There were other causes. The peoples from whom sprang Socrates and Jesuswere also among the first to conceive admiration for Fate. In Greek tragic artand Hebrew worship of divine law, as also in the Indian resignation, manexperienced, at first very obscurely, that vision of an alien and supernalbeauty, which was to exalt and perplex him again and again throughout his wholecareer. The conflict between this worship and the intransigent loyalty to Life,embattled against Death, proved insoluble. And though few individuals were everclearly conscious of the issue, the first human species was again and againunwittingly hampered in its spiritual development by this supremeperplexity.
Yet this petty brawl was in fact an irreparable and far reaching disaster.For in spite of those differences of temperament which had forced the Englishand French into conflict, they had co-operated, though often unwittingly, intempering and clarifying the mentality of Europe. Though their faults played agreat part in wrecking Western civilization, the virtues from which these vicessprang were needed for the salvation of a world prone to uncritical romance. Inspite of the inveterate blindness and meanness of France in internationalpolicy, and the even more disastrous timidity of England, their influence onculture had been salutary, and was at this moment sorely needed. For, polesasunder in tastes and ideals, these two peoples were yet alike in being on thewhole more sceptical, and in their finest individuals more capable ofdispassionate yet creative intelligence, than any other Western people. Thisvery character produced their distinctive faults, namely, in the English acaution that amounted often to moral cowardice, and in the French a certainmyopic complacency and cunning, which masqueraded as realism. Within eachnation there was, of course, great variety. English minds were of many types.But most were to some extent distinctively English; and hence the specialcharacter of England's influence in the world. Relatively detached, sceptical,cautious, practical, more tolerant than others, because more complacent andless prone to fervour, the typical Englishman was capable both of generosityand of spite, both of heroism and of timorous or cynical abandonment of endsproclaimed as vital to the race. French and English alike might sin againsthumanity, but in different manners. The French sinned blindly, through astrange inability to regard France dispassionately. The English sinned throughfaint-heartedness, and with open eyes. Among all nations they excelled in theunion of common sense and vision. But also among all nations they were mostready to betray their visions in the name of common sense. Hence theirreputation for perfidy.
vision of disorder from bliss to devastation rar
With the eclipse of France and England this great tradition of dispassionatecognizance began to wane. Europe was now led by Germany. And the Germans, inspite of their practical genius, their scholarly contributions to history,their brilliant science and austere philosophy, were at heart romantic. Thisinclination was both their strength and their weakness. Thereby they had beeninspired to their finest art and their most profound metaphysical speculation.But thereby they were also often rendered un-self-critical and pompous. Moreeager than Western minds to solve the mystery of existence, less sceptical ofthe power of human reason, and therefore more inclined to ignore or argue awayrecalcitrant facts, the Germans were courageous systematizers. In thisdirection they had achieved greatly. Without them, European thought would havebeen chaotic. But their passion for order and for a systematic reality behindthe disorderly appearances, rendered their reasoning all too often biased. Uponshifty foundations they balanced ingenious ladders to reach the stars. Thus,without constant ribald criticism from across the Rhine and the North Sea, theTeutonic soul could not achieve full self-expression. A vague uneasiness aboutits own sentimentalism and lack of detachment did indeed persuade this greatpeople to assert its virility now and again by ludicrous acts of brutality, andto compensate for its dream life by ceaseless hard-driven and brilliantlysuccessful commerce; but what was needed was a far more radicalself-criticism.
The German then protested that to refuse would be cowardly. He brieflydescribed his vision of a world organized under organized science, and inspiredby a scientifically organized religious dogma. "Surely," he said, "to refusewere to refuse the gift of God, of that God whose presence in the humblestquantum we have so recently and so surprisingly revealed." Other speakersfollowed, for and against; but it soon grew clear that wisdom would prevail.Men of science were by now definitely cosmopolitan in sentiment. Indeed so farwere they from nationalism, that on this occasion the representative of Americahad urged acceptance of the weapon, although it would be used against his owncountrymen.
For some days Europeans lived in panic dread, knowing not what horror mightat any moment descend on them. No wonder, then, that the Government resorted totorture in order to extract the secret from the scientists. No wonder that outof the forty individuals concerned, one, the Englishman, saved himself bydeceit. He promised to do his best to "remember" the intricate process. Understrict supervision, he used his own knowledge of physics to experiment insearch of the Chinaman's trick. Fortunately, however, he was on the wrongscent. And indeed he knew it. For though his first motive was mereself-preservation, later he conceived the policy of indefinitely preventing thedangerous discovery by directing research along a blind alley. And so histreason, by seeming to give the authority of a most eminent physicist to awholly barren line of research, saved this undisciplined and scarcely humanrace from destroying its planet.
