1 84 Grant 



is that if we have not both strength and virtue we 

 shall fail. Indeed, in the old acceptation of the 

 word, virtue included strength and courage, for the 

 clear-sighted men at the dawn of our era knew that 

 the passive virtues could not by themselves avail, 

 that wisdom without courage would sink into mere 

 cunning, and courage without morality into ruthless, 

 lawless, self-destructive ferocity. The iron Roman 

 made himself lord of the world because to the cour 

 age of the barbarian he opposed a courage as fierce 

 and an infinitely keener mind; while his civilized 

 rivals, the keen-witted Greek and Carthaginian, 

 though of even finer intellect, had let corruption eat 

 into their brilliant civilizations until their strength 

 had been corroded as if by acid. In short, the Ro 

 man had character as well as masterful genius, and 

 when pitted against peoples either of less genius or 

 of less character, these peoples went down. 



As the ages roll by, the eternal problem forever 

 fronting each man and each race forever shifts Us 

 outward shape, and yet at the bottom it is always 

 the same. There are dangers of peace and dangers 

 of war; dangers of excess in militarism and of ex 

 cess by the avoidance of duty that implies militar 

 ism ; dangers of slow dry-rot, and dangers which be 

 come acute only in great crises. When these crises 

 come, the nation will triumph or sink accordingly 

 as it produces or fails to produce statesmen like 



