South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-12-03
War Frenzy Comes from
Animal Origins of Man.

But don't you place any count on the spon'
taneity of our moral energies?" l asked see
how we entered Alsace.
oh! the Germans were then gathering their
forces for the blow. And TO moral energies,
throw yourself against an automobile and see
what happens!"
we are going to conquer because God is
with u.s." says lie Gallo, a young Catholic
officer.
III we win" retoins Ortegue. "it will be just
because have the better guns. the better
rres. the better generals, the better soldiers
1T is quite eXcusable" Ortegue resumed
when the young officer had left us. that that
poor young should imagine that the ner-
vous system should have nothing to do with
psychism. He has never dissected bodies. He
hse Just come from the battlefield, and he is
now going back. That frightful word War
means for him visions of horror which he
knows to be real-crushed limbs, gaping
stomachs, shattered skulls; all the ferocity OF
the ancestral brute let loose IN nen-crieA
screams, groans death-rattles; in word.
eharnel-house Well, these denominations teach
him nothing: he does not reason on the facts.
he here and talks about the goodness
NJ Cod!
"He may be killed himself tomorrow. At
this moment there millions of young men
IN Europe like him who throw themselves at
one another In this shambles, just because an
imbecile idea Of conquest shot across the brain
Of a degenerate suffering from .ncurable sup
purating otitis-
"You and | can very well understand that
this frenzy comes from the animal origins OF
mans a temperance in the civilized being
OF the primitive anthropoid. But he-you
heard him-has a castiron belief that an all
powerful and perfect being. his god. presides
over these massacres He sees in them the
justice and goodness Of this god!
81 once had a colleague when | walked the
hospital who used to amuse himself by saying
TO a shocked nun, If God existed. Sister. he
would deserve penal servitude. And he was
right Take my case. / am fifty years DID,
rich famous. married to the woman | love.
All this happiness is to be torn brutally from
me- although throughout my life / have done
nothing but relieve poverty and cure people
otherwise condemned to certain death. And
now with this war on, when a surgeon [
could be of most use to mankind am myself
mortally stricken.
Given the use Of modern arms. there
going to be a lot OF wounds Of the brain and
the spinal cord. Men will die, will
main paralyzed or idiotic or blind because l.
who might have saved them, am suffering from
CT absurd cancer. caused by what? By the
bursting Of an automobile tire while | was
rushing with my colleague. Salvan, TO attend
a case near Versailles. The car overturned,
you will remember The driver and Salvan
escaped / was hit violently in the stomach.
No doubt I predisposed to cancer. and
here | ami"
DO you know why Joffre is great gen.
eval?" Ortegue asked me on another occasion.
because he is using scientific methods" And
Ortegue recalled Joffre at Charlero mathe-
ustcxily measuring the thrust OF the Ger
uc&r avalanche. calculating that his own re-
serves would not arrive on the battlefield In
time. and ordering his armies to retreat toward
the reserves. Ortegue concluded:
1T vas Just simple common-sense and OBJ
ssrvstion: Submission Of his idea TO the facts
ability % ABANDON, modify change II ac-
ccrdU,gly as observation dictated This do
tcm OF Claude Bernard is just true in war
n the laboratory. There be no two
different methods for the human mind one
onls nrev3 ils-chserye the realities as they
s-s ard conform 20 them. You can act upon
facts only with facts
Ortegue tells his young wife that his death
IS &pprosc 'ug: she decides TO die with him:
theg vii commit suicide together But then
Il Gsisic Is brought into Ortegue's hospital
urrtsiiv Wounded re secretly loves Nine.
orteEue arc wAe- Re learns of the suicide
pac,. % 80 g pFafouno religious fervor and
mysticism, begins y = huence her against her
tespersce plan
How ~as thisi have a hypothesis that
there pGycLio influence at work By
what signs DC ve recrgrize the presence OF
Any force-electTicity. for instance7 Either
because II directly impresses Us. or else be-
caase L transforms itself into another force
which impresses Light and heat belong to