“But history isn’t all cyclic,” objected Brackney.

“No, no, of course not. It is, indeed, an irreversible process only one of whose components, so to speak, is cyclic. For instance, the progress in technology is almost a direct line. Likewise, when a planet has advanced far enough, it is able to break out of the cycle of wars and other social evils—as Taitha has done. But the time of that achievement is governed by casual laws, not by wishful thinking or futile attempts at interference.”

“Wait a minute—” A sudden fear, dim and inchoate, all the more ghastly for that, crawled coldly along Brackney’s spine. “Wait! Aren’t you assuming that conditions remain the same? For instance, your arrival on Earth is a factor which, I suppose, has no parallel on Taitha—”

“That is true.” Suddenly Gar Haml’s eyes were bright—with tears? “But when we depart, our brief visit will have had no long-range significance. Men tend to thrust unpleasant facts out of their minds, and the existence of planets immensely beyond Earth will prove unpleasant to most humans.”

“Not…oh, no!” Brackney started out of his chair. “But you…you’re going to stay! You’re going to guide us, help us become truly civilized—”

“No, Mr. Brackney. We have classified Earth, and it is well below the stage of development at which prolonged contact with superior culture would be safe for either side. We leave immediately.”

He stood up, and laid a hand on the President’s shoulder. His face was bleak and stern and sorrowful. “Your assumption that we, whose intentions are admittedly benevolent, will give you guidance, is based on my own statement that Earthlings are intellectually capable of learning all that Taithans know. But man is not entirely, or even primarily, an intellectual animal. He has to feel his knowledge, if he is not to make hideous misuse of it. A wise man is not necessarily a good man, and intellect turns as readily to destructive as to useful ends. Do not forget the example of Japan, which your own people forced from feudalism to industrialism without changing the inherent structure of society—thus loosing a fanatical menace on the world.”

“But…you would change our society—wouldn’t you?”

“Never. It would leave Earthlings pensioners, with no sense of cultural continuity—worse off than primitive aborigines forced into modern factories.”

The grave, implacable voice seemed to come from enormous distances, gulfs of space and time and evolution. “Man must win his own salvation. He must learn, not only with his brain but with bitter and horrible and unforgettable experience, branded so deep as to be almost an instinct, that he is part of a whole, and that misuse of wisdom recoils a thousand fold.

“I am afraid that there is nothing we can do for you until you have had your atomic wars. We will be back in a thousand years. Good-by, gentlemen.”

Einstein’s Distress

∆p∆x,
Werner K. Heisenberg
Claimed that our knowledge of
Atoms has gaps.
Einstein, distressed by such
Discontinuity,
Said that the Almighty
Does not shoot craps.