40 Causes of its Success 



Bismarck had in a rare degree the love of force, the 



joy of exercising and expanding his power and that 

 of his people. He constantly put into practice this 

 "agonistic" conception of existence without remorse 

 and without scruple, without pity for the feeble, and 

 without generosity for the vanquished. ^ 



Men of Bismarck's type found in the new doc- 

 trines complete justification for their tendencies, 

 a kind of superior sanction for a policy of blood and 

 iron. Political theory in all Europe was based 

 on the new "social Darwinism," and it was pro- 

 claimed that might always makes right. Bis- 

 marck was the leader of the school in Germany ; in 

 England, Chamberlain; in the United States and 

 elsewhere the Imperialists proclaimed with the 

 Iron Chancellor that force alone is noble, beautiful, 

 and respectable. Banditism was raised upon a 

 superb pedestal by the sovereigns, the ministers, 

 and the statesmen with the instinct of conquest. 



The historical events of the second half of the 

 nineteenth century contributed greatly to the 

 spread of the philosophy of force as a theory of 

 international relations. Novikov^ has traced with 

 fine insight the way in which the idea of the 

 struggle for existence and the survival of the 

 fittest was applied to nations under the influence of 

 these historical events. 



The development of the Darwinian ideas had 

 been especially marked in Germany, where the 



' VAllemagne moderne et son evolution. Paris, 1907, p. I13. 

 * La Critique du Darwinisme social, pp. 12-15. 



