350 pearl: biology and war 



absolute and unique base or yardstick. But no such absolute 

 base of social evolutionary comparison exists. For example, 

 even at this late date, someone might conceivably contend that 

 the Germans, were superior to the Hottentots, but it would be a 

 difficult thing to prove in general or absolute terms. Measured 

 by common sense standards one would no doubt find that in some 

 respect — physical, or moral, or even perhaps intellectual — the 

 Hottentot is a relatively better man in his environment than 

 the German is in his. Plainly, in order to be just to either the 

 Hottentot or the Hun each should be measured by a different 

 yardstick. But this quite prevents saying in any absolute terms 

 which of the two is the superior race. Like so many other things 

 "it all depends." But this logical difficulty only makes it all 

 the clearer that Hottentots are different from Germans. 



Not only are the different races and national groups generally 

 different, but broadly speaking, they all want to stay so, and this 

 is what causes all that special sort of trouble, which is war. The 

 resentment against the high-handed imposition of that Prussian 

 "Kultur" which we are all so strenuously opposing, arises not so 

 much from any logically proved defects in this particular brand 

 of Kultur (though parenthetically one may remark that they 

 appear to be sufficiently numerous), but rather because, being 

 different, the people of other nations simply do not want it. 

 They prefer their own particular brand of thought and action. 

 The one fundamental thing which an Englishman or a Frenchman 

 will fight against to the last ditch is any attempt to make him 

 over into a German. 



The same feeling is exemplified in every war. We fought 

 bitterly for it in the Civil War. The people who originally 

 settled in the southern portion of the United States were biologi- 

 cally and socially different in several important particulars from 

 those who settled in the northern part. The Southerner fought 

 hard and well for four years to keep from being dominated by the 

 Northerner. He had a strong feeling, which was to a certain 

 extent justifiable, that domination meant the obliteration, for 

 all practical purposes, of certain differences which had up to that 

 time existed between him and his Northern neighbor. The same 



