FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father.
FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old.
SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made ourselves—made ourselves out of the wanting to be more—created ourselves you might say, by our own courage—our—what is it?—aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too—
FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there.
SILAS: (nodding) But it's like I got this (very slowly) other way around. From underneath. As if I'd known it all along—but have just found out I know it! Yes. The earth told me. The beasts told me.
GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from.
SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (to FEJEVARY) In your face haven't I seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this taken, Felix, to—well, you might say, bring us where we are now?
FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth first stirred.
SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time there've been them that wanted to be more than life had been.
FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas.