Januakt 25, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



79 



It is well to ask ourselves frankly how 

 we come to be in this peril to which our 

 minds revert irresistibly. How is it that 

 we and our allies, excelling the Teutons in 

 both the ponderables and the imponder- 

 ables, in material resources, in wealth, and 

 in population, on one hand, and with im- 

 measurably higher ethical standards on 

 the other, yet can point to no clear evi- 

 dence of victory? We know that we excel 

 in organizing power. "We know that they 

 have no product of organization compar- 

 able vnth our industries of the Ford motor 

 car, the Bell telephone, the IngersoU dollar 

 watch, the Eastman Kodak, or the United 

 States Steel Corporation. We know that 

 the organization of our transportation is 

 of a higher order of merit than theirs. We 

 know that in these three years the British 

 have made even a better war organization 

 than the forty-four years since Sedan have 

 given Germany. How comes it then that 

 though we are incomparably stronger, 

 richer, and more capable, we are yet in 

 danger of defeat, of national overthrow, of 

 becoming a German satrapy, a second Bel- 

 gium or Poland? Do we not know that 

 our disadvantage lies in our political sys- 

 tem, and that in this struggle for existence 

 it is not showing itself clearly the fittest 

 for survival? Have we not lost sight of 

 this terrible law of the survival of the fit- 

 test, not the fittest ethically, or spiritually, 

 or intellectually, but the fittest to destroy 

 competitors physically? What are the 

 ethics of the snake, the tiger, or the hyena 

 that they have survived in this struggle? 

 The bloodthirsty buccaneers were neither 

 the ethical nor the spiritual betters of the 

 Aztecs and Incas. The Romans were the 

 inferiors of the Greeks, yet they overthrew 

 them, and in turn were overthrown by the 

 barbarians. Fitness for survival must be 

 physical. 



It is well to ask ourselves franklv 



whether we have not been living in a fool's 

 paradise. We have rejoiced in the merits 

 of our political system, in the kind of men 

 and women which it has bred, through 

 opening every career to all, through stimu- 

 lating each one to strive to his utmost in 

 his chosen path. In our natural rejoicing 

 have we not shut our eyes obstinately to its 

 defects? Have we not refused to see that 

 our system neces.sarily impels those in office 

 to direct their energies towards their own 

 re-election rather than towards the welfare 

 of the state, to please and propitiate the 

 electors rather than to direct and inspire 

 them, to tell them what it is their wish 

 rather than their true interest to hear, and 

 thus in effect to substitute the temporary 

 opinions of the majority, unfamiliar with 

 state matters, for the vision of the bom 

 leaders as the determinant of state policy? 

 We rejoice that our system educates the 

 voters in statecraft, that it broadens their 

 horizon, that it breeds strong units, but we 

 have been too weak, too self-complacent to 

 remedy its defects of leaving those units 

 uncemented, so that they form what may be 

 likened to a friable sandstone, a whole 

 which, in spite of being composed of ex- 

 tremely strong units, is yet incoherent. 



The state has as a most important duty 

 this strengthening of the individual units, 

 but that does not justify neglecting the 

 equally important duty of perpetuating 

 itself. We make a fetish of our political 

 system and regard its designers as in- 

 spired. They certainly were most intelli- 

 gent and patriotic, and builded well-con- 

 sidering how little actual experimental evi- 

 dence they had to guide them. But we 

 should not hold their system sacrosanct. 

 Indeed, one essential part of it, the electoral 

 college, soon proved wholly impracticable, 

 impotent to do its work of selecting a 

 president, and became a mere registrar of 

 decisions reached by others. This promi- 



