When intelligence provides
improved methods of production, these may be employed to increase the
general share of goods, or to set apart more of the labour power of
the community for the business of killing its rivals. Until 1914,
acquisitiveness had prevailed, on the whole, since the fall of
Napoleon; the past six years have seen a prevalence of the instinct of
rivalry. Scientific intelligence makes it possible to indulge this
instinct more fully than is possible for primitive peoples, since it
sets free more men from the labour of producing necessaries. It is
possible that scientific intelligence may, in time, reach the point
when it will enable rivalry to exterminate the human race. This is the
most hopeful method of bringing about an end of war.
For those who do not like this method, there is another: the study of
scientific psychology and physiology. The physiological causes of
emotions have begun to be known, through the studies of such men as
Cannon (_Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_). In time, it
may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole
emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the
passions of the rulers how this power is used. Success will come to
the State which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent
required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to
domestic dissensions. There is no method by which it can be insured
that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore there is
no reason to suppose that the power to modify men's emotional nature
would cause progress.
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