312 National Life and Character 



itself to the warfare of the cradle, no race has any 

 chance to win a great place unless it consists of good 

 breeders as well as of good fighters. But it may 

 well be that these conditions will change in the 

 future, when the other changes to which Mr. Pear- 

 son looks forward with such melancholy, are them- 

 selves brought about. A nation sufficiently populous 

 to be able to hold its own against aggression 

 from without, a nation which, while developing 

 the virtues of refinement, culture, and learning, has 

 yet not lost those of courage, bold initiative, and 

 military hardihood, might well play a great part 

 in the world, even though it had come to that sta- 

 tionary state already reached by the dominant castes 

 of thinkers and doers in most of the dominant races. 

 In Mr. Pearson's third chapter he dwells on some 

 of the dangers of political development, and in es- 

 pecial upon the increase of the town at the expense 

 of the country, and upon the growth of great stand- 

 ing armies. Excessive urban development undoubt- 

 edly does constitute a real and great danger. All 

 that can be said about it is that it is quite impos- 

 sible to prophesy how long this growth will con- 

 tinue. Moreover, some of the evils, as far as they 

 really exist, will cure themselves. If townspeople 

 do, generation by generation, tend to become stunted 

 and weak, then they will die out, and the problem 

 they cause will not be permanent; while on the 

 other hand, if the cities can be made healthy, both 

 physically and morally, the objections to them must 

 largely disappear. As for standing armies, Mr. 



