WAR AS A PHASE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLVII, Issue 12283, 17 September 1904, Page 4

WAR AS A PHASE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION.

''War is to the body politic v.hat fever is to the 'in-dividual, and owes its existence to the presence of 'moral impurity. •that k< <to say, 'corruption' in its widest meaning in-the nation affected." Thr'sis the text upon which Lieutenant-Colonel Maude AVtfi'tes in tlhe- "Monthly Review a discoiirise that is at once philosophical land -scientific. Tracing the cour.se of human evolution, 'he finds that Avar lias always and everywhere operated as a nraisfei'-fiQi'-ce in ■welding together clans, tribes, .and communities, for purposes of offence or defence; that it has prevented individualism from degenerating I ,in't<o license; and 'has taught "tJie noblestof all Virtues to .'the whole nation, namely, the duty of individual self-sacrifice , for tihe good of ifche community, 'which is j 'col'leotdvism' in its highest form; while ia prolonged peace exercises a selfish and , ' corroding influence upon nations. This, :by .tlhe 'way, 'was Tennyson's contention half a century ago, in "Maud." On the Continent of Europe, "the not result of ■Uhe past hundred and fifty years of warfare has been," we are told, "to- break down everywhere the barriers of purely local and provincial sentiment, and to substitute for this' narrow creed certain ■well-defined national groups, held togetdier, ea-oh within its own frontier, by tlhe ooiiiception of a common nationality and a common; pataiotism." This grouping [has resulted in the recognition of the principle of human 'brotherhood by all men speateng the same language. '■Wideia the appMcation, of this principle by tilie fusion of these nationalities into "the ITn-itied States of Europe,' and wars, oitlher than ■civil wave; will oea&e upon that continent, simply 'because its inli'abitants 'will have reached that Stage

of evolution -in idiich' common seiise of most" will have discarded war as a relic of barbarism. "Peace-on.earth—-goodwill amongst men." "That is our ideal," writes Ldeuitenaiit-Ooloriel Maude. "May it not be that peace is (promised as a condition of goodwillj'and is- only at-

tamable wihsn,'.through community of suffering, nobly borne, goodwill amongst men shall universally. prevail ?"