fashioned sentimentalists. But reaction is one of the
laws of advance. Human progress always takes a step backwards after it
has taken two forward. And so it must be here too. In the end, it is the
highest type among men and nations that count, and the highest types
among both today are those which show most humanity, shrink most from
the infliction of pain. When one thinks of the horrible cruelties that
were the legal punishment of criminals, even within the last two hundred
years, and not merely brutal criminals, but also political offenders or
so-called heretics--how every one thought it the natural and proper
thing to break a man on the wheel for a difference of opinion, or
torture him with hideous ingenuity into a better frame of mind, and
how the pettiest larcenies were punished by death; it seems as if we
of today, even the least sensitive of us, cannot belong to the same
race--and it is impossible to deny that the heart of the world has grown
softer and that pity is becoming more and more a natural instinct in
human nature. I believe that some day it will have thrust out cruelty
altogether, and that the voluntary infliction of pain upon another will
be unknown. The idea of any one killing for pleasure will seem too
preposterous to be believed, and soldiers and fox-hunters and
pigeon-shooters will be spoken of as nowadays we speak of cannibals.
But, of course, I am a dreamer," he concluded, his face shining with his
gentle dream, as though he had been a veritable saint of the calendar.

"Yes, a dream," he added presently, "and yet--" In that "and yet"
there was a world of invincible faith that made it impossible not to
share his dream, even see it building before one's eyes--such is the
magnetic power of a passionate personal conviction.

"Of course," he went on again, "we all know that 'nature is one with
rapine, a harm no preacher can heal.' But because the fox runs off with
the goose, or the hawk swoops down on the chicken, and 'yon whole little
wood is a world of plunder and prey'--is that any reason why we should
be content to plunder and prey too? And after all, the cruelty of Nature
is only one-sided. There is lots of pity in Nature too. These strange
little wild lives around us are not entirely bent on killing and eating
each other. They know the tenderness of motherhood, the sweetness of
building a home together, and I believe there is far more comradeship
and mutual help amongst them than we know of. Y