TOOTH AND CLAW 



Nature kills, but does not torture. The biological 

 Jaws are neither human nor inhuman; they are un- 

 human. If in following the rule that might makes 

 right, the Germans sought justification by an ap- 

 peal to biological laws, they fell below the beasts 

 of the fields, because they are moral beings, and 

 know good from evil. 



Biological laws are not concerned about the moral 

 law. Not till we reach man's moral nature does this 

 law have any validity; then it becomes a biological 

 law, because it has survival value. Could the race of 

 man ever have developed as we now see it without 

 the conceptions of right and justice and the spirit of 

 mutual helpfulness? As time passes, other things 

 being equal, the most righteous and humanitarian 

 nation will be the most powerful and the most pro- 

 gressive. The great strength of the Allied cause in 

 the World War was that it was founded upon an 

 ideal conception of international justice and com- 

 ity. President Wilson set this forth in such wonder- 

 ful completeness that it will shine in our political 

 firmament for all time like a star of the first magni- 

 tude. And the weakness of the German cause was 

 that it was based upon the spirit and the aims of the 

 pirate and the highwayman. 



When we speak of Nature's cruelty we are ob- 

 sessed with the idea that blood and death necessa- 

 rily mean cruelty, whereas cruelty, as I have said, 

 means an intentional infliction of pain or suffering. 



161 



