80 THE POSSIBILITIES 



that the former supremacy of the pioneers must 

 be maintained at any price : all pioneers are in 

 the habit of saying so. It will be suggested 

 that the pioneers must attain such a superiority 

 of technical knowledge and organisation as to 

 enable them to beat all their younger com- 

 petitors ; that force must be resorted to if 

 necessary. But force is reciprocal ; and if the 

 god of war always sides with the strongest bat- 

 talions, those battalions are strongest which fight 

 for new rights against outgrown privileges. As 

 to the honest longing for more technical educa- 

 tion surely let us all have as much of it as 

 possible : it will be a boon for humanity ; for 

 humanity, of course not for a single nation, 

 because knowledge cannot be cultivated for home 

 use only. Knowledge and invention, boldness 

 of thought and enterprise, conquests of genius 

 and improvements of social organisation have 

 become international growths ; and no kind of 

 progress intellectual, industrial or social can 

 be kept within political boundaries ; it crosses 

 the seas, it pierces the mountains ; steppes are 

 no obstacle to it. Knowledge and inventive 

 powers are now so thoroughly international 

 that if a simple newspaper paragraph announces 

 to-morrow that the problem of storing force, of 

 printing without inking, or of aerial navigation, 

 has received a practical solution in one country 



