TEE PSYCEOLOGY OF WAR 159 



lows the desire for political expansion and the occasion for war is at 

 hand. The gospel of striving inevitably leads to the gospel of strife. 

 While to a superficial observer the whole tendency of modern 

 thought is in the direction of universal peace, to the more careful ob- 

 server it is all in the direction of war. It was not even necessary that 

 the voice of Nietzsche with his gospel of the will to power should be 

 reechoed through every land, nor that the new philosophy of Pragmat- 

 ism should come forward to teach us that nothing succeeds like success. 

 But perhaps the war in Europe is itself the best witness to the fatal 

 political obstacles which stand in the way of these dreams of peace, for 

 it presents the astonishing spectacle of the greatest war in the world's 

 history proceeding from the least apparent causes and in the face of the 

 most powerful forces working for peace. That such a colossal war 

 should occur under circumstances so adverse to war would seem to indi- 

 cate that it was made necessary by some tremendous issues, either moral, 

 religious, economic or commercial. 



But strangely enough no such issues are apparent. There were no 

 great moral issues involved, as in the American Civil War, no great re- 

 ligious questions as in the crusades and the wars of the Eeformation, no 

 great monetary crises, as in some of the Italian and Roman wars. Starv- 

 ation has sometimes led tribes or nations to war, but starvation threat- 

 ened none of the present warring countries. On the contrary they were 

 all in a highly prosperous economic condition. Wealth, prosperity, com- 

 fort and luxuries abounded. "Never since the world began," says 

 Albert Bushnell Hart, " was trade so broad and profitable as in the year 

 1913." The total value of international commerce was in that year 

 $42,000,000,000. The total value of German exports and imports com- 

 bined was $5,000,000,000; and of English, $6,900,000,000. Germany's 

 actual and proportional trade was increasing from year to year. Eng- 

 land was exporting goods to Germany valued at $292,000,000, and im- 

 porting goods from Germany valued at $394,000,000 yearly. The en- 

 trance of Italy upon the war revealed only too clearly that war has its 

 roots in psychological causes .more than in great political or economic 

 issues or in heroic defence of the fatherland. 



Does this strange situation admit of any explanation ? Or must we 

 say that there are forces at work in social evolution which we do not un- 

 derstand — that it is dangerous for man to meddle too much with his own 

 destiny, and that out of these terrible wars some great good may come 

 in ways unknown? This question may not be answered, but at any 

 rate some light is thrown upon the situation by the psychologist. In 

 all the many books and articles that have recently appeared on the 

 causes of war in general, and the European war in particular, there is a 

 noticeable failure to take due account of the psychological factors in the 

 situation. 



