Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/175

 fighting ship are present, and the instrument is in due proportion to the human faculty which has to wield it. There must be a point at which this ratio is disturbed. Mechanical science, pushed on by the exertions and talents of a few, may outstrip the capacity of ordinary intelligence, and what is successful experimentally when no disturbing element comes into play may fail under the more searching conditions of war. We, in common with all nations, appear to have gone too far in the production of monster ships and guns, and I trust the reaction that must always follow such excesses will lead to a great increase in the numbers of what, for the moment, we term second-class battle ships.