POWER IN CIVILIZATION 108 



the West. Writers in the newspapers and reviews 

 of the day continually give it great prominence. 

 In Great Britain and America, since Herbert 

 Spencer's social theories began to affect opinion, 

 those sharing his views have been strongly under 

 the influence of the idea of inborn heredity as the 

 controlling factor in civilization. On the continent 

 of Europe the Conception of Darwinian heredity 

 has formed the basis of nearly all modern theories 

 about the relations of the individual to society. 

 Haeckel made heredity the foundation of his 

 ethics. Lombroso and his school made heredity 

 the basis of their characteristic theories about 

 individual faculties in their relation to society. 

 The group of writers on political science which most 

 profoundly influenced the development of modern 

 Germany in the period before the Great War which 

 opened in 1914 were deeply influenced by the idea 

 of heredity. Bernhardi in his pages continually glori- 

 fies in Darwinian terms the characteristic fighting 

 heredity of the West. Even Treitschke's essays are 

 strewn with expressions such as "noble nations," 

 " brave races," and with references to the physical 

 and mental inheritance of the Germanic and other 

 peoples, all of which, like most of the Darwinian 

 theories quoted by Bernhardi. imply this conception 

 of the overruling importance of inborn hereditv. 



