A detailed study of the relations of intellectual factors to war would need to consider the effects of a great number of more or less philosophical ideas which throw their weight on the side of war. So far as these ideas are simple and clear, and especially if they can be conveyed in the form of the phrase, their influence cannot wholly be ignored. Some we have already referred to. The doctrine that might makes right, the conception of state as supreme, the belief in the divine right of kings, the belief in the ordained rights of aristocracy, belief in militarism as a social institution, the doctrine that life may be controlled by reason, all intellectual pessimism, skepticism, any form of concept-worship, whether Hegelian or other, acceptance of the methods of science and the results of science as applicable to all the problems of life—all such principles which inhabit the region, so to speak, between philosophy and the practical life manifestly have some relation to the spirit of war. In a very general way they may be counted as philosophical factors in war. For the most part, however, those ideas that have been accused of abetting war are exaggerations and perversions of philosophical ideas. Nietzsche, Darwin and Hegel have all been exploited and made to stand sponsor for specific philosophies of war. In the new philosophy of life which Patten thinks has greatly influenced German conduct, and which may be expressed in the words Dienst, Ordnung, and Kraft, we can see both the effects of impulses that have grown out of the new life itself, and the influences of formal philosophy. That such ideas have had relatively a greater influence in Germany than elsewhere must be admitted, but that either this devotion to ideas or the ideas themselves have been derived from philosophical interests and from philosophies that have played any important part in the history of thought we may well doubt. We should suspect that the same practical interest that works unceasingly to distort and popularize philosophy would help to create such pseudo-philosophy.
Von Bülow (65) says that the German people have a passion for logic, and that this passion amounts to fanaticism:—that when an intellectual form or system has been found for anything, they insist with obstinate perseverance on fitting realities into the system. Durkheim (16) says that the Germans' organized system of ideas is a cause of war. It is also true, we should say, that the tendency to organize ideas and even the fundamental ideas by which the Germans have been guided are deeply rooted in temperament, in history and in the social order of the past. Boutroux (13) says that the Germans themselves regard the war as the culmination of their philosophy. We should say on the contrary that the whole war philosophy of Europe is almost wholly a product of strife and comes from impulses that arise irresistibly in the practical life. Into these movements philosophy fits or may be made to fit, and the presence of ideas in a society in which the academic life has great prestige, ideas which coincide with beliefs readily gives an illusion of an order governed by the higher reason. The fact that Germany's recent wars had all been highly successful, the fact that Germany had learned to depend upon her good sword in time of need are the chief sources of Germany's doctrines of war: the Hegelian background in the light of what we have learned in recent times about the psychology of nations, must seem to be rather of the nature of the ornamental. The ideal of the Prussian State to be a power directed by intelligence suggests Hegel, but it seems highly improbable, to say the least, that Hegelian philosophy has had much to do with shaping this ideal. Behind all this is the necessity of shaping German life in the form which it has taken—necessity if we accept, at least, Germany's national temperament itself as a necessity. That other belief, widely held by German intellectuals and officers that war is the testing of the validity of national cultures would also probably never have appeared on the scene had not Germany been secure in the belief that she herself had both the right and the might on her side. It is possible, of course, that the war has distorted our vision so that the relations of the practical life and the life of reason have all been thrown out of focus, but when we see what forces have been at work, and what they have done, it is difficult to escape the conviction that we have been inclined to believe too much in the power of mere ideas. This may be the great lesson of the war. We may learn from it how to make ideas become the power that hitherto they have failed to be.
CHAPTER VIII[ToC]
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL INFLUENCES
That war and religion have always been closely associated with one another is one of the outstanding facts of history. This is true both of primitive warfare and of warfare to-day. Yet we cannot say that religion as such has been a cause of war. Religious wars are almost invariably also political wars, and as soon as religion and politics are separated, religion no longer appears to be a war motive. When religion becomes associated with worldly ideas which it supports and makes dynamic it may become a strong factor in the spirit of war, but as a means of segregating men, and giving them unity of action religion can no longer be regarded as a power, if it ever was. Any motive that will not so segregate men and break up all other bonds cannot be said to be a very fertile cause of war. Religion as a cause of war belongs to a day in which the spirit of nationalism was weak, and when religious empire had a visible and political position in the world. Nationalism, growing stronger, became the supreme force dominating the motives and interests of men and governing the formation of groups, or at least the actions of groups as interrelated units. In the recent war we have seen how the sense of national unity has been able to hold in check all other motives. Neither religion nor any class or clan or guild interests could trace the faintest line of cleavage so long as the motive of war remained.
The mood of war always contains a religious element. Not only is this shown in primitive wars, where the relations of religion, war and art are indicated in such phenomena as the war dance, which is of the nature of a magic weapon, but we see it also in the complex moods of the present war spirit of the world. The idea and mood of valor have a religious significance. Cramb says that we can trace in Germany before the war, showing through the transient mists of industrialism and socialism, the vision of the religion of valor which runs through all German history. The craving for a valorous life, for reality, the desire to lose one's own individuality—these moods of war are religious or mystic whatever else they may be or contain. The inseparable relation of war and death necessarily inspires a religious consciousness. Without exalted moods which in some way contain religious faith—faith on the part of the individual in the eternal values which he represents and in his own security in the hands of fate, and in the immortality of the country which he serves, war could not exist.
The mood of war always contains a religious sanction, and every important religion sanctions war. This explicit relation between religion and war is seen very early. Wherever there is ghost worship, and the warriors justify war and fortify themselves for it by believing that their ancestors still participate in the combats of their children, and that in waging war they are doing a duty in keeping up the traditional feuds of their race there is found the root of the relation between war and religion. Every war is a holy war; it is but a change in degree from these primitive wars in which the ideas of ghosts must have had almost the clearness of reality to our modern wars with their deeper but more indefinite religious sanctions. Since war always creates the need of moral justification, the war mood at all times tends to seek religious sanctions. Christianity, the doctrine of peace and good will, very readily lends its support to war, since wars are almost invariably regarded as defensive by all who participate in them. War in the service of the weak and endangered can always invoke the spirit of Christianity. The logical ground for this has been laid for us by many writers; Drawbridge (19), one of the most recent, finds no support in Christianity for the doctrines of pacifism. All nations, when they fight, fight for God, for liberty and the right, with the implied belief that their own country has a mission in the world, supported by divine authority.