1

REFLECTIONS
ON WAR AND DEATH

I

THE DISAPPOINTMENTS OF
WAR

CAUGHT in the whirlwind of
these war times, without any real
information or any perspective
upon the great changes that have already
occurred or are about to be enacted, lack-
ing all premonition of the future, it is
small wonder that we ourselves become
confused as to the meaning of impressions
which crowd in upon us or of the value of
the judgments we are forming. It would
seem as though no event had ever de-
stroyed so much of the precious heritage

2

REFLECTIONS ON

of mankind, confused so many of the clear
est intellects or so thoroughly debased
what is highest.

Even science has lost her dispassionate
impartiality. Her deeply embittered vo
taries are intent upon seizing her weapons
to do their share in the battle against the
enemy. The anthropologist has to de
clare his opponent inferior and degenerate,
the psychiatrist must diagnose him as men
tally deranged. Yet it is probable that
we are affected out of all proportion by
the evils of these times and have no
right to compare them with the evils of
other times through which we have not
lived.

The individual who is not himself a com
batant and therefore has not become a cog
in the gigantic war machinery, feels con
fused in his bearings and hampered in his

3

WAR AND DEATH

activities. I think any little suggestion
that will make it easier for him to see his
way more clearly will be welcome.
Among the factors which cause the stay-
at-home so much spiritual misery and are
so hard to endure there are two in particu-
lar which I should like to emphasize and
discuss. I mean the disappointment that
this war has called forth and the altered
attitude towards death to which it, in com-
mon with other wars, forces us.

When I speak of disappointment every-
body knows at once what I mean. One
need not be a sentimentalist, one may real-
ize the biological and physiological neces-
sity of suffering in the economy of human
life, and yet one may condemn the methods
and the aims of war and long for its ter-
mination. To be sure, we used to say
that wars cannot cease as long as nations

4

REFLECTIONS ON

live under such varied conditions, as long
as they place such different values upon
the individual life, and as long as the ani-
mosities which divide them represent such
powerful psychic forces. We were there-
fore quite ready to believe that for some
time to come there would be wars between
primitive and civilized nations and be-
tween those divided by color, as well as
with and among the partly enlightened
and more or less civilized peoples of Eu-
rope. But we dared to hope differently.
We expected that the great ruling na-
tions of the white race, the leaders of man-
kind, who had cultivated world wide inter-
ests, and to whom we owe the technical
progress in the control of nature as well
as the creation of artistic and scientific
cultural standards–we expected that
these nations would find some other way

5

WAR AND DEATH

of settling their differences and conflicting
interests.

Each of these nations had set a high
moral standard to which the individual
had to conform if he wished to be a mem-
ber of the civilized community.

These frequently over strict precepts de-
manded a great deal of him, a great self-
restraint and a marked renunciation of his
impulses. Above all he was forbidden to
resort to lying and cheating, which are so
extraordinarily useful in competition with
others. The civilized state considered
these moral standards the foundation of its
existence, it drastically interfered if any-
one dared to question them and often de-
clared it improper even to submit them to
the test of intellectual criticism. It was
therefore assumed that the state itself
would respect them and would do nothing

6

REFLECTIONS ON

that might contradict the foundations of
its own existence. To be sure, one was
aware that scattered among these civilized
nations there were certain remnants of
races that were quite universally disliked,
and were therefore reluctantly and only
to a certain extent permitted to partici-
pate in the common work of civilization
where they had proved themselves suffi-
ciently fit for the task. But the great na-
tions themselves, one should have thought,
had acquired sufficient understanding for
the qualities they had in common and
enough tolerance for their differences so
that, unlike in the days of classical antiq-
uity, the words “foreign” and “hostile”
should no longer be synonyms.

