Men called that the period of reaction, but it might have been the period of reconciliation. Both sides failed in the ensuing years; the mob, because it lacked idealism; the leaders, because they failed to recognize the unassailable truth in the old Socialist propaganda, that the era of machinery and of an inexhaustible supply of industrial power had made the systematization of production inevitable. With half the people workless, it was ridiculous that they should suffer and starve because they could not buy the goods rotting in the stuffed warehouses. The system did not fall because it was ridiculous, however, but because it had become unworkable. Production had to be for use, not profit. When profit went, rent had to go, and interest, that leech of society, so long forbidden by the Catholic Church, and no doubt the direst result of the Reformation. Failure to realize this need dragged down the old order in 1978. It fell forever, and with it died all hope of a civilization built on that of the past. It was then that the writings of the great Wells, since called the Prophet, were discovered and proved the inspiration of the new order. In place of the illogical instinct of nations there was to be a New Republic, based on pure reason, and shining with facets of unanswerable facts. The world was to forget its past as thoroughly as it had forgotten the Stone Age. The new revolution was led by Sanson, I gathered, and swiftly conquered. There ensued two years of worse anarchy than before. India was lost to Britain, and became a democracy, convulsed with civil strife. Our savage wards reverted to barbarism. Australia fell to China. All the world’s archives were destroyed. Picture galleries went up in flames; statues were smashed to pieces; monuments were blasted. The Parthenon perished, the British Museum, the Louvre; east of the Bosphorus there remained hardly a memorial of the past, except St. Peter’s and Cologne Cathedral. But, at the end of the two years, the five Provinces of Britain, France, Skandogermania, Italy, and Hungary found themselves the nucleus of the future Federation of Man, under a pure democracy. Here, amid fulsome plaudits, the tale ended; but I went to David to ask him for some more particulars. He had seen me reading, and I think he had been prepared for my question. “I shall be glad to explain anything, Arnold,” he said. “I have been reading about the new Federation,” I said. “England is, then, no longer independent? And the United States? And Russia and Spain?” He smiled. “Of course, if you do not know these things, Arnold—” he began. “But surely you are at least aware of the history of your own country?” “I know nothing,” I answered.