THE BREATH OF LIFE 



lost faith, but can we not see that our faith does not 

 give us a key to the problem? Our faith is founded 

 on the old prescientific conception of a universe in 

 which good and evil are struggling with each other, 

 with a Supreme Being aiding and abetting the good. 

 We fail to appreciate that the cosmic laws are no 

 respecters of persons. Emerson says there is no god 

 dare wrong a worm, but worms dare wrong one 

 another, and there is no god dare take sides with 

 either. The tides in the affairs of men are as little 

 subject to human control as the tides of the sea and 

 the air. We may fix the blame of the European war 

 upon this government or upon that, but race antag- 

 onisms and geographical position are not matters of 

 choice. An island empire, like England, is bound to 

 be jealous of all rivals upon the sea, because her very 

 life, when nations clash, depends upon her control of 

 it; and an inland empire, like Germany, is bound to 

 grow restless under the pressure of contiguous states 

 of other races. A vast empire, like Russia, is always 

 in danger of falling apart by its own weight. It is 

 fused and consolidated by a turn of events that 

 arouse the patriotic emotions of the whole people 

 and unite them in a common enthusiasm. 



The evolution of nations is attended by the same 

 contingencies, the same law of probability, the same 

 law of the survival of the fit, as are organic bodies. I 

 say the survival of the fit; there are degrees of fitness 

 in the scale of life; the fit survive, and the fittest 



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