December 26th 07, 02:32 AM
rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make
the laws of Nature.'
'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about
Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'
'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did
not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence.
Oceania is the world.'
'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny
helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the
earth was uninhabited.'
'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be
older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'
'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths
and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was
ever heard of.'
'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-
century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man,
if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is
nothing.'
'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them
are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'
'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of
fire a few kilo
the laws of Nature.'
'But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about
Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.'
'Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did
not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence.
Oceania is the world.'
'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny
helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the
earth was uninhabited.'
'Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be
older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.'
'But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths
and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was
ever heard of.'
'Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-
century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man,
if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is
nothing.'
'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them
are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'
'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of
fire a few kilo