He said: "When the Earth was enveloped in its final ice sheet, living as we demanded it ceased to be feasible. The pick of human mentality and physiognomy migrated here to Mohln. Here we began our great--what we thought great--new and scientific social order. Yes, it's reached a zenith all right. A zenith of decay and stagnation. Except for a few scientists, Mohln is populated by mindless automatons. Beautiful, mindless women, and great brained, spineless men. They all exist in a futile vacuum." I was watching him narrowly for signs of madness. He looked mad enough, but his squeezed up face was unreadable. I said feebly: "From what little experience I've had here, you seem to have reached a pretty ultimate state of civilization." "That is the great tragedy. There is no ultimate state. That is the great delusion which you must shatter. Everyone, societies, worlds, all seek an ultimate state. Change is the law, and there is no ultimate law. This world of Mohln thinks it has achieved an ultimate perfection. It has, because of the delusion, only succeeded in stagnation. This social structure is neither alive nor dead, Ivan Allinger. It is standing still. The ultimate futility is to be static." "Then you refute yourself," I said, feeling for a sophistic insert. "You have reached an ultimate something." "Only movement is the ultimate goal. And change is success. Advancement--progress is limitless. This culture of Mohln has reached an ultimate lostness. Only one action can shake it back onto the pattern of change. The entire World-City of Mohln must be destroyed, reduced to chaos. Out of this chaos, by trial and error, the people of Mohln must be given the germ of incentive again, and forced by necessity to fight their way back onto new roads of endeavor." I thought hard. I felt familiar struggles in my heart. I understood this. My own life was dedicated, back in my own space and time, to this same effort and goal--to stimulate progress, and change; to destroy all reactionary elements that might lead to permanence. He followed my introspection with words. "You fought in the great wars of your time against the reactionary forces that would have led your society into staticism and decay. You are devoting the present to the furthering of the ideals of progress. Do you want to see all your work, and all the work of all your kind, of your own present, past and future end in--this?" He spread his withered arms about him, encompassing the whole of the World-City of Mohln. "No," I heard myself muttering. "No. I wouldn't want that. I would prevent it, if I could. But I demand more than your words to convince me that this magnificence of organization I see about me is the hopeless futility you are telling me it is."