.
What they worked at, provided it was worth doing at all, was of less
matter than how they worked, whether in the realm of the mind or the
realm of the body. If their work was good, if what they achieved was
of substance, then high success was really theirs.

In the first part of this lecture I drew certain analogies between
what has occurred to forms of animal life through the procession of
the ages on this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring to the
great artificial civilizations which have gradually spread over the
world's surface, during the thousands of years that have elapsed since
cities of temples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the
Euphrates, and the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of
the AEgean craft. But of course the parallel is true only in the
roughest and most general way. Moreover, even between the
civilizations of to-day and the civilizations of ancient times, there
are differences so profound that we must be cautious in drawing any
conclusions for the present based on what has happened in the past.
While freely admitting all of our follies and weaknesses of to-day, it
is yet mere perversity to refuse to realize the incredible advance
that has been made in ethical standards. I do not believe that there
is the slightest necessary connection between any weakening of virile
force and this advance in the moral standard, this growth of the sense
of obligation to one's neighbor and of reluctance to do that neighbor
wrong. We need have scant patience with that silly cynicism which
insists that kindliness of character only accompanies weakness of
character. On the contrary, just as in private life many of the men of
strongest character are the very men of loftiest and most exalted
morality, so I believe that in national life, as the ages go by, we
shall find that the permanent national types will more and more tend
to become those in which, though intellect stands high, character
stands higher; in which rugged strength and courage, rugged capacity
to resist wrongful aggression by others, will go hand in hand with a
lofty scorn of doing wrong to others. This is the type of Timoleon, of
Hampden, of Washington, and Lincoln. These were as good men, as
disinterested and unselfish men, as ever served a State; and they were
also as strong men as ever founded or saved a State. Surely such
examples prove that there is nothing Utopian in our effort to combine
justice and strength in