Note (return) — Chapter IV

But the most immediately dangerous result of political 'Darwinism' was not its effect in justifying the extermination of African aborigines by European colonists, but the fact that the conception of the 'struggle for life' could be used as a proof that that conflict among the European nations for the control of the trade-routes of the world which has been threatening for the last quarter of a century is for each of the nations concerned both a scientific necessity and a moral duty. Lord Ampthill, for instance, the athletic ex-governor of Madras, said the other day: 'From an individual struggle, a struggle of families, of communities, and nations, the struggle for existence has now advanced to a struggle of empires.'[114]