tion has any function in the larger work of the world, edu- 
 cational philosophy must take these things into account, 
 see how they may be created or sustained, and how they can 
 be made to work together to help bring to pass the kind of 
 future men are talking so much about. 
 
 I. The Essential World Idea 
 
 Our present situation has plainly made it necessary for 
 us to understand the world in which we live far better 
 than we have in the past, and to be willing to make more 
 dispassionate judgments about it. For better or for worse 
 we have entered upon a new stage of history, in which 
 heavy responsibilities fall upon all peoples, and upon none 
 more than upon ourselves. Enlightenment beyond all our 
 present understanding is a necessity. We have been pe- 
 
Internationalism and the School 171 
 
 culiarly isolated and separated from the world's affairs; 
 now we are peculiarly involved. We have, however, one 
 great and unusual advantage. In our case it is ignorance 
 rather than prejudice that we must overcome in ourselves. 
 The world feels this and recognizes the unusual place this 
 gives us. We have no thousand years of continuous strife 
 to distort our historical perspective. We ought to be able 
 to be just interpreters of the history of the world. Our 
 universities ought to be the greatest centers of historical 
 learning, and as a people we should feel ourselves called 
 upon above all other peoples to know the world. 
 
 As a nation we pass out of a local into a broader political 
 field. We become citizens of a world, but this world is 
 no mere habitation of individuals who are to be affiliated 
 with one another. It is a world of national wills. Inter- 
 nationalism is first of all a recognition of the legitimate de- 
 sires of nations. But such a recognition of the legitimate 
 desires of nations cannot be effected merely by spreading 
 abroad good will. A widespread education in the meaning 
 of history must first be made the foundation of interna- 
 tional justice in the minds of the people. Current history 
 and future events seen in the light of all history, of history 
 as the science and story of all human experience, become 
 our chief intellectual interest to-day. The war has taught 
 us how little the people in the world know about the world 
 as a whole. All history thus far has been local history. 
 Everywhere there tends to be the prejudice in some degree 
 that comes from the private need of using history for 
 political ends. Unless we can now put history, real his- 
 tory, at the head of our sciences, the war will have failed 
 of a great result, whatever in particular, in a political way, 
 it may have accomplished. 
 
 With such an understanding of what is to be meant by 
 history we say, if that seems an adequate way of ex- 
 pressing it, that the teaching of history becomes one of 
 the fundamental problems of the educational work of the 
 
172 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 day. It might be better to say that living in the historical 
 spirit is demanded as a way of salvation of the world. 
 However, adding geography and economics to history we 
 have a content that must somehow be taught in the schools. 
 History, as the most concrete science of the actual world in 
 which we live, now seems to have become a new center for 
 the curriculum. Hitherto we have tended to regard his- 
 tory too lightly, as the story of the world ; now there must 
 be a deeper view of it. We must have an understanding 
 of the motives and the desires of peoples; history must 
 not only be broader and more comprehensive but more 
 penetrating and psychological. It is the purposes of na- 
 tions, working themselves out in their history, that we 
 must understand. There must no longer be great un- 
 known places on the earth. Germany, Russia, Japan must 
 not continue to be mysteries. National psychology must 
 be made a part of historical interpretation. This new 
 history must be the means of showing us our world in a 
 more total view than we have thus far had of it, so that 
 we may better discern the continuity, if there be one, be- 
 hind the detached movements and multiplicity of facts pre- 
 sented by the world's story; for perhaps, in this way, we 
 should better understand what the future is to produce, 
 and what, more important still, it ought to be made to 
 produce. 
 
 The need first of all is for a continuation of the interest 
 inspired by the war — an interest showing itself in the 
 form of an universal interest in all history, and an inten- 
 sive investigation of history. We need now, indeed, the 
 most comprehensive study of the world that has ever been 
 conceived or dreamed of by man. This is the duty of the 
 historians. This new history must show us what nations 
 are at heart, what they desire, what they can do. Such 
 an understanding of nations is, we say, the real beginning 
 of internationalism. It is a necessary foundation for it, if 
 internationalism is to be anything more than a merely 
 
Internationalism and the School 173 
 
 practical, prudential or political arrangement among nations. 
 In the school-room eventually, and indeed beginning now, 
 there is demanded a readjustment of interest by which his- 
 tory takes a new and more central place. We must en- 
 deavor to give the new generation a world-idea. And upon 
 the nature and clearness of this world-idea much, in the 
 future, will depend. 
 
 Such a demand upon the school opens once more, of 
 course, all the old problems of the teaching of history. 
 All the dreary questions of the precise order in which his- 
 tory should be taught — whether backwards or forwards, 
 local first or the reverse, may be brought up if one chooses 
 to do so. But after all, these questions are not very fruit- 
 ful. What we need most is the historical spirit. We want 
 a dramatic presentation of the world's whole story, by which 
 the true meaning of history is conveyed. The methods of 
 art must be added to the methods of fact. A persuasive use 
 of the materials of history must be made. This means a 
 change finally, perhaps, not only in the methods of teach- 
 ing history, but in the whole mood and spirit of the school. 
 Methods are likely to adapt themselves to necessity. Cer- 
 tainly the slow methods of presenting facts, sometimes if 
 not generally employed, the tedious lingering upon details, 
 seems wholly out of place. We need a broader outlook in 
 history. Even the young child must have a more compre- 
 hensive world-idea, some sense of the whole of the great 
 world in which he lives. This is one of the instances, it 
 may be, in which we must set about breaking up any re- 
 capitulatory order, natural to the child, which suggests an 
 advance from the local to the more general and wider 
 knowledge. The universal interests of the day so strongly 
 affect the child, the social consciousness so dominates the 
 individual consciousness that even the natural law of de- 
 velopment must to some extent yield if necessary. This 
 social consciousness, the interests and purposes expressed 
 in the child's social environment, present the experience of 
 
174 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the adult world dramatically and intensively, exerting as 
 we might say, a creative power upon the mind. That in- 
 deed is precisely what the higher teaching, whether in the 
 form of art, or in the form of vivid experience, conveyed 
 though the practical life does everywhere in education. 
 
 We do not yet know what history, taught thus dramati- 
 cally and intimately, under the stimulus of the greatest 
 events of all time might do for the mind of the child or for 
 all the future of the world. We have never had the most 
 favorable conditions for the teaching of universal history. 
 We have been obliged to create interest. History has been 
 taught externally, from the standpoint of a far-away ob- 
 server. Now history may and must be taught more as it 
 is lived. The world has become more real to every one; 
 this sense of reality of a world of historical entities must 
 be made to persist. We must not go back to our unreal 
 and intellectualized history. The spirit of the nations must 
 be made to live again, so to speak, in the minds of the 
 coming generation. W'hat each nation stands for, its ethos, 
 its personality, must be made clear. Powers says that all 
 governments and all nations are sincere. It is the soul of 
 nations, then, their own realization of themselves that must 
 be made the real object of history. We must go back of 
 the individual and the event at least, to the desires that 
 have made history what it is ; we must see why events 
 have taken place, and while sacrificing nothing of our 
 own principles and standards, understand and feel what the 
 principles and the nature of these widely differing nations 
 really are. For the actual teaching of history, it is likely 
 that the story, carried to its highest point of art, will still 
 be the chief method. But pictorial art must be heavily 
 drawn upon, and all the resources of symbolic art, as we 
 pass from the lower to the higher stages in education, or, 
 we had perhaps better say, as we try more and more 
 to convey moods and the spirit of nations and epochs and 
 to appeal to the deep motives in the subconscious life of 
 
Internationalism and the School 175 
 
 the individual. Plainly there is much work to do in the 
 investigation and the teaching of history for every grade 
 and department of the educational system, from the gov- 
 ernment and the higher universities to the teacher of the 
 young child. It is an age of history, a day in which all 
 sciences have as one of their tasks to aid in the under- 
 standing of history. In the broader world and the universal 
 life which the idea and the reality of internationalism has 
 opened up to us, all must live in some way, if only in 
 imagination. History is a part of the necessary equipment 
 for that life. 
 
 //. The Reeducation of National Desires 
 
 The second factor in internationalism is also, on its 
 educational side, related to a knowledge of history. This 
 is the attitude which peoples must take toward their own 
 purposes and ambitions. We must begin to speak of the 
 education of national consciousness. This process of the 
 education of nations must be such as will teach peoples to 
 surrender certain visions most of them have in regard to 
 a future which cannot now be realized. The content of 
 the desires of nations must now be changed. The future 
 of many peoples will depend upon the extent to which they 
 can remain progressive and enthusiastic without the stimulus 
 of imperialistic ambitions. 
 
 Considering our own situation in America, it seems plain 
 that we have confronting us a serious educational prob- 
 lem, that of imparting to the rising generation and of 
 acquiring for ourselves, a better understanding of the mean- 
 ing and place of our country in the world, and a more ear- 
 nest interest in its functions and its welfare. This re- 
 quires something more than a teaching of American history. 
 It is time for us to take stock of all our material and all our 
 spiritual possessions. We need perhaps to discover what 
 our ideals really are and what the ideas and the forces are 
 
176 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 that have made our history what rt has been ; and what in 
 the future we are likely to do and to be, and ought to 
 do and be. We must question deeply at this time our own 
 soul; we must look to our institutions, our literature and 
 our art for an understanding of ourselves. 
 
 This more profound knowledge of ourselves must be 
 made the basis of our especial educational philosophy. 
 Here is the most urgent of all our educational problems. 
 Education is, or should be, a process by which national 
 character is constantly being molded. In the school the 
 nation must learn much that cannot be read in books. It 
 must learn to believe things that cannot be proved, or per- 
 haps even definitely formulated as truth. The soul of 
 the nation must be subjected, in a word, to some kind of 
 spiritual leadership. Constructive statesmanship must be 
 felt as an influence in the school. The problem is really 
 nothing less than that of educating and forming national 
 character. Now that we stand less alone as a nation our 
 character cannot safely be left so much to chance and to 
 the effects of our favorable environment and our original 
 stock of virtues. We cannot continue to be so naive and so 
 unconscious of our country as we have been. What we are 
 and what we must do as a people, we say, ought to be better 
 understood. We should bring these ideals of ours out of the 
 mists of partisan thinking and give them more definite 
 shape, and at the same time translate them into the lan- 
 guage of sincere living. National honor ought to be made 
 a clearer idea. We ought at least to be sure it contains the 
 idea of honesty. Such prejudices as our history has en- 
 couraged in us must be recognized, and computed in our 
 personal equation. These prejudices we certainly harbor 
 — in regard to our own particular type of government, our 
 culture and education, our freedom and our democracy 
 and our security. Every nation appears to have its own 
 idols, its concealments and its self-deceptions, its belief in 
 its own supremacy and divine mission, and its innocent 
 
Internationalism and the School 177 
 
 faith in its own mores. To overcome such narrowness 
 and perversion without introducing worse faults is a diffi- 
 cult problem of education. In either direction there appear 
 to be real dangers. A nation steeped in provincial ways, 
 plunged as we are now into the midst of world politics, has 
 difficulties lying before it compared to which contributing 
 a decisive military power is small. There are dangers in 
 standing aloof from other peoples. But if we surrender 
 too readily our prejudices and homespun ways, and too 
 rapidly absorb influences from without, we shall be no 
 safer, for carried too far, that would mean to lose our mis- 
 sion and our vision. There appears to be, moreover, no 
 safe and easy middle course which we can follow. Our 
 only course seems to be clearly to understand ourselves, 
 rise above our limitations and difficulties, turn our faults 
 into virtues, and make ourselves secure by our own inner 
 worth and power. 
 
 Plainly there are difficult problems ahead of the teachers 
 of American history. They must not inculcate suspicion 
 and fear, but they must not present our security in a false 
 light. They must not inspire the war-like spirit and im- 
 perialistic ambitions, but they must do nothing to lessen 
 our seriousness of purpose and enthusiasm for the future. 
 They must not teach national vanity, but they must not on 
 the other hand encourage a spirit which is in any way 
 over-critical and cynical or supercilious. There must be 
 political wisdom on the part of the people but not a sophis- 
 ticated state of mind. These teachers must inspire a whole- 
 some pride, without creating an inflamed sense of honor 
 such as has caused so many wars. They must make clear 
 the virtue and the individuality of our own national life, 
 but in doing this they must not disparage the foreign and 
 give rise to prejudice and antagonism. How to establish 
 us still more firmly in our own essential traits and philoso- 
 phy of life without making us conceited and closed to 
 good influences from without; how to give us a strong 
 
178 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 sense of solidarity without the attendant sense of opposition 
 to everything outside the group is a part of our educational 
 work which, in a broad sense, falls to the teacher of his- 
 tory. 
 
 The central problem of the education of national con- 
 sciousness, in our view, is to make desires more conscious 
 and to subject them to discipline and the influence of the 
 best ideals of American life. MacCurdy says that by 
 making instincts conscious we take a great step in advance. 
 That we should say is true, if we make them conscious in 
 the right way, and do not try to substitute rational prin- 
 ciples for them. But we need to go further; we must not 
 only understand and control the impulses of aggression, jeal- 
 ousy, fear and the like that have played such a sinister part 
 in history, but we must know more about those complex 
 and subtile things we call moods, which are really the main 
 forces in modern life. These moods are accumulations 
 and repositories of interests and desires, and they must be 
 appreciated by all who as educators, undertake to direct 
 the forces in our national life. These desires must be made 
 more definitely conscious everywhere, and be subjected to 
 influence and education. It is not simply institutions, or- 
 ganizations and factions that must be watched and con- 
 trolled, just because these are the more obvious and most 
 easily affected expressions of tendencies and desires, but 
 all the subtile feelings or moods which are the raw ma- 
 terials, so to speak, of future conduct, ideals, and institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Here comes to view, of course, our whole problem of 
 assimilation of heterogeneous elements. Favored by our 
 geographical position, and by the fortunate success and 
 the great suggestive power of the ideal of liberty with which 
 our history began, America has had, as we all realize, thus 
 far an unusual career. We have been able to assimilate for- 
 eign elements with great rapidity. We may not be so for- 
 tunate in the future. Distances which have severed our new 
 
Internationalism and the School 179 
 
 peoples from their old ties have become strangely shortened 
 by the war. Our problems of adjustment have become 
 more subtile and complex. The necessity of succeeding 
 in unifying our population is more urgent. Therefore our 
 future development, as a nation, becomes to a greater ex- 
 tent a process of conscious direction; what we have done 
 naively and by sheer force of our powers of growth, we 
 must do now, it is likely, more deliberately and efficiently. 
 
 We have before us in America the highly important and 
 by no means easy task of harmonizing, under new condi- 
 tions, all sorts of forces and desires by directing them in 
 ways and toward ends which cannot now be wholly deter- 
 mined. There is both a psychological and a pedagogical 
 aspect of the situation. Psychology must perform for 
 American life something very much like a psycho-analysis; 
 we should expect to see as a result of the war a greatly 
 increased interest, on the part of the American people, in 
 themselves ; self-understanding and self-interpretation, we 
 should suppose, would be advanced; all the sciences of 
 human nature we should think would be called upon to 
 help us to make a new American history and to formulate 
 the purposes of our national life. 
 
 On the pedagogical side we might expect reasonably to 
 see a deepened sincerity on the part of all who in any way 
 stand in the position of teachers. We are dependent upon 
 leaders in a democratic country, and all leaders in what- 
 ever place in society would now, one might hope, feel a 
 heightened sense of duty, both to understand and to in- 
 fluence American life, to represent in their own persons and 
 teachings the highest ideals, and indeed to become truly 
 creative forces in society. Boutroux says that Germany 
 is a product of an external phenomenon — education. 
 America, we should say, must become more and more a 
 product of an internal phenomenon — education. That is, 
 the forces that will continue to shape our country must 
 be in the form of leadership growing out of the best im- 
 
180 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 pulses and the true meaning of our civilization. No forces 
 will make of us something we are not by nature ; our 
 strength must continue to come from within, but it is the 
 aristocratic spirit, the aristocracy of genius in the fields 
 of intellect, morality and art that must of course have the 
 fullest opportunity to influence all our institutions, even the 
 school room. 
 
 So to organize our educational system that it shall be 
 thrown wide open to all new and good influences ; so to 
 conduct the school that it shall be immediately responsive 
 to these influences, is one of the most urgent needs of the 
 internal life of the nation. This, rather than the introduc- 
 tion of any new content into the school is now our chief 
 need. Some of these influences must be personal, belong- 
 ing to the present. Some belong to the past. We must 
 make American history, poetry, oratory, science, art and 
 philosophy serve more completely than they do now the 
 ideals and the right ambitions of the nation. This is the 
 way we must both bring the past to fuller realization and 
 also create new life which shall make amends for the de- 
 ficiencies of the past. 
 
 77/. Practical Interests 
 
 The foundation of internationalism, in our view, is the 
 recognition of the legitimate desires and needs of peoples. 
 The desires of peoples when educated should become in- 
 terests in the performance of all normal functions of na- 
 tional life. The functions are practical ; they take the 
 form of many commonplace and daily activities. The 
 recognition of the legitimacy of the desires of nations im- 
 plies, or at least naturally leads to, cooperation in their ac- 
 complishment. It is very probable, therefore, and it ap- 
 pears to be required in any internationalism that is more 
 than a name, that there shall be in the future wide co- 
 operation in the performance of various activities by in- 
 
Internationalism and the School 181 
 
 ternational organizations and agreements. If this is to be 
 the order of the future, new educational efforts will be 
 demanded, and there must be different methods and different 
 points of view in several phases of our educational system, 
 for now all education is devised with reference to an 
 autonomous state of the nation. 
 
 If practical cooperation becomes a part of our plan of 
 international organization in the future, we shall see many 
 problems in applied economics and industry taken up for 
 far more serious consideration than has been possible 
 hitherto. Some of these problems, attacked even on a na- 
 tional scale, have seemed hopeless, but when viewed in their 
 international aspects and with a prospect of international 
 interest and effort they seem very different. There are. 
 many such problems toward the solution of which educa- 
 tion must contribute a large part. We might mention the 
 food problem of the world as typical, and point to the 
 present world-wide interest and cooperation as an indica- 
 tion of what may come in the future in regard to all the 
 problems of production and distribution of necessities, if 
 we really mean anything by our internationalism. Ap- 
 parently we hold within our hands the means of alleviating 
 most, if not all, the destitution of the world. Organiza- 
 tion and education in efficiency are the necessary and the 
 sufficient weapons. 
 
 So we may conclude that an efficient method of educat- 
 ing peoples in the work of food production, and in the 
 habit of conserving necessities would make a wide change 
 in the economic condition of the world. Organization 
 which shall include in some way the service of all chil- 
 dren, will add still more to efficiency, and will contribute 
 an educational factor of great importance. In such ways 
 we may to an unlimited extent increase the available en- 
 ergies of the world, and make possible, if we will, the 
 further increase and expansion of the human race. Such 
 a possibility and such an ideal give a totally new meaning 
 
1 82 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 to much of the fundamental work of education. All our 
 departments and accessories of the educational system that 
 have anything to do with the elemental occupations acquire 
 a new interest and importance from this point of view. 
 
 The whole field of industry offers now, indeed, a broader 
 educational opportunity. Children's hands are ready to 
 do many things that will increase the happiness and the 
 powers of the children themselves and at the same time 
 add to the world's prosperity. Children must, of course, 
 not be exploited in tasks that belong to the adult, but there 
 is a proper place for practical organization of children 
 in the world's work, and a potential helpfulness in children 
 in the larger affairs of society that has not yet been drawn 
 upon, although surely we have seen, during the years of the 
 war, what children might accomplish. It is above all in its 
 relations to universal social feeling that such practical edu- 
 cation and use of childhood are most significant. Out of 
 the practical activities, moral results could hardly fail to 
 come. It is not too much to expect that the children of 
 the world may sometime be so organized that the power 
 of childish enthusiasm, raised to we know not what de- 
 gree by the suggestive force of such world-wide relations 
 as are now possible, may quickly be turned to the accom- 
 plishment of great tasks, — doing its part in the service, the 
 conservation, the self denial, that any serious interest in 
 internationalism will in the future with but little doubt 
 make necessary. 
 
 Education that shall take into account the principles of 
 efficiency and economy as applied to universal problems 
 will be a great advance upon any teaching hitherto done 
 in the interest of internationalism. It is through practical 
 activity and interest, suggesting and requiring restraint and 
 cooperation, arousing imagination and the dramatic im- 
 pulses, that fruitful and permanent social affiliations of na- 
 tions with one another will be likely to be made. We may 
 safely assume, in fact, that firm affiliations can be made only 
 
Internationalism and the School 183 
 
 in some such way. Internationalism, from this point of 
 view, is at bottom not a political problem, but an educa- 
 tional problem. The world will be united only through the 
 mediation of its daily practical needs. The motives for 
 such union are themselves commonplace. Moral inten- 
 tions are represented also, and world crises make the con- 
 ditions ripe for such coordination of interests, but they do 
 not alone produce the definite organization without which 
 the world will continue to be, as Dickinson calls Europe, 
 a society in the state of anarchy. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 INTERNATIONALISM AND THE SCHOOL (continued) 
 
 IV. The Higher Industry 
 
 It is in the higher forms of practical cooperative activity 
 and in the intellectual processes, the interests and social 
 feelings accompanying them that we should expect to see 
 elaborated and made more ideal the internationalism that 
 has first been put to work in the service of the world at a 
 lower level. There is work to do that appeals to profound 
 motives and feelings. The great engineering projects that 
 await us, the work of exploring, colonizing and the like in 
 which universal interest and cooperation are necessary fas- 
 cinate the mind. These things satisfy the dramatic instinct, 
 and they may prove to be in the future an actual substitute 
 for war, as James hoped. The educational opportunities 
 of this theme, at least, are great. Any nation that expects 
 to play a great part in the world's politics must expect to 
 do much in the world's service. These nations must be 
 prepared in every possible way to contribute greatly to the 
 material improvement of the earth. To this end technical 
 education, all along the line, must be kept at a high point 
 of efficiency. Inventive thought in all mechanical fields 
 will certainly be a large factor in the culture values of 
 peoples in the future. When we see what four years of 
 war have accomplished in the way of giving us control 
 over material forces, we may realize what, with the contin- 
 uation of a powerful incentive, might be done in the arts 
 of peace. These great practical needs have also, as we 
 say, their power of appeal to all the profound motives of 
 
Internationalism and the School 185 
 
 the social life. We must make use of this appeal. All 
 the power of the strong story of the day's work must be 
 turned upon this educational problem. All industry, in- 
 deed, must be made more dramatic, as it can be under the 
 inspiration of the larger industrial life which the idea of in- 
 ternationalism opens up before us. Industry must be made 
 more satisfying to the fundamental motives of the individ- 
 ual, while at the same time it is made more efficient, and 
 more social. The new generation must be filled with the 
 romance of the world's work. Only by presenting to young 
 and plastic minds the ideal features of work shall we be 
 able to harmonize the individual and the social will. Only 
 so, perhaps, in an industrial age shall we be able to escape 
 from being destroyed by industrialism. Anything that will 
 introduce art and imagination into work, anything that 
 will even brighten a little the dull moods of toil will help 
 both to prepare the way for the wider world relations we 
 talk about, and to prevent the most destructive elements 
 and moods of industrialism gaining the upper hand. 
 
 V. The Democratic Spirit 
 
 We must eventually think of internationalism on its 
 educational side as most fundamentally a question of de- 
 veloping in the world the international spirit. We might 
 quite naturally think of this as the education of social feel- 
 ing or of the social instinct. This is, however, not the most 
 productive attitude toward the situation, in our view, sim- 
 ply because when we think of the education of the feelings 
 we are likely to be satisfied with the principles of an old 
 static philosophy of life and of the school. Moral and 
 social feelings, we believe, grow best in a practical medium. 
 We cannot expand social feeling at will, or produce a 
 democratic spirit -by some simple process of education. 
 When we try to extend social feeling too far we make the 
 moral life insincere. To try to expand social feeling and 
 
1 86 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 moral interest so as to make it include the foreign, to try- 
 to love our enemies in advance of all aesthetic and practical 
 relations with the foreign seems futile. Distance must first 
 be eliminated by imagination. Social and moral codes 
 must be founded upon intimate relations. External and 
 distant relations among peoples make for diplomatic forms 
 and a hypocritical morality. These are substitutes for so- 
 cial feeling. These purely social relations of nations (like 
 those of individuals) always hide enmity and jealousy. We 
 cannot expect, therefore, to create a moral spirit in the 
 relations of peoples to one another by teaching alone. We 
 cannot hope to change individualism to altruism merely by 
 exciting feeling. Our main effort must be directed toward 
 establishing ethical relations, rather than to stimulating 
 moral sentiments. 
 
 It seems useless to preach universal brotherhood either 
 to the child who lacks entirely the content of experience 
 to make such sentiments real, or to the working masses 
 who now lack enthusiasm in all the social relations. At 
 least to depend upon such teaching to create international 
 spirit is futile. Love for mankind is too ideal and too 
 remote, as yet, to arouse deep and sincere impulses and 
 feelings. All teaching, therefore, whether in the school 
 or elsewhere that is directed exclusively or especially to 
 the moral aspects of peace, altruistic behavior and in- 
 ternationalism, seems to-day, to say the least, peculiarly 
 inadequate. Our spirit in education must be broadly 
 humanistic, and must indeed lay deep foundations for all 
 moral and social relations, but in so far as it ends in being 
 cultural and hortatory it can have no deep and lasting 
 effect. 
 
 The teaching of international morality and universal in- 
 terests, and the development of a world-consciousness de- 
 pend fundamentally, we may suppose, upon experiences 
 which are perhaps not specifically moral in form at all. 
 It is rather even by the aesthetic experience than the moral 
 
Internationalism and the School 187 
 
 that the social consciousness will best be expanded and made 
 to encircle the world. If we can make the world seem 
 vividly real to the child we shall have the intellectual 
 content for the making of moral feelings. The unmoral 
 nature of international relations and of the feelings of 
 peoples for one another are due in great part precisely to 
 the lack of power of imagination and of that concrete 
 knowledge and experience which would make the foreign 
 seem real. That which is remote from us and different in 
 appearance seems shadowy and ghost-like. The internal 
 meaning of that which is thus far away in space cannot 
 be perceived. Everything that is foreign tends to belong 
 in our categories merely to the world of objects. Moral 
 feeling towards objects is manifestly impossible. Interna- 
 tional law fails to have moral force because nations are 
 in general aware of one another only in these external 
 ways. The world of foreign objects must be changed to 
 a world of persons having history and internal meaning. 
 When we can interpret and understand international law 
 in terms of relations within human experience and as 
 affecting individuals, it will begin perhaps to seem real and 
 hence morally obligatory. 
 
 There is another aspect of the work of creating and 
 directing the wider social consciousness and giving it ethical 
 purpose and form, which is still more fundamental, and 
 at the same time, to casual thought, perhaps still more 
 remote from definite moral improvement in the world and 
 from all the immediately practical problems of interna- 
 tionalism. It is the mood of our social life which we call 
 the democratic spirit, and which, made universal, is the 
 substratum of internationalism that most of all needs to 
 be controlled and educated. At the same time this demo- 
 cratic spirit is least of all susceptible to definite and rou- 
 tine discipline, of all the factors of internationalism. This 
 democratic spirit contains possibilities of the greatest good 
 and of the greatest evil. Out of it may grow interna- 
 
1 88 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 tional order, or international anarchy and internal dis- 
 ruption. How to keep this democratic spirit progressive 
 and constructive in its temper, broad in sympathy and 
 full of enthusiasm, how to free it from infection by all 
 the poisons that are prone to attack the popular conscious- 
 ness is one of our great problems of education. 
 
 This democratic spirit is the real power behind inter- 
 nationalism. It is as the mood of the city, the whole spirit 
 of the modern urban life, that it is most significant. The 
 mood of the city contains on one side the possibility of 
 an internationalism which is nothing more than a sur- 
 render of all patriotism, and is at heart only a mass in- 
 terest in rights and needs. On the other hand all the 
 interests and impulses that make internationalism necessary 
 and possible seem to have their origin in the city. The 
 city represents, with all its evil, the higher life and the line 
 of progress. Progress passes through the city. The city 
 is the symbol of creativeness and achievement. Industrial- 
 ism, the essential spirit of the city, is the condition, normal 
 and necessary we must conclude, out of which the necessity 
 of international order arises. It is a phase of the process 
 by which nations become dependent upon one another by 
 being specialized and becoming densely populated. It is 
 also a factor in the cause of wars without and revolutions 
 within. 
 
 The mood of the city is thus in a sense the essence of 
 life, but it is also the source of disease and death in the 
 national life. It is the price that is paid for civilization 
 that the city tends to become the hardened artery of na- 
 tional life. The control of the city moods by educational 
 forces we may believe is one of the most fundamental of all 
 the problems of conscious evolution. It is the control at 
 the fountain-head of the forces out of which international- 
 ism is to be made that we undertake when we try to educate 
 the life of the city, with reference to its good and its evil. 
 The too rapid urbanizing of the life of nations, the produc- 
 
Internationalism and the School 189 
 
 tion, in the cities, of powers too great and too rapidly 
 growing to be controlled by the civilizing forces in a coun- 
 try is the great danger in modern life. So great indeed 
 are the dangers in the accelerated growth of industrialism 
 in all the great countries and the increased specialization 
 in the industrial life, that something radical must be done, 
 in our view, to counterbalance this movement, and espe- 
 cially to control and to raise to higher levels the psychic 
 factors of city life. 
 
 Our educational work is serious. We are trying to save 
 democracy from itself — from being destroyed by forces 
 which accumulate in the cities. We must keep life from 
 becoming sophisticated before its time. We must pre- 
 vent enthusiasm from degenerating into mob spirit, and 
 from becoming attached to wholly material interests. 
 There mast be found, in some way, means of causing 
 counter-currents to set in against the tide that flows so 
 strongly from country to city. Germany's fate should 
 teach us the dangers of this city life, and show us how 
 the forces that gather in the great cities can be turned in 
 the direction either of fanatical nationalism or toward the 
 lowest of all forms of internationalism, in which all form 
 of government is thrown down. It must teach us also 
 how to catch the note of new " dominants " that are con- 
 cealed in the roar of city life, and to make these prevail. 
 The control of the formation of the city moods, and the 
 direction and utilization of the great energies contained 
 in them, now require, if ever anything were demanded of 
 conscious creative effort, more poiver on the part of all our 
 educational factors. The school appears now to be at the 
 parting of the ways, we say, when it must either settle down 
 to its routine and limited occupation of preparing children 
 for life, or become a far greater power in the world than 
 it has as yet been. We must decide whether the school is 
 to control, or to be controlled by, the political and indus- 
 trial forces of the day. We must see whether the school 
 
190 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 is going to reflect the culture and the moods of the environ- 
 ment, or whether the school shall exert a creative influence 
 upon its surroundings. 
 
 It is plain that nothing less than a radical change in 
 the school can now greatly alter its position, and release 
 it from its bondage to politics and from the overwhelming 
 influences of its environment, and prevent the leveling 
 downward and the stereotyping process that is taking place 
 in the school, both as regards its intellectual and moral 
 product and the training and selection of teachers. Nothing 
 less than a movement which shall break up some of the 
 deepest and most firmly rooted habits and conventions of 
 the school and throw the school back, so to speak, upon 
 more generic and primitive motives than those that now 
 control it will be sufficient. The school needs more than 
 anything else a change of scene — a change of venue, if a 
 legal term be allowed. The school everywhere, but espe- 
 cially the school of the city, is surrounded by influences 
 that prejudice it to fixed habits of thought and keep it true 
 to a type which has long since ceased to be necessary. The 
 school is causing an in-breeding of the city spirit in all the 
 great industrial countries. 
 
 No single change in any institution, in our view, could 
 strike closer to the roots of our whole educational prob- 
 lem of the future than the bodily transfer of the city school 
 far out into the open country. Such a move seems wholly 
 practicable, economic from every point of view, even the 
 financial, and it would place the school in a position in 
 which profound changes in its whole plan and organiza- 
 tion could hardly fail to follow almost automatically. With 
 our present facilities for transportation, the daily exodus 
 of children from the surroundings in which are being pro- 
 duced the elements of our civilization that are hardest to 
 control would be entirely possible. The effects upon the 
 whole of education, and upon all the future life of coun- 
 tries like our own could hardly fail to be profound. The 
 
Internationalism and the School 191 
 
 fundamental moods of childhood would be changed, and 
 everything contained in child life would be more amenable 
 to control. Schools would become more variable and more 
 experimental, and new selective influences would be exerted 
 upon teachers presumably in the direction of raising the 
 social and intellectual average of the profession. A much 
 larger field would be opened up for all those methods of 
 work in education that may be designated as aesthetic — 
 that is, that contain qualities of freedom, activity and crea- 
 tiveness. 
 
