'The course of nature' as exhibited in such experiments as the Swiss National Park irresistibly calls to mind the headlong history of the world during the ten years that have passed since its inauguration. The teaching of nature had been studiously assimilated by a great nation to which the world is deeply indebted in every field of thought, science, and research; it was made the basis of their national policy, and put in practice with every resource of skill and deliberation. The results have been catastrophic, and would seem to show that when man became a social being--and we may perhaps extend the statement to all society, however inchoate, from the pack and the herd to the hive and the ant-heap--he entered a new plane of evolution, and that those who would apply to it the crude methods of selection that operated in more primitive and individual stages are fighting against the stars in their courses. {56} Some such thoughts as these shaped themselves in my mind into the following lines in the second year of the war. EVOLUTION They said: Behold, battle is earth's high law, Turn where we will is ruthlessness and strife, Beast against beast, and plant with plant wage war, Through havoc only gain we ampler life. The strong leaf ousts the weak leaf from the sun, Root strangles root in wrestle for the soil, Close-shelved in rock lie types whose race is run, Cast out in the eternal stress and moil. Thus painfully, by force and guile and hate, From flaccid forms that lurked in primal ooze, Life, in advance from low to high estate, Ever the weak rejects, the strong doth choose. Shall man alone shirk universal rule, And bind the peoples with his petty codes That shield rank growth of weakling and of fool And crush the hero under caitiffs' loads? Truth is a figment, charity a myth, Life gives its crowns to strength and craft and greed, Why should we weave, to stay our hands therewith, A moral net at variance with our need? We will forswear the outworn, craven creed That blessed the peacemakers and pure in heart, And take the lesson taught by beast and weed To guide our feet in court and camp and mart. And thus they placed their land all else above, Suckled their sons at iron paps of war, Made mock of honour and a God of love, Trampled on covenant and scoffed at law. {57} And God gave unto them their hearts' desire, And poured into their cup the wine they sought That turns the soul to stone, the brain to fire, And brings the centuries' slow work to naught. Gave strong delusion to believe a lie, Gave them seared heart, sealed mind, and pervert sense, The straitened outlook of the earth-bound eye That sees no kingdom that is not from hence. On from delusion to delusion hurled, They worked out madly to its utmost cost The doom on those whom, though they gain the world, It profits nothing, for their soul is lost.