First of all, the need of stimulation is never so great as when a man has to risk his life in an open battle. If in work he has to overcome his natural inertia, laziness, he has here to overcome the still stronger obstacle of fear. Contrary to the romantic notions of popular literature, primitive man seems to be timorous rather than brave when not encouraged by adventitious excitement.[427] This cowardice can, however, to a great extent be explained by defective military organisation. Where the mutual support which the well-drilled soldiers of a regular army render each other is lacking, the need of personal courage is of course so much the greater. Civilised warfare tries to avoid the conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and of a soldier’s duty by the pressure of strict discipline; savage warfare, which cannot count on the same forces of submission and mental control, is compelled to minimise this conflict by deadening the consciousness of peril. Hence the indispensability of some means of producing violent excitement by which the necessary forgetfulness of danger and death may be attained.[428] Apart from the influence of fear, the task of slaughter is one which, from its very nature, cannot be performed in cold blood. Even where the element of danger is absent, as when unarmed foes are killed or tortured, the savage executioners do not generally get to work straight away. As soon as a beginning has been made, a sort of intoxication will indeed be produced by mental as well as physical agencies, such as the sight of blood or the pride of conquest. But this intoxication, so eagerly desired by savages in civilised as well as in primitive communities, cannot be produced even in the lowest tribes of man without a preliminary working up. The passion of cruelty, like that of love, is, in its higher and more ecstatic forms, too overwhelming in its mental effects to be attained without an artificial enhancement of psychical capacity. But whereas the erotic feelings tend with growing development to become more and more a private matter, cruelty is among warlike tribes an emotion of national importance. The incitement to slaughter is therefore apt to become social—that is, common to several individuals at once. This is one of the reasons why war is of so much greater importance than love as a motive for tribal art.