CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 147 



swept over England forty-five years ago when I was a 

 boy. At that time Darwin had just published his 

 greatest work, The Origin of Species. Tyndall, Huxley, 

 and Herbert Spencer were at the height of their 

 intellectual power, and they had so rounded off the 

 materialistic theory of the universe that it seemed 

 impregnable. 



I have no wish to say a word against the great 

 scientists whose names I have mentioned. Much of 

 the work that they did will last for ever, and we owe 

 to them a deep debt of gratitude which we can only 

 acknowledge but never repay. Yet the materialistic 

 theory for which they stood is a thing of the past, and is 

 scarcely held by any responsible scientist of the present 

 day. Is it not strange that after the materialistic position 

 has been given up by all the scientists of repute, in the 

 practical affairs of politics gross materialism should still 

 hold undisputed sway, and that moreover with the full 

 approbation of the churches ! 



And now let us consider in what relationship does 

 war stand to this great law of the survival of the fittest. 

 It is easy to imagine that under very primitive conditions 

 war might tend towards progress. The weak and 

 unhealthy might be killed off by the strong and virile. 

 The unintelligent might be killed off by the more 

 intelligent. The selfish might be killed off by the 

 altruistic, whose willingness to co-operate with others, 

 would of course put them into a position of great 

 advantage. This might hold good under very primitive 

 conditions indeed. Probably it did not, in any large 

 degree, but conceivably it might have done. But, 

 however that may have been, civilised warfare chooses 

 the very best for death and destruction, leaving the worst 

 to repeople the earth with their offspring. What would 

 happen on a stock-farm, if the very beasts were killed 

 for food, and only the poorest were kept for breeding 



