National Life and Character 309 



does become a military power on the European 

 model, this fact will hardly affect the American and 

 Australian at the end of the twentieth century more 

 than Japan's effort to get admitted to the circle of 

 civilized nations has affected us at the end of the 

 nineteenth. 



Finally, it must be borne in mind that if any one 

 of the tropical races ever does reach a pitch of indus- 

 trial and military prosperity which makes it a men- 

 ace to European and American countries, it will 

 almost necessarily mean that this nation has itself 

 become civilized in the process; and we shall then 

 simply be dealing with another civilized nation of 

 non-Aryan blood, precisely as we now deal with 

 Magyar, Fin, and Basque, without any thought of 

 their being ethnically distinct from Croat, Rouman, 

 or Wend. 



In Mr. Pearson's second chapter he deals with the 

 stationary order of society, and strives to show that 

 while we are all tending toward it, some nations, 

 notably France, have practically come to it. He 

 adds that when this stationary state is reached, it will 

 produce general discouragement, and will probably 

 affect the intellectual energy of the people concerned. 

 He further points out that our races now tend to 

 change from faith in private enterprises to faith in 

 State organizations, and that this is likely to di- 

 minish the vigorous originality of any race. He 

 even holds that we already see the beginning of a 

 decadence, in the decline of speculative thought, and 

 still more in the way of mechanical inventions. It 



