ABSTRACT
It is said: “Wars have always existed, therefore they will always exist.” Such empirical prophecies are, in form, utterly fallacious. Their substantial truth, if they are true, hangs on the assumption, which may be true or false, that the same nature, cosmic and human, is at work in all ages. We may safely say: “All former men have died, therefore all future men will die too”: because all future men will be animals bred out of a seed and endowed organically for reproduction, not for immortality. Any other sort of being would not be a man. Our inference is justified, not empirically, but by the nature that we find proper to mankind. If, on the other hand, anyone had said in antiquity: “Parents have always sacrificed their firstborn; therefore they will always do so,” that prophet would have been mistaken. That which caused parents to sacrifice their firstborn was not an integral part of the mechanism of reproduction; it was not involved in fatherhood as death is involved in animal life. Mankind could accordingly survive, and survive better, without that sacrifice.