China, owing to her relative weakness and irritation caused by the tentaclesof American industry within her, was at this time more nationalistic than herrival, America. Indeed, professed to have outgrown nationalism, and to standfor political and cultural world unity. But she conceived this unity as a Unityunder American organization; and by culture she meant Americanism. This kind ofcosmopolitanism was regarded by Asia and Africa without sympathy. In China aconcerted effort had been made to purge the foreign element from her culture.Its success, however, was only superficial. Pigtails and chopsticks had oncemore come into vogue among the leisured, and the study of Chinese classics wasonce more compulsory in all schools. Yet the manner of life of the average manremained American. Not only did he use American cutlery, shoes, gramophones,domestic labour-saving devices, but also his alphabet was European, hisvocabulary was permeated by American slang, his newspapers and radio wereAmerican in manner, though anti-American in politics. He saw daily in hisdomestic television screen every phase of American private life and everyAmerican public event. Instead of opium and joss sticks, he affected cigarettesand chewing gum.
There is no need to recount in detail the transition from rival nationalsovereignties to unitary control by the World Financial Directorate. Suffice itthat by concerted action in America and China the military governments foundthemselves hamstrung by the passive resistance of cosmopolitan big business. InChina this process was almost instantaneous and bloodless; in America there wasserious disorder for a few weeks, while the bewildered government attempted toreduce its rebels by martial law. But the population was by now eager forpeace; and, although a few business magnates were shot, and a crowd of workershere and there mown down, the opposition was irresistible. Very soon thegoverning clique collapsed.
Perhaps the greatest physical achievement of the First World State in itsearlier and more vital phase had been in preventive medicine. Though thebiological sciences had long ago become stereotyped in respect of fundamentaltheories, they continued to produce many practical benefits. No longer did menand women have to dread for themselves or those dear to them such afflictionsas cancer, tuberculosis, angina pectoris, the rheumatic diseases, and theterrible disorders of the nervous system. No longer were there sudden microbicdevastations. No longer was childbirth an ordeal, and womanhood itself a sourceof suffering. There were no more chronic invalids, no more life-long cripples.Only senility remained; and even this could be repeatedly alleviated byphysiological rejuvenation. The removal of all these ancient sources ofweakness and misery, which formerly had lamed the race and haunted so manyindividuals either with definite terrors or vague and scarcely consciousdespond, brought about now a pervading buoyancy and optimism impossible toearlier peoples.
The mother's icy hands fumbled at their work. Her head reeled. All night shehad fought alternately against two enemies, despair, and increasing tendency tofall asleep. Again and again she had plucked herself from the rising tide ofsomnolence; again and again she had wakened to the stark fact that her boy andherself were helpless in a doomed world. At last, in a vision born ofexhaustion and misery, she seemed to herself to see beneath her the whole globeof the earth in all its detail, its squared forests and tillage, itslong-shadowed towers, its arctic channels, where old men vainly sought for away to the golden East, and naively gathered pyrites, its Greenland's icymountains, its India, and Africa, and through its oddly transparent depths toirrigated Australia. How queer the people looked there, all upside-down!Lunatics! All the planet was seen to be peopled with lunatics; and over itspread the fiery and mindless desert of the sky. She put her hands over hereyes. The plane strayed for a few seconds unguided, then spun, and crashedamong the pine trees.
By one of those rare tricks of fortune, which are as often favourable ashostile to humanity, an Arctic exploration ship had recently been embedded inthe pack-ice for a long drift across the Polar sea. She was provisioned forfour years, and when the catastrophe occurred she had already been at sea forsix months. She was a sailing vessel; the expedition had been launched beforeit was practicable to make use of the new source of power. The crew consistedof twenty-eight men and seven women. Individuals of an earlier and more sexualrace, proportioned thus, in such close proximity and isolation, would almostcertainly have fallen foul of one another sooner or later. But to Patagoniansthe arrangement was not intolerable. Besides managing the whole domestic sideof the expedition, the seven women were able to provide moderate sexual delightfor all, for in this people the female sexuality was much less reduced than themale. There were, indeed, occasional jealousies and feuds in the littlecommunity, but these were subordinated to a strong esprit de corps. Thewhole company had, of course, been very carefully chosen for comradeship,loyalty, and health, as well as for technical skill. All claimed descent fromthe Divine Boy. All were of the governing class. One quaint expression of thestrongly parental Patagonian temperament was that a pair of diminutive petmonkeys was taken with the expedition.
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