The Future of Mankind and Other Essays

During the Russo-Japanese War, when every magazine spoke of war as an exception to peaceful life, the zoologist Oka Asajirō argued that the reverse is true: subtract the years of fighting from history and almost nothing is left. In six essays written between 1904 and 1926, he applies evolutionary biology to the human animal without sentiment and with a good deal of dry humor. He diagnoses a “megalomania” in a species that thinks itself lofty and sacred, takes apart the word “humanitarianism,” and sets out the contradictions of everyday life as a newspaper page displays them.

The longest essay, “The Future of Mankind” (1910), asks what will become of the species over millions of years, and answers as a naturalist rather than a prophet.

Six complete essays in a new translation from the Japanese: The Future of Mankind, The Struggle for Existence Among Mankind, Mankind's Megalomania, The Truth About Humanitarianism, War and Peace, and The Contradictions of Human Life. With a translator's note, endnotes and source information. Oka's science is that of his time and is kept as he wrote it.