The Great Illusion by Norman Angell

Diminishing factor of physical force -- Though diminishing, physical force has always had an important role in human affairs -- What is underlying principle, determining advantageous and disadvantageous use of physical force? -- Force that aids cooperation in accord with law of man's advance: force that is exercised for parasitism in conflict with such law and disadvantageous for both parties -- Historical process of the abandonment of physical force -- The Khan and the London tradesman -- Ancient Rome and modern Britain -- The sentimental defence of war as the purifier of human life -- The facts -- The redirection of human pugnacity.

Despite the general tendency indicated by the facts dealt with in the preceding chapter, it will be urged (with perfect justice) that, though the methods of Anglo-Saxondom as compared with those of the Spanish, Portuguese, and French Empires, may have been mainly commercial and industrial rather than military, war was a necessary part of expansion; that but for some fighting the Anglo-Saxons would have been ousted from North America or Asia, or would never have gained a footing there.

Does this, however, prevent us establishing, on the basis of the facts exposed in the preceding chapter, a general principle sufficiently definite to serve as a practical guide in policy, and to indicate reliably a general tendency in human affairs? Assuredly not. The principle which explains the uselessness of much of the force exerted by the military type of empire, and justifies in large part that employed by Britain, is neither obscure nor uncertain, although empiricism, rule of thumb (which is the curse of political thinking in our days, and more than anything else stands in the way of real progress), gets over the difficulty by declaring that no principle in human affairs can be pushed to its logical or theoretical conclusion; that what may be "right in theory" is wrong in practice.

Thus Mr. Roosevelt, who expresses with such admirable force and vigor the average thoughts of his hearers or readers, takes generally this line: We must be peaceful, but not too peaceful; warlike, but not too warlike; moral, but not too moral.87

By such verbal mystification we are encouraged to shirk the rough and stony places along the hard road of thinking. If we cannot carry a principle to its logical conclusion, at what point are we to stop? One will fix one and another will fix another with equal justice. What is it to be "moderately" peaceful, or "moderately" warlike? Temperament and predilection can stretch such limitations indefinitely. This sort of thing only darkens counsel.

If a theory is right, it can be pushed to its logical conclusion; indeed, the only real test of its value is that it can be pushed to its logical conclusion. If it is wrong in practice, it is wrong in theory, for the right theory will take cognizance of all the facts, not only of one set.

In Chapter II of this part, I have very broadly indicated the process by which the employment of physical force in the affairs of the world has been a constantly diminishing factor since the day that primitive man killed his fellow-man in order to eat him. Yet throughout the whole process the employment of force has been an integral part of progress, until even today in the most advanced nations force -- the police-force -- is an integral part of their civilization.

What, then, is the principle determining the advantageous and the disadvantageous employment of force?

Preceding the outline sketch just referred to is another sketch indicating the real biological law of man's survival and advance; the key to that law is found in cooperation between men and struggle with nature. Mankind as a whole is the organism which needs to coordinate its parts in order to insure greater vitality by better adaptation to its environment.

Here, then, we get the key: force employed to secure completer cooperation between the parts, to facilitate exchange, makes for advance; force which runs counter to such cooperation, which attempts to replace the mutual benefit of exchange by compulsion, which is in any way a form of parasitism, makes for retrogression.

Why is the employment of force by the police justified? Because the bandit refuses to cooperate. He does not offer an exchange; he wants to live as a parasite, to take by force, and give nothing in exchange. If he increased in numbers, cooperation between the various parts of the organism would be impossible; he makes for disintegration. He must be restrained, and so long as the police use their force in such restraint they are merely insuring cooperation. The police are not attempting to settle things by force; they are preventing things from being settled in that way.

Now, suppose that this police-force becomes the army of a political Power, and the diplomats of that Power say to a smaller one: "We outnumber you; we are going to annex your territory, and you are going to pay us tribute. " And the smaller Power says: "What are you going to give us for that tribute? " And the larger replies: "Nothing. You are weak; we are strong; we gobble you up. It is the law of life; always has been -- always will be to the end."

Now that police-force, become an army, is no longer making for cooperation; it has simply and purely taken the place of the bandits; and to approximate such an army to a police-force, and to say that because both operations involve the employment of force they both stand equally justified, is to ignore half the facts, and to be guilty of those lazy generalizations which we associate with savagery.88