66 4 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



deals with isolated criminals over whom it enjoys overwhelming power. If, how- 

 ever, a frontier police force has to cope with bands of armed brigands, whom it is 

 necessary to hunt down and attack, an aggressive spirit will quickly make its 

 appearance. Hence, all armaments, however defensive in origin, must tend to 

 become aggressive. 



One great secret of victory is to take the enemy by surprise and strike him 

 before he is ready. That is the one real guarantee that war shall, from the very 

 outset, be carried into the hostile territory. It is a perfectly logical step therefore 

 to inculcate this aggressive spirit into a nation as a whole, and especially into its 

 leaders, if there is any reason to apprehend war. By putting this principle into 

 execution the Germans have successfully excluded war from their own country, 

 notwithstanding that they have been defeated. 



More than this, as the self-confidence of an armed force increases, the spirit of 

 emulation, the desire to test its strength against a menacing or hereditary enemy, 

 arises. A spirit of contempt is also apt to appear for an hereditary enemy which 

 for one reason or another will not make the sacrifices necessary to attain perfect 

 military efficiency. Weakness is then regarded as decadence, which is always a 

 source of contempt to the strong and vigorous. Thus we see the Germans regard- 

 ing the French, British, and American nations as decadent. Finally, this con- 

 temptuous attitude develops into an arrogance which almost amounts to monomania. 

 But arrogance has by no means been confined to the German nation ; it was a 

 striking feature of the feudal systems and mercenary armies of the Middle Ages. 



It is also the case that where the armed forces, acting under the command ot 

 an autocratic ruler, control the whole resources of a nation, that nation is more 

 predisposed to arrogance, and therefore to war, than one which lacks these military 

 advantages ; for they add to the sense of power. Such a system does give distinct 

 military advantages and is really vital to the successful conduct of war if the 

 opposing forces are at all equal. It will generally be adopted to a greater or less 

 degree by any nation which fears a powerful neighbour ; and it is to be observed 

 that though neither the French nor the British introduced such a system prior to 

 the war of 1914, yet that they both introduced an approximation to it, the French on 

 the order to mobilise, the British about eighteen months after the outbreak of war. 



Thus it is the case, perhaps, that when a nation introduces militarism the 

 aggressive spirit is more likely to permeate all ranks of society than if the nation 

 had been content with a small voluntary army. Nevertheless, though the offensive 

 spirit existed in the French army in 1914, yet there was certainly no aggressive 

 spirit in the nation as a whole. Neither has the British nation contracted this 

 spirit since it organised itself as a nation in arms. 



Consequently, it is not the size and efficiency of armaments alone which give 

 rise to illegitimate ambition and arrogance. It is the other way about ; it is, as 

 always, the spirit which impels ; the armaments are merely the outward sign. 

 And these armaments must be combined with education — propaganda — before 

 this spirit of illegitimate ambition, finally of arrogance, can permeate a whole 

 community. We all know, indeed, that this spirit was carefully fostered throughout 

 the German nation. 



Let us turn to modern civil or class war. Here we see very clearly ambition 

 and arrogance engendered as the sense of power increases. First we have an 

 upheaval of the lower classes against wealthy and luxurious upper and middle 

 classes. Living, perhaps, in penury and in abominable conditions, the desire is, 

 in the first instance, to exist in some degree of comfort. With a display of weak- 

 ness by the national leaders, due, perhaps, to the disorganisation of society by 



