338 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



of the citizen host and to the degeneration of the para- 

 sitic ruler. The more efficient the system, the more 

 deadly its effects, and the greater the catastrophe when 

 it breaks down under the final test. 



One of the chief sources of Germany's growth in 

 power was the development of her science; her delib- 

 erate prostitution of science was one of the many causes 

 of her destruction. 



The egoistic and altruistic spirit of science, the 

 craving for truth for truth's own sake, and the impulse, 

 when once it is found, freely to convey truth to those 

 who have it not, is man's most precious possession; 

 for truth is the only creative attribute which by right of 

 conquest he may justly call his own. 



But when the trained scientist, the dedicated disci- 

 ple of truth, is deliberately perverted into an artful 

 propagandist, or a scientific instrument of intrigue, 

 whose chief purpose is to scatter lies and create con- 

 fusion and anarchy abroad, the better to fish in troubled 

 waters, the very spirit that created him is poisoned at 

 its source, and science itself is destroyed. The spirit 

 of science and the spirit of intrigue are mutually ex- 

 clusive and mutually destructive. They cannot flour- 

 ish in the same soil. For no man, or nation, can be 

 an effective conveyor of lies and truth at the same time ; 

 success in the one attempt automatically excludes suc- 

 cess in the other. 



Or consider the egoistic philosophy itself. A 

 purely predatory system must live and grow on the 

 exploited, hence it is limited in its growth to their re- 

 sources. When those admittedly inferior resources are 

 exhausted, but two alternatives are available, each end- 

 ing in self-destruction; that is, either the system must 