Trusting to this unity of civilized races
countless people left hearth and home to
live in strange lands and trusted their for-

7

WAR AND DEATH

tunes to the friendly relations existing be-
tween the various countries. And even he
who was not tied down to the same spot
by the exigencies of life could combine all
the advantages and charms of civilized
countries into a newer and greater father-
land which he could enjoy without hin-
drance or suspicion. He thus took de-
light in the blue and the grey ocean, the
beauty of snow clad mountains and of the
green lowlands, the magic of the north
woods and the grandeur of southern vege-
tation, the atmosphere of landscapes
upon which great historical memories rest,
and the peace of untouched nature. The
new fatherland was to him also a museum,
filled with the treasure that all the artists
of the world for many centuries had
created and left behind. While he wan-
dered from one hall to another in this

8

REFLECTIONS ON

museum he could give his impartial ap-
preciation to the varied types of perfec-
tion that had been developed among his
distant compatriots by the mixture of
blood, by history, and by the peculiarities
of physical environment. Here cool, in-
flexible energy was developed to the high-
est degree, there the graceful art of beauti-
fying life, elsewhere the sense of law and
order, or other qualities that have made
man master of the earth.

We must not forget that every civilized
citizen of the world had created his own
special “Parnassus” and his own “School
of Athens.” Among the great philoso-
phers, poets, and artists of all nations he
had selected those to whom he considered
himself indebted for the best enjoyment
and understanding of life, and he as-
sociated them in his homage both with the

9

WAR AND DEATH

immortal ancients and with the familiar
masters of his own tongue. Not one of
these great figures seemed alien to him
just because he spoke in a different
language; be it the incomparable explorer
of human passions or the intoxicated wor-
shiper of beauty, the mighty and threaten-
ing seer or the sensitive scoffer, and yet
he never reproached himself with having
become an apostate to his own nation and
his beloved mother tongue.

The enjoyment of this common civiliza-
tion was occasionally disturbed by voices
which warned that in consequence of tradi-
tional differences wars were unavoidable
even between those who shared this civili-
zation. One did not want to believe this,
but what did one imagine such a war to
be like if it should ever come about? No
doubt it was to be an opportunity to show

10

REFLECTIONS ON

the progress in man’s community feeling
since the days when the Greek amphic-
tyonies had forbidden the destruction of
a city belonging to the league, the felling
of her oil trees and the cutting off of her
water supply. It would be a chivalrous
bout of arms for the sole purpose of estab-
lishing the superiority of one side or the
other with the greatest possible avoidance
of severe suffering which could contribute
nothing to the decision, with complete pro-
tection for the wounded, who must with-
draw from the battle, and for the physi-
cians and nurses who devote themselves to
their care. With every consideration, of
course, for noncombatants, for the women
who are removed from the activities of
war, and for the children who, when
grown up, are to become friends and co-
workers on both sides. And with the

11

WAR AND DEATH

maintenance, finally, of all the interna-
tional projects and institutions in which
the civilized community of peace times had
expressed its corporate life.

Such a war would still be horrible
enough and full of burdens, but it would
not have interrupted the development of
ethical relations between the large human
units, between nations and states.

But the war in which we did not want
to believe broke out and brought–disap-
pointment. It is not only bloodier and
more destructive than any foregoing war,
as a result of the tremendous development
of weapons of attack and defense, but it is
at least as cruel, bitter, and merciless as
any earlier war. It places itself above all
the restrictions pledged in times of peace,
the so-called rights of nations, it does not
acknowledge the prerogatives of the

12

REFLECTIONS ON

wounded and of physicians, the distinction
between peaceful and fighting members of
the population, or the claims of private
property. It hurls down in blind rage
whatever bars its way, as though there
were to be no future and no peace after
it is over. It tears asunder all community
bonds among the struggling peoples and
threatens to leave a bitterness which will
make impossible any re-establishment of
these ties for a long time to come.

It has also brought to light the barely
conceivable phenomenon of civilized na-
tions knowing and understanding each
other so little that one can turn from the
other with hate and loathing. Indeed one
of these great civilized nations has become
so universally disliked that it is even at-
tempted to cast it out from the civilized
community as though it were barbaric, al-

13

WAR AND DEATH

though this very nation has long proved
its eligibility through contribution after
contribution of brilliant achievements.
We live in the hope that impartial history
will furnish the proof that this very nation,
in whose language I am writing and for
whose victory our dear ones are fighting,
has sinned least against the laws of human
civilization. But who is privileged to step
forward at such a time as judge in his own
defense?

