The test of war is one that from the dawn of human life down to the present hour every kind of society, from time to time, has had to meet. For untold millenniums of prehistoric development the conflict of tribal groups was a recurring condition for all types of men and forms of organization, and those which were unsuited to it tended to be destroyed or discredited. In every part of the inhabited world archæologists find evidence that forgotten peoples have fought the ground over, and succeeded one another in its occupation.
Although we cannot reproduce the process in detail, it is instructive to ask ourselves what sort of men and of social structures might be expected to hold their own through these millenniums, and so to emerge into recorded history. We may perceive a variety of requirements, according as we regard the conditions with reference to the individuals, considered severally, the family, or the group as a whole.
Individually man must have developed personal prowess—strength, courage, enterprise, endurance, cunning, and the like, since a tribe lacking in any of these traits would be in that degree inferior and liable to be destroyed or enslaved. And the family group must become such as to insure the fecundity of the tribe and the early care of its children; which means good mothers, at least, and perhaps also some measure of constancy and affection in the fathers.
For the social system as a whole, the great thing is to achieve effectual team-work. It must inculcate discipline, loyalty, and industrial and social intelligence in the members, must embrace an adequate system of communication for organizing and developing the social mind, and also a body of special traditions and customs to meet the exigencies to which the tribe is liable. Stability is a prime necessity, and needs to be fortified by a conviction of the sanctity of what comes down from the past; and yet the system must not be so rigid as to be incapable of meeting new situations. The “folkways” must become such as assist, or at least do not greatly hinder, in the struggles of life. And of course the whole thing hangs together, individuals, family and social system being inseparable aspects of an integral whole.
The ideas which make up the social order are impressed upon the member mainly by sheer suggestion; they form the environment in which he lives. In case of opposition, however, they must be reinforced by the pressure of public opinion, by emulation, praise and blame. Mores are set up and the individual is made to feel that the great thing in life is to conform to them. Disloyalty to them is universally abhorred. Thus virtue is determined by what the mind of the group approves, which rests, in great part, upon what has been found to work in the struggles of the group, and especially in war.
In these respects the requirements of primitive conflict were not essentially different from those of to-day. Life was simpler, cruder, and on a smaller scale, but the main elements were much the same—biological and social continuity, adaptive growth, individual exertion, and institutional discipline. There was no riot of irresponsible brute force, but then as now the man fit to survive was a moral man, a “good” man in his relation to the life of the group—devoted, law-abiding, and kindly, as well as strong and bold.
The influence of group conflict, actual or anticipated, upon social development has continued in full vigor throughout history and down to the present time. The growth of states in size and internal structure, as civilization progresses, is natural on other grounds, but has been immensely stimulated and directed by military requirements. France, England, Germany—all the great modern nations, including the United States—were consolidated largely in this way. It is a commonplace of history. And the case is much the same with internal structure. On the continent of Europe, where war has always been imminent if not present, there are few institutions which do not bear its stamp. Even general education arose for its military value as much as for any other reason.
The German Empire went beyond other states in adopting the ideal of national power, attained through an all-embracing militant organization, as the dominating conception of life. When the Great War broke out this conception was so largely justified by military results that the more “individualistic” nations—at first Great Britain and later the United States—were forced to adopt it, at least in part and for the time being, in order to hold their own; and we saw, accordingly, a growth of centralized and partly compulsory organization that would have been impossible in peace. At the same time the weak side of the state-conflict idea was revealed by Germany’s moral isolation. We are still in the midst of these changes and cannot be sure of their outcome, but it is certain that war has illumined the whole situation and opened a fresh cycle of growth.
The difference between tribal society and the modern system of life lies mainly in the large-scale organic character of our whole social process. Formerly we lived in many small societies the relations among which were comparatively external and mechanical; now we live in one great society the parts of which are vitally and consciously united. The instances of this are familiar—the world-wide traffic, travel, and interchange of thought; the universal fashions, the international markets, the co-operation in science and in humanitarian movements. This is that modern solidarity, so wonderfully increased within the memory of living men, which makes the understanding of our life a new problem.
The process is still one of struggle—we have no reason to expect anything else—but the forms of struggle take on a scale commensurate with the new system of life, and are conditioned and limited by the closer interdependence that has come to exist. The competitions of trade are for world-markets; races are unloosed from their ancient seats and encounter one another in all parts of the earth; and if a war comes the solidarity of life tends to draw many nations into it, and to make it in all respects more calamitous than war could have been at an earlier period.