Page:Science and War.djvu/12

 it is over, the very reaction shakes and threatens to disintegrate the foundations of civilization.

I am reminding you of these things not as bearing upon the choice that as a nation we made in entering into the conflict. Not all these disastrous consequences can make us regret that choice. Gigantic as must evidently be the cost it was not for us to count it. From the first it was clear that the future of the whole world was at stake, that the conflict was between World Dominion and Liberty and the memory of our past and the hopes of our future combined to make our path clear. But my object is not to dwell on these matters but to impress upon you that, the choice once made, the issue became one of such surpassing importance that it inevitably called into action all the powers, known or latent, of those engaged in the struggle.

If, with regard to such a War, we ask ourselves—What does it owe to Science? one is tempted to reply that in the first place it owes its very possibility to it. But for the stupendous advances 6