THE BATTLE WITH COSMIC NATURE 37 



be able to do something towards curbing the instincts 

 of savagery in civilized men. 



But if we may permit ourselves a larger hope of 

 abatement of the essential evil of the world than 

 was possible to those who, in the infancy of exact 

 knowledge, faced the problem of existence more than 

 a score of centuries ago, I deem it an essential con- 

 dition of the realization of that hope that we should 

 cast aside the notion that the escape from pain and 

 sorrow is the proper object of life. 



We have long since emerged from the heroic child- 

 hood of our race, when good and evil could be met 

 with the same ' frolic welcome ' ; the attempts to 

 escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended 

 in flight from the battle-field ; it remains to us to 

 throw aside the youthful overconfidence and the no 

 less youthful discouragement of nonage. We are 

 grown men, and must play the man 



strong in will 

 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield, 



cherishing the good that falls in our way and 

 bearing the evil, in and around us, with stout hearts 

 set on diminishing it. So far, we all may strive in 

 one faith towards one hope : 



It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, 

 It rnay be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 



.... but something ere the end, 



Some work of noble note may yet be done. ( 21 ) 



