The ideal results of victory one cannot see with one's eyes or
applaud with one's hands, but a dismantled banner one can."
"That does not explain everything. Atavism comes into it. The
inhabitants of towns in ancient times need to rejoice and cheer in
the same way when their victorious troops brought home the tutelary
gods of their enemies. It is the same idea, the same superstition,
after an interval of three thousand years."
"Yes, it is curious. I was thinking the whole time that one had a
picture of ancient civilization before one. The wreaths of flowers,
these swaggering figures with their trophies of war, this gay crowd,
distributing food and drink, these young girls with their crowns, is
it not all exactly the manner in which the people of the Stone Age
or the savages of to-day would feast their heroes? Cannot one
understand in this that at the beginning of civilization war was the
highest object in state and society, an opportunity of enrichment by
booty, and a festival for youth? Nowadays we ought to have got far
enough to see in war only a weary fulfilling of duty, a barbarous
waste of labor, of which we are inwardly ashamed; and we should keep
away from this noisy festival as from the execution of a criminal,
which may be necessary, but is painful to witness.
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