6. Implicit submission to superiors
- Its effects on the independence of the mind
The economy of war requires of every soldier an implicit submission to his superior, and this submission is required of every gradation of rank to that above it:
This system may be necessary to hostile operations, but I think it is unquestionably adverse to intellectual and moral excellence.
The very nature of unconditional obedience implies the relinquishment of the use of the reasoning powers. Little more is required of the soldier than that he be obedient and brave.
His obedience is that of an animal that is moved by a goad or a bit, without judgment or volition of his own, and his bravery is that of a mastiff, which fights whatever mastiff others put before him.
It is obvious that in such agency, the intellect and the understanding have little part. Now I think that this is important:
He who, with whatever motive, resigns the direction of his conduct implicitly to another, surely cannot retain that erectness and independence of mind, that manly consciousness of mental freedom, which is one of the highest privileges of our nature.
The rational being becomes reduced in the intellectual scale and an encroachment is made upon the integrity of its independence.
God has given us, individually, capacities for the regulation of our individual conduct:
To resign its direction, therefore, to the despotism of another, appears to be an unmanly and unjustifiable relinquishment of the privileges that he has granted to us.
Referring simply to the conclusions of reason, I think those conclusions would be that military obedience must be pernicious to the mind. And if we proceed from reasoning to facts, I believe that our conclusions will be confirmed:
Is the military character distinguished by intellectual eminence?
Is it not distinguished by intellectual inferiority?
I speak of course of the exercise of intellect, and I believe that if we look around us, we shall find that no class of men, in a parallel rank in society, exercise it less or less honourably to human nature than the military profession.
I do not, however, attribute the want of intellectual excellence solely to the implicit submission of a military life. Nor do I say that this want is so much the fault of the soldier as of the circumstances to which he is subjected.
We attribute this evil also to its rightful parent:
The resignation of our actions to the direction of a foreign will is made so familiar to us by war, and is mingled with so many associations that reconcile it,
that I am afraid lest the reader should not contemplate it with sufficient abstraction. Let him remember that in nothing but in war do we submit to it.