The Science of Discworld II

Enlightenment, the Depression. Which is not to say that people sometimes aren’t depressed with all the enlightenment around them, or strangely elevated during otherwise grey times. Or periods are named after kings, as if the country was defined by whichever stony-faced cut-throat had schemed and knifed his way to the top, and as if people would say, ‘Hooray, the reign of the House of Chichester – a time of deep division along religious lines and continuing conflict with Belgium – is now at an end and we can look forward to the time of the House of Luton, a period of expansion and the growth of learning! The ploughing of the big field is going to be a lot more interesting from now on!’
    The wizards had settled for calling the time they’d arrived ‘D’ and, now, they were back there, in some cases quite suntanned.
    They had commandeered Dee’s library again.
    â€˜Stage One seemed to have worked quite well, gentlemen,’ said Ponder Stibbons. ‘The world is certainly a lot more colourful. We do seem to have, er, assisted the elves in the evolution of what I might venture to call Homo narrans , or “Storytelling Man”.’
    â€˜There’s still religious wars,’ said the Dean. ‘And still the heads on spikes.’
    â€˜Yes, but for more interesting reasons,’ said Ponder. ‘That’s humans for you, sir. Imagination is imagination. It gets used for everything . Wonderful art and really dreadful instruments of torture. What was thatcountry where the Lecturer in Recent Runes got food poisoning?’
    â€˜Italy, I think,’ said Rincewind. ‘The rest of us had the pasta.’
    â€˜Well, it’s full of churches and wars and horrors and some of the most amazing art. Better than we’ve got at home. We can be proud of that, gentlemen.’
    â€˜But when we showed them the book the Librarian found in L-space, of Great Works of Art with the full colour pictures …’ mumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if he had something on his mind but wasn’t certain how to phrase it.
    â€˜Yes?’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜â€¦ well, it wasn’t actually cheating , was it?’
    â€˜Of course not,’ said Ridcully. ‘They must have painted them somewhere . Some other dimension. Something quantum. A parallel eventuality or something with that sort of a name. But that doesn’t matter. It all goes round and round and it comes out here.’
    â€˜But I think we said too much to that big chap with the bald head,’ said the Dean. ‘The artist, remember? Could’ve been the double of Leonard of Quirm? Beard, good singing voice? You shouldn’t have told him about the flying machine that Leonard built.’
    â€˜Oh, he was scribbling so much stuff no one’ll take any notice,’ said Ridcully. ‘Anyway, who’ll remember an artist who can’t get a simple smile right? The point is , gentlemen, that the fantastic imagination and the, er, practical imagination go hand in hand. One leads to the other. Can’t separate them with a big lever. Before you can make something, you have to picture it in your head.’
    â€˜But the elves are still here,’ said the Lecture in Recent Runes. ‘All we’ve done is do their work even better! I don’t see the point !’
    â€˜Ah, that’s Stage Two,’ said Ponder. ‘Rincewind?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You’re going to talk about Stage Two. Remember? You told us you wanted to get the world to the right stage?’
    â€˜I didn’t know I had to make a presentation!’
    â€˜You mean you don’t have any slides? No paperwork at all?’
    â€˜Paperwork slows me down,’ said Rincewind. ‘But it’s obvious, isn’t it? We say Seeing is Believing … and I thought about that, and it’s not really true. We don’t believe in chairs. Chairs are just things that exist.’
    â€˜So?’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜We don’t believe in things we can see. We believe in things that we can’t see.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜And I’ve been checking this world against L-space and I think we’ve made it the one where humans survive,’ said Rincewind. ‘Because now they can picture gods and monsters. And when you can picture them, you don’t need to believe in them any more.’
    After a long silence the Chair of Indefinite Studies