brutal 'expanding' neighbour? What would have happened to France if she
had stood alone in this war? The danger is real; but we may answer that
France, as a matter of fact, did not stand alone, because other nations
thought her too precious to be sacrificed. And the completely organised
competitive State which I have imagined would be a far more unlovely
place than Germany, and more unpleasant to live in. The spectacle of a
saner and happier polity next door would break up the purely competitive
State from within; the strain would be too great for human nature. We
cannot argue confidently from the struggle for existence among the lower
animals to our own species. For a long time past, human evolution has
been directed, not to living anyhow, but to living in a certain way. We
are guided by ideals for the future, by purposes winch we clearly set
before ourselves, in a way which is impossible to the brutes. These
purposes are common to the large majority of men. No State can long
maintain a rigid and oppressive organisation, except under the threat of
danger; and a nation which aims only at perfecting its own culture is
not dangerous to its neighbours. It is probable that without the
supposed menace of another military Power on its eastern flank German
militarism would have begun to crumble.

In the second place, would the absence of sharp competition within the
group lead to racial degeneration? This is a difficult question to
answer. Perhaps a diminution of pugnacity and of the means to gratify
this instinct would not be a misfortune. But it is certainly true that,
if the operation of natural selection is suspended, rational selection
must take its place. Failing this, reversion to a lower type is
inevitable. The infant science of eugenics will have much to say on this
subject hereafter; at present we are only discovering how complex and
obscure the laws of heredity are. The State of the future will have to
step in to prevent the propagation of undesirable variations, whether