20 SCIENCE AND MORALS 



follow from his theory and the dire results which 

 they have produced. 1 



In the first place such a doctrine leads directly 

 to the conclusion that war, instead of being the 

 curse and disaster which all reasonable people, 

 not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bern- 

 hardi puts it, " a biological necessity, a regulative 

 element in the life of mankind that cannot be 

 dispensed with." It is " the basis of all healthy 

 development." " Struggle is not merely the 

 destructive but the life-giving principle. The 

 law of the strong holds good everywhere. Those 

 forms survive which are able to secure for them- 

 selves the most favourable conditions. The 

 weaker succumb." Humanity has had at times 

 evidences of the results of this teaching which are 

 not, one may fairly say, of a kind to commend 

 themselves to any person possessed of a moderately 

 kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. 

 Fortunately, or unfortunately, we have the 

 opportunity of studying the experiment in actual 

 operation in a race which, of course in entire 

 ignorance of the fact, is actually putting into 

 practice the teachings of Natural Selection, 

 though it must be admitted that the practice has 

 not been successful, nor does it look like being 

 successful, in raising that race above the very 

 lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain 

 Whiff en 2 has given a very complete and a very 



1 For a discussion of this question, see Bernhardi and Creation, 

 by Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. Glasgow : James 

 Maclehose & Sons. 1916. 



* The North-west Amazons. London : Constable & Co. 1915. 



