LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
PATRIOTISM 
 
 A BIOLOGICAL STUDY 
 
 BY 
 
 H. G. F. SPURRELL, M.A. 
 
 LONDON 
 G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 
 
 1911 
 

 
PREFACE 
 
 IN this essay I have tried to explain the natural 
 history of patriotism. If the facts I set in order 
 are generally well known, and the conclusions I 
 draw from them fairly obvious, I nevertheless 
 claim that I have made an attempt at scientific 
 investigation of a subject which usually re- 
 ceives purely emotional treatment. 
 
 In my examination of the problems of human 
 existence I have frequently had to mention 
 grave evils. When this has happened I have 
 not attempted to discover or suggest a way 
 of remedying them, partly because I feel per- 
 sonally better able to analyze facts than to 
 plan actions ; partly because in this particular 
 I have been forestalled by others. The number 
 of people who try to ascertain the facts and 
 discover the causes of social evils without 
 attempting to formulate a scheme to remedy 
 them, is small. The number of people who are 
 engaged in planning schemes to remedy all 
 
 V 
 
 223117 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 human ills without attempting to discover their 
 causes or to ascertain the facts relating to 
 them, is great. 
 
 Finally, I have set myself to examine pheno- 
 mena, not to make out a case for any political 
 party. 
 
 H. G. F. SPURRELL. 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 January, 1911. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 DIFFICULTIES OP THE OUDJECT -- - I 
 
 2. PATRIOTISM AN INSTINCT 4 
 
 . THE NATURE OF THE PATRIOTIC INSTINCT - IO 
 
 ASPECT OF PATRIOTISM~"^y, - 15 
 
 RACE INSTINCT""^ - 22 
 
 VI. THE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION - - 2Q 
 VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE AMONGST 
 
 MANKIND - "35 
 
 . WAR, THE INEVITABLE OUTCOME OF UNCHECKED 
 
 MULTIPLICATION - - 41 
 IX. ARGUMENTS USED AGAINST THE INEVITABILITY 
 
 OF WAR - 46 
 
 ^-X. CAUSES WHICH PRECIPITATE WAR - 57 
 
 XL^THE REQUIREMENTS OF PATRIOTISM^- f - 62 
 dl. PATRIOTISM THE FACTOR WHICH DETERMINES 
 
 A NATION'S CHANCES OF SURVIVAL - 66 
 
 XIII. NORMAL VARIATIONS OF PATRIOTIS^ - - 73 
 
 XrV-.^DTlSEASED CONDITIONS OF PATRIOTISM^ - 80 
 
 xv. HUMANITARIANISM'""" - 88 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVI. THE DEGENERATE - - IO2 
 
 XVII. SIGNS AND METHODS OF NATIONAL DECAY - Il6 
 
 ANTI-MILITARISM - 117 
 
 ANTI-IMPERIALISM - 125 
 
 SOCIALISM - 137 
 
 XVIII. THE LARGER PATRIOTISM ) - - 151 
 
 XIX. CONCLUSION - - 156 
 
PATRIOTISM 
 
 THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE SUBJECT 
 
 PATRIOTISM has not, I think, been studied with 
 the care which the subject deserves, for other- 
 wise the confusion of ideas regarding it which 
 at present prevails could hardly exist. The 
 masses of a nation are swayed by patriotism, 
 but those who endeavour to define the thing in 
 the abstract differ widely and irreconcilably as 
 to its nature, and their divergence of opinion is 
 no less marked when they are men of the 
 highest education, occupying responsible posi- 
 tions and universally respected for their excel- 
 lence of private character, than when they are 
 illiterate or even members of the criminal 
 classes. When patriotism is discussed, whether 
 by those who are able to bring to their support 
 all the resources of logic, or by those whose 
 
 B 
 
2 PATRIOTISM 
 
 only weapon is invective, a listener is struck by 
 encountering the same lack of definite ideas. 
 According to some, patriotism is a primitive in- 
 stinct ; according to others, a tradition ; according 
 to others, again, a convention or the product of 
 education. Some regard it as the greatest of vir- 
 tues, others as the meanest of vices. Patriotism, 
 according to the former, is the unselfish readiness 
 of the individual to sacrifice whenever necessary 
 his own interests or his life for the good of the 
 State. According to the latter, it is the un- 
 scrupulous negation, by the citizens of one state, 
 of the rights of all other nations, coupled with 
 an arrogant denial that they can have any good 
 qualities which deserve admiration or might 
 with advantage be copied. There seems to be 
 pretty general agreement that the safety and 
 progress of a State depends upon the patriotism 
 of its citizens ; but this does not solve the 
 question whether patriotism is a virtue or a 
 vice, to be fostered or repressed. Those who 
 hold that it is a vice declare that they are 
 pleading for the larger interests of mankind as 
 a whole. They contend that devotion to a 
 State is really collective selfishness up in arms 
 against humanity, an attempt to establish a 
 monopoly, and the root ot injustice, slavery, 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE SUBJECT 3 
 
 and war. On the other hand, they have to 
 face the paradox that some of the finest actions 
 recorded have been prompted by this detestable 
 vice. 
 
 But while these diverse views are held con- 
 cerning it, patriotism remains the great fact 
 with which those responsible for the safety 
 of a State have to reckon. Hence, though a 
 man who endeavours to discredit patriotism 
 may console himself with the belief that he is 
 the friend of mankind, he must expect to be 
 regarded as the enemy of his country. The 
 cleavage between the two views is so complete, 
 patriotism is so taken for granted as a fact, 
 and the actual effects in a State where it has 
 been undermined are so immediate and far- 
 reaching, that it has been less the subject for 
 investigation than for forcible expressions of 
 opinion and bitter diatribes. Personally, I 
 have no wish to become involved in these 
 political quarrels ; my sole object in attempting 
 to handle this thorny subject being to examine 
 as a biologist the bionomics of what appears to 
 be one of the most important factors in shaping 
 the destiny of mankind. 
 
II 
 
 PATRIOTISM AN INSTINCT 
 
 f . i ; , , 
 
 IT seems idle to dispute the fact that patriotism 
 is an instinct or, at any rate, a complexus of 
 instincts. In spite of the variety of its mani- 
 festations, it is a power which compels the 
 actions of men of all types and races, of all 
 social grades and degrees of culture. It is a 
 prompting which arises spontaneously, and is 
 obeyed when men are so surprised or excited 
 that their habits of calculation are upset. And, 
 though it may have been so long latent, owing 
 to a nation's enjoying continued peace and pros- 
 perity, that it appears to have been lost, a crisis 
 will call it suddenly into play with undiminished 
 force. To suppose that such a motive to action 
 is individually acquired as the result of any 
 educational influence is to attribute to educa- 
 tion more than its achievements in any other 
 direction would encourage us to suppose it 
 could possibly accomplish. Even those who 
 
 4 
 
PATRIOTISM AN INSTINCT 5 
 
 are most convinced that patriotism is evil are 
 usually ready to agree that it is the product of 
 Nature, not of considered policy, whether they 
 regard it as a legacy of the tiger and the ape or 
 a perversion of the kindred spirit of all humanity, 
 which is a curse, only because restricted to a 
 section of mankind instead of embracing the 
 whole. 
 
 That acts of patriotic devotion have been 
 performed in cold blood and after due delibera- 
 tion, with full realization of the knowledge that 
 they involved certain death, and were never 
 likely to become known, no one will seriously 
 deny. But those acts of heroism for which a 
 man knows he will be rewarded by a nation's 
 gratitude appear to me to require an explana- 
 tion, none the less. Indeed, I think they need 
 such an explanation all the more if, as cynics 
 assert, the thought that self-sacrifice for the 
 protection of the race will win lasting fame 
 produces such a state of exaltation that it can 
 make a man indifferent to danger or too excited 
 to perceive it. Moreover, the promptitude 
 with which such acts are sometimes performed, 
 particularly by persons not previously con- 
 sidered to possess marked physical courage, 
 absolutely precludes the possibility of any 
 
6 PATRIOTISM 
 
 ulterior design, and we can only explain them 
 as performed in obedience to the prompting of 
 an instinct. 
 
 Again, take the wider manifestations of the 
 instinct of patriotism. They are very notice- 
 able when news is received in the capital of a 
 defeat suffered by a nation's arms, especially if 
 such a misfortune has not occurred for a long 
 while. The war may be quite a small one, 
 hitherto regarded as little more than a com- 
 mercial operation. The army, too, may be a 
 small one. Not one person in thousands at 
 home knows personally one of the soldiers 
 engaged ; yet observe the consternation the 
 news causes. People to whom the defeat 
 cannot possibly mean personal danger, prob- 
 ably not even an appreciable increase in taxa- 
 tion, seem to regard it as their own private 
 affair. They want to know how it happened, 
 and the prevailing wish is to hear that the 
 mishap was unavoidable by any skill of their 
 generals, and that to the last the soldiers dis- 
 played their traditional courage and discipline. 
 The importance of the conduct of the troops 
 lies in its affording evidence 01 the vitality of 
 the nation, and in the nation, consciously or un- 
 consciously, regarding it as such. The uni- 
 
PATRIOTISM AN INSTINCT 7 
 
 versal distress at a trifling defeat is far more 
 significant than the rejoicings at a great victory 
 or the relief of a beleaguered garrison, though 
 these are also worthy of attentive study as 
 illustrations of this point. 
 
 On the other hand, the behaviour of those 
 by whom the requirements of patriotism have 
 not been fulfilled, owing to force of circum- 
 stances or defect of courage, or the inducement 
 of a bribe or hope of some other personal 
 advantage, seems to indicate the thwarting or 
 repression of a strong natural impulse far more 
 than mere unconventionally in choice of a line 
 of conduct. That this is not wholly due to the 
 discomfort of public disapproval is shown by 
 remorse leading to the confession of acts of 
 treachery which might otherwise have remained 
 unknown. 
 
 It is also noticeable that patriotism is most 
 marked in men of the average type. At 
 one end of the scale we find sav^es-of low 
 type in tropical forests hardly forming com- 
 munities at all, and showing but little cohesion ; 
 at the other we have great empires, in which 
 life is luxurious and artificial, producing, amongst 
 other anomalies, individuals who appear, so far 
 from exhibiting a feeling of fellowship for those 
 
8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 of their own blood, actually to hate the race 
 which produced and guards them. Men to 
 whom patriotism seems such an evil that they 
 must fight against it are rarely men of average 
 type. Some of them are intellectuals who have 
 had all the ape and tiger bred out of them, and 
 show a general lack of vitality. These are the 
 people who regard war as too horrible to be 
 under any circumstances justifiable, who revile 
 all forms of sport as cruel or brutalizing, and 
 who support humane movements with such ill- 
 regulated enthusiasm that they frequently bring 
 them into contempt. Familiar examples of 
 this type are the people who wish to pamper 
 criminals undergoing imprisonment for crimes 
 that have caused widespread suffering. Others 
 are well-marked degenerates of the type which, 
 incapable of work and craving for notoriety, 
 provides a community with professional agi- 
 tators. The outcry raised by these persons is 
 as serious a hindrance to the people of real 
 mental power, whose study and thought has 
 led them to oppose patriotic exclusiveness on 
 rational grounds, as is the bragging vulgarity 
 of the coarse-grained and uneducated to those 
 who seriously have the cause of their own 
 country at heart. The participation of these 
 
PATRIOTISM AN INSTINCT 9 
 
 undisciplined irregulars has hindered scientific 
 investigation of the subject. Enough, however, 
 has been said in support of my contention that 
 patriotism for good or evil is something very 
 deeply rooted in human nature. The next step 
 is to analyze this instinct and to discover its 
 origin. Later I propose to trace its growth 
 and decline. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE PATRIOTIC INSTINCT 
 
 I THINK that much of the uncertainty generally 
 felt regarding the fundamental nature of 
 patriotism is due to the confusion of thought 
 which continually identifies it with approval ol 
 some purely ephemeral scheme. Concerning a 
 particular enterprise, though it is undoubtedly 
 intended to benefit the nation, intelligent people 
 may entertain diametrically opposite views both 
 on the score of its practicability and its ultimate 
 effects. For instance, one man may favour the 
 annexation of certain territory, on the ground of 
 the commercial gain it would bring to the 
 nation ; while another man may think that 
 this immediate gain would be far outweighed 
 by the precedent which such an act might 
 place in the hands of other nations, and, if the 
 interpretation of treaties be called in question, 
 by the possible loss of faith in the nation's 
 pledges. The one man will accuse the other 
 
 10 
 
THE PATRIOTIC INSTINCT n 
 
 of being unpatriotic and avaricious, on the 
 ground that he wishes to sacrifice his country's 
 honour and safety to the immediate needs of 
 his own business ; the other will retaliate by 
 saying that the former is unpatriotic and 
 quixotic, because he prefers the advantage of 
 other countries to that of his own. Each of 
 these men may genuinely believe that he is a 
 true patriot and the other a rascal, and yet 
 both be really acting, according to their lights, 
 under the influence of a primary instinct which 
 tells them that their duty to their own nation 
 outweighs their duty to mankind as a whole. 
 The issue between them is not patriotism at 
 all. The matter about which they disagree is 
 a question of ways and means, or possibly of 
 ethics and expediency, but not of patriotism. 
 Patriotism is something far more deeply rooted 
 in human nature than such things as these. 
 
 Patriotism seems to have its roots in the 
 brute instinct, which, in its simplest manifesta- 
 tion, makes an animal care for its mate and 
 offspring. This instinct is seen, when privation 
 or destruction threatens mankind, in the deter- 
 mination of the individual that his own relatives 
 and friends shall escape, if any action, if neces- 
 sary any sacrifice, of his can save them. It is 
 
12 PATRIOTISM 
 
 an instinct which prompts a man to aid and 
 defend in all cases of need, first, those of his 
 own blood his parents, his brothers and sisters, 
 and especially his wife and children then his 
 friends ; and, as his outlook widens, those whom 
 he meets frequently and knows ; and, as a final 
 development, anyone of his own race. This is 
 a totally different thing from a love of humanity 
 or sympathy with suffering. It is something 
 more primitive. It is that which will make a 
 man callously disregard the appeals for help ol 
 the wounded after a battle, in order that he 
 may search the ground for a particular friend 
 or relative. It will even make a man go further 
 than refusing help. In cases, for instance, of 
 fire and shipwreck, it will make him trample 
 helpless people under foot, and deliberately 
 oppose the efforts of others to escape, in order 
 that he may make sure of saving his own 
 relatives and friends. Again, in times of war 
 and distress this same instinct may be observed 
 to remain unimpaired, whilst human sympathy 
 is blunted by daily familiarity with suffering. 
 But whilst patriotism has its roots in this 
 instinct, and whilst in some men it is scarcely 
 more developed, patriotism proper is this 
 instinct pushed to its logical conclusion. It 
 
THE PATRIOTIC INSTINCT 13 
 
 drives men to club together and form a com- 
 munity, since, in a community, owing to the 
 division of labour, those whom they wish to 
 protect may be better provided for; and it 
 then impels each man to defend, if need be at 
 the sacrifice of himself, not his own family 
 directly, but the community which has under- 
 taken their defence, since it can guarantee their 
 safety so much more surely than he can. Finally, 
 this altered method and means of protection 
 partially alter the instinct ; the community, or 
 those of the individual's race, usurp the place 
 of his own family. The man, who originally 
 was ready to make any personal sacrifice to 
 defend the community which undertook the 
 defence of his family, ultimately develops so 
 strong an instinct to defend the community 
 itself, that he is ready to sacrifice the members 
 of his own family for that purpose. This final 
 development is logically reached by passing 
 through the stage when the family is only 
 sacrificed if it must inevitably perish with the 
 community, supposing it were not sacrificed to 
 save it. And though the prior claims of the 
 race may become firmly established, the choice, 
 when it has to be made between the family and 
 the community, must, one would think, always 
 
14 PATRIOTISM 
 
 involve a struggle, even in a highly patriotic 
 man. Thus the instinct to protect his offspring 
 and near relatives at the cost of any sacrifice to 
 himself, which is implanted in the individual, 
 gives rise to patriotism which is the instinct of 
 self-preservation of the race. 
 
IV 
 
 EVOLUTIONARY ASPECT OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 I DO not think it can be necessary to labour the 
 evolutionary aspect of the subject. We need 
 not consider here whether the early progenitors 
 of the human race were gregarious, or whether 
 it was not until long after man proper had been 
 evolved that he began to form communities. 
 Nor need we inquire whether the low-type 
 savages of to-day, who wander in small parties, 
 represent man in an early stage or are the 
 degenerate descendants of tribes, which, migrat- 
 ing into districts where they could live easily 
 on abundant game amid luxuriant vegetation, 
 found social habits unnecessary or even dis- 
 advantageous in their new quarters. 
 
 Granting the struggle for existence, it is easy 
 to see what would happen. A family, any 
 member of which was ready to defend the rest 
 at whatever cost to himself, must obviously have 
 had a very much better chance of surviving, 
 
 15 
 
16 PATRIOTISM 
 
 than one composed of individuals whose first 
 care was for their own personal safety. Like- 
 wise a community, whose members divided the 
 labour of securing food, and shared the toils 
 and risks of beating off enemies, must have 
 been able to survive, even though with greatly 
 diminished numbers, under conditions which 
 would have proved fatal to isolated families. 
 The safety of such a community would be 
 increased in proportion to the devotion of its 
 individual members. But at this stage it is 
 necessary to enter a little more fully into detail. 
 When men live in communities their lives 
 are well protected, and they multiply quickly. 
 Accordingly, as the men increase in number so 
 the communities increase in size, until eventu- 
 ally they come in contact with one another, and, 
 moreover, there would be a tendency for the 
 community to take root in the soil ; having found 
 a fertile tract of land, it would not care to leave 
 it. But when a community is firmly rooted in 
 a particular territory, it quickly develops special 
 characteristics dependent on the nature of that 
 territory. The shepherds of the mountains 
 may be racially identical with the husbandmen 
 of the plains, but their different modes of life 
 quickly produce distinctions, which they both 
 
EVOLUTIONARY ASPECT 17 
 
 can perceive, and both tend mentally to 
 exaggerate. 
 
 When the people of a community had grown 
 strong and numerous, and acquired property 
 which it was inconvenient to carry about, and 
 when they had learnt the resources of the land 
 and set themselves to develop them, they would 
 come to look upon themselves as what they 
 really were the children of the soil. The 
 community, in fact, comes to identify itself 
 with the fatherland, or patria ; and devotion 
 to the interests of the community is called 
 patriotism. 
 
 Let us now follow the probable course of 
 development. When the limits of the patria 
 were definite, the people within them would look 
 upon the people outside the boundary river or 
 mountains as different creatures, whose affairs 
 were no concern of their own. They might 
 trade with them, but it would be solely because 
 it was to their own advantage to do so. They 
 might carefully avoid molesting them, because 
 they could see that their time could be better 
 employed, and that it would not pay to provoke 
 reprisals. But they would never suppose that 
 there was any need to help people without the 
 pale, if it were not demonstrably to their own 
 
 c 
 
i8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 advantage to do so, and they would strenuously 
 deny that the people outside had any rights 
 that they must respect. The community existed 
 to defend its own members from the hostile 
 powers of Nature, and, amongst these, other 
 men would be counted in the same category 
 with wild beasts. 
 
 Supposing that there were hard times in the 
 mountains, the mountaineers would raid the 
 plains. They might explain their position to 
 the people of the plains in some such words as 
 these : ' Our families are without food, and will 
 die if food is not brought them. There is food 
 here, so we have come to take what is neces- 
 sary. Your objection that the food belongs to 
 you is of no importance to us, compared with 
 the fact that our wives and children are starving.' 
 Supposing that the mountaineers had nothing 
 left with which to buy food, I consider that 
 their position from their own point of view 
 would be unassailable. 
 
 Yet the position of the people of the plains is 
 no less clear. If their lives and those of their 
 friends are threatened from without, they must 
 defend them against man as well as beast ; the 
 difference is immaterial. So, also, if their pro- 
 perty is endangered they must defend it, or in 
 
EVOLUTIONARY ASPECT 19 
 
 the long-run their families will starve ; there is 
 no reason why they should give away what they 
 want themselves. From their own point of view, 
 I hold their right to beat off the mountaineers, if 
 they can, is at least as good as that of the moun- 
 taineers to attack them. Admitting the principle 
 that a community has a right to take any steps 
 necessary to its self-preservation, it is only 
 carrying it to its logical conclusion to grant that 
 the mountaineers have a right to annex part of 
 the fertile plain or lay its inhabitants under 
 tribute as a means of ending recurring famines, 
 while the inhabitants of the plain have an equal 
 right to exterminate neighbours who render 
 their lives and means of subsistence insecure. 
 
 The next step in development would be the 
 discovery that it was more profitable for neigh- 
 bouring communities to trade than to fight. 
 The mountains and the plain would both sup- 
 port larger populations if their resources were 
 developed in peace and the surplus produce ex- 
 changed. The limit, however, would in time 
 be reached when the land could no longer sup- 
 port the population, and starvation would 
 threaten again. It looks, in fact, as if it would 
 only be possible to put off for a time, by this 
 arrangement, the day when the men of the 
 
20 PATRIOTISM 
 
 mountains and the men of the plains must 
 settle by fighting which shall survive. But by 
 then the two communities would have lived side 
 by side for some time, in security and mutual 
 trust. Their individuals would have grown to 
 know one another, intermarriage would very 
 likely have taken place, and even if the two com- 
 munities had not actually fused, war between 
 them would be a thing that both would wish to 
 avoid. They would probably therefore agree to 
 go over their borders together, and bring in what 
 they wanted from outside. If in so doing they 
 met with opposition from other men, they would 
 simply consider this a natural obstacle, to be 
 surmounted in the way which it appeared most 
 convenient to adopt. No questions of right 
 could exist between them and these people they 
 did not know. Their duty would be to their 
 own people, and the tale begins afresh. 
 
