300 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv answer to be made. They are all founded on a 



failure to perceive the fact that military activity is 



The answer to in many respects a thing apart, and depends on 



this is that the i I J'J J u "1 I 



work of the psychological, and indeed on physiological processes 

 exceptional ; which have no counterpart in the domain of ordinary 

 effort. That such is the case can be seen very easily 

 by following out the train of argument suggested by 

 Mr. Harrison. Mr. Harrison sees that in ordinary 

 life a man will not deliberately run the risk of being 

 killed except for the sake of a cause or person to which 

 or whom he is profoundly and indescribably attached. 

 Indeed his attachment is presumably in proportion 

 to the risk he is prepared to run. And such being 

 the case in the field of ordinary life, Mr. Harrison 

 assumes it must be the case on the field of battle 

 also, and that the soldier's willingness to risk death 

 in fighting for a cause or country proves that this 

 cause or country is inexpressibly dear to him. 

 And in certain cases when a country is in desperate 

 straits, and everything hangs on the issue of a single 

 battle this inference would be doubtless just ; but 

 that it is not so generally is shown by the notorious 

 fact that some of the bravest and most reckless 

 soldiers ever known to history have been mercenaries 

 who would fight as willingly for one country as for 

 another. Thus until Mr. Harrison can show us that 

 men in ordinary life will wear themselves out for 

 either of two opposed objects indifferently, or that 

 they will risk death as willingly for a plain woman 

 as for a pretty one, it is obvious that men's willing- 

 ness to risk death in war implies no corresponding 



