B629 <=> B631 (BTG XXXIV Russia, p. 630)

“’I never yet met that idiot who, accustomed to shuffle in a pair of old shoes, would feel comfortable in smart new ones.’

“And really, my boy, when, each time on the planet Earth, the action of Solioonensius ceases, and their ‘relatively normal’ existence, already somehow established, again begins among your favorites, then the ‘newly-baked-power-possessing’ beings usually cut those capers thanks to which the birth rate of what are called ‘slugs,’ ‘snails,’ ‘lice,’ ‘mole crickets,’ and many other similar parasites who destroy everything good, each time always increases more and more on that planet.

“As I have begun to speak about Bolshevism, then I will relate to you here on this subject, in order yet once again to give you an example of one peculiarity of the being-existence of your favorites which had already become fully proper to them, about one of their naive arguments which is not without its humor.

“This naivete of theirs which may arise through an already excessively wretched logical confrontative being-rumination consists in this, that although all events there without exception, in the sense of mutual relationships among themselves, proceeded during the last two centuries exclusively already by themselves without any participation of the consciousness or intention of whomever it may be of the contemporary beings, they nevertheless always ascribe with certainty and even with jealousy all the results, good as well as bad, flowing from these events to one or another among them similar to themselves.

“And such an abnormality which had become fixed in the totality of their spiritualized parts resulted from the following causes.

“First of all, from their common presences there gradually totally disappeared all those being-data, the totality of which in general is capable of engendering in the presences of beings a property called ‘presentiment of the future,’ in consequence of which they are entirely deprived of the possibility, in any degree whatever of foreseeing imminent events; secondly, having a narrow what is called ‘horizon’ and a ‘short memory,’ they not only know nothing about long-past events on their planet, but even do not remember about that which proceeded quite recently – almost even yesterday; and thirdly, these cosmic laws are unknown to them, thanks to which there chiefly arise those sorrowful events which proceed among them. Owing to all this, these same contemporary favorites of yours are sure in all their presences that this terrifying process, which they call Bolshevism, proceeded for the first time on their planet and that nothing like this already ‘darling’ civilization of theirs had ever existed previous to them; and they are even sure that this has happened thanks only to the evolution of the gradually progressing reason of the beings similar to themselves of their planet.