They're out for knowledge for
its own sake. That's good enough for them."
"And the end of that--organized, scientific beastliness, like modern
war. Knowledge perverted to every sort of deviltry. Huge swollen
heads and miserable withered hearts. One of these days we'll blow
ourselves to pieces----"
They were both breathless and more than a little incoherent. They had
entered into a playful tussle, and now they were fighting one another
with set teeth.
"I don't believe you believe a word you're saying," he stammered. "You
know as well as I do that it's only since we began to throw off
superstition that we've begun to move. Or perhaps you don't want to
move--don't believe in progress."
"Progress towards what?" she flung back impetuously. "Perfection?
Some point where we'd have no poverty, no war, no ignorance, no death
even; where we'd all have every mortal thing we want? The millennium?
That's only another word for Hell. It's only by pretending that there
are things we want, and that we should be happy if we had them, that we
can believe in happiness at all. All this unrest, this sick despair
every morning of our lives when we drag ourselves out of bed and wonder
why we bother--it's just because we've begun to suspect that the
millennium is of no use to us. We've got to have more than that--some
sort of spiritual background--or cut our throats."
"Wild rhapsodizing, Francey. You don't know a thing."
"I don't.
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