GREEK FIRE. 
177 
The question is, shall these things be ? I think they must 
be. By what compact can they be stopped ? It were impro- 
bable that any congress of nations could agree on any code 
regulating means of destruction : but if it did, it were useless ; 
for science becomes more powerful as she concentrates her 
forces in the hands of units, so that a nation could only act, by 
the absolute and individual assent of each of her representa- 
tives. Assume, then, that France shall lay war to England, 
and by superior force of men should place immense hosts, well 
armed, on English soil. Is it probable that the units would 
rest in peace and allow sheer brute force to win its way to 
empire ? Or put English troops on French soil, and reverse 
the question ? 
To conclude. War has, at this moment, reached, in its details, 
such an extravagance of horror and of cruelty, that it cannot 
be made worse by any art, and can only be made more merci- 
ful by being rendered more terribly energetic. Who that had 
to die from a blow would not rather place his head under 
Nasmyth's hammer, than submit it to a drummer-boy armed 
with a ferule ? 
These thoughts are submitted in order to call forth more 
thought : this whole paper, in fact, is essentially dedicated to the 
Peace Party, for the consideration of its members, and as indicat- 
ing a way, infinitely shorter than their own, by which their great 
objects may be achieved. Let them urge the Government to 
entrust men of science, under proper superintendence, to pre- 
pare, as they list, known, but yet unformed, engines of destruc- 
tion ; and in a very short inter^l the nations may, in truth, turn 
their swords into ploughshares and learn war no more. 
