18 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



Darwinism to the great problems involved in the evolution 6t 

 races, nations, and ideals. 



It has taken millions of years to evolve the human race. The 

 impress of those millions of years is engraved upon everything 

 that we do. Perhaps the greatest mistake of the thinkers of the 

 past has been the idea that religion, education, philanthropy, 

 good government, or any other products of the last few thou- 

 sand years can eradicate or even neutralize tendencies which are 

 the product of a hundred million years of evolution. The only 

 way to eradicate them is to change the course of evolution. Such 

 a procedure takes time, but it can be done. Nature has done it 

 again and again in the past. We have been doing it unconsciously 

 for several thousand years. The case of mankind is like that of 

 a ship that has been drifting with the current, but which now finds 

 at its helm an ignorant child who twists the rudder according to 

 his whims. He steers the ship into slavery, monasticism, com- 

 merce, manufacturing, warfare, nationalism, a sedentary life, the 

 use of machines, and a host of other habits totally different from 

 the conditions under which most of man's evolution took place. 

 The human animal now rides instead of walks; lives in stuffy 

 houses instead of out of doors or in caves ; wears clothes instead 

 of exposing his body to the weather; and eats soft, cooked, con- 

 centrated food instead of that which is raw, tough, and bulky. 

 He preserves the sick and weakly instead of letting them- die; 

 he permits an economic and social system which causes the people 

 with greatest mental power to have the fewest children, while the 

 stupid breed like rabbits ; and he moves recklessly from one kind 

 of environment to another without regard to the possible effects. 

 In addition to all this, modern civilization imposes upon mankind 

 a tremendous burden of mental and moral responsibility. We 

 expect the ordinary farmer or laborer to restrain his passions; 

 to abide by a multitude of laws and customs which he had no 

 voice in framing; to feel a sense of responsibility for affairs of 

 state which neither he nor the profoundest scholars can really 