 There is only one more step to trace. Com- 
 munities of men of the same race tend to fuse. 
 One community may grow, absorbing the 
 others, or several communities may unite on 
 equal terms. It is immaterial for our purpose 
 which happens, but history affords numerous 
 instances of how men of one blood will com- 
 bine in face of men of another race. The 
 
EVOLUTIONARY ASPECT 21 
 
 importance of this is immeasurable, for patriot- 
 ism only attains its full force after this has 
 happened ; when defence of the community 
 means also defence of the race, and when the 
 human enemies against whom the community 
 must struggle for existence are men of a 
 different race. 
 
PATRIOTISM AND RACE INSTINCT 
 
 THE identification of patriotism with racial 
 feeling is its completion. Opinions differ 
 widely regarding racial characteristics. Some 
 writers say that there are ' higher ' and 4 lower ' 
 races. They claim that the higher races, 
 usually the white, have intellectual power, 
 endurance, and a capacity for civilization which 
 are sadly lacking in the inferior races, usually 
 the black. Others deny that these grades 
 exist, and declare that the undeniable inequality 
 in the achievements of different races is due to 
 circumstances, and affords no reason for doubt- 
 ing that all will rise to equal heights in the 
 future. It is further urged that racial peculi- 
 arities are so hard to define that generalizations 
 based upon them have little value. But what- 
 ever divergence of views there may be upon 
 the rights of some races to be regarded as 
 
 22 
 
RACE INSTINCT 23 
 
 ' higher ' than others, I think it must be uni- 
 versally agreed that racial differences form 
 barriers between different nations in fact, that 
 race sentiment exists as an active force. How- 
 ever emphatically a white man may assert that 
 a negro has a right to be regarded as his equal 
 in every respect, I do not believe he ever feels 
 towards one as he feels towards another white 
 man. Unfortunately, it is a very short step 
 from an instinctive perception of racial differ- 
 ence to a feeling of aversion, and race senti- 
 ment becomes inflamed by jealousy into race 
 prejudice, which may show itself in unprovoked 
 hostility. The Chinaman acknowledges this 
 sentiment with winning naivete when he refers 
 to all but Celestials as ' foreign devils.' Shake- 
 speare has given an admirable study of race 
 prejudice in drawing the character of I ago, 
 which shows that he, at any rate, must have 
 regarded it as an elemental thing. A very slight 
 acquaintance with anti-Semitism in Europe, and 
 the negro problem in America, will cpnvince 
 anyone who is in doubt that, deplorable as it 
 may be, racial antipathy rests on a deeper 
 foundation than commercial rivalry or acci- 
 dental differences in language and educa- 
 tion. 
 
24 PATRIOTISM 
 
 In England we are fortunate in not having 
 any burning racial question. Racial differences 
 between Europeans are comparatively slight 
 and indefinite, while the occasional negro or 
 Mongolian who strays into London is rather a 
 pathetic figure. We show as a rule the most 
 generous hospitality to the interesting exile, 
 whose homesick bewilderment we take for 
 granted, and pity. But those Englishmen 
 who go to a country where the black or 
 yellow man is not a guest but an inhabitant, 
 and present in large possibly preponderating 
 numbers, can tell how they instinctively 
 look upon him, compared with a white 
 man, as belonging to a different species of 
 animal. 
 
 Racial feeling is hard to bring home to 
 people in England, and even in the Colonies 
 the easy-going conviction of his own superiority, 
 which is one of the Englishman's most helpful 
 qualities, enables him to look down upon 
 subject - races with good - natured tolerance, 
 when he might otherwise be frightened or 
 irritated into treating them harshly. But I 
 think that what I mean may be brought home 
 by illustrations ; it will be agreed that if a man 
 in some country where there are no police, 
 
RACE INSTINCT 25 
 
 and strange things may happen, were to come 
 suddenly upon another man engaged in mortal 
 combat with a wild beast, he would, if he did 
 not run away, feel impelled to go to the other 
 man's assistance. The claims of the species 
 would be irresistible, and he would never stop 
 to consider whether the man had wantonly 
 attacked the brute or whether the brute might 
 not be most meritoriously protecting its off- 
 spring. He would only think of the danger of 
 the man. Most people, I think, will admit that 
 a man would do this and be right in acting so. 
 Now supposing that instead of a man coming 
 suddenly upon a contest between a man and a 
 brute a white man were to come suddenly upon 
 a life-and- death struggle between two men one 
 black, the other white it is my belief that in 
 this case he would run to the assistance of the 
 white man with no more hesitation than in the 
 previous instance the man would run to the 
 assistance of a fellow-creature against an animal 
 of a different species. In fact, I hold that race 
 instinct is neither more nor less than the species 
 instinct, under the artificial restrictions which 
 civilization has laid upon it. Race sentiment 
 or, rather, race instinct rests upon physical 
 similarity. Intellectual power may win admira- 
 
26 PATRIOTISM 
 
 tion, and reliability of character breed confi- 
 dence between men of different races ; but so 
 they may between men and dogs. Regard of 
 this kind may amount to mutual admiration ; 
 but where the physical difference in the blood 
 is as apparent as in the case of the negro and 
 the Caucasian, they will still look upon one 
 another as creatures belonging to a distinct 
 order of creation. 
 
 Race sentiment, when recognized by primi- 
 tive peoples, is usually identified with family 
 sentiment. The men speak of themselves as 
 descendants of a common ancestor. Thus, the 
 Hebrews referred to themselves as the children 
 of Israel, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, the 
 chosen of God, and spoke of their enemies as 
 the children of Moab, Ishmael, etc. This 
 common ancestor is usually a deity, or has 
 been deified, or is the chosen of some deity. 
 Hence men of one blood usually have a 
 common religion. Thus mankind is divided 
 up into sections, bound together by the gre- 
 garious instinct, race instinct, and religious 
 sentiment, possessing a common language and 
 a typical physique as visible signs of their 
 affinity. Other things follow a common litera- 
 ture and ideal, uniform laws and attachment to 
 
RACE INSTINCT 27 
 
 a particular part of the world. For convenience 
 I shall speak of this complex, the community, 
 co-extensive with the race, and rooted in a 
 particular country, as a ' nation/ 
 
 But before leaving the subject of race it is 
 necessary to draw particular attention to one 
 more point. Race instinct is the extension 
 of the family bond and the broader basis of 
 patriotism, but it is also the great check 
 which sets the limits to patriotism. Race 
 instinct holds a single nation together, but it 
 tends to hold different nations apart. Indi- 
 viduals of another race become absorbed in a 
 nation easily, because in the national life all 
 individuals have to be treated alike, and the 
 peculiarities of one individual are not suffi- 
 ciently important to upset the even tenor of a 
 nation's way. But it is different when two 
 races try to live side by side and form one 
 nation whilst maintaining their own identity. 
 History abounds with lessons of the instability 
 of such an arrangement. If they do not fuse 
 into one race mutual antipathy will arise and 
 grow until they come to open conflict. It is 
 different, also, when several distinct nations 
 agree for mutual advantage to make common 
 cause against the rest of mankind. Again, 
 
28 PATRIOTISM 
 
 they may sometimes live in harmony under one 
 central government, when they are termed an 
 ' Empire ' ; but this introduces another subject 
 altogether, to which I shall have to revert 
 later on. 
 
VI 
 
 THE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION 
 
 AT this point it becomes necessary to glance 
 at the position of modern nations. The hopes 
 of mankind have for a long time been sup- 
 posed, by our most popular philosophers, to be 
 bound up with the progress of the white race. 
 The white race, with its home in Europe, has, 
 as the result of centuries of travail, produced 
 a state of affairs in Europe which is considered 
 tolerably satisfactory for the present, and preg- 
 nant with high hopes for the future hopes in 
 which not only Europe but also the rest of the 
 world has a share. 
 
 The continent has been divided up, on the 
 whole, according to the race and language of 
 its inhabitants. The countries are, therefore, 
 occupied by nations which can manage their 
 internal concerns without racial friction, and 
 are uniformly influenced in their relations with 
 one another by a common religion, a common 
 
 29 
 
30 PATRIOTISM 
 
 feeling of humanity, and a common ideal. This 
 statement is, of course, only general, and dis- 
 tinctly optimistic ; but if all races have not yet 
 got justice, if all nations do not live in perfect 
 harmony, and if conduct often does not come 
 up to the ideal, a great advance is claimed 
 upon the state of things prevailing a compara- 
 tively short time ago ; and it is hoped that 
 further adjustment will produce a perfect equili- 
 brium. 
 
 In the meantime, though the nations still 
 maintain armaments from fear of one another, 
 there is claimed to be a European civilization. 
 The nations make common cause against 
 criminals and disease. Troublesome nations 
 of alien race, such as the Turkish or Chinese, 
 cannot, as a rule, provoke quarrels between 
 the white races, because they are dealt with by 
 the Powers acting in concert. Trade flourishes 
 between the different nations, so that they may 
 be said to be dependent upon one another. 
 Individuals can visit other countries not only 
 with safety, but with the expectation of re- 
 ceiving hospitality. In art, science, and litera- 
 ture, the national genius is only recognized to 
 be admired, and a great writer, for instance, 
 often gains appreciation in other countries before 
 
THE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION 31 
 
 it is accorded him by his own. Mutual sym- 
 pathy and comprehension make intermarriage 
 amongst European nations possible. And the 
 white race, in spreading to America, Australia, 
 and South Africa, has extended, not weakened, 
 the European civilization. 
 
 Of course, even the most optimistic have to 
 admit that the millennium has not come yet. 
 International jealousies exist, trade is hampered 
 by the efforts of nations to gain for themselves 
 special advantages over their neighbours, and 
 wars are still waged. But even the mention of 
 war brings to mind many hopeful signs. Com- 
 munity of blood is so generally recognized by 
 the white race, that race instinct makes them 
 show a united front against the yellow and 
 black races j 1 while a common civilization and 
 
 1 It may be objected that during the recent war the 
 sympathies of the English went with the Japanese 
 against the Russians, and also that we regarded the 
 misfortunes of the Germans in their war with the 
 Hereros with unsympathetic amusement. I think, how- 
 ever, that my main contention is right. In the first case 
 the Russians were regarded as a danger to the European 
 civilization, whose principles the Japanese were allied 
 with us to defend ; and it was generally felt that, though 
 defeat to the Japanese might mean their national extinc- 
 tion, the Russians risked little more than a humiliating 
 check to their aggression. In the second instance, we 
 were merely entertained by the manifest inability of the 
 Germans to conduct a little war of a kind with which 
 
32 PATRIOTISM 
 
 ideal of humanity has led Europeans to regard 
 war with one another as the worst of evils. 
 
 All manner of precautions are taken by 
 European nations to prevent war from break- 
 ing out between them, and, when its does, to 
 limit its sphere and mitigate its horrors. 
 Europe, as a whole, is trying to substitute 
 arbitration for appeals to force, and the nations 
 are binding themselves by compacts and treaties 
 to submit their disputes to this method of settle- 
 ment. By other agreements they seek to define 
 their line of action when war cannot be avoided, 
 conditional promises of help or neutrality being 
 held to make for peace. Lastly, efforts are 
 made to fix a standard of conduct for both 
 neutrals and belligerents. Wars of extermina- 
 tion are a thing of the past in Europe. The 
 rights and property of non-combatants have to 
 be most tenderly respected, the combatants 
 
 we are usually very successful. The Germans had been 
 annoying us just before with supercilious criticism of 
 our military deficiencies and arrogant boasts of their 
 own superiority, and this was their first opportunity for 
 a long while of showing what they could do themselves. 
 But both of these wars were conducted in comparative 
 safety and at a distance. Defeat to the white race was 
 of no great consequence. The prospect of a victorious 
 yellow or black army entering a European capital would 
 have been viewed very differently. 
 
THE EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION 33 
 
 being actually required to wear distinguishing 
 uniforms. The use of explosive bullets is 
 forbidden in ' civilized warfare/ though they 
 may be used against savage races, and the 
 wounded of both sides alike must be tended by 
 whichever finds them. 
 
 It is hoped that, as the European civilization 
 is perfected, war may become impossible. 
 Improvement in the machinery of arbitration 
 will make agreement too easy, and improve- 
 ment in the machinery of destruction will make 
 fighting too terrible, for two nations ever to 
 resort to open hostilities. 
 
 Those who take an optimistic view, not only 
 of the present but of the future, tell us that the 
 development of the European civilization should 
 make us aim at something even better. They 
 would like to see war made impossible, all 
 restrictions upon international trade abolished, 
 means of intercourse perfected, laws brought 
 into uniformity, a common language agreed 
 upon, in fact all barriers between Eurdpean 
 nations broken down, and the white race fused 
 into one brotherhood. But then, they continue, 
 why should the white race alone live in eternal 
 peace ? Why should not all men of all races in 
 the world unite to form one common humanity, 
 
 D 
 
34 PATRIOTISM 
 
 abjure strife, and live together in brotherly 
 love ? The obstacle to the realization of their 
 ideal is, they say, patriotism, which they define 
 as the selfish desire of individuals for the 
 exclusive advantage of their own country at 
 the expense of mankind at large. 
 
 Unfortunately this definition is incorrect, and 
 forms, moreover, only a small part of a huge 
 mistake. Patriotism is not a nation's lust for 
 exclusive advantages, but its instinct of self- 
 preservation ; and the whole mistake lies in 
 supposing that any artificial agreement will 
 prevent a dispute from being settled in the 
 logical way when the cause of the dispute is 
 all- important and cannot be removed. Let the 
 nations abolish that competition which, in the 
 last resort, must be settled by the sword, and 
 patriotism will vanish, because it will have 
 become meaningless ; but no nation will survive 
 the extinction of its patriotic spirit as long 
 as the struggle for existence between nations 
 continues. 
 
VII 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE AMONGST 
 MANKIND 
 
 THE facts regarding the struggle for existence 
 are well known, for they have been clearly 
 stated by many writers following Malthus, 
 Darwin, and Huxley, but how they bear upon 
 human society does not yet seem to be grasped 
 by the majority of mankind. 
 
 Malthus pointed out that mankind is ever 
 tending by unchecked multiplication to produce 
 a larger number of individuals than the earth 
 can provide with food. Darwin pointed out 
 that, as animals multiply in excess of their 
 means of subsistence, there is a continual 
 struggle for food. There not being enough food 
 to go round, the more fortunate individuals 
 only manage to secure sufficient, while the less 
 fortunate have to go short and die either of 
 starvation or in strife with other creatures. 
 Hence there is a struggle for existence in 
 
 35 
 
36 PATRIOTISM 
 
 which only the fittest that is, those better able 
 than the rest to get a living from the sources 
 available are able to survive. Some aspects 
 of this subject I have touched upon already. 
 Huxley pointed out that man, being badly 
 equipped for contending with Nature single- 
 handed, formed communities, the members of 
 which, by mutual aid, could improve one 
 another's chances in the struggle for existence 
 against Nature. He went on to show that 
 whilst the struggle for existence goes on un- 
 checked between other animals, even gregarious 
 animals, man has grown to regard competition 
 with his neighbour for the bare means of 
 livelihood as revolting, and has put an end to 
 the struggle for existence within each of the 
 communities he has formed. The aim of the 
 community is therefore not to promote the 
 survival of the fittest, but to fit as many of its 
 members as possible to survive. 
 
 If the struggle for existence held sway in 
 human society as it does in the brute world, 
 the stronger, more intelligent, more industrious, 
 more thrifty individuals should survive, to 
 transmit these excellent qualities to a numerous 
 offspring, whilst those weaker in mind and 
 body, and less stable in character, would die 
 
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 37 
 
 out quickly. As the object of the human 
 community is to put an end to this struggle 
 within itself, * fit ' and ' unfit ' are all alike 
 encouraged to survive. Exceptions to this 
 rule may be mentioned ; for instance, some 
 of the worst criminals are put to death, and 
 lunatics and aged paupers are prevented from 
 multiplying their kind, but the effect of these 
 restrictions is infinitesimal. For practical pur- 
 poses the more civilized a community be- 
 comes the more effectively does it combat all 
 those agencies which, if unopposed, would thin 
 the numbers of its population, and check the 
 rapidity of their increase. If a man is likely 
 to starve from a temporary cause, his neigh- 
 bours, instead of joyfully looking forward to 
 the time when they will have his room to stand 
 in, or of accelerating his departure by attacking 
 him when he is weakening, help him to tide 
 over the bad times. And that the strong, 
 according to their ability, shall help the weak 
 according to their need to gain necessaries, 
 if not luxuries, is one of the fundamental 
 principles of the civilized community. The 
 utmost care is taken of the sick. Many of 
 those who would otherwise die are restored 
 to complete health by medical skill, and many 
 
38 PATRIOTISM 
 
 more are kept alive who, although in a 
 decrepit condition, are enabled to carry on 
 their usual avocations, including the procreation 
 of children. Even those who are permanently 
 incapable of doing anything for themselves are 
 maintained in asylums and infirmaries, whether 
 they would prefer to die or no. By the prison 
 and the workhouse yet other types are pre- 
 served which would not survive if the struggle 
 for existence went on unrestrained within the 
 community. 
 
 Now, this spirit of human sympathy is 
 perhaps the finest thing we know. No one 
 wishes to see callousness replace, or selfishness 
 check, the impulse which prompts mankind 
 to help those who are in distress. But fine as 
 it is, we pay a price for it, and it is useless 
 either to deny that we pay it, or to refuse to 
 scrutinize the accounts. 
 
 In proportion to man's advance in civilization, 
 he acquires a control over Nature ; he learns 
 to make the earth give up its full yield ; he 
 exterminates wild beasts and subdues disease ; 
 he diverts lightning and evades storm and 
 flood ; in fact, he defeats Nature's attempts 
 to keep down his numbers. The result is that 
 he multiplies with such immense rapidity that, 
 
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 39 
 
 though he may make the earth yield its utmost, 
 he produces a larger population than the utmost 
 yield of the earth can feed. The price he pays 
 for his conquest over Nature is that man must 
 compete with man for a sufficient share of the 
 fruits of the earth to enable him to subsist. 
 The struggle for existence is not between man 
 and Nature, but between man and man. 
 
 But men have made common cause in their 
 war with Nature, and grown to look upon one 
 another as comrades, It is revolting to men 
 who have helped one another and lived in 
 comradeship to compete with one another for 
 life, with death the penalty of the loser. It 
 shocks the delicacy of some to think that men 
 are still competing for luxuries. Men hate to 
 see their neighbours and kinsfolk suffer. They 
 decree, therefore, that no member of the par- 
 ticular community to which they belong shall be 
 allowed to die of want or neglect. Individuals 
 help instead of competing with one another, but 
 the price mankind pays for putting an end to 
 the struggle for existence within the com- 
 munity is the necessity for a ceaseless struggle 
 for existence between the different communities. 
 The price is terribly heavy, but yet individuals 
 are undoubtedly right in preferring to fight 
 
40 PATRIOTISM 
 
 against a vague abstraction, another nation, 
 than against other individuals, with whom they 
 have possibly had personal intercourse. Bad 
 as is war between nations, it has the advantage 
 of minimizing individual bitterness, for the 
 soldiers of conflicting nations need have no 
 personal quarrel, and can treat one another 
 with courtesy on the occasions when they are 
 able to meet. 
 
VIII 
 
 WAR, THE INEVITABLE OUTCOME OF UNCHECKED 
 MULTIPLICATION 
 
 WAR, which is, in fact, the summing up of the 
 reasons why a State needs patriotism, is the 
 result of the unchecked multiplication of human 
 beings. Under the conditions prevailing in a 
 civilized State, the population increases so fast 
 that it eventually exceeds the number which 
 the nation's territory can support ; and when the 
 nation is burdened with a surplus population, 
 distress prevails, which can only be remedied 
 by acquiring, by force if needs must, an 
 additional source of food. In other words, 
 when the struggle for existence reappears 
 between the members of the community, the 
 struggle for existence between different com- 
 munities becomes acute. 
 
 It is necessary to define rather carefully what 
 is meant by the ' surplus population,' for there 
 are still people who say that the surplus 
 
 41 
 
42 PATRIOTISM 
 
 population is a fiction invented by the more 
 prosperous members of the community to 
 justify their selfishness. Unfortunately it is 
 not a fiction, but a fact that must be reckoned 
 with. 
 
 A nation has territory of definite extent, and 
 subsists, directly or indirectly, upon what it can 
 get out of the ground. But the whole world, 
 or any part of it, can only produce at the 
 utmost a definitely limited supply of food, and 
 accordingly it can only support a definitely 
 limited population. As the increase of a 
 nation's population is not restrained within 
 any definite limits, the day must come, sooner 
 or later, when the nation has more people on 
 its land than the land will provide with food. 
 Then either the people must compete against 
 one another for their livelihood, and some die 
 of starvation, or the nation must annex more 
 unoccupied land. 
 
 The course of events is best shown by an 
 illustration. Suppose that a field is capable 
 of supporting a hundred men. If one man 
 cultivates it, it will yield a very small pro- 
 portion of the fruits it is capable of bearing. 
 If two men cultivate it, sharing the labour, 
 they may make the field bring forth four times 
 
WAR 43 
 
 as much as one man working alone. Three 
 men dividing the labour may get ten times 
 as big a harvest as the two. And so on ; 
 each additional labourer, each further division 
 of the labour, will multiply the amount got 
 out of the land until, say, twenty men working 
 together are making the land yield as much 
 as it is capable of yielding, say enough to 
 support a hundred men. After this the 
 addition of more labourers cannot make the 
 land yield more, but will reduce the share of 
 each of them when they divide the produce. 
 This, of course, is the well-known principle 
 called the ' law of diminishing returns.' 
 
