some convolution of our brain are the faculties of the fish and the
bird. Those latent powers are expanding daily. The submarine has
already gone far beyond the practical achievement of aerial craft. But
why, in the name of humanity, should every such development of man's
almost immeasurable resources be dedicated to warlike purposes? I am
sick at heart when I hear the first question put in these days to each
inventor: 'Can you enable us to kill more of our fellowmen than we can
kill with existing appliances?' Is it a new engine, a new amalgam of
metals, a new explosive, a new field of electrical energy, one hears
the same vulture's cry-- 'How many, how far, how safely can we slay?'
I regard this lust for destruction as contemptible. It is a strange
and ignominious feature of modern life. Forgive me, Mr. Theydon, if I
speak strongly on this matter. The men who spread the bounds of
science today are, nominally, at any rate, Christians. They tell of
peace and goodwill to all, yet prepare unceasingly for some awful
Armageddon.[*] We teach Christ's gospel in pulpit and schoolhouse,
strive to express it in our laws, obey it in our lives and social
relations, yet we are armed to the teeth and ever arming, adding
strength to the plates of our warships and distance to the range of
our guns, constantly riveting and welding and forging monsters which
shall shatter men and cities and States."

[*This story was written before the outbreak of war in 1914.]

It was not the younger man now who talked brilliantly and forcibly.
Theydon, frankly abandoning the effort to twist the conversation to
that enigma which, the more he saw and heard of Forbes the more
incredible it became, listened enthralled to one who spoke with the
conviction and earnestness of a prophet.