Essays in War-Time: Further Studies in the Task of Social HygieneEllis, Havelock
Philosophy
Essays in War-Time: Further Studies in the Task of Social Hygiene
Ellis, Havelock
Eugenics; Sex; War
[6] In France it is almost unknown except as preached by the Syndicalist
philosopher, Georges Sorel, who insists, quite in the German manner, on
the purifying and invigorating effects of "a great foreign war," although,
very unlike the German professors, he holds that "a great extension of
proletarian violence" will do just as well as war.
[7] The recent expressions of the same doctrine in Germany are far too
numerous to deal with. I may, however, refer to Professor Fritz
Wilke's _Ist der Krieg sittlich berechtigt?_ (1915) as being the work
of a theologian and Biblical scholar of Vienna who has written a book
on the politics of Isaiah and discussed the germs of historical
veridity in the history of Abraham. "A world-history without war," he
declares, "would be a history of materialism and degeneration"; and
again: "The solution is not 'Weapons down!' but 'Weapons up!' With
pure hands and calm conscience let us grasp the sword." He dwells, of
course, on the supposed purifying and ennobling effects of war and
insists that, in spite of its horrors, and when necessary, "War is a
divine institution and a work of love." The leaders of the world's
peace movement are, thank God! not Germans, but merely English and
Americans, and he sums up, with Moltke, that war is a part of the
moral order of the world.
[8] William James, _Popular Science Monthly_, Oct., 1910.
[9] We still often fall into the fallacy of over-estimating the
advantages of military training--with its fine air of set-up manliness
and restrained yet vitalised discipline--because we are mostly
compelled to compare such training with the lack of training fostered
by that tame, dull sedentary routine of which there is far too much in
our present phase of civilisation. The remedy lies in stimulating the
heroic and strenuous sides of civilisation rather than in letting
loose the ravages of war. As Nietzsche long since pointed out (_Human,
All-too-Human_, section 442), the vaunted national armies of modern
times are merely a method of squandering the most highly civilised
men, whose delicately organised brains have been slowly produced
through long generations; "in our day greater and higher tasks are
assigned to men than _patria_ and _honor_, and the rough old Roman
patriotism has become dishonourable, at the best behind the times."
[10] The Border of Scotland and England was in ancient times, it has
been said, "a very Paradise for murderers and robbers." The war-like
spirit was there very keen and deeds of daring were not too scrupulously
effected, for the culprit knew that nothing was easier and safer than to
become an outlaw on the other side of the Border. Yet these were the
conditions that eventually made the Border one of the great British
centres of genius (the Welsh Border was another) and the home of a
peculiarly capable and vigorous race.
IV
MORALITY IN WARFARE
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