nnecessary the invention of all those
mechanical aids to brain work which have distinguished the career of man.
There are no books, no records of any sort, no libraries or inscriptions.
All knowledge is stored in distended brains much as the honey-ants of
Texas store honey in their distended abdomens. The lunar Somerset House
and the lunar British Museum Library are collections of living brains...

"The less specialised administrators, I note, do for the most part take a
very lively interest in me whenever they encounter me. They will come out
of the way and stare at me and ask questions to which Phi-oo will reply. I
see them going hither and thither with a retinue of bearers, attendants,
shouters, parachute-carriers, and so forth--queer groups to see. The
experts for the most part ignore me completely, even as they ignore each
other, or notice me only to begin a clamorous exhibition of their
distinctive skill. The erudite for the most part are rapt in an impervious
and apoplectic complacency, from which only a denial of their erudition
can rouse them. Usually they are led about by little watchers and
attendants, and often there are small and active-looking creatures, small
females usually, that I am inclined to think are a sort of wife to them;
but some of the profounder scholars are altogether too great for
locomotion, and are carried from place to place in a sort of sedan tub,
wabbling jellies of knowledge that enlist my respectful astonishment. I
have just passed one in coming to this place where I am permitted to amuse
myself with these electrical toys, a vast, shaven, shaky head, bald and
thin-skinned, carried on his grotesque stretcher. In front and behind came
his bearers, and curious, almost trumpet-faced, news disseminators
shrieked his fame.

"I have already mentioned the retinues that accompany most of the
intellectuals: ushers, bearers, valets, extraneous tentacles and muscles,
as it were, to replace the abortive physical powers of these hypertrophied
minds. Porters almost invariably accompany them. There are also extremely
swift messengers with spider-like legs and 'hands' for grasping
parachutes, and attendants with vocal organs that could well nigh wake the
dead. Apart from their controlling intelligence these subordinates are as
inert and helpless as umbrellas in a stand. They exist only in relation to
the orders they have to obey, the duties they have to perform.

"The bulk of these insects, however,