continue the race; while of those who did not fall, too many
returned with tainted and weakened constitutions, to injure, it
may be, generations yet unborn. The middle classes, being mostly
engaged in peaceful pursuits, suffered less of this decimation of
their finest young men; and to that fact I attribute much of their
increasing preponderance, social, political, and intellectual, to
this very day. One cannot walk the streets of any of our great
commercial cities without seeing plenty of men, young and middle-
aged, whose whole bearing and stature shows that the manly vigour
of our middle class is anything but exhausted. In Liverpool,
especially, I have been much struck not only with the vigorous
countenance, but with the bodily size of the mercantile men on
'Change. But it must be remembered always, first, that these men
are the very elite of their class; the cleverest men; the men
capable of doing most work; and next, that they are, almost all of
them, from the great merchant who has his villa out of town, and
perhaps his moor in the Highlands, down to the sturdy young
volunteer who serves in the haberdasher's shop, country-bred men;
and that the question is, not what they are like now, but what
their children and grandchildren, especially the fine young
volunteer's, will be like? A very serious question I hold that to
be, and for this reason.

War is, without doubt, the most hideous physical curse which
fallen man inflicts upon himself; and for this simple reason, that
it reverses the very laws of nature, and is more cruel even than
pestilence. For instead of issuing in the survival of the
fittest, it issues in the survival of the less fit: and
therefore, if protracted, must deteriorate generations yet unborn.
And yet a peace such as we now enjoy, prosperous, civilised,