Chapter One: The Passing of War?

Part IV

Sri Aurobindo refers to other authors who had ingenious ideas of annihilating war. He particularly refers to "a Russian writer" (SABCL 15, pg.585) who had envisioned that Science would bring war to an end by making it physically impossible. That author has mathematically proved "that with modern weapons two equal armies would fight each other to a standstill, attack would become impossible except by numbers thrice those of the defence and war therefore would bring no military decision but only an infructuous upheaval and disturbance of the organised life of nations". (Ibid)

Sri Aurobindo is referring to Leo Tolstoy whose book War and Peace was serialized between 1865 and 1869. Tolstoy had explained that history, instead of following great people follows laws like physics or mathematics. Because of this when two opposing forces are equal, neither side can win because the sum of two individual actions cancels out resulting in an equilibrium.

Sri Aurobindo commented that the mathematical theory of war got cancelled by the Russian-Japanese war proving that "attack and victory were still possible and the battle-fury of man" was "superior to the fury of his death-dealing engines". (Ibid)

Sri Aurobindo then refers to another work, "Great Illusion" which sought to prove that the idea of commercial advantage gained by war and conquest was an illusion and once people realised this, they would abandon war as instead of commercial expansion, wars would usher commercial disaster. (Ibid) Sri Aurobindo is referring to the British writer and economist, Norman Angell's book "The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage", first published in 1909 (expanded in 1910) which explained that modern war brought no real economic or commercial advantage, even to the victor. Sri Aurobindo makes a critical appraisal of this view: "The present war (he is referring to World War I) came as the immediate answer of the gods to this sober and rational proposition. It has been fought for conquest and commercial expansion and it is proposed, even when it has been fought out on the field, to follow it up by a commercial struggle between the belligerent nations."(Ibid)

Date of Update: 31-Dec-25