DARWINISM AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 272, 6 August 1918, Page 9

DARWINISM AND WAR

THE DEGRADATION 0I ; GERMANY

MR. BENJAMIN KIDD'S STARTLING ALLEGATIONS.

[By the Rev. Robert Wood.]

' A generation ago the theory of evolu- J lion, as expounded by Darwin,_ Spunct-r,. ~ud Huxley, held a commanding place : in tiio world of science. Evolution, as expounded by these distinguished men, ; i.ua supposed to give an adequnto inter- . pretation and explanation of Nature, hu- j mini nature, nml history, and upon it" > hd ethical system could be built. A kind : ;• of high priesthood arose in the world , of science, and the word of Darwin, or Spencer, [or Huxley was quoted sometimes as a settlement of controversy. Tlio world*of thought in Britain was in this condition in 18SI5 whon a new teacher arose who challenged the views ol these masters in science; maintained that they had misunderstood Nature and misread history; and affirmed that progress along | tlio lines laid down by them would end in disaster to the human race. This new teacher was Benjamin Kkld, .a young philosopher of 36 years, who set forth his views in his work "Social Evolution," published by Maemillan. The Darwinian did not like this book, and thought llr. lvidd a very presumptuous young man, j and, although the book made religion and sacrifice come to their own in social progress, the theologian did not like it, because it made religion a thing of emotion and action, and not a matter of notion and dogma. But Mr. Kidd held on ■ | his way. His book went round the world and was translated into nine languages. For a score ■of years he held a high place among Euglish thinkers. He 'wroto ftuothcr big book ou "Western Civilisation," and ' a largo number of smaller books. lie did much to destroy the authority of the high priests of science of the last generation, and wo see, in a measure, the fruit of his toil in a recent "Blackwood's Magazine," in an article which elaborately sought to prove that Herbert Spencer is an "Exploded Quack." In the latest. "Encyclopaedia Britanniea" the article "Sociology" is from Mr. .Ridd's pen, and so he was given the place filled by the man ho criticised. About two years ngo he died, and now, after the lapse of many months, there lias come from the press his last, and most daring and original book, entitled "The Service of Power." The London "Times" spoke of'this book the other month as Mr. Kidd's Testament to this generation. He writes with the passion and conviction of a prophet with a message. He holds that Darwinism, with its picture of Nature, red in tootli and claw—with its struggle for existence, and survival of the fittest—has inflicted ; serious injury to our civilisation, and ho proves that Germany lias found in this conception of Nature a guide in business, politics, and war; and in the following of such a guide wo have an explanation of the awful and terrible brutalisation of the Prussian autocracy and tho German people. ; Mr. Kidd so reads history as to 6eo an appalling change for the worse come over our civilisation as tho result of the publication of Darwin's "Origin of I Species" with its doctrines of progress by ' strength or force. He says that before j that civilisation was ripening "towards a golden age of world peace," "At the . Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, the princes I there looked forward to an age of peace' lin Europe. In 183-i and after Mnzzini j had visions of a brotherhood of nationß I and of universal fraternity. Before 1850 ! Tennyson, in his "Locksley Hall," looked • forward to the time when "The war 1 drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle I Hags wero furled in tho Parliament of Alan, tho Federation,., of the World." { Then, when tho Great International Ex- ■ hibition of 1851, under the lead of "Al- , bert the Good," was held, it looked as ' though tho day of universal peace had ■ dawned. After this all was changed, according to llr. Kidd. Mr. Darwin disclosed a world that all through was a battlefield, and war seemed thus a state of Nature. "In a way," says Sir William Huggins, "to which history furnishes, no parallel, the opinions of mankind may be said to have changed in a day." Progress by force and not by affection seemed to become tho order of tho day in commerce and in politics, national and international. Mr. Kidd writes regarding the commanding influence of this theory,:— "It was not science which tho universal faino of the Darwinian conception. It was rather the half-informed

