The Days of a Man 



1898 





Eugenic 

 studies 



Democracy Nevertheless, the dangers indicated in my ad- 

 dress after Dewey's victory proved to be very real. 

 The country was flooded with arguments for "ex- 

 pansion," and the once-abhorred word "imperial- 

 ism" was received with great enthusiasm by th 

 press and a majority of our citizens as a glorious 

 slogan. It was then that my own mind began to 

 turn more directly to matters of government 

 national, international, and municipal. My con- 

 ception of democracy had always implied self-gov- 

 ernment, but more and more I now came to realize 

 the truth of Lincoln's words, so easily forgotten 

 under political temptation: "No people is good 

 enough to govern another against its will." 1 



During this period, also, I first began to study 

 seriously the effect of war on the human breed, 

 the constant elimination of the strong and brave, 

 as well as of the bully and the soldier of fortune, 

 a matter only briefly indicated by Darwin and 

 Spencer, although the actual fact of the reversal 

 of human selection through militarism and war 

 was most tersely stated by the former in 1871 in 

 "The Descent of Man": 



In every country in which a standing army is kept up, the 

 fairest young men are taken to the conscription camp and 

 there enlisted. They are thus exposed to early death during 

 war and are often tempted into vice and are prevented from 

 marrying during the prime of life. On the other hand, the shorter 

 and feebler men with poor constitutions are left at home and 

 consequently have a better chance of marrying and propagating 

 their kind. 



1 "Imperial Democracy," published in 1899, contains six of my addresses 

 of that and the previous year: "Lest We Forget," "A Blind Man's Holiday," 

 "The Captain Sleeps," "Colonial Lessons of Alaska," "A Continuing City," 

 and "The Last of the Puritans." 



C 618 3 



Darwin 

 on war 

 selection 





