PROGRESS 
483 
Last Sunday I looked through an interview with the least 
brain-bound of these ruminators-poor 
old, dear old G for 
gaga Bernard Shaw. 
The artist, said he, was a special case. He should have a 
nice easy job, three or four hours a day, and be free for the 
rest of it to devote himself to his Art. I wonder how much of 
his own work would have seen daylight if he had been tied to 
some silly robot soul-killing, nerve-crushing, mind-infuriating 
routine job for even one half-hour a day! When I am on a 
piece of work, I grudge the time for eating; and when it's 
done, I need the absolute relaxation of leisured luxury. 
Then what of the Work itself? If the Idea be truly new and 
important, God help it! The whole class of men affected 
jump on it with one accord, if haply they may crush it in the 
germ. Read a little of the History of Medicine! Any man who 
shows a sign of independent thought is watched. is thwarted. 
He persists and is threatened and bullied. He persists; every 
engine of oppression is set in motion against him. Then, 
something snaps; either they succeed in killing him (Ross, 
who defeated malaria, nearly starved to death) or they make 
him a baronet, or a peer, or make his death a Day of National 
Mourning, and bury him in the Pantheon-aux 
grands 
hommes fa patrie reconnaissante-like 
Pasteur after one of 
the most infamous campaigns of persecution in history. 
Then, of course, entertainment 
must be standardized. It 
costs money to produce; and who will produce anything 
which can only appeal to the very few-to none at all, soon, 
if these swine have their way. So, if it is new, is original, is 
worth one's while, it must be ignored . Besides, being new and 
incomprehensible to the great Us, it may be dangerous, and 
must be suppressed. 
In all literature I know no pages so terrifying as those in 
Louis Marlow's Mr. Amberthwaite, which describe his dream. 
I wish I could quote it, with Sinai as the orchestra; never 
mind, read it again. And we are on the way-far on the 
way-to That! 
Now, obviously, the robot education, robot textbooks