ever my custom to succeed where bigger bodies and older minds had
failed. Was not this ambition?

But before I disputed the point with Maka, I saw what he meant. I had no
FINAL ambition, no ultimate goal for which to strive. I had been content
from year to year to outdo each rival as he came before me; and now,
with mind and body alike in the pink of condition, I was come to the
place where none durst stand before me.

"Ye are right, Maka," I admitted, not because I cared to gratify his
conceit, but because it were always for my own good to own up when
wrong, that I might learn the better. "Ye are right; I need to decide
upon a life-purpose. What have ye thought?"

The old man was greatly pleased. "Our talk with Edam brought it all
before me. Know you, Strokor, that the survival of the fittest is a rule
which governs man as well as men. It applies to the entire population,
Strokor, just as truly as to me or thee.

"In fine, we men who are now the sole inhabitants of this world, are
descended from a race of people who survived solely because they were
fitter than the mulikka, fitter than the reptiles, the fittest, by far,
of all the creatures.

"That being the case, it is plain that in time either our empire, or
that of Klow's, must triumph over the other. And that which remains
shall be the fittest!"

"Hold!" I cried. "Why cannot matters remain just as they now are--and
forever?"