SOME EUGENIC ASPECTS OF WAR 75 



peace is in history. Consider how the Crusades affected most 

 of Europe, and how the Hundred Years' War drained England 

 of large numbers of its most adventurous men. These instances 

 are instructive, because the belligerent countries were not over- 

 run by conquerors who extirpated the weaker and less daring 

 men, the non-combatant men ; nor were all, or nearly all, the 

 males forced into the wars. A residue composed of the less 

 adventurous men was preserved in relative safety, a condition 

 which does not obtain among bellicose savages, whose wars are 

 therefore not comparable to the present European conflict. 



The pessimistic writers cite the case of Rome. Rome waged 

 great wars and Rome decayed ; so likewise did Spain. But 

 England and Prussia have also waged great wars, and it will 

 not be contended that either England or Prussia is decadent. 

 Prussia's wars during the last three centuries have been much 

 more terrible than ours — the land has been ravaged again and 

 again, by fellow-Germans, by the Russians, and by the French — 

 but on the other hand, the case of England is especially pertinent 

 by reason of the phenomenon already mentioned, for the life of 

 the homeland could be carried on almost normally during nearly 

 all our recent wars, which merely extracted some of the vigorous 

 men. It should be said, however, that there appears to be 

 nothing in history which warrants the contrary conclusion that 

 peace leads to degeneracy. It is difficult to find any consider- 

 able population of European race which has been free, or almost 

 free, from war for any lengthy period, but there are a few not 

 very satisfactory instances. The Newfoundlanders have enjoyed 

 a relatively long peace, and they are certainly not degenerate ; 

 again, the Icelandic immigrants into America are said to make 

 energetic colonists. History does not help much with the 

 problem that we have before us. 



When we pass on to the theoretical side of the question, 

 to the application of the laws of heredity to the problem, we 

 find that although it is possible to show that the pessimistic 

 argument is very ill founded, yet this second method of attack 

 also fails to lead us to any very definite conclusions. And this 

 for the best of all possible reasons : there are no generally 

 accepted laws of heredity to apply. It is remarkable that any 

 scientist writing for the general public on a question of this 

 kind should not make this fundamentally important considera- 

 tion clear. And yet the point is often ignored. Even 



