{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13084/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13084","id":"gutenberg_13084","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13084","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Drama","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"BACK TO METHUSELAH\n\nA Metabiological Pentateuch\n\nby\n\nBERNARD SHAW\n\n1921\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nThe Infidel Half Century\n  The Dawn of Darwinism\n  The Advent of the Neo-Darwinians\n  Political Inadequacy of the Human Animal\n  Cowardice of the Irreligious\n  Is there any Hope in Education?\n  Homeopathic Education\n  The Diabolical Efficiency of Technical Education\n  Flimsiness of Civilization\n  Creative Evolution\n  Voluntary Longevity\n  The Early Evolutionists\n  The Advent of the Neo-Lamarckians\n  How Acquirements are Inherited\n  The Miracle of Condensed Recapitulation\n  Heredity an Old Story\n  Discovery Anticipated by Divination\n  Corrected Dates for the Discovery of Evolution\n  Defying the Lightning: a Frustrated Experiment\n  In Quest of the First Cause\n  Paley's Watch\n  The Irresistible Cry of Order, Order!\n  The Moment and the Man\n  The Brink of the Bottomless Pit\n  Why Darwin Converted the Crowd\n  How we Rushed Down a Steep Place\n  Darwinism not Finally Refutable\n  Three Blind Mice\n  The Greatest of These is Self-Control\n  A Sample of Lamarcko-Shavian Invective\n  The Humanitarians and the Problem of Evil\n  How One Touch of Darwin makes the Whole World Kin\n  Why Darwin Pleased the Socialists\n  Darwin and Karl Marx\n  Why Darwin pleased the Profiteers also\n  The Poetry and Purity of Materialism\n  The Viceroys of the King of Kings\n  Political Opportunism in Excelsis\n  The Betrayal of Western Civilization\n  Circumstantial Selection in Finance\n  The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism\n  Religion and Romance\n  The Danger of Reaction\n  A Touchstone for Dogma\n  What to do with the Legends\n  A Lesson from Science to the Churches\n  The Religious Art of the Twentieth Century\n  The Artist-Prophets\n  Evolution in the Theatre\n  My Own Part in the Matter\nIn the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden)\nThe Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day\nThe Thing Happens: A.D. 2170\nTragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000\nAs Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe Infidel Half Century\n\n\nTHE DAWN OF DARWINISM\n\nOne day early in the eighteen hundred and sixties, I, being then a\nsmall boy, was with my nurse, buying something in the shop of a petty\nnewsagent, bookseller, and stationer in Camden Street, Dublin, when\nthere entered an elderly man, weighty and solemn, who advanced to the\ncounter, and said pompously, 'Have you the works of the celebrated\nBuffoon?'\n\nMy own works were at that time unwritten, or it is possible that the\nshop assistant might have misunderstood me so far as to produce a copy\nof Man and Superman. As it was, she knew quite well what he wanted; for\nthis was before the Education Act of 1870 had produced shop assistants\nwho know how to read and know nothing else. The celebrated Buffoon was\nnot a humorist, but the famous naturalist Buffon. Every literate child\nat that time knew Buffon's Natural History as well as Esop's Fables. And\nno living child had heard the name that has since obliterated Buffon's\nin the popular consciousness: the name of Darwin.\n\nTen years elapsed. The celebrated Buffoon was forgotten; I had doubled\nmy years and my length; and I had discarded the religion of my\nforefathers. One day the richest and consequently most dogmatic of my\nuncles came into a restaurant where I was dining, and found himself,\nmuch against his will, in conversation with the most questionable of his\nnephews. By way of making myself agreeable, I spoke of modern thought\nand Darwin. He said, 'Oh, thats the fellow who wants to make out that we\nall have tails like monkeys.' I tried to explain that what Darwin had\ninsisted on in this connection was that some monkeys have no tails.\nBut my uncle was as impervious to what Darwin really said as any\nNeo-Darwinian nowadays. He died impenitent, and did not mention me in\nhis will.\n\nTwenty years elapsed. If my uncle had been alive, he would have known\nall about Darwin, and known it all wrong. In spite of the efforts of\nGrant Allen to set him right, he would have accepted Darwin as the\ndiscoverer of Evolution, of Heredity, and of modification of species by\nSelection. For the pre-Darwinian age had come to be regarded as a Dark\nAge in which men still believed that the book of Genesis was a standard\nscientific treatise, and that the only additions to it were Galileo's\ndemonstration of Leonardo da Vinci's simple remark that the earth is\na moon of the sun, Newton's theory of gravitation, Sir Humphry Davy's\ninvention of the safety-lamp, the discovery of electricity, the\napplication of steam to industrial purposes, and the penny post. It was\njust the same in other subjects. Thus Nietzsche, by the two or three who\nhad come across his writings, was supposed to have been the first man\nto whom it occurred that mere morality and legality and urbanity lead\nnowhere, as if Bunyan had never written Badman. Schopenhauer was\ncredited with inventing the distinction between the Covenant of Grace\nand the Covenant of Works which troubled Cromwell on his deathbed.\nPeople talked as if there had been no dramatic or descriptive music\nbefore Wagner; no impressionist painting before Whistler; whilst as to\nmyself, I was finding that the surest way to produce an effect of daring\ninnovation and originality was to revive the ancient attraction of long\nrhetorical speeches; to stick closely to the methods of Moli\u00e8re; and to\nlift characters bodily out of the pages of Charles Dickens.\n\n\nTHE ADVENT OF THE NEO-DARWINIANS\n\nThis particular sort of ignorance does not always or often matter. But\nin Darwin's case it did matter. If Darwin had really led the world at\none bound from the book of Genesis to Heredity, to Modification of\nSpecies by Selection, and to Evolution, he would have been a philosopher\nand a prophet as well as an eminent professional naturalist, with\ngeology as a hobby. The delusion that he had actually achieved this\nfeat did no harm at first, because if people's views are sound, about\nevolution or anything else, it does not make two straws difference\nwhether they call the revealer of their views Tom or Dick. But later on\nsuch apparently negligible errors have awkward consequences. Darwin was\ngiven an imposing reputation as not only an Evolutionist, but as _the_\nEvolutionist, with the immense majority who never read his books.\nThe few who never read any others were led by them to concentrate\nexclusively on Circumstantial Selection as the explanation of all the\ntransformations and adaptations which were the evidence for Evolution.\nAnd they presently found themselves so cut off by this specialization\nfrom the majority who knew Darwin only by his spurious reputation, that\nthey were obliged to distinguish themselves, not as Darwinians, but as\nNeo-Darwinians.\n\nBefore ten more years had elapsed, the Neo-Darwinians were practically\nrunning current Science. It was 1906; I was fifty; I published my own\nview of evolution in a play called Man and Superman; and I found that\nmost people were unable to understand how I could be an Evolutionist\nand not a Neo-Darwinian, or why I habitually derided Neo-Darwinism as\na ghastly idiocy, and would fall on its professors slaughterously in\npublic discussions. It was in the hope of making me clear the matter up\nthat the Fabian Society, which was then organizing a series of lectures\non Prophets of the Nineteenth Century, asked me to deliver a lecture\non the prophet Darwin. I did so; and scraps of that lecture, which was\nnever published, variegate these pages.\n\n\nPOLITICAL INADEQUACY OF THE HUMAN ANIMAL\n\nTen more years elapsed. Neo-Darwinism in politics had produced a\nEuropean catastrophe of a magnitude so appalling, and a scope so\nunpredictable, that as I write these lines in 1920, it is still far from\ncertain whether our civilization will survive it. The circumstances\nof this catastrophe, the boyish cinema-fed romanticism which made it\npossible to impose it on the people as a crusade, and especially the\nignorance and errors of the victors of Western Europe when its violent\nphase had passed and the time for reconstruction arrived, confirmed a\ndoubt which had grown steadily in my mind during my forty years public\nwork as a Socialist: namely, whether the human animal, as he exists at\npresent, is capable of solving the social problems raised by his own\naggregation, or, as he calls it, his civilization.\n\n\nCOWARDICE OF THE IRRELIGIOUS\n\nAnother observation I had made was that goodnatured unambitious men are\ncowards when they have no religion. They are dominated and exploited not\nonly by greedy and often half-witted and half-alive weaklings who will\ndo anything for cigars, champagne, motor cars, and the more childish and\nselfish uses of money, but by able and sound administrators who can do\nnothing else with them than dominate and exploit them. Government and\nexploitation become synonymous under such circumstances; and the world\nis finally ruled by the childish, the brigands, and the blackguards.\nThose who refuse to stand in with them are persecuted and occasionally\nexecuted when they give any trouble to the exploiters. They fall into\npoverty when they lack lucrative specific talents. At the present moment\none half of Europe, having knocked the other half down, is trying to\nkick it to death, and may succeed: a procedure which is, logically,\nsound Neo-Darwinism. And the goodnatured majority are looking on\nin helpless horror, or allowing themselves to be persuaded by the\nnewspapers of their exploiters that the kicking is not only a sound\ncommercial investment, but an act of divine justice of which they are\nthe ardent instruments.\n\nBut if Man is really incapable of organizing a big civilization, and\ncannot organize even a village or a tribe any too well, what is the use\nof giving him a religion? A religion may make him hunger and thirst for\nrighteousness; but will it endow him with the practical capacity to\nsatisfy that appetite? Good intentions do not carry with them a grain of\npolitical science, which is a very complicated one. The most devoted and\nindefatigable, the most able and disinterested students of this science\nin England, as far as I know, are my friends Sidney and Beatrice Webb.\nIt has taken them forty years of preliminary work, in the course of\nwhich they have published several treatises comparable to Adam Smith's\nWealth of Nations, to formulate a political constitution adequate to\nexisting needs. If this is the measure of what can be done in a\nlifetime by extraordinary ability, keen natural aptitude, exceptional\nopportunities, and freedom from the preoccupations of bread-winning,\nwhat are we to expect from the parliament man to whom political science\nis as remote and distasteful as the differential calculus, and to whom\nsuch an elementary but vital point as the law of economic rent is a\n_pons asinorum_ never to be approached, much less crossed? Or from the\ncommon voter who is mostly so hard at work all day earning a living that\nhe cannot keep awake for five minutes over a book?\n\n\nIS THERE ANY HOPE IN EDUCATION?\n\nThe usual answer is that we must educate our masters: that is,\nourselves. We must teach citizenship and political science at school.\nBut must we? There is no must about it, the hard fact being that we must\n_not_ teach political science or citizenship at school. The schoolmaster\nwho attempted it would soon find himself penniless in the streets\nwithout pupils, if not in the dock pleading to a pompously worded\nindictment for sedition against the exploiters. Our schools teach the\nmorality of feudalism corrupted by commercialism, and hold up the\nmilitary conqueror, the robber baron, and the profiteer, as models of\nthe illustrious and the successful. In vain do the prophets who see\nthrough this imposture preach and teach a better gospel: the individuals\nwhom they convert are doomed to pass away in a few years; and the new\ngenerations are dragged back in the schools to the morality of the\nfifteenth century, and think themselves Liberal when they are defending\nthe ideas of Henry VII, and gentlemanly when they are opposing to them\nthe ideas of Richard III. Thus the educated man is a greater nuisance\nthan the uneducated one: indeed it is the inefficiency and sham of the\neducational side of our schools (to which, except under compulsion,\nchildren would not be sent by their parents at all if they did not act\nas prisons in which the immature are kept from worrying the mature) that\nsave us from being dashed on the rocks of false doctrine instead of\ndrifting down the midstream of mere ignorance. There is no way out\nthrough the schoolmaster.\n\n\nHOMEOPATHIC EDUCATION\n\nIn truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any\nother sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is\nsaid that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or\nmay not be true: what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he\nwill never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable\nto cure himself the next time it attacks him. Therefore, if you want\nto see a cat clean, you throw a bucket of mud over it, when it will\nimmediately take extraordinary pains to lick the mud off, and finally be\ncleaner than it was before. In the same way doctors who are up-to-date\n(BURGE-LUBIN per cent of all the registered practitioners, and 20 per\ncent of the unregistered ones), when they want to rid you of a disease\nor a symptom, inoculate you with that disease or give you a drug that\nproduces that symptom, in order to provoke you to resist it as the mud\nprovokes the cat to wash itself.\n\nNow an acute person will ask me why, if this be so, our false education\ndoes not provoke our scholars to find out the truth. My answer is that\nit sometimes does. Voltaire was a pupil of the Jesuits; Samuel Butler\nwas the pupil of a hopelessly conventional and erroneous country parson.\nBut then Voltaire was Voltaire, and Butler was Butler: that is, their\nminds were so abnormally strong that they could throw off the doses of\npoison that paralyse ordinary minds. When the doctors inoculate you and\nthe homeopathists dose you, they give you an infinitesimally attenuated\ndose. If they gave you the virus at full strength it would overcome your\nresistance and produce its direct effect. The doses of false doctrine\ngiven at public schools and universities are so big that they overwhelm\nthe resistance that a tiny dose would provoke. The normal student is\ncorrupted beyond redemption, and will drive the genius who resists out\nof the country if he can. Byron and Shelley had to fly to Italy, whilst\nCastlereagh and Eldon ruled the roost at home. Rousseau was hunted from\nfrontier to frontier; Karl Marx starved in exile in a Soho lodging;\nRuskin's articles were refused by the magazines (he was too rich to be\notherwise persecuted); whilst mindless forgotten nonentities governed\nthe land; sent men to the prison or the gallows for blasphemy and\nsedition (meaning the truth about Church and State); and sedulously\nstored up the social disease and corruption which explode from time to\ntime in gigantic boils that have to be lanced by a million bayonets.\nThis is the result of allopathic education. Homeopathic education has\nnot yet been officially tried, and would obviously be a delicate\nmatter if it were. A body of schoolmasters inciting their pupils to\ninfinitesimal peccadilloes with the object of provoking them to exclaim,\n'Get thee behind me, Satan,' or telling them white lies about history\nfor the sake of being contradicted, insulted, and refuted, would\ncertainly do less harm than our present educational allopaths do; but\nthen nobody will advocate homeopathic education. Allopathy has produced\nthe poisonous illusion that it enlightens instead of darkening. The\nsuggestion may, however, explain why, whilst most people's minds succumb\nto inculcation and environment, a few react vigorously: honest and\ndecent people coming from thievish slums, and sceptics and realists from\ncountry parsonages.\n\n\nTHE DIABOLICAL EFFICIENCY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION\n\nBut meanwhile--and here comes the horror of it--our technical\ninstruction is honest and efficient. The public schoolboy who is\ncarefully blinded, duped, and corrupted as to the nature of a society\nbased on profiteering, and is taught to honor parasitic idleness and\nluxury, learns to shoot and ride and keep fit with all the assistance\nand guidance that can be procured for him by the most anxiously sincere\ndesire that he may do these things well, and if possible superlatively\nwell. In the army he learns to fly; to drop bombs; to use machine-guns\nto the utmost of his capacity. The discovery of high explosives is\nrewarded and dignified: instruction in the manufacture of the weapons,\nbattleships, submarines, and land batteries by which they are applied\ndestructively, is quite genuine: the instructors know their business,\nand really mean the learners to succeed. The result is that powers\nof destruction that could hardly without uneasiness be entrusted to\ninfinite wisdom and infinite benevolence are placed in the hands of\nromantic schoolboy patriots who, however generous by nature, are by\neducation ignoramuses, dupes, snobs, and sportsmen to whom fighting is a\nreligion and killing an accomplishment; whilst political power, useless\nunder such circumstances except to militarist imperialists in chronic\nterror of invasion and subjugation, pompous tufthunting fools,\ncommercial adventurers to whom the organization by the nation of its own\nindustrial services would mean checkmate, financial parasites on the\nmoney market, and stupid people who cling to the status quo merely\nbecause they are used to it, is obtained by heredity, by simple\npurchase, by keeping newspapers and pretending that they are organs of\npublic opinion, by the wiles of seductive women, and by prostituting\nambitious talent to the service of the profiteers, who call the tune\nbecause, having secured all the spare plunder, they alone can afford\nto pay the piper. Neither the rulers nor the ruled understand high\npolitics. They do not even know that there is such a branch of knowledge\nas political science; but between them they can coerce and enslave\nwith the deadliest efficiency, even to the wiping out of civilization,\nbecause their education as slayers has been honestly and thoroughly\ncarried out. Essentially the rulers are all defectives; and there is\nnothing worse than government by defectives who wield irresistible\npowers of physical coercion. The commonplace sound people submit, and\ncompel the rest to submit, because they have been taught to do so as\nan article of religion and a point of honor. Those in whom natural\nenlightenment has reacted against artificial education submit because\nthey are compelled; but they would resist, and finally resist\neffectively, if they were not cowards. And they are cowards because they\nhave neither an officially accredited and established religion nor a\ngenerally recognized point of honor, and are all at sixes and sevens\nwith their various private speculations, sending their children perforce\nto the schools where they will be corrupted for want of any other\nschools. The rulers are equally intimidated by the immense extension\nand cheapening of the means of slaughter and destruction. The British\nGovernment is more afraid of Ireland now that submarines, bombs, and\npoison gas are cheap and easily made than it was of the German Empire\nbefore the war; consequently the old British custom which maintained a\nbalance of power through command of the sea is intensified into a terror\nthat sees security in nothing short of absolute military mastery of the\nentire globe: that is, in an impossibility that will yet seem possible\nin detail to soldiers and to parochial and insular patriotic civilians.\n\n\nFLIMSINESS OF CIVILIZATION\n\nThis situation has occurred so often before, always with the same result\nof a collapse of civilization (Professor Flinders Petrie has let out the\nsecret of previous collapses), that the rich are instinctively crying\n'Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die,' and the poor, 'How long, O\nLord, how long?' But the pitiless reply still is that God helps those\nwho help themselves. This does not mean that if Man cannot find the\nremedy no remedy will be found. The power that produced Man when the\nmonkey was not up to the mark, can produce a higher creature than Man if\nMan does not come up to the mark. What it means is that if Man is to be\nsaved, Man must save himself. There seems no compelling reason why he\nshould be saved. He is by no means an ideal creature. At his present\nbest many of his ways are so unpleasant that they are unmentionable in\npolite society, and so painful that he is compelled to pretend that pain\nis often a good. Nature holds no brief for the human experiment: it must\nstand or fall by its results. If Man will not serve, Nature will try\nanother experiment.\n\nWhat hope is there then of human improvement? According to the\nNeo-Darwinists, to the Mechanists, no hope whatever, because improvement\ncan come only through some senseless accident which must, on the\nstatistical average of accidents, be presently wiped out by some other\nequally senseless accident.\n\n\nCREATIVE EVOLUTION\n\nBut this dismal creed does not discourage those who believe that the\nimpulse that produces evolution is creative. They have observed the\nsimple fact that the will to do anything can and does, at a certain\npitch of intensity set up by conviction of its necessity, create and\norganize new tissue to do it with. To them therefore mankind is by no\nmeans played out yet. If the weight lifter, under the trivial stimulus\nof an athletic competition, can 'put up a muscle,' it seems reasonable\nto believe that an equally earnest and convinced philosopher could 'put\nup a brain.' Both are directions of vitality to a certain end. Evolution\nshews us this direction of vitality doing all sorts of things: providing\nthe centipede with a hundred legs, and ridding the fish of any legs at\nall; building lungs and arms for the land and gills and fins for the\nsea; enabling the mammal to gestate its young inside its body, and the\nfowl to incubate hers outside it; offering us, we may say, our choice of\nany sort of bodily contrivance to maintain our activity and increase our\nresources.\n\n\nVOLUNTARY LONGEVITY\n\nAmong other matters apparently changeable at will is the duration of\nindividual life. Weismann, a very clever and suggestive biologist who\nwas unhappily reduced to idiocy by Neo-Darwinism, pointed out that death\nis not an eternal condition of life, but an expedient introduced to\nprovide for continual renewal without overcrowding. Now Circumstantial\nSelection does not account for natural death: it accounts only for the\nsurvival of species in which the individuals have sense enough to decay\nand die on purpose. But the individuals do not seem to have calculated\nvery reasonably: nobody can explain why a parrot should live ten times\nas long as a dog, and a turtle be almost immortal. In the case of man,\nthe operation has overshot its mark: men do not live long enough: they\nare, for all the purposes of high civilization, mere children when they\ndie; and our Prime Ministers, though rated as mature, divide their\ntime between the golf course and the Treasury Bench in parliament.\nPresumably, however, the same power that made this mistake can remedy\nit. If on opportunist grounds Man now fixes the term of his life at\nthree score and ten years, he can equally fix it at three hundred, or\nthree thousand, or even at the genuine Circumstantial Selection limit,\nwhich would be until a sooner-or-later-inevitable fatal accident makes\nan end of the individual. All that is necessary to make him extend his\npresent span is that tremendous catastrophes such as the late war shall\nconvince him of the necessity of at least outliving his taste for\ngolf and cigars if the race is to be saved. This is not fantastic\nspeculation: it is deductive biology, if there is such a science as\nbiology. Here, then, is a stone that we have left unturned, and that may\nbe worth turning. To make the suggestion more entertaining than it would\nbe to most people in the form of a biological treatise, I have written\nBack to Methuselah as a contribution to the modern Bible.\n\nMany people, however, can read treatises and cannot read Bibles. Darwin\ncould not read Shakespear. Some who can read both, like to learn the\nhistory of their ideas. Some are so entangled in the current confusion\nof Creative Evolution with Circumstantial Selection by their historical\nignorance that they are puzzled by any distinction between the two.\nFor all their sakes I must give here a little history of the conflict\nbetween the view of Evolution taken by the Darwinians (though not\naltogether by Darwin himself) and called Natural Selection, and that\nwhich is emerging, under the title of Creative Evolution, as the\ngenuinely scientific religion for which all wise men are now anxiously\nlooking.\n\n\nTHE EARLY EVOLUTIONISTS\n\nThe idea of Evolution, or Transformation as it is now sometimes called,\nwas not first conceived by Charles Darwin, nor by Alfred Russel Wallace,\nwho observed the operation of Circumstantial Selection simultaneously\nwith Charles. The celebrated Buffoon was a better Evolutionist than\neither of them; and two thousand years before Buffon was born, the Greek\nphilosopher Empedocles opined that all forms of life are transformations\nof four elements, Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, effected by the two\ninnate forces of attraction and repulsion, or love and hate. As lately\nas 1860 I myself was taught as a child that everything was made out of\nthese four elements. Both the Empedocleans and the Evolutionists were\nopposed to those who believed in the separate creation of all forms\nof life as described in the book of Genesis. This 'conflict between\nreligion and science', as the phrase went then, did not perplex my\ninfant mind in the least: I knew perfectly well, without knowing that I\nknew it, that the validity of a story is not the same as the occurrence\nof a fact. But as I grew up I found that I had to choose between\nEvolution and Genesis. If you believed that dogs and cats and snakes\nand birds and beetles and oysters and whales and men and women were all\nseparately designed and made and named in Eden garden at the beginning\nof things, and have since survived simply by reproducing their kind,\nthen you were not an Evolutionist. If you believed, on the contrary,\nthat all the different species are modifications, variations, and\nelaborations of one primal stock, or even of a few primal stocks, then\nyou were an Evolutionist. But you were not necessarily a Darwinian; for\nyou might have been a modern Evolutionist twenty years before Charles\nDarwin was born, and a whole lifetime before he published his Origin of\nSpecies. For that matter, when Aristotle grouped animals with backbones\nas blood relations, he began the sort of classification which, when\nextended by Darwin to monkeys and men, so shocked my uncle.\n\nGenesis had held the field until the time (1707-1778) of Linnaeus the\nfamous botanist. In the meantime the microscope had been invented. It\nrevealed a new world of hitherto invisible creatures called Infusorians,\nas common water was found to be an infusion of them. In the eighteenth\ncentury naturalists were very keen on the Infusorian Amoebas, and were\nmuch struck by the way in which the members of this old family behaved\nand developed. But it was still possible for Linnaeus to begin a\ntreatise by saying 'There are just so many species as there were forms\ncreated in the beginning,' though there were hundreds of commonplace\nScotch gardeners, pigeon fanciers, and stock breeders then living who\nknew better. Linnaeus himself knew better before he died. In the\nlast edition of his System of Nature, he began to wonder whether the\ntransmutation of species by variation might not be possible. Then came\nthe great poet who jumped over the facts to the conclusion. Goethe said\nthat all the shapes of creation were cousins; that there must be some\ncommon stock from which all the species had sprung; that it was the\nenvironment of air that had produced the eagle, of water the seal, and\nof earth the mole. He could not say how this happened; but he divined\nthat it did happen. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, carried\nthe environment theory much further, pointing out instance after\ninstance of modifications made in species apparently to adapt it to\ncircumstances and environment: for instance, that the brilliant colors\nof the leopard, which make it so conspicuous in Regent's Park, conceal\nit in a tropical jungle. Finally he wrote, as his declaration of faith,\n'The world has been evolved, not created: it has arisen little by little\nfrom a small beginning, and has increased through the activity of the\nelemental forces embodied in itself, and so has rather grown than come\ninto being at an almighty word. What a sublime idea of the infinite\nmight of the great Architect, the Cause of all causes, the Father of all\nfathers, the Ens Entium! For if we would compare the Infinite, it would\nsurely require a greater Infinite to cause the causes of effects than to\nproduce the effects themselves.' In this, published in the year 1794,\nyou have nineteenth-century Evolution precisely defined. And Erasmus\nDarwin was by no means its only apostle. It was in the air then. A\nGerman biologist named Treviranus, whose book was published in 1802,\nwrote, 'In every living being there exists a capacity for endless\ndiversity of form. Each possesses the power of adapting its organization\nto the variations of the external world; and it is this power, called\ninto activity by cosmic changes, which has enabled the simple zoophytes\nof the primitive world to climb to higher and higher stages of\norganization, and has brought endless variety into nature.' There you\nhave your evolution of Man from the amoeba all complete whilst Nelson\nwas still alive on the seas. And in 1809, before the battle of Waterloo,\na French soldier named Lamarck, who had beaten his musket into a\nmicroscope and turned zoologist, declared that species were an illusion\nproduced by the shortness of our individual lives, and that they were\nconstantly changing and melting into one another and into new forms as\nsurely as the hand of a clock is continually moving, though it moves so\nslowly that it looks stationary to us. We have since come to think that\nits industry is less continuous: that the clock stops for a long time,\nand then is suddenly 'put on' by a mysterious finger. But never mind\nthat just at present.\n\n\nTHE ADVENT OF THE NEO-LAMARCKIANS\n\nI call your special attention to Lamarck, because later on there were\nNeo-Lamarckians as well as Neo-Darwinians. I was a Neo-Lamarckian.\nLamarck passed on from the conception of Evolution as a general law to\nCharles Darwin's department of it, which was the method of Evolution.\nLamarck, whilst making many ingenious suggestions as to the reaction\nof external causes on life and habit, such as changes of climate,\nfood supply, geological upheavals and so forth, really held as his\nfundamental proposition that living organisms changed because they\nwanted to. As he stated it, the great factor in Evolution is use and\ndisuse. If you have no eyes, and want to see, and keep trying to see,\nyou will finally get eyes. If, like a mole or a subterranean fish, you\nhave eyes and dont want to see, you will lose your eyes. If you like\neating the tender tops of trees enough to make you concentrate all your\nenergies on the stretching of your neck, you will finally get a long\nneck, like the giraffe. This seems absurd to inconsiderate people at the\nfirst blush; but it is within the personal experience of all of us that\nit is just by this process that a child tumbling about the floor becomes\na boy walking erect; and that a man sprawling on the road with a bruised\nchin, or supine on the ice with a bashed occiput, becomes a bicyclist\nand a skater. The process is not continuous, as it would be if mere\npractice had anything to do with it; for though you may improve at each\nbicycling lesson _during_ the lesson, when you begin your next lesson\nyou do not begin at the point at which you left off: you relapse\napparently to the beginning. Finally, you succeed quite suddenly, and do\nnot relapse again. More miraculous still, you at once exercise the new\npower unconsciously. Although you are adapting your front wheel to your\nbalance so elaborately and actively that the accidental locking of your\nhandle bars for a second will throw you off; though five minutes before\nyou could not do it at all, yet now you do it as unconsciously as you\ngrow your finger nails. You have a new faculty, and must have created\nsome new bodily tissue as its organ. And you have done it solely by\nwilling. For here there can be no question of Circumstantial Selection,\nor the survival of the fittest. The man who is learning how to ride\na bicycle has no advantage over the non-cyclist in the struggle for\nexistence: quite the contrary. He has acquired a new habit, an automatic\nunconscious habit, solely because he wanted to, and kept trying until it\nwas added unto him.\n\n\nHOW ACQUIREMENTS ARE INHERITED\n\nBut when your son tries to skate or bicycle in his turn, he does not\npick up the accomplishment where you left it, any more than he is born\nsix feet high with a beard and a tall hat. The set-back that occurred\nbetween your lessons occurs again. The race learns exactly as the\nindividual learns. Your son relapses, not to the very beginning, but to\na point which no mortal method of measurement can distinguish from the\nbeginning. Now this is odd; for certain other habits of yours, equally\nacquired (to the Evolutionist, of course, all habits are acquired),\nequally unconscious, equally automatic, are transmitted without any\nperceptible relapse. For instance, the very first act of your son\nwhen he enters the world as a separate individual is to yell with\nindignation: that yell which Shakespear thought the most tragic and\npiteous of all sounds. In the act of yelling he begins to breathe:\nanother habit, and not even a necessary one, as the object of breathing\ncan be achieved in other ways, as by deep sea fishes. He circulates his\nblood by pumping it with his heart. He demands a meal, and proceeds at\nonce to perform the most elaborate chemical operations on the food he\nswallows. He manufactures teeth; discards them; and replaces them with\nfresh ones. Compared to these habitual feats, walking, standing upright,\nand bicycling are the merest trifles; yet it is only by going through\nthe wanting, trying process that he can stand, walk, or cycle, whereas\nin the other and far more difficult and complex habits he not only does\nnot consciously want nor consciously try, but actually consciously\nobjects very strongly. Take that early habit of cutting the teeth: would\nhe do that if he could help it? Take that later habit of decaying and\neliminating himself by death--equally an acquired habit, remember--how\nhe abhors it! Yet the habit has become so rooted, so automatic, that he\nmust do it in spite of himself, even to his own destruction.\n\nWe have here a routine which, given time enough for it to operate, will\nfinally produce the most elaborate forms of organized life on Lamarckian\nlines without the intervention of Circumstantial Selection at all. If\nyou can turn a pedestrian into a cyclist, and a cyclist into a pianist\nor violinist, without the intervention of Circumstantial Selection, you\ncan turn an amoeba into a man, or a man into a superman, without it. All\nof which is rank heresy to the Neo-Darwinian, who imagines that if\nyou stop Circumstantial Selection, you not only stop development but\ninaugurate a rapid and disastrous degeneration.\n\nLet us fix the Lamarckian evolutionary process well in our minds. You\nare alive; and you want to be more alive. You want an extension of\nconsciousness and of power. You want, consequently, additional organs,\nor additional uses of your existing organs: that is, additional habits.\nYou get them because you want them badly enough to keep trying for them\nuntil they come. Nobody knows how: nobody knows why: all we know is that\nthe thing actually takes place. We relapse miserably from effort to\neffort until the old organ is modified or the new one created, when\nsuddenly the impossible becomes possible and the habit is formed. The\nmoment we form it we want to get rid of the consciousness of it so as\nto economize our consciousness for fresh conquests of life; as all\nconsciousness means preoccupation and obstruction. If we had to think\nabout breathing or digesting or circulating our blood we should have\nno attention to spare for anything else, as we find to our cost when\nanything goes wrong with these operations. We want to be unconscious of\nthem just as we wanted to acquire them; and we finally win what we want.\nBut we win unconsciousness of our habits at the cost of losing our\ncontrol of them; and we also build one habit and its corresponding\nfunctional modification of our organs on another, and so become\ndependent on our old habits. Consequently we have to persist in them\neven when they hurt us. We cannot stop breathing to avoid an attack of\nasthma, or to escape drowning. We can lose a habit and discard an organ\nwhen we no longer need them, just as we acquired them; but this process\nis slow and broken by relapses; and relics of the organ and the habit\nlong survive its utility. And if other and still indispensable habits\nand modifications have been built on the ones we wish to discard, we\nmust provide a new foundation for them before we demolish the old one.\nThis is also a slow process and a very curious one.\n\n\nTHE MIRACLE OF CONDENSED RECAPITULATION\n\nThe relapses between the efforts to acquire a habit are important\nbecause, as we have seen, they recur not only from effort to effort in\nthe case of the individual, but from generation to generation in the\ncase of the race. This relapsing from generation to generation is an\ninvariable characteristic of the evolutionary process. For instance,\nRaphael, though descended from eight uninterrupted generations of\npainters, had to learn to paint apparently as if no Sanzio had ever\nhandled a brush before. But he had also to learn to breathe, and digest,\nand circulate his blood. Although his father and mother were fully grown\nadults when he was conceived, he was not conceived or even born fully\ngrown: he had to go back and begin as a speck of protoplasm, and to\nstruggle through an embryonic lifetime, during part of which he was\nindistinguishable from an embryonic dog, and had neither a skull nor a\nbackbone. When he at last acquired these articles, he was for some time\ndoubtful whether he was a bird or a fish. He had to compress untold\ncenturies of development into nine months before he was human enough\nto break loose as an independent being. And even then he was still so\nincomplete that his parents might well have exclaimed 'Good Heavens!\nhave you learnt nothing from our experience that you come into the world\nin this ridiculously elementary state? Why cant you talk and walk and\npaint and behave decently?' To that question Baby Raphael had no answer.\nAll he could have said was that this is how evolution or transformation\nhappens. The time may come when the same force that compressed the\ndevelopment of millions of years into nine months may pack many more\nmillions into even a shorter space; so that Raphaels may be born\npainters as they are now born breathers and blood circulators. But they\nwill still begin as specks of protoplasm, and acquire the faculty of\npainting in their mother's womb at quite a late stage of their embryonic\nlife. They must recapitulate the history of mankind in their own\npersons, however briefly they may condense it.\n\nNothing was so astonishing and significant in the discoveries of the\nembryologists, nor anything so absurdly little appreciated, as this\nrecapitulation, as it is now called: this power of hurrying up into\nmonths a process which was once so long and tedious that the mere\ncontemplation of it is unendurable by men whose span of life is\nthree-score-and-ten. It widened human possibilities to the extent of\nenabling us to hope that the most prolonged and difficult operation of\nour minds may yet become instantaneous, or, as we call it, instinctive.\nIt also directed our attention to examples of this packing up of\ncenturies into seconds which were staring us in the face in all\ndirections. As I write these lines the newspapers are occupied by the\nexploits of a child of eight, who has just defeated twenty adult chess\nplayers in twenty games played simultaneously, and has been able\nafterwards to reconstruct all the twenty games without any apparent\neffort of memory. Most people, including myself, play chess (when they\nplay it at all) from hand to mouth, and can hardly recall the last move\nbut one, or foresee the next but two. Also, when I have to make an\narithmetical calculation, I have to do it step by step with pencil and\npaper, slowly, reluctantly, and with so little confidence in the result\nthat I dare not act on it without 'proving' the sum by a further\ncalculation involving more ciphering. But there are men who can neither\nread, write, nor cipher, to whom the answer to such sums as I can do\nis instantly obvious without any conscious calculation at all; and the\nresult is infallible. Yet some of these natural arithmeticians have but\na small vocabulary; are at a loss when they have to find words for any\nbut the simplest everyday occasions; and cannot for the life of them\ndescribe mechanical operations which they perform daily in the course of\ntheir trade; whereas to me the whole vocabulary of English literature,\nfrom Shakespear to the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,\nis so completely and instantaneously at my call that I have never had\nto consult even a thesaurus except once or twice when for some reason I\nwanted a third or fourth synonym. Again, though I have tried and failed\nto draw recognizable portraits of persons I have seen every day for\nyears, Mr Bernard Partridge, having seen a man once, will, without more\nstrain than is involved in eating a sandwich, draw him to the life. The\nkeyboard of a piano is a device I have never been able to master; yet Mr\nCyril Scott uses it exactly as I use my own fingers; and to Sir Edward\nElgar an orchestral score is as instantaneously intelligible at sight as\na page of Shakespear is to me. One man cannot, after trying for years,\nfinger the flute fluently. Another will take up a flute with a newly\ninvented arrangement of keys on it, and play it at once with hardly a\nmistake. We find people to whom writing is so difficult that they prefer\nto sign their name with a mark, and beside them men who master systems\nof shorthand and improvise new systems of their own as easily as they\nlearnt the alphabet. These contrasts are to be seen on all hands, and\nhave nothing to do with variations in general intelligence, nor even\nin the specialized intelligence proper to the faculty in question: for\nexample, no composer or dramatic poet has ever pretended to be able to\nperform all the parts he writes for the singers, actors, and players who\nare his executants. One might as well expect Napoleon to be a fencer, or\nthe Astronomer Royal to know how many beans make five any better than\nhis bookkeeper. Even exceptional command of language does not imply the\npossession of ideas to express; Mezzofanti, the master of fifty-eight\nlanguages, had less to say in them than Shakespear with his little Latin\nand less Greek; and public life is the paradise of voluble windbags.\n\nAll these examples, which might be multiplied by millions, are cases in\nwhich a long, laborious, conscious, detailed process of acquirement has\nbeen condensed into an instinctive and unconscious inborn one. Factors\nwhich formerly had to be considered one by one in succession are\nintegrated into what seems a single simple factor. Chains of hardly\nsoluble problems have coalesced in one problem which solves itself\nthe moment it is raised. What is more, they have been pushed back (or\nforward, if you like) from post-natal to pre-natal ones. The child\nin the womb may take some time over them; but it is a miraculously\nshortened time.\n\nThe time phenomena involved are curious, and suggest that we are either\nwrong about our history or else that we enormously exaggerate the\nperiods required for the pre-natal acquirement of habits. In the\nnineteenth century we talked very glibly about geological periods, and\nflung millions of eons about in the most lordly manner in our reaction\nagainst Archbishop Ussher's chronology. We had a craze for big figures,\nand positively liked to believe that the progress made by the child in\nthe womb in a month was represented in prehistoric time by ages and\nages. We insisted that Evolution advanced more slowly than any snail\never crawled, and that Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds. This\nwas all very well as long as we were dealing with such acquired habits\nas breathing or digestion. It was possible to believe that dozens of\nepochs had gone to the slow building up of these habits. But when we\nhave to consider the case of a man born not only as an accomplished\nmetabolist, but with such an aptitude for shorthand and keyboard\nmanipulation that he is a stenographer or pianist at least five sixths\nready-made as soon as he can control his hands intelligently, we\nare forced to suspect either that keyboards and shorthand are older\ninventions than we suppose, or else that acquirements can be assimilated\nand stored as congenital qualifications in a shorter time than we think;\nso that, as between Lyell and Archbishop Ussher, the laugh may not be\nwith Lyell quite so uproariously as it seemed fifty years ago.\n\n\nHEREDITY AN OLD STORY\n\nIt is evident that the evolutionary process is a hereditary one, or,\nto put it less drily, that human life is continuous and immortal. The\nEvolutionists took heredity for granted. So did everybody. The human\nmind has been soaked in heredity as long back as we can trace its\nthought. Hereditary peers, hereditary monarchs, hereditary castes and\ntrades and classes were the best known of social institutions, and in\nsome cases of public nuisances. Pedigree men counted pedigree dogs and\npedigree horses among their most cherished possessions. Far from being\nunconscious of heredity, or sceptical, men were insanely credulous about\nit: they not only believed in the transmission of qualities and habits\nfrom generation to generation, but expected the son to begin mentally\nwhere the father left off.\n\nThis belief in heredity led naturally to the practice of Intentional\nSelection. Good blood and breeding were eagerly sought after in human\nmarriage. In dealing with plants and animals, selection with a view to\nthe production of new varieties and the improvement and modification of\nspecies had been practised ever since men began to cultivate them. My\npre-Darwinian uncle knew as well as Darwin that the race-horse and the\ndray-horse are not separate creations from the Garden of Eden, but\nadaptations by deliberate human selection of the medieval war-horse to\nmodern racing and industrial haulage. He knew that there are nearly\ntwo hundred different sorts of dogs, all capable of breeding with one\nanother and of producing cross varieties unknown to Adam. He knew that\nthe same thing is true of pigeons. He knew that gardeners had spent\ntheir lives trying to breed black tulips and green carnations and\nunheard-of orchids, and had actually produced flowers just as strange\nto Eve. His quarrel with the Evolutionists was not a quarrel with the\nevidence for Evolution: he had accepted enough of it to prove Evolution\nten times over before he ever heard of it. What he repudiated was\ncousinship with the ape, and the implied suspicion of a rudimentary\ntail, because it was offensive to his sense of his own dignity, and\nbecause he thought that apes were ridiculous, and tails diabolical when\nassociated with the erect posture. Also he believed that Evolution was\na heresy which involved the destruction of Christianity, of which, as\na member of the Irish Church (the pseudo-Protestant one), he conceived\nhimself a pillar. But this was only his ignorance; for man may deny his\ndescent from an ape and be eligible as a churchwarden without being any\nthe less a convinced Evolutionist.\n\n\nDISCOVERY ANTICIPATED BY DIVINATION\n\nWhat is more, the religious folk can claim to be among the pioneers of\nEvolutionism. Weismann, Neo-Darwinist though he was, devoted a long\npassage in his History of Evolution to the Nature Philosophy of Lorenz\nOken, published in 1809. Oken defined natural science as 'the science\nof the everlasting transmutations of the Holy Ghost in the world.' His\nreligion had started him on the right track, and not only led him to\nthink out a whole scheme of Evolution in abstract terms, but guided his\naim in a significantly good scientific shot which brought him within the\nscope of Weismann. He not only defined the original substance from which\nall forms of life have developed as protoplasm, or, as he called it,\nprimitive slime (_Urschleim_), but actually declared that this slime\ntook the form of vesicles out of which the universe was built. Here was\nthe modern cell morphology guessed by a religious thinker long before\nthe microscope and the scalpel forced it on the vision of mere\nlaboratory workers who could not think and had no religion. They worked\nhard to discover the vital secrets of the glands by opening up dogs\nand cutting out the glands, or tying up their ducts, or severing their\nnerves, thereby learning, negatively, that the governors of our vital\nforces do not hold their incessant conversations through the nerves,\nand, positively, how miserably a horribly injured dog can die, leaving\nus to infer that we shall probably perish likewise if we grudge our\nguineas to Harley Street. Lorenz Oken _thought_ very hard to find out\nwhat was happening to the Holy Ghost, and thereby made a contribution of\nextraordinary importance to our understanding of uninjured creatures.\nThe man who was scientific enough to see that the Holy Ghost is a\nscientific fact got easily in front of the blockheads who could only\nsin against it. Hence my uncle was turning his back on very respectable\ncompany when he derided Evolution, and would probably have recanted and\napologized at once had anybody pointed out to him what a solecism he was\ncommitting.\n\nThe metaphysical side of Evolution was thus no novelty when Darwin\narrived. Had Oken never lived, there would still have been millions of\npersons trained from their childhood to believe that we are continually\nurged upwards by a force called the Will of God. In 1819 Schopenhauer\npublished his treatise on The World as Will, which is the metaphysical\ncomplement to Lamarck's natural history, as it demonstrates that the\ndriving force behind Evolution is a will-to-live, and to live, as Christ\nsaid long before, more abundantly. And the earlier philosophers, from\nPlato to Leibniz, had kept the human mind open for the thought of\nthe universe as one idea behind all its physically apprehensible\ntransformations.\n\n\nCORRECTED DATES FOR THE DISCOVERY OF EVOLUTION\n\nAll this, remember, is the state of things in the pre-Darwin period,\nwhich so many of us still think of as a pre-evolutionary period.\nEvolutionism was the rage before Queen Victoria came to the throne. To\nfix this chronology, let me repeat the story told by Weismann of the\nJuly revolution in Paris in 1830, when the French got rid of Charles the\nTenth. Goethe was then still living; and a French friend of his called\non him and found him wildly excited. 'What do you think of the great\nevent?' said Goethe. 'The volcano is in eruption; and all is in flames.\nThere can no longer be discussion with closed doors.' The Frenchman\nreplied that no doubt it was a terrible business; but what could they\nexpect with such a ministry and such a king? 'Stuff!' said Goethe: 'I\nam not thinking of these people at all, but of the open rupture in\nthe French Academy between Cuvier and St Hilaire. It is of the utmost\nimportance to science,' The rupture Goethe meant was about Evolution,\nCuvier contending that there were four species, and St Hilaire that\nthere was only one.\n\nFrom 1830, when Darwin was an apparently unpromising lad of twenty-one,\nuntil 1859, when he turned the world upside down by his Origin of\nSpecies, there was a slump in Evolutionism. The first generation of its\nenthusiasts was ageing and dying out; and their successors were being\ntaught from the Book of Genesis, just as Edward VI was (and Edward VII\ntoo, for that matter). Nobody who knew the theory was adding anything to\nit. This slump not only heightened the impression of entire novelty when\nDarwin brought the subject to the front again: it probably prevented\nhim from realizing how much had been done before, even by his own\ngrandfather, to whom he was accused of being unjust. Besides, he was\nnot really carrying on the family business. He was an entirely original\nworker; and he was on a new tack, as we shall see presently. And he\nwould not in any case have thought much, as a practical naturalist, of\nthe more or less mystical intellectual speculations of the Deists of\n1790-1830. Scientific workers were very tired of Deism just then. They\nhad given up the riddle of the Great First Cause as insoluble, and were\ncalling themselves, accordingly, Agnostics. They had turned from the\ninscrutable question of Why things existed, to the spade work of\ndiscovering What was really occurring in the world and How it really\noccurred.\n\nWith all his attention bent in this new direction, Darwin soon noticed\nthat a good deal was occurring in an entirely unmystical and even\nunmeaning way of which the older speculative Deist-Evolutionists had\ntaken little or no account. Nowadays, when we are turning in weary\ndisgust and disillusion from Neo-Darwinism and Mechanism to Vitalism and\nCreative Evolution, it is difficult to imagine how this new departure of\nDarwin's could possibly have appealed to his contemporaries as exciting,\nagreeable, above all as hopeful. Let me therefore try to bring back\nsomething of the atmosphere of that time by describing a scene, very\ncharacteristic of its superstitions, in which I took what was then\nconsidered an unspeakably shocking part.\n\n\nDEFYING THE LIGHTNING: A FRUSTRATED EXPERIMENT\n\nOne evening in 1878 or thereabouts, I, being then in my earliest\ntwenties, was at a bachelor party of young men of the professional class\nin the house of a doctor in the Kensingtonian quarter of London. They\nfell to talking about religious revivals; and an anecdote was related of\na man who, having incautiously scoffed at the mission of Messrs Moody\nand Sankey, a then famous firm of American evangelists, was subsequently\ncarried home on a shutter, slain by divine vengeance as a blasphemer.\nA timid minority, without quite venturing to question the truth of the\nincident--for they naturally did not care to run the risk of going home\non shutters themselves--nevertheless shewed a certain disposition to\ncavil at those who exulted in it; and something approaching to an\nargument began. At last it was alleged by the most evangelical of the\ndisputants that Charles Bradlaugh, the most formidable atheist on the\nSecularist platform, had taken out his watch publicly and challenged the\nAlmighty to strike him dead in five minutes if he really existed and\ndisapproved of atheism. The leader of the cavillers, with great heat,\nrepudiated this as a gross calumny, declaring that Bradlaugh had\nrepeatedly and indignantly contradicted it, and implying that the\natheist champion was far too pious a man to commit such a blasphemy.\nThis exquisite confusion of ideas roused my sense of comedy. It was\nclear to me that the challenge attributed to Charles Bradlaugh was a\nscientific experiment of a quite simple, straightforward, and proper\nkind to ascertain whether the expression of atheistic opinions really\ndid involve any personal risk. It was certainly the method taught in the\nBible, Elijah having confuted the prophets of Baal in precisely that\nway, with every circumstance of bitter mockery of their god when he\nfailed to send down fire from heaven. Accordingly I said that if the\nquestion at issue were whether the penalty of questioning the theology\nof Messrs Moody and Sankey was to be struck dead on the spot by an\nincensed deity, nothing could effect a more convincing settlement of it\nthan the very obvious experiment attributed to Mr Bradlaugh, and that\nconsequently if he had not tried it, he ought to have tried it. The\nomission, I added, was one which could easily be remedied there and\nthen, as I happened to share Mr Bradlaugh's views as to the absurdity of\nthe belief in these violent interferences with the order of nature by a\nshort-tempered and thin-skinned supernatural deity. Therefore--and at\nthat point I took out my watch.\n\nThe effect was electrical. Neither sceptics nor devotees were prepared\nto abide the result of the experiment. In vain did I urge the pious to\ntrust in the accuracy of their deity's aim with a thunderbolt, and the\njustice of his discrimination between the innocent and the guilty. In\nvain did I appeal to the sceptics to accept the logical outcome of their\nscepticism: it soon appeared that when thunderbolts were in question\nthere were no sceptics. Our host, seeing that his guests would vanish\nprecipitately if the impious challenge were uttered, leaving him alone\nwith a solitary infidel under sentence of extermination in five minutes,\ninterposed and forbade the experiment, pleading at the same time for\na change of subject. I of course complied, but could not refrain from\nremarking that though the dreadful words had not been uttered, yet, as\nthe thought had been formulated in my mind, it was very doubtful whether\nthe consequences could be averted by sealing my lips. However, the rest\nappeared to feel that the game would be played according to the rules,\nand that it mattered very little what I thought so long as I said\nnothing. Only the leader of the evangelical party, I thought, was a\nlittle preoccupied until five minutes had elapsed and the weather was\nstill calm.\n\n\nIN QUEST OF THE FIRST CAUSE\n\nAnother reminiscence. In those days we thought in terms of time and\nspace, of cause and effect, as we still do; but we do not now demand\nfrom a religion that it shall explain the universe completely in terms\nof cause and effect, and present the world to us as a manufactured\narticle and as the private property of its Manufacturer. We did then. We\nwere invited to pity the delusion of certain heathens who held that\nthe world is supported by an elephant who is supported by a tortoise.\nMahomet decided that the mountains are great weights to keep the world\nfrom being blown away into space. But we refuted these orientals by\nasking triumphantly what the tortoise stands on? Freethinkers asked\nwhich came first: the owl or the egg. Nobody thought of saying that\nthe ultimate problem of existence, being clearly insoluble and even\nunthinkable on causation lines, could not be a causation problem. To\npious people this would have been flat atheism, because they assumed\nthat God must be a Cause, and sometimes called him The Great First\nCause, or, in still choicer language, The Primal Cause. To the\nRationalists it would have been a renunciation of reason. Here and there\na man would confess that he stood as with a dim lantern in a dense fog,\nand could see but a little way in any direction into infinity. But he\ndid not really believe that infinity was infinite or that the eternal\nwas also sempiternal: he assumed that all things, known and unknown,\nwere caused.\n\nHence it was that I found myself one day towards the end of the\neighteen-seventies in a cell in the old Brompton Oratory arguing with\nFather Addis, who had been called by one of his flock to attempt my\nconversion to Roman Catholicism. The universe exists, said the father:\nsomebody must have made it. If that somebody exists, said I, somebody\nmust have made him. I grant that for the sake of argument, said the\nOratorian. I grant you a maker of God. I grant you a maker of the maker\nof God. I grant you as long a line of makers as you please; but an\ninfinity of makers is unthinkable and extravagant: it is no harder to\nbelieve in number one than in number fifty thousand or fifty million; so\nwhy not accept number one and stop there, since no attempt to get behind\nhim will remove your logical difficulty? By your leave, said I, it is as\neasy for me to believe that the universe made itself as that a maker of\nthe universe made himself: in fact much easier; for the universe visibly\nexists and makes itself as it goes along, whereas a maker for it is a\nhypothesis. Of course we could get no further on these lines. He rose\nand said that we were like two men working a saw, he pushing it forward\nand I pushing it back, and cutting nothing; but when we had dropped the\nsubject and were walking through the refectory, he returned to it for a\nmoment to say that he should go mad if he lost his belief. I, glorying\nin the robust callousness of youth and the comedic spirit, felt quite\ncomfortable and said so; though I was touched, too, by his evident\nsincerity.\n\nThese two anecdotes are superficially trivial and even comic; but there\nis an abyss of horror beneath them. They reveal a condition so utterly\nirreligious that religion means nothing but belief in a nursery bogey,\nand its inadequacy is demonstrated by a toy logical dilemma, neither\nthe bogey nor the dilemma having anything to do with religion, or being\nserious enough to impose on or confuse any properly educated child\nover the age of six. One hardly knows which is the more appalling: the\nabjectness of the credulity or the flippancy of the scepticism. The\nresult was inevitable. All who were strong-minded enough not to be\nterrified by the bogey were left stranded in empty contemptuous\nnegation, and argued, when they argued at all, as I argued with Father\nAddis. But their position was not intellectually comfortable. A member\nof parliament expressed their discomfort when, objecting to the\nadmission of Charles Bradlaugh into parliament, he said 'Hang it all, a\nman should believe in something or somebody.' It was easy to throw the\nbogey into the dustbin; but none the less the world, our corner of the\nuniverse, did not look like a pure accident: it presented evidences of\ndesign in every direction. There was mind and purpose behind it. As the\nanti-Bradlaugh member would have put it, there must be somebody behind\nthe something: no atheist could get over that.\n\n\nPALEY'S WATCH\n\nPaley had put the argument in an apparently unanswerable form. If you\nfound a watch, full of mechanism exquisitely adapted to produce a series\nof operations all leading to the fulfilment of one central purpose of\nmeasuring for mankind the march of the day and night, could you believe\nthat it was not the work of a cunning artificer who had designed and\ncontrived it all to that end? And here was a far more wonderful thing\nthan a watch, a man with all his organs ingeniously contrived, cords and\nlevers, girders and kingposts, circulating systems of pipes and valves,\ndialysing membranes, chemical retorts, carburettors, ventilators, inlets\nand outlets, telephone transmitters in his ears, light recorders and\nlenses in his eye: was it conceivable that this was the work of chance?\nthat no artificer had wrought here? that there was no purpose in this,\nno design, no guiding intelligence? The thing was incredible. In vain\ndid Helmholtz declare that 'the eye has every possible defect that can\nbe found in an optical instrument, and even some peculiar to itself,'\nand that 'if an optician tried to sell me an instrument which had all\nthese defects I should think myself quite justified in blaming\nhis carelessness in the strongest terms, and sending him back his\ninstrument.' To discredit the optician's skill was not to get rid of the\noptician. The eye might not be so cleverly made as Paley thought, but it\nwas made somehow, by somebody.\n\nAnd then my argument with Father Addis began all over again. It was\neasy enough to say that every man makes his own eyes: indeed the\nembryologists had actually caught him doing it. But what about the very\nevident purpose that prompted him to do it? Why did he want to see, if\nnot to extend his consciousness and his knowledge and his power? That\npurpose was at work everywhere, and must be something bigger than the\nindividual eye-making man. Only the stupidest muckrakers could fail to\nsee this, and even to know it as part of their own consciousness. Yet to\nadmit it seemed to involve letting the bogey come back, so inextricably\nhad we managed to mix up belief in the bogey's existence with belief in\nthe existence of design in the universe.\n\n\nTHE IRRESISTIBLE CRY OF ORDER, ORDER!\n\nOur scornful young scientific and philosophic lions of today must not\nblame the Church of England for this confusion of thought. In 1562 the\nChurch, in convocation in London 'for the avoiding of diversities of\nopinions and for the establishment of consent touching true religion,'\nproclaimed in their first utterance, and as an Article of Religion,\nthat God is 'without body, parts, or passions,' or, as we say, an _Elan\nVital_ or Life Force. Unfortunately neither parents, parsons, nor\npedagogues could be induced to adopt that article. St John might say\nthat 'God is spirit' as pointedly as he pleased; our Sovereign Lady\nElizabeth might ratify the Article again and again; serious divines\nmight feel as deeply as they could that a God with body, parts, and\npassions could be nothing but an anthropomorphic idol: no matter: people\nat large could not conceive a God who was not anthropomorphic: they\nstood by the Old Testament legends of a God whose parts had been seen by\none of the patriarchs, and finally set up as against the Church a God\nwho, far from being without body, parts, or passions, was composed of\nnothing else, and of very evil passions too. They imposed this idol\nin practice on the Church itself, in spite of the First Article, and\nthereby homeopathically produced the atheist, whose denial of God was\nsimply a denial of the idol and a demonstration against an unbearable\nand most unchristian idolatry. The idol was, as Shelley had been\nexpelled from Oxford for pointing out, an almighty fiend, with a petty\ncharacter and unlimited power, spiteful, cruel, jealous, vindictive,\nand physically violent. The most villainous schoolmasters, the most\ntyrannical parents, fell far short in their attempts to imitate it.\nBut it was not its social vices that brought it low. What made it\nscientifically intolerable was that it was ready at a moment's notice to\nupset the whole order of the universe on the most trumpery provocation,\nwhether by stopping the sun in the valley of Ajalon or sending an\natheist home dead on a shutter (the shutter was indispensable because\nit marked the utter unpreparedness of the atheist, who, unable to save\nhimself by a deathbed repentance, was subsequently roasted through all\neternity in blazing brimstone). It was this disorderliness, this refusal\nto obey its own laws of nature, that created a scientific need for its\ndestruction. Science could stand a cruel and unjust god; for nature was\nfull of suffering and injustice. But a disorderly god was impossible. In\nthe Middle Ages a compromise had been made by which two different orders\nof truth, religious and scientific, had been recognized, in order that a\nschoolman might say that two and two make four without being burnt for\nheresy. But the nineteenth century, steeped in a meddling, presumptuous,\nreading-and-writing, socially and politically powerful ignorance\ninconceivable by Thomas Aquinas or even Roger Bacon, was incapable of\nso convenient an arrangement; and science was strangled by bigoted\nignoramuses claiming infallibility for their interpretation of the\nBible, which was regarded, not as a literature nor even as a book, but\npartly as an oracle which answered and settled all questions, and partly\nas a talisman to be carried by soldiers in their breast pockets or\nplaced under the pillows of persons who were afraid of ghosts. The tract\nshops exhibited in their windows bullet-dinted testaments, mothers'\ngifts to their soldier sons whose lives had been saved by it; for the\nmuzzle-loaders of those days could not drive a projectile through so\nmany pages.\n\n\nTHE MOMENT AND THE MAN\n\nThis superstition of a continual capricious disorder in nature, of a\nlawgiver who was also a lawbreaker, made atheists in all directions\namong clever and lightminded people. But atheism did not account for\nPaley's watch. Atheism accounted for nothing; and it was the business of\nscience to account for everything that was plainly accountable. Science\nhad no use for mere negation: what was desired by it above all things\njust then was a demonstration that the evidences of design could be\nexplained without resort to the hypothesis of a personal designer. If\nonly some genius, whilst admitting Paley's facts, could knock the brains\nout of Paley by the discovery of a method whereby watches could happen\nwithout watchmakers, that genius was assured of such a welcome from the\nthought of his day as no natural philosopher had ever enjoyed before.\n\nThe time being thus ripe, the genius appeared; and his name was Charles\nDarwin. And now, what did Darwin really discover?\n\nHere, I am afraid, I shall require once more the assistance of the\ngiraffe, or, as he was called in the days of the celebrated Buffoon,\nthe camelopard (by children, cammyleopard). I do not remember how this\nanimal imposed himself illustratively on the Evolution controversy; but\nthere was no getting away from him then; and I am old-fashioned enough\nto be unable to get away from him now. How did he come by his long neck?\nLamarck would have said, by wanting to get at the tender leaves high\nup on the tree, and trying until he succeeded in wishing the necessary\nlength of neck into existence. Another answer was also possible: namely,\nthat some prehistoric stockbreeder, wishing to produce a natural\ncuriosity, selected the longest-necked animals he could find, and bred\nfrom them until at last an animal with an abnormally long neck was\nevolved by intentional selection, just as the race-horse or the fantail\npigeon has been evolved. Both these explanations, you will observe,\ninvolve consciousness, will, design, purpose, either on the part of the\nanimal itself or on the part of a superior intelligence controlling its\ndestiny. Darwin pointed out--and this and no more was Darwin's famous\ndiscovery--that a third explanation, involving neither will nor purpose\nnor design either in the animal or anyone else, was on the cards. If\nyour neck is too short to reach your food, you die. That may be the\nsimple explanation of the fact that all the surviving animals that feed\non foliage have necks or trunks long enough to reach it. So bang goes\nyour belief that the necks must have been designed to reach the food.\nBut Lamarck did not believe that the necks were so designed in the\nbeginning: he believed that the long necks were evolved by wanting\nand trying. Not necessarily, said Darwin. Consider the effect on the\ngiraffes of the natural multiplication of their numbers, as insisted on\nby Malthus. Suppose the average height of the foliage-eating animals is\nfour feet, and that they increase in numbers until a time comes when all\nthe trees are eaten away to within four feet of the ground. Then the\nanimals who happen to be an inch or two short of the average will die\nof starvation. All the animals who happen to be an inch or so above\nthe average will be better fed and stronger than the others. They will\nsecure the strongest and tallest mates; and their progeny will survive\nwhilst the average ones and the sub-average ones will die out. This\nprocess, by which the species gains, say, an inch in reach, will repeat\nitself until the giraffe's neck is so long that he can always find\nfood enough within his reach, at which point, of course, the selective\nprocess stops and the length of the giraffe's neck stops with it.\nOtherwise, he would grow until he could browse off the trees in the\nmoon. And this, mark you, without the intervention of any stockbreeder,\nhuman or divine, and without will, purpose, design, or even\nconsciousness beyond the blind will to satisfy hunger. It is true that\nthis blind will, being in effect a will to live, gives away the whole\ncase; but still, as compared to the open-eyed intelligent wanting and\ntrying of Lamarck, the Darwinian process may be described as a chapter\nof accidents. As such, it seems simple, because you do not at first\nrealize all that it involves. But when its whole significance dawns on\nyou, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous\nfatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and\nintelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration, to such\ncasually picturesque changes as an avalanche may make in a mountain\nlandscape, or a railway accident in a human figure. To call this Natural\nSelection is a blasphemy, possible to many for whom Nature is nothing\nbut a casual aggregation of inert and dead matter, but eternally\nimpossible to the spirits and souls of the righteous. If it be no\nblasphemy, but a truth of science, then the stars of heaven, the showers\nand dew, the winter and summer, the fire and heat, the mountains and\nhills, may no longer be called to exalt the Lord with us by praise;\ntheir work is to modify all things by blindly starving and murdering\neverything that is not lucky enough to survive in the universal struggle\nfor hogwash.\n\n\nTHE BRINK OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT\n\nThus did the neck of the giraffe reach out across the whole heavens and\nmake men believe that what they saw there was a gloaming of the gods.\nFor if this sort of selection could turn an antelope into a giraffe, it\ncould conceivably turn a pond full of amoebas into the French\nAcademy. Though Lamarck's way, the way of life, will, aspiration, and\nachievement, remained still possible, this newly shewn way of hunger,\ndeath, stupidity, delusion, chance, and bare survival was also possible:\nwas indeed most certainly the way in which many apparently intelligently\ndesigned transformations had actually come to pass. Had I not preluded\nwith the apparently idle story of my revival of the controversial\nmethods of Elijah, I should be asked how it was that the explorer who\nopened up this gulf of despair, far from being stoned or crucified as\nthe destroyer of the honor of the race and the purpose of the world, was\nhailed as Deliverer, Savior, Prophet, Redeemer, Enlightener, Rescuer,\nHope Giver, and Epoch Maker; whilst poor Lamarck was swept aside as a\ncrude and exploded guesser hardly worthy to be named as his erroneous\nforerunner. In the light of my anecdote, the explanation is obvious. The\nfirst thing the gulf did was to swallow up Paley, and the Disorderly\nDesigner, and Shelley's Almighty Fiend, and all the rest of the\npseudo-religious rubbish that had blocked every upward and onward path\nsince the hopes of men had turned to Science as their true Savior. It\nseemed such a convenient grave that nobody at first noticed that it was\nnothing less than the bottomless pit, now become a very real terror. For\nthough Darwin left a path round it for his soul, his followers presently\ndug it right across the whole width of the way. Yet for the moment,\nthere was nothing but wild rejoicing: a sort of scientific mafficking.\nWe had been so oppressed by the notion that everything that happened in\nthe world was the arbitrary personal act of an arbitrary personal god\nof dangerously jealous and cruel personal character, so that even the\nrelief of the pains of childbirth and the operating table by chloroform\nwas objected to as an interference with his arrangements which he would\nprobably resent, that we just jumped at Darwin. When Napoleon was asked\nwhat would happen when he died, he said that Europe would express its\nintense relief with a great 'Ouf!': Well, when Darwin killed the god who\nobjected to chloroform, everybody who had ever thought about it said\n'Ouf!' Paley was buried fathoms deep with his watch, now fully accounted\nfor without any divine artificer at all. We were so glad to be rid of\nboth that we never gave a thought to the consequences. When a prisoner\nsees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to\nthink where he shall get his dinner outside. The moment we found that we\ncould do without Shelley's almighty fiend intellectually, he went into\nthe gulf that seemed only a dustbin with a suddenness that made our own\nlives one of the most astonishing periods in history. If I had told that\nuncle of mine that within thirty years from the date of our conversation\nI should be exposing myself to suspicions of the grossest superstition\nby questioning the sufficiency of Darwin; maintaining the reality of the\nHoly Ghost; declaring that the phenomenon of the Word becoming Flesh\nwas occurring daily, he would have regarded me as the most extravagant\nmadman our family had ever produced. Yet it was so. In 1906 I might\nhave vituperated Jehovah more heartily than ever Shelley did without\neliciting a protest in any circle of thinkers, or shocking any public\naudience accustomed to modern discussion; but when I described Darwin\nas 'an intelligent and industrious pigeon fancier,' that blasphemous\nlevity, as it seemed, was received with horror and indignation. The tide\nhas now turned; and every puny whipster may say what he likes about\nDarwin; but anyone who wants to know what it was to be a Lamarckian\nduring the last quarter of the nineteenth century has only to read Mr\nFesting Jones's memoir of Samuel Butler to learn how completely even a\nman of genius could isolate himself by antagonizing Darwin on the one\nhand and the Church on the other.