Psychological effects of war on citizen and soldier / by R.D. Gillespie.

  • Robert Dick Gillespie
Date:
[1942]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Psychological effects of war on citizen and soldier / by R.D. Gillespie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    throughout the centuries is one of those recurring dis- o , coveries of the human race which it seems weie destined to be perpetually forgotten and perpetually found again. One young officer of the British Army wrote early this year as follows: I cpiite frankly believe that to me this war so far from being a great disaster and a final catas¬ trophe, as we believe it is, is a not quite unmixed bless¬ ing in fairly transparent guise. First, it has given every¬ body a common unselfish aim; secondly has made them realise that there are other matters more important than the pursuit of profit; thirdly for a large number of peo¬ ple it has meant a hard physical effort with a reduction of two inches round the stomach; lastly it has given many who joined the Services their first glimpse of comrade¬ ship. . . . This may be the reason why Christian na¬ tions have triumphed so long in war: they derive sudden strength from the new force that war gives to their faith.” It may be that as psychopathologists we may want to add something to the concepts of theology, but as sociol¬ ogists we would be foolish to forget the sense of a great deal of the Christian ethic. It is interesting to look back to the Middle Ages, when the theory of the structure of society was of hierarchal values embodying all known interests and activities in a system of which the apex was religion. As R. H. Tawney adds: ‘‘A typical controversy was carried on in terms of morality and religion as regularly and inevi¬ tably as two centuries further on it was conducted in terms of economic expediency. This was in time replaced and the conception of a moral rule as binding in Chris-
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