Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 42 — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ARISTOTLE There are two attributes of knowledge for you. There’s a third, too, which Aristote- lians regard as the only real knowledge. Transcendental knowledge. No scientific in- strument that ever has been, or ever will be, invented can measure it. But it’s real enough. The artist and the mystic know how real it is.”’ Prince John said, slowly: “You want me to give up a world of clear-cut blacks and whites for this contradictory world, where there are no answers to anything—no real - answers ?”’ Mcllwain said: “‘You live in a universe that is, ultimately, infinite. You area finite mind. If you want final answers you must limit your questions. Contradictory ?Whyshouldn’t the ultimate truth about the universe be what we would call contradictory ?”’ He was able to watch, without fear or any emotional disturbance, as the ground flung upwards to meet the descending plane. Mark brought it in to a good land- ing. They stepped out onto an airstrip that gave signs of having only recently been re- claimed from the wilderness that reached clutching fingers 35 to its very edge. There were mountains in the distance and the sky was blue; nearer, long avenues of olives were alternately green and silver- grey in a capricious breeze. Prince John turned with the others to look at the people who came to meet them. They were all dressed in brightly coloured clothes, and he saw with astonishment that women and children mixed with the men, unafraid and unreproved. But their faces astonished him most—all of them transfigured with a hap- piness and contentment that was new to him. One of the men called: “Did you get them, Peter ?’’ Peter Sheppard flourished a small case in his right hand. “Yes. They were intact. We shall have to send along a proper expedition. That lib- rary’s hardly been touched.” Prince John said to Mc- Ilwain: ‘“‘What books were you looking for ?” “Libraries suffered badly,” Mcllwain explained. ‘“‘Espe- cially here in what was Europe. The city where we found you was an American one that was reported to have missed ° the bombing, and yet had a good-sized library. Tomorrow comicloooks.com