B1097 <=> B1099 [BTG XLIII Beelzebub’s opinion of war, p. 1098]

“It was just from that time that discussions, quarrels, and disturbances arose among all the members of that society; and in this case also the same began to proceed as I already mentioned and as had in general long before become customary there: Those quarrels and disturbances of theirs gradually spread also among the ordinary beings there, in this case, to the citizens of the city Mosulopolis and were the cause of the inflaming of their abnormal psyche.

“And I do not know how all this would have ended, if the brothers of the society, ‘The Assembly of the Enlightened,’ had not also just then arrived there and had not taken a hand in this affair.

“Thanks to their influence, all the members of this serious society gradually calmed down and started anew peaceably and seriously to ponder and deliberate upon just what to do in the future.

“The result of all their serious deliberations and ponderings was that they unanimously elected Atarnakh as their chief director, and begged him to help them to find an issue from this situation.

“After several meetings, already directed by the Kurd philosopher Atarnakh himself, the following categorical conclusion was unanimously arrived at.

“According to the laws of Nature, there must periodically always proceed on the Earth, independently of the will of men, ‘wars’ and ‘civil wars’; and this is because during certain periods there is required for Nature a greater quantity of deaths. In view of this we are all, with much grief but with inevitable inner resignation, compelled to agree that by no mental decisions of man is it possible to abolish the shedding of blood between states and within states themselves; and we therefore unanimously resolve to wind up current affairs and everything done by our society and perforce disperse for home and there to drag out our inescapable ‘burden of life.’