pagan mind of our civilisation. For centuries th; Western pagan had struggled with the ideals of a religion of sub-' ordination and renunciation coining to him from the past, For centuries ho had been bored almost beyond endurance with ideals of the world presented to him by the churches of Christendom. He had stiffly bowed liis armoured back to them, but mostly without inward comprehension. But hero was a conception of life which stirred to its depths the inheritance in him from past epochs of time. This was tho world which tho master of forco comprehended. Tho pagan heart of tho West sang within itselt again in alavistic joy. Its Schopenhauers,_ its Omar Khayyams, its Haeckels. its Nietzscheß, its Weimgers, its Wagners, tho prophets and interpreters of a meaning in the world which it drank iti with understanding." Mr. Kidd probably em in hasty overgeneralisation. Darwinism did not make Britain an aggressive military Power, though it may have fostered tho spirit of competition and struggle in commerce, and helped to males the industrial world a camp in which two contending armies, Capital and Labour, aro arrayed against cacn other. But there is no doubt that in Germany Darwinism found a warm welcome, and it was given such far-reach-ing applications as would have distressed and shocked tho soul of Charles Darwin himsell. _ Germany mado the evolution of tho animal point the way in the evolution of a nation, Mr. Bngehot summarised Darwin's doctrine thus:—"lf A was able to kill ii belore B killed A, then A survived. And tho race becamo a race of A's inheriting A's qualified." Such a doctrine found a congenial homo in the soul of the pushful Prussians of a past ago, whose minds were inflamed with am.bition for a larger Prussia, and for a larger Germany, through the power of tho sword. Darwinism embodied the national policy, of Prussia then as it does to-day. Might was right in the brute world, and might was right in tho sphere of the State. Germany became flooded with Hneckel's "Riddle of the Universe," in which he expounded Darwinism and found in it a moral guide for men. Tho doctrine took possession of the universities and the schools, and it became the intellectual atmosphere in which Germans breathed, Haeckel was bitterly anti-Christian, like Niebsche, who said: "I impeach the greatest blasphemy in tipie-the religion which haa enchaincd and softened us. . . . Becomo hard. ... Tho best things belong to its . . . and if men do not give us these things re take them." This doctrine fed tho soul of Bernhardi, who said: "War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot bo dispensed with." The Pan-GermanisU found justification for their ambition also in this doctrine, and Dr. Schmidt as late as 1912 said: "It. is proved beyond all shadow of doubt that regular war is not only from the biological and tulturnl standpoint the best and noblest form of the struggle for existence, but also from timo to time an absoluto necessity for the maintenance of the State and society." The lesson was drilled thus ' into the minds,of the German people that brute forco reigned in the animal world so it should reign in the politics of the German State. The German State became thus a "non-moral magnitude," as one nf its Christian theologians was forced to describe it. Tts destiny was in Iho hands of those who held the sword. Tt was based on force and not on affection and bv force it would expand.

'rite siandnrd of the wild beasts of the is act out fully in the miliary of Austria ami . Germany. "War," navs an Austrian text-bonk, "requires of the soldier grcat n r standards of morality. For him victory is _ everything. The barbarian tendone'"* in "'en come lo life avnin in war. nfor wars uses lliey are inconimensuvaM.v eood.' Professor Moreno bas summarised instructions of the Herman General Ptatf thus: "Should the peaceful inhabitants of a. connlry invaded be exnosed to the fire if thoir own troops?— Yes, Should

I prisoners of war be put to death?—lt is always ugly, hut it is sometimes expedient. Alay one hire an assassin, or corrupt a citizen, or incite an incendiary?— Cerlainly; it may not be reputable and honour may light, shy of it. but the law of war is less touch. Should tho women and children, the old and the feeble, bo allowed to depart before a bombardment begins?—On the contrary, their presenco is greatly to bo desired; it makes the bombardment all the more effective." These lessons have brought forth fruit, in this war, of diabolic cruelty. Tho crimes of Germany on sea and land make i j a record that staggers humanity. The j Prussian military autocracy, by making tho German millions conform to the ethics of the jungle, have committed the crime of crimes against the human soul. They have become themselves a moral ; cancer, and the world will only be saved i from their evil contagion by their cx- ' tinction. This story points its own : moral. What ft German "knltur" with- ! out honour, faith, and affection ? "What is she cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallaß from the brain Or Demons? Fiery hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For Power."