 But though twenty men may be able to 
 make the land yield all it is capable of yielding, 
 they will nevertheless be glad of the addition 
 of more labourers to their numbers. The land 
 is producing enough to feed, not twenty, but a 
 hundred men, and the more hands there are 
 to divide the work the lighter it will t>e for 
 each. When, however, the work which twenty 
 men could do is divided between, say, fifty, 
 they may begin to get in one another's way, 
 and decide that, even by the most complete 
 specialization on the part of the labourers, the 
 cultivation of the land will not provide work 
 
44 PATRIOTISM 
 
 for any more men. Still, the land is producing 
 enough sustenance for a hundred men, and 
 there are as yet only fifty upon it. The fifty 
 labourers will probably be glad of the addition 
 of another thirty men, and consider them well 
 worth their keep. Ten they may employ to 
 amuse their leisure, say as musicians ; ten may 
 be invaluable as watchmen, soldiers, and police, 
 to protect them and their possessions whilst 
 they work and rest ; and by this time ten men 
 will probably be absolutely necessary to 
 organize the smooth working of the com- 
 munity, by arranging the division of labour 
 and settling disputes. The land will, however, 
 still support twenty more men. As all the 
 work that can be found has already been 
 divided between the eighty accounted for, 
 these, being generous fellows, will probably 
 support twenty who do no work. For the sake 
 of clearness I have left the wives and children 
 of these men out of the account, so we will 
 suppose that the remaining twenty consist of 
 individuals temporarily sick, permanently dis- 
 abled, too old to work ; or, for completeness, 
 let us add able-bodied, but idle. 
 
 The land, we said, could support a hundred. 
 There are now a hundred living upon it. 
 
WAR 45 
 
 Suppose that ten more men come and settle 
 upon the land. In the first place there will 
 be no food for them, and in the second there 
 will be no work. The work, like the food, has 
 all been allotted already, and even if the 
 workers would like to employ them, so as to 
 lighten their toil by dividing it up still further, 
 they cannot afford to do so, as they cannot 
 feed the extra men without starving them- 
 selves. These ten men, for whom the land 
 can provide neither food nor work, are its 
 surplus population. 
 
 By the unchecked increase of its numbers, 
 each nation in time produces a surplus popula- 
 tion, and can only find relief by placing them 
 upon unoccupied land. At present the world's 
 feeding-grounds have not as many people on 
 them as they can support, but mankind is 
 multiplying at an alarming rate, and in time, 
 unless some unforeseen check occurs, every 
 country will require all the food it can produce 
 for its own inhabitants, and no longer be able 
 to export any. When that day comes the 
 world itself will have a surplus population, 
 and, first, the struggle for existence between 
 individuals will return, and then war between 
 nations will begin in earnest. 
 
IX 
 
 ARGUMENTS USED AGAINST THE INEVITABILITY 
 OF WAR 
 
 MALTHUS shattered the hope that a time of 
 plenty and universal contentment was at hand, 
 but mankind still clings with perverse incon- 
 sistency to the belief that war can be abolished 
 and made impossible. How lasting and uni- 
 versal peace is possible in a world which is ever 
 tending to produce more people than it can 
 support, those who denounce the horrors of war 
 are unable to explain. 
 
 It would be wicked to minimize the terrible 
 suffering caused by war, but it is mischievous 
 to disregard the fact that war is due to the 
 terrible suffering caused by unchecked multi- 
 plication. It is vain to rave at patriotism as 
 the cause of war. The patriot does not clamour 
 for war. He only recognizes that unchecked 
 multiplication must inevitably bring suffering 
 upon humanity, and resolves to save those 
 
 46 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST WAR 47 
 
 whom he loves, his own family and personal 
 friends, and those of his own race, if he can by 
 any means do so. All his foresight, toil, and 
 self-sacrifice can only do this by diverting the 
 trouble, so that it falls on the heads of people 
 whom he does not know. 
 
 But even amongst those who can see that it 
 is war which calls forth patriotism, not patriotism 
 which causes war, there are many who still 
 argue that war is not unavoidable. To clear 
 the ground, I must deal with some of their 
 more plausible objections. 
 
 History, they say, shows that the causes of 
 war are to be found in the family affairs of 
 monarchs, the idleness and ferocity of aristo- 
 cracies, the ambitions or embarrassments of 
 statesmen, in religious fanaticism, in the prefer- 
 ence of the people for plundering to honest 
 work, when they have weaker neighbours whom 
 they deem it safe to attack, or their fear at the 
 increasing strength of a neighbour dangerous to 
 themselves. All of which is quite true. History 
 further records many wars which appear to 
 have been purely wanton. But an examination 
 of the conditions prior to the outbreak of wars,, 
 attributed to the above causes, frequently reveals, 
 either poverty and distress in the aggressor or 
 
48 PATRIOTISM 
 
 else an abounding population, whose exuberance 
 could not be restrained ; and the prize for which 
 the nations have fought has ever been fertile 
 territory a land flowing with milk and honey, 
 whose inhabitants are to be swept out, or by 
 tribute or slavery made to develop that land for 
 the benefit of their conquerors. And supposing 
 that in the past a nation had never fought 
 about any matter of greater importance than 
 the personal interests of its ruling family, this 
 would not explain how in the future it is to get 
 food for a surplus population without conquer- 
 ing fresh territory. When, after a period of 
 peace and rapid multiplication, the nation 
 awakes with a sense of increased national 
 strength to the fact that its land is getting 
 exhausted and its population overcrowded, 
 nothing will keep it from sweeping over its 
 frontiers. 
 
 Another reason for which war is declared to 
 be unnecessary is, that nations by exchanging 
 what each can produce most easily, complement 
 one another. Nations, it is said, so far from 
 competing with one another, are necessary to 
 one another. 
 
 Now, as long as the population of the world 
 is not larger than the world can easily support, 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST WAR 49 
 
 this is so. If one nation has special facilities 
 for producing sheep and another for growing 
 corn, the one will produce only sheep and the 
 other only corn, and they will exchange their 
 surplus produce. In course of time, the country 
 which produces the sheep will find that its 
 population has increased to such an extent, that 
 it requires all the mutton its pastures will yield 
 for home consumption. It may still want bread, 
 but it will have nothing with which to buy it. 
 It will probably find then that corn is easier to 
 grow and bread easier to make, than it sup- 
 posed in the days when it produced a surplus of 
 mutton with which to buy it. It will accord- 
 ingly take to making its own bread, though, 
 perhaps, not so successfully as its neighbour 
 could do it. Meanwhile, the nation which grows 
 corn is in the same case. - It now requires all 
 the corn its land will produce for home con- 
 sumption, and will probably find that, when 
 driven by necessity, it can, to a certain extent, 
 produce mutton too. These two countries, in 
 fact, complemented each other as long as their 
 joint territories would support more than their 
 joint populations. When their territories were 
 approximately producing just enough for their 
 populations, the two nations became self-con- 
 
50 PATRIOTISM 
 
 tained again. In their next generation they 
 will have to choose between famine at home or 
 war with one another. 
 
 In the above case I instanced two countries 
 which each produced food. In the case of two 
 countries, one of which produces food and raw 
 material, and the other machinery and labour, 
 the strain will reach the breaking-point even 
 sooner. As soon as a country finds that it 
 requires all the food its land will produce for its 
 own population, it will learn either to manu- 
 facture what it requires itself or else to do with- 
 out what it formerly bought with its surplus of 
 food. The nations of the earth, which rely on 
 buying their food by their labour, have to look 
 forward to the day when they will no longer be 
 able to find customers. As their populations 
 increase the food-producing nations will be able 
 to export less and less food, and the competition 
 between the manufacturing nations to secure 
 their diminishing orders will become more and 
 more keen. ' Industrial wars ' are a fact, not a 
 fiction. By improving its methods and giving 
 better value in return for food, one manu- 
 facturing nation may be able to secure it when 
 its rival has ceased to be able to do so. But 
 this is only staving off the evil day. The time 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST WAR 51 
 
 must come when the manufacturing nations 
 will be obliged either to starve or capture food- 
 producing territory. 
 
 As a matter of fact, mankind seem at present 
 to be ranging themselves in large groups or 
 empires, each of which has enough territory to 
 produce all the different kinds of foodstuffs and 
 raw material it requires, and enough labour and 
 intelligence to manufacture them. Each of these 
 empires is tending to become self-contained, 
 producing all it requires within itself, and 
 trading within itself, whilst holding less and less 
 intercourse with other similar empires. The 
 outbreak of a conflict between two of these 
 empires is a mere matter of time the time it 
 will take one of them to produce a surplus 
 population. 
 
 Far-sighted English statesmen are at the 
 present time urging upon the British Empire 
 the vital necessity of making itself self-support- 
 ing and self-contained, and of suppressing at 
 any sacrifice competition within itself. They 
 advise fostering the production of foodstuffs 
 and raw materials for manufacture, so that the 
 Empire may be independent of supplies from 
 other countries, which will soon require all they 
 produce for their own home consumption. 
 
52 PATRIOTISM 
 
 Equally incomplete is the statement that in 
 future nations will wage war, not with lead and 
 steel, but with gold. Gold will prolong peace, 
 but not prevent war. The masses of mankind 
 have never chosen their own path ; they have 
 always been shepherded by men born to wield 
 powers. The world has seen military aristo- 
 cracies. The aristocracy of wealth that is, 
 the power of those who owned treasure often 
 got by plunder has had its day. The new 
 aristocracy, the fruit of civilization, machinery, 
 and telegraphs, would appear to consist of the 
 capitalists and financiers. These are not so 
 much men who own wealth as men who direct 
 its use. They are the men who organize the 
 nation's industries and supervise the develop- 
 ment of its natural resources. They have been 
 able all their lives to gauge to a nicety from 
 day to day the condition of their own people, 
 and the condition of other peoples, and the 
 relative strength of the different nations. They 
 not only hold in their hands the material wealth 
 of their nation, but possess full knowledge of 
 its powers and needs. Hence they control the 
 nation's destinies. Despite the vain boasts of 
 democracy, the politician, whom an ignorant 
 and sentimental proletariat place in office by 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST WAR 53 
 
 their votes for a few short years of his life, has 
 comparatively little influence on the national 
 policy. 
 
 Now, these men, it is claimed, know as none 
 others can the value of peace and the folly of 
 war. Moreover, they have power. It is claimed, 
 therefore, that the fate of nations will in future 
 always be settled by their manipulation of the 
 world's money-market, never by fighting. This 
 is not so. 
 
 The new aristocracy will avert an armed 
 conflict whenever they can. They will fight 
 only when there is material cause, and not 
 allow the nation to be rushed into war by 
 'Jingo' rant over such abstractions as national 
 honour or by popular howls over alleged 
 ' atrocities.' Under their rule a nation may 
 become so rich and powerful that it will be too 
 formidable to be attacked by any but a coalition 
 of desperate nations. The more progressive 
 nations may be able to dictate terms of peace 
 to the more retrograde without a struggle. 
 But there is nothing in all this to alter the fact 
 of the struggle for existence, depending upon 
 unchecked multiplication and the limited supply 
 of food the earth can yield. Wealth can only 
 be owned and employed under the protection 
 
54 PATRIOTISM 
 
 of force. When any nation has been out- 
 bargained to the verge of starvation it will 
 challenge the force by which the contracts are 
 guaranteed. Within the State this force is the 
 law ; between nations it is the contracting 
 party's army. The new aristocracy will be 
 able to interpose most welcome obstacles to 
 unnecessary fighting, but it will not be able to 
 do away with the necessity for fighting. 
 
 Again, those who argue against the necessity 
 of war point to the decline of war between 
 European nations. The reason for the present 
 comparative peace of Europe is, I think, to be 
 found in the discovery of the New World. 
 Europe was thus given on the one hand an outlet 
 for its surplus population, and on the other a fresh 
 source of food ; and until the population of the 
 world catches up with the resources of these 
 new countries there will be a lull in the struggle 
 for existence. I would ask anyone who dis- 
 putes this explanation to imagine what the 
 condition of the Continent would be to-day if 
 its emigrants had never left it and its new food- 
 supplies had not been discovered. I think that 
 everyone will agree that if, out of the teeming 
 and energetic population of America, Australia, 
 and South Africa, all those who had emigrated, 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST WAR 55 
 
 or whose ancestors had emigrated from Europe, 
 were suddenly returned and set down again in 
 Europe, and if, at the same time, all food- 
 supplies from those continents were stopped, 
 the struggle for existence in Europe would be 
 terrible. If the nations did not immediately 
 start war with one another, it would be because 
 their citizens were fighting one another for 
 their next meal in such a panic that war could 
 not be organized. 
 
 When the new continents were thrown open 
 Europe was released from internal pressure. 
 With what then appeared unlimited scope for 
 expansion wealth increased, the arts improved, 
 science advanced, war became no more a 
 gamble for existence but a kind of chess- 
 match to decide disputes, and, in a word, the 
 European civilization came into being. But 
 with the high standard of living which the 
 underpopulated territories have fostered the 
 pressure will very soon begin to be felt again. 
 When the white race throughout the world has 
 caught up with the resources of its new lands, 
 the old conditions of medieval Europe will, so 
 far as war is concerned, return. 
 
 Lastly, there are the advocates of the 
 Spencerian assertion that the higher the 
 
56 PATRIOTISM 
 
 standard of luxury a nation attains the less 
 prolific it becomes. I shall have to return to 
 this matter later, but, as bearing upon the 
 problem of war, it could only mean that the 
 more civilized a nation became the more 
 defenceless and attractive a prey it would be to 
 less advanced races. 
 
X 
 
 CAUSES WHICH PRECIPITATE WAR 
 
 FOR the sake of clearness, I have treated the 
 question of war as though it depended entirely 
 upon a nation's immediate food-supply. It is a 
 matter of experience, of course, that a nation 
 rarely waits until it is on the brink of famine to 
 declare war. 
 
 A common, and rather inaccurate, statement 
 that a nation fights for greater luxury requires 
 examination. 
 
 A nation starting fair with small numbers in 
 a large territory has at first an easy time, and 
 fixes for itself a high standard of living. 
 Usually it will be found ready to face' war 
 when its population has increased to such an 
 extent that it is necessary to lower that 
 standard of living, a point which is reached 
 long before famine can be considered imminent. 
 To take an example from a nation's dress : A 
 nation which has grown accustomed to wearing 
 
 57 
 
5 8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 tweeds and satins will not, when it can no 
 longer afford them, gradually reduce its 
 standard of dress until everyone is wearing 
 sackcloth. The more fortunate individuals 
 will continue wearing tweeds and satins till 
 the surplus population those for whom the 
 land will provide neither food nor work, nor in 
 this case clothing are reduced to nakedness. 
 Then, when the number of those who perforce 
 have had to reduce their style of clothing 
 below the tweed and satin standard has grown 
 large enough to make its discontent felt, and 
 the rest are finding the maintenance of the 
 accustomed standard a tax that cannot much 
 longer be borne, something will have to be 
 done. What should be done may provoke a 
 certain amount of discussion. The so-called 
 Socialists of the nation will urge a redistribution 
 of the available clothing in other words, a 
 lowering of the standard to that permitted by 
 the resources of the nation. If, they say, the 
 rich be reduced from tweeds and satins to sack- 
 cloth, the poor can also be raised from naked- 
 ness to sackcloth. But whatever the rich may 
 think of such a suggestion, it will certainly not 
 commend itself to the poor. They do not 
 want sackcloth, but tweeds and satin, and will 
 
WAR : ITS CAUSES 59 
 
 insist on trying to restore the old standard at 
 the expense of some other nation. The social- 
 istic expedient is at its best no remedy, but 
 only an attempt to put off the evil day. The 
 population will go on increasing, until at last 
 the most careful redistribution of property will 
 fail to make the necessities of life go round. It 
 depends on a nation's vitality and temperament 
 at what stage it will decide to fight for a new 
 lease of life. 
 
 On the whole, the higher a nation's standard 
 of living the more ready it is to fight. In a 
 nation whose ideal is the * champagne standard,' 
 the difficulty of maintaining it for a large 
 enough section of the population to secure a 
 national content is very great. Where, as in 
 some parts of Asia, the problem is to make the 
 belly hold without bursting enough innutritious 
 rice to support life, it takes a great deal to make 
 a nation desperate. 
 
 The only other statement that I shall 
 examine under this heading is that nations 
 fight for territory which they do not need from 
 the sheer lust of possession. 
 
 This sin ply assumes that there is no such 
 thing as n tional foresight. If a country has a 
 larger territory than is necessary to support its 
 
60 PATRIOTISM 
 
 population, this is no reason why it should 
 give any of it up to its neighbour who is over- 
 populated. A nation can ascertain approxi- 
 mately the resources of its territory and the 
 rate at which its population is increasing, 
 and calculate roughly how long it will be 
 before its supplies will be insufficient for its 
 people. If that day is distant it is a matter 
 for national rejoicing, and the nation is surely 
 justified in resisting the attempt of people of 
 another race to bring the evil day nearer by 
 annexing any of its territory. Even where a 
 very large tract of ' unoccupied ' land is to be 
 divided between two nations, though they may 
 each know that a small part of it would be 
 wealth to them at present, they will remember 
 that in time they will grow to fill the whole of 
 it, and, in the interests of their posterity, be 
 ready to fight for their fair share. Sometimes, 
 it is true, a nation with plenty of territory will 
 delay making the effort necessary for develop- 
 ing its provinces, whilst allowing its population 
 to become congested in one small district, and 
 then, when it is too late, endeavour to gain 
 relief by attacking land which its neighbour has 
 already developed. But this only bears out 
 my main argument. 
 
WAR : ITS CAUSES 61 
 
 In short, I consider that it is inevitable that 
 nations will continue to war with one another 
 so long as the human population of the world 
 continues to increase. Whether the population 
 always will continue to increase, whether it can 
 be kept within limits, whether, if it can be, it 
 will be, and whether, if it were limited, the 
 result would show that peace had been too 
 dearly bought, are problems which do not 
 concern us here, though I shall have to con- 
 sider them later. For the present, it must 
 suffice us that the occurrence of war, though 
 terrible, is unavoidable. 
 
XI 
 
 THE REQUIREMENTS OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 I HAVE been at some pains to describe the way 
 in which man takes his part in the struggle for 
 existence, since my conception of patriotism 
 depends upon the way it is carried on. Ldefined_ 
 patriotism above as being, for the nation, its 
 instinct of self-preservation ; for the individual, 
 his willingness to sacrifice his own life or 
 interests for the defence of the nation, which is 
 pledged to guard those of his own blood.) It 
 follows that patriotism does not involve an 
 attitude of jealousy, ill-will, contempt, or aggres- 
 sion, towards other nations patriotism simply 
 takes no account whatever of other nations. 
 
 If a given nation is not attacked, patriotism 
 does not require it to defend itself. If a 
 nation's resources are sufficient, patriotism does 
 not require it to plunder its neighbours. But 
 if a nation is in any way or to any extent 
 even to the extent of only one of its citizens 
 
 62 
 
REQUIREMENTS 63 
 
 threatened or injured, patriotism requires it 
 to secure its safety then and for the future by 
 the most effective means it can employ. In so 
 doing, patriotism requires a nation to consider 
 solely the interests of its own citizens; and 
 it can take no more account of the interests 
 of the nation which, wilfully or not, threatens 
 it than if the other nation were composed of 
 animals of a different species. 
 
 If a nation has bound itself by treaty with 
 another nation, patriotism neither requires nor 
 excuses the breaking of that treaty to secure an 
 advantage. But treaties between nations can 
 only be considered binding when they are 
 entered into for the mutual advantage of the 
 contracting parties, and no nation will wisely 
 rely on a treaty by which it holds a neighbour 
 at a serious disadvantage being observed. For 
 a nation can no more be required to injure itself 
 in fulfilment of a pledge, than an individual can 
 be compelled by our laws to carry out a contract 
 which requires him deliberately to commit 
 suicide. Contracts between the citizens of a 
 State are on an altogether different footing from 
 treaties between nations, The reason is as 
 follows : 
 
 The citizens of a nation agree to uphold the 
 
6 4 PATRIOTISM 
 
 nation for their common advantage ; they agree 
 to repress the struggle for existence between 
 themselves, and to carry on the struggle only 
 against Nature. The interests of one are, in a 
 sense, the interests of all, and it is the nation as 
 as a whole which is fighting Nature Nature 
 including other nations. A citizen must abide 
 by his pledge given to another citizen, even if it 
 proves to his own disadvantage, because, if he 
 did not, order and security would be impossible 
 within the nation, and the nation would be 
 incapable of successfully struggling with Nature. 
 The nation itself supervises pledges to see that 
 they shall not contravene the law which for- 
 bids its citizens to struggle for life against one 
 another. 
 
 With nations the conditions are directly 
 opposite. Nations arise directly from their 
 need to compete with one another. To one 
 nation another nation is part of Nature, against 
 which it must struggle to preserve its own 
 citizens in safety and peace with one another. 
 The nations of the world are not like the indi- 
 viduals of a State, for they have not a common 
 enemy ; they are, in the last resort, each other's 
 enemies. The disappearance of one of them is 
 not a loss but a gain to the survivors. Two or 
 
REQUIREMENTS 65 
 
 more nations may agree upon the line each 
 shall take, or they may combine against the 
 remaining nations of the world ; but the struggle 
 for existence cannot be stopped while the popu- 
 lation of the world continues to increase, and as 
 nations are the units in the struggle for exist- 
 ence so far as it concerns man, no nation can 
 be expected to forgo its right to defend its 
 citizens from its mortal enemy, because it has 
 pledged itself to him not to do so. In the last 
 resort there is no quarter in the struggle between 
 nations, and no nation can afford to surrender 
 an advantage. 
 
