The other choice is that which France has made for herself; it is on the lines of Plato’s ideal State.  Each country is to be, as far as possible, self-sufficing.  If it cannot grow sufficient food for itself, it must of course export its coal or its gold, or the products of its industry and ingenuity.  But it must know approximately what ’the number of the State’ (as Plato said) should be.  It must limit its population to that number, and the limit will be fixed, not at the maximum number who can live there anyhow, but at the maximum number who can ‘live well.’  The object aimed at will not be constant expansion, but well-being.  The energies liberated from the pitiless struggle for existence will be devoted to making social life wiser, happier, more harmonious and more beautiful.  Have we any reason to hope that this policy is not contrary to the hard laws which Nature imposes on every species in the world?

In the first place, would such a State escape being devoured by some brutal ‘expanding’ neighbour?  What would have happened to France if she had stood alone in this war?  The danger is real; but we may answer that France, as a matter of fact, did not stand alone, because other nations thought her too precious to be sacrificed.  And the completely organised competitive State which I have imagined would be a far more unlovely place than Germany, and more unpleasant to live in.  The spectacle of a saner and happier polity next door would break up the purely competitive State from within; the strain would be too great for human nature.  We cannot argue confidently from the struggle for existence among the lower animals to our own species.  For a long time past, human evolution has been directed, not to living anyhow, but to living in a certain way.  We are guided by ideals for the future, by purposes winch we clearly set before ourselves, in a way which is impossible to the brutes.  These purposes are common to the large majority of men.  No State can long maintain a rigid and oppressive organisation, except under the threat of danger; and a nation which aims only at perfecting its own culture is not dangerous to its neighbours.  It is probable that without the supposed menace of another military Power on its eastern flank German militarism would have begun to crumble.

In the second place, would the absence of sharp competition within the group lead to racial degeneration?  This is a difficult question to answer.  Perhaps a diminution of pugnacity and of the means to gratify this instinct would not be a misfortune.  But it is certainly true that, if the operation of natural selection is suspended, rational selection must take its place.  Failing this, reversion to a lower type is inevitable.  The infant science of eugenics will have much to say on this subject hereafter; at present we are only discovering how complex and obscure the laws of heredity are.  The State of the future will have to step in to prevent the propagation of undesirable variations, whether physical or mental, and will doubtless find means to encourage the increase of families that are well endowed by Nature.