ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



superseded by the rule of right. It is this sense in 

 the civilized world that has revolted so over- 

 whelmingly against the Prussian military power in 

 precipitating the World War; and this conscience 

 will probably be so developed and intensified by 

 the useless waste and cruelty of the war that such a 

 calamity will never again befall the world. Those 

 nations will become the most powerful that are the 

 most just, the most humane, that develop in the 

 highest degree a world conscience, and realize the 

 most intensely that the nations all belong to one 

 family, in which the good and evil of one are the 

 good and evil of all. What can the progress of civ- 

 ilization mean but the progress of international 

 comity, sympathy, cooperation, fair-dealing; in 

 fact, the fullest recognition of the validity of the 

 ethical laws to which we hold individuals and com- 

 munities amenable? 



History is full of violence, cruelty, injustice, and 

 the triumph of the strong over the weak, wherein 

 the end seemed to justify the means; yet never 

 since the world began did physical might alone 

 make moral right. The sheriff and the hangman 

 have made the doctrine unpopular among individ- 

 uals — the ethical sense of mankind will in time 

 make it equally unpopular among nations. 



Nature is not moral; primitive biological laws 

 are not moral; they are unmoral. There is no moral 

 law until it is born of human intercourse; then it 



142 



