itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for
the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under
the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed.

In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If
we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall
never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our
hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. To reach
for the ultimate end of action is never to begin to act.

Deeper and more worthy of respect is the sadness of science. The effort
"to see things as they really are," to get out of all make-believe and
to secure that "absolute veracity of thought" without which sound action
is impossible does not always lead to hopefulness.

There is much to discourage in human history, - in the facts of human
life. The common man, after all the ages, is still very common. He is
ignorant, reckless, unjust, selfish, easily misled. All public affairs
bear the stamp of his weakness. Especially is this shown in the
prevalence of destructive strife. The boasted progress of civilization
is dissolved in the barbarism of war. Whether glory or conquest or
commercial greed be war's purpose, the ultimate result of war is death.
Its essential feature is the slaughter of the young, the brave, the
ambitious, the hopeful, leaving the weak, the sickly, the discouraged to
perpetuate the race. Thus all militant, nations become decadent ones.
Thus the glory of Rome, her conquests and her splendor of achievement,
left the Romans at home a nation of cowards, and such they are to this
day. For those who survive are not the sons of the Romans, but of the
slaves, scullions, the idlers and camp-followers whom the years of Roman
glory could not use and did not destroy. War blasts and withers all that