Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/98

or later; the racial and economic antagonisms between Boer and Briton were irreconcilable; the affair is rightly regarded in the larger light of a conflict of races, in which the race of lower social efficiency must yield place to the race of higher social efficiency. Nineteenth-century civilization was destined to destroy the obsolescent civilization of the sixteenth century.'

Such is the jargon which 'sociologists' offer as a screen for the naked iniquities of aggressive war. A condensed statement of this 'philosophy' is comprised in the following sentences of the little volume in which M. Demolins discusses the question, 'Boers or English: Who are in the Right?' –

When one race shows itself superior to another in the various externals of domestic life, it inevitably, in the long run, gets the upper hand in public life, and establishes its predominance. Whether this predominance is asserted by peaceful means or feats of arms, it is none the less, when the proper time comes, officially established, and afterwards universally acknowledged. I have said that this law is the only thing which accounts for the history of the human race and the revolution of empires, and that, moreover, it explains and justifies the appropriation by Europeans of territories in Asia, Africa, and Oceana, and the whole of our colonial development.

M. Demolins concludes that 'the present struggle between the Boers and the English is