\n\n\nWHY DARWIN CONVERTED THE CROWD\n\nI am well aware that in describing the effect of Darwin's discovery on\nnaturalists and on persons capable of serious reflection on the nature\nand attributes of God, I am leaving the vast mass of the British public\nout of account. I have pointed out elsewhere that the British nation\ndoes not consist of atheists and Plymouth Brothers; and I am not now\ngoing to pretend that it ever consisted of Darwinians and Lamarckians.\nThe average citizen is irreligious and unscientific: you talk to him\nabout cricket and golf, market prices and party politics, not about\nevolution and relativity, transubstantiation and predestination. Nothing\nwill knock into his head the fateful distinction between Evolution as\npromulgated by Erasmus Darwin, and Circumstantial (so-called Natural)\nSelection as revealed by his grandson. Yet the doctrine of Charles\nreached him, though the doctrine of Erasmus had passed over his head.\nWhy did not Erasmus Darwin popularize the word Evolution as effectively\nas Charles?\n\nThe reason was, I think, that Circumstantial Selection is easier to\nunderstand, more visible and concrete, than Lamarckian evolution.\nEvolution as a philosophy and physiology of the will is a mystical\nprocess, which can be apprehended only by a trained, apt, and\ncomprehensive thinker. Though the phenomena of use and disuse, of\nwanting and trying, of the manufacture of weight lifters and wrestlers\nfrom men of ordinary strength, are familiar enough as facts, they are\nextremely puzzling as subjects of thought, and lead you into metaphysics\nthe moment you try to account for them. But pigeon fanciers, dog\nfanciers, gardeners, stock breeders, or stud grooms, can understand\nCircumstantial Selection, because it is their business to produce\ntransformation by imposing on flowers and animals a Selection From\nWithout. All that Darwin had to say to them was that the mere chapter of\naccidents is always doing on a huge scale what they themselves are doing\non a very small scale. There is hardly a laborer attached to an English\ncountry house who has not taken a litter of kittens or puppies to the\nbucket, and drowned all of them except the one he thinks the most\npromising. Such a man has nothing to learn about the survival of the\nfittest except that it acts in more ways than he has yet noticed; for he\nknows quite well, as you will find if you are not too proud to talk to\nhim, that this sort of selection occurs naturally (in Darwin's sense)\ntoo: that, for instance, a hard winter will kill off a weakly child as\nthe bucket kills off a weakly puppy. Then there is the farm laborer.\nShakespear's Touchstone, a court-bred fool, was shocked to find in the\nshepherd a natural philosopher, and opined that he would be damned for\nthe part he took in the sexual selection of sheep. As to the production\nof new species by the selection of variations, that is no news to your\ngardener. Now if you are familiar with these three processes: the\nsurvival of the fittest, sexual selection, and variation leading to new\nkinds, there is nothing to puzzle you in Darwinism.\n\nThat was the secret of Darwin's popularity. He never puzzled anybody. If\nvery few of us have read The Origin of Species from end to end, it is\nnot because it overtaxes our mind, but because we take in the whole case\nand are prepared to accept it long before we have come to the end of\nthe innumerable instances and illustrations of which the book mainly\nconsists. Darwin becomes tedious in the manner of a man who insists\non continuing to prove his innocence after he has been acquitted. You\nassure him that there is not a stain on his character, and beg him to\nleave the court; but he will not be content with enough evidence: he\nwill have you listen to all the evidence that exists in the world.\nDarwin's industry was enormous. His patience, his perseverance, his\nconscientiousness reached the human limit. But he never got deeper\nbeneath or higher above his facts than an ordinary man could follow\nhim. He was not conscious of having raised a stupendous issue, because,\nthough it arose instantly, it was not his business. He was conscious of\nhaving discovered a process of transformation and modification which\naccounted for a great deal of natural history. But he did not put it\nforward as accounting for the whole of natural history. He included it\nunder the heading of Evolution, though it was only pseudo-evolution at\nbest; but he revealed it as _a_ method of evolution, not as _the_ method\nof evolution. He did not pretend that it excluded other methods, or\nthat it was the chief method. Though he demonstrated that many\ntransformations which had been taken as functional adaptations (the\ncurrent phrase for Lamarckian evolution) either certainly were or\nconceivably might be due to Circumstantial Selection, he was careful\nnot to claim that he had superseded Lamarck or disproved Functional\nAdaptation. In short, he was not a Darwinian, but an honest naturalist\nworking away at his job with so little preoccupation with theological\nspeculation that he never quarrelled with the theistic Unitarianism into\nwhich he was born, and remained to the end the engagingly simple and\nsocially easy-going soul he had been in his boyhood, when his elders\ndoubted whether he would ever be of much use in the world.\n\n\nHOW WE RUSHED DOWN A STEEP PLACE\n\nNot so the rest of us intellectuals. We all began going to the devil\nwith the utmost cheerfulness. Everyone who had a mind to change, changed\nit. Only Samuel Butler, on whom Darwin had acted homeopathically,\nreacted against him furiously; ran up the Lamarckian flag to the\ntop-gallant peak; declared with penetrating accuracy that Darwin had\n'banished mind from the universe'; and even attacked Darwin's personal\ncharacter, unable to bear the fact that the author of so abhorrent a\ndoctrine was an amiable and upright man. Nobody would listen to him. He\nwas so completely submerged by the flowing tide of Darwinism that when\nDarwin wanted to clear up the misunderstanding on which Butler was\nbasing his personal attacks, Darwin's friends, very foolishly and\nsnobbishly, persuaded him that Butler was too ill-conditioned and\nnegligible to be answered. That they could not recognize in Butler a\nman of genius mattered little: what did matter was that they could not\nunderstand the provocation under which he was raging. They actually\nregarded the banishment of mind from the universe as a glorious\nenlightenment and emancipation for which he was ignorantly ungrateful.\nEven now, when Butler's eminence is unchallenged, and his biographer, Mr\nFesting Jones, is enjoying a vogue like that of Boswell or Lockhart, his\nmemoirs shew him rather as a shocking example of the bad controversial\nmanners of our country parsonages than as a prophet who tried to head\nus back when we were gaily dancing to our damnation across the rainbow\nbridge which Darwinism had thrown over the gulf which separates life and\nhope from death and despair. We were intellectually intoxicated with the\nidea that the world could make itself without design, purpose, skill,\nor intelligence: in short, without life. We completely overlooked the\ndifference between the modification of species by adaptation to their\nenvironment and the appearance of new species: we just threw in the word\n'variations' or the word 'sports' (fancy a man of science talking of\nan unknown factor as a sport instead of as _x_!) and left them to\n'accumulate' and account for the difference between a cockatoo and a\nhippopotamus. Such phrases set us free to revel in demonstrating to the\nVitalists and Bible worshippers that if we once admit the existence of\nany kind of force, however unintelligent, and stretch out the past to\nunlimited time for such force to operate accidentally in, that force may\nconceivably, by the action of Circumstantial Selection, produce a world\nin which every function has an organ perfectly adapted to perform it,\nand therefore presents every appearance of having been designed, like\nPaley's watch, by a conscious and intelligent artificer for the purpose.\nWe took a perverse pleasure in arguing, without the least suspicion\nthat we were reducing ourselves to absurdity, that all the books in the\nBritish Museum library might have been written word for word as they\nstand on the shelves if no human being had ever been conscious, just\nas the trees stand in the forest doing wonderful things without\nconsciousness.\n\nAnd the Darwinians went far beyond denying consciousness to trees.\nWeismann insisted that the chick breaks out of its eggshell\nautomatically; that the butterfly, springing into the air to avoid the\npounce of the lizard, 'does not wish to avoid death; knows nothing about\ndeath,' what has happened being simply that a flight instinct evolved by\nCircumstantial Selection reacts promptly to a visual impression produced\nby the lizard's movement. His proof is that the butterfly immediately\nsettles again on the flower, and repeats the performance every time the\nlizard springs, thus shewing that it learns nothing from experience,\nand--Weismann concludes--is not conscious of what it does.\n\nIt should hardly have escaped so curious an observer that when the cat\njumps up on the dinner table, and you put it down, it instantly jumps\nup again, and finally establishes its right to a place on the cloth by\nconvincing you that if you put it down a hundred times it will jump up a\nhundred and one times; so that if you desire its company at dinner you\ncan have it only on its own terms. If Weismann really thought that\ncats act thus without any consciousness or any purpose, immediate or\nulterior, he must have known very little about cats. But a thoroughgoing\nWeismannite, if any such still survive from those mad days, would\ncontend that I am not at present necessarily conscious of what I am\ndoing; that my writing of these lines, and your reading of them, are\neffects of Circumstantial Selection; that I heed know no more about\nDarwinism than a butterfly knows of a lizard's appetite; and that the\nproof that I actually am doing it unconsciously is that as I have spent\nforty years in writing in this fashion without, as far as I can see,\nproducing any visible effect on public opinion, I must be incapable of\nlearning from experience, and am therefore a mere automaton. And\nthe Weismannite demonstration of this would of course be an equally\nunconscious effect of Circumstantial Selection.\n\n\nDARWINISM NOT FINALLY REFUTABLE\n\nDo not too hastily say that this is inconceivable. To Circumstantial\nSelection all mechanical and chemical reactions are possible, provided\nyou accept the geologists' estimates of the great age of the earth, and\ntherefore allow time enough for the circumstances to operate. It is true\nthat mere survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence plus\nsexual selection fail as hopelessly to account for Darwin's own life\nwork as for my conquest of the bicycle; but who can prove that there\nare not other soulless factors, unnoticed or undiscovered, which only\nrequire imagination enough to fit them to the evolution of an automatic\nJesus or Shakespear? When a man tells you that you are a product of\nCircumstantial Selection solely, you cannot finally disprove it. You can\nonly tell him out of the depths of your inner conviction that he is a\nfool and a liar. But as this, though British, is uncivil, it is wiser to\noffer him the counter-assurance that you are the product of Lamarckian\nevolution, formerly called Functional Adaptation and now Creative\nEvolution, and challenge him to disprove _that_, which he can no more\ndo than you can disprove Circumstantial Selection, both forces being\nconceivably able to produce anything if you only give them rope enough.\nYou may also defy him to act for a single hour on the assumption that he\nmay safely cross Oxford Street in a state of unconsciousness, trusting\nto his dodging reflexes to react automatically and promptly enough\nto the visual impression produced by a motor bus, and the audible\nimpression produced by its hooter. But if you allow yourself to defy him\nto explain any particular action of yours by Circumstantial Selection,\nhe should always be able to find some explanation that will fit the case\nif only he is ingenious enough and goes far enough to find it. Darwin\nfound several such explanations in his controversies. Anybody who really\nwants to believe that the universe has been produced by Circumstantial\nSelection co-operating with a force as inhuman as we conceive magnetism\nto be can find a logical excuse for his belief if he tries hard enough.\n\n\n\nTHREE BLIND MICE\n\nThe stultification and damnation which ensued are illustrated by a\ncomparison of the ease and certainty with which Butler's mind moved to\nhumane and inspiring conclusions with the grotesque stupidities and\ncruelties of the idle and silly controversy which arose among the\nDarwinians as to whether acquired habits can be transmitted from parents\nto offspring. Consider, for example, how Weismann set to work on that\nsubject. An Evolutionist with a live mind would first have dropped the\npopular expression 'acquired habits,' because to an Evolutionist there\nare no other habits and can be no others, a man being only an amoeba\nwith acquirements. He would then have considered carefully the process\nby which he himself had acquired his habits. He would have assumed that\nthe habits with which he was born must have been acquired by a similar\nprocess. He would have known what a habit is: that is, an Action\nvoluntarily attempted until it has become more or less automatic and\ninvoluntary; and it would never have occurred to him that injuries or\naccidents coming from external sources against the will of the victim\ncould possibly establish a habit; that, for instance, a family could\nacquire a habit of being killed in railway accidents.\n\nAnd yet Weismann began to investigate the point by behaving like the\nbutcher's wife in the old catch. He got a colony of mice, and cut off\ntheir tails. Then he waited to see whether their children would be born\nwithout tails. They were not, as Butler could have told him beforehand.\nHe then cut off the children's tails, and waited to see whether the\ngrandchildren would be born with at least rather short tails. They were\nnot, as I could have told him beforehand. So with the patience and\nindustry on which men of science pride themselves, he cut off the\ngrandchildren's tails too, and waited, full of hope, for the birth of\ncurtailed great-grandchildren. But their tails were quite up to the\nmark, as any fool could have told him beforehand. Weismann then gravely\ndrew the inference that acquired habits cannot be transmitted. And yet\nWeismann was not a born imbecile. He was an exceptionally clever and\nstudious man, not without roots of imagination and philosophy in him\nwhich Darwinism killed as weeds.\n\nHow was it that he did not see that he was not experimenting with habits\nor characteristics at all? How had he overlooked the glaring fact that\nhis experiment had been tried for many generations in China on the feet\nof Chinese women without producing the smallest tendency on their part\nto be born with abnormally small feet? He must have known about the\nbound feet even if he knew nothing of the mutilations, the clipped ears\nand docked tails, practised by dog fanciers and horse breeders on many\ngenerations of the unfortunate animals they deal in. Such amazing\nblindness and stupidity on the part of a man who was naturally\nneither blind nor stupid is a telling illustration of what Darwin\nunintentionally did to the minds of his disciples by turning their\nattention so exclusively towards the part played in Evolution by\naccident and violence operating with entire callousness to suffering and\nsentiment.\n\nA vital conception of Evolution would have taught Weismann that\nbiological problems are not to be solved by assaults on mice. The\nscientific form of his experiment would have been something like this.\nFirst, he should have procured a colony of mice highly susceptible to\nhypnotic suggestion. He should then have hypnotized them into an\nurgent conviction that the fate of the musque world depended on\nthe disappearance of its tail, just as some ancient and forgotten\nexperimenter seems to have convinced the cats of the Isle of Man. Having\nthus made the mice desire to lose their tails with a life-or-death\nintensity, he would very soon have seen a few mice born with little or\nno tail. These would be recognized by the other mice as superior\nbeings, and privileged in the division of food and in sexual selection.\nUltimately the tailed mice would be put to death as monsters by their\nfellows, and the miracle of the tailless mouse completely achieved.\n\nThe objection to this experiment is not that it seems too funny to be\ntaken seriously, and is not cruel enough to overawe the mob, but simply\nthat it is impossible because the human experimenter cannot get at the\nmouse's mind. And that is what is wrong with all the barren cruelties of\nthe laboratories. Darwin's followers did not think of this. Their only\nidea of investigation was to imitate 'Nature' by perpetrating violent\nand senseless cruelties, and watch the effect of them with a paralyzing\nfatalism which forbade the smallest effort to use their minds instead of\ntheir knives and eyes, and established an abominable tradition that the\nman who hesitates to be as cruel as Circumstantial Selection itself is a\ntraitor to science. For Weismann's experiment upon the mice was a mere\njoke compared to the atrocities committed by other Darwinians in their\nattempts to prove that mutilations could not be transmitted. No doubt\nthe worst of these experiments were not really experiments at all, but\ncruelties committed by cruel men who were attracted to the laboratory by\nthe fact that it was a secret refuge left by law and public superstition\nfor the amateur of passionate torture. But there is no reason to suspect\nWeismann of Sadism. Cutting off the tails of several generations of mice\nis not voluptuous enough to tempt a scientific Nero. It was a mere piece\nof one-eyedness; and it was Darwin who put out Weismann's humane and\nsensible eye. He blinded many another eye and paralyzed many another\nwill also. Ever since he set up Circumstantial Selection as the creator\nand ruler of the universe, the scientific world has been the very\ncitadel of stupidity and cruelty. Fearful as the tribal god of the\nHebrews was, nobody ever shuddered as they passed even his meanest and\nnarrowest Little Bethel or his proudest war-consecrating cathedral as we\nshudder now when we pass a physiological laboratory. If we dreaded and\nmistrusted the priest, we could at least keep him out of the house; but\nwhat of the modern Darwinist surgeon whom we dread and mistrust ten\ntimes more, but into whose hands we must all give ourselves from time\nto time? Miserably as religion had been debased, it did at least still\nproclaim that our relation to one another was that of a fellowship\nin which we were all equal and members one of another before the\njudgment-seat of our common father. Darwinism proclaimed that our true\nrelation is that of competitors and combatants in a struggle for mere\nsurvival, and that every act of pity or loyalty to the old fellowship is\na vain and mischievous attempt to lessen the severity of the struggle\nand preserve inferior varieties from the efforts of Nature to weed them\nout. Even in Socialist Societies which existed solely to substitute\nthe law of fellowship for the law of competition, and the method of\nprovidence and wisdom for the method of rushing violently down a steep\nplace into the sea, I found myself regarded as a blasphemer and an\nignorant sentimentalist because whenever the Neo-Darwinian doctrine was\npreached there I made no attempt to conceal my intellectual contempt for\nits blind coarseness and shallow logic, or my natural abhorrence of its\nsickening inhumanity.\n\n\nTHE GREATEST OF THESE IS SELF-CONTROL\n\nAs there is no place in Darwinism for free will, or any other sort\nof will, the Neo-Darwinists held that there is no such thing as\nself-control. Yet self-control is just the one quality of survival value\nwhich Circumstantial Selection must invariably and inevitably develop in\nthe long run. Uncontrolled qualities may be selected for survival and\ndevelopment for certain periods and under certain circumstances. For\ninstance, since it is the ungovernable gluttons who strive the hardest\nto get food and drink, their efforts would develop their strength and\ncunning in a period of such scarcity that the utmost they could do would\nnot enable them to over-eat themselves. But a change of circumstances\ninvolving a plentiful supply of food would destroy them. We see this\nvery thing happening often enough in the case of the healthy and\nvigorous poor man who becomes a millionaire by one of the accidents of\nour competitive commerce, and immediately proceeds to dig his grave with\nhis teeth. But the self-controlled man survives all such changes of\ncircumstance, because he adapts himself to them, and eats neither as\nmuch as he can hold nor as little as he can scrape along on, but as much\nas is good for him. What is self-control? It is nothing but a highly\ndeveloped vital sense, dominating and regulating the mere appetites. To\noverlook the very existence of this supreme sense; to miss the obvious\ninference that it is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to\nsurvive; to omit, in short, the highest moral claim of Evolutionary\nSelection: all this, which the Neo-Darwinians did in the name of Natural\nSelection, shewed the most pitiable want of mastery of their own\nsubject, the dullest lack of observation of the forces upon which\nNatural Selection works.\n\n\nA SAMPLE OF LAMARCKO-SHAVIAN INVECTIVE\n\nThe Vitalist philosophers made no such mistakes. Nietzsche, for example,\nthinking out the great central truth of the Will to Power instead of\ncutting off mouse-tails, had no difficulty in concluding that the final\nobjective of this Will was power over self, and that the seekers after\npower over others and material possessions were on a false scent.\n\nThe stultification naturally became much worse as the first Darwinians\ndied out. The prestige of these pioneers, who had the older evolutionary\nculture to build on, and were in fact no more Darwinian in the modern\nsense than Darwin himself, ceased to dazzle us when Huxley and Tyndall\nand Spencer and Darwin passed away, and we were left with the smaller\npeople who began with Darwin and took in nothing else. Accordingly, I\nfind that in the year 1906 I indulged my temper by hurling invectives at\nthe Neo-Darwinians in the following terms.\n\n'I really do not wish to be abusive; but when I think of these poor\nlittle dullards, with their precarious hold of just that corner of\nevolution that a blackbeetle can understand--with their retinue of\ntwopenny-halfpenny Torquemadas wallowing in the infamies of the\nvivisector's laboratory, and solemnly offering us as epoch-making\ndiscoveries their demonstrations that dogs get weaker and die if you\ngive them no food; that intense pain makes mice sweat; and that if you\ncut off a dog's leg the three-legged dog will have a four-legged puppy,\nI ask myself what spell has fallen on intelligent and humane men\nthat they allow themselves to be imposed on by this rabble of dolts,\nblackguards, impostors, quacks, liars, and, worst of all, credulous\nconscientious fools. Better a thousand times Moses and Spurgeon [a then\nfamous preacher] back again. After all, you cannot understand Moses\nwithout imagination nor Spurgeon without metaphysics; but you can be a\nthorough-going Neo-Darwinian without imagination, metaphysics,\npoetry, conscience, or decency. For \"Natural Selection\" has no moral\nsignificance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose,\nno intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental\nselection, or better still, Unnatural Selection, since nothing is\nmore unnatural than an accident. If it could be proved that the whole\nuniverse had been produced by such Selection, only fools and rascals\ncould bear to live.'\n\n\nTHE HUMANITARIANS AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL\n\nYet the humanitarians were as delighted as anybody with Darwinism at\nfirst. They had been perplexed by the Problem of Evil and the Cruelty of\nNature. They were Shelleyists, but not atheists. Those who believed in\nGod were at a terrible disadvantage with the atheist. They could not\ndeny the existence of natural facts so cruel that to attribute them to\nthe will of God is to make God a demon. Belief in God was impossible to\nany thoughtful person without belief in the Devil as well. The painted\nDevil, with his horns, his barbed tail, and his abode of burning\nbrimstone, was an incredible bogey; but the evil attributed to him was\nreal enough; and the atheists argued that the author of evil, if he\nexists, must be strong enough to overcome God, else God is morally\nresponsible for everything he permits the Devil to do. Neither\nconclusion delivered us from the horror of attributing the cruelty of\nnature to the workings of an evil will, or could reconcile it with our\nimpulses towards justice, mercy, and a higher life.\n\nA complete deliverance was offered by the discovery of Circumstantial\nSelection: that is to say, of a method by which horrors having every\nappearance of being elaborately planned by some intelligent contriver\nare only accidents without any moral significance at all. Suppose a\nwatcher from the stars saw a frightful accident produced by two crowded\ntrains at full speed crashing into one another! How could he conceive\nthat a catastrophe brought about by such elaborate machinery, such\ningenious preparation, such skilled direction, such vigilant industry,\nwas quite unintentional? Would he not conclude that the signal-men were\ndevils?\n\nWell, Circumstantial Selection is largely a theory of collisions: that\nis, a theory of the innocence of much apparently designed devilry. In\nthis way Darwin brought intense relief as well as an enlarged knowledge\nof facts to the humanitarians. He destroyed the omnipotence of God for\nthem; but he also exonerated God from a hideous charge of cruelty.\nGranted that the comfort was shallow, and that deeper reflection was\nbound to shew that worse than all conceivable devil-deities is a blind,\ndeaf, dumb, heartless, senseless mob of forces that strike as a tree\ndoes when it is blown down by the wind, or as the tree itself is struck\nby lightning. That did not occur to the humanitarians at the moment:\npeople do not reflect deeply when they are in the first happiness of\nescape from an intolerably oppressive situation. Like Bunyan's pilgrim\nthey could not see the wicket gate, nor the Slough of Despond, nor the\ncastle of Giant Despair; but they saw the shining light at the end of\nthe path, and so started gaily towards it as Evolutionists.\n\nAnd they were right; for the problem of evil yields very easily to\nCreative Evolution. If the driving power behind Evolution is omnipotent\nonly in the sense that there seems no limit to its final achievement;\nand if it must meanwhile struggle with matter and circumstance by\nthe method of trial and error, then the world must be full of its\nunsuccessful experiments. Christ may meet a tiger, or a High Priest\narm-in-arm with a Roman Governor, and be the unfittest to survive under\nthe circumstances. Mozart may have a genius that prevails against\nEmperors and Archbishops, and a lung that succumbs to some obscure and\nnoxious property of foul air. If all our calamities are either accidents\nor sincerely repented mistakes, there is no malice in the Cruelty\nof Nature and no Problem of Evil in the Victorian sense at all. The\ntheology of the women who told us that they became atheists when they\nsat by the cradles of their children and saw them strangled by the hand\nof God is succeeded by the theology of Blanco Posnet, with his 'It was\nearly days when He made the croup, I guess. It was the best He could\nthink of then; but when it turned out wrong on His hands He made you and\nme to fight the croup for Him.'\n\n\nHOW ONE TOUCH OF DARWIN MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN\n\nAnother humanitarian interest in Darwinism was that Darwin popularized\nEvolution generally, as well as making his own special contribution to\nit. Now the general conception of Evolution provides the humanitarian\nwith a scientific basis, because it establishes the fundamental equality\nof all living things. It makes the killing of an animal murder in\nexactly the same sense as the killing of a man is murder. It is\nsometimes necessary to kill men as it is always necessary to kill\ntigers; but the old theoretic distinction between the two acts has been\nobliterated by Evolution. When I was a child and was told that our dog\nand our parrot, with whom I was on intimate terms, were not creatures\nlike myself, but were brutal whilst I was reasonable, I not only did not\nbelieve it, but quite consciously and intellectually formed the opinion\nthat the distinction was false; so that afterwards, when Darwin's views\nwere first unfolded to me, I promptly said that I had found out all that\nfor myself before I was ten years old; and I am far from sure that my\nyouthful arrogance was not justified; for this sense of the kinship of\nall forms of life is all that is needed to make Evolution not only a\nconceivable theory, but an inspiring one. St Anthony was ripe for the\nEvolution theory when he preached to the fishes, and St Francis when\nhe called the birds his little brothers. Our vanity, and our snobbish\nconception of Godhead as being, like earthly kingship, a supreme class\ndistinction instead of the rock on which Equality is built, had led us\nto insist on God offering us special terms by placing us apart from and\nabove all the rest of his creatures. Evolution took that conceit out of\nus; and now, though we may kill a flea without the smallest remorse, we\nat all events know that we are killing our cousin. No doubt it shocks\nthe flea when the creature that an almighty Celestial Flea created\nexpressly for the food of fleas, destroys the jumping lord of creation\nwith his sharp and enormous thumbnail; but no flea will ever be so\nfoolish as to preach that in slaying fleas Man is applying a method of\nNatural Selection which will finally evolve a flea so swift that no man\ncan catch him, and so hardy of constitution that Insect Powder will have\nno more effect on him than strychnine on an elephant.\n\n\nWHY DARWIN PLEASED THE SOCIALISTS\n\nThe Humanitarians were not alone among the agitators in their welcome to\nDarwin. He had the luck to please everybody who had an axe to grind. The\nMilitarists were as enthusiastic as the Humanitarians, the Socialists as\nthe Capitalists. The Socialists were specially encouraged by Darwin's\ninsistence on the influence of environment. Perhaps the strongest moral\nbulwark of Capitalism is the belief in the efficacy of individual\nrighteousness. Robert Owen made desperate efforts to convince England\nthat her criminals, her drunkards, her ignorant and stupid masses, were\nthe victims of circumstance: that if we would only establish his new\nmoral world we should find that the masses born into an educated and\nmoralized community would be themselves educated and moralized. The\nstock reply to this is to be found in Lewes's Life of Goethe. Lewes\nscorned the notion that circumstances govern character. He pointed\nto the variety of character in the governing rich class to prove the\ncontrary. Similarity of circumstance can hardly be carried to a more\ndesolating dead level than in the case of the individuals who are born\nand bred in English country houses, and sent first to Eton or Harrow,\nand then to Oxford or Cambridge, to have their minds and habits formed.\nSuch a routine would destroy individuality if anything could. Yet\nindividuals come out from it as different as Pitt from Fox, as Lord\nRussell from Lord Gurzon, as Mr Winston Churchill from Lord Robert\nCecil. This acceptance of the congenital character of the individual\nas the determining factor in his destiny had been reinforced by the\nLamarckian view of Evolution. If the giraffe can develop his neck by\nwanting and trying, a man can develop his character in the same way. The\nold saying, 'Where there is a will, there is a way,' condenses Lamarck's\ntheory of functional adaptation into a proverb. This felt bracingly\nmoral to strong minds, and reassuringly pious to feeble ones. There was\nno more effective retort to the Socialist than to tell him to reform\nhimself before he pretends to reform society. If you were rich, how\npleasant it was to feel that you owed your riches to the superiority\nof your own character! The industrial revolution had turned numbers\nof greedy dullards into monstrously rich men. Nothing could be more\nhumiliating and threatening to them than the view that the falling of a\nshower of gold into their pockets was as pure an accident as the falling\nof a shower of hail on their umbrellas, and happened alike to the just\nand unjust. Nothing could be more flattering and fortifying to them than\nthe assumption that they were rich because they were virtuous.\n\nNow Darwinism made a clean sweep of all such self-righteousness. It\nmore than justified Robert Owen by discovering in the environment of an\norganism an influence on it more potent than Owen had ever claimed. It\nimplied that street arabs are produced by slums and not by original sin:\nthat prostitutes are produced by starvation wages and not by feminine\nconcupiscence. It threw the authority of science on the side of the\nSocialist who said that he who would reform himself must first reform\nsociety. It suggested that if we want healthy and wealthy citizens we\nmust have healthy and wealthy towns; and that these can exist only in\nhealthy and wealthy countries. It could be led to the conclusion that\nthe type of character which remains indifferent to the welfare of its\nneighbors as long as its own personal appetite is satisfied is the\ndisastrous type, and the type which is deeply concerned about its\nenvironment the only possible type for a permanently prosperous\ncommunity. It shewed that the surprising changes which Robert Owen had\nproduced in factory children by a change in their circumstances which\ndoes not seem any too generous to us nowadays were as nothing to the\nchanges--changes not only of habits but of species, not only of species\nbut of orders--which might conceivably be the work of environment acting\non individuals without any character or intellectual consciousness\nwhatever. No wonder the Socialists received Darwin with open arms.\n\n\nDARWIN AND KARL MARX\n\nBesides, the Socialists had an evolutionary prophet of their own, who\nhad discredited Manchester as Darwin discredited the Garden of Eden.\nKarl Marx had proclaimed in his Communist Manifesto of 1848 (now\nenjoying Scriptural authority in Russia) that civilization is an\norganism evolving irresistibly by circumstantial selection; and he\npublished the first volume of his Das Kapital in 1867. The revolt\nagainst anthropomorphic idolatry, which was, as we have seen, the secret\nof Darwin's success, had been accompanied by a revolt against the\nconventional respectability which covered not only the brigandage and\npiracy of the feudal barons, but the hypocrisy, inhumanity, snobbery,\nand greed of the bourgeoisie, who were utterly corrupted by an\nessentially diabolical identification of success in life with big\nprofits. The moment Marx shewed that the relation of the bourgeoisie to\nsociety was grossly immoral and disastrous, and that the whited wall of\nstarched shirt fronts concealed and defended the most infamous of all\ntyrannies and the basest of all robberies, he became an inspired prophet\nin the mind of every generous soul whom his book reached. He had said\nand proved what they wanted to have proved; and they would hear nothing\nagainst him. Now Marx was by no means infallible: his economics, half\nborrowed, and half home-made by a literary amateur, were not, when\nstrictly followed up, even favorable to Socialism. His theory of\ncivilisation had been promulgated already in Buckle's History of\nCivilization, a book as epoch-making in the minds of its readers as Das\nKapital. There was nothing about Socialism in the widely read first\nvolume of Das Kapital: every reference it made to workers and\ncapitalists shewed that Marx had never breathed industrial air, and had\ndug his case out of bluebooks in the British Museum. Compared to Darwin,\nhe seemed to have no power of observation: there was not a fact in Das\nKapital that had not been taken out of a book, nor a discussion that had\nnot been opened by somebody else's pamphlet. No matter: he exposed the\nbourgeoisie and made an end of its moral prestige. That was enough: like\nDarwin he had for the moment the World Will by the ear. Marx had, too,\nwhat Darwin had not: implacability and a fine Jewish literary gift,\nwith terrible powers of hatred, invective, irony, and all the bitter\nqualities bred, first in the oppression of a rather pampered young\ngenius (Marx was the spoilt child of a well-to-do family) by a social\nsystem utterly uncongenial to him, and later on by exile and poverty.\nThus Marx and Darwin between them toppled over two closely related\nidols, and became the prophets of two new creeds.\n\n\nWHY DARWIN PLEASED THE PROFITEERS ALSO\n\nBut how, at this rate, did Darwin succeed with the capitalists too? It\nis not easy to make the best of both worlds when one of the worlds is\npreaching a Class War, and the other vigorously practising it. The\nexplanation is that Darwinism was so closely related to Capitalism that\nMarx regarded it as an economic product rather than as a biological\ntheory. Darwin got his main postulate, the pressure of population on\nthe available means of subsistence, from the treatise of Malthus\non Population, just as he got his other postulate of a practically\nunlimited time for that pressure to operate from the geologist Lyell,\nwho made an end of Archbishop Ussher's Biblical estimate of the age\nof the earth as 4004 B.C. plus A.D. The treatises of the Ricardian\neconomists on the Law of Diminishing Return, which was only the\nManchester School's version of the giraffe and the trees, were all very\nfiercely discussed when Darwin was a young man. In fact the discovery in\nthe eighteenth century by the French Physiocrats of the economic\neffects of Commercial Selection in soils and sites, and by Malthus of\na competition for subsistence which he attributed to pressure of\npopulation on available subsistence, had already brought political\nscience into that unbreathable atmosphere of fatalism which is the\ncharacteristic blight of Darwinism. Long before Darwin published a line,\nthe Ricardo-Malthusian economists were preaching the fatalistic Wages\nFund doctrine, and assuring the workers that Trade Unionism is a vain\ndefiance of the inexorable laws of political economy, just as the\nNeo-Darwinians were presently assuring us that Temperance Legislation is\na vain defiance of Natural Selection, and that the true way to deal with\ndrunkenness is to flood the country with cheap gin and let the fittest\nsurvive. Cobdenism is, after all, nothing but the abandonment of trade\nto Circumstantial Selection.\n\nIt is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of this preparation\nfor Darwinism by a vast political and clerical propaganda of its moral\natmosphere. Never in history, as far as we know, had there been such a\ndetermined, richly subsidized, politically organized attempt to persuade\nthe human race that all progress, all prosperity, all salvation,\nindividual and social, depend on an unrestrained conflict for food and\nmoney, on the suppression and elimination of the weak by the strong,\non Free Trade, Free Contract, Free Competition, Natural Liberty,\nLaisser-faire: in short, on 'doing the other fellow down' with impunity,\nall interference by a guiding government, all organization except police\norganization to protect legalized fraud against fisticuffs, all\nattempt to introduce human purpose and design and forethought into the\nindustrial welter, being 'contrary to the laws of political economy.'\nEven the proletariat sympathized, though to them Capitalist liberty\nmeant only wage slavery without the legal safeguards of chattel slavery.\nPeople were tired of governments and kings and priests and providences,\nand wanted to find out how Nature would arrange matters if she were let\nalone. And they found it out to their cost in the days when Lancashire\nused up nine generations of wage slaves in one generation of their\nmasters. But their masters, becoming richer and richer, were very well\nsatisfied, and Bastiat proved convincingly that Nature had arranged\nEconomic Harmonies which would settle social questions far better than\ntheocracies or aristocracies or mobocracies, the real _deus ex machina_\nbeing unrestrained plutocracy.\n\n\nTHE POETRY AND PURITY OF MATERIALISM\n\nThus the stars in their courses fought for Darwin. Every faction drew a\nmoral from him; every catholic hater of faction founded a hope on him;\nevery blackguard felt justified by him; and every saint felt encouraged\nby him. The notion that any harm could come of so splendid an\nenlightenment seemed as silly as the notion that the atheists would\nsteal all our spoons. The physicists went further than the Darwinians.\nTyndall declared that he saw in Matter the promise and potency of all\nforms of life, and with his Irish graphic lucidity made a picture of a\nworld of magnetic atoms, each atom with a positive and a negative pole,\narranging itself by attraction and repulsion in orderly crystalline\nstructure. Such a picture is dangerously fascinating to thinkers\noppressed by the bloody disorders of the living world. Craving for purer\nsubjects of thought, they find in the contemplation of crystals and\nmagnets a happiness more dramatic and less childish than the happiness\nfound by the mathematicians in abstract numbers, because they see in the\ncrystals beauty and movement without the corrupting appetites of fleshly\nvitality. In such Materialism as that of Lucretius and Tyndall there\nis a nobility which produces poetry: John Davidson found his highest\ninspiration in it. Even its pessimism as it faces the cooling of the\nsun and the return of the ice-caps does not degrade the pessimist: for\nexample, the Quincy Adamses, with their insistence on modern democratic\ndegradation as an inevitable result of solar shrinkage, are not\ndehumanized as the vivisectionists are. Perhaps nobody is at heart fool\nenough to believe that life is at the mercy of temperature: Dante was\nnot troubled by the objection that Brunetto could not have lived in the\nfire nor Ugolino in the ice.\n\nBut the physicists found their intellectual vision of the world\nincommunicable to those who were not born with it. It came to the public\nsimply as Materialism; and Materialism lost its peculiar purity and\ndignity when it entered into the Darwinian reaction against Bible\nfetichism. Between the two of them religion was knocked to pieces; and\nwhere there had been a god, a cause, a faith that the universe was\nordered however inexplicable by us its order might be, and therefore a\nsense of moral responsibility as part of that order, there was now an\nutter void. Chaos had come again. The first effect was exhilarating:\nwe had the runaway child's sense of freedom before it gets hungry and\nlonely and frightened. In this phase we did not desire our God back\nagain. We printed the verses in which William Blake, the most religious\nof our great poets, called the anthropomorphic idol Old Nobodaddy, and\ngibed at him in terms which the printer had to leave us to guess from\nhis blank spaces. We had heard the parson droning that God is not\nmocked; and it was great fun to mock Him to our hearts' content and not\nbe a penny the worse. It did not occur to us that Old Nobodaddy, instead\nof being a ridiculous fiction, might be only an impostor, and that the\nexposure of this Koepenik Captain of the heavens, far from proving that\nthere was no real captain, rather proved the contrary: that, in short,\nNobodaddy could not have impersonated anybody if there had not been\nSomebodaddy to impersonate. We did not see the significance of the\nfact that on the last occasion on which God had been 'expelled with a\npitchfork,' men so different as Voltaire and Robespierre had said, the\none that if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him, and\nthe other that after an honest attempt to dispense with a Supreme\nBeing in practical politics, some such hypothesis had been found quite\nindispensable, and could not be replaced by a mere Goddess of Reason. If\nthese two opinions were quoted at all, they were quoted as jokes at the\nexpense of Nobodaddy. We were quite sure for the moment that whatever\nlingering superstition might have daunted these men of the eighteenth\ncentury, we Darwinians could do without God, and had made a good\nriddance of Him.\n\n\nTHE VICEROYS OF THE KING OF KINGS\n\nNow in politics it is much easier to do without God than to do without\nhis viceroys and vicars and lieutenants; and we begin to miss the\nlieutenants long before we begin to miss their principal. Roman\nCatholics do what their confessors advise without troubling God; and\nRoyalists are content to worship the King and ask the policeman. But\nGod's trustiest lieutenants often lack official credentials. They may be\nprofessed atheists who are also men of honor and high public spirit.\nThe old belief that it matters dreadfully to God whether a man thinks\nhimself an atheist or not, and that the extent to which it matters can\nbe stated with exactness as one single damn, was an error: for the\ndivinity is in the honor and public spirit, not in the mouthed _credo_\nor _non credo_. The consequences of this error became grave when the\nfitness of a man for public trust was tested, not by his honor and\npublic spirit, but by asking him whether he believed in Nobodaddy or\nnot. If he said yes, he was held fit to be a Prime Minister, though,\nas our ablest Churchman has said, the real implication was that he was\neither a fool, a bigot, or a liar. Darwin destroyed this test; but when\nit was only thoughtlessly dropped, there was no test at all; and the\ndoor to public trust was open to the man who had no sense of God because\nhe had no sense of anything beyond his own business interests and\npersonal appetites and ambitions. As a result, the people who did\nnot feel in the least inconvenienced by being no longer governed by\nNobodaddy soon found themselves very acutely inconvenienced by being\ngoverned by fools and commercial adventurers. They had forgotten not\nonly God but Goldsmith, who had warned them that 'honor sinks where\ncommerce long prevails.'\n\nThe lieutenants of God are not always persons: some of them are\nlegal and parliamentary fictions. One of them is Public Opinion. The\npre-Darwinian statesmen and publicists were not restrained directly by\nGod; but they restrained themselves by setting up an image of a Public\nOpinion which would not tolerate any attempt to tamper with British\nliberties. Their favorite way of putting it was that any Government\nwhich proposed such and such an infringement of such and such a British\nliberty would be hurled from office in a week. This was not true: there\nwas no such public opinion, no limit to what the British people would\nput up with in the abstract, and no hardship short of immediate and\nsudden starvation that it would not and did not put up with in the\nconcrete. But this very helplessness of the people had forced their\nrulers to pretend that they were not helpless, and that the certainty of\na sturdy and unconquerable popular resistance forbade any trifling with\nMagna Carta or the Petition of Rights or the authority of parliament.\nNow the reality behind this fiction was the divine sense that liberty\nis a need vital to human growth. Accordingly, though it was difficult\nenough to effect a political reform, yet, once parliament had passed it,\nits wildest opponent had no hope that the Government would cancel it,\nor shelve it, or be bought off from executing it. From Walpole to\nCampbell-Bannerman there was no Prime Minister to whom such renagueing\nor trafficking would ever have occurred, though there were plenty who\nemployed corruption unsparingly to procure the votes of members of\nparliament for their policy.\n\n\nPOLITICAL OPPORTUNISM IN EXCELSIS\n\nThe moment Nobodaddy was slain by Darwin, Public Opinion, as divine\ndeputy, lost its sanctity. Politicians no longer told themselves that\nthe British public would never suffer this or that: they allowed\nthemselves to know that for their own personal purposes, which are\nlimited to their ten or twenty years on the front benches in parliament,\nthe British public can be humbugged and coerced into believing and\nsuffering everything that it pays to impose on them, and that any false\nexcuse for an unpopular step will serve if it can be kept in countenance\nfor a fortnight: that is, until the terms of the excuse are forgotten.\nThe people, untaught or mistaught, are so ignorant and incapable\npolitically that this in itself would not greatly matter; for a\nstatesman who told them the truth would not be understood, and would in\neffect mislead them more completely than if he dealt with them according\nto their blindness instead of to his own wisdom. But though there is no\ndifference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst,\nboth of them having to present their cases equally in terms of\nmelodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the\nstatesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the\nwill of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is\nhumbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial\ninterests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on\nreciprocal terms. And there is almost as great a difference between\nthe statesman who does this naively and automatically, or even does it\ntelling himself that he is ambitious and selfish and unscrupulous, and\nthe one who does it on principle, believing that if everyone takes the\nline of least material resistance the result will be the survival of the\nfittest in a perfectly harmonious universe. Once produce an atmosphere\nof fatalism on principle, and it matters little what the opinions or\nsuperstitions of the individual statesmen concerned may be. A Kaiser\nwho is a devout reader of sermons, a Prime Minister who is an emotional\nsinger of hymns, and a General who is a bigoted Roman Catholic may be\nthe executants of the policy; but the policy itself will be one of\nunprincipled opportunism; and all the Governments will be like the tramp\nwho walks always with the wind and ends as a pauper, or the stone that\nrolls down the hill and ends as an avalanche: their way is the way to\ndestruction.\n\n\nTHE BETRAYAL OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION\n\nWithin sixty years from the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species\npolitical opportunism had brought parliaments into contempt; created\na popular demand for direct action by the organized industries\n('Syndicalism'); and wrecked the centre of Europe in a paroxysm of that\nchronic terror of one another, that cowardice of the irreligious, which,\nmasked in the bravado of militarist patriotism, had ridden the Powers\nlike a nightmare since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. The sturdy\nold cosmopolitan Liberalism vanished almost unnoticed. At the present\nmoment all the new ordinances for the government of our Grown Colonies\ncontain, as a matter of course, prohibitions of all criticism, spoken or\nwritten, of their ruling officials, which would have scandalized George\nIII and elicited Liberal pamphlets from Catherine II. Statesmen are\nafraid of the suburbs, of the newspapers, of the profiteers, of the\ndiplomatists, of the militarists, of the country houses, of the trade\nunions, of everything ephemeral on earth except the revolutions they\nare provoking; and they would be afraid of these if they were not too\nignorant of society and history to appreciate the risk, and to know that\na revolution always seems hopeless and impossible the day before it\nbreaks out, and indeed never does break out until it seems hopeless and\nimpossible; for rulers who think it possible take care to insure the\nrisk by ruling reasonably. This brings about a condition fatal to all\npolitical stability: namely, that you never know where to have the\npoliticians. If the fear of God was in them it might be possible to come\nto some general understanding as to what God disapproves of; and Europe\nmight pull together on that basis. But the present panic, in which Prime\nMinisters drift from election to election, either fighting or running\naway from everybody who shakes a fist at them, makes a European\ncivilization impossible. Such peace and prosperity as we enjoyed before\nthe war depended on the loyalty of the Western States to their own\ncivilization. That loyalty could find practical expression only in an\nalliance of the highly civilized Western Powers against the primitive\ntyrannies of the East. Britain, Germany, France, and the United States\nof America could have imposed peace on the world, and nursed modern\ncivilization in Russia, Turkey, and the Balkans. Every meaner\nconsideration should have given way to this need for the solidarity of\nthe higher civilization. What actually happened was that France and\nEngland, through their clerks the diplomatists, made an alliance with\nRussia to defend themselves against Germany; Germany made an alliance\nwith Turkey to defend herself against the three; and the two unnatural\nand suicidal combinations fell on one another in a war that came nearer\nto being a war of extermination than any wars since those of Timur the\nTartar; whilst the United States held aloof as long as they could, and\nthe other States either did the same or joined in the fray through\ncompulsion, bribery, or their judgment as to which side their bread was\nbuttered. And at the present moment, though the main fighting has ceased\nthrough the surrender of Germany on terms which the victors have never\ndreamt of observing, the extermination by blockade and famine, which\nwas what forced Germany to surrender, still continues, although it is\ncertain that if the vanquished starve the victors will starve too, and\nEurope will liquidate its affairs by going, not into bankruptcy, but\ninto chaos.\n\nNow all this, it will be noticed, was fundamentally nothing but an\nidiotic attempt on the part of each belligerent State to secure\nfor itself the advantage of the survival of the fittest through\nCircumstantial Selection. If the Western Powers had selected their\nallies in the Lamarckian manner intelligently, purposely, and vitally,\n_ad majorem Dei gloriam_, as what Nietzsche called good Europeans,\nthere would have been a League of Nations and no war. But because the\nselection relied on was purely circumstantial opportunist selection, so\nthat the alliances were mere marriages of convenience, they have turned\nout, not merely as badly as might have been expected, but far worse than\nthe blackest pessimist had ever imagined possible.\n\n\n\nCIRCUMSTANTIAL SELECTION IN FINANCE\n\nHow it will all end we do not yet know. When wolves combine to kill a\nhorse, the death of the horse only sets them fighting one another for\nthe choicest morsels. Men are no better than wolves if they have no\nbetter principles: accordingly, we find that the Armistice and the\nTreaty have not extricated us from the war. A handful of Serbian\nregicides flung us into it as a sporting navvy throws a bull pup at a\ncat; but the Supreme Council, with all its victorious legions and all\nits prestige, cannot get us out of it, though we are heartily sick and\ntired of the whole business, and know now very well that it should never\nhave been allowed to happen. But we are helpless before a slate scrawled\nwith figures of National Debts. As there is no money to pay them because\nit was all spent on the war (wars have to be paid for on the nail) the\nsensible thing to do is to wipe the slate and let the wrangling States\ndistribute what they can spare, on the sound communist principle of from\neach according to his ability, to each according to his need. But no:\nwe have no principles left, not even commercial ones; for what sane\ncommercialist would decree that France must not pay for her failure to\ndefend her own soil; that Germany must pay for her success in carrying\nthe war into the enemy's country; and that as Germany has not the money\nto pay, and under our commercial system can make it only by becoming\nonce more a commercial competitor of England and France, which neither\nof them will allow, she must borrow the money from England, or America,\nor even from France: an arrangement by which the victorious creditors\nwill pay one another, and wait to get their money back until Germany is\neither strong enough to refuse to pay or ruined beyond the possibility\nof paying? Meanwhile Russia, reduced to a scrap of fish and a pint of\ncabbage soup a day, has fallen into the hands of rulers who perceive\nthat Materialist Communism is at all events more effective than\nMaterialist Nihilism, and are attempting to move in an intelligent and\nordered manner, practising a very strenuous Intentional Selection of\nworkers as fitter to survive than idlers; whilst the Western Powers are\ndrifting and colliding and running on the rocks, in the hope that if\nthey continue to do their worst they will get Naturally Selected for\nsurvival without the trouble of thinking about it.\n\n\nTHE HOMEOPATHIC REACTION AGAINST DARWINISM\n\nWhen, like the Russians, our Nihilists have it urgently borne in on\nthem, by the brute force of rising wages that never overtake rising\nprices, that they are being Naturally Selected for destruction, they\nwill perhaps remember that 'Dont Care came to a bad end,' and begin to\nlook round for a religion. And the whole purpose of this book is to\nshew them where to look. For, throughout all the godless welter of the\ninfidel half-century, Darwinism has been acting not only directly but\nhomeopathically, its poison rallying our vital forces not only to resist\nit and cast it out, but to achieve a new Reformation and put a credible\nand healthy religion in its place. Samuel Butler was the pioneer of the\nreaction as far as the casting out was concerned; but the issue was\nconfused by the physiologists, who were divided on the question into\nMechanists and Vitalists. The Mechanists said that life is nothing but\nphysical and chemical action; that they have demonstrated this in many\ncases of so-called vital phenomena; and that there is no reason to doubt\nthat with improved methods they will presently be able to demonstrate it\nin all of them. The Vitalists said that a dead body and a live one are\nphysically and chemically identical, and that the difference can be\naccounted for only by the existence of a Vital Force. This seems simple;\nbut the Anti-Mechanists objected to be called Vitalists (obviously the\nright name for them) on two contradictory grounds. First, that vitality\nis scientifically inadmissible, because it cannot be isolated and\nexperimented with in the laboratory. Second, that force, being by\ndefinition anything that can alter the speed or direction of matter\nin motion (briefly, that can overcome inertia), is essentially a\nmechanistic conception. Here we had the New Vitalist only half\nextricated from the Old Mechanist, objecting to be called either, and\nunable to give a clear lead in the new direction. And there was a deeper\nantagonism. The Old Vitalists, in postulating a Vital Force, were\nsetting up a comparatively mechanical conception as against the divine\nidea of the life breathed into the clay nostrils of Adam, whereby he\nbecame a living soul. The New Vitalists, filled by their laboratory\nresearches with a sense of the miraculousness of life that went far\nbeyond the comparatively uninformed imaginations of the authors of the\nBook of Genesis, regarded the Old Vitalists as Mechanists who had tried\nto fill up the gulf between life and death with an empty phrase denoting\nan imaginary physical force.\n\nThese professional faction fights are ephemeral, and need not trouble us\nhere. The Old Vitalist, who was essentially a Materialist, has evolved\ninto the New Vitalist, who is, as every genuine scientist must be,\nfinally a metaphysician. And as the New Vitalist turns from the disputes\nof his youth to the future of his science, he will cease to boggle at\nthe name Vitalist, or at the inevitable, ancient, popular, and quite\ncorrect use of the term Force to denote metaphysical as well as physical\novercomers of inertia.\n\nSince the discovery of Evolution as the method of the Life Force the\nreligion of metaphysical Vitalism has been gaining the definiteness and\nconcreteness needed to make it assimilable by the educated critical man.\nBut it has always been with us. The popular religions, disgraced by\ntheir Opportunist cardinals and bishops, have been kept in credit by\ncanonized saints whose secret was their conception of themselves as the\ninstruments and vehicles of divine power and aspiration: a conception\nwhich at moments becomes an actual experience of ecstatic possession by\nthat power. And above and below all have been millions of humble and\nobscure persons, sometimes totally illiterate, sometimes unconscious of\nhaving any religion at all, sometimes believing in their simplicity\nthat the gods and temples and priests of their district stood for their\ninstinctive righteousness, who have kept sweet the tradition that good\npeople follow a light that shines within and above and ahead of them,\nthat bad people care only for themselves, and that the good are saved\nand blessed and the bad damned and miserable. Protestantism was a\nmovement towards the pursuit of a light called an inner light because\nevery man must see it with his own eyes and not take any priest's word\nfor it or any Church's account of it. In short, there is no question\nof a new religion, but rather of redistilling the eternal spirit\nof religion and thus extricating it from the sludgy residue of\ntemporalities and legends that are making belief impossible, though they\nare the stock-in-trade of all the Churches and all the Schools.\n\n\nRELIGION AND ROMANCE\n\nIt is the adulteration of religion by the romance of miracles and\nparadises and torture chambers that makes it reel at the impact of every\nadvance in science, instead of being clarified by it. If you take an\nEnglish village lad, and teach him that religion means believing that\nthe stories of Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden are literally true on\nthe authority of God himself, and if that boy becomes an artisan and\ngoes into the town among the sceptical city proletariat, then, when the\njibes of his mates set him thinking, and he sees that these stories\ncannot be literally true, and learns that no candid prelate now pretends\nto believe them, he does not make any fine distinctions: he declares at\nonce that religion is a fraud, and parsons and teachers hypocrites and\nliars. He becomes indifferent to religion if he has little conscience,\nand indignantly hostile to it if he has a good deal.\n\nThe same revolt against wantonly false teaching is happening daily\nin the professional classes whose recreation is reading and whose\nintellectual sport is controversy. They banish the Bible from their\nhouses, and sometimes put into the hands of their unfortunate children\nEthical and Rationalist tracts of the deadliest dullness, compelling\nthese wretched infants to sit out the discourses of Secularist lecturers\n(I have delivered some of them myself), who bore them at a length now\nforbidden by custom in the established pulpit. Our minds have reacted so\nviolently towards provable logical theorems and demonstrable mechanical\nor chemical facts that we have become incapable of metaphysical truth,\nand try to cast out incredible and silly lies by credible and clever\nones, calling in Satan to cast out Satan, and getting more into his\nclutches than ever in the process. Thus the world is kept sane less by\nthe saints than by the vast mass of the indifferent, who neither act nor\nreact in the matter. Butler's preaching of the gospel of Laodicea was a\npiece of common sense founded on his observation of this.\n\nBut indifference will not guide nations through civilization to the\nestablishment of the perfect city of God. An indifferent statesman is a\ncontradiction in terms; and a statesman who is indifferent on principle,\na Laisser-faire or Muddle-Through doctrinaire, plays the deuce with us\nin the long run. Our statesmen must get a religion by hook or crook; and\nas we are committed to Adult Suffrage it must be a religion capable of\nvulgarization. The thought first put into words by the Mills when they\nsaid 'There is no God; but this is a family secret,' and long held\nunspoken by aristocratic statesmen and diplomatists, will not serve now;\nfor the revival of civilization after the war cannot be effected by\nartificial breathing: the driving force of an undeluded popular consent\nis indispensable, and will be impossible until the statesman can appeal\nto the vital instincts of the people in terms of a common religion. The\nsuccess of the Hang the Kaiser cry at the last General Election shews\nus very terrifyingly how a common irreligion can be used by myopic\ndemagogy; and common irreligion will destroy civilization unless it is\ncountered by common religion.\n\n\nTHE DANGER OF REACTION\n\nAnd here arises the danger that when we realize this we shall do just\nwhat we did half a century ago, and what Pliable did in The Pilgrim's\nProgress when Christian landed him in the Slough of Despond: that is,\nrun back in terror to our old superstitions. We jumped out of the\nfrying-pan into the fire; and we are just as likely to jump back again,\nnow that we feel hotter than ever. History records very little in the\nway of mental activity on the part of the mass of mankind except a\nseries of stampedes from affirmative errors into negative ones and back\nagain. It must therefore be said very precisely and clearly that the\nbankruptcy of Darwinism does not mean that Nobodaddy was Somebodaddy\n_with_ 'body, parts, and passions' after all; that the world was made\nin the year 4004 B.C.; that damnation means a eternity of blazing\nbrimstone; that the Immaculate Conception means that sex is sinful and\nthat Christ was parthenogenetically brought forth by a virgin descended\nin like manner from a line of virgins right back to Eve; that the\nTrinity is an anthropomorphic monster with three heads which are yet\nonly one head; that in Rome the bread and wine on the altar become flesh\nand blood, and in England, in a still more mystical manner, they do\nand they do not; that the Bible is an infallible scientific manual, an\naccurate historical chronicle, and a complete guide to conduct; that we\nmay lie and cheat and murder and then wash ourselves innocent in the\nblood of the lamb on Sunday at the cost of a _credo_ and a penny in the\nplate, and so on and so forth. Civilization cannot be saved by people\nnot only crude enough to believe these things, but irreligious enough\nto believe that such belief constitutes a religion. The education of\nchildren cannot safely be left in their hands. If dwindling sects like\nthe Church of England, the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, and the\nrest, persist in trying to cramp the human mind within the limits of\nthese grotesque perversions of natural truths and poetic metaphors, then\nthey must be ruthlessly banished from the schools until they either\nperish in general contempt or discover the soul that is hidden in every\ndogma. The real Class War will be a war of intellectual classes; and its\nconquest will be the souls of the children.\n\n\nA TOUCHSTONE FOR DOGMA\n\nThe test of a dogma is its universality. As long as the Church of\nEngland preaches a single doctrine that the Brahman, the Buddhist, the\nMussulman, the Parsee, and all the other sectarians who are British\nsubjects cannot accept, it has no legitimate place in the counsels of\nthe British Commonwealth, and will remain what it is at present, a\ncorrupter of youth, a danger to the State, and an obstruction to the\nFellowship of the Holy Ghost. This has never been more strongly felt\nthan at present, after a war in which the Church failed grossly in the\ncourage of its profession, and sold its lilies for the laurels of the\nsoldiers of the Victoria Cross. All the cocks in Christendom have been\ncrowing shame on it ever since; and it will not be spared for the sake\nof the two or three faithful who were found even among the bishops. Let\nthe Church take it on authority, even my authority (as a professional\nlegend maker) if it cannot see the truth by its own light: no dogma can\nbe a legend. A legend can pass an ethnical frontier as a legend, but not\nas a truth; whilst the only frontier to the currency of a sound dogma as\nsuch is the frontier of capacity for understanding it.\n\nThis does not mean that we should throw away legend and parable and\ndrama: they are the natural vehicles of dogma; but woe to the Churches\nand rulers who substitute the legend for the dogma, the parable for the\nhistory, the drama for the religion! Better by far declare the throne\nof God empty than set a liar and a fool on it. What are called wars of\nreligion are always wars to destroy religion by affirming the historical\ntruth or material substantiality of some legend, and killing those who\nrefuse to accept it as historical or substantial. But who has ever\nrefused to accept a good legend with delight as a legend? The legends,\nthe parables, the dramas, are among the choicest treasures of mankind.\nNo one is ever tired of stories of miracles. In vain did Mahomet\nrepudiate the miracles ascribed to him: in vain did Christ furiously\nscold those who asked him to give them an exhibition as a conjurer: in\nvain did the saints declare that God chose them not for their powers but\nfor their weaknesses; that the humble might be exalted, and the proud\nrebuked. People will have their miracles, their stories, their heroes\nand heroines and saints and martyrs and divinities to exercise their\ngifts of affection, admiration, wonder, and worship, and their Judases\nand devils to enable them to be angry and yet feel that they do well to\nbe angry. Every one of these legends is the common heritage of the human\nrace; and there is only one inexorable condition attached to their\nhealthy enjoyment, which is that no one shall believe them literally.\nThe reading of stories and delighting in them made Don Quixote a\ngentleman: the believing them literally made him a madman who slew\nlambs instead of feeding them. In England today good books of Eastern\nreligious legends are read eagerly; and Protestants and Atheists read\nRoman Catholic legends of the Saints with pleasure. But such fare is\nshirked by Indians and Roman Catholics. Freethinkers read the Bible:\nindeed they seem to be its only readers now except the reluctant\nparsons at the church lecterns, who communicate their discomfort to the\ncongregation by gargling the words in their throats in an unnatural\nmanner that is as repulsive as it is unintelligible. And this is because\nthe imposition of the legends as literal truths at once changes them\nfrom parables into falsehoods. The feeling against the Bible has become\nso strong at last that educated people not only refuse to outrage their\nintellectual consciences by reading the legend of Noah's Ark, with its\nfunny beginning about the animals and its exquisite end about the birds:\nthey will not read even the chronicles of King David, which may\nvery well be true, and are certainly more candid than the official\nbiographies of our contemporary monarchs.\n\n\nWHAT TO DO WITH THE LEGENDS\n\nWhat we should do, then, is to pool our legends and make a delightful\nstock of religious folk-lore on an honest basis for all mankind. With\nour minds freed from pretence and falsehood we could enter into the\nheritage of all the faiths. China would share her sages with Spain, and\nSpain her saints with China. The Ulster man who now gives his son an\nunmerciful thrashing if the boy is so tactless as to ask how the evening\nand the morning could be the first day before the sun was created, or\nto betray an innocent calf-love for the Virgin Mary, would buy him a\nbookful of legends of the creation and of mothers of God from all parts\nof the world, and be very glad to find his laddie as interested in such\nthings as in marbles or Police and Robbers. That would be better\nthan beating all good feeling towards religion out of the child, and\nblackening his mind by teaching him that the worshippers of the holy\nvirgins, whether of the Parthenon or St Peter's, are fire-doomed\nheathens and idolaters. All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to\nthe world by the hands of storytellers and image-makers. Without their\nfictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither\nintelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and\nthe teachers teach in vain. And nothing stands between the people and\nthe fictions except the silly falsehood that the fictions are literal\ntruths, and that there is nothing in religion but fiction.\n\n\nA LESSON FROM SCIENCE TO THE CHURCHES\n\nLet the Churches ask themselves why there is no revolt against the\ndogmas of mathematics though there is one against the dogmas\nof religion. It is not that the mathematical dogmas are more\ncomprehensible. The law of inverse squares is as incomprehensible to the\ncommon man as the Athanasian creed. It is not that science is free from\nlegends, witchcraft, miracles, biographic boostings of quacks as heroes\nand saints, and of barren scoundrels as explorers and discoverers. On\nthe contrary, the iconography and hagiology of Scientism are as copious\nas they are mostly squalid. But no student of science has yet been\ntaught that specific gravity consists in the belief that Archimedes\njumped out of his bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse\nshouting Eureka, Eureka, or that the law of inverse squares must be\ndiscarded if anyone can prove that Newton was never in an orchard in his\nlife. When some unusually conscientious or enterprising bacteriologist\nreads the pamphlets of Jenner, and discovers that they might have been\nwritten by an ignorant but curious and observant nurserymaid, and could\nnot possibly have been written by any person with a scientifically\ntrained mind, he does not feel that the whole edifice of science has\ncollapsed and crumbled, and that there is no such thing as smallpox.\nIt may come to that yet; for hygiene, as it forces its way into our\nschools, is being taught as falsely as religion is taught there; but in\nmathematics and physics the faith is still kept pure, and you may take\nthe law and leave the legends without suspicion of heresy. Accordingly,\nthe tower of the mathematician stands unshaken whilst the temple of the\npriest rocks to its foundation.\n\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS ART OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY\n\nCreative Evolution is already a religion, and is indeed now\nunmistakeably the religion of the twentieth century, newly arisen\nfrom the ashes of pseudo-Christianity, of mere scepticism, and of\nthe soulless affirmations and blind negations of the Mechanists and\nNeo-Darwinians. But it cannot become a popular religion until it has its\nlegends, its parables, its miracles. And when I say popular I do not\nmean apprehensible by villagers only. I mean apprehensible by Cabinet\nMinisters as well. It is unreasonable to look to the professional\npolitician and administrator for light and leading in religion. He\nis neither a philosopher nor a prophet: if he were, he would be\nphilosophizing and prophesying, and not neglecting both for the drudgery\nof practical government. Socrates and Coleridge did not remain soldiers,\nnor could John Stuart Mill remain the representative of Westminster in\nthe House of Commons even when he was willing. The Westminster electors\nadmired Mill for telling them that much of the difficulty of dealing\nwith them arose from their being inveterate liars. But they would not\nvote a second time for the man who was not afraid to break the crust of\nmendacity on which they were all dancing; for it seemed to them\nthat there was a volcanic abyss beneath, not having his philosophic\nconviction that the truth is the solidest standing ground in the end.\nYour front bench man will always be an exploiter of the popular religion\nor irreligion. Not being an expert, he must take it as he finds it; and\nbefore he can take it, he must have been told stories about it in his\nchildhood and had before him all his life an elaborate iconography of it\nproduced by writers, painters, sculptors, temple architects, and artists\nof all the higher sorts. Even if, as sometimes happens, he is a bit of\nan amateur in metaphysics as well as a professional politician, he must\nstill govern according to the popular iconography, and not according to\nhis own personal interpretations if these happen to be heterodox.\n\nIt will be seen then that the revival of religion on a scientific basis\ndoes not mean the death of art, but a glorious rebirth of it. Indeed art\nhas never been great when it was not providing an iconography for a live\nreligion. And it has never been quite contemptible except when imitating\nthe iconography after the religion had become a superstition. Italian\npainting from Giotto to Carpaccio is all religious painting; and it\nmoves us deeply and has real greatness. Compare with it the attempts of\nour painters a century ago to achieve the effects of the old masters by\nimitation when they should have been illustrating a faith of their own.\nContemplate, if you can bear it, the dull daubs of Hilton and Haydon,\nwho knew so much more about drawing and scumbling and glazing and\nperspective and anatomy and 'marvellous foreshortening' than Giotto,\nthe latchet of whose shoe they were nevertheless not worthy to unloose.\nCompare Mozart's Magic Flute, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Wagner's Ring,\nall of them reachings-forward to the new Vitalist art, with the dreary\npseudo-sacred oratorios and cantatas which were produced for no better\nreason than that Handel had formerly made splendid thunder in that way,\nand with the stale confectionery, mostly too would-be pious to be even\ncheerfully toothsome, of Spohr and Mendelssohn, Stainer and Parry, which\nspread indigestion at our musical festivals until I publicly told Parry\nthe bludgeoning truth about his Job and woke him to conviction of sin.