The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
of the nature of crucibles in which old reactions and feelings are
fused, given new direction, new forms and in a certain way a new
nature. History is made in these moods of war. They are subjective
forces, but they are also objectively creative.
What is it that nations really desire? What is it, we might ask, that
an individual desires? On the side of experience it is an _abundant
life_, a life full of the feeling of power. This craving for an
abundant life is a craving for the satisfaction of many desires,
instinctive and acquired, but it is also a craving, in some sense, for
more desire. It is not merely to satisfy desires, but to realize more
life by creating more desires that experience is sought. That is the
philosophy of the life of the superior individual; it is also the
principle of the larger individual--the nation. The creation and the
satisfaction of desire are the motives of art. They are also the
motives of life.
In history, it is the intangible value, the unconscious purpose, the
desire to realize empires that are only in part material, the desire
for glory and prestige and opportunity that seem to be the guiding
motives. There is a general and plastic purpose beneath all the
special tendencies and desires directing interest toward specific
objects, and also sometimes making the objectives sought indefinite
and the purposes in seeking them seem mystical. It is the desire to be
a power in the world, or rather to have power over the world, and to
experience all the inner exaltation these desires inspire that appears
to be the creative force in history. These things, moreover, are not
the desires and impulses of the geniuses among nations alone; they
seem to be inherent in all national life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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