1

two-legs still lives.

he will not die as long as the world exists.

he lives now in one country and now in another. no one knows for certain where he is; and there are not many who think of him in the ordinary course of things. only very few have seen him, but those who have will never forget him either, so old is he and venerable, so clever and radiant his eyes.

he is the same that he always was.

in the beginning, he supplied himself with food and clothes, shelter against the weather and defence against his foes. he built himself huts and houses, killed some of the wild animals and tamed others. he taught his children to sow and reap. misfortune overtook him and he conquered it. his descendants multiplied and filled the earth.

since then he conquered the wind and steam and electricity. he bound them and gave them to man for his servants. and man trained them, even as he had trained the horse and the ox and the dog.

the steam-engine gives bread to many times more people than all the beasts of the field. the electric spirit does a thousand times more tricks in man’s service than the horse or the dog.

in the evening, when two-legs sits outside his house, the voices speak to him as before:

“two-legs ... the vanquisher of the animals ... the lord of the ox and the horse and the dog ... the strongest of all creatures.”

“two-legs ... who conquered the wind and took him into his service.... he made him turn the mill ... made him carry the ship over the sea.”

“two-legs ... the lord of steam.... he forced him into his engine and told him to do the tasks which men put him to.”

“two-legs, the wisest, the strongest.... he explored the lightning and bound it.... he compelled it to draw the greatest weights and to shine calmly and gently in men’s small rooms and to carry their messages from one end of the world to the other.”

two-legs listened to the voices, but only for a moment. he was examining a piece of metal which he held in his hand and into which he had been long and secretly enquiring:

“look,” he said to the young man who was now his pupil. “i wish i knew what the queer rays are that come out of this substance. it shall be called radium; that means the thing that beams. i will search until i know its nature. who knows what secret forces it conceals and what benefits it can perform for mankind?”

2

two-legs explored the new force.

the world round about him went its course. each year brought new incidents, new discoveries, new wealth and new happiness. two-legs paid no heed. he sat with his radium and would not let it go until he knew it through and through.

there were clever people who knew he must succeed some time and who waited eagerly and gladly for him to make mankind the master of a new power, mightier, perhaps, than any of those which he had yet conquered.

there were fools who said that it was all very well with steam and electricity and the rest. they could understand that. but this new thing here was quite senseless and absurd. besides, one must not tempt god. there were mysteries in nature which mankind should never seek to explore. there was a limit to what was allowed to men; and the man who overstepped that limit was either a fool or a presumptuous person who ought to be locked up or punished.

two-legs listened just as little to them now as he had done in the old days.

their folly was the same now as then. what they saw before their eyes and felt with their hands they believed in. the new thing which was in its first stages, they mocked at and condemned.

but, sometimes, a man would come to two-legs with his little son, so that the boy might see the wisest man in the world. then, if he had the luck to find words that could divert two-legs’ attention from his work, two-legs would look up and fix his steady glance on the boy, lay his hand on the boy’s head and say:

“do not grow up to be a fool, my lad. the fool is he who judges what he does not understand.”

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