ism into our work," he said.

"Could we do otherwise? But it has ceased to be purely egotism. It is
no longer, 'I am I' but 'I am part.'... One wants to be an honourable
part."

"You think of man upon his planet," the doctor pursued. "I think of
life rather as a mind that tries itself over in millions and millions of
trials. But it works out to the same thing."

"I think in terms of fuel," said Sir Richmond.

He was still debating the doctor's generalization. "I suppose it would
be true to say that I think of myself as mankind on his planet, with
very considerable possibilities and with only a limited amount of fuel
at his disposal to achieve them. Yes.... I agree that I think in that
way.... I have not thought much before of the way in which I think about
things--but I agree that it is in that way. Whatever enterprises mankind
attempts are limited by the sum total of that store of fuel upon the
planet. That is very much in my mind. Besides that he has nothing but
his annual allowance of energy from the sun."

"I thought that presently we were to get unlimited energy from atoms,"
said the doctor.

"I don't believe in that as a thing immediately practicable. No doubt
getting a supply of energy from atoms is a theoretical possibility,
just as flying was in the time of Daedalus; probably there were actual
attempts at some sort of glider in ancient Crete. But before we get
to the actual utilization of atomic energy there will be ten thousand
difficult corners to turn; we may have to wait three or four thousand
years for it. We cannot count on it. We haven't it in hand. There may be
some impasse. All we have surely is coal and oil,--there is no surplus
of wood now--only an annual growth. And water-power is income also,
doled out day by day. We cannot anticipate it. Coal and oil are our only
capital. They are all we have for great important efforts. They are a
gift to mankind to use to some supreme end or to waste in trivialities.
Coal is the key to metallurgy and oil to transit. When they are done
we shall either have built up such a fabric of apparatus, knowledge and
social organization that we shall be able to manage without them--or
we shall have travelled a long way down the slopes of waste towards
extinction.... To-day, in getting, in distribution, in use we
waste enormously....As we sit here all the world is wasting fuel
fantastically."

"Just as mentally--educationally we waste," the doctor interjected.

"An