1 6 Perry, An EthnoLogical Study of Warfare. 



the Prussians is deeply rooted in the past, and they are the 

 latest, and one would like to hope the last, and most formid- 

 able representatives of the warrior-state system. The Prussians 

 may well claim that they are the bearers of a Kultur, but they 

 are wrong in supposing that their Kultur represents an advance 

 upon that of the rest of Europe. If the thesis of this article 

 be correct, the truculence, perfidy, and other qualities which we 

 ascribe to modem Germany are the direct outcome of the grow- 

 ing power of the Prussian military aristocracy. Just as the 

 nobility caused a degeneration in the character of the Venetian 

 state, so the Prussian military and governing aristocracy has 

 transformed the Germans. The military successes of the last 

 century have enhanced the prestige and multiplied the power 

 of the military aristocracy, and the present war is the outcome 

 of the desire of that class for domination. This war is to be 

 ascribed to the working of social processes, the roots of which 

 lie in the past. But fortunately mankind is not faced wath a 

 sittration that has been produced by a process of evolution, 

 by the struggle for existence between various societies, the 

 effects of which have been to produce " specifically social quali- 

 ties."' The evidence brought forward here goes to show that 

 warfare has nothing whatever to do with the development of 

 the higher social qualities. It was in the beginning a means 

 whereby one group of human beings exploited another, and 

 far from producing good qualities, it has created mental appe- 

 tites and ways of thinking and acting which have led to the 

 death of millions. Fortunately other social forces have been 

 at work. Countries such as France and England, once under 

 the yoke of a warrior aristocracy, have freed themselves, and 

 now direct their own destinies more and more for the profit, 

 not of a class, but of the people. Great democracies are grow- 

 ing up in all parts of the world — America, Africa, Australia — 

 and these democracies, freed from the incubus of a sabre- 

 rattling, war-desiring aristocracy, are devoting their entire ener- 

 gies to peaceful advancement. These democracies are peaceful; 

 they lack the presence of a class whose interest is warfare.^° 



The leaven of the "children of the sun" is working itself 

 out. This war, let us hope, represents the last struggle of a 

 system which has held mankind in its clutches for centuries. 

 Once this system is shattered, once the leaven is dead, mankind 

 will settle down to a new phase of development. Warfare as 

 we know it will perhaps be absent, but the motives which gave 

 rise to it will be present. Greed will always press men to 

 exploit their fellow-creatures, and it is only possible to hope 

 that mankind will learn the lesson of the past : that the ex- 

 ploitation of a community for the sake of one class is fraught 

 with grave and continual dangers. 



50. Their behaviour in warfare is well exemplified in the case of 

 the United States, who beat Great Britain, but neither made this a pre- 

 text of aggression ; a contrast to the Prussian method. 



