uct. It will not be
without interest to consider their plans and to endeavour to form some
sort of an idea of what kind of place the world would be if they had
their way. We can then form our own opinion as to whether a world
conducted on such lines would be in any way a tolerable place for human
existence.

First of all we may dwell briefly on Natural Selection as a rule of
life, since it has been put forward as such by quite a number of
persons. Never, let it at once be said, by the great and gentle-hearted
originator of that theory, who during his life had to protest as to the
ignorant and exaggerated ideas which were expressed about it and who,
were he now alive, would certainly be shocked at the teachings which are
supposed to follow from his theory and the dire results which they have
produced.[18]

In the first place such a doctrine leads directly to the conclusion that
war, instead of being the curse and disaster which all reasonable
people, not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bernhardi puts
it, "a biological necessity, a regulative element in the life of mankind
that cannot be dispensed with." It is "the basis of all healthy
development." "Struggle is not merely the destructive but the
life-giving principle. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.
Those forms survive which are able to secure for themselves the most
favourable conditions. The weaker succumb." Humanity has had at times
evidences of the results of this teaching which are not, one may fairly
say, of a kind to commend themselves to any person possessed of a
moderately kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. Fortunately,
or unfortunately, we have the opportunity of studying the experiment in
actual operation in a race which, of course in entire ignorance of the
fact, is actually putting into practice the teachings of Natural
Selection, though it must be admitted that the practice has not been
successful, nor does it look like being successful, in raising that race
above the very lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain
Whiffen[19] has given a very complete and a very interesting account of
the peoples whom he met with during his wanderings in the regions
indicated by the title of his book. And he tells us that "the survival
of the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the
Amazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians' life and
philosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would of