s close at hand and
ready a mechanism by which war can be produced, war being precisely of
the type of mass action, under strong emotion, of a group closely
united under spectacular leadership, with attention cramped upon some
external object hated or feared.

Nicolai (79), who believes strongly that war is wholly useless,
compares it to the play we turn to when the actions performed in the
play are no longer in themselves practical. War is a great debauch,
perhaps now the last the race will experience. War is like wine: in it
nations renew their youth. It is not the war itself, but the mood it
produces that we crave, and this mood is longed for because in it old
and sacred feelings of patriotism are aroused, and these feelings are
themselves survivals, something romantic, archaic, no longer needed in
the present stage of social life.

Novicow (83) says something very similar to this. War is a survival,
like the classical languages, for example. Men begin to find beauty
and glory in these things only after the activities they represent are
useless. The principle of their survival is nothing more or less than
that of habit. It is habit that keeps war alive; wars are a concession
to our forebears, a following in the footsteps of a dead past.

We are presenting these views in a somewhat loose and illogical order,
but let us look at still a few more of them. Patrick thinks of war as
precisely a plunge into the primeval. War is a reaction, a regression,
but still it is something more than a mere slipping of the machinery
of life. It is _craved_; and it is craved because it offers relief
from the tension of modern life. It is not quite clear whether it is
because we are tired and want rest for our over-worked functions, or
are merely dull and need renewed life, but in any case, when the
desire has accumulated enough, back we fall into the primeval. Then
all the tensions and inhibitions of civilized society disappear.
Society, relieved of its cross-tensions, is resolved and organized
into an harmonious and freely acting whole, seeking a definite object.
Life is simplified, and becomes again primitive. Old and vigorous
movements take the place of the cramped thinking of our civilized
life. All that keeps us modern and evolved is relaxed.

Naturally the Freudians have their own explanation of war in terms of
subconscious wishes, repressed feelings and instincts. Freud (78)
himself says that war is a recrudescence (and a mast