COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



individual members, and that this efficiency is 

 kept up by a kind of natural selection which is 

 none the less potent for not working with the 

 death penalty as among lower animals, we shall 

 realize how great is the military advantage en- 

 tailed by free variation and competition. In 

 illustration of all this we may recur to a his- 

 torical event already cited for other purposes. 

 When the Mede, whose laws were quoted as the 

 very type of unchangeableness, sought to add 

 to his overgrown dominions the modest patri- 

 mony of the Athenian, of whom it was said that 

 he was ever curious after new and unheard-of 

 things, the wager of battle resulted in no doubt- 

 ful verdict. When it is asked how Miltiades, 

 with his ten thousand, could so quickly put to 

 flight Datis, with his hundred thousand, the un- 

 hesitating reply is that the result was due to the 

 superior social organization under which the ten 

 thousand were reared. But this superiority of 

 organization consisted mainly in the fact that 

 the individual career of the Mede was prescribed 

 by unvarying tradition, while the maxim upon 

 which the Athenian implicitly acted was La car- 

 riere ouverte aux talents. 



These are some of the military advantages 

 of Mr. Bagehot*s " age of discussion." But in 

 truth they are advantages which do not belong 

 exclusively to any age or to any epoch of devel- 

 opment, but are operative at all times, though 

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