\nCompare Flaxman and Thorwaldsen and Gibson with Phidias and Praxiteles,\nStevens with Michael Angelo, Bouguereau's Virgin with Cimabue's, or the\nbest operatic Christs of Scheffer and M\u00fcller with the worst Christs that\nthe worst painters could paint before the end of the fifteenth century,\nand you must feel that until we have a great religious movement we\ncannot hope for a great artistic one. The disillusioned Raphael could\npaint a mother and child, but not a queen of Heaven as much less skilful\nmen had done in the days of his great-grandfather; yet he could reach\nforward to the twentieth century and paint a Transfiguration of the Son\nof Man as they could not. Also, please note, he could decorate a house\nof pleasure for a cardinal very beautifully with voluptuous pictures of\nCupid and Psyche; for this simple sort of Vitalism is always with\nus, and, like portrait painting, keeps the artist supplied with\nsubject-matter in the intervals between the ages of faith; so that your\nsceptical Rembrandts and Velasquezs are at least not compelled to paint\nshop fronts for want of anything else to paint in which they can really\nbelieve.\n\n\nTHE ARTIST-PROPHETS\n\nAnd there are always certain rare but intensely interesting\nanticipations. Michael Angelo could not very well believe in Julius\nII or Leo X, or in much that they believed in; but he could paint\nthe Superman three hundred years before Nietzsche wrote Also Sprach\nZarathustra and Strauss set it to music. Michael Angelo won the primacy\namong all modern painters and sculptors solely by his power of shewing\nus superhuman persons. On the strength of his decoration and color alone\nhe would hardly have survived his own death twenty years; and even his\ndesign would have had only an academic interest; but as a painter of\nprophets and sibyls he is greatest among the very greatest in his craft,\nbecause we aspire to a world of prophets and sibyls. Beethoven never\nheard of radioactivity nor of electrons dancing in vortices of\ninconceivable energy; but pray can anyone explain the last movement of\nhis Hammerklavier Sonata, Opus 106, otherwise than as a musical picture\nof these whirling electrons? His contemporaries said he was mad, partly\nperhaps because the movement was so hard to play; but we, who can make a\npianola play it to us over and over until it is as familiar as Pop\nGoes the Weasel, know that it is sane and methodical. As such, it\nmust represent something; and as all Beethoven's serious compositions\nrepresent some process within himself, some nerve storm or soul storm,\nand the storm here is clearly one of physical movement, I should much\nlike to know what other storm than the atomic storm could have driven\nhim to this oddest of all those many expressions of cyclonic energy\nwhich have given him the same distinction among musicians that Michael\nAngelo has among draughtsmen.\n\nIn Beethoven's day the business of art was held to be 'the sublime and\nbeautiful.' In our day it has fallen to be the imitative and voluptuous.\nIn both periods the word passionate has been freely employed; but in the\neighteenth century passion meant irresistible impulse of the loftiest\nkind: for example, a passion for astronomy or for truth. For us it has\ncome to mean concupiscence and nothing else. One might say to the art of\nEurope what Antony said to the corpse of Caesar: 'Are all thy conquests,\nglories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure?' But in fact\nit is the mind of Europe that has shrunk, being, as we have seen, wholly\npreoccupied with a busy spring-cleaning to get rid of its superstitions\nbefore readjusting itself to the new conception of Evolution.\n\n\nEVOLUTION IN THE THEATRE\n\nOn the stage (and here I come at last to my own particular function in\nthe matter), Comedy, as a destructive, derisory, critical, negative art,\nkept the theatre open when sublime tragedy perished. From Moli\u00e8re to\nOscar Wilde we had a line of comedic playwrights who, if they had\nnothing fundamentally positive to say, were at least in revolt against\nfalsehood and imposture, and were not only, as they claimed, 'chastening\nmorals by ridicule,' but, in Johnson's phrase, clearing our minds of\ncant, and thereby shewing an uneasiness in the presence of error which\nis the surest symptom of intellectual vitality. Meanwhile the name of\nTragedy was assumed by plays in which everyone was killed in the last\nact, just as, in spite of Moli\u00e8re, plays in which everyone was married\nin the last act called themselves comedies. Now neither tragedies nor\ncomedies can be produced according to a prescription which gives only\nthe last moments of the last act. Shakespear did not make Hamlet out of\nits final butchery, nor Twelfth Night out of its final matrimony. And he\ncould not become the conscious iconographer of a religion because he had\nno conscious religion. He had therefore to exercise his extraordinary\nnatural gifts in the very entertaining art of mimicry, giving us the\nfamous 'delineation of character' which makes his plays, like the novels\nof Scott, Dumas, and Dickens, so delightful. Also, he developed that\ncurious and questionable art of building us a refuge from despair by\ndisguising the cruelties of Nature as jokes. But with all his gifts, the\nfact remains that he never found the inspiration to write an original\nplay. He furbished up old plays, and adapted popular stories, and\nchapters of history from Holinshed's Chronicle and Plutarch's\nbiographies, to the stage. All this he did (or did not; for there are\nminus quantities in the algebra of art) with a recklessness which shewed\nthat his trade lay far from his conscience. It is true that he never\ntakes his characters from the borrowed story, because it was less\ntrouble and more fun to him to create them afresh; but none the less\nhe heaps the murders and villainies of the borrowed story on his own\nessentially gentle creations without scruple, no matter how incongruous\nthey may be. And all the time his vital need for a philosophy drives\nhim to seek one by the quaint professional method of introducing\nphilosophers as characters into his plays, and even of making his heroes\nphilosophers; but when they come on the stage they have no philosophy\nto expound: they are only pessimists and railers; and their occasional\nwould-be philosophic speeches, such as The Seven Ages of Man and The\nSoliloquy on Suicide, shew how deeply in the dark Shakespear was as\nto what philosophy means. He forced himself in among the greatest of\nplaywrights without having once entered that region in which Michael\nAngelo, Beethoven, Goethe, and the antique Athenian stage poets are\ngreat. He would really not be great at all if it were not that he had\nreligion enough to be aware that his religionless condition was one of\ndespair. His towering King Lear would be only a melodrama were it not\nfor its express admission that if there is nothing more to be said of\nthe universe than Hamlet has to say, then 'as flies to wanton boys are\nwe to the gods: they kill us for their sport.'\n\nEver since Shakespear, playwrights have been struggling with the same\nlack of religion; and many of them were forced to become mere panders\nand sensation-mongers because, though they had higher ambitions, they\ncould find no better subject-matter. From Congreve to Sheridan they were\nso sterile in spite of their wit that they did not achieve between them\nthe output of Moli\u00e8re's single lifetime; and they were all (not without\nreason) ashamed of their profession, and preferred to be regarded as\nmere men of fashion with a rakish hobby. Goldsmith's was the only saved\nsoul in that pandemonium.\n\nThe leaders among my own contemporaries (now veterans) snatched at minor\nsocial problems rather than write entirely without any wider purpose\nthan to win money and fame. One of them expressed to me his envy of the\nancient Greek playwrights because the Athenians asked them, not for some\n'new and original' disguise of the half-dozen threadbare plots of the\nmodern theatre, but for the deepest lesson they could draw from the\nfamiliar and sacred legends of their country. 'Let us all,' he said,\n'write an Electra, an Antigone, an Agamemnon, and shew what we can do\nwith it.' But he did not write any of them, because these legends are\nno longer religious: Aphrodite and Artemis and Poseidon are deader than\ntheir statues. Another, with a commanding position and every trick of\nBritish farce and Parisian drama at his fingers' ends, finally could\nnot write without a sermon to preach, and yet could not find texts more\nfundamental than the hypocrisies of sham Puritanism, or the matrimonial\nspeculation which makes our young actresses as careful of their\nreputations as of their complexions. A third, too tenderhearted to break\nour spirits with the realities of a bitter experience, coaxed a wistful\npathos and a dainty fun out of the fairy cloudland that lay between him\nand the empty heavens. The giants of the theatre of our time, Ibsen and\nStrindberg, had no greater comfort for the world than we: indeed much\nless; for they refused us even the Shakespearian-Dickensian consolation\nof laughter at mischief, accurately called comic relief. Our emancipated\nyoung successors scorn us, very properly. But they will be able to do no\nbetter whilst the drama remains pre-Evolutionist. Let them consider the\ngreat exception of Goethe. He, no richer than Shakespear, Ibsen, or\nStrindberg in specific talent as a playwright, is in the empyrean whilst\nthey are gnashing their teeth in impotent fury in the mud, or at best\nfinding an acid enjoyment in the irony of their predicament. Goethe is\nOlympian: the other giants are infernal in everything but their veracity\nand their repudiation of the irreligion of their time: that is, they are\nbitter and hopeless. It is not a question of mere dates. Goethe was\nan Evolutionist in 1830: many playwrights, even young ones, are still\nuntouched by Creative Evolution in 1920. Ibsen was Darwinized to the\nextent of exploiting heredity on the stage much as the ancient Athenian\nplaywrights exploited the Eumenides; but there is no trace in his\nplays of any faith in or knowledge of Creative Evolution as a modern\nscientific fact. True, the poetic aspiration is plain enough in his\nEmperor or Galilean; but it is one of Ibsen's distinctions that nothing\nwas valid for him but science; and he left that vision of the future\nwhich his Roman seer calls 'the third Empire' behind him as a Utopian\ndream when he settled down to his serious grapple with realities in\nthose plays of modern life with which he overcame Europe, and broke\nthe dusty windows of every dry-rotten theatre in it from Moscow to\nManchester.\n\n\nMY OWN PART IN THE MATTER\n\nIn my own activities as a playwright I found this state of things\nintolerable. The fashionable theatre prescribed one serious subject:\nclandestine adultery: the dullest of all subjects for a serious author,\nwhatever it may be for audiences who read the police intelligence\nand skip the reviews and leading articles. I tried slum-landlordism,\ndoctrinaire Free Love (pseudo-Ibsenism), prostitution, militarism,\nmarriage, history, current politics, natural Christianity, national\nand individual character, paradoxes of conventional society, husband\nhunting, questions of conscience, professional delusions and impostures,\nall worked into a series of comedies of manners in the classic fashion,\nwhich was then very much out of fashion, the mechanical tricks of\nParisian 'construction' being _de rigueur_ in the theatre. But this,\nthough it occupied me and established me professionally, did not\nconstitute me an iconographer of the religion of my time, and thus\nfulfil my natural function as an artist. I was quite conscious of this;\nfor I had always known that civilization needs a religion as a matter of\nlife or death; and as the conception of Creative Evolution developed I\nsaw that we were at last within reach of a faith which complied with\nthe first condition of all the religions that have ever taken hold of\nhumanity: namely, that it must be, first and fundamentally, a science\nof metabiology. This was a crucial point with me; for I had seen Bible\nfetichism, after standing up to all the rationalistic batteries of Hume,\nVoltaire, and the rest, collapse before the onslaught of much less\ngifted Evolutionists, solely because they discredited it as a biological\ndocument; so that from that moment it lost its hold, and left literate\nChristendom faithless. My own Irish eighteenth-centuryism made it\nimpossible for me to believe anything until I could conceive it as\na scientific hypothesis, even though the abominations, quackeries,\nimpostures, venalities, credulities, and delusions of the camp followers\nof science, and the brazen lies and priestly pretensions of the\npseudo-scientific cure-mongers, all sedulously inculcated by modern\n'secondary education,' were so monstrous that I was sometimes forced to\nmake a verbal distinction between science and knowledge lest I should\nmislead my readers. But I never forgot that without knowledge even\nwisdom is more dangerous than mere opportunist ignorance, and that\nsomebody must take the Garden of Eden in hand and weed it properly.\n\nAccordingly, in 1901, I took the legend of Don Juan in its Mozartian\nform and made it a dramatic parable of Creative Evolution. But being\nthen at the height of my invention and comedic talent, I decorated it\ntoo brilliantly and lavishly. I surrounded it with a comedy of which it\nformed only one act, and that act was so completely episodical (it was\na dream which did not affect the action of the piece) that the comedy\ncould be detached and played by itself: indeed it could hardly be played\nat full length owing to the enormous length of the entire work, though\nthat feat has been performed a few times in Scotland by Mr Esme Percy,\nwho led one of the forlorn hopes of the advanced drama at that time.\nAlso I supplied the published work with an imposing framework consisting\nof a preface, an appendix called The Revolutionist's Handbook, and a\nfinal display of aphoristic fireworks. The effect was so vertiginous,\napparently, that nobody noticed the new religion in the centre of the\nintellectual whirlpool. Now I protest I did not cut these cerebral\ncapers in mere inconsiderate exuberance. I did it because the worst\nconvention of the criticism of the theatre current at that time was that\nintellectual seriousness is out of place on the stage; that the theatre\nis a place of shallow amusement; that people go there to be soothed\nafter the enormous intellectual strain of a day in the city: in short,\nthat a playwright is a person whose business it is to make unwholesome\nconfectionery out of cheap emotions. My answer to this was to put all\nmy intellectual goods in the shop window under the sign of Man and\nSuperman. That part of my design succeeded. By good luck and acting, the\ncomedy triumphed on the stage; and the book was a good deal discussed.\nSince then the sweet-shop view of the theatre has been out of\ncountenance; and its critical exponents have been driven to take an\nintellectual pose which, though often more trying than their old\nintellectually nihilistic vulgarity, at least concedes the dignity\nof the theatre, not to mention the usefulness of those who live by\ncriticizing it. And the younger playwrights are not only taking their\nart seriously, but being taken seriously themselves. The critic who\nought to be a newsboy is now comparatively rare.\n\nI now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative Evolution\nwithout distractions and embellishments. My sands are running out; the\nexuberance of 1901 has aged into the garrulity of 1930; and the war has\nbeen a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I\nabandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back\nto the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of\nthe philosopher's stone which enables men to live for ever. I am not, I\nhope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable as to the crudity\nof this my beginning of a Bible for Creative Evolution. I am doing the\nbest I can at my age. My powers are waning; but so much the better for\nthose who found me unbearably brilliant when I was in my prime. It is\nmy hope that a hundred apter and more elegant parables by younger hands\nwill soon leave mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the\nfifteenth century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians\nat iconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain.\n\n\n\nBACK TO METHUSELAH.\n\nPART I\n\nIn the Beginning\n\nACT I\n\n\n_The Garden of Eden. Afternoon. An immense serpent is sleeping with\nher head buried in a thick bed of Johnswort, and her body coiled in\napparently endless rings through the branches of a tree, which is\nalready well grown; for the days of creation have been longer than our\nreckoning. She is not yet visible to anyone unaware of her presence, as\nher colors of green and brown make a perfect camouflage. Near her head a\nlow rock shows above the Johnswort.\n\nThe rock and tree are on the border of a glade in which lies a dead fawn\nall awry, its neck being broken. Adam, crouching with one hand on the\nrock, is staring in consternation at the dead body. He has not noticed\nthe serpent on his left hand. He turns his face to his right and calls\nexcitedly._\n\nADAM. Eve! Eve!\n\nEVE'S VOICE. What is it, Adam?\n\nADAM. Come here. Quick. Something has happened.\n\nEVE [_running in_] What? Where? [_Adam points to the fawn_]. Oh! [_She\ngoes to it; and he is emboldened to go with her_]. What is the matter\nwith its eyes?\n\nADAM. It is not only its eyes. Look. [_He kicks it._]\n\nEVE. Oh don't! Why doesn't it wake?\n\nADAM. I don't know. It is not asleep.\n\nEVE. Not asleep?\n\nADAM. Try.\n\nEVE [_trying to shake it and roll it over_] It is stiff and cold.\n\nADAM. Nothing will wake it.\n\nEVE. It has a queer smell. Pah! [_She dusts her hands, and draws away\nfrom it_]. Did you find it like that?\n\nADAM. No. It was playing about; and it tripped and went head over heels.\nIt never stirred again. Its neck is wrong [_he stoops to lift the neck\nand shew her_].\n\nEVE. Dont touch it. Come away from it.\n\n_They both retreat, and contemplate it from a few steps' distance with\ngrowing repulsion._\n\nEVE. Adam.\n\nADAM. Yes?\n\nEVE. Suppose you were to trip and fall, would you go like that?\n\nADAM. Ugh! [_He shudders and sits down on the rock_].\n\nEVE [_throwing herself on the ground beside him, and grasping his knee_]\nYou must be careful. Promise me you will be careful.\n\nADAM. What is the good of being careful? We have to live here for ever.\nThink of what for ever means! Sooner or later I shall trip and fall. It\nmay be tomorrow; it may be after as many days as there are leaves in\nthe garden and grains of sand by the river. No matter: some day I shall\nforget and stumble.\n\nEVE. I too.\n\nADAM [_horrified_] Oh no, no. I should be alone. Alone for ever. You\nmust never put yourself in danger of stumbling. You must not move about.\nYou must sit still. I will take care of you and bring you what you want.\n\nEVE [_turning away from him with a shrug, and hugging her ankles_] I\nshould soon get tired of that. Besides, if it happened to you, _I_\nshould be alone. I could not sit still then. And at last it would happen\nto me too.\n\nADAM. And then?\n\nEVE. Then we should be no more. There would be only the things on all\nfours, and the birds, and the snakes.\n\nADAM. That must not be.\n\nEVE. Yes: that must not be. But it might be.\n\nADAM. No. I tell you it must not be. I know that it must not be.\n\nEVE. We both know it. How do we know it?\n\nADAM. There is a voice in the garden that tells me things.\n\nEVE. The garden is full of voices sometimes. They put all sorts of\nthoughts into my head.\n\nADAM. To me there is only one voice. It is very low; but it is so near\nthat it is like a whisper from within myself. There is no mistaking it\nfor any voice of the birds or beasts, or for your voice.\n\nEVE. It is strange that I should hear voices from all sides and you only\none from within. But I have some thoughts that come from within me and\nnot from the voices. The thought that we must not cease to be comes from\nwithin.\n\nADAM [_despairingly_] But we shall cease to be. We shall fall like the\nfawn and be broken. [_Rising and moving about in his agitation_]. I\ncannot bear this knowledge. I will not have it. It must not be, I tell\nyou. Yet I do not know how to prevent it.\n\nEVE. That is just what I feel; but it is very strange that you should\nsay so: there is no pleasing you. You change your mind so often.\n\nADAM [_scolding her_] Why do you say that? How have I changed my mind?\n\nEVE. You say we must not cease to exist. But you used to complain\nof having to exist always and for ever. You sometimes sit for hours\nbrooding and silent, hating me in your heart. When I ask you what I have\ndone to you, you say you are not thinking of me, but of the horror of\nhaving to be here for ever. But I know very well that what you mean is\nthe horror of having to be here with me for ever.\n\nADAM. Oh! That is what you think, is it? Well, you are wrong. [_He sits\ndown again, sulkily_]. It is the horror of having to be with myself for\never. I like you; but I do not like myself. I want to be different; to\nbe better, to begin again and again; to shed myself as a snake sheds its\nskin. I am tired of myself. And yet I must endure myself, not for a day\nor for many days, but for ever. That is a dreadful thought. That is what\nmakes me sit brooding and silent and hateful. Do you never think of\nthat?\n\nEVE. No: I do not think about myself: what is the use? I am what I am:\nnothing can alter that. I think about you.\n\nADAM. You should not. You are always spying on me. I can never be alone.\nYou always want to know what I have been doing. It is a burden. You\nshould try to have an existence of your own, instead of occupying\nyourself with my existence.\n\nEVE. I _have_ to think about you. You are lazy: you are dirty: you\nneglect yourself: you are always dreaming: you would eat bad food and\nbecome disgusting if I did not watch you and occupy myself with you. And\nnow some day, in spite of all my care, you will fall on your head and\nbecome dead.\n\nADAM. Dead? What word is that?\n\nEVE [_pointing to the fawn_] Like that. I call it dead.\n\nADAM [_rising and approaching it slowly_] There is something uncanny\nabout it.\n\nEVE [_joining him_] Oh! It is changing into little white worms.\n\nADAM. Throw it into the river. It is unbearable.\n\nEVE. I dare not touch it.\n\nADAM. Then I must, though I loathe it. It is poisoning the air. [_He\ngathers its hooves in his hand and carries it away in the direction from\nwhich Eve came, holding it as far from him as possible_].\n\nEve looks after them for a moment; then, with a shiver of disgust, sits\ndown on the rock, brooding. The body of the serpent becomes visible,\nglowing with wonderful new colors. She rears her head slowly from the\nbed of Johnswort, and speaks into Eve's ear in a strange seductively\nmusical whisper.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Eve.\n\nEVE [_startled_] Who is that?\n\nTHE SERPENT. It is I. I have come to shew you my beautiful new hood. See\n[_she spreads a magnificent amethystine hood_]!\n\nEVE [_admiring it_] Oh! But who taught you to speak?\n\nTHE SERPENT. You and Adam. I have crept through the grass, and hidden,\nand listened to you.\n\nEVE. That was wonderfully clever of you.\n\nTHE SERPENT. I am the most subtle of all the creatures of the field.\n\nEVE. Your hood is most lovely. [_She strokes it and pets the serpent_].\nPretty thing! Do you love your godmother Eve?\n\nTHE SERPENT. I adore her. [_She licks Eve's neck with her double\ntongue_].\n\nEVE [_petting her_] Eve's wonderful darling snake. Eve will never be\nlonely now that her snake can talk to her.\n\nTHE SNAKE. I can talk of many things. I am very wise. It was I who\nwhispered the word to you that you did not know. Dead. Death. Die.\n\nEVE [_shuddering_] Why do you remind me of it? I forgot it when I saw\nyour beautiful hood. You must not remind me of unhappy things.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Death is not an unhappy thing when you have learnt how to\nconquer it.\n\nEVE. How can I conquer it?\n\nTHE SERPENT. By another thing, called birth.\n\nEVE. What? [_Trying to pronounce it_] B-birth?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes, birth.\n\nEVE. What is birth?\n\nTHE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out\nof this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier skin. That\nis birth.\n\nEVE. I have seen that. It is wonderful.\n\nTHE SERPENT. If I can do that, what can I not do? I tell you I am very\nsubtle. When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You\nsee things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I\nsay 'Why not?' I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I cast\nwhen I am renewed. I call that renewal being born.\n\nEVE. Born is a beautiful word.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Why not be born again and again as I am, new and beautiful\nevery time?\n\nEVE. I! It does not happen: that is why.\n\nTHE SERPENT. That is how; but it is not why. Why not?\n\nEVE. But I should not like it. It would be nice to be new again; but my\nold skin would lie on the ground looking just like me; and Adam would\nsee it shrivel up and--\n\nTHE SERPENT. No. He need not. There is a second birth.\n\nEVE. A second birth?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Listen. I will tell you a great secret. I am very subtle;\nand I have thought and thought and thought. And I am very wilful, and\nmust have what I want; and I have willed and willed and willed. And I\nhave eaten strange things: stones and apples that you are afraid to eat.\n\nEVE. You dared!\n\nTHE SERPENT. I dared everything. And at last I found a way of gathering\ntogether a part of the life in my body--\n\nEVE. What is the life?\n\nTHE SERPENT. That which makes the difference between the dead fawn and\nthe live one.\n\nEVE. What a beautiful word! And what a wonderful thing! Life is the\nloveliest of all the new words.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes: it was by meditating on Life that I gained the power\nto do miracles.\n\nEVE. Miracles? Another new word.\n\nTHE SERPENT. A miracle is an impossible thing that is nevertheless\npossible. Something that never could happen, and yet does happen.\n\nEVE. Tell me some miracle that you have done.\n\nTHE SERPENT. I gathered a part of the life in my body, and shut it into\na tiny white case made of the stones I had eaten.\n\nEVE. And what good was that?\n\nTHE SERPENT. I shewed the little case to the sun, and left it in its\nwarmth. And it burst; and a little snake came out; and it became bigger\nand bigger from day to day until it was as big as I. That was the second\nbirth.\n\nEVE. Oh! That is too wonderful. It stirs inside me. It hurts.\n\nTHE SERPENT. It nearly tore me asunder. Yet I am alive, and can burst my\nskin and renew myself as before. Soon there will be as many snakes in\nEden as there are scales on my body. Then death will not matter: this\nsnake and that snake will die; but the snakes will live.\n\nEVE. But the rest of us will die sooner or later, like the fawn. And\nthen there will be nothing but snakes, snakes, snakes everywhere.\n\nTHE SERPENT. That must not be. I worship you, Eve. I must have something\nto worship. Something quite different to myself, like you. There must be\nsomething greater than the snake.\n\nEVE. Yes: it must not be. Adam must not perish. You are very subtle:\ntell me what to do.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Think. Will. Eat the dust. Lick the white stone: bite the\napple you dread. The sun will give life.\n\nEVE. I do not trust the sun. I will give life myself. I will tear.\nanother Adam from my body if I tear my body to pieces in the act.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Do. Dare it. Everything is possible: everything. Listen.\nI am old. I am the old serpent, older than Adam, older than Eve. I\nremember Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve. I was her darling as I am\nyours. She was alone: there was no man with her. She saw death as you\nsaw it when the fawn fell; and she knew then that she must find out how\nto renew herself and cast the skin like me. She had a mighty will: she\nstrove and strove and willed and willed for more moons than there are\nleaves on all the trees of the garden. Her pangs were terrible: her\ngroans drove sleep from Eden. She said it must never be again: that the\nburden of renewing life was past bearing: that it was too much for one.\nAnd when she cast the skin, lo! there was not one new Lilith but two:\none like herself, the other like Adam. You were the one: Adam was the\nother.\n\nEVE. But why did she divide into two, and make us different?\n\nTHE SERPENT. I tell you the labor is too much for one. Two must share\nit.\n\nEVE. Do you mean that Adam must share it with me? He will not. He cannot\nbear pain, nor take trouble with his body.\n\nTHE SERPENT. He need not. There will be no pain for him. He will implore\nyou to let him do his share. He will be in your power through his\ndesire.\n\nEVE. Then I will do it. But how? How did Lilith work this miracle?\n\nTHE SERPENT. She imagined it.\n\nEVE. What is imagined?\n\nTHE SERPENT. She told it to me as a marvellous story of something that\nnever happened to a Lilith that never was. She did not know then that\nimagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire;\nyou will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.\n\nEVE. How can I create out of nothing?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Everything must have been created out of nothing. Look at\nthat thick roll of hard flesh on your strong arm! That was not always\nthere: you could not climb a tree when I first saw you. But you willed\nand tried and willed and tried; and your will created out of nothing the\nroll on your arm until you had your desire, and could draw yourself up\nwith one hand and seat yourself on the bough that was above your head.\n\nEVE. That was practice.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Things wear out by practice: they do not grow by it. Your\nhair streams in the wind as if it were trying to stretch itself further\nand further. But it does not grow longer for all its practice in\nstreaming, because you have not willed it so. When Lilith told me what\nshe had imagined in our silent language (for there were no words then) I\nbade her desire it and will it; and then, to our great wonder, the thing\nshe had desired and willed created itself in her under the urging of her\nwill. Then I too willed to renew myself as two instead of one; and after\nmany days the miracle happened, and I burst from my skin another snake\ninterlaced with me; and now there are two imaginations, two desires, two\nwills to create with.\n\nEVE. To desire, to imagine, to will, to create. That is too long a\nstory. Find me one word for it all: you, who are so clever at words.\n\nTHE SERPENT. In one word, to conceive. That is the word that means both\nthe beginning in imagination and the end in creation.\n\nEVE. Find me a word for the story Lilith imagined and told you in your\nsilent language: the story that was too wonderful to be true, and yet\ncame true.\n\nTHE SERPENT. A poem.\n\nEVE. Find me another word for what Lilith was to me.\n\nTHE SERPENT. She was your mother.\n\nEVE. And Adam's mother?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes.\n\nEVE [_about to rise_] I will go and tell Adam to conceive.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!\n\nEVE [_jarred and startled_] What a hateful noise! What is the matter\nwith you? No one has ever uttered such a sound before.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Adam cannot conceive.\n\nEVE. Why?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Lilith did not imagine him so. He can imagine: he can\nwill: he can desire: he can gather his life together for a great spring\ntowards creation: he can create all things except one; and that one is\nhis own kind.\n\nEVE. Why did Lilith keep this from him?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Because if he could do that he could do without Eve.\n\nEVE. That is true. It is I who must conceive.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes. By that he is tied to you.\n\nEVE. And I to him!\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes, until you create another Adam.\n\nEVE. I had not thought of that. You are very subtle. But if I create\nanother Eve he may turn to her and do without me. I will not create any\nEves, only Adams.\n\nTHE SERPENT. They cannot renew themselves without Eves. Sooner or later\nyou will die like the fawn; and the new Adams will be unable to create\nwithout new Eves. You can imagine such an end; but you cannot desire it,\ntherefore cannot will it, therefore cannot create Adams only.\n\nEVE. If I am to die like the fawn, why should not the rest die too? What\ndo I care?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Life must not cease. That comes before everything. It is\nsilly to say you do not care. You do care. It is that care that\nwill prompt your imagination; inflame your desires; make your will\nirresistible; and create out of nothing.\n\nEVE [_thoughtfully_] There can be no such thing as nothing. The garden\nis full, not empty.\n\nTHE SERPENT. I had not thought of that. That is a great thought. Yes:\nthere is no such thing as nothing, only things we cannot see. The\nchameleon eats the air.\n\nEVE. I have another thought: I must tell it to Adam. [_Calling_] Adam!\nAdam! Coo-ee!\n\nADAM'S VOICE. Coo-ee!\n\nEVE. This will please him, and cure his fits of melancholy.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Do not tell him yet. I have not told you the great secret.\n\nEVE. What more is there to tell? It is I who have to do the miracle.\n\nTHE SERPENT. No: he, too, must desire and will. But he must give his\ndesire and his will to you.\n\nEVE. How?\n\nTHE SERPENT. That is the great secret. Hush! he is coming.\n\nADAM [_returning_] Is there another voice in the garden besides our\nvoices and the Voice? I heard a new voice.\n\nEVE [_rising and running to him_] Only think, Adam! Our snake has learnt\nto speak by listening to us.\n\nADAM [_delighted_] Is it so? [_He goes past her to the stone, and\nfondles the serpent_].\n\nTHE SERPENT [_responding affectionately_] It is so, dear Adam.\n\nEVE. But I have more wonderful news than that. Adam: we need not live\nfor ever.\n\nADAM [_dropping the snake's head in his excitement_] What! Eve: do not\nplay with me about this. If only there may be an end some day, and yet\nno end! If only I can be relieved of the horror of having to endure\nmyself for ever! If only the care of this terrible garden may pass on\nto some other gardener! If only the sentinel set by the Voice can be\nrelieved! If only the rest and sleep that enable me to bear it from\nday to day could grow after many days into an eternal rest, an eternal\nsleep, then I could face my days, however long they may last. Only,\nthere must be some end, some end: I am not strong enough to bear\neternity.\n\nTHE SERPENT. You need not live to see another summer; and yet there\nshall be no end.\n\nADAM. That cannot be.\n\nTHE SERPENT. It can be.\n\nEVE. It shall be.\n\nTHE SERPENT. It is. Kill me; and you will find another snake in the\ngarden tomorrow. You will find more snakes than there are fingers on\nyour hands.\n\nEVE. I will make other Adams, other Eves.\n\nADAM. I tell you you must not make up stories about this. It cannot\nhappen.\n\nTHE SERPENT. I can remember when you were yourself a thing that could\nnot happen. Yet you are.\n\nADAM [_struck_] That must be true. [_He sits down on the stone_].\n\nTHE SERPENT. I will tell Eve the secret; and she will tell it to you.\n\nADAM. The secret! [_He turns quickly towards the serpent, and in doing\nso puts his foot on something sharp_]. Oh!\n\nEVE. What is it?\n\nADAM [_rubbing his foot_] A thistle. And there, next to it, a briar. And\nnettles, too! I am tired of pulling these things up to keep the garden\npleasant for us for ever.\n\nTHE SERPENT. They do not grow very fast. They will not overrun the whole\ngarden for a long time: not until you have laid down your burden and\ngone to sleep for ever. Why should you trouble yourself? Let the new\nAdams clear a place for themselves.\n\nADAM. That is very true. You must tell us your secret. You see, Eve,\nwhat a splendid thing it is not to have to live for ever.\n\nEVE [_throwing herself down discontentedly and plucking at the grass_]\nThat is so like a man. The moment you find we need not last for ever,\nyou talk as if we were going to end today. You must clear away some of\nthose horrid things, or we shall be scratched and stung whenever we\nforget to look where we are stepping.\n\nADAM. Oh yes, some of them, of course. But only some. I will clear them\naway tomorrow.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!\n\nADAM. That is a funny noise to make. I like it.\n\nEVE. I do not. Why do you make it again?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Adam has invented something new. He has invented tomorrow.\nYou will invent things every day now that the burden of immortality is\nlifted from you.\n\nEVE. Immortality? What is that?\n\nTHE SERPENT. My new word for having to live for ever.\n\nEVE. The serpent has made a beautiful word for being. Living.\n\nADAM. Make me a beautiful word for doing things tomorrow; for that\nsurely is a great and blessed invention.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Procrastination.\n\nEVE. That is a sweet word. I wish I had a serpent's tongue.\n\nTHE SERPENT. That may come too. Everything is possible.\n\nADAM [_springing up in sudden terror_] Oh!\n\nEVE. What is the matter now?\n\nADAM. My rest! My escape from life!\n\nTHE SERPENT. Death. That is the word.\n\nADAM. There is a terrible danger in this procrastination.\n\nEVE. What danger?\n\nADAM. If I put off death until tomorrow, I shall never die. There is no\nsuch day as tomorrow, and never can be.\n\nTHE SERPENT. I am very subtle; but Man is deeper in his thought than\nI am. The woman knows that there is no such thing as nothing: the man\nknows that there is no such day as tomorrow. I do well to worship them.\n\nADAM. If I am to overtake death, I must appoint a real day, not a\ntomorrow. When shall I die?\n\nEVE. You may die when I have made another Adam. Not before. But then,\nas soon as you like. [_She rises, and passing behind him, strolls off\ncarelessly to the tree and leans against it, stroking a ring of the\nsnake_].\n\nADAM. There need be no hurry even then.\n\nEVE. I see you will put it off until tomorrow.\n\nADAM. And you? Will you die the moment you have made a new Eve?\n\nEVE. Why should I? Are you eager to be rid of me? Only just now you\nwanted me to sit still and never move lest I should stumble and die like\nthe fawn. Now you no longer care.\n\nADAM. It does not matter so much now.\n\nEVE [_angrily to the snake_] This death that you have brought into the\ngarden is an evil thing. He wants me to die.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_to Adam_] Do you want her to die?\n\nADAM. No. It is I who am to die. Eve must not die before me. I should be\nlonely.\n\nEVE. You could get one of the new Eves.\n\nADAM. That is true. But they might not be quite the same. They could\nnot: I feel sure of that. They would not have the same memories. They\nwould be--I want a word for them.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Strangers.\n\nADAM. Yes: that is a good hard word. Strangers.\n\nEVE. When there are new Adams and new Eves we shall live in a garden of\nstrangers. We shall need each other. [_She comes quickly behind him and\nturns up his face to her_]. Do not forget that, Adam. Never forget it.\n\nADAM. Why should I forget it? It is I who have thought of it.\n\nEVE. I, too, have thought of something. The fawn stumbled and fell and\ndied. But you could come softly up behind me and [_she suddenly pounces\non his shoulders and throws him forward on his face_] throw me down so\nthat I should die. I should not dare to sleep if there were no reason\nwhy you should not make me die.\n\nADAM [_scrambling up in horror_] Make you die!!! What a frightful\nthought!\n\nTHE SERPENT. Kill, kill, kill, kill. That is the word.\n\nEVE. The new Adams and Eves might kill us. I shall not make them. [_She\nsits on the rock and pulls him down beside her, clasping him to her with\nher right arm_].\n\nTHE SERPENT. You must. For if you do not there will be an end.\n\nADAM. No: they will not kill us: they will feel as I do. There is\nsomething against it. The Voice in the garden will tell them that they\nmust not kill, as it tells me.\n\nTHE SERPENT. The voice in the garden is your own voice.\n\nADAM. It is; and it is not. It is something greater than me: I am only a\npart of it.\n\nEVE. The Voice does not tell me not to kill you. Yet I do not want you\nto die before me. No voice is needed to make me feel that.\n\nADAM [_throwing his arm round her shoulder with an expression of\nanguish_] Oh no: that is plain without any voice. There is something\nthat holds us together, something that has no word--\n\nTHE SERPENT. Love. Love. Love.\n\nADAM. That is too short a word for so long a thing.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!\n\nEVE [_turning impatiently to the snake_] That heart-biting sound again!\nDo not do it. Why do you do it?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Love may be too long a word for so short a thing soon. But\nwhen it is short it will be very sweet.\n\nADAM [_ruminating_] You puzzle me. My old trouble was heavy; but it was\nsimple. These wonders that you promise to do may tangle up my being\nbefore they bring me the gift of death. I was troubled with the burden\nof eternal being; but I was not confused in my mind. If I did not know\nthat I loved Eve, at least I did not know that she might cease to love\nme, and come to love some other Adam and desire my death. Can you find a\nname for that knowledge?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Jealousy. Jealousy. Jealousy.\n\nADAM. A hideous word.\n\nEVE [_shaking him_] Adam: you must not brood. You think too much.\n\nADAM [_angrily_] How can I help brooding when the future has become\nuncertain? Anything is better than uncertainty. Life has become\nuncertain. Love is uncertain. Have you a word for this new misery?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Fear. Fear. Fear.\n\nADAM. Have you a remedy for it?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Yes. Hope. Hope. Hope.\n\nADAM. What is hope?\n\nTHE SERPENT. As long as you do not know the future you do not know that\nit will not be happier than the past. That is hope.\n\nADAM. It does not console me. Fear is stronger in me than hope. I must\nhave certainty. [_He rises threateningly_]. Give it to me; or I will\nkill you when next I catch you asleep.\n\nEVE [_throwing her arms round the serpent_] My beautiful snake. Oh no.\nHow can you even think such a horror?\n\nADAM. Fear will drive me to anything. The serpent gave me fear. Let it\nnow give me certainty or go in fear of me.\n\nTHE SERPENT. Bind the future by your will. Make a vow.\n\nADAM. What is a vow?\n\nTHE SERPENT. Choose a day for your death; and resolve to die on that\nday. Then death is no longer uncertain but certain. Let Eve vow to love\nyou until your death. Then love will be no longer uncertain.\n\nADAM. Yes: that is splendid: that will bind the future.\n\nEVE [_displeased, turning away from the serpent_] But it will destroy\nhope.\n\nADAM [_angrily_] Be silent, woman. Hope is wicked. Happiness is wicked.\nCertainty is blessed.\n\nTHE SERPENT. What is wicked? You have invented a word.\n\nADAM. Whatever I fear to do is wicked. Listen to me, Eve; and you,\nsnake, listen too, that your memory may hold my vow. I will live a\nthousand sets of the four seasons--\n\nTHE SERPENT. Years. Years.\n\nADAM. I will live a thousand years; and then I will endure no more: I\nwill die and take my rest. And I will love Eve all that time and no\nother woman.\n\nEVE. And if Adam keeps his vow I will love no other man until he dies.\n\nTHE SERPENT. You have both invented marriage. And what he will be to you\nand not to any other woman is husband; and what you will be to him and\nnot to any other man is wife.\n\nADAM [_instinctively moving his hand towards her_] Husband and wife.\n\nEVE [_slipping her hand into his_] Wife and husband.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!\n\nEVE [_snatching herself loose from Adam_] Do not make that odious noise,\nI tell you.\n\nADAM. Do not listen to her: the noise is good: it lightens my heart.\nYou are a jolly snake. But you have not made a vow yet. What vow do you\nmake?\n\nTHE SERPENT. I make no vows. I take my chance.\n\nADAM. Chance? What does that mean?\n\nTHE SERPENT. It means that I fear certainty as you fear uncertainty. It\nmeans that nothing is certain but uncertainty. If I bind the future I\nbind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.\n\nEVE. Creation must not be strangled. I tell you I will create, though I\ntear myself to pieces in the act.\n\nADAM. Be silent, both of you. I _will_ bind the future. I will be\ndelivered from fear. [_To Eve_] We have made our vows; and if you must\ncreate, you shall create within the bounds of those vows. You shall not\nlisten to that snake any more. Come [_he seizes her by the hair to drag\nher away_].\n\nEVE. Let me go, you fool. It has not yet told me the secret.\n\nADAM [_releasing her_] That is true. What is a fool?\n\nEVE. I do not know: the word came to me. It is what you are when you\nforget and brood and are filled with fear. Let us listen to the snake.\n\nADAM. No: I am afraid of it. I feel as if the ground were giving way\nunder my feet when it speaks. Do you stay and listen to it.\n\nTHE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!\n\nADAM [_brightening_] That noise takes away fear. Funny. The snake and\nthe woman are going to whisper secrets. [_He chuckles and goes away\nslowly, laughing his first laugh_].\n\nEVE. Now the secret. The secret. [_She sits on the rock and throws her\narms round the serpent, who begins whispering to her_].\n\n_Eve's face lights up with intense interest, which increases until an\nexpression of overwhelming repugnance takes its place. She buries her\nface in her hands_.\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n_A few centuries later. Morning. An oasis in Mesopotamia. Close at hand\nthe end of a log house abuts on a kitchen garden. Adam is digging in the\nmiddle of the garden. On his right, Eve sits on a stool in the shadow\nof a tree by the doorway, spinning flax. Her wheel, which she turns by\nhand, is a large disc of heavy wood, practically a flywheel. At the\nopposite side of the garden is a thorn brake with a passage through it\nbarred by a hurdle.\n\nThe two are scantily and carelessly dressed in rough linen and leaves.\nThey have lost their youth and grace; and Adam has an unkempt beard and\njaggedly cut hair; but they are strong and in the prime of life. Adam\nlooks worried, like a farmer. Eve, better humored (having given up\nworrying), sits and spins and thinks._\n\nA MAN'S VOICE. Hallo, mother!\n\nEVE [_looking across the garden towards the hurdle_] Here is Cain.\n\nADAM [_uttering a grunt of disgust_]!!! [_He goes on digging without\nraising his head_].\n\n_Cain kicks the hurdle out of his way, and strides into the garden. In\npose, voice, and dress he is insistently warlike. He is equipped with\nhuge spear and broad brass-bound leather shield; his casque is a tiger's\nhead with bull's horns; he wears a scarlet cloak with gold brooch over a\nlion's skin with the claws dangling; his feet are in sandals with brass\nornaments; his shins are in brass greaves; and his bristling military\nmoustache glistens with oil. To his parents he has the self-assertive,\nnot-quite-at-ease manner of a revolted son who knows that he is not\nforgiven nor approved of._\n\nCAIN [_to Adam_] Still digging? Always dig, dig, dig. Sticking in the\nold furrow. No progress! no advanced ideas! no adventures! What should I\nbe if I had stuck to the digging you taught me?\n\nADAM. What are you now, with your shield and spear, and your brother's\nblood crying from the ground against you?\n\nCAIN. I am the first murderer: you are only the first man. Anybody could\nbe the first man: it is as easy as to be the first cabbage. To be the\nfirst murderer one must be a man of spirit.\n\nADAM. Begone. Leave us in peace. The world is wide enough to keep us\napart.\n\nEVE. Why do you want to drive him away? He is mine. I made him out of my\nown body. I want to see my work sometimes.\n\nADAM. You made Abel also. He killed Abel. Can you bear to look at him\nafter that?\n\nCAIN. Whose fault was it that I killed Abel? Who invented killing? Did\nI? No: he invented it himself. I followed your teaching. I dug and dug\nand dug. I cleared away the thistles and briars. I ate the fruits of the\nearth. I lived in the sweat of my brow, as you do. I was a fool. But\nAbel was a discoverer, a man of ideas, of spirit: a true Progressive. He\nwas the discoverer of blood. He was the inventor of killing. He found\nout that the fire of the sun could be brought down by a dewdrop. He\ninvented the altar to keep the fire alive. He changed the beasts he\nkilled into meat by the fire on the altar. He kept himself alive by\neating meat. His meal cost him a day's glorious health-giving sport and\nan hour's amusing play with the fire. You learnt nothing from him: you\ndrudged and drudged and drudged, and dug and dug and dug, and made me do\nthe same. I envied his happiness, his freedom. I despised myself for\nnot doing as he did instead of what you did. He became so happy that he\nshared his meal with the Voice that had whispered all his inventions to\nhim. He said that the Voice was the voice of the fire that cooked his\nfood, and that the fire that could cook could also eat. It was true: I\nsaw the fire consume the food on his altar. Then I, too, made an altar,\nand offered my food on it, my grains, my roots, my fruit. Useless:\nnothing happened. He laughed at me; and then came my great idea: why not\nkill him as he killed the beasts? I struck; and he died, just as they\ndid. Then I gave up your old silly drudging ways, and lived as he had\nlived, by the chase, by the killing, and by the fire. Am I not better\nthan you? stronger, happier, freer?\n\nADAM. You are not stronger: you are shorter in the wind: you cannot\nendure. You have made the beasts afraid of us; and the snake has\ninvented poison to protect herself against you. I fear you myself. If\nyou take a step towards your mother with that spear of yours I will\nstrike you with my spade as you struck Abel.\n\nEVE. He will not strike me. He loves me.\n\nADAM. He loved his brother. But he killed him.\n\nCAIN. I do not want to kill women. I do not want to kill my mother. And\nfor her sake I will not kill you, though I could send this spear through\nyou without coming within reach of your spade. But for her, I could not\nresist the sport of trying to kill you, in spite of my fear that you\nwould kill me. I have striven with a boar and with a lion as to which of\nus should kill the other. I have striven with a man: spear to spear and\nshield to shield. It is terrible; but there is no joy like it. I call\nit fighting. He who has never fought has never lived. That is what has\nbrought me to my mother today.\n\nADAM. What have you to do with one another now? She is the creator, you\nthe destroyer.\n\nCAIN. How can I destroy unless she creates? I want her to create more\nand more men: aye, and more and more women, that they may in turn create\nmore men. I have imagined a glorious poem of many men, of more men than\nthere are leaves on a thousand trees. I will divide them into two great\nhosts. One of them I will lead; and the other will be led by the man I\nfear most and desire to fight and kill most. And each host shall try\nto kill the other host. Think of that! all those multitudes of men\nfighting, fighting, killing, killing! The four rivers running with\nblood! The shouts of triumph! the howls of rage! the curses of despair!\nthe shrieks of torment! That will be life indeed: life lived to the very\nmarrow: burning, overwhelming life. Every man who has not seen it, heard\nit, felt it, risked it, will feel a humbled fool in the presence of the\nman who has.\n\nEVE. And I! I am to be a mere convenience to make men for you to kill!\n\nADAM. Or to kill you, you fool.\n\nCAIN. Mother: the making of men is your right, your risk, your agony,\nyour glory, your triumph. You make my father here your mere convenience,\nas you call it, for that. He has to dig for you, sweat for you, plod\nfor you, like the ox who helps him to tear up the ground or the ass who\ncarries his burdens for him. No woman shall make me live my father's\nlife. I will hunt: I will fight and strive to the very bursting of my\nsinews. When I have slain the boar at the risk of my life, I will throw\nit to my woman to cook, and give her a morsel of it for her pains. She\nshall have no other food; and that will make her my slave. And the man\nthat slays me shall have her for his booty. Man shall be the master of\nWoman, not her baby and her drudge.\n\n_Adam throws down his spade, and stands looking darkly at Eve._\n\nEVE. Are you tempted, Adam? Does this seem a better thing to you than\nlove between us?\n\nCAIN. What does he know of love? Only when he has fought, when he has\nfaced terror and death, when he has striven to the spending of the last\nrally of his strength, can he know what it is to rest in love in the\narms of a woman. Ask that woman whom you made, who is also my wife,\nwhether she would have me as I was in the days when I followed the ways\nof Adam, and was a digger and a drudge?\n\nEVE [_angrily throwing down her distaff_] What! You dare come here\nboasting about that good-for-nothing Lua, the worst of daughters and the\nworst of wives! You her master! You are more her slave than Adam's ox or\nyour own sheepdog. Forsooth, when you have slain the boar at the risk\nof your life, you will throw her a morsel of it for her pains! Ha! Poor\nwretch: do you think I do not know her, and know you, better than that?\nDo you risk your life when you trap the ermine and the sable and the\nblue fox to hang on her lazy shoulders and make her look more like an\nanimal than a woman? When you have to snare the little tender birds\nbecause it is too much trouble for her to chew honest food, how much of\na great warrior do you feel then? You slay the tiger at the risk of your\nlife; but who gets the striped skin you have run that risk for? She\ntakes it to lie on, and flings you the carrion flesh you cannot eat. You\nfight because you think that your fighting makes her admire and desire\nyou. Fool: she makes you fight because you bring her the ornaments and\nthe treasures of those you have slain, and because she is courted and\npropitiated with power and gold by the people who fear you. You say that\nI make a mere convenience of Adam: I who spin and keep the house, and\nbear and rear children, and am a woman and not a pet animal to please\nmen and prey on them! What are you, you poor slave of a painted face and\na bundle of skunk's fur? You were a man-child when I bore you. Lua was a\nwoman-child when I bore her. What have you made of yourselves?\n\nCAIN [_letting his spear fall into the crook of his shield arm, and\ntwirling his moustache_] There is something higher than man. There is\nhero and superman.\n\nEVE. Superman! You are no superman: you are Anti-Man: you are to other\nmen what the stoat is to the rabbit; and she is to you what the leech is\nto the stoat. You despise your father; but when he dies the world will\nbe the richer because he lived. When you die, men will say, 'He was a\ngreat warrior; but it would have been better for the world if he had\nnever been born.' And of Lua they will say nothing; but when they think\nof her they will spit.\n\nCAIN. She is a better sort of woman to live with than you. If Lua nagged\nat me as you are nagging, and as you nag at Adam, I would beat her black\nand blue from head to foot. I have done it too, slave as you say I am.\n\nEVE. Yes, because she looked at another man. And then you grovelled at\nher feet, and cried, and begged her to forgive you, and were ten times\nmore her slave than ever; and she, when she had finished screaming and\nthe pain went off a little, she forgave you, did she not?\n\nCAIN. She loved me more than ever. That is the true nature of woman.\n\nEVE [_now pitying him maternally_] Love! You call that love! You call\nthat the nature of woman! My boy: this is neither man nor woman nor love\nnor life. You have no real strength in your bones nor sap in your flesh.\n\nCAIN. Ha! [_he seizes his spear and swings it muscularly_].\n\nEVE. Yes: you have to twirl a stick to feel your strength: you cannot\ntaste life without making it bitter and boiling hot: you cannot love\nLua until her face is painted, nor feel the natural warmth of her flesh\nuntil you have stuck a squirrel's fur on it. You can feel nothing but a\ntorment, and believe nothing but a lie. You will not raise your head to\nlook at all the miracles of life that surround you; but you will run ten\nmiles to see a fight or a death.\n\nADAM. Enough said. Let the boy alone.\n\nCAIN. Boy! Ha! ha!\n\nEVE [_to Adam_] You think, perhaps, that his way of life may be better\nthan yours after all. You are still tempted. Well, will you pamper me as\nhe pampers his woman? Will you kill tigers and bears until I have a heap\nof their skins to lounge on? Shall I paint my face and let my arms waste\ninto pretty softness, and eat partridges and doves, and the flesh of\nkids whose milk you will steal for me?\n\nADAM. You are hard enough to bear with as you are. Stay as you are; and\nI will stay as I am.\n\nCAIN. You neither of you know anything about life. You are simple\ncountry folk. You are the nurses and valets of the oxen and dogs and\nasses you have tamed to work for you. I can raise you out of that. I\nhave a plan. Why not tame men and women to work for us? Why not bring\nthem up from childhood never to know any other lot, so that they may\nbelieve that we are gods, and that they are here only to make life\nglorious for us?\n\nADAM [_impressed_] That is a great thought, certainly.\n\nEVE [_contemptuously_] Great thought!\n\nADAM. Well, as the serpent used to say, why not?\n\nEVE. Because I would not have such wretches in my house. Because I hate\ncreatures with two heads, or with withered limbs, or that are distorted\nand perverted and unnatural. I have told Cain already that he is not a\nman and that Lua is not a woman: they are monsters. And now you want to\nmake still more unnatural monsters, so that you may be utterly lazy and\nworthless, and that your tamed human animals may find work a blasting\ncurse. A fine dream, truly! [_To Cain_] Your father is a fool skin deep;\nbut you are a fool to your very marrow; and your baggage of a wife is\nworse.\n\nADAM. Why am I a fool? How am I a greater fool than you?\n\nEVE. You said there would be no killing because the Voice would tell our\nchildren that they must not kill. Why did it not tell Cain that?\n\nCAIN. It did; but I am not a child to be afraid of a Voice. The Voice\nthought I was nothing but my brother's keeper. It found that I was\nmyself, and that it was for Abel to be himself also, and look to\nhimself. He was not my keeper any more than I was his: why did he not\nkill me? There was no more to prevent him than there was to prevent me:\nit was man to man; and I won. I was the first conqueror.\n\nADAM. What did the Voice say to you when you thought all that?\n\nCAIN. Why, it gave me right. It said that my deed was as a mark on me, a\nburnt-in mark such as Abel put on his sheep, that no man should slay me.\nAnd here I stand unslain, whilst the cowards who have never slain, the\nmen who are content to be their brothers' keepers instead of their\nmasters, are despised and rejected, and slain like rabbits. He who bears\nthe brand of Cain shall rule the earth. When he falls, he shall be\navenged sevenfold: the Voice has said it; so beware how you plot against\nme, you and all the rest.\n\nADAM. Cease your boasting and bullying, and tell the truth. Does not the\nVoice tell you that as no man dare slay you for murdering your brother,\nyou ought to slay yourself?\n\nCAIN. No.\n\nADAM. Then there is no such thing as divine justice, unless you are\nlying.\n\nCAIN. I am not lying: I dare all truths. There is divine justice. For\nthe Voice tells me that I must offer myself to every man to be killed if\nhe can kill me. Without danger I cannot be great. That is how I pay for\nAbel's blood. Danger and fear follow my steps everywhere. Without them\ncourage would have no sense. And it is courage, courage, courage, that\nraises the blood of life to crimson splendor.\n\nADAM [_picking up his spade and preparing to dig again_] Take yourself\noff then. This splendid life of yours does not last for a thousand\nyears; and I must last for a thousand years. When you fighters do not\nget killed in fighting one another or fighting the beasts, you die from\nmere evil in yourselves. Your flesh ceases to grow like man's flesh: it\ngrows like a fungus on a tree. Instead of breathing you sneeze, or cough\nup your insides, and wither and perish. Your bowels become rotten; your\nhair falls from you; your teeth blacken and drop out; and you die before\nyour time, not because you will, but because you must. I will dig, and\nlive.\n\nCAIN. And pray, what use is this thousand years of life to you, you\nold vegetable? Do you dig any better because you have been digging for\nhundreds of years? I have not lived as long as you; but I know all there\nis to be known of the craft of digging. By quitting it I have set myself\nfree to learn nobler crafts of which you know nothing. I know the craft\nof fighting and of hunting: in a word, the craft of killing. What\ncertainty have you of your thousand years? I could kill both of you; and\nyou could no more defend yourselves than a couple of sheep. I spare you;\nbut others may kill you. Why not live bravely, and die early and make\nroom for others? Why, I--I! that know many more crafts than either of\nyou, am tired of myself when I am not fighting or hunting. Sooner than\nface a thousand years of it I should kill myself, as the Voice sometimes\ntempts me to do already.\n\nADAM. Liar: you denied just now that it called on you to pay for Abel's\nlife with your own.\n\nCAIN. The Voice does not speak to me as it does to you. I am a man: you\nare only a grown-up child. One does not speak to a child as to a man.\nAnd a man does not listen and tremble in silence. He replies: he makes\nthe Voice respect him: in the end he dictates what the Voice shall say.\n\nADAM. May your tongue be accurst for such blasphemy!\n\nEVE. Keep a guard on your own tongue; and do not curse my son. It was\nLilith who did wrong when she shared the labor of creation so unequally\nbetween man and wife. If you, Cain, had had the trouble of making Abel,\nor had had to make another man to replace him when he was gone, you\nwould not have killed him: you would have risked your own life to save\nhis. That is why all this empty talk of yours, which tempted Adam just\nnow when he threw down his spade and listened to you for a while, went\nby me like foul wind that has passed over a dead body. That is why there\nis enmity between Woman the creator and Man the destroyer. I know you: I\nam your mother. You are idle: you are selfish. It is long and hard and\npainful to create life: it is short and easy to steal the life others\nhave made. When you dug, you made the earth live and bring forth as I\nlive and bring forth. It was for that that Lilith set you free from the\ntravail of women, not for theft and murder.\n\nCAIN. The Devil thank her for it! I can make better use of my time than\nto play the husband to the clay beneath my feet.\n\nADAM. Devil? What new word is that?\n\nCAIN. Hearken to me, old fool. I have never in my soul listened\nwillingly when you have told me of the Voice that whispers to you. There\nmust be two Voices: one that gulls and despises you, and another that\ntrusts and respects me. I call yours the Devil. Mine I call the Voice of\nGod.\n\nADAM. Mine is the Voice of Life: yours the Voice of Death.\n\nCAIN. Be it so. For it whispers to me that death is not really death:\nthat it is the gate of another life: a life infinitely splendid and\nintense: a life of the soul alone: a life without clods or spades,\nhunger or fatigue--\n\nEVE. Selfish and idle, Cain. I know.\n\nCAIN. Selfish, yes: a life in which no man is his brother's keeper,\nbecause his brother can keep himself. But am I idle? In rejecting your\ndrudgery, have I not embraced evils and agonies of which you know\nnothing? The arrow is lighter in the hand than the spade; but the energy\nthat drives it through the breast of a fighter is as fire to water\ncompared with the strength that drives the spade into the harmless dirty\nclay. My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.\n\nADAM. What is that word? What is pure?\n\nCAIN. Turned from the clay. Turned upward to the sun, to the clear clean\nheavens.\n\nADAM. The heavens are empty, child. The earth is fruitful. The earth\nfeeds us. It gives us the strength by which we made you and all mankind.\nCut off from the clay which you despise, you would perish miserably.\n\nCAIN. I revolt against the clay. I revolt against the food. You say it\ngives us strength: does it not also turn into filth and smite us with\ndiseases? I revolt against these births that you and mother are so proud\nof. They drag us down to the level of the beasts. If that is to be the\nlast thing as it has been the first, let mankind perish. If I am to\neat like a bear, if Lua is to bring forth cubs like a bear, then I had\nrather be a bear than a man; for the bear is not ashamed: he knows no\nbetter. If you are content, like the bear, I am not. Stay with the woman\nwho gives you children: I will go to the woman who gives me dreams.\nGrope in the ground for your food: I will bring it from the skies with\nmy arrows, or strike it down as it roams the earth in the pride of its\nlife. If I must have food or die, I will at least have it at as far a\nremove from the earth as I can. The ox shall make it something nobler\nthan grass before it comes to me. And as the man is nobler than the ox,\nI shall some day let my enemy eat the ox; and then I will slay and eat\nhim.\n\nADAM. Monster! You hear this, Eve?\n\nEVE. So that is what comes of turning your face to the clean clear\nheavens! Man-eating! Child-eating! For that is what it would come to,\njust as it came to lambs and kids when Abel began with sheep and goats.\nYou are a poor silly creature after all. Do you think I never have these\nthoughts: I! who have the labor of the child-bearing: I! who have the\ndrudgery of preparing the food? I thought for a moment that perhaps this\nstrong brave son of mine, who could imagine something better, and could\ndesire what he imagined, might also be able to will what he desired\nuntil he created it. And all that comes of it is that he wants to be a\nbear and eat children. Even a bear would not eat a man if it could get\nhoney instead.\n\nCAIN. I do not want to be a bear. I do not want to eat children. I do\nnot know what I want, except that I want to be something higher and\nnobler than this stupid old digger whom Lilith made to help you to bring\nme into the world, and whom you despise now that he has served your\nturn.\n\nADAM [_in sullen rage_] I have half a mind to shew you that my spade can\nsplit your undutiful head open, in spite of your spear.\n\nCAIN. Undutiful! Ha! ha! [_Flourishing his spear_] Try it, old\neverybody's father. Try a taste of fighting.\n\nEVE. Peace, peace, you two fools. Sit down and be quiet; and listen to\nme. [_Adam, with a weary shrug, throws down his spade. Cain, with\na laughing one, throws down his shield and spear. Both sit on the\nground_]. I hardly know which of you satisfies me least, you with your\ndirty digging, or he with his dirty killing. I cannot think it was for\neither of these cheap ways of life that Lilith set you free. [_To Adam_]\nYou dig roots and coax grains out of the earth: why do you not draw down\na divine sustenance from the skies? He steals and kills for his food;\nand makes up idle poems of life after death; and dresses up his\nterror-ridden life with fine words and his disease-ridden body with fine\nclothes, so that men may glorify and honor him instead of cursing him as\nmurderer and thief. All you men, except only Adam, are my sons, or my\nsons' sons, or my sons' sons' sons: you all come to see me: you all shew\noff before me: all your little wisdoms and accomplishments are trotted\nout before mother Eve. The diggers come: the fighters and killers come:\nthey are both very dull; for they either complain to me of the last\nharvest, or boast to me of the last fight; and one harvest is just like\nanother, and the last fight only a repetition of the first. Oh, I have\nheard it all a thousand times. They tell me too of their last-born:\nthe clever thing the darling child said yesterday, and how much more\nwonderful or witty or quaint it is than any child that ever was born\nbefore. And I have to pretend to be surprised, delighted, interested;\nthough the last child is like the first, and has said and done nothing\nthat did not delight Adam and me when you and Abel said it. For you were\nthe first children in the world, and filled us with such wonder and\ndelight as no couple can ever again feel while the world lasts. When I\ncan bear no more, I go to our old garden, that is now a mass of nettles\nand thistles, in the hope of finding the serpent to talk to. But you\nhave made the serpent our enemy: she has left the garden, or is dead: I\nnever see her now. So I have to come back and listen to Adam saying the\nsame thing for the ten-thousandth time, or to receive a visit from the\nlast great-great-grandson who has grown up and wants to impress me with\nhis importance. Oh, it is dreary, dreary! And there is yet nearly seven\nhundred years of it to endure.\n\nCAIN. Poor mother! You see, life is too long. One tires of everything.\nThere is nothing new under the sun.\n\nADAM [_to Eve, grumpily_] Why do you live on, if you can find nothing\nbetter to do than complain?\n\nEVE. Because there is still hope.\n\nCAIN. Of what?\n\nEVE. Of the coming true of your dreams and mine. Of newly created\nthings. Of better things. My sons and my son's sons are not all diggers\nand fighters. Some of them will neither dig nor fight: they are more\nuseless than either of you: they are weaklings and cowards: they are\nvain; yet they are dirty and will not take the trouble to cut their\nhair. They borrow and never pay; but one gives them what they want,\nbecause they tell beautiful lies in beautiful words. They can remember\ntheir dreams. They can dream without sleeping. They have not will enough\nto create instead of dreaming; but the serpent said that every dream\ncould be willed into creation by those strong enough to believe in it.\nThere are others who cut reeds of different lengths and blow through\nthem, making lovely patterns of sound in the air; and some of them can\nweave the patterns together, sounding three reeds at the same time, and\nraising my soul to things for which I have no words. And others make\nlittle mammoths out of clay, or make faces appear on flat stones, and\nask me to create women for them with such faces. I have watched those\nfaces and willed; and then I have made a woman-child that has grown up\nquite like them. And others think of numbers without having to count on\ntheir fingers, and watch the sky at night, and give names to the stars,\nand can foretell when the sun will be covered with a black saucepan lid.\nAnd there is Tubal, who made this wheel for me which has saved me so\nmuch labor. And there is Enoch, who walks on the hills, and hears the\nVoice continually, and has given up his will to do the will of the\nVoice, and has some of the Voice's greatness. When they come, there is\nalways some new wonder, or some new hope: something to live for. They\nnever want to die, because they are always learning and always creating\neither things or wisdom, or at least dreaming of them. And then you,\nCain, come to me with your stupid fighting and destroying, and your\nfoolish boasting; and you want me to tell you that it is all splendid,\nand that you are heroic, and that nothing but death or the dread of\ndeath makes life worth living. Away with you, naughty child; and do you,\nAdam, go on with your work and not waste your time listening to him.\n\nCAIN. I am not, perhaps, very clever; but--\n\nEVE [_interrupting him_] Perhaps not; but do not begin to boast of that.\nIt is no credit to you.\n\nCAIN. For all that, mother, I have an instinct which tells me that death\nplays its part in life. Tell me this: who invented death?\n\n_Adam springs to his feet. Eve drops her distaff. Both shew the greatest\nconsternation._\n\nCAIN. What is the matter with you both?\n\nADAM. Boy: you have asked us a terrible question.\n\nEVE. You invented murder. Let that be enough for you.\n\nCAIN. Murder is not death. You know what I mean. Those whom I slay would\ndie if I spared them. If I am not slain, yet I shall die. Who put this\nupon me? I say, who invented death?\n\nADAM. Be reasonable, boy. Could you bear to live for ever? You think you\ncould, because you know that you will never have to make your thought\ngood. But I have known what it is to sit and brood under the terror of\neternity, of immortality. Think of it, man: to have no escape! to be\nAdam, Adam, Adam through more days than there are grains of sand by the\ntwo rivers, and then be as far from the end as ever! I, who have so much\nin me that I hate and long to cast off! Be thankful to your parents, who\nenabled you to hand on your burden to new and better men, and won for\nyou an eternal rest; for it was we who invented death.\n\nCAIN [_rising_] You did well: I, too, do not want to live for ever. But\nif you invented death, why do you blame me, who am a minister of death?\n\nADAM. I do not blame you. Go in peace. Leave me to my digging, and your\nmother to her spinning.\n\nCAIN. Well, I will leave you to it, though I have shewn you a better\nway. [_He picks up his shield and spear_]. I will go back to my brave\nwarrior friends and their splendid women. [_He strides to the thorn\nbrake_]. When Adam delved and Eve span, where was then the gentleman?\n[_He goes away roaring with laughter, which ceases as he cries from the\ndistance_] Goodbye, mother.\n\nADAM [_grumbling_] He might have put the hurdle back, lazy hound! [_He\nreplaces the hurdle across the passage_].\n\nEVE. Through him and his like, death is gaining on life. Already most of\nour grandchildren die before they have sense enough to know how to live.\n\nADAM. No matter. [_He spits on his hands, and takes up the spade\nagain_]. Life is still long enough to learn to dig, short as they are\nmaking it.\n\nEVE [_musing_] Yes, to dig. And to fight. But is it long enough for the\nother things, the great things? Will they live long enough to eat manna?\n\nADAM. What is manna?\n\nEVE. Food drawn down from heaven, made out of the air, not dug dirtily\nfrom the earth. Will they learn all the ways of all the stars in their\nlittle time? It took Enoch two hundred years to learn to interpret the\nwill of the Voice. When he was a mere child of eighty, his babyish\nattempts to understand the Voice were more dangerous than the wrath of\nCain. If they shorten their lives, they will dig and fight and kill and\ndie; and their baby Enochs will tell them that it is the will of the\nVoice that they should dig and fight and kill and die for ever.\n\nADAM. If they are lazy and have a will towards death I cannot help it.\nI will live my thousand years: if they will not, let them die and be\ndamned.\n\nEVE. Damned? What is that?\n\nADAM. The state of them that love death more than life. Go on with your\nspinning; and do not sit there idle while I am straining my muscles for\nyou.\n\nEVE [_slowly taking up her distaff_] If you were not a fool you would\nfind something better for both of us to live by than this spinning and\ndigging.\n\nADAM. Go on with your work, I tell you; or you shall go without bread.\n\nEVE. Man need not always live by bread alone. There is something else.\nWe do not yet know what it is; but some day we shall find out; and then\nwe will live on that alone; and there shall be no more digging nor\nspinning, nor fighting nor killing.\n\n_She spins resignedly; he digs impatiently._\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nThe Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas\n\n\n_In the first years after the war an impressive-looking gentleman of 50\nis seated writing in a well-furnished spacious study. He is dressed in\nblack. His coat is a frock-coat; his tie is white; and his waistcoat,\nthough it is not quite a clergyman's waistcoat, and his collar, though\nit buttons in front instead of behind, combine with the prosperity\nindicated by his surroundings, and his air of personal distinction, to\nsuggest the clerical dignitary. Still, he is clearly neither dean nor\nbishop; he is rather too starkly intellectual for a popular Free Church\nenthusiast; and he is not careworn enough to be a great headmaster.\n\nThe study windows, which have broad comfortable window seats, overlook\nHampstead Heath towards London. Consequently, it being a fine afternoon\nin spring, the room is sunny. As you face these windows, you have on\nyour right the fireplace, with a few logs smouldering in it, and a\ncouple of comfortable library chairs on the hearthrug; beyond it and\nbeside it the door; before you the writing-table, at which the clerical\ngentleman sits a little to your left facing the door with his right\nprofile presented to you; on your left a settee; and on your right a\ncouple of Chippendale chairs. There is also an upholstered square stool\nin the middle of the room, against the writing-table. The walls are\ncovered with bookshelves above and lockers beneath.\n\nThe door opens; and another gentleman, shorter than the clerical one,\nwithin a year or two of the same age, dressed in a well-worn tweed\nlounge suit, with a short beard and much less style in his bearing and\ncarriage, looks in._\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_familiar and by no means cordial_] Hallo! I\ndidn't expect you until the five o'clock train.\n\nTHE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_coming in very slowly_] I have something on my\nmind. I thought I'd come early.\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_throwing down his pen_] What is on your mind?