590 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



the ways in which that raw material is shaped and reshaped 

 are as multitudinous as the generations of man. 



The really significant processes of human hfe, in fact, 

 would seem to be marked by the passage from one powerful 

 thought system to another. At the present time, two such 

 thought-transitions are apparent. The first has to do with the 

 so-called instinct of pugnacity. For a number of centuries 

 the thought governed mankind that war was both a natural 

 and an honorable mode of setthng differences between 

 poHtical units. That thought is beginning to lose its undis- 

 puted power. It seems not extravagant to predict a time 

 when the thought of setthng pohtical conflicts by kilhng 

 people will appear so monstrously absurd as to be relegated 

 to barbarism. 



During the centuries in which the war point of view 

 prevailed, a thousand and one behaviors resulted. War 

 departments were organized, war leaders trained, armies 

 were enlisted, navies built, guns were manufactured, schools 

 of strategy were maintained, defensive patriotism was 

 taught, war heroes were lauded. The war-idea, in short, 

 was the powerful cause which generated a vast, mutually 

 supporting system of behaviors. On the other hand, let the 

 thought once begin to prevail that war is a monstrous 

 absurdity, and the ground is cut away from all these modes 

 of behavior. Other behavior-patterns will begin to be shaped. 

 Departments for mutual cooperation will succeed depart- 

 ments for mutual annihilation; armies will be devoted to the 

 conquest of Nature instead of the conquest of men. In short, 

 the typical institutions and the typical heroisms will come to 

 be those which contribute to the upbuilding rather than 

 to the destruction of life. 



In another respect also the western world is passing from 

 one powerful thought system into another. In this case it is 

 in connection with the basic pattern of food-getting. In the 

 early nineteenth century the invention of steam-driven 

 machinery opened up unexpected opportunities for accumu- 

 lating wealth. Up to that time the feudal thought-system 

 had built up characteristic behavior-patterns. Chief among 

 these was the obligation for life-long service on the part of 

 retainers and responsibility for defense and livelihood on 



