ZOO. [_interrupting_] Yes, yes, yes, Daddy: we longlived people know
that quite well. But did any of their disciples ever succeed in
governing you for a single day on their Christ-like principles? It
is not enough to know what is good: you must be able to do it. They
couldn't do it because they did not live long enough to find out how
to do it, or to outlive the childish passions that prevented them from
really wanting to do it. You know very well that they could only keep
order--such as it was--by the very coercion and militarism they were
denouncing and deploring. They had actually to kill one another for
preaching their own gospel, or be killed themselves.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. The blood of the martyrs, madam, is the seed of
the Church.

ZOO. More images, Daddy! The blood of the shortlived falls on stony
ground.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising, very testy_] You are simply mad on the
subject of longevity. I wish you would change it. It is rather personal
and in bad taste. Human nature is human nature, longlived or shortlived,
and always will be.

ZOO. Then you give up the idea of progress? You cry off the torch, and
the brick, and the acorn, and all the rest of it?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I do nothing of the sort. I stand for progress
and for freedom broadening down from precedent to precedent.

ZOO. You are certainly a true Briton.