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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
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