308 THE ISSUES OF LIFE 



phorically speaking, we may say that this has been Nature's 

 way of setting the seal of her approval on altruistic be- 

 haviour, even when the animal's left hand does not know 

 what its right hand doeth. 



§ 6. As regards Warfare. 



The position here defended has an obvious practical in- 

 terest, — in reference to war, for some have seriously main- 

 tained that human warfare has what is called ' Nature's 

 sanction ', that it is consonant with what goes on throughout 

 Animate Nature, which is believed to be in a state of uni- 

 versal Hobbesian warfare, each against all, and no discharge 

 for any. Moreover, human warfare is declared to be a con- 

 tinuation of a natural process which necessarily leads to the 

 survival of the relatively more fit. In the words of von 

 Bernhardi : " Wherever we look in nature, we find that war 

 is a fundamental law of evolution. This great verity, which 

 has been recognised in past ages, has been convincingly dem- 

 onstrated in modern times by Charles Darwin." 



Prof. Karl Pearson has given strong expression to the 

 view that a nation should be ^^ kept up to a high pitch of 

 internal efiiciency by insuring that its numbers are substan- 

 tially 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 food supply "... 

 (1901, p. 44). "When the struggle for existence between 

 races is suspended, the solution of great problems may be 

 unnaturally postponed ; instead of the slow stern processes 

 of evolution, cataclysmal solutions are prepared for the 

 future." . . . (1901, p. 20). "There will be nothing 

 to check the fertility of inferior stock ; the relentless law 



