"True," replied Ortine easily, "and they would have been free for greater accomplishments if they hadn't been oppressed down the ages by a series of influential madmen. Some of them, of course, were foiled by the sane men around them. Consider Napoleon, Charles the Twelfth, Julius Caesar, Aaron Burt, Bolivar, Joan of Arc, Adolph Hitler.
"Each was mad, each came close to altering the world to his own pattern of lunacy at tremendous cost—yet each, at some critical point in his career, was checked by a man of sanity."
"All of them were insane?" Justin asked, surprised.
"Certainly—by what you would term modern psychiatric standards," said Ortine. "Napoleon, Caesar, Bolivar, Joan of Arc and Hitler were all epileptics with paranoiac complications, Burr and Charles straight megalomaniacs.
"Save for the sanity of Talleyrand Napoleon must have united Europe under his imperial sway. Peter the Great wrecked Charles the Twelfth when he apparently had the western world at his feet. A sane Cassius brought about Caesar's death, Jefferson smashed Burr, businessmen of Peru foiled Bolivar, an English bishop saw through Joan, Winston Churchill foiled Hitler. In each instance it was a close thing."
"I'll go along with that," said Justin. "But if the madmen have been foiled, why try to foil them again?"
"I," said Ortine, "am concerned with the madmen who were not foiled—or not foiled in time. Such maniacs include, among alas too many others, Alexander, Mohammed, Peter the Hermit, Pizarro, Martin Luther, your friend Dubois as well...."
"Alexander was killed by peritonitis in his thirties," said Justin doubtfully.
"He did not die in time," replied Ortine firmly. "Not before the terror of his name was so implanted in the Near and Middle East that for centuries it caused Asiatics to be over-whelmed by a shadow of fear they could not hope to overcome with reason."
"You've certainly been taking a dive into our history," said Justin uneasily. "I don't suppose you'd tell me how that is done."