13. A Dream of Armageddon




1. FILMER

In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--
this man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only
one vigorous intellectual effort was needed to finish the work.
But the inexorable injustice of the popular mind has decided
that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never flew,
should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to
honour Watt as the discoverer of steam and Stephenson of the
steam-engine. And surely of all honoured names none is so
grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, the timid,
intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world
had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations,
the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare
and well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never
has that recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man
in the face of the greatness of his science found such an amazing
exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain,
profoundly obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential
facts and the concluding scene are clear enough, and there are
letters, and notes, and casual allusions to piece the whole together.
And this is the story one makes, putting this thing with that,
of Filmer's life and death.