The intelligence which has this profound effect on politics is not
political, but scientific and technical: it is the kind of
intelligence which discovers how to make nature minister to human
passions. Tungsten had no value until it was found to be useful in the
manufacture of shells and electric light, but now people will, if
necessary, kill each other in order to acquire tungsten. Scientific
intelligence is the cause of this change.

The progress or retrogression of the world depends, broadly speaking,
upon the balance between acquisitiveness and rivalry. The former makes
for progress, the latter for retrogression. When intelligence provides
improved methods of production, these may be employed to increase the
general share of goods, or to set apart more of the labour power of
the community for the business of killing its rivals. Until 1914,
acquisitiveness had prevailed, on the whole, since the fall of
Napoleon; the past six years have seen a prevalence of the instinct of
rivalry. Scientific intelligence makes it possible to indulge this
instinct more fully than is possible for primitive peoples, since it
sets free more men from the labour of producing necessaries. It is
possible that scientific intelligence may, in time, reach the point
when it will enable rivalry to exterminate the human race. This is the
most hopeful method of bringing about an end of war.

For those who do not like this method, there is another: the study of
scientific psychology and physiology. The physiological causes of
emotions have begun to be known, through the studies of such men as
Cannon (_Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_). In time, it
may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole
emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the