Imperial Darwinism 47 



one hand, "social Darwinism" was enlisted to 

 justify the methods of force which were used so 

 extensively in this process of conquest and subjuga- 

 tion; on the other hand, the results of Imperial- 

 ism were pointed to as the proofs of the process 

 of the survival of the fittest and the inevitable 

 dominance of the higher civilization, thus con- 

 tributing to the spread of the pseudo-scientific 

 doctrine. 



Even sociologists have shown themselves eager 

 in some cases to accept the philosophy of force 

 as the sufficient justification of Imperialism, and to 

 apply it to defend the necessity, the utility, and 

 even the righteousness of continuing the physical 

 struggle between races and types of civilization 

 to the point of complete subjugation or extermi- 

 nation. Thus Professor Karl Pearson maintains 

 that a constant struggle with other groups or 

 races is demanded for the maintenance and pro- 

 gress of a race or nation. If you abate the neces- 

 sity of struggle, the vigour of the race flags and 

 perishes. It is to the real interest of a vigorous 

 race, he says, to be 



kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, 

 chiefly by way of war with inferior races, and with 

 equal races by the struggle for trade routes and for 

 the sources of raw material and of food supply. This 

 is the natural history view of mankind, and I do not 

 think you can in its main features subvert it.^ 



' National Life from the Standpoint of Science, 1901, p. 44. 



