The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



[84] 



We can readily see that this is just what we 

 should expect. In times of peace there is 

 no slaughter of the strong, no sacrifice of 

 the courageous. In the peaceful struggle for 

 existence there is a premium placed on these 

 virtues. The virile and the brave survive. 

 The idle, weak, and dissipated go to the 

 wall. "What won the battles on the Yalu, 

 in Korea or Manchuria," says the Japanese, 

 Nitobe, was the ghosts of our fathers guid- 

 ing our hands and beating in our hearts. 

 They are not dead, these ghosts, those spir- 

 its of our warlike ancestors. Scratch a Japa- 

 nese, even one of the most advanced ideas, 

 and you will find a Samurai.'* If we trans- 

 late this from the language of Shintoism to 

 that of science we find it a testimony to the 

 strength of race-heredity, the survival of the 

 ways of the strong in the lives of the self- 

 reliant. 



If after two hundred years of incessant 

 battle Japan still remained virile and war- 

 like, that would indeed be the marvel. But 

 that marvel no nation has ever seen. It is 

 doubtless true that warlike traditions are 

 most persistent with nations most frequently 



