366 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



quarreling over the right ways and means of doing ob- 

 viously necessary things. Some believe in science, 

 some in religion; some in freedom, others in disci- 

 pline; some rely on humanity, others on brutality; some 

 follow Wilson, others Aristotle; some put their faith 

 in the things of today, others in the things of yester- 

 day. But no one is able to convince the other of his 

 error; and no one is quite sure whether it would be bet- 

 ter to go up, or down, or forwards, or backwards; 

 whether the social ballast is in the gasoline tanks, the 

 parachutes, or the refrigerators. 



Who knows how far this bubble may yet expand 

 before it bursts? Who can say when, or how, or 

 where, the countless forces that have produced this 

 over-century industrial growth must be checked, or 

 stimulated, in order to preserve a righteous balance of 

 give and take and the requisite margin of safety? 



But it is sufficiently clear that we cannot now re- 

 treat. We cannot now go "back to nature" and a prim- 

 itive life, except through cataclysmic death and dis- 

 solution. To live, we must hold fast to what we have, 

 and add more constructive Tightness to it. There is 

 no other option, and no opportunity to delay; for com- 

 placent death ever thrusts its insistent challenge in the 

 face of life, and defiant life promptly answers the chal- 

 lenge, stands alert to its guard and willingly throws 

 its whole self into the struggle. 



There again lies the secret, compelling agency 

 which guides all steps to progress. There again is 

 the inevitable compulsion to still greater service and 

 larger sacrifice which achievement itself creates. So- 

 cial life has raised itself to what it is by its intelligence, 

 and now must use all its intelligence to save itself. 



