the sort of cock and bull story they would believe. They are simple old souls most of them just like children. They have no knowledge of modern science and they would believe anything they were told.
John was silent for a few minutes. Then he began again:
But how do you know there is no Landlord?
Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder!! exclaimed Mr Enlightenment in such a loud voice that the pony shied.
I beg your pardon, said John.
Eh? said Mr Enlightenment.
I didnt quite understand, said John.
Why, its as plain as a pikestaff, said the other. Your people in Puritania believe in the Landlord because they have not had the benefits of a scientific training. For example, now, I dare say it would be news to you to hear that the earth was round round as an orange, my lad!
Well, I dont know that it would, said John, feeling a little disappointed. My father always said it was round.
No, no, my dear boy, said Mr Enlightenment, you must have misunderstood him. It is well known that everyone in Puritania thinks the earth flat. It is not likely that I should be mistaken on such a point. Indeed, it is out of the question. Then again, there is the palaeontological evidence.
Whats that?
Why, they tell you in Puritania that the Landlord made all these roads. But that is quite impossible for old people can remember the time when the roads were not nearly so good as they are now. And what is more, scientists have found all over the country the traces of old roads running in quite different directions. The inference is obvious.
John said nothing.
I said, repeated Mr Enlightenment, that the inference was obvious.
Oh, yes, yes, of course, said John hastily, turning a little red.
Then again, there is anthropology.
Im afraid I dont know
Bless me, of course you dont. They dont mean you to know. An anthropologist is a man who goes round your backward villages in these parts, collecting the odd stories that the country people tell about the Landlord. Why, there is one village where they think he has a trunk like an elephant. Now anyone can see that that couldnt be true.
It is very unlikely.
And what is better still, we know how the villagers came to think so. It all began by an elephant escaping from the local zoo; and then some old villager he was probably drunk saw it wandering about on the mountain one night, and so the story grew up that the Landlord had a trunk.
Did they catch the elephant again?
Did who?
The anthropologists.
Oh, my dear boy, you are misunderstanding. This happened long before there were any anthropologists.
Then how do they know?
Well, as to that I see that you have a very crude notion of how science actually works. To put it simply for, of course, you could not understand the technical explanation to put it simply, they know that the escaped elephant must have been the source of the trunk story because they know that an escaped snake must have been the source of the snake story in the next village and so on. This is called the inductive method. Hypothesis, my dear young friend, establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact.
After he had thought for a while, John said:
I think I see. Most of the stories about the Landlord are probably untrue; therefore the rest are probably untrue.
Well, that is as near as a beginner can get to it, perhaps. But when you have had a scientific training you will find that you can be quite certain about all sorts of things which now seem to you only probable.
By this time the fat little pony had carried them several miles, and they had come to a place where a by-road went off to the right. If you are going West, we must part here, said Mr Enlightenment, drawing up. Unless perhaps you would care to come home with me. You see that magnificent city? John looked down by the by-road and saw in a flat plain without any trees a huge collection of corrugated iron huts, most of which seemed rather old and rusty.
That, said Mr Enlightenment, is the city of Claptrap. You will hardly believe me when I say that I can remember it as a miserable village. When I first came here it had only forty inhabitants: it now boasts a population of twelve million, four hundred thousand, three hundred and sixty-one souls, who include, I may add, the majority of our most influential publicists and scientific popularisers. In this unprecedented development I am proud to say that I have borne no small part: but it is no
than they so that presently they came up with her and wished her good-day. When she turned, they saw that she was young and comely, though a little dark of complexion. She was friendly and frank, but not wanton like the brown girls, and the whole world became pleasanter to the young men because they were travelling the same way with her. But first they told her their names, and she told them hers, which was Media Halfways.
And where are you travelling to, Mr Vertue? she asked.