 VI. Idea of World Organization 
 
 Some form of organization of nations having definite 
 representation, constitution, and laws, and with a certain 
 degree of centralization and embodiment in visible institu- 
 tions and locations will exist, we may suppose, for all future 
 time in the world. The existence, even in idea, of such 
 organization presents to us inevitable educational prob- 
 lems. Instruction in a general way and universally in 
 world politics, familiarizing all with the meaning of these 
 laws and political bodies, is but a part, although a necessary 
 part, of the work. Our democratic principle demands that 
 more and more interest and participation in all forms of 
 government be acquired by the people, that peoples and not 
 merely governments shall be the units which are brought 
 together, that there be more organizations of the people 
 performing group functions. If the loyalty of nations to 
 one another is to be secured, as seems necessary, by estab- 
 lishing practical relations among them, the education of the 
 coming generations in these relations and organizations and 
 in all practical affairs seems unavoidable. The people must 
 have a proper appreciation of common interests as implying 
 common work, and not be encouraged to believe that rights 
 of representation are their chief concern. All must know 
 the power of organization. All must see that the interna- 
 tional structures of our own day, however complete in 
 
192 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 form, are but a beginning and basis of function, and that 
 there must be put behind these forms all the energies of the 
 people, young and old, made effective through organiza- 
 tion for practical efforts. 
 
 It is through participation in activities that are inter- 
 national in scope that, in our opinion, the best education 
 in the idea of internationalism will be obtained. This is 
 the way to the good will without which political ideas will 
 be likely to remain nationalistic in fact whatever political 
 coordinations may exist among nations. It is as a prac- 
 tical idea that internationalism needs now to be impressed 
 upon the minds of all. An international organization must 
 be looked upon as something useful, which will remain 
 only if it performs functions in which all are interested and 
 in which all can in some way take part. It is a sense of 
 living in the zvorld rather than of belonging exclusively to 
 one locality that must be taught. It is the idea of a world 
 of nations in organic unity rather than a world of nations 
 attached to one another by political bonds that we need 
 to convey. 
 
 It is active participation in the business of a world that 
 must be regarded as the necessary basis for education 
 in the idea of internationalism. World government must 
 be conceived in terms of world functions. But we must 
 also provide for the most dramatic possible representation 
 of everything contained in the idea of internationalism 
 and represented in its laws and forms. The most vivid 
 possible presentation must be made of everything that is 
 done internationally, if we wish to keep alive the spirit 
 which now prevails in the world. We must lose no op- 
 portunity to make current history impressive ; we must bring 
 out all its dramatic features in order to fixate once for all 
 the idea of the organic unity of the race, and its necessary 
 coordination in tangible forms. International law must be 
 made intelligible to very young minds, and now that we are 
 to have an international seat of congresses and courts the ut- 
 
Internationalism and the School 193 
 
 most must be made of its existence to give reality to the idea 
 of internationalism. 
 
 Those who plan for the future of the international idea 
 will do well to take into account these pedagogical aspects 
 of it. It is quite as important to make the international 
 idea pedagogically persuasive as to make it politically sound. 
 Such an idea must have a place and an embodiment if it is 
 to seize hold upon the popular mind. An international 
 city seems indispensable, and the further the thought of it 
 can be removed from that of existing countries the more 
 readily will it aid the young mind in making the abstractions 
 necessary to conceive the true interests of all nations or 
 all humanity as distinct from the interests of one nation. 
 In this we are making beginnings to be realized perhaps in 
 a far distant future. We want no unnatural and senti- 
 mental internationalism, but there is every reason now for 
 wishing to plant the seed of a higher and more organic life 
 than at the present time exists in the world. 
 
 The question of the possibility of an universal language 
 arises again. The invention of a new language, if we may 
 judge at all by the past, is not practicable. But the exten- 
 sion universally of some living language seems possible. 
 This seems to be demanded in the interest of the interna- 
 tional idea. It is desirable and quite possible to make all 
 civilized peoples bilingual, for of course we should not 
 expect anywhere to see a foreign language supplant the 
 native tongue. It is not alone to facilitate intercourse 
 and give a sense of solidarity that the possession of an uni- 
 versal language is to be desired. We think quite as much 
 of the impetus thus given to the production of an universal 
 literature, in which there will be expressed not only ideas 
 about the world, but moods which will not be found ex- 
 pressed in national literatures at all. This literature might 
 be the beginning of a solidarity in the world which is not 
 now definitely conceivable. Such an extension of language, 
 however, we should hardly expect to take place except in 
 
194 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the course of development of practical relations which first 
 stimulate the desire for such common language. 
 
 VII. The Philosophical Attitude 
 
 There is an element in the idea and mood of interna- 
 tionalism which we can call nothing else but philosophic. 
 The ideality and universality of internationalism itself are 
 expressions of the philosophic spirit. Internationalism, we 
 might say, is a philosophic idea, although this might mean 
 to some that we place it among the unrealizable and 
 Utopian plans. But this is not the case. The philosophic 
 spirit is, in our view, the most practical of moods, since 
 it is the creative, liberal, and progressive attitude and the 
 source of the most profoundly right judgments even in 
 practical affairs. The philosophic spirit is a background, 
 we may say, for all the more specific moods, thoughts and 
 activities that enter into the idea of internationalism. 
 
 And yet, real and important as the philosophic spirit is, 
 we cannot readily discuss it as a definite aspect of educa- 
 tion. The reason is that it involves the educational founda- 
 tions themselves. The spirit, the method and the content 
 of the school are all involved in it. We can, however, 
 find some concrete manifestations of this philosophic at- 
 titude. In the first place we might say that it is a religious 
 mood in education. It is demanded of any school that 
 hopes to play a large part in the affairs of the world that, 
 in a broad sense, its whole spirit be religious. The school 
 must be deeply touched by the sense of a spiritual world. 
 The history of the world must be felt to be real — that is, 
 as an unfoldment of purpose in the world. The values 
 and the meaning of everything are to be appreciated and 
 understood, according to this view, through a process of 
 enrichment of the mind under the influence of the highest 
 social ideals expressed in the most persuasive forms. Edu- 
 cation thus centers in the work of developing the power to 
 
Internationalism and the School 195 
 
 appreciate values in all experience. Anything, too, that 
 sustains optimistic moods helps to create the philosophical 
 spirit, and one function of this philosophic spirit is to 
 forestall the cynical moods and the narrow and prejudiced 
 ways of thinking which are among the most dangerous 
 tendencies of the times. The tendency to form judgments 
 upon insufficient evidence and to act according to narrow 
 and one-sided principles is incompatible with the philosophic 
 attitude. 
 
 It is of course by no means the actual teaching of philoso- 
 phy to every one, or the spreading broadcast of any par- 
 ticular philosophical principle that one would advocate 
 as a preventive culture or to cure existing evils. It is rather 
 a mode of living and of thinking throughout society and 
 in all the educational process that is wanted. What we 
 need is a better quality of mental product, more capacity 
 to penetrate into the heart and substance of experience, 
 greater responsiveness to good influences, greater ability to 
 judge values, and a more plastic and more freely flowing 
 mental life. These are of course large demands and imply 
 faith and an interest in a remote future. But a school which 
 is religious through and through in its attitude toward life 
 and is deeply touched by the influence of art in all its ways of 
 dealing with the child will go a long way tozvard fulfilling 
 the requirements of an education in the spirit of philosophy. 
 
 Such conclusions as these might at least serve, we should 
 suppose, as a working hypothesis, upon the basis of which 
 we may consider in detail a variety of questions of the day. 
 New problems have arisen before the eyes of the teacher, 
 and indeed obtrude themselves upon all who must take 
 part in the practical life of others. Some of these problems 
 are due to changed external relations of countries to one 
 another. Some are problems of internal adjustment and re- 
 construction. At least they may so be classified for pur- 
 poses of discussion. In reality all changes are too closely 
 bound up with one another to allow us to treat them 
 
196 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 practically as independent. No nation any longer stands 
 alone. Internationalism is an idea that penetrates all other 
 practical ideas. And no internal problems of any nation 
 can be wholly local. The world is in a peculiar but also 
 an inspiring way at the present time a single field of labor 
 for the educational thinker and indeed the teacher in every 
 field of human life. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PEACE AND MILITARISM 
 
 Among the many pedagogical questions raised and given 
 new significance by the war, is that of the teaching about 
 war and about peace. This is a question of ideals, and of 
 values and the teaching of history. There are practical and 
 superficial questions to be considered. There are also more 
 profound problems, since all our teaching of good and 
 evil is implicated. Shall we continue, in one moment, to 
 assume that war is the greatest glory in the world, and in 
 the next to condemn it as the greatest of evils? Shall we 
 as teachers take the standpoint of pacifism? Or shall we 
 be still apostles of the heroic order? This is really no sim- 
 ple matter, and it is not one to be laid aside, directly it 
 begins to disturb us, as unimportant. No one passing 
 through the experiences of the past four years can have 
 wholly escaped this dilemma, or can have kept himself en- 
 tirely aloof from the doubts and perplexities that must al- 
 ways be attached to religious and philosophical problems of 
 good and evil. These doubts and hesitations are necessarily 
 increased when we try to become consistent teachers and 
 wise counselors of the young. 
 
 It would be of psychological interest at least to collect 
 all the arguments and opinions that have been put forth 
 about the good and evil of war. There is a tendency for 
 moralists to go to extremes. The writers on war are 
 likely to be either ardent pacifists or strong militarists. 
 They do not try to strike a balance between good and evil, 
 but war is either a great blessing upon mankind or the great- 
 est curse of the ages. In general they do not seek to base 
 
 197 
 
198 
 
 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 their conclusions upon ultimate philosophical principles, but 
 rather upon moral or biological principles, or, again, upon 
 preferences for the activities of war or the arts of peace. 
 How very different the good and evil of war and peace may 
 seem from different points of view is well shown by the 
 following excerpt from a daily newspaper: 
 
 A DEADLY PARALLEL 
 
 This Is the Way Germany 
 
 Talks to Young Boys 
 
 of Scout Age 
 
 " War is the noblest and holiest 
 expression of human activity. For 
 us, too, the glad great hour of bat- 
 tle will strike. Still and deep in 
 the German heart must live the 
 joy of battle and the longing for 
 it. Let us ridicule to the utmost 
 the old women in breeches who 
 fear war and deplore it as cruel 
 and revolting. No; war is beau- 
 tiful. Its august sublimity ele- 
 vates the human heart beyond the 
 earthly and the common. In the 
 cloud palace above sit the heroes, 
 Frederick the Great and Blucher 
 and all the men of action — the 
 Great Emperor, Moltke, Roon, 
 Bismarck are there as well, but 
 not the old women who would 
 take away our joy in war. When 
 here on earth a battle is won by 
 German arms and the faithful 
 dead ascend to Heaven, a Pots- 
 dam lance corporal will call the 
 guard to the door and 'Old Fritz' 
 (Frederick the Great), springing 
 from his golden throne, will give 
 the command to present arms. 
 That is the Heaven of Young 
 Germany. 
 
 " Because only in war all the 
 virtues which militarism regards 
 hiehly are given a chance to un- 
 fold, because only in war the truly 
 
 This Is What the Scout 
 
 Organization Teaches 
 
 American Boys 
 
 From the " Handbook for Boys," 1 7th 
 edition, page 454. 
 
 " The movement is one for ef- 
 ficiency and patriotism. It does 
 not try to make soldiers of boy 
 scouts, but to make boys who will 
 turn out as men to be fine citizens, 
 and who will if their country 
 needs them make better soldiers 
 for having been scouts. No one 
 can be a good American unless he 
 is a good citizen, and every boy 
 ought to train himself so that as 
 a man he will be able to do his 
 full duty to the community. I 
 want to see the boy scouts not 
 merely utter fine sentiments, but 
 act on them, not merely sing ' My 
 Country, 'Tis of Thee,' but act in 
 a way that will give them a coun- 
 try to be proud of. No man is a 
 good citizen unless he so acts as 
 to show that he actually uses the 
 Ten Commandments, and trans- 
 lates the Golden Rule into his life 
 conduct — and I don't mean by 
 this exceptional cases under spec- 
 tacular circumstances, but I mean 
 applying the Ten Commandments 
 and the Golden Rule in the ordi- 
 nary affairs of everyday life. I 
 hope the boy scouts will practice 
 truth and square dealing and 
 courage and honesty, so that when 
 
Peace and Militarism 199 
 
 heroic comes into play, for the as young men they begin taking a 
 realization of which on earth mili- part not only in earning their own 
 tarism is above all concerned; livelihood, but in governing the 
 therefore, it seems to us who are community, they may be able to 
 filled with the spirit of militarism show in practical fashion their in- 
 that war is a holy thing, the holi- sistence upon the great truth that 
 est on earth, and this high esti- the eighth and ninth command- 
 mate of war in its turn makes an ments are directly related to 
 essential ingredient of the military everyday life, not only between 
 spirit. There is nothing that men as such in their private rela- 
 trades-people complain of so tions, but between men and the 
 much as that we regard it as government of which they are a 
 holy." part. Indeed, the boys, even while 
 
 only boys, can have a very real 
 effect upon the conduct of the 
 grown-up members of the com- 
 munity, for decency and square 
 dealing are just as contagious as 
 vice and corruption." 
 
 The praise of war takes many forms, and invokes many- 
 fundamental principles — ethical, aesthetic, biological, socio- 
 logical. From Leibnitz' saying that perpetual peace is a 
 motto fit only for a graveyard to Moltke's that peace is 
 only a dream and not even a beautiful dream, there is a long 
 list of defenses of war. This philosophy of war is by no 
 means peculiarly German, although German writers seem to 
 have been the most ardent apologists of war in recent times. 
 Treitschke, Schmitz (29), Scheler (77), Nusbaum (86), 
 Arndt, Steinmetz, Lasson, Engelbrecht, Schoonmaker, all 
 sing the praises of war as the most glorious work of man, 
 or as performing for civilization some noble good. Even 
 Hegel said that wars invigorate humanity just as the storm 
 preserves the sea from putrescence. 
 
 But this praise of war, we say, is by no means exclusively 
 German. Thucydides thought war a noble school of hero- 
 ism, the exercise ground of the nations. To Mohammed 
 and his Arabs war seemed not only in itself a heroism, we 
 are told, but a divine act. This belief in war as divine 
 is an idea that is very wide-spread among primitive peoples. 
 Cramb, the English writer, says that it is very easy to 
 
200 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 demonstrate that the glory of battle is an illusion, but by 
 the same argument you may demonstrate that all glory 
 and life itself is an illusion and a mockery. Redier says 
 that the war has brought us all the noble joys so necessary to 
 stimulate mankind, and one no longer finds happiness, there- 
 fore, in sleeping comfortably, but only in living bravely. 
 
 There is no lack, indeed, of recognition of the heroic mo- 
 tive in war. Sometimes the argument appeals to religion, 
 sometimes to art, sometimes to morality. Sometimes the 
 advocates of war are thinking of war as the great adven- 
 ture. War and the thought of war induce an ecstasy, a 
 glow of the feelings. War is thought of as an expression of 
 normal, healthy life, as making life more abundant and 
 more beautiful. War brings out fundamental virtues in 
 the individual; it also destroys the weaker and the meaner 
 race and leaves the strong and the virtuous. Struggle, they 
 say, is the method of civilization. Again, it is urged that 
 war is always just in its issues. Like the old ordeal which 
 always registered the decrees of heaven, war is the just 
 arbiter of fate. The saving of the world through blood- 
 shed, the uniting of the world through war, war as the 
 great teacher of mankind, war as the creator of great per- 
 sonalities — all these are persistent themes in the litera- 
 ture of war. There is no place for the pacifist in the minds 
 of these apologists of the heroic order. The crises of war 
 are historic necessities ; they come when it is time to release 
 people from the bondage of the past and to bring in- 
 dividualistic generations back to the sense of duty and of 
 loyalty to great causes. This is the belief of many, even 
 now. 
 
 On the other side we find the great variety of pacifistic 
 minds. War to the pacifists is wrong, unholy, morally sin- 
 ful, biologically and economically and in every other way 
 evil. The conscientious objector's point of view is very 
 simple. War antagonizes some principle which is reli- 
 giously or morally supreme for him. Therefore there can 
 
Peace and Militarism 201 
 
 be no justification of war whatever, and it ought to be 
 abolished at any price. When you ask the objector to go 
 to war, you invite him to commit a flagrant sin. The Eng- 
 lish literature of pacifism is full of this moral and religious 
 protestation against war which in the minds of the objectors 
 becomes a finality beyond which it is futile to ask them to 
 go. 
 
 S The psychological and the biological pacifists are hardly 
 less emphatic in their condemnation of war. The biological 
 thinker undertakes to refute the theory that war is selective. 
 He counts the cost of war in terms of human life and of 
 racial vitality, and produces a condemning document. That 
 war indeed selects but selects unfavorably and in an ad- 
 verse direction is the conclusion of many, among them 
 Savorgnan in his book " La Guerra e la Populazione," in 
 which he calls war dysgenic. The psychologist tends to see 
 in war a reversion, a lapse to barbarism. War is a product 
 of the original savage in man, whom civilization has never 
 tamed, as Freud would say. War lingers because of man's 
 love of old institutions. W r e cling to old habits and cus- 
 toms, which take on a semblance of the aesthetic, because of 
 their' antiquity and old associations. This is the explana- 
 tion by Nicolai. Russell thinks men fight because they are 
 still ignorant and despotic. Patrick thinks of war as a slip 
 in the psychic machinery. MacCurdy (37) and others 
 think of war as a mental or a social disease. 
 
 Upon the hardships of war, its economic futility and 
 its sheer senselessness, when looked at from the stand- 
 point of any rational desire, many base their conclusion 
 that war is evil. The working man and all the masses are 
 likely to concur in this opinion. When they examine war 
 they see that they themselves as they think are used in 
 the interest of the few, that they shed their blood for a 
 glory in which they do not share. They say, all men are 
 brothers, and so why should they kill one another. Men 
 seem more real to them than do boundaries of countries 
 
202 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 which they never see, and the interests of wealth that is 
 also invisible. 
 
 Such thought as this has behind it some of the most 
 powerful minds, as we know. It is Tolstoi's philosophy, 
 and it is the argument of such men as Novicow. The pro- 
 fessional economist and the student of history add their 
 protests. They say that military peoples fade away, while 
 the peaceful live and prosper, that " the country whose 
 military power is irresistible is doomed." These are the 
 words of Roberts. Some try to demonstrate that nothing 
 is gained economically by war; that all the work of war is 
 destructive, to every one engaged in it. It is argued that 
 the nation that is suited to live will prevail without wars; 
 and that without this inner superiority, war will avail noth- 
 ing. War is bad business, in the opinion of these economic 
 thinkers. War is like setting the dog on the customer at 
 the door, the practical man in England complained at the 
 beginning of the present war. As to war being associated 
 with intelligence and with virtue in nations, or as to its ever 
 producing either intellectual or moral qualities, many would 
 flatly deny that war ever has such a result. The opposite 
 would seem nearer the truth to them. Military nations are 
 unintelligent nations, and militarism is always brutalizing. 
 
 Such pacifism and the dream of universal peace are no 
 new ideas in the world. Like the philosophy of war 
 pacifism has a long history. There have been pacifists 
 everywhere and presumably at all times, since pacifism is 
 quite as much a temperament as it is an idea or a philosophy. 
 Cramb tells us that all recent centuries have had their doc- 
 trines of pacifism, each century having its own characteristic 
 variety. In the time of the Marlborough wars, there ap- 
 peared the book of Abbe de St. Pierre denouncing all 
 wars. In the middle of the nineteenth century there is the 
 doctrine of the Manchester school, maintaining that the 
 peace of Europe must be secured not by religion, but by 
 the cooperation of the industrial forces of the continent. 
 
Peace and Militarism 203 
 
 Finally, says Cramb, we see the characteristic thought of 
 the twentieth century in the position that war is bad be- 
 cause it is contrary to social well-being and is economically 
 profitless, alike to the victor and the vanquished. This is 
 the pacifism of the socialist who holds that the ties of com- 
 mon labor and economic state are fundamental, and divi- 
 sions into nationality are secondary and unimportant; and 
 that militarism belongs to the pernicious state of society 
 which perpetuates capitalism and privilege and to govern- 
 ment as a function of the favored classes. 
 
 This is certainly not the place to try to put order into 
 this conflicting mass of opinion about war and peace by 
 working out the principles of a philosophy of good and 
 evil, since this would mean to attack one of the most funda- 
 mental of all problems of philosophy. It seems to be plain, 
 however, that neither upon biological grounds nor by ethical 
 principles, nor by finding any consensus in the desires and 
 opinions of thinkers can we reach any hard and fast con- 
 clusions about the good and evil of war. It is rather 
 by a broad interpretation of the world and of his- 
 tory and the nature of national consciousness, by some 
 genetic view of national life, that we are most likely to see 
 our way toward a practical view of the present good and 
 evil of war. War is a phase of the whole process of social 
 development of nations. We think of nations as living 
 and growing, and of a world which is gradually maturing. 
 War obtains a natural explanation on sociological and 
 psychological principles, not as a disease, but as a natural 
 consequence and condition of the formation of nations, 
 or of any type of horde or group. In the course of 
 the development of nations we see psychological factors 
 coming more and more to the front. Desires which are 
 more or less consciously avowed become the motives of his- 
 tory. It is in the play of these desires: their fixation, 
 their generalization, and transformation, the manner in 
 which they become attached to specific objects, that we seek 
 
204 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 the explanation of wars and of the especial psychology of 
 nations. Nations have lived secluded and guarded lives, 
 because of the nature of the desires which were most funda- 
 mental in their lives, and the objects upon which these de- 
 sires have become directed. Now nations show some signs 
 of emerging from their seclusion, of abandoning their ambi- 
 tions of empire, and leading a more complex and more prac- 
 tical life. 
 
 In this progress we see the possibility of the final dis- 
 appearance of war. But we have no right to pervert either 
 history or education in the effort to eliminate war, or even 
 to pass judgments upon war prematurely or upon the basis 
 of personal preferences, or the moods of any moment. The 
 whole world might, conceivably, be brought together and 
 be made to declare solemnly that there should be no more 
 war. Nations would thereby voluntarily relinquish their 
 aggressive thoughts, put aside the love they have for the 
 heroic and take justice and peace as their watchwords. 
 And all this would seem ideal. But if the elimination of 
 war should mean that we have no longer anything for 
 which men are willing to die, if merely to escape from war 
 we voluntarily sacrifice good that more than counterbalances 
 the evil we overcome, we should say that peace had been 
 bought at too high a price. Terrible as war is, it cannot 
 be judged by itself alone. We have a right to look for- 
 ward to a time when there shall be no more war, just as 
 everywhere it seems to be instinctive for us to try to 
 gain good without its attendant trouble and evil. In the 
 meantime the world had best busy itself, mainly, in our 
 view, with creating those things that are best, rather than 
 in destroying those things that are worst. Nations, like 
 individuals, must lead bravely hazardous lives, without too 
 much thought of dangers. Peace as a sole program for 
 the making of history appears to be too narrow, and espe- 
 cially too unproductive. Internationalism that is merely 
 a combination of peoples to prevent war is not very in- 
 
Peace and Militarism 205 
 
 spiring, especially since it is doubtful whether it even 
 leads to peace. A broad historical view that will enable 
 us just now to make good come out of the evil of war 
 will be a better organ of conscious evolution than a philoso- 
 phy of peace can possibly be. 
 
 Such views as these give us at least some clews to the 
 educational and pedagogical problems of war and peace. 
 We can distinguish between an education which deals spe- 
 cifically with such problems, endeavoring to treat them 
 sharply and with finality, making clear moral decisions, and 
 an education which by enriching the mind and by educating 
 all the selective faculties leads to an appreciation of all 
 great practical and moral questions as aspects of the whole 
 of history and of life. 
 
 Let us see what the specific teaching of peace may and 
 may not include. First of all we cannot, for educational 
 purposes, judge everything in the lives of nations by 
 moral principles. The ideal of universal brotherhood and 
 cooperation, of sacrifice and altruism, cannot be realized in 
 the present stage of history. On the other hand, the 
 stern picture of justice is one that fits into the present mood 
 of the world. Justice is the natural link between individual- 
 ism and altruism. A world determined upon seeing jus- 
 tice done, a world which, without setting absolute values 
 upon peace and war, does distinguish between just and 
 unjust wars, between the demands and the needs of peoples, 
 leans toward the moral life. It has little to say about duties 
 as yet, or comparatively little, but it has a strong concep- 
 tion of rights. A deep enough interest in justice, by its own 
 momentum, introduces duties into the practical life. In 
 time the world will perhaps not be satisfied with seeing and 
 recognizing justice, and ensuring it in great crises; it will 
 make justice as a matter of course. 
 
 This idea of justice seems, on the whole, to be the best 
 basis for the teaching now of international morality. The 
 teaching of pacifism, enlarging upon the biological waste 
 
206 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of war, trying to present the realism of war in its worst 
 light in order to overcome the warlike spirit and to assist the 
 doctrines of internationalism to take effect upon the mind 
 seems to be the wrong way of teaching peace. We seem 
 to be obligated to teach war as it is. We cannot conceal 
 its heroic side for fear of perpetuating war, and we must not 
 conceal the brutality of war for fear of destroying morale 
 and the fighting spirit. And it is to be much doubted 
 whether it is ever necessary to teach history unfairly and 
 one-sidedly in times either of war or of peace. We de- 
 pend upon larger effects and deeper judgments than can be 
 produced by selecting and distorting the facts. Nothing 
 is meaner in national life than dishonest history. 
 
 Education in the ideal of peace, which we may hope 
 to be the state of the world in the future, will be an ad- 
 justment of the mind to new and practical modes of life 
 rather than the establishing of a principle. The educated 
 attitude of mind which will best safeguard the peace of the 
 world must include an intelligent knowledge of all the agen- 
 cies proposed to aid in establishing this state of harmony 
 toward which we look forward. We must all know about 
 arbitration, leagues of nations, courts of honor, understand 
 diplomacy better and the arguments for disarmament, under- 
 stand the economic and the industrial situation, the possi- 
 bilities of cooperation, reduction of the rights and privileges 
 of classes, democratic movements. The inculcation of such 
 knowledge is an education for peace. There is little that is 
 abstruse in any of these ideas, and the very young child is 
 not too young to know something of these wider aspects of 
 the social life. All these may be presented in a concrete 
 form as a part of the work of conveying a knowledge of cur- 
 rent history. 
 
 We may think of various cures for war, and various 
 efforts that might be made educationally to prevent 
 war. Peace might effectually be cultivated by an educa- 
 tional propaganda. But after all it is not such cures of 
 
Peace and Militarism 207 
 
 war as this that we are most concerned about in the 
 work of education. We might even tend to establish in 
 this way a peace which would be detrimental to the higher 
 interests of civilization. A true educational philosophy, at 
 any rate, is not to be dislodged from its purpose of keeping 
 education constructive rather than inhibitory. This insti- 
 tution of education must not be too much influenced by the 
 temporary moods of the day, by the present gloomy evi- 
 dences of the devastation of war. We must teach and 
 prepare for an abundant life in which there is glory and 
 wide opportunity, and in which the motives of power may 
 be satisfied. Then peace can take care of itself. But this 
 abundant life must be a life of activity, not of mere pa- 
 triotism and subjective glorification and nationalistic in- 
 terest. Vanity, the low order of enthusiasms, the glory of 
 display, can no longer have a place in this national life. 
 
 There appears to be a pedagogical lesson in the contrast 
 between the heroic and the moral view of teaching war and 
 peace illustrated by the German philosophy of war and 
 the ideal of the Boy Scout organization. Deducting some- 
 thing for literary exaggeration, we may say that educa- 
 tion cannot afford to neglect either of these attitudes, but 
 must indeed in some way combine them. The exaggera- 
 tion consists on one side in praising the specific act of war ; 
 but on the other side there is plainly lacking something of 
 the dramatic appeal which any ideal life for the young must 
 have. War is an evil, but the spirit that makes war is by 
 no means an evil. The philosophy of war proves its fail- 
 ure by ignoring the moral ideal altogether, or regarding 
 morality as something solely national, but the other, it may 
 be, puts the moral ideal in a pedagogically impossible posi- 
 tion. Both the content and the form must be taken into 
 account in any educational plan that hopes to exert power or 
 to be influential in any important way now, and it is the 
 form which, more than anything else, is still lacking in our 
 whole procedure of education. 
 
208 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 Preparedness and Military Training 
 
 Military training has now of course become a practical 
 question with us and with every nation. It is the military 
 use of military education that must first of all be con- 
 sidered. For that reason it must primarily be a problem 
 upon which political authorities and military experts must 
 decide. These experts must be competent to tell us what 
 military equipment is necessary at any time to meet the 
 requirements of our political situation, and they must be 
 able to advise about the amount and kind of actual military 
 training necessary to make this physical equipment most 
 effective. All this, plainly, must be provided whether it be 
 good or bad from a general educational standpoint. But 
 preparedness and national defense mean, of course, more 
 than the possession of guns and more than military train- 
 ing as such. And there can be no hard and fast line be- 
 tween military preparedness and the wider technical pre- 
 paredness in which all the equipment and skill of scientific 
 and mechanical activities of the country are always ready 
 to be mobilized in the defense of it; or between these and 
 the still more general preparedness through the organiza- 
 tion and control of the human factor in ways that are 
 not specifically military or mechanically technical at all. 
 
 If preparation for defense is by no means exhausted by 
 military training, on the other hand not all military train- 
 ing is intended for defense. Decision about the actual 
 amount and kind of military training, we say, may be left 
 to the expert, but it is for the psychologist and the educator 
 to decide whether we need a mere minimum of such train- 
 ing or a general military training for educational purposes. 
 After all, however, this is perhaps more a matter of taste 
 in educational practices than of learning. There is plenty 
 of opinion at least on both sides. Some maintain that mili- 
 tary discipline is of very great benefit to the man and to 
 society. From the German point of view it is the equivalent 
 
Peace and Militarism 209 
 
 of hygiene for the individual. It is a national regimen 
 for physical and mental health. It is also the symbol and 
 the expression of social solidarity. Many believe that the 
 discipline of soldiering would be especially good for all 
 American boys. But there is no dearth of evidence on the 
 other side — that military training in so far as it is really 
 conducted in the military manner is brutalizing. 
 
 After all, we say this may be a matter of preference. 
 Some like military discipline in the schools and everywhere ; 
 some do not. The present writer for one will confess that 
 he does not. It is not the danger of making a people war- 
 like that one sees in it, so much as the certainty of intro- 
 ducing into all the daily life a spirit that is inconsistent with 
 our stage of civilization and with the most wholesome spirit 
 of education. It savors of the unprogressive. It means, in 
 our opinion, the introduction into the school, in a far too 
 easy and simple way, and consequently at far too low a level, 
 something that ought to be put into education in a differ- 
 ent manner. The sense of solidarity and the idealism 
 which the German has found in his military discipline we 
 must express in some other way. It is especially the un- 
 productiveness of military life, and the constant suggestion 
 of that which is archaic without either the practical setting 
 or the ornamental life to which such things belong, that 
 are especially to be charged against militarism. 
 
 We ought to ask, rather, how peace morale, and the 
 essentials of the warlike spirit may be maintained without 
 military training. Is it not rather by way of the more gen- 
 eral and untechnical processes of education which make 
 for physical expertness, by fundamental social education, 
 by giving attention to our foundations of religious educa- 
 tion, that we shall be able to create and sustain the most 
 efficient morale? The best foundation for all necessary 
 military activities of a free people appears to be a by-prod- 
 uct, so to speak, of peaceful life sustained at a high point of 
 efficiency and enthusiasm. Military training disconnected 
 
210 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 from its immediate use and application in war must appear 
 to some and indeed to many as a misfit in modern civilized 
 life. This is not an argument for pacifism, however. The 
 war has taught us that militarism and military capacity in 
 high degree may spring up from very peaceful soil, and 
 also that military training, however perfect, is no substi- 
 tute for the generic virtues out of which courage and pa- 
 triotism grow. In the long run will it not be the country 
 that can do without military training that will have the 
 advantage? Or the country in which military prepared- 
 ness is so merged in everything else as to be indistinguishable 
 from the rest of life? Is there not, in a word, a prepared- 
 ness that will make a country superior and safe both in war 
 and in peace? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 It would be hard to find a word (unless it be democracy) 
 about which so many questions gather as now cling to the 
 word " patriotism." Patriotism is praised as the highest 
 virtue ; it is also cursed as the cause of war. Some think of 
 it as the sole cause of war. Some would like to see it dis- 
 appear for the reason that they believe it at best an old and 
 out-lived social virtue, now having become merely orna- 
 mental and an obstacle to the true socialization of the world. 
 Some think patriotism still the center of the moral and the 
 social life. 
 
