ring. Here they
were converting the trees into lumber for houses. Here were the first
houses so that some could move out of the living quarters in the ship.
Here they were uprooting the stumps, turning the sod, planting Earth
seed. These were barns for the cattle and horses sent with them from
Earth.

A collection of community buildings came next in the series of
photographs, and finally there was the whole village of Appletree, with
a collection of small farms surrounding it. The pictures showed it all
as ideal for man as a distant view of a rural valley in Ohio.
Productive, progressive, and peaceful--from a distance.

But back of the post-card scene, human psychology progressed normally
also.

The reporting psychologist was most emphatic on this issue. His
department would have been most alarmed had differences and schisms
_not_ developed. _That_ would have been an abnormality calling for
investigation.

Differences in outlook became apparent in spite of the common
temperament and experience of the group. Little personal enmities
developed and grew. Sympathizers drew together in little groups, each
group considering its stand to be the right one, and therefore all who
disagreed wrong.

The psychologist said he was sure all viewing would remember the
classical picture of primitive Earth man at first awareness. He stands
upon a hill and looks about him. There comes the astonishing realization
that he can see about the same distance in all directions.

"Why," he exclaims to himself, "I must be at the very center of
creation!"

His awe and wonder was to grow. Wherever he went, he found he was still
at the center of things. There could be only one conclusion.

"Because I am always at the center of things, I must be the most
important event in all creation!"

Still later comes another realization.

"Those who are with me, and are therefore a part of me-and-mine, are
also at the center of things and share my importance. Those who are not
with me, and not a part of me-and-mine, are not at the center of things,
and are therefore of an inferior nature!"

It could readily be seen--the psychologist was allowing a note of
dryness to enter his comments--that the bulk of man's philosophy,
religion, politics, social values, and yes, too often even his
scientific conclusions, was based upon this egocentric notion; the
supreme importance and rightness of me-and-mine ascendant at the center
of things, opposed to those wh