“All this is true if we admit that the object of civilization is to produce multitudes and to raise the level of a low average. That, Bogardus, is not our conception. We stand for the selection of the fittest, not the multiplication of a cheap article which your democracy did, in men as in machines. But to answer you. It is true your time saw a marvelous advance in science, but to what did you apply the noblest creations of the scientific imagination? Every new discovery was immediately put to the perfecting of the art of destruction. The railroads became the arteries of military communication. The automobile followed them and produced the dreadful juggernaut of the armored tank. You mastered the wisdom of the fishes to do what--to make war more horrible on the sea. You conquered the secret of the birds in order to destroy whole country sides from the air. Your scientists evolved high explosives, poison gases, your mathematicians calculated the trajectory of projectiles that could bombard cities fifty miles distant and range-finding devices to locate unseen enemies. The telephone, the telegraph, the camera all became part of this perfected military organization. You discovered the principle of wireless transmission of energy to direct torpedos in the water and aeroplanes to bombard from the sky. Even your artists were enlisted. Your musicians wrote military marches, or glorified war and heroes in their symphonies. Your painters not only invented camouflage but exalted the conqueror in historic decorations. I can admit all that you record of the fertility of an inventive age and answer that your genuises were but the servants of man’s brutal conception of war as the sum of all talents and all energies within a state.” At this moment the air was filled with the pleasant sound of chimes. Manfreda rose and advancing towards me said: “Enough for today. You have an open mind, Bogardus. Keep it open and judge our civilization fairly, having known the old. I am certain the result will bring small comfort to those sentimentalists who today would have us imperil all that we have achieved, by the dangerous doctrine that men should be restored to equality with women.” Whatever the result of my first encounter with Manfreda, it was evident to me from the flattering expressions I received, that the spectacle of a mere man, stating his contentions with lucidity and inspiration, had made a marked impression on my hearers. Acquilla pressed my arm with a new tenderness as we departed but I was surprised to notice on her forehead a foreboding frown. “You have created a profound effect, Bogardus,” she said, when we were alone, “too profound I’m afraid. Be on your guard and don’t let your enthusiasms lead you into an imprudence. Remember this is a woman’s world and sentiment plays no part in it. What I can do I shall do to preserve your liberty of action,” she added in a tender tone, “but you must do nothing to make it difficult.”