“And altogether: the execution of every act of hatred or revenge will be greatly facilitated and its discovery made more difficult; no police stations can be erected in the upper air, no police dogs could follow the trail; what yesterday was called ‘flight’—then a very difficult and dangerous undertaking—can to-day be taken as a pleasure trip!
“How could one find any traces in the heights above? The aeronautic Sherlock Holmes will offer a new and as yet unexploited subject for detective stories. A winged gendarmerie will first have to be organized; but a great obstacle stands in the way of patrolling space: not only is there the stretch from north to south and from east to west, but also zenithward. The desired point will no longer be crossed only by two lines, but by three. All this must be faced. If really man is a wolf to his fellowman and is bound to remain so, then our enemy, the wolf, by means of our new achievements has got a new and tremendous accretion of strength.”
Helmer made a brief pause. A slight feeling of uneasiness had taken possession of his audience.... What the man was predicting did not seem so rosy! But Helmer passed his hand over his forehead, as if he would drive away a swarm of annoying visions, and then he went on in a louder voice:—
“I do not stand here as a prophet of misfortune. I see the evil, but I also see the cure for it. If new conditions of life are brought forward, if the world around us undergoes changes, then our mode of life must be made to conform to them; for what does not conform goes to destruction. Nature herself accomplishes this process of adaptation by dooming to destruction those who are incapable of conforming. At the present stage of human development, however, we do not need to leave this process to Nature alone: we have reason, we have knowledge, and we have experience: we ourselves can take the work of transformation into our own hands! Nature works slowly and works relentlessly; we can hasten her work, and we can avoid those harsh and pitiless means which Nature employs to bend us under the law of adaptation. So now, we are capable of recognizing the new conditions, the new needs, that grow out of the human conquest of the air. We can estimate what of the old contrivances, of the old forms of thinking, cannot be brought over to the new dawning epoch; we can mentally construct the conditions and principles which might prevail in the altered circumstances; we can strive and we can bring it about, that the necessary conformation shall take place without its involving the method of Nature—‘The destruction of whatever resists.’
“And the formula of the needed action is provided for us by the new acquisition itself: We are already able physically to soar up into the heights—we must do the same thing morally. We must learn to hold dominion over the realm of High Thinking.
“For thousands of years mankind has been dreaming of the possibility of learning to fly. It has so often tried in vain that at last it came to the conclusion that it was impossible. And yet it has been proved to be possible.
“In the same way, and almost even more timidly, mankind has behaved toward those dreams which attributed to human souls the capacity of applying to the intercourse of nations the moral injunctions that have been laid down as law for the behavior of individuals, and of renouncing violence in all its forms. This has been called Utopia.... ‘Man is essentially a wild beast’—they say: ‘only by force can he be tamed, only by force can he be held under restraint, and force has always conducted the fate of nations.’ Well, now, the most utopian of all utopian possibilities—flying—has become a reality. Technical art has won this victory. And must the spirit alone remain forever enchained in the wallowing depths of hatred and brutality? Certainly not!
“Just as soon as human genius shall put forth the same determination, the same assurance, as it has put forth in technical work, for the attainment of moral ideals, it will be likewise victorious. All the technical inventions have had the one end and aim of making life more beautiful, more enjoyable, easier,—in a word, of distributing happiness. But what genuine happiness is possible if all intellectual activities are ever maintained for the purpose of rendering life more unendurable and of destroying it? With his physical capacities, man must grow psychically, else will he become more and more dangerous and wretched instead of growing greater and happier. Now that he has subdued steam and electricity and radium and the Hertzian waves, in order to make existence more comfortable for him, the time has come that he should, with equal confidence and equally firm resolution, try to make serviceable those other forces which also are inherent in the world,—good will, love, reason,—and which alone are fit to endow life with beauty and value.”
A murmur of approbation stirred through the hall. Helmer advanced a step toward the front of the platform and stretched out both his hands:—
“Aye, Good Will! I have uttered there the holiest concept in the universe. For the upward flights of the soul, this is the only motor power—‘Good Will’! If aeronautics and aviation had not discovered the lightest possible motor, they would still have been Utopias. And all endeavors to solve social problems, to bring security and comfort to human society, all attempts to rouse men’s souls into higher spheres, have necessarily failed, for the precise reason that Good Will, Goodness—called weakness by the narrow-minded—has not been made the moving power for the conduct of social and political life. Of course, there are still other splendid qualities, and these are universally upheld as the basis of character and as the motives of noble behavior: courage, determination, intellect, enthusiasm, strength. But there is only one criterion for their inward value and outward valuation—they are worthy and blessed only when they are used in the service of Good Will. The qualities I have named strengthen our activity—they do not ennoble it. There is courage shown in wickedness, determination in cruelty, intellect in malignity, enthusiasm in hatred, and strength in arbitrariness. And in fact, these elicit our admiration, because in the brilliancy of the qualification the abomination of the subject is forgotten.