LUBIN.  But surely any change would be so extremely gradual that—­

CONRAD.  Dont deceive yourself.  It’s only the politicians who improve the world so gradually that nobody can see the improvement.  The notion that Nature does not proceed by jumps is only one of the budget of plausible lies that we call classical education.  Nature always proceeds by jumps.  She may spend twenty thousand years making up her mind to jump; but when she makes it up at last, the jump is big enough to take us into a new age.

LUBIN [impressed] Fancy my being leader of the party for the next three hundred years!

BURGE.  What!!

LUBIN.  Perhaps hard on some of the younger men.  I think in fairness I shall have to step aside to make room after another century or so:  that is, if Mimi can be persuaded to give up Downing Street.

BURGE.  This is too much.  Your colossal conceit blinds you to the most obvious necessity of the political situation.

LUBIN.  You mean my retirement.  I really cannot see that it is a necessity.  I could not see it when I was almost an old man—­or at least an elderly one.  Now that it appears that I am a young man, the case for it breaks down completely. [To Conrad] May I ask are there any alternative theories?  Is there a scientific Opposition?

CONRAD.  Well, some authorities hold that the human race is a failure, and that a new form of life, better adapted to high civilization, will supersede us as we have superseded the ape and the elephant.

BURGE.  The superman:  eh!

CONRAD.  No.  Some being quite different from us.

LUBIN.  Is that altogether desirable?

FRANKLYN.  I fear so.  However that may be, we may be quite sure of one thing.  We shall not be let alone.  The force behind evolution, call it what you will, is determined to solve the problem of civilization; and if it cannot do it through us, it will produce some more capable agents.  Man is not God’s last word:  God can still create.  If you cannot do His work He will produce some being who can.

BURGE [with zealous reverence] What do we know about Him, Barnabas? 
What does anyone know about Him?

CONRAD.  We know this about Him with absolute certainty.  The power my brother calls God proceeds by the method of Trial and Error; and if we turn out to be one of the errors, we shall go the way of the mastodon and the megatherium and all the other scrapped experiments.

LUBIN [rising and beginning to walk up and down the room with his considering cap on] I admit that I am impressed, gentlemen.  I will go so far as to say that your theory is likely to prove more interesting than ever Welsh Disestablishment was.  But as a practical politician—­hm!  Eh, Burge?

CONRAD.  We are not practical politicians.  We are out to get something done.  Practical politicians are people who have mastered the art of using parliament to prevent anything being done.