DETERMINISTIC CAUSE OF WAR.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3956, 12 August 1918, Page 3

DETERMINISTIC CAUSE OF WAR.

(To the Editor,)

. sir,— E.N.D. has not yet convinced me of the advisability of- controlling the birth-rate or resorting to infanticide in order to hasten the incoming of a more satisfactory state of society. Whilst admitting . that the "instinct to kill"'is characteristic of most animals, I cannot agree that all the lower animals inherit it—a very cursory investigation will reveal exceptions. I. should he prepared to-observe more of the killing inclination manifested by these than is the case, but would, expect;to find less stress put upon the necessity of. killing when dealing with man. Your correspondent assures me that this "instinct to kill" is inherent in all men and "asserts itself when necessity arises." Now. Sir, I must emphatically refuse to believe this, having in mind such men as Tolstoi, Emerson, Luther, Savonarola, 1 and innumerable others. Is it possible to justly ocnceive of these men inculcating a philosophy based upon the destruction of their own children or those of others ? Why, the idea cannot find a second's consideration: And W hy ? Simply because they and men of their class realise that all life is sacred, and that behind all the outward manifestations of man's, rule and misrule, there are inffuences operating which are of such fine and subtle'nature, that though they may be (and not infrequently are) sensed by even the illiterate, those of the Nietzsche, Haeckel, and Bernard! schools of determinism have no knowledge of them. The philosophy of E.N.D. seems to me to be at fault, inasmuch as it places the masses upon the lowest planes of consciousness and keeps them there. It upholds the most primitive of forces—brute force —and relies upon that, and only that, for all purposes. No one entertains a greater appreciation of the men of German birth mentioned by E.N.D. than I do, viz,, Luther, Goethe, and Schiller, but-I canftot imagine one of these advocating destruction of the weak, and further, I conceive it possible that had deterministic principles generally obtained the lives of these men might have been sacrificed in their infancy. Would it not be better to work for the more uniform distribution of the Race over the land surface of the globe and chance the over-population of the whole area, rather than risk the loss of such men as Luther, Goethe, Schiller, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven by resorting to infanticide and birthcontrol? —I am, Yours etc.,

G.V.H.