毕竟我们也站在一个高度上。到目前为止，我们的血液和文化已经越过了任何世界的洪水痕迹。我们的工程师没有什么可以向罗马、埃及和中国学习的，而且可以教给他们比神话制造者想象的更多的东西。我们的科学，无论多么混乱，多么个人，多么神话，都不可能像一只被太阳晒瞎了的鹰一样，低着身子去嘲笑巴比伦的奇怪天文学，嘲笑卢克莱修幼稚的起源梦，嘲笑柏拉图的疯天鹅。至于我们在海上、陆地、空中的作战手段和掌握能力……那么自负?因为我们不是骄傲，而是厌倦地羞愧于这个时代的巅峰。我们身上有什么高尚之处，能点燃对未来时代的想象?我们会被看作是一群卑鄙的浮士德，庸俗的魔术师。我们要给他们看什么人? but inventions and appliances. Not men but populations, mass-men; not life But amusements; not health but medicines. And the odor: what is that odor? Decaying lambskins: the Christian Ideals that for protection and warmth our naked ancestors . . . but naturally, after nineteen centuries . . . O Mort, vieux capitaine, est-il temps, nous levons Tancre? It is perhaps Time, almost time, to let our supreme inventions begin to work. The exact intelligent guns Can almost wheel themselves into action of their own accord, and almost calculate their own trajectories. The clever battleships know their objectives; the huge bombing-planes and meteor pursuit-planes are all poised for ... what? Vanity. This also is vanity; horrible too, but a vain dream. Our civilization, the worst it can do, cannot yet destroy itself; but only deep-wounded drag on for centuries.