nse pugnacity and violent
anger to the genuine friction that does exist between conflicting
interests in the same society. The theory of a "class
war" possibly finds its appeal for many minds as much in its
picturesque stimulation of their instincts of pugnacity as in
the logic of its economics.

PUGNACITY AS A BENEFICENT SOCIAL FORCE. While the power of
pugnacity and its easy stimulation makes this instinct a
peculiarly inflammable and dangerous motive force in civilized
society, it is, on the other hand, an indispensable source of
social progress. Many psychologists and sociologists, such as
McDougall, Bagehot, and Lang, attribute the superiority in
culture and social organization of the European races over,
say, the Chinese and East Indians, to the fighting instinct.
In the long series of wars that for centuries constituted much
of the history of Europe, those nations which survived, as in
earlier times those tribes which survived combat, were those
which displayed marked qualities of superiority in allegiance,
fidelity, and social cooeperation. The intensity and effectiveness
of social cooeperation in our own country was never so
well illustrated as during the Great War. In combat between
groups those groups survive which do stand out in
these respects.

William James in a famous essay[1] recognizes clearly the
enormous value of the fighting instinct in stimulating action
to an intense effectiveness exhibited under no other circumstances,
and proposes a "moral equivalent for war"--an
army devoted to constructive enterprises, reclaiming the
waste places of the land, warring against poverty and disease
and the like. Certainly every great reform movement has
been intensely stimulated and has gathered about it the energies
of men when it has become a "crusade for righteousness."
Part of Theodore Roosevelt's power was in his picturesque
phrasing of political issues as if they were great moral
struggles. No one could forget, or fail to have his heart beat
a trifle faster at Roosevelt's trumpet call in the 1912 campaign:
"We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the
Lord." His "Big Stick" became a potent political symbol.
Astute political leaders have not failed to capitalize the fighting
instinct, and any social project will enlist the wider enthusiasm
and the more energetic support if it is hailed as a
battle or fight against somebody or something.

[Footnote 1: "A Moral Equivalent of War," in _Memories and Studi