2 WAR & STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



primitive slime, on the one hand through sea-weeds 

 and mosses and ferns to tall trees and lovely flowers, 

 on the other, through worms and creeping things of 

 the sea to the alert and bright-eyed creatures of the 

 land, to antic apes and grave man. Few of us who 

 have written or spoken on the science we love so well 

 have not made at some time or another the facile 

 transition from analogy to argument, and writers 

 who deal with more pretentious affairs exude what 

 they assume to be Darwinism, 



The most notable instance of a zoological analogy 

 that has been presented as a deduction from scien- 

 tific law is the biological justification of war. I 

 propose to examine the case as it has been presented 

 by Germany, not because I covet the easy task of 

 proving the enemy of my country to be in the wrong. 

 The theory underlies much that has been thought 

 and written on war in many countries, but it has 

 seized the imagination of the German nation, con- 

 sciously rejoicing in the splendour of material 

 progress, and it appears to have contributed in 

 no small measure to the catastrophe which is 

 devastating civihzation. Having stated the German 

 theory as sympathetically as I can, I shall subject 

 the zoological analogy to close scrutiny. 



I propose to refrain from indignation at the results 

 of German error ; the pragmatical doctrine that 

 judges of the truth of a theory by its results, demands 

 a moral complacency perhaps more common in 

 Boston than in England. The shameful cruelty that 

 has devastated Belgium is^no more a proof of German 

 error than is the splendid heroism of a unanimous 

 nation a proof of German truth. In the long history 



