e why? Well, because
this life thing is going on, and competition is the only way it can get
on. Call it Nature if you want to. Nature built star dust out of
nothing, and built us out of star dust, but she ain't through; she's
still building. Old Evolution is still evoluting, and her only tool is
competition, the same under the earth and on the earth, the same out in
the sky as in these states.

"Of course there's bound to be flaws and injustice in any scheme of
government because of this same competition you can't get away from any
more than the planets can. There's flaws in evolution itself, only these
holy rollers don't see it, because they haven't got the third eye of
wisdom; they can't see that the shoemaker is always going to want all he
can get for a pair of shoes and always going to pay as little as he can
for his suit of clothes, socialism or no socialism.

"What would their one big union be? Take these unions that are striking
now all over the country. They think they're striking against something
they call capital. Well, they ain't. They're striking against each
other. Railroad men striking against bricklayers, shoemakers striking
against farmers, machinists striking against cabinetmakers, printers
striking against all of 'em--and the fools don't know it; think they're
striking against some common enemy, when all the time they're hitting
against each other. Oh, she's a grand bit of cunning, this Old
Evolution."

"This is all very interesting, Mr. Cowan"--Harvey D. had become uneasy
in his chair, and had twice risen to put straight a photograph of the
Whipple block that hung on the opposite wall--"but what we would like to
get at--"

"I know, I know"--Dave silenced him with a wave of the calabash--"you
want to know what it's all about--what it's coming to, what we're here
for. Well, I can tell you a little. There used to be a catch in it that
bothered me, but I figured her out. Old Evolution is producing an
organism that will find the right balance and perpetuate itself
eternally. It's trying every way it knows to get these cells of
protoplasm into some form that will change without dying. Simple enough,
only it takes time. Think how long it took to get us this far out of
something you can't see without glasses! But forget about time. Our time
don't mean anything out there in the real world. Say we been produced in
one second from nothing; well, think what we'll become in another ten
seconds. We'll have o