of the wicked and survival of the
good, to account for the fact before us. It finds its simple and obvious
explanation in the reaction of a changed environment upon human nature. It means
merely that a form of society which was founded on the pseudo self-interest of
selfishness, and appealed solely to the anti-social and brutal side of human
nature, has been replaced by institutions based on the true self-interest of a
rational unselfishness, and appealing to the social and generous instincts of
men.
    My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the
nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old social and
industrial system, which taught them to view their natural prey in their
fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you
that no necessity, however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what
superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy. But
suppose it were not merely your own life that you were responsible for. I know
well that there must have been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had
been merely a question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than
nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not permitted to do.
He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women in those days, as now. God
knows how they dared be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them
as ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are
fierce when they have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the
struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar desperation from the tenderest
sentiments. For the sake of those dependent on him, a man might not choose, but
must plunge into the foul fight, - cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy
below worth and sell above, break down the business by which his neighbor fed
his young ones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they
should not, grind his laborers, sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Though a
man sought it carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way in which he could
earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in before some
weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth. Even the ministers of religion
were not exempt from this cruel necessity. While they warned their flocks
against the love of money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an
outlook for