pearl: biology and war 351 



iCeling was a potent factor in making- the Revolution. There 

 was a dawning national consciousness in the colonies which was 

 based upon a beginning of social and biological differentiation. 

 The mother country very unwisely refused to recognize, or foster, 

 or even tolerate these differences. In consequence, she lost her 

 colonies. 



In general, why men deliberately plan wars is because they are 

 different biologically, in structure, habits, mental outlook, 

 thought, or other waj^s, and wish to preserve intact their differ- 

 entiations. The more truly conscious they become of these group 

 differences, the more likely they are to fight as groups. As soon 

 as they attain the first glimmerings of such consciousness they are 

 apt to see, or to think they see, something in the behavior of their 

 neighbors which threatens the maintenance of that which begins 

 to mark them as a nationality. It is the business of their national 

 leaders to be on the lookout for such things. They may merely 

 fancy that they detect some danger to the maintenance of even 

 their present status in something that a neighboring nation does. 

 It niay be a very intangible thing, and the interpretation of its 

 significance may be entirely wrong, but that does not matter. 

 The fighting promptly follows. 



But someone will ask: Why does fighting follow? Why not 

 arbitration or some- other peaceful means of settling what is in 

 many cases, at least, merely a trivial difference at the start? The 

 biological answer is again clear. The human animal, in common 

 with other higher vertebrates, has come to be endowed wdth 

 emotions, of w^hich rage is a very important one. In the inter- 

 course of men and nations such things as insults, real or fancied, 

 triflings with honor, either individual or national, attempted inter- 

 ference with natural or vested rights, larceny of territory or other 

 goods — all these and similar sorts of activity vastly too numerous 

 to catalog, tend to call forth the emotions of anger or rage. More 

 particularly are acts of the sort mentioned sure to stir the emo- 

 tions of a people if they are perpetrated by foreigners, those who 

 do not belong to the same group. People of one's own kind 

 may with impunity do things which another kind of people can- 

 not do without exciting very violent emotions. The significant 



