666 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Majesty's Government would have nothing to do with the con- 

 sequences,' which obviously meant either neutrality or actual 

 intervention in behalf of Germany and Austria." Naturally 

 Germany and Austria imagined that Britain was too cowardly 

 to help the nations with which she had recently pretended to be 

 so friendly, and therefore proceeded at once in their long medi- 

 tated crime. Throughout all this, there appears to be an entire 

 absence of foresight and preparation on the part of the British, 

 and not a little on the part of the French— and this in spite 

 of the most emphatic warnings from the highest experts. On 

 the one side a deed, which if it had been performed by an 

 individual would have been stigmatised as being one of the 

 vilest ever perpetrated, and on the other side a degree of folly 

 in the guardians of the world's interests which it will be difficult 

 to find words for. And our young men are to be slaughtered by 

 millions for the doings of these people ! Ultimately the blame 

 lies with the mass of mankind, who love to drink the strong 

 wine of superstition, dogmas, and all kinds of falsities, and who 

 hate the pure cold water of reason. We still worship false 

 gods which we call ideals, and graven images which we call 

 statesmen, leaders, and kings. No event in the history of the 

 world has better justified the censures of the satirists from 

 Timon to Swift and Carlyle ; and the fact remains that man in 

 the mass is certainly a very dull creature. 



The Quality of the German Lie 



The undoubted barbarities with which the Germans have 

 conducted this war, at least in Belgium, have already received 

 the condemnation of civilisation, but these people have also 

 added another disgrace to humanity in the perfectly shameless 

 system of lying which they have used. Of course, falsification 

 is an actual weapon in war, often used with great effect for the 

 purpose of fogging military movements ; but the Germans go 

 outside this sphere in their impudent falsifications, and, did we 

 not possess a sense of humour, we might almost consider their 

 lying to be worse than their " Kultur." Every day their armies 

 march from victory to victory (in the same place), and when they 

 have suffered a defeat it is always counterbalanced by a simul- 

 taneous defeat of their enemies. Thus no sooner did the British 

 announce the naval victory of January 24 than the Germans 

 immediately announced the sinking of three British ships, the 



