172 The Special Sociological Errors 



Mr. Lagorgette also makes a very penetrating 

 remark : 



Animals are almost entirely ignorant of fratricidal 

 struggle. On account of lack of intelligence, they do 

 not recognize the apparent usefulness which it would 

 have for them to destroy their own kind, and as a 

 result they do not attack them.^ 



From the first sporadic acts of robbery and 

 exploitation to the condition of permanent war 

 which exists in our time, there is an immense 

 distance. The successive scale of banditism which 

 lies between is something like this: clandestine 

 theft, robbery by force, raids, permanent tribute, 

 and finally, territorial conquest, i.e., complete 

 exploitation of the vanquished by taxes levied for 

 the conqueror. Thousands of years must have 

 been necessary for humanity to mount the succes- 

 sive degrees of this disastrous scale. The period of 

 sporadic raids must have lasted for many centuries, 

 because the human race, during a long period, 

 could not conceive of a more systematic form of 

 pillage. Of all forms of exploitation, political 

 conquest is necessarily the most recent, since it 

 presupposes an intellectual and political develop- 

 ment of high order. However, it is the desire 

 for political conquest which has given birth to 

 standing armies, and it is the creation of standing 

 armies which has produced the state of systematic 



* Le rdle de la guerre, p. 35. 



