190 Declining Effectiveness of Force 



individual who is attacked, and (2) the increasing 

 complexity and interdependence of modern society. 

 The effect of resistance in rendering force futile 

 has been analysed by Norman Angell in the 

 following summary: 



For one to impose his will upon the other by force 

 implies resistance; thus two energies are cancelled and 

 end in sterility or waste. For even when one triumphs, 

 there are still two slaves : the vanquished slave to the 

 victor, the victor to the need of maintaining supremacy 

 and being ready to use force against the vanquished. 

 This creates a form of relationship as wasteful in 

 economics as it is disastrous in morals. It explains 

 the failure of all those policies based on coercion or 

 aggression — privilege and oppression within the 

 State, conquest and the struggle for power between 

 States. But if the two agree to combine forces in the 

 common fight against Nature for life and sustenance, 

 both are liberated and they have found in that 

 partnership the true economy: still better, they 

 have found in it the true basis of human society and 

 its spiritual possibilities. For there can be no union 

 without some measure of faith in the agreement on 

 which it is based, some notion of right. It indicates 

 the true policy whether national or international — 

 agreement for united action against the common 

 enemy, whether found in Nature or in the passions 

 and fallacies of men.^ 



The effects of the increasing complexity and in- 

 terdependence of society in rendering force futile 



' War and Peace. (Published at 29 Charing Cross, London.) 

 March, 1915. 