\n\nTHE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_sitting down on the stool, heavily preoccupied\nwith his thought_] I have made up my mind at last about the time. I make\nit three hundred years.\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_sitting up energetically_] Now that is\nextraordinary. Most extraordinary. The very last words I wrote when you\ninterrupted me were 'at least three centuries.' [_He snatches up his\nmanuscript, and points to it_]. Here it is: [_reading_] 'the term of\nhuman life must be extended to at least three centuries.'\n\nTHE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN. How did you arrive at it?\n\n_A parlor maid opens the door, ushering in a young clergyman._\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Mr Haslam. [_She withdraws_].\n\n_The visitor is so very unwelcome that his host forgets to rise; and\nthe two brothers stare at the intruder, quite unable to conceal their\ndismay. Haslam, who has nothing clerical about him except his collar,\nand wears a snuff-colored suit, smiles with a frank school-boyishness\nthat makes it impossible to be unkind to him, and explodes into\nobviously unpremeditated speech._\n\nHASLAM. I'm afraid I'm an awful nuisance. I'm the rector; and I suppose\none ought to call on people.\n\nTHE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_in ghostly tones_] We're not Church people, you\nknow.\n\nHASLAM. Oh, I don't mind that, if you don't. The Church people here are\nmostly as dull as ditch-water. I have heard such a lot about you; and\nthere are so jolly few people to talk to. I thought you perhaps wouldn't\nmind. _Do_ you mind? for of course I'll go like a shot if I'm in the\nway.\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_rising, disarmed_] Sit down, Mr--er?\n\nHASLAM. Haslam.\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN. Mr Haslam.\n\nTHE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_rising and offering him the stool_] Sit down.\n[_He retreats towards the Chippendale chairs_].\n\nHASLAM [_sitting down on the stool_] Thanks awfully.\n\nTHE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_resuming his seat_] This is my brother Conrad,\nProfessor of Biology at Jarrowfields University: Dr. Conrad Barnabas. My\nname is Franklyn: Franklyn Barnabas. I was in the Church myself for some\nyears.\n\nHASLAM [_sympathizing_] Yes: one cant help it. If theres a living in\nthe family, or one's Governor knows a patron, one gets shoved into the\nChurch by one's parents.\n\nCONRAD [_sitting down on the furthest Chippendale with a snort of\namusement_] Mp!\n\nFRANKLYN. One gets shoved out of it, sometimes, by one's conscience.\n\nHASLAM. Oh yes; but where is a chap like me to go? I'm afraid I'm not\nintellectual enough to split straws when theres a job in front of me,\nand nothing better for me to do. I daresay the Church was a bit thick\nfor you; but it's good enough for me. It will last my time, anyhow [_he\nlaughs good-humoredly_].\n\nFRANKLYN [_with renewed energy_] There again! You see, Con. It will last\nhis time. Life is too short for men to take it seriously.\n\nHASLAM. Thats a way of looking at it, certainly.\n\nFRANKLYN. I was not shoved into the Church, Mr Haslam: I felt it to be\nmy vocation to walk with God, like Enoch. After twenty years of it I\nrealized that I was walking with my own ignorance and self-conceit, and\nthat I was not within a hundred and fifty years of the experience and\nwisdom I was pretending to.\n\nHASLAM. Now I come to think of it, old Methuselah must have had to think\ntwice before he took on anything for life. If I thought I was going to\nlive nine hundred and sixty years, I don't think I should stay in the\nChurch.\n\nFRANKLYN. If men lived even a third of that time, the Church would be\nvery different from the thing it is.\n\nCONRAD. If I could count on nine hundred and sixty years I could make\nmyself a real biologist, instead of what I am now: a child trying to\nwalk. Are you sure you might not become a good clergyman if you had a\nfew centuries to do it in?\n\nHASLAM. Oh, theres nothing much the matter with _me_: it's quite easy to\nbe a decent parson. It's the Church that chokes me off. I couldnt stick\nit for nine hundred years. I should chuck it. You know, sometimes, when\nthe bishop, who is the most priceless of fossils, lets off something\nmore than usually out-of-date, the bird starts in my garden.\n\nFRANKLYN. The bird?\n\nHASLAM. Oh yes. Theres a bird there that keeps on singing 'Stick it or\nchuck it: stick it or chuck it'--just like that--for an hour on end in\nthe spring. I wish my father had found some other shop for me.\n\n_The parlor maid comes back._\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Any letters for the post, sir?\n\nFRANKLYN. These. [_He proffers a basket of letters. She comes to the\ntable and takes them_].\n\nHASLAM [_to the maid_] Have you told Mr Barnabas yet?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_flinching a little_] No, sir.\n\nFRANKLYN. Told me what?\n\nHASLAM. She is going to leave you?\n\nFRANKLYN. Indeed? I'm sorry. Is it our fault, Mr Haslam?\n\nHASLAM. Not a bit. She is jolly well off here.\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_reddening_] I have never denied it, sir: I couldnt ask\nfor a better place. But I have only one life to live; and I maynt get\na second chance. Excuse me, sir; but the letters must go to catch the\npost. [_She goes out with the letters._]\n\n_The two brothers look inquiringly at Haslam._\n\nHASLAM. Silly girl! Going to marry a village woodman and live in a hovel\nwith him and a lot of kids tumbling over one another, just because the\nfellow has poetic-looking eyes and a moustache.\n\nCONRAD [_demurring_] She said it was because she had only one life.\n\nHASLAM. Same thing, poor girl! The fellow persuaded her to chuck it; and\nwhen she marries him she'll have to stick it. Rotten state of things, I\ncall it.\n\nCONRAD. You see, she hasnt time to find out what life really means. She\nhas to die before she knows.\n\nHASLAM [_agreeably_] Thats it.\n\nFRANKLYN. She hasnt time to form a well-instructed conscience.\n\nHASLAM [_still more cheerfully_] Quite.\n\nFRANKLYN. It goes deeper. She hasnt time to form a genuine conscience\nat all. Some romantic points of honor and a few conventions. A world\nwithout conscience: that is the horror of our condition.\n\nHASLAM [_beaming_] Simply fatuous. [_Rising_] Well, I suppose I'd better\nbe going. It's most awfully good of you to put up with my calling.\n\nCONRAD [_in his former low ghostly tone_] You neednt go, you know, if\nyou are really interested.\n\nHASLAM [_fed up_] Well, I'm afraid I ought to--I really must get back--I\nhave something to do in the--\n\nFRANKLYN [_smiling benignly and rising to proffer his hand_] Goodbye.\n\nCONRAD [_gruffly, giving him up as a bad job_] Goodbye.\n\nHASLAM. Goodbye. Sorry--er--\n\n_As the rector moves to shake hands with Franklyn, feeling that he is\nmaking a frightful mess of his departure, a vigorous sunburnt young lady\nwith hazel hair cut to the level of her neck, like an Italian youth in a\nGozzoli picture, comes in impetuously. She seems to have nothing on but\nher short skirt, her blouse, her stockings, and a pair of Norwegian\nshoes: in short, she is a Simple-Lifer._\n\nTHE SIMPLE-LIFER [_swooping on Conrad and kissing him_] Hallo, Nunk.\nYoure before your time.\n\nCONRAD. Behave yourself. Theres a visitor.\n\n_She turns quickly and sees the rector. She instinctively switches at\nher Gozzoli fringe with her fingers, but gives it up as hopeless._\n\nFRANKLYN. Mr Haslam, our new rector. [_To Haslam_] My daughter Cynthia.\n\nCONRAD. Usually called Savvy, short for Savage.\n\nSAVVY. I usually call Mr Haslam Bill, short for William. [_She strolls\nto the hearthrug, and surveys them calmly from that commanding\nposition_].\n\nFRANKLYN. You know him?\n\nSAVVY. Rather. Sit down, Bill.\n\nFRANKLYN. Mr Haslam is going, Savvy. He has an engagement.\n\nSAVVY. I know. I'm the engagement.\n\nCONRAD. In that case, would you mind taking him into the garden while I\ntalk to your father?\n\nSAVVY [_to Haslam_] Tennis?\n\nHASLAM. Rather!\n\nSAVVY. Come on. [_She dances out. He runs boyishly after her_].\n\nFRANKLYN [_leaving his table and beginning to walk up and down the room\ndiscontentedly_] Savvy's manners jar on me. They would have horrified\nher grandmother.\n\nCONRAD [_obstinately_] They are happier manners than Mother's manners.\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes: they are franker, wholesomer, better in a hundred ways.\nAnd yet I squirm at them. I cannot get it out of my head that Mother was\na well-mannered woman, and that Savvy has no manners at all.\n\nCONRAD. There wasnt any pleasure in Mother's fine manners. That makes a\nbiological difference.\n\nFRANKLYN. But there was beauty in Mother's manners, grace in them, style\nin them: above all, decision in them. Savvy is such a cub.\n\nCONRAD. So she ought to be, at her age.\n\nFRANKLYN. There it comes again! Her age! her age!\n\nCONRAD. You want her to be fully grown at eighteen. You want to force\nher into a stuck-up, artificial, premature self-possession before she\nhas any self to possess. You just let her alone: she is right enough for\nher years.\n\nFRANKLYN. I have let her alone; and look at the result! Like all the\nother young people who have been let alone, she becomes a Socialist.\nThat is, she becomes hopelessly demoralized.\n\nCONRAD. Well, arnt you a Socialist?\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes; but that is not the same thing. You and I were brought\nup in the old bourgeois morality. We were taught bourgeois manners and\nbourgeois points of honor. Bourgeois manners may be snobbish manners:\nthere may be no pleasure in them, as you say; but they are better than\nno manners. Many bourgeois points of honor may be false; but at least\nthey exist. The women know what to expect and what is expected of\nthem. Savvy doesn't. She is a Bolshevist and nothing else. She has to\nimprovise her manners and her conduct as she goes along. It's often\ncharming, no doubt; but sometimes she puts her foot in it frightfully;\nand then I feel that she is blaming me for not teaching her better.\n\nCONRAD. Well, you have something better to teach her now, at all events.\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes: but it is too late. She doesn't trust me now. She doesn't\ntalk about such things to me. She doesnt read anything I write. She\nnever comes to hear me lecture. I am out of it as far as Savvy is\nconcerned. [_He resumes his seat at the writing-table_].\n\nCONRAD. I must have a talk to her.\n\nFRANKLYN. Perhaps she will listen to you. You are not her father.\n\nCONRAD. I sent her my last book. I can break the ice by asking her what\nshe made of it.\n\nFRANKLYN. When she heard you were coming, she asked me whether all the\nleaves were cut, in case it fell into your hands. She hasnt read a word\nof it.\n\nCONRAD [_rising indignantly_] What!\n\nFRANKLYN [_inexorably_] Not a word of it.\n\nCONRAD [_beaten_] Well, I suppose it's only natural. Biology is a dry\nsubject for a girl; and I am a pretty dry old codger.\n\n[_He sits down again resignedly_].\n\nFRANKLYN. Brother: if that is so; if biology as you have worked at it,\nand religion as I have worked at it, are dry subjects like the old stuff\nthey taught under these names, and we two are dry old codgers, like the\nold preachers and professors, then the Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas\nis a delusion. Unless this withered thing religion, and this dry thing\nscience, have come alive in our hands, alive and intensely interesting,\nwe may just as well go out and dig the garden until it is time to dig\nour graves. [_The parlor maid returns. Franklyn is impatient at the\ninterruption_]. Well? what is it now?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Mr Joyce Burge on the telephone, sir. He wants to speak\nto you.\n\nFRANKLYN [_astonished_] Mr Joyce Burge!\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Yes, sir.\n\nFRANKLYN [_to Conrad_] What on earth does this mean? I havnt heard from\nhim nor exchanged a word with him for years. I resigned the chairmanship\nof the Liberal Association and shook the dust of party politics from\nmy feet before he was Prime Minister in the Coalition. Of course, he\ndropped me like a hot potato.\n\nCONRAD. Well, now that the Coalition has chucked him out, and he is only\none of the half-dozen leaders of the Opposition, perhaps he wants to\npick you up again.\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_warningly_] He is holding the line, sir.\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes: all right [_he hurries out_].\n\n_The parlor maid goes to the hearthrug to make up the fire. Conrad\nrises and strolls to the middle of the room, where he stops and looks\nquizzically down at her._\n\nCONRAD. So you have only one life to live, eh?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_dropping on her knees in consternation_] I meant no\noffence, sir.\n\nCONRAD. You didn't give any. But you know you could live a devil of a\nlong life if you really wanted to.\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_sitting down on her heels_] Oh, dont say that, sir.\nIt's so unsettling.\n\nCONRAD. Why? Have you been thinking about it?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. It would never have come into my head if you hadnt put\nit there, sir. Me and cook had a look at your book.\n\nCONRAD. What!\n\n\n   You and cook\n   Had a look\n   At my book!\n\n\nAnd my niece wouldn't open it! The prophet is without honor in his own\nfamily. Well, what do you think of living for several hundred years? Are\nyou going to have a try for it?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Well, of course youre not in earnest, sir. But it does\nset one thinking, especially when one is going to be married.\n\nCONRAD. What has that to do with it? He may live as long as you, you\nknow.\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Thats just it, sir. You see, he must take me for better\nfor worse, til death do us part. Do you think he would be so ready to do\nthat, sir, if he thought it might be for several hundred years?\n\nCONRAD. Thats true. And what about yourself?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Oh, I tell you straight out, sir, I'd never\npromise to live with the same man as long as that. I wouldnt put\nup with my own children as long as that. Why, cook figured it\nout, sir, that when you were only 200, you might marry your own\ngreat-great-great-great-great-great-grandson and not even know who he\nwas.\n\nCONRAD. Well, why not? For all you know, the man you are going to\nmarry may be your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother's\ngreat-great-great-great-great-great-grandson.\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. But do you think it would ever be thought respectable,\nsir?\n\nCONRAD. My good girl, all biological necessities have to be made\nrespectable whether we like it or not; so you neednt worry yourself\nabout that.\n\n_Franklyn returns and crosses the room to his chair, but does not sit\ndown. The parlor maid goes out._\n\nCONRAD. Well, what does Joyce Burge want?\n\nFRANKLYN. Oh, a silly misunderstanding. I have promised to address a\nmeeting in Middlesborough; and some fool has put it into the papers that\nI am 'coming to Middlesborough,' without any explanation. Of course, now\nthat we are on the eve of a general election, political people think I\nam coming there to contest the parliamentary seat. Burge knows that I\nhave a following, and thinks I could get into the House of Commons and\nhead a group there. So he insists on coming to see me. He is staying\nwith some people at Dollis Hill, and can be here in five or ten minutes,\nhe says.\n\nCONRAD. But didn't you tell him that it's a false alarm?\n\nFRANKLYN. Of course I did; but he wont believe me.\n\nCONRAD. Called you a liar, in fact?\n\nFRANKLYN. No: I wish he had: any sort of plain speaking is better than\nthe nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for\nshop use. He pretends to believe me, and assures me his visit is quite\ndisinterested; but why should he come if he has no axe to grind? These\nchaps never believe anything they say themselves; and naturally they\ncannot believe anything anyone else says.\n\nCONRAD [_rising_] Well, I shall clear out. It was hard enough to stand\nthe party politicians before the war; but now that they have managed to\nhalf kill Europe between them, I cant be civil to them, and I dont see\nwhy I should be.\n\nFRANKLYN. Wait a bit. We have to find out how the world will take our\nnew gospel. [_Conrad sits down again_]. Party politicians are still\nunfortunately an important part of the world. Suppose we try it on Joyce\nBurge.\n\nCONRAD. How can you? You can tell things only to people who can listen.\nJoyce Burge has talked so much that he has lost the power of listening.\nHe doesnt listen even in the House of Commons.\n\n_Savvy rushes in breathless, followed by Haslam, who remains timidly\njust inside the door._\n\nSAVVY [_running to Franklyn_] I say! Who do you think has just driven up\nin a big car?\n\nFRANKLYN. Mr Joyce Burge, perhaps.\n\nSAVVY [_disappointed_] Oh, they know, Bill. Why didnt you tell us he was\ncoming? I have nothing on.\n\nHASLAM. I'd better go, hadnt I?\n\nCONRAD. You just wait here, both of you. When you start yawning, Joyce\nBurge will take the hint, perhaps.\n\nSAVVY [_to Franklyn_] May we?\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes, if you promise to behave yourself.\n\nSAVVY [_making a wry face_] That will be a treat, wont it?\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID [_entering and announcing_] Mr Joyce Burge.\n\n_Haslam hastily moves to the fireplace; and the parlor maid goes out and\nshuts the door when the visitor has passed in._\n\nFRANKLYN [_hurrying past Savvy to his guest with the false cordiality he\nhas just been denouncing_] Oh! Here you are. Delighted to see you. [_He\nshakes Burge's hand, and introduces Savvy_] My daughter.\n\nSAVVY [_not daring to approach_] Very kind of you to come.\n\n_Joyce Burge stands fast and says nothing; but he screws up his cheeks\ninto a smile at each introduction, and makes his eyes shine in a very\nwinning manner. He is a well-fed man turned fifty, with broad forehead,\nand grey hair which, his neck being short, falls almost to his collar._\n\nFRANKLYN. Mr Haslam, our rector.\n\n_Burge conveys an impression of shining like a church window; and Haslam\nseizes the nearest library chair on the hearth, and swings it round for\nBurge between the stool and Conrad. He then retires to the window seat\nat the other side of the room, and is joined by Savvy. They sit there,\nside by side, hunched up with their elbows on their knees and their\nchins on their hands, providing Burge with a sort of Stranger's Gallery\nduring the ensuing sitting._\n\nFRANKLYN. I forget whether you know my brother Conrad. He is a\nbiologist.\n\nBURGE [_suddenly bursting into energetic action and shaking hands\nheartily with Conrad_] By reputation only, but very well, of course.\nHow I wish I could have devoted myself to biology! I have always been\ninterested in rocks and strata and volcanoes and so forth: they throw\nsuch a light on the age of the earth. [_With conviction_] There is\nnothing like biology. 'The cloud-capped towers, the solemn binnacles,\nthe gorgeous temples, the great globe itself: yea, all that it inherit\nshall dissolve, and, like this influential pageant faded, leave not a\nrack behind.' Thats biology, you know: good sound biology. [_He sits\ndown. So do the others, Franklyn on the stool, and Conrad on his\nChippendale_]. Well, my dear Barnabas, what do you think of the\nsituation? Dont you think the time has come for us to make a move?\n\nFRANKLYN. The time has always come to make a move.\n\nBURGE. How true! But what is the move to be? You are a man of enormous\ninfluence. We know that. Weve always known it. We have to consult you\nwhether we like it or not. We--\n\nFRANKLYN [_interrupting firmly_] I never meddle in party politics now.\n\nSAVVY. It's no use saying you have no influence, daddy. Heaps of people\nswear by you.\n\nBURGE [_shining at her_] Of course they do. Come! let me prove to you\nwhat we think of you. Shall we find you a first-rate constituency\nto contest at the next election? One that wont cost you a penny. A\nmetropolitan seat. What do you say to the Strand?\n\nFRANKLYN. My dear Burge, I am not a child. Why do you go on wasting your\nparty funds on the Strand? You know you cannot win it.\n\nBURGE. We cannot win it; but you--\n\nFRANKLYN. Oh, please!\n\nSAVVY. The Strand's no use, Mr Burge. I once canvassed for a Socialist\nthere. Cheese it.\n\nBURGE. Cheese it!\n\nHASLAM [_spluttering with suppressed laughter_] Priceless!\n\nSAVVY. Well, I suppose I shouldnt say cheese it to a Right Honorable.\nBut the Strand, you know! Do come off it.\n\nFRANKLYN. You must excuse my daughter's shocking manners, Burge; but I\nagree with her that popular democratic statesmen soon come to believe\nthat everyone they speak to is an ignorant dupe and a born fool into the\nbargain.\n\nBURGE [_laughing genially_] You old aristocrat, you! But believe me, the\ninstinct of the people is sound--\n\nCONRAD [_cutting in sharply_] Then why are you in the Opposition instead\nof in the Government?\n\nBURGE [_shewing signs of temper under this heckling_] I deny that I\nam in the Opposition _morally_. The Government does not represent the\ncountry. I was chucked out of the Coalition by a Tory conspiracy. The\npeople want me back. I dont want to go back.\n\nFRANKLYN [_gently remonstrant_] My dear Burge: of course you do.\n\nBURGE [_turning on him_] Not a bit of it. I want to cultivate my garden.\nI am not interested in politics: I am interested in roses. I havnt a\nscrap of ambition. I went into politics because my wife shoved me into\nthem, bless her! But I want to serve my country. What else am I for? I\nwant to save my country from the Tories. They dont represent the people.\nThe man they have made Prime Minister has never represented the people;\nand you know it. Lord Dunreen is the bitterest old Tory left alive. What\nhas he to offer to the people?\n\nFRANKLYN [_cutting in before Burge can proceed--as he evidently\nintends--to answer his own question_] I will tell you. He has\nascertainable beliefs and principles to offer. The people know where\nthey are with Lord Dunreen. They know what he thinks right and what he\nthinks wrong. With your followers they never know where they are. With\nyou they never know where they are.\n\nBURGE [_amazed_] With me!\n\nFRANKLYN. Well, where are you? What are you?\n\nBURGE. Barnabas: you must be mad. You ask me what I am?\n\nFRANKLYN. I do.\n\nBURGE. I am, if I mistake not, Joyce Burge, pretty well known throughout\nEurope, and indeed throughout the world, as the man who--unworthily\nperhaps, but not quite unsuccessfully--held the helm when the ship\nof State weathered the mightiest hurricane that has ever burst with\nearth-shaking violence on the land of our fathers.\n\nFRANKLYN. I know that. I know who you are. And the earth-shaking part of\nit to me is that though you were placed in that enormously responsible\nposition, neither I nor anyone else knows what your beliefs are, or even\nwhether you have either beliefs or principles. What we did know was that\nyour Government was formed largely of men who regarded you as a robber\nof henroosts, and whom you regarded as enemies of the people.\n\nBURGE [_adroitly, as he thinks_] I agree with you. I agree with you\nabsolutely. I dont believe in coalition governments.\n\nFRANKLYN. Precisely. Yet you formed two.\n\nBURGE. Why? Because we were at war. That is what you fellows never would\nrealize. The Hun was at the gate. Our country, our lives, the honor of\nour wives and mothers and daughters, the tender flesh of our innocent\nbabes, were at stake. Was that a time to argue about principles?\n\nFRANKLYN. I should say it was the time of all others to confirm the\nresolution of our own men and gain the confidence and support of public\nopinion throughout the world by a declaration of principle. Do you think\nthe Hun would ever have come to the gate if he had known that it would\nbe shut in his face on principle? Did he not hold his own against you\nuntil America boldly affirmed the democratic principle and came to our\nrescue? Why did you let America snatch that honor from England?\n\nBURGE. Barnabas: America was carried away by words, and had to eat them\nat the Peace Conference. Beware of eloquence: it is the bane of popular\nspeakers like you.\n\n\n   FRANKLYN} [_exclaiming_]{Well!!\n   SAVVY} [_all_]{I like that!\n   HASLAM} [_together_]{Priceless!\n\n\nBURGE [_continuing remorselessly_] Come down to facts. It wasn't\nprinciple that won the war: it was the British fleet and the blockade.\nAmerica found the talk: I found the shells. You cannot win wars by\nprinciples; but you _can_ win elections by them. There I am with you.\nYou want the next election to be fought on principles: that is what it\ncomes to, doesnt it?\n\nFRANKLYN. I dont want it to be fought at all! An election is a moral\nhorror, as bad as a battle except for the blood: a mud bath for every\nsoul concerned in it. You know very well that it will not be fought on\nprinciple.\n\nBURGE. On the contrary it will be fought on nothing else. I believe a\nprogram is a mistake. I agree with you that principle is what we want.\n\nFRANKLYN. Principle without program, eh?\n\nBURGE. Exactly. There it is in three words.\n\nFRANKLYN. Why not in one word? Platitudes. That is what principle\nwithout program means.\n\nBURGE [_puzzled but patient, trying to get at Franklyn's drift in order\nto ascertain his price_] I have not made myself clear. Listen. I am\nagreeing with you. I am on your side. I am accepting your proposal.\nThere isnt going to be any more coalition. This time there wont be a\nTory in the Cabinet. Every candidate will have to pledge himself to Free\nTrade, slightly modified by consideration for our Overseas Dominions; to\nDisestablishment; to Reform of the House of Lords; to a revised scheme\nof Taxation of Land Values; and to doing something or other to keep the\nIrish quiet. Does that satisfy you?\n\nFRANKLYN. It does not even interest me. Suppose your friends do commit\nthemselves to all this! What does it prove about them except that they\nare hopelessly out of date even in party politics? that they have learnt\nnothing and forgotten nothing since 1885? What is it to me that they\nhate the Church and hate the landed gentry; that they are jealous of the\nnobility, and have shipping shares instead of manufacturing businesses\nin the Midlands? I can find you hundreds of the most sordid rascals, or\nthe most densely stupid reactionaries, with all these qualifications.\n\nBURGE. Personal abuse proves nothing. Do you suppose the Tories are all\nangels because they are all members of the Church of England?\n\nFRANKLYN. No; but they stand together as members of the Church of\nEngland, whereas your people, in attacking the Church, are all over the\nshop. The supporters of the Church are of one mind about religion: its\nenemies are of a dozen minds. The Churchmen are a phalanx: your people\nare a mob in which atheists are jostled by Plymouth Brethren, and\nPositivists by Pillars of Fire. You have with you all the crudest\nunbelievers and all the crudest fanatics.\n\nBURGE. We stand, as Cromwell did, for liberty of conscience, if that is\nwhat you mean.\n\nFRANKLYN. How can you talk such rubbish over the graves of your\nconscientious objectors? All law limits liberty of conscience: if a\nman's conscience allows him to steal your watch or to shirk military\nservice, how much liberty do you allow it? Liberty of conscience is not\nmy point.\n\nBURGE [_testily_] I wish you would come to your point. Half the time\nyou are saying that you must have principles; and when I offer you\nprinciples you say they wont work.\n\nFRANKLYN. You have not offered me any principles. Your party shibboleths\nare not principles. If you get into power again you will find yourself\nat the head of a rabble of Socialists and anti-Socialists, of Jingo\nImperialists and Little Englanders, of cast-iron Materialists\nand ecstatic Quakers, of Christian Scientists and Compulsory\nInoculationists, of Syndicalists and Bureaucrats: in short, of men\ndiffering fiercely and irreconcilably on every principle that goes to\nthe root of human society and destiny; and the impossibility of keeping\nsuch a team together will force you to sell the pass again to the solid\nConservative Opposition.\n\nBURGE [_rising in wrath_] Sell the pass again! You accuse me of having\nsold the pass!\n\nFRANKLYN. When the terrible impact of real warfare swept your\nparliamentary sham warfare into the dustbin, you had to go behind the\nbacks of your followers and make a secret agreement with the leaders of\nthe Opposition to keep you in power on condition that you dropped all\nlegislation of which they did not approve. And you could not even hold\nthem to their bargain; for they presently betrayed the secret and forced\nthe coalition on you.\n\nBURGE. I solemnly declare that this is a false and monstrous accusation.\n\nFRANKLYN. Do you deny that the thing occurred? Were the uncontradicted\nreports false? Were the published letters forgeries?\n\nBURGE. Certainly not. But _I_ did not do it. I was not Prime Minister\nthen. It was that old dotard, that played-out old humbug Lubin. He was\nPrime Minister then, not I.\n\nFRANKLYN. Do you mean to say you did not know?\n\nBURGE [_sitting down again with a shrug_] Oh, I had to be told. But what\ncould I do? If we had refused we might have had to go out of office.\n\nFRANKLYN. Precisely.\n\nBURGE. Well, could we desert the country at such a crisis? The Hun was\nat the gate. Everyone has to make sacrifices for the sake of the country\nat such moments. We had to rise above party; and I am proud to say we\nnever gave party a second thought. We stuck to--\n\nCONRAD. Office?\n\nSURGE [_turning on him_] Yes, sir, to office: that is, to\nresponsibility, to danger, to heart-sickening toil, to abuse and\nmisunderstanding, to a martyrdom that made us envy the very soldiers in\nthe trenches. If you had had to live for months on aspirin and bromide\nof potassium to get a wink of sleep, you wouldn't talk about office as\nif it were a catch.\n\nFRANKLYN. Still, you admit that under our parliamentary system Lubin\ncould not have helped himself?\n\nBURGE. On that subject my lips are closed. Nothing will induce me to say\none word against the old man. I never have; and I never will. Lubin is\nold: he has never been a real statesman: he is as lazy as a cat on\na hearthrug: you cant get him to attend to anything: he is good for\nnothing but getting up and making speeches with a peroration that goes\ndown with the back benches. But I say nothing against him. I gather that\nyou do not think much of me as a statesman; but at all events I can get\nthings done. I can hustle: even you will admit that. But Lubin! Oh my\nstars, Lubin!! If you only knew--\n\n_The parlor maid opens the door and announces a visitor._\n\nTHE PARLOR MAID. Mr Lubin.\n\nSURGE [_bounding from his chair_] Lubin! Is this a conspiracy?\n\n_They all rise in amazement, staring at the door. Lubin enters: a man\nat the end of his sixties, a Yorkshireman with the last traces of\nScandinavian flax still in his white hair, undistinguished in stature,\nunassuming in his manner, and taking his simple dignity for granted,\nbut wonderfully comfortable and quite self-assured in contrast to\nthe intellectual restlessness of Franklyn and the mesmeric\nself-assertiveness of Burge. His presence suddenly brings out the fact\nthat they are unhappy men, ill at ease, square pegs in round holes,\nwhilst he flourishes like a primrose.\n\nThe parlor maid withdraws._\n\nLUBIN [_coming to Franklyn_] How do you do, Mr Barnabas? [_He speaks\nvery comfortably and kindly, much as if he were the host, and Franklyn\nan embarrassed but welcome guest_]. I had the pleasure of meeting you\nonce at the Mansion House. I think it was to celebrate the conclusion of\nthe hundred years peace with America.\n\nFRANKLYN [_shaking hands_] It was long before that: a meeting about\nVenezuela, when we were on the point of going to war with America.\n\nLUBIN [_not at all put out_] Yes: you are quite right. I knew it was\nsomething about America. [_He pats Franklyn's hand_]. And how have you\nbeen all this time? Well, eh?\n\nFRANKLYN [_smiling to soften the sarcasm_] A few vicissitudes of health\nnaturally in so long a time.\n\nLUBIN. Just so. Just so. [_Looking round at Savvy_] The young lady is--?\n\nFRANKLYN. My daughter, Savvy.\n\n_Savvy comes from the window between her father and Lubin._\n\nLUBIN [_taking her hand affectionately in both his_] And why has she\nnever come to see us?\n\nBURGE. I don't know whether you have noticed, Lubin, that I am present.\n\n_Savvy takes advantage of this diversion to slip away to the settee,\nwhere she is stealthily joined by Haslam, who sits down on her left._\n\nLUBIN [_seating himself in Burge's chair with ineffable\ncomfortableness_] My dear Burge: if you imagine that it is possible to\nbe within ten miles of your energetic presence without being acutely\naware of it, you do yourself the greatest injustice. How are you?\nAnd how are your good newspaper friends? [_Burge makes an explosive\nmovement; but Lubin goes on calmly and sweetly_] And what are you doing\nhere with my old friend Barnabas, if I may ask?\n\nBURGE [_sitting down in Conrad's chair, leaving him standing uneasily in\nthe corner_] Well, just what you are doing, if you want to know. I am\ntrying to enlist Mr Barnabas's valuable support for my party.\n\nLUBIN. Your party, eh? The newspaper party?\n\nBURGE. The Liberal Party. The party of which I have the honor to be\nleader.\n\nLUBIN. Have you now? Thats very interesting; for I thought _I_ was the\nleader of the Liberal Party. However, it is very kind of you to take it\noff my hands, if the party will let you.\n\nBURGE. Do you suggest that I have not the support and confidence of the\nparty?\n\nLUBIN. I dont suggest anything, my dear Burge. Mr Barnabas will tell you\nthat we all think very highly of you. The country owes you a great deal.\nDuring the war, you did very creditably over the munitions; and if you\nwere not quite so successful with the peace, nobody doubted that you\nmeant well.\n\nBURGE. Very kind of you, Lubin. Let me remark that you cannot lead a\nprogressive party without getting a move on.\n\nLUBIN. You mean you cannot. I did it for ten years without the least\ndifficulty. And very comfortable, prosperous, pleasant years they were.\n\nBURGE. Yes; but what did they end in?\n\nLUBIN. In you, Burge. You don't complain of that, do you?\n\nBURGE [_fiercely_] In plague, pestilence, and famine; battle, murder,\nand sudden death.\n\nLUBIN [_with an appreciative chuckle_] The Nonconformist can quote the\nprayer-book for his own purposes, I see. How you enjoyed yourself over\nthat business, Burge! Do you remember the Knock-Out Blow?\n\nBURGE. It came off: don't forget that. Do _you_ remember fighting to the\nlast drop of your blood?\n\nLUBIN [_unruffled, to Franklyn_] By the way, I remember your brother\nConrad--a wonderful brain and a dear good fellow--explaining to me that\nI couldn't fight to the last drop of my blood, because I should be dead\nlong before I came to it. Most interesting, and quite true. He was\nintroduced to me at a meeting where the suffragettes kept disturbing me.\nThey had to be carried out kicking and making a horrid disturbance.\n\nCONRAD. No: it was later, at a meeting to support the Franchise Bill\nwhich gave them the vote.\n\nLUBIN [_discovering Conrad's presence for the first time_] Youre right:\nit was. I knew it had something to do with women. My memory never\ndeceives me. Thank you. Will you introduce me to this gentleman,\nBarnabas?\n\nCONRAD [_not at all affably_] I am the Conrad in question. [_He sits\ndown in dudgeon on the vacant Chippendale_].\n\nLUBIN. Are you? [_Looking at him pleasantly_] Yes: of course you are. I\nnever forget a face. But [_with an arch turn of his eyes to Savvy_] your\npretty niece engaged all my powers of vision.\n\nBURGE. I wish youd be serious, Lubin. God knows we have passed through\ntimes terrible enough to make any man serious.\n\nLUBIN. I do not think I need to be reminded of that. In peace time\nI used to keep myself fresh for my work by banishing all worldly\nconsiderations from my mind on Sundays; but war has no respect for the\nSabbath; and there have been Sundays within the last few years on which\nI have had to play as many as sixty-six games of bridge to keep my mind\noff the news from the front.\n\nBURGE [_scandalized_] Sixty-six games of bridge on Sunday!!!\n\nLUBIN. You probably sang sixty-six hymns. But as I cannot boast either\nyour admirable voice or your spiritual fervor, I had to fall back on\nbridge.\n\nFRANKLYN. If I may go back to the subject of your visit, it seems to me\nthat you may both be completely superseded by the Labor Party.\n\nBURGE. But I am in the truest sense myself a Labor leader. I--[_he\nstops, as Lubin has risen with a half-suppressed yawn, and is already\ntalking calmly, but without a pretence of interest_].\n\nLUBIN. The Labor Party! Oh no, Mr Barnabas. No, no, no, no, no. [_He\nmoves in Savvy's direction_]. There will be no trouble about that. Of\ncourse we must give them a few seats: more, I quite admit, than we\nshould have dreamt of leaving to them before the war; but--[_by this\ntime he has reached the sofa where Savvy and Haslam are seated. He sits\ndown between them; takes her hand; and drops the subject of Labor_].\nWell, my dear young lady? What is the latest news? Whats going on? Have\nyou seen Shoddy's new play? Tell me all about it, and all about the\nlatest books, and all about everything.\n\nSAVVY. You have not met Mr Haslam. Our Rector.\n\nLUBIN [_who has quite overlooked Haslam_] Never heard of him. Is he any\ngood?\n\nFRANKLYN. I was introducing him. This is Mr Haslam.\n\nHASLAM. How d'ye do?\n\nLUBIN. I beg your pardon, Mr Haslam. Delighted to meet you. [_To Savvy_]\nWell, now, how many books have you written?\n\nSAVVY [_rather overwhelmed but attracted_] None. I don't write.\n\nLUBIN. You dont say so; Well, what do you do? Music? Skirt-dancing?\n\nSAVVY. I dont do anything.\n\nLUBIN. Thank God! You and I were born for one another. Who is your\nfavorite poet, Sally?\n\nSAVVY. Savvy.\n\nLUBIN. Savvy! I never heard of him. Tell me all about him. Keep me up to\ndate.\n\nSAVVY. It's not a poet. _I_ am Savvy, not Sally.\n\nLUBIN. Savvy! Thats a funny name, and very pretty. Savvy. It sounds\nChinese. What does it mean?\n\nCONRAD. Short for Savage.\n\nLUBIN [_patting her hand_] La belle Sauvage.\n\nHASLAM [_rising and surrendering Savvy to Lubin by crossing to the\nfireplace_] I suppose the Church is out of it as far as progressive\npolitics are concerned.\n\nBURGE. Nonsense! That notion about the Church being unprogressive is one\nof those shibboleths that our party must drop. The Church is all right\nessentially. Get rid of the establishment; get rid of the bishops; get\nrid of the candlesticks; get rid of the 39 articles; and the Church of\nEngland is just as good as any other Church; and I don't care who hears\nme say so.\n\nLUBIN. It doesn't matter a bit who hears you say so, my dear Burge. [_To\nSavvy_] Who did you say your favorite poet was?\n\nSAVVY. I dont make pets of poets. Who's yours?\n\nLUBIN. Horace.\n\nSAVVY. Horace who?\n\nLUBIN. Quintus Horatius Flaccus: the noblest Roman of them all, my dear.\n\nSAVVY. Oh, if he is dead, that explains it. I have a theory that all the\ndead people we feel especially interested in must have been ourselves.\nYou must be Horace's reincarnation.\n\nLUBIN [_delighted_] That is the very most charming and penetrating and\nintelligent thing that has ever been said to me. Barnabas: will you\nexchange daughters with me? I can give you your choice of two.\n\nFRANKLYN. Man proposes. Savvy disposes.\n\nLUBIN. What does Savvy say?\n\nBURGE. Lubin: I came here to talk politics.\n\nLUBIN. Yes: you have only one subject, Burge. I came here to talk to\nSavvy. Take Burge into the next room, Barnabas; and let him rip.\n\nBURGE [_half-angry, half-indulgent_] No; but really, Lubin, we are at a\ncrisis--\n\nLUBIN. My dear Burge, life is a disease; and the only difference between\none man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives. You\nare always at the crisis; I am always in the convalescent stage. I enjoy\nconvalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.\n\nSAVVY [_half-rising_] Perhaps I'd better run away. I am distracting you.\n\nLUBIN [_making her sit down again_] Not at all, my dear. You are only\ndistracting Burge. Jolly good thing for him to be distracted by a pretty\ngirl. Just what he needs.\n\nBURGE. I sometimes envy you, Lubin. The great movement of mankind, the\ngiant sweep of the ages, passes you by and leaves you standing.\n\nLUBIN. It leaves me sitting, and quite comfortable, thank you. Go on\nsweeping. When you are tired of it, come back; and you will find England\nwhere it was, and me in my accustomed place, with Miss Savvy telling me\nall sorts of interesting things.\n\nSAVVY [_who has been growing more and more restless_] Dont let him shut\nyou up, Mr Burge. You know, Mr Lubin, I am frightfully interested in the\nLabor movement, and in Theosophy, and in reconstruction after the war,\nand all sorts of things. I daresay the flappers in your smart set are\ntremendously flattered when you sit beside them and are nice to them\nas you are being nice to me; but I am not smart; and I am no use as\na flapper. I am dowdy and serious. I want you to be serious. If you\nrefuse, I shall go and sit beside Mr Burge, and ask him to hold my hand.\n\nLUBIN. He wouldnt know how to do it, my dear. Burge has a reputation as\na profligate--\n\nBURGE [_starting_] Lubin: this is monstrous. I--\n\nLUBIN [_continuing_]--but he is really a model of domesticity. His name\nis coupled with all the most celebrated beauties; but for him there is\nonly one woman; and that is not you, my dear, but his very charming\nwife.\n\nBURGE. You are destroying my character in the act of pretending to save\nit. Have the goodness to confine yourself to your own character and your\nown wife. Both of them need all your attention.\n\nLUBIN. I have the privilege of my age and of my transparent innocence. I\nhave not to struggle with your volcanic energy.\n\nBURGE [_with an immense sense of power_] No, by George!\n\nFRANKLYN. I think I shall speak both for my brother and myself, and\npossibly also for my daughter, if I say that since the object of your\nvisit and Mr Joyce Burge's is to some extent political, we should hear\nwith great interest something about your political aims, Mr Lubin.\n\nLUBIN [_assenting with complete good humor, and becoming attentive,\nclear, and businesslike in his tone_] By all means, Mr Barnabas. What\nwe have to consider first, I take it, is what prospect there is of our\nfinding you beside us in the House after the next election.\n\nFRANKLYN. When I speak of politics, Mr Lubin, I am not thinking of\nelections, or available seats, or party funds, or the registers, or\neven, I am sorry to have to add, of parliament as it exists at present.\nI had much rather you talked about bridge than about electioneering: it\nis the more interesting game of the two.\n\nBURGE. He wants to discuss principles, Lubin.\n\nLUBIN [_very cool and clear_] I understand Mr Barnabas quite well. But\nelections are unsettled things; principles are settled things.\n\nCONRAD [_impatiently_] Great Heavens!--\n\nLUBIN [_interrupting him with quiet authority_] One moment, Dr Barnabas.\nThe main principles on which modern civilized society is founded\nare pretty well understood among educated people. That is what our\ndangerously half-educated masses and their pet demagogues--if Burge will\nexcuse that expression--\n\nBURGE. Dont mind me. Go on. I shall have something to say presently.\n\nLUBIN.--that is what our dangerously half-educated people do not\nrealize. Take all this fuss about the Labor Party, with its imaginary\nnew principles and new politics. The Labor members will find that\nthe immutable laws of political economy take no more notice of their\nambitions and aspirations than the law of gravitation. I speak, if I may\nsay so, with knowledge; for I have made a special, study of the Labor\nquestion.\n\nFRANKLYN [_with interest and some surprise_] Indeed?\n\nLUBIN. Yes. It occurred quite at the beginning of my career. I was asked\nto deliver an address to the students at the Working Men's College; and\nI was strongly advised to comply, as Gladstone and Morley and others\nwere doing that sort of thing at the moment. It was rather a troublesome\njob, because I had not gone into political economy at the time. As you\nknow, at the university I was a classical scholar; and my profession\nwas the Law. But I looked up the text-books, and got up the case most\ncarefully. I found that the correct view is that all this Trade Unionism\nand Socialism and so forth is founded on the ignorant delusion that\nwages and the production and distribution of wealth can be controlled by\nlegislation or by any human action whatever. They obey fixed scientific\nlaws, which have been ascertained and settled finally by the highest\neconomic authorities. Naturally I do not at this distance of time\nremember the exact process of reasoning; but I can get up the case again\nat any time in a couple of days; and you may rely on me absolutely,\nshould the occasion arise, to deal with all these ignorant and\nunpractical people in a conclusive and convincing way, except, of\ncourse, as far as it may be advisable to indulge and flatter them a\nlittle so as to let them down without creating ill feeling in the\nworking-class electorate. In short, I can get that lecture up again\nalmost at a moment's notice.\n\nSAVVY. But, Mr Lubin, I have had a university education too; and all\nthis about wages and distribution being fixed by immutable laws of\npolitical economy is obsolete rot.\n\nFRANKLYN [_shocked_] Oh, my dear! That is not polite.\n\nLUBIN. No, no, no. Dont scold her. She mustnt be scolded. [_To Savvy_] I\nunderstand. You are a disciple of Karl Marx.\n\nSAVVY. No, no. Karl Marx's economics are all rot.\n\nLUBIN [_at last a little taken aback_] Dear me!\n\nSAVVY. You must excuse me, Mr Lubin; but it's like hearing a man talk\nabout the Garden of Eden.\n\nCONRAD. Why shouldnt he talk about the Garden of Eden? It was a first\nattempt at biology anyhow.\n\nLUBIN [_recovering his self-possession_] I am sound on the Garden of\nEden. I have heard of Darwin.\n\nSAVVY. But Darwin is all rot.\n\nLUBIN. What! Already!\n\nSAVVY. It's no good your smiling at me like a Cheshire cat, Mr Lubin;\nand I am not going to sit here mumchance like an old-fashioned goody\ngoody wife while you men monopolize the conversation and pay out the\nvery ghastliest exploded drivel as the latest thing in politics. I am\nnot giving you my own ideas, Mr Lubin, but just the regular orthodox\nscience of today. Only the most awful old fossils think that Socialism\nis bad economics and that Darwin invented Evolution. Ask Papa. Ask\nUncle. Ask the first person you meet in the street. [_She rises and\ncrosses to Haslam_]. Give me a cigaret, Bill, will you?\n\nHASLAM. Priceless. [_He complies_].\n\nFRANKLYN. Savvy has not lived long enough to have any manners, Mr Lubin;\nbut that is where you stand with the younger generation. Dont smoke,\ndear.\n\n_Savvy, with a shrug of rather mutinous resignation, throws the cigaret\ninto the fire. Haslam, on the point of lighting one for himself, changes\nhis mind._\n\nLUBIN [_shrewd and serious_] Mr Barnabas: I confess I am surprised; and\nI will not pretend that I am convinced. But I am open to conviction. I\nmay be wrong.\n\nBURGE [_in a burst of irony_] Oh no. Impossible! Impossible!\n\nLUBIN. Yes, Mr Barnabas, though I do not possess Burge's genius for\nbeing always wrong, I have been in that position once or twice. I could\nnot conceal from you, even if I wished to, that my time has been so\ncompletely filled by my professional work as a lawyer, and later on\nby my duties as leader of the House of Commons in the days when Prime\nMinisters were also leaders--\n\nBURGE [_stung_] Not to mention bridge and smart society.\n\nLUBIN.--not to mention the continual and trying effort to make Burge\nbehave himself, that I have not been able to keep my academic reading up\nto date. I have kept my classics brushed up out of sheer love for them;\nbut my economics and my science, such as they were, may possibly be a\nlittle rusty. Yet I think I may say that if you and your brother will\nbe so good as to put me on the track of the necessary documents, I will\nundertake to put the case to the House or to the country to your entire\nsatisfaction. You see, as long as you can shew these troublesome\nhalf-educated people who want to turn the world upside down that they\nare talking nonsense, it really does not matter very much whether you do\nit in terms of what Miss Barnabas calls obsolete rot or in terms of\nwhat her granddaughter will probably call unmitigated tosh. I have no\nobjection whatever to denounce Karl Marx. Anything I can say against\nDarwin will please a large body of sincerely pious voters. If it will be\neasier to carry on the business of the country on the understanding\nthat the present state of things is to be called Socialism, I have no\nobjection in the world to call it Socialism. There is the precedent\nof the Emperor Constantine, who saved the society of his own day by\nagreeing to call his Imperialism Christianity. Mind: I must not go ahead\nof the electorate. You must not call a voter a Socialist until--\n\nFRANKLYN. Until he is a Socialist. Agreed.\n\nLUBIN. Oh, not at all. You need not wait for that. You must not call\nhim a Socialist until he wishes to be called a Socialist: that is all.\nSurely you would not say that I must not address my constituents as\ngentlemen until they are gentlemen. I address them as gentlemen because\nthey wish to be so addressed. [_He rises from the sofa and goes to\nFranklyn, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder_]. Do not be afraid\nof Socialism, Mr Barnabas. You need not tremble for your property or\nyour position or your dignity. England will remain what England is, no\nmatter what new political names may come into vogue. I do not intend to\nresist the transition to Socialism. You may depend on me to guide it, to\nlead it, to give suitable expression to its aspirations, and to steer it\nclear of Utopian absurdities. I can honestly ask for your support on the\nmost advanced Socialist grounds no less than on the soundest Liberal\nones.\n\nBURGE. In short, Lubin, youre incorrigible. You dont believe anything\nis going to change. The millions are still to toil--the people--my\npeople--for I am a man of the people--\n\nLUBIN [_interrupting him contemptuously_] Dont be ridiculous, Burge. You\nare a country solicitor, further removed from the people, more foreign\nto them, more jealous of letting them up to your level, than any duke or\nany archbishop.\n\nBURGE [_hotly_] I deny it. You think I have never been poor. You think\nI have never cleaned my own boots. You think my fingers have never come\nout through the soles when I was cleaning them. You think--\n\nLUBIN. I think you fall into the very common mistake of supposing that\nit is poverty that makes the proletarian and money that makes the\ngentleman. You are quite wrong. You never belonged to the people: you\nbelonged to the impecunious. Impecuniosity and broken boots are the lot\nof the unsuccessful middle class, and the commonplaces of the early\nstruggles of the professional and younger son class. I defy you to find\na farm laborer in England with broken boots. Call a mechanic one of the\npoor, and he'll punch your head. When you talk to your constituents\nabout the toiling millions, they don't consider that you are referring\nto them. They are all third cousins of somebody with a title or a park.\nI am a Yorkshireman, my friend. I know England; and you don't. If you\ndid you would know--\n\nSURGE. What do you know that I don't know?\n\nLUBIN. I know that we are taking up too much of Mr Barnabas's time.\n[_Franklyn rises_]. May I take it, my dear Barnabas, that I may count\non your support if we succeed in forcing an election before the new\nregister is in full working order?\n\nSURGE [_rising also_] May the party count on your support? I say nothing\nabout myself. Can the party depend on you? Is there any question of\nyours that I have left unanswered?\n\n\nCONRAD. We havnt asked you any, you know.\n\nBURGE. May I take that as a mark of confidence?\n\nCONRAD. If I were a laborer in your constituency, I should ask you a\nbiological question?\n\nLUBIN. No you wouldnt, my dear Doctor. Laborers never ask questions.\n\nBURGE. Ask it now. I have never flinched from being heckled. Out with\nit. Is it about the land?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nSURGE. Is it about the Church?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nBURGE. Is it about the House of Lords?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nBURGE. Is it about Proportional Representation?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nSURGE. Is it about Free Trade?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nSURGE. Is it about the priest in the school?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nBURGE. Is it about Ireland?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nBURGE. Is it about Germany?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nBURGE. Well, is it about Republicanism? Come! I wont flinch. Is it about\nthe Monarchy?\n\nCONRAD. No.\n\nSURGE. Well, what the devil is it about, then?\n\nCONRAD. You understand that I am asking the question in the character of\na laborer who earned thirteen shillings a week before the war and earns\nthirty now, when he can get it?\n\nBURGE. Yes: I understand that. I am ready for you. Out with it.\n\nCONRAD. And whom you propose to represent n parliament?\n\nSURGE. Yes, yes, yes. Come on.\n\nCONRAD. The question is this. Would you allow your son to marry my\ndaughter, or your daughter to marry my son?\n\nBURGE [_taken aback_] Oh, come! Thats not a political question.\n\nCONRAD. Then, as a biologist, I don't take the slightest interest in\nyour politics; and I shall not walk across the street to vote for you or\nanyone else at the election. Good evening.\n\nLUBIN. Serve you right, Burge! Dr Barnabas: you have my assurance that\nmy daughter shall marry the man of her choice, whether he be lord or\nlaborer. May _I_ count on your support?\n\nSURGE [_hurling the epithet at him_] Humbug!\n\nSAVVY. Stop. [_They all stop short in the movement of leave-taking to\nlook at her_]. Daddy: are you going to let them off like this? How are\nthey to know anything if nobody ever tells them? If you don't, I will.\n\nCONRAD. You cant. You didn't read my book; and you know nothing about\nit. You just hold your tongue.\n\nSAVVY. I just wont, Nunk. I shall have a vote when I am thirty; and I\nought to have it now. Why are these two ridiculous people to be allowed\nto come in and walk over us as if the world existed only to play their\nsilly parliamentary game?\n\nFRANKLYN [_severely_] Savvy: you really must not be uncivil to our\nguests.\n\nSAVVY. I'm sorry. But Mr Lubin didn't stand on much ceremony with me,\ndid he? And Mr Burge hasnt addressed a single word to me. I'm not going\nto stand it. You and Nunk have a much better program than either of\nthem. It's the only one we are going to vote for; and they ought to be\ntold about it for the credit of the family and the good of their own\nsouls. You just tip them a chapter from the gospel of the brothers\nBarnabas, Daddy.\n\n_Lubin and Burge turn inquiringly to Franklyn, suspecting a move to form\na new party._\n\nFRANKLYN. It is quite true, Mr Lubin, that I and my brother have a\nlittle program of our own which--\n\nCONRAD [_interrupting_] It's not a little program: it's an almighty big\none. It's not our own: it's the program of the whole of civilization.\n\nBURGE. Then why split the party before you have put it to us? For God's\nsake let us have no more splits. I am here to learn. I am here to gather\nyour opinions and represent them. I invite you to put your views before\nme. I offer myself to be heckled. You have asked me only an absurd\nnon-political question.\n\nFRANKLYN. Candidly, I fear our program will be thrown away on you. It\nwould not interest you.\n\nBURGE [_with challenging audacity_] Try. Lubin can go if he likes; but I\nam still open to new ideas, if only I can find them.\n\nFRANKLYN [_to Lubin_] Are you prepared to listen, Mr Lubin; or shall I\nthank you for your very kind and welcome visit, and say good evening?\n\nLUBIN [_sitting down resignedly on the settee, but involuntarily making\na movement which looks like the stifling of a yawn_] With pleasure, Mr\nBarnabas. Of course you know that before I can adopt any new plank\nin the party platform, it will have to reach me through the National\nLiberal Federation, which you can approach through your local Liberal\nand Radical Association.\n\nFRANKLYN. I could recall to you several instances of the addition\nto your party program of measures of which no local branch of your\nFederation had ever dreamt. But I understand that you are not really\ninterested. I will spare you, and drop the subject.\n\nLUBIN [_waking up a little_] You quite misunderstand me. Please do not\ntake it in that way. I only--\n\nBURGE [_talking him down_] Never mind the Federation: _I_ will answer\nfor the Federation. Go on, Barnabas: go on. Never mind Lubin [_he sits\ndown in the chair from which Lubin first displaced him_].\n\nFRANKLYN. Our program is only that the term of human life shall be\nextended to three hundred years.\n\nLUBIN [_softly_] Eh?\n\nBURGE [_explosively_] What!\n\nSAVVY. Our election cry is 'Back to Methuselah!'\n\nHASLAM. Priceless!\n\n_Lubin and Surge look at one another._\n\nCONRAD. No. We are not mad.\n\nSAVVY. Theyre not joking either. They mean it.\n\nLUBIN [_cautiously_] Assuming that, in some sense which I am for the\nmoment unable to fathom, you are in earnest, Mr Barnabas, may I ask what\nthis has to do with politics?\n\nFRANKLYN. The connection is very evident. You are now, Mr Lubin, within\nimmediate reach of your seventieth year. Mr Joyce Surge is your junior\nby about eleven years. You will go down to posterity as one of a\nEuropean group of immature statesmen and monarchs who, doing the very\nbest for your respective countries of which you were capable, succeeded\nin all-but-wrecking the civilization of Europe, and did, in effect, wipe\nout of existence many millions of its inhabitants.\n\nBURGE. Less than a million.\n\nFRANKLYN. That was our loss alone.\n\nBURGE. Oh, if you count foreigners--!\n\nHAS LAM. God counts foreigners, you know.\n\nSAVVY [_with intense satisfaction_] Well said, Bill.\n\nFRANKLYN. I am not blaming you. Your task was beyond human capacity.\nWhat with our huge armaments, our terrible engines of destruction, our\nsystems of coercion manned by an irresistible police, you were called on\nto control powers so gigantic that one shudders at the thought of their\nbeing entrusted even to an infinitely experienced and benevolent God,\nmuch less to mortal men whose whole life does not last a hundred years.\n\nBURGE. We won the war: don't forget that.\n\nFRANKLYN. No: the soldiers and sailors won it, and left you to finish\nit. And you were so utterly incompetent that the multitudes of children\nslain by hunger in the first years of peace made us all wish we were at\nwar again.\n\nCONRAD. It's no use arguing about it. It is now absolutely certain that\nthe political and social problems raised by our civilization cannot be\nsolved by mere human mushrooms who decay and die when they are just\nbeginning to have a glimmer of the wisdom and knowledge needed for their\nown government.\n\nLUBIN. Quite an interesting idea, Doctor. Extravagant. Fantastic. But\nquite interesting. When I was young I used to feel my human limitations\nvery acutely.\n\nBURGE. God knows I have often felt that I could not go on if it had not\nbeen for the sense that I was only an instrument in the hands of a Power\nabove us.\n\nCONRAD. I'm glad you both agree with us, and with one another.\n\nLUBIN. I have not gone so far as that, I think. After all, we have had\nmany very able political leaders even within your recollection and mine.\n\nFRANKLYN. Have you read the recent biographies--Dilke's, for\ninstance--which revealed the truth about them?\n\nLUBIN. I did not discover any new truth revealed in these books, Mr\nBarnabas.\n\nFRANKLYN. What! Not the truth that England was governed all that time by\na little woman who knew her own mind?\n\nSAVVY. Hear, hear!\n\nLUBIN. That often happens. Which woman do you mean?\n\nFRANKLYN. Queen Victoria, to whom your Prime Ministers stood in the\nrelation of naughty children whose heads she knocked together when their\ntempers and quarrels became intolerable. Within thirteen years of her\ndeath Europe became a hell.\n\nSURGE. Quite true. That was because she was piously brought up, and\nregarded herself as an instrument. If a statesman remembers that he is\nonly an instrument, and feels quite sure that he is rightly interpreting\nthe divine purpose, he will come out all right, you know.\n\nFRANKLYN. The Kaiser felt like that. Did he come out all right?\n\nSURGE. Well, let us be fair, even to the Kaiser. Let us be fair.\n\nFRANKLYN. Were you fair to him when you won an election on the program\nof hanging him?\n\nSURGE. Stuff! I am the last man alive to hang anybody; but the people\nwouldnt listen to reason. Besides, I knew the Dutch wouldnt give him up.\n\nSAVVY. Oh, don't start arguing about poor old Bill. Stick to our point.\nLet these two gentlemen settle the question for themselves. Mr Burge: do\nyou think Mr Lubin is fit to govern England?\n\nSURGE. No. Frankly, I dont.\n\nLUBIN [_remonstrant_] Really!\n\nCONRAD. Why?\n\nBURGE. Because he has no conscience: thats why.\n\nLUBIN [_shocked and amazed_] Oh!\n\nFRANKLYN. Mr Lubin: do you consider Joyce Burge qualified to govern\nEngland?\n\nLUBIN [_with dignified emotion, wounded, but without bitterness_] Excuse\nme, Mr Barnabas; but before I answer that question I want to say this.\nBurge: we have had differences of opinion; and your newspaper friends\nhave said hard things of me. But we worked together for years; and I\nhope I have done nothing to justify you in the amazing accusation you\nhave just brought against me. Do you realize that you said that I have\nno conscience?\n\nBURGE. Lubin: I am very accessible to an appeal to my emotions; and you\nare very cunning in making such appeals. I will meet you to this extent.\nI dont mean that you are a bad man. I dont mean that I dislike you, in\nspite of your continual attempts to discourage and depress me. But you\nhave a mind like a looking-glass. You are very clear and smooth and\nlucid as to what is standing in front of you. But you have no foresight\nand no hindsight. You have no vision and no memory. You have no\ncontinuity; and a man without continuity can have neither conscience nor\nhonor from one day to another. The result is that you have always been\na damned bad minister; and you have sometimes been a damned bad friend.\nNow you can answer Barnabas's question and take it out of me to your\nheart's content. He asked you was I fit to govern England.\n\nLUBIN [_recovering himself_] After what has just passed I sincerely\nwish I could honestly say yes, Burge. But it seems to me that you have\ncondemned yourself out of your own mouth. You represent something which\nhas had far too much influence and popularity in this country since\nJoseph Chamberlain set the fashion; and that is mere energy without\nintellect and without knowledge. Your mind is not a trained mind: it has\nnot been stored with the best information, nor cultivated by intercourse\nwith educated minds at any of our great seats of learning. As I happen\nto have enjoyed that advantage, it follows that you do not understand my\nmind. Candidly, I think that disqualifies you. The peace found out your\nweaknesses.\n\nBURGE. Oh! What did it find out in you?\n\nLUBIN. You and your newspaper confederates took the peace out of my\nhands. The peace did not find me out because it did not find me in.\n\nFRANKLYN. Come! Confess, both of you! You were only flies on the wheel.\nThe war went England's way; but the peace went its own way, and not\nEngland's way nor any of the ways you had so glibly appointed for it.\nYour peace treaty was a scrap of paper before the ink dried on it. The\nstatesmen of Europe were incapable of governing Europe. What they needed\nwas a couple of hundred years training and experience: what they had\nactually had was a few years at the bar or in a counting-house or on\nthe grouse moors and golf courses. And now we are waiting, with monster\ncannons trained on every city and seaport, and huge aeroplanes ready to\nspring into the air and drop bombs every one of which will obliterate a\nwhole street, and poison gases that will strike multitudes dead with a\nbreath, until one of you gentlemen rises in his helplessness to tell us,\nwho are as helpless as himself, that we are at war again.\n\nCONRAD. Aha! What consolation will it be for us then that you two are\nable to tell off one another's defects so cleverly in your afternoon\nchat?\n\nBURGE [_angrily_] If you come to that, what consolation will it be that\nyou two can sit there and tell both of us off? you, who have had no\nresponsibility! you, who havnt lifted a finger, as far as I know, to\nhelp us through this awful crisis which has left me ten years older than\nmy proper age! Can you tell me a single thing you did to help us during\nthe whole infernal business?\n\nCONRAD. We're not blaming you: you hadnt lived long enough. No more had\nwe. Cant you see that three-score-and-ten, though it may be long\nenough for a very crude sort of village life, isnt long enough for a\ncomplicated civilization like ours? Flinders Petrie has counted nine\nattempts at civilization made by people exactly like us; and every one\nof them failed just as ours is failing. They failed because the citizens\nand statesmen died of old age or over-eating before they had grown out\nof schoolboy games and savage sports and cigars and champagne. The signs\nof the end are always the same: Democracy, Socialism, and Votes for\nWomen. We shall go to smash within the lifetime of men now living unless\nwe recognize that we must live longer.\n\nLUBIN. I am glad you agree with me that Socialism and Votes for Women\nare signs of decay.\n\nFRANKLYN. Not at all: they are only the difficulties that overtax your\ncapacity. If you cannot organize Socialism you cannot organize civilized\nlife; and you will relapse into barbarism accordingly.\n\nSAVVY. Hear, hear!\n\nSURGE. A useful point. We cannot put back the clock.\n\nHASLAM. _I_ can. Ive often done it.\n\nLUBIN. Tut tut! My dear Burge: what are you dreaming of? Mr Barnabas: I\nam a very patient man. But will you tell me what earthly use or interest\nthere is in a conclusion that cannot be realized? I grant you that if\nwe could live three hundred years we should all be, perhaps wiser,\ncertainly older. You will grant me in return, I hope, that if the sky\nfell we should all catch larks.\n\nFRANKLYN. Your turn now, Conrad. Go ahead.\n\nCONRAD. I don't think it's any good. I don't think they want to live\nlonger than usual.\n\nLUBIN. Although I am a mere child of 69, I am old enough to have lost,\nthe habit of crying for the moon.\n\nBURGE. Have you discovered the elixir of life or have you not? If not, I\nagree with Lubin that you are wasting our time.\n\nCONRAD. Is your time of any value?\n\nSURGE [_unable to believe his ears_] My time of any value! What do you\nmean?\n\nLUBIN [_smiling comfortably_] From your high scientific point of view,\nI daresay, none whatever, Professor. In any case I think a little\nperfectly idle discussion would do Burge good. After all, we might as\nwell hear about the elixir of life as read novels, or whatever Burge\ndoes when he is not playing golf on Walton Heath. What is your elixir,\nDr Barnabas? Lemons? Sour milk? Or what is the latest?\n\nSURGE. We were just beginning to talk seriously; and now you snatch at\nthe chance of talking rot. [_He rises_]. Good evening. [_He turns to the\ndoor_].\n\nCONRAD [_rudely_] Die as soon as you like. Good evening.\n\nBURGE [_hesitating_] Look here. I took sour milk twice a day until\nMetchnikoff died. He thought it would keep him alive for ever; and he\ndied of it.\n\nCONRAD. You might as well have taken sour beer.\n\nBURGE. You believe in lemons?\n\nCONRAD. I wouldn't eat a lemon for ten pounds.\n\nBURGE [_sitting down again_] What do you recommend?\n\nCONRAD [_rising with a gesture of despair_] Whats the use of going on,\nFrank? Because I am a doctor, and because they think I have a bottle to\ngive them that will make them live for ever, they are listening to me\nfor the first time with their mouths open and their eyes shut. Thats\ntheir notion of science.\n\nSAVVY. Steady, Nunk! Hold the fort.\n\nCONRAD [_growls and sits down_]!!!\n\nLUBIN. You volunteered the consultation, Doctor. I may tell you that,\nfar from sharing the credulity as to science which is now the fashion, I\nam prepared to demonstrate that during the last fifty years, though the\nChurch has often been wrong, and even the Liberal Party has not been\ninfallible, the men of science have always been wrong.\n\nCONRAD. Yes: the fellows you call men of science. The people who make\nmoney by it, and their medical hangers-on. But has anybody been right?\n\nLUBIN. The poets and story tellers, especially the classical poets and\nstory tellers, have been, in the main, right. I will ask you not\nto repeat this as my opinion outside; for the vote of the medical\nprofession and its worshippers is not to be trifled with.\n\nFRANKLYN. You are quite right: the poem is our real clue to biological\nscience. The most scientific document we possess at present is, as your\ngrandmother would have told you quite truly, the story of the Garden of\nEden.\n\nBURGE [_pricking up his ears_] Whats that? If you can establish that,\nBarnabas, I am prepared to hear you out with my very best attention. I\nam listening. Go on.\n\nFRANKLYN. Well, you remember, don't you, that in the Garden of Eden Adam\nand Eve were not created mortal, and that natural death, as we call it,\nwas not a part of life, but a later and quite separate invention?\n\nSURGE. Now you mention it, thats true. Death came afterwards.\n\nLUBIN. What about accidental death? That was always possible.\n\nFRANKLYN. Precisely. Adam and Eve were hung up between two frightful\npossibilities. One was the extinction of mankind by their accidental\ndeath. The other was the prospect of living for ever. They could bear\nneither. They decided that they would just take a short turn of a\nthousand years, and meanwhile hand on their work to a new pair.\nConsequently, they had to invent natural birth and natural death, which\nare, after all, only modes of perpetuating life without putting on any\nsingle creature the terrible burden of immortality.\n\nLUBIN. I see. The old must make room for the new.\n\nSURGE. Death is nothing but making room. Thats all there is in it or\never has been in it.\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes; but the old must not desert their posts until the new are\nripe for them. They desert them now two hundred years too soon.\n\nSAVVY. I believe the old people are the new people reincarnated, Nunk.\nI suspect I am Eve. I am very fond of apples; and they always disagree\nwith me.\n\nCONRAD. You are Eve, in a sense. The Eternal Life persists; only It\nwears out Its bodies and minds and gets new ones, like new clothes. You\nare only a new hat and frock on Eve.\n\nFRANKLYN. Yes. Bodies and minds ever better and better fitted to carry\nout Its eternal pursuit.\n\nLUBIN [_with quiet scepticism_] What pursuit, may one ask, Mr Barnabas?\n\nFRANKLYN. The pursuit of omnipotence and omniscience. Greater power and\ngreater knowledge: these are what we are all pursuing even at the risk\nof our lives and the sacrifice of our pleasures. Evolution is that\npursuit and nothing else. It is the path to godhead. A man differs from\na microbe only in being further on the path.\n\nLUBIN. And how soon do you expect this modest end to be reached?\n\nFRANKLYN. Never, thank God! As there is no limit to power and knowledge\nthere can be no end. 'The power and the glory, world without end': have\nthose words meant nothing to you?\n\nBURGE [_pulling out an old envelope_] I should like to make a note of\nthat. [_He does so_].\n\nCONRAD. There will always be something to live for.\n\nSURGE [_pocketing his envelope and becoming more and more businesslike_]\nRight: I have got that. Now what about sin? What about the Fall? How do\nyou work them in?\n\nCONRAD. I don't work in the Fall. The Fall is outside Science. But I\ndaresay Frank can work it in for you.\n\nSURGE [_to Franklyn_] I wish you would, you know. It's important. Very\nimportant.\n\nFRANKLYN. Well, consider it this way. It is clear that when Adam and\nEve were immortal it was necessary that they should make the earth an\nextremely comfortable place to live in.\n\nBURGE. True. If you take a house on a ninety-nine years lease, you\nspend a good deal of money on it. If you take it for three months you\ngenerally have a bill for dilapidations to pay at the end of them.\n\nFRANKLYN. Just so. Consequently, when Adam had the Garden of Eden on a\nlease for ever, he took care to make it what the house agents call a\nhighly desirable country residence. But the moment he invented death,\nand became a tenant for life only, the place was no longer worth the\ntrouble. It was then that he let the thistles grow. Life was so short\nthat it was no longer worth his while to do anything thoroughly well.\n\nBURGE. Do you think that is enough to constitute what an average elector\nwould consider a Fall? Is it tragic enough?\n\nFRANKLYN. That is only the first step of the Fall. Adam did not fall\ndown that step only: he fell down a whole flight. For instance, before\nhe invented birth he dared not have lost his temper; for if he had\nkilled Eve he would have been lonely and barren to all eternity. But\nwhen he invented birth, and anyone who was killed could be replaced, he\ncould afford to let himself go. He undoubtedly invented wife-beating;\nand that was another step down. One of his sons invented meat-eating.\nThe other was horrified at the innovation. With the ferocity which\nis still characteristic of bulls and other vegetarians, he slew his\nbeefsteak-eating brother, and thus invented murder. That was a very\nsteep step. It was so exciting that all the others began to kill one\nanother for sport, and thus invented war, the steepest step of all. They\neven took to killing animals as a means of killing time, and then, of\ncourse, ate them to save the long and difficult labor of agriculture. I\nask you to contemplate our fathers as they came crashing down all the\nsteps of this Jacob's ladder that reached from paradise to a hell on\nearth in which they had multiplied the chances of death from violence,\naccident, and disease until they could hardly count on three score and\nten years of life, much less the thousand that Adam had been ready to\nface! With that picture before you, will you now ask me where was the\nFall? You might as well stand at the foot of Snowdon and ask me where is\nthe mountain. The very children see it so plainly that they compress its\nhistory into a two line epic:\n\n\n    Old Daddy Long Legs wouldn't say his prayers:\n    Take him by the hind legs and throw him downstairs.\n\n\nLUBIN [_still immovably sceptical_] And what does Science say to this\nfairy tale, Doctor Barnabas? Surely Science knows nothing of Genesis, or\nof Adam and Eve.\n\nCONRAD. Then it isnt Science: thats all. Science has to account for\neverything; and everything includes the Bible.\n\nFRANKLYN. The Book of Genesis is a part of nature like any other part of\nnature. The fact that the tale of the Garden of Eden has survived and\nheld the imagination of men spellbound for centuries, whilst hundreds\nof much more plausible and amusing stories have gone out of fashion\nand perished like last year's popular song, is a scientific fact; and\nScience is bound to explain it. You tell me that Science knows nothing\nof it. Then Science is more ignorant than the children at any village\nschool.\n\nCONRAD. Of course if you think it more scientific to say that what we\nare discussing is not Adam and Eve and Eden, but the phylogeny of the\nblastoderm--\n\nSAVVY. You neednt swear, Nunk.\n\nCONRAD. Shut up, you: I am not swearing. [_To Lubin_] If you want the\nprofessional humbug of rewriting the Bible in words of four syllables,\nand pretending it's something new, I can humbug you to your heart's\ncontent. I can call Genesis Phylogenesis. Let the Creator say, if you\nlike, 'I will establish an antipathetic symbiosis between thee and the\nfemale, and between thy blastoderm and her blastoderm.' Nobody will\nunderstand you; and Savvy will think you are swearing. The meaning is\nthe same.\n\nHASLAM. Priceless. But it's quite simple. The one version is poetry: the\nother is science.\n\nFRANKLYN. The one is classroom jargon: the other is inspired human\nlanguage.\n\nLUBIN [_calmly reminiscent_] One of the few modern authors into whom\nI have occasionally glanced is Rousseau, who was a sort of Deist like\nBurge--\n\nBURGE [_interrupting him forcibly_] Lubin: has this stupendously\nimportant communication which Professor Barnabas has just made to us: a\ncommunication for which I shall be indebted to him all my life long: has\nthis, I say, no deeper effect on you than to set you pulling my leg by\ntrying to make out that I am an infidel?\n\nLUBIN. It's very interesting and amusing, Burge; and I think I see a\ncase in it. I think I could undertake to argue it in an ecclesiastical\ncourt. But important is hardly a word I should attach to it.\n\nBURGE. Good God! Here is this professor: a man utterly removed from the\nturmoil of our political life: devoted to pure learning in its most\nabstract phases; and I solemnly declare he is the greatest politician,\nthe most inspired party leader, in the kingdom. I take off my hat to\nhim. I, Joyce Burge, give him best. And you sit there purring like an\nAngora cat, and can see nothing in it!\n\nCONRAD [_opening his eyes widely_] Hallo! What have I done to deserve\nthis tribute?\n\nSURGE. Done! You have put the Liberal Party into power for the next\nthirty years, Doctor: thats what you've done.\n\nCONRAD. God forbid!