eart. The eternal spirit of Progress which works
throughout the universe never fails to punish the deserter, and the
most common punishment is atrophy. Not to submit to the process of
evolution is to fall down the long slope of degeneracy.

'You do not need to be told that the entire history of nations confirms
this rule. The greatest nations are those which have found life most
difficult, and they have thriven on their difficulties. The soft
climate, which reduces toil to a minimum, invariably means the
enervated race. Under the harsh skies of Britain a great race has been
trained to great exploits; but what part have the islands of the South
Pacific ever played in human history? Give man a difficulty to
overcome, and he at once puts forth his strength; difficulty is his
spiritual gymnasium. Impose on him no need of exertion, and he will
rot out, just as the races of the South Pacific are rotting out. I
would measure the future of a man, or of a nation, by this simple test;
do they habitually choose the easier or the harder path for themselves?
The nation that chooses the hard path, that is not afraid of the burden
of empire, that glories in the strife for primacy and is not afraid to
pay the price of primacy in incredible exertion, in blood and
sacrifice, is the nation that shall possess the earth. And is it not
so with men? Here, again, I press home the need for considering one's
actions in their collective aspect. Your course of life is easily
imitable: would you have it imitated? There are thousands of men in
London who could readily retire into a peaceful life to-morrow, on
terms more favourable than yours. Every man possessed of a hundred
pounds a year could do it. Yet there are plenty of old men, with ample
fortunes, who never dream of doing it. They stick to their posts and
they die at them. And it is by such men that the great machinery of
social life, of commerce, of national progress is kept going.

'You would say, perhaps, that they are simply sacrificing the finer
pleasures of life to the fanaticism of work; ah, but they are also
sacrificing them for the good of the community. If the great surgeon
or physician bolted from his duties the moment he had acquired money
enough to buy a cottage, you would say he had no right to rob mankind
of his skill and service to please himself. Have you that right? And
if the whole nation acted in this spirit, how long would the nation
hold its place of