ESSAYS 133 



With regard to the Romans. Dr. Otto Seeck, who has made a careful investi- 

 gation of the subject, comes to the conclusion that the decline of Rome was largely 

 due to political murders and to voluntary enlistment ; and such a view is quite as 

 plausible as the view Prof. Jordan prefers. But it might be equally well contended 

 that the fall of Rome was due to malaria, or too much eating, or too many hot 

 baths. We do not know, and we can speculate as much as we please. But we 

 must not use speculations as corner-stones in any scientific theory of the conse- 

 quences of war. 



With regard to the lopping of the French. It is by no means certain that the 

 modern Frenchman is shorter than the Frenchman of Napoleon's time, and even 

 granting that he is shorter, it would be very difficult to prove that the shortening 

 is the result of war. Further, even if we could prove both propositions, we should 

 still be unwarranted in formulating a general law ; for the Teutons, who have 

 possibly suffered more from war than any other race in Europe, are a tall race ; 

 and the Montenegrins, who have been decimated by war for centuries, are much 

 above ordinary stature ; rendering it difficult to believe that they have been 

 pruned by battle. 



In old-time wars, when men fought hand to hand with their foes, it is quite 

 possible that the tall strong men, with weight and reach, killed the small weak 

 men — though, even then, brains were of some survival value, and the " race was 

 not always to the swift and the battle to the strong " — and that, therefore, old-time 

 wars led, in some degree, to an increase in the average stature of fighting nations. 

 But it is much less likely that recent wars, waged with modern firearms, picked 

 off the tall so much more frequently than the short as to lead to a permanent 

 reduction in the average height of the belligerent nations. It must be remembered 

 that the selective agent in most recent wars has been bacteria rather than bullets, 

 and we have no reason to think that the tall succumbed more readily to disease 

 than the very short. 



In any case, it would be extremely difficult to make any permanent alteration 

 in the average stature of any nation of pure or well-mixed race by any process of 

 lethal selection. Variations of stature in the members of any race are, as we now 

 know, mainly a matter of nurture — a matter of mother's milk, oatmeal, fresh air, 

 and so on — and a tall man's progeny and a short man's progeny tend respectively 

 to go up and down to the average height of the race ; or, as the biometricians put 

 it, "to revert to the mean." Johannsen, in very interesting experiments, has 

 shown that large pea plants and small pea plants grown from peas of the same 

 pea-pod have equal potentialities ; and the individuals, big and small, of a nation 

 are, so to speak, from the same pea-pod, or of the same stock. 



A nation like the French, it is true, consists of three distinct races : in the 

 north, the Scandinavian, tall and blonde ; in the middle, the Slavonic, medium- 

 sized and dark ; and in the south, the Mediterranean, dark and short ; and, if so 

 be, a large proportion of the two first races happened to be killed off, there might 

 be a permanent reduction in the height of Frenchmen, but even then the women 

 of Scandinavian and Slavonic stock might be able to perpetuate the physique of 

 their races. Further, any statistics that might happen to show diminution in 

 height of a nation after war must be interpreted with caution, since in many cases 

 the diminution may be due to the poverty and underfeeding that so often follow war. 

 This slight discussion of these comparatively simple questions may serve to 

 show how carefully we must go when we consider the eugenics and dysgenics 

 of war. 



Sweeping statements with regard to the selective consequences of war in 



