PREFACE 



THIS little book is based on three lectures on " Evo- 

 lution and War/' given at the Royal Institution in 

 February, 1915. The lectures were delivered orally, 

 with the assistance of notes, and as soon as possible 

 afterwards I wrote out what I had said, rearranging 

 the matter in a form more suitable for reading, and 

 adding some details for which I had no time at the 

 lectures. I have also made fuller reference to 

 contemporary events than was permitted by the 

 custom of the Institution. 



Although the lectures would not have been given 

 but for the war, the ideas that underlie them are not 

 a by-product of current politics. The points of 

 resemblance and difference between nations and 

 species I discussed, on similar lines, in an article 

 published in The North American Review in October, 

 1904. In the account of race and nationality, given 

 in Chapter III, I have followed in broad outline the 

 facts that Professor Ripley has presented so lucidly 

 in The Races of Europe. In a strictly anthropological 

 discussion, many minor considerations, some of them 

 dealt with by Dr. Ripley himself, others raised by 

 other anthropologists and ethnologists, would have to 

 be reviewed. For the present purpose, these would 

 obscure needlessly that clear statement of the funda- 

 mental distinction between race and nationality 



