Intelligence modifies profoundly the operation of material conditions.  When America was first discovered, men only desired gold and silver; consequently the portions first settled were not those that are now most profitable.  The Bessemer process created the German iron and steel industry; inventions requiring oil have created a demand for that commodity which is one of the chief influences in international politics.

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 passions of the rulers how this power is used.  Success will come to the State which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to domestic dissensions.  There is no method by which it can be insured that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore there is no reason to suppose that the power to modify men’s emotional nature would cause progress.

If men desired to diminish rivalry, there is an obvious method.  Habits of power intensify the passion of rivalry; therefore a State in which power is concentrated will, other things being equal, be more bellicose than one in which power is diffused.  For those who dislike wars, this is an additional argument against all forms of dictatorship.  But dislike of war is far less common than we used to suppose; and those who like war can use the same argument to support dictatorship.