 This is not the place to attempt a psychological analysis 
 of patriotism, but we may at least try to enumerate the 
 principal factors in it, and say what we think patriotism 
 as a virtue — or a vice — is. Patriotism in our view is 
 normally loyalty to country as a functioning unit in a 
 world of nations. It is devotion to all the aspects and 
 functions of a country as an historical entity. We must 
 think of these historical entities, moreover, as leading lives 
 in which, although their own ambitions for honor and 
 greatness are legitimate, there must be a practical recogni- 
 tion of the legitimacy of similar interests on the part of 
 all other nations, and in which the recognition of the com- 
 mon interests of nations is also freely made. Since na- 
 tions perform no one single function and have no single mo- 
 tive of life in their normal state, patriotism can be no 
 devotion to a single purpose or cause. Such patriotism 
 as this, we may say, does not antagonize internationalism. 
 Loyalty to country is loyalty to the functions and interests 
 that properly belong to country. The individual, the fam- 
 
212 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ily, the country and all intervening groups and entities are 
 natural formations. To each of these entities there is 
 due a loyalty precisely measured by the character of the 
 functions which these entities perform. 
 
 This view of patriotism is plainly, both in its theoretical 
 aspect and its practical consequences, widely different from 
 those that end in pure internationalism. Its essential fea- 
 ture is that it recognizes the validity of all entities and 
 groups about which deep feeling has grown up. This 
 means, of course, that as criteria of social values these 
 feelings are placed ahead of certain logical or scientific con- 
 siderations. Pure internationalism of the intellectual type 
 recognizes the validity only of the whole world group. 
 Nicolai, for example, says that there is a morality and 
 there are rights pertaining to the individual and to the 
 whole of humanity, but all intervening groups are temporary 
 and artificial. That, certainly, we should not agree with. 
 The coming greater coordination of the world we may sup- 
 pose will deepen and intensify patriotism, rather than di- 
 minish it. The homogeneity toward which the biologists tell 
 us we are tending and ought to approach is one in which, it 
 is likely, still sharper national outlines may well appear. 
 The ambitions, the functions, and the culture of nations 
 ought to be made clearer rather than be lost in the coming 
 internationalism. We shall still in the Hegelian sense find 
 our reality in and through the state. An aroused sense of 
 the function and worth of country will be the basis of 
 patriotism. Advancement toward internationalism will be 
 made by a generalized patriotism rather than by outgrow- 
 ing patriotism. That is, it is by passing from a deepened 
 loyalty to country through a sense of the validity and right 
 of the patriotism of all peoples that international social 
 consciousness will be developed. 
 
 So all those very numerous views of patriotism which 
 assert that it is only through a decline of patriotism that 
 a rational international order can ever be established, ap- 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 213 
 
 pear to be wrong. A fundamental question is at issue 
 here. It concerns in part the criteria of valuation in the 
 field of the social life. The kind of cosmopolitanism and 
 internationalism that demands the final abrogation of the 
 sentiment of patriotism is, as we have intimated, a rational- 
 istic doctrine. It is an attempt to extend objective prin- 
 ciples into the realm of social values. Reason tells us, 
 they say, that we ought to organize universally and obliterate 
 national lines. Reason tells us we should make no distinc- 
 tion between ourselves and strangers, between enemies and 
 allies. But by the same rationalism we may break up any 
 loyalty. Patriotism is an inner, a spiritual force, and it 
 has its roots in moods and forms of appreciation which have 
 a certain finality about them, for the reason that they are 
 deposits from the whole course of human history. Veblen 
 says it is a matter of habit to what particular nationality a 
 man will become attached on arriving at years of discre- 
 tion. That is true, and it is of course the whole secret of 
 loyalty. But it is not a matter of unimportance whether 
 a man shall become attached to any country. It is the 
 dynamic power of loyalty that is in question, if we consider 
 its practical value. Loyalty grows because it has a use, 
 which is related to the most basic feelings. It is not a 
 product of reason, and cannot justly be judged on purely 
 rational grounds. 
 
 Any political ideal, or any plan for a world order, that 
 would minimize patriotism is unnatural. The forms 
 of socialism that do this and the laissez-faire tendencies ap- 
 pear to have left out of the reckoning some of the modes 
 of evaluating experience which are most basic. We may 
 recognize all the excess of provincialism in the native pa- 
 triotism of the peasant, and all the egoistic motives in the 
 patriotism of the aristocrat and the militarist, but still we see 
 no place in the world for the man without a country. It 
 is not yet the workmen of the cities, who say that all men 
 are brothers, who can lead us to a better social order. 
 
214 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 Patriotism must be educated, modernized, made more pro- 
 ductive, but certainly its work is not yet done. It cannot be 
 cast aside as something archaic and only a part of the orna- 
 mental and useless encumbrances of life. It is not by 
 weakening loyalty to country, but by strengthening it, tlmt 
 internationalism will be made secure. If patriotism fits into 
 modern life like sand in the machinery, as Veblen says, we 
 must see how patriotism may be made to do better service. 
 
 Some views about patriotism which thus disparage it 
 seem to be based upon a biological conception of it. Not 
 a few writers apparently think of patriotism as a fixed 
 trait of the human organism, even as a kind of mendelian 
 character unrelated" to other social qualities. This trait 
 antagonizes social progress, but it is preserved because of 
 secondary values which it represents, such as moral or 
 aesthetic values. According to these views patriotism may 
 be complex, but it acts like a unitary character. It is sub- 
 ject, theoretically, to selection, but as a matter of fact it 
 remains a strong factor in the temperament of nearly all 
 races. 
 
 But in our view patriotism is something less precise than 
 all this would imply. It is a form in which the most fun- 
 damental and general of desires are expressed, in becoming 
 fixated upon their most natural and necessary objects. It 
 is an aspect of the whole process of development of the af- 
 fective life. Leaving out patriotism (if such a thing were 
 possible) would mean a break in the continuity of the social 
 life. It would leave one group of functions without their 
 natural support in desire. Economists sometimes seem to 
 leave out of account the profound emotional forces and 
 the irresistible tendencies which make social groups. They 
 want organizations without the moods and impulses by 
 which alone social bodies are formed or sustained ; and they 
 expect to see organization broken up or interest in it lost 
 while all the conditions that keep alive the passion for it 
 are intact. Patriotism and the existence of nations seem. 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 215 
 
 however, to be the opposite sides of the same fact. And we 
 may assume that so long as nations exist, at any rate, pa- 
 triotism will exist, and one of the most necessary functions 
 of public education will be the regulation of the motives 
 and feelings which are contained in this sentiment. 
 
 Patriotism is first of all to be considered, then, as a 
 phase of the social life as a whole, rather than as an unique 
 emotion or a special variety of loyalty. It is a way in 
 which the sum of tendencies that enter into the social life 
 become fixated upon certain qualities of the environment, or 
 upon certain objects. Patriotism will best be understood 
 in a practical way by observing its objects. Patriotism is a 
 total mood; country is a total object. But the mood of 
 patriotism expresses varied desires, and the object of pa- 
 triotism is a highly complex and variable object. In being 
 loyal to or devoted to country in the sense which we 
 usually mean when we say one is patriotic, we are devoted 
 to at least the following objects : 1 ) physical country as 
 home; 2) the ways, customs, standards and beliefs of the 
 country; 3) the group of people constituting the nation; 
 and here race, social solidarity, ideal constructions of an 
 united people having common purposes and possessions en- 
 ter; 4) leaders; 5) country as an historical entity having 
 rights and interests — a living being having experiences, 
 ideals and characteristics. The educational problem is of 
 course the regulation of the attachment of the individuals 
 of a nation to these objects. In one sense this educational 
 problem of patriotism is nothing less than that of de- 
 veloping social consciousness itself. It is precisely the 
 task of fostering or creating in the child the basis of all 
 loyalty. Given a loyal mind in the child and a normal 
 environment, we need to be concerned but little about the 
 causes and the groups upon which that loyalty will expend 
 itself, for the conditions are all present for forming an at- 
 tachment to every natural group. Considered generically 
 and psychologically there is no patriotism, we say, marked 
 
216 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 off from everything else, and there is no one object that 
 excites patriotic loyalty. All educational influences that 
 strengthen attachment to home, all social feeling, devo- 
 tion to the ways of any group and obedience to its stand- 
 ards, respect for all law and authority, all appreciation of 
 historic relations, help to develop patriotism, merely be- 
 cause country, in these aspects, is an omnipresent object 
 to which the feelings thus engendered will automatically be- 
 come to some extent attached. 
 
 The first task in the teaching of patriotism (first at 
 least as regards the obviousness of the need) is to give all 
 children a vivid sense of country as physical object, and 
 a deep aesthetic appreciation of this object — although of 
 course this idea of physical country cannot be detached 
 from everything else. Each country has its different prob- 
 lem. Ours is to create a total country, in the imagination 
 of the young. A German writer not long ago predicted 
 that the future of America lay in the direction of break- 
 ing up into a little England, a little Ireland, and a little of 
 the other nationalities here represented. That particular 
 danger may seem remote enough, but in another way we do 
 continue to be lacking in unity. Our patriotism has been too 
 local, and America, even after the great war, is to some 
 extent still a collection of geographical regions. New Eng- 
 land, the South, the Coast are more real to many than coun- 
 try as a whole. Our great distances, and the impossibility 
 of clearly imagining them have necessarily presented ob- 
 stacles thus far to a unified image of country. The time 
 may come, and perhaps soon, when such a divided conscious- 
 ness of country will be a grave flaw in our national life. 
 
 It must be a serious function of some kind of geography 
 to give reality to the idea of country, although of course 
 we cannot separate entirely geographical from historical 
 idea of country. The teaching of the geography of the 
 native land must be different from other geography. Na- 
 tive land must have a warmth and home feeling about it 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 217 
 
 that other countries do not have, but as yet the psychological 
 conditions for this have apparently not been worked out. 
 With our present facilities in pictorial art, the geographical 
 element in the idea of country seems controllable. The 
 minds of children are exceedingly impressionable in this 
 direction. Intensity of feeling and vividness of imagina- 
 tion are at the disposal of the educator. The love of color, 
 especially, must be used to make lasting impressions upon 
 the mind. We need to notice also that the idea of physical 
 country that enters most into patriotic feeling is not an 
 idea of city streets but of the open country. It is the coun- 
 try that inspires the strongest home feeling, and it is the 
 country that is the basis of the sense of changelessness and 
 eternity of native land, that is a strong element in pa- 
 triotic sentiment. This element of patriotism, it is plain, is 
 something aesthetic. It is not so much a moral loyalty 
 to country that is inspired by the everlasting hills, as an 
 aesthetic love of it as the home land. This aesthetic love 
 of the home land is a response to such stimuli as the beau- 
 tiful arouses everywhere. It is susceptible, therefore, to 
 all the influences of art — of music, picture, symbol; these 
 must all be employed in teaching patriotism. The theme 
 of home is especially sensitive to the effects of music. 
 It is this idea of home, enlarged and enriched by pictorial 
 representation of country, deeply impressed and influenced 
 by music, and unified and imbued with the feeling of per- 
 sonal possession by the story of country that is the core of 
 patriotic feeling. It is the function of art, especially of 
 music, to help to make the home feeling of the child normal 
 and enthusiastic — to raise it above the stage of being an 
 " anxiety of animal life," as Nicolai terms the primitive love 
 of home. Art must help to remove the fears and depres- 
 sions that may lurk in the idea of home, which are great 
 obstacles to the development of the higher devotions. It 
 is the lack of normal love of home in the city, we should 
 say, that makes socialism and all forms of internationalism 
 
218 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 that breed so rapidly there such dangerous moods in a 
 democracy. Without true home love, we may conclude, 
 the wider loyalties can never be quite wholesome, although 
 they may be intense and fanatical. 
 
 The second element in patriotism we identify as the love 
 of, or loyalty to, the sum of the customs, beliefs, and stand- 
 ards that make up the mores of a people. A peculiarly 
 perplexing educational problem arises, since there are two 
 opposite evils to be avoided. We may too readily cultivate 
 a spirit which either takes the form of a narcissistic love of 
 one's own ways, or which, extraverted, so to speak, becomes 
 a fanatical ambition to impose one's own culture upon the 
 world: or, on the other hand we might become too self- 
 critical, too cosmopolitan, and too receptive toward all 
 foreign culture. National conceit, complacency and des- 
 tinism face us in one direction, the danger of losing our 
 identity and our individuality and our mission in the other. 
 These problems of course confront all nations; they are 
 especially urgent in America, because of the composite na- 
 ture of our national life and the rapid changes that take 
 place in it, and also because of the ideal nature of the bond 
 that holds us together. We are still a somewhat inchoate 
 and flowing mass of social elements, imperfectly coordi- 
 nated, manifestly, yet deeply united by ideals which appeal 
 to very deep emotions. Our work is to maintain social soli- 
 darity, preserve and educate certain fundamental qualities 
 of our national life which are our real claims to individuality 
 as a people. These essential traits, perhaps because of our 
 newness as a form of civilization, appear to be less clearly 
 defined, less definitely represented in institutions, and to be 
 more abstract than the qualities that make up the essential 
 character of other peoples. 
 
 Our educational problem is, naturally, different from all 
 others. We are committed to an idea of liberty. We make 
 this principle of freedom the dominant in all our national 
 life. We have not tried, and cannot consistently attempt to 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 219 
 
 centralize our educational institutions very much, or even 
 allow our culture to become crystallized into a definite type, 
 for this would be almost as bad as denying our principle of 
 religious freedom. But we cannot, in the other direction, 
 become too diversified intellectually, and still less in regard 
 to more fundamental aspects of life, for this would break up 
 our unity altogether, or determine it more and more in the 
 direction of political coercion. Thus far, it appears, it has 
 been our great virtue as a people that we have remained 
 united by emotional forces, or by the suggestive power of 
 an idea. Sooner or later we shall need to see whither our 
 present tendencies lead, and education must in all probability 
 be put to work to control and regulate the elements that 
 make for unity and for disruption in our life. Our work as 
 educators zvill be to maintain a working harmony in the af- 
 fective and instinctive life of the people. We need now, 
 and we shall need more and more, religious, moral and 
 aesthetic unity in our life as a nation — not a forced and 
 superficial agreement, but a deep harmony of ideals and 
 moods. This purpose must never be lost sight of by the 
 educator. It must be made to pervade all our educational 
 philosophy and all our plans for the school. This educa- 
 tional problem exists of course everywhere in some degree, 
 and in regard to all manner of social groups. But American 
 life as a whole is peculiarly a growth in which diverse and 
 even divergent elements must continue to be brought to- 
 gether and held together through the power of ideas which 
 are subject to many influences. Diversity and differentia- 
 tion are added as fast as the process of assimilation can be 
 carried on. There can be no closing up of differences in a 
 final perfection and security. 
 
 Must we not, then, make the education of instincts and 
 feelings, and the control of the basic moods, rather than the 
 development and stimulation of specialization and differen- 
 tiation our first and chief concern? Must we not do this 
 even at a loss of efficiency in some directions, if necessary? 
 
220 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 Certainly we must not go too fast nor too far towards in- 
 dustrialism. To control any tendency to over differentia- 
 tion and industrialism that is now likely to occur we must 
 have a broad humanitarianism and a humanistic ideal of 
 culture (by which we do not mean classicism). The shar- 
 ing of all experiences that represent our spirit and purpose 
 and American ideas, and equal opportunity to realize them, 
 must be our thought in planning our educational work. 
 The future of America may well depend upon our power, or 
 upon the power of our original idea, to hold people together 
 by the essential moods in which our American ideas are rep- 
 resented. The production, out of these elemental moods, of 
 common interests on a high level will be, we take it, the 
 only preventive in the end of the growth of common inter- 
 ests on a low level, which is always threatened in democ- 
 racies, and is the way democracies tend to destroy them- 
 selves by their democracy. Education in the fundamentals 
 of industrial life, in social relations, in play and in art, in 
 religion, is what we most need — the latter, we may con- 
 clude, most of all. We must have in some way a greater 
 religious unity and more religion, not by attempting an im- 
 possible amalgamation of creeds as was promulgated by 
 some of the founders of the New Japan, but by an education 
 that includes and brings forth all that is common in religion. 
 That at least is the only kind of unity that offers hope finally 
 of making a world safe with democracy in it. This is not 
 a plea for a back-to-nature movement, for the simple life, 
 for a life which tends away from industrialism. Indus- 
 trialism will go on, if for no other reason, because pastoral 
 or agricultural peoples would soon be at a disadvantage in 
 an industrial world as it is organized now, for want of rapid 
 increase in population. But it is implied that industry itself 
 must be made suitable for the democratic life. It means 
 that we must go back of the identities of language and 
 obedience to common laws, and take as our educational 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 221 
 
 foundations that which American life is in truth based upon : 
 physical power and motor freedom, the sense of liberty, the 
 colonial spirit of comradeship and devotion to common 
 cause, the ideal of an abundant and enthusiastic life. 
 Merely becoming conscious of these and observing their 
 meaning and their place in our national life is in itself a 
 large contribution to the sources out of which patriotism 
 may be drawn. When oar patriotism is sincere enough so 
 that we shall be willing to sacrifice for country our religious 
 intolerance and bigotry, our social antipathies, and our in- 
 dustrial advantages, we shall have a morale which for peace 
 or for war will be wholly sufficient. 
 
 Must our ambition be to teach American children that 
 American ways are the best, and that these ways ought to 
 be established in the world? There is both an evil and a 
 good, both an absurdity and a sublime loyalty in the view 
 which all nations have, that their own culture and life are 
 the best. This conceit is in part a product of isolation, and 
 is pure provincialism. But it is also of the very essence of 
 the reality feeling and the sense of solidarity of peoples and 
 of their loyalty to country. It must not be dealt with too 
 ruthlessly. There is a primitive stratum of it that must 
 remain in all peoples. Nations, however benighted, will 
 not be dispossessed of this idea, but experience and educa- 
 tion will make nations more discriminating so that they 
 can at least see what is essential and what is superficial in 
 their own characteristics. Certainly whatever is ethical in 
 our foundations we, and all other peoples, will be expected 
 to hold to. We feel it a duty to spread our moral truth 
 abroad and our mores are necessarily right for us, and this 
 idea of Tightness of mores must imply a desire to make them 
 prevail in the world. We may recognize, abstractly, other 
 standards of conduct, but there is something in moral belief 
 which, of course, cannot voluntarily be changed, and which 
 must stand for the ultimately real in consciousness so long 
 
222 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 as it is held to be so by the mass of the people. This must 
 extend also to aesthetic standards, and to all final judgments 
 of values to some extent. 
 
 For these reasons we must suppose that the spirit of com- 
 petition among nations, certainly so far as it concerns the 
 ambition for empires of the spirit, must remain. Belief on 
 the part of a people in the superiority of their own culture 
 cannot and should not be eliminated. By this spirit the 
 good, we may be sure, will prevail, but prevail only through 
 opposition and competition. There can be no real compro- 
 mise in the field of these moral possessions and apprecia- 
 tions. We must be Americans, and react with American 
 ideas. True nationalists everywhere appear to recognize 
 and to be guided by this truth. We cannot voluntarily lay 
 aside our own beliefs nor help believing they are right, al- 
 though we may see that were we differently situated we 
 might change them. 
 
 There are three things at least, as regards our mores 
 that cannot be accomplished. For this we may take our evi- 
 dence and our warning from Germany. Culture cannot be 
 spread by force, since force does not conquer spirit. De- 
 votion to the basic principles of one's civilization cannot 
 rationally nor safely be extended to include all customs and 
 manners, so that we may assume that there is a right way in 
 everything which is ours and a wrong way which is foreign. 
 The mores of a people cannot be changed or manipulated 
 by education and propaganda without uprooting the moral 
 structures of society. When we begin to practice a Social- 
 politik we enter upon dangerous ground. 
 
 Are we not, then, to take the attitude in education that 
 our culture is an experimental culture and represents an ex- 
 perimental civilisation? Although for us our ways and 
 beliefs are final criteria of values in conduct, and we cannot 
 hope or wish to free ourselves from them or to be guided by 
 objective data, still we put them forward in the spirit of the 
 enquirer, rather than as eternal principles. If this be right, 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 223 
 
 we are not to guard our civilization jealously, hedge it about 
 with national jealousy and bigotry but rather send our cul- 
 ture abroad on a mission. We are to understand and to 
 teach the culture of every other nation sympathetically, 
 trusting to our own foundations to hold firm. We must be 
 so fortified in our own virtue that we shall not be afraid 
 to send our spirit abroad to compete with whatever it shall 
 meet in the old world or the new. This impulse to extend 
 one's culture and philosophy is a deep one, and we believe 
 it to be well-grounded. It has been said that the deepest 
 impulse of British imperialism has been to extend English 
 ways of thought throughout the world. There is truth in 
 this. We may conclude also that unless a nation can feel 
 sincerely that it is founded upon something that ought to 
 endure and at least to have an opportunity to become uni- 
 versal, it lacks a growth principle and its civilization is not 
 very secure. Certainly it lacks a great pedagogical advan- 
 tage in all the internal work of education. 
 
 The work of the intellectual leaders of a people is to un- 
 cover this kernel of sincere belief and worth, and strip na- 
 tionalism at the same time of its encrustations of vanity and 
 deception. There are, we may suppose, at the bottom of 
 every nation's consciousness such sincere principles which 
 are entitled to a fair field in the competition of the civiliza- 
 tions and the cultures of the world. We may be sure that 
 there is Americanism that needs to be taught both for the 
 sake of the world and for our own sake; something which 
 constitutes our best contribution to an experimental world 
 in which the over-emphasis of all sincere principles can ulti- 
 mately do no harm. Americanism, with all the errors it 
 may contain, and all the limitations it may have as a uni- 
 versal principle is better for us and for all, we may believe, 
 than any dispassionate and well considered intellectualism, 
 or a cosmopolitanism that is based upon a fear of provincial- 
 ism. Let us be prepared, therefore, to go forth not to con- 
 quer but to participate in the life of the world. 
 
224 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 As regards materials by means of which we are to teach 
 a patriotism that shall be a strong devotion to the mores of 
 the nation, there appear to be three important elements. 
 We have, first, a literature which contains in part at least 
 the spirit of our national life, although it does so only in 
 part. Secondly, we have a beginning at least of an inter- 
 pretation of American life through an American history 
 that is to be something more than a history of political 
 events, and shall be a true history of the American people. 
 This history must include the history of our ideas and our 
 ideals, our literature, institutions, art, and be indeed a true 
 social history. This history must be the main source book 
 for teaching what our country has meant to those who have 
 lived in it, and what these people have really been and done. 
 This is national character study. Character study, a truly 
 psychological and interpretative history, should teach us 
 what we are likely to do and what we ought to do in all 
 typical situations with which we are likely to be confronted. 
 How far we are as yet from such a general knowledge in 
 regard to ourselves needs hardly to be suggested. The third 
 element in this aspect of the teaching of patriotism is some- 
 thing more tangible and more immediately practical. Our 
 ideals have to some extent at least been crystallized in our 
 institutions, where they will still further be elaborated. 
 The participation on the part of all in some way in these 
 institutions is a part of our required training for good 
 American life. A book knowledge of institutions is, of 
 course, better than none at all, but there is no reason why 
 knowledge should end there. All people, especially those 
 now being educated, ought to have more direct and more 
 intimate part in all the representative institutions of our 
 country, even in the political institutions, and perhaps in 
 them most of all. Americanism, whatever else it may be, 
 must be a practical Americanism. It must have ideals and 
 clear visions, it goes without saying, but it is the making and 
 shaping of institutions by living in and through them that 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 225 
 
 must be the main feature of our social life and of our edu- 
 cation. When the individual and the social form are 
 molded and developed together, patriotism will be a natural 
 phase of mental growth. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM {continued) 
 
 Patriotism we thought to be, in the third place, devotion to 
 the group. Here the problem of the teaching of patriotism 
 becomes specifically a question of social education. The 
 question arises as to precisely what the objects of the devo- 
 tion we call loyalty to the group are, and what factors in 
 group-consciousness need most to be emphasized or edu- 
 cated as patriotism. Is it race or manners or the pure fact 
 of propinquity or herd contact or all together that are the 
 objects of social desire and the feeling of solidarity? 
 
 Race has been emphasized as the prime interest in group 
 loyalty, but there seems to be doubt about this. At least 
 there are difficulties in isolating anything we can call love 
 of race. We can never separate race from propinquity, for 
 example, or from mores, or from the bonds due to common 
 possession of causes. Race loyalty appears to be a primi- 
 tive feeling. When races were pure, groups small and pos- 
 session common, all the elements of loyalty to group were 
 present at once and coextensive. As civilization progressed 
 the bond of pure race lessened. All races have now become 
 mixed, we are told, and kinship in a group has ceased to be 
 a fact. Nicolai maintains that race patriotism has grown 
 out of family instinct, as something quite separate from 
 herd instinct, but it seems likely that common interests, or- 
 ganization under necessity, or the social attraction resulting 
 from any common cause must have been stronger than any 
 consciousness of kinship, or any herd instinct as such — 
 which may indeed not have existed at all. 
 
 It is this more conscious bond of function and propinquity 
 
 226 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 227 
 
 at least that must be taken into account in the education of 
 patriotism — certainly American patriotism. We in Amer- 
 ica can hardly emphasize race patriotism, without producing 
 internal disruption. It is common function that is the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of the individuals of a group, rather than 
 common origin. Common function, especially subsump- 
 tion under one ordered government, particularly if the pur- 
 pose be that of securing common protection, can plainly 
 overcome all loyalty to race. Common religion antagonizes 
 race consciousness, and we see therefore within nations races 
 splitting up along lines of religious difference. We see 
 within races also greater antagonism and greater lack of 
 common interest between classes than between the same 
 classes as found in different races. Aristocrats everywhere, 
 for example, appear to have greater mutual sympathy and 
 sense of nearness than do the upper and lower classes of the 
 same race. 
 
 One of our own urgent educational problems is that of 
 overcoming race differences and of utilizing racial bonds 
 for practical ends. We try to put loyalty to group first, 
 and we assume that race patriotism can be supreme only 
 among those who have no country worth being loyal to. 
 Loyalty to race, however, has a pedagogical use. We see 
 it being employed to extend social feeling beyond the point 
 to which propinquity and common cause can carry it. It 
 was used, we know, in the propaganda and educational cam- 
 paign by which German statesmen and historians hoped to 
 develop a wider German consciousness. The racial object 
 in this case is apparently purely fictitious. We see the same 
 concept being used now to create or expand social feeling 
 throughout the Anglo-Saxon race. What we mean mainly 
 by Anglo-Saxon race is really English speaking peoples, 
 having common or similar mores and ideals. It is, of 
 course, by emphasizing and participating in common func- 
 tions that loyalty either to an Anglo-Saxon union or to the 
 total group in our own nation will be developed. Our own 
 
228 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 type of patriotism, in which there can be little or no racial 
 loyalty as such, must be built upon more ideal and abstract 
 conceptions than that of race. It is loyalty to group having 
 a common idea, we say, which must be the basis of American 
 group loyalty. This we must regard as higher than any 
 race patriotism. All nations are now, as Boutroux re- 
 marks, to a greater or less extent psychological races. The 
 factors that have produced them are the factors that have 
 caused men to become functioning units. 
 
 This gives us a clew at least to a practical principle for 
 the education of social loyalty. We must secure partici- 
 pation on the part of the individual in every function that 
 belongs to each group to which the individual himself is 
 attached. Thus all degrees and kinds of loyalty may be 
 made to exist in the same mind without conflict or confu- 
 sion, precisely because the loyalty desired is loyalty to people 
 as groups or organizations having causes, not to collections 
 of individuals as such. 
 
 The teaching of loyalty to any cause appears to be a lesson 
 in patriotism. So far as teaching of patriotism is centered 
 directly upon the production of loyalty to the whole group 
 which constitutes the nation, the first object must be to 
 create a sense of reality of the group in the mind of the 
 individual. We may expect to do this in part by the teach- 
 ing of geography and history in an adequate way, but we 
 must also instill such patriotism by inducing individuals to 
 participate in nation-wide organizations, which are capable 
 of realizing dramatic effects. The experiences of the war 
 have taught us to see this. It is organization or cooper- 
 ation for practical ends, under conditions in which deep 
 feeling is aroused, that most quickly and effectually creates 
 the sense of solidarity in great groups of individuals. We 
 must study the psychological side of this matter, and see 
 how the power and momentum that are so readily gained 
 in time of need can be better controlled for all the routine 
 purposes of education and the practical daily life. The or- 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 229 
 
 ganization of national activities by means of voluntary asso- 
 ciations will be likely to be one of the main educational 
 methods of the future. If we are far-seeing we shall try to 
 utilize the powers of organization, cooperation and com- 
 munication to overcome many antagonisms now existing in 
 society. War temporarily suspends class distinctions and 
 many other forms of social dualism. The reaction after 
 the war may be in the direction of increasing all the former 
 antagonisms. To attain a strong morale and unity in times 
 less dramatic than those of war is an educational problem, 
 in a wide sense, but it is also a problem of the practical 
 organization of all the social life. 
 
 All nation-wide affiliations of children which in any way 
 cross-section classes or antagonistic interests of any kind 
 tend to create materials out of which patriotic sentiment is 
 made. The school itself has tended to produce social unity, 
 but it has also tended to level downward, and also to medi- 
 ate associations which do not touch upon the activities and 
 interests and differences of society. Our schools are demo- 
 cratic by default of social interest in them, so to speak. 
 We need organizations that shall level upward and to a 
 greater extent involve the home. Then we shall see how 
 democratic and how unified our social life really is. These 
 organizations must be both democratic and practical. They 
 must engage the interests of all classes. We know little as 
 yet about the potential power, both for practical accomplish- 
 ment and for the building of a higher type of loyalty and 
 patriotism, there may be in wide organization. Here we 
 can best combine the initiative and spirit that usually come 
 from the upper classes with the great powers of achieving 
 aggregate results inherent in the people as a whole. If we 
 are to have a nation which shall be a unit, the people as a 
 whole must have practical interests that require daily exer- 
 tion and attention. They must be not merely united in 
 spirit as a people, but united in common tasks that are defi- 
 nite and real. Devotion to the functions of the people is 
 
230 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 loyalty to the nation. This we should say is but an elabora- 
 tion of the old colonial spirit of cooperation, when merely 
 living in a community meant a certain daily service to all 
 the community. We must continue to do now more con- 
 sciously and with more technique, so to speak, what was 
 once done more spontaneously and in a more primitive way. 
 It is thus that the idea of neighbor might extend throughout 
 the country as a whole. All the materials are at hand for 
 an unlimited development of the practical life. The sense 
 of solidarity and the comradeship and helpfulness that grow 
 naturally in a small community, where conditions are hard 
 and dangers imminent, we must still maintain in a great 
 nation by organisation. This is at heart an educational 
 problem. It is a work of national character building. It is 
 training in patriotism. 
 
 In this, as in all other phases of education now, we must 
 consider how the great energies hidden in the aesthetic ex- 
 periences can be put to use. The aesthetic, especially in its 
 dramatic form, is a power to be reckoned with. Interest, 
 organization, moral obligation do not control or release all 
 the energies contained in the social life. We need the high 
 moods of dramatic situations to reach the most fundamen- 
 tal motives. The teacher must not only present ideas; he 
 must generate power. And this is true of all efforts to 
 employ for any end the interests of the people, old or young. 
 The social life, if it is to be effective, must constantly be 
 brought under the influence of dramatic stimuli. Dillon, a 
 political writer, earnestly pleads for an extension and deep- 
 ening of the sympathies of children, and says that patriotic 
 sentiment must be engrafted upon the sensitive soul of the 
 child. No one could refuse to admit this. The question, 
 however, is of ways and means. In our view it is mainly 
 through play, or better, art, that the soul of the child is thus 
 made sensitive. A dramatic social life must be the main 
 condition upon which we depend for thus extending and 
 deepening the sympathies of the child. 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 231 
 
 Among these dramatic social effects we seek, the use of 
 national holidays, all methods of symbolizing events, causes, 
 or functions which are nationally significant are of course 
 not to be ignored, but after all it is through practical activity 
 made social and raised to dramatic expression or feeling, 
 either by its own inherent idea and suggestive power, or by 
 the addition of aesthetic elements, that loyalty to the greater 
 group and its functions will best be educated. It is pre- 
 cisely the lack of these dramatic elements and these mass 
 effects in the social life that now leaves the social sense in 
 its national aspects weak, and allows the various dividing 
 lines throughout society to make even the most necessary 
 activities to a greater or less degree ineffectual. 
 
 The educational problem itself is plain. Unity of public 
 interests, which can apparently now be obtained only under 
 threat to national existence, must be maintained, not arti- 
 ficially, but voluntarily. We want the morale of war and 
 the social solidarity of war in the times and activities of 
 peace — in those activities that represent service to country 
 and also those which consist of the service of country in the 
 performance of its broader functions as a member of a 
 family or society of nations. 
 
