EVOLUTION AND 

 THE WAR 



CHAPTER I 



WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



SOLOMON the King, admonishing the sluggard, bade 

 him go to the ant and learn wisdom from her ways, 

 and analogies between human conduct and the 

 behaviour of animals are familiar in all literature. 

 Such zoological images have lent a charm to homily 

 and have smoothed the rough path of philosophical 

 argument. They have adorned many a tale and 

 have pointed many a moral. But now they come to 

 us with a new authority. Since Charles Darwin 

 convinced the world that man came into existence 

 by descent from lower animals, zoological analogies 

 are presented to us not as literature but as scientific 

 fact. The augurs of imperial Rome advised on grave 

 matters of state after inspecting the entrails of 

 animals or marking the flight of birds. Modern 

 philosophers explain and justify human conduct after 

 a visit to the monkey-house at the Zoological Gar- 

 dens, or from observations on the family life of 

 rabbits. 



Indeed, no result of modern science is so alluring 

 as the doctrine of the continuity of all life, the con- 

 ception of the ascent, under natural laws, of a 



