IX
THE PRICE OF DEVELOPMENT
I
The biological law of the supremacy of the strong over the weak, of the fit over the less fit, which prevails throughout the world of living things, gives us pause when it is applied to human history and to the relations of man with man. Yet it is true that the price of development is the struggle for life. The road of evolution is an uphill road. When struggle ceases, progress ceases, and evolution becomes devolution. Our strength is the strength of the obstacles we overcome. The living machine, contrary to the non-living, gains power from the friction it begets.
When we open the book of the biological history of the globe, we find, to begin with, no force but that which we call brute force, no justice but power, no crime but weakness, no law but the law of battle. The victory is to the strong and the race to the swift. And it is well. It is on this plan, as I have so often said, that the life of the globe has come to what we behold it. Man has come to his present estate, the trees in the forest, the grasses and flowers of the field, the birds in the air, the fishes in the sea, have each and all attained their present stage of development through the operation of this law of natural competition, and the survival of the fittest. Though marked by what we call cruelty and injustice, in the totality of its operations it is a beneficent law. If it were not so, how could the world of living things have attained its present development? If it were a malevolent law, would not life have suffered shipwreck long ago? The world of living things and of non-living still merits the primal approval—“Behold, it is very good!” Not your good, nor my good, but a general good, the good of all. Nature’s scheme, if we may say she has a scheme, embraces the totality of things, and that the totality of things is good who but a born pessimist, a radically negative nature, can deny? Mixed good undoubtedly it is, but is there, or can there be, any other good in the universe? Good forever freeing itself from the non-good, or from the fetters of evil—good to eat, to drink, to behold, to live by, to die by—good for the body, good for the mind, good for the soul, good in time, and good in eternity?
From solar systems to atoms and molecules, the greater bodies, the greater forces, prevail over the lesser, and yet flowers bloom, and life is sweet, sweet for the minor forms as well as for the major.
Inert matter knows only the laws of force. In the world of living matter, up to a certain point, the same rule prevails. In the fields and woods the more vigorous plants and trees run out the less vigorous. In the dryer meadows in my section of the Catskills the orange hawkweed completely crowds out the meadow grasses; it plants itself on every square inch of the surface, and every four or five years the farmer has to intervene with his plow to turn the battle in favor of the grass again. In the gardens, unless the gardener take a hand in the game, the weeds choke down or smother all his vegetables. The weeds are rank with original sin and they easily supplant our pampered and cultivated cereals and legumes.
In the animal world there are few exceptions to the rule of the supremacy of power. There is no question of right or wrong, of mercy or cruelty. It is not cruel or unjust for the bird to catch the insect, or for the cat to catch the bird, or for the lion to devour the lamb, or for the big fishes to eat up the little fishes. It is the rule of nature, and never a question of right or wrong.
Biological laws are as remorseless as physical laws. The course of animal evolution through the geologic ages is everywhere marked by the triumph of new and superior forms over the old and inferior forms. Among the lower races of man, our remote savage ancestors, might ruled. The strong and prolific tribes supplanted those that were less so, and, among the nations, up to our own day, the rule of natural competition, or survival of the fittest, has held full sway. Those nations which are dominant are so by virtue of their superior qualities, physical, moral, or intellectual. It is not a question of might except in so far as this question is linked with the question of moral and intellectual superiority.
Is there, then, no such thing as equity, justice, fair play in the world? Shall I seize my neighbor’s farm and despoil him of his goods and chattels because I am stronger than he? Shall one state invade and despoil another, or seize its territory, because it is stronger and considers itself more fit to survive?
The rule of might, as I have said, prevails throughout the world of matter and of life below man, and long prevailed in pre-human and human history. But the old law of nature has been limited and qualified by a new law which has come into the world and which is just as truly a biological law in its application to man as was the old law of might. I refer to the law of man’s moral nature, the source of right, justice, mercy. The progress of the race and of the nations is coming more and more to depend upon the observance of this law. Without it there is no organization, no coöperation, no commerce, no government. Without it anarchy would rule, and our civilization would crumble and society disintegrate.
