I do not want to live in a violent world. I do not want to see war in my lifetime. But if 50 years was enough to bring us to the brink, there is not much time left before our chance is gone and we are marked down as one of the great conquered evils of the past.
Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence.
If a nation confines itself to ‘internal colonisation’, while other races are perpetually increasing their territorial possessions all over the globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of its population at a time when the other nations are increasing theirs.
This situation must eventually arise, and it will arise soon if the territory which the nation has at its disposal be small. Now, it is unfortunately true that only too often the best nations—or, to speak more exactly, the only really
cultured nations, who at the same time are the chief champions of human progress—have decided, in their blind pacifism, to refrain from the acquisition of new territory and to be content with ‘internal colonisation.’
At the same time nations of inferior quality succeed in getting hold of large areas for colonisation all over the globe.
The final outcome of this state of affairs will be that races which are culturally superior, but less ruthless would be forced to restrict their increase, because of insufficient territory to support the population, while less civilised races could increase indefinitely, owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words, should this state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior, but more active and energetic.
A time will come, even though in the distant future, when there can be only two alternatives—either the world will be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favour of the numerically stronger races; or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power, and then those nations will be victorious who are more brutal of will and they will not be the nations who have practised self-denial.
Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end the instinct of self- preservation alone will triumph; before its consuming fire this so-called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self- conceit, will melt away as snow in the March sunshine.
Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his greatness must decline.
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