356 pearl: biology and war 



Furthermore, military results are not, in fact, measured in 

 terms of biological survival. History shows that defeated nations 

 survive just as definitely and truly as conquering races or nations. 

 No better example could be found of the fallacy of the completely 

 mechanistic natural selection idea with reference to war than our 

 own Civil War, which was the most severely and bitterly fought 

 of any war in recent history before the present conflict. No 

 question of biological survival was involved at any stage ; it was a 

 struggle to effect the survival or elimination of certain politico- 

 social ideas held by one group of people and not by the ether. 

 These ideas were slavery and secession. One of the contending 

 groups was defeated ; no military decision can ever be more com- 

 plete and final than was that reached in the Civil War. If mili- 

 tary conquests or defeats ever mean biological survival or elimi- 

 nation the principle should have been exemplified in the Civil 

 War. Yet as a matter of fact and of course the defeated group 

 was not eliminated in the biological sense, but biologically sur- 

 vived, and not only survived, but has become as a group more 

 active, more progressive, and more distinctly differentiated 

 biologically than it was before the conflict. 



Other wars at other times show the same things. Take the 

 case of peoples subjugated by military conquests; they are not 

 eliminated, but on the contrary they survive, using the word in 

 its strict biological signification. The natives participating in 

 the Indian mutiny suffered a stinging military punishment. Yet 

 today the natives of India survive, and their institutions survive. 

 Again, take another example : it was necessary for us some years 

 ago to conquer in a military sense the Filipinos. The unpleasant 

 task was accomplished in a thorough-going manner. A complete 

 military decision was made, but the Filipinos were not bio- 

 logically eliminated, and today have a significantly stronger 

 and more real national feeling than probably ever before in their 

 history. 



Nearer events prove the same point. No more ruthless at- 

 tempt at the biological elimination of a nation was ever made than 

 that undertaken by the Germans against Belgium in the summer 

 of 1914 and continued to the present time. Yet, does anyone, 

 even a German, delude himself into the belief that the Belgian 



