he may bring with him, and may easily develop into a monster of insensibility.
But when we compare the military type of self-severity with that of the ascetic saint, we find a worldwide difference in all their spiritual concomitants.
“ ‘Live and let live,’ ” writes a clearheaded Austrian officer, “is no device for an army. Contempt for one’s own comrades, for the troops of the enemy, and, above all, fierce contempt for one’s own person, are what war demands of everyone. Far better is it for an army to be too savage, too cruel, too barbarous, than to possess too much sentimentality and human reasonableness. If the soldier is to be good for anything as a soldier, he must be exactly the opposite of a reasoning and thinking man. The measure of goodness in him is his possible use in war. War, and even peace, require of the soldier absolutely peculiar standards of morality. The recruit brings with him common moral notions, of which he must seek immediately to get rid. For him victory, success, must be everything . The most barbaric tendencies in men come to life again in war, and for war’s uses they are incommensurably good.”