172 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



German and Italian peoples to assert their national 

 unity ; the Russian Panslavonic fanaticism and 

 desire for free access to the western seas ; the 

 Papacy steadily fishing in the troubled waters for 

 the means of recovering its lost (I hope for ever 

 lost) temporal possessions and spiritual supremacy ; 

 the " sick man," kept alive only because each of his 

 doctors is afraid of the other becoming his heir. 



When I think of the intensity of the perturbing 

 agencies which arise out of these and other condi- 

 tions of modern European society, I confess that the 

 attempt to counteract them by asking Governments 

 to agree to a maximum military expenditure, does 

 not appear to me to be worth making ; indeed I think 

 it might do harm by leading people to suppose that 

 the desires of Governments are the chief agents in 

 determining whether peace or war shall obtain in 

 Europe. 



CCCLXXX 



I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. 

 Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly 

 but surely destroy their fortifications. And the im- 

 portance of scientific method in modern practical life 

 —always growing and increasing— is the guarantee 

 for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper 

 and lower classes, the former of whom especially are 

 the strength of the priests. 



CCCI.XXXI 



There is such a thing as a science of social life, 

 for which, if the term had not been so helplessly 

 degraded. Politics is the proper name. 



Men are beings of a certain constitution, who, 

 under certain conditions, will as surely tend to act in 

 certain ways as stones will tend to fall if you leave 



