Survival of the Fittest Races 49 



Probably every one would agree that an English- 

 man would be right in considering his way of looking 

 at the world and at life better than that of the Maori 

 or Hottentot, and no one will object in the abstract 

 to England doing her best to impose her better and 

 higher view on those savages. But the same idea will 

 carry you much farther. In so far as an Englishman 

 differs in essentials from a Swede or Belgian, he believes 

 that he represents a more perfectly developed standard 

 of general excellence. Yes, and even those nations 

 nearest to us in mind and sentiment — German and 

 Scandinavian — we regard on the whole as not so 

 excellent as ourselves, comparing their typical char- 

 acteristics with ours. Were this not so, our energies 

 would be directed to becoming what they are. With- 

 out doing this, however, we may well endeavour to 

 pick out their best qualities and add them to ours, 

 believing that our compound will be superior to the 

 foreign stock. 



It is the mark of an independent nation that it 

 should feel thus. How far such a feeling is, in any 

 particular case, justified, history alone decides. But 

 it is essential that each claimant for the first place 

 should put forward his whole energy to prove his 

 right. This is the moral justification for international 

 strife and for war, and a great change must come 

 over the world and over men's minds before there can 

 be any question of everlasting universal peace, or the 

 settlement of all international differences by arbitra- 

 tion. More especially must the difficulty caused by 

 the absence of a generally recognized standard of 

 justice be felt in the case of contact between civilized 

 and uncivilized races. Is there any likelihood of the 

 gulf between the white and the black man being 

 4 



