April 9, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



519 



uting offensive and venomous literature 

 about their fellow men of nations with 

 whom their country is at war, whose 

 friends they were and whose honors they 

 enjoyed. Poets sing the song of profound 

 hatred and musicians write the melody to 

 it, or compose war marches and songs. Re- 

 ligion offers an extraordinarily sad spec- 

 tacle. Nations having the same religion 

 and believing in the same God, pray to Him 

 that He may help them destroy their 

 enemy. Think of the robber and mur- 

 derer who on his most godless errand prays 

 to God for aid and guidance ! 



But here I must call your attention to a 

 paradoxical but remarkable fact. Beastly 

 as international morality is, when nations 

 are at war, war nevertheless unquestion- 

 ably elevates the mfranational morality. 

 The majority of citizens in every country 

 are not idealists; in time of peace they 

 comply with the laws of their country and 

 fulfill their simple duties, not more and 

 not less. But when their country is at war, 

 a new spirit comes over them; they be- 

 come altruists, they are ready to bring 

 sacrifices, to lose their life or to become 

 cripples for life. Whether a country is 

 right or wrong with regard to the merits 

 of a particular war in the eyes of an out- 

 sider, a neutral, this has no bearing upon 

 the moral status of the man inside his 

 country. That status is unquestionably 

 elevated during war, and even after the 

 war his relations to his countrymen remain 

 on a higher moral plane. But this applies 

 to civilized countries only, and of these 

 only to such countries whose civilized citi- 

 zens fight its battles. 



Now let me recapitulate briefly. Hu- 

 man morality, whatever the nature of its 

 origin may be, was and is subject to evo- 

 lutionary influences. It began in the pre- 

 savage state of men. Its development has 

 been and is a very slow process. In its 



present state we must sharply distinguish 

 between intranational and international 

 ethics; there is an abyss between them. 

 Intranational morals attained a high state. 

 Intellectual activities of all kinds were and 

 are most important factors in its growth. 

 The morality in international relations, on 

 the other hand, is generally low, and is 

 frightfully bad when these relations are 

 interrupted by war. War is an animal 

 method of settling differences between two 

 contending vicious species, and human in- 

 tellectual activities greatly intensified the 

 deadliness of the procedure. The efforts 

 to create international laws for the pur- 

 pose of restraining the ferocity of inter- 

 national struggles proved of little avail. 

 We have cultured, civilized Germans, 

 Frenchmen, Englishmen, and so on, but 

 the world is not yet inhabited by cultured 

 civilized men. 



Apparently biological processes are 

 operative in these horrible differences be- 

 tween the intranational and international 

 states of morality. Intellectual activity is 

 capable of efficiently assisting in the de- 

 velopment of morality among individuals 

 which are allied by some organic and social 

 bonds ; thus little or no resistance is offered 

 to the beneficent intellectual influence. 

 But individuals of different strains, with 

 natural divergences and antagonisms, sus- 

 tained by differences in education, cus- 

 toms, forms of law, etc., offer great resist- 

 ance to the unifying influences of intellec- 

 tual activity. 



Accordingly, biological traits common 

 to all animals, while some of them may ex- 

 ert a favorable influence upon the evolu- 

 tion, rate of growth and the direction of 

 human morality, are surely not the main 

 factors of its creation and development. 

 On the contrary, in interracial and inter- 

 national relations many biological traits 

 are profoundly inimical to a development 



