Ralph Waldo Emerson held the same opinion about war as that held by John Ruskin. He quoted and approved the old Greek, Heraclitus, who said, "War is the father of all things." After quoting this expression, Emerson said, "We of this day can repeat it as a political and social truth." Also, he said, "War passes the power of all chemical solvents, breaking up the old cohesions, and allowing the atoms of society to take a new order." As a matter of fact, social order, in time of peace, like a cultivated field, settles and solidifies, and it must be broken down into subsoil, to support a new and vigorous growth. The breaking by plough and dynamite, uprooting and submerging all undesirable growth, is rewarded by healthy and vigorous crops of a desirable growth. The very privations that have to be endured by large numbers of persons during a great war, stimulate economy, invention, and extraordinary endeavor, and serve to teach many useful lessons and to impart valuable experiential knowledge, which is applied both during the war, and, with greater advantage, when the war is over. When a country is at war, all its industries are not rendered stagnant or idle, but many of them are stimulated to extraordinary effort when cut off from import by blockade. The legend about the stature of the French nation being lowered two inches as a result of killing off so many of the best men of France during the Napoleonic wars, is a very plausible one, and one that has been made great use of by the pacifists. But no one has thought to inquire whether or not, during the past century, the average stature of the Spaniards and the Italians also has been lowered. Perhaps, if we should inquire, we might learn that the color of the hair and eyes and skin of the French had somewhat darkened during that period. We might learn the truth that the effect upon the stature and the color of the eyes and skin and hair was mainly due to another kind of warfare--that of the southern blood of the Latin against the blood of the blond Norseman. We might learn that in Italy, Spain, and France, the posterity of the Norse giants, who long ago overran and conquered those countries, did not thrive well there, but slowly died down. We might learn that in those lands the blood of the blond is gradually overcome by the blood of the brunette; and that, as the blond races are larger in stature, the stature of the mixed Latin races is lowered in proportion to the disappearance of the blond type. The ancient Roman was much shorter in stature than even the present Italian or Frenchman. Warfare has always subjected the weak, the puny, the poor, the ill, the indigent, and the incompetent to privations, trials, and strains of such severity that they have died in large numbers. They have not been so able as normal persons to escape the sword and to resist famine and disease; consequently, fewer of them have survived than of the more fit.