Races are roughly represented by the
states they form and these states by the
governments which guide them. The in-
dividual citizen can prove with dismay in
this war what occasionally thrust itself
upon him already in times of peace,
namely, that the state forbids him to do
wrong not because it wishes to do away
with wrongdoing but because it wishes to

14

REFLECTIONS ON

monopolize it, like salt and tobacco. A
state at war makes free use of every in-
justice, every act of violence, that would
dishonor the individual. It employs not
only permissible cunning but conscious lies
and intentional deception against the
enemy, and this to a degree which appar-
ently outdoes what was customary in pre-
vious wars. The state demands the ut-
most obedience and sacrifice of its citizens,
but at the same time it treats them as chil-
dren through an excess of secrecy and a
censorship of news and expression of
opinion which render the minds of those
who are thus intellectually. repressed de-
fenseless against every unfavorable situa-
tion and every wild rumor. It absolves
itself from guarantees and treaties by
which it was bound to other states, makes
unabashed confession of its greed and

15

WAR AND DEATH

aspiration to power, which the individual
is then supposed to sanction out of patri-
otism.

Let the reader not object that the state
cannot abstain from the use of injustice
because it would thereby put itself at a
disadvantage. For the individual, too,
obedience to moral standards and absti-
nence from brutal acts of violence are as
a rule very disadvantageous, and the state
but rarely proves itself capable of in-
demnifying the individual for the sacrifice
it demands of him. Nor is it to be won-
dered at that the loosening of moral ties
between the large human units has had a
pronounced effect upon the morality of
the individual, for our conscience is not the
inexorable judge that teachers of ethics
say it is; it has its origin in nothing but
“social fear.” Wherever the community

16

REFLECTIONS ON

suspends its reproach the suppression of
evil desire also ceases, and men commit
acts of cruelty, treachery, deception, and
brutality, the very possibility of which
would have been considered incompatible
with their level of culture.

Thus the civilized world-
citizen of whom
I spoke before may find himself helpless
in a world that has grown strange to him
when he sees his great fatherland disin-
tegrated, the possessions common to man-
kind destroyed, and his fellow citizens
divided and debased.

Nevertheless several things might be
said in criticism of his disappointment.
Strictly speaking it is not justified, for it
consists in the destruction of an illusion.
Illusions commend themselves to us be-
cause they save us pain and allow us to
enjoy pleasure instead. We must there-
fore

17

WAR AND DEATH

fore accept it without complaint when they
sometimes collide with a bit of reality
against which they are dashed to pieces.

Two things have roused our disappoint-
ment in this war: the feeble morality of
states in their external relations which
have inwardly acted as guardians of moral
standards, and the brutal behavior of in-
dividuals of the highest culture of whom
one would not have believed any such thing
possible.

Let us begin with the second point and
try to sum up the view which we wish to
criticise in a single compact statement.
Through what process does the individual
reach a higher stage of morality? The
first answer will probably be: He is
really good and noble from birth, in the
first place. It is hardly necessary to give
this any further consideration. The sec-

18

REFLECTIONS ON

ond answer will follow the suggestion that
a process of development is involved here
and will probably assume that this de-
velopment consists in eradicating the evil
inclinations of man and substituting good
inclinations under the influence of educa-
tion and cultural environment. In that
case we may indeed wonder that evil
should appear again so actively in persons
who have been educated in this way.

But this answer also contains the theory
which we wish to contradict. In reality
there is no such thing as “eradicating” evil.
Psychological, or strictly speaking, psy-
choanalytic investigation proves, on the
contrary, that the deepest character of
man consists of impulses of an elemental
kind which are similar in all human beings,
the aim of which is the gratification of cer-
tain primitive needs. These impulses are

19

WAR AND DEATH

in themselves neither good or evil. We
classify them and their manifestations ac-
cording to their relation to the needs and
demands of the human community. It is
conceded that all the impulses which so-
ciety rejects as evil, such as selfishness and
cruelty, are of this primitive nature.
These primitive impulses go through a
long process of development before they
can become active in the adult. They be-
come inhibited and diverted to other aims
and fields, they unite with each other,
change their objects and in part turn
against one’s own person. The formation
of reactions against certain impulses give
the deceptive appearance of a change of
content, as if egotism had become altruism
and cruelty had changed into sympathy.
The formation of these reactions is favored
by the fact that many impulses appear al-

20

REFLECTIONS ON

most from the beginning in contrasting
pairs; this is a remarkable state of affairs
called the ambivalence of feeling and is
quite unknown to the layman. This feel-
ing is best observed and grasped through
the fact that intense love and intense hate
occur so frequently in the same person.
Psychoanalysis goes further and states
that the two contrasting feelings not infre-
quently take the same person as their ob-
ject.

