which persists in the human heart. It helps us to
realize the truth of Cramb's (66) assertion that the whole history of
the world shows that man has lacked not only the power but the will to
end war and establish perpetual peace. There are still motives in the
mind of man that make him approve of war. War is perpetuated because
of its heroic form, as a form of experience in which the meaning of
life is felt to be exploited, in which life is transformed and
glorified, in which the tragedy of life, which in any case is
inevitable, becomes a tragedy which, because it bears the form of art,
is acceptable and even longed for. This is the allurement of war, its
persistent illusion, perhaps. The aesthetic forms of war take war out
of the field of reason, and on occasion make it transcend or pervert
reason. So we may understand why it is true that sometimes those who
but little understand why they are to die on the field of battle may
display the greatest courage and the greatest enthusiasm for war, and
we must not say that these causes are fatuous because they exist in
the realm of aesthetic values.

If we take war too realistically, with reference to its practical
motives, its mere killing and looting, which we may suspect are
related to the nutritional motive that we always find running through
human conduct, and leave out of account those aspects of war which
seem to belong mainly to the reproductive motive, to the enthusiasm
and intoxication and art of the world, we shall to that extent
misunderstand it. These motives cannot, of course, be separated
definitely from one another in analyzing conduct, but we cannot be
very wrong in differentiating phases of war which belong predominantly
to the reproductive motive. It is because, at least, all deep
tendencies of life are involved in war that it is so hard to eliminate
it from experience. If war were an instinctive reaction it might be
controlled by reason. If it were an atavism or a rudimentary organ
some social surgery or other might relieve us of it. But war is a
product of man's idealism, misdirected and impracticable idealism
though it may be, but still something very expressive of what man is.
It is this idealism of nations, leading them to the larger life, that
makes them cling to war, whether for good or for evil. It will avail
little to prove to the world that war is an evil, so long as war is
desired, or so long as something which war so readily yields is
desired.