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1. THE SPREAD OF UNDERSTANDING N/u^ 



AR 



"How impatient you are!" He pats my shoulder with his heavy 

 hand while he repeats: "How impatient you are!" But his kind 

 eyes belie the severity of his voice and he hastens to add, as if 

 fearing that he had been too harsh: "Of course that is just as 

 it should be. Though they have so much more time before them, 

 we must expect the younger people — especially full-blooded 

 ones — to be in more of a hurry, to be less patient. It would be 

 a sadder world if the young were tolerant. Yet, listen to me. 

 You say the world is out of joint. I have heard that before. Has 

 it ever been otherwise? The tree-dwellers and the cave men, I 

 am sure, had already denounced the out-of-jointedness of their 

 own jungle. So put it that way, if you please, but I believe it is 

 wiser to conceive mankind as an organism, as yet undeveloped 

 but moving steadily from chaos to order. The progress is very 

 slow but undeniable. 



"And should we call it slow? How can we measure its speed? 

 Think of it and you will realize that to speak of the slowness 

 of evolution is nonsense. What we really mean is that our own 

 span of life is very short. We can see but an absurdly small 

 part of the play. How dare we criticise it, how dare we decide 

 whether the action is slow or not? The great war was terrible 

 enough, the wounds it made in millions of hearts may never 

 be healed, but who can say how much of a scar it will leave 

 on the fair face of the earth? It is considerably easier to de- 

 stroy than to build. Why should we expect the reconstruction 

 to be completed faster than the devastation? Why should we 

 imagine that the world can be transformed — or improved, as 

 you say — within our lifetime? Is that not foolish? . . . The 

 world is not out of joint, my dear, but your telescope and your 

 clock are out of order." 



Uncle Christiaan is one of the most lovable old gentlemen 



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