FALSE DOCTRINES. 229 



has not produced these events in the lives of nations, 

 and whether most of the exterminating wars between 

 different races may not have sprung from the inexorable 

 law of self-preservation ? Nations, like men, pass from 

 youth to age, and then die out so it may appear to the 

 superficial observer ; but if we look at the matter a 

 little more closely, we shall find that, as the conditions 

 for the continuance of the human race which nature has 

 placed in the ground are very limited and readily 

 exhausted, the nations that have disappeared from the 

 earth have dug their own graves by not knowing how 

 to preserve these conditions. Nations (like China and 

 Japan) who know how to preserve these conditions of 

 life do not die out. 



Not the fertility of the earth, but the duration of 

 that fertility, lies within the power of the human will. 

 In the final result, it comes very much to the same 

 thing, whether a nation gradually declines upon a soil 

 constantly diminishing in fertility, or whether, being a 

 stronger race, it maintains its own existence by exter- 

 minating and taking the place of another people upon a 

 land richer in the conditions of life. 



It can hardly be ascribed to caprice or chance that 

 the cultivator in the huertas of Valencia obtains three 

 crops yearly from the same soil, while in the immediate 

 neighbouring district the ground is tilled only once in 

 three years ; or that the Spaniards burned down forests 

 in sheer ignorance, in order to use the ashes to restore 

 the fertility of their fields. (See Appendix G.) 



Everyone who is at all acquainted with the natural 

 conditions of agriculture, must perceive that the method 

 of culture practised for centuries in most countries could 

 not but inevitably impoverish and exhaust even the 

 most fruitful lands ; can it then be supposed that there 

 will be any exception in the case of cultivated lands 

 in Europe, and that like causes will not produce like 

 effects ? 



Under these circumstances, is it right or reasonable 

 to pay any attention to the doctrines of superficial wise- 

 acres, who, with their wretched chemical analyses find 



