present, and the other Asian races; the myriads, too, of the great
southern islands and of Africa. The change is steadily, however,
proceeding wherever the printing-press is used. Nor Pope, nor Kaiser, nor
Czar, nor Sultan, nor fanatic monk, nor muezzin, shouting in vain from
his minaret, nor, most fanatic of all, the fanatic shouting in vain in
London, can keep it out--all powerless against a bit of printed paper.
Bits of printed paper that listen to no command, to which none can say,
'Stand back; thou shalt not enter.' They rise on the summer whirlwinds
from the very dust of the road, and float over the highest walls; they
fall on the well-kept lawns--monastery, prison, palace--there is no
fortress against a bit of printed paper. They penetrate where even
Danae's gold cannot go. Our Darwins, our Lyalls, Herschels, Faradays--all
the immense army of those that go down to nature with considering
eye--are steadfastly undermining and obliterating the superstitious past,
literally burying it under endless loads of accumulated facts; and the
printing-presses, like so many Argos, take these facts on their voyage
round the world. Over go temples, and minarets, and churches, or rather
there they stay, the hollow shells, like the snail shells which thrushes
have picked clean; there they stay like Karnac, where there is no more
incense, like the stone circles on our own hills, where there are no more
human sacrifices. Thus men's minds all over the printing-press world are
unlearning the falsehoods that have bound them down so long; they are
unlearning, the first step to learn. They are going down to nature and
taking up the clods with their own hands, and so coming to have touch of
that which is real. As yet we are in the fact stage; by-and-by we shall
come to the alchemy, and get the honey for the inner mind and soul. I
found, therefore, from the dandelion that there were no books, and it
came upon me, believe me, as a great surprise, for I had lived quite
certain that I was surrounded with them. It is nothing but unlearning, I
find now; five thousand books to unlearn.