The scientific men
point to the huge warfare that goes on from the summit of the Himalayas
to the depths of the ocean slime, and they ask how men can be exempt
from the universal struggle for existence. But it is by no means certain
that the pressure of population in the case of man will always force on
struggles--at any rate, struggles that can be decided only by death and
agony. Little by little we are learning something of the laws that
govern our hitherto mysterious existence, and we have good hopes that by
and by our race may learn to be mutually helpful, so that our span of
life may be passed with as much happiness as possible. Men will strive
against each other, but the striving will not be carried on to an
accompaniment of slaughter and torture. There are keen forms of
competition which, so far from being painful, give positive pleasure to
those who engage in them; there are triumphs which satisfy the victor
without mortifying the vanquished; and, in spite of the indiscreet
writers who have called forth this Essay, I hold that such harmless
forms of competition will take the place of the brutal strife that adds
senselessly to the sum of human woe. Our race has outgrown so many forms
of brutality, so many deliberate changes have taken place in the course
of even two thousand years, that the final change which shall abolish
war is almost certain to come.
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