168 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
easy prey. And if they could not win by force, they 
would bring death by starvation. This world was made 
for a fighting man and for none other. Softness is not to 
be our portion, because nature knows no holiday. So man 
must battle with nature that he may secure that physical 
peace necessary to give his spirit a chance to show itself 
in things of beauty and deeds of goodness. 
And this is what we call civilization—this triumph 
over the downpull of nature. We make her yield. We 
master her secrets. With wooden club and stone axe, with 
bow and arrow and with fire man mastered his wild en- 
emies, and then with seed and water man mastered the 
surface of the earth. The sea challenged him; and he dis- 
covered the floating log, the paddle and then the sail, until 
he made himself master also of the surface of the sea. 
These things it took ages to do. Nature revealed nothing. 
Man had to observe and reflect that he might discover or 
invent. Was there ever such a discovery as that a planted 
seed would sprout and yield? Or that the wind wonld 
drive a hollowed log? 
But these things happened long ago. And now we have 
made not only the surface of the land and sea our own, 
but their depths as well. The wind not only fills our sails, 
but we master the air itself. We make our own lightning 
and harness it to work for us, to push and to pull, to lift and 
toturn. We have found the great secret that nature can be 
made to fight nature. But we must fight with her for 
our weapons. They are not handed to us; they are hid- 
den from us. If man is to have dominion over this earth, 
he is committed to an unending search. He must bore and 
burrow, dig and blast, crush and refine, distill and mix, 
burn and compress until he forces nature to yield her locked 
and buried treasures. 
Nature would have man isolated, but he triumphs over 
her with billets of steel and threads of copper. He swings 
a hammer and an engine is made that makes him neighbor 
to the world. He whispers to a wire which shouts the 
spoken word into space. 
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