 A fourth factor in patriotism we recognize as loyalty 
 to government, to state, or to leader. The place of such 
 loyalty in a truly democratic country as contrasted with an 
 autocratically governed country seems plain. It is not only 
 sovereignty but statesmanship as well that must reside in 
 the people. The people must not only have the power but 
 the wisdom to rule. Even the ideals of the country must 
 come out of the common life, or there at least be abundantly 
 nourished. The German writers protest that the purely 
 native ideals of the people do not represent the meaning 
 and purpose of the State. The natural feelings of the peo- 
 ple lack purpose and definiteness. The State is something 
 very different from the sum of the people and the repre- 
 sentation of their will. The native sense of solidarity is not 
 
232 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 at all like the organization that comes through the State. 
 But this abstract conception of the State as a being different 
 from the people is precisely, in the view of such writers as 
 Dickinson, the cause of wars. Upon this point Dickinson 
 sees now a wide parting of the ways. We must have 
 either one kind of world or the other. We must continue 
 our warlike habits, and make the God-state the object of our 
 religion, or abandon all this for a thorough-going democ- 
 racy. It is the special interest that is assumed to inhere 
 in the God-state that is the menace to peace everywhere. 
 The abstract theory of State inspires far-seeing policies, 
 democracy lives more by its natural instincts and feelings. 
 The theory of necessary expansion, the right to grow and 
 to intrude, is a natural deduction from the conception of 
 the God-state; loyalty to the State demands ever increasing 
 lands and population in order to have more military power. 
 The democracy, of course, can harbor no such conception 
 of State. Loyalty, in the democracy, must be to state and 
 to statesmen rather as leaders of the people. The first and 
 most necessary factor in patriotism as loyalty to authority 
 is that authority must represent interests of country and 
 people and must for that reason deserve loyalty. Educa- 
 tionally, the problem is quite the reverse of the educational 
 problem of the autocracy. The people are not to be trained 
 in obedience and subservience to the state, but we have 
 mainly to create in the minds of all people the capacity to 
 recognize true leaders. It is not loyalty to authority as 
 such, we say, that is wanted, but loyalty to leader who has 
 no power at all except the power of the good and its force- 
 ful presentation. A democracy is a society in which the 
 aristocrats rule by persuasion, although we must think of 
 this aristocracy as an aristocracy of intellect and morality 
 rather than of birth and wealth. The ideal, we suppose, 
 toward which our definition of democracy leads is a state 
 in which authority as represented in the institutions of gov- 
 ernment, and leadership represented in natural superiority 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 233 
 
 coincide. It is a State in which the good and the great 
 shall govern. But in general, parliaments cannot now be 
 the sources of moral and intellectual leadership of the peo- 
 ple. They are subjected to too many conflicting interests. 
 The time may come, we say, when authority and superiority 
 will coincide, when laws will be made and executed by those 
 who ought to do these things rather than by those who 
 merely have the power to gain opportunity to do so. At 
 any time and place we may, of course, behold great leader- 
 ship combined with great authority. A true democracy is 
 a state in which such coincidence will be inevitable. 
 
 The minds of men are now full of these themes. They 
 ask how nations may become unified without injustice and 
 autocracy. Trotter says that national unity is what is 
 wanted most of all things now in England. England must 
 become conscious of itself, he says, and infuse into public 
 affairs a spirit that will carry leaders far beyond their own 
 personal interests. England has survived until now in 
 spite of a strong handicap of discord. He speaks of the 
 imperfect morale of England, shown in the war, which arose 
 from the preceding social discord, and shows that the only 
 perfect morale is that which is based upon social unity in 
 the nation. All this is true also of ourselves. We also 
 have our problem of creating loyalty to government and a 
 national unity upon which a perfect morale both for peace 
 and for war may be assured, by inspiring an ideal of honor, 
 honesty, and efficiency in all public service, and also by 
 arousing an intense interest in public service and deep ap- 
 preciation of what public service and leadership mean, on 
 the part of all the people. This is plainly not merely a 
 work of cleaning politics. It is a work of public education. 
 The attitude of a people toward authority and leadership is 
 something more than a susceptibility to leadership and in- 
 fluence. There is a desire for the experience of ecstatic 
 social moods, the craving to be active and to be led. We 
 make a great mistake if we think all that democracy means 
 
234 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 is an instinct of individual independence, a desire to take 
 part in the government as an individual. It is also a social 
 craving that is involved. The presence of the great leader, 
 even in times of peace, stimulates social feeling, and raises 
 it to a productive level. This social feeling, we say, is not 
 a mere reaction. It is the expression of a desire and readi- 
 ness on the part of the people to participate in social activi- 
 ties, and to attach themselves to worthy leaders, or to those 
 now who appeal to the most dominant selective faculties. 
 
 It is precisely at this point that the educational problem 
 comes into view. We are likely to think of the public edu- 
 cation required in a democracy as too exclusively political 
 education, education that will enable the individual to assert 
 himself — to know, to criticize, to vote, to take an active 
 part in politics. This spirit is especially prominent in Eng- 
 lish life. It is all very good in itself and necessary. But 
 we need to educate ourselves also so that we may have a 
 capacity to be led, in the right direction. To increase sensi- 
 tiveness to leadership, but also to make that sensitiveness 
 selective of true values, is one of the great educational prob- 
 lems of a democracy. 
 
 It seems to be a part of the work of education to create 
 popular heroes, to do upon a higher level what the public 
 press does in its own way, but mainly partisanly and too 
 often from wholly unworthy motives — make reputations. 
 We must do more in the teaching of history and biography 
 than to glorify the lives of dead heroes. We need to be 
 quite as much concerned about coming heroes. We must 
 excite the imagination of the young and prejudice the public 
 mind through educational channels, in favor of sincere and 
 true leaders. The opportunity of the story teller is large, 
 in this work, and we need also to. develop to a very high 
 degree of excellence the educational newspaper. One of 
 our great needs in education in this country is a daily news- 
 paper for all schools — one that shall be both informing 
 and influential, appealing by every art to the selective facul- 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 235 
 
 ties, governed absolutely by ethical, or at least not by politi- 
 cal and partisan motives. The power of such a press might 
 be very great indeed. As an unifying influence and a ready 
 means of communication, and an instrument of use in the 
 organization of all children, the function of this press would 
 be a highly important one. 
 
 All means of creating political ideals from within, of 
 forging the links between leader and people in the plastic 
 minds of children and youths, will be an education in one of 
 the fundamental elements of patriotism. Such an educa- 
 tion would be very different, however, from the state 
 planned and authorized education that has been carried on 
 under autocratic regimes. The difference is one of spirit 
 and result, rather than of method. In one case the State 
 becomes a kind of Nirvana, in the thought of which per- 
 sonality and individuality are negated. Patriotism pro- 
 duced in the minds of the young under the influence of a 
 democratic spirit tends to become a creative force rather 
 than a blind devotion to an accepted order. Institutions are 
 made and advanced rather than merely obeyed and defended 
 in this educational process. The widest scope and the 
 freest opportunity are allowed for superior qualities of 
 leaders and for right principles to have an effect upon so- 
 ciety (and the result we invite indeed is a profound hero 
 worship on the part of the young), but the conditions would 
 be such that no other kind of authority would be able to 
 exert a wide influence. To secure these conditions is, of 
 course, one of the chief tasks of all the administrative 
 branches of our educational service. 
 
 The final factor of patriotism, according to our analysis, 
 is loyalty to country as an historical object. The ideas and 
 the feelings centering about the conception of country as 
 personal, as living, as having rights and experience, duties 
 and individuality are likely to be vivid and intense. They 
 are the inspirers of supreme devotion to country, and also 
 at times, of morbid national pride and fanatical country- 
 
236 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 worship. The education of this idea of country we should 
 suppose would be one of the fundamental problems of the 
 development of patriotism. Presumably we are not to try 
 to destroy this idea of country that all people seem to have, 
 or to show it as one of the illusions of personification. 
 Country is, of course, different from the mere sum of the 
 people. It has continuity and it performs functions and 
 it is an historic entity. Modernize and reform this idea, we 
 must, but we cannot do away with it as something archaic 
 and superstitious. Country is real, the concepts of honor 
 and right belong to it, and country is something to which 
 the mind must do homage. 
 
 Boutroux says that a nation is a person, and has a right 
 to live and to have its personality recognized as its own. 
 Granting this to be true, and that we must think of country 
 as personal and active, the question arises whether this con- 
 cept of country is something that requires in any definite 
 way educational interference. We should say that if coun- 
 tries are essentially living historic entities having as such 
 a high degree of reality, this reality-sense will be an im- 
 portant element in the practical life of peoples. There can 
 be no thought in our historical era of breaking up these 
 entities we call nations. It is a day of intensified rather 
 than of diminished nationalism. The sense of reality of 
 nations must, we might think, be made more intense; pride 
 of country must remain; we may find some place even for 
 the jdea of the divine nature of country, which is an ele- 
 ment in the patriotic spirit everywhere. That this concep- 
 tion of country is a very necessary element in the morale 
 of a country in war seems clear; that the morale of peace 
 must be founded upon the same personal and religious senti- 
 ments we can hardly doubt. 
 
 Ambition for country is a normal result of the acceptance 
 of the idea of country as personal, and ambition for country 
 appears to be the very essence of any patriotic sentiment 
 that is sincere. Still ambition for country has been, in some 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 237 
 
 of its forms, a cause of wars. What other conclusion can 
 we come to, then, than that ambition for country 
 must be subjected to radical educational influences? This 
 is the reverse side of political progress. Ambition must 
 be given new content and new direction. All the power 
 and the sentiment of the old imperialistic motive must re- 
 main, but all peoples must now be educated to see that the 
 maintenance of its position in the world on the part of any 
 nation is now a far more difficult and far more complex 
 task than ever before. The building of empire must be 
 shown to have been far easier and far less heroic, and much 
 less a test of the superiority of a nation than we have sup- 
 posed. We can show that military virtues are much more 
 nearly universal than has often been assumed, and that 
 nations that are inherently superior must abandon volun- 
 tarily their ambitions of aggression, if they wish to remain 
 superior and to have a place of honor in the world. 
 
 This implies no teaching of pure internationalism. We 
 still recognize as fundamental the whole spirit of national- 
 ism. Country must remain first after all. All must indeed 
 learn to take in some way the statesman's point of view in 
 regard to country — with its sense of the future, of wide 
 relations and long periods of time, and its practical vision. 
 It is futile to think of this future as one wholly without 
 struggle and competition. We must teach history also far 
 more with the forward view. History has dealt too ex- 
 clusively even in America with the past. National ambi- 
 tion that has as its aim to realize, with independence and 
 power, all the good that an enlightened nation contains, but 
 at the same time to act with justice and with the thought of 
 the nation as a part of a coordinated world must take this 
 point of view. 
 
 It is a median course between merely naive and day by 
 day living, such as Lehmann (15) complains about as the 
 natural tendency of uneducated patriotism, and the kind of 
 program making that takes into account only the purposes 
 
238 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of a single nation that we must follow in teaching this for- 
 ward view of national history. There is a danger in either 
 extreme. We may remain a nature people, without a true 
 historic sense, and be conscious only of a dramatic past 
 which appeals to sentiment and a still more ambiguously 
 glorious future ; or, on the other hand we may become too 
 definitely ambitious and too conscious of some special mis- 
 sion in the world. A nation with a program, a nation that 
 does not recognize the experimental nature of history, is a 
 dangerous element in the society of nations, even though its 
 ambitions be not purely selfish. Excessive rationalism in 
 national consciousness is itself a menace. We must live by 
 our historic sense, by some ideal of a future for our nation; 
 the people must have some vision of a glorious future, and 
 not be expected to see only an unending vista of problems 
 and labors, but this history must be understood and taught 
 intimately and appreciatively and not merely objectively and 
 logically. We must take an interest in the careers of all na- 
 tions, and understand history psychologically and be willing 
 to judge it ethically. So far we have had the opposite 
 view in most of our teaching and writing of history. We 
 must take a fair and tolerant view of the power motive that 
 exists in all nations, and try to understand what it means to 
 be of another nationality and to have ambitions like our 
 own. Without such an attitude, we should argue, no one 
 can be truly patriotic, if patriotism means having at heart 
 the true interests of one's own country. 
 
 It is not only possible and fair, therefore, but necessary 
 that patriotism be enlightened. It is possible to be devoted 
 each one first of all to his own country, to have few illusions 
 about its values, and at the same time to have tolerance for 
 all other nations. What other spirit is there, in fact, in 
 which our history can now be taught? It seems absurd to 
 say that such a spirit is weak. It implies consciousness of 
 strength, of being able to hold one's own in a fair field, to 
 have the dignity and sense of maturity that come from con- 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 239 
 
 tact with a real world. With such a spirit it would not be 
 necessary to accept as inevitable the brutality of all national 
 development, to use the words of Mach, a recent writer. 
 We need no longer believe that war is the only thing that 
 can prevent national disintegration, as many maintain. Na- 
 tional consciousness certainly makes progress even without 
 such dramatic and tragic events as have recently taken 
 place. Boutroux says that in France, after the Dreyfus 
 affair, although strong nationalistic feeling was stirred, 
 there was also a new vision of the destiny of the French 
 people as not only defenders of their own country but as 
 champions of the rights of all nationalities. German writ- 
 ers have not failed to notice this, and have been inclined 
 to regard this spirit of France as a sign of degeneration 
 and decay of the national life. We see now that generosity 
 and justice are far from being evidences of weakness, and 
 also that in the larger logic of history these weaknesses 
 generate strength; at least they bring powerful friends in 
 time of need. 
 
 Once Germany herself was affected by such ideals of 
 history. In the time of Goethe, Cramb reminds us, man- 
 kind, culture and humanity were the great words. But 
 upon this love of humanity and culture and love of the 
 homeland a political spirit was engrafted, and this new spirit 
 of Germany has manifestly now led to her downfall. No! 
 there is no threat to national existence and no disloyalty 
 to country in the form of internationalism that now is be- 
 fore us. As social consciousness widens and social rela- 
 tions become more intricate and more practical, national 
 lines are not lost, but indeed become clearer. These na- 
 tional boundaries are not temporary or artificial or imag- 
 inary lines, for they represent and define activities and inter- 
 ests that engage the most fundamental and the most per- 
 sistent of human motives. 
 
 It is in this spirit that loyalty to country as historic 
 object should, we believe, be taught. This idea we teach 
 
240 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of course through history, in part, but history alone in any 
 ordinary sense, as we might think of it as a subject in the 
 curriculum of a school, is not enough. These ideas must 
 be made persuasive and dynamic. For this as we see over 
 and over again, art is the true method. The object to be 
 presented and which must inspire devotion is an ideal object. 
 It is complex and it performs practical functions, but it is 
 through and through such an object as appeals most deeply 
 to the aesthetic feelings. The image of this object must 
 be made impressive. Since the ideal of our country is more 
 abstract than that of most countries, as an object still less 
 vivid and less personal, since it lacks some of the means of 
 appeal to the feelings that imperialistic countries have, there 
 is all the more need of art to make the figure of ideal coun- 
 try stand out sharply before us. As we pass beyond the 
 patriotism which is only a love of home, or a devotion to 
 a political unit, to a patriotism that is a loyalty to a more 
 abstract and more intangible idea, the art by which the 
 idea of country is conveyed would, we should suppose, also 
 become more abstract. Hocking says that it is through 
 symbols that the mind best gropes its way to the realization 
 of ideas. Feeling and imagery, we know, are very sus- 
 ceptible to the influences of the symbol, and also to the 
 phrase which is a lower order of symbol. Dramatic repre- 
 sentation, all pageantry, pictorial art, music, even the art 
 of the poster artist and the cartoonist have a place in the 
 work of portraying country as an ideal object, and inspiring 
 devotion to it and its causes. A far-seeking educational 
 policy will scorn none of these in its effort to crystallize the 
 concept of country and give it power and reality. 
 
 Finally this idea of country must be put to work in every 
 mind and in every life. Otherwise all education of patriot- 
 ism will tend toward inevitable jingoism, and arouse all the 
 violent and introverted feelings that have made history a 
 long story of wars without end. This idea of country has 
 been too aristocratic. It must now become accustomed to 
 
The Teaching of Patriotism 241 
 
 a life of daily toil, and not merely expend itself in enthusi- 
 asm and in self-sacrifice in crises such as war. Country as 
 an idol of the aristocratic patriotism has always been too far 
 removed from practical affairs. This patriotism has been 
 too personal and too exclusive. Glory, honor and fame 
 have played too large a part in it. On the other hand, the 
 common idea of country needs to be made more vivid and 
 more glorious. This spirit is accustomed to toil but not to 
 have enthusiasm. It certainly needs more of art in its pa- 
 triotism as well as in its daily life. We all need his- 
 torical perspective. We must have through education what 
 tradition has failed to give us. It is just by lacking the 
 patriotism that a vivid sense of country as historic personage 
 gives, by lacking imagination and the ability to detach 
 themselves from the reality and the surroundings of the 
 daily life that the working classes are so likely to be af- 
 fected by influences that tend to break down all patriotism. 
 We shall have a true patriotism, we should say, only when 
 country is an idea that is worked for by all classes ; when it 
 is an idea that is woven into the daily lives of the people; 
 when it makes the daily toil lighter and touches it with 
 glory, and when it enters into all the enthusiasm of the more 
 favored classes and inspires it with the spirit of daily 
 service. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 POLITICAL EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY 
 
 One of the results of the war has been to raise in the 
 minds of all peoples, to an extraordinary degree, the most 
 earnest questions about the nature and validity of govern- 
 ment. The political sense of all peoples has been stimulated. 
 We see on every hand new conceptions of government and 
 demands for more and better government, but also the most 
 radical criticism and the denial of all government. The 
 determination in very fundamental ways of what govern- 
 ment is, and must be, what ideas must prevail, what must 
 be suppressed, what an ideal government is, if such an 
 ideal can be formed, the question of evils inherent in the 
 idea of government itself (if such evils there be), the laws 
 of development of government in all their practical aspects 
 — all these questions now come up for examination, and 
 will not be repressed. If we do not take them at one 
 level we must upon another. Naively or scientifically, 
 philosophically or radically, the nature of government must 
 be dealt with. 
 
 Government is now being examined, we all see, from 
 points of view not hitherto taken. The conscientious ob- 
 jector raises the question of the ultimate basis of the right 
 of the many to control the lives of individuals, and he asks 
 especially whether there is any ground for the assumption 
 that in this sphere, more than in any other, might makes 
 right. Conscription, in fact, has driven us to consider the 
 meaning of liberty and the foundations upon which the 
 right to it rests. This stern fact of conscription, the real- 
 
 242 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 243 
 
 ization that in a moment the most democratic governments 
 in the world are capable of bringing to bear, quite consti- 
 tutionally, absolute control over the most basic possessions 
 of the individual, has led many to ask seriously whether 
 government is after all a good in itself, or is merely a neces- 
 sity having many attendant evils. They wish to know 
 whether there is in the principle of government something 
 that takes precedence over all the assumed rights of the in- 
 dividual. Does government, they inquire, have a right to 
 the individual ; or is it only in serving the individual that it 
 is entitled to exercise authority that limits the individual ? 
 
 These are questions, manifestly, that involve the whole 
 foundation of sociology, but we need not be unduly dis- 
 mayed at that. This is a time when naive thinking and 
 exact science must make compromises with one another. 
 For better or for worse we must find some working hypo- 
 thesis upon which a fair adjustment may be made in the 
 practical life of the present" moment. This working hy- 
 pothesis must also serve — and perhaps that is after all its 
 main function — as something to guide us, something hav- 
 ing solidity upon which we can stand, in performing our 
 work as educators. 
 
 What we need, what we believe all feel now the need 
 of, is a conception of government satisfying to the multi- 
 tude of common people. We wish to know whether we live 
 for the state, we say, or whether the state lives for us. 
 We wish to understand what the basic rights and duties of 
 the individual are. As average individuals, willing to give 
 service in any cause that seems good, we do not ask so 
 much to have determined for us precisely what type of 
 government best satisfies the requirements of science or 
 philosophy, but what the best working basis for harmonious 
 adjustment in the social life of the future is to be. These 
 enquiring moods on the part of the people are a part of the 
 temperament that has issued from the war. We shall make 
 a mistake if we regard it as a mere passing effect, however; 
 
244 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 it means a deep stirring of the political consciousness of 
 people throughout the world. 
 
 Significant differences may be observed in the general at- 
 titude toward government among the people in the great 
 nations of the world. Each nation appears to have its own 
 political temperament, and this quite apart from the views 
 represented especially by political parties and the like, 
 and quite independently of the scientific and philosophical 
 conceptions of government and its functions of which there 
 are a great number, and among them certainly no agreement 
 upon the main issues and values. 
 
 Taking public opinion as a whole, Germany, England, 
 France and America seem to represent distinctly different 
 attitudes toward government. The State in the German 
 philosophy of life, as every one is now aware, is all; the 
 individual derives his reality and his value, so to speak, 
 from the idea of the supreme state. Individuality and 
 freedom in this philosophy of life do not refer to political 
 individuality and freedom at all. In England, and per- 
 haps to some extent in all democratic countries, the pre- 
 vailing thought seems to be that the government that gov- 
 erns the least is, on the whole, the best government. The 
 English government is supposed to be the servant of the 
 people, and the individual has been in the habit of looking to 
 the government for many services. The individual, free 
 and self-determined, is the unit of value and of society, and 
 the regulation of his conduct by government is at best a 
 necessary evil. It came as a surprise to the Englishman 
 when he realized that the state could command the most per- 
 sonal service and the most complete surrender of the prop- 
 erty rights of the individual. 
 
 Le Bon says that the Frenchman, too, thinks of the 
 state as something to be kept at a minimum and to a 
 certain extent to be opposed. Opposition to the govern- 
 ment is a part of the Frenchman's plan of life. Boutroux 
 says the same — that in France the habit of thinking of 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 245 
 
 the government and of society as two rivals has not been 
 overcome. 
 
 Our own idea of government is certainly somewhat 
 different from these. We are watchful of individual right, 
 but we do not tend to think of government either as op- 
 ponent or as servant. We do not ask the government to 
 take care of us as individuals, and we do not feel in the 
 public attitude the resistance to government that the French 
 writers observe in France. The American expects on the 
 whole to look out for his own interests and he has never 
 felt the pressure and over-powering force of government 
 — until perhaps now. Mabie says that the American has 
 conceived of his government as existing to keep the house 
 in order while the family lived its life freely, every in- 
 dividual following the bent of his own genius. 
 
 These temperamental attitudes toward government, we 
 said, seem quite apart from scientific and philosophic con- 
 ceptions of state. We see, however, something of the 
 temperament reflected in the philosophies. Philosophers do 
 not wholly detach themselves from the mores of their race. 
 The monarchy of Germany, Munsterberg says, appeals to 
 the moral personality and the (Esthetic imagination. Its 
 main function, however, is to safeguard the German people. 
 Its faults are the faults of its virtues. Other German 
 writers praise the German government especially for its 
 efficiency, for its incomparable body of officials — indeed 
 for its very clock-work perfection that Bergson hates in 
 Prussian life. Lehmann goes so far as to say that the 
 German state had reached the perfect balance between in- 
 dividualism and communism. These writers see plenty of 
 self-realization in German society, and quite enough of 
 participation, on the part of the individual, in the govern- 
 ment. Schmoller (51) denies that Germany ever lacked the 
 spirit of free institutions, and even compares Germany with 
 ancient Attica, which he thinks was great not because of 
 the rule of the demos, but because the people followed their 
 
246 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 aristocratic leaders. Troeltsch tries to show that the Ger- 
 man idea of freedom is different from, and indeed superior 
 to, that of all other peoples. The French, he says, rest 
 their idea of freedom upon the doctrine of the equality 
 of all citizens, but in reality lawyers and plutocrats prevail. 
 The English idea of freedom comes from Puritanic ideas; 
 the individual's independence of the state is based upon 
 the idea of natural rights, and upon the theory of the 
 creation of the state by the individual. But German free- 
 dom is something entirely different. Here freedom is in 
 education, and in the spiritual content of individuality. 
 German freedom is the freedom that comes from the spon- 
 taneous recognition of rights and duties. Parliaments are 
 good in their place, but after all they are not the essence 
 of freedom. 
 
 Totally different conceptions of state are easily found. 
 Consider, for example, the views of Russell. Through 
 every page of his book there shines the determined belief 
 in the inalienable rights of the individual. Self-expres- 
 sion of the individual through creative activity is the basic 
 value, or at least the fundamental means of realizing values. 
 Russell sees nothing sacred or final in any form of exist- 
 ing government. He would like to see government ex- 
 panded in some directions and contracted in others, for 
 the functions of government cannot all be vested in one 
 body or organization. For defense the nation is not large 
 enough. For all civic government the nation is too large. 
 In its internal control it treats the individual too ruth- 
 lessly. Wasteful and in large part even unnecessary, it 
 antagonizes the free development of the individual. Gov- 
 ernment should cease its oppression, it should no longer 
 support unnatural property rights, or interfere with the 
 personal affairs of individuals. At the present time, how- 
 ever, we should not expect a radical cure for all the evils 
 of government. If only we can find the right direction in 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 247 
 
 which to make advance, we should be satisfied with some- 
 thing less perfect than an ideal. 
 
 The state in Russell's view, instead of being an ideal 
 institution, is even harmful in many ways and terribly de- 
 structive. It promotes war. It makes the individual help- 
 less, and crushes him with a sense of his unimportance. 
 It abets the injustice of capitalism. It excludes citizens 
 from any participation in foreign affairs. We must indeed 
 not let this incubus of state overwhelm us. We must keep 
 it in its proper place, even in performing its necessary 
 functions, such as preserving public health. It is better 
 to take some risk, even in such matters, than to override 
 too much the individual's personal rights. All the functions 
 of the state must be made to center more about the welfare 
 of the individual, and in doing this the state must plainly 
 regard as fundamental the right of the individual to free 
 growth and the development of all his powers. We must 
 learn to think more in terms of individual welfare and less 
 in terms of national pride. 
 
 In syndicalism in some form Russell sees the most prom- 
 ise for reform of government. Some type of govern- 
 ment at least which does not make the geographical unit the 
 basis of everything must be the government of the future. 
 This would lead in the end to a higher state than that based 
 primarily upon law, for it would be a government in which 
 free organization would be the first principle. 
 
 Plainly we are to-day in a time of flux in which ideas and 
 institutions are unsettled, and there is a great variety of 
 political theories of all kinds. We can hope to find no 
 agreement among theorists and certainly no common ground 
 for the reconciliation of conflicting parties. Still, even 
 for the most practical daily life we must find some guiding 
 principles. We must look for some means of bringing 
 order out of the present diversity and conflict. Some 
 valuation of government, some idea of the ultimate purpose 
 
248 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of government ought to be agreed upon, if for no other 
 reason that we may have some principle which will give 
 us continuity in our educational work. 
 
 Consider the varieties of political creed now offered 
 us, and there can be little doubt both of the difficulty and 
 the necessity of finding guiding principles for the practical 
 life and to preserve sanity of mind. The monarchical 
 idea still lingers; there is a variety of conceptions of democ- 
 racy, differing widely ; there are socialists — state social- 
 ists, Marxian socialists of the old line, Bolshevists, re- 
 gionalists, syndicalists, and others — and anarchists of pure 
 blood. Of internal and party differences, policies, and 
 plans there is no end. Through all these we have to thread 
 our way, and reach what conclusions we can. 
 
 No American can of course be expected to see the ques- 
 tion of government otherwise than through American eyes. 
 He is to some extent prejudiced and bound to the ideas of 
 liberty, individualism, and democracy, whatever his variety 
 of party politics be. Democracy he may regard as an as- 
 sumption, but it will seem now even more than ever a neces- 
 sary assumption upon which to build a working con- 
 ception of government. 
 
 We have to look somewhere in actual life for the ele- 
 ments and principles of government. Why should we not 
 look for them in American life, where government has 
 grown up comparatively free from traditions and preju- 
 dices and where it has been by all the ordinary tests suc- 
 cessful? There has been something both ideal and generic 
 in American life. Whatever personal equation may be in- 
 volved in saying this, the point of view has some objective 
 justification. It is a genetic method, at least. In early 
 American life society was simple, and life was earnest, and 
 we see government and the individual in their essential 
 relations to one another. 
 
 In this primitive and yet modern society we see the in- 
 dividual as a collection of functions, so to speak, existing 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 249 
 
 in a group. The individual also has various desires, which 
 do not appear to be wholly in agreement with his social 
 functions. Some of these desires of individuals are 
 strongly antagonistic to society. In this society, govern- 
 ment is plainly the means of protecting the individual or the 
 group, by the suggestion or the exertion of lawful force, 
 from the threat of lawless force. Law is a means of en- 
 abling and also compelling the individual to perform the 
 various functions which belong to him as an individual 
 or as a member of the group. To some extent the law 
 also aids the individual in performing his functions. But 
 this simple social order already shows certain basic dis- 
 harmonies. It is an experimental regulation of the individ- 
 ual. Every restriction the individual helps to put upon 
 other individuals by participating in or acquiescing in the 
 establishment of government and law reacts to limit his 
 own freedom, in ways which he cannot wholly predict. 
 Freedom of the individual, even in the simplest social 
 order, becomes greatly limited, if not necessarily, at least 
 naturally — and indeed necessarily, since the only choice 
 appears to be between lawful and lawless limitation of 
 freedom. From the beginning, therefore, there can be no 
 perfect satisfaction of individual desires or of either gen- 
 eral or individual needs, in the ordered social life. So- 
 ciety as a whole regulates the conduct of the individual both 
 by aiding and by inhibiting his activities, and must do so. 
 In doing this, it is plain, it promotes all or most of the func- 
 tions of the individual. Ordered society widens the total 
 sphere of action of the individual. The individual left to 
 himself tends to become an end-in-himself. Law makes 
 him to a greater extent a means. In doing this it serves 
 him and it also uses him, and there can never be any 
 guarantee, in any individual case, of what the sum of 
 these services and restraints shall be. Society uses the 
 individual in part, but not exclusively, in his own service. 
 The good and the evil, the necessity and the dilemma of 
 
250 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 all government are outgrowths of this primitive service 
 of the social organization and this original disharmony 
 among the wills of individuals and the will of the group 
 to serve the individual and also at the same time certain 
 general purposes which may not in any given case co- 
 incide with either the desire or the need of the individual. 
 For this reason we conclude that there can be no perfect 
 government. All government is experimental and exists by 
 compromise. 
 
 What, then, in the most general way, can we say is the 
 legitimate function or purpose of government? Hocking 
 says that government is the means of assuring the individ- 
 ual that his achievements will be permanent. To this end 
 it puts order into the structure of society. In our view 
 something similar, but not identical with this, is true. 
 We can say that in its complex forms it is in principle 
 only what we found it to be in its primitive or simple forms. 
 Government is ideally a means of aiding all the functions 
 of every individual. Functions, let us observe and not 
 primarily desires are served. These functions are such 
 functions as the individual has as a member of every 
 group to which he naturally belongs. Government, then, 
 so to speak, has no standing of its own. Its proper func- 
 tion is to facilitate all other functions. Neither individ- 
 uals nor governments have any rights as abstracted from 
 the sum of functions which they essentially are. 
 
 If this be true, we can certainly define no one best 
 and eternal type of government, any more than a fixed 
 and perfect plan of life for an individual can be defined. 
 Government might be supposed properly to change ac- 
 cording to the functions which from time to time were 
 most important for the society in question. Social life, 
 under government, differs from a free and unorganized so- 
 cial life mainly in that a certain objectivity is acquired 
 in regard to the functions of the individual. The individ- 
 ual becomes a creature of functions rather than of de- 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 251 
 
 sires and needs. Common interests, or the interests of 
 the group are served, we say; in doing this the individual 
 is made to serve his own interests, perhaps, but the most 
 outstanding fact is that in this organized life the immediate 
 desires of the individual are likely to be thwarted. Regu- 
 larity is put into conduct, and conduct is made to serve 
 multiple and distant ends. The functions of the individ- 
 ual, left to the desire of the individual, will seldom be 
 harmoniously performed. They will lack precisely ob- 
 jective consideration. But in the organized social life 
 there will also be no perfect order and harmony, no final 
 balance of functions. Everything is still relative and ex- 
 perimental. Government is a system in which any one 
 individual at any moment may gain or may lose. But 
 on the whole, under the good government, both more free- 
 dom for the individual and better conditions and better 
 life for the individual will presumably be obtained than 
 in any possible disordered or unorganized society. But 
 government will really add nothing that does not already 
 belong to the functions that naturally develop in any social 
 group. 
 
