Nature of Struggle between Races 145 



struggle against nature does not suffice," he 

 says, when this struggle is precisely existence itself, 

 when it takes place every second, every instant, 

 without ceasing, not only for the whole human 

 race, but for the entire realm of life itself. More- 

 over, in speaking of the "struggle of races," 

 Renan is not considering realities. Race is a 

 physiological term : if wars took place only between 

 the white races and the negroes, or between the 

 white and the yellow races, it might be possible to 

 identify war with the struggle of the races. But 

 this is not the case. War takes place very often 

 between peoples who are closely allied by descent, 

 as between the Anglo-Saxons and the Germans. 

 This can hardly be stretched to "the struggle of 

 races." In reality, what Renan means by "the 

 struggle of races " is the struggle between nationali- 

 ties, and here he is under the hypnotism of the 

 cataclysmic theory, failing to see that the struggle 

 between nationalities does not take place by 

 means of collective homicide, but by the processes 

 of intellectual assimilation. We must seek in psy- 

 chic processes the true nature of the struggle 

 between races, as exemplified in Austria-Hungary, 

 in Alsace-Lorraine, or in Poland, where the 

 Prussians have tried in vain for one hundred 

 and fifty years to Germanize the Polish people by 

 force. As we shall see there, the true struggle 

 between races takes place in the domain of social 

 microscopy, if we may use this expression, and if a 

 social selection takes place, it operates by social 



