"Love one another," Chris said.
A slow smile came upon the physicist's face. "We should have loved the
Nazis? And love the Jap who lies ahead?"
"Of course." Chris nodded soberly. "If you had loved them, you would
never have let them sink into the pit of their despair--arm--turn upon
yourselves. Had you loved them, you would have assisted them--before
you were compelled to restrain them by such violence."
"The rights of nations--" Sopho began.
"--exist in the minds of men. You did not love them. You loved
yourselves. You saw torment born in them all, and saw it grow, and
feared it--and stood, like any Pharisee, reciting your virtues but not
lifting a finger to assist them."
"He's right." Learned shook his head ruefully. "How right he is!"
"Love!" Sopho said the word scornfully. "Little you know of Nature.
Little of love you'll see there!"
"It's strange," Chris answered, "that I see in Nature nothing _else_
but love. Pain--yes. Sorrow--yes. Tragedy--yes. To every individual.
Yet--in the sum of Nature--only love."
Sopho's eyebrows arched skeptically. "Do you really believe that the
primitive phrases of a man who possibly existed--some two thousand
years ago--could fix the attention of a modern scientist?"
"Evidently they do not." Chris bent and peered through the round,
bowed window of the ship as if he could orient himself even among
the traceless clouds. He looked at them again. "I talked in very
simple words, doctor, to very simple people. The extreme simplicity
of the formulations should--I thought--make the concepts increasingly
understandable, as men pursued truth. I advised them, remember,
to know the truth. I meant all of truth. I warned them that an
excessive fascination with worldly goods--to the exclusion of inner
goodness--would undo all peace of mind--"
Sopho chuckled. "Surely--we've pursued truth? What we carry today
represents a great accumulation of truth! And I'll also agree that most
men who merely amass worldly goods--the rich--aren't greatly interested
in science. In truth. In anything but money. Still--"
Chris had raised his hand. "This ship--the bomb it carries--all the
equipment and paraphernalia of the universities which lie behind
it--the projects undertaken and achieved there--what are they, too,
doctor--if not worldly goods?"
"Then you would have us put science aside? Stop seeking such truth--?"
"Seek truth in two ways, doctor. Within--and without." He drew a
breath, frowned and spoke again. "Love--in man--takes various forms.
Love of self. Love of woman. Love of other men. Love of cosmos. Each is
an altruism so designed that, through love, man shall preserve himself
in dignity, procreate, and preserve all others even at the cost of his
own life. Greater love hath no man than this last. Not one of these
altruisms can be peacefully maintained unless the others also are
given their proportionate due. The conscience of a man rises from the
relatedness of these loves and is his power to interpret how valuable,
relatively, each one is--not to him alone, but to all men, as each man
is beholden to all. To reason only in the mind is to express the love
of worldly goods, alone. Have you ever reasoned in your heart, doctor?"
"Irrational emotions! Reason has no place there!"
"But it has. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. You scientists
refuse to study how your hearts think. Repent, I said. Confess, the
churches say--and worldliness encompasses them! Join, they say. But I
say, when you have yielded up your vanity you will contain the immortal
love. My time is short, gentlemen. I thought to remind you."
"I remember--!" the colonel's lips pronounced the inaudible words.