THREE:

THREE:But they were always German officers and no others who talked about francs-tireurs, and at Vis��, Li��ge, Dinant, Bilsen, and particularly at Louvain, they constantly pressed me and tried to make me promise that I should write to De Tijd about francs-tireurs and justify the devastations. These stories emanated from the officers and permeated the rank and file; and the men grew fearfully angry with the Belgians, whom they cursed and abused. It also made the soldiers terribly afraid of francs-tireurs, and I noticed many a time that some loud sound from a falling wall, for example, made a whole troop of soldiers jump up, lay hold of their rifles, and hide themselves in an absolute "blue funk." The mere noise made them curse and rage and talk of nothing but burning houses."I expected this," she said. "I knew that it must come sooner or later. I am sorry that I cannot receive you in better fashion. Well, you have hunted me down. What do you propose to do now?"

THREE:It is interesting to observe how, here also, the positive science of the age had a large share in determining its philosophic character. Founded on the discovery of the earth��s true shape, Aristotle��s metaphysics had been overthrown by the discovery of the earth��s motion. And now the claims of Cartesianism to have furnished an exact knowledge of matter and a definition of it whence all the facts of observation could be deduced �� priori, were summarily refuted by the discovery421 of universal gravitation. The Cartesians complained that Newton was bringing back the occult qualities of the Schoolmen; but the tendency of bodies to move towards one another proved as certain as it was inexplicably mysterious. For a time, the study of causes was superseded by the study of laws; and the new method of physical science moved in perfect harmony with the phenomenism of Locke. One most important consequence of this revolution was to place the new Critical philosophy on a footing quite different from that occupied by the ancient sceptics. Both restricted certain knowledge to our own states of consciousness; but it now appeared that this might be done without impeaching the value of accepted scientific conclusions, which was more than the Academic philosophy would have admitted. In other words, granting that we were limited to phenomena, it was shown that science consisted in ascertaining the relations of these phenomena to one another, instead of to a problematic reality lying behind them; while, that such relations existed and were, in fact, part of the phenomena themselves, was what no sceptic could easily deny.

THREE:"I am afraid I was as foolish as that," Bruce said, with a faint smile. "That sort of people seem to know when one is under the weather. And there was one very plausible fellow who sent me a confidential letter. I fell into the trap, and if I can't find ��500 tomorrow I am ruined."Only now did I hear what had happened to the village of Lanaeken after I had seen the German preparations in Tongres for action against the little Belgian army that was still about in the north-eastern part of the country. The greater part of Lanaeken had been destroyed by shelling, and of course a great many innocent victims had fallen in consequence.