(But) for the most part war was the favorite instrument of natural selection among primitive nations and groups.
... It (war) acted as a ruthless eliminator of weak peoples, and raised the level of race in courage, violence, cruelty, intelligence and skill. It stimulated invention, made weapons that became useful tools, and arts of war that became arts of peace. ..Above all, war dissolved primitive communism and anarchism, introduced organization and discipline, and led to the enslavement of prisoners, the subordination of classes, and the growth of government. Property was the mother, war was the father of the state.
Individualism, like liberty, is a luxury of civilization. Only with the dawn of history were sufficient number of men and women freed from the burdens of hunger, reproduction and war to create the intangible values of leisure, culture and art.
----Will Durant
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