Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

sciences, and if a contemporary Greek were to produce a new science, thebeings of other communities would not pay the slightest attention to it."And they would pay no attention to it, simply because that communityhas not at the present time enough 'guns' and 'ships' to be what is called an'authority' for the other contemporary beings there."But although these descendants of the former great Greeks, namely, theGreeks of the present day, have lost the knack of being an imaginary authorityfor other three-brained beings there, they have adapted themselves perfectlyon almost all the continents and islands to keeping what are called 'shops'where, without any haste, slowly and gently, they trade in 'sponges,' 'halva,''rahat lokoum,' and so forth, and sometimes 'Persian dried fruit,' notforgetting, of course, the dried fish called 'kefal.'"As for the descendants of the famous Romans, they too continue to arise andexist and, although they no longer even bear the name of their ancestors, theystill call the chief center of their community 'Rome.'"The beings of the community established by the descendants of thoseformer shepherds, who later became the great Romans, are now called Italians"Scarcely anything has been inherited from their ancestors by these Italiansexcept that specific being-impulse which the ancient Romans were the first tocrystallize in their presences, and which gradually infected all the other threebrainedbeings on that planet."At the present time the beings of that community of Italy lead a calm andpeaceful existence, doing nothing more than unostentatiously inventing newforms of their harmless and very innocent what is called 'macaroni.'"Nevertheless, certain beings of that contemporary Italy