The following statement, quoted in the New York Times of October 20, was issued as a warning to European statesmen by psychiatrists holding an annual meeting in the Hague:

We psychiatrists, whose duty it is to investigate the normal and diseased mind, and to serve mankind with our knowledge, feel impelled to address a serious word to you in our quality of physicians.

It seems to us that there is in the world a mentality which entails grave dangers to mankind, leading, as it may, to an evident war-psychosis.

War means that all destructive forces are set loose by mankind against itself.

War means the annihilation of mankind by technical science.

As in all things human, psychological factors play a very important part in the complicated problem of war.

If war is to be prevented the nations and their leaders must understand their own attitude toward war.

By self-knowledge a world calamity may be prevented.

Therefore we draw your attention to the following:

1. There is a seeming contradiction between the conscious individual aversion to war and the collective preparedness to wage war. This is explained by the fact that the behaviour, the feelings, the thoughts of an independent individual are quite different from those of a man who forms part of a collective whole. Civilized twentieth century man still possesses strong, fierce and destructive instincts, which have not been sublimated, or only partly so, and which break loose as soon as the community to which he belongs feels itself threatened by danger.

The unconscious desire to give rein to the primitive instinct, not only without punishment but even with reward, furthers in a great measure the preparedness for war.

It should be realized that the fighting-instinct, if well directed, gives energy for much that is good and beautiful. But the same instinct may create chaos if it breaks loose from all restraint, making use of the greatest discoveries of the human intellect.

2. It is appalling to see how little the peoples are alive to reality.

The popular ideas of war as they find expression in fulldress uniforms, military display, etc., are no longer in keeping with the realities of war itself.

The apathy, with regard to the actions and intrigues of the international traffic in arms is surprising to any one who realizes the dangers into which this traffic threatens to lead them. It should be realized that it is foolish to suffer certain groups of persons to derive personal profit from the death of millions of men.