 The actual functions of governments are, therefore, 
 highly complex, because it is in some way involved in all the 
 functions of the individuals themselves. Governments will 
 be judged good or bad in two particulars : according to the 
 completeness with which they include all the social func- 
 tions, and as regards their efficiency in facilitating these 
 functions. We must not make the mistake of judging a 
 government merely by its form. Under the same constitu- 
 tion and holding the same ideals, there is room for widely 
 different forms of activity on the part of the government, 
 and great differences in efficiency and in the functions 
 performed. The same functions may be performed and 
 the same degree of efficiency reached apparently with differ- 
 ent organizations. Cleveland shows, for example, how our 
 own government might become much more efficient and 
 
252 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 make radical changes in the mechanism of the legislative and 
 executive functions without sacrificing any principle we 
 hold to, and perhaps without any change in our constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 It is this idea of the proper functions of government 
 and the relative adequacy of existing governments to per- 
 form them that seems to be deeply questioned. Life has 
 suddenly grown more complex. The individual is brought 
 face to face with new demands upon him. He becomes, it 
 may be, a member of new groups, having new functions. 
 Government also, and correspondingly, expands. The ques- 
 tion is not now of the efficiency of government in doing 
 what it has hitherto undertaken; we wish to feel sure 
 that government is adequate to meet the requirements of 
 a rapidly changing social order. That just now is in- 
 deed a very vital question. Governments, we say, may 
 be obliged to adapt themselves to entirely new tasks. So- 
 ciety assumes new external relations, and therefore we 
 should expect that new organs would be needed for per- 
 forming these new functions. 
 
 In all this we have been making objective valuations of 
 government. An ideal or a definition of government in 
 terms of its functions and the degree of efficiency in the 
 performance of them might still, we ought to observe, 
 leave a wide scope for preference in regard to forms, and 
 other subjective valuations. Even between artistocratic and 
 democratic forms, there may be still room for valid ap- 
 preciations on aesthetic or moral grounds. Our objective 
 valuations of government must in fact in various ways 
 impinge upon fundamental questions in which no purely 
 scientific considerations will be wholly decisive. 
 
 We can certainly find no precise way of valuing in 
 detail or in their totality existing or proposed forms of 
 government. Our most valid method, however, appears 
 to be to refer at every step the functions of government 
 back to the functions of the individuals who make up so- 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 253 
 
 ciety. Every phase of legitimate government must thus 
 go back to the individual, and his desires and functions. 
 If we do this we shall see again why in national life we 
 have the same kind of experimental problem that we have 
 in the life of the individual. There can be no perfect 
 adjustment among the acts of an individual, and no final 
 valuation of them. There is no perfect balance between 
 present use and future good, between individual and so- 
 cial values, between desires or needs and functions. The 
 reason for this, we say, is that life is so complicated and 
 made up of so many functions and of so many conflicting de- 
 sires that it cannot be conducted according to any single 
 principle or combination of principles. If we think of 
 government as only a phase of the widest social living, 
 and so as being through and through of the nature of the 
 life of the individual, we ought to have the right point of 
 view for all practical consideration of it. We must not ex- 
 pect consistency or perfection in government, and we can 
 have no hope of passing absolute and final judgments upon 
 it. Radical politics, in our present situation, must be re- 
 garded as one of our greatest dangers. 
 
 Democracy has become the " great idea of the age." 
 It is our own fundamental principle, so we of all people 
 ought to be able to understand and to defend it — and to 
 define it. Yet many writers complain and more imply that 
 the idea of democracy has never been very clear, and per- 
 haps not even very sincere. Sumner says that democracy is 
 one of the many words of ambiguous meaning that have 
 played such a large part in politics. Democracy, he says, is 
 not used as a parallel word to aristocracy, theocracy, autoc- 
 racy, and the like, but is invoked as a power from some 
 outside origin which brings into human affairs a peculiar in- 
 spiration and an energy of its own. 
 
 Democracy has apparently meant quite different things 
 to different people. To some it is essentially a form of gov- 
 ernment in which control is represented as in the hands 
 
254 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of the majority of the people. Some seem to have no fur- 
 ther interest in democracy, if only they see that the demo- 
 cratic form in government is preserved and jealously 
 guarded and the majority by its ballot rules. To some it 
 is the aspect of democracy as individualism that has ap- 
 pealed most — freedom of the individual even from the 
 restraint of law and custom — or again equality of op- 
 portunity. These perhaps think of freedom as a supreme 
 value in itself. Some think of democracy more in terms 
 of its internal conditions or its results. They think of 
 freedom as a means of accomplishing good, not as merely 
 being a good. They believe that the good of the individual 
 is not necessarily represented by the satisfaction of his 
 desires, and so perhaps think of the law and order of the 
 democratic community, the control and regulation of the 
 individual in his daily life by the will of all, as the es- 
 sential feature of a democracy. 
 
 Here in America, taking our history and our life as 
 a whole, it seems certain that the dominating mood has 
 been the love of individual freedom. Our democracy is 
 founded upon the idea of the rights of the man. But these 
 rights and privileges of the man can be secured only by so- 
 cial organization that immediately takes away some of them. 
 So our national life, just because of the strong individualism 
 with which it began, also began with a firm principle of law 
 and order modifying the idea of freedom. Some would 
 say it began thus in a paradox or a delusion. Even to be 
 morally free was not allowed. The group, in the Puritan 
 society at least, exercised strict supervision over the moral 
 life of the individual. Giddings says, in fact, that this 
 experiment in moral control on the part of the people over 
 all individuals is one of the chief characteristics of Amer- 
 ican life. 
 
 Our history is the story of an experiment in freedom, 
 in which according to some we have more and more sup- 
 pressed the individual. Grabo says that the history of 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 255 
 
 democracy here is the story of a dream rather than an ac- 
 complishment. Such views, however, do not appear to 
 be true representations of the case. They assume that the 
 independence of the individual is more real or more realiz- 
 able than it can be in any society. Is it not rather true that 
 our apparent relinquishment of the idea of freedom is the 
 reverse side, so to speak, of the persistence throughout our 
 history of an impossible ideal of independence of the in- 
 dividual ? It is individualism, rather than control, that has 
 increased. The original freedom was a freedom such as 
 comes from the willing participation of the individual in an 
 order in which the control was immediate and vested in the 
 whole. Control has become more definite and precise as 
 the individual has become further removed from the direct 
 influence of the social environment. We have developed 
 relatively too much our original idea of independence, and 
 from time to time elements have been added to our national 
 life that represent an ideal of radical individualism, as for 
 example Jacksonian democracy. Willingness to participate 
 freely in the functions of society, and desire on the part 
 of the individual to perform all his functions, have been 
 relatively too slight. Even in politics it is not so much 
 by the desire to participate in government that we have 
 shown our democratic spirit as by the desire not to be in- 
 dividually governed. The old colonial spirit of coopera- 
 tion and neighborliness with which we started has been 
 (speaking relatively again) neglected. We have developed 
 toward individualism and control rather than toward free 
 association under leadership. We have lacked ability as 
 individuals to see ourselves from the standpoint of the 
 whole of society. Now, therefore, we are faced by the 
 apparent still further decline of our principle of freedom, 
 because we see that we may have efficiency only by increasing 
 authority. 
 
 The question may fairly be asked whether we are not 
 at a parting of the ways, when our democratic idea must 
 
256 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 be more clearly defined, and we must decide whether we 
 shall change toward autocracy; or now, at the end of our 
 stage of primitive democracy, enter upon a plane of higher 
 democracy. Sumner says that always in a democracy it 
 is a question what class shall rule, that the control in a 
 democracy always tends to remain either in the hands of 
 the upper class or the lower class, and that the great middle 
 class, the seat of vast powers, is never organized to rule. 
 Such conditions show, again, the effects of the individualism 
 that prevails — national unity and the capacity for free 
 organization without individual or special motives are 
 wanting. 
 
 Cramb has stated a fundamental truth, from our point of 
 view, in saying that hitherto democracy has been more in- 
 terested in its rights than in its duties. It is very true that 
 the subjective state of freedom has been the real attraction 
 and appeal in our social life. It has brought to our shores 
 vast numbers of people who would otherwise never have 
 crossed the seas. Perhaps it has brought us too many, and 
 those with too keen a love of freedom. At any rate, the 
 question is now whether as a people we shall be able to 
 take a more advanced view of the individual, a more 
 functional view, so to speak, a new and enlarged concep- 
 tion of the meaning and place of the individual man in so- 
 ciety. Democracy, in a word, must henceforth, certainly 
 if it is to be a world state or order and not a condition of 
 world-wide anarchy, go beyond the negative idea of free- 
 dom, justice and equality, to a more positive idea of service, 
 in which we think of individuals as having more complex, 
 more free and more internal relations among themselves. 
 
 In this idea of democracy, freedom is seen to mean first 
 of all freedom to perform all the functions which belong 
 to an individual as a part of a highly organized society. 
 It does not include, however, freedom not to perform these 
 functions. It is freedom to lead a normal life, in a word, 
 not freedom to lead an abnormal life. Whether, in this 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 257 
 
 democracy, the performance of these functions will be more 
 or less under compulsion, whether the individual will vol- 
 untarily surrender certain rights assumed to be inherent 
 in the principle of freedom, or whether these rights will be 
 taken away by the show of force on the part of authority, 
 seems to depend now mainly upon two things : whether in 
 this society superior leadership will have an opportunity 
 and be strong enough to exert deep influence upon the 
 people ; and whether, in general, such an educational pro- 
 gram can be carried on as will make men susceptible to 
 such leadership, capable of judging its values and able 
 also to organize freely for the accomplishment of the pur- 
 pose and functions of the social life. In such a democratic 
 society as this, it is plain, the evils of individualism and 
 also the evils of control will tend to disappear. Perfect 
 identity of individual and social will we should not ex- 
 pect to be attained anywhere. 
 
 The evils of our present democratic society — the in- 
 dividualism, party politics and class rule — appear in sharp 
 relief when we compare existing institutions and the pres- 
 ent spirit with what is required in a true democracy. The 
 old idea that the will of the majority must prevail is seen 
 to be inadequate, if we mean by will of the majority the 
 average or the sum of the desires and opinions of the ma- 
 jority. These do not necessarily represent the good, and 
 indeed under existing conditions, they cannot. We want 
 the will of the superior man to prevail, but to prevail not by 
 force, but by the power of influence. The politicians talk 
 about the soundness of the instincts of the people Some- 
 thing more than instinct is wanted in a democracy. In- 
 stincts are not progressive. Individualism, the pleasure 
 of the moment, and mediocrity are represented too much by 
 instincts and in every expression of the mere will of the 
 majority. People in the mass are governed too much by 
 impulse. Conduct and purpose are too discontinuous and 
 fragmentary ; or perhaps we had better say that the stimuli 
 
258 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 of the moment are too likely to control conduct. Whereas 
 social life under the influence of the highest type of leader- 
 ship is governed by more complex states of consciousness, 
 by moods, which are more original and creative, and in 
 which desires and impulses are no longer the controlling 
 factors in conduct. 
 
 This view of democracy shows that democracy is some- 
 thing still to come. It is not an achieved social order or 
 a well-founded doctrine that must merely be exploited and 
 spread abroad over the world. Democracy is experimental 
 civilization. We do not know whether it represents the 
 ultimate good in government and society or not, and 
 whether it is destined to continue and to prevail. That 
 will depend, we suppose, upon what we make it. We 
 have our evidences of history, but after all democracy is 
 still based upon assumptions. It is an experimental order, 
 we say, in which we try to realize many desires and to 
 harmonize many functions. The final justification of 
 democracy must be in the far future. It must be judged 
 then by its fruits, rather than by rationally testing the 
 validity of its principle. Thus far it is a working hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 The precise form which government in a democracy ought 
 to take is, from our present point of view, of secondary 
 importance. Democracy is a spirit, an idea, a social qual- 
 ity, first of all. A monarchial government, though it might 
 be otherwise out of date, might be entirely democratic in 
 spirit ; and republics, we know, may be anything but demo- 
 cratic. Where control is in the hands of the people and 
 not of a class, but of the people subject to the best leader- 
 ship — a leadership that is based upon influence rather 
 than upon any excess of authority or show of force, there 
 is democracy, and of this, of course, the ballot itself is by 
 no means the only test. But where thus far shall we find 
 any democratic society that is so sound that it can offer 
 itself as a model to the rest of the world? 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 259 
 
 Most of the political questions of the day appear to 
 be relative and conditioned questions. The question of 
 governmental control of industry is an example. This 
 seems to be a question of expediency, and to be conditional 
 upon local needs and the status of particular governments. 
 It is certainly no fundamental question of the social order. 
 Those who make socialism a supreme and universal prin- 
 ciple also appear to be too radical. Sellars says that so- 
 cialism is a democratic movement, the purpose of which 
 is to secure an economic organization of society that will 
 give a maximum of justice, liberty and efficiency. Drake, 
 in " Democracy Made Safe," says that socialism implies 
 equality everywhere; more than that, it means social, politi- 
 cal, economic and legal equality throughout the earth. One 
 cannot but feel that these enthusiastic writers are making 
 the mistake of undertaking to do by political mutation, so 
 to speak, that which can be accomplished, we may suppose, 
 only by a slow process of experimentation in government, 
 and the still slower but more certain method of education, 
 in which all people are trained in fundamental social rela- 
 tions. Radical and venturesome change in so great and 
 complex an organism as a great nation is now danger- 
 ous, because only a part of the conditions can be taken 
 into account, and the result, therefore, must be conjec- 
 tural. 
 
 Radical socialism that threatens to throw political power 
 into the hands of a political class, or of any social or 
 economic class, bolshevism which Dillon (speaking of Rus- 
 sia especially) says is doomed to failure because of its 
 sheer economic impossibility, any plan which tends to con- 
 centrate authority in any class is threatening to our future. 
 The democratic spirit must hold fast against the rising 
 tide from the lower classes, just as it has been obliged 
 to contend against autocracy. Democracy has on one side 
 to assimilate aristocracy, and not overturn it. So it re- 
 sists the rise of the proletariat, not to turn this force back, 
 
260 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 even if this were possible, but to control it. It is precisely 
 because of the deep movement of the people — the world 
 revelation and the world revolution, as Weyl calls it — 
 that we must make all political institutions flexible and ad- 
 justible, and also throw into the balance all the powers 
 of education and thus save democracy from itself. 
 
 These dangers to democracy are not to be taken too 
 lightly. Democracy indeed faces two dangers. Hobson 
 in " Democracy After the War " has stated one of them. 
 He says that the war will result in no easy victory for 
 democracy, for the system of caste and bureaucracy is very 
 likely to become fixed. Democracy therefore must be 
 worked for, and to that end there must be a union of all 
 types of reformers. We must play off the special inter- 
 ests against one another, says Hobson, work for industrial 
 democracy, educate the people. On the other hand there 
 is that danger from the rising of the masses which Weyl 
 heralds. This war underneath and after the war is as 
 Weyl sees it, the war of the poor and exploited against 
 all the exploiters. These elements are at heart antagonistic 
 to government. Democracy, if all this be true, is neither 
 well defined as an idea nor well established in the world. 
 An unjust and privileged class above and an unwise and 
 uneducated class beneath threaten it. But the case seems 
 by no means hopeless. Indeed the remedies and the way 
 of escape seem in a general way plain. Political changes 
 on one side and political education on the other must be- 
 come, we should suppose, the order of the day. 
 
 Of the actual political changes impending and those 
 that ought to be advocated this is not the place to speak, 
 except to say that they must by their nature be tentative 
 and experimental. The radical mind is to-day one of the 
 most dangerous elements in society, just because all the 
 world over men are very ready to be influenced and are 
 eager for change and are uncritical. Cleveland in an essay 
 entitled Can Democracy be Efficient? exhibits a type of 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 261 
 
 thinking about political questions that ought to appeal to 
 all practical thinkers. It is his method rather than, in this 
 connection, his conclusions that one should notice. Cleve- 
 land would study all countries with reference to the effi- 
 ciency of their governments in fulfilling what seem to him 
 to be the proper and essential functions of a government, 
 working under our present conditions. Germany, France, 
 England and America, he observes, have all adopted dif- 
 ferent ways of conducting the work of government. These 
 essentials of government he reduces to five : 1 ) Strong 
 executive leadership; 2) a well disciplined line organiza- 
 tion; 3) a highly specialized staff organization; 4) ade- 
 quate facilities for inquiry, criticism, and publicity by a 
 responsible personnel independent of the executive; 5) 
 means of effective control in the hands of the people and 
 their representatives. Of these principles, Germany used 
 only the first three, England left out the second and the 
 third, France used all (but was late in seeing the need), 
 America has left out all of them. 
 
 This is the type of thought, we suggest, that seems best 
 adapted to meet present requirements for a practical theory 
 of government. Analysis of the functions of government, 
 critical examination of the needs of the present time, and 
 a plan of modifying what already exists, rather than of 
 making revolutionary changes, seem to be the right direc- 
 tion of progress. 
 
 If the source of power in the future is to be vested 
 in the people, the education of the people with reference 
 to their function as rulers will naturally be one of the most 
 vital and permanent of the requirements of the social 
 life. Dickinson says that the time has gone by for en- 
 trusting the destinies of nations to the wisdom of experts. 
 If this be true, and popular opinion is to supersede the 
 wisdom of the experts, if the people are really to have 
 power, and be competent critics of good government, or 
 merely to become good material in the hands of construe- 
 
262 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 tive statesmanship, education must include or be essentially 
 political education. The people must be educated for 
 democracy, but also made competent to create democ- 
 racy. 
 
 Of course everything we do in the school, the inten- 
 tion of the school to represent what is best in civiliza- 
 tion, and to be a center in which creative forces come to- 
 gether has some reference to education for the democratic 
 life, but there are also more definite and more specifically 
 political things to be taught. And yet, if what we have 
 said before has any truth in it, it seems certain that no 
 educational policy at the present time can include the teach- 
 ing of specific political doctrines, or try to prejudice the 
 minds of children or the people to any political creed. We 
 are in a position in regard to political teaching very similar 
 to that in which we stand about religion : we must not 
 teach creed, but we may and must teach natural religion. 
 We cannot teach politics as such, but we must teach nat- 
 ural democracy, or at least the fundamental social habits 
 and functions. 
 
 There are two essential educational problems of democ- 
 racy that have especial reference to the political aspects 
 of it. The first is to teach universally in as practical a man- 
 ner as possible the materials out of which political wisdom 
 may be derived. We maintain that the lack of political 
 education and experience is one of the most serious defects 
 of the German people. These people are at first submissive 
 to an extraordinary degree and then they become danger- 
 ously revolutionary. The lack of political competence is 
 shown in both cases. We wish, of course, neither of these 
 excesses in our own country. And yet we do have to 
 cope at the present time with both a tendency to fanaticism, 
 radicalism and intense partisanship, and with indifference 
 and ignorance of the nature and purpose of our institu- 
 tions and government. Both the indifference and the par- 
 tisanship play into the hands of party politics, and no ad- 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 263 
 
 vantages gained by the balance of parties in opposition to 
 one another can compensate for the loss of energy and 
 the encouragement of inefficient service the system fosters. 
 
 To help offset these tendencies it must be possible to 
 give to all youths, and of course we mean both sexes, 
 through our educational system and otherwise an educa- 
 tion in politics, and besides this some practical experience 
 in public service in institutions and in organizations. This 
 is a vital spot in education in a democracy; we have tried 
 too much to reform or make progress in government from 
 within the political system itself, and too little by going 
 back to the ultimate sources of social life and educating 
 the people as a whole with reference to playing their part 
 in political life. 
 
 The work of education in the field of politics is not 
 merely to give information, but to establish what we may 
 best call morale. We need an attitude and spirit through- 
 out the public life of the nation in which there shall be 
 constantly displayed the same qualities which we see so 
 quickly coming to light in time of war. Enthusiasm, seri- 
 ousness of purpose, devotion of the individual to common 
 purpose are the essential elements of this war spirit. To 
 produce and sustain this in the activities of peace is an 
 educational problem. The first task is presumably to es- 
 tablish the causes and the organizations through which 
 they may be served, but political education itself consists 
 largely in the production of public spirit. The correction 
 of evils in the political system is of course but a small part 
 of the work of political reform. Dowd says that it is the 
 low personal idealism of mankind that creates our multi- 
 tudinous social problems and strews the path of history 
 with wreck and ruin. That is of course true. Raising 
 the quality of the personal idealism of the people is the 
 real work of political education. Political thought which is 
 most concerned as it is now with securing advantage for 
 party, class and individual must be superseded by a wider 
 
264 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 interest in government as a means of aiding the perform- 
 ance of the functions of the individual and the group. It 
 is the purpose to be accomplished by government, not its 
 form, and certainly not the interest of the few or of any 
 class that must be emphasized, until partisan politics no 
 longer dominates our political life. To accomplish this 
 change means, we say, raising the quality of the personal 
 idealism of the people. This may seem an ideal and im- 
 possible task, but we have some of our experiences of the 
 war at least to give us encouragement. 
 
 If we wish to consider details, we may notice that in 
 an educational process having such ends as we have sug- 
 gested, the teaching of civics, for example, becomes more 
 functional, the teaching of what an individual in a com- 
 munity and what all governments do, rather than analyzing 
 the structure of government. Such civics teaches the 
 meaning of individuals as having functions which are rep- 
 resented and fulfilled in the institutions and organizations of 
 society, including every department of government. It is 
 not the intention to enter here into the special problems 
 in regard to the content and method of teaching civics 
 in the schools, although it is evident that this subject must 
 have an increased place in the future. We already see ad- 
 vances both in the purpose and the plan of civics teaching 
 and in the literature prepared for the schools. Dunn, for 
 example, makes fundamental in all the teaching of civics the 
 question, What are the common interests which people in 
 communities are seeking? Tufts also tries to deal with 
 the fundamental ideas upon which government is based. 
 
 Presentation of facts is surely a necessary part of all 
 education, for it is an indispensable means of giving the 
 content of experience upon which wisdom as a selective 
 appreciation of experience is based. But erudition is only 
 a part of education. We must hold firmly now to the 
 principle which is indeed an aspect of the democratic ideal 
 itself, that participation is also a necessary part of educa- 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 265 
 
 tion. Institutions become real to the child through the 
 child's association with them in some active way. We 
 shall probably see the idea of free organization carried far, 
 and in every organization and every institution, private 
 and public, there must, we believe, be some place for the 
 services and the interest of all. Let us take the position 
 that there is nothing in government, in any of its branches, 
 that is outside the sphere of the practical life of the in- 
 dividual and we shall have the right point of view even 
 for the work of the school room. Government, in a word, 
 is not a specialization of function in which the few are 
 involved, but it is a generic function, the means, we assert, 
 of carrying to completion all the projects of individuals 
 in all their social relations. Therefore all, not merely those 
 who just now are included among voters, but all women 
 and children, must have a part in the general education 
 for democracy and also have a part in some way in the in- 
 stitutions of government. From first to last government 
 must be thought of and understood in terms of what it does, 
 as a phase of the total social life of the nation, not as 
 something outside the social order. Government is a col- 
 lective activity. It is as an aspect of the day's work 
 of the nation, that government must be impressed upon 
 all — both legal citizens and citizens in the making. 
 
 The second phase of the educational problem in regard 
 to government is perhaps after all only the first in an- 
 other form. If we hope to have a democratic civiliza- 
 tion in any real sense anywhere, we must secure efficiency 
 and superiority both in individual and in social conduct, 
 not mainly by the exertion of authority (except as a tem- 
 porary make-shift) but by making all the people of a na- 
 tion susceptible to the influences of the best life and thought 
 the nation contains. This means the voluntary and inten- 
 tional development of leadership. This we have spoken 
 of as a general need; it is also a phase of political educa- 
 tion. The genius, the leader, must of course himself be 
 
266 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 produced in part by education. We must have such condi- 
 tions as shall allow natural leadership to come to the surface, 
 and every spark of genius must be carefully nourished. But 
 there must be also opportunity for what the genius produces 
 to work its effect upon all, as a stimulating and directing 
 force, in turn arousing the creative activities of the people. 
 Democracy seems to be wholly dependent upon what seems 
 now the accident of genius for raising it above the medi- 
 ocrity of the average, or even preventing a decline in its 
 civilization. It is this idea of the relation of the best to 
 the average that James evidently thought to be the funda- 
 mental point in education. Education consists in his view 
 in the development of ability to recognize the good in every 
 department of life, the ability to recognize all sham and 
 inferiority and the habit of responding to and choosing 
 the best. Applied to the problems of government, this 
 means such a method of educating the young as will make 
 all susceptible to and appreciative of the superior qualities 
 of mind and character that may be exhibited in public life. 
 Such responsiveness being itself creative and a powerful 
 factor in producing and bringing to the front the superior 
 man, it must be regarded as one of the most necessary and 
 fundamental qualities of a democracy. 
 
 We might single out the teaching of history and biography 
 as the best means of educating the appreciative powers in 
 regard to values in human life, and the best means of facili- 
 tating the emergence of the best individuals and the best 
 principles, and of making their influence powerful, but 
 after all it is something more than any or all teaching that 
 is required. Most fundamentally, no one can refuse to 
 admit it is such an organization of the whole educational 
 situation as will allow, or rather cause and encourage, pre- 
 cisely the total of the good and progressive life of the world 
 to play upon the mood and the spirit of the school. As- 
 suredly the school is not to-day so fortunately situated. It 
 is too much removed from some influences and far too 
 
Political Education in a Democracy 267 
 
 closely joined to others. Much of the good of society is 
 walled out from the school by barriers that arise in politics. 
 City ways, all the bad life of the streets, the trivial interests 
 of the day, affect the school too much. We are greatly at 
 fault in all this, because we do not take education as yet 
 seriously enough. There must be now a decision. Either 
 the school must be content to remain what it is now, a local 
 institution performing a very limited service, or it must 
 arise to quite new heights, and mean far more as a civilizing 
 and creative force than it has thus far. The school must 
 occupy more hours of the day and more days in the year. 
 It must claim the child more completely. It must extend 
 its influences further, and draw its life from a deeper soil. 
 We certainly shall never allow the school to become a great 
 evil in society, but it is almost as bad morally to leave it 
 but a feeble good. Let no one speak any longer of good 
 schools. Our schools were good for yesterday, perhaps. 
 But of to-morrow's needs they are not yet even fully aware. 
 The school has yet to learn with certainty to lay hold 
 upon the fundamental things in the nature of the child, and 
 to appreciate the child's real and greatest needs. Continuity 
 and creativeness are still for the most part beyond the 
 powers of the school. 
 
 But perhaps after all we are asking the impossible. Per- 
 haps the forces needed cannot be brought to bear upon 
 the child. Perhaps conditions are too unfavorable, and 
 an educational situation cannot be devised that will be 
 greatly superior to what we have already. Perhaps the 
 time is too short. Perhaps worst of all the nature of the 
 child himself is too trivial and unpromising. But if we 
 believe this, we certainly at the same time conclude that 
 democracy is a failure and is not in any true sense possible 
 at all. Democracy cannot be created by forces from with- 
 out, for this would be indeed a negation of its nature. 
 Democracy is self-creative. It grows from within. But 
 how can it grow from within unless the new life which en- 
 
268 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ters into it be creative ; and how can this life be creative 
 and progressive unless it be so lived that it shall absorb 
 all the good the old life has in it, and also be inspired to 
 go beyond it in every possible way? Unless democracy is 
 merely a product and natural direction of growth in society, 
 democracy and education are not unrelated to one another. 
 If democracy is a good that can be obtained only by con- 
 scious effort, we may suppose that one of the greatest factors 
 in producing it will be education. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION 
 
 We have as yet no deep philosophy of industry. For 
 better or for worse work came into the world as a result 
 of desire. Men did not desire work, but they desired that 
 which could be obtained only by work. These desires mul- 
 tiplied and the modern industrial world is the result. When 
 material objects alone were desired, the motive of work was 
 relatively simple ; but as we pass from the desire for goods 
 to the desire for wealth, and to the desire for wealth as a 
 means of gaining power and prestige, the industrial move- 
 ment becomes more complex. We go on and on, producing 
 ever greater wealth and generating more and more power, 
 and we do this we say with no deep purpose and with 
 no philosophy of life. For the justification of it all, if 
 it be under our control at all, we can only say that through 
 industry we realize an abundant and enriched life. 
 
 The good and evil of work put upon us some of the most 
 perplexing of our problems. Industry, we say, is the way 
 to the rich and the abundant life. It makes life more com- 
 plex. The relations of life are multiplied by it. It repre- 
 sents and it achieves man's conquest over nature. It puts 
 force into his hands. It has its ideal side and its romance. 
 It gives scope to pure motives of creativeness. But 
 the industrial life has also its dark side. It has cre- 
 ated the city with all its good and its evil. It has created 
 great nations, but see what the added populations consist of. 
 It brings on the old age of nations. It stands for struggle 
 that is often fruitless and unproductive. It engenders 
 moods and arouses interests and powers that lead to wars 
 
 269 
 
270 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 and revolutions. It fosters sordid interests, and has made 
 almost universal the necessity of an excess of toil in order 
 barely to live. The great majority of workers do not live 
 in their work, because they produce nothing that is in itself 
 satisfying. The spirit remains outside their daily life. 
 Life is divided into a period of toil without deep interest 
 and motive, and play which may be only a narcotic to kill 
 the sense of monotony and fatigue. Individuals have spe- 
 cialized at the expense of a whole life. Men have been ex- 
 ploited and used like material things. Bergson says that 
 by industry man has increased his physical capacities, but 
 now it is likely that his soul will become mechanized rather 
 than that his soul will become great like his new body. In- 
 dustry, worst of all, has become an end in itself, rather 
 than a means to higher ends. To live, on the one hand, 
 to gain wealth on the other, men give all there is in them 
 to toil. 
 
 We saw all this before the war, but one important re- 
 sult of the war has been that we now see that this industrial 
 life which has so rapidly created new institutions, and which 
 grips the world almost like a physical law, is not in all its 
 ways so fixed and inevitable as we had perhaps thought. In 
 regard to the industrial life, more than in any other de- 
 partment of life, we see new and radical thought, and the 
 possibility of conscious effects, although it must be ad- 
 mitted that some of the proposed changes may well cause 
 apprehension. 
 
 We had hoped, even before the war, to see industry and 
 art become gradually more closely related, and to see in- 
 dustry become more socialized. Its physical hardships were 
 to some extent already being ameliorated. We hoped to 
 separate the great industrial interests from politics, and to 
 curb the powers industry has that make it a trouble producer 
 in the world. But now, after the war, we see possibilities 
 of more fundamental changes in the industrial order than 
 these improvements implied. Our thoughts now touch upon 
 
Industry and Education 271 
 
 the whole theory of the industrial life. We see that by a co- 
 ordinated effort and common understanding which it is no 
 longer chimerical to hope for, the conditions of the in- 
 dustrial life might be very different. In the first place we 
 are convinced that the world could produce vastly more and 
 could use its products with far greater economy than now. 
 We see that much greater return for less labor could be 
 gained. Even the desires themselves upon which many of 
 the evils of industrialism are based have shown themselves 
 to be controllable. It is no longer idle to believe that the 
 restraint and cooperation necessary to eliminate most of 
 the poverty from the world are possible to be attained. 
 The isolation of the individual worker, which has made his 
 struggle so hard, seems about to be relieved to some extent 
 at least. We even hope for permanently better relations 
 between the capitalist and the laborer, and to see some of the 
 evils of competition, even the industrial competition among 
 nations, lessened. 
 
 Although the interest here is in the relations of in- 
 dustry to education, rather than in the practical changes 
 pending in the industrial world, we must think of the 
 two as related. Changes that take place in political and 
 industrial conditions will be likely to be temporary and in- 
 effectual unless they are supported by changes in the field 
 of education. The reformer and the educator must work 
 together. 
 
 Noyes says that the most fundamental change that has 
 occurred during the war has been the world-wide assertion 
 of public control of industry by the government. Perkins 
 says that centralization is the order of the day, and that 
 the government now properly takes on many functions that 
 once belonged to the states, and that this process of cen- 
 tralization naturally extends to international relations. 
 Smith speaks of the growing interdependence of govern- 
 ment and industry which will especially give security to 
 investment in productive enterprises. Hesse says that 
 
272 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 there must be national team work in all industries, and 
 that in a democracy everything that autocracy can accom- 
 plish must be repeated, but upon a basis of voluntary co- 
 operation. In France it has been proposed by Alfassa that 
 there shall be established a department of national economy, 
 to bring about a closer cooperation than there has been in 
 the past among private interests, and to centralize industry. 
 Wehle thinks that in America, even before the war, indus- 
 trial concentration was leading to political concentration and 
 that the states were losing their relative political importance. 
 The grappling of states individually with large industrial 
 problems is now, he says, at an end. Dillon has expressed 
 the view that England ought to adopt industrial compulsion. 
 Clementel, the French minister of commerce, thinks France 
 ought to substitute for liberty without restraint in the 
 industrial field, liberty organized and restricted. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the world is thoroughly awake 
 to the need of more effectual cooperation in industry, and 
 it is natural that the first thoughts should turn to govern- 
 ment control as the simplest and readiest method of secur- 
 ing it. When we examine these suggestions about the co- 
 ordination and centralization of industries it becomes evi- 
 dent that most writers have been strongly influenced by 
 Germany's remarkable success, both in peace and war, un- 
 der the system of governmental control of industries. The 
 manner in which the German government turned all the 
 country into one great industrial plant has appealed to the 
 imagination, and many writers see in centralization under 
 the control of government the means of curing most of the 
 evils of industrialism. There are many proposals, all the 
 way from the plan to introduce cabinet ministers with 
 limited power to have oversight over industry to the total 
 abolishment of the capitalistic system and all the rights of 
 property. Many of course, while still believing in concen- 
 tration and cooperation, cling to the system of private and 
 individual ownership, and believe that the best results will 
 
Industry and Education 273 
 
 be obtained in the end without any radical change in the 
 relations between government and industry, and without 
 resorting to any socialistic reform. 
 
