THE PAGAN ETHIC 89 



What Mr. Bateson did in effect in these circumstances 

 was to put forward the same biological justification 

 for aggressive war organized in the economic activities 

 of civilization as the Prussian military school did for 

 aggressive war organized in the military activities. 

 I And in applying this justification Mr. Bateson 

 proposed to put all the characteristic doctrines of 

 Western democracy on the scrap-heap. 



The practical significance of this departure, it 

 will be observed, lay in the proposed application 

 to the world of a more dangerous and more wide- 

 reaching embodiment of the pagan doctrine of Right 

 than any that had ever been made before in history. 

 In the conditions described in the first chapter the 

 world of the West was a hotbed ready to receive this 

 extended doctrine of war. Germany had accepted 

 in full the doctrine that underlying her economic 

 activities was the permanent state of war. But the 

 observer had only to regard the leading political issues 

 in any important country of the West to see that in 

 all countries alike the organization of the world in 

 business and commerce was gradually coming to be 

 treated by all parties as an actual state of war. 



It is evident, moreover, that the acceptance by 

 a strong nation of the view that her economic life 

 represented a permanent phase of war was bound 

 to compel other nations to adopt standards in 



