ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



In 1916 my naturalist's faith prompted me to 

 write thus of the World War: Two world forces are 

 at death grips in this war. In terms of government 

 it is autocracy against democracy; in terms of 

 biology it is the unfit against the fit; in terms of 

 man's moral nature it is might against right. What- 

 ever triumph Prussian aggressiveness and ruth- 

 lessness may meet with, they must in time meet 

 with defeat, else Evolution has miscarried, and its 

 latest and highest product, man's moral nature, 

 is, in its survival value, but dust and ashes. 



ii 

 There is positive good and there is negative good. 

 We may say of health that it is a positive good, and 

 of sickness that it is a negative good, because it re- 

 veals to us the conditions of health. In disease the 

 body is struggling to regain its health — to recover 

 and retain its normal condition. Its well-being is 

 the result of a certain balance between contending 

 forces. What we call the hostile forces appear only as 

 the result of wrong living. The lower animals have 

 none of our distempers because they live according 

 to nature. Cattle do not get rheumatism by lying 

 upon the wet, cold ground, nor pneumonia from ex- 

 posure to cold and storm. In the freedom of the 

 fields and woods it is quite certain that they would 

 never become infected with tuberculosis. I doubt 

 if the wild dog or the wolf ever have dog distemper, 



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