Hall: Psychology and the War 



445 



sudden fraternization with the enemy 

 which Kreisler has so well described. 



Fourth, when the charge is called, 

 some drop, fatigued and perhaps dead 

 from exhaustion, while others who 

 thought themselves spent marvel at 

 the sudden development of utterly 

 unexpected resources in their own 

 systems. Here each faces his man 

 intent only upon killing him and escap- 

 ing from being killed himself. When 

 this is all over the sur\nvors frequently, 

 and sometimes for days and weeks, live 

 in an illusion that the charge is still on, 

 and they cut, slash, stab imaginary 

 enemies, while the same obsessions 

 haunt their sleep, so that even the 

 hospitals, a few days after the battle. 

 are noisy with the imagined battle 

 which still rages in the soul. Those 

 who have once had this experience, too, 

 we are told, should recover within the 

 hearing of the big guns, lest these 

 obsessions undermine their courage and 

 make them cowards and panic-starters 

 despite their will. Only very slowly 

 do even the sanest come back to full 

 realization of what and where they are, 

 what doing, and only gradually do 

 their friends, relatives and home condi- 

 tions live again in their souls as the 

 past validates itself in the all-absorbing 

 present. 



THE STRAIN OF WAR 



Such, too, is the unprecedented strain 

 of the present war, with its high 

 explosives, the contractions of both 

 time and space, poisoned gases, the 

 fatigue and demoralization deliberately 

 planned by each enemy by continuous 

 day and night bombardment before the 

 infantry advance, that it is no wonder 

 that each belligerent has had to develop 

 a new type of hospital for cases of 

 shock due to these causes. All agree 

 that the nervous system of the belliger- 

 ents has never been subjected to such a 

 strain, and many hold that this of 

 itself will impair the quality of parent- 

 hood perhaps for generations. War is a 

 grim and awful experiment upon human 

 nature, but like vivisection, disease and 

 insanity, it should be studied intensively 

 to find its nature, cause, and, if possible, 

 its cure and at least its function for the 



individual and society. The very vol- 

 imiinous data in this field now fairly 

 cry out for more and better interpreta- 

 tion. Raw instinct, feeling and emo- 

 tion, which are the very roots of human 

 nature, are stripped bare of all their 

 disguises. The motivation of war, how- 

 ever interpreted, is psychological, 

 whether its cause be individual, social, 

 economic, or religious. War is still 

 regarded too much as panics and 

 pestilences were before science explained 

 and controlled them. Hence it is 

 that we should welcome the suggestion 

 lately made of a society planned, to be 

 given an international organization, to 

 study the psychological aspects of this 

 war, selecting literature, making special 

 observations, according to prescribed 

 methods, synthetizing results from all 

 fields, in order that in the end we may 

 have some definite conception of what 

 war really is, does and means. At 

 least the vastness and abundance of the 

 data should not cause them to be 

 neglected, seem common or go to waste. 

 4. Will the war tend to increase 

 collectivism at the expense of individual 

 activity and initiative ? It stands forth 

 already as the most perfect example the 

 world has ever seen of completely 

 organized teamwork. The individual is 

 only a cog in a vast machine. The 

 subaltern and even the lower officer 

 knows almost nothing, and indeed one 

 high authority has told us that only 

 three men in one of the leading belliger- 

 ent countries know anything in regard 

 to the general military plan; and very 

 few attempt to understand what is 

 going on in other parts of the line in any 

 front. The rest obey Uterally, trusting 

 in the wisdom at the top. They do 

 much and perhaps have to face almost 

 certain death in an enterprise that 

 seems to them utter folly, and they have 

 no consolation save their faith that 

 the leaders know it to be for the good of 

 the whole. This is necessary for all 

 effective armies, but in citizens of an 

 autocratic government it comes easier 

 and is more complete than in those 

 pervaded by the spirit of democracy. 



This, of course, is one of the reasons 

 why wars always favor autocratic, and 

 are unfavorable to democratic, institu- 



