TEE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR 155 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR 



By Professor G. T. W. PATRICK 



UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, IOWA CITY 



FROM the flood of writings called out by the war in Europe, a few- 

 things have become fairly clear. For instance, it is evident that 

 this is the most costly and the most tragic of all the wars of history, 

 that it has proceeded from the least apparent causes, and that it has come 

 in the face of new and powerful forces making for peace. 



But these facts, if such they be, reveal a situation which to the 

 sociologist is more than puzzling, it is amazing. If, as Norman Angell 

 has shown, modern wars are wholly futile so far as the possibility of 

 bringing any kind of gain to the victorious nation is concerned; if war 

 is contrary to the spirit of the age, which is no longer martial, but indus- 

 trial, commercial and humanitarian ; if the contrast between the brutal- 

 ity of war and the culture and refinement of the age is so great that 

 war has become grotesque and anomalous ; if the present war is the out- 

 growth of political rivalries which have largely lost their significance 

 owing to the fact that nearly all present vital human interests have 

 widened out beyond the mere political boundaries of the state and be- 

 come international in their scope; and if, finally, the nations in order 

 to carry on the war are assuming a debt so crushing that posterity can 

 not exist unless the debt is repudiated in whole or in part, why, then, it 

 would appear that the whole European world has gone insane. 



But the student of history and of psychology will look at the matter 

 in quite a different way. He will see that the history of mankind for 

 thousands of years has been a history of incessant warfare and that the 

 new economic and industrial conditions which have made war irrational 

 are not more than about one hundred years old, while the human 

 brain is practically the same old brain of our fathers and forefathers, 

 deeply stamped with ancestral traits and primitive instincts, which can 

 not thus suddenly be outgrown. It is society which has suddenly 

 changed, not the units of society. 



Ever since the war began, sociologists, economists, philosophers and 

 political theorists have tried their hands at explaining the causes of the 

 war and with small success. Its roots must be sought in psychology 

 and anthropology. 



The anthropologist and historian will review the situation some- 

 what as follows: The rivalries between nations with their mutual sus- 

 picion, distrust and hatred leading to the clash of arms is the survival 