The moral sense of mankind is now the dominant fact in human history; the rule of might has been superseded by the rule of right. It is this sense in the civilized world that has revolted so overwhelmingly against the Prussian military power in precipitating the World War; and this conscience will probably be so developed and intensified by the useless waste and cruelty of the war that such a calamity will never again befall the world. Those nations will become the most powerful that are the most just, the most humane, that develop in the highest degree a world conscience, and realize the most intensely that the nations all belong to one family, in which the good and evil of one are the good and evil of all. What can the progress of civilization mean but the progress of international comity, sympathy, coöperation, fair-dealing; in fact, the fullest recognition of the validity of the ethical laws to which we hold individuals and communities amenable?
History is full of violence, cruelty, injustice, and the triumph of the strong over the weak, wherein the end seemed to justify the means; yet never since the world began did physical might alone make moral right. The sheriff and the hangman have made the doctrine unpopular among individuals—the ethical sense of mankind will in time make it equally unpopular among nations.
Nature is not moral; primitive biological laws are not moral; they are unmoral. There is no moral law until it is born of human intercourse; then it becomes more and more a biological law, more and more prominent in social and national progress. The law of the jungle begins and ends in the jungle; when we translate it into human affairs, we must take the cruelty of the jungle out of it, and read it in terms of beneficent competition. Man is the jungle humanized; the fangs and claws are drawn, and the stealthy spring gives place to open and fair competition.
II
In the Darwinian struggle for existence there is first the struggle with environment, or with the non-living forces—heat, cold, storm, wind, flood; the organic always at war with the inorganic out of which its power comes. The fateful physical and mechanical forces go their way regardless of the life that surrounds them and which draws its energy from them. Gravity would pull down every tree and shrub and every animal that walks or flies. The wind and the storm would flatten down the flowers and grasses and grains like a steam roller, and often succeeds in doing so. See the timothy and wheat and corn struggle to lift themselves again. Behold how the trees grip the rocks and soil, and brace themselves against the wind! This struggle is, of course, not a conscious one. Apart from the original push of life, it can all be explained in terms of physics and chemistry. The bio-chemist will tell you why the plant leans toward the light, and why it rights itself when pressed down; but why or how matter organizes itself into the various living forms is a question before which natural philosophy is dumb. Neither chemistry nor physics can give us the secret of life. The ingenious devices to secure cross-fertilization among certain plants, devices for scattering the seed among others,—the hooks, the wings, the springs,—to me all seem to imply intelligence, not apart from, but inherent in, the things themselves. Power of adaptation—to take advantage of wind and flood, of solid and fluid—is one of the mysterious attributes of life. And yet we know that vegetable life takes advantage of these things not, as we do, by forethought and invention, but by a mysterious inherent impulse.
How the bee and the bird battle with the wind, the fish with the waves and the rapids, the fur-bearers with the cold and the snow! how all living creatures struggle to escape or resist the dissolving power of the natural forces!
The ever-present instinct of fear in all wild creatures and in children, and the quickness with which it can be aroused in all persons, throw light upon the crueler aspects of this struggle for existence which is common to all forms of animal life. Had life never been beset with perils, we should have been strangers to the emotion of fear, as would all other creatures. Even the fly that alights on my paper as I write fears my hand. It is ever on guard against its natural enemies. This is the proof of the universal struggle. Among the lower forms the struggle or competition of the fleet with the slow, the cunning with the stupid, the sharp-eyed, the sharp-eared, and the keen of scent with those less so; of the miscellaneous feeders with the more specialized feeders; and, among mankind, the competition of men of purpose, of foresight, of judgment, of experience, of probity, and of other personal resources, with men who are deficient in these things; and, among nations and peoples, the inevitable competition of those who cherish the highest national ideals, the best-organized governments, the best race inheritance, the most natural resources, and so on, with the less fortunate in these respects—all this struggle and competition, I say, is beneficent and on the road to progress.
