'I don't know about that,' said a voice behind them, and Queen Mab
started, seeing the Professor. 'But depend upon it, the fittest will
survive. I think, myself, that it is quite time you were gone; but some
types die out very slowly, especially the lower types; and you may be
said, as regards freedom of intellect and the march of Science, to be a
low type—in fact, a relic of barbarism. There can be no doubt that, in
the economy of Nature, bishops are an unnecessary organ, merely
transmitted by inheritance in the national organism, and that in the
course of time they will become atrophied and degenerate out of
existence. When that time comes you must be content to pass into
oblivion. Study Palæontology.' Now he pronounced it Paleyon-tology, not
having had a classical education. 'Think of the pterodactyles, who
passed away before the end of the Mesozoic ages, and never have
appeared again. What, in the eternal nature of things, are bishops more
than pterodactyles?'
'I wonder,' interrupted the Bishop severely, 'that you dare to speak of
your pernicious teachings under the name of Paleyontology, as if the
First Principles of that revered divine, whose loss we all deplore,
were ever anything like that!'
The Professor only glared, and was going on, but the Democrat stopped
him, by remarking, in a loud and exasperatingly complacent voice:
'You are quite correct. Only upon the wreck of the old order of
existence can arise the New Democracy.'
'Can you never stop talking about yourself?' snapped the Professor
testily. 'One would think, to hear you, that Democracy was the goal of
everything.'
'So it is,' said the Democrat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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