Mr. Cardan nodded and puffed at his cigar. “That’s certainly a possibility,” he said. “A probability almost; for I don’t see that it’s in the least likely that we shall be able to breed a race of beings, at any rate within the next few thousand years, sufficiently intelligent to be able to form a stable non-tribal society. Education has made the old tribalism impossible and has done nothing—nor ever will do anything—to make the non-tribal society possible. It will be necessary, therefore, if we require social stability, to create a new kind of tribalism, on the basis of universal education for the stupid, using the press, wireless and all the rest as the instruments by which the new order is to be established. In a generation or two of steady conscious work it ought to be possible, as Chelifer says, to turn all but two or three hundred in every million of the inhabitants of the planet into Babbitts.” “Perhaps a slightly lower standard would be necessary,” suggested Chelifer. “It’s a remarkable thing,” pursued Mr. Cardan meditatively, “that the greatest and most influential reformer of modern times, Tolstoy, should also have proposed a reversion to tribalism as the sole remedy to civilised restlessness and uncertainty of purpose. But while we propose a tribalism based on the facts—or should I say the appearances?”—Mr. Cardan twinkled amicably at Calamy—“of modern life, Tolstoy proposed a return to the genuine, primordial, uneducated, dirty tribalism of the savage. That won’t do, of course; because it’s hardly probable, once they have tasted it, that men will allow _le confort moderne_, as they call it in hotels, to be taken from them. Our suggestion is the more practicable—the creation of a planet-wide tribe of Babbitts. They’d be much easier to propagate, now, than moujiks. But still the principle remains the same in both projects—a return to the tribal state. And when Tolstoy and Chelifer and myself agree about anything, believe me,” said Mr. Cardan, “there’s something in it. By the way,” he added, “I hope we haven’t been hurting your susceptibilities, Calamy. You’re not moujiking up here, are you? Digging and killing pigs and so on. Are you? I trust not.” Calamy shook his head, laughing. “I cut wood in the mornings, for exercise,” he said. “But not on principle, I assure you, not on principle.” “Ah, that’s all right,” said Mr. Cardan. “I was afraid you might be doing it on principle.” “It would be a stupidity,” said Calamy. “What would be the point of doing badly something for which I have no aptitude; something, moreover, which would prevent me from doing the thing for which it seems to me just possible I may have some native capacity.” “And what, might I ask,” said Mr. Cardan with an assumed diffidence and tactful courtesy, “what may that thing be?”