238 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



the world's most energetic people on each side. A part of the 

 Japanese should perhaps be included among the people living 

 where the climate is exceptionally stimulating, but since they took 

 little part in the war we may omit them. 



From what has been said thus far it appears that the advan- 

 tages of a highly energizing climate were almost equally divided 

 during the first four years of the war. Notice, however, that in 

 the table Germany is credited with over seventy million people, 

 while England has only forty-five million and even the United 

 States only fifty million who live in the best kind of climate. 

 Thus while Russia and the United States, and also India and 

 China, have more people than Germany, no other nation in the 

 world has so many people who live under a highly stimulating 

 climate. This, I believe, is one of the most important features 

 of the whole situation. Not only are the Germans comparatively 

 homogeneous in race, not only are they united under a single 

 government, but they are all under the stimulus of one of the best 

 climates in the whole world. To that in part, at least, they owe 

 their constant energy. Like the ancient Romans in a similarly 

 stimulating climate, they are capable of the stern self-discipline 

 which held them together in spite of hunger and sorrow. It is 

 as foolish for us to make light of the German virtues as it would 

 be to condone their sins. In enmity born of war we exulted over 

 the breaking down of moral standards, the increase of autocracy, 

 and then the spread of revolution. Yet, if we are open-minded, 

 we cannot deny that the Germans to a remarkable degree showed 

 their devotion to the state. We fondly hoped for a revolution 

 to help fight our battles; we have taken pleasure in deriding the 

 peasants and professors alike as the stupid dupes of autocracy. 

 That is a mistake on our part. They were doubtless the dupes 

 of their own false system of education, but they were thor- 

 oughly convinced that their system was right, that man's first 

 duty is to yield his own will and his own pleasure to the upbuilding 

 of the state. This conception may be right or wrong, but at any 



