THE FIGHTING ABILITY 



OF DIFFERENT RACES 



Letter from an American Officer, with Comments by John Jay Chapman and 



Henry Fairfield Osborn 



NO ADEQUATE scientific stud:2s 

 have ever been made on the 

 comparative fighting abihty of 

 difi^erent races. The "warring 

 instinct," or gregarious group-instinct, 

 is something quite apart from any de- 

 sire to fight single-handed, to quarrel 

 with one's neighbors, to go about with 

 a chip on one's shoulders, or to start 

 trouble out of nothing. The most polite 

 and peaceful morals may make the best 

 soldiers imder the stimulus of group 

 conflict. 



The readiness of nearly all peoples to 

 respond to this group-instinct for war 

 is not difficult to explain on grounds of 

 heredity. Mankind has been devoting 

 presumably half of its time to warfare, 

 so that any groups lacking that instinc- 

 tive tie that binds so marvelously one 

 to all, would, by and large, have been 

 hacked to pieces by more unified and 

 organized groups. Or, in other words, 

 those groups, compounded in the patri- 

 otic mold, with a maxim.um display of 

 bravery and individual self-sacrifice, 

 would survive as such, and in the long 

 run exterminate less closely formed 

 aggregates. 



The disposition to act in a quarrel- 

 some manner, to fight singlehanded, to 

 murder, or to disturb the harmony of 

 the social order represents a type of 

 man that has been acted upon by nat- 

 ural selection in precisely the opposite 

 way. Ever since human beings have 

 lived in settled communities, persons of 

 this sort have been seized upon by so- 

 ciety and summarily dealt with, so that 

 to a great extent these types have been 

 eliminated. ^ 



The willingness and, indeed, enthu- 



siasm with which so many nations en- 

 tered into the recent great war, as soon 

 as the gregarious instinct reached a 

 certain point of contagion, would seem 

 to indicate the general or widespread 

 distribution of the warring impulse. 

 The countless evidences of bravery and 

 marvelous self-sacrifice that have 

 reached us from all quarters might give 

 the impression that all people are equally 

 brave and that there is little difference 

 in the value of the fighting ability of 

 different races. 



This may or may not be true ; but in 

 the absence of systematic knowledge 

 on this important question it is at least 

 interesting to read the following letter 

 contributed by Mr. Madison Grant, 

 whose recent "Passing of the Great 

 Race" has extended an interest in the 

 applications of the study of heredity. 



This letter was written to Mr. Grant 

 by an officer who had become interested 

 in racial questions and who evidently 

 thinks that "blood will tell." It is pub- 

 lished here in full recognition that it is 

 merely the testimony of a single indi- 

 vidual. 



Mr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, who 

 also sent to the Journal of Heredity 

 a copy of this letter, has added some 

 comment on the questions involved and 

 has answered a criticism raised by Mr. 

 John Jay Chapman. 



Hereditary and Acquired Fighting 

 Ability 



American Museum of Natural Historx. 

 December 26. 1918.' 

 For the "Journal of Heredity" 

 The following opinions, formed by 

 one of the American artilleiy captains 



^ A fuller discussion of the results of warfare on human evolution, through the 

 processes of natural selection and survival, may be found in "Is War Diminishing?" 

 by Woods, F. A., and Baltzly, A., Boston, 1915. 



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