April, 1912. ↩
Germany and the Next War, by Gen. Friedrich von Bernhardi. London: Edwin Arnold, 1912. ↩
See, notably, the article from Admiral Mahan, “The Place of Power in International Relations,” in the North American Review for January, 1912; and such books of Professor Wilkinson’s as The Great Alternative, Britain at Bay, War and Policy. ↩
The Valor of Ignorance. Harpers. ↩
For an expression of these views in a more definite form, see Ratzenhofer’s Die Sociologische Erkenntniss, pp. 233, 234. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1898. ↩
Speech at Stationer’s Hall, London, June 6, 1910. ↩
The Strenuous Life. Century Co. ↩
McClure’s Magazine, August, 1910. ↩
Thomas Hughes, in his preface to the first English edition of The Bigelow Papers, refers to the opponents of the Crimean War as a “vain and mischievous clique, who amongst us have raised the cry of peace.” See also Mr. J. A. Hobson’s Psychology of Jingoism, p. 52. London: Grant Richards. ↩
North American Review, March, 1912. ↩
The Interest of America in International Conditions. New York: Harper & Brothers. ↩
It is related by Critchfield, in his work on the South American Republics, that during all the welter of blood and disorder which for a century or more marked the history of those countries, the Roman Catholic priesthood on the whole maintained a high standard of life and character, and continued, against all discouragement, to preach consistently the beauties of peace and order. However much one may be touched by such a spectacle, and pay the tribute of one’s admiration to these good men, one cannot but feel that the preaching of these high ideals did not have any very immediate effect on the social progress of South America. What has effected this change? It is that those countries have been brought into the economic current of the world; the bank and factory and railroad have introduced factors and motives of a quite different order from those urged by the priest, and are slowly winning those countries from military adventure to honest work, a thing which the preaching of high ideals failed to do. ↩
Today and Tomorrow, p. 63. John Murray. ↩
Since the publication of the first edition of this book there has appeared in France an admirable work by M. J. Novikow, Le Darwinisme Social (Felix Alcan, Paris), in which this application of the Darwinian theory to sociology is discussed with great ability, and at great length and in full detail, and the biological presentation of the case, as just outlined, has been inspired in no small part by M. Novikow’s work. M. Novikow has established in biological terms what, previous to the publication of his book, I attempted to establish in economic terms. ↩
Cooperation does not exclude competition. If a rival beats me in business, it is because he furnishes more efficient cooperation than I do; if a thief steals from me, he is not cooperating at all, and if he steals much will prevent my cooperation. The organism (society) has every interest in encouraging the competitor and suppressing the parasite. ↩
Without going to the somewhat obscure analogies of biological science, it is evident from the simple facts of the world that, if at any stage of human development warfare ever did make for the survival of the fit, we have long since passed out of that stage. When we conquer a nation in these days, we do not exterminate it: we leave it where it was. When we “overcome” the servile races, far from eliminating them, we give them added chances of life by introducing order, etc., so that the lower human quality tends to be perpetuated by conquest by the higher. If ever it happens that the Asiatic races challenge the white in the industrial or military field, it will be in large part thanks to the work of race conservation, which has been the result of England’s conquest in India, Egypt, and Asia generally, and her action in China when she imposed commerical contact on the Chinese by virtue of military power. War between people of roughly equal development makes also for the survival of the unfit, since we no longer exterminate and massacre a conquered race, but only their best elements (those carrying on the war), and because the conqueror uses up his best elements in the process, so that the less fit of both sides are left to perpetuate the species. Nor do the facts of the modern world lend any support to the theory that preparation for war under modern conditions tends to preserve virility, since those conditions involve an artificial barrack life, a highly mechanical training favorable to the destruction of initiative, and a mechanical uniformity and centralization tending to crush individuality, and to hasten the drift towards a centralized bureaucracy, already too great. ↩
One might doubt, indeed, whether the British patriot has really the feeling against the German that he has against his own countrymen of contrary views. Mr. Leo Maxse, in the National Review for February, 1911, indulges in the following expressions, applied, not to Germans, but to English statesmen elected by a majority of the English people: Mr. Lloyd George is a “fervid Celt animated by passionate hatred of all things English”; Mr. Churchill is simply a “Tammany Hall politician, without, however, a Tammany man’s patriotism.” Mr. Harcourt belongs to “that particular type of society demagogue who slangs Peers in public and fawns upon them in private.” Mr. Leo Maxse suggests that some of the Ministers should be impeached and hanged. Mr. McKenna is Lord Fisher’s “poll-parrot,” and the
