In time of peace less rigid economy is practised than in time of war. Dangers and hardships, which are the concomitants of war, have been found in all ages better formative influences for making hardy, successful men than a life of ease, comfort, and luxury. Consequently, in time of peace there is a far more preponderant tendency toward degeneracy and national decay than there is in time of war, in spite of the large numbers of fine specimens of manhood that are killed in war.
When Cyrus the Great, with his hardy mountaineers, had conquered the peace-loving, comfort-loving people of the lowlands, he told his soldiers that they must not make their homes in the lowlands, but must return to their mountain fastnesses, because if they settled to a life of ease and luxury, they would become unwarlike, effeminate, and degenerate, like the lowlanders they had conquered and enslaved, and later would themselves be conquered and enslaved by other mountaineers inured to privations and hardships, who would descend upon them.
Witness the wisdom of Herodotus, who said:
"It is the settled appointment of Nature that soft soils should breed soft men, and that the same land should never be famous for the excellence of its fruit and for the vigor of its inhabitants."
Montesquieu said:
"The barrenness of the soil makes men industrious, sober, hard-working, courageous, and warlike, for they must obtain by their own exertion that which the earth denies them, whilst the fertility of a country produces in them love of ease, indolence, and a sense of cautious self-preservation."
The ancient Spartans in time of peace voluntarily subjected themselves to every privation and hardship necessary to keep them in prime condition for instant war.
Nature is never moved by pity. Nature is not a sentimentalist. The earthquake shock is no respecter of persons. When a ship founders, the angry waves of the sea show no mercy to the drowning, and have no pity for those struggling to survive in the life-boats. The arctic airs of winter are as savage to those exposed to them as are the teeth of wolves. All animal life on the earth must constantly contend with both the devouring elements of Nature and the devouring greed of other animal life.
Pity is a child of the imagination, and is, for that reason, a peculiarly human attribute. It is a very noble trait, and is of material aid in greatening mutual human usefulness. Nevertheless, no one thinks for a moment of blaming any of the lower animals for their appetites and passions; they are understood to be normal and necessary. Similarly, all our normal appetites and passions are necessary. Considered in the broad, as natural attributes, there are no such things as bad normal emotions and passions; it is only when they become perverted by degeneracy or abuse that they are evil.
The passion of pity may be perverted and abused just as the sex appetite or the appetite for food and drink.