I have faith in the inextinguishable spark of the Divine, which is in the human soul and which our complex mechanical civilization has not extinguished.  Of this, the world war was in itself a proof.  All the horrible resources of mechanics and chemistry were utilized to coerce the human soul, and all proved ineffectual.  Never did men rise to greater heights of self-sacrifice or show a greater fidelity “even unto death.”  Millions went to their graves, as to their beds, for an ideal; and when that is possible, this Pandora’s box of modern civilization, which contained all imaginable evils, as well as benefits, also leaves hope behind.

I am reminded of a remark that the great Roumanian statesman, Taku Jonescu, made during the Peace Conference at Paris.  When asked his views as to the future of civilization, he replied:  “Judged by the light of reason there is but little hope, but I have faith in man’s inextinguishable impulse to live.”

Happily, that cannot be affected by any change in man’s environment!  For even when the cave-man retreated from the advance of the polar cap, which once covered Europe with Arctic desolation, he not only defied the elements but showed even then the love of the sublime by beautifying the walls of his icy prison with those mural decorations which were the beginning of art.

Assuredly, the man of to-day, with the rich heritage of countless ages, can do no less.  He has but to diagnose the evil and he will then, in some way, meet it.

But what can man-made law do in this warfare against the blind forces of Nature?

It is easy to exaggerate the value of all political institutions; for they are generally on the surface of human life and do not reach down to the deep under-currents of human nature.  But the law can do something to protect the soul of man from destruction by the soulless machine.

It can defend the spirit of individualism.  It must champion the human soul in its God-given right to exercise freely the faculties of mind and body.  We must defend the right to work against those who would either destroy or degrade it.  We must defend the right of every man, not only to join with others in protecting his interests, whether he is a brain worker or a hand worker—­for without the right of combination the individual would often be the victim of giant forces—­but we must vindicate the equal right of an individual, if he so wills, to depend upon his own strength.

The tendency of group morality to standardize man—­and thus reduce all men to the dead level of an average mediocrity—­is one that the law should combat.  Its protection should be given to those of superior skill and diligence, who ask the due rewards of such superiority.  Any other course, to use the fine phrase of Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural, is to “take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned.”