Myriads of different types of animal and vegetable life fit into the scheme of organic nature without conflict or hindrance, but when there is conflict, the strong prevail. The small and the gigantic, the feeble and the mighty, the timid and the bold, the frail and the robust—birds, insects, mice, squirrels, cattle—exist in the same landscape and all prosper. Only when there is rivalry do the feeble go to the wall, which means only that their numbers are kept down. The cats do not exterminate the mice and rats, nor do the hawks and owls exterminate the other birds; they are a natural check on their undue increase. Nature’s checks and balances are all important. When species subsist upon species, as weasels upon rodents and hawks upon other birds, there seems to be some law that keeps the bloodthirsty in check. Why should there be so few weasels, since they appear as prolific as their victims? Why so few pigeon hawks, since the hawks have no natural enemies, while the trees swarm with finches and robins?
The conflicting interests in Nature sooner or later adjust themselves; her checks and balances bring about her equilibrium. In vegetation rivalries and antagonisms bring about adaptations. The mosses and the ferns and the tender wood plants grow beneath the oaks and the pines and are favored by the shade and protection which the latter afford them. The farmer’s seeding of grass and clover takes better under the shade of the oats than it would upon the naked ground. In Africa some species of flesh-eaters live upon the leavings of larger and stronger species, and in the tropics certain birds become benefactors of the cattle by preying upon the insects that pester them. Fabre tells of certain insect hosts that blindly favor the parasites that destroy them. The scheme has worked itself out that way and Nature is satisfied. Victim or victor, host or parasite, it is all one to her. Life goes on, and all forms of it are hers.
It is easy to see why the wild plants run out the cultivated ones—the latter are the result of artificial selection. No favor has been shown the wild ones, and hence only the most vigorous have survived. The cultivated plants always have a greater burden to bear than the wild ones, and man helps them to bear it, or, rather, he saddles it upon them. The cultivated races of man have burdens to bear also, much greater than the savage tribes, but this is more than made up to them by their superior brain power, which brain power again has come about in the struggle for existence. Wild tribes have also been under the discipline of natural selection, but by reason of some obscure factors of race or climate or geography they have not profited as have the European and Asiatic races. Their moral natures are more rudimentary.
Doubtless some obscure or unknown factors in the original germ-cells, far back in biological times, caused the divergence and splitting-up of animal forms, and gave to one an impulse that carried it higher in the scale of development than its fellows, just as the same thing happens in human families in our own times. Why some creatures are higher and some are lower, why some eventuated in the bird and some in toad and frog and snake and lizard, is one of the mysteries. In seeking the explanation of these things on natural grounds we are compelled to resort to the fertile expedient of conjecture, and pack the germ with many possibilities, each one depending for its development upon chance occurrence or conditions.
Besides this struggle with the environment there is the struggle of individuals and of species with one another—of oak with oak, of beech with beech, of plant with its kind, for the moisture and nutriment in the soil; of robin with robin for insects and fruit, of fox with fox for mice and rabbits, and of lion with lion for antelope and zebra. I say “struggle,” but it is rarely struggle in the sense of strife or battle, but in the sense of natural competition—the victory is to the most lucky and the most vigorous—the sharpest eye, the quickest ear, the most nimble foot; and those most favored by fortune win.
Under the law of variation some individuals have a fuller endowment of vital energy than others; under a severe strain and trial of whatever kind the favored ones will survive, while the others perish. Some men, some animals, can endure more hardships than others; under the same conditions all will not starve or freeze or fall exhausted by the wayside at the same time. In the vegetable world the same inequality in the gift of life exists, though not in the same degree. Some seeds will lie dormant in the soil longer than others of the same kind, and some kinds longer than others. Some seeds will not sprout after the second year, but a few may sprout after the third or even the fourth year. The stream of life is not of uniform depth and fullness; it is shallow in some places, and deep in others, as regards both species and individuals. In the natural competition which goes on all around us, the strongest, the fittest, win in the game, not necessarily by violence, but because, apart from the rôle played by chance, they carry more pounds of vital pressure. Not all acorns become oaks, probably not one in thousands; not all bird’s eggs become birds; occasionally one egg in the nest does not hatch, probably because of some defect in fertilization. Some nests are torn out of the trees by storms, or are robbed by crows or jays or squirrels; they were not well hidden. A large percentage of nests on the ground is destroyed by night prowlers or by day prowlers; chance again plays a great part here. Only a small fraction of the spawn of fishes hatches, and a still smaller percentage of the hatched ever reaches maturity. Fortune, good or bad, plays a great part with all forms of life. The acorn that becomes an oak owes much to chance—chance of position and soil, and chance of the vicissitudes of the woods and fields. Falling trees or branches, or the foot of a passing animal, may crush or deform it, or a squirrel or a raccoon devour it. Barring these accidents, it owes, or may owe, not a little to its inherent vitality—to its real oakhood.
