the world depends, broadly speaking,
upon the balance between acquisitiveness and rivalry. The former makes
for progress, the latter for retrogression. When intelligence provides
improved methods of production, these may be employed to increase the
general share of goods, or to set apart more of the labour power of
the community for the business of killing its rivals. Until 1914,
acquisitiveness had prevailed, on the whole, since the fall of
Napoleon; the past six years have seen a prevalence of the instinct of
rivalry. Scientific intelligence makes it possible to indulge this
instinct more fully than is possible for primitive peoples, since it
sets free more men from the labour of producing necessaries. It is
possible that scientific intelligence may, in time, reach the point
when it will enable rivalry to exterminate the human race. This is the
most hopeful method of bringing about an end of war.

For those who do not like this method, there is another: the study of
scientific psychology and physiology. The physiological causes of
emotions have begun to be known, through the studies of such men as
Cannon (_Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_). In time, it
may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole
emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the
passions of the rulers how this power is used. Success will come to
the State which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent
required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to
domestic dissensions. There is no method by which it can be insured
that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore there is
no reason to suppose that the power to modify men's emotional nature
would cause progress.

If men desired to diminish rivalry, there is an obvious method. Habits
of power intensify the passion of rivalry; therefore a State in which
power is concentrated will, other things being equal, be more
bellicose than one in which power is diffused. For those who dislike
wars, this is an additional argument against all forms of
dictatorship. But dislike of war is far less common than we used to
suppose; and those who like war can use the same argument to support
dictatorship.

III

BOLSHEVIK CRITICISM OF DEMOCRACY

The Bolshevik argument against Parliamentary democracy as a method of
achieving Socialism is a powerful one. My answer to it lies rather in
pointing out what I believe to be fallacie