WEBVTT

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Well, Quirk just goes on and on.

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And then I had the
writing problem

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of how to end this thing, take
him through various phases

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and so forth and at one
point in a fit of sort

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of elaborate gloom and also
a lack of creative juice,

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I just had him end up living
happily ever after in an insane

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asylum, where he'd
been sent after trying

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to make a speech in a park and
causing a good deal of trouble

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in courtroom and so forth.

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And then my friends at that
point who read it said,

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look, I mean, that's
just really a cop out.

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All really modern books
of this kind, this

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is partly satirizing,
all of these end

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up with the character
in the insane asylum

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and they say, oh man, that's
existentialism, and all that.

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And that really wasn't--

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wasn't what I had in mind.

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So I'm trying to
figure out some way

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to end it and I
remember Tom Terrific.

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I wondered why if a man could
change himself into anybody,

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he couldn't really push
his art to further limits

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and change himself
into anything.

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And there's a sense
that this is possible

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and we opened the
last chapter then

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and we have a possible
ending for him with Quirk.

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We just last saw him
in his journal thinking

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about this possibility, why
couldn't I be a fire hydrant?

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Why couldn't I be a bicycle?

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Why can I be anything?

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And he's gone and we come to
the Chapter 15 just a couple

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of little pieces out of this.

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Frankly, nobody has a clue what
finally became of Jacob Quirk.

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Or to put it another
way, nobody knows what he

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became if he became anything.

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I ought to remind you as we go
into the topical things that

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some of this was written a few
years ago and some of these

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things sound, others don't.

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But some sound like they
came directly out of today's

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headlines as we go into them.

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We still have his crazy
journal of course.

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That is we will have it in
due time and due course.

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It is presently reported to be
safe in the National Archives.

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Safe and classified
where there seem

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to be some items in
it which concerned

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the national security.

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Perhaps, why not.

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At some stage of
his earlier career

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during the human
transformation stage,

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he could have turned
himself into some politician

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or diplomat.

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Even, and let us admit this
possibility and all the dangers

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of it, into the President
of the United States

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and/or his rivals.

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It would require only
one caper of this kind

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to cause a great
deal of mischief

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perhaps on a global scale.

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And we have to allow for the
possibility of such a thing

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could have happened.

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And so do our allies,
and so do our enemies.

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There have been many strange
turns and counter turns

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in our political and social
life over the past few years.

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It would be easy to blame
Jacob Quirk for all of them.

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Still, maybe not
consider that he

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could have been at least
responsible for some

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of the weirdo strange old
things that our leaders have

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been doing.

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Sooner or later that
journal will be declassified

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and then we can
satisfy our curiosity.

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Well, the next move
is a little talk

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about a former psychiatrist.

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I just mentioned him
because we have a moment.

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There was a missing
bed in the hospital

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where he was for a while.

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This psychiatrist,
I've just mentioned him

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in passing because my
psychiatrist friends didn't

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think he was funny.

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Chief psychiatrist is a white
haired rosy cheeked jolly

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smiling Santa Claus gent
with a cute German accent who

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never seems to lose his
authentic old world charm

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or blow his cool.

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Except when somebody is
dumb enough or rude enough

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to bring up the years of
the 1940s which he argues

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most persuasively
never really happened.

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In his brilliant contribution
to revisionist history,

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the lost decade of the '40s a
study in mass hallucination.

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The chief psychiatrist
Dr. Smartheim

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argues that Jacob Quirk too
was merely under hallucination.

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An experiment as
it were carefully

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devised and perpetrated
upon highly suggestible

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criminal nuts in his charge.

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He's got a point.

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The only people
in the asylum who

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still claim to have seen
Jacob Quirk are the patients.

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The success of the Quirk
experiment as Smartheim

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calls it, see his
report in modern lunacy

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14 to pages 113 to 26.