The natural competition, or the struggle for existence among mankind, is of similar character, though on the whole less fortuitous. Coöperation, knowledge, altruism, have done much to eliminate the element of chance. An acorn becomes an oak where ten thousand other acorns fail, mainly by luck, while the child becomes the man mainly through the care and nurture of his parents and of the community in which he lives, but he reaches a position of power and prominence largely through his inherent capabilities. Fortune plays a part here also, as it did with Lincoln and Lee and Grant, but these men all had the native endowment upon which Fortune could build.
In the natural competition that goes on in every town and city, the success of one man over another is not, as a rule, the result of violence or wrong; men of high purpose and character in business and professional life add to the positive wealth and well-being of all; they often lift the whole community to a higher and better standard of living; the unfit profit by the achievements of the fit. The men who have added to the wealth and well-being of this country could be counted by the thousands. It is also true that the men who have accumulated their millions at the expense of others, by fraud and chicanery, or have diverted the earnings of others into their own coffers, could be counted by the thousands. It is this class of men who make the poor poorer. But did the achievements of such men as the late James J. Hill make the poor poorer? Such men add enormously to the wealth of the nation.
With all its discounts and set-backs, the natural struggle for existence has carried the whole race forward. Even business competition may be entirely beneficent. Two men open shops or houses in similar lines in the same town and one outstrips the other. Maybe his location is the better; one side of a street may be more favorable to success than the other side. Maybe he is more affable in manner, more thorough in his methods, more accommodating, more fair-minded, of sounder judgment—in fact, the better man in a beneficent sense.
On a broad view, throughout any country, this will be found to be true: success in business, in the professions, on the farm, in the manufactory, comes to those who deserve it. It cannot be otherwise. The world is thus made. Among the nations the same rule holds. England has earned all the power she has got. She is endowed with the gift of empire. Solid merit alone tells in the long run, as well among nations as among individual men. The worth of France rests upon solid qualities. The worth of Germany is inherent in the character of her people. That she has run to Krupp guns and Kaiserism during these later generations, and has coveted the land and the gold of her neighbors, is one of those human calamities analogous to tornadoes and earthquakes.
In the course of modern history, race supplants race, not so much by force of arms as by force of brain. The Europeans know how to utilize the natural forces and make the stars fight on their side. So far as they have done it by wars of conquest, they have violated the great moral law and the law of natural competition. All wars of conquest by civilized nations are wicked wars. They are becoming more and more odious to mankind, and are bound to become still more so, till they cease entirely. A century ago the conduct of Germany in the recent war would have shocked mankind far less than it has to-day. A century hence such an exhibition of the rule of the jungle among civilized peoples will be impossible. If Germany could ever come to be the dominant power in Europe, it would be through the law of natural competition. Her superior efficiency in the arts of peace, could alone give her the victory. It would have given her the victory in her own age had she been contented with its slow but sure operation.
III
The question of right and wrong must have emerged, so as to become a factor in the evolution of human society, very slowly—how slowly, we can never know. But it did emerge, and is still emerging more and more; first probably in the dealing of man with man, then in the dealing of families with other families. In the dealing of tribes with tribes in prehistoric times, the question of right and wrong played probably little or no part; might alone settled matters. In what we call the pagan world, among the early Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, the law of might in the dealings of one nation with another prevailed, and up to our own time the standard of international morality has been, and still is, far below the standard among individuals and neighborhood communities. Even in the United States there is a crying want of public conscience. The people are preyed upon by men they elect to serve them. The men or corporations that take pleasure and satisfaction in serving the public well and reasonably, or in giving a quid pro quo, are rare. Men who are blameless in their personal dealings with one another will, when formed into a board of directors or trustees, rob railroads, and squander money not their own. Capitalists will band together to rob the state through the construction of sham highways or flimsy public buildings. A public conscience is among all peoples of slow growth, and an international conscience is still slower. What part has it played in the history of Europe? Surely a very minor part. The Golden Rule has been turned into an iron rule of might over right times without number, by all the nations recently engaged in war.