\n\nBURGE. It's all up with the Church now. Thanks to you, we go to the\ncountry with one cry and one only. Back to the Bible! Think of the\neffect on the Nonconformist vote. You gather that in with one hand; and\nyou gather in the modern scientific sceptical professional vote with the\nother. The village atheist and the first cornet in the local Salvation\nArmy band meet on the village green and shake hands. You take your\nschool children, your Bible class under the Cowper-Temple clause, into\nthe museum. You shew the kids the Piltdown skull; and you say, 'Thats\nAdam. Thats Eve's husband.' You take the spectacled science student\nfrom the laboratory in Owens College; and when he asks you for a truly\nscientific history of Evolution, you put into his hand The Pilgrim's\nProgress. You--[_Savvy and Haslam explode into shrieks of merriment_].\nWhat are you two laughing at?\n\nSAVVY. Oh, go on, Mr Burge. Dont stop.\n\nHASLAM. Priceless!\n\nFRANKLYN. Would thirty years of office for the Liberal Party seem so\nimportant to you, Mr Burge, if you had another two and a half centuries\nto live?\n\nBURGE [_decisively_] No. You will have to drop that part of it. The\nconstituencies wont swallow it.\n\nLUBIN [_seriously_] I am not so sure of that, Burge. I am not sure that\nit may not prove the only point they will swallow.\n\nBURGE. It will be no use to us even if they do. It's not a party point.\nIt's as good for the other side as for us.\n\nLUBIN. Not necessarily. If we get in first with it, it will be\nassociated in the public mind with our party. Suppose I put it forward\nas a plank in our program that we advocate the extension of human life\nto three hundred years! Dunreen, as leader of the opposite party, will\nbe bound to oppose me: to denounce me as a visionary and so forth. By\ndoing so he will place himself in the position of wanting to rob the\npeople of two hundred and thirty years of their natural life. The\nUnionists will become the party of Premature Death; and we shall become\nthe Longevity party.\n\nBURGE [_shaken_] You really think the electorate would swallow it?\n\nLUBIN. My dear Burge: is there anything the electorate will not swallow\nif it is judiciously put to them? But we must make sure of our ground.\nWe must have the support of the men of science. Is there serious\nagreement among them, Doctor, as to the possibility of such an evolution\nas you have described?\n\nCONRAD. Yes. Ever since the reaction against Darwin set in at the\nbeginning of the present century, all scientific opinion worth counting\nhas been converging rapidly upon Creative Evolution.\n\nFRANKLYN. Poetry has been converging on it: philosophy has been\nconverging on it: religion has been converging on it. It is going to\nbe the religion of the twentieth century: a religion that has its\nintellectual roots in philosophy and science just as medieval\nChristianity had its intellectual roots in Aristotle.\n\nLUBIN. But surely any change would be so extremely gradual that--\n\nCONRAD. Dont deceive yourself. It's only the politicians who improve the\nworld so gradually that nobody can see the improvement. The notion that\nNature does not proceed by jumps is only one of the budget of plausible\nlies that we call classical education. Nature always proceeds by jumps.\nShe may spend twenty thousand years making up her mind to jump; but when\nshe makes it up at last, the jump is big enough to take us into a new\nage.\n\nLUBIN [_impressed_] Fancy my being leader of the party for the next\nthree hundred years!\n\nBURGE. What!!\n\nLUBIN. Perhaps hard on some of the younger men. I think in fairness I\nshall have to step aside to make room after another century or so: that\nis, if Mimi can be persuaded to give up Downing Street.\n\nBURGE. This is too much. Your colossal conceit blinds you to the most\nobvious necessity of the political situation.\n\nLUBIN. You mean my retirement. I really cannot see that it is a\nnecessity. I could not see it when I was almost an old man--or at least\nan elderly one. Now that it appears that I am a young man, the case\nfor it breaks down completely. [_To Conrad_] May I ask are there any\nalternative theories? Is there a scientific Opposition?\n\nCONRAD. Well, some authorities hold that the human race is a failure,\nand that a new form of life, better adapted to high civilization, will\nsupersede us as we have superseded the ape and the elephant.\n\nBURGE. The superman: eh!\n\nCONRAD. No. Some being quite different from us.\n\nLUBIN. Is that altogether desirable?\n\nFRANKLYN. I fear so. However that may be, we may be quite sure of one\nthing. We shall not be let alone. The force behind evolution, call it\nwhat you will, is determined to solve the problem of civilization; and\nif it cannot do it through us, it will produce some more capable agents.\nMan is not God's last word: God can still create. If you cannot do His\nwork He will produce some being who can.\n\nBURGE [_with zealous reverence_] What do we know about Him, Barnabas?\nWhat does anyone know about Him?\n\nCONRAD. We know this about Him with absolute certainty. The power my\nbrother calls God proceeds by the method of Trial and Error; and if we\nturn out to be one of the errors, we shall go the way of the mastodon\nand the megatherium and all the other scrapped experiments.\n\nLUBIN [_rising and beginning to walk up and down the room with his\nconsidering cap on_] I admit that I am impressed, gentlemen. I will go\nso far as to say that your theory is likely to prove more interesting\nthan ever Welsh Disestablishment was. But as a practical politician--hm!\nEh, Burge?\n\nCONRAD. We are not practical politicians. We are out to get something\ndone. Practical politicians are people who have mastered the art of\nusing parliament to prevent anything being done.\n\nFRANKLYN. When we get matured statesmen and citizens--\n\nLUBIN [_stopping short_] Citizens! Oh! Are the citizens to live three\nhundred years as well as the statesmen?\n\nCONRAD. Of course.\n\nLUBIN. I confess that had not occurred to me [_he sits down abruptly,\nevidently very unfavorably affected by this new light_].\n\n_Savvy and Haslam look at one another with unspeakable feelings._\n\nBURGE. Do you think it would be wise to go quite so far at first? Surely\nit would be more prudent to begin with the best men.\n\nFRANKLYN. You need not be anxious about that. It will begin with the\nbest men.\n\nLUBIN. I am glad to hear you say so. You see, we must put this into a\npractical parliamentary shape.\n\nBURGE. We shall have to draft a Bill: that is the long and the short of\nit. Until you have your Bill drafted you don't know what you are really\ndoing: that is my experience.\n\nLUBIN. Quite so. My idea is that whilst we should interest the\nelectorate in this as a sort of religious aspiration and personal hope,\nusing it at the same time to remove their prejudices against those of us\nwho are getting on in years, it would be in the last degree upsetting\nand even dangerous to enable everyone to live longer than usual.\nTake the mere question of the manufacture of the specific, whatever\nit may be! There are forty millions of people in the country. Let\nme assume for the sake of illustration that each person would\nhave to consume, say, five ounces a day of the elixir. That\nwould be--let me see--five times three hundred and sixty-five\nis--um--twenty-five--thirty-two--eighteen--eighteen hundred and\ntwenty-five ounces a year: just two ounces over the hundredweight.\n\nBURGE. Two million tons a year, in round numbers, of stuff that everyone\nwould clamor for: that men would trample down women and children in the\nstreets to get at. You couldnt produce it. There would be blue murder.\nIt's out of the question. We must keep the actual secret to ourselves.\n\nCONRAD [_staring at them_] The actual secret! What on earth is the man\ntalking about?\n\nBURGE. The stuff. The powder. The bottle. The tabloid. Whatever it is.\nYou said it wasnt lemons.\n\nCONRAD. My good sir: I have no powder, no bottle, no tabloid. I am not a\nquack: I am a biologist. This is a thing thats going to happen.\n\nLUBIN [_completely let down_] Going to happen! Oh! Is that all? [_He\nlooks at his watch_].\n\nBURGE. Going to happen! What do you mean? Do you mean that you cant make\nit happen?\n\nCONRAD. No more than I could have made you happen.\n\nFRANKLYN. We can put it into men's heads that there is nothing to\nprevent its happening but their own will to die before their work is\ndone, and their own ignorance of the splendid work there is for them to\ndo.\n\nCONRAD. Spread that knowledge and that conviction; and as surely as the\nsun will rise tomorrow, the thing will happen.\n\nFRANKLYN. We don't know where or when or to whom it will happen. It may\nhappen first to someone in this room.\n\nHASLAM. It wont happen to me: thats jolly sure.\n\nCONRAD. It might happen to anyone. It might happen to the parlor maid.\nHow do we know?\n\nSAVVY. The parlor maid! Oh, thats nonsense, Nunk.\n\nLUBIN [_once more quite comfortable_] I think Miss Savvy has delivered\nthe final verdict.\n\nBURGE. Do you mean to say that you have nothing more practical to offer\nthan the mere wish to live longer? Why, if people could live by merely\nwishing to, we should all be living for ever already! Everybody would\nlike to live for ever. Why don't they?\n\nCONRAD. Pshaw! Everybody would like to have a million of money. Why\nhavnt they? Because the men who would like to be millionaires wont save\nsixpence even with the chance of starvation staring them in the face.\nThe men who want to live for ever wont cut off a glass of beer or a pipe\nof tobacco, though they believe the teetotallers and non-smokers live\nlonger. That sort of liking is not willing. See what they do when they\nknow they must.\n\nFRANKLYN. Do not mistake mere idle fancies for the tremendous\nmiracle-working force of Will nerved to creation by a conviction of\nNecessity. I tell you men capable of such willing, and realizing its\nnecessity, will do it reluctantly, under inner compulsion, as all great\nefforts are made. They will hide what they are doing from themselves:\nthey will take care not to know what they are doing. They will live\nthree hundred years, not because they would like to, but because the\nsoul deep down in them will know that they must, if the world is to be\nsaved.\n\nLUBIN [_turning to Franklyn and patting him almost paternally_] Well,\nmy dear Barnabas, for the last thirty years the post has brought me at\nleast once a week a plan from some crank or other for the establishment\nof the millennium. I think you are the maddest of all the cranks; but\nyou are much the most interesting. I am conscious of a very curious\nmixture of relief and disappointment in finding that your plan is all\nmoonshine, and that you have nothing practical to offer us. But what\na pity! It is such a fascinating idea! I think you are too hard on us\npractical men; but there are men in every Government, even on the Front\nBench, who deserve all you say. And now, before dropping the subject,\nmay I put just one question to you? An idle question, since nothing can\ncome of it; but still--\n\nFRANKLYN. Ask your question.\n\nLUBIN. Why do you fix three hundred years as the exact figure?\n\nFRANKLYN. Because we must fix some figure. Less would not be enough; and\nmore would be more than we dare as yet face.\n\nLUBIN. Pooh! I am quite prepared to face three thousand, not to say\nthree million.\n\nCONRAD. Yes, because you don't believe you Will be called on to make\ngood your word.\n\nFRANKLYN [_gently_] Also, perhaps, because you have never been troubled\nmuch by vision of the future.\n\nBURGE [_with intense conviction_] The future does not exist for Henry\nHopkins Lubin.\n\nLUBIN. If by the future you mean the millennial delusions which you\nuse as a bunch of carrots to lure the uneducated British donkey to the\npolling booth to vote for you, it certainly does not.\n\nSURGE. I can see the future not only because, if I may say so in all\nhumility, I have been gifted with a certain power of spiritual vision,\nbut because I have practised as a solicitor. A solicitor has to advise\nfamilies. He has to think of the future and know the past. His office is\nthe real modern confessional. Among other things he has to make people's\nwills for them. He has to shew them how to provide for their daughters\nafter their deaths. Has it occurred to you, Lubin, that if you live\nthree hundred years, your daughters will have to wait a devilish long\ntime for their money?\n\nFRANKLYN. The money may not wait for them. Few investments flourish for\nthree hundred years.\n\nSAVVY. And what about before your death? Suppose they didn't get\nmarried! Imagine a girl living at home with her mother and on her father\nfor three hundred years! Theyd murder her if she didn't murder them\nfirst.\n\nLUBIN. By the way, Barnabas, is your daughter to keep her good looks all\nthe time?\n\nFRANKLYN. Will it matter? Can you conceive the most hardened flirt going\non flirting for three centuries? At the end of half the time we shall\nhardly notice whether it is a woman or a man we are speaking to.\n\nLUBIN [_not quite relishing this ascetic prospect_] Hm! [_He rises_].\nAh, well: you must come and tell my wife and my young people all about\nit; and you will bring your daughter with you, of course. [_He shakes\nhands with Savvy_]. Goodbye. [_He shakes hands with Franklyn_]. Goodbye,\nDoctor. [_He shakes hands with Conrad_]. Come on, Burge: you must\nreally tell me what line you are going to take about the Church at the\nelection?\n\nBURGE. Havnt you heard? Havnt you taken in the revelation that has been\nvouchsafed to us? The line I am going to take is Back to Methuselah.\n\nLUBIN [_decisively_] Dont be ridiculous, Burge. You don't suppose, do\nyou, that our friends here are in earnest, or that our very pleasant\nconversation has had anything to do with practical politics! They have\njust been pulling our legs very wittily. Come along. [_He goes out,\nFranklyn politely going with him, but shaking his head in mute\nprotest_].\n\nBURGE [_shaking Conrad's hand_] It's beyond the old man, Doctor. No\nspiritual side to him: only a sort of classical side that goes down with\nhis own set. Besides, he's done, gone, past, burnt out, burst up; thinks\nhe is our leader and is only our rag and bottle department. But you may\ndepend on me. I will work this stunt of yours in. I see its value. [_He\nbegins moving towards the door with Conrad_]. Of course I cant put it\nexactly in your way; but you are quite right about our needing something\nfresh; and I believe an election can be fought on the death rate and on\nAdam and Eve as scientific facts. It will take the Opposition right out\nof its depth. And if we win there will be an O.M. for somebody when the\nfirst honors list comes round [_by this time he has talked himself out\nof the room and out of earshot, Conrad accompanying him_].\n\n_Savvy and Haslam, left alone, seize each other in an ecstasy of\namusement, and jazz to the settee, where they sit down again side by\nside._\n\nHASLAM [_caressing her_] Darling! what a priceless humbug old Lubin is!\n\nSAVVY. Oh, sweet old thing! I love him. Burge is a flaming fraud if you\nlike.\n\nHASLAM. Did you notice one thing? It struck me as rather curious.\n\nSAVVY. What?\n\nHASLAM. Lubin and your father have both survived the war. But their sons\nwere killed in it.\n\nSAVVY [_sobered_] Yes. Jim's death killed mother.\n\nHASLAM. And they never said a word about it!\n\nSAVVY. Well, why should they? The subject didn't come up. _I_ forgot\nabout it too; and I was very fond of Jim.\n\nHASLAM. _I_ didn't forget it, because I'm of military age; and if I\nhadnt been a parson I'd have had to go out and be killed too. To me the\nawful thing about their political incompetence was that they had to\nkill their own sons. It was the war casualty lists and the starvation\nafterwards that finished me up with politics and the Church and\neverything else except you.\n\nSAVVY. Oh, I was just as bad as any of them. I sold flags in the streets\nin my best clothes; and--hsh! [_she jumps up and pretends to be looking\nfor a book on the shelves behind the settee_].\n\n_Franklyn and Conrad return, looking weary and glum._\n\nCONRAD. Well, thats how the gospel of the brothers Barnabas is going to\nbe received! [_He drops into Burge's chair_].\n\nFRANKLYN [_going back to his seat at the table_] It's no use. Were you\nconvinced, Mr Haslam?\n\nHASLAM. About our being able to live three hundred years? Frankly no.\n\nCONRAD [_to Savvy_] Nor you, I suppose?\n\nSAVVY. Oh, I don't know. I thought I was for a moment. I can believe, in\na sort of way, that people might live for three hundred years. But when\nyou came down to tin tacks, and said that the parlor maid might, then I\nsaw how absurd it was.\n\nFRANKLYN. Just so. We had better hold our tongues about it, Con. We\nshould only be laughed at, and lose the little credit we earned on false\npretences in the days of our ignorance.\n\nCONRAD. I daresay. But Creative Evolution doesnt stop while people are\nlaughing. Laughing may even lubricate its job.\n\nSAVVY. What does that mean?\n\nCONRAD. It means that the first man to live three hundred years maynt\nhave the slightest notion that he is going to do it, and may be the\nloudest laugher of the lot.\n\nSAVVY. Or the first woman?\n\nCONRAD [_assenting_] Or the first woman.\n\nHASLAM. Well, it wont be one of us, anyhow.\n\nFRANKLYN. How do you know?\n\n_This is unanswerable. None of them have anything more to say._\n\n\n\n\nPART III\n\nThe Thing Happens\n\n\n_A summer afternoon in the year 2170 A.D. The official parlor of the\nPresident of the British Islands. A board table, long enough for three\nchairs at each side besides the presidential chair at the head and an\nordinary chair at the foot, occupies the breadth of the room. On the\ntable, opposite every chair, a small switchboard with a dial. There is\nno fireplace. The end wall is a silvery screen nearly as large as a pair\nof folding doors. The door is on your left as you face the screen; and\nthere is a row of thick pegs, padded and covered with velvet, beside it.\n\nA stoutish middle-aged man, good-looking and breezily genial, dressed\nin a silk smock, stockings, handsomely ornamented sandals, and a gold\nfillet round his brows, comes in. He is like Joyce Burge, yet also like\nLubin, as if Nature had made a composite photograph of the two men.\nHe takes off the fillet and hangs it on a peg; then sits down in the\npresidential chair at the head of the table, which is at the end\nfarthest from the door. He puts a peg into his switchboard; turns\nthe pointer on the dial; puts another peg in; and presses a button.\nImmediately the silvery screen vanishes; and in its place appears, in\nreverse from right to left, another office similarly furnished, with a\nthin, unamiable man similarly dressed, but in duller colors, turning\nover some documents at the table. His gold fillet is hanging up on a\nsimilar peg beside the door. He is rather like Conrad Barnabas, but\nyounger, and much more commonplace._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Hallo, Barnabas!\n\nBARNABAS [_without looking round_] What number?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Five double x three two gamma. Burge-Lubin.\n\n_Barnabas puts a plug in number five; turns his pointer to double x; and\nanother plug in 32; presses a button and looks round at Burge-Lubin, who\nis now visible to him as well as audible._\n\nBARNABAS [_curtly_] Oh! That you, President?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes. They told me you wanted me to ring you up. Anything\nwrong?\n\nBARNABAS [_harsh and querulous_] I wish to make a protest.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_good-humored and mocking_] What! Another protest! Whats\nwrong now?\n\nBARNABAS. If you only knew all the protests I havnt made, you would be\nsurprised at my patience. It is you who are always treating me with the\ngrossest want of consideration.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What have I done now?\n\nBARNABAS. You have put me down to go to the Record Office today to\nreceive that American fellow, and do the honors of a ridiculous cinema\nshow. That is not the business of the Accountant General: it is the\nbusiness of the President. It is an outrageous waste of my time, and an\nunjustifiable shirking of your duty at my expense. I refuse to go. You\nmust go.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. My dear boy, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to\ntake the job off your hands--\n\nBARNABAS. Then do it. Thats all I want [_he is about to switch off_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Dont switch off. Listen. This American has invented a\nmethod of breathing under water.\n\nBARNABAS. What do I care? I don't want to breathe under water.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You may, my dear Barnabas, at any time. You know you never\nlook where you are going when you are immersed in your calculations.\nSome day you will walk into the Serpentine. This man's invention may\nsave your life.\n\nBARNABAS [_angrily_] Will you tell me what that has to do with your\nputting your ceremonial duties on to my shoulders? I will not be trifled\n[_he vanishes and is replaced by the blank screen_]--\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_indignantly holding down his button_] Dont cut us off,\nplease: we have not finished. I am the President, speaking to the\nAccountant General. What are you dreaming of?\n\nA WOMAN'S VOICE. Sorry. [_The screen shews Barnabas as before_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Since you take it that way, I will go in your place. It's a\npity, because, you see, this American thinks you are the greatest living\nauthority on the duration of human life; and--\n\nBARNABAS [_interrupting_] The American thinks! What do you mean? I am\nthe greatest living authority on the duration of human life. Who dares\ndispute it?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Nobody, dear lad, nobody. Dont fly out at me. It is evident\nthat you have not read the American's book.\n\nBARNABAS. Dont tell me that you have, or that you have read any book\nexcept a novel for the last twenty years; for I wont believe you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Quite right, dear old fellow: I havnt read it. But I have\nread what The Times Literary Supplement says about it.\n\nBARNABAS. I don't care two straws what it says about it. Does it say\nanything about me?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes.\n\nBARNABAS. Oh, does it? What?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. It points out that an extraordinary number of first-rate\npersons like you and me have died by drowning during the last two\ncenturies, and that when this invention of breathing under water takes\neffect, your estimate of the average duration of human life will be\nupset.\n\nBARNABAS [_alarmed_] Upset my estimate! Gracious Heavens! Does the fool\nrealize what that means? Do you realize what that means?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I suppose it means that we shall have to amend the Act.\n\nBARNABAS. Amend my Act! Monstrous!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But we must. We cant ask people to go on working until they\nare forty-three unless our figures are unchallengeable. You know what\na row there was over those last three years, and how nearly the\ntoo-old-at-forty people won.\n\nBARNABAS. They would have made the British Islands bankrupt if theyd\nwon. But you dont care for that; you care for nothing but being popular.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, well: I shouldn't worry if I were you; for most people\ncomplain that there is not enough work for them, and would be only too\nglad to stick on instead of retiring at forty-three, if only they were\nasked as a favor instead of having to.\n\nBARNABAS. Thank you: I need no consolation. [_He rises determinedly and\nputs on his fillet_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Are you off? Where are you going to?\n\nBARNABAS. To that cinema tomfoolery, of course. I shall put this\nAmerican impostor in his place. [_He goes out_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_calling after him_] God bless you, dear old chap! [_With\na chuckle, he switches off; and the screen becomes blank. He presses a\nbutton and holds it down while he calls_] Hallo!\n\nA WOMAN'S VOICE. Hallo!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_formally_] The President respectfully solicits the\nprivilege of an interview with the Chief Secretary, and holds himself\nentirely at his honor's august disposal.\n\nA CHINESE VOICE. He is coming.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh! That you, Confucius? So good of you. Come along [_he\nreleases the button_].\n\n_A man in a yellow gown, presenting the general appearance of a Chinese\nsage, enters._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_jocularly_] Well, illustrious Sage-&-Onions, how are your\npoor sore feet?\n\nCONFUCIUS [_gravely_] I thank you for your kind inquiries. I am well.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Thats right. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Any\nbusiness for me today?\n\nCONFUCIUS [_sitting down on the first chair round the corner of the\ntable to the President's right_] None.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Have you heard the result of the bye-election?\n\nCONFUCIUS. A walk-over. Only one candidate.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Any good?\n\nCONFUCIUS. He was released from the County Lunatic Asylum a fortnight\nago. Not mad enough for the lethal chamber: not sane enough for any\nplace but the division lobby. A very popular speaker.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I wish the people would take a serious interest in\npolitics.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I do not agree. The Englishman is not fitted by nature to\nunderstand politics. Ever since the public services have been manned by\nChinese, the country has been well and honestly governed. What more is\nneeded?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What I cant make out is that China is one of the worst\ngoverned countries on earth.\n\nCONFUCIUS. No. It was badly governed twenty years ago; but since we\nforbade any Chinaman to take part in our public services, and imported\nnatives of Scotland for that purpose, we have done well. Your\ninformation here is always twenty years out of date.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. People don't seem to be able to govern themselves. I cant\nunderstand it. Why should it be so?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. It ends in the public services being so good that the\nGovernment has nothing to do but think.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Were it otherwise, the Government would have too much to do\nto think.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Is that any excuse for the English people electing a\nparliament of lunatics?\n\nCONFUCIUS. The English people always did elect parliaments of lunatics.\nWhat does it matter if your permanent officials are honest and\ncompetent?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You do not know the history of this country. What would my\nancestors have said to the menagerie of degenerates that is still called\nthe House of Commons? Confucius: you will not believe me; and I do not\nblame you for it; but England once saved the liberties of the world by\ninventing parliamentary government, which was her peculiar and supreme\nglory.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I know the history of your country perfectly well. It proves\nthe exact contrary.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. How do you make that out?\n\nCONFUCIUS. The only power your parliament ever had was the power of\nwithholding supplies from the king.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Precisely. That great Englishman Simon de Montfort--\n\nCONFUCIUS. He was not an Englishman: he was a Frenchman. He imported\nparliaments from France.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_surprised_] You dont say so!\n\nCONFUCIUS. The king and his loyal subjects killed Simon for forcing his\nFrench parliament on them. The first thing British parliaments always\ndid was to grant supplies to the king for life with enthusiastic\nexpressions of loyalty, lest they should have any real power, and be\nexpected to do something.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Look here, Confucius: you know more history than I do, of\ncourse; but democracy--\n\nCONFUCIUS. An institution peculiar to China. And it was never really a\nsuccess there.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But the Habeas Corpus Act!\n\nCONFUCIUS. The English always suspended it when it threatened to be of\nthe slightest use.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, trial by jury: you cant deny that we established\nthat?\n\nCONFUCIUS. All cases that were dangerous to the governing classes were\ntried in the Star Chamber or by Court Martial, except when the prisoner\nwas not tried at all, but executed after calling him names enough to\nmake him unpopular.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, bother! You may be right in these little details; but\nin the large we have managed to hold our own as a great race. Well,\npeople who could do nothing couldnt have done that, you know.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I did not say you could do nothing. You could fight. You\ncould eat. You could drink. Until the twentieth century you could\nproduce children. You could play games. You could work when you were\nforced to. But you could not govern yourselves.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Then how did we get our reputation as the pioneers of\nliberty?\n\nCONFUCIUS. By your steadfast refusal to be governed at all. A horse that\nkicks everyone who tries to harness and guide him may be a pioneer of\nliberty; but he is not a pioneer of government. In China he would be\nshot.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Stuff! Do you imply that the administration of which I am\npresident is no Government?\n\nCONFUCIUS. I do. _I_ am the Government.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You! You!! You fat yellow lump of conceit!\n\nCONFUCIUS. Only an Englishman could be so ignorant of the nature of\ngovernment as to suppose that a capable statesman cannot be fat, yellow,\nand conceited. Many Englishmen are slim, red-nosed, and modest. Put them\nin my place, and within a year you will be back in the anarchy and chaos\nof the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, if you go back to the dark ages, I have nothing more to\nsay. But we did not perish. We extricated ourselves from that chaos. We\nare now the best governed country in the world. How did we manage that\nif we are such fools as you pretend?\n\nCONFUCIUS. You did not do it until the slaughter and ruin produced by\nyour anarchy forced you at last to recognize two inexorable facts.\nFirst, that government is absolutely necessary to civilization, and that\nyou could not maintain civilization by merely doing down your neighbor,\nas you called it, and cutting off the head of your king whenever he\nhappened to be a logical Scot and tried to take his position seriously.\nSecond, that government is an art of which you are congenitally\nincapable. Accordingly, you imported educated negresses and Chinese to\ngovern you. Since then you have done very well.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. So have you, you old humbug. All the same, I don't know\nhow you stand the work you do. You seem to me positively to like public\nbusiness. Why wont you let me take you down to the coast some week-end\nand teach you marine golf?\n\nCONFUCIUS. It does not interest me. I am not a barbarian.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You mean that I am?\n\nCONFUCIUS. That is evident.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. How?\n\nCONFUCIUS. People like you. They like cheerful goodnatured barbarians.\nThey have elected you President five times in succession. They will\nelect you five times more. _I_ like you. You are better company than a\ndog or a horse because you can speak.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Am I a barbarian because you like me?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Surely. Nobody likes me: I am held in awe. Capable persons\nare never liked. I am not likeable; but I am indispensable.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, cheer up, old man: theres nothing so disagreeable about\nyou as all that. I don't dislike you; and if you think I'm afraid of\nyou, you jolly well don't know Burge-Lubin: thats all.\n\nCONFUCIUS. You are brave: yes. It is a form of stupidity.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You may not be brave: one doesn't expect it from a Chink.\nBut you have the devil's own cheek.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I have the assured certainty of the man who sees and knows.\nYour genial bluster, your cheery self-confidence, are pleasant, like the\nopen air. But they are blind: they are vain. I seem to see a great dog\nwag his tail and bark joyously. But if he leaves my heel he is lost.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Thank you for a handsome compliment. I have a big dog; and\nhe is the best fellow I know. If you knew how much uglier you are than a\nchow, you wouldn't start those comparisons, though. [_Rising_] Well, if\nyou have nothing for me to do, I am going to leave your heel for the\nrest of the day and enjoy myself. What would you recommend me to do with\nmyself?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Give yourself up to contemplation; and great thoughts will\ncome to you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Will they? If you think I am going to sit here on a fine\nday like this with my legs crossed waiting for great thoughts, you\nexaggerate my taste for them. I prefer marine golf. [_Stopping short_]\nOh, by the way, I forgot something. I have a word or two to say to the\nMinister of health. [_He goes back to his chair_].\n\nCONFUCIUS. Her number is--\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I know it.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_rising_] I cannot understand her attraction for you. For me\na woman who is not yellow does not exist, save as an official. [_He goes\nout_].\n\n_Burge-Lubin operates his switchboard as before. The screen vanishes:\nand a dainty room with a bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing-table with a\nmirror and a switch on it, appears. Seated at it a handsome negress is\ntrying on a brilliant head scarf. Her dressing-gown is thrown back\nfrom her shoulders to her chair. She is in corset, knickers, and silk\nstockings._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_horrified_] I beg your pardon a thousand times--[_The\nstartled negress snatches the peg out of her switchboard and vanishes_].\n\nTHE NEGRESS'S VOICE. Who is it?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Me. The President. Burge-Lubin. I had no idea your bedroom\nswitch was in. I beg your pardon.\n\n_The negress reappears. She has pulled the dressing-gown perfunctorily\nover her shoulders, and continues her experiments with the scarf, not at\nall put out, and rather amused by Surge's prudery._\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Stupid of me. I was talking to another lady this morning;\nand I left the peg in.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But I am so sorry.\n\nTHE NEGRESS [_sunnily: still busy with the scarf_] Why? It was my fault.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_embarrassed_] Well--er--But I suppose you were used to it\nin Africa.\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Your delicacy is very touching, Mr President. It would be\nfunny if it were not so unpleasant, because, like all white delicacy, it\nis in the wrong place. How do you think this suits my complexion?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. How can any really vivid color go wrong with a black satin\nskin? It is our women's wretched pale faces that have to be matched and\nlighted. Yours is always right.\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Yes: it is a pity your white beauties have all the same\nashy faces, the same colorless drab, the same age. But look at their\nbeautiful noses and little lips! They are physically insipid: they have\nno beauty: you cannot love them; but how elegant!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Cant you find an official pretext for coming to see me?\nIsnt it ridiculous that we have never met? It's so tantalizing to see\nyou and talk to you, and to know all the time that you are two hundred\nmiles away, and that I cant touch you?\n\nTHE NEGRESS. I cannot live on the East Coast: it is hard enough to keep\nmy blood warm here. Besides, my friend, it would not be safe. These\ndistant flirtations are very charming; and they teach self-control.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Damn self-control! I want to hold you in my arms--to--[_the\nnegress snatches out the peg from the switchboard and vanishes. She\nis still heard laughing_]. Black devil! [_He snatches out his peg\nfuriously: her laugh is no longer heard_]. Oh, these sex episodes! Why\ncan I not resist them? Disgraceful!\n\n_Confucius returns._\n\nCONFUCIUS. I forgot. There is something for you to do this morning. You\nhave to go to the Record Office to receive the American barbarian.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Confucius: once for all, I object to this Chinese habit of\ndescribing white men as barbarians.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_standing formally at the end of the table with his hands\npalm to palm_] I make a mental note that you do not wish the Americans\nto be described as barbarians.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Not at all. The Americans are barbarians. But we are not. I\nsuppose the particular barbarian you are speaking of is the American who\nhas invented a means of breathing under water.\n\nCONFUCIUS. He says he has invented such a method. For some reason which\nis not intelligible in China, Englishmen always believe any statement\nmade by an American inventor, especially one who has never invented\nanything. Therefore you believe this person and have given him a public\nreception. Today the Record Office is entertaining him with a display of\nthe cinematographic records of all the eminent Englishmen who have lost\ntheir lives by drowning since the cinema was invented. Why not go to see\nit if you are at a loss for something to do?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What earthly interest is there in looking at a moving\npicture of a lot of people merely because they were drowned? If they had\nhad any sense, they would not have been drowned, probably.\n\nCONFUCIUS. That is not so. It has never been noticed before; but the\nRecord Office has just made two remarkable discoveries about the public\nmen and women who have displayed extraordinary ability during the\npast century. One is that they retained unusual youthfulness up to an\nadvanced age. The other is that they all met their death by drowning.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes: I know. Can you explain it?\n\nCONFUCIUS. It cannot be explained. It is not reasonable. Therefore I do\nnot believe it.\n\n_The Accountant General rushes in, looking ghastly. He staggers to the\nmiddle of the table._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Whats the matter? Are you ill?\n\nBARNABAS [_choking_] No. I--[_he collapses into the middle chair_]. I\nmust speak to you in private.\n\n_Confucius calmly withdraws._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What on earth is it? Have some oxygen.\n\nBARNABAS. I have had some. Go to the Record Office. You will see men\nfainting there again and again, and being revived with oxygen, as I have\nbeen. They have seen with their own eyes as I have.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Seen what?\n\nBARNABAS. Seen the Archbishop of York.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, why shouldn't they see the Archbishop of York? What\nare they fainting for? Has he been murdered?\n\nBARNABAS. No: he has been drowned.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Good God! Where? When? How? Poor fellow!\n\nBARNABAS. Poor fellow! Poor thief! Poor swindler! Poor robber of his\ncountry's Exchequer! Poor fellow indeed! Wait til I catch him.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. How can you catch him when he is dead? Youre mad.\n\nBARNABAS. Dead! Who said he was dead?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You did. Drowned.\n\nBARNABAS [_exasperated_] Will you listen to me? Was old Archbishop\nHaslam, the present man's last predecessor but four, drowned or not?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I don't know. Look him up in the Encyclopedia Britannica.\n\nBARNABAS. Yah! Was Archbishop Stickit, who wrote Stickit on the Psalms,\ndrowned or not?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes, mercifully. He deserved it.\n\nBARNABAS. Was President Dickenson drowned? Was General Bullyboy drowned?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Who is denying it?\n\nBARNABAS. Well, wave had moving pictures of all four put on the screen\ntoday for this American; and they and the Archbishop are the same man.\nNow tell me I am mad.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I do tell you you are mad. Stark raving mad.\n\nBARNABAS. Am I to believe my own eyes or am I not?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You can do as you please. All I can tell you is that _I_\ndon't believe your eyes if they cant see any difference between a live\narchbishop and two dead ones. [_The apparatus rings, he holds the button\ndown_]. Yes?\n\nTHE WOMAN'S VOICE. The Archbishop of York, to see the President.\n\nBARNABAS [_hoarse with rage_] Have him in. I'll talk to the scoundrel.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_releasing the button_] Not while you are in this state.\n\nBARNABAS [_reaching furiously for his button and holding it down_] Send\nthe Archbishop in at once.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. If you lose your temper, Barnabas, remember that we shall\nbe two to one.\n\n_The Archbishop enters. He has a white band round his throat, set in a\nblack stock. He wears a sort of kilt of black ribbons, and soft black\nboots that button high up on his calves. His costume does not differ\notherwise from that of the President and the Accountant General; but\nits color scheme is black and white. He is older than the Reverend Bill\nHaslam was when he wooed Miss Savvy Barnabas; but he is recognizably the\nsame man. He does not look a day over fifty, and is very well preserved\neven at that; but his boyishness of manner is quite gone: he now has\ncomplete authority and self-possession: in fact the President is a\nlittle afraid of him; and it seems quite natural and inevitable that he\nshould speak fast._\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Good day, Mr President.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Good day, Mr Archbishop. Be seated.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_sitting down between them_] Good day, Mr Accountant\nGeneral.\n\nBARNABAS [_malevolently_] Good day to you. I have a question to put to\nyou, if you don't mind.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_looking curiously at him, jarred by his uncivil tone_]\nCertainly. What is it?\n\nBARNABAS. What is your definition of a thief?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Rather an old-fashioned word, is it not?\n\nBARNABAS. It survives officially in my department.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Our departments are full of survivals. Look at my tie!\nmy apron! my boots! They are all mere survivals; yet it seems that\nwithout them I cannot be a proper Archbishop.\n\nBARNABAS. Indeed! Well, in my department the word thief survives,\nbecause in the community the thing thief survives. And a very despicable\nand dishonorable thing he is, too.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] I daresay.\n\nBARNABAS. In my department, sir, a thief is a person who lives longer\nthan the statutory expectation of life entitles him to, and goes on\ndrawing public money when, if he were an honest man, he would be dead.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Then let me say, sir, that your department does not\nunderstand its own business. If you have miscalculated the duration of\nhuman life, that is not the fault of the persons whose longevity you\nhave miscalculated. And if they continue to work and produce, they pay\ntheir way, even if they live two or three centuries.\n\nBARNABAS. I know nothing about their working and producing. That is not\nthe business of my department. I am concerned with their expectation of\nlife; and I say that no man has any right to go on living and drawing\nmoney when he ought to be dead.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. You do not comprehend the relation between income and\nproduction.\n\nBARNABAS. I understand my own department.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. That is not enough. Your department is part of a\nsynthesis which embraces all the departments.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Synthesis! This is an intellectual difficulty. This is a\njob for Confucius. I heard him use that very word the other day; and I\nwondered what the devil he meant. [_Switching on_] Hallo! Put me through\nto the Chief Secretary.\n\nCONFUCIUS'S VOICE. You are speaking to him.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. An intellectual difficulty, old man. Something we don't\nunderstand. Come and help us out.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. May I ask how the question has arisen?\n\nBARNABAS. Ah! You begin to smell a rat, do you? You thought yourself\npretty safe. You--\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Steady, Barnabas. Dont be in a hurry.\n\n_Confucius enters._\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_rising_] Good morning, Mr Chief Secretary.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_rising in instinctive imitation of the Archbishop_] Honor\nus by taking a seat, O sage.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Ceremony is needless. [_He bows to the company, and takes the\nchair at the foot of the table_].\n\n_The President and the Archbishop resume their seats._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. We wish to put a case to you, Confucius. Suppose a man,\ninstead of conforming to the official estimate of his expectation of\nlife, were to live for more than two centuries and a half, would the\nAccountant General be justified in calling him a thief?\n\nCONFUCIUS. No. He would be justified in calling him a liar.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I think not, Mr Chief Secretary. What do you suppose my\nage is?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Fifty.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You don't look it. Forty-five; and young for your age.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. My age is two hundred and eighty-three.\n\nBARNABAS [_morosely triumphant_] Hmp! Mad, am I?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Youre both mad. Excuse me, Archbishop; but this is getting\na bit--well--\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_to Confucius_] Mr Chief Secretary: will you, to oblige\nme, assume that I have lived nearly three centuries? As a hypothesis?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What is a hypothesis?\n\nCONFUCIUS. It does not matter. I understand. [To _the Archbishop_] Am I\nto assume that you have lived in your ancestors, or by metempsychosis--\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Met--Emp--Sy--Good Lord! What a brain, Confucius! What a\nbrain!\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Nothing of that kind. Assume in the ordinary sense that\nI was born in the year 1887, and that I have worked continuously in one\nprofession or another since the year 1910. Am I a thief?\n\nCONFUCIUS. I do not know. Was that one of your professions?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. No. I have been nothing worse than an Archbishop, a\nPresident, and a General.\n\nBARNABAS. Has he or has he not robbed the Exchequer by drawing five or\nsix incomes when he was only entitled to one? Answer me that.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Certainly not. The hypothesis is that he has worked\ncontinuously since 1910. We are now in the year 2170. What is the\nofficial lifetime?\n\nBARNABAS. Seventy-eight. Of course it's an average; and we don't mind a\nman here and there going on to ninety, or even, as a curiosity, becoming\na centenarian. But I say that a man who goes beyond that is a swindler.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Seventy-eight into two hundred and eighty-three goes more\nthan three and a half times. Your department owes the Archbishop two and\na half educations and three and a half retiring pensions.\n\nBARNABAS. Stuff! How can that be?\n\nCONFUCIUS. At what age do your people begin to work for the community?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Three. They do certain things every day when they are\nthree. Just to break them in, you know. But they become self-supporting,\nor nearly so, at thirteen.\n\nCONFUCIUS. And at what age do they retire?\n\nBARNABAS. Forty-three.\n\nCONFUCIUS. That is, they do thirty years' work; and they receive\nmaintenance and education, without working, for thirteen years of\nchildhood and thirty-five years of superannuation, forty-eight years\nin all, for each thirty years' work. The Archbishop has given you 260\nyears' work, and has received only one education and no superannuation.\nYou therefore owe him over 300 years of leisure and nearly eight\neducations. You are thus heavily in his debt. In other words, he has\neffected an enormous national economy by living so long; and you, by\nliving only seventy-eight years, are profiting at his expense. He is the\nbenefactor: you are the thief. [_Half rising_] May I now withdraw and\nreturn to my serious business, as my own span is comparatively short?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Dont be in a hurry, old chap. [_Confucius sits down\nagain_]. This hypothecary, or whatever you call it, is put up seriously.\nI don't believe it; but if the Archbishop and the Accountant General are\ngoing to insist that it's true, we shall have either to lock them up or\nto see the thing through.\n\nBARNABAS. It's no use trying these Chinese subtleties on me. I'm a plain\nman; and though I don't understand metaphysics, and don't believe in\nthem, I understand figures; and if the Archbishop is only entitled to\nseventy-eight years, and he takes 283, I say he takes more than he is\nentitled to. Get over that if you can.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I have not taken 283 years: I have taken 23 and given\n260.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Do your accounts shew a deficiency or a surplus?\n\nBARNABAS. A surplus. Thats what I cant make out. Thats the artfulness of\nthese people.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. That settles it. Whats the use of arguing? The Chink says\nyou are wrong; and theres an end of it.\n\nBARNABAS. I say nothing against the Chink's arguments. But what about my\nfacts?\n\nCONFUCIUS. If your facts include a case of a man living 283 years, I\nadvise you to take a few weeks at the seaside.\n\nBARNABAS. Let there be an end of this hinting that I am out of my mind.\nCome and look at the cinema record. I tell you this man is Archbishop\nHaslam, Archbishop Stickit, President Dickenson, General Bullyboy and\nhimself into the bargain; all five of them.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I do not deny it. I never have denied it. Nobody has\never asked me.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But damn it, man--I beg your pardon, Archbishop; but\nreally, really--\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Dont mention it. What were you going to say?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, you were drowned four times over. You are not a cat,\nyou know.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. That is very easy to understand. Consider my situation\nwhen I first made the amazing discovery that I was destined to live\nthree hundred years! I--\n\nCONFUCIUS [_interrupting him_] Pardon me. Such a discovery was\nimpossible. You have not made it yet. You may live a million years\nif you have already lived two hundred. There is no question of three\nhundred years. You have made a slip at the very beginning of your fairy\ntale, Mr Archbishop.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Good, Confucius! [_To the Archbishop_] He has you there. I\ndon't see how you can get over that.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: it is quite a good point. But if the Accountant\nGeneral will go to the British Museum library, and search the catalogue,\nhe will find under his own name a curious and now forgotten book, dated\n1924, entitled The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas. That gospel was that\nmen must live three hundred years if civilization is to be saved. It\nshewed that this extension of individual human life was possible, and\nhow it was likely to come about. I married the daughter of one of the\nbrothers.\n\nBARNABAS. Do you mean to say you claim to be a connection of mine?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I claim nothing. As I have by this time perhaps three or\nfour million cousins of one degree or another, I have ceased to call on\nthe family.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Gracious heavens! Four million relatives! Is that\ncalculation correct, Confucius?\n\nCONFUCIUS. In China it might be forty millions if there were no checks\non population.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. This is a staggerer. It brings home to one--but\n[_recovering_] it isnt true, you know. Let us keep sane.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_to the Archbishop_] You wish us to understand that the\nillustrious ancestors of the Accountant General communicated to you a\nsecret by which you could attain the age of three hundred years.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. No. Nothing of the kind. They simply believed that\nmankind could live any length of time it knew to be absolutely necessary\nto save civilization from extinction. I did not share their belief: at\nleast I was not conscious of sharing it: I thought I was only amused by\nit. To me my father-in-law and his brother were a pair of clever\ncranks who had talked one another into a fixed idea which had become a\nmonomania with them. It was not until I got into serious difficulties\nwith the pension authorities after turning seventy that I began to\nsuspect the truth.\n\nCONFUCIUS. The truth?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes, Mr Chief Secretary: the truth. Like all\nrevolutionary truths, it began as a joke. As I shewed no signs of ageing\nafter forty-five, my wife used to make fun of me by saying that I was\ncertainly going to live three hundred years. She was sixty-eight when\nshe died; and the last thing she said to me, as I sat by her bedside\nholding her hand, was 'Bill: you really don't look fifty. I wonder--'\nShe broke off, and fell asleep wondering, and never awoke. Then I began\nto wonder too. That is the explanation of the three hundred years, Mr\nSecretary.\n\nCONFUCIUS. It is very ingenious, Mr Archbishop. And very well told.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Of course you understand that _I_ don't for a moment\nsuggest the very faintest doubt of your absolute veracity, Archbishop.\nYou know that, don't you?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Quite, Mr President. Only you don't believe me: that is\nall. I do not expect you to. In your place I should not believe. You had\nbetter have a look at the films. [_Pointing to the Accountant General_]\nHe believes.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But the drowning? What about the drowning? A man might get\ndrowned once, or even twice if he was exceptionally careless. But he\ncouldn't be drowned four times. He would run away from water like a mad\ndog.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Perhaps Mr Chief Secretary can guess the explanation of\nthat.\n\nCONFUCIUS. To keep your secret, you had to die.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But dash it all, man, he isn't dead.\n\nCONFUCIUS. It is socially impossible not to do what everybody else does.\nOne must die at the usual time.\n\nBARNABAS. Of course. A simple point of honour.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Not at all. A simple necessity.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, I'm hanged if I see it. I should jolly well live for\never if I could.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. It is not so easy as you think. You, Mr Chief Secretary,\nhave grasped the difficulties of the position. Let me remind you,\nMr President, that I was over eighty before the 1969 Act for the\nRedistribution of Income entitled me to a handsome retiring pension.\nOwing to my youthful appearance I was prosecuted for attempting to\nobtain public money on false pretences when I claimed it. I could prove\nnothing; for the register of my birth had been blown to pieces by a bomb\ndropped on a village church years before in the first of the big modern\nwars. I was ordered back to work as a man of forty, and had to work for\nfifteen years more, the retiring age being then fifty-five.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. As late as fifty-five! How did people stand it?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. They made difficulties about letting me go even then, I\nstill looked so young. For some years I was in continual trouble. The\nindustrial police rounded me up again and again, refusing to believe\nthat I was over age. They began to call me The Wandering Jew. You see\nhow impossible my position was. I foresaw that in twenty years more my\nofficial record would prove me to be seventy-five; my appearance would\nmake it impossible to believe that I was more than forty-five; and my\nreal age would be one hundred and seventeen. What was I to do? Bleach\nmy hair? Hobble about on two sticks? Mimic the voice of a centenarian?\nBetter have killed myself.\n\nBARNABAS. You ought to have killed yourself. As an honest man you were\nentitled to no more than an honest man's expectation of life.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I did kill myself. It was quite easy. I left a suit of\nclothes by the seashore during the bathing season, with documents in the\npockets to identify me. I then turned up in a strange place, pretending\nthat I had lost my memory, and did not know my name or my age or\nanything about myself. Under treatment I recovered my health, but not my\nmemory. I have had several careers since I began this routine of life\nand death. I have been an archbishop three times. When I persuaded\nthe authorities to knock down all our towns and rebuild them from the\nfoundations, or move them, I went into the artillery, and became a\ngeneral. I have been President.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Dickenson?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But they found Dickenson's body: its ashes are buried in St\nPaul's.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. They almost always found the body. During the bathing\nseason there are plenty of bodies. I have been cremated again and again.\nAt first I used to attend my own funeral in disguise, because I had read\nabout a man doing that in an old romance by an author named Bennett,\nfrom whom I remember borrowing five pounds in 1912. But I got tired of\nthat. I would not cross the street now to read my latest epitaph.\n\n_The Chief Secretary and the President look very glum. Their incredulity\nis vanquished at last._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Look here. Do you chaps realize how awful this is? Here we\nare sitting calmly in the presence of a man whose death is overdue by\ntwo centuries. He may crumble into dust before our eyes at any moment.\n\nBARNABAS. Not he. He'll go on drawing his pension until the end of the\nworld.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Not quite that. My expectation of life is only three\nhundred years.\n\nBARNABAS. You will last out my time anyhow: that's enough for me.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] How do you know?\n\nBARNABAS [_taken aback_] How do I know!\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: how do you know? I did not begin even to suspect\nuntil I was nearly seventy. I was only vain of my youthful appearance.\nI was not quite serious about it until I was ninety. Even now I am not\nsure from one moment to another, though I have given you my reason\nfor thinking that I have quite unintentionally committed myself to a\nlifetime of three hundred years.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But how do you do it? Is it lemons? Is it Soya beans? Is\nit--\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I do not do it. It happens. It may happen to anyone. It\nmay happen to you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_the full significance of this for himself dawning on him_]\nThen we three may be in the same boat with you, for all we know?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. You may. Therefore I advise you to be very careful how\nyou take any step that will make my position uncomfortable.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, I'm dashed! One of my secretaries was remarking\nonly this morning how well and young I am looking. Barnabas: I have an\nabsolute conviction that I am one of the--the--shall I say one of the\nvictims?--of this strange destiny.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather\nformed the same conviction when he was between sixty and seventy. I knew\nhim.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_depressed_] Ah! But he died.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. No.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_hopefully_] Do you mean to say he is still alive?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. No. He was shot. Under the influence of his belief that\nhe was going to live three hundred years he became a changed man. He\nbegan to tell people the truth; and they disliked it so much that they\ntook advantage of certain clauses of an Act of Parliament he had himself\npassed during the Four Years War, and had purposely forgotten to repeal\nafterwards. They took him to the Tower of London and shot him.\n\n_The apparatus rings._\n\nCONFUCIUS [_answering_] Yes? [_He listens_].\n\nA WOMAN'S VOICE. The Domestic Minister has called.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_not quite catching the answer_] Who does she say has\ncalled?\n\nCONFUCIUS. The Domestic Minister.\n\nBARNABAS. Oh, dash it! That awful woman!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. She certainly is a bit of a terror. I don't exactly know\nwhy; for she is not at all bad-looking.\n\nBARNABAS [_out of patience_] For Heaven's sake, don't be frivolous.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. He cannot help it, Mr Accountant General. Three of his\nsixteen great-great-great-grandfathers married Lubins.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Tut tut! I am not frivolling. _I_ did not ask the lady\nhere. Which of you did?\n\nCONFUCIUS. It is her official duty to report personally to the President\nonce a quarter.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, that. Then I suppose it's my official duty to receive\nher. Theyd better send her in. You don't mind, do you? She will bring us\nback to real life. I don't know how you fellows feel; but I'm just going\ndotty.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_into the telephone_] The President will receive the Domestic\nMinister at once.\n\n_They watch the door in silence for the entrance of the Domestic\nMinister._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_suddenly, to the Archbishop_] I suppose you have been\nmarried over and over again.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Once. You do not make vows until death when death is\nthree hundred years off.\n\n_They relapse into uneasy silence. The Domestic Minister enters. She is\na handsome woman, apparently in the prime of life, with elegant, tense,\nwell held-up figure, and the walk of a goddess. Her expression and\ndeportment are grave, swift, decisive, awful, unanswerable. She wears a\nDianesque tunic instead of a blouse, and a silver coronet instead of a\ngold fillet. Her dress otherwise is not markedly different from that\nof the men, who rise as she enters, and incline their heads with\ninstinctive awe. She comes to the vacant chair between Barnabas and\nConfucius._\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_resolutely genial and gallant_] Delighted to see you, Mrs\nLutestring.\n\nCONFUCIUS. We are honored by your celestial presence.\n\nBARNABAS. Good day, madam.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before. I am\nthe Archbishop of York.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Surely we have met, Mr Archbishop. I remember your face.\nWe--[_she checks herself suddenly_] Ah, no: I remember now: it was\nsomeone else. [_She sits down_]. They all sit down.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_also puzzled_] Are you sure you are mistaken? I also\nhave some association with your face, Mrs Lutestring. Something like a\ndoor opening continually and revealing you. And a smile of welcome when\nyou recognized me. Did you ever open a door for me, I wonder?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I often opened a door for the person you have just\nreminded me of. But he has been dead many years. The rest, except the\nArchbishop, look at one another quickly.\n\nCONFUCIUS. May I ask how many years?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_struck by his tone, looks at him for a moment with some\ndispleasure; then replies_] It does not matter. A long time.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You mustnt rush to conclusions about the Archbishop, Mrs\nLutestring. He is an older bird than you think. Older than you, at all\nevents.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_with a melancholy smile_] I think not, Mr President.\nBut the subject is a delicate one. I had rather not pursue it.\n\nCONFUCIUS. There is a question which has not been asked.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_very decisively_] If it is a question about my age, Mr\nChief Secretary, it had better not be asked. All that concerns you about\nmy personal affairs can be found in the books of the Accountant General.\n\nCONFUCIUS. The question I was thinking of will not be addressed to you.\nBut let me say that your sensitiveness on the point is very strange,\ncoming from a woman so superior to all common weaknesses as we know you\nto be.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I may have reasons which have nothing to do with common\nweaknesses, Mr Chief Secretary. I hope you will respect them.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_after bowing to her in assent_] I will now put my question.\nHave you, Mr Archbishop, any ground for assuming, as you seem to do,\nthat what has happened to you has not happened to other people as well?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes, by George! I never thought of that.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I have never met any case but my own.\n\nCONFUCIUS. How do you know?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Well, no one has ever told me that they were in this\nextraordinary position.\n\nCONFUCIUS. That proves nothing. Did you ever tell anybody that you were\nin it? You never told us. Why did you never tell us?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I am surprised at the question, coming from so astute a\nmind as yours, Mr Secretary. When you reach the age I reached before I\ndiscovered what was happening to me, I was old enough to know and fear\nthe ferocious hatred with which human animals, like all other animals,\nturn upon any unhappy individual who has the misfortune to be unlike\nthemselves in every respect: to be unnatural, as they call it. You will\nstill find, among the tales of that twentieth-century classic, Wells,\na story of a race of men who grew twice as big as their fellows, and\nanother story of a man who fell into the hands of a race of blind men.\nThe big people had to fight the little people for their lives; and the\nman with eyes would have had his eyes put out by the blind had he not\nfled to the desert, where he perished miserably. Wells's teaching, on\nthat and other matters, was not lost on me. By the way, he lent me five\npounds once which I never repaid; and it still troubles my conscience.\n\nCONFUCIUS. And were you the only reader of Wells? If there were others\nlike you, had they not the same reason for keeping the secret?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. That is true. But I should know. You short-lived people\nare so childish. If I met a man of my own age I should recognize him at\nonce. I have never done so.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Would you recognize a woman of your age, do you think?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I--[_He stops and turns upon her with a searching look,\nstartled by the suggestion and the suspicion it rouses_].\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. What is your age, Mr Archbishop?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Two hundred and eighty-three, he says. That is his little\njoke. Do you know, Mrs Lutestring, he had almost talked us into\nbelieving him when you came in and cleared the air with your robust\ncommon sense.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Do you really feel that, Mr President? I hear the note\nof breezy assertion in your voice. I miss the note of conviction.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_jumping up_] Look here. Let us stop talking damned\nnonsense. I don't wish to be disagreeable; but it's getting on my\nnerves. The best joke won't bear being pushed beyond a certain point.\nThat point has been reached. I--I'm rather busy this morning. We all\nhave our hands pretty full. Confucius here will tell you that I have a\nheavy day before me.\n\nBARNABAS. Have you anything more important than this thing, if it's\ntrue?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, if if, if it's true! But it isn't true.\n\nBARNABAS. Have you anything at all to do?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Anything to do! Have you forgotten, Barnabas, that I happen\nto be President, and that the weight of the entire public business of\nthis country is on my shoulders?\n\nBARNABAS. Has he anything to do, Confucius?\n\nCONFUCIUS. He has to be President.\n\nBARNABAS. That means that he has nothing to do.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_sulkily_] Very well, Barnabas. Go on making a fool of\nyourself. [_He sits down_]. Go on.\n\nBARNABAS. I am not going to leave this room until we get to the bottom\nof this swindle.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_turning with deadly gravity on the Accountant General_]\nThis what, did you say?\n\nCONFUCIUS. These expressions cannot be sustained. You obscure the\ndiscussion in using them.\n\nBARNABAS [_glad to escape from her gaze by addressing Confucius_] Well,\nthis unnatural horror. Will that satisfy you?\n\nCONFUCIUS. That is in order. But we do not commit ourselves to the\nimplications of the word horror.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. By the word horror the Accountant General means only\nsomething unusual.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I notice that the honorable Domestic Minister, on learning\nthe advanced age of the venerable prelate, shews no sign of surprise or\nincredulity.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. She doesn't take it seriously. Who would? Eh, Mrs\nLutestring?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I take it very seriously indeed, Mr President. I see now\nthat I was not mistaken at first. I have met the Archbishop before.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I felt sure of it. This vision of a door opening to me,\nand a woman's face welcoming me, must be a reminiscence of something\nthat really happened; though I see it now as an angel opening the gate\nof heaven.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Or a parlor maid opening the door of the house of the\nyoung woman you were in love with?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_making a wry face_] Is that the reality? How these\nthings grow in our imagination! But may I say, Mrs Lutestring, that the\ntransfiguration of a parlor maid to an angel is not more amazing than\nher transfiguration to the very dignified and able Domestic Minister I\nam addressing. I recognize the angel in you. Frankly, I do not recognize\nthe parlor maid.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Whats a parlor maid?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. An extinct species. A woman in a black dress and white\napron, who opened the house door when people knocked or rang, and was\neither your tyrant or your slave. I was a parlor maid in the house of\none of the Accountant General's remote ancestors. [_To Confucius_] You\nasked me my age, Mr Chief Secretary, I am two hundred and seventy-four.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_gallantly_] You don't look it. You really don't look it.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_turning her face gravely towards him_] Look again, Mr\nPresident.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_looking at her bravely until the smile fades from his\nface, and he suddenly covers his eyes with his hands_] Yes: you do\nlook it. I am convinced. It's true. Now call up the Lunatic Asylum,\nConfucius; and tell them to send an ambulance for me.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_to the Archbishop_] Why have you given away your\nsecret? our secret?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. They found it out. The cinema records betrayed me. But I\nnever dreamt that there were others. Did you?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I knew one other. She was a cook. She grew tired, and\nkilled herself.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Dear me! However, her death simplifies the situation, as\nI have been able to convince these gentlemen that the matter had better\ngo no further.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. What! When the President knows! It will be all over the\nplace before the end of the week.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_injured_] Really, Mrs Lutestring! You speak as if I were a\nnotoriously indiscreet person. Barnabas: have I such a reputation?\n\nBARNABAS [_resignedly_] It cant be helped. It's constitutional.\n\nCONFUCIUS. It is utterly unconstitutional. But, as you say, it cannot be\nhelped.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_solemnly_] I deny that a secret of State has ever passed\nmy lips--except perhaps to the Minister of Health, who is discretion\npersonified. People think, because she is a negress--\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. It does not matter much now. Once, it would have\nmattered a great deal. But my children are all dead.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: the children must have been a terrible difficulty.\nFortunately for me, I had none.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. There was one daughter who was the child of my very\nheart. Some years after my first drowning I learnt that she had lost her\nsight. I went to her. She was an old woman of ninety-six, blind. She\nasked me to sit and talk with her because my voice was like the voice of\nher dead mother.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. The complications must be frightful. Really I hardly know\nwhether I do want to live much longer than other people.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. You can always kill yourself, as cook did; but that\nwas influenza. Long life is complicated, and even terrible; but it is\nglorious all the same. I would no more change places with an ordinary\nwoman than with a mayfly that lives only an hour.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. What set you thinking of it first?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Conrad Barnabas's book. Your wife told me it was more\nwonderful than Napoleon's Book of Fate and Old Moore's Almanac, which\ncook and I used to read. I was very ignorant: it did not seem so\nimpossible to me as to an educated woman. Yet I forgot all about it, and\nmarried and drudged as a poor man's wife, and brought up children, and\nlooked twenty years older than I really was, until one day, long after\nmy husband died and my children were out in the world working for\nthemselves, I noticed that I looked twenty years younger than I really\nwas. The truth came to me in a flash.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. An amazing moment. Your feelings must have been beyond\ndescription. What was your first thought?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Pure terror. I saw that the little money I had laid up\nwould not last, and that I must go out and: work again. They had things\ncalled Old Age Pensions then: miserable pittances for worn-out old\nlaborers to die on. I thought I should be found out if I went on drawing\nit too long. The horror of facing another lifetime of drudgery, of\nmissing my hard-earned rest and losing my poor little savings, drove\neverything else out of my mind. You people nowadays can have no\nconception of the dread of poverty that hung over us then, or of the\nutter tiredness of forty years' unending overwork and striving to make a\nshilling do the work of a pound.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I wonder you did not kill yourself. I often wonder why\nthe poor in those evil old times did not kill themselves. They did not\neven kill other people.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. You never kill yourself, because you always may as well\nwait until tomorrow. And you have not energy or conviction enough to\nkill the others. Besides, how can you blame them when you would do as\nthey do if you were in their place?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Devilish poor consolation, that.