It appears to be no very difficult matter to discover causes of war,
and indeed a considerable number of causes. In fact the problem seems
to yield an embarrassment of riches, especially if our chief interest
happens to be a practical one, and we wish to find the causes of war
in order to see how they may be controlled. We might even have
discovered all the causes of war and still be as far as before from
any real understanding of the cause of war. Unless one can know the
relative importance of the causes, and the manner in which the causes
combine to produce wars; unless the results give in some way a
synthetic view of the causes of war, show _dominating_
causes, or
reveal a total cause which is not merely a summation of stimuli, but
is both a necessary and a sufficient situation for the production of
war; unless we have shown some fundamental cause and movement in the
social order, we are still left in search of the cause of war.
We have, indeed, found a number of causes of war, but at the same time
the causes have not appeared to exist as separate causes. We are
always catching sight of a movement in the development of nations and
of the world--of certain fundamental motives, the most basic of all,
the most general, being the motive of power. These causes of war do
not appear, however, to be of the nature of a _chain_, giving us the
impression that in order to break the habit of war, all we need do is
to discover the weakest link in the chain of causes, break the chain
there, and so interrupt the whole mechanism of war-making in the
world. Above all, although fortuitous events as causes of war must
not be overlooked, war is not continually being made anew by the
appearance again and again of accidental situations, which are thus to
be regarded as the cause of war.
War is, first of all, a natural expression of the social life, resting
primarily upon the fact of the existence, universally, of groups of
individuals acting as units. But here cause and effect are lost in one
another. Conflict cements the group, and the existence of the group,
again, is the cause of conflict. War is an aspect of the social
solidarity of the group acting under certain conditions, and these
conditions are the presence of deep desires that can, in general, be
satisfied only by the exertion of force on the part of communities
acting as wholes.
These primitive motives and moods of war that we find in the nature of
the social group itself, emerge finally in three aspects of the life
of nations, and it is these aspects of the life of nations that appear
to us as the causes of war. They are not separate and independent
features of the social life, and it is in part only for the sake of
convenience that they are sharply separated at all. They are all at
bottom manifestations of the motive of power that runs through all
history, and all the social and individual life. On one side this
motive appears in moods and impulses that we called the
"intoxication"
moods and impulses. National honor was found to be another effect of
it. The political motives of war are its concrete expression. These
motives all together--all being but phases of a deep, powerful energy
and purpose, are the source of the main movement in history out of
which war comes. In this movement all the motives of the social life
are always present and active at the same time. The good and the bad
of national life are phases of a single purpose and are not two
contrasted principles or moments. The past is always contained in the
present.
War, then, is the result of certain motives which are fundamental to
the group life. It is a natural form in which, given a certain degree
of intelligence and of complexity of the social life, these motives
express themselves. All the motives and forms of expression are
present in germ at least from the beginning of the development of the
social life. Considering the whole history of war we see that it is a
part of a very complex movement in human society, and yet that no war
appears to be the final term of a process of inexorable logic. Taking
history as a whole, we see that the natural laws involved and the
nature of the social consciousness make a state of war from time to
time highly probable, but war is not a necessary consequence of any
natural law. Nations are self-conscious personalities.
Perhaps in the
future they may change their ways, abandon voluntarily their desires,
subject themselves to discipline, or deliberately invent a plan of
international relations that will have the effect of eliminating war
from their lives altogether.
It is always dangerous, but at the same time it is always tempting to
try to explain national life, or all life and history, in terms of the
individual and his experience. Once more, however, we may yield to
that temptation and say that the world to-day is in a stage of
development which has many traits that show its relation in some very
significant ways to certain undeveloped conditions found in
individuals, which in fact always appear as phases of the life of all
individuals in some degree and form. Nations have acquired a high
degree of subjectivism, partly on account of the geographical
conditions under which they have lived, and the many barriers between
nations due to difference of origin and of language, and the
fundamental emotions of fear and jealousy which, as we have seen, play
so large a part in the life and conduct of groups.
Nations, however
close to one another, have remained isolated in spirit; they have
lacked both the initiative and the means for becoming definitely
related to one another in purposive and sustained activities.
Therefore all their relations have remained highly emotional,
subjective, influenced by mysticism, filled with hatred and fear, hero
worship and illusion. Nations have lacked both the power, and we might
say, the organs, for externalizing their spirit. They have dreamed
dreams and played plays, and followed their illusions of empire. Even
their wars have not, until perhaps now, become wholly real and serious
in a measure commensurate with their powers and resources. The present
war more than any other, and more than any other event in history,
represents an escape on the part of nations from their subjectivism,
and a beginning, it may be, of the realization of a more mature, or
shall we say more _normal_ conception of the world.
Nations have
played at being great and have really produced but little true
greatness. Now, let us say, their dream is over. We see that these
nations can no longer play. Their wooden weapons have at last been
turned to steel. They can fight no longer indeed without destroying
one another. They must now _live_ in practical and moral relations,
give up their bright dreams of empire after the old heroic order, and
be content to be imperial (if they are born to be imperial) by
performing distinguished service in the world, by their own genius of
leadership. There is work in the world for nations to do; there are
empires of the spirit, it may be, greater than have yet been dreamed
of in the nations' childish philosophies of life. The consciousness of
nations contains, it may be, unsuspected powers, suppressed in the
past by narrow nationalism, by fear, habit and convention. These
powers may now, if ever, blossom forth; they have been wasted too long
in patriotic feeling and in idle dreamery. They must now show what
they can do in a practical world that will have no more of mere
assertions.
The world stands to-day balanced between two ideals.
Human spirit, the
spirit of nations, is a free and plastic force; it is also a sum of
motives and desires; but most fundamentally of all it is a growing,
living, creative and personal spirit. It still clings to its luxuries
of feeling, to its provincial life, it is still fascinated by its
beautiful romance of empire. On the other hand we see the stirring of
a new idea. A new world arises, less dramatic in its appeal than the
old world, but a world appealing by its practical problems both to the
will and to the intellect. Shall we yield to the fascination of the
old romance and go back to our hero worship; or shall we be inspired
now by this vision of a new and greater social order, create out of
our own powers of imagination the forms this world must assume if it
is to appeal to the deepest feelings of all peoples, and make this new
world real by our own intelligence and determination?
We stand to-day at a dramatic moment in history; a more dramatic
moment than when the victory itself hung in the balance.
Perhaps our
sense of responsibility for the future is an illusion; perhaps we are
driven by an inexorable logic of history, and we do not after all
choose what our world shall be. But certainly the sense of human power
in the world has never been greater than now nor seemed better
justified; nor, if we are deceived, has the reality ever been more out
of harmony with the ambitions of man.