XII 
 
 PATRIOTISM THE FACTOR WHICH DETERMINES A 
 NATION'S CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 
 
 THE most striking peculiarity of man, wherein 
 he differs from other animals, is that instead of 
 unconsciously adapting himself to his environ- 
 ment he makes conscious efforts to alter his 
 environment to suit his needs. Within his- 
 torical times man has made such changes in his 
 environment that he has had to alter his habits, 
 and, to a great extent, his nature, to suit the 
 new conditions he has produced. 
 
 The naked savage submits to Nature; he lies 
 in the sun when he is cold, and in the shade 
 when he is hot, and lives as comfortably and as 
 long as the weather and wild beasts will let him. 
 The civiilzed man tries to control Nature ; he 
 builds a waterproof house, and leaves Nature 
 outside when he shuts the door. The weather 
 and the wild beasts are outside, and he is safe 
 from both within, and he keeps the temperature 
 
 66 
 
PREPARATION AND SURVIVAL 67 
 
 of his house level by means which he can control. 
 Man in the bulk alters the face of the land to 
 suit his convenience; he walls out the sea, drains 
 swamps, directs the course of rivers, irrigates 
 deserts, clears jungle, plants forests, exter- 
 minates some animals, and from others produces 
 breeds unlike anything Nature has fashioned. 
 In time man will learn that Nature is not 
 destroyed by this interference, only thrust back, 
 and that the farther the forces of Nature are 
 thrust back the stronger is the wall needed to 
 prevent their return. For the present, however, 
 I want to consider the alterations introduced 
 into human life in nations such as our own by 
 this tampering with the normal course of Nature. 
 
 Patriotism is simple to a man in a small com- 
 munity. It means to him that, at a moment's 
 notice, he must be ready to leave his plough, or 
 to throw down his hammer, and rush to help his 
 fellows repel invaders. It is the same for every 
 man. Every man understands that if the "enemy 
 get in, he and his friends will be butchered ; 
 every man understands that the preservation of 
 the State is his own business. 
 
 In a great nation the conditions are totally 
 different. The farther back the frontiers are 
 pushed, the less can the citizens in the capital 
 
68 PATRIOTISM 
 
 realize that a struggle with Nature is always 
 going on. They live such sheltered lives that 
 they cannot comprehend how any danger can 
 threaten them from without, and they resent 
 accordingly any interference with their personal 
 comfort which the safety of the State demands. 
 Patriotism is very irksome to a man when it 
 means to him paying taxes to support an army 
 on a distant frontier, needed to check an enemy 
 that he has never seen. 
 
 Danger to a great nation is so difficult to 
 perceive, and is so long in coming to a crisis, 
 that only the most enlightened people can be 
 expected to prepare for it. Often they know 
 that the preparations to which they devote their 
 lives will neither be completed nor needed 
 during their own lifetime. But while the masses 
 of the nation are thinking only of their indi- 
 vidual welfare, and their patriotism, in the 
 absence of a visible enemy, is dormant, the 
 men of intelligence and imagination are looking 
 forward to the day of trial, and hoping that, 
 when it comes, it will find the nation strong 
 enough to emerge triumphant from the con- 
 flict. 
 
 Actually, the conflict is always going on, for 
 the nation is always at war with Nature, though 
 
QUESTION OF SURVIVAL 69 
 
 Nature is only at times capable of being 
 identified with another nation. 
 
 In time of peace that is to say, when the 
 nation is not at war with other nations the 
 wise man is still able to trace the course of 
 the struggle, and the patriotic man is glad to 
 note certain things. In the first place, he is 
 glad to note a high standard of morality among 
 his compatriots, and a healthy increase in 
 the population, and to see the achievements 
 of his countrymen in science, industry, art, 
 etc., equal, if not surpass, the similar achieve- 
 ments of men of other nations. These things 
 tell him of the vitality of the nation. In 
 the second place, he likes to see his nation 
 accumulating wealth, and acquiring fresh terri- 
 tory, since this tells him that the production of 
 a surplus population, and consequent return of 
 the struggle for existence within the community, 
 which necessitates an acute struggle with Nature 
 that is to say, war with another nation is 
 being put off to a distant future. Thirdly, he likes 
 to see his country making adequate preparation 
 for war. This tells him that his nation, being 
 strong, is not likely to be attacked by any 
 other nation which happens to produce a surplus 
 population. Any such nations will probably 
 
70 PATRIOTISM 
 
 prefer to attack another country less well pre- 
 pared. Then when the evil day comes, and 
 the nation must fight for existence, it will have 
 a good chance of surviving. In the meantime 
 he likes to see the nation obtaining immediate 
 recognition of its rights from its neighbours, 
 since this is a pleasing indication of national 
 strength. Finally, he likes to see these views 
 actively shared by his fellow-citizens, for the 
 all- important factor in a nation's safety is its 
 patriotism. 
 
 The struggle between nations, though it only 
 occasionally becomes acute, is, as I said just 
 now, really incessant ; and there are no non- 
 combatants in a State, except those who live as 
 parasites under the protection of a power they 
 will not support. It is upon the vitality of the 
 nation developed in times of peace that its suc- 
 cess in time of war depends. Its accumulation 
 of wealth enables it to equip its armies, and to 
 last out the struggle when the time comes for its 
 energies to be occupied otherwise than in pro- 
 ducing food. Its devotion to science provides 
 it with appliances which must be at least as good 
 as those of the enemy. Its system of education 
 must give it knowledge of its needs, and pre- 
 pare it for the unhesitating sacrifice of men and 
 
NATIONAL SAFETY 71 
 
 treasure ; and also provide it with men trained 
 in the latest refinements of the art of war. Its 
 healthy social life must produce men of sufficient 
 stamina, intelligence, and devotion, to serve in 
 the ranks of its armies. The morale of those 
 who will be thrown out of employment must 
 be such that in the day of trial they do not 
 harass those engaged in the conduct of the 
 war. All these matters of preparation should 
 be the outcome of the nation's normal life in 
 time of peace, when no definite enemy is in 
 view. A great nation is only engaged in war 
 at long intervals, where the small community 
 fights for dear life almost every day ; but the 
 demands upon the patriotism of the former are 
 no less continuous and exacting than upon that 
 of the latter. The fate of a nation appears to 
 be decided in hostilities lasting a few months : 
 really, the nation has been carrying on a run- 
 ning account with Nature in its daily life for 
 years or centuries past, and this is only the 
 settlement. The dramatic way in which 
 soldiers give effect to the nation's latent power 
 explains the high place which they occupy in 
 the nation's regard. Soldiers are the instru- 
 ments by which the nation is saved eventually, 
 and hence the national heroes are its most sue- 
 
72 PATRIOTISM 
 
 cessful warriors. Those in whom the patriotic 
 instinct is strongest wish to lead its armies to 
 victory when the crisis has come ; but it is the 
 strength of the patriotic instinct, generally 
 diffused at all times, that determines whether 
 or not a nation shall be among those that 
 eventually survive. 
 
XIII 
 
 NORMAL VARIATIONS OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 IT is generally accepted that the more com- 
 plicated a machine is, the more liable is its 
 mechanism to get out of order ; the more 
 specialized the organs of an animal become 
 in the course of evolution, the more subject are 
 they to disease ; and the shorter the time is which 
 has passed since functions have been acquired, 
 the more easily are they lost. Civilized man is 
 the lineal descendant of the savage, and before 
 him of the brute, and the qualities which make 
 civilized life possible are the modified survivals 
 of animal instincts. When a highly civilized 
 nation is made up of dissimilar and unstable 
 elements interacting upon one another under 
 varying conditions, much that is aberrant, 
 atavistic, and diseased, is sure to be found. 
 
 Patriotism, even when normal, is a different 
 thing in different classes, and in the two sexes. 
 
 To consider the difference in the sexes first : 
 73 
 
74 PATRIOTISM 
 
 Patriotism in the men of a community is active, 
 an impulse to protect; in the women it is 
 firstly passive an expectation of protection for 
 themselves, and secondly active a demand for 
 protection for their children. In the primitive 
 community, where the danger from without is 
 continuous and easily understood, the patriotism 
 of the women is intense. They show extreme 
 bitterness against any man who, either from 
 cowardice or selfishness, tries to avoid making 
 his proper contribution to the national defence. 
 But women live primarily in the family. When 
 the nation has grown great, and its claims upon 
 each of its citizens are less exacting, women 
 become less willing to let their sons and hus- 
 bands risk themselves in its defence. Patriotism 
 then becomes largely a matter of education 
 and breadth of view. Women with sufficient 
 imagination to think of the nation as a whole 
 are as devoted in its cause as men. But many 
 women cannot comprehend any unit larger than 
 the family, and try in times of danger to save 
 their husbands and sons at the expense of the 
 State. 
 
 Women have, undoubtedly, developed along 
 with men in the evolution of civilization, and 
 some fully understand all the responsibilities of 
 
NORMAL VARIATIONS 75 
 
 citizenship. But regarding women as women, 
 not as citizens, one would not expect that they 
 would have such strong instincts of race as ot 
 family. Those purely female characteristics 
 which they have inherited only from their 
 female ancestors would not be likely to include 
 patriotism, since in early times women were so 
 frequently transferred by marriage, sale, or 
 capture, from one community to another. 
 
 If the dangerous experiment is ever made of 
 giving women a voice in international affairs, it 
 will be interesting to watch whether their in- 
 terests expand, or whether the nation finds 
 itself severely handicapped in dealing with 
 foreign Powers. 
 
 The variations of patriotism due to the limi- 
 tations of the social classes are very interesting. 
 
 In the artisan class patriotism tends to lie 
 dormant. The people living in their conditions 
 find their work and pleasure within a small 
 radius, and are inclined to be absorbed in their 
 own affairs. The gregarious instincts are strong 
 in them, but from narrowness of outlook are 
 liable to be exercised within a narrow compass. 
 They form small cliques, and quarrel over the 
 affairs of the parish or the local football-club. 
 They cannot easily be made to understand that 
 
76 PATRIOTISM 
 
 the nation is the unit, and is struggling for 
 existence, and always at war with natural forces 
 beyond its distant frontiers. They are some- 
 times even inclined to deride one of their 
 number who takes a serious interest in national 
 affairs, as an unpractical being who wants to 
 meddle with what does not concern him, to the 
 neglect of his own business. When, however, 
 the crisis comes and the nation is at grips with 
 another nation, the larger issues become appa- 
 rent to them ; their patriotism awakes. They 
 will at such times make the necessary efforts 
 and sacrifices to win, and they can then see 
 what defeat would mean to them. Patriotism 
 is always defensive, and the less educated 
 classes cannot, when under settled government, 
 be made to see the necessity for defensive 
 measures until actual disaster threatens. 
 
 The external relations of the nation require 
 the care of the aristocratic class. The hereditary 
 tendency of these few ruling families, whose 
 wealth relieves them of immediate anxiety 
 about their own affairs, is to look upon mankind 
 as made up of nations, not men. The tradition 
 of public office makes them often careful of the 
 affairs of the State as a whole, while they are 
 careless of their own personal concerns. They 
 
NORMAL VARIATIONS 77 
 
 stand for the nation. In the discharge of their 
 normal function, of manoeuvring the nation like 
 a ship in the presence of a hostile fleet, they 
 are apt to overlook the importance of securing 
 smooth working in its internal economy. 
 
 Evolution has formed these two main sections 
 within the nation, each with its peculiar outlook 
 and view of life. There are numerous shades 
 and classes in between, produced in the normal 
 course of the national life, and each is necessary 
 to the life of the nation which is to survive in 
 the struggle for existence ; but being the pro- 
 ducts of Nature, not design, mankind as a whole 
 does not understand what they are for. The 
 classes have the defects of their qualities. The 
 working classes, from their continual applica- 
 tions to restricted competition with next-door 
 neighbours, tend to neglect public affairs, and to 
 study the rules of civil life. Hence, in national 
 concerns they appear petty and selfish, in 
 domestic disputes law-abiding. The rulirig class, 
 on the other hand, being absorbed in the 
 nation's danger from other nations, tend to neg- 
 lect domestic affairs. They thus often appear 
 unsympathetic towards the troubles of the work- 
 ing classes. Moreover, their lives being attuned 
 to a struggle with the relentless forces of Nature 
 
78 PATRIOTISM 
 
 outside the frontier, they are apt to forget the 
 restrictions under which competition is carried 
 on at home. Hence, many patriots who have 
 done their country great service in its struggles 
 with other nations have been regarded as law- 
 less and unscrupulous at home. During the 
 struggle, when the enemy is in sight and active, 
 the soldiers in the ranks, and the officers who 
 lead them, perceive clearly each other's uses 
 and virtues, and the need they have of one 
 another ; but during times of peace all this is 
 sometimes forgotten, in mutual dislike bred of 
 stupid jealousy and contempt. Hence, class 
 prejudice is active in most great nations during 
 times of peace. Modern statesmanship has 
 attempted nothing greater than teaching the 
 masses to think imperially. 
 
 But if the manifestations of patriotism vary, 
 and the forms it takes in different social ranks 
 are widely dissimilar, at any rate in times of 
 international peace the complicated conditions 
 of national life unfortunately facilitate the growth 
 of diseased conditions. Patriotism is as unstable 
 as all else in a civilized State. It is sometimes 
 seen morbidly exaggerated, and sometimes 
 atrophied. But most interesting of all is the 
 fact that man, like all other animals, tends to 
 
NORMAL VARIATIONS 79 
 
 destroy himself by the products of his own 
 activity. Man evolves civilization : civilization 
 evolves those individuals recently described as 
 anti-Nationalists. These diseased conditions of 
 patriotism I shall examine in the next section. 
 
XIV 
 
 DISEASED CONDITIONS OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 DISEASED conditions of patriotism are of different 
 kinds, and arise from totally different causes. 
 
 Of the morbid intensification of patriotism 
 patriotism run to seed I need say little. It is 
 an exaggeration of what is normal, often acute, 
 and tending to subside of itself. The howling 
 crowd who celebrate a national victory by a 
 drunken orgie overnight are usually sane by 
 the next morning. Their outburst was due, 
 partly to relief from previous alarm, partly to 
 reaction against former indifference. Violent 
 outbursts against foreigners during times of 
 national anxiety are, like outbursts of temper in 
 family life, a reversion to a more primitive and 
 less civilized state. A more serious pheno- 
 menon is the growth of national conceit. This, 
 if widespread, is a mistake, and is cured by 
 education and experience ; but nations un- 
 doubtedly do in their decay produce individuals 
 
 80 
 
DISEASED CONDITIONS 81 
 
 who believe with insane obstinacy in the invin- 
 cibility of their country in war, and in its 
 inherent superiority over all other nations in art, 
 science, and morality. Their attitude towards 
 other nations is aggressive and contemptuous. 
 These people consider that other nations have 
 no rights that need be respected, even when 
 they do not interfere with their own safety ; no 
 qualities or achievements that they might admire 
 or copy ; and no powers or advantages which 
 may make them formidable. 
 
 This last delusion gives the key to the nature 
 of their madness. Patriotism is purely defen- 
 sive, and rooted in the citizen's fear of harm 
 befalling those of his own blood. When a 
 nation produces men who are lacking in the 
 instincts which make their first thought the 
 safety of the race, they may show their in- 
 ability to comprehend danger from withput by 
 rash and unnecessary aggressiveness towards 
 other peoples. A more frequent symptom is 
 an indifference towards measures for national 
 defence. Indifference, however, is rare in a 
 civilized State. Where opposites are obliged to 
 live side by side in daily close proximity they 
 quickly drive one another to extremes ; and 
 this brings me to the other class, the un- 
 
 G 
 
82 PATRIOTISM 
 
 patriotic, who in their extreme form are anti- 
 Nationalist. 
 
 The development of the needlessly and rashly 
 pugnacious, who delight in stupidly insulting 
 other nations, is fairly easy to understand. The 
 growth of a small nation into a large one 
 deprives its less intelligent citizens of their 
 standards of comparison, and so promotes a feel- 
 ing of false security ; while the less often their 
 gregarious instincts are appealed to for the 
 defence of the State, the more liable they are to 
 become perverted through lack of normal use. 
 But the development within the nation of types 
 which are deficient in patriotism that is to say, 
 the instinct to defend those of their own blood, 
 whether at a cost to themselves or not is at 
 first sight less easy to explain. These types, 
 who are bitterly described by their normal com- 
 patriots as 'fools,' * cowards/ ' friends of every 
 country but their own,' ' enemies of their own 
 country' according to the degree of their aberra- 
 tion from the normal, are a natural phenomenon 
 of extreme interest. 
 
 They can be divided, broadly speaking, into 
 two types the over-civilized and the degen- 
 erate. Though these two types are opposites, 
 they are both produced by the process of civili- 
 
DISEASED CONDITIONS 83 
 
 zation, and both tend to destroy it. To insure 
 accuracy in description, I shall endeavour to 
 illustrate these types by quoting from the pub- 
 lished writings of notable examples of each. 
 
 I will begin with the first type, that produced 
 by over-development of the social instincts 
 Its origin is to be explained as follows : 
 
 The primitive community depends on two 
 qualities in its members, a faculty for combining 
 against any enemy who threatens from without, 
 and a faculty for exercising mercy and forbear- 
 ance towards fellow-members within the com- 
 munity. The aim and object of the community 
 is to put an end to the struggle for existence 
 between its members. To this end the members 
 agree to get, each what he requires, from 
 Nature, not from his neighbours. They under- 
 take to enrich themselves either by working 
 the soil, breeding useful animals, or hunting 
 wild ones, and each to respect his neighbour's 
 spoils. This means that men are to rob Nature, 
 but not one another. Co-operation in robbing 
 Nature follows as a matter of course, and out of 
 co-operation there inevitably arise matters of 
 dispute. But these matters of dispute must not 
 be fought out between members of the com- 
 munity at least, not in a way that will lead to 
 
84 PATRIOTISM 
 
 the death of a useful member of the community. 
 For the community is pledged to secure the 
 good of all its members, irrespective of their 
 personal strength, and cannot afford to weaken 
 itself in its struggle with Nature by allowing its 
 defenders to kill or maim one another. Hence, 
 matters in dispute between members of the 
 community are settled by appeal, either to the 
 opinion of the community as a whole or of its 
 representative arbitrator. As the civilization of 
 the community advances the spirit of justice 
 grows ; the members become more ready to 
 submit their dispute to the judgment of the 
 community, more confident that the decision 
 will be equitable, more ready to abide by it even 
 if it goes against their personal wishes, and 
 more determined to enforce the general ruling 
 upon those who try to withstand it. So much 
 for the promotion of mutual trust and security. 
 But co-operation and mutual service carried to 
 their logical conclusion lead to the support of 
 the aged sick and helpless, and when disaster 
 overtakes one member of the community the 
 rest, instead of taking advantage of his weak- 
 ness, come to his help. In fact, besides judicial 
 discipline, the community develops compassion 
 and brotherly love. 
 
DISEASED CONDITIONS 85 
 
 Now these judicial and humane qualities 
 would be all that the community needed if the 
 numbers of mankind were not always tending 
 to increase beyond the number for whom the 
 world can provide food. As this happens, 
 there is a struggle for existence in which only 
 those who manage to secure enough food 
 survive. Since the members of the community 
 have suppressed the struggle for existence 
 between themselves, they must see that the 
 community as a whole holds its own in the 
 struggle with the powers of Nature, the most 
 formidable of which are other similar com- 
 munities. Hence the community requires a 
 third great quality which we may call ' martial 
 spirit.' 
 
 Whilst the community is small, and obliged 
 to defend its very life from the attacks of 
 enemies almost daily, the martial spirjt is a 
 necessity that all its members can understand, 
 and is considered the highest virtue. When 
 by the process of evolution, traced in a 
 previous chapter, the small community has 
 been replaced by the great nation, there is a 
 large area within the frontiers which is at 
 peace, and whence the struggle for existence 
 has been expelled. This area is more com 
 
86 PATRIOTISM 
 
 fortable in proportion as the law is respected 
 and the humane propensities are widely exer- 
 cised. In the heart of the country the 
 physical courage and animal exuberance which 
 are necessary for the defence, and, when the 
 time comes, for the extension, of its frontiers 
 are a nuisance. The police are directed to 
 hold their manifestations in check, as their 
 propensities are exercised at the expense of 
 the citizens, and not the enemies of the nation. 
 For home use, the highest qualities are a 
 docile and law-abiding disposition and a gentle 
 and humane nature. The tendency of civiliza- 
 tion in a large State is accordingly to regard 
 as * virtue ' the foregoing amiable qualities, and 
 not valour, which the word originally meant. 
 Since the struggle for existence is to be 
 repressed within the State, the State endeavours 
 to discourage the qualities which lead to 
 victory in the struggle for existence, forgetful 
 of the fact that the State buys its internal peace 
 by struggle with other States. Further, the 
 protection of the State enables certain indi- 
 viduals often of great value to the State to 
 thrive and gain influence, who by reason of 
 their lack of vitality would never survive at 
 all if they had to hold their own in unrestricted 
 
DISEASED CONDITIONS 87 
 
 competition. The total result is to produce 
 ultimately a very humane but rather enfeebled 
 proletariat. They are individually admirable 
 in their politeness and forbearance towards 
 their fellow- citizens, but woefully unable to 
 defend their artificial paradise when it is 
 assailed by the forces of Nature as embodied 
 in other nations beyond its frontiers. 
 
