The Psychology of Nations / A Contribution to the Philosophy of History

The work examines national consciousness in two parts. The first analyzes the motives of war from biological, psychological and social perspectives, locating a broad motive of power that expresses itself through an intoxication impulse, national honor, aesthetic, moral, religious, economic, political and institutional factors, and concludes that wars emerge from the composite character of nations rather than from a single removable cause. The second treats the postwar situation as an educational problem, arguing for deliberate cultivation of national character and a wider world-consciousness through social and ethical education and conscious evolution rather than reliance solely on legal or political adjustments.