George F. Arps

“ Like a slow-consuming fire, civilized nations have nursed the demon of destruction which, loosened, rocks the temple of international justice, outrages the peaceful in utter disregard of solemn obligations. ”

“ The gory field of Europe is the inevitable consequence. So sure as martial ideas are fabricated, so sure as these ideas are persistently entertained, so sure will war result, for it is the very essence of ideas to issue into action. ”

“ The future security of the state or the home must not fail to regard man biologically, as possessed of powerful destructive tendencies as well as powerful tendencies of love, sympathy and kindness. “Two souls,” as Faust says, “dwell within his breast,” the one of sociability and helpfulness, the other of jealousy and antagonism to his mates. Wanton blindness to this poetic expression of man’s dual nature wobbles the security of any nation unwilling to turn the unsmitten cheek. In this matter the evil component of man must be reckoned with the good. ”

“ The sense organs like waiting funnels form gateways for environmental stimuli which, seeping through the interstices of acquired behavior, nourish the roots below.
All roots of human action, whether that of parental love or pugnacity, grow according to the degree and mode of exercise until the entire human organism is completely moulded. A nation under the drill of incessant discipline becomes a completely fashioned fighting machine. ”

“ We have learned that civilization is but a veneer thinly covering the savage nature of man; that conventions, courtesies, respect for law, regard for justice and humanity, are acquired habits, feebly constraining the elemental forces man’s nature developed through countless centuries of struggle against wild beasts and savage foes. ”

“ Consider the enormous annual sale of revolvers to persons, not one in a thousand of whom has any serious intention of using them, but of whom each one has his carnivorous self-consciousness agreeably tickled by the notion, as he clutches the handle of his weapon, that he will be rather a dangerous customer to meet! ”

“ The Teutonic war machine is a product of careful nurture from the cradle of many generations. It is not an accident that military toys are given to children during the most plastic and favorably formative period of life. ”

“ OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY THE question of national preparation in anticipation of future international strife can not fail to consider man as he natively is, divested of the mantle of acquired behavior; he must be viewed from the standpoint of his naked natural birthright, however much it may be desirable to consider him as we wish him to be, if the question is to be answered on practical rather than idealistic grounds.
By birthright we mean that complex of inherited tendencies as we find it unencumbered, unmodified or redirected by environmental influences. ”

“ If it is true that environmental stimuli quicken and actualize latent tendencies and if it is equally true that failure to feed such tendencies during the ripening period tends to weaken, if not eradicate, them, then, the good John Galsworthy’s statement that “this war is an operation to excise the trampling instinct” is surely open to serious question. According to the laws of instinctive development, fixation of the trampling instinct rather than excision is the inevitable consequence of the war. ”

“ This complex constitutes “original man”; it is man’s inborn organization with which he begins his life-long struggle with unescapable environment. Innumerable catalogues have been made of man’s native equipment (instincts, reflexes, tendencies) with which he starts the conquest of the external world. It suffices for our purose to know that man’s original complex exceeds in variety of tendencies that of any other animal, and that the virility and dominance of certain tendencies may vary endlessly with the individual. ”

“ Inflammable youth is fed upon an inflammable diet morning, noon and night; at no time can his ears, eyes or touch escape those environmental stimuli which fall upon and make permanent his native tendency to combat, to resent, to hate. ”

“ And this because fine words and unsupported threats are powerless in the face of deadly impulses armed with refined tools and directed with terrible sincerity to crush and kill. The role of these original impulsive forces of man has been recognized by the laymen. ”