 The brotherly love, or ' humanity,' which 
 is the final product of civilization, requires 
 patriotism to balance it ; for the social virtues 
 are developed by life within the community, 
 and are for use between individuals of the 
 community, otherwise they destroy the State. 
 A very different code must govern the relations 
 of the nation when dealing with other nations ; 
 with them it must remorselessly struggle for 
 existence if its citizens are to live in peace at 
 home, or, in fact, if it is to survive at^all as a 
 nation. 
 
XV 
 
 HUMANITARIANISM 
 
 THOSE in whom humanitarianism amounts to 
 a disease, since it threatens the safety of the 
 race, have numerous representatives among the 
 literary people who rise from the lower classes 
 to cater for a large sentimental and uncritical 
 public. These persons owe their success to 
 their possession in an exceptional degree of the 
 peculiar virtues of their class. Description of 
 this disorder of public opinion will, therefore, 
 be greatly facilitated by quoting their writings. 
 The great mass of the nation is composed 
 of individuals who live on what they earn from 
 day to day. They earn very little more than 
 what they need to subsist on, and they ask, 
 before all else, to be allowed to devote their 
 whole energies to getting their daily bread 
 in peace. They are industrious, law-abiding, 
 and remarkably generous to one another. But 
 they tend to be extremely selfish as a class, 
 
 88 
 
HUMANITARIANISM 89 
 
 since they do not know on what their safety 
 depends. Further, their sheltered lives and 
 habits of mutual assistance, coupled with their 
 narrow outlook and ignorance of racial differ- 
 ences, make them humane to the point of dis- 
 approving of the employment of force against 
 any man on any pretext. The intelligent man, 
 who in any surviving nation is in the majority, 
 sees things as a whole, and can act as a 
 citizen. If required, he will defend his country- 
 men as a brave soldier ; if the country does 
 not need him in that capacity, he maintains 
 his family as an orderly workman. He com- 
 bines, in fact, the military qualities which can 
 carry on the struggle for existence between 
 the nation and Nature, and the civil qualities 
 which can suppress the struggle for existence 
 at home. Deficiency of the latter qualities 
 makes a man a criminal, deficiency of the 
 former a humanitarian. The criminal is 
 recognized early as a danger to the com- 
 munity, and dealt with accordingly ; the 
 humanitarian is too often exalted into an 
 ideal citizen. 
 
 The humanitarian is the individual who 
 cannot understand that there is a struggle for 
 existence. He has such horror of violence 
 
90 PATRIOTISM 
 
 and suffering that he defeats the aims of the 
 nation at home and abroad by illogical refusal 
 to meet force with force. No matter how brutal 
 a criminal may have been, the humanitarian 
 tries to save him from punishment and let him 
 loose to prey upon the State again. No matter 
 what danger his countrymen may be in, he will 
 not tolerate the mention of war. It is interest- 
 ing to note that it is just the man who refuses 
 to aid in suppressing the struggle for existence 
 within his own community who also refuses to 
 aid his own community in its struggle for exist- 
 ence with other communities. He insists on the 
 applicability of the rules which govern inter- 
 course between the citizens of his own State, 
 who are friends and blood-relations and de- 
 pendent for existence on one another's welfare, 
 to the relations of his nation with hostile 
 nations which would profit by its destruction. 
 Soldiers to him are not men who at risk to 
 themselves defend those of their own blood 
 from external danger : they are simply men 
 who kill men. 
 
 As the epitome of the social virtues, the 
 humanitarian is much appreciated in literature. 
 I quote, as an example of the views of an 
 intellectual humanitarian, the following passage 
 
HUMANITARIANISM 91 
 
 from a book which, at the time of writing, is 
 offered for sale by almost every bookseller 
 in London for the sum of one shilling : 
 
 ' Patriotism is one of these lowest vices 
 which most often masquerades in false garb 
 as a virtue. But what, after all, is patriotism ? 
 " My country, right or wrong, and just because 
 it is my country." This is clearly nothing more 
 than collective selfishness. Often enough, 
 indeed, it is not even collective. It means 
 merely, "My business interests against the 
 business interests of other people, and let the 
 taxes of my fellow-citizens pay to support 
 them." At other times it means pure pride 
 of race and pure lust of conquest : my country 
 against other countries. My navy against 
 other fighters ! My right to annex unoccupied 
 territory against the equal right of all other 
 peoples ! My power to oppress all ^weaker 
 nationalities, all inferior races !" It never 
 means, or can mean, anything good or true. 
 For, if a cause be just like Ireland's, or, once, 
 Italy's, then 'tis a good man's duty to espouse 
 it with warmth, be it his own or another's. 
 And if a cause be bad, then 'tis a good man's 
 duty to oppose it tooth and nail, irrespective 
 of your patriotism. True, a good man will 
 
92 PATRIOTISM 
 
 feel more sensitively anxious that strict justice 
 should be done by the particular community 
 of which chance has made him a component 
 member than by any other's ; but then, people 
 who feel acutely this joint responsibility of all 
 the citizens to uphold the moral right are not 
 praised as patriots, but reviled as unpatriotic. 
 To urge that our own country should strive 
 with all its might to be better, higher, purer, 
 nobler, more generous than other countries 
 the only kind of patriotism worth a moment's 
 thought in a righteous man's eye is accounted 
 by most men both wicked and foolish.' 1 
 
 I quote the passage as it stands, and without 
 abbreviation, because I think it is a remark- 
 ably fair and complete exposition of the state of 
 mind of the humanitarian. The book in which 
 it appears is now enjoying a large circulation, 
 hence I regard it as expressing the views of a 
 certain section of the public. I say not a word 
 against the author, whose reputation rests on 
 other and better work. 
 
 On examination of this passage, we see firstly 
 that it assumes a man's country to be merely 
 ' the particular community of which chance 
 
 1 From ' The Woman who Did,' chapter xvii., by 
 Grant Allen. Written in the spring of 1893. 
 
HUMAN1TARIANISM 93 
 
 has made him a component member.' One 
 would never suppose from reading it that a 
 man was, together with the rest of his country- 
 men, and in distinction from foreigners, physi- 
 cally, mentally, and morally the result of the 
 varied activities of a long line of ancestors ; 
 that he shares with the others of his race a 
 place in the world which has been gained and 
 held at the cost of infinite toil and bloodshed ; 
 that it is his duty to hand on this heritage to 
 posterity, and that his only chance of doing so 
 is to co-operate with the other men of his 
 blood in the competition with men of other 
 races to secure a food-supply for as many 
 generations ahead as possible. Again the 
 humanitarian disapproves, apparently, of a 
 nation exercising its ' right to annex unoccu- 
 pied territory against the equal right of all 
 other peoples.' If the nations have an 'equal 
 right to annex unoccupied territory,' is it not a 
 duty for a race to secure its share for its pos- 
 terity ? Why, too, is ' My right to oppress/ 
 etc., not followed by ' My duty to defend those 
 of my own blood ' ? One also rather wonders 
 if the humanitarian disapproves of saying, 
 4 My business interests against the business 
 interests of other people, and let the taxes of 
 
94 PATRIOTISM 
 
 my fellow-citizens pay to support them,' quite 
 as much as he fears that a fellow-citizen may 
 say this to him. Why, moreover, should the 
 resources of the whole State not be employed 
 in the defence of a single citizen if his legiti- 
 mate business is threatened by danger from 
 without ? Then we are told that ' the only 
 kind of patriotism worth a moment's thought ' 
 is to strive to make one's country ' better, 
 higher, purer, nobler ' with all of which we 
 cordially agree but also * more generous than 
 other countries.' Now, in the nature of things 
 countries cannot be generous. Certainly one 
 country cannot afford to be more generous than 
 other countries. To do so is to sacrifice the 
 lives and interests of its own children, whom it 
 is pledged to defend, to their natural enemies. 
 We fully endorse the general verdict that this 
 is ' both wicked and foolish.' In fact, patriot- 
 ism is not correctly described as ' My country, 
 right or wrong, and just because it is my 
 country.' Patriotism is ' the safety of my 
 countrymen, because we are of the same blood, 
 and are beset by men of other races.' 
 
 The humanitarian is not only unable to com- 
 prehend the brutal fact of the struggle for 
 existence, he is ignorant of the conditions 
 
HUMANITARIANISM 95 
 
 under which life is held and of the relation of 
 the people to the soil. The following passage 
 is typical : A writer, whom I would prefer to 
 revere as a philanthropist rather than to criticize 
 as a ' Little Englander,' declares that his^compas- 
 sion is awakened by the misery of the people 
 you * see swarming ' in our overcrowded cities, 
 and then goes on to * wish that mere land 
 surface were of less importance to our statesmen 
 and our able editors, and the happiness and 
 well-being of the mere human items worth a 
 little more of their thought.' 1 What can ' our 
 statesmen and our able editors ' do for the 
 surplus population but enlarge the nation's 
 territory ? 
 
 It is the peculiar defect of the humanitarian 
 that he is so affected by suffering near at hand, 
 even though on a small scale, that he cannot 
 face it in order to avert widespread suffering in 
 the future. He cannot grasp large issues. Even 
 when war is forced upon a nation he considers 
 it wrong to fight. Since war involves suffering, 
 it is not only wrong to go to war, but ridiculous. 
 Hence we get the following extraordinary 
 assertion : ' War is a ridiculous method of 
 settling disputes. Anything that can tend to 
 
 1 * Idle Ideas in 1905,' by Jerome K. Jerome, p. 164. 
 
96 PATRIOTISM 
 
 make its ridiculous aspect more apparent is to 
 be welcomed.' 1 
 
 War, as I have endeavoured to show, is in- 
 evitable as long as the population of the world 
 continues to increase unchecked and men con- 
 tinue to dislike competing with those they know 
 personally for the necessities of existence. War 
 is horrible, but of the people who are unable to 
 perceive that it is unavoidable, I personally 
 prefer those who darken our moments of peace 
 by insistently reminding us of its terrors to 
 those who, with childish levity, try to make it 
 appear ridiculous. Civilization has produced 
 gentle natures whose lives are clouded by the 
 thought of the sufferings of mankind ; but 
 while civilization offers them scope for their 
 energies in peaceful occupations, they should 
 not villify, much less deride, those whose 
 awful duty it is, by their vicarious savagery, 
 to make the virtues of the humanitarian 
 possible. 
 
 Unfortunately, humanitarianism, though it 
 repudiates savagery, has an arrogance of its 
 own. Humanitarians claim 'dignity' for man, 
 and chafe at any reminder that man is subject 
 to the laws of Nature. Their very ignorance 
 
 i ' Idle Ideas in 1905,' by Jerome K. Jerome, p. 235. 
 
HUMANITARIANISM 97 
 
 of Nature is, however, a natural result of 
 civilization. Within the borders of a great 
 nation the struggle for existence is crushed out 
 to such an extent that many men could never 
 learn by their own observation that there is a 
 struggle for existence. They live among trim 
 gardens and carefully bred domestic animals : 
 the average Englishman's idea of ' seeing 
 Nature ' is to take a walk through a wood that 
 is daily patrolled by gamekeepers. He is as 
 surprised as indignant if he chances upon the 
 unusual spectacle of a hawk carrying off a 
 sparrow, or a stoat killing a rabbit. Constant 
 struggle, which is the condition of life, is un- 
 intelligible to him, and he cannot understand 
 that the balance must be maintained. If there 
 is to be peace and security within the nation, 
 there must be a corresponding force upon its 
 frontiers. If fighting never occurs in England, 
 it is because our soldiers fight overseas. If 
 this balance is not maintained, the peace within 
 will be disturbed ; and if the sum total of the 
 nation's powers are not at least equal to those 
 of the nations with which it is competing, its 
 ruin is in the long run certain. 
 
 But the civilized man, seeing only half the 
 picture, gives his ipse dixit : ' Strife is immoral.' 
 
 H 
 
98 PATRIOTISM 
 
 His state of mind has been graphically de- 
 scribed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in one of 
 his stories. He relates how a war-correspondent, 
 newly arrived in the Sudan, was totally unable 
 to realize the first time that he saw an armed 
 dervish making for him, that the man really 
 meant to kill him. Fresh from the security of 
 civilization, he could not understand either that 
 he was entitled to kill the dervish in self- 
 defence, or that he would be killed himself if 
 he did not exercise his right quickly. He was 
 only saved on that occasion by the intervention 
 of a friend. 
 
 If confronted with the question, 'Will you 
 allow those of your own blood, defenceless 
 women and children, to be murdered or starved 
 by men of another race ?' the humanitarian 
 evades a clear answer ; and talks of the rights 
 of different nations, confusing international 
 with intranational ethics. Asked whether he 
 considers that other nations have rights which 
 entail the destruction of his own, he disputes 
 the struggle for existence. His line of argu- 
 ment regarding the question of ' rights ' be- 
 tween two, one of whom must destroy the 
 other, would, carried to its logical conclusion, 
 land him in an absurdity. He would have to 
 
HUMANITARIANISM 99 
 
 object to a farmer killing the rabbits which 
 destroy his crops because the rabbits were on 
 the land before he was, or to Hindoos resisting 
 a man-eating tigress because, if she is not 
 allowed to carry off villagers, her poor cubs will 
 starve. He takes refuge at once behind the 
 distinction between men and animals, refusing 
 to recognize distinctions of race among men. 
 He has no reply to the question, * What differ- 
 ence does it make to you whether your children 
 suffer and die for the benefit of a different 
 species of animals, or of an alien race of men ?' 
 Finally cornered, he not infrequently says that 
 he would rather not survive if life is to be 
 bought at the price of a weaker nation's suffer- 
 ing. That explains his natural history. Ultra- 
 refinement has destroyed his instinct of self- 
 preservation and reduced him to the level of a 
 parasite living at the expense of a power he 
 will not uphold. 
 
 Yet it can be shown by another quotation 
 that humanitarianism is a disease not of the 
 intelligence, but of the instincts necessary to 
 preserve the race. A writer whom I have 
 quoted already because his writings voice a 
 large section of public opinion, judging by the 
 popularity of his books, hits off the exact truth 
 
ioo PATRIOTISM 
 
 in what is presumably a sneer. He writes : 
 * Until the far-off date of Universal Brother- 
 hood war will continue. Matters considered 
 unimportant by both parties will, with a mighty 
 flourish of trumpets, be referred to arbitration. 
 * * # # * 
 
 ' Concerning a dead fisherman or two, con- 
 cerning boundaries through unproductive moun- 
 tain ranges, we shall arbitrate and feel virtuous. 
 For gold-mines and good pasture-lands, mixed 
 up with a little honour to give respectability 
 to the business, we shall fight it out as 
 previously.' 1 
 
 Now see the position in which humani- 
 tarianism has landed an intelligent man. 
 Though he pities the misery of the people 
 he can ' see swarming ' in our overcrowded 
 country, and though he knows that nations 
 will fight, not arbitrate, when it is a matter of 
 'good pasture-lands,' he regards war not as a 
 condition of existence, but ' a ridiculous method 
 of settling disputes/ and continues to ' wish 
 that mere land surface were of less importance 
 to our statesmen.' 
 
 On the subject of his own peculiarities this 
 
 1 Idle Ideas in 1905,' by Jerome K. Jerome, pp. 230, 
 231. 
 
HUMANIT'AilANISM 101 
 
 writer says : * I cannot get it into my un- 
 patriotic head that size is the only thing worth 
 worrying about. In England, when I venture 
 to express my out-of-date (sic) opinions, I am 
 called a Little Englander. It fretted me at 
 first. I was becoming a mere shadow. But 
 by now I have got used to it. It would be 
 the same, I feel, wherever I went. In New 
 York I should be a Little American, in Con- 
 stantinople a Little Turk.' 1 This is highly 
 instructive. These people will not countenance 
 any struggle because it involves suffering for 
 both the combatants. They will not vindicate 
 the rights of one man because they must hurt 
 another. As citizens of a great nation, they 
 consider that any difference with another nation 
 is oppressionj of the weak. For their own 
 nation to press a claim is bullying aggression : 
 for it not to concede everything asked of it is 
 ungenerous. Yet note : The humanitarian is 
 a danger to his own people through his un- 
 divided sympathy with all mankind, not because 
 he hates his own nation. With the degenerate 
 anti-nationalist it is just the reverse. 
 
 1 ' Idle Ideas in 1905,' by Jerome K. Jerome, p. 160. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE DEGENERATE 
 
 DECADENCE of the patriotic instinct reaches its 
 lowest point in that type of individual known as 
 the degenerate. In the two types already de- 
 scribed namely, the rashly aggressive and the 
 sentimentally humanitarian the perversion of 
 patriotism was due to excessive and unbalanced 
 development of one of the two most important 
 characteristics of a good citizen. In the de- 
 generate the qualities which make civilization 
 possible are all under - developed. Yet the 
 degenerate is every bit as much a natural and 
 inevitable product of civilization as either of 
 the other two. 
 
 In the small community which has a daily 
 struggle to maintain its existence, the standard 
 of citizenship is high. It is moreover uniform. 
 Every citizen must be strong, industrious, law- 
 abiding and patriotic. In the face of continual 
 danger of destruction from without, the com- 
 
 102 
 
THE DEGENERATE 103 
 
 munity has a short way with undesirable or un- 
 profitable members. If a man disregards the 
 rights of his fellow-citizens or shirks his own 
 warlike duties, he is clubbed on the head. If 
 he is lazy and thriftless, everyone else being 
 too busy to support him in idleness, he starves. 
 If he is merely weak, he is the recipient of 
 charity ; but in times of stress he is liable to be 
 neglected. 
 
 When a nation has grown great a very dif- 
 ferent state of things prevails. Within its 
 frontiers the struggle for existence has been 
 brought to an end, and the feeble in mind 
 and body, together with the actively depraved 
 and vicious, are encouraged to live and pro- 
 pagate their kind. Those who, left to them- 
 selves, would speedily die of want or disease 
 are^ preserved, partly by the State, but mainly 
 by the charity of their neighbours. Those 
 who in a more primitive community would 
 have speedily exhausted its collective patience 
 continue to live, owing partly to the great 
 self-restraint of civilized individuals, but mainly 
 to the efforts which the State makes to re- 
 strain and preserve them. The death-penalty 
 is still sometimes inflicted, and theoretically 
 lunatics are not allowed to marry ; but, as a 
 matter of fact, there is practically no attempt 
 
104 PATRIOTISM 
 
 made to eliminate feeble or undesirable ele- 
 ments from the population nor to check their 
 multiplication. Hence a great nation contains 
 within its borders an ever-growing class of 
 people who would be unable to support them- 
 selves if not kept alive by other people, and who 
 contribute nothing to the State ; whilst their 
 undeveloped social and national instincts make 
 them a danger as well as a drain. 
 
 The study of the degenerate in his personal 
 relations with his fellow-citizens is the province 
 of the alienist and the criminologist. Here his 
 interest lies in his relation to the State as a 
 whole. Just as by reason of his feebleness of 
 mind and body he is usually of little use to the 
 State, so by his undeveloped instincts of citizen- 
 ship he is most eager to get all he can from the 
 State for himself. He is a parasite on the 
 nation : not the kind of parasite which bathes 
 its stomachless body in food that another animal 
 has digested, but one which drinks the very 
 life-blood of its host. 
 
 The attitude of the degenerate towards the 
 rest of mankind is characterized by morbid 
 vanity and selfishness a disordered state of 
 mind known as egomania. He cannot form a 
 conception of himself as an essential member of 
 
THE DEGENERATE 105 
 
 a great nation in competition with other nations. 
 At best he is only capable of restricted patriot- 
 ism, such as devotion to a parish whose claims 
 he urges against the interests of the nation as a 
 whole, or as a member of a small clique of indi- 
 viduals, whose conduct is regardless of the 
 welfare of their fellow - citizens, and often 
 in direct conflict with their interests. Hence, 
 as his individual wishes are continually meeting 
 with the opposition of the State, and as he is 
 constitutionally incapable of any self-sacrifice, 
 certainly in defence of so difficult a conception 
 as a great nation at war with external danger, 
 he looks upon his own country as his enemy. 
 The restraint which the State places upon his 
 freedom of action brings home to him his per- 
 sonal insignificance. The absurdity of opposing 
 his puny selfishness to the might of the nation 
 which protects him, instead of shaming him only 
 serves to exasperate him. This type has a craving 
 for public notice, and when unable to inspire 
 admiration, usually finds consolation in exciting 
 disgust. Hence these beings profess contempt 
 and aversion for their national institutions and 
 all in authority, and particularly those servants of 
 the nation who have done most to earn its trust 
 and gratitude. The next step follows as a matter 
 
106 PATRIOTISM 
 
 of course : they try to flatter their sense of self- 
 importance by professing their admiration for 
 their country's enemies. 
 
 A minutely studied picture of the type is given 
 by Zola in his novel ' La Debacle.' During 
 a retreat of the demoralized French troops 
 before the German advance a party of soldiers 
 are taken by rail in trucks ; during the journey 
 a private, called Chouteau, harangues his com- 
 rades in the same truck. He says 'in his tavern 
 orator's voice : " It's disgusting to send a lot of 
 brave chaps to get their heads cracked on 
 account of some dirty business they don't know 
 a word about." And he continued talking in 
 the same strain. This incapable workman of 
 Montmartre, this lounging, dissipated house- 
 painter, who had badly digested some scraps of 
 speeches heard at public meetings, and who 
 mingled revolutionary claptrap with the great 
 principles of equality and liberty, played the 
 part of the perverter. He knew everything, 
 and indoctrinated his comrades. ... " It's 
 simple enough. If Badinguet 1 and Bismarck 
 have a row together, let them settle it between 
 them with their fists, instead of troubling hun- 
 dreds and thousands of men who don't even 
 1 A nickname for Napoleon III. 
 
THE DEGENERATE 107 
 
 know one another and have no wish to fight. . . . 
 We ought to slope yes, quietly slope, and 
 leave that fat hog Badinguet and his clique of 
 twopenny-halfpenny generals to settle matters 
 as they please with their dirty Prussians." 
 
