Philistia | Page 4

Archimedean lever of the
thinking world. For that reason, my dear Le Breton, I am always glad to
muster here your Oxford neophytes.'
'And yet, Herr Schurz,' said Ernest gently, 'you know we must not after
all despair. Look at the history of your own people! When the cause of
Jehovah seemed most hopeless, there were still seven thousand left in
Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. We are gaining strength
every day, while they are losing it.'
'Ah yes, my friend. I know that too,' the old man answered, with a
solemn shake of the head; 'but the wheels move slowly, they move
slowly--very surely, but oh, so slowly. You are young, friend Ernest,
and I am growing old. You look forward to the future with hope; I look
back to the past with regret: so many years gone, so little, so very little
done. It will come, it will come as surely as the next glacial period, but
I shall not live to see it. I stand like Moses on Pisgah; I see the
promised land before me; I look down upon the equally allotted
vineyards, and the glebe flowing with milk and honey in the distance;
but I shall not lead you into it; I shall not even lead you against the
Canaanites; another than I must lead you in. But I am an old man, Mr.
Oswald, an old man now, and I am talking all about myself--an
anti-social trick we have inherited from our fathers. What is your
friend's special line at Oxford, did you say, Ernest?'
'Oswald is a mathematician, sir,' said Ernest, 'perhaps the greatest
mathematician among the younger men in the whole University.'
'Ah! that is well. We want exact science. We want clear and definite

thinking. Biologists and physicists and mathematicians, those are our
best recruits, you may depend upon it. We need logic, not mere gas.
Our French friends and our Irish friends--I have nothing in the world to
say against them; they are useful men, ardent men, full of fire, full of
enthusiasm, ready to do and dare anything--but they lack ballast. You
can't take the kingdom of heaven by storm. The social revolution is not
to be accomplished by violence, it is not even to be carried by the most
vivid eloquence; the victory will be in the end to the clearest brain and
the subtlest intellect. The orthodox political economists are clever
sophists; they mask and confuse the truth very speciously; we must
have keen eyes and sharp noses to spy out and scent out their tortuous
fallacies. I'm glad you're a mathematician, Mr. Oswald. And so you
have thought on social problems?'
'I have read "Gold and the Proletariate,"' Oswald answered modestly,
'and I learned much from it, and thought more. I won't say you have
quite converted me, Herr Schurz, but you have given me plenty of food
for future reflection.'
'That is well, said the old man, passing one skinny brown hand gently
up and down over the other. 'That is well. There's no hurry. Don't make
up your mind too fast. Don't jump at conclusions. It's intellectual
dishonesty to do that. Wait till you have convinced yourself. Spell out
your problems slowly; they are not easy ones; try to see how the
present complex system works; try to probe its inequalities and
injustices; try to compare it with the ideal commonwealth: and you'll
find the light in the end, you'll find the light.'
As he spoke, Herbert Le Breton lounged up quietly from his farther
corner towards the little group. 'Ah, your brother, Ernest!' said Max
Schurz, drawing himself up a little more stiffly; 'he has found the light
already, I believe, but he neglects it; still he is not with us, and he that
is not with us is against us. You hold aloof always, Mr. Herbert, is it
not so?'
'Well, not quite aloof, Herr Schurz, I'm certain, but not on your side
exactly either. I like to look on and hold the balance evenly, not to
throw my own weight too lightly into either stale. The objective

attitude of the mere spectator is after all the right one for an impartial
philosopher to take up.'
'Ah, Mr. Herbert, this philosophy of your Oxford contemplative
Radicals is only another name for a kind of social selfishness, I fancy,'
said the old man solemnly. 'It seems to me your head is with us, but
your heart, your heart is elsewhere.'
Herbert Le Breton played a moment quietly with the Roman aureus of
Domitian on his watch-chain; then he said slowly in his clear cold
voice, 'There may be something in that, no doubt, Herr Schurz, for each
of us has his own game to play, and while the world remains
unreformed,