Popenoe: Is War Necessary? 



259 



respirations are quickened ; he trembles 

 and turns cold ; his knees shake ; beads 

 of sweat stand upon his brow ; he is 

 pale and his mouth dry; he feels faint 

 and may collapse. Whether the cause 

 of fear be moral, social, financial, or 

 intellectual, the result is the same. 

 There is not one form of fear for the 

 defaulting bank president and another 

 for the hunter facing his first big game ; 

 not one group of fear phenomena for a 

 mother anxious for her sick child, an- 

 other for a friend waiting for news 

 from the battlefield, and still another 

 for the soldier facing a superior foe. 

 In every case it is the same fear — fear 

 of bodily harm — expressed in terms of 

 bodily activation, and involving every 

 organ and tissue, which would be in- 

 volved were the natural phylogenetic 

 response of flight from an enemy con- 

 summated in muscular exertion." 



WHY MAN FIGHTS MAN 



Much evidence might be given, but 

 for the biologist it is not necessary. He 

 recognizes clearly that man, as an ani- 

 mal, still possesses the strongly devel- 

 oped impulse to fight, which all other 

 mammals have under certain conditions. 

 The principal difference is this — that 

 most animals fight primarily against 

 the environment (including by that 

 term all other animals), rather than 

 against members of their own species. 

 Man, however, long ago got the best 

 of his environment, and the struggle 

 against it has not for thousands of 

 years called for much active physical 

 combat. But the disposition for phys- 

 ical combat being still active, it has to 

 find expression — partly in sports, partly 

 in constructive work, and partly in 

 fighting other members of his own 

 species, to an extent which probably no 

 other animal shows. 



The impulse to war, then, is not only 

 deeply ingrained in man's inherent na- 

 ture, but it is far more complex and 

 firmly entrenched than is generally sus- 

 pected. It is not surprising that many 

 persons have considered war not only 

 natural but inevitable. Whether or not 



4See Natural Selection in War, by Roswell 

 pp. 546-548, December, 1915. 



it is inevitable will be discussed in a 

 moment. 



Even if war could be abolished, it is 

 often said it ought not to be, because it 

 is of great value to the race (1) as an 

 instrument of natural selection, and (3) 

 as a source of national energy and ra- 

 cial well-being, as a prevention of de- 

 cadence and effeteness. 



1. The argument that war is bene- 

 ficial because it allows the fittest to sur- 

 vive has been thoroughly debated in 

 recent years, as a consequence of its 

 espousal by German militaristic philos- 

 ophers. It is now almost universally 

 known to be fallacious. So far as the 

 physical traits of the individuals of a 

 belligerent nation are concerned, nearly 

 everyone now realizes the strength of 

 the eugenic argument: that, on the 

 whole, war makes for the survival of 

 the unfit rather than of the fit, since 

 those who go to the firing line in a 

 modern war are, on the average, phys- 

 ically superior to those who stay at 

 home.* So far as mental traits are con- 

 cerned, war played a more useful part 

 in the evolution of civilization, up to 

 within a very recent time ; for so long 

 as wars were fought by professional 

 soldiers, the institution of war acted as 

 a means of selection to eliminate from 

 the population those who could not con- 

 form to the relatively peaceful, indus- 

 trious, cooperative life which modern 

 society requires. From this point of 

 view, the evolution of society has been 

 made possible by constant warfare, 

 which killed off those in whom the 

 predatory instinct was strongest. But 

 about a century ago, when universal 

 military service was introduced in 

 Prussia and France, this selective effort 

 of evolution ceased and war became, on 

 the whole, as injurious to the race 

 mentally as it has long been physically. ■ 



Modern warfare, then, cannot be al- 

 leged to be eugenic — to favor selective 

 breeding. On the whole, it has a very 

 injurious influence on national eugenics. 



2. The argument that war ought not 

 to be abolished even if it could be; that 



H. Johnson. Journal of Heredity, vol. vi., 



