The Great Illusion. Norman Angell
classification by strata involves necessarily a redirection of human pugnacity, based rather on the rivalry of classes and interests than on State divisions. War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy.
The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element. The diminishing rôle of physical force in all spheres of human activity carries with it profound psychological modifications.
These tendencies, mainly the outcome of purely modern conditions (e.g. rapidity of communication), have rendered the problems of modern international politics profoundly and essentially different from the ancient; yet our ideas are still dominated by the principles and axioms, images and terminology of the bygone days.
The author urges that these little-recognized facts may be utilized for the solution of the armament difficulty on at present untried lines—by such modification of opinion in Europe that much of the present motive to aggression will cease to be operative, and by thus diminishing the risk of attack, diminishing to the same extent the need for defence. He shows how such a political reformation is within the scope of practical politics, and the methods which should be employed to bring it about.
PART I
THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE
| CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR | PAGES |
| Where can the Anglo-German rivalry of armaments end?—Why peace advocacy fails—Why it deserves to fail—The attitude of the peace advocate—The presumption that the prosperity of nations depends upon their political power, and consequent necessity of protection against aggression of other nations who would diminish our power to their advantage—These the universal axioms of international politics | 3–13 |
| CHAPTER II THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT | |
| Are the foregoing axioms unchallengeable?—Some typical statements of them—German dreams of conquest—Mr. Frederic Harrison on results of defeat of British arms and invasion of England—Forty millions starving | 14–27 |
| CHAPTER III THE GREAT ILLUSION | |
| These views founded on a gross and dangerous misconception—What a German victory could and could not accomplish—What an English victory could and could not accomplish—The optical illusion of conquest—There can be no transfer of wealth—The prosperity of the little States in Europe—German Three per Cents. at 82 and Belgian at 96—Russian Three and a Half per Cents. at 81, Norwegian at 102—What this really means—If Germany annexed Holland, would any German benefit or any Hollander?—The "cash value" of Alsace-Lorraine | 28–49 |
| CHAPTER IV THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION | |
| Our present terminology of international politics an historical survival—Wherein modern conditions differ from ancient—The profound change effected by Division of Labor—The delicate interdependence of international finance—Attila and the Kaiser—What would happen if a German invader looted the Bank of England—German trade dependent upon English credit—Confiscation of an enemy's property an economic impossibility under modern conditions—Intangibility of a community's wealth | 50–67 |
| CHAPTER V FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER | |
| Why trade cannot be destroyed or captured by a military Power—What the processes of trade really are, and how a navy affects them—Dreadnoughts and business—While Dreadnoughts protect British trade from hypothetical German warships, the real German merchant is carrying it off, or the Swiss or the Belgian—The "commercial aggression" of Switzerland—What lies at the bottom of the futility of military conquest—Government brigandage becomes as profitless as private brigandage—The real basis of commercial honesty on the part of Government | 68–87 |
| CHAPTER VI THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY | |
| The real balance-sheet of the Franco-German War—Disregard of Sir Robert Giffen's warning in interpreting the figures—What really happened in France and Germany during the decade following the war—Bismarck's disillusionment—The necessary discount to be given an indemnity—The bearing of the war and its result on German prosperity and progress | 88–106 |
| CHAPTER VII HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED | |
| Why twentieth-century methods must differ from eighteenth—The vagueness of our conceptions of statecraft—How Colonies are "owned"—Some little-recognized facts—Why foreigners could not fight England for her self-governing Colonies—She does not "own" them, since they are masters of their own destiny—The paradox of conquest: England in a worse position in regard to her own Colonies than in regard to foreign nations—Her experience as the oldest and most practised colonizer in history—Recent French experience—Could Germany hope to do what England cannot do | 107–130 |
| CHAPTER VIII THE FIGHT FOR "THE PLACE IN THE SUN" | |
| How Germany really expands—Where her real Colonies are—How she exploits without conquest—What is the difference between an army and a police force?—The policing of the world—Germany's share of it in the Near East | 131–151 |
PART II
THE HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS OF THE CASE
| CHAPTER I THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR WAR | |
| The non-economic motives of war—Moral and psychological—The importance of these pleas—English, German, and American exponents—The biological plea | 155–167 |
| CHAPTER II THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE | |
| The shifting ground of pro-war arguments—The narrowing gulf between the material and moral ideals—The non-rational causes of war—False biological analogies—The real law of man's struggles: struggle with Nature, not with other men—Outline sketch of man's advance and main operating factor therein—The progress towards elimination of physical force—Co-operation across frontiers and its psychological result—Impossible to fix limits of community—Such limits irresistibly expanding—Break-up of State homogeneity—State limits no longer coinciding with real conflicts between men | 168–197 |
| CHAPTER III UNCHANGING HUMAN NATURE | |
| The progress from cannibalism to Herbert Spencer—The disappearance of religious oppression by Government—Disappearance of the duel—The Crusaders and the Holy Sepulchre—The wail of militarist writers at man's drift away from militancy | 198–221 |
| CHAPTER IV DO THE WARLIKE NATIONS INHERIT THE EARTH? | |
| The confident dogmatism of militarist writers on this subject—The facts—The lessons of Spanish America—How conquest makes for the survival of the unfit—Spanish method and English method in the New World—The virtues of military training—The Dreyfus case—The threatened Germanization of England—"The war which made Germany great and Germans small" | 222–260 |
| CHAPTER V THE DIMINISHING FACTOR OF PHYSICAL FORCE: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS | |
| Diminishing factor of physical force—Though diminishing, physical force has always had an important rôle in human affairs—What is underlying principle, determining advantageous and disadvantageous use of physical force?—Force that aids co-operation in accord with law of man's advance: force that |