WHY MEN FIGHT _A METHOD OF ABOLISHING THE INTERNATIONAL DUEL_ BY BERTRAND RUSSELL, M.A., F.R.S. Sometime Fellow and Lecturer in Trinity College, Cambridge [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1920 Copyright, 1916, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, January, 1917_ Le souffle, le rhythme, la vraie force populaire manqua à la réaction. Elle eut les rois, les trésors, les armées; elle écrasa les peuples, mais elle resta muette. Elle tua en silence; elle ne put parler qu’avec le canon sur ses horribles champs de bataille.... Tuer quinze millions d’hommes par la faim et l’épée, à la bonne heure, cela se peut. Mais faire un petit chant, un air aimé de tous, voilà ce que nulle machination ne donnera.... Don réservé, béni.... Ce chant peut-être à l’aube jaillira d’un cœur simple, ou l’alouette le trouvera en montant au soleil, de son sillon d’avril. MICHELET. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE PRINCIPLE OF GROWTH 3 II THE STATE 42 III WAR AS AN INSTITUTION 79 IV PROPERTY 117 V EDUCATION 153 VI MARRIAGE AND THE POPULATION QUESTION 182 VII RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES 215 VIII WHAT WE CAN DO 245 WHY MEN FIGHT I THE PRINCIPLE OF GROWTH To all who are capable of new impressions and fresh thought, some modification of former beliefs and hopes has been brought by the war. What the modification has been has depended, in each case, upon character and circumstance; but in one form or another it has been almost universal. To me, the chief thing to be learnt through the war has been a certain view of the springs of human action, what they are, and what we may legitimately hope that they will become. This view, if it is true, seems to afford a basis for political philosophy more capable of standing erect in a time of crisis than the philosophy of traditional Liberalism has shown itself to be. The following lectures, though only one of them will deal with war, all are inspired by a view of the springs of action which has been suggested by the war. And all of them are informed by the hope of seeing such political institutions established in Europe as shall make men averse to war—a hope which I firmly believe to be realizable, though not without a great and fundamental reconstruction of economic and social life.