Abasement of Human Species 151 



tutes a collective selection (which is not true) the 

 political effects are much more likely to be regres- 

 sive than progressive. War has as a result des- 

 potism; and despotism leads to a limitation and 

 enfeeblement of the social life, not alone among 

 the conquered, but also among the conquerors, 

 because it is impossible to oppress a subjugated 

 people without oppressing at the same time those 

 who subjugate them. It is absurd, then, to 

 maintain that war has ever been able to produce, 

 from this point of view, the progress of civilization. 

 Renan repeats the same argument in another 

 form. If the fear of being defeated were not al- 

 ways present, he says, "it is difficult to say to what 

 degree of abasement the human species might 

 descend."^ And on the same page, he continues: 



When a population has produced everything which 

 it is able to produce with its resources, it would begin 

 to slow up if the fear of its neighbour did not spur it 

 on; because the object of humanity is not enjoyment; 

 to acquire and to create is the work of force and of 

 youth: to enjoy is the part of decrepitude. The fear 

 of conquest is thus, in human affairs, a necessary 

 spur.^ 



It is easy to show that security never produces 

 the "abasement of the human species," as Renan 

 affirms, but that, on the contrary, it is precisely 

 the fear of conquest which produces this abase- 



» See supra, p. 12. 



* La rejorme intellectuelle et morale, p. III. 



