184 Declining Effectiveness of Force 



The problem of aggression, therefore, consti- 

 tutes the key to the whole problem of the place of 

 force in human relations, since defence and even 

 police force are necessary only because of the 

 danger of aggression. From this consideration it 

 follows that the crux of the philosophy of force 

 centres about the question of the effectiveness or 

 futility of the instrument of force for accomplish- 

 ing certain objects which men desire; and the 

 hope for a rationally organized world, in which 

 war will not be "inevitable," depends upon the 

 possibility of changing the widely accepted belief 

 in the advantages of aggression. To understand 

 the decreasing effectiveness of force, which has now 

 proceeded so far, as Norman Angell has demon- 

 strated in The Great Illusion, that it has become 

 futile in our modern interdependent world, it is 

 necessary to survey briefly the different forms in 

 which struggle is successively carried on between 

 human associations.^ 



The most imperative need of man, as of all other 

 animals, is food. The means by which men have 

 sought to procure nourishment are: searching for 

 and gathering food from nature, hunting, fishing, 

 the domestication of animals, and agriculture. 

 When all other meaiis have failed, men have over- 



' See J. Novikov, Les luttes entre societes humaines et leurs phases 

 successives (Paris, Alcan, 2d edition, 1904), for a more detailed 

 account of the successive forms of struggle than is given here. 

 Novikov devotes several chapters to the nature and processes of 

 each of the successive forms of struggle, illustrating his analysis 

 with a wealth of historical material. 



