trous to us than defeat. For defeat, indeed, like previous
defeats, would have been merely a victory postponed. It would have
absorbed, exhausted, dispersed the enemy, by scattering him about the
world, whereas our victory will bring upon us a twofold peril. It will
leave the enemy in a state of savage isolation in which, thrown back
upon himself, cramped, purified by misfortune and poverty, he will
secretly reinforce his formidable virtues, while we, for our part, no
longer held in check by his unbearable but salutary menace, will give
rein to failings and vices which sooner or later will place us at his
mercy. Before thinking of peace, then, we must make sure of the future
and render it powerless to injure us. We cannot take too many
precautions, for we are setting ourselves against the manifest desire
of the power that bears us.

This is why our efforts are difficult and worthy of praise. We are
setting ourselves--we cannot too often repeat it--against the will of
earth. Our enemies are urged forward by a force that drives us back.
They are marching with nature, whereas we are striving against the
great current that sweeps the globe. The earth has an idea, which is
no longer ours. She remains convinced that man is an animal in all
things like other animals. She has not yet observed that he is
withdrawing himself from the herd. She does not yet know that he has
climbed her highest mountain-peaks. She has not yet heard tell of
justice, pity, loyalty and honour; she does not realize what they are,
or confounds them with weakness, clumsiness, fear and stupidity. She
has stopped short at the original certitudes which were indispensable
to the beginnings of life. She is lagging behind us; and the interval
that divides us is rapidly increasing. She thinks less quickly; she
has not yet had time to understand us. Moreover, she does not reckon
as we do; and for her the centuries are less than our years. She is
slow because she is almost eternal, while we are prompt because we
have not many hours before us. It may be that one day her thought will
overtake ours; in the meantime, we have to vindicate our advance and
to prove to ourselves, as we are beginning to do, that it is lawful to
be in the right as against her, that our advance is not fatal and that
it is possible to maintain it.

4

For it is becoming difficult to argue that earth or nature is always
right and that those who do not blindly follow earth's impulse are