March, 1041
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
86
Behind War
Thé Forces By DAN GILBERT
Washington, D. C., and San Diego, California
Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini have pro ceeded upon the assumption that Darwin is right, that “Might makes Right.” Nor is this attitude confined to Ger many, Russia, and Italy alone. Underlying the isms of our day is the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. As Will Durant points out in his The Story of Philosophy, “Nietzsche was the child of Darwin.” Nietzsche developed a “new morality” on the basis of “the struggle for existence.” According to this principle, “ strength is the only virtue, and weakness is the only fault.” Nietzsche taught that the supreme aim in life should be “the will to power.” Today, as a result of the Darwin-Nietz- sche influence, Europe is dominated by “power politics.” Abraham Lincoln believed that “might does not make right, but Right does make Might.” This is the teaching of the Bible, which declares that the meek shall inherit the earth. More technically, the conflict is be tween Naturalism and Supernaturalism. The naturalistic idea, developed by Dar win, is that the strongest always win. That is said to be the law of nature. But the Bible teaches the reality of the supernatural, of a miracle-working God who is above the laws of nature, and who intervenes in the affairs of men. Napoleon was a naturalist. He thought that “God, if there is one, is on the side of the strongest cannon.” But the founders of America were su pernaturalists. They believed in a God who hears and answers the prayers of the righteous. They believed that super natural power, which is greater than all the powers of nature, is on the side of the righteous. NIETZSCHE AND NAZISM: • Hitler’s conception of his Nazis as a self-chosen and superior race, destined to dominate the. world, is derived direct ly from Nietzsche who taught: “A superior type must emerge: . . . a higher species of men who, thanks to their preponderance of will, knowledge, riches, and influ ence, will avail themselves of demo cratic Europe as the most suitable [Continued on Page 92]
BEHIND THE WAR: • To understand the second world war, one must look rather deeply into its background. One must look far beyond the Versailles treaty. Treaties and alli ances are themselves the result of changing ideas which take hold of the lives and destinies of men and of na tions. Modem wars are correctly called “ideological wars’’ ; basically, they are conflicts between rival ideas, or philoso phies. Charles Darwin planted the seeds of totalitarian wars when he popularized the revolutionary idea of “the survival of the fittest.” Darwin, apparently, did not fully realize thè effect his evolution ary teachings would have in justifying and sanctifying war. Yet, it is signifi cant that within six weeks after the publication of his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote ini a letter to Lyell, “I have received, in a Manchester news paper, rather a good squib; showing I have proved ‘might is right’ and therefore that Napoleon is right.” Two years ago, Geoffrey West of Oxford, England, wrote what has been acclaimed as the best biography of Charles Darwin* ever written. Therein, he comments: “Now, nearly eighty years later, every newspaper, any morning or evening, will cry out from its head- .. lines what degree of brutality and degradation . has come upon the world like a shadowing cloud. . . . “That is the condition of the world today—the struggle of indi viduals and of nations to survive at whatever .price of brutality, since survival is the only ponder able value. There were wars before Darwinism, true, but never was the world so menaced by war as today, and that not merely by the acci dent of the aeroplane and the gas- bomb, but because never since frankly barbarian days was the gospel of the Might of Right, the unholy test Of simple survival, so widely and authoritatively preached and accepted.”
RISE OF MODERN MILITARISM: • The modem glorification of war was spread on the wings of enveloping Dar winian propaganda. As Professor Haynes has shown in his A Political and Social History of Modern Europe, . “Militarists were not slow to uti lize a supposedly scientific doctrine that was enunciated by scholars and that was sure to secure a large following among the ignorant and half-educated masses in an age in which ‘science’ was fast becoming a popular fetish.” Wars of aggression were waged under a “scientific sanction” ; “Prominent European militarists, with the authority of their newly discovered Darwinian philosophy, commenced to talk less of the de fensive character of armaments and more of the ‘struggle for existence,’ and of the advantages, nay the downright necessity, of waging war.” The meaning of Darwinism, when ap plied to the relations of nations, was clearly set forth by General von Bem- hardi, when he wrote: “War gives a biologically just decision. The knowledge, therefore, that war depends on biological laws leads to the conclusion that every attempt to exclude it from inter national relations must be demon strably untenable. But it is not only a biological law, but a moral obli gation, and, as such, an indispen sable factor in civilization.” THE REAL CAUSE OF CONFLICT: • At thè conclusion of the Austro- Prussian War of 1866, a member of the Austrian Reichsrat opened an im portant address by saying: “The ques tion we have first to consider is whether Charles Darwin is right o r no.” That is still the most decisive issue under consideration by the nations of Europe.
•Charles Darwin: A Portrait, published bp Yale University Press , Copyright 1938.
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