What we call the character of a person
does not really emerge until the fate of
all these impulses has been settled, and
character, as we all know, is very inade-
quately defined in terms of either “good”
or “evil.” Man is seldom entirely good or
evil, he is “good” on the whole in one re-
spect and “evil” in another, or “good”
under certain conditions, and decidedly

21

WAR AND DEATH

“evil” under others. It is interesting to
learn that the earlier infantile existence
of intense “bad” impulses is often the nec-
essary condition of being “good” in later
life. The most pronounced childish ego-
tists may become the most helpful and
self-sacrificing citizens; the majority of
idealists, humanitarians, and protectors of
animals have developed from little sadists
and animal tormentors.

The transformation of “evil” impulses
is the result of two factors operating in the
same sense, one inwardly and the other
outwardly. The inner factor consists in
influencing the evil or selfish impulses
through erotic elements, the love needs of
man interpreted in the widest sense. The
addition of erotic components transforms
selfish impulses into social impulses. We
learn to value being loved as an advantage

22

REFLECTIONS ON

for the sake of which we can renounce
other advantages. The outer factor is the
force of education which represents the de-
mands of the civilized environment and
which is then continued through the direct
influence of the cultural milieu.

Civilization is based upon the renuncia-
tion of impulse gratification and in turn
demands the same renunciation of im-
pulses from every newcomer. During the
individual’s life a constant change takes
place from outer to inner compulsion.
The influences of civilization work through
the erotic components to bring about the
transformation of more and more of the
selfish tendencies into altruistic and social
tendencies. We may indeed assume that
the inner compulsion which makes itself
felt in the development of man was origin-
ally, that is, in the history of mankind, a

23

WAR AND DEATH

purely external compulsion. Today peo
ple bring along a certain tendency (dis-
position) to transform the egotistic into
social impulses as a part of their heredi-
tary organization, which then responds to
further slight incentives to complete the
transformation. A part of this trans-
formation of impulse must also be made
during life. In this way the individual
man is not only under the influence of his
own contemporary cultural milieu but is
also subject to the influences of his ances-
tral civilization.

If we call a person’s individual capacity
for transforming his egotistical impulses
under the influence of love his cultural
adaptability, we can say that this consists
of two parts, one congenital and the other
acquired, and we may add that the rela-
tion of these two to each other and to the

24

REFLECTIONS ON

untransformed part of the emotional life
is a very variable one.

In general we are inclined to rate the
congenital part too highly, and are also in
danger of over-valuing the whole cultural
adaptability in its relation to that part of
the impulse life which has remained primi-
tive, that is, we are misled into judging
people to be “better” than they really are.
For there is another factor which clouds
our judgment and falsifies the result in
favor of what we are judging.

We are of course in no position to ob-
serve the impulses of another person. We
deduce them from his actions and his con-
duct, which we trace back to motives
springing from his emotional life. In a
number of cases such a conclusion is neces-
sarily incorrect. The same actions which
are “good” in the civilized sense may some-
 

25

WAR AND DEATH

times originate in “noble” motives and
sometimes not. Students of the theory of
ethics call only those acts “good” which
are the expression of good impulses and
refuse to acknowledge others as such.
But society is on the whole guided by
practical aims and does not bother about
this distinction; it is satisfied if a man
adapts his conduct and his actions to the
precepts of civilization and asks little
about his motives.

We have heard that the outer compul-
sion which education and environment
exercise upon a man brings about a fur-
ther transformation of his impulse life for
the good, the change from egotism to al-
truism. But this is not the necessary or
regular effect of the outer compulsion.
Education and environment have not only
love premiums to offer but work with

26

REFLECTIONS ON

profit premiums of another sort, namely
rewards and punishments. They can
therefore bring it about that a person sub-
ject to their influence decides in favor of
good conduct in the civilized sense without
any ennobling of impulse or change from
egotistic into altruistic inclinations. On
the whole the consequence` remains the
same; only special circumstances will re-
veal whether the one person is always
good because his impulses compel him to
be so while another person is good only in
so far as this civilized behavior is of ad-
vantage to his selfish purposes. But our
superficial knowledge of the individual
gives us no means of distinguishing the
two cases, and we shall certainly be mis-
led by our optimism into greatly over-es-
timating the number of people who have
been transformed by civilization.

