able to tell me why. They have no power over me except that
power: they refuse all other power; and the consequence is that there
are no limits to their power except the limits they set themselves. You
are a child governed by children, who make so many mistakes and are so
naughty that you are in continual rebellion against them; and as they
can never convince you that they are right: they can govern you only by
beating you, imprisoning you, torturing you, killing you if you disobey
them without being strong enough to kill or torture them.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That may be an unfortunate fact. I condemn it and
deplore it. But our minds are greater than the facts. We know better.
The greatest ancient teachers, followed by the galaxy of Christs who
arose in the twentieth century, not to mention such comparatively modern
spiritual leaders as Blitherinjam, Tosh, and Spiffkins, all taught that
punishment and revenge, coercion and militarism, are mistakes, and that
the golden rule--

ZOO. [_interrupting_] Yes, yes, yes, Daddy: we longlived people know
that quite well. But did any of their disciples ever succeed in
governing you for a single day on their Christ-like principles? It
is not enough to know what is good: you must be able to do it. They
couldn't do it because they did not live long enough to find out how
to do it, or to outlive the childish passions that prevented them from
really wanting to do it. You know very well that they could only keep
order--such as it was--by the very coercion and militarism they were
denouncing and deploring. They had actually to kill one another for
preaching their own gospel, or be killed themselves.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. The blood of the martyrs, madam, is the seed of
the Church.

ZOO. More images, Daddy! The blood of the shortlived falls on stony
ground.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising, very testy_] You are simply mad on the
subject of longevity. I wish you would change it. It is rather personal
and in bad taste. Human nature is human nature, longlived or shortlived,
and always will be.

ZOO. Then you give up the idea of progress? You cry off the torch, and
the brick, and the acorn, and all the rest of it?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I do nothing of the sort. I stand for progress
and for freedom broadening down from precedent to precedent.

ZOO. You are certainly a true Briton.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am proud of it. But in your mouth I feel that
the compliment hides some