llectuals deduce justifications for war. Above all
he disposes of fallacious Darwinism and of the misuse of the idea of the
struggle for existence. These notions, imperfectly understood and
speciously interpreted, are by many regarded as furnishing a sanction
for war. Or, it is held, war is a method of selection, and is therefore
a natural right. To such conceptions Nicolai opposes genuine science,
the fundamental law of the increase in living beings,[53] and the law
that there is a natural limit to growth.[54] It is obvious that the
existence of these limitations imposes struggle upon individual beings
and upon species, seeing that the world contains only a restricted
quantity of energy, that is to say of nutriment. But Nicolai shows that
war is the most paltry, the stupidest, one may even say the most
ruinous, among all forms of struggle. Modern science, which enables us
to estimate the amount of solar energy reaching our planet, shows us
that the entire animal world does not as yet make use of more than one
twenty thousandth part of the available supply. It is obvious that in
these conditions war, that is to say the murder of another accompanied
by the theft of that other's share of energy, is an inexcusable crime.
It is, says Nicolai, as if loaves were lying about by the thousand, and
we were nevertheless to kill a beggar in order to steal his crust.
Mankind has an almost boundless field to exploit, and man's proper
struggle is the struggle with nature. All other forms of struggle bring
impoverishment and ruin, by distracting our attention from our main
purposes. The creative method is based upon the harnessing of new and
ever new sources of energy. The starting point was the prehistoric
discovery of fire, when man for the first time was able to effect the
explosive liberation of the solar energy stored up by plants. The
discovery marked a new turn in human affairs, and was the dawn of man's
supremacy over nature. During the last hundred years this new principle
has been developed to such an enormous extent that human evolution has
been entirely transformed. Nearly all the chief problems may be said to
have been solved, and what remains requisite is the practical
application. Thermo-electricity renders possible the direct and
purposive utilisation of solar energy. Modern chemical researches point
to the possibility of artificially manufacturing foodstuffs, and so on.
Were man to apply all his combative energy to the u