WAR AND THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY 197 



ress are many, and hence in attempting to account for social progress 

 we should be careful not to overestimate the influence of any single 

 factor; and, second, that in none of the foregoing classifications of the 

 factors of progress is there mention of war. Why is war omitted ? Is 

 it because in the analyses it has been overlooked? Or is it because it 

 may not properly be included among the factors of progress ? Clearly 

 the latter is the explanation. War is not a factor of social progress. 

 This will be obvious on considering the real meaning of the term 

 " factor." 



If we turn to a definition of the word factor we find it means any- 

 thing that is employed in the production of a given result. Thus, three 

 is a factor of eighteen. It may be employed in the production of that 

 number, but the manner or method of its employment may be either 

 addition or multiplication. Now it is quite worth while in the interest 

 of clearness of thought on the present subject to make a distinction be- 

 tween the factors that unite or that are employed in the production of 

 a given result, and the manner in which these factors naturally combine 

 or the method by which they are employed in producing that result. 

 Clearly three and six, the factors of eighteen, are quite different from 

 the addition or the multiplication, that is, the method, employed in 

 producing the number. Observe, too, in this connection that while the 

 number of factors that combine or are employed in the production of a 

 given result may be and in general are fixed, the method of employing 

 them is variable. It may be a natural and fortuitous reaction, which 

 is really no method at all, or if consciously employed the methods may 

 be as many and as varied as human ingenuity can devise. With ex- 

 actly the same factors which by natural reaction or by conscious em- 

 ployment produce a given result, methods of employing them may be 

 accepted or rejected in accordance with our judgment with respect to 

 their effectiveness. We may eliminate what we consider bad methods 

 and employ only what seem to us to be good methods, while the factors 

 may remain the same. 



In the case, then, of progress, or its opposite effected by war, the 

 factors are the social groups involved, the war itself being merely the 

 manner in which these factors combine to produce the given result. 

 Is this mode of combining properly to be called a method ? That is to 

 say, is war a method of social progress? If war is a method of social 

 progress it is clearly not the only method. Hence it is subject to com- 

 parison with other methods as to its relative efficiency. Its value as a 

 method must depend upon its cost and effectiveness as compared with 

 the cost and effectiveness of other conceivable methods of social prog- 

 ress, as for instance education, commerce, contact through travel, and 

 the various other forms of intercommunication by which alone one social 

 group may stimulate the progress of another. If, on comparison, a 

 better method were found, it would show lack of social intelligence not 

 to discard the worse for the better. 



