CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



foresight which prepares for the future, are all 

 quaUties that from their earliest appearance must 

 have been for the benefit of each community, 

 and would therefore have become the subjects 

 of natural selection. Tribes in which such men- 

 tal and moral qualities were predominant would 

 have an advantage in the struggle for existence 

 over other tribes in which they were less devel- 

 oped, and would live and maintain their num- 

 bers, while the others would decrease and finally 

 succumb." ^ 



The most conspicuous result of this unceas- 

 ing operation of natural selection upon rival 

 communities has been the continuous increase 

 of the aggregate military strength of the human 

 race, and the more and more complete segre- 

 gation of this military strength into those por- 

 tions of the race which are most civilized. As 

 Mr. Bagehot has ably shown,^ however broken 

 or discontinuous the progressive career of the 

 European family of nations may seem to have 

 been in other respects, there can hardly be a 

 doubt that the increase of their aggregate mili- 

 tary force has been uninterrupted. There can 

 hardly be a doubt that the total fighting power 

 of the Mediterranean communities was greater 



^ Wallace, Natural Selection^ p. 312. 



^ See his Physics and Politics y London, 1872, — a little 

 book so excellent both in thought and in expression that one 

 cannot but wish there were much more of it. 



