124 The Special Sociological Errors 



overran Constantinople and eastern Europe in 

 the fifteenth century. But the fact that the 

 civiHzed people had to act on the defensive and 

 employ force to meet that used in the attack by 

 the barbarians, does not change the fact that war 

 has not advanced civilization, if we look at war 

 from the point of view of the whole operation 

 instead of taking a one-sided view. Always war 

 has retarded civilization, and even when the more 

 civilized peoples have triumphed, which is far 

 from being always the case, war has meant a loss 

 of time, a circuitous route in the progress of 

 civilization instead of a direct route. The develop- 

 ment of the Balkan peoples has been retarded 

 for several centuries on account of war, and their 

 backward condition has retarded the progress of 

 all the other peoples of Europe. The Asiatic in- 

 vasion of the territory of Russia in the thirteenth 

 century established despotism among the Rus- 

 sians, and this despotism has retarded their progress 

 for six centuries. Whenever we examine the facts 

 from the point of view of the whole effect instead 

 of the unilateral aberration, we find that war has 

 never advanced, but always retarded, civilization. 

 It is only through the error of one-sided reason- 

 ing, that moral benefits can be attributed to war. 

 As usually interpreted, a righteous war is one in 

 which our nation was victorious or fought for a 

 just cause, but if our nation was right, the enemy 

 must have been wrong, and since war is essentially 

 a matter of two parties, no war can be more than 