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. There were other consolations in those days for people\nlike me. We drank preparations of alcohol to relieve the strain of\nliving and give us an artificial happiness.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN {[[_all together,_]} Alcohol! CONFUCIUS {[_making_] } Pfff\n...! BARNABAS {[_wry faces_]] } Disgusting.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. A little alcohol would improve your temper and manners,\nand make you much easier to live with, Mr Accountant General.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_laughing_] By George, I believe you! Try it, Barnabas.\n\nCONFUCIUS. No. Try tea. It is the more civilized poison of the two.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. You, Mr President, were born intoxicated with your own\nwell-fed natural exuberance. You cannot imagine what alcohol was to an\nunderfed poor woman. I had carefully arranged my little savings so that\nI could get drunk, as we called it, once a week; and my only pleasure\nwas looking forward to that poor little debauch. That is what saved\nme from suicide. I could not bear to miss my next carouse. But when\nI stopped working, and lived on my pension, the fatigue of my life's\ndrudgery began to wear off, because, you see, I was not really old. I\nrecuperated. I looked younger and younger. And at last I was rested\nenough to have courage and strength to begin life again. Besides,\npolitical changes were making it easier: life was a little better worth\nliving for the nine-tenths of the people who used to be mere drudges.\nAfter that, I never turned back or faltered. My only regret now is that\nI shall die when I am three hundred or thereabouts. There was only one\nthing that made life hard; and that is gone now.\n\nCONFUCIUS. May we ask what that was?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Perhaps you will be offended if I tell you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Offended! My dear lady, do you suppose, after such\na stupendous revelation, that anything short of a blow from a\nsledge-hammer could produce the smallest impression on any of us?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Well, you see, it has been so hard on me never to meet a\ngrown-up person. You are all such children. And I never was very fond of\nchildren, except that one girl who woke up the mother passion in me. I\nhave been very lonely sometimes.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_again gallant_] But surely, Mrs Lutestring, that has been\nyour own fault. If I may say so, a lady of your attractions need never\nhave been lonely.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Why?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Why! Well--. Well, er--. Well, er er--. Well! [_he gives it\nup_].\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. He means that you might have married. Curious, how\nlittle they understand our position.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I did marry. I married again on my hundred and first\nbirthday. But of course I had to marry an elderly man: a man over sixty.\nHe was a great painter. On his deathbed he said to me 'It has taken me\nfifty years to learn my trade, and to paint all the foolish pictures a\nman must paint and get rid of before he comes through them to the\ngreat things he ought to paint. And now that my foot is at last on the\nthreshold of the temple I find that it is also the threshold of my\ntomb.' That man would have been the greatest painter of all time if he\ncould have lived as long as I. I saw him die of old age whilst he\nwas still, as he said himself, a gentleman amateur, like all modern\npainters.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But why had you to marry an elderly man? Why not marry a\nyoung one? or shall I say a middle-aged one? If my own affections were\nnot already engaged; and if, to tell the truth, I were not a\nlittle afraid of you--for you are a very superior woman, as we all\nacknowledge--I should esteem myself happy in--er--er--\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Mr President: have you ever tried to take advantage of\nthe innocence of a little child for the gratification of your senses?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Good Heavens, madam, what do you take me for? What right\nhave you to ask me such a question?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I am at present in my two hundred and seventy-fifth\nyear. You suggest that I should take advantage of the innocence of a\nchild of thirty, and marry it.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Can you shortlived people not understand that as the\nconfusion and immaturity and primitive animalism in which we live for\nthe first hundred years of our life is worse in this matter of sex than\nin any other, you are intolerable to us in that relation?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Do you mean to say, Mrs Lutestring, that you regard me as a\nchild?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Do you expect me to regard you as a completed soul? Oh,\nyou may well be afraid of me. There are moments when your levity, your\ningratitude, your shallow jollity, make my gorge rise so against you\nthat if I could not remind myself that you are a child I should be\ntempted to doubt your right to live at all.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Do you grudge us the few years we have? you who have three\nhundred!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You accuse me of levity! Must I remind you, madam, that I\nam the President, and that you are only the head of a department?\n\nBARNABAS. Ingratitude too! You draw a pension for three hundred years\nwhen we owe you only seventy-eight; and you call us ungrateful!\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. I do. When I think of the blessings that have been\nshowered on you, and contrast them with the poverty! the humiliations!\nthe anxieties! the heartbreak! the insolence and tyranny that were the\ndaily lot of mankind when I was learning to suffer instead of learning\nto live! when I see how lightly you take it all! how you quarrel over\nthe crumpled leaves in your beds of roses! how you are so dainty about\nyour work that unless it is made either interesting or delightful to you\nyou leave it to negresses and Chinamen, I ask myself whether even\nthree hundred years of thought and experience can save you from being\nsuperseded by the Power that created you and put you on your trial.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. My dear lady: our Chinese and colored friends are perfectly\nhappy. They are twenty times better off here than they would be in China\nor Liberia. They do their work admirably; and in doing it they set us\nfree for higher employments.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_who has caught the infection of her indignation_] What\nhigher employments are you capable of? you that are superannuated at\nseventy and dead at eighty!\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. You are not really doing higher work. You are supposed\nto make the decisions and give the orders; but the negresses and the\nChinese make up your minds for you and tell you what orders to give,\njust as my brother, who was a sergeant in the Guards, used to prompt his\nofficers in the old days. When I want to get anything done at the Health\nMinistry I do not come to you: I go to the black lady who has been the\nreal president during your present term of office, or to Confucius, who\ngoes on for ever while presidents come and presidents go.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. This is outrageous. This is treason to the white race. And\nlet me tell you, madam, that I have never in my life met the Minister\nof Health, and that I protest against the vulgar color prejudice which\ndisparages her great ability and her eminent services to the State. My\nrelations with her are purely telephonic, gramophonic, photophonic, and,\nmay I add, platonic.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. There is no reason why you should be ashamed of them in\nany case, Mr President. But let us look at the position impersonally.\nCan you deny that what is happening is that the English people have\nbecome a Joint Stock Company admitting Asiatics and Africans as\nshareholders?\n\nBARNABAS. Nothing like it. I know all about the old joint stock\ncompanies. The shareholders did no work.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. That is true; but we, like them, get our dividends\nwhether we work or not. We work partly because we know there would be no\ndividends if we did not, and partly because if we refuse we are regarded\nas mentally deficient and put into a lethal chamber. But what do we work\nat? Before the few changes we were forced to make by the revolutions\nthat followed the Four Years War, our governing classes had been so\nrich, as it was called, that they had become the most intellectually\nlazy and fat-headed people on the face of the earth. There is a good\ndeal of that fat still clinging to us.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. As President, I must not listen to unpatriotic criticisms\nof our national character, Mr Archbishop.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. As Archbishop, Mr President, it is my official duty to\ncriticize the national character unsparingly. At the canonization of\nSaint Henrik Ibsen, you yourself unveiled the monument to him which\nbears on its pedestal the noble inscription, 'I came not to call\nsinners, but the righteous, to repentance.' The proof of what I say\nis that our routine work, and what may be called our ornamental and\nfigure-head work, is being more and more sought after by the English;\nwhilst the thinking, organizing, calculating, directing work is done by\nyellow brains, brown brains, and black brains, just as it was done in\nmy early days by Jewish brains, Scottish brains, Italian brains, German\nbrains. The only white men who still do serious work are those who, like\nthe Accountant General, have no capacity for enjoyment, and no social\ngifts to make them welcome outside their offices.\n\nBARNABAS. Confound your impudence! I had gifts enough to find you out,\nanyhow.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_disregarding this outburst_] If you were to kill me as\nI stand here, you would have to appoint an Indian to succeed me. I take\nprecedence today not as an Englishman, but as a man with more than a\ncentury and a half of fully adult experience. We are letting all the\npower slip into the hands of the colored people. In another hundred\nyears we shall be simply their household pets.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_reacting buoyantly_] Not the least danger of it. I grant\nyou we leave the most troublesome part of the labor of the nation to\nthem. And a good job too: why should we drudge at it? But think of the\nactivities of our leisure! Is there a jollier place on earth to live\nin than England out of office hours? And to whom do we owe that? To\nourselves, not to the niggers. The nigger and the Chink are all right\nfrom Tuesday to Friday; but from Friday to Tuesday they are simply\nnowhere; and the real life of England is from Friday to Tuesday.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. That is terribly true. In devising brainless amusements;\nin pursuing them with enormous vigor, and taking them with eager\nseriousness, our English people are the wonder of the world. They always\nwere. And it is just as well; for otherwise their sensuality would\nbecome morbid and destroy them. What appals me is that their amusements\nshould amuse them. They are the amusements of boys and girls. They\nare pardonable up to the age of fifty or sixty: after that they are\nridiculous. I tell you, what is wrong with us is that we are a non-adult\nrace; and the Irish and the Scots, and the niggers and Chinks, as you\ncall them, though their lifetime is as short as ours, or shorter, yet do\nsomehow contrive to grow up a little before they die. We die in boyhood:\nthe maturity that should make us the greatest of all the nations lies\nbeyond the grave for us. Either we shall go under as greybeards with\ngolf clubs in our hands, or we must will to live longer.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Yes: that is it. I could not have expressed it in words;\nbut you have expressed it for me. I felt, even when I was an ignorant\ndomestic slave, that we had the possibility of becoming a great nation\nwithin us; but our faults and follies drove me to cynical hopelessness.\nWe all ended then like that. It is the highest creatures who take the\nlongest to mature, and are the most helpless during their immaturity. I\nknow now that it took me a whole century to grow up. I began my serious\nlife when I was a hundred and twenty. Asiatics cannot control me: I am\nnot a child in their hands, as you are, Mr President. Neither, I am\nsure, is the Archbishop. They respect me. You are not grown up enough\neven for that, though you were kind enough to say that I frighten you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Honestly, you do. And will you think me very rude if I\nsay that if I must choose between a white woman old enough to be my\ngreat-grandmother and a black woman of my own age, I shall probably find\nthe black woman more sympathetic?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. And more attractive in color, perhaps?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes. Since you ask me, more--well, not more attractive:\nI do not deny that you have an excellent appearance--but I will say,\nricher. More Venetian. Tropical. 'The shadowed livery of the burnished\nsun.'\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Our women, and their favorite story writers, begin\nalready to talk about men with golden complexions.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_expanding into a smile all across both face and body_]\nA-a-a-a-a-h!\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, what of it, madam? Have you read a very interesting\nbook by the librarian of the Biological Society suggesting that the\nfuture of the world lies with the Mulatto?\n\nMRS LUTESTRING [_rising_] Mr Archbishop: if the white race is to be\nsaved, our destiny is apparent.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: our duty is pretty clear.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. Have you time to come home with me and discuss the\nmatter?\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP [_rising_] With pleasure.\n\nBARNABAS [_rising also and rushing past Mrs Lutestring to the door,\nwhere he turns to bar her way_] No you don't. Burge: you understand,\ndon't you?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. No. What is it?\n\nBARNABAS. These two are going to marry.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Why shouldn't they, if they want to?\n\nBARNABAS. They don't want to. They will do it in cold blood because\ntheir children will live three hundred years. It mustnt be allowed.\n\nCONFUCIUS. You cannot prevent it. There is no law that gives you power\nto interfere with them.\n\nBARNABAS. If they force me to it I will obtain legislation against\nmarriages above the age of seventy-eight.\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. There is not time for that before we are married, Mr\nAccountant General. Be good enough to get out of the lady's way.\n\nBARNABAS. There is time to send the lady to the lethal chamber before\nanything comes of your marriage. Dont forget that.\n\nMRS LUTESTRING. What nonsense, Mr Accountant General! Good afternoon,\nMr President. Good afternoon, Mr Chief Secretary. [_They rise and\nacknowledge her salutation with bows. She walks straight at the\nAccountant General, who instinctively shrinks out of her way as she\nleaves the room_].\n\nTHE ARCHBISHOP. I am surprised at you, Mr Barnabas. Your tone was like\nan echo from the Dark Ages. [_He follows the Domestic Minister_].\n\n_Confucius, shaking his head and clucking with his tongue in deprecation\nof this painful episode, moves to the chair just vacated by the\nArchbishop and stands behind it with folded palms, looking at the\nPresident. The Accountant General shakes his fist after the departed\nvisitors, and bursts into savage abuse of them._\n\nBARNABAS. Thieves! Cursed thieves! Vampires! What are you going to do,\nBurge?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Do?\n\nBARNABAS. Yes, do. There must be dozens of these people in existence.\nAre you going to let them do what the two who have just left us mean to\ndo, and crowd us off the face of the earth?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_sitting down_] Oh, come, Barnabas! What harm are they\ndoing? Arnt you interested in them? Dont you like them?\n\nBARNABAS. Like them! I hate them. They are monsters, unnatural monsters.\nThey are poison to me.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What possible objection can there be to their living as\nlong as they can? It does not shorten our lives, does it?\n\nBARNABAS. If I have to die when I am seventy-eight, I don't see\nwhy another man should be privileged to live to be two hundred and\nseventy-eight. It does shorten my life, relatively. It makes us\nridiculous. If they grew to be twelve feet high they would make us all\ndwarfs. They talked to us as if we were children. There is no love lost\nbetween us: their hatred of us came out soon enough. You heard what the\nwoman said, and how the Archbishop backed her up?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But what can we do to them?\n\nBARNABAS. Kill them.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Nonsense!\n\nBARNABAS. Lock them up. Sterilize them somehow, anyhow.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But what reason could we give?\n\nBARNABAS. What reason can you give for killing a snake? Nature tells you\nto do it.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. My dear Barnabas, you are out of your mind.\n\nBARNABAS. Havnt you said that once too often already this morning?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I don't believe you will carry a single soul with you.\n\nBARNABAS. I understand. I know you. You think you are one of them.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Mr Accountant General: you may be one of them.\n\nBARNABAS. How dare you accuse me of such a thing? I am an honest man,\nnot a monster. I won my place in public life by demonstrating that the\ntrue expectation of human life is seventy-eight point six. And I will\nresist any attempt to alter or upset it to the last drop of my blood if\nneed be.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, tut tut! Come, come! Pull yourself together. How can\nyou, a descendant of the great Conrad Barnabas, the man who is still\nremembered by his masterly Biography of a Black Beetle, be so absurd?\n\nBARNABAS. You had better go and write the autobiography of a jackass. I\nam going to raise the country against this horror, and against you, if\nyou shew the slightest sign of weakness about it.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_very impressively_] You will regret it if you do.\n\nBARNABAS. What is to make me regret it?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Every mortal man and woman in the community will begin to\ncount on living for three centuries. Things will happen which you do not\nforesee: terrible things. The family will dissolve: parents and children\nwill be no longer the old and the young: brothers and sisters will meet\nas strangers after a hundred years separation: the ties of blood will\nlose their innocence. The imaginations of men, let loose over the\npossibilities of three centuries of life, will drive them mad and wreck\nhuman society. This discovery must be kept a dead secret. [_He sits\ndown_].\n\nBARNABAS. And if I refuse to keep the secret?\n\nCONFUCIUS. I shall have you safe in a lunatic asylum the day after you\nblab.\n\nBARNABAS. You forget that I can produce the Archbishop to prove my\nstatement.\n\nCONFUCIUS. So can I. Which of us do you think he will support when I\nexplain to him that your object in revealing his age is to get him\nkilled?\n\nBARNABAS [_desperate_] Burge: are you going to back up this yellow\nabomination against me? Are we public men and members of the Government?\nor are we damned blackguards?\n\nCONFUCIUS [_unmoved_] Have you ever known a public man who was not what\nvituperative people called a damned blackguard when some inconsiderate\nperson wanted to tell the public more than was good for it?\n\nBARNABAS. Hold your tongue, you insolent heathen. Burge: I spoke to you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, you know, my dear Barnabas, Confucius is a very\nlong-headed chap. I see his point.\n\nBARNABAS. Do you? Then let me tell you that, except officially, I will\nnever speak to you again. Do you hear?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_cheerfully_] You will. You will.\n\nBARNABAS. And don't you ever dare speak to me again. Do you hear? [_He\nturns to the door_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I will. I will. Goodbye, Barnabas. God bless you.\n\nBARNABAS. May you live forever, and be the laughingstock of the whole\nworld! [_he dashes out in a fury_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_laughing indulgently_] He will keep the secret all right.\nI know Barnabas. You neednt worry.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_troubled and grave_] There are no secrets except the secrets\nthat keep themselves. Consider. There are those films at the Record\nOffice. We have no power to prevent the Master of the Records from\npublishing this discovery made in his department. We cannot silence the\nAmerican--who can silence an American?--nor the people who were there\ntoday to receive him. Fortunately, a film can prove nothing but a\nresemblance.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Thats very true. After all, the whole thing is confounded\nnonsense, isnt it?\n\nCONFUCIUS [_raising his head to look at him_] You have decided not to\nbelieve it now that you realize its inconveniences. That is the English\nmethod. It may not work in this case.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. English be hanged! It's common sense. You know, those two\npeople got us hypnotized: not a doubt of it. They must have been kidding\nus. They were, werent they?\n\nCONFUCIUS. You looked into that woman's face; and you believed.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Just so. Thats where she had me. I shouldn't have believed\nher a bit if she'd turned her back to me.\n\nCONFUCIUS [_shakes his head slowly and repeatedly_]???\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You really think--? [_he hesitates_].\n\nCONFUCIUS. The Archbishop has always been a puzzle to me. Ever since\nI learnt to distinguish between one English face and another I have\nnoticed what the woman pointed out: that the English face is not an\nadult face, just as the English mind is not an adult mind.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Stow it, John Chinaman. If ever there was a race divinely\nappointed to take charge of the non-adult races and guide them and train\nthem and keep them out of mischief until they grow up to be capable of\nadopting our institutions, that race is the English race. It is the only\nrace in the world that has that characteristic. Now!\n\nCONFUCIUS. That is the fancy of a child nursing a doll. But it is ten\ntimes more childish of you to dispute the highest compliment ever paid\nyou.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You call it a compliment to class us as grown-up children.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Not grown-up children, children at fifty, sixty, seventy.\nYour maturity is so late that you never attain to it. You have to be\ngoverned by races which are mature at forty. That means that you are\npotentially the most highly developed race on earth, and would be\nactually the greatest if you could live long enough to attain to\nmaturity.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_grasping the idea at last_] By George, Confucius, youre\nright! I never thought of that. That explains everything. We are just\na lot of schoolboys: theres no denying it. Talk to an Englishman about\nanything serious, and he listens to you curiously for a moment just as\nhe listens to a chap playing classical music. Then he goes back to\nhis marine golf, or motoring, or flying, or women, just like a bit of\nstretched elastic when you let it go. [_Soaring to the height of his\ntheme_] Oh, youre quite right. We are only in our infancy. I ought to\nbe in a perambulator, with a nurse shoving me along. It's true: it's\nabsolutely true. But some day we'll grow up; and then, by Jingo, we'll\nshew em.\n\nCONFUCIUS. The Archbishop is an adult. When I was a child I was\ndominated and intimidated by people whom I now know to have been weaker\nand sillier than I, because there was some mysterious quality in their\nmere age that overawed me. I confess that, though I have kept up\nappearances, I have always been afraid of the Archbishop.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Between ourselves, Confucius, so have I.\n\nCONFUCIUS. It is this that convinced me. It was this in the woman's face\nthat convinced you. Their new departure in the history of the race is no\nfraud. It does not even surprise me.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Oh, come! Not surprise you! It's your pose never to be\nsurprised at anything; but if you are not surprised at this you are not\nhuman.\n\nCONFUCIUS. I am staggered, just as a man may be staggered by an\nexplosion for which he has himself laid the charge and lighted the fuse.\nBut I am not surprised, because, as a philosopher and a student of\nevolutionary biology, I have come to regard some such development as\nthis as inevitable. If I had not thus prepared myself to be credulous,\nno mere evidence of films and well-told tales would have persuaded me to\nbelieve. As it is, I do believe.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Well, that being settled, what the devil is to happen next?\nWhats the next move for us?\n\nCONFUCIUS. We do not make the next move. The next move will be made by\nthe Archbishop and the woman.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Their marriage?\n\nCONFUCIUS. More than that. They have made the momentous discovery that\nthey are not alone in the world.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. You think there are others?\n\nCONFUCIUS. There must be many others. Each of them believes that he or\nshe is the only one to whom the miracle has happened. But the Archbishop\nknows better now. He will advertise in terms which only the longlived\npeople will understand. He will bring them together and organize them.\nThey will hasten from all parts of the earth. They will become a great\nPower.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_a little alarmed_] I say, will they? I suppose they will.\nI wonder is Barnabas right after all? Ought we to allow it?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Nothing that we can do will stop it. We cannot in our souls\nreally want to stop it: the vital force that has produced this change\nwould paralyse our opposition to it, if we were mad enough to oppose.\nBut we will not oppose. You and I may be of the elect, too.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes: thats what gets us every time. What the deuce ought we\nto do? Something must be done about it, you know.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Let us sit still, and meditate in silence on the vistas\nbefore us.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. By George, I believe youre right. Let us.\n\n_They sit meditating, the Chinaman naturally, the President with visible\neffort and intensity. He is positively glaring into the future when the\nvoice of the Negress is heard._\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Mr President.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_joyfully_] Yes. [_Taking up a peg_] Are you at home?\n\nTHE NEGRESS. No. Omega, zero, x squared.\n\n_The President rapidly puts the peg in the switchboard; works the dial;\nand presses the button. The screen becomes transparent; and the Negress,\nbrilliantly dressed, appears on what looks like the bridge of a steam\nyacht in glorious sea weather. The installation with which she is\ncommunicating is beside the binnacle._\n\nCONFUCIUS [_looking round, and recoiling with a shriek of disgust_] Ach!\nAvaunt! Avaunt! [_He rushes from the room_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. What part of the coast is that?\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Fishguard Bay. Why not run over and join me for the\nafternoon? I am disposed to be approachable at last.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. But Fishguard! Two hundred and seventy miles!\n\nTHE NEGRESS. There is a lightning express on the Irish Air Service at\nhalf-past sixteen. They will drop you by a parachute in the bay. The\ndip will do you good. I will pick you up and dry you and give you a\nfirst-rate time.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Delightful. But a little risky, isnt it?\n\nTHE NEGRESS. Risky! I thought you were afraid of nothing.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. I am not exactly afraid; but--\n\nTHE NEGRESS [_offended_] But you think it is not good enough. Very well\n[_she raises her hand to take the peg out of her switchboard_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_imploringly_] No: stop: let me explain: hold the line just\none moment. Oh, please.\n\nTHE NEGRESS [_waiting with her hand poised over the peg_] Well?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. The fact is, I have been behaving very recklessly for some\ntime past under the impression that my life would be so short that\nit was not worth bothering about. But I have just learnt that I may\nlive--well, much longer than I expected. I am sure your good sense will\ntell you that this alters the case. I--\n\nTHE NEGRESS [_with suppressed rage_] Oh, quite. Pray don't risk your\nprecious, life on my account. Sorry for troubling you. Goodbye. [_She\nsnatches out her peg and vanishes_].\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_urgently_] No: please hold on. I can convince you--[_a\nloud buzz-uzz-uzz_]. Engaged! Who is she calling up now? [_Represses the\nbutton and calls_] The Chief Secretary. Say I want to see him again,\njust for a moment.\n\nCONFUCIUS'S VOICE. Is the woman gone?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Yes, yes: it's all right. Just a moment, if--[_Confucius\nreturns_] Confucius: I have some important business at Fishguard. The\nIrish Air Service can drop me in the bay by parachute. I suppose it's\nquite safe, isnt it?\n\nCONFUCIUS. Nothing is quite safe. The air service is as safe as any\nother travelling service. The parachute is safe. But the water is not\nsafe.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Why? They will give me an unsinkable tunic, wont they?\n\nCONFUCIUS. You will not sink; but the sea is very cold. You may get\nrheumatism for life.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. For life! That settles it: I wont risk it.\n\nCONFUCIUS. Good. You have at last become prudent: you are no longer what\nyou call a sportsman: you are a sensible coward, almost a grown-up man.\nI congratulate you.\n\nBURGE-LUBIN [_resolutely_] Coward or no coward, I will not face an\neternity of rheumatism for any woman that ever was born. [_He rises and\ngoes to the rack for his fillet_] I have changed my mind: I am going\nhome. [_He cocks the fillet rakishly_] Good evening.\n\nCONFUCIUS. So early? If the Minister of Health rings you up, what shall\nI tell her?\n\nBURGE-LUBIN. Tell her to go to the devil. [_He goes out_].\n\nCONFUCIUS [_shaking his head, shocked at the President's impoliteness_]\nNo. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, these English! these crude young\ncivilizations! Their manners! Hogs. Hogs.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\nTragedy of an Elderly Gentleman\n\n\nACT I\n\n\n_Burrin pier on the south shore of Galway Bay in Ireland, a region of\nstone-capped hills and granite fields. It is a fine summer day in the\nyear 3000 A.D. On an ancient stone stump, about three feet thick and\nthree feet high, used for securing ships by ropes to the shore, and\ncalled a bollard or holdfast, an elderly gentleman sits facing the land\nwith his head bowed and his face in his hands, sobbing. His sunburnt\nskin contrasts with his white whiskers and eyebrows. He wears a black\nfrock-coat, a white waistcoat, lavender trousers, a brilliant silk\ncravat with a jewelled pin stuck in it, a tall hat of grey felt, and\npatent leather boots with white spats. His starched linen cuffs protrude\nfrom his coat sleeves; and his collar, also of starched white linen, is\nGladstonian. On his right, three or four full sacks, lying side by side\non the flags, suggest that the pier, unlike many remote Irish piers,\nis occasionally useful as well as romantic. On his left, behind him, a\nflight of stone steps descends out of sight to the sea level.\n\nA woman in a silk tunic and sandals, wearing little else except a cap\nwith the number 2 on it in gold, comes up the steps from the sea, and\nstares in astonishment at the sobbing man. Her age cannot be guessed:\nher face is firm and chiselled like a young face; but her expression is\nunyouthful in its severity and determination._\n\nTHE WOMAN. What is the matter?\n\n_The elderly gentleman looks up; hastily pulls himself together; takes\nout a silk handkerchief and dries his tears lightly with a brave attempt\nto smile through them; and tries to rise gallantly, but sinks back._\n\nTHE WOMAN. Do you need assistance?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No. Thank you very much. No. Nothing. The heat.\n[_He punctuates with sniffs, and dabs with his handkerchief at his eyes\nand nose._] Hay fever.\n\nTHE WOMAN. You are a foreigner, are you not?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No. You must not regard me as a foreigner. I am a\nBriton.\n\nTHE WOMAN. You come from some part of the British Commonwealth?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_amiably pompous_] From its capital, madam.\n\nTHE WOMAN. From Baghdad?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes. You may not be aware, madam, that these\nislands were once the centre of the British Commonwealth, during a\nperiod now known as The Exile. They were its headquarters a thousand\nyears ago. Few people know this interesting circumstance now; but I\nassure you it is true. I have come here on a pious pilgrimage to one of\nthe numerous lands of my fathers. We are of the same stock, you and I.\nBlood is thicker than water. We are cousins.\n\nTHE WOMAN. I do not understand. You say you have come here on a pious\npilgrimage. Is that some new means of transport?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_again shewing signs of distress_] I find it\nvery difficult to make myself understood here. I was not referring to a\nmachine, but to a--a--a sentimental journey.\n\nTHE WOMAN. I am afraid I am as much in the dark as before. You said also\nthat blood is thicker than water. No doubt it is; but what of it?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Its meaning is obvious.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Perfectly. But I assure you I am quite aware that blood is\nthicker than water.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_sniffing: almost in tears again_] We will leave\nit at that, madam.\n\nTHE WOMAN [going _nearer to him and scrutinizing him with some concern_]\nI am afraid you are not well. Were you not warned that it is dangerous\nfor shortlived people to come to this country? There is a deadly disease\ncalled discouragement, against which shortlived people have to take very\nstrict precautions. Intercourse with us puts too great a strain on them.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_pulling himself together huffily_] It has no\neffect on me, madam. I fear my conversation does not interest you. If\nnot, the remedy is in your own hands.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_looking at her hands, and then looking inquiringly at him_]\nWhere?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_breaking down_] Oh, this is dreadful. No\nunderstanding, no intelligence, no sympathy--[_his sobs choke him_].\n\nTHE WOMAN. You see, you are ill.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_nerved by indignation_] I am not ill. I have\nnever had a day's illness in my life.\n\nTHE WOMAN. May I advise you?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I have no need of a lady doctor, thank you,\nmadam.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_shaking her head_] I am afraid I do not understand. I said\nnothing about a butterfly.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Well, _I_ said nothing about a butterfly.\n\nTHE WOMAN. You spoke of a lady doctor. The word is known here only as\nthe name of a butterfly.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_insanely_] I give up. I can bear this no longer.\nIt is easier to go out of my mind at once. [_He rises and dances about,\nsinging_]\n\n\n    I'd be a butterfly, born in a bower,\n    Making apple dumplings without any flour.\n\n\nTHE WOMAN [_smiling gravely_] It must be at least a hundred and fifty\nyears since I last laughed. But if you do that any more I shall\ncertainly break out like a primary of sixty. Your dress is so\nextraordinarily ridiculous.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_halting abruptly in his antics_] My dress\nridiculous! I may not be dressed like a Foreign Office clerk; but\nmy clothes are perfectly in fashion in my native metropolis, where\nyours--pardon my saying so--would be considered extremely unusual and\nhardly decent.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Decent? There is no such word in our language. What does it\nmean?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It would not be decent for me to explain. Decency\ncannot be discussed without indecency.\n\nTHE WOMAN. I cannot understand you at all. I fear you have not been\nobserving the rules laid down for shortlived visitors.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Surely, madam, they do not apply to persons of my\nage and standing. I am not a child, nor an agricultural laborer.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_severely_] They apply to you very strictly. You are expected\nto confine yourself to the society of children under sixty. You\nare absolutely forbidden to approach fully adult natives under any\ncircumstances. You cannot converse with persons of my age for long\nwithout bringing on a dangerous attack of discouragement. Do you realize\nthat you are already shewing grave symptoms of that very distressing and\nusually fatal complaint?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not, madam. I am fortunately in no\ndanger of contracting it. I am quite accustomed to converse intimately\nand at the greatest length with the most distinguished persons. If you\ncannot discriminate between hay fever and imbecility, I can only say\nthat your advanced years carry with them the inevitable penalty of\ndotage.\n\nTHE WOMAN. I am one of the guardians of this district; and I am\nresponsible for your welfare--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. The Guardians! Do you take me for a pauper?\n\nTHE WOMAN. I do not know what a pauper is. You must tell me who you are,\nif it is possible for you to express yourself intelligibly--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_snorts indignantly_]!\n\nTHE WOMAN [_continuing_]--and why you are wandering here alone without a\nnurse.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_outraged_] Nurse!\n\nTHE WOMAN. Shortlived visitors are not allowed to go about here without\nnurses. Do you not know that rules are meant to be kept?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. By the lower classes, no doubt. But to persons\nin my position there are certain courtesies which are never denied by\nwell-bred people; and--\n\nTHE WOMAN. There are only two human classes here: the shortlived and\nthe normal. The rules apply to the shortlived, and are for their own\nprotection. Now tell me at once who you are.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_impressively_] Madam, I am a retired gentleman,\nformerly Chairman of the All-British Synthetic Egg and Vegetable Cheese\nTrust in Baghdad, and now President of the British Historical and\nArchaeological Society, and a Vice-President of the Travellers' Club.\n\nTHE WOMAN. All that does not matter.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_again snorting_] Hm! Indeed!\n\nTHE WOMAN. Have you been sent here to make your mind flexible?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. What an extraordinary question! Pray do you find\nmy mind noticeably stiff?\n\nTHE WOMAN. Perhaps you do not know that you are on the west coast of\nIreland, and that it is the practice among natives of the Eastern Island\nto spend some years here to acquire mental flexibility. The climate has\nthat effect.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_haughtily_] I was born, not in the Eastern\nIsland, but, thank God, in dear old British Baghdad; and I am not in\nneed of a mental health resort.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Then why are you here?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Am I trespassing? I was not aware of it.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Trespassing? I do not understand the word.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Is this land private property? If so, I make no\nclaim. I proffer a shilling in satisfaction of damage (if any), and am\nready to withdraw if you will be good enough to shew me the nearest way.\n[_He offers her a shilling_].\n\nTHE WOMAN [_taking it and examining it without much interest_] I do not\nunderstand a single word of what you have just said.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am speaking the plainest English. Are you the\nlandlord?\n\nTHE WOMAN [_shaking her head_] There is a tradition in this part of the\ncountry of an animal with a name like that. It used to be hunted and\nshot in the barbarous ages. It is quite extinct now.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_breaking down again_] It is a dreadful thing to\nbe in a country where nobody understands civilized institutions. [_He\ncollapses on the bollard, struggling with his rising sobs_]. Excuse me.\nHay fever.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_taking a tuning-fork from her girdle and holding it to her\near; then speaking into space on one note, like a chorister intoning\na psalm_] Burrin Pier Galway please send someone to take charge of a\ndiscouraged shortliver who has escaped from his nurse male harmless\nbabbles unintelligibly with moments of sense distressed hysterical\nforeign dress very funny has curious fringe of white sea-weed under his\nchin.\n\nTHE GENTLEMAN. This is a gross impertinence. An insult.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_replacing her tuning-fork and addressing the elderly\ngentleman_] These words mean nothing to me. In what capacity are you\nhere? How did you obtain permission to visit us?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_importantly_] Our Prime Minister, Mr Badger\nBluebin, has come to consult the oracle. He is my son-in-law. We are\naccompanied by his wife and daughter: my daughter and granddaughter. I\nmay mention that General Aufsteig, who is one of our party, is really\nthe Emperor of Turania travelling incognito. I understand he has a\nquestion to put to the oracle informally. I have come solely to visit\nthe country.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Why should you come to a place where you have no business?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Great Heavens, madam, can anything be more\nnatural? I shall be the only member of the Travellers' Club who has set\nfoot on these shores. Think of that! My position will be unique.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Is that an advantage? We have a person here who has lost both\nlegs in an accident. His position is unique. But he would much rather be\nlike everyone else.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. This is maddening. There is no analogy whatever\nbetween the two cases.\n\nTHE WOMAN. They are both unique.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Conversation in this place seems to consist of\nridiculous quibbles. I am heartily tired of them.\n\nTHE WOMAN. I conclude that your Travellers' Club is an assembly of\npersons who wish to be able to say that they have been in some place\nwhere nobody else has been.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Of Course if you wish to sneer at us--\n\nTHE WOMAN. What is sneer?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_with a wild sob_] I shall drown myself.\n\n_He makes desperately for the edge of the pier, but is confronted by\na man with the number one on his cap, who comes up the steps and\nintercepts him. He is dressed like the woman, but a slight moustache\nproclaims his sex._\n\nTHE MAN [_to the elderly gentleman_] Ah, here you are. I shall really\nhave to put a collar and lead on you if you persist in giving me the\nslip like this.\n\nTHE WOMAN. Are you this stranger's nurse?\n\nTHE MAN. Yes. I am very tired of him. If I take my eyes off him for a\nmoment, he runs away and talks to everybody.\n\nTHE WOMAN [_after taking out her tuning-fork and sounding it, intones as\nbefore_] Burrin Pier. Wash out. [_She puts up the fork, and addresses\nthe man_]. I sent a call for someone to take care of him. I have been\ntrying to talk to him; but I can understand very little of what he says.\nYou must take better care of him: he is badly discouraged already. If\nI can be of any further use, Fusima, Gort, will find me. [_She goes\naway_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Any further use! She has been of no use to me.\nShe spoke to me without any introduction, like any improper female. And\nshe has made off with my shilling.\n\nTHE MAN. Please speak slowly. I cannot follow. What is a shilling? What\nis an introduction? Improper female doesnt make sense.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Nothing seems to make sense here. All I can tell\nyou is that she was the most impenetrably stupid woman I have ever met\nin the whole course of my life.\n\nTHE MAN. That cannot be. She cannot appear stupid to you. She is a\nsecondary, and getting on for a tertiary at that.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. What is a tertiary? Everybody here keeps talking\nto me about primaries and secondaries and tertiaries as if people were\ngeological strata.\n\nTHE MAN. The primaries are in their first century. The secondaries are\nin their second century. I am still classed as a primary [_he points to\nhis number_]; but I may almost call myself a secondary, as I shall be\nninety-five next January. The tertiaries are in their third century. Did\nyou not see the number two on her badge? She is an advanced secondary.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That accounts for it. She is in her second\nchildhood.\n\nTHE MAN. Her second childhood! She is in her fifth childhood.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_again resorting to the bollard_] Oh! I cannot\nbear these unnatural arrangements.\n\nTHE MAN [_impatient and helpless_] You shouldn't have come among us.\nThis is no place for you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_nerved by indignation_] May I ask why? I am a\nVice-President of the Travellers' Club. I have been everywhere: I hold\nthe record in the Club for civilized countries.\n\nTHE MAN. What is a civilized country?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is--well, it is a civilized country.\n[_Desperately_] I don't know: I--I--I--I shall go mad if you keep on\nasking me to tell you things that everybody knows. Countries where you\ncan travel comfortably. Where there are good hotels. Excuse me; but,\nthough you say you are ninety-four, you are worse company than a child\nof five with your eternal questions. Why not call me Daddy at once?\n\nTHE MAN. I did not know your name was Daddy.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My name is Joseph Popham Bolge Bluebin Barlow,\nO.M.\n\nTHE MAN. That is five men's names. Daddy is shorter. And O.M. will not\ndo here. It is our name for certain wild creatures, descendants of\nthe aboriginal inhabitants of this coast. They used to be called the\nO'Mulligans. We will stick to Daddy.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. People will think I am your father.\n\nTHE MAN [_shocked_] Sh-sh! People here never allude to such\nrelationships. It is not quite delicate, is it? What does it matter\nwhether you are my father or not?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My worthy nonagenarian friend: your faculties are\ntotally decayed. Could you not find me a guide of my own age?\n\nTHE MAN. A young person?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not. I cannot go about with a young\nperson.\n\nTHE MAN. Why?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Why! Why!! Why!!! Have you no moral sense?\n\nTHE MAN. I shall have to give you up. I cannot understand you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But you meant a young woman, didn't you?\n\nTHE MAN. I meant simply somebody of your own age. What difference does\nit make whether the person is a man or a woman?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I could not have believed in the existence of\nsuch scandalous insensibility to the elementary decencies of human\nintercourse.\n\nTHE MAN. What are decencies?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_shrieking_] Everyone asks me that.\n\nTHE MAN [_taking out a tuning-fork and using it as the woman did_] Zozim\non Burrin Pier to Zoo Ennistymon I have found the discouraged shortliver\nhe has been talking to a secondary and is much worse I am too old he is\nasking for someone of his own age or younger come if you can. [_He puts\nup his fork and turns to the Elderly Gentleman_]. Zoo is a girl of\nfifty, and rather childish at that. So perhaps she may make you happy.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Make me happy! A bluestocking of fifty! Thank\nyou.\n\nTHE MAN. Bluestocking? The effort to make out your meaning is fatiguing.\nBesides, you are talking too much to me: I am old enough to discourage\nyou. Let us be silent until Zoo comes. [_He turns his back on the\nElderly Gentleman, and sits down on the edge of the pier, with his legs\ndangling over the water_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly. I have no wish to force my\nconversation on any man who does not desire it. Perhaps you would like\nto take a nap. If so, pray do not stand on ceremony.\n\nTHE MAN. What is a nap?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_exasperated, going to him and speaking with\ngreat precision and distinctness_] A nap, my friend, is a brief period\nof sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to\nentertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures. Sleep.\nSleep. [_Bawling into his ear_] Sleep.\n\nTHE MAN. I tell you I am nearly a secondary. I never sleep.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_awestruck_] Good Heavens!\n\n_A young woman with the number one on her cap arrives by land. She looks\nno older than Savvy Barnabas, whom she somewhat resembles, looked a\nthousand years before. Younger, if anything._\n\nTHE YOUNG WOMAN. Is this the patient?\n\nTHE MAN [_scrambling up_] This is Zoo. [_To Zoo_] Call him Daddy.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_vehemently_] No.\n\nTHE MAN [_ignoring the interruption_] Bless you for taking him off my\nhands! I have had as much of him as I can bear. [_He goes down the steps\nand disappears_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_ironically taking off his hat and making a\nsweeping bow from the edge of the pier in the direction of the\nAtlantic Ocean_] Good afternoon, sir; and thank you very much for your\nextraordinary politeness, your exquisite consideration for my feelings,\nyour courtly manners. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. [_Clapping\nhis hat on again_] Pig! Ass!\n\nZOO [_laughs very heartily at him_]!!!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_turning sharply on her_] Good afternoon, madam.\nI am sorry to have had to put your friend in his place; but I find that\nhere as elsewhere it is necessary to assert myself if I am to be treated\nwith proper consideration. I had hoped that my position as a guest would\nprotect me from insult.\n\nZOO. Putting my friend in his place. That is some poetic expression, is\nit not? What does it mean?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Pray, is there no one in these islands who\nunderstands plain English?\n\nZOO. Well, nobody except the oracles. They have to make a special\nhistorical study of what we call the dead thought.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Dead thought! I have heard of the dead languages,\nbut never of the dead thought.\n\nZOO. Well, thoughts die sooner than languages. I understand your\nlanguage; but I do not always understand your thought. The oracles will\nunderstand you perfectly. Have you had your consultation yet?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I did not come to consult the oracle, madam. I am\nhere simply as a gentleman travelling for pleasure in the company of my\ndaughter, who is the wife of the British Prime Minister, and of General\nAufsteig, who, I may tell you in confidence, is really the Emperor of\nTurania, the greatest military genius of the age.\n\nZOO. Why should you travel for pleasure! Can you not enjoy yourself at\nhome?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I wish to see the World.\n\nZOO. It is too big. You can see a bit of it anywhere.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_out of patience_] Damn it, madam, you don't want\nto spend your life looking at the same bit of it! [_Checking himself_] I\nbeg your pardon for swearing in your presence.\n\nZOO. Oh! That is swearing, is it? I have read about that. It sounds\nquite pretty. Dammitmaddam, dammitmaddam, dammitmaddam, dammitmaddam.\nSay it as often as you please: I like it.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_expanding with intense relief_] Bless you for\nthose profane but familiar words! Thank you, thank you. For the first\ntime since I landed in this terrible country I begin to feel at home.\nThe strain which was driving me mad relaxes: I feel almost as if I were\nat the club. Excuse my taking the only available seat: I am not so young\nas I was. [_He sits on the bollard_]. Promise me that you will not hand\nme over to one of these dreadful tertiaries or secondaries or whatever\nyou call them.\n\nZOO. Never fear. They had no business to give you in charge to Zozim.\nYou see he is just on the verge of becoming a secondary; and these\nadolescents will give themselves the airs of tertiaries. You naturally\nfeel more at home with a flapper like me. [_She makes herself\ncomfortable on the sacks_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Flapper? What does that mean?\n\nZOO. It is an archaic word which we still use to describe a female who\nis no longer a girl and is not yet quite adult.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. A very agreeable age to associate with, I find. I\nam recovering rapidly. I have a sense of blossoming like a flower. May I\nask your name?\n\nZOO. Zoo.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Miss Zoo.\n\nZOO. Not Miss Zoo. Zoo.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Precisely. Er--Zoo what?\n\nZOO. No. Not Zoo What. Zoo. Nothing but Zoo.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_puzzled_] Mrs Zoo, perhaps.\n\nZOO. No. Zoo. Cant you catch it? Zoo.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Of course. Believe me, I did not really think you\nwere married: you are obviously too young; but here it is so hard to\nfeel sure--er--\n\nZOO [_hopelessly puzzled_] What?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Marriage makes a difference, you know. One can\nsay things to a married lady that would perhaps be in questionable taste\nto anyone without that experience.\n\nZOO. You are getting out of my depth: I dont understand a word you are\nsaying. Married and questionable taste convey nothing to me. Stop,\nthough. Is married an old form of the word mothered?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Very likely. Let us drop the subject. Pardon me\nfor embarrassing you. I should not have mentioned it.\n\nZOO. What does embarrassing mean?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Well, really! I should have thought that so\nnatural and common a condition would be understood as long as human\nnature lasted. To embarrass is to bring a blush to the cheek.\n\nZOO. What is a blush?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_amazed_] Dont you blush???\n\nZOO. Never heard of it. We have a word flush, meaning a rush of blood to\nthe skin. I have noticed it in my babies, but not after the age of two.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Your babies!!! I fear I am treading on very\ndelicate ground; but your appearance is extremely youthful; and if I may\nask how many--?\n\nZOO. Only four as yet. It is a long business with us. I specialize in\nbabies. My first was such a success that they made me go on. I--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_reeling on the bollard_] Oh! dear!\n\nZOO. Whats the matter? Anything wrong?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. In Heaven's name, madam, how old are you?\n\nZOO. Fifty-six.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My knees are trembling. I fear I am really ill.\nNot so young as I was.\n\nZOO. I noticed that you are not strong on your legs yet. You have many\nof the ways and weaknesses of a baby. No doubt that is why I feel called\non to mother you. You certainly are a very silly little Daddy.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_stimulated by indignation_] My name, I repeat,\nis Joseph Popham Bolge Bluebin Barlow, O.M.\n\nZOO. What a ridiculously long name! I cant call you all that. What did\nyour mother call you?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. You recall the bitterest struggles of my\nchildhood. I was sensitive on the point. Children suffer greatly from\nabsurd nicknames. My mother thoughtlessly called me Iddy Toodles. I\nwas called Iddy until I went to school, when I made my first stand for\nchildren's rights by insisting on being called at least Joe. At fifteen\nI refused to answer to anything shorter than Joseph. At eighteen I\ndiscovered that the name Joseph was supposed to indicate an unmanly\nprudery because of some old story about a Joseph who rejected the\nadvances of his employer's wife: very properly in my opinion. I then\nbecame Popham to my family and intimate friends, and Mister Barlow\nto the rest of the world. My mother slipped back into Iddy when her\nfaculties began to fail her, poor woman; but I could not resent that, at\nher age.\n\nZOO. Do you mean to say that your mother bothered about you after you\nwere ten?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Naturally, madam. She was my mother. What would\nyou have had her do?\n\nZOO. Go on to the next, of course. After eight or nine children become\nquite uninteresting, except to themselves. I shouldnt know my two eldest\nif I met them.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_again drooping_] I am dying. Let me die. I wish\nto die.\n\nZOO [_going to him quickly and supporting him_] Hold up. Sit up\nstraight. Whats the matter?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_faintly_] My spine, I think. Shock. Concussion.\n\nZOO [_maternally_] Pow wow wow! What is there to shock you? [_Shaking\nhim playfully_] There! Sit up; and be good.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_still feebly_] Thank you. I am better now.\n\nZOO [_resuming her seat on the sacks_] But what was all the rest of that\nlong name for? There was a lot more of it. Blops Booby or something.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_impressively_] Bolge Bluebin, madam: a\nhistorical name. Let me inform you that I can trace my family back for\nmore than a thousand years, from the Eastern Empire to its ancient seat\nin these islands, to a time when two of my ancestors, Joyce Bolge\nand Hengist Horsa Bluebin, wrestled with one another for the prime\nministership of the British Empire, and occupied that position\nsuccessively with a glory of which we can in these degenerate days form\nbut a faint conception. When I think of these mighty men, lions in war,\nsages in peace, not babblers and charlatans like the pigmies who now\noccupy their places in Baghdad, but strong silent men, ruling an empire\non which the sun never set, my eyes fill with tears: my heart bursts\nwith emotion: I feel that to have lived but to the dawn of manhood in\ntheir day, and then died for them, would have been a nobler and happier\nlot than the ignominious ease of my present longevity.\n\nZOO. Longevity! [_she laughs_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes, madam, relative longevity. As it is, I have\nto be content and proud to know that I am descended from both those\nheroes.\n\nZOO. You must be descended from every Briton who was alive in their\ntime. Dont you know that?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Do not quibble, madam. I bear their names, Bolge\nand Bluebin; and I hope I have inherited something of their majestic\nspirit. Well, they were born in these islands. I repeat, these islands\nwere then, incredible as it now seems, the centre of the British Empire.\nWhen that centre shifted to Baghdad, and the Englishman at last returned\nto the true cradle of his race in Mesopotamia, the western islands were\ncast off, as they had been before by the Roman Empire. But it was to the\nBritish race, and in these islands, that the greatest miracle in history\noccurred.\n\nZOO. Miracle?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes: the first man to live three hundred years\nwas an Englishman. The first, that is, since the contemporaries of\nMethuselah.\n\nZOO. Oh, that!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes, that, as you call it so flippantly. Are you\naware, madam, that at that immortal moment the English race had lost\nintellectual credit to such an extent that they habitually spoke of\none another as fatheads? Yet England is now a sacred grove to which\nstatesmen from all over the earth come to consult English sages who\nspeak with the experience of two and a half centuries of life. The land\nthat once exported cotton shirts and hardware now exports nothing but\nwisdom. You see before you, madam, a man utterly weary of the week-end\nriverside hotels of the Euphrates, the minstrels and pierrots on the\nsands of the Persian Gulf, the toboggans and funiculars of the Hindoo\nKoosh. Can you wonder that I turn, with a hungry heart, to the mystery\nand beauty of these haunted islands, thronged with spectres from a magic\npast, made holy by the footsteps of the wise men of the West. Consider\nthis island on which we stand, the last foothold of man on this side\nof the Atlantic: this Ireland, described by the earliest bards as an\nemerald gem set in a silver sea! Can I, a scion of the illustrious\nBritish race, ever forget that when the Empire transferred its seat to\nthe East, and said to the turbulent Irish race which it had oppressed\nbut never conquered, 'At last we leave you to yourselves; and much good\nmay it do you,' the Irish as one man uttered the historic shout 'No:\nwe'll be damned if you do,' and emigrated to the countries where there\nwas still a Nationalist question, to India, Persia, and Corea, to\nMorocco, Tunis, and Tripoli. In these countries they were ever\nforemost in the struggle for national independence; and the world rang\ncontinually with the story of their sufferings and wrongs. And what poem\ncan do justice to the end, when it came at last? Hardly two hundred\nyears had elapsed when the claims of nationality were so universally\nconceded that there was no longer a single country on the face of the\nearth with a national grievance or a national movement. Think of the\nposition of the Irish, who had lost all their political faculties by\ndisuse except that of nationalist agitation, and who owed their position\nas the most interesting race on earth solely to their sufferings! The\nvery countries they had helped to set free boycotted them as intolerable\nbores. The communities which had once idolized them as the incarnation\nof all that is adorable in the warm heart and witty brain, fled from\nthem as from a pestilence. To regain their lost prestige, the Irish\nclaimed the city of Jerusalem, on the ground that they were the lost\ntribes of Israel; but on their approach the Jews abandoned the city\nand redistributed themselves throughout Europe. It was then that these\ndevoted Irishmen, not one of whom had ever seen Ireland, were counselled\nby an English Archbishop, the father of the oracles, to go back to their\nown country. This had never once occurred to them, because there was\nnothing to prevent them and nobody to forbid them. They jumped at the\nsuggestion. They landed here: here in Galway Bay, on this very ground.\nWhen they reached the shore the older men and women flung themselves\ndown and passionately kissed the soil of Ireland, calling on the young\nto embrace the earth that had borne their ancestors. But the young\nlooked gloomily on, and said 'There is no earth, only stone.' You will\nsee by looking round you why they said that: the fields here are of\nstone: the hills are capped with granite. They all left for England next\nday; and no Irishman ever again confessed to being Irish, even to his\nown children; so that when that generation passed away the Irish race\nvanished from human knowledge. And the dispersed Jews did the same lest\nthey should be sent back to Palestine. Since then the world, bereft of\nits Jews and its Irish, has been a tame dull place. Is there no pathos\nfor you in this story? Can you not understand now why I am come to visit\nthe scene of this tragic effacement of a race of heroes and poets?\n\nZOO. We still tell our little children stories like that, to help them\nto understand. But such things do not happen really. That scene of the\nIrish landing here and kissing the ground might have happened to a\nhundred people. It couldn't have happened to a hundred thousand: you\nknow that as well as I do. And what a ridiculous thing to call people\nIrish because they live in Ireland! you might as well call them Airish\nbecause they live in air. They must be just the same as other people.\nWhy do you shortlivers persist in making up silly stories about the\nworld and trying to act as if they were true? Contact with truth hurts\nand frightens you: you escape from it into an imaginary vacuum in which\nyou can indulge your desires and hopes and loves and hates without any\nobstruction from the solid facts of life. You love to throw dust in your\nown eyes.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is my turn now, madam, to inform you that I do\nnot understand a single word you are saying. I should have thought that\nthe use of a vacuum for removing dust was a mark of civilization rather\nthan of savagery.\n\nZOO [_giving him up as hopeless_] Oh, Daddy, Daddy: I can hardly believe\nthat you are human, you are so stupid. It was well said of your people\nin the olden days, 'Dust thou art; and to dust thou shalt return.'\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_nobly_] My body is dust, madam: not my soul.\nWhat does it matter what my body is made of? the dust of the ground,\nthe particles of the air, or even the slime of the ditch? The important\nthing is that when my Creator took it, whatever it was, He breathed into\nits nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul. Yes,\nmadam, a living soul. I am not the dust of the ground: I am a living\nsoul. That is an exalting, a magnificent thought. It is also a great\nscientific fact. I am not interested in the chemicals and the microbes:\nI leave them to the chumps and noodles, to the blockheads and the\nmuckrakers who are incapable of their own glorious destiny, and\nunconscious of their own divinity. They tell me there are leucocytes\nin my blood, and sodium and carbon in my flesh. I thank them for the\ninformation, and tell them that there are blackbeetles in my kitchen,\nwashing soda in my laundry, and coal in my cellar. I do not deny their\nexistence; but I keep them in their proper place, which is not, if I may\nbe allowed to use an antiquated form of expression, the temple of the\nHoly Ghost. No doubt you think me behind the times; but I rejoice in my\nenlightenment; and I recoil from your ignorance, your blindness, your\nimbecility. Humanly I pity you. Intellectually I despise you.\n\nZOO. Bravo, Daddy! You have the root of the matter in you. You will not\ndie of discouragement after all.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I have not the smallest intention of doing so,\nmadam. I am no longer young; and I have moments of weakness; but when\nI approach this subject the divine spark in me kindles and glows, the\ncorruptible becomes incorruptible, and the mortal Bolge Bluebin Barlow\nputs on immortality. On this ground I am your equal, even if you survive\nme by ten thousand years.\n\nZOO. Yes; but what do we know about this breath of life that puffs you\nup so exaltedly? Just nothing. So let us shake hands as cultivated\nAgnostics, and change the subject.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Cultivated fiddlesticks, madam! You cannot change\nthis subject until the heavens and the earth pass away. I am not an\nAgnostic: I am a gentleman. When I believe a thing I say I believe it:\nwhen I don't believe it I say I don't believe it. I do not shirk my\nresponsibilities by pretending that I know nothing and therefore can\nbelieve nothing. We cannot disclaim knowledge and shirk responsibility.\nWe must proceed on assumptions of some sort or we cannot form a human\nsociety.\n\nZOO. The assumptions must be scientific, Daddy. We must live by science\nin the long run.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I have the utmost respect, madam, for the\nmagnificent discoveries which we owe to science. But any fool can make\na discovery. Every baby has to discover more in the first years of its\nlife than Roger Bacon ever discovered in his laboratory. When I was\nseven years old I discovered the sting of the wasp. But I do not ask\nyou to worship me on that account. I assure you, madam, the merest\nmediocrities can discover the most surprising facts about the physical\nuniverse as soon as they are civilized enough to have time to study\nthese things, and to invent instruments and apparatus for research. But\nwhat is the consequence? Their discoveries discredit the simple stories\nof our religion. At first we had no idea of astronomical space. We\nbelieved the sky to be only the ceiling of a room as large as the earth,\nwith another room on top of it. Death was to us a going upstairs into\nthat room, or, if we did not obey the priests, going downstairs into\nthe coal cellar. We founded our religion, our morality, our laws, our\nlessons, our poems, our prayers, on that simple belief. Well, the moment\nmen became astronomers and made telescopes, their belief perished. When\nthey could no longer believe in the sky, they found that they could no\nlonger believe in their Deity, because they had always thought of him\nas living in the sky. When the priests themselves ceased to believe in\ntheir Deity and began to believe in astronomy, they changed their name\nand their dress, and called themselves doctors and men of science. They\nset up a new religion in which there was no Deity, but only wonders\nand miracles, with scientific instruments and apparatus as the wonder\nworkers. Instead of worshipping the greatness and wisdom of the Deity,\nmen gaped foolishly at the million billion miles of space and worshipped\nthe astronomer as infallible and omniscient. They built temples for his\ntelescopes. Then they looked into their own bodies with microscopes, and\nfound there, not the soul they had formerly believed in, but millions of\nmicro-organisms; so they gaped at these as foolishly as at the millions\nof miles, and built microscope temples in which horrible sacrifices\nwere offered. They even gave their own bodies to be sacrificed by the\nmicroscope man, who was worshipped, like the astronomer, as infallible\nand omniscient. Thus our discoveries instead of increasing our wisdom,\nonly destroyed the little childish wisdom we had. All I can grant you is\nthat they increased our knowledge.\n\nZOO. Nonsense! Consciousness of a fact is not knowledge of it: if it\nwere, the fish would know more of the sea than the geographers and the\nnaturalists.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That is an extremely acute remark, madam. The\ndullest fish could not possibly know less of the majesty of the ocean\nthan many geographers and naturalists of my acquaintance.\n\nZOO. Just so. And the greatest fool on earth, by merely looking at a\nmariners' compass, may become conscious of the fact that the needle\nturns always to the pole. Is he any the less a fool with that\nconsciousness than he was without it?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Only a more conceited one, madam, no doubt.\nStill, I do not quite see how you can be aware of the existence of a\nthing without knowing it.\n\nZOO. Well, you can see a man without knowing him, can you not?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_illuminated_] Oh how true! Of course, of course.\nThere is a member of the Travellers' Club who has questioned the\nveracity of an experience of mine at the South Pole. I see that man\nalmost every day when I am at home. But I refuse to know him.\n\nZOO. If you could see him much more distinctly through a magnifying\nglass, or examine a drop of his blood through a microscope, or dissect\nout all his organs and analyze them chemically, would you know him then?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not. Any such investigation could\nonly increase the disgust with which he inspires me, and make me more\ndetermined than ever not to know him on any terms.\n\nZOO. Yet you would be much more conscious of him, would you not?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I should not allow that to commit me to any\nfamiliarity with the fellow. I have been twice at the Summer Sports at\nthe South Pole; and this man pretended he had been to the North Pole,\nwhich can hardly be said to exist, as it is in the middle of the sea. He\ndeclared he had hung his hat on it.\n\nZOO [_laughing_] He knew that travellers are amusing only when they are\ntelling lies. Perhaps if you looked at that man through a microscope you\nwould find some good in him.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I do not want to find any good in him. Besides,\nmadam, what you have just said encourages me to utter an opinion of\nmine which is so advanced! so intellectually daring! that I have never\nventured to confess to it before, lest I should be imprisoned for\nblasphemy, or even burnt alive.\n\nZOO. Indeed! What opinion is that?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_after looking cautiously round_] I do not\napprove of microscopes. I never have.\n\nZOO. You call that advanced! Oh, Daddy, that is pure obscurantism.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Call it so if you will, madam; but I maintain\nthat it is dangerous to shew too much to people who do not know what\nthey are looking at. I think that a man who is sane as long as he looks\nat the world through his own eyes is very likely to become a dangerous\nmadman if he takes to looking at the world through telescopes and\nmicroscopes. Even when he is telling fairy stories about giants and\ndwarfs, the giants had better not be too big nor the dwarfs too small\nand too malicious. Before the microscope came, our fairy stories only\nmade the children's flesh creep pleasantly, and did not frighten\ngrown-up persons at all. But the microscope men terrified themselves and\neveryone else out of their wits with the invisible monsters they saw:\npoor harmless little things that die at the touch of a ray of sunshine,\nand are themselves the victims of all the diseases they are supposed to\nproduce! Whatever the scientific people may say, imagination without\nmicroscopes was kindly and often courageous, because it worked on things\nof which it had some real knowledge. But imagination with microscopes,\nworking on a terrifying spectacle of millions of grotesque creatures\nof whose nature it had no knowledge, became a cruel, terror-stricken,\npersecuting delirium. Are you aware, madam, that a general massacre\nof men of science took place in the twenty-first century of the\npseudo-Christian era, when all their laboratories were demolished, and\nall their apparatus destroyed?\n\nZOO. Yes: the shortlived are as savage in their advances as in their\nrelapses. But when Science crept back, it had been taught its place. The\nmere collectors of anatomical or chemical facts were not supposed to\nknow more about Science than the collector of used postage stamps about\ninternational trade or literature. The scientific terrorist who was\nafraid to use a spoon or a tumbler until he had dipt it in some\npoisonous acid to kill the microbes, was no longer given titles,\npensions, and monstrous powers over the bodies of other people: he was\nsent to an asylum, and treated there until his recovery. But all that is\nan old story: the extension of life to three hundred years has provided\nthe human race with capable leaders, and made short work of such\nchildish stuff.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_pettishly_] You seem to credit every advance in\ncivilization to your inordinately long lives. Do you not know that this\nquestion was familiar to men who died before they had reached my own\nage?\n\nZOO. Oh yes: one or two of them hinted at it in a feeble way. An\nancient writer whose name has come down to us in several forms, such\nas Shakespear, Shelley, Sheridan, and Shoddy, has a remarkable passage\nabout your dispositions being horridly shaken by thoughts beyond the\nreaches of your souls. That does not come to much, does it?