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It's a preliminary
indication, initial evidence

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of the hypothesis that a great
many public figures are only

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mass hallucinations, products of
the corrupt, and decadent mass

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consciousness of our times.

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He may be right too.

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Jacob Quirk could have
told him that way back

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when he was performing
in nightclubs.

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Anyway, it goes ahead and you
various problems such as--

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nevertheless, there are some
curious incidents which though

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not really directly
in any tangible way

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linked to Jacob Quirk,
reality or fiction,

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are necessary to
report and to consider.

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I mention them here
not out of a desire

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to make a case one
way or the other,

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or out of any interest in
blatant sensationalism,

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but chiefly out of deference to
a considerable number of people

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Quirk jerks as Dr.
Smartheim calls

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them, who seem to believe
that Jacob Quirk is for real.

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Far be it from me to fly in
the face of any consensus, even

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a minority opinion.

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People point to any number
of inexplicable incidents

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and events as frequent and
debatable as the sighting

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of UFOs in our skies as proof.

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Indeed, some of the
Quirk jerks believe

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Quirk is a UFO thus solving
two problems at once

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with neatness and dispatch.

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However, most of
the things cited

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by these obsessed
believers in the Quirk myth

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have some logical explanation.

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A distinguished commission
appointed by the president

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and composed of scientists,
judges, shipping magnates,

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steel tycoons, labor and civil
rights leaders, movie stars,

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preachers, priests,
rabbis, and the family

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and relatives of
members of Congress,

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has been in almost continuous
session for some time,

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sifting the evidence as they
prepare a major report which

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may someday be made public.

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Their final conclusions
and judgment

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must remain a
matter of conjecture

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until that happy day.

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But even now through entirely
reliable than necessarily

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anonymous sources,
it's possible to report

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on some of their findings.

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First, practically all
of these odd incidents

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have some satisfactory
explanation

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in no way connected
with Jacob Quirk.

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99 out of hundreds of
them conservatively

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may be dismissed out of hand.

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Such ludicrous and celebrated
examples as the dirty talking

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taxicab of New York City,
the obscene neon sign which

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appeared briefly on
the Golden Gate Bridge,

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the champagne which
suddenly filled

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the pipes of the public water
system of Temperance, Iowa.

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And there was just
as suddenly replaced

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by noxious and
sulfurous artesian brew.

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The Spanish fly
which was somehow

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bottled in the Pepsi Cola
served in the machines

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at Vassar College and caused
all that unfortunate excitement.

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The showing in Cherokee,
North Carolina, of the film

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The Sound of Music during
which the principals appeared

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to the stunned
audience at least,

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completely in the nude
and performing lewd

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and indecent acts.

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The nationally
televised appearance

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of the New York City
ballet company during which

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millions of viewers
claimed to have

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seen a macabre and grotesque
encounter by a group

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equally divided between
cannibals and vegetarian

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victims.

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All these and
others of their ilk

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have some kind of
explanation and can

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be discarded here now
and forever as not having

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any significance whatsoever.

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It's one little leftover
from the Elizabethan thing.

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In large part, these
and other absurdities

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the committee report
will state to quote,

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"Are what may be called
statistical aberrations.

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After all, statistically,
if millions and millions

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of monkeys were placed
before millions and millions

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of typewriters, sooner
or later, one of them

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would inevitably type
out the complete works

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of William Shakespeare,
which is not

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to imply that the
plays of Shakespeare

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were written by a monkey.

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However attractive that
thought may be to some,

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there is irrefutable evidence
before this committee

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that Shakespeare's
plays represent

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a rare collaboration between
Francis Bacon and Edward Coke.

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In any case, though there
were a good many monkeys

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in Elizabethan England,
there is no evidence

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that a sufficient
number of them existed

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for there to be the
optimum conditions

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of statistical probability.

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Moreover, lacking any
real notion of progress

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or any real desire for
technical improvements,

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those underdeveloped
people of that era had not

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imagined let alone invented
the typewriter," end quote.

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