"But are these things so?" she asked wonderingly. "Surely there are many exceptions?"
"Nature never considers the individual; she only looks at the average fitness of the species. Consider the statistics of mortality. How exact they are: they give to a month the expectation of life to men; and yet they tell a man nothing. We cannot say that a good man will always overcome a knave; but the evolutionist will not hesitate to affirm that the nation with the highest ideals would succeed."
"Unless," said Lucile, "some other nation with lower ideals, but stronger arms, intervenes."
"Well, even then might is a form of fitness; I think a low form, but still physical force contains the elements of human progress. This is only the instance; we must enlarge our view. Nature does not consider the individual species. All we will now assert is that organisms imbued with moral fitness would ultimately rise above those whose virtue is physical. How many times has civilisation, by which I mean a state of society where moral force begins to escape from the tyranny of physical forces, climbed the ladder of Progress and been dragged down? Perhaps many hundred times in this world alone. But the motive power, the upward tendency, was constant. Evolution does not say 'always,' but 'ultimately.' Well, ultimately civilisation has climbed up beyond the reach of barbarism. The higher ideals have reached the surface by superior buoyancy."
"Why do you assume that this triumph is permanent? How do you know that it will not be reversed, as all others have been?"
"Because we have got might on our side, as well as moral ascendancy."
"Perhaps the Romans in the summit of their power thought that too?"
"Very likely, but without reason. They had only their swords to fall back upon as an ultimate appeal; and when they became effete they could no longer wield them."
"And modern civilisation?"
"Ah, we have other weapons. When we have degenerated, as we must eventually degenerate, when we have lost our intrinsic superiority, and other races, according to the natural law, advance to take our place, we shall fall back upon these weapons. Our morals will be gone, but our Maxims will remain. The effete and trembling European will sweep from the earth by scientific machinery the valiant savages who assail him."