War is Always Dissociation 105 



sociation is universally conceded in the case of 

 civil war, as when the North and South fought 

 in 1 86 1. It is equally true but less generally 

 realized that war is equally a process of dissocia- 

 tion when it occurs on the outside of political 

 groups. It is a dissociation in this case precisely 

 because it prevents association. The economic 

 and intellectual bonds which unite the nations of 

 Europe in the twentieth century are much more 

 intimate than those which united the provinces of 

 France, for example, in the seventeenth century, 

 but the French provinces in the seventeenth 

 century did not consider that it would serve any 

 useful purposes to wage war with one another, 

 although the European nations do consider it 

 useful in the twentieth century. From the 

 political point of view, therefore, the association 

 between the European nations in the twentieth 

 century is less intimate than that between the 

 French provinces at the time of Louis XIV. 

 Without war Europe would have been united. 

 As a result of war, it is disunited. Therefore war 

 is a process of dissociation at the exterior of the 

 political organization as well as in the interior. 

 Without war, there would have been only the fact 

 of association between human beings. The politi- 

 cal unity of the human race, the establishment of 

 justice between all the nations of the earth, and the 

 suppression of war, are all equivalent statements. 

 War and dissociation are therefore synonymous 

 terms. Herbert Spencer and others have affirmed 



