The catastrophe of the atomic bombs which shook men out of cities and
businesses and economic relations shook them also out of their old
established habits of thought, and out of the lightly held beliefs and
prejudices that came down to them from the past. To borrow a word from
the old-fashioned chemists, men were made nascent; they were released
from old ties; for good or evil they were ready for new associations.
The council carried them forward for good; perhaps if his bombs had
reached their destination King Ferdinand Charles might have carried them
back to an endless chain of evils. But his task would have been a harder
one than the council's. The moral shock of the atomic bombs had been a
profound one, and for a while the cunning side of the human animal
was overpowered by its sincere realisation of the vital necessity for
reconstruction. The litigious and trading spirits cowered together,
scared at their own consequences; men thought twice before they sought
mean advantages in the face of the unusual eagerness to realise new
aspirations, and when at last the weeds revived again and 'claims' began
to sprout, they sprouted upon the stony soil of law-courts reformed,
of laws that pointed to the future instead of the past, and under
the blazing sunshine of a transforming world.
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