 Another phase of the problem of industry in which we 
 may expect to see great changes in the future concerns the 
 status of labor and its relation to capital. The rising of 
 the laboring class is certainly the greatest internal result 
 of the war. Here again the question is whether the changes 
 will take place by cooperation or by compulsion — either 
 on the part of government or of some organized class. Will 
 labor and capital continue to be antagonistic, or will they 
 find common interest ; or will the only solution be again 
 some radical change involving change of government or 
 abrogation entirely of our present system of ownership? 
 That the position of labor has become stronger as a result of 
 the war no one can doubt. Perkins says we are just en- 
 tering upon a period of copartnership, when the tool-user 
 will be part tool-owner, and capital and labor will share 
 more equally in the profits. Increase in wages will not be 
 the remedy, but only profit sharing. Others think the same; 
 they see that the laborer's discontent is not all a protest 
 against his hard physical conditions. He wants more so- 
 cial equality, more equality of status in the industrial 
 world. He objects not so much to what the capitalist has 
 as to what he is. 
 
 There has no more illuminating document come out of the 
 war than the report on reconstruction made by a sub- 
 committee of the British Labor Party. This report calls 
 for a universal minimum wage ; complete state insurance of 
 the workers against unemployment ; democratic control of 
 industries; thorough participation by the workers in such 
 control on the basis of common ownership of the means of 
 production; equitable sharing of the proceeds by all who 
 engage in production; state ownership of the nation's land; 
 immediate nationalization of railroads, mines, electric 
 power, canals, harbors, roads and telegraph ; continued gov- 
 
274 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ernmental control of shipping, woolen, leather, clothing, 
 boots and shoes, milling, baking, butchering, and other in- 
 dustries; a system of taxation on incomes to pay off the 
 national debt, without affecting the living of those who 
 labor. 
 
 Although such a document as this could hardly up to 
 the present time have been produced by American workmen, 
 since here political doctrines of socialism have never ob- 
 tained a strong hold upon the laboring classes, in England 
 these radical demands are nothing surprising. They have 
 the support at many points of so keen a thinker as Russell. 
 Russell does not, it is true, believe that Marxian socialism 
 is the solution of the problem of capital and labor, but 
 he does believe in the state ownership of all land, that the 
 state therefore should be the primary recipient of all rents, 
 that a trade or industry must be recognized as a unity 
 for the purposes of government, with some kind of home 
 rule such as syndicalism aims at securing. Industrial 
 democracy, as planned in the cooperative movement, or 
 some form of syndicalism, appears to him to be the most 
 promising line of advance. 
 
 That such demands and proposals as these are significant 
 signs of the times can hardly be doubted. That from 
 now the status of the workman will be changed and changed 
 in directions more satisfactory to the workman we may 
 accept as one of the chief results of the war. Politically 
 the laborer is prepared to assert his independence. Both 
 his social and his industrial status are likely to be improved. 
 He will be better safeguarded against unemployment. 
 Wages in the old form and the old tradition that the worker 
 has no contract with his employer will, in all probability, 
 be less generally acceptable. Work, if these new conditions 
 are realized, will mean more to the worker. His own in- 
 terests and the purposes of his work will be more harmon- 
 iously related. The individual made more secure in his 
 work, protected more by law and participating more in the 
 
Industry and Education 275 
 
 affairs of business and government, will have a sense of 
 playing a more dignified part in the social economy. Con- 
 ceal as we may the inferiority of the laborer's position 
 under the pretenses of democracy and liberty and equality, 
 this inferiority of position exists and the inequality that 
 prevails in democratic society is certainly one of the fertile 
 sources of evil in the world to-day. We have still to see 
 to what extent the workman, his lot ameliorated in many 
 ways, and his position changed, will himself become a 
 new and different man, and thus make the world itself a 
 different place in which to live. All that is thus suggested 
 we have a right at least to hope for now. If it is also 
 worked for with intelligence and good will, why should 
 it not come to pass? 
 
 The third idea which is beginning to make great changes 
 in the whole field of the industrial life and throughout 
 all the practical life is the idea of economy. This means 
 that in many ways questions of the values, the purposes, 
 and the ways and means of what is done in the world are 
 being sharply examined. Labor has been uncritical of its 
 purposes, and lavish and wasteful of its energies, however 
 watchful it may have been of its rights. Production has 
 been governed too much by desire, too little by careful con- 
 sideration of need. Distribution has been carelessly con- 
 ducted, allowing large losses of time and material. Con- 
 sumption has been quite as careless as the rest, and has been 
 thoroughly selfish as well. The war has changed many 
 of our ideas. Thrift has become a word with a new mean- 
 ing. We see what industry at its worst might do in the 
 world, and on the other hand what wise control of all the 
 motives and processes that enter into labor and all the 
 economic life might accomplish. 
 
 Some of these changes are coming from readjustment 
 in the coordination of industrial processes themselves. We 
 hear much of standardization and stabilization. An eco- 
 nomic technique and the control of fluctuating conditions 
 
276 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 might do much to increase the efficiency of industry in 
 every way. This idea of the application of scientific pro- 
 cedure to life we see extending to the control of the energies 
 of the human factor. We have already spoken of guaran- 
 tees that affect the spirit and the morale of labor. We hear 
 of the prevention of unemployment, the removal of the bug- 
 bear of " losing the job." Most advance of all is being 
 made in the application of the principles of mental and 
 physical hygiene and of scientific management to the actual 
 details of movement and the whole process of expenditure 
 of energy, counting costs in terms of time and energy, in 
 much the same way as all the items of value that enter into 
 production are estimated. Some writers, for example 
 Gilbreth, see in this movement a great advance. It is a way 
 of giving equal opportunity to all. Economy becomes a 
 factor in freedom, since it helps to eliminate the drudgery 
 and depression of toil. 
 
 Plainly, then, economy or thrift has a much wider mean- 
 ing than mere saving. It is many-sided, and the study of 
 economy in the use of essentials is but a part of it. The 
 war has, of course, emphasized this, and this idea of saving 
 has served the purpose of awakening an interest in the 
 whole theory and purpose of work. There is a better un- 
 derstanding of values, and of the difference between the es- 
 sential and the unessential, and we see that not all labor 
 that commands pay is useful labor. Many things that the 
 public knew but little about before are becoming better un- 
 derstood. Industry, finance, business, taxes, transporta- 
 tion, have all to some extent become popular subjects. The 
 present high cost of living raises questions in the theory of 
 the economic aspect of life that have compelled the at- 
 tention of the public. The theory of money, interest, sav- 
 ings, foreign investments, the place of gold in the world's 
 economy is carried a step further and is popularly more 
 extended. We hear all sorts of proposals about the produc- 
 tion, the distribution and the consumption of goods, which 
 
Industry and Education 277 
 
 are intended to make living easier and less expensive. In- 
 creased production of staples and more direct route from 
 producer to consumer are urged upon all, and the economists 
 have many suggestions for increasing our prosperity : while 
 financiers try to direct to the best purpose our investments 
 at home and abroad. Fisher attacks the whole theory of 
 costs at what he believes its root, suggesting a plan of " stab- 
 ilizing the dollar itself " by using the index numbers of 
 standard articles as units of value, and regulating the 
 weight of gold in the dollar according to the fluctuations of 
 these. All these plans, hasty and narrowly conceived as 
 many of them seem to be, are of interest and have value, 
 for they indicate a serious determination to solve the funda- 
 mental problems of the practical life. 
 
 Any educational theory that could hope to deal adequately 
 with the needs and the impending changes in the industrial 
 situation of to-day must take into consideration the basic 
 facts both of the individual and the social life. Teaching 
 of industry and all attempts to teach vocation must be seen 
 by all now to be but a small part of education with refer- 
 ence to the industrial life. We must do much more funda- 
 mental things than these. We must plan far ahead and 
 seek to lay a firm foundation for the idea of cooperation 
 which appears to be the leading thought of industrialism to- 
 day. Every individual, we should say, ought to be educated 
 in the fundamentals of labor, so that he may understand 
 for himself what labor means. Finally the idea of thrift 
 in all its implications must be made a part of the educational 
 program. All this may seem too ideal and impracticable to 
 think of in connection with industrial education, but if we 
 consider industry and industrialism as the center of our 
 whole civilization, as it appears to be now, what less ideal 
 educational foundation will be sufficient as preparation for 
 and control of the industrial life? No teaching of trades, 
 we assert, will be enough. We shall need to apply, in in- 
 dustrial education or in an educational plan that takes in- 
 
278 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 dustry into account, all the methods of teaching: those that 
 employ industry itself, but also art, erudition, and play. 
 
 It is first with industrialism as a world condition that 
 education is concerned. Industrialism has been, as all must 
 recognize, too individualistic. It has motives and moods 
 and products, and it grows in social conditions, that are full 
 of danger for society. Industrialism lacks a soul, as Berg- 
 son would say. Yet it is a movement that sweeps on with 
 almost irresistible force. Its most characteristic product 
 is not what it turns out in shops, but city life itself. Many 
 would agree with Russell in saying that all the great cities 
 are centers of deterioration in the life of their nations. 
 Education, then, must undertake to control industrialism. 
 This does not mean, necessarily, that it must try to check 
 it, but that the motives in individual and social life that 
 produce industrialism must in some way be under the control 
 of educational forces. 
 
 First of all it seems certain that no political arrange- 
 ment, and no change taking place entirely within the indus- 
 trial system itself, and no simple and direct educational 
 procedure will give us control over the forces of industrial- 
 ism. It is mainly by preventing the city spirit or mood 
 from developing too fast and thus engulfing the children of 
 the nation that we can introduce a conscious factor strong 
 enough to hold industrial development within bounds. This 
 means, we must earnestly demand, turning back the flow 
 of life from country to city by educating all children in 
 the environment of the country. This would have a double 
 effect upon the industrialism of the day. It would break 
 up the present inevitable inheritance by the city child of all 
 the ideals and moods of the city, and it would give oppor- 
 tunity for training in the activities that are basic to all 
 industry, which alone, in our view, can give to industry 
 a solid and normal foundation. By such effects, in such 
 a general way, upon the children of an industrial nation, we 
 might reasonably hope to prevent the evil effects upon our 
 
Industry and Education 279 
 
 national life from the fatigue, the routine, and the deaden- 
 ing of the spirit which even under improved conditions can- 
 not be overcome in an industrial life that is left to its 
 monotonous grind and its morbid excitements and exaggera- 
 tions. 
 
 Another work that education must in the end do for 
 the industrial life is to infuse into it an ideal and a pur- 
 pose. Industry is too individualistic, we say. It works for 
 a living, for power, from necessity. It lacks through and 
 through as yet the spirit of free and intelligent coopera- 
 tion for common and remote ends. Cooperation in the 
 industrial world, we have seen reason to believe, is likely 
 to be the great word of the future. It is precisely the work 
 of education to make the future of industry an expression 
 of free activity, to make it democratic, and to such an ex- 
 tent, we might hope, that socialism, whether as a govern- 
 mental interference or as a class system, would not be 
 necessary — or possible. In trying to give industrialism 
 an ideal, we must presumably go back to elemental mental 
 processes. We must, in the beginning, present the world's 
 work dramatically to the child. We must give work in- 
 terest, and it is certainly one of the chief purposes of that 
 nondescript subject we call geography thus to give the child 
 a deep appreciation of the world as a world of men and 
 women engaged in work. We must show industry as a 
 world-wide purpose, not as something essentially individual 
 and competitive. We must show it as an adventure on 
 the part of man in which he goes forth to seek conquest over 
 the physical world; we must think of it as a means to an 
 end, of fulfilling purposes not all of which perhaps can as 
 yet be foreseen, but which certainly can be no mere satis- 
 faction of the individual's desires of the day. This is what 
 we mean by putting a soul into industry. Soul means pur- 
 pose — purpose which includes more than the desires of 
 the individual, and in which the interests of the world as a 
 whole are involved. Industry that has thus a purpose, and 
 
280 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 that is imbued with a spirit of freedom takes its place 
 among the psychic forces and becomes a part of the mechan- 
 ism of mental evolution. It is this idealism of industry, 
 toward the production of which we must turn every educa- 
 tional resource, that must offset its materialism. This is, 
 in part, the work of the aesthetic experiences, the dramatic 
 presentation of the day's work to the child; but art can 
 of course work only upon the soil of experience; the child 
 must see the world teeming with human activity, but he 
 must observe it in a detached way, rather than as a par- 
 ticipant in its realism and its dull and its unwholesome 
 moods. Then we shall have a content upon which the 
 aesthetic motives can work. In this idealized industrial ex- 
 perience, we try to make visible the real motives which in the 
 future must dominate the world's work. 
 
 All this may seem too general and too ideal, but if 
 we do not begin with broad plans, and if we do not take 
 a far look ahead, we shall fail now at a vital point of the 
 social development of man. The result at which we aim 
 is the socialization of the motives of industry. We make 
 work voluntary by bringing into it persuasively and in- 
 sidiously deep motives and interests which represent social 
 purposes and ideals. Given these motives and the begin- 
 ning of a change from the relatively more individualistic 
 to the relatively more social spirit in industry, the actual 
 means of cooperation would not be far to seek. Work 
 would become by its own inner development under such con- 
 ditions, something different from an unwilling service of 
 the individual, a compulsory service to family or state. 
 Everything we can do to give to children and to all workers 
 an intelligent appreciation of the social meaning and pur- 
 pose of work is both industrial training and an educa- 
 tion in basic social relations. This socialization of the 
 moods of work and the founding of them upon the neces- 
 sary experiences, is as important as anything education is at 
 the present time called upon to do. Given this foundation, 
 
Industry and Education 281 
 
 precisely the form industrial education, in the ordinary 
 sense, shall take, seems to be of secondary importance. 
 
 Turning now to another phase of the industrial problem 
 on its educational side, one cannot escape the conviction that 
 the rising tide of the powers of labor presents urgent prob- 
 lems to the educator. The common man, as we call him, is 
 to take a greater part in the affairs of business and state, 
 and the education of the common man with reference to the 
 especial capacity, as worker, in which he seeks this new posi- 
 tion, becomes highly important. This education of the peo- 
 ple with specific reference to work is of course something 
 more than teaching vocation. Education, indeed, with any 
 explicit attention to labor itself, whether in its industrial 
 or its political implications, is but a part of the educational 
 problem. All education for the democratic life is involved 
 in it. The whole problem of specialization comes up, and 
 indeed all questions of social education in one form or an- 
 other. 
 
 Specialization, in particular, can no longer be treated 
 with the indifference that has so far characterized our in- 
 dustrial education. The ideal of fitting the boy for work 
 is as naive in one way as that of our generalized educa- 
 tion is in another. // the war has taught us anything be- 
 yond a doubt, it is that specialization must never be such a 
 differentiation as shall infringe upon the common ground of 
 human nature. We must take this into consideration in all 
 our vocational training. We must preserve an identity in 
 all the fundamental experiences. In a democracy this ap- 
 pears to be wholly necessary, and to outweigh all considera- 
 tions of efficiency. The individual must be kept whole and 
 generic, so that each individual is an epitome, so to speak, of 
 the virtues and the ideals of the nation. The humanity of 
 the man must be first, and his special function secondary. 
 This does not imply that we must not give to all children 
 individual and vocational training. All must be directed 
 towards life work. We may even carry vocational train- 
 
282 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ing further than it has been extended anywhere as yet, but 
 we must see that industry occupies the right place in the 
 school, and in all educational processes. It is neither the 
 whole method and purpose of the school, nor something 
 simply added to the curriculum. It is a phase of the life of 
 the school, both in its active and its receptive states. The 
 child must live in an atmosphere in which both present and 
 future usefulness are assumed and provided for. The idea 
 of a life of work must be made early an accepted plan of 
 the child, and it must be one of the entirely general tasks of 
 the school to see that the tendency of the child in the school 
 is toward occupation. Occupation must in fact be made to 
 grow naturally out of the life the child leads in the school. 
 All those disharmonies in our industrial countries such 
 as the prevalent discord between working and capitalistic 
 classes seem, we have said, to be social rather than economic 
 in nature. Social education, then, is the main cure for 
 them, if we wish to attack them at their root. The motives 
 of pride and the sense of inferiority have to be dealt with 
 in a practical manner. We sometimes quite overlook the 
 importance of habitual moods or states of feeling in society 
 and in the school. These moods are powers which mo- 
 tivate conduct. Any form of education in which the poorer 
 and less favored are given an opportunity to acquire the 
 experiences, and through these the moods, that especially 
 distinguish the more favored class, strikes at the general dis- 
 parity in society which takes form in such antagonisms as 
 that between capital and labor. It is not difference in de- 
 gree but difference in kind of experience that appears to 
 separate the classes from one another. The difference 
 seems to lie in those parts of life which are sometimes be- 
 lieved to be the unessentials and which indeed our whole 
 educational policy assumes apparently to be trivial. The 
 fundamental differences between the poor and the rich, the 
 favored and the common people, is in the sphere of the 
 aesthetic. Distinction of manner and an environment rich 
 
Industry and Education 283 
 
 in aesthetic qualities are the main advantages of the few, 
 as compared with the many. Social experience is what is 
 most needed by the many, but of course this experience can 
 never be gained by making the educational institutions 
 merely democratic, and especially social experience cannot 
 be gained in a school in which all situations are studiously 
 avoided in which really significant social relations are likely 
 to be experienced. We gain no social experience in the 
 naive and the highly special activities of the school which 
 for the most part is arranged in such a way as to ex- 
 clude organized social relations. This is a process in which 
 such leveling as there is tends to be downward, whereas 
 what we need is for all the truly aristocratic elements in 
 our national life to have an opportunity to propagate them- 
 selves and to extend to the many. Leaving aside the need 
 of a differently organized social life in the school, we 
 might say that there is hardly a greater need in democratic 
 countries now than that of recruiting the rank and file 
 of teachers from a socially superior class. These socially 
 favored individuals have given themselves loyally to the 
 service of country in a time of war, for two if no more 
 of their deepest motives have been appealed to — the 
 dramatic interest and the spirit of noblesse oblige. There 
 are duties in times of peace which are quite as important, 
 but which as yet appeal to no strong motive, and have not 
 even been presented in the form of obligation. Once these 
 common tasks were made to appear a part of the fulfillment 
 of duty to country, the way to finding deep satisfaction in 
 them might be opened. Social and dramatic elements would 
 be introduced as a matter of course. 
 
 Another need throughout our whole effort to educate 
 all in and for a life of work, one which has appealed to 
 many writers in recent years, is the need of making all 
 the experience of work more creative or more free and 
 animated or joyous in mood. This means, again, that in 
 all industrial education the mood must be social and the 
 
284 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 form (Esthetic or dramatic. Social values must be felt 
 through social activity, and the sense of worth in labor and 
 of value of the product which is felt in the social mood 
 must be enhanced by the dramatic form of the activity 
 and the artistic quality of the product. This is also the con- 
 dition for creative activity. Some writers apparently now 
 see in this need of making the activity of all those who 
 work more creative, more free and more joyous the crucial 
 problem of education and of social adjustment. This is 
 Russell's constant theme. Helen Marot in " Creative In- 
 dustry " says that our problem is to develop an industrial 
 system that shall stimulate and satisfy the native impulse for 
 creative production. It is difficult to see how, by any 
 other educational process than one which is essentially 
 aesthetic and social, we can make much headway toward 
 changing the conception of work from the now prevalent 
 one of a means of making a living, more or less under com- 
 pulsion, to that of a voluntary social act done both for its 
 utility from the standpoint of the individual and also because 
 of its social value, and performed to some extent, however 
 humble the work, in the spirit of the creative artist. 
 
 For the adult generation that now works (and for how 
 many generations to come we do not know), we cannot 
 hope to make ideal conditions. Work will still be work, 
 with its evil implications, as toil without complete inner sat- 
 isfaction, and without sufficiently free motives. But the 
 direction in which practical changes should be made seems 
 clear. There must still be a lessening of the hours of rou- 
 tine labor, until there are perhaps no longer more than six 
 or five devoted to vocation. The remainder of life is not 
 for idleness but must be in part productive or the lessened 
 hours of routine will not be possible. There must be pos- 
 sibility of both practical and recreational activities outside 
 the regular day's work, as well as for educational work, all 
 of these in part at least publicly provided for. This ac- 
 tivity may serve many purposes and accomplish a variety 
 
Industry and Education 285 
 
 of results. As educational it ought to open up new oppor- 
 tunities; it must fulfill the desire for creative activity; it 
 must be a socializing power; it must lead to an apprecia- 
 tion of the nature and value of skill and efficiency; it must 
 introduce all to the higher world of art and the intellectual 
 life. Above all it must impress deeply the truth that growth 
 in the normal life is never ended. 
 
 The third phase of industrial education which is to be 
 emphasized now is the teaching of what we have called 
 thrift. This idea of thrift, for pedagogical purposes, is 
 equivalent to the broad principle that purposes in this world 
 are achieved by the expenditure of force — by the control 
 of energies which are not unlimited in amount as now con- 
 trolled and which are subject to definite laws. Since ob- 
 jects which are to be secured by the expenditure of energy 
 differ in value it is a part of this education in thrift, indeed 
 an important and necessary part, to give to all such knowl- 
 edge and powers of appreciation as will enable them to rec- 
 ognize that which is essential, and to give the essential and 
 the unessential their proper places in the whole economy of 
 life. 
 
 It will never be right of course to inspire a parsimonious 
 spirit in regard either to goods or to energies. Life it- 
 self and all its energies must be given freely; material goods 
 must not be evaluated too minutely. The miserly life is not 
 what we wish to teach. Still there is a wise attitude toward 
 all material things and toward all values which recognizes 
 goods as means to ends, which places true values high and 
 demands economy in the use of all things that must be con- 
 served in order to attain them. 
 
 It must be a part of the work of physiology, which thus 
 branches out into psychology, to teach to all the efficient 
 use of human energies. These energies are the precious 
 things in the world ; they must be valued and respected as 
 the source of all efficiency. The idea of economy of move- 
 ment, from this standpoint, has an important place in all 
 
286 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 motor or industrial or manual training. Processes must 
 be regarded as definite series of acts in which we may- 
 approach perfection. Technique in motor operations is 
 not to be regarded lightly as a mere finish applied to useful 
 acts. It is the expression of an ideal of efficiency and econ- 
 omy. Children recognize the value of technique in games; 
 its wider and more practical application needs to be im- 
 pressed. 
 
 In the same way knowledge of the precise values and uses 
 of material things ought to be imparted. The war has had 
 the effect of showing all of us the values of materials and 
 the relations of materials to one another. It has given 
 us a sense of the great powers of natural wealth, and also 
 of its limitations and the weak points that exist now in 
 our economy. The war has proved to us how closely re- 
 lated the things we use lavishly and wastefully may be 
 to the most ideal possessions. It has shown that the pro- 
 duction, the distribution and the use of wealth of all kinds 
 are parts of the accomplishment of the main purposes of 
 life and that all these things belong to the sphere of duty; 
 and that no individual can escape obligations in regard 
 to economy. 
 
 Education, therefore, must lay foundations both for an 
 understanding of economy and for the practice of it. First 
 of all, every individual, we may assume, ought to have 
 some experience in the production of the elementary forms 
 of material goods, and in the conversion of them into 
 higher values and in their conservation. We looked care- 
 fully to some of these activities as a war measure. It is 
 hardly less necessary in times of peace. We should teach 
 these things, not simply because the practice of them is 
 educational, but because the practice of them is useful, and 
 is a necessary service, on the part of every individual, to 
 the world. Adding to the world's store of goods and con- 
 sciousness of the need of doing this directly or indirectly 
 should be regarded as a fundamental duty and habit. To 
 
Industry and Education 287 
 
 establish both the habit and the sense of duty, we may 
 suppose, a stage is necessary in which the individual's con- 
 tribution shall be direct and tangible. Hence the value of 
 those educational activities that deal with foods and their 
 conservation. 
 
 On a little higher plane, and in a little different way 
 we can apply the same thoughts to the whole cycle of ma- 
 terial things. The distribution of wealth is of course in 
 part a technical and a theoretical problem. It is also a 
 practical and a general one. All at least ought to be judges 
 of the waste that now goes on in the industrial life because 
 the " middleman " has occupied such a place of vantage 
 in the economic order. In teaching occupation and in all 
 preparation for vocation ought we not to take this into 
 consideration? Occupations that are purely distributive 
 and which involve a great waste of human energies and of 
 materials have been unduly emphasized, at least by default 
 of more positive preparation, by the school. Because they 
 are easy and untechnical and have a little elegance about 
 them, in some cases, they fit in very well with the generality 
 and bookishness and detachment from real life that the 
 school sometimes represents. 
 
 The occupations that are more creative, both in the field 
 of material things and of ideas, have, relatively speaking, 
 been neglected. Inventiveness especially seems to be a qual- 
 ity that we have supposed to be a gift of the gods, and we 
 have given but little attention to producing it, or even giving 
 it an opportunity to display itself. Have we not gained 
 from the war new impressions both about the powers of 
 the human mind in producing new thoughts and in con- 
 trolling both material and psychic forces, and also about 
 the necessity for developing originality and independence? 
 Is it too much to expect now that greater ingenuity be 
 displayed in education itself to the end of producing more 
 originality? This is a hackneyed request to make of the 
 school, but it seems certain that we do not succeed in ob- 
 
288 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 taining through our educational processes the highest pos- 
 sible degree of productiveness of mind, as regards either 
 quantity or quality. It is because indeed we seem to be 
 very far from our limit in these respects, and because better 
 results might perhaps so easily be gained that it seems neces- 
 sary to make this plea so often. More activity, more art, 
 greater enrichment of the mind, ought to have the desired 
 result, especially if the environment of the school could be so 
 changed that its moods would be more joyous and intense. 
 These changes are at any rate demanded for so many other 
 reasons that if they fail to make the intellect more produc- 
 tive, they will not be completely a failure. 
 
 Education in the use of wealth must now be regarded 
 as a part of moral education. In America we have ignored 
 the necessity of thrift, and the idea of thrift has certainly 
 had no part in education. The proper use of everything we 
 produce or own is a fundamental part of conduct, and it 
 ought to be a persistent theme in education. We have now 
 the interest and incentive that have come from the war, we 
 say, for we have felt, if only remotely, what poverty 
 means, and we have seen that no amount of natural wealth 
 and no degree of civilization can wholly insure us against 
 famine and disaster. We need throughout our national life 
 now, again, something like the old New England conscience 
 in the uses of things, applied in a different way, of 
 course, and now made more effectual by our broader science. 
 The encouragement of this spirit will perhaps make the dif- 
 ference in the end between having a world seriously engaged 
 in progressive tasks with its material forces well in hand, 
 and a world which in all its practical affairs, large and 
 small, is operated according to the principle or the lack 
 of principle of a laissez faire attitude throughout life. Sav- 
 ing in a good cause, and with a clear conscience and de- 
 termined purpose, is one of the elements of the higher life 
 and is far removed from miserliness. It is a principle of 
 adaptation of means to ends, and that any school which 
 
Industry and Education 289 
 
 trains this power is reaching fundamental principles of the 
 practical life needs hardly to be said. 
 
 The higher uses and appreciation of wealth which we 
 are wont to call plain living and high thinking, the moral 
 idea of philanthropy, the aesthetic values and hygienic im- 
 plications of the right kind of simplicity must not be omitted 
 from the educational idea of thrift. To impart something 
 of the spirit of restraint and generosity, and to make the 
 child feel what living simply, and with definite purpose, 
 and making means serve one's real ends in life imply, to 
 teach the joys of the higher uses of common things, is no 
 mean achievement. But can we indeed do these things 
 which after all have their main virtue in being general 
 and social, and a part of a program? All we can say is 
 that if we are to have a better order, and if we think edu- 
 cation has any place in it, economy in its broadest sense, but 
 economy also as applied to the details of daily life must 
 also have a place in it. It is both fatuous and insincere 
 to talk about good things to come, and not be willing to 
 pay the price in labor and in sacrifice necessary to obtain 
 them honestly. Especially when the price of these things 
 is in itself no demand for the sacrificing of any real good, 
 but quite to the contrary is a summons to a more joyous life, 
 we should be glad to pay it. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 NEW SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 The social problems of education that have arisen be- 
 cause of our new world relations and new internal condi- 
 tions in our own country are of course only special phases 
 of social education as a whole, and social education can- 
 not indeed be separated sharply from other educational 
 questions. There are, however, new demands and new 
 evidences, and new points of view from which we see social 
 education (or better, education in its social aspects), in a 
 somewhat new and different light, as compared with our 
 ideas of the school in the days before the war. We have 
 discussed some of these social problems. Now we must 
 consider them both in their general significance, and also 
 in their more specifically pedagogical aspects. 
 
 There appear to be two things that social education needs 
 especially to do now : create and sustain a firmer unity at 
 home — a wider and deeper loyalty on the part of the in- 
 dividual to all the causes and to all the groups to which 
 he is attached ; and to make our world-consciousness a more 
 productive state of mind. It is perhaps because such edu- 
 cational proposals as these are generally left in the form 
 of ideals and things hoped for in a distant future, and 
 are not examined to see whether they may be made defi- 
 nite programs, and are legitimate demands to be made 
 now, that we are likely to regard all suggestions of this 
 nature as impracticable. And yet the production of morale 
 at home and a social consciousness adequate for our new 
 relations abroad seems to be a proper demand to make even 
 upon the school. In part, of course, and perhaps largely, 
 
 290 
 
New Social Problems 291 
 
 the need is first of all for practical relations, but we must 
 consider educationally also the fundamental and creative 
 factors of the psychic process itself which must in the end 
 sustain the relations that we have established at such cost 
 and shall now begin to elaborate as practical functions. 
 
 The greatest work of social education to-day is to in- 
 fuse into all the social relations a new and more ardent 
 spirit. It is the elevation of the social moods to a more 
 productive level, we might say, that is wanted. ^Esthetic 
 elements, imagination, and the harmonizing of individual 
 and social motives are needed. War has shown us the pos- 
 sibilities of exalted social moods ; what we ought to do now 
 is to consider how we may make our morale of peace equal 
 in efficiency and in power to our war morale. This is in 
 great part a problem of social education. 
 
 Every nation has its own especial social problems which 
 must become educational problems, and be dealt with in some 
 way according to the methods available in schools. In 
 England the social questions seem to be more in mind and 
 to be better understood than here. They are more con- 
 scious there of social disharmony and of living a socially 
 divided life than we are. They have seen at close range 
 the dangers of class interests and individual interests. In- 
 dividualism, class distinction and party politics and the in- 
 dependence of labor came near proving the ruin of Eng- 
 land. The Bishop of Oxford has expressed himself as be- 
 lieving that the blank stupid conservatism of his country, as 
 he calls it, is really broken and that a new sense of service 
 is actually dawning in all directions. Trotter says (and he 
 too is thinking of England) that a very small amount 
 of conscious and authoritative direction, a little sacrifice 
 of privilege, a slight relaxation in the vast inhumanity of 
 the social machine might at the right moment have made a 
 profound effect in the national spirit. Generalizing, and 
 now thinking of social phenomena in terms of the psy- 
 chology of the herd, he says that the trouble in modern 
 
292 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 society is that capacity for individual reaction — that is 
 for making different reactions to the same stimulus — has 
 far outstripped the capacity for intercommunication. So- 
 ciety has grown in complexity and strength, but it has also 
 grown in disorder. 
 
 Such disharmony of the social life of course exists also in 
 America. We have not the sharp division of classes and 
 interests and the demonstrative and protesting individualism 
 that are to be found in England (our individual rights are 
 taken more for granted perhaps) but for that very reason, it 
 may well be, our disharmonies are all the more dangerous 
 and difficult to overcome. The tension of the individual and 
 the social will (using MacCurdy's expression) is great. 
 We are highly individualistic in our mode of life, as is 
 shown both in domestic and in public affairs. Specializa- 
 tion and an intense interest in occupations that bring in- 
 dividual distinction and large financial returns have cer- 
 tainly taken precedence over the more fundamental and 
 common activities and interests. 
 
 It is these fundamental and common activities and in- 
 terests and sympathies that ought to be the chief concern of 
 social education, or perhaps we had better say that all 
 our educational processes ought so to be socialized as to 
 broaden sympathies and make activities common. Educa- 
 tion must constantly strive to make the common back- 
 ground of our national life more firm and strong. More 
 important to-day than any further education in the direc- 
 tion of specialization of life in America is the securing 
 of a strong cohesion throughout society by means of com- 
 mon interests and moods. It is true that specialization car- 
 ried out in some ideal way may provide just the condi- 
 tions needed for the best social order, but this can be only 
 in so far as individuals become specialized within the whole 
 of society, so to speak, in which individuals continue to have 
 a common life. Individuals as wholes must not be dif- 
 ferentiated and left to find their own means of coordina- 
 
New Social Problems 293 
 
 tion and association, or be brought together artificially by 
 law or convention. Specialization must be made the re- 
 verse side, as it were, of a social process in which at every 
 point coordination is also provided for. At the present 
 time, it is the latter rather than the former that is of most 
 importance to us. 
 
