Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/136

 survival, we shall see them as beautiful sooner or later, rest assured. I daresay the hyenas admire each other—in the rutting season anyhow So it is with mercy and with everything. Each creature has its own standards. After man is the Beyond-Man, who may find mercy folly, who may delight in things that pain our feeble spirits. We have to obey the Process in our own place and our own time. That is how I see things. That is the stark truth of the universe looked at plainly and hard."

The lips of Mr. Dad repeated noiselessly: "plainly and hard." But he felt very uncertain.

For some moments the doctor sat with his forearms resting on the table as if he had done. Then he resumed.

"I gather that this talk here to-day arose out of a discussion about education."

"You'd hardly believe it," said Mr. Dad.

But Dr. Barrack's next remark checked Mr. Dad's growing approval. "That seems perfectly logical to me. It's one of the things I can never understand about schoolmasters and politicians and suchlike, the way they seem to take it for granted you can educate and not bring in religion and socialism and all your beliefs. What is education? Teaching young people to talk and read and write and calculate in order that they may be told how they stand in the world and what we think we and the world generally are up to, and the part we expect them to play in the game. Well, how can we do that and at the same time leave it all out? What is the game? That is what every youngster wants to know. Answering him, is educa-