As man’s moral consciousness has developed, the question of right and wrong has, of course, come more and more to the front; his relations to his fellows, his sense of justice, of truth, of fair dealing, have occupied him more and more. His savage instincts have been held more and more in check. The coöperation and sympathy and good-will which have brought about his present civilization would have been possible on no other terms. Without a sense of justice, of love of truth, of ideal right, where should we have been to-day? The fittest to survive among mankind were those races that had the moral consciousness most fully developed. This gave a might which led to a permanent supremacy—a beneficent might. A malevolent might is one that is founded upon superior brute or material strength alone. The law of the jungle or of the tornado or of the avalanche, introduced into human affairs and unchecked by the law of man’s moral nature, leads to wars of conquest, as it did to the World War.
IV
The expounders of the benefits of war write and speak about it as if it were some system of hygiene or medicine or gymnastic training that a people could practice in and of themselves; whereas wars of conquest do not begin and end at home. There are two parties to such a war. If it is a benefit to the victors, what is it to the defeated? I am speaking, of course, of material benefits. The benefits that come from heroism and self-denial are of another order. If the lamb inside the lion is a benefit to the lion, what is it to the lamb? If Germany reaped advantage by her invasion of Belgium, what did Belgium reap? But the fate of the other party is the last question that would ever occur to the Prussian military mind. If the doctrine of frightfulness began and ended at home, the world could not object. Because burned cities in modern times rise from their ashes in new beauty and power, shall we therefore seek to rejuvenate our cities by applying a match to them? Cities rise from their ashes because of their stored-up wealth and because of the arteries of commerce and industry that flow through them. Fire does not rejuvenate a dead tree nor a dead city, nor does war rejuvenate a people who are in a state of mortal ripening. It did not rejuvenate Rome in ancient times, nor Spain in modern times, and it does not appear to be rejuvenating Mexico very fast, nor any of the South American republics. All depends upon the stock you are trying to rejuvenate.
Lord Roberts is quoted as saying, just before his death, that war is necessary and salutary, and that it is the only national tonic that can be prescribed when peace begets degeneracy in an over-civilized people. He looked upon Germany as the greatest friend of the Allies when she declared war against them. But could there be any better proof that peace had not begotten degeneracy in England or France or Russia than the promptness with which these countries took up the challenge of Prussian militarism, and the fortitude and self-denial with which they gave it blow for blow?
Under the smiling face of peace, when the demand is made, the heroic element is always found to be slumbering. Every day, in the industrial and scientific fields, men prove themselves the same heroes that they do on the field of battle, and they prove it without the excitement and stimulus that war gives; and women prove it in times of peace and times of war.
The gospel of war as a national tonic in our time is a delusion and a snare. Are we to get up a war offhand because we think the nations need that kind of medicine? Blood-letting is a strange remedy for the depleted condition to which Lord Roberts refers. War sets up the victorious nation, but how about the defeated one? Have the defeats of Spain in the past two or three hundred years set her up? Have the defeats of Turkey redounded to her glory and power? Little doubt that this World War will bear fruit, but it will be a kind of fruit the combatant did not seek or expect.
The conclusion, then, that I arrive at is that a new rule of conduct for nations as for individuals, a new biological law, has come into being through man’s moral nature, his sense of right and wrong. There is no question of right or of wrong in the world of living things below man, and we can persuade ourselves that there is only by putting ourselves in the place of the struggling animal forces. And there is no question of right and of wrong in the human world till man’s consciousness of this difference has begun to dawn. In our day this consciousness is sufficiently developed to become the ruling factor in the conduct of national and international affairs, and must very soon put an end to all armed human conflicts. In saying this I am not exploiting a theory; I am trying to state an indisputable scientific fact.