Citation

Pearl R. Am. J. Sociol. 1941; 46(4): 487-503.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1941, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/218695

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The basic biological principle underlying belligerent behavior is the "will to live," which is a characteristic of all living things. This characteristic has played an important role in the evolution of individual and collective human behavior. The stimuli leading to belligerent behavior arise from three sorts of situations: namely, (a) predation, (b) invasion of territory, and (c) courtship, mating, and reproduction, These stimuli lead to essentially the same types of response in birds and mammals as they do in man, indicating the evolutionary background lying behind war as a form of human social behavior. The propaganda element in modern warfare has definite psycho-biological effects. The alleged harmful genetic effects of warfare upon large population aggregates have been greatly overrated. Other adverse biological consequences of modern warfare may be temporarily severe but do not last long. The fundamental biological problem that war presents is the problem of the evolution of new patterns of sociality in which organized warfare will have no part.