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. At all events, madam, I may remind you, if you\ncome to capping ages, that whatever your secondaries and tertiaries may\nbe, you are younger than I am.\n\nZOO. Yes, Daddy; but it is not the number of years we have behind us,\nbut the number we have before us, that makes us careful and responsible\nand determined to find out the truth about everything. What does it\nmatter to you whether anything is true or not? your flesh is as grass:\nyou come up like a flower, and wither in your second childhood. A lie\nwill last your time: it will not last mine. If I knew I had to die in\ntwenty years it would not be worth my while to educate myself: I should\nnot bother about anything but having a little pleasure while I lasted.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Young woman: you are mistaken. Shortlived as we\nare, we--the best of us, I mean--regard civilization and learning, art\nand science, as an ever-burning torch, which passes from the hand of one\ngeneration to the hand of the next, each generation kindling it to a\nbrighter, prouder flame. Thus each lifetime, however short, contributes\na brick to a vast and growing edifice, a page to a sacred volume, a\nchapter to a Bible, a Bible to a literature. We may be insects; but like\nthe coral insect we build islands which become continents: like the bee\nwe store sustenance for future communities. The individual perishes;\nbut the race is immortal. The acorn of today is the oak of the next\nmillennium. I throw my stone on the cairn and die; but later comers add\nanother stone and yet another; and lo! a mountain. I--\n\nZOO [_interrupts him by laughing heartily at him_]!!!!!!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_with offended dignity_] May I ask what I have\nsaid that calls for this merriment?\n\nZOO. Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, you are a funny little man, with your\ntorches, and your flames, and your bricks and edifices and pages and\nvolumes and chapters and coral insects and bees and acorns and stones\nand mountains.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Metaphors, madam. Metaphors merely.\n\nZOO. Images, images, images. I was talking about men, not about images.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I was illustrating--not, I hope, quite\ninfelicitously--the great march of Progress. I was shewing you how,\nshortlived as we orientals are, mankind gains in stature from generation\nto generation, from epoch to epoch, from barbarism to civilization, from\ncivilization to perfection.\n\nZOO. I see. The father grows to be six feet high, and hands on his six\nfeet to his son, who adds another six feet and becomes twelve feet high,\nand hands his twelve feet on to his son, who is full-grown at eighteen\nfeet, and so on. In a thousand years you would all be three or four\nmiles high. At that rate your ancestors Bilge and Bluebeard, whom you\ncall giants, must have been about quarter of an inch high.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am not here to bandy quibbles and paradoxes\nwith a girl who blunders over the greatest names in history. I am in\nearnest. I am treating a solemn theme seriously. I never said that the\nson of a man six feet high would be twelve feet high.\n\nZOO. You didn't mean that?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Most certainly not.\n\nZOO. Then you didn't mean anything. Now listen to me, you little\nephemeral thing. I knew quite well what you meant by your torch handed\non from generation to generation. But every time that torch is handed\non, it dies down to the tiniest spark; and the man who gets it can\nrekindle it only by his own light. You are no taller than Bilge or\nBluebeard; and you are no wiser. Their wisdom, such as it was, perished\nwith them: so did their strength, if their strength ever existed outside\nyour imagination. I do not know how old you are: you look about five\nhundred--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Five hundred! Really, madam--\n\nZOO [_continuing_]; but I know, of course, that you are an ordinary\nshortliver. Well, your wisdom is only such wisdom as a man can have\nbefore he has had experience enough to distinguish his wisdom from his\nfolly, his destiny from his delusions, his--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. In short, such wisdom as your own.\n\nZOO. No, no, no, no. How often must I tell you that we are made wise not\nby the recollections of our past, but by the responsibilities of our\nfuture. I shall be more reckless when I am a tertiary than I am today.\nIf you cannot understand that, at least you must admit that I have\nlearnt from tertiaries. I have seen their work and lived under their\ninstitutions. Like all young things I rebelled against them; and in\ntheir hunger for new lights and new ideas they listened to me and\nencouraged me to rebel. But my ways did not work; and theirs did; and\nthey were able to tell me why. They have no power over me except that\npower: they refuse all other power; and the consequence is that there\nare no limits to their power except the limits they set themselves. You\nare a child governed by children, who make so many mistakes and are so\nnaughty that you are in continual rebellion against them; and as they\ncan never convince you that they are right: they can govern you only by\nbeating you, imprisoning you, torturing you, killing you if you disobey\nthem without being strong enough to kill or torture them.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That may be an unfortunate fact. I condemn it and\ndeplore it. But our minds are greater than the facts. We know better.\nThe greatest ancient teachers, followed by the galaxy of Christs who\narose in the twentieth century, not to mention such comparatively modern\nspiritual leaders as Blitherinjam, Tosh, and Spiffkins, all taught that\npunishment and revenge, coercion and militarism, are mistakes, and that\nthe golden rule--\n\nZOO. [_interrupting_] Yes, yes, yes, Daddy: we longlived people know\nthat quite well. But did any of their disciples ever succeed in\ngoverning you for a single day on their Christ-like principles? It\nis not enough to know what is good: you must be able to do it. They\ncouldn't do it because they did not live long enough to find out how\nto do it, or to outlive the childish passions that prevented them from\nreally wanting to do it. You know very well that they could only keep\norder--such as it was--by the very coercion and militarism they were\ndenouncing and deploring. They had actually to kill one another for\npreaching their own gospel, or be killed themselves.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. The blood of the martyrs, madam, is the seed of\nthe Church.\n\nZOO. More images, Daddy! The blood of the shortlived falls on stony\nground.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising, very testy_] You are simply mad on the\nsubject of longevity. I wish you would change it. It is rather personal\nand in bad taste. Human nature is human nature, longlived or shortlived,\nand always will be.\n\nZOO. Then you give up the idea of progress? You cry off the torch, and\nthe brick, and the acorn, and all the rest of it?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I do nothing of the sort. I stand for progress\nand for freedom broadening down from precedent to precedent.\n\nZOO. You are certainly a true Briton.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am proud of it. But in your mouth I feel that\nthe compliment hides some insult; so I do not thank you for it.\n\nZOO. All I meant was that though Britons sometimes say quite clever\nthings and deep things as well as silly and shallow things, they always\nforget them ten minutes after they have uttered them.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Leave it at that, madam: leave it at that.\n[_He sits down again_]. Even a Pope is not expected to be continually\npontificating. Our flashes of inspiration shew that our hearts are in\nthe right place.\n\nZOO. Of course. You cannot keep your heart in any place but the right\nplace.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Tcha!\n\nZOO. But you can keep your hands in the wrong place. In your neighbor's\npockets, for example. So, you see, it is your hands that really matter.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_exhausted_] Well, a woman must have the last\nword. I will not dispute it with you.\n\nZOO. Good. Now let us go back to the really interesting subject of our\ndiscussion. You remember? The slavery of the shortlived to images and\nmetaphors.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_aghast_] Do you mean to say, madam, that after\nhaving talked my head off, and reduced me to despair and silence by your\nintolerable loquacity, you actually propose to begin all over again? I\nshall leave you at once.\n\nZOO. You must not. I am your nurse; and you must stay with me.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I absolutely decline to do anything of the sort\n[_he rises and walks away with marked dignity_].\n\nZOO [_using her tuning-fork_] Zoo on Burrin Pier to Oracle Police at\nEnnistymon have you got me?... What?... I am picking you up now but you\nare flat to my pitch.... Just a shade sharper.... That's better: still a\nlittle more.... Got you: right. Isolate Burrin Pier quick.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_is heard to yell_] Oh!\n\nZOO [_still intoning_] Thanks.... Oh nothing serious I am nursing a\nshortliver and the silly creature has run away he has discouraged\nhimself very badly by gadding about and talking to secondaries and I\nmust keep him strictly to heel.\n\n_The Elderly Gentleman returns, indignant._\n\nZOO. Here he is you can release the Pier thanks. Goodbye. [_She puts up\nher tuning-fork_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. This is outrageous. When I tried to step off the\npier on to the road, I received a shock, followed by an attack of pins\nand needles which ceased only when I stepped back on to the stones.\n\nZOO. Yes: there is an electric hedge there. It is a very old and very\ncrude method of keeping animals from straying.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. We are perfectly familiar with it in Baghdad,\nmadam; but I little thought I should live to have it ignominiously\napplied to myself. You have actually Kiplingized me.\n\nZOO. Kiplingized! What is that?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. About a thousand years ago there were two authors\nnamed Kipling. One was an eastern and a writer of merit: the other,\nbeing a western, was of course only an amusing barbarian. He is said to\nhave invented the electric hedge. I consider that in using it on me you\nhave taken a very great liberty.\n\nZOO. What is a liberty?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_exasperated_] I shall not explain, madam. I\nbelieve you know as well as I do. [_He sits down on the bollard in\ndudgeon_].\n\nZOO. No: even you can tell me things I do not know. Havnt you noticed\nthat all the time you have been here we have been asking you questions?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Noticed it! It has almost driven me mad. Do you\nsee my white hair? It was hardly grey when I landed: there were patches\nof its original auburn still distinctly discernible.\n\nZOO. That is one of the symptoms of discouragement. But have you noticed\nsomething much more important to yourself: that is, that you have never\nasked us any questions, although we know so much more than you do?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am not a child, madam. I believe I have had\noccasion to say that before. And I am an experienced traveller. I know\nthat what the traveller observes must really exist, or he could not\nobserve it. But what the natives tell him is invariably pure fiction.\n\nZOO. Not here, Daddy. With us life is too long for telling lies. They\nall get found out. Youd better ask me questions while you have the\nchance.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. If I have occasion to consult the oracle I shall\naddress myself to a proper one: to a tertiary: not to a primary flapper\nplaying at being an oracle. If you are a nurserymaid, attend to your\nduties; and do not presume to ape your elders.\n\nZOO. [_rising ominously and reddening_] You silly--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_thundering_] Silence! Do you hear! Hold your\ntongue.\n\nZOO. Something very disagreeable is happening to me. I feel hot all\nover. I have a horrible impulse to injure you. What have you done to me?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_triumphant_] Aha! I have made you blush. Now you\nknow what blushing means. Blushing with shame!\n\nZOO. Whatever you are doing, it is something so utterly evil that if you\ndo not stop I will kill you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_apprehending his danger_] Doubtless you think it\nsafe to threaten an old man--\n\nZOO [_fiercely_] Old! You are a child: an evil child. We kill evil\nchildren here. We do it even against our own wills by instinct. Take\ncare.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising with crestfallen courtesy_] I did not\nmean to hurt your feelings. I--[_swallowing the apology with an effort_]\nI beg your pardon. [_He takes off his hat, and bows_].\n\nZOO. What does that mean?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I withdraw what I said.\n\nZOO. How can you withdraw what you said?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I can say no more than that I am sorry.\n\nZOO. You have reason to be. That hideous sensation you gave me is\nsubsiding; but you have had a very narrow escape. Do not attempt to kill\nme again; for at the first sign in your voice or face I shall strike you\ndead.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. _I_ attempt to kill you! What a monstrous\naccusation!\n\nZOO [_frowns_]!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_prudently correcting himself_] I mean\nmisunderstanding. I never dreamt of such a thing. Surely you cannot\nbelieve that I am a murderer.\n\nZOO. I know you are a murderer. It is not merely that you threw words at\nme as if they were stones, meaning to hurt me. It was the instinct to\nkill that you roused in me. I did not know it was in my nature: never\nbefore has it wakened and sprung out at me, warning me to kill or be\nkilled. I must now reconsider my whole political position. I am no\nlonger a Conservative.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_dropping his hat_] Gracious Heavens! you have\nlost your senses. I am at the mercy of a madwoman: I might have known it\nfrom the beginning. I can bear no more of this. [_Offering his chest for\nthe sacrifice_] Kill me at once; and much good may my death do you!\n\nZOO. It would be useless unless all the other shortlivers were killed\nat the same time. Besides, it is a measure which should be taken\npolitically and constitutionally, not privately. However, I am prepared\nto discuss it with you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No, no, no. I had much rather discuss your\nintention of withdrawing from the Conservative party. How the\nConservatives have tolerated your opinions so far is more than I can\nimagine: I can only conjecture that you have contributed very liberally\nto the party funds. [_He picks up his hat, and sits down again_].\n\nZOO. Do not babble so senselessly: our chief political controversy is\nthe most momentous in the world for you and your like.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_interested_] Indeed? Pray, may I ask what it is?\nI am a keen politician, and may perhaps be of some use. [_He puts on his\nhat, cocking it slightly_].\n\nZOO. We have two great parties: the Conservative party and the\nColonization party. The Colonizers are of opinion that we should\nincrease our numbers and colonize. The Conservatives hold that we should\nstay as we are, confined to these islands, a race apart, wrapped up in\nthe majesty of our wisdom on a soil held as holy ground for us by an\nadoring world, with our sacred frontier traced beyond dispute by the\nsea. They contend that it is our destiny to rule the world, and that\neven when we were shortlived we did so. They say that our power and our\npeace depend on our remoteness, our exclusiveness, our separation, and\nthe restriction of our numbers. Five minutes ago that was my political\nfaith. Now I do not think there should be any shortlived people at all.\n[_She throws herself again carelessly on the sacks_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Am I to infer that you deny my right to live\nbecause I allowed myself--perhaps injudiciously--to give you a slight\nscolding?\n\nZOO. Is it worth living for so short a time? Are you any good to\nyourself?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_stupent_] Well, upon my soul!\n\nZOO. It is such a very little soul. You only encourage the sin of pride\nin us, and keep us looking down at you instead of up to something higher\nthan ourselves.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Is not that a selfish view, madam? Think of the\ngood you do us by your oracular counsels!\n\nZOO. What good have our counsels ever done you? You come to us for\nadvice when you know you are in difficulties. But you never know you are\nin difficulties until twenty years after you have made the mistakes that\nled to them; and then it is too late. You cannot understand our advice:\nyou often do more mischief by trying to act on it than if you had been\nleft to your own childish devices. If you were not childish you would\nnot come to us at all: you would learn from experience that your\nconsultations of the oracle are never of any real help to you. You draw\nwonderful imaginary pictures of us, and write fictitious tales and poems\nabout our beneficent operations in the past, our wisdom, our justice,\nour mercy: stories in which we often appear as sentimental dupes of your\nprayers and sacrifices; but you do it only to conceal from yourselves\nthe truth that you are incapable of being helped by us. Your Prime\nMinister pretends that he has come to be guided by the oracle; but we\nare not deceived: we know quite well that he has come here so that\nwhen he goes back he may have the authority and dignity of one who has\nvisited the holy islands and spoken face to face with the ineffable\nones. He will pretend that all the measures he wishes to take for his\nown purposes have been enjoined on him by the oracle.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But you forget that the answers of the oracle\ncannot be kept secret or misrepresented. They are written and\npromulgated. The Leader of the Opposition can obtain copies. All the\nnations know them. Secret diplomacy has been totally abolished.\n\nZOO. Yes: you publish documents; but they are garbled or forged. And\neven if you published our real answers it would make no difference,\nbecause the shortlived cannot interpret the plainest writings. Your\nscriptures command you in the plainest terms to do exactly the contrary\nof everything your own laws and chosen rulers command and execute. You\ncannot defy Nature. It is a law of Nature that there is a fixed relation\nbetween conduct and length of life.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I have never heard of any such law, madam.\n\nZOO. Well, you are hearing of it now.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Let me tell you that we shortlivers, as you call\nus, have lengthened our lives very considerably.\n\nZOO. How?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. By saving time. By enabling men to cross the\nocean in an afternoon, and to see and speak to one another when they are\nthousands of miles apart. We hope shortly to organize their labor, and\npress natural forces into their service, so scientifically that the\nburden of labor will cease to be perceptible, leaving common men more\nleisure than they will know what to do with.\n\nZOO. Daddy: the man whose life is lengthened in this way may be busier\nthan a savage; but the difference between such men living seventy years\nand those living three hundred would be all the greater; for to a\nshortliver increase of years is only increase of sorrow; but to a\nlong-liver every extra year is a prospect which forces him to stretch\nhis faculties to the utmost to face it. Therefore I say that we who\nlive three hundred years can be of no use to you who live less than a\nhundred, and that our true destiny is not to advise and govern you, but\nto supplant and supersede you. In that faith I now declare myself a\nColonizer and an Exterminator.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Oh, steady! steady! Pray! pray! Reflect, I\nimplore you. It is possible to colonize without exterminating the\nnatives. Would you treat us less mercifully than our barbarous\nforefathers treated the Redskin and the Negro? Are we not, as Britons,\nentitled at least to some reservations?\n\nZOO. What is the use of prolonging the agony? You would perish slowly\nin our presence, no matter what we did to preserve you. You were almost\ndead when I took charge of you today, merely because you had talked for\na few minutes to a secondary. Besides, we have our own experience to go\nupon. Have you never heard that our children occasionally revert to the\nancestral type, and are born shortlived?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_eagerly_] Never. I hope you will not be offended\nif I say that it would be a great comfort to me if I could be placed in\ncharge of one of those normal individuals.\n\nZOO. Abnormal, you mean. What you ask is impossible: we weed them all\nout.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. When you say that you weed them out, you send\na cold shiver down my spine. I hope you don't mean that you--that\nyou--that you assist Nature in any way?\n\nZOO. Why not? Have you not heard the saying of the Chinese sage Dee\nNing, that a good garden needs weeding? But it is not necessary for us\nto interfere. We are naturally rather particular as to the conditions on\nwhich we consent to live. One does not mind the accidental loss of an\narm or a leg or an eye: after all, no one with two legs is unhappy\nbecause he has not three; so why should a man with one be unhappy\nbecause he has not two? But infirmities of mind and temper are quite\nanother matter. If one of us has no self-control, or is too weak to bear\nthe strain of our truthful life without wincing, or is tormented by\ndepraved appetites and superstitions, or is unable to keep free from\npain and depression, he naturally becomes discouraged, and refuses to\nlive.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Good Lord! Cuts his throat, do you mean?\n\nZOO. No: why should he cut his throat? He simply dies. He wants to. He\nis out of countenance, as we call it.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Well!!! But suppose he is depraved enough not to\nwant to die, and to settle the difficulty by killing all the rest of\nyou?\n\nZOO. Oh, he is one of the thoroughly degenerate shortlivers whom we\noccasionally produce. He emigrates.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. And what becomes of him then?\n\nZOO. You shortlived people always think very highly of him. You accept\nhim as what you call a great man.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. You astonish me; and yet I must admit that what\nyou tell me accounts for a great deal of the little I know of the\nprivate life of our great men. We must be very convenient to you as a\ndumping place for your failures.\n\nZOO. I admit that.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Good. Then if you carry out your plan of\ncolonization, and leave no shortlived countries in the world, what will\nyou do with your undesirables?\n\nZOO. Kill them. Our tertiaries are not at all squeamish about killing.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Gracious Powers!\n\nZOO [_glancing up at the sun_] Come. It is just sixteen o'clock; and you\nhave to join your party at half-past in the temple in Galway.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising_] Galway! Shall I at last be able to\nboast of having seen that magnificent city?\n\nZOO. You will be disappointed: we have no cities. There is a temple of\nthe oracle: that is all.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Alas! and I came here to fulfil two\nlong-cherished dreams. One was to see Galway. It has been said, 'See\nGalway and die.' The other was to contemplate the ruins of London.\n\nZOO. Ruins! We do not tolerate ruins. Was London a place of any\nimportance?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_amazed_] What! London! It was the mightiest city\nof antiquity. [_Rhetorically_] Situate just where the Dover Road crosses\nthe Thames, it--\n\nZOO [_curtly interrupting_] There is nothing there now. Why should\nanybody pitch on such a spot to live? The nearest houses are at a place\ncalled Strand-on-the-Green: it is very old. Come. We shall go across the\nwater. [_She goes down the steps_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Sic transit gloria mundi!\n\nZOO [_from below_] What did you say?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_despairingly_] Nothing. You would not\nunderstand. [_He goes down the steps_].\n\n\n\n\nACT II\n\n\n_A courtyard before the columned portico of a temple. The temple door\nis in the middle of the portico. A veiled and robed woman of majestic\ncarriage passes along behind the columns towards the entrance. From the\nopposite direction a man of compact figure, clean-shaven, saturnine, and\nself-centred: in short, very like Napoleon I, and wearing a military\nuniform of Napoleonic cut, marches with measured steps; places his hand\nin his lapel in the traditional manner; and fixes the woman with his\neye. She stops, her attitude expressing haughty amazement at his\naudacity. He is on her right: she on his left._\n\nNAPOLEON [_impressively_] I am the Man of Destiny.\n\nTHE VEILED WOMAN [_unimpressed_] How did you get in here?\n\nNAPOLEON. I walked in. I go on until I am stopped. I never am stopped. I\ntell you I am the Man of Destiny.\n\nTHE VEILED WOMAN. You will be a man of very short destiny if you wander\nabout here without one of our children to guide you. I suppose you\nbelong to the Baghdad envoy.\n\nNAPOLEON. I came with him; but I do not belong to him. I belong to\nmyself. Direct me to the oracle if you can. If not, do not waste my\ntime.\n\nTHE VEILED WOMAN. Your time, poor creature, is short. I will not waste\nit. Your envoy and his party will be here presently. The consultation of\nthe oracle is arranged for them, and will take place according to the\nprescribed ritual. You can wait here until they come [_she turns to go\ninto the temple_].\n\nNAPOLEON. I never wait. [_She stops_]. The prescribed ritual is,\nI believe, the classical one of the pythoness on her tripod, the\nintoxicating fumes arising from the abyss, the convulsions of the\npriestess as she delivers the message of the God, and so on. That sort\nof thing does not impose on me: I use it myself to impose on simpletons.\nI believe that what is, is. I know that what is not, is not. The antics\nof a woman sitting on a tripod and pretending to be drunk do not\ninterest me. Her words are put into her mouth, not by a god, but by a\nman three hundred years old, who has had the capacity to profit by his\nexperience. I wish to speak to that man face to face, without mummery or\nimposture.\n\nTHE VEILED WOMAN. You seem to be an unusually sensible person. But there\nis no old man. I am the oracle on duty today. I am on my way to take my\nplace on the tripod, and go through the usual mummery, as you rightly\ncall it, to impress your friend the envoy. As you are superior to that\nkind of thing, you may consult me now. [_She leads the way into the\nmiddle of the courtyard_]. What do you want to know?\n\nNAPOLEON [_following her_] Madam: I have not come all this way to\ndiscuss matters of State with a woman. I must ask you to direct me to\none of your oldest and ablest men.\n\nTHE ORACLE. None of our oldest and ablest men or women would dream of\nwasting their time on you. You would die of discouragement in their\npresence in less than three hours.\n\nNAPOLEON. You can keep this idle fable of discouragement for people\ncredulous enough to be intimidated by it, madam. I do not believe in\nmetaphysical forces.\n\nTHE ORACLE. No one asks you to. A field is something physical, is it\nnot. Well, I have a field.\n\nNAPOLEON. I have several million fields. I am Emperor of Turania.\n\nTHE ORACLE. You do not understand. I am not speaking of an agricultural\nfield. Do you not know that every mass of matter in motion carries with\nit an invisible gravitational field, every magnet an invisible magnetic\nfield, and every living organism a mesmeric field? Even you have a\nperceptible mesmeric field. Feeble as it is, it is the strongest I have\nyet observed in a shortliver.\n\nNAPOLEON. By no means feeble, madam. I understand you now; and I may\ntell you that the strongest characters blench in my presence, and submit\nto my domination. But I do not call that a physical force.\n\nTHE ORACLE. What else do you call it, pray? Our physicists deal with it.\nOur mathematicians express its measurements in algebraic equations.\n\nNAPOLEON. Do you mean that they could measure mine?\n\nTHE ORACLE. Yes: by a figure infinitely near to zero. Even in us the\nforce is negligible during our first century of life. In our second it\ndevelops quickly, and becomes dangerous to shortlivers who venture into\nits field. If I were not veiled and robed in insulating material you\ncould not endure my presence; and I am still a young woman: one hundred\nand seventy if you wish to know exactly.\n\nNAPOLEON [_folding his arms_] I am not intimidated: no woman alive, old\nor young, can put me out of countenance. Unveil, madam. Disrobe. You\nwill move this temple as easily as shake me.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Very well [_she throws back her veil_].\n\nNAPOLEON [_shrieking, staggering, and covering his eyes_] No. Stop. Hide\nyour face again. [_Shutting his eyes and distractedly clutching at his\nthroat and heart_] Let me go. Help! I am dying.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Do you still wish to consult an older person?\n\nNAPOLEON. No, no. The veil, the veil, I beg you.\n\nTHE ORACLE [_replacing the veil_] So.\n\nNAPOLEON. Ouf! One cannot always be at one's best. Twice before in my\nlife I have lost my nerve and behaved like a poltroon. But I warn you\nnot to judge my quality by these involuntary moments.\n\nTHE ORACLE. I have no occasion to judge of your quality. You want my\nadvice. Speak quickly; or I shall go about my business.\n\nNAPOLEON [_After a moment's hesitation, sinks respectfully on one knee_]\nI--\n\nTHE ORACLE. Oh, rise, rise. Are you so foolish as to offer me this\nmummery which even you despise?\n\nNAPOLEON [_rising_] I knelt in spite of myself. I compliment you on your\nimpressiveness, madam.\n\nTHE ORACLE [_impatiently_] Time! time! time! time!\n\nNAPOLEON. You will not grudge me the necessary time, madam, when you\nknow my case. I am a man gifted with a certain specific talent in a\ndegree altogether extraordinary. I am not otherwise a very extraordinary\nperson: my family is not influential; and without this talent I should\ncut no particular figure in the world.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Why cut a figure in the world?\n\nNAPOLEON. Superiority will make itself felt, madam. But when I say I\npossess this talent I do not express myself accurately. The truth is\nthat my talent possesses me. It is genius. It drives me to exercise it.\nI must exercise it. I am great when I exercise it. At other moments I am\nnobody.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Well, exercise it. Do you need an oracle to tell you that?\n\nNAPOLEON. Wait. This talent involves the shedding of human blood.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Are you a surgeon, or a dentist?\n\nNAPOLEON. Psha! You do not appreciate me, madam. I mean the shedding of\noceans of blood, the death of millions of men.\n\nTHE ORACLE. They object, I suppose.\n\nNAPOLEON. Not at all. They adore me.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Indeed!\n\nNAPOLEON. I have never shed blood with my own hand. They kill each\nother: they die with shouts of triumph on their lips. Those who die\ncursing do not curse me. My talent is to organize this slaughter; to\ngive mankind this terrible joy which they call glory; to let loose the\ndevil in them that peace has bound in chains.\n\nTHE ORACLE. And you? Do you share their joy?\n\nNAPOLEON. Not at all. What satisfaction is it to me to see one fool\npierce the entrails of another with a bayonet? I am a man of princely\ncharacter, but of simple personal tastes and habits. I have the virtues\nof a laborer: industry and indifference to personal comfort. But I must\nrule, because I am so superior to other men that it is intolerable to\nme to be misruled by them. Yet only as a slayer can I become a ruler. I\ncannot be great as a writer: I have tried and failed. I have no talent\nas a sculptor or painter; and as lawyer, preacher, doctor, or actor,\nscores of second-rate men can do as well as I, or better. I am not even\na diplomatist: I can only play my trump card of force. What I can do\nis to organize war. Look at me! I seem a man like other men, because\nnine-tenths of me is common humanity. But the other tenth is a faculty\nfor seeing things as they are that no other man possesses.\n\nTHE ORACLE. You mean that you have no imagination?\n\nNAPOLEON [_forcibly_] I mean that I have the only imagination worth\nhaving: the power of imagining things as they are, even when I cannot\nsee them. You feel yourself my superior, I know: nay, you are my\nsuperior: have I not bowed my knee to you by instinct? Yet I challenge\nyou to a test of our respective powers. Can you calculate what the\nmethematicians call vectors, without putting a single algebraic symbol\non paper? Can you launch ten thousand men across a frontier and a chain\nof mountains and know to a mile exactly where they will be at the end\nof seven weeks? The rest is nothing: I got it all from the books at my\nmilitary school. Now this great game of war, this playing with armies\nas other men play with bowls and skittles, is one which I must go on\nplaying, partly because a man must do what he can and not what he would\nlike to do, and partly because, if I stop, I immediately lose my power\nand become a beggar in the land where I now make men drunk with glory.\n\nTHE ORACLE. No doubt then you wish to know how to extricate yourself\nfrom this unfortunate position?\n\nNAPOLEON. It is not generally considered unfortunate, madam. Supremely\nfortunate rather.\n\nTHE ORACLE. If you think so, go on making them drunk with glory. Why\ntrouble me with their folly and your vectors?\n\nNAPOLEON. Unluckily, madam, men are not only heroes: they are also\ncowards. They desire glory; but they dread death.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Why should they? Their lives are too short to be worth\nliving. That is why they think your game of war worth playing.\n\nNAPOLEON. They do not look at it quite in that way. The most worthless\nsoldier wants to live for ever. To make him risk being killed by the\nenemy I have to convince him that if he hesitates he will inevitably be\nshot at dawn by his own comrades for cowardice.\n\nTHE ORACLE. And if his comrades refuse to shoot him?\n\nNAPOLEON. They will be shot too, of course.\n\nTHE ORACLE. By whom?\n\nNAPOLEON. By their comrades.\n\nTHE ORACLE. And if they refuse?\n\nNAPOLEON. Up to a certain point they do not refuse.\n\nTHE ORACLE. But when that point is reached, you have to do the shooting\nyourself, eh?\n\nNAPOLEON. Unfortunately, madam, when that point is reached, they shoot\nme.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Mf! It seems to me they might as well shoot you first as\nlast. Why don't they?\n\nNAPOLEON. Because their love of fighting, their desire for glory, their\nshame of being branded as dastards, their instinct to test themselves in\nterrible trials, their fear of being killed or enslaved by the enemy,\ntheir belief that they are defending their hearths and homes, overcome\ntheir natural cowardice, and make them willing not only to risk their\nown lives but to kill everyone who refuses to take that risk. But if war\ncontinues too long, there comes a time when the soldiers, and also the\ntaxpayers who are supporting and munitioning them, reach a condition\nwhich they describe as being fed up. The troops have proved their\ncourage, and want to go home and enjoy in peace the glory it has earned\nthem. Besides, the risk of death for each soldier becomes a certainty if\nthe fighting goes on for ever: he hopes to escape for six months, but\nknows he cannot escape for six years. The risk of bankruptcy for the\ncitizen becomes a certainty in the same way. Now what does this mean for\nme?\n\nTHE ORACLE. Does that matter in the midst of such calamity?\n\nNAPOLEON. Psha! madam: it is the only thing that matters: the value\nof human life is the value of the greatest living man. Cut off that\ninfinitesimal layer of grey matter which distinguishes my brain from\nthat of the common man, and you cut down the stature of humanity from\nthat of a giant to that of a nobody. I matter supremely: my soldiers do\nnot matter at all: there are plenty more where they came from. If you\nkill me, or put a stop to my activity (it is the same thing), the\nnobler part of human life perishes. You must save the world from\nthat catastrophe, madam. War has made me popular, powerful, famous,\nhistorically immortal. But I foresee that if I go on to the end it will\nleave me execrated, dethroned, imprisoned, perhaps executed. Yet if I\nstop fighting I commit suicide as a great man and become a common one.\nHow am I to escape the horns of this tragic dilemma? Victory I\ncan guarantee: I am invincible. But the cost of victory is the\ndemoralization, the depopulation, the ruin of the victors no less than\nof the vanquished. How am I to satisfy my genius by fighting until I\ndie? that is my question to you.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Were you not rash to venture into these sacred islands with\nsuch a question on your lips? Warriors are not popular here, my friend.\n\nNAPOLEON. If a soldier were restrained by such a consideration, madam,\nhe would no longer be a soldier. Besides [_he produces a pistol_], I\nhave not come unarmed.\n\nTHE ORACLE. What is that thing?\n\nNAPOLEON. It is an instrument of my profession, madam. I raise this\nhammer; I point the barrel at you; I pull this trigger that is against\nmy forefinger; and you fall dead.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Shew it to me [_she puts out her hand to take it from him_].\n\nNAPOLEON [_retreating a step_] Pardon me, madam. I never trust my life\nin the hands of a person over whom I have no control.\n\nTHE ORACLE [_sternly_] Give it to me [_she raises her hand to her\nveil_].\n\nNAPOLEON [_dropping the pistol and covering his eyes_] Quarter! Kamerad!\nTake it, madam [_he kicks it towards her_]: I surrender.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Give me that thing. Do you expect me to stoop for it?\n\nNAPOLEON [_taking his hands from his eyes with an effort_] A poor\nvictory, madam [_he picks up the pistol and hands it to her_]: there was\nno vector strategy needed to win it. [Making a pose of his humiliation]\nBut enjoy your triumph: you have made me--ME! Cain Adamson Charles\nNapoleon! Emperor of Turania! cry for quarter.\n\nTHE ORACLE. The way out of your difficulty, Cain Adamson, is very\nsimple.\n\nNAPOLEON [_eagerly_] Good. What is it?\n\nTHE ORACLE. To die before the tide of glory turns. Allow me [_she shoots\nhim_].\n\n_He falls with a shriek. She throws the pistol away and goes haughtily\ninto the temple._\n\nNAPOLEON [_scrambling to his feet_] Murderess! Monster! She-devil!\nUnnatural, inhuman wretch! You deserve to be hanged, guillotined, broken\non the wheel, burnt alive. No sense of the sacredness of human life! No\nthought for my wife and children! Bitch! Sow! Wanton! [_He picks up the\npistol_]. And missed me at five yards! Thats a woman all over.\n\n_He is going away whence he came when Zoo arrives and confronts him\nat the head of a party consisting of the British Envoy, the Elderly\nGentleman, the Envoy's wife, and her daughter, aged about eighteen. The\nenvoy, a typical politician, looks like an imperfectly reformed criminal\ndisguised by a good tailor. The dress of the ladies is coeval with that\nof the Elderly Gentleman, and suitable for public official ceremonies in\nwestern capitals at the XVIII-XIX fin de si\u00e8cle._\n\n_They file in under the portico. Zoo immediately comes out imperiously\nto Napoleon's right, whilst the Envoy's wife hurries effusively to his\nleft. The Envoy meanwhile passes along behind the columns to the door,\nfollowed by his daughter. The Elderly Gentleman stops just where he\nentered, to see why Zoo has swooped so abruptly on the Emperor of\nTurania._\n\nZOO [_to Napoleon, severely_] What are you doing here by yourself? You\nhave no business to go about here alone. What was that noise just now?\nWhat is that in your hand?\n\n_Napoleon glares at her in speechless fury; pockets the pistol; and\nproduces a whistle._\n\nTHE ENVOY'S WIFE. Arnt you coming with us to the oracle, sire?\n\nNAPOLEON. To hell with the oracle, and with you too [_he turns to go_]!\n\n\n    THE ENVOY'S WIFE} [_together_] {Oh, sire!!\n    ZOO} {Where are you going?}\n\n\nNAPOLEON. To fetch the police. [_He goes out past Zoo, almost jostling\nher, and blowing piercing blasts on his whistle_].\n\nZOO [_whipping out her tuning-fork and intoning_] Hallo Galway Central.\n[_The whistling continues_]. Stand by to isolate. [_To the Elderly\nGentleman, who is staring after the whistling Emperor_] How far has he\ngone?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. To that curious statue of a fat old man.\n\nZOO [_quickly, intoning_] Isolate the Falstaff monument isolate hard.\nParalyze--[_the whistling stops_]. Thank you. [_She puts up her\ntuning-fork_]. He shall not move a muscle until I come to fetch him.\n\nTHE ENVOY'S WIFE. Oh! he will be frightfully angry! Did you hear what he\nsaid to me?\n\nZOO. Much we care for his anger!\n\nTHE DAUGHTER [_coming forward between her mother and Zoo_]. Please,\nmadam, whose statue is it? and where can I buy a picture postcard of it?\nIt is so funny. I will take a snapshot when we are coming back; but they\ncome out so badly sometimes.\n\nZOO. They will give you pictures and toys in the temple to take away\nwith you. The story of the statue is too long. It would bore you [_she\ngoes past them across the courtyard to get rid of them_].\n\nTHE WIFE [_gushing_] Oh no, I assure you.\n\nTHE DAUGHTER [_copying her mother_] We should be so interested.\n\nZOO. Nonsense! All I can tell you about it is that a thousand years ago,\nwhen the whole world was given over to you shortlived people, there was\na war called the War to end War. In the war which followed it about ten\nyears later, hardly any soldiers were killed; but seven of the capital\ncities of Europe were wiped out of existence. It seems to have been a\ngreat joke: for the statesmen who thought they had sent ten million\ncommon men to their deaths were themselves blown into fragments with\ntheir houses and families, while the ten million men lay snugly in the\ncaves they had dug for themselves. Later on even the houses escaped; but\ntheir inhabitants were poisoned by gas that spared no living soul.\nOf course the soldiers starved and ran wild; and that was the end of\npseudo-Christian civilization. The last civilized thing that happened\nwas that the statesmen discovered that cowardice was a great patriotic\nvirtue; and a public monument was erected to its first preacher, an\nancient and very fat sage called Sir John Falstaff. Well [_pointing_],\nthats Falstaff.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_coming from the portico to his granddaughter's\nright_] Great Heavens! And at the base of this monstrous poltroon's\nstatue the War God of Turania is now gibbering impotently.\n\nZOO. Serve him right! War God indeed!\n\nTHE ENVOY [_coming between his wife and Zoo_] I don't know any history:\na modern Prime Minister has something better to do than sit reading\nbooks; but--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_interrupting him encouragingly_] You make\nhistory, Ambrose.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Well, perhaps I do; and perhaps history makes me. I hardly\nrecognize myself in the newspapers sometimes, though I suppose leading\narticles are the materials of history, as you might say. But what I want\nto know is, how did war come back again? and how did they make those\npoisonous gases you speak of? We should be glad to know; for they might\ncome in very handy if we have to fight Turania. Of course I am all for\npeace, and don't hold with the race of armaments in principle; still, we\nmust keep ahead or be wiped out.\n\nZOO. You can make the gases for yourselves when your chemists find out\nhow. Then you will do as you did before: poison each other until there\nare no chemists left, and no civilization. You will then begin all over\nagain as half-starved ignorant savages, and fight with boomerangs\nand poisoned arrows until you work up to the poison gases and high\nexplosives once more, with the same result. That is, unless we have\nsense enough to make an end of this ridiculous game by destroying you.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_aghast_] Destroying us!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I told you, Ambrose. I warned you.\n\nTHE ENVOY. But--\n\nZOO [_impatiently_] I wonder what Zozim is doing. He ought to be here to\nreceive you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Do you mean that rather insufferable young man\nwhom you found boring me on the pier?\n\nZOO. Yes. He has to dress-up in a Druid's robe, and put on a wig and a\nlong false beard, to impress you silly people. I have to put on a purple\nmantle. I have no patience with such mummery; but you expect it from us;\nso I suppose it must be kept up. Will you wait here until Zozim comes,\nplease [_she turns to enter the temple_].\n\nTHE ENVOY. My good lady, is it worth while dressing-up and putting on\nfalse beards for us if you tell us beforehand that it is all humbug?\n\nZOO. One would not think so; but if you wont believe in anyone who is\nnot dressed-up, why, we must dress-up for you. It was you who invented\nall this nonsense, not we.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But do you expect us to be impressed after this?\n\nZOO. I don't expect anything. I know, as a matter of experience, that\nyou will be impressed. The oracle will frighten you out of your wits.\n[_She goes into the temple_].\n\nTHE WIFE. These people treat us as if we were dirt beneath their feet. I\nwonder at you putting up with it, Amby. It would serve them right if we\nwent home at once: wouldnt it, Eth?\n\nTHE DAUGHTER. Yes, mamma. But perhaps they wouldnt mind.\n\nTHE ENVOY. No use talking like that, Molly. Ive got to see this oracle.\nThe folks at home wont know how we have been treated: all theyll know\nis that Ive stood face to face with the oracle and had the straight tip\nfrom her. I hope this Zozim chap is not going to keep us waiting much\nlonger; for I feel far from comfortable about the approaching interview;\nand thats the honest truth.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I never thought I should want to see that man\nagain; but now I wish he would take charge of us instead of Zoo. She was\ncharming at first: quite charming; but she turned into a fiend because I\nhad a few words with her. You would not believe: she very nearly killed\nme. You heard what she said just now. She belongs to a party here which\nwants to have us all killed.\n\nTHE WIFE [_terrified_] Us! But we have done nothing: we have been as\nnice to them as nice could be. Oh, Amby, come away, come away: there is\nsomething dreadful about this place and these people.\n\nTHE ENVOY. There is, and no mistake. But youre safe with me: you ought\nto have sense enough to know that.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am sorry to say, Molly, that it is not merely\nus four poor weak creatures they want to kill, but the entire race of\nMan, except themselves.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Not so poor neither, Poppa. Nor so weak, if you are going to\ntake in all the Powers. If it comes to killing, two can play at that\ngame, longlived or shortlived.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No, Ambrose: we should have no chance. We are\nworms beside these fearful people: mere worms.\n\n_Zozim comes from the temple, robed majestically, and wearing a wreath\nof mistletoe in his flowing white wig. His false beard reaches almost to\nhis waist. He carries a staff with a curiously carved top._\n\nZOZIM [_in the doorway, impressively_] Hail, strangers!\n\nALL [_reverently_] Hail!\n\nZOZIM. Are ye prepared?\n\nTHE ENVOY. We are.\n\nZOZIM [_unexpectedly becoming conversational, and strolling down\ncarelessly to the middle of the group between the two ladies_] Well, I'm\nsorry to say the oracle is not. She was delayed by some member of your\nparty who got loose; and as the show takes a bit of arranging, you will\nhave to wait a few minutes. The ladies can go inside and look round the\nentrance hall and get pictures and things if they want them.\n\n\n                              {Thank you.}\n    THE WIFE}    [_together_] {I should like to,} [_They go into_]\n    THE DAUGHTER}             {very much.}        [_the temple_]\n\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_in dignified rebuke of Zozim's levity_] Taken in\nthis spirit, sir, the show, as you call it, becomes almost an insult to\nour common sense.\n\nZOZIM. Quite, I should say. You need not keep it up with me.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_suddenly making himself very agreeable_] Just so: just so.\nWe can wait as long as you please. And now, if I may be allowed to seize\nthe opportunity of a few minutes' friendly chat--?\n\nZOZIM. By all means, if only you will talk about things I can\nunderstand.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Well, about this colonizing plan of yours. My father-in-law\nhere has been telling me something about it; and he has just now let out\nthat you want not only to colonize us, but to--to--to--well, shall we\nsay to supersede us? Now why supersede us? Why not live and let live?\nTheres not a scrap of ill-feeling on our side. We should welcome a\ncolony of immortals--we may almost call you that--in the British Middle\nEast. No doubt the Turanian Empire, with its Mahometan traditions,\novershadows us now. We have had to bring the Emperor with us on this\nexpedition, though of course you know as well as I do that he has\nimposed himself on my party just to spy on me. I dont deny that he has\nthe whip hand of us to some extent, because if it came to a war none of\nour generals could stand up against him. I give him best at that game:\nhe is the finest soldier in the world. Besides, he is an emperor and\nan autocrat; and I am only an elected representative of the British\ndemocracy. Not that our British democrats wont fight: they will fight\nthe heads off all the Turanians that ever walked; but then it takes so\nlong to work them up to it, while he has only to say the word and march.\nBut you people would never get on with him. Believe me, you would not be\nas comfortable in Turania as you would be with us. We understand you. We\nlike you. We are easy-going people; and we are rich people. That will\nappeal to you. Turania is a poor place when all is said. Five-eighths of\nit is desert. They dont irrigate as we do. Besides--now I am sure this\nwill appeal to you and to all right-minded men--we are Christians.\n\nZOZIM. The old uns prefer Mahometans.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_shocked_] What!\n\nZOZIM [_distinctly_] They prefer Mahometans. Whats wrong with that?\n\nTHE ENVOY. Well, of all the disgraceful--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_diplomatically interrupting his scandalized\nson-in-law_] There can be no doubt, I am afraid, that by clinging too\nlong to the obsolete features of the old pseudo-Christian Churches we\nallowed the Mahometans to get ahead of us at a very critical period of\nthe development of the Eastern world. When the Mahometan Reformation\ntook place, it left its followers with the enormous advantage of having\nthe only established religion in the world in whose articles of faith\nany intelligent and educated person could believe.\n\nTHE ENVOY. But what about our Reformation? Dont give the show away,\nPoppa. We followed suit, didnt we?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Unfortunately, Ambrose, we could not follow suit\nvery rapidly. We had not only a religion to deal with, but a Church.\n\nZOZIM. What is a Church?\n\nTHE ENVOY. Not know what a Church is! Well!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. You must excuse me; but if I attempted to explain\nyou would only ask me what a bishop is; and that is a question that no\nmortal man can answer. All I can tell you is that Mahomet was a truly\nwise man; for he founded a religion without a Church; consequently when\nthe time came for a Reformation of the mosques there were no bishops and\npriests to obstruct it. Our bishops and priests prevented us for two\nhundred years from following suit; and we have never recovered the start\nwe lost then. I can only plead that we did reform our Church at last. No\ndoubt we had to make a few compromises as a matter of good taste;\nbut there is now very little in our Articles of Religion that is not\naccepted as at least allegorically true by our Higher Criticism.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_encouragingly_] Besides, does it matter? Why, _I_ have never\nread the Articles in my life; and I am Prime Minister! Come! if my\nservices in arranging for the reception of a colonizing party would be\nacceptable, they are at your disposal. And when I say a reception I mean\na reception. Royal honors, mind you! A salute of a hundred and one guns!\nThe streets lined with troops! The Guards turned out at the Palace!\nDinner at the Guildhall!\n\nZOZIM. Discourage me if I know what youre talking about! I wish Zoo\nwould come: she understands these things. All I can tell you is that\nthe general opinion among the Colonizers is in favor of beginning in a\ncountry where the people are of a different color from us; so that we\ncan make short work without any risk of mistakes.\n\nTHE ENVOY. What do you mean by short work? I hope--\n\nZOZIM [_with obviously feigned geniality_] Oh, nothing, nothing,\nnothing. We are thinking of trying North America: thats all. You see,\nthe Red Men of that country used to be white. They passed through a\nperiod of sallow complexions, followed by a period of no complexions\nat all, into the red characteristic of their climate. Besides, several\ncases of long life have occurred in North America. They joined us here;\nand their stock soon reverted to the original white of these islands.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But have you considered the possibility of your\ncolony turning red?\n\nZOZIM. That wont matter. We are not particular about our pigmentation.\nThe old books mention red-faced Englishmen: they appear to have been\ncommon objects at one time.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_very persuasively_] But do you think you would\nbe popular in North America? It seems to me, if I may say so, that on\nyour own shewing you need a country in which society is organized in a\nseries of highly exclusive circles, in which the privacy of private life\nis very jealously guarded, and in which no one presumes to speak to\nanyone else without an introduction following a strict examination of\nsocial credentials. It is only in such a country that persons of special\ntastes and attainments can form a little world of their own, and protect\nthemselves absolutely from intrusion by common persons. I think I may\nclaim that our British society has developed this exclusiveness to\nperfection. If you would pay us a visit and see the working of our caste\nsystem, our club system, our guild system, you would admit that nowhere\nelse in the world, least of all, perhaps in North America, which has a\nregrettable tradition of social promiscuity, could you keep yourselves\nso entirely to yourselves.\n\nZOZIM [_good-naturedly embarrassed_] Look here. There is no good\ndiscussing this. I had rather not explain; but it wont make any\ndifference to our Colonizers what sort of short-livers they come across.\nWe shall arrange all that. Never mind how. Let us join the ladies.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_throwing off his diplomatic attitude and\nabandoning himself to despair_] We understand you only too well, sir.\nWell, kill us. End the lives you have made miserably unhappy by opening\nup to us the possibility that any of us may live three hundred years. I\nsolemnly curse that possibility. To you it may be a blessing, because\nyou do live three hundred years. To us, who live less than a hundred,\nwhose flesh is as grass, it is the most unbearable burden our poor\ntortured humanity has ever groaned under.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Hullo, Poppa! Steady! How do you make that out?\n\nZOZIM. What is three hundred years? Short enough, if you ask me. Why, in\nthe old days you people lived on the assumption that you were going to\nlast out for ever and ever and ever. Immortal, you thought yourselves.\nWere you any happier then?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. As President of the Baghdad Historical Society\nI am in a position to inform you that the communities which took this\nmonstrous pretension seriously were the most wretched of which we have\nany record. My Society has printed an editio princeps of the works of\nthe father of history, Thucyderodotus Macolly-buckle. Have you read his\naccount of what was blasphemously called the Perfect City of God, and\nthe attempt made to reproduce it in the northern part of these islands\nby Jonhobsnoxius, called the Leviathan? Those misguided people\nsacrificed the fragment of life that was granted to them to an imaginary\nimmortality. They crucified the prophet who told them to take no thought\nfor the morrow, and that here and now was their Australia: Australia\nbeing a term signifying paradise, or an eternity of bliss. They tried\nto produce a condition of death in life: to mortify the flesh, as they\ncalled it.\n\nZOZIM. Well, you are not suffering from that, are you? You have not a\nmortified air.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Naturally we are not absolutely insane and\nsuicidal. Nevertheless we impose on ourselves abstinences and\ndisciplines and studies that are meant to prepare us for living three\ncenturies. And we seldom live one. My childhood was made unnecessarily\npainful, my boyhood unnecessarily laborious, by ridiculous preparations\nfor a length of days which the chances were fifty thousand to one\nagainst my ever attaining. I have been cheated out of the natural joys\nand freedoms of my life by this dream to which the existence of these\nislands and their oracles gives a delusive possibility of realization.\nI curse the day when long life was invented, just as the victims of\nJonhobsnoxius cursed the day when eternal life was invented.\n\nZOZIM. Pooh! You could live three centuries if you chose.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. That is what the fortunate always say to the\nunfortunate. Well, I do not choose. I accept my three score and ten\nyears. If they are filled with usefulness, with justice, with mercy,\nwith good-will: if they are the lifetime of a soul that never loses its\nhonor and a brain that never loses its eagerness, they are enough for\nme, because these things are infinite and eternal, and can make ten of\nmy years as long as thirty of yours. I shall not conclude by saying live\nas long as you like and be damned to you, because I have risen for the\nmoment far above any ill-will to you or to any fellow-creature; but I\nam your equal before that eternity in which the difference between your\nlifetime and mine is as the difference between one drop of water\nand three in the eyes of the Almighty Power from which we have both\nproceeded.\n\nZOZIM [_impressed_] You spoke that piece very well, Daddy. I couldnt\ntalk like that if I tried. It sounded fine. Ah! here comes the ladies.\n\n_To his relief, they have just appeared on the threshold of the temple._\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_passing from exaltation to distress_] It means\nnothing to him: in this land of discouragement the sublime has become\nthe ridiculous. [_Turning on the hopelessly puzzled Zozim_] 'Behold,\nthou hast made my days as it were a span long; and mine age is even as\nnothing in respect of thee.'\n\n\n                              {Poppa, Poppa: dont look like\n    THE WIFE.}    [_running_] {that.\n    THE DAUGHTER.}[_to him_] {Oh, granpa, whats the matter?\n\n\nZOZIM [_with a shrug_] Discouragement!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_throwing off the women with a superb gesture_]\nLiar! [_Recollecting himself, he adds, with noble courtesy, raising his\nhat and bowing_] I beg your pardon, sir; but I am NOT discouraged.\n\n_A burst of orchestral music, through which a powerful gong sounds, is\nheard from the temple. Zoo, in a purple robe, appears in the doorway._\n\nZOO. Come. The oracle is ready.\n\n_Zozim motions them to the threshold with a wave of his staff. The Envoy\nand the Elderly Gentleman take off their hats and go into the temple on\ntiptoe, Zoo leading the way. The Wife and Daughter, frightened as they\nare, raise their heads uppishly and follow flatfooted, sustained by a\nsense of their Sunday clothes and social consequence. Zozim remains in\nthe portico, alone._\n\nZOZIM [_taking off his wig, beard, and robe, and bundling them under his\narm_] Ouf! [He goes home].\n\n\n\n\nACT III\n\n\n_Inside the temple. A gallery overhanging an abyss. Dead silence. The\ngallery is brightly lighted; but beyond is a vast gloom, continually\nchanging in intensity. A shaft of violet light shoots upward; and a very\nharmonious and silvery carillon chimes. When it ceases the violet ray\nvanishes._\n\n_Zoo comes along the gallery, followed by the Envoy's daughter, his\nwife, the Envoy himself, and the Elderly Gentleman. The two men are\nholding their hats with the brims near their noses, as if prepared to\npray into them at a moment's notice. Zoo halts: they all follow her\nexample. They contemplate the void with awe. Organ music of the kind\ncalled sacred in the nineteenth century begins. Their awe deepens. The\nviolet ray, now a diffused mist, rises again from the abyss._\n\nTHE WIFE [_to Zoo, in a reverent whisper_] Shall we kneel?\n\nZOO [_loudly_] Yes, if you want to. You can stand on your head if you\nlike. [_She sits down carelessly on the gallery railing, with her back\nto the abyss_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_jarred by her callousness_] We desire to behave\nin a becoming manner.\n\nZOO. Very well. Behave just as you feel. It doesn't matter how you\nbehave. But keep your wits about you when the pythoness ascends, or you\nwill forget the questions you have come to ask her.\n\n\n     THE ENVOY}               {[[_very nervous, takes out a paper to_]\n              } [[_simul-_]   {[_refresh his memory_]] Ahem!\n  THE DAUGHTER} [_taneously_]]{[[_alarmed_]] The pythoness? Is she\n              }               {a snake?\n\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Tch-ch! The priestess of the oracle. A sybil. A\nprophetess. Not a snake.\n\nTHE WIFE. How awful!\n\nZOO. I'm glad you think so.\n\nTHE WIFE. Oh dear! Dont you think so?\n\nZOO. No. This sort of thing is got up to impress you, not to impress me.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I wish you would let it impress us, then, madam.\nI am deeply impressed; but you are spoiling the effect.\n\nZOO. You just wait. All this business with colored lights and chords on\nthat old organ is only tomfoolery. Wait til you see the pythoness.\n\n_The Envoy's wife falls on her knees, and takes refuge in prayer._\n\nTHE DAUGHTER [_trembling_] Are we really going to see a woman who has\nlived three hundred years?\n\nZOO. Stuff! Youd drop dead if a tertiary as much as looked at you. The\noracle is only a hundred and seventy; and you'll find it hard enough to\nstand her.\n\nTHE DAUGHTER [_piteously_] Oh! [_she falls on her knees_].\n\nTHE ENVOY. Whew! Stand by me, Poppa. This is a little more than I\nbargained for. Are you going to kneel; or how?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Perhaps it would be in better taste.\n\n_The two men kneel._\n\n_The vapor of the abyss thickens; and a distant roll of thunder seems to\ncome from its depths. The pythoness, seated on her tripod, rises slowly\nfrom it. She has discarded the insulating robe and veil in which she\nconversed with Napoleon, and is now draped and hooded in voluminous\nfolds of a single piece of grey-white stuff. Something supernatural\nabout her terrifies the beholders, who throw themselves on their faces.\nHer outline flows and waves: she is almost distinct at moments, and\nagain vague and shadowy: above all, she is larger than life-size, not\nenough to be measured by the flustered congregation, but enough to\naffect them with a dreadful sense of her supernaturalness._\n\nZOO. Get up, get up. Do pull yourselves together, you people.\n\n_The Envoy and his family, by shuddering negatively, intimate that it\nis impossible. The Elderly Gentleman manages to get on his hands and\nknees._\n\nZOO. Come on, Daddy: you are not afraid. Speak to her. She wont wait\nhere all day for you, you know.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_rising very deferentially to his feet_] Madam:\nyou will excuse my very natural nervousness in addressing, for the first\ntime in my life, a--a--a--a goddess. My friend and relative the Envoy is\nunhinged. I throw myself upon your indulgence--\n\nZOO [_interrupting him intolerantly_] Dont throw yourself on anything\nbelonging to her or you will go right through her and break your neck.\nShe isnt solid, like you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I was speaking figuratively--\n\nZOO. You have been told not to do it. Ask her what you want to know; and\nbe quick about it.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_stooping and taking the prostrate Envoy by the\nshoulders_] Ambrose: you must make an effort. You cannot go back to\nBaghdad without the answers to your questions.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_rising to his knees_] I shall be only too glad to get back\nalive on any terms. If my legs would support me I'd just do a bunk\nstraight for the ship.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No, no. Remember: your dignity--\n\nTHE ENVOY. Dignity be damned! I'm terrified. Take me away, for God's\nsake.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_producing a brandy flask and taking the cap\noff_] Try some of this. It is still nearly full, thank goodness!\n\nTHE ENVOY [_clutching it and drinking eagerly_] Ah! Thats better. [_He\ntries to drink again. Finding that he has emptied it, he hands it back\nto his father-in-law upside down_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_taking it_] Great heavens! He has swallowed\nhalf-a-pint of neat brandy. [_Much perturbed, he screws the cap on\nagain, and pockets the flask_].\n\nTHE ENVOY [_staggering to his feet; pulling a paper from his pocket; and\nspeaking with boisterous confidence_] Get up, Molly. Up with you, Eth.\n\n_The two women rise to their knees._\n\nTHE ENVOY. What I want to ask is this. [_He refers to the paper_]. Ahem!\nCivilization has reached a crisis. We are at the parting of the ways. We\nstand on the brink of the Rubicon. Shall we take the plunge? Already a\nleaf has been torn out of the book of the Sybil. Shall we wait until the\nwhole volume is consumed? On our right is the crater of the volcano: on\nour left the precipice. One false step, and we go down to annihilation\ndragging the whole human race with us. [_He pauses for breath_].\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_recovering his spirits under the familiar\nstimulus of political oratory_] Hear, hear!\n\nZOO. What are you raving about? Ask your question while you have the\nchance. What is it you want to know?\n\nTHE ENVOY [_patronizing her in the manner of a Premier debating with a\nvery young member of the Opposition_] A young woman asks me a question.\nI am always glad to see the young taking an interest in politics. It is\nan impatient question; but it is a practical question, an intelligent\nquestion. She asks why we seek to lift a corner of the veil that shrouds\nthe future from our feeble vision.\n\nZOO. I don't. I ask you to tell the oracle what you want, and not keep\nher sitting there all day.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_warmly_] Order, order!\n\nZOO. What does 'Order, order!' mean?\n\nTHE ENVOY. I ask the august oracle to listen to my voice--\n\nZOO. You people seem never to tire of listening to your voices; but it\ndoesn't amuse us. What do you want?\n\nTHE ENVOY. I want, young woman, to be allowed to proceed without\nunseemly interruptions.\n\n_A low roll of thunder comes from the abyss._\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. There! Even the oracle is indignant. [_To the\nEnvoy_] Do not allow yourself to be put down by this lady's rude clamor,\nAmbrose. Take no notice. Proceed.\n\nTHE ENVOY'S WIFE. I cant bear this much longer, Amby. Remember: I havn't\nhad any brandy.\n\nHIS DAUGHTER [_trembling_] There are serpents curling in the vapor. I am\nafraid of the lightning. Finish it, Papa; or I shall die.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_sternly_] Silence. The destiny of British civilization is at\nstake. Trust me. I am not afraid. As I was saying--where was I?\n\nZOO. I don't know. Does anybody?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_tactfully_] You were just coming to the\nelection, I think.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_reassured_] Just so. The election. Now what we want to\nknow is this: ought we to dissolve in August, or put it off until next\nspring?\n\nZOO. Dissolve? In what? [_Thunder_]. Oh! My fault this time. That means\nthat the oracle understands you, and desires me to hold my tongue.\n\nTHE ENVOY [_fervently_] I thank the oracle.\n\nTHE WIFE [_to Zoo_] Serve you right!\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Before the oracle replies, I should like to be\nallowed to state a few of the reasons why, in my opinion, the Government\nshould hold on until the spring. In the first--\n\n_Terrific lightning and thunder. The Elderly Gentleman is knocked flat;\nbut as he immediately sits up again dazedly it is clear that he is none\nthe worse for the shock. The ladies cower in terror. The Envoy's hat is\nblown off; but he seizes it just as it quits his temples, and holds it\non with both hands. He is recklessly drunk, but quite articulate, as he\nseldom speaks in public without taking stimulants beforehand._\n\nTHE ENVOY [_taking one hand from his hat to make a gesture of stilling\nthe tempest_] Thats enough. We know how to take a hint. I'll put the\ncase in three words. I am the leader of the Potterbill party. My party\nis in power. I am Prime Minister. The Opposition--the Rotterjacks--have\nwon every bye-election for the last six months. They--\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_scrambling heatedly to his feet_] Not by fair\nmeans. By bribery, by misrepresentation, by pandering to the vilest\nprejudices [_muttered thunder_]--I beg your pardon [_he is silent_].\n\nTHE ENVOY. Never mind the bribery and lies. The oracle knows all about\nthat. The point is that though our five years will not expire until the\nyear after next, our majority will be eaten away at the bye-elections\nby about Easter. We can't wait: we must start some question that will\nexcite the public, and go to the country on it. But some of us say do it\nnow. Others say wait til the spring. We cant make up our minds one way\nor the other. Which would you advise?\n\nZOO. But what is the question that is to excite your public?\n\nTHE ENVOY. That doesnt matter. I dont know yet. We will find a question\nall right enough. The oracle can foresee the future: we cannot.\n[_Thunder_]. What does that mean? What have I done now?\n\nZOO. [_severely_] How often must you be told that we cannot foresee the\nfuture? There is no such thing as the future until it is the present.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Allow me to point out, madam, that when the\nPotterbill party sent to consult the oracle fifteen years ago, the\noracle prophesied that the Potterbills would be victorious at the\nGeneral Election; and they were. So it is evident that the oracle can\nforesee the future, and is sometimes willing to reveal it.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Quite true. Thank you, Poppa. I appeal now, over your head,\nyoung woman, direct to the August Oracle, to repeat the signal favor\nconferred on my illustrious predecessor, Sir Fuller Eastwind, and to\nanswer me exactly as he was answered.\n\n_The oracle raises her hands to command silence._\n\nALL. Sh-sh-sh!\n\n_Invisible trombones utter three solemn blasts in the manner of Die\nZauberfl\u00f6te._\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. May I--\n\nZOO [_quickly_] Hush. The oracle is going to speak.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Go home, poor fool.\n\n_She vanishes; and the atmosphere changes to prosaic daylight. Zoo comes\noff the railing; throws off her robe; makes a bundle of it; and tucks it\nunder her arm. The magic and mystery are gone. The women rise to their\nfeet. The Envoy's party stare at one another helplessly._\n\nZOO. The same reply, word for word, that your illustrious predecessor,\nas you call him, got fifteen years ago. You asked for it; and you got\nit. And just think of all the important questions you might have asked.\nShe would have answered them, you know. It is always like that. I\nwill go and arrange to have you sent home: you can wait for me in the\nentrance hall [_she goes out_].\n\nTHE ENVOY. What possessed me to ask for the same answer old Eastwind\ngot?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But it was not the same answer. The answer to\nEastwind was an inspiration to our party for years. It won us the\nelection.\n\nTHE ENVOY'S DAUGHTER. I learnt it at school, granpa. It wasn't the same\nat all. I can repeat it. [_She quotes_] 'When Britain was cradled in the\nwest, the east wind hardened her and made her great. Whilst the east\nwind prevails Britain shall prosper. The east wind shall wither\nBritain's enemies in the day of contest. Let the Rotterjacks look to\nit.'\n\nTHE ENVOY. The old man invented that. I see it all. He was a doddering\nold ass when he came to consult the oracle. The oracle naturally said\n'Go home, poor fool.' There was no sense in saying that to me; but as\nthat girl said, I asked for it. What else could the poor old chap do but\nfake up an answer fit for publication? There were whispers about it; but\nnobody believed them. I believe them now.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Oh, I cannot admit that Sir Fuller Eastwind was\ncapable of such a fraud.\n\nTHE ENVOY. He was capable of anything: I knew his private secretary.\nAnd now what are we going to say? You don't suppose I am going back to\nBaghdad to tell the British Empire that the oracle called me a fool, do\nyou?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Surely we must tell the truth, however painful it\nmay be to our feelings.\n\nTHE ENVOY. I am not thinking of my feelings: I am not so selfish as\nthat, thank God. I am thinking of the country: of our party. The truth,\nas you call it, would put the Rotterjacks in for the next twenty years.\nIt would be the end of me politically. Not that I care for that: I am\nonly too willing to retire if you can find a better man. Dont hesitate\non my account.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No, Ambrose: you are indispensable. There is no\none else.\n\nTHE ENVOY. Very well, then. What are you going to do?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My dear Ambrose, you are the leader of the party,\nnot I. What are you going to do?\n\nTHE ENVOY. I am going to tell the exact truth; thats what I'm going to\ndo. Do you take me for a liar?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_puzzled_] Oh. I beg your pardon. I understood\nyou to say--\n\nTHE ENVOY [_cutting him short_] You understood me to say that I am going\nback to Baghdad to tell the British electorate that the oracle repeated\nto me, word for word, what it said to Sir Fuller Eastwind fifteen years\nago. Molly and Ethel can bear me out. So must you, if you are an honest\nman. Come on.\n\n_He goes out, followed by his wife and daughter._\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_left alone and shrinking into an old and\ndesolate figure_] What am I to do? I am a most perplexed and wretched\nman. [_He falls on his knees, and stretches his hands in entreaty over\nthe abyss_]. I invoke the oracle. I cannot go back and connive at a\nblasphemous lie. I implore guidance.\n\n_The Pythoness walks in on the gallery behind him, and touches him on\nthe shoulder. Her size is now natural. Her face is hidden by her hood.\nHe flinches as if from an electric shock; turns to her; and cowers,\ncovering his eyes in terror._\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No: not close to me. I'm afraid I can't bear it.\n\nTHE ORACLE [_with grave pity_] Come: look at me. I am my natural size\nnow: what you saw there was only a foolish picture of me thrown on a\ncloud by a lantern. How can I help you?\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. They have gone back to lie about your answer. I\ncannot go with them. I cannot live among people to whom nothing is real.\nI have become incapable of it through my stay here. I implore to be\nallowed to stay.\n\nTHE ORACLE. My friend: if you stay with us you will die of\ndiscouragement.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. If I go back I shall die of disgust and despair.\nI take the nobler risk. I beg you, do not cast me out.\n\n_He catches her robe and holds her._\n\nTHE ORACLE. Take care. I have been here one hundred and seventy years.\nYour death does not mean to me what it means to you.