Now she was a
little bird singing one moment, the next crawling dazed and shaking under
the paw of a cat. Why should Nature make the strong her favorites and be so
cruel to the weak? That seemed an ungodly thing to Joan. She had only
reached this point. She had no inkling of the great cleansing process which
removes the dross, the eternal competition from which only the cleanest and
sweetest and best come forth first. She saw the battle indeed, but did not
understand the meaning of it any more than the rest of the world which, in
the words of the weakling Barren, beneath the emblems of a false humanity,
keeps its weeds under hot-house glasses and, out of mercy to futile
individuals, does terribly wrong its communities. Our cleansing processes
are only valuable so far as they go hand in hand with Nature, and where the
folly of many fools rejects the wisdom of the wise, there Nature has her
certain revenge sooner or later. The sins of the State are visited on the
children of the State, and those who repeal laws which Science, walking
hand in hand with Nature, has proposed, those who refuse laws which
Science, Nature-taught, urges upon Power, do not indeed suffer themselves,
but commit thousands of others to suffering. So their false sentiment in
effect poisons the blood-springs of a nation. Religion leads to these
disasters, and any religion answerable for gigantic human follies is either
false or most falsely comprehended.
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