The ctesohedonic fallacy (lust for possession) raged in the middle ages between the nearest neighbors. No city could offer any security unless it was surrounded by strong walls. Since these required great expenditures, they could not be rebuilt every few days. For this reason space was greatly economized in the cities, and their streets were very narrow. At a later period, when security had become established, the walls were demolished. In our own time the needs of hygiene and luxury have urged the opening of broad ways in the ancient European cities. It has been necessary to buy houses and demolish them in order to create the grand modern avenues. There would have been no walls in the middle ages except for the spirit of conquest, and the broad streets would have been established then, as has been done in the new cities of Russia and America. To pierce these new avenues, Paris, for example, has had to contract debts, the annual interest on which amounts to at least 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 francs ($10,000,000 to $12,000,000). This expense should be charged to the account of the spirit of conquest. But nobody has ever thought of attributing these 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 of the city budget to military waste. And how many other cities are in the same situation? Another example: during six centuries France and England were trying to take provinces from one another. Hence a permanent hostility existed between the two nations. Later on the circumstances changed, but by virtue of the routine inherent in the human mind the old resentments remained, though the motive for them had gone. To thwart the progress of France was considered a patriotic duty by such English ministers as Lord Palmerston. In 1855 M. de Lesseps formed a company to construct the Suez Canal. As M. de Lesseps was a Frenchman, Lord Palmerston and the British Cabinet thought themselves obligated to oppose his project, and their opposition cost about 200,000,000 francs ($40,000,000). The canal might have been constructed then for that sum, but in consequence of the machinations of the English it cost 400,000,000 francs ($80,000,000). Who has ever thought of charging that loss to the account of the spirit of conquest? Nevertheless, that is where it belongs.[26]
The indirect losses of war defy valuation. But the matter may be looked at from another point of view: that of the profits which they prevent being made. The American war against secession cost the treasury of both combatants $7,000,000,000. Now, if, without speaking of the destruction of property,[27] we only consider the benefits nonrealized, the most moderate estimates make them $12,000,000,000 for the year 1890,[28] and the figure goes on every year increasing in geometrical progression.
Further, the debts must be considered. The largest proportion of them are consequences of the idolatry for square miles. This entails an annual expenditure of $644,800,000 which we should not have to bear were it not for the ctesohedonic fallacy.[29]
Yet another factor has so far not been mentioned: men. The wars of the last three centuries have cost, at the lowest figure, 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 victims. Some authors raise this very moderate estimate to 20,000,000 per century. Without speaking of the frightful sufferings of these unfortunates, they represent an enormous capital.[30] Let us add, further, that these men, if they had not been killed, might have had children that now have no existence. Without the wars of Napoleon I and Napoleon III Europe would have had 45,000,000 more inhabitants than it has, and they might have been producing $2,700,000 a year.[31]
We hope the reader will admit, after these considerations, that the indirect losses of war certainly exceed the direct ones. Still, adhering to our method of underrating rather than exaggerating, we will regard them as equal. We may therefore affirm that the spirit of conquest has cost, since 1618, in the group of European nations alone, the trifle of $80,156,800,000. Suppose we should go farther back—into antiquity even? Imagination refuses to set down the gigantic sums.
This is not all; the cost of civil wars has to be counted, for the conquest of power within the state is attended by massacres which are often not inferior to those of foreign ones. The chiefs of the Roman legions contending for the empire carried on as bloody and costly campaigns against their rivals as against the Parthians or the Germans. The war between Paris and Versailles in 1871 occasioned considerable expenditures, not to speak of the indirect losses, which were immense. We are, unfortunately, absolutely without data concerning the cost of civil wars, and shall have to satisfy ourselves with what we have been able to obtain concerning foreign wars. $80,156,800,000 used up in two centuries! We need not go outside of this for a solution of the social question. Without this unrestricted waste the earth would now have ten times more wheat, sugar, linen, cotton, meat, wool, etc.; there would be ten times as many houses on the globe, and they would be more spacious, better warmed, and better ventilated; a network of roads, with frequent mails, would cover Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. In short, if conquest had been considered an evil, even during only two centuries, our wealth would have been infinitely superior to what we now possess. But if the ctesohedonic fallacy had been seen through by the civilized societies of the Roman period, the face of the earth would have been very different from what it is. Our planet would have been completely appropriated to the satisfaction of our wants. Waste lands would have been tilled and swamps dried; everywhere that a drop of water could be made to serve for irrigation it would have been applied to that use. Magnificent cities, inhabited by active and industrious populations, would have arisen in numerous places where now are found only briers and stones. In short, we should have been able to see men now, in the year of grace 1894, as we expect to see them in three or four thousand years.
The past can not be changed. We have laid bare the unhappy consequences of our ancient errors simply in order to show how we can assure our welfare in the future. As long as the spirit of conquest rages among men, misery will be the lot of our species. Our savage and barbarous ancestors did not know what we know. Attila, Tamerlane, and even Matabele, a chief of our own times, might be excused for fancying that conquest increases the wealth of the conquerors; but a Moltke and a Prince Bismarck can not. The masses are still too deeply imbued with military vainglory. Happily, they are beginning to open their eyes.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the book Les Gaspillages des Sociétés Modernes (The Wastes of Modern Societies), Paris, 1894.
Until within a few years the field for the study of glaciers and their action has been the Alps; but now, as Prof. H.L. Fairchild said in his address as chairman of the Geological Section of the American Association, the North American continent is recognized as a field of the greatest activity, both in the past and at the present time; and, moreover, it presents types of glaciers not known in Europe. It must therefore become the Mecca of foreign students of glaciers.