necessities, the barely touched mines of scientific expedients, existed

for him no more than railways or rifled guns or geographical literature

exist for his animal prototype. What did exist were gatherings, and

caucuses, and votes--above all, votes. He was votes incarnate--millions

of votes.

And now in the great crisis, with the Giants broken but not beaten, this

vote-monster talked.

It was so evident that even now he had everything to learn. He did not

know there were physical laws and economic laws, quantities and

reactions that all humanity voting nemine contradicente cannot vote

away, and that are disobeyed only at the price of destruction. He did

not know there are moral laws that cannot be bent by any force of

glamour, or are bent only to fly back with vindictive violence. In the

face of shrapnel or the Judgment Day, it was evident to Redwood that

this man would have sheltered behind some curiously dodged vote of the

House of Commons.

What most concerned his mind now was not the powers that held the

fastness away there to the south, not defeat and death, but the effect

of these things upon his Majority, the cardinal reality in his life. He

had to defeat the Giants or go under. He was by no means absolutely

despairful. In this hour of his utmost failure, with blood and disaster

upon his hands, and the rich promise of still more horrible disaster,

with the gigantic destinies of the world towering and toppling over him,

327

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth