“Though in black jest it bows and nods”
“I know it is roaring at the gods
Waiting the last eclipse.”
The scientific worker of the future will more and more resemble the lonely figure of Daedalus as he becomes conscious of his ghastly mission, and proud of it.
“Black is his robe from top to toe,
His flesh is white and warm below,
All through his silent veins flow free
Hunger and thirst and venery,
But in his eyes a still small flame
Like the first cell from which he came
Burns round and luminous, as he rides
Singing my song of deicides.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] Embden, Grafe, and Schmitz. Zeitschrift für physiologische Chemie, Vol. 113, p. 67, 1921.
[2] The Hindus have recognized the special and physiological relation of man to the cow by making the latter animal holy. A good Hindu would no more kill a cow than his foster-mother. But the holiness of the cow has unfortunately extended to all its products, and the extensive use of cowdung in Indian religious ceremonies is disgusting to the average European. The latter however, is insensitive to the equally loathsome injunctions of the Catholic Church with regard to human marriage. It would perhaps be better if both marriage and milking could be secularized.