 Social education in a democratic country must always 
 be a matter of the greatest concern. In autocratic socie- 
 ties the cohesive force exists in traditions or can at any 
 moment be generated executively. The autocratic country 
 can be held together in spite of social antagonism. In a 
 democracy this cannot be. We voluntarily accept some 
 degree of incoordination and confusion for the sake of 
 our ideals of freedom. We do not wish cohesion based 
 upon any form of pessimism or fear — fear of enemies 
 without or of powers within. To secure unity in our own 
 national life we must work for it incessantly, and we ought 
 to be willing to, for unity means so much to us. It is not 
 cohesion at any price that we want, but voluntary and 
 natural union, and to secure that we should not hesitate 
 to make our educational institutions broad enough to in- 
 clude the education of the most fundamental relations of the 
 individual to society. We want neither a " healthy egoism " 
 nor a morbid self-denying spirit that is only a step re- 
 moved from slavery — neither instinctive independence nor 
 an artificial and enforced social organization. We must not 
 be deceived either by a vague and false idea of liberty or 
 by the equally vicious ideal of militarism with its super- 
 ficiality of social relations and its pedagogical simplicity. 
 Both these ideas represent social life on a low plane. 
 Healthy individualism, even with its strong sense of toler- 
 ance and comradeship and its respect for law and order, is 
 not the kind of social ideal that we should now cultivate, 
 for it is too primitive a state to fit into our already complex 
 social life, or to be a basis for the firm solidarity we need 
 for the future. As for militarism, it may become a mere 
 
294 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 shell, giving the appearance of social unity when its bonds 
 are mere shreds and the last drop of moral vitality has 
 gone out of it. 
 
 Our need and problem are plain enough. We wish to 
 develop social cohesion and unity upon a natural and perma- 
 nent basis of social feeling expressed in, and in turn pro- 
 duced by, social organization, voluntarily entered into for 
 practical and for ideal purposes. Such solidarity can 
 neither be made nor unmade by external forces. We must 
 form and sustain it by creating internal bonds. We live, 
 in any great society, always over smoldering fires, however 
 highly civilized the society, and we are always threatened 
 with the eruption of volcanic forces. It is fatuous to 
 ignore this, and to make a fool's paradise of our democracy. 
 Our problem is to produce such a social life as shall keep us 
 safe through all dangers — dangers from enemies without, 
 and within, and underneath. A democracy, or indeed any 
 society after all and at its best, contains the makings of 
 the crowd and the mob. Organized as it is, it is always 
 an order made of material units which may enter into dis- 
 order. Society is based upon social consciousness, upon 
 the consciousness of kind, but it also has collective force. 
 The crowd and the collective force are always contained in 
 society. However far human nature is removed from its 
 primitive form, the social order is always fragile. Mental 
 operations that are not intelligent and are not emotional in 
 the ordinary sense, but which consist, so to speak, of com- 
 mon factors among primitive feelings, may gain and for 
 a time hold the ascendancy. Eruptions in the social con- 
 sciousness are of the nature of morbid phenomena, and 
 are rare and exceptional expressions of the collective life, 
 but we are never free entirely from the menace of them. 
 Social order, we say, is always fragile. We must not over- 
 look that fact. It is this characteristic of the social life, 
 the potentiality of mob spirit and the forces of primitive 
 
New Social Problems 295 
 
 anger ani fear, that lead some writers to think, wrongly 
 we believe, that this is the psychological basis of wars in 
 general. War comes out of the order of society. The 
 higher ecstatic states and the ideals of man enter into 
 them. These things we speak of are of the nature of dis- 
 order, or are only the order of pure momentum. But what- 
 ever the truth may be about the relation of instinct to war 
 and however remote the dangers to ourselves from the 
 forces which in society make for disorder, it is the work 
 of social education to control, transform and utilize all 
 social and collective forces, the primitive emotions and in- 
 stincts, the moods of intoxication and all the higher ecsta- 
 sies of the social life, and it is only, we suppose, by thus 
 consciously and with premeditation controlling these forces 
 that in any real sense we can " make democracy safe for 
 the world." 
 
 It is the idea of society coordinated by intelligence and 
 by common interests and moods that we must always 
 hold before us. Trotter says that civilization has never 
 brought a well-coordinated society, and that a gregarious 
 unit consciously directed would be a new type of biological 
 organism. If this be so, the time seems peculiarly ripe to 
 make advance toward this better social solidarity. Both the 
 promise and the need seem greatest in the great English 
 speaking countries now. There is waiting, we may truly 
 think, a larger sphere of life for all democratic countries. 
 If it be conscious direction alone that can bring about the 
 change, education has a long and a hard task before it, to 
 make the democratic peoples capable of such conscious di- 
 rection. This must come in part by the development of the 
 idea of leadership, and by the production of all the condi- 
 tions that make leadership possible. In part it must come 
 by the clear perception of definite tasks to be performed 
 by nations and by all organizations within nations — tasks 
 which have all grown out of the relations existing within 
 
296 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 society. In part it means cultivating intelligent apprecia- 
 tion of social values, and developing in every possible way all 
 the social powers. 
 
 What we appear to need most in our social education 
 just now is a conception of what the individual is and 
 what the social life is in terms of the desires and the func- 
 tions they embody. These are the raw materials with which 
 we work. We should then treat all our social problems 
 in a somewhat different way from that in which they are 
 mainly dealt with now. We should try especially to make 
 harmony in society not by maneuvering so that we might 
 have peace and good feeling for their own sakes, but by co- 
 ordinating the functions which are expressed in the life of 
 the individual and in all social relations. That is precisely 
 what is not being done now, in our present stage of society, 
 either in the life of the individual, or in the wider life of 
 society. People live without deep continuity in their lives, 
 and we are not conscious enough of the ideal relationships 
 individuals should have with one another, in order to 
 make the social life productive. In a word we do not suffi- 
 ciently take account of the purposes to be achieved, but are 
 too conscious of states of feeling. We do not yet appear 
 to see all the possibilities contained in the social life, what 
 voluntary unions are necessary, and what kind of community 
 life must be developed before we can have a really demo- 
 cratic order. 
 
 We must not be content, certainly, with a merely super- 
 ficial and external solidarity or the purely practical gre- 
 gariousness of the shops or the artificial forms of the con- 
 ventional social life. Society must more and more accom- 
 plish results by the social life. Coordination in the per- 
 formance of a few obvious functions, and enthusiasm for a 
 few partisan causes, will not be enough. Nor will such or- 
 der as militarism represents suffice. Is it not plain, indeed, 
 that democracy must rest upon deeper and far more com- 
 plex coordinations than we have now, and that social feel- 
 
New Social Problems 297 
 
 ings or moods must be made more creative ? It is the desire 
 to accomplish ends through social organization, rather than 
 the desire to possess and enjoy, that must be made to dom- 
 inate it. To effect such changes in the social life must be 
 in great part the work of education. 
 
 Social education in our present time and conditions might 
 very well be considered in terms of the antinomies which 
 exist in society. These antinomies represent the obstacles 
 to national unity. They stand for inhibitions which are 
 expressed in feelings that are wholly unproductive. Each 
 one of them is a measure of so much waste, so much failure 
 and lack of momentum, so much disorder and disorganiza- 
 tion. A program of social education, we say, might be 
 based upon a consideration of these antinomies. It would 
 consider mainly how the waste and obstruction of these 
 conflicting purposes of the social life might be overcome by 
 giving desires more harmonious and more positive direc- 
 tion. A complete account of social education from this 
 standpoint would need to take notice of many disharmonies 
 now very evident in our life as a nation. Among them 
 would be found sectional antagonisms, party opposition, 
 frictions of social classes and industrial classes, religious 
 differences, disharmony between the sexes, racial antipa- 
 thies. Some of these we have already touched upon briefly. 
 Some others seem to require further mention in the pres- 
 ent connection. 
 
 The lack of understanding and sympathy between lower 
 and upper classes in society plays a larger part in democratic 
 America than we are usually inclined to admit. There are 
 divided interests, divergent mores, lack of unity and co- 
 ordination in some of the most urgent duties because of the 
 antagonism of classes and the lack of understanding, on the 
 part of one, of the ways of another. Especially in civic life 
 the unproductiveness of the situation is very apparent. 
 What money and advantage on one side combined with will- 
 ing hands on the other might do is left undone. 
 
298 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 In part this antagonism of classes is merely the result of 
 difference in manners. There are manners and forms that 
 constitute a common bond among the members of a class 
 everywhere. Ought we not to take advantage of this ex- 
 ample and use the suggestion it offers for bridging over 
 the differences that we complain of? We have seen during 
 the war, also, how well common tasks can unite all classes. 
 Does not our educational institution afford us opportunity to 
 continue this advantage, and make common service lead 
 more directly to understanding and appreciation, not for the 
 sake of the sympathy alone, but because of all the practical 
 consequences and the opportunities for the future that are 
 thus opened up? We assume that social feeling may be 
 created through social organization. Mabie says that 
 America is distinguished by its capacities for forming help- 
 ful organizations. We must make the most of this habit, 
 which presumably is derived from the neighborliness and 
 comradeship of our original colonial life. We need many 
 group causes, not artificially planned as trellises upon which 
 to grow social feelings, but, first of all certainly, in order 
 to accomplish those things that can be done effectively only 
 socially. 
 
 The secret of harmony among classes is presumably not 
 to allow any class to have vital interests which are exclu- 
 sively its own, since to have an exclusive vital interest means 
 of course to live defensively or to carry on offensive strategy. 
 The chief interest of the great working class at the present 
 time is plainly to secure a living, and it is the sense of iso- 
 lation in this struggle which in part at least is the cause of 
 many unfavorable conditions in our present social order. 
 Ought not education to prepare the way for a different atti- 
 tude in which all should become vitally interested in the 
 economic problems of all? This does not mean an educa- 
 tion directed toward enlarging the spirit of philanthropy; 
 it means mainly organization to serve common purposes. 
 
 These social problems are very numerous. They are 
 
New Social Problems 299 
 
 both national and local. Any city which will undertake to 
 solve in its civic relations this problem of securing greater 
 social unity in social causes will provide an object lesson 
 which will be of the greatest value. It is in these local 
 groups perhaps that some of the best experimental social 
 work may be done. Here the educational and the political 
 modes of attack can best be coordinated, results can be made 
 most tangible, and the primitive and simple forms of soli- 
 darity most nearly realized. It is indeed by going back to 
 these simpler forms of social life and seeking means of co- 
 ordinating the group in fundamental activities that the 
 greatest headway will be made in the solution of wider 
 social problems. 
 
 Another of the disharmonies which social education must 
 from now on undertake to control is the disharmony and 
 the inequality of the sexes, not so much as this appears in 
 the domestic life as in the broader relations of the social 
 life. Brinton says that the ethnic psychologist has no 
 sounder maxim than that uttered by Steinthal, that the posi- 
 tion of women is the cardinal point of all social relations. 
 Every one, of course, now recognizes the fact that the posi- 
 tion of women is to-day in a transitional and experimental 
 stage. Conflicting motives are at work, and on the part 
 of neither sex do the highest motives seem to prevail, nor 
 is there a full realization anywhere of the values that are 
 at stake. Men are thinking of the question of the position 
 of women too much from the standpoint of expediency, and 
 are scrutinizing too closely the immediate future. Women 
 perhaps are thinking too much just now of their rights. 
 There is a decadent form of chivalry or at least a sexuality 
 that perpetuates conventions and interests that on the whole 
 seem to interfere with progress. Jealousy and in general 
 the tense emotional relations between the sexes obscure 
 larger issues. Thus misunderstanding or antagonism, or at 
 least disharmony, prevails in relations in which there should 
 be perfect harmony of ideals and purposes, and productive 
 
300 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 activities of the highest nature. The education of women, 
 whether for the domestic life or for the life outside the 
 home is plainly but a part of the educational problem. The 
 sexes have different desires, and it is precisely the work of 
 harmonizing these desires, and regulating and coordinating 
 activities and functions, that is the most important part of 
 social education in regard to the sexes. 
 
 It is not at all difficult to see what the basic need is. 
 It is not so easy to find practical means of applying the 
 remedy in the form of education, because the whole system 
 of living of the sexes must in some way be affected. The 
 generalized principle on the practical side seems clear. All 
 classes or groups in society must learn to think and to act 
 not in terms of and with reference to the desires of their 
 class alone, but with regard to wider tasks and values that 
 are not fully realized by the most natural and the conven- 
 tional activities of the class. The question is not one of 
 making a moral change — converting individuals or classes 
 from a spirit of selfishness to that of altruism. What we 
 need is an educational process and a social life in which 
 the nature of the individual and of the class is revealed as 
 social, as best represented and satisfied in situations in which 
 both the individual and the wider social idea work together. 
 
 Practically, we should say, the problem of education of 
 the sexes with reference to one another and to a wider social 
 life consists first of all in actually educating them together 
 not merely in juxtaposition but in relations of a practical 
 character. The relations of the sexes have evidently been 
 mainly domestic and emotional, or in cases where they are 
 practical the position of women has been little better than 
 servitude. Of social coordination there has been little. 
 Education of the sexes through situations in which the spe- 
 cial abilities of each sex are brought into action, doing for 
 the wider social life what the natural and instinctive differ- 
 entiation of activities has accomplished in its way for the 
 domestic life seems to be the main principle now to be em- 
 
New Social Problems 301 
 
 ployed in the education of the sexes. Women must be made 
 to see that the ideal of independence which is uppermost at 
 the present time is only the mark of a transitional stage, and 
 that coordination in which of course competition of vari- 
 ous kinds cannot be entirely eliminated will be the final ad- 
 justment. We should have no fear of placing the sexes, 
 in their educational situations, in positions where competi- 
 tion is necessary, since through competition fundamental 
 desires may be brought to the surface and regulated. Pro- 
 vided we admit at all that a new social adjustment is needed 
 between the sexes, we can hardly fail to see that it is pri- 
 marily in a practical life lived together that both education 
 for the new order will best be conducted and the new order 
 itself realized. 
 
 The details of method of what we have called social edu- 
 cation for democracy we can only suggest here and of 
 course in a very imperfect and tentative way. All aspects 
 of education and every department of the school are in- 
 volved; and every available method employed in education 
 must in some way be turned to the purpose of developing 
 social relations. In a very general way we think of these 
 specific processes of the school as methods of learning, 
 methods of art, and methods of activity, although of course 
 in reality there can be no such sharp separation of them as 
 this might imply. 
 
 There must be some place in the school now for a subject 
 which in a general way might be designated as social history. 
 We must teach the whole story of the social life of our coun- 
 try in such a way as to reveal the motives of classes, parties, 
 sections, and of all organizations, institutions and princi- 
 ples. Such teaching should have the effect of bringing to 
 light the causes of the disharmonies of society, and it should 
 also be a means of conveying the feelings and moods as 
 well as the ideas that govern the conduct of all groups that 
 make up our national life. We must teach sympathetically 
 what the desires and intentions of all are, on the assumption 
 
302 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 that behind all conduct there are natural causes and essen- 
 tially sound instincts. By showing the desires of groups in 
 their relation to one another, their disharmony and their 
 possible harmony, we indicate what society as a functioning 
 whole may be, and we may say that it is the chief end to be 
 gained by the intellectual treatment of the social life to 
 make clear what the ideal of social unity for practical life 
 is, and what the main obstacles are that now stand in the 
 way of it. By this social history we do not mean, moreover, 
 something abstruse and academic suited for the college 
 alone. Wherever the social antagonism is experienced, at 
 whatever age, there is the opportunity to begin to set the 
 mind at work about it, and to prevent the formation of 
 prejudice and resentment. These states of mind begin very 
 early indeed, and they are hard to eradicate. 
 
 A very large part in the work of social education is played 
 by methods of education that we may call aesthetic. This 
 must mean not only the inclusion of the methods of art in 
 presenting facts, but we must bring to bear all kinds of 
 aesthetic influences upon the social life. Social life in which 
 there is introduced the dramatic moment is one of the main 
 objectives of all education. It is in the recreational life 
 that some of the best conditions for the realization of social 
 moods in dramatic or aesthetic form are obtained. In the 
 recreational experience the social states must be made pro- 
 ductive of social harmony, as they themselves tend to be. 
 In these experiences the conflicting motives of the individual 
 and society, and of individual with individual, and the op- 
 posing desires of the individual are harmonized by means 
 of ideal experiences in which the desires are exploited. 
 Since we here touch upon the whole theory of the aesthetic 
 in its practical application, we cannot be very explicit and 
 clear, but the main service of the aesthetic social life ex- 
 perienced typically in the form of recreational activities, 
 ought to be plain. Recreation is a means of giving the 
 
New Social Problems 303 
 
 common experience so much needed in democratic countries 
 like our own — common feelings, common activities and 
 interests. This store of common life, containing exalted 
 social feelings, expressed in play and art — languages which 
 all nationalities can understand — must constantly be in- 
 creased. All institutions that control the leisure hours of 
 the people must be made educational as means of raising 
 the social life to a higher level and making it more har- 
 monious and productive of common interests. It is indeed 
 one of the functions of the recreational activities and insti- 
 tutions to create and sustain public morale. 
 
 In the recreational experiences under control of the school 
 we have the opportunity to educate the deepest and most 
 powerful of motives. Play and art we should suppose, 
 therefore, ought to have a greater part and more serious 
 recognition in the school. We cannot of course accom- 
 plish much merely by crowding more arts and plays and 
 games into the curriculum. It is something larger and 
 more transforming that is wanted. We need to make the 
 school take a greater place in the life of the child; it must 
 reach a deeper level of human nature, in which the motives 
 of play and art lie, and there must be a broader exposure 
 of all young life to those influences of the social life every- 
 where which contain our highest social ideals. The place 
 of art and to some extent of play as the methods and the 
 spirit of the school is to convey persuasively to the child 
 this larger and better life in which we expect him to take 
 part. 
 
 Neither erudition nor art nor both together can, of course, 
 fulfill all the requirements for a social education suited to 
 our present needs. It is presumably in the social life itself, 
 in the form of a practical activity, that social education will 
 in great part be gained. This educational social life, which 
 is also practical, will, however, be one in which every oppor- 
 tunity is taken to show the social life in its historical per- 
 
304 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 spective, and to make clear its purposes and meaning; and 
 in which sympathetic moods and intense social states are 
 realized by conducting this social life, so far as possible, so 
 that it will be subjected to the influences of what we may call 
 in a broad way art. 
 
X 
 
 RELIGION AND EDUCATION AFTER THE WAR 
 
 The war, which has left no field of human interest un- 
 touched, has raised many questions about religion that must 
 be dealt with in new ways — about its validity, its power, 
 its future. The impression the whole experience of the war 
 seems to convey is that religion has failed to be either a 
 great creative force or a great restraining power, although 
 to express this as a failure of religion may imply more than 
 we have a right to expect of it. Religion did not cause the 
 war, but it certainly did not prevent it. It had no power 
 to make peace. Yet we see that now religion is needed more 
 than ever, and that if the social life be not deeply infused 
 with the religious spirit, and if we do not live as a world 
 more in the religious spirit, something fundamental and 
 necessary will be wanting which may be the most essential 
 factor of progress and civilization. The war leaves us with 
 the feeling, perhaps, that until now the world has had far 
 too many religions and too little religion. There has been 
 too much of creed and too little of deep and sustaining re- 
 ligious moods. Perhaps, as Russell says, we are to be con- 
 vinced that religion has been too professional ; there has 
 been too much paid service, and too little voluntary service. 
 Such conclusions of course have in them all the reserva- 
 tion that personal reactions must have, but it is easy to be- 
 lieve that in the life of such a nation as our own, and in- 
 deed in the world, no practical unity will ever be permanently 
 reached unless there be a firm basis in a common religious 
 foundation. This we might say is made probable by the 
 truth that religion is the most fundamental thing in life, and 
 
 305 
 
306 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 if there be no unity and common understanding in that 
 sphere, there can be none in reality anywhere in life. Dif- 
 ferences in creed mean little, except in so far as they con- 
 ceal basic agreement and make artificial barriers ; differences 
 in the way of understanding and valuing the world mean 
 everything. We want a common religious faith — common 
 in the possession at least of the moods which make a har- 
 monious social life possible, and of the spirit in which the 
 world's work can, we may believe, alone be done. 
 
 Upon such grounds one might maintain that a very im- 
 portant part of the work of education everywhere is to teach 
 now more natural religion, or rather perhaps that the school 
 must be everywhere conducted to a greater extent in the 
 spirit of religion. Then we might hope to see religion be- 
 coming actually a power in the social life, helping to trans- 
 form the crude forces and purposes of the day into higher 
 ones. With such a religious basis we might begin to see 
 the working of God in history and in the world as a whole, 
 and we should feel in the history of the world and in the 
 world that is before us the presence of reality. Then we 
 should have a common ground for the sympathy and under- 
 standing without which not even the most practical affairs 
 can be conducted efficiently. That ideal in education, often 
 expressed by the educator, which holds that the purpose of 
 all teaching is to convey the meaning of the world to the 
 child, to make the world live in epitome, so to speak, in the 
 soul of every child, is religious and nothing else, and quite 
 satisfies the demands of our present day. 
 
 If such a standpoint be the right one, certainly the ambi- 
 tion of any nation (or indeed of any group) to have a re- 
 ligion peculiar to itself and an outgrowth of its own culture 
 is unfortunate, and indeed comes from the very essence of 
 morbid nationalism. In such desires there is thinly veiled 
 the hope that through religion the old claim of nations to 
 the right to temporal supremacy may be vindicated. La- 
 garde, in about 1874, was probably the first to say that 
 
Religion and Education After the War 307 
 
 Germany must have a national religion, but during the war 
 this hope has been expressed again and again — Germany 
 must have a new religion, befitting a great independent peo- 
 ple, and must no longer be dependent for its religion upon 
 an old and inferior race. Whether this longing for a new 
 religion has not been in reality a longing to be upheld again 
 by the old pagan faith, which was a fitting cult for the na- 
 tionalistic temper, with its ideal of force, may justly be 
 asked. It is interesting to remember that in Japan also, in 
 recent times, there has been a demand for a national religion 
 that should unite all the creeds in one. That this idea of 
 a national religion, as contrasted with an universal religion, 
 is opposed to the spirit of Christianity is plain, and the 
 claim that Germany has not been able to understand the 
 key-note of Christianity, as it is revealed in humanity and 
 justice, may therefore be said to have some foundation in 
 truth. 
 
 Can we say that the work of education, in the religious 
 life, is that of inculcating and extending Christianity? It 
 might indeed so be interpreted, and with a liberal enough 
 understanding of Christianity we should say that this is true. 
 But after all, it is Christianity as the vehicle of certain 
 fundamental religious moods and ideals that, from an edu- 
 cational point of view at least, is of the greatest concern. 
 It is the optimistic mood, the ideal of justice and humanity, 
 the recognition of the worth of the soul of the individual, 
 the ideal of service — it is these qualities of Christianity 
 rather than its specific doctrines that we must now empha- 
 size in our wider social life, and such religion is natural 
 religion, or philosophy or Christianity as we may choose to 
 call it. Any experience, indeed, that fosters such moods 
 and ideals has a place in religious education. Who can 
 doubt that such religion must henceforth have a large place 
 in the world? It will be the test in the end of the possi- 
 bility of sincere internationalism. Unless we can have com- 
 mon religious moods we can have no universal morality that 
 
308 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 is founded upon secure feeling and principles, and unless 
 we can include the whole world in our religion, we shall cer- 
 tainly not be able to include it in any sincere way in our 
 politics. 
 
 No religion, finally, will be profound enough and have 
 great enough power to be thus a support of a future world- 
 consciousness unless it be a religion of feeling rather than 
 primarily of ideas — a religion in fact capable of inspiring 
 ecstatic moods. And this ecstasy of feeling can never in 
 our modern world be a prevailing quality of the religious 
 life unless religion be something that extends over all life 
 and draws its power from all the energies and capacities of 
 the psychic life. The religion of our new era, we may be 
 sure, if it be in any real sense a religion of the world, will 
 not be something apart from and above other experiences. 
 It will be a secular religion and a democratic religion, a 
 quality and spirit of life as a whole. Experience referred 
 to what we believe is real and universal, and subjected sin- 
 cerely to all the capacities and criteria of appreciation that 
 we possess is religious experience. Religion, educationally 
 considered, is a means of giving to life a sense of reality and 
 of value. That spirit should pervade and inspire all we do 
 in the work of education. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HUMANISM 
 
 There has much been said during the war to the effect that 
 the great struggle was essentially a conflict between the 
 spirit of humanism and some principle or other which was 
 conceived to be the opposite of humanism. Humanism is 
 said to be opposed to rationalism, or to nationalism, or spe- 
 cialization, or paganism, or Germanism as a whole, hu- 
 manism often being thought of as the spirit of Greek or 
 Christian thought and philosophy. 
 
 There is truth, we should say, in these views. Humanism 
 in a broad sense emerged from all the purposes of the war 
 as the principle of the greater part of the world, as opposed 
 to the idea of Germanism. This spirit of humanism, how- 
 ever, is no single motive or feeling. It is a complex mood, 
 so to speak, and it is not to be regarded as strange that it 
 has been felt and described in various ways, and that it is 
 not yet clearly understood. Humanism appears to be most 
 deeply felt as the appreciation of the common and fundamen- 
 tal things in human nature. It inclines toward the employ- 
 ment of feeling, or at least to subjective rather than to 
 purely objective principles in the determination of funda- 
 mental values in life. Humanism includes an interest in 
 personality, which is of course the most basic of the common 
 possessions of man, and it is therefore interested in justice 
 and in freedom. Humanism as thus an appreciation of 
 fundamental values in life by feeling rather than by princi- 
 ple, belongs to the deeper currents of life, those that flow 
 in the subconscious — it is close to instinct, to moods, and 
 the religious and the aesthetic experiences. 
 
 309 
 
310 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 The later German philosophy of life we might mention as 
 a denial of much that humanism asserts. Here we see a 
 doctrine of force, an ideal of life based upon the elevation 
 of conscious will to its first principle. If we seek concrete 
 contrasts to this anti-humanism we might mention our own 
 national life, governed by an idea of free living, which has 
 made possible the assimilation of many stocks, in a life in 
 which common human nature is regarded as the supreme 
 value. Extreme specialization, rational principles, objec- 
 tive standards are watchwords of the plan of life that is 
 most opposed to humanism. In this life instincts and values 
 determined by feelings are brought out into the clear light 
 of consciousness and are there judged with reference to 
 their fitness to serve ends determined by reason. It is all 
 noon-day glare in this rational consciousness. Collectivism 
 is based upon coercion and upon calculation of the value of 
 order in serving practical purposes, themselves determined 
 by a theory of society, instead of upon social feeling or 
 upon a natural process of assimilation of the different and 
 the individual into a common life. Specialization also, in 
 this philosophy, is a result of calculation rather than of 
 a belief in the value of the individual, and is gained by the 
 sacrifice of those experiences which, if we hold to the hu- 
 manistic ideal, we regard as essential to the life of the indi- 
 vidual and to society. This calculus of values extends, of 
 course, into the field of international life. Here too con- 
 duct is based upon estimation of effects, freedom is relative 
 to and subordinate to economic values. A theory of the 
 state takes precedence over all subjective ethical principles, 
 and there must be a disavowal of all native sentiments and 
 judgments as regards justice which issue from an appreci- 
 ation of the worth of personality and other fundamental 
 human values and possessions ; and all common human senti- 
 ments which would stand in the way of carrying out the 
 decisions of reason and state-theory or any political policy 
 must of course also be denied. 
 
Humanism 311 
 
 This contrast, however inadequate our analysis of the 
 spirit of humanism and its opposite may be, will at least 
 show that the idea of justice, which in the humanistic ideal 
 grows directly out of the appreciation of the value of per- 
 sonality is the central practical principle of humanism, and 
 it is exactly as an opponent of the idea of justice on the 
 ground of its alleged weakness, that the rationalistic or the 
 nationalistic philosophy is best conceived. 
 
 It is upon this question of justice that we must take our 
 stand for or against humanism. If we are humanists we 
 believe in the rights of individuals, whether men or nations, 
 to their own life and independence, which they are entitled 
 to preserve through all forms of social processes. Justice 
 means recognition of the right of individuals to perform all 
 their functions as individuals, and humanism is precisely 
 an appreciation of the values of the individual as such a 
 functioning whole. If we are humanists we believe that 
 this principle of justice, and this feeling of justice ought to 
 be cultivated and made world-wide. This is the ideal of 
 equal rights to all human values. Hence it is the mortal 
 enemy of all philosophies of life which place any principle 
 above that of justice and its moral implications, whether in 
 the narrower or the wider social life. This is humanism. 
 
 There are various ways of interpreting humanism as a 
 practical philosophy or principle of education. Burnet says, 
 perhaps not very completely expressing what he means, that 
 the humanistic ideal of education, as contrasted with the 
 merely formal, is that the pupils should above all be led to 
 feel the meaning and worth of what they are studying. We 
 should say that the meaning of humanism in education is 
 that the child should understand and appreciate the mean- 
 ing and worth of all human life. This requires that edu- 
 cation should so be conducted that the child may learn- to 
 see — rather to feel and appreciate — the inner rather than 
 the merely external nature of all life that is presented to 
 him, and in which he participates. Not language, but 
 
312 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 thought ; not history, but experience, is his field. Justice de- 
 pends wholly upon an ability to come upon reality in the 
 realm of human nature. This implies not only intellectual 
 penetration, but a form of sympathy which consists of put- 
 ting oneself as completely as possible into the life of that 
 which is studied. 
 
 All this means, it is plain, a power in the educational proc- 
 ess, a spirit and a mood in all education which we have not 
 yet in any very large measure attained. What is required 
 is indeed that children should live more intimately with 
 reality, so to speak, and that we should not be satisfied when 
 they have merely learned about it. We shall not be con- 
 tent, however, with an educational process which, in ful- 
 filling these requirements for more life, becomes merely 
 active. Life must also be dramatic and intense and abun- 
 dant. All the mental processes — the feelings, the intel- 
 lectual functions and not the will alone must participate in 
 this active life. 
 
 We shall soon see, no doubt, and in fact we are begin- 
 ning already to see a renewed interest in all the arguments 
 for and against a humanistic as opposed to a scientific cul- 
 ture and curriculum for our schools. It is the humanistic 
 side from which, it is likely, we shall now hear the most 
 pleas, for the war has ended, they say, in victory for hu- 
 manity and for humanism — hence for the humanities. It 
 is the Christian and the Grseco-Roman civilization that has 
 prevailed. Victorious France, whose culture is founded 
 upon that of the Greek and the Roman, has vindicated the 
 supreme value of that culture. On the other hand we hear 
 that our present age has become an age of science. If sci- 
 ence has been a factor in causing the war, science has also 
 won it. If industrialism involved the world in disaster, the 
 world will be saved by more and better work, more prac- 
 tical living, wider organization for the production of goods 
 and of wealth. Therefore our curriculum must become 
 more practical. We must have more of business and in- 
 
Humanism 313 
 
 dustry, more vocational training, more training that sharp- 
 ens the intelligence. 
 
 There is a truth which cannot be overlooked in the claim 
 of the humanists, but the acceptance of it as it stands as a 
 philosophy of education is not without its serious dangers. 
 What we may well apprehend is a reactionary philosophy of 
 education, and of all culture. We begin to hear very strong 
 pleas, for example, for a school in which language, litera- 
 ture, and perhaps history become the center. West 1 asks 
 for a wider recognition of the humanities after the war. 
 Moore 2 says that the war is a victory of the civilization 
 finally established by the Romans on the basis of law, over 
 the barbaric ideas of power. Seeing this he is led to plead 
 for a closer union now between Latin and modern studies, 
 binding civilization of to-day with the thought and feeling 
 of old Rome. Butler 3 says that we are surely coming back 
 to the classical languages and literature. 
 
 Such conclusions as these raise many questions and per- 
 haps doubts and apprehension. The ideal they express of 
 penetrating the heart of civilization and experiencing in 
 the educational process the inner life rather than the outer 
 form of life, must indeed appeal to all, and we should all 
 as humanists agree that this ideal expresses what humanism 
 means and is the center of a true philosophy of education — 
 but whether this ideal can be realized by any school that 
 clings to the old classical learning, even in spirit, is quite 
 another matter. To-day, if ever, we need to go forward in 
 education. Our spirit must be that of the searcher for new 
 truth, and for a better life. The old will not satisfy us 
 either as a model and ideal or as a method. No already ac- 
 cumulated culture material will be adequate for our new 
 school. 
 
