79 
Progress 
Cara Soror, 
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. 
You will certainly have to have an india-rubber medal for 
persistence ; this is the nth time that you have tried to catch 
me contradicting myself. 
Well, so I do, and must, every time I make any statement 
whatever , as has been shown several times in this chatty little 
interchange of views. But that is not what you mean. 
You say-permit 
me to condense your more than 
somewhat 
tautological , pleonastic, 
prolix , diffuse and 
incoherent elucubrations!-that 
the whole idea of the Great 
Order is based on faith in Progress. The doctrine of successive 
aeons is nothing else. The system of training is nothing else. 
Nothing , in fact , is anything else. Maugre this and in despite 
thereof , I am everlastingly throwing down the whole 
jerry-built castle by my cynical reflections. Maybe, some of 
the time. But the explanation is very simple, and you ought 
to have been able to think it out for yourself. It is a question 
of the "Universe of Discourse," of Perspective. An engineer 
may swear himself ultra-marine in the map all the time at the 
daily mistakes and mishaps that go on all the time under his 
nose, yet at dinner tell his friends complacently that the 
bridge is going up better than he ever expected. 
Just so, my gibes are directed at incidents ; but my heart's 
truth is fixed on the grand spiral. 
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