HUMAN NATURE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1930, Page 21

HUMAN NATURE

FACTOR IN WARFARE

HIDEOUS PARADOX

SETTLING OF DISPUTES

From the beginning of time, the world's story has largely been written in terms of conoict. War has gone hand in hand with political change, colonial expansion, and by a. hideous paradox with religion itself, demanding ' recognition as an inevitable concomitant of human experience, states the "Christian Science Monitor." The practice of warfare has persisted for so long that tho tendency to resort to arms for the settlement of disputes has como to bo regarded as so instinct in humanity that, with whatever solemn covenants men may bind themselves to the contrary, they will continue to go ! to war simply because they must periodically fight one another. But an analysis of conflict itself and ..'a brief survey of its history flatly contradict this assumption. Such analysis will show that armed force has been used for the settlement of disputes! simply as the stagecoach was used for transportation before the age of steam; as the only means so far provided for the accomplishment of a specific end. .It' is apparent that, ■ as- legal- -'and | : judicial methods have been brought to bear on tho settlement of the controversy, warfare among groups or individuals has proportionately ceased. This is a truth which not even the j "most war-minded can deny. What lias , become of wars between cities and families, once of common occurrence? What has become of trial by combat < a-nd of armed conflict as a public spectacle? Above all, what has become? of the duel? Were not these and similar ; practices once regarded as integral parts of human nature, and as such destined to play an everlasting role in the lives of men? TRIAL BY COMBAT. These questions are pertinent; their knswer involves a truth which removes the hope of enduring peace from the realm of the chimerical and bases it squarely on the v proved tendencies and experiences of the human race. The use of weapons to settle private dispute lias ceased to be a legitimate factor in human experience. It still needs to :be dealt with as a problem, but the problem has become one of crime. Private combat is no longer the honoured recourse of gentlemen. Once a supposed test of valour, during the last century it has been divested of its last shred of virtue; and, the flamboyant talk about "honour," which so long ;: upheld it, is to-day simply a joke. Trial by combat is a medieval grotesquely; Pistols and knives, or weapons of any sort wielded by angry men, are nowhere recognised as fit instruments for the dispensing of justice. The reason for the general abolition of the use of arms in private controversy is that humanity, 'being intelligent, cannot be forever deceived into opposing its own best interests. The exercise of brutality for any cause whatever is absolutely contrary to the welfare of the human race. The irresistible tendency toward progress which h.'s swept the duel, tho public execution, and trial by. combat out of mankind's ken is sweeping war into the same" limbo of futile and obsolete ratrocities. For war is simply 'trial by' combat en a colossal scale. It is the substitution of brutality for intelligence.in the attempt to settle disputes, and such substitution cannot forever obtain. There .13-no essential; differeTO'e*'between~'t'h"6 conflict of individuals and that of nations, except in the degree of suffering involved. There is no power working to support tho latter after having sueeessfulty done away with the former. As law courts have taken the place of the sword and pistol for the settlement of private quarrels, so a juster and more intelligent means than indiscriminate slaughter will be reached for the settlement ofj international controversy. Tho will to fight is unmistakably diminishing among .nations, as it has among individuals. The pessimistic wail that, because history repeats itself, war must forever occur, is a reversal of fact. It is an argument based on an unsound piemise. The use of brute force to solve difficulties is unquestionably on its way out of human experience, and its ultimate extinction cannot be prevented. The joust and tourney have, gone; trial by combat has gone; the duel has gone; -war is going. For the very reason that history repeats itself, if for no other, armed conflict among nations is about to vanish from this earth. ' •" ' ...