PREFACE 



THIS book is the outcome of a study, com- 

 menced several years before the outbreak 

 of the war, with the object of making available 

 for English readers some of the important results 

 of recent researches on the applications of Darwin's 

 theory to human society. This subject is of 

 course much broader than the single question of 

 war; in fact, as I have tried to show, especially 

 in Chapter VIIL, the philosophy of force has 

 affected the entire structure of society. But it 

 frequently happens that it is through the discus- 

 sion of some special and critical problem that the 

 human race establishes general principles which 

 serve for the solution of a larger group of social 

 problems, and this is the consideration which has 

 led me to devote a large amount of attention to 

 the special question of war, in this general study 

 of the social applications of the Darwinian theory. 

 It is a significant commentary on the strength 

 of the deeper social and democratic currents in 

 modem Russia that the most important contri- 

 butions in this field have all been made by Russian 

 scientists. The rediscovery of Darwin's social 

 message may be dated from a lecture before a 

 congress of Russian naturaHsts in January, 1880, 



