46 National Life 



ledge of facts and processes, is a minor 

 matter. 



You will see that my view and I think it 

 may be called the scientific view of a nation 

 is that of an organized whole, kept up to a 

 high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring 

 that its numbers are substantially recruited 

 from the better stocks, and kept up to a high 

 pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly 

 by way of war with inferior races, and with 

 equal races by the struggle for trade-routes 

 and for the sources of raw material and of 

 food supply. This is the natural history view 

 of mankind, and I do not think you can in 

 its main features subvert it. Some of you 

 may refuse to acknowledge it, but you cannot 

 really study history and refuse to see its force. 

 Some of you may realize it, and then despair 

 of life ; you may decline to admit any glory 

 in a world where the superior race must 

 either eject the inferior, or, mixing with it, or 

 even living alongside it, degenerate itself. 

 What beauty can there be when the battle is 

 to the stronger, and the weaker must suffer 

 in the struggle of nations and in the struggle 

 of individual men ? You may say : Let us 