 Continuing, he speaks of the French officers 
 as 'dirty curs who treat us worse than brute 
 beasts, and who can't understand that when a 
 man has had enough of his sack and his pop- 
 gun he pitches the whole lot into the fields. . . . 
 To death with the dirty curs who want us to 
 fight !' 
 
 Who does not know the type ? 
 
 But Zola, with his usual completeness, shows 
 us within the next few pages how such a man 
 appears to a normal citizen, and frees his opinion 
 of him with remarkable dexterity from irrelevant 
 side-issues. The corporal, breaking in, says : 
 
 ' I've said nothing for hours past, for there 
 are no commanders left, and I can't even send 
 you to the lock-up. I know well enough I 
 should have rendered the regiment a big service 
 by ridding it of a blackguard like you. But 
 never mind ; as punishment is mere humbug, 
 you'll have to deal with me. I'm not a corporal 
 now, but simply a chap you pester and who'll 
 shut your jaw for you. You filthy coward, you 
 
io8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 won't fight, and you try to prevent others from 
 fighting ! Just say all that again, and you'll 
 feel my 'fists. . . .' 'And I don't care a rap 
 for Badinguet any more than you do/ resumed 
 Jean. ' IVe never cared a rap for politics, for 
 either Republic or Empire, and when I tilled 
 my field I never wished but one thing every- 
 body's happiness, good order, and prosperity 
 everywhere the same as I wish now. No 
 doubt it does plague one to have to fight ; but 
 all the same the rascals as try to discourage one 
 when it's already so hard to behave properly 
 ought to be stuck against a wall and shot. 
 Dash it all, friends ! doesn't your blood boil 
 when you're told that the Prussians are here in 
 France, and that we've got to bundle them 
 out ?' 
 
 There is a whole philosophy summed up in 
 that one sentence : ' Doesn't your blood boil 
 when you're told that the Prussians are here in 
 France P' 1 
 
 While the humanitarian is mainly to the fore 
 in literature, the degenerate has a passion for 
 politics. The spurious importance, the display 
 and opportunities for irresponsible talking, make 
 
 1 ' La Debacle,' by Emile Zola, chapter ii. Translated 
 by Ernest A. Vizetelly. 
 
THE DEGENERATE 109 
 
 a political career exceedingly attractive to the 
 vanity of the degenerate. He is, of course, 
 always sure of a following. 
 
 As the degenerate is humiliated by the mere 
 thought that any other man is in a position of 
 authority, he shows the fiercest hostility towards 
 those whose words are weighted with expert 
 knowledge of any subject, no matter whether it 
 be economic, medical, scientific, religious, or 
 artistic. As the champion of the ignorant, he 
 never need lack support, and few things tickle 
 his pride more than the thought that he can 
 contradict with impunity men who have specially 
 studied subjects in which he is entirely unversed. 
 
 Once up in arms against the representatives 
 of the nation's authority, he appeals straight to 
 the avarice of the masses. It is simple enough 
 to tell them that the educated and ruling classes 
 despise and oppress them ; that navies are built 
 purely for the benefit of rich contractors ; that 
 armies are maintained solely that supercilious 
 young gentlemen may enjoy the remuneration 
 and privileges of officering them ; that the 
 nation only goes to war for the benefit of stock- 
 brokers ; that the masses of one nation have no 
 quarrel with the masses of another nation ; that 
 supporting the nation is not taking care of their 
 
no PATRIOTISM 
 
 own welfare, but only that of the upper classes ; 
 that if they only refuse to submit to taxation 
 for national as opposed to local purposes they 
 can rid themselves of the tyranny of the rich. 
 
 The masses of the nation are usually not 
 lacking in common sense. They are still, how- 
 ever, largely uneducated. They lack instruction 
 upon national affairs ; they love grumbling ; and 
 they are ready to give a sympathetic hearing 
 to anyone who proposes to reduce taxation. 
 Hence a political degenerate can gain a certain 
 amount of influence, and appear to exert far 
 more than he really has. For, though the 
 masses love to abuse those holding high offices 
 of state, and to grumble at the expense of the 
 army, etc., they do so largely in the belief 
 that nothing is likely to come of what they say. 
 When the country is in any danger they can 
 generally perceive it, and their conduct is then 
 perfectly sane. This is one of those things 
 that the degenerate can rarely realize, and, as 
 he has not the intelligence to efface himself 
 when the nation is passing through a crisis, he 
 not infrequently is treated to tar and feathers 
 at such times by those whom he amuses and 
 flatters in times of safety. 
 
 Under the shelter of a great party, which is 
 
THE DEGENERATE in 
 
 mainly interested in home administration, the 
 degenerate exercises most of his energy in the 
 persecution of those who serve the nation 
 abroad. Since his real grievance is that he is 
 of very small importance to the nation which 
 protects him and keeps him in order, he rejoices 
 if he can make the conduct of its representatives 
 appear disgraceful. He does not limit himself 
 to the strict truth to support his assertions that 
 his country's generals have waged war by 
 barbarous methods, that subject races have 
 been oppressed by those sent to govern them, 
 that national pledges have been broken, or that 
 the nation has been humiliated or defeated. 
 A national humiliation is a great joy to him, as 
 he is careful to proclaim. Likewise the virtues 
 of a national enemy always fill him with admira- 
 tion ; its reverses move him to commiseration, 
 particularly when inflicted by his own country- 
 men ; its victories fill him with outspoken joy, 
 especially when won against his own country- 
 men ; and its alleged wrongs, in which he 
 always expresses renewed belief if they are 
 authoritatively denied by his own countrymen, 
 move him to loud indignation. Needless to 
 say, the anti-nationalist is always found in the 
 very heart of the nation, where he will be the 
 
ii2 PATRIOTISM 
 
 last to suffer from any weakening of the nation's 
 strength he may be able to effect. In a small 
 community, or in the bracing zone just within 
 the frontier, where the struggle for existence is 
 understood, he can neither develop nor persist. 
 
 Very frequently the anti-nationalist takes a 
 particular tribe to his heart. Usually he 
 chooses some exceptionally turbulent and re- 
 pulsive savages of whom he had never heard 
 until their country was annexed and policed as 
 the only way of ending their repeated raids 
 upon a peaceful Colony. Ever after they can 
 do no wrong in his opinion, and need never 
 hope to receive justice, or even to escape 
 brutality, at the hands of his countrymen. His 
 life becomes one long song of their woes and 
 virtues. The preference which the anti-nation- 
 alist usually shows for savages over other 
 European Powers is probably due to their 
 affairs not being directed by educated and 
 aristocratic statesmen, whom he can regard as 
 the counterparts of the Government of his own 
 country. He will always defend the right of a 
 handful of savages to monopolize a country 
 which, developed by civilized men, would 
 support a large population. 
 
 Most of these points are admirably illustrated 
 
THE DEGENERATE 113 
 
 in the letter which I quote below. It was sent 
 by an English member of Parliament to an 
 educated negro, in the mistaken belief that he 
 was of the same tribe as some rebellious natives, 
 who were threatening to overwhelm a colony 
 of the writer's fellow-countrymen in South 
 Africa. 
 
 ' MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 ' I am obliged by your approval of any- 
 thing I have been able to do to assist your 
 race, and I regret that I cannot do more. The 
 terrible event which happened in the Soudan 
 the other day, 1 with its attendant brutalities, 
 reduces the administration of that country 
 under British rule to the level of that of the 
 Congo Free State, whilst the wholesale mas- 
 sacre of natives which is now going on in 
 South Africa, under the pretext of suppressing 
 a rebellion which does not exist, fills one with 
 shame and horror. 
 
 * I hope the day will speedily come when 
 your race will be able to defend itself against 
 the barbarities being perpetrated against it by 
 hypocritical whites who regard the black man 
 as having been created in order that they may 
 1 An execution of rioters. 
 
ii4 PATRIOTISM 
 
 exploit him for their own advantage. The 
 Press and politicians for the most part keep the 
 people of this country in ignorance of the real 
 treatment meted out to the natives, and not 
 until they (the natives) are in a position to 
 hold their own can they expect to be treated 
 as human beings. 
 
 4 Yours truly, 
 < 
 
 (The name of the writer is of no interest.}^ 
 
 Note in particular how sweeping are the 
 charges and how grandiose the ideas in this 
 letter. The methods of administration of 
 British rule in two widely separated depen- 
 dencies are condemned together as equalling 
 the worst available for comparison. A farcical 
 accusation is brought against the Empire of 
 4 suppressing a rebellion which does not exist ' 
 by ' wholesale massacre.' The ' Press and 
 politicians for the most part ' are engaged in 
 a colossal conspiracy to keep the public in 
 ignorance. In fact, in so mad a world the 
 writer is a most wonderful person to succeed 
 in finding out the real facts, and singularly 
 brave to tell the hideous truth. 
 
 1 Daily Telegraph, July 5, 1906. 
 
THE DEGENERATE 115 
 
 Anti-nationalism must, of course, be care- 
 fully distinguished from mistaken ideas of duty, 
 such as those which, carried out, would court 
 disaster by the giving of constitutional govern- 
 ment to Oriental dependencies incapable of 
 receiving it ; but the puerile devilry of the 
 degenerate recognizes in these very schemes fit 
 objects for his support. How can he insult the 
 white race more than by asserting that servile 
 Orientals are equally fitted for a form of govern- 
 ment requiring the highest qualities of citizen- 
 ship ? But the idea often originates with men 
 who are sane, honest, and, though ill-informed, 
 open to conviction. 
 
 Apart from personal attacks upon public 
 servants, the degenerate's systematic attempts 
 at mischief come mainly under three headings : 
 anti- Militarism, anti- Imperialism, and Socialism. 
 
XVII 
 
 SIGNS AND METHODS OF NATIONAL DECAY 
 
 NATIONS which outlive their rivals eventually 
 decay and disintegrate. They grow great 
 owing to the devotion of each member of the 
 community to the interests of the community 
 as a whole in the face of natural forces whose 
 hostility is never forgotten. When the nation 
 has grown so powerful that its citizens lose the 
 sense of the danger from without, and when 
 the protection it affords its citizens is so 
 complete that living is easy, and those mentally 
 and physically feeble can thrive, its patriotism 
 the instinct which prompts each individual to 
 sacrifice anything that is required of him for 
 the safety of his fellows dies out. Having 
 no longer any danger to fear from without, 
 the citizens lose their cohesion, split into 
 factions to quarrel about the nation's internal 
 affairs, and regard each other with mutual 
 distrust and jealousy. The nation does not 
 
 116 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 117 
 
 consist entirely of degenerates, but its public 
 spirit is diseased, and its opinion becomes 
 insane. At such times political degenerates 
 flourish. Each gets a rapacious or faddist 
 faction to follow him, and statesmen of sound 
 judgment and large ideas cannot get a hearing 
 from the nation as a whole. Either it splits 
 up and its more virile outlying provinces start 
 afresh on the upward path as independent 
 nations, or another less advanced nation which 
 has long coveted its wealth plucks up courage 
 to attack it, and finds it an easy prey. 
 
 The decaying health of national opinion is 
 shown chiefly by the growth of three move- 
 ments anti- Militarism, anti- Imperialism, and 
 Socialism. 
 
 ANTI-MILITARISM. 
 
 The amount of money which a particular 
 nation should spend on its armaments at any 
 given time is a matter over which the wisest 
 of its citizens frequently disagree. As I have 
 endeavoured to point out, a nation is fighting 
 for existence in its ordinary daily life. The 
 organization of a nation's industries and of 
 its system of education belong as truly to 
 
n8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 the department of national defence as the 
 organization of its army and navy. The 
 amount of money which the State must exact 
 from each individual, and the proportion of it 
 which shall be spent upon each of these sec- 
 tions of the department, are among the most 
 important questions on which political parties 
 are divided. But no intelligent citizen grudges 
 the necessary money, and no sane man doubts 
 that it is as great a mistake to spend more 
 money than necessary on armaments while the 
 nation's industrial enterprises are hindered by 
 lack of funds, as it is to increase the nation's 
 wealth without making proper provision to 
 defend it. 
 
 When the sense of danger from Powers 
 without is lost, and mutual jealousy and distrust 
 replace patriotism, anti - militarism develops. 
 Anti-militarism is the selfish refusal of dete- 
 riorated citizens to contribute either money or 
 personal service to the defence of the State 
 which protects them. This is brought about 
 by two causes. One is ignorance of the 
 struggle for existence. Competition is so 
 restricted within the State by the omnipre- 
 sence of the police and the facilities given for 
 legal disputation that citizens come to regard 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 119 
 
 the shooting and bayoneting of men of one 
 race by men of another as 'a thing which is 
 not done.' The other is the jealousy within 
 the State which prevents co-operation between 
 its citizens. Class hatred has become so in- 
 tense that the masses of the nation, from 
 whose numbers the soldiers must be drawn, 
 will not condescend to receive orders from 
 the few who have the necessary training 
 and ability to direct the utilization of their 
 strength. 
 
 Though anti-militarism as a popular move- 
 ment has its roots in the ignorance of the 
 uneducated concerning the country's needs, it 
 is the fostering care of the political degenerate 
 which makes it formidable. 
 
 In his savage jealousy of those whose 
 wealth and knowledge gives them power and 
 authority, the degenerate's one idea is to 
 injure them. He therefore tells the masses 
 that it is the rich of all nations who are the 
 enemies of mankind, and that the labouring 
 classes of all nations are a brotherhood who, 
 without their interference, would have no 
 reason to quarrel. 
 
 The following is a typical anti-militarist 
 manifesto which was scattered as a leaflet 
 
120 PATRIOTISM 
 
 through the barracks of a French regiment : 
 * It is better to fire on a French General than 
 a foreign soldier. The Fatherland is the coffer 
 of the capitalists.' 
 
 Coming nearer home, I quote as an illus- 
 tration of the kind of arguments used, if they 
 can be called arguments, the following para- 
 graphs from a leading article in a halfpenny 
 London paper : 
 
 1 Wars have always been caused by the few 
 at the top, not by the many at the bottom, 
 of the social and political scale. They have 
 been waged in the interest of kings, or to 
 satisfy the ambitions of statesmen. The mass 
 of people have never either known or cared 
 what they were about.' 1 
 
 We used to be told that wherever the nettle 
 flourishes the dock grows close at hand. 
 However this may be, we find, in the article 
 from which the above is taken, enough to 
 explain and refute it. The writer of this 
 article waxes indignant over the importation 
 of English dock-labourers into Germany to 
 work during a strike. He says that if this 
 became a general practice among nations ' it 
 would lead to the masses in different countries 
 
 1 Daily Mirror, March 12, 1907. 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 121 
 
 hating each other with a fierce and deep 
 malevolence as they have never hated yet in 
 the whole course of history/ It probably 
 would. The ' mass of people ' in a nation 
 often have neither ' known nor cared ' what 
 wars were about in the past, because, being 
 busy with their own work at home, they have 
 dealt with the masses of other nations through 
 their ruling classes. Now, owing to modern 
 facilities for travel and transport, and the ease 
 with which news is disseminated, the masses 
 of the nations are beginning to come directly 
 into contact and to see one another with their 
 own eyes. With our modern distaste for war 
 we are also trying to substitute industrial 
 means of competition for military. This pro- 
 vides object-lessons : it is, in fact, a liberal 
 education for all who can observe. Hence it 
 is at last dawning upon the masses that there 
 is a struggle for existence amongst mankind, 
 and that nations are the units in that struggle. 
 
 In the most instructive leading article that 
 we are considering we are told that, c If it 
 became usual for strikes in one country to be 
 "broken" by workers imported from another 
 country, we should soon have the masses con- 
 stantly forcing kings and statesmen to make 
 
122 PATRIOTISM 
 
 war against their own wishes in order to satisfy 
 the passion of popular hate/ 
 
 Of course kings can do no right. Nor can 
 statesmen, unless they have been voted up 
 straight out of the workshop. Even then the 
 mere exercise of authority speedily robs them 
 of the degenerate's approval. Should they in 
 addition display sound common sense and 
 intelligent firmness in the discharge of their 
 official duties, the degenerate hates them more 
 than those whom he describes as brainless 
 aristocrats born to power. In the past, it 
 appears, the ruling classes have forced un- 
 willing multitudes to wage wars in their 
 * interests.' In the future they will such 
 is their perversity change all their ideas, so 
 that they will have to be constantly forced 
 to make war against their own wishes by a 
 maddened populace. The * passion of popular 
 hate ' will certainly not be lacking. It will 
 be the hate which men who are overcrowding 
 their own land feel against strangers occupy- 
 ing land which, if they themselves owned it, 
 would produce what they need. 
 
 Continuing an examination of this document, 
 we find, ' It does not seem at first glance a laud- 
 able action to take the places of men who have 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 123 
 
 struck for fairer conditions of labour ' ; in fact, 
 the struggle for existence is to be set aside to 
 provide a fair field for the battle of classes. I 
 shall have more to say on this subject when I 
 deal with socialism. But, as usual, we find the 
 essential fact shines out through the haze of 
 misrepresentation. In extenuation of the wicked 
 conduct of the English labourers who went to 
 Germany, the writer says : * All they know is 
 that they are in want, and not only they, but 
 their wives and children, and that here is a 
 chance to make some money.' This is simply 
 admirable. 
 
 Turning from the general to the personal 
 basis of anti-militarism, one finds factors which 
 are easily understood and very important. The 
 normal citizen deplores the necessity which 
 involves him in the expense of keeping up an 
 army. He also has his own business to attend 
 to, and regrets having to give up his own time 
 to military exercises. He values his individual 
 liberty, and chafes at the restraints of a discipline 
 which is often maintained by men singularly 
 lacking in tact. But in view of the ever-present 
 danger from without, he willingly makes his 
 personal contribution to insuring his country 
 against destruction ; he even tries, by additional 
 
124 PATRIOTISM 
 
 sacrifice, to make his nation so formidable that 
 its strength will never be challenged. In the 
 small community the external danger is never 
 forgotten. In the security of a great nation 
 many of its citizens lose sight of the struggle 
 for existence, and see no reason why they should 
 submit to personal inconvenience. 
 
 Next, class prejudice has to be considered. 
 Deteriorating citizens declare that they will not 
 be ordered about by their equals men no better 
 than themselves ; and so, regarding their 
 superiors as their natural enemies, will not obey 
 any commanders at all. The mutual respect 
 which officers and men learn to entertain for 
 one another in time of war is apt to be forgotten 
 in time of peace. Then neither feel the need 
 of the other ; both have more opportunities of 
 showing their faults than their virtues, and their 
 duties are a nuisance to both. 
 
 Moreover, the physical deterioration of the 
 citizens in a great and highly civilized nation 
 makes military duties more arduous to them than 
 to their more virile ancestors ; their humanity 
 is greater and their courage less, and they dread 
 and hate military service quite apart from the 
 way discipline is enforced. 
 
 Finally, the degenerate sees in the soldier, 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 125 
 
 with his physical strength and courage, prompt 
 and willing obedience to his officers, intelligent 
 performance of difficult duties, esprit de corps, 
 general efficiency, and endurance, an epitome 
 of the virtues which he lacks himself. The 
 soldier's very existence is a humiliation to him, 
 and the soldier hateful person ! takes a pride 
 in his degrading profession, and despises the 
 degenerate. The degenerate knows he can 
 never become like the soldier, therefore he aims 
 at abolishing military service, which conduces 
 to such exasperating excellence. 
 
 . ANTI-IMPERIALISM. 
 
 A nation's territory, like its army, is a subject 
 about which its wisest citizens can disagree. 
 New territory involves a good deal of initial 
 expense ; it requires development, administra- 
 tion, and protection, all of .which may swallow 
 up much money before the land begins to yield 
 any return. There is always, therefore, a dis- 
 cussion whether the nation is able to undertake 
 the responsibilities of any new province whose 
 annexation is proposed. Further, the annexa- 
 tion itself may give rise to a dispute with 
 another Power, and need the display, and 
 
126 PATRIOTISM 
 
 possibly exercise, of armed force ; and, in addi- 
 tion, it must be remembered that the actual 
 value of any undeveloped land is always a 
 matter of speculation. Hence the balance has 
 to be maintained between those whose exces- 
 sive caution would miss opportunities and those 
 whose lack of prudence would overburden their 
 countrymen by embarking upon wild adven- 
 tures. And the whole question is complicated 
 by the action of other nations. A nation may 
 have to annex unoccupied land for which it is 
 not ready, in order that the opportunity may 
 not be lost owing to the precipitate advance 
 of another Power. But it has to consider 
 whether the necessary sacrifices are worth while, 
 and even then whether it can afford them. 
 
 But two facts transcend discussion. One is 
 that the only solution for the evils of overcrowd- 
 ing the land is the addition of unoccupied land 
 to the nation's territories ; and the other is that, 
 though citizens of a nation may have to cross 
 seas to develop these new lands, they and their 
 descendants are still of the same blood as their 
 fellow-countrymen at home. On these two 
 points there can be no disagreement. 
 
 Modern imperialism, by which I mean colonial 
 expansion, can only be opposed for one of three 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 127 
 
 reasons. One is ignorance of the fact that the 
 population ultimately depends for everything 
 upon the land, and that any given tract of land 
 will only support a definite number of people, 
 who, in time, will multiply in excess of its 
 resources ; another is deterioration of healthy 
 instincts in a nation's citizens, so that they 
 develop an unnatural selfishness, and repudiate 
 the duty of making preparation for the posterity 
 they are creating ; the third is decay of social 
 virtues, so that the struggle for existence returns 
 within the nation instead of being waged by the 
 nation against other nations. This is shown 
 both by fierce competition and jealousy between 
 the citizens engaged in business at home, and 
 between the Mother-Country and her colonies 
 overseas. 
 
