evelopment.
Object as much as you will, science, or rather technical progress, is
eternal revolution and the only genuine reform of human conditions.
Nothing can hinder this development that has begun. It is constant,
eternal progress, yes, progress itself."

"It is the human intellect," said Frederick, "which throughout the
centuries has been lying passive and has suddenly turned active.
Undoubtedly man's brains and, at the same time, social industry have
entered a new phase."

"Yes," said Wilhelm, "in a certain way the human intellect was already
active in ancient times, but it fought too long with the man in the
mirror."

"Then, let us hope," said Frederick in confirmation, "that the last hour
of the men that fight images, the swindlers, the South Sea Island
medicine-men and magicians, is not far off; that all filibusters and
cynical freebooters, who for thousands of years have been living by the
capture of souls, will strike sail before the fast, safe ocean-going
steamer of civilisation, whose captain is intellect and whose sole
steward is humanity."

After dinner, Frederick and Wilhelm climbed up to the smoking-room on
deck.

"It is difficult to comprehend," said Frederick, when they reached the
smoky little saloon, "how a vessel can keep its course in such a stormy,
pitch-black night."

At the skat table, the players were sitting, smoking, drinking whisky and
coffee, and tossing the cards on the table. Everything else seemed to be
a matter of indifference to them. Frederick ordered wine and continued to
goad his mind into activity. His head ached. He could scarcely hold it
upright on his aching neck. His eyelids ached with weariness; but when
they drooped, his eyes seemed to radiate a painful light shining from
within. Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in him was alert. He could
not hope for sleep. How weeks in his life, months, years had passed as in
the twinkling of an eye! And this evening only three and a half days had
elapsed since he boarded the _Roland_ at Southampton, a period with the
content of years, in which seconds were eternities. Its beginning lay in
the remote distance, at the conclusion of a life lived long before, on an
earth from which he had parted long before.

"You're tired, Doctor von Kammacher," said Wilhelm. "So I won't invite
you to the stoker's funeral on the after-deck."

"Oh, I'll come," said Frederick. He was obsessed by a stinging rage not
to spare himself anything, bu