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1916-17.] Darwinism and Human Civilisation. 
true, but war is not the only means by which such defects can be remedied. 
The keynote of German military Kultur is that the end justifies the 
means, and that these means are determined by the dogma that “ Might is 
right.” On the other hand, the dominant factors of cultured humanity 
are truth, justice, toleration, self-restraint, altruism, and “ Honour bright.” 
The former code of ethics is destructive, and leads to primitive barbarism ; 
the latter is constructive, and aims at improving social life by adding 
further ekes to the hoary structure of human civilisation. 
Opinions condemnatory of the bloodthirsty methods of German military 
Kultur since the commencement of the present war are not the monopoly of 
a few philosophical cranks, but the deliberate judgment of mankind. How 
this misanthropic virus should have so thoroughly permeated the minds of 
a whole nation as to overshadow and obliterate all moral and altruistic 
doctrines, is still a profound mystery. On this phase of the subject Lord 
Curzon, in presiding over a meeting at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, spoke 
as follows : — 
“ If the war has taught them one thing more clearly convincing than 
another, it was that the literature and art of peoples were the true ex- 
pressions of their character and psychology. The nation that produced a 
corrupt and debased literature was itself debased and corrupt. The 
Germans had for years been preaching the doctrine and cult of militarism, 
and infusing the virus of organised brutality into the minds of the German 
people. Books which preached the doctrine of brute force, material 
arrogance, and world-wide dominion were circulated and read by hundreds 
of thousands of people in Germany. All this had gone on for years, and 
then suddenly war broke out, and we found the revelation of this spirit in 
the acts and conduct of the people. In a moment, what the sculpture, the 
literature, and the art of the people had been, so they were on the battle- 
field. We now know there was no crime so black, no atrocity so revolting, 
no abomination so foul that it was not perpetrated by the German people, 
and perpetrated with pride and self-glorification.” * 
Since this earth became a suitable habitat for organic life, countless 
millions of living organisms have come to a premature end in consequence 
of sudden cataclysmic changes in the physical world ; but no catastrophe 
under this category up to Anno Domini 1914 has taken place comparable 
to that produced by the hand of man, during the present European war, 
on account of the enormous destruction of life and property it has entailed. 
Let us hope that this attempt of the Germans to establish world-power on 
the basis that might is right will be defeated, and that freedom, justice, and 
* From The Times , November 30, 1916. 