27

WAR AND DEATH

Civilized society, which demands good
conduct and does not bother about the im-
pulse on which it is based, has thus won
over a great many people to civilized
obedience who do not thereby follow their
own natures. Encouraged by this success,
society has permitted itself to be misled
into putting the ethical demands as high
as possible, thereby forcing its members to
move still further from their emotional
dispositions. A continual emotional sup-
pression is imposed upon them, the strain
of which is indicated by the appearance of
the most remarkable reactions and com-
pensations.

In the field of sexuality, where such sup-
pression is most difficult to carry out, it
results in reactions known as neurotic ail-
ments. In other fields the pressure of
civilization shows no pathological results

28

REFLECTIONS ON

but manifests itself in distorted characters
and in the constant readiness of the in-
hibited impulses to enforce their gratifi-
cation at any fitting opportunity.

Anyone thus forced to react continually
to precepts that are not the expressions of
his impulses lives, psychologically speak-
ing, above his means, and may be objec-
tively described as a hypocrite, whether he
is clearly conscious of this difference or
not. It is undeniable that our contem-
porary civilization favors this sort of hy-
pocrisy to an extraordinary extent. One
might even venture to assert that it is
built upon such a hypocrisy and would
have to undergo extensive changes if man
were to undertake to live according to the
psychological truth. There are therefore
more civilized hypocrites than truly cul-
tured persons, and one can even discuss

29

WAR AND DEATH

the question whether a certain amount of
civilized hypocrisy is not indispensable to
maintain civilization because the already
organized cultural adaptability of the man
of today would perhaps not suffice for the
task of living according to the truth. On
the other hand the maintenance of civiliza-
tion even on such questionable grounds
offers the prospect that with every new
generation a more extensive transforma-
tion of impulses will pave the way for a
better civilization.

These discussions have already afforded
us the consolation that our mortification
and painful disappointment on account of
the uncivilized behavior of our fellow
world citizens in this war were not justi-
fied. They rested upon an illusion to
which we had succumbed. In reality they
have not sunk as deeply as we feared be-
 

30

REFLECTIONS ON

cause they never really rose as high as we
had believed. The fact that states and
races abolished their mutual ethical re-
strictions not unnaturally incited them to
withdraw for a time from the existing
pressure of civilization and to sanction a
passing gratification of their suppressed
impulses. In doing so their relative mo-
rality within their own national life prob-
ably suffered no rupture.

But we can still further deepen our
understanding of the change which this
war has brought about in our former com-
patriots and at the same time take warn-
ing not to be unjust to them. For psychic
evolution shows a peculiarity which is not
found in any other process of develop-
ment. When a town becomes a city or a
child grows into a man, town and child
disappear in the city and in the man.

31

WAR AND DEATH

Only memory can sketch in the old fea-
tures in the new picture; in reality the old
materials and forms have been replaced by
new ones. It is different in the case of
psychic evolution. One can describe this
unique state of affairs only by saying that
every previous stage of development is
preserved next to the following one from
which it has evolved; the succession stipu-
lates a co-existence although the material
in which the whole series of changes has
taken place remains the same.

The earlier psychic state may not have
manifested itself for years but neverthe-
less continues to exist to the extent that
it may some day again become the form
in which psychic forces express themselves,
in fact the only form, as though all subse-
quent developments had been annulled
and made regressive. This extraordinary

32

REFLECTIONS ON

plasticity of psychic development is not
without limits as to its direction; one can
describe it as a special capacity for retro-
grade action or regression, for it some-
times happens that a later and higher stage
of development that has been abandoned
cannot be attained again. But the primi-
tive conditions can always be recon-
structed; the primitive psyche is in the
strictest sense indestructible.

The so-called mental diseases must make
the impression on the layman of mental
and psychic life fallen into decay. In
reality the destruction concerns only later
acquisitions and developments. The na-
ture of mental diseases consists in the re-
turn to former states of the affective life
and function. An excellent example of
the plasticity of the psychic life is the

33

WAR AND DEATH

state of sleep, which we all court every
night.

