762 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



come of larger and larger groups of human beings becoming 

 associated by mutual interests, as man steadily evolved the 

 forelimbs for wider and more varied uses, and simultaneously 

 of the more keenly competitive amongst them inciting the 

 others to acts of outside aggression. This has undoubtedly 

 greatly quickened and evolved mankind in the struggle for 

 existence, as the period of war-service in many European 

 countries shows. But the advantage gained along the com- 

 petitive pathway has been secured at such a terrible price 

 that civilized man would never traverse that pathway again, 

 with the knowledge he now possesses. 



International conciliation is now becoming fashionable; 

 international peace will surely follow. Naturally the military 

 and naval rulers will exert themselves to the utmost to pre- 

 vent this, for their destructive death-dealing occupation and 

 opportunity for political intrigue would then be gone. It is 

 for thinking, reasoning, aspiring man to say which he shall 

 determine to have: peace or the sword, cooperation or com- 

 petition. 



Another product of competitive human activity has been 

 the gambling spendthrift rich one, standing out in insolent 

 and luxurious ease among his fellows, as a dangerous and dis- 

 integrating agent for humanity. The bonded indebtedness 

 that some of these have developed in Austria, in France, and 

 in Britain caused their hirelings to squeeze the hard-working 

 land tenants, who at any time might be cast adrift, when the 

 gambler willed it. 



Alexander, Caligula, Napoleon, Harriman, and like person- 

 alities have been finished products of the competitive and 

 spoliation system. Of one such it has well been said "that 

 man has the heart of a Numidian lion." More humanly and 

 truthfully Emerson said of Napoleon: "He did all that in 

 him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was 

 the nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world, 

 which baulked and ruined him; and the result, in a million 

 experiments, will be the same. Every experiment, by multi- 

 tudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim. 



