THE GOSPEL OF NATURE 
survived it. The spring came again, and life, the 
traveler, picked itself up and made a new start. 
But if he had not survived it, if nothing had sur- 
vived it, the great procession would have gone on 
just the same; the gods would have been just as well 
pleased. 
The battle is to the strong, the race is to the fleet. 
This is the order of nature. No matter for the rest, 
for the weak, the slow, the unlucky, so that the fight 
is won, so that the race of man continues. You and I 
may fail and fall before our time; the end may be a 
tragedy or a comedy. What matters it? Only some 
one must succeed, will succeed. 
We are here, I say, because, in the conflict of 
forces, the influences that made for life have been in 
the ascendant. This conflict of forces has been a 
part of the process of our development. We have 
been ground out as between an upper and a nether 
millstone, but we have squeezed through, we have 
actually arrived, and are all the better for the grind- 
ing — all those who have survived. But, alas for 
those whose lives went out in the crush! Maybe 
they often broke the force of the blow for us. 
Nature is not benevolent; Nature is just, gives 
pound for pound, measure for measure, makes no 
exceptions, never tempers her decrees with mercy, 
or winks at any infringement of her laws. And in 
the end is not this best? Could the universe be run 
as a charity or a benevolent institution, or as a poor- 
271 
