222 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



the highest ambitions of man, but we are gradually nearing the 

 age when the good of humanity will take precedence over the 

 powers of might and the ability to use will alone confer the 

 right to possess, and the power to control will alone confer 

 the right to direct. And peace and mercy, justice and charity 

 will be more honoured than war and rapine, greed and might, 

 for in the future we must learn to triumph over war by peace, 

 abuse by use, ignorance by skill, indolence by industry, 

 selfishness by unity and charity, murder and hate by mercy 

 and justice, poverty and discontent by order and management, 

 and free liberties of just competition is to triumph over the 

 slavery of unjust preference. 



So evolution teaches us that those individuals alone attain 

 true virtue who turn sin to a good account by converting 

 failure into success, temptation into self-control, and by 

 avoiding crime. For it is only the punishments that society 

 and religion heap on the head of dishonesty that evolve 

 honesty. It is only the reaction of disgust at the crimes of 

 murder, theft, etc., of the lawless that produces security of 

 property and life. It is only glaring sins of immorality that 

 have evolved humility. It is only poverty that has evolved 

 skill, energy and thrift. And last and most important of all, 

 because it sums up all the others put together, it is only folly 

 that has produced wisdom. And thus it has been and must be 

 till man has evolved a soul sufficiently wise to discern that 

 it is wiser to settle differences between nations by arbitration 

 rather than by war, the aggressive nation having to pay a 

 heavy penalty which will assist the aggrieved nation to in- 

 crease its productiveness, rather than to impoverish both 

 nations by destruction of property, and still worse, destruction 

 of millions of lives and livelihoods, thereby destroying their 

 wealth and reducing their population ; to buy and sell territory 

 in a just and honest manner, rather than to acquire it by war 

 and plunder ; to act generously and honestly in business 

 rather than with greed and cunning, realising that what adds 

 to the wealth of one of the community adds to the wealth of 

 all as it circulates throughout the community, and that it is 

 by unity in production and competition in labour and enter- 

 prise, not by jealousy and industrial strife, that a nation grows 

 wealthy. 



In the past valour and wars have made nations and commerce, 



