Page:The Quest Volume 13 (1921-22).djvu/106

 has become a worthy twin of the late golden calf. For a man who tortures his child to death, gets no more than a fortnight's prison, while he who damages an old street roller, may be locked up for three years."

"True; but the production of such mechanical devices is assuredly a good deal more expensive," grimly objected the Rev. Dr. Haselmayer.

"Generally it is, most certainly," politely admitted Monseigneur du Chazal. "But that is surely not the sole reason. In my opinion the essential matter seems to be that man too—taking things as they are—is nothing but a half-finished thing, destined itself one day to become a clock-work. You can see that from the visible fact that already certain by no means unessential instincts of his—e. g. the choosing of a right mate in order to improve the race—have degenerated into automatism. Small wonder then if he sees in machinery his true descendant and heir, and a changeling in his bodily offspring. Imagine how readily and gladly people would rush into matrimony, if only women would give birth to motor-cycles or machine-guns instead of children. Indeed in the Golden Age, when men were less developed, they believed only what they could 'think'; then came gradually the period when they believed only what they could devour. But now they are climbing to the summit of perfection: that means, they admit the reality only of what they can—sell!

"In doing this they expect as a matter of course—for it is written in the fourth commandment 'thou shalt honour thy father and mother'—that the machines they procreate and anoint with the finest oils while they themselves remain content with margarine, will repay them a thousandfold for the