The Winslow mail., 1914-11-07

going out OF llfe ana new things com.
ing in. it is rather that the altered cir
cumstances of men are making an ap-
peal to elements in his nature that
have hitherto been suppressed, and
checking tendencies that have hither-
to been oVerstimulated and over.
developed. He has not so much
grown and altered his essential being
as turned new aspects to the light
Such turnings round into new atti
tude the world has seen on a less ex.
tensive scale before. The Highlanders
OF the seventeenth century, for ex-
ample, were cruel and bloodthirsty
robbers; in the nineteenth their de
scendants were conspicuously trusty
and honorable men. There was not a
people in western Europe in the early
twentieth century that seemed capa
BILE Of hideous massacres and none that
had not been guilty of them within the
previous two centuries The free.
frank, Kindly, gentle life of the pros
porous classes in any European coun-
try before the years of the last wars
was in different world of thought and
feeling from that Of the dingy, suspi-
ciOus, secretive and uncharitable exist
ence of the respectable poor or the
constant personal violence, the sQualor
and naive passions of the lowest
stratum. Yet there were no real diff.
ferences of blood and inherent quality
between these worlds; their differences
we're all in circumstances, suggestion
and habits of mind. And, turning to
more individual instances, the con
stantantly observed difference between
one portion of life and another conse-
quent upon religious conversion We're
standing example of the versatile
possibilities Of human nature.
The catastrophe of the atomic bombs
which shook men out of cities and
businesses and economic relations
shook them also out of their old estab-
lished habits Of thought and out of
the lightly held beliefs and prejudices
that came down to them from the
past. To borrow word from the old
fashioned chemists. men were made
nascent. They were released from old
ties. For good or evil they were ready
for new associations. The council car
ried them forward for good. Perhaps If
his bombs had reached their destina
tion King Ferdinand Charles might
have carried them back to an endless
chain of evils. But his task would
have been harder one than the coun
ciPS. The moral shock Of the atomic
bombs had been a profound one. and
for awhile the cunning side Of the hu
man animal was overpowered by its
sincere realization of the vital neces
sity for reconstruction. The litigious
and trading spirits covered together
scared at their own consequences. Men
thought twice before they sought
mean advantages in the face of the
unusual eagerness to realize new aspi
revived again and claims" began to
sprout, they sprouted upon the stony
soil of law courts reformed. of laws
that pointed to the future instead OF
the past and under the blazing sun
shine of transforming world. A new
q dCW vi LIS
tory were springing into existence,
new teaching was already in the
schools, new faith in the hearts of
the young. The worthy man who
forestalled the building of research
city for the English upon the Sussex
downs by buying up a series of estates
was dispossessed and laughed out OF
court when he made his demand foI
some preposterOus compensation. The
owner of the discredited Dass patents
makes his last appearance upon the
scroll of history as the inSolvent pro
prietor of a paper called the Cry For
Justice, in which he duns the world
for f1OO,O00OO0. That was the ingenu
Gus Dass' idea Of justice, that he ought
to be paid about -f5.000,000 annually
because he had annexed the selvage of
one of Holsten's discoveries. Dass
came at last to believe quite firmly in
his right, and he died victim to con
spiracy mania in private hospital at
Nice. Both of these men would prob
ably have ended their days enormously
wealthy, and Of course ennobled, In
the England of the opening twentieth
century. and 1t is just this novelty OF
their fates that marks the quality of
the new age.