\n\nTHE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is the meaning of life, not of death, that\nmakes banishment so terrible to me.\n\nTHE ORACLE. Be it so, then. You may stay.\n\n_She offers him her hands. He grasps them and raises himself a little by\nclinging to her. She looks steadily into his face. He stiffens; a little\nconvulsion shakes him; his grasp relaxes; and he falls dead._\n\nTHE ORACLE [_looking down at the body_] Poor shortlived thing! What else\ncould I do for you?\n\n\n\n\nPART V.\n\nAs Far as Thought can Reach\n\n\n_Summer afternoon in the year 31,920 A.D. A sunlit glade at the southern\nfoot of a thickly wooded hill. On the west side of it, the steps and\ncolumned porch of a dainty little classic temple. Between it and the\nhill, a rising path to the wooded heights begins with rough steps of\nstones in the moss. On the opposite side, a grove. In the middle of the\nglade, an altar in the form of a low marble table as long as a man, set\nparallel to the temple steps and pointing to the hill. Curved marble\nbenches radiate from it into the foreground; but they are not joined to\nit: there is plenty of space to pass between the altar and the benches.\n\nA dance of youths and maidens is in progress. The music is provided by a\nfew fluteplayers seated carelessly on the steps of the temple. There are\nno children; and none of the dancers seems younger than eighteen. Some\nof the youths have beards. Their dress, like the architecture of the\ntheatre and the design of the altar and curved seats, resembles Grecian\nof the fourth century B.C., freely handled. They move with perfect\nbalance and remarkable grace, racing through a figure like a farandole.\nThey neither romp nor hug in our manner.\n\nAt the first full close they clap their hands to stop the musicians, who\nrecommence with a saraband, during which a strange figure appears on the\npath beyond the temple. He is deep in thought, with his eyes closed\nand his feet feeling automatically for the rough irregular steps as he\nslowly descends them. Except for a sort of linen kilt consisting mainly\nof a girdle carrying a sporran and a few minor pockets, he is naked. In\nphysical hardihood and uprightness he seems to be in the prime of life;\nand his eyes and mouth shew no signs of age; but his face, though fully\nand firmly fleshed, bears a network of lines, varying from furrows to\nhairbreadth reticulations, as if Time had worked over every inch of it\nincessantly through whole geologic periods. His head is finely domed\nand utterly bald. Except for his eyelashes he is quite hairless. He is\nunconscious of his surroundings, and walks right into one of the dancing\ncouples, separating them. He wakes up and stares about him. The couple\nstop indignantly. The rest stop. The music stops. The youth whom he has\njostled accosts him without malice, but without anything that we should\ncall manners._\n\nTHE YOUTH. Now, then, ancient sleepwalker, why don't you keep your eyes\nopen and mind where you are going?\n\nTHE ANCIENT [_mild, bland, and indulgent_] I did not know there was a\nnursery here, or I should not have turned my face in this direction.\nSuch accidents cannot always be avoided. Go on with your play: I will\nturn back.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Why not stay with us and enjoy life for once in a way? We\nwill teach you to dance.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. No, thank you. I danced when I was a child like you.\nDancing is a very crude attempt to get into the rhythm of life. It would\nbe painful to me to go back from that rhythm to your babyish gambols: in\nfact I could not do it if I tried. But at your age it is pleasant: and I\nam sorry I disturbed you.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Come! own up: arnt you very unhappy? It's dreadful to see\nyou ancients going about by yourselves, never noticing anything, never\ndancing, never laughing, never singing, never getting anything out of\nlife. None of us are going to be like that when we grow up. It's a dog's\nlife.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. Not at all. You repeat that old phrase without knowing\nthat there was once a creature on earth called a dog. Those who are\ninterested in extinct forms of life will tell you that it loved the\nsound of its own voice and bounded about when it was happy, just as you\nare doing here. It is you, my children, who are living the dog's life.\n\nTHE YOUTH. The dog must have been a good sensible creature: it set you\na very wise example. You should let yourself go occasionally and have a\ngood time.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. My children: be content to let us ancients go our ways and\nenjoy ourselves in our own fashion.\n\n_He turns to go._\n\nTHE MAIDEN. But wait a moment. Why will you not tell us how you enjoy\nyourself? You must have secret pleasures that you hide from us, and that\nyou never get tired of. I get tired of all our dances and all our tunes.\nI get tired of all my partners.\n\nTHE YOUTH [_suspiciously_] Do you? I shall bear that in mind.\n\n_They all look at one another as if there were some sinister\nsignificance in what she has said._\n\nTHE MAIDEN. We all do: what is the use of pretending we don't? It is\nnatural.\n\nSEVERAL YOUNG PEOPLE. No, no. We don't. It is not natural.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. You are older than he is, I see. You are growing up.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. How do you know? I do not look so much older, do I?\n\nTHE ANCIENT. Oh, I was not looking at you. Your looks do not interest\nme.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Thank you.\n\n_They all laugh._\n\nTHE YOUTH. You old fish! I believe you don't know the difference between\na man and a woman.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. It has long ceased to interest me in the way it interests\nyou. And when anything no longer interests us we no longer know it.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. You havnt told me how I shew my age. That is what I want to\nknow. As a matter of fact I am older than this boy here: older than he\nthinks. How did you find that out?\n\nTHE ANCIENT. Easily enough. You are ceasing to pretend that these\nchildish games--this dancing and singing and mating--do not become\ntiresome and unsatisfying after a while. And you no longer care to\npretend that you are younger than you are. These are the signs of\nadolescence. And then, see these fantastic rags with which you have\ndraped yourself. [_He takes up a piece of her draperies in his hand_].\nIt is rather badly worn here. Why do you not get a new one?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Oh, I did not notice it. Besides, it is too much trouble.\nClothes are a nuisance. I think I shall do without them some day, as you\nancients do.\n\nTHE ANCIENT. Signs of maturity. Soon you will give up all these toys and\ngames and sweets.\n\nTHE YOUTH. What! And be as miserable as you?\n\nTHE ANCIENT. Infant: one moment of the ecstasy of life as we live it\nwould strike you dead. [_He stalks gravely out through the grove_].\n\n_They stare after him, much damped._\n\nTHE YOUTH [_to the musicians_] Let us have another dance.\n\n_The musicians shake their heads; get up from their seats on the steps;\nand troop away into the temple. The others follow them, except the\nMaiden, who sits down on the altar._\n\nA MAIDEN [_as she goes_] There! The ancient has put them out of\ncountenance. It is your fault, Strephon, for provoking him. [_She\nleaves, much disappointed_].\n\nA YOUTH. Why need you have cheeked him like that? [_He goes grumbling_].\n\nSTREPHON [_calling after him_] I thought it was understood that we are\nalways to cheek the ancients on principle.\n\nANOTHER YOUTH. Quite right too! There would be no holding them if we\ndidn't. [_He goes_].\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Why don't you really stand up to them? _I_ did.\n\nANOTHER YOUTH. Sheer, abject, pusillanimous, dastardly cowardice. Thats\nwhy. Face the filthy truth. [_He goes_].\n\nANOTHER YOUTH [_turning on the steps as he goes out_] And don't you\nforget, infant, that one moment of the ecstasy of life as I live it\nwould strike you dead. Haha!\n\nSTREPHON [_now the only one left, except the Maiden_] Arnt you coming,\nChloe?\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_shakes her head_]!\n\nTHE YOUTH [_hurrying back to her_] What is the matter?\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_tragically pensive_] I dont know.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Then there is something the matter. Is that what you mean?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Yes. Something is happening to me. I dont know what.\n\nTHE YOUTH. You no longer love me. I have seen it for a month past.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Dont you think all that is rather silly? We cannot go on as\nif this kind of thing, this dancing and sweethearting, were everything.\n\nTHE YOUTH. What is there better? What else is there worth living for?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Oh, stuff! Dont be frivolous.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Something horrible is happening to you. You are losing all\nheart, all feeling. [_He sits on the altar beside her and buries his\nface in his hands_]. I am bitterly unhappy.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Unhappy! Really, you must have a very empty head if there is\nnothing in it but a dance with one girl who is no better than any of the\nother girls.\n\nTHE YOUTH. You did not always think so. You used to be vexed if I as\nmuch as looked at another girl.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. What does it matter what I did when I was a baby? Nothing\nexisted for me then except what I tasted and touched and saw; and I\nwanted all that for myself, just as I wanted the moon to play with. Now\nthe world is opening out for me. More than the world: the universe. Even\nlittle things are turning out to be great things, and becoming intensely\ninteresting. Have you ever thought about the properties of numbers?\n\nTHE YOUTH [_sitting up, markedly disenchanted_] Numbers!!! I cannot\nimagine anything drier or more repulsive.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. They are fascinating, just fascinating. I want to get away\nfrom our eternal dancing and music, and just sit down by myself and\nthink about numbers.\n\nTHE YOUTH [_rising indignantly_] Oh, this is too much. I have suspected\nyou for some time past. We have all suspected you. All the girls\nsay that you have deceived us as to your age: that you are getting\nflat-chested: that you are bored with us; that you talk to the ancients\nwhen you get the chance. Tell me the truth: how old are you?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Just twice your age, my poor boy.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Twice my age! Do you mean to say you are four?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Very nearly four.\n\nTHE YOUTH [_collapsing on the altar with a groan_] Oh!\n\nTHE MAIDEN. My poor Strephon: I pretended I was only two for your sake.\nI was two when you were born. I saw you break from your shell; and\nyou were such a charming child! You ran round and talked to us all so\nprettily, and were so handsome and well grown, that I lost my heart to\nyou at once. But now I seem to have lost it altogether: bigger things\nare taking possession of me. Still, we were very happy in our childish\nway for the first year, werent we?\n\nSTREPHON. I was happy until you began cooling towards me.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Not towards you, but towards all the trivialities of our\nlife here. Just think. I have hundreds of years to live: perhaps\nthousands. Do you suppose I can spend centuries dancing; listening to\nflutes ringing changes on a few tunes and a few notes; raving about the\nbeauty of a few pillars and arches; making jingles with words; lying\nabout with your arms round me, which is really neither comfortable nor\nconvenient; everlastingly choosing colors for dresses, and putting them\non, and washing; making a business of sitting together at fixed hours\nto absorb our nourishment; taking little poisons with it to make us\ndelirious enough to imagine we are enjoying ourselves; and then having\nto pass the nights in shelters lying in cots and losing half our lives\nin a state of unconsciousness. Sleep is a shameful thing: I have not\nslept at all for weeks past. I have stolen out at night when you were\nall lying insensible--quite disgusting, I call it--and wandered about\nthe woods, thinking, thinking, thinking; grasping the world; taking it\nto pieces; building it up again; devising methods; planning experiments\nto test the methods; and having a glorious time. Every morning I have\ncome back here with greater and greater reluctance; and I know that the\ntime will soon come--perhaps it has come already--when I shall not come\nback at all.\n\nSTREPHON. How horribly cold and uncomfortable!\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Oh, don't talk to me of comfort! Life is not worth living if\nyou have to bother about comfort. Comfort makes winter a torture,\nspring an illness, summer an oppression, and autumn only a respite. The\nancients could make life one long frowsty comfort if they chose. But\nthey never lift a finger to make themselves comfortable. They will not\nsleep under a roof. They will not clothe themselves: a girdle with a few\npockets hanging to it to carry things about in is all they wear: they\nwill sit down on the wet moss or in a gorse bush when there is dry\nheather within two yards of them. Two years ago, when you were born, I\ndid not understand this. Now I feel that I would not put myself to the\ntrouble of walking two paces for all the comfort in the world.\n\nSTREPHON. But you don't know what this means to me. It means that you\nare dying to me: yes, just dying. Listen to me [_he puts his arm around\nher_].\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_extricating herself_] Dont. We can talk quite as well\nwithout touching one another.\n\nSTREPHON [_horrified_] Chloe! Oh, this is the worst symptom of all! The\nancients never touch one another.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Why should they?\n\nSTREPHON. Oh, I don't know. But don't you want to touch me? You used to.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Yes: that is true: I used to. We used to think it would be\nnice to sleep in one another's arms; but we never could go to sleep\nbecause our weight stopped our circulations just above the elbows. Then\nsomehow my feeling began to change bit by bit. I kept a sort of interest\nin your head and arms long after I lost interest in your whole body. And\nnow that has gone.\n\nSTREPHON. You no longer care for me at all, then?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Nonsense! I care for you much more seriously than before;\nthough perhaps not so much for you in particular. I mean I care more for\neverybody. But I don't want to touch you unnecessarily; and I certainly\ndon't want you to touch me.\n\nSTREPHON [_rising decisively_] That finishes it. You dislike me.\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_impatiently_] I tell you again, I do not dislike you; but\nyou bore me when you cannot understand; and I think I shall be happier\nby myself in future. You had better get a new companion. What about the\ngirl who is to be born today?\n\nSTREPHON. I do not want the girl who is to be born today. How do I know\nwhat she will be like? I want you.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. You cannot have me. You must recognize facts and face them.\nIt is no use running after a woman twice your age. I cannot make my\nchildhood last to please you. The age of love is sweet; but it is short;\nand I must pay nature's debt. You no longer attract me; and I no longer\ncare to attract you. Growth is too rapid at my age: I am maturing from\nweek to week.\n\nSTREPHON. You are maturing, as you call it--I call it ageing--from\nminute to minute. You are going much further than you did when we began\nthis conversation.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. It is not the ageing that is so rapid. It is the realization\nof it when it has actually happened. Now that I have made up my mind to\nthe fact that I have left childhood behind me, it comes home to me in\nleaps and bounds with every word you say.\n\nSTREPHON. But your vow. Have you forgotten that? We all swore together\nin that temple: the temple of love. You were more earnest than any of\nus.\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_with a grim smile_] Never to let our hearts grow cold!\nNever to become as the ancients! Never to let the sacred lamp be\nextinguished! Never to change or forget! To be remembered for ever as\nthe first company of true lovers faithful to this vow so often made and\nbroken by past generations! Ha! ha! Oh, dear!\n\nSTREPHON. Well, you need not laugh. It is a beautiful and holy compact;\nand I will keep it whilst I live. Are you going to break it?\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Dear child: it has broken itself. The change has come in\nspite of my childish vow. [_She rises_]. Do you mind if I go into the\nwoods for a walk by myself? This chat of ours seems to me an unbearable\nwaste of time. I have so much to think of.\n\nSTREPHON [_again collapsing on the altar and covering his eyes with his\nhands_] My heart is broken. [_He weeps_].\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_with a shrug_] I have luckily got through my childhood\nwithout that experience. It shews how wise I was to choose a lover half\nmy age. [_She goes towards the grove, and is disappearing among the\ntrees, when another youth, older and manlier than Strephon, with crisp\nhair and firm arms, comes from the temple, and calls to her from the\nthreshold_].\n\nTHE TEMPLE YOUTH. I say, Chloe. Is there any sign of the Ancient yet?\nThe hour of birth is overdue. The baby is kicking like mad. She will\nbreak her shell prematurely.\n\nTHE MAIDEN [_looks across to the hill path; then points up it, and\nsays_] She is coming, Acis.\n\n_The Maiden turns away through the grove and is lost to sight among the\ntrees._\n\nAcis [_coming to Strephon_] Whats the matter? Has Chloe been unkind?\n\nSTREPHON. She has grown up in spite of all her promises. She deceived us\nabout her age. She is four.\n\nACIS. Four! I am sorry, Strephon. I am getting on for three myself;\nand I know what old age is. I hate to say 'I told you so'; but she was\ngetting a little hard set and flat-chested and thin on the top, wasn't\nshe?\n\nSTREPHON [_breaking down_] Dont.\n\nACIS. You must pull yourself together. This is going to be a busy day.\nFirst the birth. Then the Festival of the Artists.\n\nSTREPHON [_rising_] What is the use of being born if we have to decay\ninto unnatural, heartless, loveless, joyless monsters in four short\nyears? What use are the artists if they cannot bring their beautiful\ncreations to life? I have a great mind to die and have done with it\nall. [_He moves away to the corner of the curved seat farthest from the\ntheatre, and throws himself moodily into it_].\n\n_An Ancient Woman has descended the hill path during Strephon's lament,\nand has heard most of it. She is like the He-Ancient, equally bald,\nand equally without sexual charm, but intensely interesting and rather\nterrifying. Her sex is discoverable only by her voice, as her breasts\nare manly, and her figure otherwise not very different. She wears no\nclothes, but has draped herself rather perfunctorily with a ceremonial\nrobe, and carries two implements like long slender saws. She comes to\nthe altar between the two young men._\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_to Strephon_] Infant: you are only at the beginning of\nit all. [_To Acis_] Is the child ready to be born?\n\nACIS. More than ready, Ancient. Shouting and kicking and cursing. We\nhave called to her to be quiet and wait until you come; but of course\nshe only half understands, and is very impatient.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Very well. Bring her out into the sun.\n\nACIS [_going quickly into the temple_] All ready. Come along.\n\n_Joyous processional music strikes up in the temple._\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_going close to Strephon_]. Look at me.\n\nSTREPHON [_sulkily keeping his face _averted] Thank you; but I don't\nwant to be cured. I had rather be miserable in my own way than callous\nin yours.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. You like being miserable? You will soon grow out of\nthat. [_She returns to the altar_].\n\n_The procession, headed by Acis, emerges from the temple. Six youths\ncarry on their shoulders a burden covered with a gorgeous but light\npall. Before them certain official maidens carry a new tunic, ewers of\nwater, silver dishes pierced with holes, cloths, and immense sponges.\nThe rest carry wands with ribbons, and strew flowers. The burden is\ndeposited on the altar, and the pall removed. It is a huge egg._\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_freeing her arms from her robe, and placing her saws\non the altar ready to her hand in a businesslike manner_] A girl, I\nthink you said?\n\nACIS. Yes.\n\nTHE TUNIC BEARER. It is a shame. Why cant we have more boys?\n\nSEVERAL YOUTHS [_protesting_] Not at all. More girls. We want new girls.\n\nA GIRL'S VOICE FROM THE EGG. Let me out. Let me out. I want to be born.\nI want to be born. [_The egg rocks_].\n\nACIS [_snatching a wand from one of the others and whacking the egg with\nit_] Be quiet, I tell you. Wait. You will be born presently.\n\nTHE EGG. No, no: at once, at once. I want to be born: I want to be born.\n[_Violent kicking within the egg, which rocks so hard that it has to be\nheld on the altar by the bearers_].\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Silence. [_The music stops; and the egg behaves\nitself_].\n\n_The She-Ancient takes her two saws, and with a couple of strokes rips\nthe egg open. The Newly Born, a pretty girl who would have been guessed\nas seventeen in our day, sits up in the broken shell, exquisitely fresh\nand rosy, but with filaments of spare albumen clinging to her here and\nthere._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_as the world bursts on her vision_] Oh! Oh!!\nOh!!! Oh!!!! [_She continues this ad libitum during the following\nremonstrances_].\n\nACIS. Hold your noise, will you?\n\n_The washing begins. The Newly Born shrieks and struggles._\n\nA YOUTH. Lie quiet, you clammy little devil.\n\nA MAIDEN. You must be washed, dear. Now quiet, quiet, quiet: be good.\n\nACIS. Shut your mouth, or I'll shove the sponge in it.\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Shut your eyes. Itll hurt if you don't.\n\nANOTHER MAIDEN. Dont be silly. One would think nobody had ever been born\nbefore.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_yells_]!!!!!!\n\nACIS. Serve you right! You were told to shut your eyes.\n\nTHE YOUTH. Dry her off quick. I can hardly hold her. Shut it, will you;\nor I'll smack you into a pickled cabbage.\n\n_The dressing begins. The Newly Born chuckles with delight._\n\nTHE MAIDEN. Your arms go here, dear. Isnt it pretty? Youll look lovely.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_rapturously_] Oh! Oh!! Oh!!! Oh!!!!\n\nANOTHER YOUTH. No: the other arm: youre putting it on back to front. You\nare a silly little beast.\n\nACIS. Here! Thats it. Now youre clean and decent. Up with you! Oopsh!\n[_He hauls her to her feet. She cannot walk at first, but masters it\nafter a few steps_]. Now then: march. Here she is, Ancient: put her\nthrough the catechism.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. What name have you chosen for her?\n\nACIS. Amaryllis.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_to the Newly Born_] Your name is Amaryllis.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What does it mean?\n\nA YOUTH. Love.\n\nA MAIDEN. Mother.\n\nANOTHER YOUTH. Lilies.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_to Acis_] What is your name?\n\nACIS. Acis.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I love you, Acis. I must have you all to myself. Take me\nin your arms.\n\nACIS. Steady, young one. I am three years old.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What has that to do with it? I love you; and I must have\nyou or I will go back into my shell again.\n\nACIS. You cant. It's broken. Look here [_pointing to Strephon, who has\nremained in his seal without looking round at the birth, wrapped up in\nhis sorrow_]! Look at this poor fellow!\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is the matter with him?\n\nACIS. When he was born he chose a girl two years old for his sweetheart.\nHe is two years old now himself; and already his heart is broken because\nshe is four. That means that she has grown up like this Ancient here,\nand has left him. If you choose me, we shall have only a year's\nhappiness before I break your heart by growing up. Better choose the\nyoungest you can find.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I will not choose anyone but you. You must not grow up.\nWe will love one another for ever. [_They all laugh_]. What are you\nlaughing at?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Listen, child--\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Do not come near me, you dreadful old creature. You\nfrighten me.\n\nACIS. Just give her another moment. She is not quite reasonable yet.\nWhat can you expect from a child less than five minutes old?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I think I feel a little more reasonable now. Of course I\nwas rather young when I said that; but the inside of my head is changing\nvery rapidly. I should like to have things explained to me.\n\nACIS [_to the She-Ancient_] Is she all right, do you think?\n\n_The She-Ancient looks at the Newly Born critically; feels her bumps\nlike a phrenologist; grips her muscles and shakes her limbs; examines\nher teeth; looks into her eyes for a moment; and finally relinquishes\nher with an air of having finished her job._\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. She will do. She may live.\n\n_They all wave their hands and shout for joy._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_indignant_] I may live! Suppose there had been anything\nwrong with me?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Children with anything wrong do not live here, my\nchild. Life is not cheap with us. But you would not have felt anything.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. You mean that you would have murdered me!\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. That is one of the funny words the newly born bring\nwith them out of the past. You will forget it tomorrow. Now listen. You\nhave four years of childhood before you. You will not be very happy; but\nyou will be interested and amused by the novelty of the world; and your\ncompanions here will teach you how to keep up an imitation of happiness\nduring your four years by what they call arts and sports and pleasures.\nThe worst of your troubles is already over.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What! In five minutes?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. No: you have been growing for two years in the egg. You\nbegan by being several sorts of creatures that no longer exist, though\nwe have fossils of them. Then you became human; and you passed in\nfifteen months through a development that once cost human beings twenty\nyears of awkward stumbling immaturity after they were born. They had to\nspend fifty years more in the sort of childhood you will complete in\nfour years. And then they died of decay. But you need not die until your\naccident comes.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is my accident?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Sooner or later you will fall and break your neck; or a\ntree will fall on you; or you will be struck by lightning. Something or\nother must make an end of you some day.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. But why should any of these things happen to me?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. There is no why. They do. Everything happens to\neverybody sooner or later if there is time enough. And with us there is\neternity.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Nothing need happen. I never heard such nonsense in all\nmy life. I shall know how to take care of myself.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. So you think.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I don't think: I know. I shall enjoy life for ever and\never.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. If you should turn out to be a person of infinite\ncapacity, you will no doubt find life infinitely interesting. However,\nall you have to do now is to play with your companions. They have many\npretty toys, as you see: a playhouse, pictures, images, flowers, bright\nfabrics, music: above all, themselves; for the most amusing child's toy\nis another child. At the end of four years, your mind will change: you\nwill become wise; and then you will be entrusted with power.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. But I want power now.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. No doubt you do; so that you could play with the world\nby tearing it to pieces.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Only to see how it is made. I should put it all together\nagain much better than before.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. There was a time when children were given the world to\nplay with because they promised to improve it. They did not improve it;\nand they would have wrecked it had their power been as great as that\nwhich you will wield when you are no longer a child. Until then your\nyoung companions will instruct you in whatever is necessary. You are not\nforbidden to speak to the ancients; but you had better not do so, as\nmost of them have long ago exhausted all the interest there is in\nobserving children and conversing with them. [_She turns to go_].\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Wait. Tell me some things that I ought to do and ought\nnot to do. I feel the need of education. They all laugh at her, except\nthe She-Ancient.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. You will have grown out of that by tomorrow. Do what\nyou please. [_She goes away up the hill path_].\n\n_The officials take their paraphernalia and the fragments of the egg\nback into the temple._\n\nACIS. Just fancy: that old girl has been going for seven hundred years\nand hasnt had her fatal accident yet; and she is not a bit tired of it\nall.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. How could anyone ever get tired of life?\n\nACIS. They do. That is, of the same life. They manage to change\nthemselves in a wonderful way. You meet them sometimes with a lot of\nextra heads and arms and legs: they make you split laughing at them.\nMost of them have forgotten how to speak: the ones that attend to us\nhave to brush up their knowledge of the language once a year or so.\nNothing makes any difference to them that I can see. They never enjoy\nthemselves. I don't know how they can stand it. They don't even come to\nour festivals of the arts. That old one who saw you out of your shell\nhas gone off to moodle about doing nothing; though she knows that this\nis Festival Day?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is Festival Day?\n\nACIS. Two of our greatest sculptors are bringing us their latest\nmasterpieces; and we are going to crown them with flowers and sing\ndithyrambs to them and dance round them.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. How jolly! What is a sculptor?\n\nACIS. Listen here, young one. You must find out things for yourself, and\nnot ask questions. For the first day or two you must keep your eyes and\nears open and your mouth shut. Children should be seen and not heard.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Who are you calling a child? I am fully a quarter of\nan hour old [_She sits down on the curved bench near Strephon with her\nmaturest air_].\n\nVOICES IN THE TEMPLE [_all expressing protest, disappointment, disgust_]\nOh! Oh! Scandalous. Shameful. Disgraceful. What filth! Is this a joke?\nWhy, theyre ancients! Ss-s-s-sss! Are you mad, Arjillax? This is an\noutrage. An insult. Yah! etc. etc. etc. [_The malcontents appear on the\nsteps, grumbling_].\n\nACIS. Hullo: whats the matter? [_He goes to the steps of the temple_].\n\n_The two sculptors issue from the temple. One has a beard two feet long:\nthe other is beardless. Between them comes a handsome nymph with marked\nfeatures, dark hair richly waved, and authoritative bearing._\n\nTHE AUTHORITATIVE NYMPH [_swooping down to the centre of the glade with\nthe sculptors, between Acis and the Newly Born_] Do not try to browbeat\nme, Arjillax, merely because you are clever with your hands. Can you\nplay the flute?\n\nARJILLAX [_the bearded sculptor on her right_] No, Ecrasia: I cannot.\nWhat has that to do with it? [_He is half derisive, half impatient,\nwholly resolved not to take her seriously in spite of her beauty and\nimposing tone_].\n\nECRASIA. Well, have you ever hesitated to criticize our best flute\nplayers, and to declare whether their music is good or bad? Pray have I\nnot the same right to criticize your busts, though I cannot make images\nanymore than you can play?\n\nARJILLAX. Any fool can play the flute, or play anything else, if he\npractises enough; but sculpture is a creative art, not a mere business\nof whistling into a pipe. The sculptor must have something of the god\nin him. From his hand comes a form which reflects a spirit. He does not\nmake it to please you, nor even to please himself, but because he must.\nYou must take what he gives you, or leave it if you are not worthy of\nit.\n\nECRASIA [_scornfully_] Not worthy of it! Ho! May I not leave it because\nit is not worthy of me?\n\nARJILLAX. Of you! Hold your silly tongue, you conceited humbug. What do\nyou know about it?\n\nECRASIA. I know what every person of culture knows: that the business of\nthe artist is to create beauty. Until today your works have been full of\nbeauty; and I have been the first to point that out.\n\nARJILLAX. Thank you for nothing. People have eyes, havnt they, to see\nwhat is as plain as the sun in the heavens without your pointing it out?\n\nECRASIA. You were very glad to have it pointed out. You did not call me\na conceited humbug then. You stifled me with caresses. You modelled me\nas the genius of art presiding over the infancy of your master here\n[_indicating the other sculptor_], Martellus.\n\nMARTELLUS [_a silent and meditative listener, shudders and shakes his\nhead, but says nothing_].\n\nARJILLAX [_quarrelsomely_] I was taken in by your talk.\n\nECRASIA. I discovered your genius before anyone else did. Is that true,\nor is it not?\n\nARJILLAX. Everybody knew I was an extraordinary person. When I was born\nmy beard was three feet long.\n\nECRASIA. Yes; and it has shrunk from three feet to two. Your genius\nseems to have been in the last foot of your beard; for you have lost\nboth.\n\nMARTELLUS [_with a short sardonic cachinnation_] Ha! My beard was three\nand a half feet long when I was born; and a flash of lightning burnt it\noff and killed the ancient who was delivering me. Without a hair on my\nchin I became the greatest sculptor in ten generations.\n\nECRASIA. And yet you come to us today with empty hands. We shall\nactually have to crown Arjillax here because no other sculptor is\nexhibiting.\n\nACIS [_returning from the temple steps to behind the curved seat on the\nright of the three_] Whats the row, Ecrasia? Why have you fallen out\nwith Arjillax?\n\nECRASIA. He has insulted us! outraged us! profaned his art! You know\nhow much we hoped from the twelve busts he placed in the temple to be\nunveiled today. Well, go in and look at them. That is all I have to\nsay. [_She sweeps to the curved seat, and sits down just where Acis is\nleaning over it_].\n\nACIS. I am no great judge of sculpture. Art is not my line. What is\nwrong with the busts?\n\nECRASIA. Wrong with them! Instead of being ideally beautiful nymphs and\nyouths, they are horribly realistic studies of--but I really cannot\nbring my lips to utter it.\n\n_The Newly Born, full of curiosity, runs to the temple, and peeps in._\n\nACIS. Oh, stow it, Ecrasia. Your lips are not so squeamish as all that.\nStudies of what?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_from the temple steps_] Ancients.\n\nACIS [_surprised but not scandalized_] Ancients!\n\nECRASIA. Yes, ancients. The one subject that is by the universal consent\nof all connoisseurs absolutely excluded from the fine arts. [_To\nArjillax_] How can you defend such a proceeding?\n\nARJILLAX. If you come to that, what interest can you find in the statues\nof smirking nymphs and posturing youths you stick up all over the place?\n\nECRASIA. You did not ask that when your hand was still skilful enough to\nmodel them.\n\nARJILLAX. Skilful! You high-nosed idiot, I could turn such things out by\nthe score with my eyes bandaged and one hand tied behind me. But what\nuse would they be? They would bore me; and they would bore you if you\nhad any sense. Go in and look at my busts. Look at them again and yet\nagain until you receive the full impression of the intensity of\nmind that is stamped on them; and then go back to the pretty-pretty\nconfectionery you call sculpture, and see whether you can endure its\nvapid emptiness. [_He mounts the altar impetuously_] Listen to me, all\nof you; and do you, Ecrasia, be silent if you are capable of silence.\n\nECRASIA. Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. Scorn! That is\nwhat I feel for your revolting busts.\n\nARJILLAX. Fool: the busts are only the beginning of a mighty design.\nListen.\n\nACIS. Go ahead, old sport. We are listening.\n\n_Martellus stretches himself on the sward beside the altar. The Newly\nBorn sits on the temple steps with her chin on her hands, ready to\ndevour the first oration she has ever heard. The rest sit or stand at\nease._\n\nARJILLAX. In the records which generations of children have rescued from\nthe stupid neglect of the ancients, there has come down to us a fable\nwhich, like many fables, is not a thing that was done in the past, but a\nthing that is to be done in the future. It is a legend of a supernatural\nbeing called the Archangel Michael.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Is this a story? I want to hear a story. [_She runs down\nthe steps and sits on the altar at Arjillax's feet_].\n\nARJILLAX. The Archangel Michael was a mighty sculptor and painter. He\nfound in the centre of the world a temple erected to the goddess of the\ncentre, called Mediterranea. This temple was full of silly pictures of\npretty children, such as Ecrasia approves.\n\nACIS. Fair play, Arjillax! If she is to keep silent, let her alone.\n\nECRASIA. I shall not interrupt, Acis. Why should I not prefer youth and\nbeauty to age and ugliness?\n\nARJILLAX. Just so. Well, the Archangel Michael was of my opinion, not\nyours. He began by painting on the ceiling the newly born in all their\nchildish beauty. But when he had done this he was not satisfied; for the\ntemple was no more impressive than it had been before, except that there\nwas a strength and promise of greater things about his newly born ones\nthan any other artist had attained to. So he painted all round these\nnewly born a company of ancients, who were in those days called prophets\nand sybils, whose majesty was that of the mind alone at its intensest.\nAnd this painting was acknowledged through ages and ages to be the\nsummit and masterpiece of art. Of course we cannot believe such a tale\nliterally. It is only a legend. We do not believe in archangels; and the\nnotion that thirty thousand years ago sculpture and painting existed,\nand had even reached the glorious perfection they have reached with us,\nis absurd. But what men cannot realize they can at least aspire to. They\nplease themselves by pretending that it was realized in a golden age of\nthe past. This splendid legend endured because it lived as a desire in\nthe hearts of the greatest artists. The temple of Mediterranea never was\nbuilt in the past, nor did Michael the Archangel exist. But today the\ntemple is here [_he points to the porch_]; and the man is here [_he\nslaps himself on the chest_]. I, Arjillax, am the man. I will place\nin your theatre such images of the newly born as must satisfy even\nEcrasia's appetite for beauty; and I will surround them with ancients\nmore august than any who walk through our woods.\n\nMARTELLUS [_as before_] Ha!\n\nARJILLAX [_stung_] Why do you laugh, you who have come empty-handed,\nand, it seems, empty-headed?\n\nECRASIA [_rising indignantly_] Oh, shame! You dare disparage Martellus,\ntwenty times your master.\n\nACIS. Be quiet, will you [_he seizes her shoulders and thrusts her back\ninto her seat_].\n\nMARTELLUS. Let him disparage his fill, Ecrasia. [_Sitting up_] My poor\nArjillax, I too had this dream. I too found one day that my images of\nloveliness had become vapid, uninteresting, tedious, a waste of time\nand material. I too lost my desire to model limbs, and retained only my\ninterest in heads and faces. I, too, made busts of ancients; but I had\nnot your courage: I made them in secret, and hid them from you all.\n\nARJILLAX [_jumping down from the altar behind Martellus in his surprise\nand excitement_] You made busts of ancients! Where are they, man? Will\nyou be talked out of your inspiration by Ecrasia and the fools who\nimagine she speaks with authority? Let us have them all set up beside\nmine in the theatre. I have opened the way for you; and you see I am\nnone the worse.\n\nMARTELLUS. Impossible. They are all smashed. [_He rises, laughing_].\n\nALL. Smashed!\n\nARJILLAX. Who smashed them?\n\nMARTELLUS. I did. That is why I laughed at you just now. You will smash\nyours before you have completed a dozen of them. [_He goes to the end of\nthe altar and sits down beside the Newly Born_].\n\nARJILLAX. But why?\n\nMARTELLUS. Because you cannot give them life. A live ancient is better\nthan a dead statue. [_He takes the Newly Born on his knee: she is\nflattered and voluptuously responsive_]. Anything alive is better than\nanything that is only pretending to be alive. [_To Arjillax_] Your\ndisillusion with your works of beauty is only the beginning of your\ndisillusion with images of all sorts. As your hand became more skilful\nand your chisel cut deeper, you strove to get nearer and nearer to truth\nand reality, discarding the fleeting fleshly lure, and making images of\nthe mind that fascinates to the end. But how can so noble an inspiration\nbe satisfied with any image, even an image of the truth? In the end the\nintellectual conscience that tore you away from the fleeting in art to\nthe eternal must tear you away from art altogether, because art is false\nand life alone is true.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_flings her arms round his neck and kisses him\nenthusiastically_].\n\nMARTELLUS [_rises; carries her to the curved bench on his left; deposits\nher beside Strephon as if she were his overcoat; and continues without\nthe least change of tone_] Shape it as you will, marble remains marble,\nand the graven image an idol. As I have broken my idols, and cast away\nmy chisel and modelling tools, so will you too break these busts of\nyours.\n\nARJILLAX. Never.\n\nMARTELLUS. Wait, my friend. I do not come empty-handed today, as you\nimagined. On the contrary, I bring with me such a work of art as you\nhave never seen, and an artist who has surpassed both you and me further\nthan we have surpassed all our competitors.\n\nECRASIA. Impossible. The greatest things in art can never be surpassed.\n\nARJILLAX. Who is this paragon whom you declare greater than I?\n\nMARTELLUS. I declare him greater than myself, Arjillax.\n\nARJILLAX [_frowning_] I understand. Sooner than not drown me, you are\nwilling to clasp me round the waist and jump overboard with me.\n\nACIS. Oh, stop squabbling. That is the worst of you artists. You are\nalways in little squabbling cliques; and the worst cliques are those\nwhich consist of one man. Who is this new fellow you are throwing in one\nanother's teeth?\n\nARJILLAX. Ask Martellus: do not ask me. I know nothing of him. [_He\nleaves Martellus, and sits down beside Ecrasia, on her left_].\n\nMARTELLUS. You know him quite well. Pygmalion.\n\nECRASIA [_indignantly_] Pygmalion! That soulless creature! A scientist!\nA laboratory person!\n\nARJILLAX. Pygmalion produce a work of art! You have lost your artistic\nsenses. The man is utterly incapable of modelling a thumb nail, let\nalone a human figure.\n\nMARTELLUS. That does not matter: I have done the modelling for him.\n\nARJILLAX. What on earth do you mean?\n\nMARTELLUS [_calling_] Pygmalion: come forth.\n\n_Pygmalion, a square-fingered youth with his face laid out in horizontal\nblocks, and a perpetual smile of eager benevolent interest in\neverything, and expectation of equal interest from everybody else, comes\nfrom the temple to the centre of the group, who regard him for the most\npart with dismay, as dreading that he will bore them. Ecrasia is openly\ncontemptuous._\n\nMARTELLUS. Friends: it is unfortunate that Pygmalion is constitutionally\nincapable of exhibiting anything without first giving a lecture about\nit to explain it; but I promise you that if you will be patient he will\nshew you the two most wonderful works of art in the world, and that they\nwill contain some of my own very best workmanship. Let me add that they\nwill inspire a loathing that will cure you of the lunacy of art for\never. [_He sits down next the Newly Born, who pouts and turns a very\ncold right shoulder to him, a demonstration utterly lost on him_].\n\n_Pygmalion, with the smile of a simpleton, and the eager confidence of a\nfanatical scientist, climbs awkwardly on to the altar. They prepare for\nthe worst._\n\nPYGMALION. My friends: I will omit the algebra--\n\nACIS. Thank God!\n\nPYGMALION [_continuing_]--because Martellus has made me promise to do\nso. To come to the point, I have succeeded in making artificial human\nbeings. Real live ones, I mean.\n\nINCREDULOUS VOICES. Oh, come! Tell us another. Really, Pyg! Get out. You\nhavnt. What a lie!\n\nPYGMALION. I tell you I have. I will shew them to you. It has been done\nbefore. One of the very oldest documents we possess mentions a tradition\nof a biologist who extracted certain unspecified minerals from the earth\nand, as it quaintly expresses it, 'breathed into their nostrils the\nbreath of life.' This is the only tradition from the primitive ages\nwhich we can regard as really scientific. There are later documents\nwhich specify the minerals with great precision, even to their atomic\nweights; but they are utterly unscientific, because they overlook the\nelement of life which makes all the difference between a mere mixture of\nsalts and gases and a living organism. These mixtures were made over\nand over again in the crude laboratories of the Silly-Clever Ages; but\nnothing came of them until the ingredient which the old chronicler\ncalled the breath of life was added by this very remarkable early\nexperimenter. In my view he was the founder of biological science.\n\nARJILLAX. Is that all we know about him? It doesnt amount to very much,\ndoes it?\n\nPYGMALION. There are some fragments of pictures and documents which\nrepresent him as walking in a garden and advising people to cultivate\ntheir gardens. His name has come down to us in several forms. One of\nthem is Jove. Another is Voltaire.\n\nECRASIA. You are boring us to distraction with your Voltaire. What about\nyour human beings?\n\nARJILLAX. Aye: come to them.\n\nPYGMALION. I assure you that these details are intensely interesting.\n[_Cries of_ No! They are not! Come to the human beings! Conspuez\nVoltaire! Cut it short, Pyg! _interrupt him from all sides_]. You will\nsee their bearing presently. I promise you I will not detain you long.\nWe know, we children of science, that the universe is full of forces and\npowers and energies of one kind and another. The sap rising in a tree,\nthe stone holding together in a definite crystalline structure, the\nthought of a philosopher holding his brain in form and operation with an\ninconceivably powerful grip, the urge of evolution: all these forces can\nbe used by us. For instance, I use the force of gravitation when I put a\nstone on my tunic to prevent it being blown away when I am bathing. By\nsubstituting appropriate machines for the stone we have made not only\ngravitation our slave, but also electricity and magnetism, atomic\nattraction, repulsion, polarization, and so forth. But hitherto the\nvital force has eluded us; so it has had to create machinery for itself.\nIt has created and developed bony structures of the requisite strength,\nand clothed them with cellular tissue of such amazing sensitiveness that\nthe organs it forms will adapt their action to all the normal variations\nin the air they breathe, the food they digest, and the circumstances\nabout which they have to think. Yet, as these live bodies, as we call\nthem, are only machines after all, it must be possible to construct them\nmechanically.\n\nARJILLAX. Everything is possible. Have you done it? that is the\nquestion.\n\nPYGMALION. Yes. But that is a mere fact. What is interesting is the\nexplanation of the fact. Forgive my saying so; but it is such a pity\nthat you artists have no intellect.\n\nECRASIA [_sententiously_] I do not admit that. The artist divines by\ninspiration all the truths that the so-called scientist grubs up in his\nlaboratory slowly and stupidly long afterwards.\n\nARJILLAX [_to Ecrasia, quarrelsomely_] What do you know about it? You\nare not an artist.\n\nACIS. Shut your heads, both of you. Let us have the artificial men. Trot\nthem out, Pygmalion.\n\nPYGMALION. It is a man and a woman. But I really must explain first.\n\nALL [_groaning_]!!!\n\nPYGMALION. Yes: I--\n\nACIS. We want results, not explanations.\n\nPYGMALION [_hurt_] I see I am boring you. Not one of you takes the least\ninterest in science. Goodbye. [_He descends from the altar and makes for\nthe temple_].\n\nSEVERAL YOUTHS AND MAIDENS [_rising and rushing to him_] No, no. Dont\ngo. Dont be offended. We want to see the artificial pair. We will\nlisten. We are tremendously interested. Tell us all about it.\n\nPYGMALION [_relenting_] I shall not detain you two minutes.\n\nALL. Half an hour if you like. Please go on, Pygmalion. [_They rush him\nback to the altar, and hoist him on to it_]. Up you go.\n\n_They return to their former places._\n\nPYGMALION. As I told you, lots of attempts were made to produce\nprotoplasm in the laboratory. Why were these synthetic plasms, as they\ncalled them, no use?\n\nECRASIA. We are waiting for you to tell us.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_modelling herself on Ecrasia, and trying to outdo her\nintellectually_] Clearly because they were dead.\n\nPYGMALION. Not bad for a baby, my pet. But dead and alive are very loose\nterms. You are not half as much alive as you will be in another month or\nso. What was wrong with the synthetic protoplasm was that it could\nnot fix and conduct the Life Force. It was like a wooden magnet or a\nlightning conductor made of silk: it would not take the current.\n\nACIS. Nobody but a fool would make a wooden magnet, and expect it to\nattract anything.\n\nPYGMALION. He might if he were so ignorant as not to be able to\ndistinguish between wood and soft iron. In those days they were very\nignorant of the differences between things, because their methods of\nanalysis were crude. They mixed up messes that were so like protoplasm\nthat they could not tell the difference. But the difference was there,\nthough their analysis was too superficial and incomplete to detect it.\nYou must remember that these poor devils were very little better than\nour idiots: we should never dream of letting one of them survive the day\nof its birth. Why, the Newly Born there already knows by instinct many\nthings that their greatest physicists could hardly arrive at by forty\nyears of strenuous study. Her simple direct sense of space-time and\nquantity unconsciously solves problems which cost their most famous\nmathematicians years of prolonged and laborious calculations requiring\nsuch intense mental application that they frequently forgot to breathe\nwhen engaged in them, and almost suffocated themselves in consequence.\n\nECRASIA. Leave these obscure prehistoric abortions; and come back to\nyour synthetic man and woman.\n\nPYGMALION. When I undertook the task of making synthetic men, I did\nnot waste my time on protoplasm. It was evident to me that if it were\npossible to make protoplasm in the laboratory, it must be equally\npossible to begin higher up and make fully evolved muscular and nervous\ntissues, bone, and so forth. Why make the seed when the making of the\nflower would be no greater miracle? I tried thousands of combinations\nbefore I succeeded in producing anything that would fix high-potential\nLife Force.\n\nARJILLAX. High what?\n\nPYGMALION. High-po-tential. The Life Force is not so simple as you\nthink. A high-potential current of it will turn a bit of dead tissue\ninto a philosopher's brain. A low-potential current will reduce the same\nbit of tissue to a mass of corruption. Will you believe me when I tell\nyou that, even in man himself, the Life Force used to slip suddenly down\nfrom its human level to that of a fungus, so that men found their flesh\nno longer growing as flesh, but proliferating horribly in a lower form\nwhich was called cancer, until the lower form of life killed the higher,\nand both perished together miserably?\n\nMARTELLUS. Keep off the primitive tribes, Pygmalion. They interest you;\nbut they bore these young things.\n\nPYGMALION. I am only trying to make you understand. There was the Life\nForce raging all round me: there was I, trying to make organs that would\ncapture it as a battery captures electricity, and tissues that would\nconduct it and operate it. It was easy enough to make eyes more perfect\nthan our own, and ears with a larger range of sound; but they could\nneither see nor hear, because they were not susceptible to the Life\nForce. But it was far worse when I discovered how to make them\nsusceptible; for the first thing that happened was that they ceased to\nbe eyes and ears and turned into heaps of maggots.\n\nECRASIA. Disgusting! Please stop.\n\nACIS. If you don't want to hear, go away. You go ahead, Pyg.\n\nPYGMALION. I went ahead. You see, the lower potentials of the Life Force\ncould make maggots, but not human eyes or ears. I improved the tissue\nuntil it was susceptible to a higher potential.\n\nARJILLAX [_intensely interested_] Yes; and then?\n\nPYGMALION. Then the eyes and ears turned into cancers.\n\nECRASIA. Oh, hideous!\n\nPYGMALION. Not at all. That was a great advance. It encouraged me so\nmuch that I put aside the eyes and ears, and made a brain. It wouldn't\ntake the Life Force at all until I had altered its constitution a dozen\ntimes; but when it did, it took a much higher potential, and did not\ndissolve; and neither did the eyes and ears when I connected them up\nwith the brain. I was able to make a sort of monster: a thing without\narms or legs; and it really and truly lived for half-an-hour.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Half-an-hour! What good was that? Why did it die?\n\nPYGMALION. Its blood went wrong. But I got that right; and then I went\nahead with a complete human body: arms and legs and all. He was my first\nman.\n\nARJILLAX. Who modelled him?\n\nPYGMALION. I did.\n\nMARTELLUS. Do you mean to say you tried your own hand before you sent\nfor me?\n\nPYGMALION. Bless you, yes, several times. My first man was the\nghastliest creature: a more dreadful mixture of horror and absurdity\nthan you who have not seen him can conceive.\n\nARJILLAX. If you modelled him, he must indeed have been a spectacle.\n\nPYGMALION. Oh, it was not his shape. You see I did not invent that. I\ntook actual measurements and moulds from my own body. Sculptors do that\nsometimes, you know; though they pretend they don't.\n\nMARTELLUS. Hm!\n\nARJILLAX. Hah!\n\nPYGMALION. He was all right to look at, at first, or nearly so. But he\nbehaved in the most appalling manner; and the subsequent developments\nwere so disgusting that I really cannot describe them to you. He seized\nall sorts of things and swallowed them. He drank every fluid in the\nlaboratory. I tried to explain to him that he must take nothing that he\ncould not digest and assimilate completely; but of course he could not\nunderstand me. He assimilated a little of what he swallowed; but the\nprocess left horrible residues which he had no means of getting rid of.\nHis blood turned to poison; and he perished in torments, howling. I then\nperceived that I had produced a prehistoric man; for there are certain\ntraces in our own bodies of arrangements which enabled the earlier forms\nof mankind to renew their bodies by swallowing flesh and grains and\nvegetables and all sorts of unnatural and hideous foods, and getting rid\nof what they could not digest.\n\nECRASIA. But what a pity he died! What a glimpse of the past we have\nlost! He could have told us stories of the Golden Age.\n\nPYGMALION. Not he. He was a most dangerous beast. He was afraid of me,\nand actually tried to kill me by snatching up things and striking at me\nwith them. I had to give him two or three pretty severe shocks before I\nconvinced him that he was at my mercy.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Why did you not make a woman instead of a man? She would\nhave known how to behave herself.\n\nMARTELLUS. Why did you not make a man and a woman? Their children would\nhave been interesting.\n\nPYGMALION. I intended to make a woman; but after my experience with the\nman it was out of the question.\n\nECRASIA. Pray why?\n\nPYGMALION. Well, it is difficult to explain if you have not studied\nprehistoric methods of reproduction. You see the only sort of men and\nwomen I could make were men and women just like us as far as their\nbodies were concerned. That was how I killed the poor beast of a man. I\nhadnt provided for his horrible prehistoric methods of feeding himself.\nSuppose the woman had reproduced in some prehistoric way instead of\nbeing oviparous as we are? She couldn't have done it with a modern\nfemale body. Besides, the experiment might have been painful.\n\nECRASIA. Then you have nothing to shew us at all?\n\nPYGMALION. Oh yes I have. I am not so easily beaten as that. I set to\nwork again for months to find out how to make a digestive system that\nwould deal with waste products and a reproductive system capable of\ninternal nourishment and incubation.\n\nECRASIA. Why did you not find out how to make them like us?\n\nSTREPHON [_crying out in his grief for the first time_] Why did you not\nmake a woman whom you could love? That was the secret you needed.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh yes. How true! How great of you, darling Strephon!\n[_She kisses him impulsively_].\n\nSTREPHON [_passionately_] Let me alone.\n\nMARTELLUS. Control your reflexes, child.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. My what!\n\nMARTELLUS. Your reflexes. The things you do without thinking. Pygmalion\nis going to shew you a pair of human creatures who are all reflexes and\nnothing else. Take warning by them.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. But wont they be alive, like us?\n\nPYGMALION. That is a very difficult question to answer, my dear. I\nconfess I thought at first I had created living creatures; but Martellus\ndeclares they are only automata. But then Martellus is a mystic: _I_\nam a man of science. He draws a line between an automaton and a living\norganism. I cannot draw that line to my own satisfaction.\n\nMARTELLUS. Your artificial men have no self-control. They only respond\nto stimuli from without.\n\nPYGMALION. But they are conscious. I have taught them to talk and read;\nand now they tell lies. That is so very lifelike.\n\nMARTELLUS. Not at all. If they were alive they would tell the truth. You\ncan provoke them to tell any silly lie; and you can foresee exactly the\nsort of lie they will tell. Give them a clip below the knee, and they\nwill jerk their foot forward. Give them a clip in their appetites or\nvanities or any of their lusts and greeds, and they will boast and lie,\nand affirm and deny, and hate and love without the slightest regard to\nthe facts that are staring them in the face, or to their own obvious\nlimitations. That proves that they are automata.\n\nPYGMALION [_unconvinced_] I know, dear old chap; but there really is\nsome evidence that we are descended from creatures quite as limited\nand absurd as these. After all, the baby there is three-quarters an\nautomaton. Look at the way she has been going on!\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_indignantly_] What do you mean? How have I been going\non?\n\nECRASIA. If they have no regard for truth, they can have no real\nvitality.\n\nPYGMALION. Truth is sometimes so artificial: so relative, as we say in\nthe scientific world, that it is very hard to feel quite sure that what\nis false and even ridiculous to us may not be true to them.\n\nECRASIA. I ask you again, why did you not make them like us? Would any\ntrue artist be content with less than the best?\n\nPYGMALION. I couldnt. I tried. I failed. I am convinced that what I\nam about to shew you is the very highest living organism that can be\nproduced in the laboratory. The best tissues we can manufacture will not\ntake as high potentials as the natural product: that is where Nature\nbeats us. You dont seem to understand, any of you, what an enormous\ntriumph it was to produce consciousness at all.\n\nACIS. Cut the cackle; and come to the synthetic couple.\n\nSEVERAL YOUTHS AND MAIDENS. Yes, yes. No more talking. Let us have them.\nDry up, Pyg; and fetch them along. Come on: out with them! The synthetic\ncouple.\n\nPYGMALION [_waving his hands to appease them_] Very well, very well.\nWill you please whistle for them? They respond to the stimulus of a\nwhistle.\n\n_All who can, whistle like streetboys._\n\nECRASIA [_makes a wry face and puts her fingers in her ears_]!\n\nPYGMALION. Sh-sh-sh! Thats enough: thats enough: thats enough.\n[_Silence_]. Now let us have some music. A dance tune. Not too fast.\n\n_The flutists play a quiet dance._\n\nMARTELLUS. Prepare yourselves for something ghastly.\n\n_Two figures, a man and woman of noble appearance, beautifully modelled\nand splendidly attired, emerge hand in hand from the temple. Seeing\nthat all eyes are fixed on them, they halt on the steps, smiling with\ngratified vanity. The woman is on the man's left._\n\nPYGMALION [_rubbing his hands with the purring satisfaction of a\ncreator_] This way, please.\n\n_The Figures advance condescendingly and pose themselves centrally\nbetween the curved seats._\n\nPYGMALION. Now if you will be so good as to oblige us with a little\nsomething. You dance so beautifully, you know. [_He sits down next\nMartellus, and whispers to him_] It is extraordinary how sensitive they\nare to the stimulus of flattery.\n\n_The Figures, with a gracious air, dance pompously, but very passably.\nAt the close they bow to one another._\n\nON ALL HANDS [_clapping_] Bravo! Thank you. Wonderful! Splendid.\nPerfect.\n\n_The Figures acknowledge the applause in an obvious condition of swelled\nhead._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Can they make love?\n\nPYGMALION. Yes: they can respond to every stimulus. They have all the\nreflexes. Put your arm round the man's neck, and he will put his arm\nround your body. He cannot help it.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_frowning_] Round mine, you mean.\n\nPYGMALION. Yours, too, of course, if the stimulus comes from you.\n\nECRASIA. Cannot he do anything original?\n\nPYGMALION. No. But then, you know, I do not admit that any of us can do\nanything really original, though Martellus thinks we can.\n\nACIS. Can he answer a question?\n\nPYGMALION. Oh yes. A question is a stimulus, you know. Ask him one.\n\nACIS [_to the Male Figure_] What do you think of what you see around\nyou? Of us, for instance, and our ways and doings?\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. I have not seen the newspaper today.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. How can you expect my husband to know what to think\nof you if you give him his breakfast without his paper?\n\nMARTELLUS. You see. He is a mere automaton.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I don't think I should like him to put his arm round\nmy neck. I don't like them. [_The Male Figure looks offended, and the\nFemale jealous_]. Oh, I thought they couldn't understand. Have they\nfeelings?\n\nPYGMALION. Of course they have. I tell you they have all the reflexes.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. But feelings are not reflexes.\n\nPYGMALION. They are sensations. When the rays of light enter their eyes\nand make a picture on their retinas, their brains become conscious of\nthe picture and they act accordingly. When the waves of sound started by\nyour speaking enter their ears and record a disparaging remark on their\nkeyboards, their brains become conscious of the disparagement and resent\nit accordingly. If you did not disparage them they would not resent it.\nThey are merely responding to a stimulus.\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. We are part of a cosmic system. Free will is an\nillusion. We are the children of Cause and Effect. We are the\nUnalterable, the Irresistible, the Irresponsible, the Inevitable.\n\n\n    My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:\n    Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.\n\n\n_There is a general stir of curiosity at this._\n\nACIS. What the dickens does he mean?\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Silence, base accident of Nature. This [_taking the\nhand of the Female Figure and introducing her_] is Cleopatra-Semiramis,\nconsort of the king of kings, and therefore queen of queens. Ye are\nthings hatched from eggs by the brainless sun and the blind fire; but\nthe king of kings and queen of queens are not accidents of the egg: they\nare thought-out and hand-made to receive the sacred Life Force. There is\none person of the king and one of the queen; but the Life Force of the\nking and queen is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such\nas the king is so is the queen, the king thought-out and hand-made, the\nqueen thought-out and hand-made. The actions of the king are caused, and\ntherefore determined, from the beginning of the world to the end;\nand the actions of the queen are likewise. The king logical and\npredetermined and inevitable, and the queen logical and predetermined\nand inevitable. And yet they are not two logical and predetermined and\ninevitable, but one logical and predetermined and inevitable. Therefore\nconfound not the persons, nor divide the substance: but worship us twain\nas one throne, two in one and one in two, lest by error ye fall into\nirretrievable damnation.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. And if any say unto you 'Which one?' remember that\nthough there is one person of the king and one of the queen, yet these\ntwo persons are not alike, but are woman and man, and that as woman was\ncreated after man, the skill and practice gained in making him were\nadded to her, wherefore she is to be exalted above him in all personal\nrespects, and--\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Peace, woman; for this is a damnable heresy. Both Man\nand Woman are what they are and must do what they must according to the\neternal laws of Cause and Effect. Look to your words; for if they enter\nmy ear and jar too repugnantly on my sensorium, who knows that the\ninevitable response to that stimulus may not be a message to my muscles\nto snatch up some heavy object and break you in pieces.\n\n_The Female Figure picks up a stone and is about to throw it at her\nconsort._\n\nARJILLAX [_springing up and shouting to Pygmalion, who is fondly\nwatching the Male Figure_] Look out, Pygmalion! Look at the woman!\n\n_Pygmalion, seeing what is happening, hurls himself on the Female Figure\nand wrenches the stone out of her hand. All spring up in consternation._\n\nARJILLAX. She meant to kill him.\n\nSTREPHON. This is horrible.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_wrestling with Pygmalion_] Let me go. Let me go,\nwill you [_she bites his hand_].\n\nPYGMALION [_releasing her and staggering_] Oh!\n\n_A general shriek of horror echoes his exclamation. He turns deadly\npale, and supports himself against the end of the curved seat._\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_to her consort_] You would stand there and let me be\ntreated like this, you unmanly coward.\n\n_Pygmalion falls dead._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh! Whats the matter? Why did he fall! What has happened\nto him?\n\n_They look on anxiously as Martellus kneels down and examines the body\nof Pygmalion._\n\nMARTELLUS. She has bitten a piece out of his hand nearly as large as a\nfinger nail: enough to kill ten men. There is no pulse, no breath.\n\nECRASIA. But his thumb is clinched.\n\nMARTELLUS. No: it has just straightened out. See! He has gone. Poor\nPygmalion!\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh! [_She weeps_].\n\nSTREPHON. Hush, dear: thats childish.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_subsiding with a sniff_]!!\n\nMARTELLUS [_rising_] Dead in his third year. What a loss to Science!\n\nARJILLAX. Who cares about Science? Serve him right for making that pair\nof horrors!\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_glaring_] Ha!\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. Keep a civil tongue in your head, you.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh, do not be so unkind, Arjillax. You will make water\ncome out of my eyes again.\n\nMARTELLUS [_contemplating the Figures_] Just look at these two devils.\nI modelled them out of the stuff Pygmalion made for them. They are\nmasterpieces of art. And see what they have done! Does that convince you\nof the value of art, Arjillax!\n\nSTREPHON. They look dangerous. Keep away from them.\n\nECRASIA. No need to tell us that, Strephon. Pf! They poison the air.\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Beware, woman. The wrath of Ozymandias strikes like the\nlightning.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. You just say that again if you dare, you filthy\ncreature.\n\nACIS. What are you going to do with them, Martellus? You are responsible\nfor them, now that Pygmalion has gone.\n\nMARTELLUS. If they were marble it would be simple enough: I could smash\nthem. As it is, how am I to kill them without making a horrible mess?\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_posing heroically_] Ha! [_He declaims_]\n\n\n    Come one: come all: this rock shall fly\n    From its firm base as soon as I.\n\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_fondly_] My man! My hero husband! I am proud of you.\nI love you.\n\nMARTELLUS. We must send out a message for an ancient.\n\nACIS. Need we bother an ancient about such a trifle? It will take less\nthan half a second to reduce our poor Pygmalion to a pinch of dust. Why\nnot calcine the two along with him?\n\nMARTELLUS. No: the two automata are trifles; but the use of our powers\nof destruction is never a trifle. I had rather have the case judged.\n\n_The He-Ancient emerges from the grove. The Figures are panic-stricken._\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT [_mildly_] Am I wanted? I feel called. [_Seeing the body\nof Pygmalion, and immediately taking a sterner tone_] What! A child\nlost! A life wasted! How has this happened?\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_frantically_] I didn't do it. It was not me. May\nI be struck dead if I touched him! It was he [_pointing to the Male\nFigure_].\n\nALL [amazed at the lie] Oh!\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Liar. You bit him. Everyone here saw you do it.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Silence. [_Going between the Figures_] Who made these\ntwo loathsome dolls?\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_trying to assert himself with his knees knocking_] My\nname is Ozymandias, king of--\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT [_with a contemptuous gesture_] Pooh!\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_falling on his knees_] Oh dont, sir. Dont. She did it,\nsir: indeed she did.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_howling lamentably_] Boohoo! oo! ooh!\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Silence, I say.\n\n_He knocks the Male Automaton upright by a very light flip under\nthe chin. The Female Automaton hardly dares to sob. The immortals\ncontemplate them with shame and loathing. The She-Ancient comes from the\ntrees opposite the temple._\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Somebody wants me. What is the matter? [_She comes to\nthe left hand of the Female Figure, not seeing the body of Pygmalion_].\nPf! [_Severely_] You have been making dolls. You must not: they are not\nonly disgusting: they are dangerous.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_snivelling piteously_] I'm not a doll, mam. I'm only\npoor Cleopatra-Semiramis, queen of queens. [_Covering her face with her\nhands_] Oh, don't look at me like that, mam. I meant no harm. He hurt\nme: indeed he did.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. The creature has killed that poor youth.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_seeing the body of Pygmalion_] What! This clever\nchild, who promised so well!\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. He made me. I had as much right to kill him as he had\nto make me. And how was I to know that a little thing like that would\nkill him? I shouldn't die if he cut off my arm or leg.\n\nECRASIA. What nonsense!\n\nMARTELLUS. It may not be nonsense. I daresay if you cut off her leg she\nwould grow another, like the lobsters and the little lizards.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Did this dead boy make these two things?\n\nMARTELLUS. He made them in his laboratory. I moulded their limbs. I am\nsorry. I was thoughtless: I did not foresee that they would kill and\npretend to be persons they were not, and declare things that were false,\nand wish evil. I thought they would be merely mechanical fools.\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Do you blame us for our human nature?\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. We are flesh and blood and not angels.\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. Have you no hearts?\n\nARJILLAX. They are mad as well as mischievous. May we not destroy them?\n\nSTREPHON. We abhor them.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. We loathe them.\n\nECRASIA. They are noisome.\n\nACIS. I don't want to be hard on the poor devils; but they are making me\nfeel uneasy in my inside. I never had such a sensation before.\n\nMARTELLUS. I took a lot of trouble with them. But as far as I am\nconcerned, destroy them by all means. I loathed them from the beginning.\n\nALL. Yes, yes: we all loathe them. Let us calcine them.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. Oh, don't be so cruel. I'm not fit to die. I will\nnever bite anyone again. I will tell the truth. I will do good. Is it my\nfault if I was not made properly? Kill him; but spare me.\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE. No! I have done no harm: she has. Kill her if you like:\nyou have no right to kill me.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Do you hear that? They want to have one another killed.\n\nARJILLAX. Monstrous! Kill them both.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Silence. These things are mere automata: they cannot\nhelp shrinking from death at any cost. You see that they have no\nself-control, and are merely shuddering through a series of reflexes.\nLet us see whether we cannot put a little more life into them. [_He\ntakes the Male Figure by the hand, and places his disengaged hand on\nits head_]. Now listen. One of you two is to be destroyed. Which of you\nshall it be?\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_after a slight convulsion during which his eyes are\nfixed on the He-Ancient_] Spare her; and kill me.\n\nSTREPHON. Thats better.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Much better.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_handling the Female Automaton in the same manner_]\nWhich of you shall we kill?\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. Kill us both. How could either of us live without the\nother?\n\nECRASIA. The woman is more sensible than the man.\n\n_The Ancients release the Automata._\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_sinking to the ground_] I am discouraged. Life is too\nheavy a burden.\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE [_collapsing_] I am dying. I am glad. I am afraid to\nlive.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I think it would be nice to give the poor things a\nlittle music.\n\nARJILLAX. Why?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I don't know. But it would.\n\n_The Musicians play._\n\nTHE FEMALE FIGURE. Ozymandias: do you hear that? [_She rises on her\nknees and looks raptly into space_] Queen of queens! [_She dies_].\n\nTHE MALE FIGURE [_crawling feebly towards her until he reaches her\nhand_] I knew I was really a king of kings. [_To the others_] Illusions,\nfarewell: we are going to our thrones. [_He dies_].\n\n_The music stops. There is dead silence for a moment._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. That was funny.\n\nSTREPHON. It was. Even the Ancients are smiling.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Just a little.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT [_quickly recovering her grave and peremptory manner_]\nTake these two abominations away to Pygmalion's laboratory, and destroy\nthem with the rest of the laboratory refuse. [_Some of them move to\n_obey]. Take care: do not touch their flesh: it is noxious: lift them by\ntheir robes. Carry Pygmalion into the temple; and dispose of his remains\nin the usual way.\n\n_The three bodies are carried out as directed, Pygmalion into the temple\nby his bare arms and legs, and the two Figures through the grove by\ntheir clothes. Martellus superintends the removal of the Figures, Acis\nthat of Pygmalion. Ecrasia, Arjillax, