112 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



individual. All that part of the inheritance of 

 civilization which consisted of the conquests of the 

 intellect and of the arts, sciences, and other products 

 of mind would, I asserted, be rapidly acquired by 

 the less advanced peoples and would in the future 

 be utilized with surprising effect against the most 

 developed races by peoples upon whom they had 

 previously looked down. 



This prediction has been literally fulfilled in the 

 world since I wrote it. It was made over twenty 

 years ago, not only before the recent Russo- 

 Japanese War, but before the war between Japan and 

 China which preceded it, and at a period when no 

 Western power had yet dreamed of Japan obtaining 

 admission to the circle of the great powers of the 

 world in virtue of her own proved military efficiency 

 displayed through the acquired art and methods 

 of Western war. All the science of expanding 

 civilization in the future is related to the as yet 

 unexplored principles underlying the changes thus 

 almost suddenly effected hi the recent history of 

 Japan, and in the surprising history of modern Ger- 

 many. We have touched therein only the fringe 

 of a vast subject, and this only in one phase of it. 



It is necessary to get a grasp of the physical basis 

 of the process in human nature underlying these 

 events before the reach of it in the future of civiliza- 



