Ostby decided that he needed time to think over this facet of the Brain before he ventured further. First, he would attempt to learn other facts which he might need later. Perhaps he could even obtain the answer he wanted in a roundabout way. "What is the population of your world?" he asked.
"Approximately seven million. Over a million live here, in Yarr, our one mechanized city."
"Why is it that you have so little technology, as compared with the Earth?"
"I suppose that its basis is our low birth rate," the Brain answered. "There is ample living space here, as well as natural resources, to supply our people's needs. Thus there is little necessity for them to shape and remake their environment. It is always easiest to accept nature as it is, if that can be done with a minimum of self-adjusting."
"Then why is this city of Yarr different?"
"Yarr is the creation of one man, a man hungry for power, for the authority, and the strength to dominate everything about him; to hold the lives of men and women in the hollow of his hand. That man, you will recognize, is Magogar. In his creed strength is right; in fact, it is everything. It is the philosophy that controls him, and through him, the city. Under his rule the unfit are killed, or at best, allowed to perish on the ragged confines of our artificial civilization."
"What is your opinion of that philosophy?"
"Magogar is wrong, beyond a doubt," the Brain answered unhesitatingly. "Any species survives and develops through cooperation, and self-restraint of its individual members. Ruthless self-assertion is a stumbling block to human progress. Magogar is right when he says that the world belongs to the strong. It must, by the very constitution of man. But a ruler who is merely strong will inevitably be overthrown. Eventually the world will be governed by the strong, but by the strong who are noble as well."
"Magogar's philosophy seems to me to be the outgrowth of an overweening pride," Ostby said.
"Perhaps. Up to a point self-admiration is not to be deplored. But in excess it is an evil thing."