They desert them now two hundred years too soon.
SAVVY. I believe the old people are the new people reincarnated, Nunk.
I suspect I am Eve. I am very fond of apples; and they always disagree
with me.
CONRAD. You are Eve, in a sense. The Eternal Life persists; only It
wears out Its bodies and minds and gets new ones, like new clothes. You
are only a new hat and frock on Eve.
FRANKLYN. Yes. Bodies and minds ever better and better fitted to carry
out Its eternal pursuit.
LUBIN [_with quiet scepticism_] What pursuit, may one ask, Mr Barnabas?
FRANKLYN. The pursuit of omnipotence and omniscience. Greater power and
greater knowledge: these are what we are all pursuing even at the risk
of our lives and the sacrifice of our pleasures. Evolution is that
pursuit and nothing else. It is the path to godhead. A man differs from
a microbe only in being further on the path.
LUBIN. And how soon do you expect this modest end to be reached?
FRANKLYN. Never, thank God! As there is no limit to power and knowledge
there can be no end. 'The power and the glory, world without end': have
those words meant nothing to you?
BURGE [_pulling out an old envelope_] I should like to make a note of
that.
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