 Ignorance that more land is the right remedy 
 for a surplus population is often, in a measure, 
 due to misapprehension of the way in which 
 land benefits a " country. The citizens of a 
 country in the Temperate Zone sometimes 
 believe that territory in the Tropics is of no 
 use to them because they cannot live there. 
 They do not see that if the produce can be 
 conveyed to their own country it amounts to 
 very nearly the same thing. When a tropical 
 
128 PATRIOTISM 
 
 estate in which Europeans cannot work is owned 
 by a few white men and developed by means of 
 very cheap native labour, class prejudice is apt 
 to become acute. It is said that the blood and 
 treasure of the whole nation spent in acquiring 
 and protecting these lands have been poured 
 out solely to enrich a few men. This is not so. 
 The State is enriched by the money which these 
 colonial proprietors spend upon employment 
 they give at home. In the case of gold-rnines, 
 the populace could not get the gold without 
 working for it. If they were on the spot they 
 could not get it out of the ground without work- 
 ing in the mines. If the climate makes it 
 impossible for them to do this, and they also 
 dislike leaving the home country, the only 
 alternative is for the mine-owners to extract 
 the gold by means of native labour, and invest 
 it in industries in their own country. In this 
 way the new land gives employment to the 
 surplus population of the old country without 
 their having to emigrate to it. Of course, the 
 mine-owners take care to enrich themselves in 
 the process ; but as the gold would not benefit 
 the home country if they did not obtain it, they 
 are entitled to a reward for their services, which, 
 moreover, often involve great hardship and risk 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 129 
 
 at the start, and require care and watchfulness 
 afterwards. Unless the nation farms its tropical 
 colonies as national estates, their resources can 
 only be made available for the masses by private 
 enterprise, which must be duly protected. The 
 objection that native labour must either be 
 slave labour, or at best underpaid and brutally 
 ill-treated, is, of course, absurd. The real 
 objection which the degenerate raises to the 
 development of tropical colonies by private 
 enterprise is the objection that he has to seeing 
 anyone grow richer than himself by doing 
 work of which he knows he is himself in- 
 capable. 
 
 Misunderstanding concerning agricultural 
 colonies is less excusable. It is due to the fact 
 that they are often worked by a comparatively 
 small number of emigrants, the raw materials 
 being sent home for manufacture. But the 
 essential fact is that the land of the colony pro- 
 duces raw material which employs labour, and 
 food which feeds it. Whether the raw material 
 is manufactured and the food eaten on the spot, 
 or only after they have been transported 
 thousands of miles to the Mother-Country, is 
 immaterial, though it is quite another matter 
 when the surplus population, by their obstinate 
 
 K 
 
130 PATRIOTISM 
 
 refusal to emigrate, starve the colony of the 
 labour necessary to develop its resources. 
 
 It is partly owing to this ignorance, partly 
 owing to the deterioration of the normal instinct 
 to provide for offspring, that a decaying nation 
 refuses to supply the necessary money to start 
 the development of new colonies. A selfish 
 degeneration of manners in the nation parallels 
 fatty degeneration of muscles in the individual. 
 
 As the nation grows great and prosperous 
 its labouring classes can work in greater 
 security, and talented individuals quickly become 
 wealthy enough to raise themselves out of their 
 class. If they adopt the ways of the class above 
 them and get absorbed by it, no harm is done. 
 Indeed, they benefit the nation as much as 
 themselves. But this is not made easy for them 
 in the first generation ; the upper classes laugh 
 at their solecisms, and the lower classes revile 
 them for snobbery. On the other hand, many 
 of the people under the shelter of civilization 
 grow rich by petty shamelessness, not by intelli- 
 gence and perseverance. When rich they per- 
 ceive the disadvantages of becoming 'fine gentle- 
 men.' Gentlemen have a code of honour which 
 demands a higher standard of conduct than is 
 enforced by the law, and this kind of self-made 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 131 
 
 man knows the advantages of sailing as close to 
 the wind as he dare in business, and preaches 
 them. He is wealthy and influential. He 
 stands alone. And he advises his children and 
 employes how they may also prosper by mean 
 cheese-paring methods and a brazen disregard 
 for appearances. Hence, there grows up an 
 exceedingly wealthy class with a low standard 
 of conduct, against whom the real gentry have 
 to hold their own at great disadvantages. Thus, 
 under the elevating influence of peace and 
 prosperity the old nobility, with their chief 
 function as military leaders gone, find them- 
 selves regarded more as an encumbrance than a 
 safeguard to the nation. They too degenerate, 
 and, instead of educating the successful huckster 
 up to their standard of honour, they sink to his 
 level of selfishness. 
 
 .Under the false sense of security which 
 national greatness produces, the national spirit 
 may quickly become utterly rotten. Under the 
 teaching of shining examples, who have grown 
 rich by selling cheap and nasty substitutes for 
 butter or tobacco, the masses learn to deride 
 any personal sacrifice for national purposes, and 
 any individual pride in national strength as 
 sentimental folly worthy only of * brainless aris- 
 
132 PATRIOTISM 
 
 tocrats ' incapable of attaining material success. 
 When a nation has such men in the ascendant, 
 and when its general security allows such men 
 to prey upon it, the crash is not far off. Their 
 methods are those of the sheep-tick, and the 
 more they multiply the weaker the nation 
 becomes. To save their own pockets, they will 
 not allow the nation to invest any money in 
 new land. To save them further, they try to 
 stop 'money going out of the country ' to develop 
 colonies it has already founded. And the vicious 
 circle becomes complete when the effects of 
 overcrowding are intensified by their suicidal 
 policy, and they preach further ' economy ' in 
 the management of the colonies and reduc- 
 tion of the national armament. The end comes 
 when the colonies, having received a sufficient 
 number of the more virile citizens to go on 
 their own way, separate themselves, and, start- 
 ing on the upward path as new nations, leave 
 the Mother-Country to her fate. 
 
 When under forgetfulness of external danger 
 the struggle, if not for existence, at any rate for 
 luxuries, is allowed to exceed certain bounds 
 within the nation, the jealousy and contempt of 
 the feeble, unsuccessful, and degenerate of the 
 nation is directed almost as much against thdr 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 133 
 
 fellow-countrymen in the colonies as against the 
 upper classes at home. Lounging, incapable 
 workmen, who in an overcrowded labour-market 
 find it difficult to get any employment at all, 
 are intensely bitter against the man who has 
 gone to another country and grown rich there 
 by his own efforts. They regard him as a 
 blackleg, untrue to his own order. He should 
 have stayed at home and compelled the rich of 
 his own country to support him. Moreover, 
 his energy^ his courage, his enterprise, and above 
 all his success, are a reproach to them. They 
 feel that they might have prospered as he has 
 done had they possessed the same qualities, and 
 they are conscious that he knows this and 
 despises their lack of them. 
 
 The feud almost merges into class prejudice. 
 The colonies are held to benefit the upper 
 classes, not the lower ones. This is to a certain 
 extent true. With us emigration, like most 
 things of real importance, is left to chance, and 
 not supervised by the State. Hence it is chiefly 
 the more intelligent who emigrate. Overcrowd- 
 ing affects every class in the country, but only 
 the educated classes perceive the proper remedy. 
 Younger sons of upper-class families go to the 
 colonies straight from the public schools and 
 
134 PATRIOTISM 
 
 universities, and, beginning life there in their 
 prime and after proper preparation, they prosper. 
 Children of the labouring classes, rinding no 
 work for them on the land, do not at once go to 
 a colony where their labour is wanted, but drift 
 into towns. When they have lived long-enough 
 in a town to have forgotten anything they 
 ever knew about agriculture, to have become 
 weakened by want, depraved by enforced idle- 
 ness, and dismayed by failure ; when they have 
 further involved themselves by improvident 
 marriages, some muddle-headed philanthropist 
 thinks they are at last qualified to emigrate ; 
 he accordingly ships them out to a justly in- 
 dignant colony, whence, after being supported 
 for a time by charity, they are persuaded with- 
 out much difficulty to return home. 
 
 Hence the classes in England view the colo- 
 nies rather differently. To the upper classes 
 they are an extension of their own land, where 
 their children and relations, of whom they are 
 fond and proud, are prospering. To the lower 
 classes they are foreign parts, to which not their 
 children, but their contemporaries friends of 
 whom they have frequently no reason to be 
 proud have slunk away after having failed at 
 home. And whereas in the upper classes 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 135 
 
 there are few families which have not relatives 
 in the colonies, comparatively few persons in 
 the lower classes, considering their numbers, 
 know a colonial at all. If they do he is prob- 
 ably not a relation, and the provincialism of 
 their ideas, due to their never having travelled 
 far from where they were born, tends to make 
 them regard him, in view of slight differences in 
 manners and ideas, as a foreigner. 
 
 As the colonies are populated by children of 
 the best stock, and as the dregs of the nation 
 are allowed to ferment at home, the colonies 
 are usually healthier than the Mother-Country. 
 But it must not be supposed that the colonies 
 altogether escape. When civilization has so far 
 suppressed the struggle for existence within the 
 State that the race deteriorates, the colonies 
 may forget the danger without as completely as 
 the Mother-Country. They shelter themselves 
 behind the Imperial strength, and whilst re- 
 fusing to contribute to its support, carry on a 
 ruinous competition within the Empire instead 
 of against its rivals, and they hinder the 
 development of their land by opposing the 
 immigration of labour which it needs, in order 
 to keep wages high. 
 
 When a nation develops the type which we 
 
136 PATRIOTISM 
 
 here call ' Little Englander ' that is to say, the 
 type of man who opposes colonization because 
 he is too selfish to provide the money for start- 
 ing the development of new colonies, or for 
 keeping up the armaments necessary for their 
 protection when the surplus population has 
 not the courage to emigrate to the new lands 
 thrown open to them, and is allowed, whilst 
 living in squalor on thinly veiled charity, to slay 
 at home and vote the colonies to perdition ; 
 when the colonists oppose further immigration 
 of- their fellow-countrymen in order to keep 
 wages high ; when the different provinces of a 
 nation compete with one another instead of 
 suppressing competition between themselves, 
 and showing a united front to the rest of the 
 world ; and when distant branches of the race 
 are driven to form treaties with foreign nations 
 against men of their own blood, the fate of the 
 race is sealed. An altogether fresh stock will 
 replace it on the land. 
 
 An anti-imperialistic movement is perhaps 
 the most fatal a nation can develop. 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 137 
 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 When a community has advanced from the 
 stage when its members all unite to beat off a 
 common enemy but otherwise mind their own 
 business, to the stage in which they co-operate to 
 do the work of the community and, dividing the 
 labour between them, specialize at different 
 kinds of work, matters of dispute are bound to 
 arise. 
 
 A man works to make the earth yield what 
 he requires, chiefly food, for himself and his 
 family. He contributes a portion of the wealth 
 he makes under the protection of the State to 
 the fund which enables the State to do its work 
 of protecting him. As he contributes to this 
 fund he claims a voice in the way it is spent, 
 to insure against its being misappropriated or 
 misapplied. The more complicated the life of 
 the community becomes, the more convinced 
 becomes each member of it, whether he works 
 with his head or his hands, that he does more for 
 the community than the community does for him. 
 
 Then, after the contribution to the State has 
 been set aside, there remains the residue for 
 the worker who extracted it from the land. If 
 
138 PATRIOTISM 
 
 each man worked for himself by himself on 
 unlimited territory he would have nothing to 
 dispute about with other members of the com- 
 munity similarly engaged. What remained 
 would be his own. But when the members of 
 the community divide the labour and divide the 
 spoils, it is found extremely difficult to apportion 
 either the labour or the spoils so as to give satis- 
 faction to all. Division of labour brings special 
 knowledge of one branch of the work, but too 
 often a corresponding ignorance of the other 
 branches. Hence the organizer underrates the 
 hardships of working with the hands, and the 
 labourer underrates the difficulties of working 
 with the brain. Hence each member of the com- 
 munity is inclined to think that he produces a 
 larger amount of wealth by his efforts than he 
 receives as his share of the spoils. 
 
 That the relations of the members of the 
 community to the community and to one 
 another are very difficult to arrange in a 
 manner that shall be fair to all must be obvious ; 
 and the injustice caused by the varying con- 
 ditions of national life calls for constant re- 
 vision of domestic legislation. It is the object 
 of the community to secure every man an 
 opportunity for getting what he can by his own 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 139 
 
 labour from Nature, and to see that after he has 
 contributed his share to the State for protecting 
 him, he shall not be deprived of the remainder 
 by any other member or members of the com- 
 munity. This requires constant care, watchful- 
 ness, and contrivance, and if socialism were 
 simply the exercise of these qualities to this 
 end, socialism would never have required 
 naming as an entity apart from the ordinary 
 functions of government. 
 
 But as I have repeatedly remarked, when a 
 nation grows big and powerful, when it pushes 
 its enemies far away from its centre, and sup- 
 presses strife within its boundaries, its citizens 
 come to forget the opposing powers of Nature 
 without, and to lose sight of the all-important 
 fact that they must struggle for existence owing 
 to unchecked multiplication producing more 
 people than the earth can support. Civilization 
 gives security to the individual, and in security 
 the individual forgets the conditions which 
 govern human life upon the earth, becomes dis- 
 contented, and embarks upon enterprises which 
 destroy civilization. 
 
 It is when the individual loses sight of the 
 fact that he is a part of a defensive machine 
 that he begins to turn his hand against his 
 
140 PATRIOTISM 
 
 fellow-citizens. He perceives that some of his 
 fellow-citizens have more property than he, and 
 that others seem to be doing work less arduous 
 than his own, and at once clamours to have 
 conditions equalized between all citizens of the 
 State. 
 
 But this kind of socialism does not become 
 prominent in a country until it is over-populated. 
 As long as a nation has plenty of territory, par- 
 ticularly undeveloped territory, there is plenty 
 of scope for every citizen's energies. If anyone 
 is distressed at the thought of his own poverty 
 or his neighbour's more fortunate lot he sees 
 his remedy in attacking Nature and getting 
 wealth for himself from the land. He does not 
 want to rob his fellow-citizens, for the land is 
 open to him, and he does not relish the idea that 
 his fellow-citizens may wish to share his spoils. 
 If he did, his wishes would be regarded with 
 very little sympathy. When, however, the land is 
 densely populated and is perhaps getting worked 
 out, its resources appear less accessible than 
 those of wealthier fellow-citizens. Moreover 
 by now the life of the nation has become very 
 complicated, and considerable education is re- 
 quired to see it whole. A long chain of men, 
 factories, railways and, perhaps, ships, stretches 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 141 
 
 between the land at one end and the divi- 
 dend at the other. A man cannot get straight 
 at the land. He must take his place somewhere 
 in the chain ; and at first the place is an unim- 
 portant one and the share of the dividend small. 
 For the life of the nation depends on that chain, 
 and the nation tests every link it adds to it. 
 When the number of links is in excess of that 
 required when a surplus population has ap- 
 peared only the stronger links can be used ; 
 the weaker must be rejected. 
 
 In a land which is over-populated co-operation 
 loses its attractions. Employment is hard to 
 get and poorly paid, and robbery appears pre- 
 ferable to work. At each of the recurring 
 periods in its history when a nation finds it has 
 a surplus population on its land people for 
 whom the land will provide neither food nor 
 work it has to make a fresh start by enlarging 
 its territory. There is no other remedy. 
 
 After a race has run its course and is in 
 the process of decay, it refuses, usually at the 
 instance of noisy political degenerates, to face 
 its difficulties. Either it will not enlarge its 
 territories or else, having acquired fresh land, it 
 has not the vitality to develop it. The new 
 countries, remaining empty, cry in vain for 
 
142 PATRIOTISM 
 
 labour and the old territory remains congested. 
 Then it is that plans are formulated for the 
 confiscation and redivision of property, and 
 attempts are made to create highly paid work 
 artificially, where, as there is nothing to do, 
 nothing can be produced. Variations on these 
 crazy schemes are at the present time called 
 socialism. 
 
 Socialism is a sign that a nation is in an un- 
 healthy state, rather than a cause of a nation's 
 decline. A nation which is holding its own 
 against Nature does not develop socialism ; and 
 a race which has strong vitality does not try to 
 evade its difficulties, but provides its surplus 
 population with new land. But when the bulk 
 of a nation turn to socialism for a remedy, the 
 end is not far off; for socialism, though at first 
 a mere symptom of decay, becomes, when 
 generally established, an actively destructive 
 agency. 
 
 The first step in the supposed remedy is the 
 confiscation of private property by the State, 
 which thinks it safer to rob its own citizens than 
 those of other nations. But the redistribution 
 of the nation's reserves of wealth is only a tem- 
 porary measure. If the resources of the land 
 are limited, so is the nation's capital. When the 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 143 
 
 nation has used up all its reserves, it has again 
 to face the problem of the surplus population. 
 
 The next step is the ' nationalization of the 
 means of wealth.' This is usually interpreted 
 to mean that every man shall work for the State, 
 and the State shall divide the produce between 
 the workers. This leads back to the final diffi- 
 culty again. What is to be done when the 
 nation, having used up its reserves and arranged 
 for equal distribution of all that labour can pro- 
 duce, has more people on its land than the land 
 will provide with food ? 
 
 The socialistic remedy would appear, from 
 the expressed opinions of the noisiest socialists, 
 to include the equal division of work as well as 
 the equal division of spoils. That is to say, 
 when the supply of work runs short, no man 
 is to be allowed to do more than he absolutely 
 must, in order that every man may have a 
 chance of earning wages. This is equiva- 
 lent to national suicide, for no nation which is 
 less able than its neighbours to get what it 
 needs from Nature can survive in the struggle 
 for existence, and to do this it must make 
 the most, not the least, of its citizens' strength. 
 The whole object of the community is to pro- 
 tect its members so that they may be able to 
 
144 PATRIOTISM 
 
 attack the land without interference. The 
 aim of the State is to aid every man to get 
 as much from the land as he is able by his 
 own efforts. Provided the State does this, and 
 provides land for every man to attack, its work 
 is done. It has no business to interfere with 
 any citizen, because he is working harder than 
 his neighbours and getting richer than they are. 
 The State has no grievance against any man, 
 simply because he possesses property. If he 
 obtained, or is using, his property in a way 
 calculated to injure his fellow-citizens, it is the 
 criminal law, not 'socialism,' which should bring 
 him to book. A rich man may well be required 
 to pay more in taxes than a poor man, because 
 he has more property for the State to defend for 
 him. But then the more he contributes towards 
 the defence of the State, and the more he has to 
 lose, the bigger voice he should have in the 
 organization of the State defences. The socialist, 
 on the contrary, regards the possession of pro- 
 perty as in itself a crime, and taxation as a 
 means of inflicting punishment by robbing the 
 rich man of his possessions. 
 
 We have to do again with the personal views 
 of that flower of civilization the degenerate. 
 His sense of his own weakness and his indi- 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 145 
 
 vidual vanity are galled by the thought that 
 there are men richer and more influential than 
 himself. Accordingly, by clamouring for all 
 men to be made equal he tries to gain 
 exceptional notoriety for himself. But the 
 first need of a State is not that the condition 
 of its citizens shall be exactly equal, but that 
 they shall contribute each his utmost to main- 
 taining its safety and prosperity. 
 
 Once more let me try a simple illustration. 
 In a State which is not overpopulated and 
 where each man can work on the land as he 
 pleases, it will be found that one man is strong 
 enough to work eight hours a day, making 
 the earth yield its increase ; while another man 
 is only able to work four hours. The man 
 who only works four hours may be able to 
 make a comfortable living, but the man who 
 can, and does, do twice as much work is twice 
 as rich. Provided that both these men con- 
 tribute their just share to the support of the 
 State which protects them, the State has no 
 right to interfere with them. 
 
 But the degenerate cannot leave them alone. 
 He wants to equalize their lots. One way 
 in which he proposes to do this, is by making 
 both work their hardest, taking all that they 
 
146 PATRIOTISM 
 
 produce and dividing it equally between them. 
 But this defeats the ends of the State, for the 
 inducement to individual effort is removed, less 
 is produced and the State is the poorer, 
 while probably the socialist defeats his own 
 ends. It is difficult to prevent the men who 
 contribute most to the welfare of the State 
 from getting a proportionally large amount of 
 influence in directing affairs. The degenerate 
 is alive to this danger. Accordingly he pro- 
 poses to prevent the man who could and would 
 work eight hours a day from doing more than 
 four hours like his weaker neighbour. The 
 nation, of course, is that four hours' work 
 the poorer, and so much the worse handi- 
 capped in its competition with other nations 
 in which every man may produce the utmost 
 he can. 
 
 An interesting coincidence may be noted 
 here. Just as the humanitarian who hinders 
 the nation from repressing the struggle for 
 existence within by his tenderness towards 
 criminals is the very man who endangers his 
 country's survival by opposing the prosecution 
 of the same struggle against other nations, so 
 we find that the degenerate who is all for 
 individualism in opposing military discipline 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 147 
 
 advocates the sternest repression of the indi- 
 vidualism of the most capable labourers. 
 
 It is, as I have said, chiefly in times when 
 overpopulation of the nation's land is making 
 itself felt that socialism becomes rampant. 
 There is a surplus population whose destitution 
 appears very terrible beside the comfort of 
 those who, either by their own efforts or the 
 efforts of their ancestors, have secured the 
 right to work and to enjoy a sufficiency of the 
 nation's land. These are the people with 
 property and capital whom the socialist wishes 
 to attack, that he may put an end to their 
 luxury as well as the distress of the poor. It 
 is his defect that he cannot see that the nation's 
 property, not the socialism of its citizens, deter- 
 mines its existence. A hundred and ten people 
 cannot live on land which will only supply the 
 needs of a hundred. It is useless to divide up 
 the nation's property equally so that nobody has 
 enough even if before some had more than they 
 needed and others nothing. The only real 
 remedy is to throw open new land to the 
 surplus population and to help them to start 
 working it. Such new land, moreover, should 
 be food-producing land in a colony, not ' waste 
 lands ' in the old country which private enter- 
 
i 4 8 PATRIOTISM 
 
 prise will not touch because they can only be 
 worked at a loss. 
 
