Nature does not care in the least what becomes of the plant after it has produced its seed and the new crop is growing. If, allowing war, we were conducting it scientifically for the best interests of the race, the slogan of conscription would be not “single men first” but “grandfathers first.” Of course, this is ridiculous. But it seems to me that whenever we carry out any aspect of modern war to its logical conclusion, we arrive at the ridiculous.
The older wars of modern times were not conducted by conscription, as we know it now. The rank and file, as far as we can read the records, consisted very largely of the dregs of the population who had been forced into the army by press gangs. There was a sprinkling, however, of young, vigorous youths who went to war for the adventure; there were organized bodies of soldiers of fortune who hired out as mercenaries, and who must needs be sound physically. Occasionally, too, we find a body of sturdy peasantry like the English yeomen who followed the lords of the land to war. There was, however, no selective conscription, no careful medical examination to reject the culls of the blood and send the best to slaughter, usually no rule of “single men first.” Even at that, the breeding-stock killed in the old wars was probably superior to the average level of the race and species. Jordan believes that he can trace a kind of rhythm in the history of “dominant nations.” The war-like race, continuously engaged in battle, reaches a point where
