Nor is it only the products of ancient art which have to-day become so peculiarly valuable. The products of modern science are only less valuable. So highly complex and elaborate is the mechanism now required to ensure progress in some of the sciences that enormous sums of money, the most delicate skill, long periods of time, are necessary to produce it. Galileo could replace his telescope with but little trouble; the destruction of a single modern observatory would be almost a calamity to the human race.
Such considerations as these are, indeed, at last recognized in all civilized countries. The engines of destruction now placed at the service of war are vastly more potent than any used in the wars of the past. On the other hand, the value of the products they can destroy is raised in a correspondingly high degree. But a third factor is now intervening. And if the museums of Paris or the laboratories of Berlin were threatened by a hostile army it would certainly be felt that an international power, if it existed, should be empowered to intervene, at