pitated
by an accumulation of mutual distrust and suspicion. Nations are
always watching one another for the least signs of aggression on the
part of their supposed enemies, an attitude which of course is
inspired only by apprehension.

Moods of fear and pessimism we say are deeply implanted in the
consciousness of man, and we must interpret both his optimism, and all
its expressions in philosophy and in religion, and also his aggressive
behavior as in large part the result of a conscious or an unconscious
effort to overcome his fear. The social consciousness is full of marks
of age-long dread and suspicion. Fear of fate, fear of losing identity
as a nation, fear of being overrun by an enemy, fear of internal
disruption, are strong motives in national life. Fear runs like a dark
thread through all the life of nations, and gives to it a quality of
mysticism, and a touch of sadness which is so characteristic of much
of the deepest patriotism of the world.

Fear is one of the most powerful motives of all aggressive warfare in
the world. We find it in every nation, even those which are naturally
most aggressive, and in them perhaps most of all. In the history and
in the war moods of Germany the fear motive is unmistakable. America
is not without it. Nations conceal their fears, presenting a bold
front to the foreigner; but beneath the display one can always detect
suspicion, dread and intense watchfulness. America has in the past
feared Germany, and America fears the Far East; we look furtively
toward Asia, the primeval home of all evils and pestilence, for
something that may arise and engulf us. Small countries fear; large
countries with their sense of distances, have their own characteristic
forms of apprehension. Fear is the motive of preventive wars. It makes
all nations desire to kill their enemies in the egg. It creates the
death wish toward all who thwart our interests or who may in the
future do so.

This fear motive runs through all history. Parsons says that men fight
not because they are warlike, but because they are fearful. Rohrbach
thinks that if Germany and England could each be sure the other would
not be aggressive there would be no war between them. It is this
aspect of the foreign as the unknown that especially plays upon the
motive of fear. This fear is like the child's dread of the dark; it is
not what is seen, but what is not seen that causes apprehension. It is
the stranger whose psychic nature we