reason, and the lack of time that I cite no instances. They would be
merely illustrative and not probative, for the human intellect is
unequal to any adequate inductive study of the subject, and human life
is too short to classify, master and digest the data even if they could
be assembled. All that can be done is to state conclusions reached upon
such observation and experience as is to each of us available and
commend them to the judgment of others upon their observation and
experience. Whatever can be proved at all can be reduced to a syllogism
but agreement upon premises is in this case impossible.

But some things we do know and among them is the awful fact that man is
powerless before Nature which deals with man precisely as it deals with
other forms of life. Man can dodge Nature as the scale insect cannot,
but higher forms of life can, and man the most effectively of all. But
in the end she will get every one of us. Those will live happiest and
longest who best know how to work with Nature and not against her. And
individualism and not collectivism, is Nature's way. If our own object
is the greatest aggregate of human comfort, we should realize that the
greatest possible aggregate can only be attained when each individual
under the stimulus of self-interest gets the largest measure of comfort
for himself.

In the dim future which we shall not see, this may lead to conclusions
which one shudders to think of. It may be that the time will come on
this planet when in a decreasing population struggling for existence
from the remains of an exhausted Nature, the greatest good of the
greatest number will be found by the deliberate extinction of those
least fit, that what is available may be reserved to those who can make
best use of it. Astronomers tell us there are probably dead worlds whose
spectrums tell us that they are of the same material as our own planet