64 National Life 



ciples of conduct, then I believe that ten- 

 dency, that continual progress of mankind, 

 is the scarcely recognised outcome of the 

 bitter struggle of race with race, the result 

 of man, like all other life, being subject to 

 the stern law of the survival of the fitter, to 

 the victory of the physically and mentally 

 better organized. Mankind as a whole, like 

 the individual man, advances through pain 

 and suffering only. The path of progress 

 is strewn with the wreck of nations ; traces 

 are everywhere to be seen of the hecatombs 

 of inferior races, and of victims who found 

 not the narrow way to the greater perfection. 

 Yet these dead peoples are, in very truth, 

 the stepping-stones on which mankind has 

 arisen to the higher intellectual and deeper 

 emotional life of to-day. 



