The differences in instinctive social type between Germany and England are betrayed in many minor peculiarities of behaviour that cannot be examined or even enumerated here. Some of them are of little importance in themselves, though all of them are significant when the whole bulk of evidence to which they contribute a share is considered. Indeed, some of the less obviously important characteristics, by the very nicety with which they fulfil the conditions demanded by the biological necessities of the case, have a very special value as evidence in favour of the generalizations which I have suggested. I permit myself an illustration of this point. The use of war cries and shibboleths doubtless seems in itself an insignificant subject enough, yet I think an examination of it can be shown to lead directly to the very central facts of the international situation.
Few phenomena have been more striking throughout the war than the way in which the German people have been able to take up certain cries—directed mostly against England—and bring them into hourly familiar and unanimous use. The phrase “God punish England!” seems actually to have attained a real and genuine currency, and to have been used by all classes and all ages as a greeting with a solemnity and gusto which are in no way the less genuine for being, to our unsympathetic eyes, so ludicrous. The famous “Hymn of Hate” had, no doubt, a popularity equally wide, and was used with a fervour which showed the same evidence of a mystic satisfaction.
Attempts have been made to impose upon England {185} similar watchwords with the object of keeping some of the direst events of the war before our eyes, and fortifying the intensity and scope of our horror. We have been adjured to “remember” Belgium, Louvain, the Lusitania, and latterly the name of an heroic and savagely murdered nurse. Horrible as has been the crime to which we have been recalled by each of these phrases, there has never been the slightest sign that the memory of it could acquire a general currency of quotation, and by that mechanism become a stronger factor in unity determination or endurance.
An allied phenomenon which may perhaps be mentioned here is the difference in attitude of the German and the English soldier towards war songs. To the German the war song is a serious matter; it is for the most part a grave composition, exalted in feeling, and thrilling with the love of country; he is taught to sing it, and he sings it well, with obvious and touching sincerity and with equally obvious advantage to his morale.
The attempt to introduce similar songs and a similar attitude towards them to the use of the English soldier has often been made, and exactly as often lamentably failed. On the whole it has been, perhaps, the most purely comic effort of the impulse to mimic Germany which has been in favour until of late with certain people of excellent aims but inadequate biological knowledge. The English soldier, consistently preferring the voice of Nature to that of the most eminent doctrinaire, has, to the scandal of his lyrical enemies, steadily drawn his inspiration from the music-hall and the gutter, or from his own rich store of flippant and ironic realism.
The biological meaning of these peculiarities renders them intelligible and consistent with one another. The predaceous social animals in attack {186} or pursuit are particularly sensitive to the encouragement afforded by one another’s voices. The pack gives tongue because of the functional value of the exercise, which is clearly of importance in keeping individuals in contact with one another, and in stimulating in each the due degree of aggressive rage. That serious and narrow passion tends naturally to concentrate itself upon some external object or quarry, which becomes by the very fact an object of hate to the exclusion of any other feeling, whether of sympathy, self-possession, or a sense of the ludicrous. The curious spectacle of Germans greeting one another with “God punish England!” and the appropriate response is therefore no accidental or meaningless phenomenon, but a manifestation of an instinctive necessity; and this explanation is confirmed by the immensely wide currency of the performance, and the almost simian gravity with which it could be carried out. It succeeded because it had a functional value, just as similar movements in England have failed because they have had no functional value, and could have none in a people of the socialized type, with whom unity depends on a different kind of bond.
The wolf, then, is the father of the war song, and it is among peoples of the lupine type alone that the war song is used with real seriousness. Animals of the socialized type are not dependent for their morale upon the narrow intensities of aggressive rage. Towards such manifestations of it as concerted cries and war songs they feel no strong instinctive impulsion, and are therefore able to preserve a relatively objective attitude. Such cryings of the pack, seeming thus to be mere functionless automatisms, naturally enough come to be regarded as patently absurd.
Examples of behaviour illustrating these deep differences of reaction are often to be met with in the {187} stories of those who have described incidents of the war. It is recorded that German soldiers in trenches within hearing of the English, seeking to exasperate and appal the latter, have sung in an English version their fondly valued “Hymn of Hate.” Whereupon the English, eagerly listening and learning the words of the dreadful challenge, have petrified their enemies by repeating it with equal energy and gusto, dwelling no doubt with the appreciation of experts upon the curses of their native land.
It would scarcely be possible to imagine a more significant demonstration of the psychological differences of the two social types.
The peculiarities of a state of the wolfish type are admirably suited to conditions of aggression and conquest, and readily yield for those purposes a maximal output of moral strength. As long as such a nation is active and victorious in war, its moral resources cannot fail, and it will be capable of an indefinite amount of self-sacrifice, courage, and energy. Take away from it, however, the opportunities of continued aggression, interrupt the succession of victories by a few heavy defeats, and it must inevitably lose the perfection of its working as an engine of moral power. The ultimate and singular source of inexhaustible moral power in a gregarious unit is the perfection of communion amongst its individual members. As we have seen, this source is undeveloped in units of the aggressive type, and has been deliberately ignored by Germany. As soon, if ever, as she has to submit to a few unmistakable defeats in the field, as soon as, if it should happen, all outlets for fresh aggression are closed, she will become aware of how far she has staked her moral resources on continuous success, and will not be able for long to conceal her knowledge from the world. {188}