"Yes," said Mother Nature. "It is a pity, but men are going to keep on fighting and killing each other for thousands and thousands of years. The battle you saw between the sea people, and the tribe from the hills, was the beginning of war. These two peoples hated each other, because their language, and their clothes, and their ways of living, were different. And as one tribe hates another, for these reasons, so will nations, which are only great tribes after all, hate each other, and fight and kill, for a very long time indeed, even after they have become what they call civilized, and fight with terrible engines of war, which fly in the air, and swim under the water, and blow thousands of persons to pieces in a single moment. That is the law of force, that the strong must overcome the weak, and only when man has become really civilized, and learned the law of love, will fighting stop. They have to fight now, for in that way they become strong, and brave, and get courage to conquer the winds and the sea, and the cold and heat, and spread to all the parts of the earth. Not until long after this is done will men learn that they all belong to one great tribe, and that it is not necessary to fight each other any longer, but to help each other. It is the same on all my other worlds—the people fight each other for a long time, like bad children, until one day they find that they are not children any longer, but grown up men and women, and then they do not fight any more." "I should think that God would make them that way in the first place," grumbled the Sun. "He could, you foolish creature," said Mother Nature, with a frown, "but if He made His people and His worlds perfect to begin with, there would be no need to create them at all. God is like a weaver, weaving a wonderful pattern. He finds joy in His work. If it were all finished as soon as it was begun, even God Himself would have no purpose. All things must grow slowly and beautifully, from the seed to the plant, from the plant to the tree, from the tree to the perfect fruit. You, Sun, are growing too. Some day, your heat will be gone, and you will grow old and die. You will be cold, and dark, without any light to shine with. Then it may be that the Great Mind that made you, will cause you to live again. Meanwhile, do each day what you have to do, and stop grumbling about things you do not understand." CHAPTER XVIII THE ISLAND MEN THERE were twenty-two men and eight women in Tul-Ab's little party. The great log canoe had been crowded.