Come out of it,
man! How can one talk to you?"
10
"You pull things down to your own level," said Benham as they went
through the heat to Grantchester.
"I pull them down to truth," panted Prothero.
"Truth! As though being full of gross appetites was truth, and
discipline and training some sort of falsity!"
"Artificiality. And begetting pride, Benham, begetting a prig's
pride."
For a time there was more than the heat of the day between them. . . .
The things that Benham had come down to discuss were thrust into the
background by the impassioned materialism of Prothero.
"I'm not talking of Love," he said, remaining persistently
outrageous. "I'm talking of physical needs. That first. What is
the good of arranging systems of morality and sentiment before you
know what is physically possible. . . .
"But how can one disentangle physical and moral necessities?"
"Then why don't we up and find out?" said Billy.
He had no patience with the secrecy, the ignorance, the emotion that
surrounded these questions. We didn't worship our ancestors when it
came to building bridges or working metals or curing disease or
studying our indigestion, and why should we become breathless or
wordless with awe and terror when it came to this fundamental
affair? Why here in particular should we give way to Holy Fear and
stifled submission to traditional suppressions and the wisdom of the
ages? "What is the wisdom of the ages?" said Prothero.
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