Page:A Few Hours in a Far Off Age.djvu/43

44 differing ones; but male vanity was so strong that it required the extinction of many peoples before the real reason could be understood by men. And then they had to be taught it by the very half whose abstract reasoning and abstract justice was thus proved to have been not only equal—which some of their most learned men denied —but superior to their own. That iniquities should have existed is not perplexing when we reflect that—save in the great few—intellect developed without corresponding increase of integrity and benevolence. Some naturalists say all their contemptible tyranny arose solely from an inherent fear of subjugation—and I think it feasible, because, in the earliest ages, men took as wives—a word signifying servants, or rather slaves—the women whom they captured in battle. Fearing the unfortunate creatures might revolt, and make cause with their own kin, they kept them in cruel subjection, and treated them as if they had been still their enemies. Of course, that tyrannical feeling was transmitted through millions of generations, so it is not difficult to comprehend the enormous length of time which must elapse before it could be obliterated by one of justice. The marvel would have been that out of such a state of vain ignorance the least nobility could ever have arisen, did we not feel the indestructible power of Right. Wonderful in all its works, but not yet understood by our limited minds, though we have now reason enough to know they will be still more developed as evolution further and further unfolds its marvels."

There is no resemblance between the mother of these boys and Frederick's, except in the general expression of