When the quality of the combatants is so high, compared with the rest
of the world, as during the Great War, no conceivable eugenic gains from
the war can offset the losses. It is probably well within the facts to
assume that the period of this war represents a decline in inherent
human quality, greater than in any similar length of time in the
previous history of the world.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that war is becoming much less common
if we consider number of combatants rather than number of wars as times
goes on,[159] and it steadily tends to be more destructive. War, then,
offers one of the greatest problems which the eugenist must face, for a
few months of war may undo all that eugenic reforms can gain in a
generation.
The total abolition of war would, of course, be the ideal, but there is
no possibility of this in the near future. The fighting instinct, it
must be remembered, is one of the most primitive and powerful that the
human mechanism contains. It was evolved in great intensity, to give man
supremacy over his environment--for the great "struggle for existence"
is with the environment, not with members of one's own species. Man long
ago conquered the environment so successfully that he has never since
had to exert himself in physical combat in this direction; but the
fighting instinct remained and could not be baulked without causing
uneasiness.
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