Abstract
PROF. RAYMOND PEARL makes in the lecture before us an interesting examination of the biological philosophy of war. The primary implements are not mechanisms, but biological entities—men. The primary problems of war are biological problems—why do men fight, what kinds of men make the best fighters, what conditions conduce to the most effective fighting, and what are the probable consequences of the fight to the winner and the loser? “In general, why men deliberately plan wars is because they are different biologically, in structure, habits, mental outlook, thought, or other ways, and wish to preserve intact their differentiations.” The group differences have an emotional context of passion, and the modern physiologists have shown us “why rage is more generally followed by fighting than by judicial arbitration.” As to the belief, held with particular tenacity in Germany, that warfare is in line with the process of nature selection which has made on the whole for progressive evolution, it must be pointed out that “nowhere in nature does natural selection, as indicated by modern careful study of the subject, operate with anything like that mechanistic precision which the German political philosophy postulates; … much less does natural selection operate in a rigid and mechanical manner with reference to human affairs; … military results are not, in fact, measured in terms of biological survival.” “The plain fact in the matter is that the proudly ruthless philosophy of Treitschke and Bernhardi is not only immorally cruel, but also immortally stupid.”
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Biology and War 1 . Nature 102, 48 (1918). https://doi.org/10.1038/102048a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/102048a0