iction, the only lever
strong enough to overturn a social system, the only way of saying
Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools loose in the street; and
three policemen can scatter them. But huddle them together in a
certain house in Westminster; and let them go through certain
ceremonies and call themselves certain names until at last they
get the courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools
become a government. Your pious mob fills up ballot papers and
imagines it is governing its masters; but the ballot paper that
really governs is the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it.

CUSINS. That is perhaps why, like most intelligent people, I
never vote.

UNDERSHAFT Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the names of
the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments,
inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that
historically true, Mr Learned Man, or is it not?

CUSINS. It is historically true. I loathe having to admit it. I
repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your nature. I defy you in
every possible way. Still, it is true. But it ought not to be
true.

UNDERSHAFT. Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! Are you going to
spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists?
Turn your oughts into shalls, man. Come and make explosives with
me. Whatever can blow men up can blow society up. The history of
the world is the history of those who had courage enough to
embrace this truth. Have you the courage to embrace it, Barbara?

LADY BRITOMART. Barbara, I positively forbid you to listen to
your father's abominable wickedness. And you, Adolphus, ought to
know better than to go about saying that wrong things are true.
What does it matter whether they are true if they are wrong?

UNDERSHAFT. What does it matter whether they are wrong if they
are true?

LADY BRITOMART [rising] Children: come home instantly. Andrew: I
am exceedingly sorry I allowed you to call on us. You are
wickeder than ever. Come at once.

BARBARA [shaking her head] It's no use running away from wicked
people, mamma.

LADY BRITOMART. It is every use. It shows your disapprobation of
them.

BARBARA. It does not save them.

LADY BRITOMART. I can see that you are going to disobey me.
Sarah: are you coming home or are you not?

SARAH. I daresay it's very wicked of papa to make cannons; but I
don't think I shall cut him on that account.

LOMAX [pouring oil on the troubled waters] The fact is, you know,
th