"I would rather establish a compulsory study of Equity," said Roger. "Then nations might judge a casus belli justly, on its merits, instead of accepting the words of newspapers inspired by unscrupulous usurers, as at present. A few unprincipled men, mostly of the lowest kind of commercial Jew, are able to run this country into war whenever they like. And the Briton believes himself to be a level-headed business man."
"If that is the case," said the Major triumphantly, "it proves my point. If we are likely to go to war, we ought to be prepared for war. And we can only be prepared if we establish conscription. And if we are not prepared, we shall cease as a nation. It is your duty, as an English writer, to awaken the national conscience by a play or novel, so that when the time comes we may be prepared."
"My duty is nothing of the kind," said Roger. "I believe war to be a wasteful curse; and the preparation for war to be an even greater curse, and infinitely more wasteful. I am not a patriot, remember. My State is mind. The human mind. I owe allegiance to that first. I am not going to set Time's clock back by preaching war. War belongs to savages and to obsolete anachronisms like generals. You think that that is decadence. That I am a weak, spiritless, little-Englander, who will be swept away by the first 'still, strong man' who comes along with 'a mailed fist.' Very well. I have no doubt that brute force can and will sweep away most things not brutal like itself. It may sweep me away. But I will not disgrace my century by preaching the methods of Palæolithic man. If you want war, go out and fight waste. I suppose that two hundred and fifty million pounds are flung away each year on drink and armaments in this country alone. I suppose that in the same time about five hundred pounds are spent on researches into the causes of disease. About the same amount is given away to reward intellectual labours. I mean labours not connected with the improvement of beer or dynamite. Such labours as noble imaginings about the world and life." He looked at Miss Lenning, whose eye was kindling. No one who has dabbled in politics can resist rhetoric of any kind.
"You send women to prison for wanting to control such folly," he went on. "Doesn't he, Miss Lenning? If I am to become a propagandist, I will do so in the cause of liberty or knowledge. I would write for Miss Lenning, or for Dr. Heseltine there, but for a military man, who merely wants food for powder, for no grand, creative principle, I would not write even if the Nicaraguans were battering St. Paul's."
"Some day," said Mrs. Heseltine, "we may become great enough to give up all this idea of Empire, and set out, like the French, to lead the world in thought and manners. We might achieve something then. France was defeated. She is now the most prosperous and the most civilised country in the world."
"And the least vital," said the Major's wife.
"But what do you mean by vital?" said Roger, guessing that she was repeating a class catch-word. "Vitality is shewn by a capacity for thought."
Maggie Fawcett interposed. "It's a very curious state of things," said she. "The intellect of the world is either trading, fighting for trade, or preparing to fight for trade. It is, in any case, pursuing a definite object. But the imagination of the world is engaged in finding a stable faith to replace the old one. It is wavering between science and superstition, neither of which will allow a compromise. You, Mr. Naldrett, if you will excuse my saying so, belong to the superstition camp. You believe that a man is in a state of grace if he goes to a tragedy, and can tell a Francesca from a Signorelli. I belong to the science camp, and I believe that that camp is going to win. It's attracting the better kind of person; and it has an enthusiasm which yours has not. You are looking for an indefinite, rare, emotional state, in which you can apprehend the moral relations of things. We are looking for the material relations of things so that the rare emotional state can be apprehended, not by rare, peculiar people, such as men of genius, but by everybody."
"What you had better do," said Dr. Heseltine, "is, give up all this 'obsolete anachronism' of art. Science is the art of the twentieth century. You cannot paint or write in the grand manner any longer. That has all been done. Men like you ought to be stamping out preventable disease. Instead of that, you are writing of what Tom said to James while Dick fell in the water. With a fortieth part of what is wasted annually on the army alone, I would undertake to stamp out phthisis in these islands. With another fortieth part there is very little doubt that cancer could be stamped out too. With another fortieth part, wisely and scientifically administered without morbid sentiment, we could stamp out crime and other mental diseases."
"The motor-car and golf, for instance?" said Ethel Fawcett.