"'To a certain extent,' I said, and made, I fear, a denser fog with my

explanation.

"He reached out to a salient fact. 'Do you mean,' asked, 'that there is

no Grand Earthly?'

I thought of several people, but assured him finally there was none. I

explained that such autocrats and emperors as we had tried upon earth had

usually ended in drink, or vice, or violence, and that the large and

influential section of the people of the earth to which I belonged, the

Anglo-Saxons, did not mean to try that sort of thing again. At which the

Grand Lunar was even more amazed.

'But how do you keep even such wisdom as you have?' he asked; and I

explained to him the way we helped our limited"

[A word omitted here, probably "brains."]

with libraries of books. I explained to him how our science was

growing by the united labours of innumerable little men, and on

that he made no comment save that it was evident we had mastered much

in spite of our social savagery, or we could not have come to the moon.

Yet the contrast was very marked. With knowledge the Selenites grew

and changed; mankind stored their knowledge about them and remained

brutes--equipped. He said this..."

295

The First Men In The Moon