We tend, as a matter of course, to regard war as the result of the intentional action of some wicked man or group of men or of some nation with a lust for conquest and power. Wars appear, to both sides engaged in them, as defense against some aggression or as necessary for the furthering of some worthy or even sacred cause. Even those who most detest war and are prepared to sacrifice their liberty, or even their lives, to save themselves from becoming involved in it, conceive it as a wicked action, deliberately undertaken. In reality, war is not like this at all. It is a terrible madness that overtakes mankind, when people lose even the little sense of reality they usually have.
War is the supreme manifestation of human helplessness.
This applies to all forms of mutual destruction, whether revolution and civil war within a nation or armed conflict between nations and the peoples of the world. War has a twofold origin. The first is outside of man and arises independently. The second is within man and is due to his own weakness and failure. This state of tension arises from the relations between the planets.