 There is another aspect of socialism altogether, 
 about which I must say a few words. I have 
 criticized socialism so far as a mistaken remedy. 
 I must now point out that it will probably act 
 as a destructive force. Socialistic methods are 
 likely to sap the strength of the nation by the 
 very act of nationalizing everything. I am not 
 speaking now of the debatable disadvantages of 
 transferring the conduct of every large under- 
 taking from the hands of private owners, whose 
 interest it is to make it pay, to those of State 
 officials arbitrarily chosen and secure of a small 
 salary. Nor do I mean the loss which the 
 country would sustain by the disappearance of 
 those families whose wealth gives them leisure 
 for art and science ; and whose training and 
 traditions fit them for the public service. But 
 I refer to something far more primitive, bio- 
 logical rather than economic. 
 
 Men combined to form the primitive com- 
 munity for the purpose of defending them- 
 selves against external attacks ; but their main 
 idea was to protect their own families. I have 
 endeavoured to show that patriotism is rooted 
 in the instinct of the animal to protect its mate 
 
NATIONAL DECAY 149 
 
 and offspring. If the State relieves the in- 
 dividual of all responsibility for his family, it 
 removes his main stimulus to action. Most 
 men work for a home, and it is open to doubt 
 whether, if their home were swallowed up in the 
 State, they would then work for the State with 
 the same enthusiasm. If the State undertakes 
 to feed, clothe and educate its children, to 
 make employment for them if they cannot find 
 it, to give them medical attendance and amuse- 
 ments free, and to provide for their old age, the 
 actual father of the child, so far from feeling 
 anxiety for its welfare and safety, need not even 
 trouble to remember that it exists. The State 
 may make him work in return, but he is not 
 likely to regard work done under these con- 
 ditions as being directed to any particular end, 
 unless it be that of avoiding trouble. 
 
 It may be urged that such an arrangement is 
 the logical conclusion of the course evolution has 
 taken. Men began by working for their families 
 and protecting them. They then formed com- 
 munities and, whilst still working for their 
 families, fought for the community which pro- 
 tected them. They will therefore be but com- 
 pleting the plan if they merge their families in 
 the State, and work and fight for the State like 
 
ISO PATRIOTISM 
 
 neuter hive-bees. Evolution may produce the 
 type of man who will work and fight for that 
 cold abstraction, the State, without having a 
 dependent wife and children at home to bring 
 the State's claim vividly before him ; but he 
 does not seem to have appeared yet. The man 
 who is so anxious to transfer his relations to the 
 care of the State, does not usually seem to con- 
 sider much whether it will be for their good or for 
 the good of the State. He seems mainly anxious 
 to get rid of his own responsibilities, and further 
 investigation usually shows that he is of a type 
 very incapable of providing for his family. So far 
 from intending to work for the State as for his 
 family, he hopes that he is transferring a burden 
 from his own shoulders to those of other people. 
 Having done this, he is selfish and unashamed. 
 Seen from this point of view, socialism 
 appears not only a symptom of national decay, 
 but an agent actively destructive of patriotism. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE LARGER PATRIOTISM 
 
 HISTORY seems to show that in proportion as a 
 race grows numerous and spreads over the 
 surface of the globe, it loses its cohesion and 
 its patriotism. Whether this is an inherent 
 necessity, or whether, from causes which I shall 
 presently cite, mankind is on the brink of a new 
 era, in which the more powerful a race grows, 
 the more determined it will become to increase 
 and crush its rivals, only the future historian 
 will be able to tell. 
 
 In the past, great empires have fallen to 
 pieces. When they were built up mainly by 
 the genius of one man who welded the separate 
 communities of his race with an iron hand, they 
 fell apart quickly. When they grew by degrees, 
 as the race multiplied and spread over the 
 earth, and were founded upon the national 
 feeling of the people, they crumbled slowly 
 until they either collapsed or were ripe for a 
 
152 PATRIOTISM 
 
 shattering blow. I have already discussed the 
 causes and manner of national decay. 
 
 One of the great reasons why races have 
 gone to pieces is, I think, that in times past 
 it has been impossible to avoid over-centraliza- 
 tion. Formerly all roads used to lead to Rome. 
 So long as a Mother-Country keeps her colonies 
 attached directly to herself, and does not facili- 
 tate, even if she does not discourage, their 
 strengthening the race by binding themselves 
 to one another, the Empire is held together by a 
 single bond. The larger the Empire becomes 
 the greater is the strain thrown upon this bond, 
 and as time passes the rottener the bond 
 becomes. For reasons I have already discussed 
 the Mother-Country is less healthy than her 
 colonies. The mistake in the past has been 
 regarding the Mother-Country as the nation 
 and the colonies as mere appendages, often, 
 indeed, encumbrances. It is possible that in 
 future races will recognize their unity in spite 
 of their dispersion, and the scattered provinces 
 of an empire will be looked upon as parts of a 
 whole. 
 
 Two things seem to be tending towards 
 producing this result. 
 
 One is the advent of machinery and tele- 
 
THE LARGER PATRIOTISM 153 
 
 graphs. It is no longer possible to restrict 
 trade and intercourse between provinces occu- 
 pied by men of the same race. All com- 
 munication between them can no longer be 
 forced to pass through the capital of the Mother- 
 Country. And civilization is more uniform 
 throughout the Empire. Mechanical con- 
 trivances have reduced the distance of time 
 and space which lay between the Mother- 
 Country and her colonies and between the 
 colonies themselves. Hence there is greater 
 uniformity, and it is more difficult to tell where 
 the Mother-Country ends and the provinces 
 begin. And so now, if the former capital of 
 the nation becomes its rottenest province, the 
 unity of the race need not suffer. The healthy 
 elements of the Empire as a whole can suppress 
 the rule of the degenerates in the former 
 capital. The Empire can rule itself according 
 to the interests of the race as a whole, instead 
 of submitting to misrule from a corrupt centre 
 where selfishness and ignorance prevail. 
 
 The other is the advance of education. In 
 spite of the slowness with which crude and 
 absurd systems are reformed to suit new 
 conditions, an advance is undoubtedly being 
 made in developing the general intelligence 
 
154 PATRIOTISM 
 
 of the nation and in disseminating a systematic 
 knowledge of the essential facts of existence. 
 There must still continue to be the few brain- 
 workers who organize, and the many labourers 
 who do manual toil, with a long series of 
 grades of more or less skilled workers between ; 
 but the old distinction between the educated 
 and the ignorant is passing away. Classes 
 and castes will remain, and their duties and 
 pleasures continue to differ, but every mind 
 in the nation will be trained and developed 
 to its highest capacity, and given easy access 
 to knowledge of matters of fact. The bovine 
 stupidity of the many who toiled, the truculent 
 recklessness of the few who alternately pro- 
 tected and oppressed them, and the unpractical 
 ineptitude of the still smaller number of 
 despised individuals who spent their lives in 
 learned seclusion, will no longer be traceable 
 in the life-spirit of a universally enlightened 
 nation. Hence the nation will foresee its 
 difficulties sooner, understand its condition 
 better, and be less easily mistaken and misled 
 than formerly. 
 
 At the present time the British race appears 
 to have a unique opportunity. If it chooses 
 it can recognize its unity and organize itself 
 
THE LARGER PATRIOTISM 155 
 
 as an empire upon a broader base than any 
 other people whose history we know. All 
 its great statesmen are advising it to sink the 
 internal differences between its various sections, 
 to make the sacrifices necessary to suppress 
 competition within its borders, and to show 
 a united and impenetrable front to the rest 
 of mankind. It will be for the future historian 
 to relate whether the ideal of the larger 
 patriotism was first realized by the British 
 race or by another race that was able to profit 
 by the object-lesson of its failure. 
 
XIX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 IT may be objected that all this is pure 
 pessimism, that I hold out no hope to man- 
 kind of any existence but one of continual war 
 either between individuals or between nations, 
 or to a nation of any destiny but of surviving 
 in the struggle with other nations, long enough 
 to be destroyed by the products of its own 
 civilization. Is there no alternative, it may 
 well be asked, to this relentless struggle for 
 existence ? 
 
 I have been engaged throughout in trying 
 to examine facts. I have no remedies to sug- 
 gest. At best I can only attempt to show that 
 there are certain alternatives before mankind. 
 
 So long as the population continues to 
 increase unchecked there will be a struggle 
 for existence. Under certain conditions, 
 usually those of high civilization, a nation's 
 population tends to decline in numbers. This 
 
 156 
 
CONCLUSION 157 
 
 is due, in varying proportions, to the physical 
 deterioration, the vice, and the shortsighted 
 selfishness of the nation's people. A falling 
 population must be regarded as a sign rather 
 than as a cause of national decay, and treated 
 as such. As things are at present, a declining 
 birth-rate in a particular country holds out 
 no hope of a relaxation of the struggle for 
 existence for mankind at large. It merely 
 shows that one nation is not likely to be able 
 to hold its own much longer against its more 
 prolific neighbours. So long as there are 
 healthy races multiplying fast in any part of 
 the world, a patriotic man would rather see 
 his own nation vigorous and expanding to 
 press against them than dwindling to make 
 room for them. The conflict will come, and 
 can only end in one way, when two neighbour- 
 ing nations have one a growing, and the other 
 a declining, birth-rate. 
 
 The struggle for existence could be ended if 
 the whole of mankind throughout the world 
 could agree to limit the population ; but it is 
 very doubtful whether this could be arranged, 
 and even if it could, whether the result would 
 be satisfactory. 
 
 The physiological obstacles do not seem to 
 
158 PATRIOTISM 
 
 be great. It is well known that provident 
 citizens of the more highly civilized nations arti- 
 ficially keep down the number of births in their 
 families in order that they may be able to afford 
 a luxurious standard of living. The practice 
 seems to be growing, but is confined to certain 
 nations, which, as it is tersely expressed, are 
 thus committing { race suicide.' If it were 
 general throughout the world, it might solve 
 the problem. 
 
 But if the nations whose citizens are in- 
 creasing their individual wealth by reducing 
 their own numbers were to suggest such a plan 
 to the more healthy nations which are multiply- 
 ing fast, the latter would probably reply : ' We 
 shall increase as fast as we choose, for we feel 
 strong enough to take from you by force what 
 we want for our children.' Even if the plan 
 were adopted, it would be difficult to insure its 
 working. The nations might agree as to the 
 number within which the population of each 
 should be kept, but it would probably be 
 difficult to ascertain whether the compact was 
 being observed, and to punish and prevent its 
 infringement. 
 
 In the State each citizen is so small a part of 
 it that, if he opposes his own will to the collec- 
 
CONCLUSION 159 
 
 tive will represented by the law, he is easily 
 disposed of. But the collective will of the 
 nations would not be so easy to enforce upon 
 an individual nation that was determined to 
 resist it. Certain virile nations would probably 
 chafe under the restraint, and the knowledge 
 that they were only waiting for a favourable 
 opportunity to throw off the yoke and assert 
 themselves at the expense of the rest would 
 cause ceaseless anxiety. It is quite possible 
 that armaments would still have to be kept up, 
 and wars of repression frequently waged ; in 
 fact, things might soon become hardly distin- 
 guishable from what they are to-day. 
 
 On the other hand, if the plan succeeded, its 
 benefit to mankind is highly debatable. There 
 is no questioning the fact that if the population 
 of the world were fixed well within the number 
 for whom the resources of the earth are capable 
 of yielding adequate supplies, the struggle for 
 existence would be at an end., Further, if the 
 population were kept within any limits at all, it 
 might just as easily be kept within limits which 
 would end the struggle for luxury as well. If 
 it were fixed at just the right number to make 
 the world give up its maximum yield to the 
 minimum toil of each individual, there need be 
 
1 60 PATRIOTISM 
 
 no more poverty, no more hard work, no more 
 anxiety about the future, no more war, no more 
 patriotism in fact, the millennium would have 
 come. The only question is, whether if it did 
 we should like it. Man has been evolved in 
 the struggle for existence, and every normal 
 instinct he has got is a weapon forged for use 
 in that struggle. If the struggle were suddenly 
 ended never to be resumed, there would be 
 nothing to hope for, nothing to work for, and, 
 consequently, no legitimate employment to be 
 found for that great amount of energy which 
 man has got to meet his present needs. 
 
 The two great objects for which a man works 
 to-day are to secure the food-supply and the 
 future of the race. All human endeavour is 
 traceable ultimately to one of these two. If all 
 the competition were abolished, and a man 
 knew that his food-supply was sure and the 
 race safe, provided he did a merely nominal 
 amount of work, which his fellow-men would 
 not allow him a chance of shirking, he would 
 have to face an objectless existence. A life of 
 idleness and pleasure, when there is no need to 
 work, may sound attractive ; but the few people 
 who live in conditions at all resembling these 
 to-day seem bored and depraved by them. 
 
CONCLUSION 161 
 
 And yet they have the working world at their 
 door, and know that an accident may fling them 
 back into it at any moment. The knowledge 
 seems only to make them court the risk by 
 gambling. 
 
 I can imagine it being objected that man- 
 kind relieved from grinding t'oil would rejoice 
 in sport, art, and science. I believe it would 
 soon lose interest in all these things. Sport 
 for the greater part of mankind is a play- 
 ful exercise of the qualities needed to secure 
 success in the struggle for existence intended 
 to develop them to their utmost. For a few 
 people who are outside the struggle it is a 
 means of display by which they can show that 
 they possess these qualities though they do 
 not need them. If all real competition were 
 abolished the interest felt in imitations of com- 
 petition would probably not long remain very 
 keen, and such qualities as strength, courage, 
 perseverance, intelligence, alertness and re- 
 source would soon become merely ornamental 
 virtues, not worth much trouble to cultivate and 
 possibly not even admired in their possessors. 
 
 Art is founded upon toil. Art in a world 
 of sordid labour is elevating, in a world of 
 luxurious idleness where there are no ideals 
 
 M 
 
162 PATRIOTISM 
 
 or great causes, its place would be problem- 
 atical. It would remain as an instrument of 
 pleasure no doubt, but I personally cannot 
 believe that it would fill the gap left in men's 
 lives by the suppression of the struggle for 
 existence. 
 
 Science, like art, may be an end in itself to 
 some men. Under existing conditions they ask 
 for nothing but to be allowed to work at art or 
 science for its own sake. But these men are 
 the great exceptions. To the majority of man- 
 kind science is an attempt to get control over 
 Nature, such control to be used for the benefit 
 of man. To some men the attempt to discover 
 fresh resources in the earth might still seem 
 worth continuous effort, but I doubt if an 
 average man would think so. Under present 
 conditions he would work hard to increase the 
 fertility of the nation's land, because he saw 
 that if this were not done the nation would be 
 forced to win fresh territory by a war in which 
 many would be killed. It is hardly likely that 
 he would work with the same enthusiasm if he 
 thought that his labours would merely enable 
 the arbitrarily fixed number of the population 
 to be raised a little in the next generation, 
 What would be the gain to mankind if a tract 
 
CONCLUSION 163 
 
 of land, which before had supported ninety-nine 
 people, could, by additional labour, be made to 
 support a hundred? I do not think science 
 could fill the gap. 
 
 Before very long mankind would probably be 
 positively glad to re-open the struggle for exis- 
 tence with a war. 
 
 To descend to something less fantastic, it 
 may be asked whether the overcrowding of the 
 earth is not so far distant, and the possibility 
 that the earth has such great resources as yet 
 undreamed of, but destined to be revealed by 
 science, that war will be an unnecessary crime 
 and patriotism an unnecessary virtue for a long 
 time to come. 
 
 It may be so ; I hope it will prove to be the 
 case. But whatever may be the limit to the 
 number of people the earth will support, it will 
 be reached in time if the population continues 
 to increase unchecked. Personally, I do not 
 think that science will be able to avert the 
 struggle for long by tapping new food-supplies. 
 Mankind does not respect science, and will not 
 supply funds for research. It may seem strange 
 to the thoughtful man that, now we know we 
 are bound by certain physical limitations, we do 
 not try to find out as far as we can what they 
 
1 64 PATRIOTISM 
 
 are. But the thoughtful man soon sees that 
 mankind as a whole takes no interest in the 
 examination of the resources of the universe or 
 the conditions under which life is lived. A 
 paltry sum is occasionally given by a community 
 to reward one of its members who has made a 
 useful discovery ; but no sacrifice is made, no 
 risk is run in promoting the exploration of the 
 unknown. Private enterprise will do it, but the 
 masses of the nation scoff at such folly ; they 
 prefer to speculate in railways and back race- 
 horses. The only kind of scientific man for 
 whom the general public has the least respect 
 is he who discovers that some secret, wrung 
 from Nature by another man, can be put to 
 practical use in a hospital or a brewery. The 
 pioneer is overlooked when his work bears 
 fruit. While he is actually engaged upon it 
 the public regard him as an unprofitable 
 dreamer a pathetic and rather ridiculous 
 figure. 
 
 Whatever science might do, it is not likely to 
 be given the opportunity for showing whether 
 it can keep ahead of human needs. Like every- 
 thing else in the human mind, it must be 
 brought into line with the struggle for existence. 
 In the future, as in the past, mankind will 
 
CONCLUSION 165 
 
 indulge plentifully in science when science 
 means the invention of new guns and explosives, 
 or amelioration of the lot of those hopelessly 
 diseased ; but study of fundamental problems 
 which concern the food-supply and the sources 
 of energy will be left to take care of them- 
 selves. Mankind will probably continue to 
 prefer fighting in order to survive in present 
 conditions, to studying in order to alter those 
 conditions. 
 
 Since for the present, at any rate, the struggle 
 for existence will have to go on, it is interesting 
 to speculate upon the way in which it will be 
 waged. Since individuals will not compete 
 against one another within the communities 
 they have formed, the communities must fight 
 against one another. What then are the sides 
 that are likely to be formed for the great game ? 
 
 The divisions may be based upon race. 
 Mankind consists of three well-marked races : 
 the white, the yellow, and the black. Around 
 the main mass of each race is a disreputable 
 and negligible fringe ; and at their margins 
 there is a certain amount of fusion and over- 
 lapping. But the races undoubtedly exist, 
 distinct, physically, and mentally, and it is con- 
 ceivable that one of these races may exterminate 
 
i66 PATRIOTISM 
 
 the other two, or two of them may annihilate 
 the third. 
 
 If two races destroy the third, they will 
 probably be the white and the black. They 
 could divide the world between them. The 
 white men cannot work hard or survive long 
 in the Tropics : the black men do not thrive 
 in cold latitudes. The black race possibly 
 under white supervision could develop the 
 natural resources of the tropics ; the white men 
 could manufacture the raw material in the 
 temperate regions. 
 
 On the other hand, the yellow men seem 
 able to thrive and work equally well in all 
 latitudes, and in physical and intellectual effi- 
 ciency appear to equal, if not surpass, either of 
 the other two races. 
 
 The most interesting problem of the future 
 is whether the yellow race can be rejuvenated. 
 At present vast multitudes of the Chinese seem 
 to have reached a kind of finality in their view 
 of life. They have made their territory support 
 the maximum population by achieving the 
 utmost development of the soil and reducing 
 the standard of living to its lowest. At certain 
 periods there are famines, when they starve 
 with fatalistic apathy. Originality seems dead 
 
CONCLUSION 167 
 
 among them. They have a fixed way of life 
 and do not want it altered. The possibility of 
 improvement is not denied ; but the peace of 
 mind which comes from knowing that nothing 
 will ever be changed is too precious to be risked 
 even for the possibility of improvement. 
 
 It is possible that mankind throughout the 
 world will reach this state at last. War and 
 luxury will both become wearisome, and the 
 maximum population at the minimum standard 
 of living will lead a placid existence between 
 recurring famines. 
 
 But seriously, this does not seem likely to 
 happen yet. Moreover, the Chinese and other 
 Asiatics are now learning that there are other 
 lands to which they may emigrate, where the 
 pressure is less, and other races with no claims 
 of blood upon them against whom they may 
 fight. 
 
 At present mankind seems to find arrange- 
 ment according to race too cumbersome to 
 adopt in its entirety, and extermination a solu- 
 tion of difficulties too terrible to employ. No 
 systematic solution of the problem of human 
 existence seems likely to be attempted. For 
 the present nations and possibly leagues of 
 nations will probably continue to live as before. 
 
168 PATRIOTISM 
 
 They will multiply, expand, press upon one 
 another's frontiers and fight as before. Wars 
 will not be pushed to the point of extermination, 
 only of decision. The victors will not massacre 
 the vanquished, but only drive them from such 
 of their feeding-grounds as they need them- 
 selves, and leave them to face starvation, with 
 polite expressions of condolence. Occasionally 
 nations may be evenly matched and the struggle 
 not pushed to a decision. In a long war the 
 loss of life, due not only to the slaughter of 
 combatants but to the paralysis of production, 
 may go to such lengths that after a time the 
 combatants may stop by mutual consent, having 
 got rid of their surplus population. 
 
 Meanwhile, the struggle for existence goes 
 on ; nations are the units in the struggle, and 
 the strength of each nation's patriotism is the 
 factor which determines its chances of survival. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
YB 08104 
 
1 68 
 
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 PATR. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 13Jan'KLU 
 
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 OUT 2 858 
 
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 2 5 1979 
 
YB 0810- 
 
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