It was one of the first duties of the Limanoran elders, after the great series of purgations of the race, to organise and develop the imagination they had in their midst. They had observed that there were two great types and uses of the faculty; one was short of vision, and could see with great distinctness the regions that were hidden in twilight immediately in front of them; the other was far-sighted, and could descry the features of wide regions that lay in darkness under the horizon. There happened to be amongst them two families distinguished from all others by their great imaginativeness, and from each other by pre-eminence in one of these two kinds of imagination. The task therefore was easy. It only needed care in disciplining the members of these to the main purpose of the race, in developing the faculty of each, and in recruiting their numbers from the most imaginative children of other families. The Loomiamo or pioneers of the immediate were recruited chiefly from the scientific and technical families; for their duties lay most of all in supplying hypotheses for experimentation, in suggesting methods of solving difficult problems, and in tracing out paths that invention should take; invention in fact was what they were oftenest engaged in. But there was a subordinate function, that was, however, of equal importance for the forward movements of the race; it was to take the far-reaching conceptions of the other imaginative family, and show how they could be attained by the civilisation and means they already had. They accepted the scientific ideas and apparatus of the time as they were and out of them and their development they engineered a highway through the intervening twilight to the ideal that the Fraloomiamo or pioneers of the distant had pictured and set up ahead of the race. I had not known of this division of pioneering work when I flew back from the marvellous spectacle in the valley of futuritions. As I thought over it, I became more and more sceptical of the realisability of the scene. It had the inconsecution and absurdity of a dream. I said to Thyriel, where was the possibility of ever substituting artificial for natural propagation of the race? It was completely out of the line of evolution, and could lead to nothing but what was unnatural and evil. They could modify nature to an indefinite extent, I knew; but what was the use of attempting to supersede nature? And suppose it were possible to supersede it in this respect, where would be the advantage? They could already modify and guide nature so as to produce the type of children they desired for the progress of the race; what more was needed?