THE PAGAN ETHIC 97 



as the science of civilization from all these the 

 essential pagan of the West turned in our time to 

 the gross unimaginative materialism of military and 

 economic war. 



But with the sense of his coming bankruptcy 

 upon him the moods of atavism in the pagan of the 

 West are like the moods of Saul. In one phase he 

 is the being who has created the hell of the Arma- 

 geddon. In another he is maudlin with the pity 

 of reaction and babbles of beating his swords into 

 ploughshares. In one phase he is emancipating 

 his womankind, representing half the population of 

 the earth, from the effects of the ages of the rule of 

 brute force upon her. In another the savageries of 

 his Schopenhauers, his Nietzsches, and his Weinigers 

 towards her awake in his soul the fierce animal 

 delirium of the jungle. In one hemisphere he wags 

 his head sentimentally to the chorus of Tannhauser. 

 In another the echoes of his rag-time music move 

 him to shuddering ecstasy as he hears in them the 

 iron clang of the mills of force in the world he has 

 created. In one phase his adventurers accumulate 

 private fortunes in commerce and industry so vast 

 that they are reckoned in tens of millions of pounds, 

 so power compelling that they throw those of the 

 age of Marcus Licinius Crassus into insignificance. 

 In another the chief medical officer of the governing 

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