112 The General Sociological Errors 



that banditism is the quickest way to acquire 

 wealth, which underUes poUtical conquest and the 

 system of anned peace. It is almost universally 

 believed that a nation can use its military power 

 to gain important advantages for its people. 

 Norman Angell in The Great Illusion has examined 

 the different ways in which it is supposed that 

 military power can insure economic advantages — 

 markets and foreign trade, indemnities, colonies, 

 etc. — and has demonstrated that the supposed ad- 

 vantages are in all the cases which he considered 

 illusions. But this demonstration of the economic 

 futility of military force, when used for aggression, 

 will become effective enough to induce the govern- 

 ments to give up the system of international 

 banditism and anarchy, and enter into a system 

 of world organization under justice and law, only 

 when the realization of this truth is sufficiently 

 wide-spread. This is because the actions of men 

 are governed, not by the truth, but by what they 

 believe to be the truth. If what men believe is 

 error, their actions will be in accord with this error, 

 and will lead to a rupture of vital equilibrium and 

 the condition of the social disease. The action 

 of nations in continuing the system of war is a 

 consequence of wrong ideas. It is like the action 

 of a man who touches a wire charged with a high 

 tension current of electricity. He believes that 

 the wire is not dangerous. As the result of his 

 error he suffers severely. His vital intensity is 

 decreased and the injury to the organism may 



