THE NEW EARTH 



national factions, the tide of battle now turn- 

 ing this way, now that, but a strife in which 

 one or the other of the two must eventually 

 conquer, there can be no compromise. Just as 

 two practically independent nations with indi- 

 vidual characteristics positively defined cannot 

 forever live under the same flag, so these 

 factors must stand apart. Once let them come 

 into collision, extermination must be the 

 portion of one or the other. 



Or still differently looked at, this untoward 

 situation in nature may suggest the survival of 

 the fittest, — that age-long process depicted by 

 the scientists in which the weaker is ever 

 giving way to the stronger and the stronger 

 ever giving place to the still stronger, and all 

 slowly moving onward to a perfected whole. 



But from whichever point of view you look, 

 be it robbery or war or the survival of the 

 fittest, the weeds of the earth constitute one 

 of the most formidable agents ever established 

 for man's overthrow. It is only as he conquers 

 them that he rises. To whatever measure he 

 yields to them, to that measure he is held in 

 bondage. And, after all is said and done, man, 

 in the physical sense, is but at best a weakhng. 



104 