Since we know how to interpret even
the maddest and most confused dreams,
we know that every time we go to sleep
we throw aside our hard won morality like
a garment in order to put it on again in the
morning. This laying bare is, of course,
harmless, because we are paralyzed and
condemned to inactivity by the sleeping
state.

Only the dream can inform us of the re-
gression of our emotional life to an earlier
stage of development. Thus, for in-
stance, it is worthy of note that all our
dreams are governed by purely egotistic
motives. One of my English friends
once presented this theory to a scientific
meeting in America, whereupon a lady

34

REFLECTIONS ON

present made the remark that this might
perhaps be true of Austrians, but she ven-
tured to assert for herself and her friends
that even in dreams they always felt al-
truistically. My friend, although himself
a member of the English race, was obliged
to contradict the lady energetically on the
basis of his experience in dream analysis.
The noble Americans are just as egotistic
in their dreams as the Austrians.

The transformation of impulses upon
which our cultural adaptability rests can
therefore also be permanently or tem-
porarily made regressive. Without doubt
the influences of war belong to those forces
which can create such regressions; we
therefore need not deny cultural adapti-
bility to all those who at present are acting
in such an uncivilized manner, and may
expect that the refinement of their im-
 

35

WAR AND DEATH

pulses will continue in more peaceful
times.

But there is perhaps another symptom
of our fellow citizens of the world which
has caused us no less surprise and fear
than this descent from former ethical
heights which has been so painful to us.
I mean the lack of insight that our great-
est intellectual leaders have shown, their
obdurac-
y, their inaccessibility to the most
impressive arguments, their uncritical cre-
dulity concerning the most contestable as-
sertions. This certainly presents a sad
picture, and I wish expressly to emphasize
that I am by no means a blinded partisan
who finds all the intellectual mistakes on
one side. But this phenomenon is more
easily explained and far less serious than
the one which we have just considered.
Students of human nature and philoso-
phy

36

REFLECTIONS ON

phers have long ago taught us that we do
wrong to value our intelligence as an in-
dependent force and to overlook its de-
pendence upon our emotional life. Ac-
cording to their view our intellect can work
reliably only when it is removed from the
influence of powerful incitements; other-
wise it acts simply as an instrument at the
beck and call of our will and delivers the
results which the will demands. Logical
argumentation is therefore powerless
against affective interests; that is why
arguing with reasons which, according to
Falstaff, are as common as blackberries,
are so fruitless where our interests are
concerned. Whenever possible psycho-
analytic experience has driven home this
assertion. It is in a position to prove
every day that the cleverest people sud-
denly behave as unintelligently as defec-
 

87

WAR AND DEATH

tives as soon as their understanding en-
counters emotional resistance, but that
they regain their intelligence completely
as soon as this resistance has been over-
come. This blindness to logic which this
war has so frequently conjured up in just
our best fellow citizens, is therefore a sec-
ondary phenomenon, the result of emo-
tional excitement and destined, we hope,
to disappear simultaneously with it.
If we have thus come to a fresh under-
standing of our estranged fellow citizens
we can more easily bear the disappoint-
ment which nations have caused us, for of
them we must only make demands of a
far more modest nature. They are per-
haps repeating the development of the in-
dividual and at the present day still ex-
hibit very primitive stages of development
with a correspondingly slow progress

38

REFLECTIONS ON

towards the formation of higher unities.
It is in keeping with this that the educa-
tional factor of an outer compulsion to
morality, which we found so active in the
individual, is barely perceptible in them.
We had indeed hoped that the wonderful
community of interests established by
intercourse and the exchange of products
would result in the beginning of such a
compulsion, but it seems that nations obey
their passions of the moment far more
than their interests. At most they make
use of their interests to justify the gratifi-
cation of their passions.

It is indeed a mystery why the individ-
ual members of nations should disdain,
hate, and abhor each other at all, even in
times of peace. I do not know why it is.
It seems as if all the moral achievements of
the individual were obliterated in the case

39

WAR AND DEATH

of a large number of people, not to men-
tion millions, until only the most primitive,
oldest, and most brutal psychic inhibitions
remained.

Perhaps only later developments will
succeed in changing these lamentable con-
ditions. But a little more truthfulness
and straightforward dealing on all sides,
both in the relation of people towards each
other and between themselves and those
who govern them, might smooth the way
for such a change.