WAR AND MANHOOD 97 



they breed " to the foreign service, while cautious, thrifty mediocrity 

 filled up the ranks at home. 



In his charming studies of " Feudal and Modern Japan," Mr. 

 Arthur Knapp, of Yokohama, returns again and again to the great 

 marvel of Japan's military prowess after more than two hundred years 

 of peace. This was shown in the Chinese war. It has been more con- 

 clusively shown on the fields of Manchuria since Mr. Knapp's book was 

 written. It is astonishing to him that, after more than six generations 

 in which physical courage has not been demanded, these virile virtues 

 should be found unimpaired. We can readily see that this is just what 

 we should expect. In times of peace there is no slaughter of the strong, 

 no sacrifice of the courageous. In the peaceful struggle for existence 

 there is a premium placed on these virtues. The virile and the brave 

 survive. The idle, weak and dissipated go to the wall. " What won 

 the battles on the Yalu, in Korea or Manchuria," says the Japanese, 

 Mtobe, " was the ghosts of our fathers guiding our hands and beating 

 in our hearts. They are not dead, these ghosts, those spirits of our 

 warlike ancestors. Scratch a Japanese, even one of the most advanced 

 ideas, and you will find a Samurai." If we translate this from the 

 language of Shintoism to that of science we find it a testimony to the 

 strength of race-heredity, the survival of the ways of the strong in the 

 lives of the self-reliant. 



If after two hundred years of incessant battle Japan still remained 

 virile and warlike, that would indeed be the marvel. But that marvel 

 no nation has ever seen. It is doubtless true that warlike traditions are 

 most persistent with nations most frequently engaged in war. But 

 the traditions of war and the physical strength to gain victories are 

 very different things. Other things being equal, the nation which has 

 known least of war is the one most likely to develop the " strong bat- 

 talions " with whom victory must rest. 



As Americans we are more deeply interested in the fate of our 

 mother country than in that of the other nations of Europe. 



What shall we say of England and of her relation to the reversed 

 selection of war? 



Statistics we have none, and no evidence of tangible decline that 

 Englishmen will not indignantly repudiate. When the London press 

 in the vacation season fills its columns with editorials on English de- 

 generation, it is something else to which these journalists refer. ■ Their 

 problem is that of the London slums, of sweat-shops and child-labor, of' 

 wasting overwork and of lack of nutrition, of premature old age and of' 

 sodden drunkenness — influences which bring about the degeneration 

 of the individual, the inefficiency of the social group, but which for the- 

 most part leave no trace in heredity and are therefore no factor in the- 

 degeneration of the race. Such degradation is at once cause, effect 



vol. lxxvih. — 7. 



