advantage, we
shall have to call in the science of eugenics to save us from becoming
as sheeplike as the Chinese. There is, however, another side to this
question, as we shall see presently.

Another instinct which has supplied fuel to patriotism of the baser sort
is that of acquisitiveness. This tendency, without which even the most
rudimentary civilisation would be impossible, began when the female of
the species, instead of carrying her baby on her back and following the
male to his hunting-grounds, made some sort of a lair for herself and
her family, where primitive implements and stores of food could be kept.
There are still tribes in Brazil which have not reached this first step
towards humanisation. But the instinct of hoarding, like all other
instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the
institution of private property comes another institution--that of
plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at
present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which, unlike
most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough
when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. The
acquisition and possession of land satisfies this desire in a high
degree, since land is a visible and indestructible form of property.
Consequently, as soon as the instincts of the individual are transferred
to the group, territorial aggrandisement becomes a main preoccupation of
the state. This desire was the chief cause of wars, while kings and
nobles regarded the territories over which they ruled as their private
estates. Wherever despotic or feudal conditions survive, such ideas are
likely still to be found, and to cause dangers to other states. The
greatest ambition of a modern emperor is still to be commemorated as a
'Mehrer des Reichs.'

Capitalism, by separating the idea of property from any necessary
connection with landed estate, and democracy, by denying the whole
theory on which dynastic wars of conquest are based, have both
contributed to check this, perhaps the worst kind of war. It would,
however, be a great error to suppose that the instinct of
acquisitiveness, in its old and barbarous form, has lost its hold upon
even the most civilised nations. When an old-fashioned brigand appears,
and puts himself at the head of his nation, he becomes at once a popular
hero. By any rational standard of morality, few greater scoundrels have
lived than Frederick the G