Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/107

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Mr. Rhodes, as I have said, is a Darwinian. He believes in the gospel of evolution, of the survival of the fittest, of progress by natural selection. With such outfit as this, he set himself in his diamond-hole to attempt the solution of the oldest of all problems. “If there be a God, and if He cares anything about what I do, then,” said Rhodes to himself, “I think I shall not be far wrong in concluding that He would like me to do pretty much as He is doing—to work on the same lines towards the same end. Therefore, the first thing for me to do is to try to find out what God—if there be a God—is doing in this world; what are His instruments, what lines is He going on, and what is He aiming at. The next thing, then, for me to do is to do the same thing, use the same instruments, follow the same lines, and aim at the same mark to the best of my ability.”

Having thus cleared the way, Mr. Rhodes put on his thinking cap and endeavoured to puzzle out answers to these questions. It sounds somewhat profane, the way in which he puts it; but in its essence, is it not the way in which