 Our schools of to-morrow, zve should conclude, must still 
 be inspired by the scientific spirit, but what we need is sci- 
 
 i« 2 Educational Review, February, 1919. 
 3 Teachers College Record, January, 1919. 
 
314 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ence humanized, and science in the service of moral princi- 
 ples. One may well ask whether it is not now the most 
 opportune time to leave our classical learning behind, and 
 try to find a more adequate culture in which to convey the 
 spirit of our new humanism. If we have won a victory for 
 humanity, as we think, and have kept alive the Christian 
 spirit by means of a meager culture, we need not still cling 
 to that culture if we can find something better. Even if 
 modern Germany has misused science and brought it to re- 
 proach, we need not be prejudiced against science. We 
 need more science but we need to bring science into closer 
 relation to the whole of human life. We need more of all 
 the psychological sciences as an aid to our appreciation of 
 history as the story and a revelation of the meaning of 
 spirit in the world — and it is this way rather than through 
 language that we must undertake to know and to explain 
 life. On the other hand, it is for the business of practical, 
 social living that the material sciences should have most sig- 
 nificance in education. There is no science, not even mathe- 
 matics, that cannot be taught as a phase of the adventure of 
 spirit in the world, and none that cannot in some way be 
 made to aid spirit in finding and keeping its true course in 
 the future. Such use of all culture is what we mean by 
 humanism. The secret of the difference in the educational 
 ideals of those whom we may call the old humanists and the 
 new is that to one education means predominantly learning, 
 and to the other it means mainly living. Living, for the 
 child, means growing into the life of the world by partici- 
 pating in spirit and in body, according to the child's needs 
 and capacities, in the activities of the world. To gain a 
 consciousness of the meaning of those activities through a 
 knowledge of their history and by an appreciation of their 
 purpose is indeed the main purpose of learning. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN EDUCATION 
 
 Throughout this study we have again and again been led 
 to consider the relations of the aesthetic experiences to the 
 practical life. It is as the repository of deep desires and 
 as the appreciation of values that the aesthetic may be most 
 readily seen to be practical, but it performs other functions. 
 As ecstatic experience it is the source of poiver in the con- 
 scious life, and it was indeed the belief in art as a means of 
 attaining power that has given art its place in the world. 
 The aesthetic experience is the form also in which desires are 
 brought into relation to one another, harmonized and trans- 
 formed, or transferred to new objects. So the aesthetic 
 is the type of adaptation in the inner life. 
 
 We have asserted that all life, and certainly the educa- 
 tional process, must have its dramatic moments, since the 
 dramatic experience, as ecstasy of the social life, is the ex- 
 pression of social feeling in its highest form. The aesthetic 
 experience is the central point of experience, so to speak, at 
 which social ideals impinge upon and influence and mold 
 pure nature. Art is the form in which play, representing 
 biological forces, is carried to a higher stage, and made a 
 factor in conscious evolution. The aesthetic experience is 
 a practical attitude in another way. It is by our aesthetic 
 appreciation, more than we commonly understand, that we 
 judge life as a totality, that we estimate the fitness of its 
 parts to belong to the whole, and that indeed we guide life 
 when we judge it not according to principles which so often 
 are seen to be inadequate, but when we try to bring to bear 
 
 3i5 
 
3 1 6 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 our utmost of powers of appreciation and to find ultimate 
 values. 
 
 Such a recognition of the relation of art or the aesthetic 
 to life we see often expressed in the literature of the day. 
 It is a sign of the times — of an effort to attain higher 
 powers, to take more comprehensive views of life, and to 
 gain deeper insight into it. It is a phase of the serious- 
 ness of purpose which the war has aroused in us. Dide 
 speaks of a deep but obscure need that drives all human 
 beings to put themselves in harmony with the universal, and 
 says that this is the end and purpose of the aesthetic tenden- 
 cies. This phase of the place of the aesthetic is seen and 
 expressed in various ways. Some think of it as a significant 
 change in the attitude of life which is to bring about an era 
 of peace. Clutton-Brook, an English writer, says that un- 
 less we attain to some kind of beauty and art, we shall have 
 no lasting peace. We shall never have freedom from war 
 until we have a peace that is worth living. Some see in 
 the humanistic spirit an essentially aesthetic principle. The 
 fairness and justice of the French, the spirit of the English 
 that expresses itself in their ideal of sportsmanship, some 
 attribute to the aesthetic spirit. 
 
 All this is in keeping with our new experiences of life in 
 all its dynamic expressions. It becomes easier for us to 
 see the truth about the nature of the aesthetic and of all 
 other powers of consciousness, since consciousness has re- 
 vealed itself to us as itself so great a power. The aesthetic 
 experience may no longer appear to be only a joy, something 
 subjective, but, indeed, as a practical force in the world. 
 The aesthetic is a feeling of power, but it is also an experi- 
 ence in which mental power is generated, and it must be 
 employed to such an end. The aesthetic mood is a mood 
 of happiness, but it is also a mood of persuasion, in which 
 something is being done to the will, and in which desires 
 are being turned continually toward new objects, and 
 composite feelings are being formed which will direct the 
 
Aesthetic Experience in Education 317 
 
 course of future experience. So art and the aesthetic ex- 
 perience are not things apart from life, but may even be 
 thought of as the method and the quality of life in some 
 of its most dynamic forms. They are not added to life as 
 an ornament or a luxury, but are the spirit in which life is 
 lived when it is indeed most productive. 
 
 When we make specific analyses of aesthetic experience 
 we find represented in it all the deep motives and tendencies, 
 of life. This gives us our clew to the practical application 
 of the aesthetic in the business of life. All it contains, all 
 the art and the play of the world must be put to work, al- 
 though this is a conclusion that might readily be misunder- 
 stood. We do not expect to harness the powers of child- 
 hood to the world's tasks, or expect industry to become fine 
 art, but we do expect art and play to be something more than 
 passive and unproductive states. We expect them to sus- 
 tain and to create the energies by which the world's work 
 is to be carried on. We would utilize them to give more 
 power to life at every point, and to make all activities of 
 the practical life more free and creative. And was there 
 ever a time when power was more greatly needed — in in- 
 dustry, in political life and in every phase of life both of the 
 individual and of society? 
 
 But it is not only in creating and doing that the world 
 needs art to-day, in the sense in which we mean to define 
 it. An aroused world is called upon to feel to the depths of 
 reality, and to draw from these depths new and more pro- 
 found valuations. We stand at a point where many things 
 in life must be tested and judged anew, where the danger 
 of perverting and misjudging many things is great. It is 
 by the powers of appreciation gained in dynamic states of 
 consciousness, we may believe, rather than by discoveries 
 and an accumulation of data that we shall be most certain 
 of finding true values, and the way of extrication from our 
 present grave doubts. 
 
 Can one hesitate to conclude, then, that in all our edu- 
 
3 1 8 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 cational experiences, we must try not only to train these 
 powers that we call aesthetic, but to give opportunity at every 
 point for the exercise of them as selective functions, and as 
 a means of creating and expressing power in the mental life? 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MOODS AND EDUCATION \ A REVIEW 
 
 In the philosophy of education it is with moods that in our 
 view, we have most of all to deal. Man, we have a right 
 to say, is a creature of feeling, not of instinct or of reason. 
 It is not the instinct as a definite reaction to stimulus or as 
 an inner necessity, nor emotion as a subjective response to 
 this stimulus that is the driving force of conduct, but rather 
 the more lasting and deeper and more complex states or 
 processes that we can call by no other name than moods. 
 Since it is in the moods that the most profound longing or 
 tendency or desire is represented, we say that moods are 
 the object of chief concern in a practical philosophy of life. 
 These moods are the repositories, so to speak, of instinct, 
 impulse, tendency, desire, and it is therefore by the control 
 and education of moods that the individual in all his social 
 and in all his personal aspects will be most fundamentally 
 educable if he is educable at all. 
 
 It is as the seat of the will to power, we might say, that 
 the moods which are the main sources of human energy are 
 to be conceived. The craving for power, as a generaliza- 
 tion of more primitive desires, comes to take the position 
 of the main motive in life. The craving for power is a 
 desire, as we see when we analyze it, that expresses itself as 
 a longing for ecstatic or intense states of consciousness, and 
 an abundant life. It is a craving to be possessed by strong 
 desire and also for the satisfaction of many desires — often 
 vicariously, since the objects desired may be confused and 
 general. So this motive of power and the ecstatic states 
 in which it is expressed or realized is no instinct and no 
 
 319 
 
3 2 ° The Psychology of Nations 
 
 pure emotion. It is an outgrowth and culmination of in- 
 stincts, a fusion of them into a new product. 
 
 It would be going too far afield to try to summarize here 
 the psychology of moods or of the motive of power in the 
 individual and in society, but the main fact needed for the 
 moment seems plain. In this motive and its expression in 
 feeling and conduct there is a very general tendency which 
 is the source of many forms of interest and enthusiasm, of 
 ambition, of the spirit of war, of various kinds of excite- 
 ment, and to some extent of morbid and criminal tendencies. 
 The spirit of war we think of as a summation of the same 
 forces as those which in other ways appear as the energies 
 behind various enterprises having quite different objectives. 
 War is an anachronism, we may believe, a wrong direction 
 taken by the forces of the social life, an archaic expression 
 now, let us say, of the will to power which might and ought 
 to have different objectives. In the life and the mood of 
 the great city we see a very varied expression of the motive 
 of power. The city life is still a crude life. It satisfies 
 deep desires, but in it desires for we know not what are 
 aroused. It is indeed as the seat of eager, unsatisfied desire 
 that the city is best of all characterized. These desires 
 readily take shape in the city as the spirit of war and as a 
 craving for excitement of various kinds. 
 
 These same forces re-directed or finding different objects 
 and working under different conditions appear in moral, 
 religious, or aesthetic forms. In these higher experiences 
 and more progressive moments in history or in the life of 
 the individual, the forces which at other levels emerge in 
 different forms and in search of different objects we may 
 think of as transformed, or given new direction; but to 
 suppose them annihilated or suppressed is to misunderstand, 
 according to our view, the whole process of the development 
 of spirit. Life is not a process in which instincts are bal- 
 anced, or in which good motives stand in sharp contrast to 
 bad motives, or in which an original selfishness is opposed 
 
Moods and Education: A Review 321 
 
 and gradually overcome by an altruistic motive. We think 
 rather of very complex processes in which many desires, 
 gathered into moods, find many forms of expression. 
 There are prevailing moods — of war and of peace — and 
 these moods are deep forces, containing both the desires 
 and the sources of energy, so to speak, out of which our 
 future will be made. The ecstatic states of the social life, 
 the moods of war and the enthusiasm of the periods of rapid 
 change are conditions in which energies and purposes are 
 deeply stirred. These are the moods of intoxication, if we 
 wish to describe them by pointing out one of their chief 
 common characteristics. Peace is a reverie, we may say, 
 in which the purposes and the results expressed and attained 
 in the more dramatic moments are elaborated and fulfilled, 
 and in which new impulse is gathered of which the dramatic 
 moment is itself the expression. But throughout the whole 
 course of history and through all the life of the individual, 
 the same motives are at work. Life in its fundamental 
 movements and motives, we should argue, is both simple and 
 continuous. It is fragmentary and complex only on its 
 surface. 
 
 The whole problem of the nature of education of course 
 resolves itself, from this point of view, into the question 
 whether progress is something inherent in nature, or is 
 something controlled by man. Or if we cannot make so 
 sharp a contrast between nature and will, shall we say that 
 progress is in the main and in all essential ways one or the 
 other? Does conscious effort, the having of ideals, exert 
 any profound effect upon the history of spirit? Does it 
 accelerate, give direction, provide energy? Is the course 
 of history inevitable or is the making of it in our hands? 
 We can see what, in a general way, so far as regards the 
 transformation of the fundamental motives of life, the 
 order of development has been — how the original and 
 basic desires or instincts have become merged and confused 
 in the more general desires and moods, how the motive of 
 
322 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 power has emerged, finding so varied expression as we see 
 in the whole movement of art and play in the world, how out 
 of these motives of art and play more controlled enthusiasms 
 have arisen. But the part in this movement played by con- 
 scious direction does not thus far appear to have been great. 
 A movement of and within consciousness it has been, and 
 no mere biological or physical development, but when we 
 speak of conscious will or any ideals controlling the course 
 of spirit in essential ways, we find as yet only a beginning. 
 And yet, this does not indicate that in the future conscious 
 direction may not be even the greatest factor in evolution. 
 It is difficult to see how we can know with certainty that we 
 have such powers; but to refrain from acting as though we 
 had is also difficult, and indeed impossible. 
 
 As a working hypothesis, at least, we seem to be allowed 
 to assume that much will depend, in the future, upon the 
 extent to which conscious factors are brought to bear upon 
 the world's progress as a whole, upon the form in which 
 the world-idea shapes itself, and the power which is put 
 behind that world idea by the educational forces of the 
 world. The world appears now to stand balanced at a criti- 
 cal moment, its future depending upon whether old ideals 
 and primitive emotions shall prevail, or whether a new 
 spirit which is perhaps after all but a sense of direction 
 growing out of the old order shall become the dominating 
 influences. Whether the consciousness of nations shall be 
 creative and progressive seems to depend now upon the ex- 
 tent to which the whole life of feeling is influenced by ideas 
 which, although they are products, as we say, of the primi- 
 tive biological processes that underlie history, are also out- 
 side these processes, as definite purposes, desires, visions, 
 ideals. At least we seem to depend now upon these supe- 
 rior influences for many things that we regard as good — 
 for the rate at which we shall make progress, and for the 
 certainty of making progress at all. Upon these conscious 
 factors directing and shaping the plastic forces represented 
 
Moods and Education: A Review 323 
 
 in the moods of our time, we shall assume, the course of 
 history will depend. 
 
 We are no longer to be satisfied with natural progress. 
 We have gone too far and too long, let us say, upon a rising 
 tide of biological forces, and we have not yet realized what 
 conscious evolution might mean. We have been too well 
 satisfied with the physical resources and the psychic energies 
 that seemed sufficient for the need of the day. A world in 
 which democracy is going to prevail can no longer live in 
 this way. It will not grow of itself in a state of nature. 
 Its principle, on the other hand, forbids program-making 
 after the manner of autocratic societies. Democracy, as 
 the form in which the youthful and exuberant spirit of the 
 world now makes ready for creating the next stage of civili- 
 zation, will advance, we may suppose, neither by nature nor 
 by force. It is the main work of our day to find for our- 
 selves a new and better mode of shaping history, by bringing 
 to bear upon all the social motives of the day the best and 
 strongest influences. Our whole situation is from this 
 point of view an educational problem. Probably there was 
 never a greater need than that the democratic forces of the 
 world now have great leadership. It is a practical world, 
 a world of politics and of business, but it is also a world 
 exceedingly sensitive to many influences, good and bad, a 
 world in which, we may think, nothing great and permanent 
 can be accomplished unless moral, religious and aesthetic 
 influences prevail and give to our civilization its new domi- 
 nant. 
 
 It will depend upon these conscious forces — upon our 
 efforts to make progress and upon the clarity of our vision 
 — it must depend upon these — whether in the future our 
 great war shall be looked back upon as after all an upheaval 
 of primitive forces and a debauch of instincts, or as the be- 
 ginning of a new life. It is for us to create out of the war 
 the foundation of a better order. We cannot go back to the 
 old regime. Our enthusiasms will either be directed to bet- 
 
324 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 ter things, or the emotions aroused by the war will run riot 
 and finally settle into habits on a low plane, and destroy, it 
 may be, all that civilization has thus far gained. All things 
 seem possible, in this critical time. 
 
 Stated in the broadest possible way, the educational prob- 
 lem of our times seems plain. We must lay hold upon and 
 set to work for a higher civilization the motives and pur- 
 poses that in the past have worked obstructively, and now 
 destructively. A great work of our day is to understand 
 these motives and forces that were the main factors in the 
 cause of the war, and make them count for progress. That 
 they are powerful forces we can have no doubt. They are 
 not for that reason hard to direct, at least not necessarily so. 
 We see that, whether in war or in peace, we need greater 
 power in the social life. Life must be made to satisfy the 
 longing for intensity and abundance of experience. But 
 this abundant life that we now seek cannot be something 
 merely subjective and emotional. To see this is indeed the 
 crucial test. This subjective life cannot remain an ideal 
 in a world determined to become democratic, to make prog- 
 ress, to be a practical and well-coordinated world. Abun- 
 dant life must now be sought in the performance of func- 
 tions which express themselves in practical aims and conse- 
 quences. The prevailing mood and form of this life may 
 still be dramatic, and indeed it must be dramatic. The pos- 
 session of this quality is the test of its power. 
 
 Such views, of course, imply that our practical educational 
 problem is something very different from that of finding an 
 outlet for emotions. For example, to search for a substi- 
 tute for war now is a superficial way of looking at the 
 problem of the control and education of the social conscious- 
 ness. We think of the motives that have caused the war, 
 according to these older views, as bad instincts or evil emo- 
 tions, as we are usually asked to think of the motives behind 
 intemperance, and the habits of gambling and the like. By 
 some form of katharsis we hope to drain off these emotions 
 
Moods and Education: A Review 325 
 
 (unless we undertake merely to suppress them). This we 
 say is a narrow view of the problem, merely because the 
 motives that underlie the conduct we deplore are not bad 
 instincts, or indeed instincts as such at all, but rather feel- 
 ings or moods which are variable in their expression, com- 
 plex, and educable. They have no definite object of which 
 they are in search, so that we may think the only way to 
 thwart them is to find some object closely resembling theirs 
 which may surreptitiously be substituted for them. These 
 motives are indeed broad and general. We must do with 
 them what education must do all along the line, find the 
 fundamental desires they contain and utilize the energies 
 expressed in these desires in the performance of functions 
 — these functions being the purposes most fundamentally 
 at work in the social life or representing our social ideals. 
 Such an ideal of education invites us to work beneath the 
 political and all formal, institutional and merely practical 
 affairs and to lay our foundations in the depths of human 
 nature. There we shall begin to establish or to lay hold 
 upon continuity, and there bring together the fragments of 
 purpose which we find in the life we seek to direct. This 
 which one can so easily say in a sentence is, of course, the 
 whole problem of education. These things are what we 
 must work for in establishing and sustaining our democracy, 
 for we must, to this end, make forces work together, in- 
 stead of separately and antagonistically as they themselves 
 tend to do. It is the same problem, at heart, in the edu- 
 cation of the individual — to harmonize desires, and to 
 create a higher synthesis of energies than nature itself will 
 yield. And in the new and wider field of international life 
 that opens up before us, the problem is still educational. 
 The educational forces of the world must begin now the 
 gigantic task of national character building. The spirit of 
 the nations, the divergent motives of power, of glory, of 
 comfort and pleasure-seeking that are said to dominate na- 
 tions, the justice, and loyalty, and steadfastness and truth 
 
326 The Psychology of Nations 
 
 which at least they put upon their banners and into their 
 songs must be made to work together in a practical and 
 progressive world, or to make such a world possible. 
 
 The Germans like to interpret the tricolor of their flag as 
 signifying Durch Nacht und Blut zur Licht. But plainly 
 the night and bloodshed do not always lead to light, and of 
 themselves they cannot. Nor, must we think, need the 
 world continue always to seek its way toward light only 
 through the blackness and guilt of wars and revolutions. 
 In some distant day, let us think, justice and morality will 
 have been bred into all the social life, and life will be lived 
 more in the spirit of art and religion. Then they will see 
 that, under the influence of these forces we call now edu- 
 cational, an old order will have given way to a new by im- 
 perceptible degrees, and it will be no longer through dark- 
 ness and bloodshed that the world must make its way to 
 light, but need only go through light to greater light. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following list contains the titles of a few books and 
 articles that have contributed data or suggestions to this 
 study. It is neither complete nor systematic. Numbers in 
 the text refer to this list. 
 
 i. A. W. Small, General Sociology. 
 2. C. Andler, Frightfulness in Theory and Practice. 
 - 3. W. E. Walling, The Sociologists and the War. 
 
 4. H. Hauser, Germany's Commercial Grip of the World. 
 
 5. J. F. O'Ryan and W. D. A. Anderson, The Modern Army in 
 
 Action. 
 
 6. R. Dunn, Five Fronts. 
 
 7. Mrs. Henry Hobhouse, I Appeal Unto Caesar. 
 
 8. F. H. Giddings, The Western Hemisphere in the World of 
 
 To-morrow. 
 
 9. O. H. Kahn, Prussianized Germany. 
 
 10. C. Mitchell, Evolution and the War. 
 
 11. A. Wehrmann, Deutsche Aufsaetze Ueber den Weltkrieg, etc. 
 
 12. J. P. Bang, Hurrah and Hallelujah. 
 -c-13. E. Boutroux, Philosophy and the War. 
 
 14. M. A. Morrison, Sidelights on Germany. 
 
 15. R. Lehmann, Was 1st Deutsch? (In Vom kommenden 
 
 Frieden.) 
 
 16. Durkheim, Germany Over All. 
 
 17. H. Bergson, The Meaning of the War. 
 
 18. J. Burnet, Higher Education and the War. 
 
 - 19. C. L. Drawbridge, The War and Religious Ideals. 
 
 20. M. Dide, Les Emotions et la Guerre. 
 
 21. D. G. Brinton, The Basis of Social Relations. 
 
 22. Ernesta R. Bullitt, An Uncensored Diary from the Central 
 
 Empires. 
 
 23. Hundert Briefe Aus dem Felde. 
 
 24. Mrs. Denis O'Sullivan, Harry Butters " An American Citi- 
 
 zen. 
 --25. W. Irwin, Men, Women and War. 
 26. G. Roethe, Von Deutscher Art and Kultur. 
 
 327 
 
328 Bibliography 
 
 27. J. W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany. 
 
 28. W. R. Roberts, Patriotic Poetry : Greek and English. 
 
 29. Schmitz, Das Wirkliche Deutschland. 
 
 30. Redier, Comrades in Courage. 
 
 31. Igglesden, Out There. 
 
 32. Madame Lucy Hoesch-Ernst, Patriotismus und Patriotitis. 
 
 33. W. E. Ritter, War, Science and Civilization. 
 
 34. Hobhouse, The World in Conflict. 
 
 35. G. S. Fullerton, Germany of To-day. 
 .36. A. Pinchot, War and the King Trust. 
 -37- J- T. MacCurdy, The Psychology of War. 
 
 38. E. L. Fox, Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany. 
 
 39. J. Chapman, Deutschland Ueber Alles. 
 
 40. G. Blondel, Les Embarras de l'Allemagne. 
 
 41. P. Bigelow, The German Emperor and His Eastern Neigh- 
 
 bors. 
 
 42. G. Le Bon, The Psychology of the Great War. 
 
 43. T. A. Cook, Kultur and Catastrophe. 
 
 44. Cheradame, The German Plat Unmasked. 
 
 45. J, B. Booth, The Gentle Cultured German. 
 
 46. J. Claes, The German Mole. 
 
 47. T. F. A. Smith, The Soul of Germany. 
 
 48. W. N. Willis, What Germany Wants. 
 
 49. Hintze, The Meaning of the War. (Modern Germany.) 
 
 50. Zitelmann, The War and International Law. (Modern 
 
 Germany.) 
 
 51. Schmoller, Origin and Nature of German Institutions. 
 
 (Modern Germany.) 
 
 52. Hintze, Germany and the World Powers. (Modern Ger- 
 
 many.) 
 
 53. F. Meinecke, Kultur Policy of Power and Militarism. 
 
 (Modern Germany.) 
 -54. O. G. Villard, Germany Embattled. 
 
 55. E. J. Dillon, Ourselves and Germany. 
 
 56. R. MacFall, Germany at Bay. 
 
 57. C. Tower, Changing Germany. 
 
 58. W. R. Thayer, Germany vs. Civilization. 
 
 59. Lamprecht, What Is History? 
 
 60. B. T. Curtin, The Land of Deepening Shadows. 
 
 61. P. Bigelow, Prussian Memories. 
 
 62. E. Troeltsch, The Spirit of German Kultur. (Modern Ger- 
 
 many.) 
 
 63. A. Guilland, Modern Germany and Her Historians. 
 
 64. T. F. A. Smith, What Germany Thinks. 
 
Bibliography 329 
 
 65. Von Biilow, Imperial Germany. 
 
 66. J. A. Cramb, Germany and England. 
 
 67. G. Bourdon, The German Enigma. 
 
 68. P. Collier, Germany and Germans. 
 
 J69. H. B. Swope, Inside the German Empire. 
 
 70. Sumner, Folkways. 
 
 71. J. Novicow, Les Luttes Entre Societes Humaines en Leur 
 
 Phases Successives. 
 
 72. H. Gibson, A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium. 
 
 73. A. M. Pooley, Japan at the Cross-Roads. 
 
 74. F. J. Adkins, The War. 
 
 -75. H. E. Powers, The Things Men Fight For. 
 
 76. J. M'Cabe, The Soul of Europe. 
 
 yy. Scheler, Der Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg. 
 
 78. S. Freud, Reflections on War and Death. 
 
 79. Nicolai, Die Biologie des Krieges. 
 
 80. P. Gibbs, The Soul of the War. 
 
 81. T. Roosevelt, America and the World War. 
 
 82. W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. 
 
 83. J. Novicow, Der Krieg und Seine Angeblichen Wohltaten. 
 —84. G. R. S. Taylor, The Psychology of the Great War. 
 
 85. W. Wundt, Die Nationen und Ihre Philosophic 
 
 86. Nusbaum, Der Krieg im Lichte der Biologie. 
 
 87. Edith Wharton, Fighting France. 
 
 88. Crile, A Mechanistic View of War and Peace. 
 
 89. Eleanor M. Sidgwick, The Morality of Strife in Relation to 
 
 the War. (The International Crisis.) 
 
 90. G. Murray, Herd Instinct and the War. (The International 
 
 Crisis.) 
 
 91. Bosanquet, Patriotism in the Perfect State. (The Interna- 
 
 tional Crisis.) 
 
 92. A. G. Bradley, International Morality. (The International 
 
 Crisis.) 
 —93. L. P. Jacks, The Changing Mind of a Nation at War. (The 
 International Crisis.) 
 
 94. G. F. Stout, War and Hatred. (The International Crisis.) 
 
 95. E. Mach, What Germany Wants. 
 
 96. F. Peil, Der Weltkrieg. 
 
 97. T. Veblen, The Nature of Peace. 
 
 98. Hirschfeld, Kriegsbiologisches. 
 
 99. H. A. Gibbons, The New Map of Europe. 
 _ 100. F. C. Howe, Why War? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Esthetic, elements in war, 70-77; 
 
 in education, 230, 315-318 
 Aggressive instinct, 40-45 
 American life, 248; mores, 221 
 Anger, 14 
 Autocracy and democracy, 104 
 
 Bergson, 36, 101, no 
 Biological principles, 3 ff. 
 Bourdon, go, 129 
 Boutroux, 55, 101, 236 
 Boy Scouts, 198 
 British Labor Party, 273 
 Burnet, 311 
 
 Cannibalism, 13-14 
 
 Causes in war, 97-109 
 
 Chapman, 52 
 
 Christianity, 307 
 
 City, moods, 188, 278; school, 190 
 
 Civics, 264 
 
 Claes, 129 
 
 Cleveland, 260 
 
 Cobden, 137 
 
 Collier, 90 
 
 Colonies, 129 
 
 Combat, instinct of, 53-58 
 
 Conscientious objectors, 200 
 
 Consciousness of kind, 8 
 
 Cramb, 75, 256 
 
 Creative activity, 283 
 
 Darwin, in 
 
 Death, 71 
 
 Democracy, 232, 253 ff. ; spirit of, 
 
 185-191 
 Dickinson, 261 
 Dide, 52 
 Dillon, 102, 272 
 Display, 74 
 
 Dominant, 35 
 Drawbridge, 102 
 Duelling, 93 
 Durkheim, 115 
 
 Economic factors, 128-141 
 
 Economy, 275 
 
 Ecstasy, 23, 64 
 
 Educational problems, 161-167 
 
 Empire, 148 
 
 England, 123, 244 
 
 Fear, 14, 41 
 Ferrero, 52 
 Feudalism, 35 
 Finance, 134 
 French, The, 24, 55, 244 
 Freudians, 20 
 Future, The, viii 
 
 Germany, 34, 43, 50, 55, 89, 98, 106, 
 115, 124, 126, 198, 239, 245 
 
 Gibbs, 54 
 
 Government, 242 ff. ; functions of, 
 251 
 
 Hatred, 46-52 
 Herd, The, 4, 10, 18, 57, 62 
 Heroes, 234 
 Hintze, 99 
 Hirschfeld, 23 
 
 Historical causes in war, 149 
 History, teaching of, 173, 266 
 Hobhouse, 101 
 Hobson, 260 
 Hocking, 167 
 Home-love, 81, 216 
 Homogeneity of species, 60 
 Howe, 135, 136 
 Hullquist, 137 
 331 
 
33* 
 
 Index 
 
 Humanism, 309, 314 
 Humanities, 312 
 
 Industrialism, 33, 134, 220 
 Industry, and education, 269-289; 
 
 the higher, 184 
 Instincts, 4-5, 28, 38-69 
 Institutional factors in war, 125 
 International law, 192 
 Internationalism, 168-196 
 Intoxication motive, 31 
 
 James, 266 
 Japanese, 90, 119 
 Jones, 21 
 Justice, 205, 311 
 
 Lamprecht, 34 
 
 Land hunger, 131 
 
 Leadership, 84, 142, 176 
 
 LeBon, 3, 18, 102, m, 119, 129, 
 
 135, 244 
 Lehmann, 237 
 Loyalty, 228; to leaders, 231 
 
 M'Cabe, 9 
 
 MacCurdy, 48, 56, 58, 201 
 
 Mach, 135 
 
 Marot, 284 
 
 Militarism, 197 ff. 
 
 Military training, 208-210 
 
 Mitchell, 9 
 
 Moods, in education, 319 
 
 Moral influences in war, 1 17-127 
 
 Murray, 18 
 
 Mysticism, 120 
 
 Napoleon, 113 
 
 National, character study, 224 ; de- 
 sires, 175 ; honor, 88-96 
 
 Nationalism, 79-96; and interna- 
 tionalism, 105 
 
 Nicolai, 3, 19, 56, 70, 78, 129, 217 
 
 Nietzsche, 1 10 
 
 Novicow, 19, 137 
 
 Noyes, 271 
 
 Nusbaum, 45 
 
 Nutritional motive, 38 
 
 Objectives, 140, 143 
 O'Ryan and Anderson, 45 
 Ostwald, 98 
 
 Pacifists, 200 
 
 Patriotism, 79-96, 211-241; ele- 
 ments of, 80, 215 
 
 Patten, 115 
 
 Peace, 197 ff. ; ideals of, vi, 205 
 
 Pessimism, 43 
 
 Pfister, 45 
 
 Philosophical, attitude, 194; influ- 
 ences in war, 110-116 
 
 Political, education, 242-268; fac- 
 tors, 142-152; ideals, 235 
 
 Power, motive of, 29, 130 
 
 Powers, 130 
 
 Practical interests, 180-183 
 
 Praise of war, 199 
 
 Preparedness, 208-210 
 
 President of the United States, 
 102 
 
 Pressure of population, 129 
 
 Preventive wars, 44 
 
 Primitive tendencies, 38 
 
 Progress, v, 321 
 
 Property, 138 
 
 Prophets, viii-ix 
 
 Psycho-analysis, 179 
 
 Race patriotism, 226 
 
 Rationalism and humanism, 107 
 
 Recreational life, 303 
 
 Redier, 85 
 
 Religion and education, 305-308 
 
 Religious influences in war, 117- 
 
 127 
 Reproductive motive, 38, 66, 7^, 76 
 Reuter, Frau, 51 
 
 Reversion theories of war, 17-23 
 Russell, 17, 167, 246, 305 
 
 Savorgnan, 201 
 Scheler, 7, 47 
 Sciences, 314 
 Scientific movement, 112 
 Selection, 5 ff. 
 
Index 
 
 333 
 
 Sexes, 299 
 
 Smith, 51 
 
 Social, education, 282ff., 290-304; 
 feeling, 82; history, 301; in- 
 stincts, 58 ; solidarity, 63 
 
 Socialism, 259 
 
 Specialization, 281 
 
 Stevens, 138 
 
 Sumner, 121, 132 
 
 Synthesis of causes, I53~ I 57 
 
 Thayer, 56 
 Thrift, 285 
 Tower, 98 
 
 Tragedy, 71 
 
 Trotter, 9, 18, 58, 233, 291, 295 
 
 Unconscious motives, 17 ff. 
 Universal language, 193 
 
 Veblen, 46, 78, 137 
 Venezelos, 151 
 Von Biilow, 115 
 
 War, as dramatic story, 22; mo- 
 tives of, vii, 13, 15; moods, 25 
 ff., 70 ff. ; origin of, 3 ff- 
 
 World, idea, 170; organization, 191 
 
 Wundt, 90 
 
W 83 
 
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