My purpose was to tell the story of what happened when a great civilisation was transplanted to our ancient continent. My purpose was to show how the more successful our ancestors were in planting that civilisation in the Australian wilderness, the more disastrous it was for the original tenants. My purpose was also to show how human beings responded to the decline of religious faiths which had comforted human beings for thousands of years, and to portray, as well as I could, the pilgrimage of man from the Kingdom of God to the Kingdom of Nothingness. My purpose was also to present the choice which confronts us at the moment: whether we shall drift into the role of defenders of an over-ripe society or shall join those who in their zeal to wipe a society based on moral infamy off the face of the earth, lapsed into spiritual popery, conformism and greyness of spirit, or shall build a society in which men can be both happy and wise.