THE PAGAN ETHIC 71 



quoted by William James in his Varieties of Religious 

 Experience, this standpoint was put with the utmost 

 simplicity in an Austrian military textbook. As 

 the writer viewed the youth of the nations of 

 civilization being called under conscription to the 

 standards of war he says of them : " . . . War and 

 even peace require of the soldier absolutely peculiar 

 standards of morality. The recruit brings with him 

 common moral notions of which he must seek 

 immediately to get rid. For him victory, success, 

 must be everything . . . the barbaric tendencies 

 in men come to life again in war, and for war's uses 

 they are incommensurably good." x 



The same appalling practical logic was put later 

 with more directness in the Kriegsbrauch im 

 Landkriege, the textbook issued by the German 

 General Staff for the instruction of German officers. 

 Professor J. H. Morgan in the Introduction to 

 his English translation of the book thus summarizes 

 some of its rules of war in which we see this work 

 of eliminating the psychic sense of human responsi- 

 bility to life from its higher function in civiliza- 

 tion actually being accomplished. " Should they 

 (the peaceful inhabitants of an invaded country) 

 be exposed to the fire of their own troops ? Yes : 



1 Ftiedens- und Kriegs-moral der Heerc. Quoted by Hamon, 

 Psychologic dit Militoire Professional, 1895, P* 4 1 * 



