GREAT PAGAN RETROGRESSION 67 



before Nietzsche voiced the spirit of these theories, 

 and Haeckel clothed them in the terms of Dar- 

 winian science. But Spencer was an Ultra-democrat. 

 He hated militarism. He lived in England. He 

 therefore applied the Darwinian doctrine of the 

 efficient animal in his own way. 



Yet the result was essentially identical in both 

 cases. Spencer expressed through the individual 

 challenging with his rights the good of the whole 

 social organism the same Darwinian doctrine of the 

 primitive animal which Haeckel, Bernhardi, and the 

 German General Staff were seeking to embody in the 

 policy of military Germany challenging the world. 

 " The Christian duty of sacrifice for something highei 

 does not exist for the State, for there is nothing higher 

 than it in the world's history," said Bernhardi. 1 

 "The Christian duty of sacrifice for something higher 

 does not exist for the individual/' said Spencer in 

 effect, " for there is nothing higher than the individual 

 in the world's history." It was the same voice. It 

 expressed the same overwhelming intensive self- 

 assertion of the efficient Darwinian animal aiming 

 to be supreme and omnipotent in his own interests. 

 " All the dim aeons behind have toiled to produce 

 Me. Give Me My Rights. Stand out of My way. 

 There is nothing in the Universe higher than Me." * 



Germany and the Next War, chap. ii. a Harold Begbie, op. cit. 



