future rivalries and discords; if we leave a single outlet to the
beast at bay; if, through our negligence, we give it a single hope, a
single opportunity of coming to the surface and taking breath, then
the vigilant fatality which has but one fixed idea will resume its
progress and pursue its way, dragging history with it and laughing
over its shoulder at man once more tricked and discomfited. Everything
that we have done and suffered, the ruins, the sacrifices, the
nameless tortures and the numberless dead, will have served no purpose
and will be lost beyond redemption. Everything will not have to be
done over again, for nothing is ever done over again and fortunate
opportunities do not occur twice; but everything except our woes and
all their consequences will be as though it had never been.


4

It will therefore be a matter of holding our own against the enemy
whom we do not see and mastering him until the turn or chance of the
accursed race is past. How long will that be? We cannot tell; but, in
the swift-moving history of to-day, it seems probable that the waiting
and the struggle will be much shorter than they would have been in
former times. Is it possible that fatality--by which I mean what
perhaps for a moment was the unacknowledged desire of the
planet--shall not regain the upper hand? At the stage which man has
reached, I hope and believe so. He had never conquered it before; but
also he had not yet risen to the height which he has now attained.
There is no reason why that which has never happened should not take
place one day; and everything seems to tell us that man is approaching
the day whereon, seizing the most glorious opportunity that has ever
presented itself since he acquired a consciousness, he will at last