Germany and the Next War | Page 7

to be the
result of contesting forces. So in the life of man the struggle is not
merely the destructive, but the life-giving principle. "To supplant or to
be supplanted is the essence of life," says Goethe, and the strong life
gains the upper hand. The law of the stronger holds good everywhere.
Those forms survive which are able to procure themselves the most
favourable conditions of life, and to assert themselves in the universal
economy of Nature. The weaker succumb. This struggle is regulated
and restrained by the unconscious sway of biological laws and by the

interplay of opposite forces. In the plant world and the animal world
this process is worked out in unconscious tragedy. In the human race it
is consciously carried out, and regulated by social ordinances. The man
of strong will and strong intellect tries by every means to assert himself,
the ambitious strive to rise, and in this effort the individual is far from
being guided merely by the consciousness of right. The life-work and
the life-struggle of many men are determined, doubtless, by unselfish
and ideal motives, but to a far greater extent the less noble
passions--craving for possessions, enjoyment and honour, envy and the
thirst for revenge--determine men's actions. Still more often, perhaps, it
is the need to live which brings down even natures of a higher mould
into the universal struggle for existence and enjoyment.
There can be no doubt on this point. The nation is made up of
individuals, the State of communities. The motive which influences
each member is prominent in the whole body. It is a persistent struggle
for possessions, power, and sovereignty, which primarily governs the
relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only as it
is compatible with advantage. So long as there are men who have
human feelings and aspirations, so long as there are nations who strive
for an enlarged sphere of activity, so long will conflicting interests
come into being and occasions for making war arise.
"The natural law, to which all laws of Nature can be reduced, is the law
of struggle. All intrasocial property, all thoughts, inventions, and
institutions, as, indeed, the social system itself, are a result of the
intrasocial struggle, in which one survives and another is cast out. The
extrasocial, the supersocial, struggle which guides the external
development of societies, nations, and races, is war. The internal
development, the intrasocial struggle, is man's daily work--the struggle
of thoughts, feelings, wishes, sciences, activities. The outward
development, the supersocial struggle, is the sanguinary struggle of
nations--war. In what does the creative power of this struggle consist?
In growth and decay, in the victory of the one factor and in the defeat
of the other! This struggle is a creator, since it eliminates." [B]
[Footnote B: Clauss Wagner, "Der Krieg als schaffendes Weltprinzip."]
That social system in which the most efficient personalities possess the
greatest influence will show the greatest vitality in the intrasocial
struggle. In the extrasocial struggle, in war, that nation will conquer

which can throw into the scale the greatest physical, mental, moral,
material, and political power, and is therefore the best able to defend
itself. War will furnish such a nation with favourable vital conditions,
enlarged possibilities of expansion and widened influence, and thus
promote the progress of mankind; for it is clear that those intellectual
and moral factors which insure superiority in war are also those which
render possible a general progressive development. They confer victory
because the elements of progress are latent in them. Without war,
inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy
budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow. "War,"
says A. W. von Schlegel, "is as necessary as the struggle of the
elements in Nature."
Now, it is, of course, an obvious fact that a peaceful rivalry may exist
between peoples and States, like that between the fellow-members of a
society, in all departments of civilized life--a struggle which need not
always degenerate Into war. Struggle and war are not identical. This
rivalry, however, does not take place under the same conditions as the
intrasocial struggle, and therefore cannot lead to the same results.
Above the rivalry of individuals and groups within the State stands the
law, which takes care that injustice is kept within bounds, and that the
right shall prevail. Behind the law stands the State, armed with power,
which it employs, and rightly so, not merely to protect, but actively to
promote, the moral and spiritual interests of society. But there is no
impartial power that stands above the rivalry of States to restrain
injustice, and to use that rivalry with conscious purpose to promote the
highest ends of mankind. Between States the only check on injustice is
force, and in morality