CHAPTER VII 



THE INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTION 



ONE of the chief characteristics of the philo- 

 sophy of force is its crudely fatalistic theory 

 of society and political institutions. Running all 

 through the literature of its philosophy is the 

 assumption that it is no use trying to correct 

 false ideas in the minds of men, because their 

 "fighting instincts" render war "inevitable"; 

 because "history repeats itself"; or, because "you 

 cannot change human nature." It is everywhere 

 taken for granted that man's conduct is not 

 influenced by his ideas, since he is not guided by 

 reason or "logic." We find the belief almost 

 universal in this philosophy that war is not, like 

 law or constitutional government or any other 

 human institution, the result of human effort and 

 opinion, good and bad, but is imposed by outside 

 forces which men cannot control. 



This social fatalism throws an interesting light 

 upon the general lack of knowledge of the most 

 elementary fact of social science — that ideas are 

 the source of institutions. Obsessed by the idea 

 of struggle, the advocates of the philosophy of 



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