The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to
the future of the world have proved groundless as regards the
civilized portion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at
Carlyle's prophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the
teeming life of achievement, the life of conquest of every kind, and
of noble effort crowned by success, which has been ours for the two
generations since he complained to High Heaven that all the tales had
been told and all the songs sung, and that all the deeds really worth
doing had been done. I believe with all my heart that a great future
remains for us; but whether it does or does not, our duty is not
altered. However the battle may go, the soldier worthy of the name
will with utmost vigor do his allotted task, and bear himself as
valiantly in defeat as in victory. Come what will, we belong to
peoples who have not yielded to the craven fear of being great. In the
ages that have gone by, the great nations, the nations that have
expanded and that have played a mighty part in the world, have in the
end grown old and weakened and vanished; but so have the nations whose
only thought was to avoid all danger, all effort, who would risk
nothing, and who therefore gained nothing. In the end, the same fate
may overwhelm all alike; but the memory of the one type perishes with
it, while the other leaves its mark deep on the history of all the
future of mankind.
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