nology, that is because all wars have been fought by the latest technology available in any culture. In one of his sermons John Donne commented thankfully on the blessing of heavy firearms: So by the benefit of this light of reason they have found out Artillery, by which warres come to quicker ends than heretofore . . The scientific knowledge needed for the use of gunpowder and the boring of cannon appeared to Donne as "the light of reason." He failed to notice another advance in the same technology that hastened and extended the scope of human slaughter. It is referred to by John U. Nef in War and Human Progress: The gradual abandonment of armor as a part of the equipment of soldiers during the seventeenth century freed some metal supplies for the manufacture of firearms and missiles. It is easy to discover in this a seamless web of interwoven events when we turn to look at the psychic and social consequences of the technological extensions of man. Back in the 1920s King Amanullah seems to have put his finger on this web when he said, after firing off a torpedo: "I feel half an Englishman already." The same sense of the relentlessly interwoven texture of human fate was touched by the schoolboy who said: "Dad, I hate war." "Why, son?" "Because war makes history, and I hate history." The techniques developed over the centuries for drilling gun-barrels provided the means that made possible the steam engine. The piston shaft and the gun presented the same problems in boring hard steel. Earlier, it had been the lineal stress of Perspective that had channeled perception in paths that led to