spread of Social Darwinism 45 



feudal traditions of Japan, the influence of German 

 ideas upon Japanese education, the victory of the 

 Japanese over the Chinese in 1896 and over the 

 Russians in 1906, have combined to augment 

 the prestige of the philosophy of force and the 

 popularity of this distorted Darwinian doctrine in 

 Asia. Even China, with its centuries-old tradi- 

 tions of pacifism handed down from her great 

 philosophers and teachers, Confucius and Lao- 

 Tse and Mo, has felt the influence of the doctrine 

 brought back by her students from the universities 

 in Japan and Europe. 



Among all the Western nations the unprece- 

 dented growth of modern Imperialism, which 

 finds its scientific defence in the application of 

 the Darwinian theory to the struggle between 

 races, has given an immense impulse to the 

 philosophy of force. The leading characteristic 

 of international relations since 1870 has been 

 the competition of rival empires. From 1870 to 

 1900 Great Britain added to its domains an area 

 of 4,754,000 square miles, with an estimated 

 population of 88,000,000 — about forty times the 

 area and double the population of the mother 

 country. The close of the Franco-Prussian war 

 marked the beginning of a new colonial policy for 

 France, and a little later, for Germany, and this 

 policy began to assume practical form after 1880. 

 Since 1880 France has acquired an area of more 

 than 3,500,000 square miles, almost all of it tropical 

 or subtropical, with a native population of about 



