BRUTE FORCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 71, 23 March 1918, Page 8

BRUTE FORCE.

IS IT THE FOUNDATIOJ, OF A PERFECT SOCIAL SYSTEM. (By Telegraph—Press Association? WELI-INGTON, this day. The idea that the ultimate element in any Btable social system must he foreunderlies the teaching of modern German writers and seems to have been taken 0 for granted by a great many of our own' countrymen, despite the fact that the "" greatest of our philosophers have not voiced that opinion. Prussian miltiarism and the doctrine that "Might is right" rest on the assumption that in the course of evolution the strongest and most efficient fighters must come to the top, and that' the nobler and essentially human facul ties of benevolence, sympathy, truth and justice do not count in the struggle for existence. This is the doctrine of Bern hardi, and has naturally been . accepted by the present ruler of Germany, andis " in every way conforming to their ideals of military conquest and world doming tion. - < \ That force is the ultimate test of ability to survive, is apparently _ self-evident fact, and those who are con tent with proximate explanations will accept it as admitting of no further' discussion. There are in Nature mahv such apparent facts which prove, on in vestigation, to be absolutely wrone Take the sunset, for instance. Weses ' the sun sink behind a hill, and can cotf i tend that this is an absolutely u.ti___t« incontrovertible fact. Yet every--school boy knows that it is the hill which rises S? _™t 4 deS . the Bun - The *««__ that brute force is the uluimate ' goal of evolution is probably- on a similar footing. At any rate, this German doctrine leaves many ..wellknown facts wholly. unexplained.. if brute force were the ultimate test of survival how is it that so many-ancient forms of life, larger, stronger, and with much more efficient fighting weapons than those now existing, have become extinct? How is it that the vast majority of living creatures now on the earth are almost defenceless? Take the hundreds of thousands of species of insects for instance. How did poorly armed primitive man utterly outstrip' the - gorilla in the struggle for existence, seeing that the gorilla was naturally much; the better fighting animal. How"'have: the facilities of benevolence, justice, "etc- • arisen in man if brute force is -the "" determining factor in success?' '• The fact remains that the interprets. , tion of evolution is a much more difficult and complex matter than these Germans are prepared to admit,, and; we - '' must go to our. own philosophers,! Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Huxley; if ire want to get light on the true course:of; evolution. In the meantime a certain amount of brute force is needed to cpinu ■ter the German brute force, otherwise the higher humanitarian qualities we so much appreciate may be overwhelmed, 8o far as we are concerned, we must'win L the war, so that the better things may■"'. triumph, and "to bring this .about, every 7 ' man, woman, and child -hould'enbKribe to the third New Zealand war loan.