"I hate to keep being a spoil-sport, but what does that prove? Some men who had to work as hard as the rest have been interested in things beyond the end of their nose."
They all groaned their disapproval.
"A good point, Hart, but it doesn't prove what you think. It just shows that a minority enjoy innate capacities and environmental variations that make the transition to philosopher easier."
"And you haven't proven anything about the incurious majority."
"This does, though: whenever there was a favorable period the majority who could, as you put it, see beyond the ends of their noses increased. Our era is just the opposite. We are trapped in a vicious circle. Those noses are usually so close to the grindstone that men are afraid to raise their heads. We are breaking that circle!"
"It's a terribly important thing to aim for, Burnett, but—" He brought up another doubt and somebody else answered it immediately.
For the next half hour, as one uncertainty was expressed after another, everybody joined in the answers until inexorable logic forced his surrender.
"All right," he conceded, "I will do anything I can—not to make work for myself, but to help mankind rise above it."
