Social Fatalism 213 



force ignore entirely the most wide-spread and 

 effective form of this struggle — the intellectual 

 struggle — to which must be traced ultimately all 

 social progress. And the most effective reply to 

 this social fatalism is found in the activities of those 

 who profess this belief, but who nevertheless 

 devote much of their energies to the intellectual 

 struggle, to propagating their ideas, and advocat- 

 ing their philosophy of social fatalism. 



What is implied in the argument that war can- 

 not be abolished because "you cannot change 

 human nature " ? 



When analysed, it means that man is at bottom 

 a selfish animal, that as long as he can use force 

 effectively to advance his welfare, he may be relied 

 upon to do so, that nations, since they are made up 

 of men having this fundamentally selfish char- 

 acteristic, may be relied upon to act in the same 

 selfish manner, and that war will be the inevitable 

 result of the clash of these competing selfish 

 national interests. 



In other words, social fatalism and the argu- 

 ment for war based on "unchanging human 

 nature" rest on the belief in the effectiveness of 

 force. 



But suppose it could be demonstrated to the 

 people of the nation that nothing can be gained by 

 aggression, would it be necessary to change human 

 nature to induce this nation to give up aggression? 



The disappearance of piracy offers an interesting 

 analogy. In this case also it was argued that 



