The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National AdvantageAngell, Norman
History
The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage
Angell, Norman
Commercial policy; Disarmament; Imperialism; War; War, Cost of
We must, as a matter of fact, be honest for our opponent. We must assume
that in an alternative, where his action would determine the issue of
war or peace, he will allow that action to be influenced by the general
consideration that war might make for the moral advantage of his
country. More important even than this consideration is that of the
general national temper, to which his philosophy, however little in
keeping with his professed policy and desire, necessarily gives rise.
For these reasons it is worth while to consider in detail the biological
case which he presents.
The illusion underlying that case arises from the indiscriminate
application of scientific formulæ.
Struggle is the law of survival with man, as elsewhere, but it is the
struggle of man with the universe, not man with man. Dog does not eat
dog--even tigers do not live on one another. Both dogs and tigers live
upon their prey.
It is true that as against this it is argued that dogs struggle with one
another for the same prey--if the supply of food runs short the weakest
dog, or the weakest tiger, starves. But an analogy between this state
and one in which co-operation is a direct means of increasing the supply
of food, obviously breaks down. If dogs and tigers were groups,
organized on the basis of the division of labor, even the weak dogs and
tigers could, conceivably, perform functions which would increase the
food supply of the group as a whole, and, conceivably, their existence
would render the security of that supply greater than would their
elimination. If to-day a territory like England supports in comfort, a
population of 45,000,000, where in other times rival groups, numbering
at most two or three millions, found themselves struggling with one
another for a bare subsistence, the greater quantity of food and the
greater security of the supply is not due to any process of elimination
of Wessex men by Northumbrian men, but is due precisely to the fact that
this rivalry has been replaced by common action against their prey, the
forces of nature. The obvious facts of the development of communities
show that there is a progressive replacement of rivalry by co-operation,
and that the vitality of the social organism increases in direct ratio
to the efficiency of the co-operation, and to the abandonment of the
rivalry, between its parts.[52]
All crude analogies between the processes of plant and animal survival
and social survival are vitiated, therefore, by disregarding the dynamic
element of conscious co-operation.
That mankind as a whole represents the organism and the planet the
environment, to which he is more and more adapting himself, is the only
conclusion that consorts with the facts. If struggle between men is the
true reading of the law of life, those facts are absolutely
inexplicable, for he is drifting away from conflict, from the use of
physical force, and towards co-operation. This much is unchallengeable,
as the facts which follow will show.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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