less subject to suggestion, less closely related to the
phenomena of the herd. The aggressive reaction we associate, or some
writers do associate it, with the _predatory instinct_, practical in
its motive, having in part an economic basis. The love of combat which
appears especially as a play motive in the child and the youth is
expressed as a desire for conquest and in the pleasure of overcoming
an enemy.

Some see in war a recrudescence of the instinct of combat, and indeed
think of war as mainly such a return to primitive instinct. The life
of peace represses this motive too much, they think. Life is too
organized and cooeperative and the individual craves release from it.
The general objections to such an interpretation of war we have
already stated. We think rather of certain specific movements as
avenues of approach to highly complex states of ecstasy, and of these
states of ecstasy as representing or containing the real craving for
war, so far as there is one. The war mood exploits these movements and
gives room for instincts to display themselves, and these instincts,
in their expression, are pleasure-toned because they are archaic and
have once been well organized and habitual forms of activity having
practical objects. But to say that men have a profound but concealed
desire to kill one another, that the fighting impulse remains intact
in some original animal form, is a travesty upon human nature. It is
precisely because in war killing is depersonalized, so to speak, that
it is a moral duty and is performed under conditions in which there is
a summation of many strong motives leading to the act that, as we see
it, men find joy in battle. The instinct of attack, or the hunting
instinct that is involved in this activity, can become pleasure-toned
only because of the presence of other motives, and because the object
is dehumanized for the time. Otherwise we should expect all soldiers,
once having their aggressive instincts aroused in battle, to become
dangerous to the community.

That there is, however, a residue of pure love of physical combat and
a survival of the instinctive movements of combat is shown in play,
although here too the motives are mixed. The desire to fight, to kill,
to hunt are still present but for the most part are sublimated in
adult life into desire for competition in general, love of danger, and
the hunting and gambling impulse. But we can here and there in human
conduct see certain roo