B1096 <=> B1098 [BTG XLIII Beelzebub’s opinion of war, p. 1097]

“In consequence of this, from that very same day, as they gradually became familiar with the details of this astonishing theory, they began to get into the state of typical beings of the Earth, that is to say, they began to forget the extraordinary hypothesis that had struck them, which was mentioned in that theory, and began gradually to return, as is proper to three-brained beings there, to their former typically subjective and therefore always changeable conviction, and immediately split into two opposite parties.

“Some of these began without any logical criticism to take convincingly on faith all the hypotheses made in this theory; others however did not fail, as is in general proper to most of the learned beings of the Earth, to speak and to prove quite the opposite of these hypotheses; and as a result they worked themselves up into a state of enmity not only against the theory of Atarnakh, but even personally against him himself.

“In short, my boy, instead of these learned members, who were elected for the detailed study of the theory of Atarnakh, helping the other members of their society to get out of their confusion and agitation and to unify their disputes among themselves, they brought still more bewilderment into their notions, and gradually in the common presence of each separate member of this earnest society, data began to arise automatically for two totally opposite convictions.

“The first of these convictions was that everything takes place precisely according to the theory of the philosopher Atarnakh, that is to say, that there must necessarily proceed ‘wars’ and ‘civil wars’ on the Earth quite independently of the personal consciousness of men; and the second conviction was that which all the members of the society had already previously had, namely, that if they succeeded in carrying out the program which their society had set itself, this evil also which proceeded on their planet, might be destroyed root and branch, and everything might proceed in a desirable way.