EVOLUTION AND WAR.*
he February last Dr. Chalmers Mitchell delivered at the Royal Institution three lectures on "Evolution and War," the substance of which he has now expanded into a most readable, lucid, and suggestive book, in which "a serious presentation of some difficult biological problems is sob. mated . . . in a light and topical form." Dr. Chalmers Mitchell is not only a distinguished zoologist, het a thoughtful observer of current affairs, who has the advantage of being well acquainted with scientific Germany. He first visited that country in 1884. Amongst other valuable experienced, be was present in the Reichstag when Bismarck launched his fateful scheme of world-policy—a policy which Dr. Mitchell's Berlin friends thought to be doomed to speedy extinction "when the old King was succeeded by his peaceful son," though they acknowledged freely that in the meantime " the subsidizing of commercial steamers was to be a first step in the preparation of Germany for a fight with England for the mastery of the world." Dr. Mitchell pays due honour to the Guafreuudliehkeit of Germany, a quality which he believes to • Brolatisa and 55. War. By P. Cbalsers Mitchell. London John Murray. [2s. W. net.!
be as innocent and unassumed as its counterpart—so per- eistently obvious since last August—the odd and childlike way in which a German will sometimes confide to you his scheme foryour undoing. The author gives a curious instance of this, which is worth quoting, as it helps to explain the current German bragging about Zeppelin raids on London, schemes for the invasion of Great Britain, and general frightf ulness "
• "Many years later, when I was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, a German zoologist unfolded to me, in my office in Regent's Park, his scheme for establishing, with German capital, a IIagenbeck Zoological Park in London, which, he assured me, would wipe us out in a season. He was uncertain as to the most suitable part of London to select for the enterprise, and wished my advice and assistance in choosing and obtaining a site. I know that he did not think me a fool, as he had asked for, obtained, and adopted many suggestions of mine with regard to the establishment he controlled in Germany, and he was an honourable man who would not have thought of bribing me. But his was a great scheme, which any man of experi- ence and intelligence must value, which any friend must help."
Apart from his interesting reminiscences of German life, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell's book well deserves to be carefully read at the present moment. Its main object is to submit to close scrutiny the German doctrine of the biological justifica- tion of war. " Wherever we look in nature," says General von Bemhardi, "we find that war is a fundamental law of development. This great verity, which has been recognized in past ages, has been convincingly demonstrated in modern times by Charles Darwin. He proved that nature is ruled by an unceasing struggle for existence, by the right of the stronger, and that this struggle in its apparent cruelty brings about a selection eliminating the weak and the unwholesome." The German doctrine is that organisms rise to higher things, not on the stepping-stones of their dead selves, but on the dead bodies of all that come in their way. It was undoubtedly some general feeling of this kind which largely contributed to the organization of the German people for war during the past generation, and also enabled them to see in the present struggle the completion of the national purpose which was initiated in 1866 and 1870, " the very essence of the upward forces of evolution." Dr. Chalmers Mitchell examines this proposition from the purely biological point of riew, and succeeds very creditably in showing that it is based on "a dangerous mishandling of science." The calm and impartial manner in which he writes, handling a scientific question as a man of science, adds greatly to the effectiveness of his book, which we commend to all our readers as a masterly counter- blast to the pseudo-science by means of which some German Professors have endeavoured to justify their country's conduct.
In conclusion, we cannot refrain from quoting a striking passage which illustrates 'Dr: Chalmers Mitchell's ability at once to see behind the scenes of so-called " philosophy " and to put a charlatan in his proper place
"I trace back to Kant," he says, "the dreaming megalo- mania that has destroyed the 'German sense of reality and that has made German ' Kultur ' the enemy of the human race. Back to Kant, for corruptio eptitni pessime. Nietzsche, of whom so much has been made, is a terminal flower of the tree of idealistic thought, beautiful, poisonous, and sterile. No doubt he has got into the newspapers through Mr. Bernard Shaw, a very competent publicist whose antics were agreeable in times of peace. But even Mr. Shaw is only Nietzsche grinning through a horse-coLlar, a spectacle that his old patrons find indecent when there are serious affairs on hand."
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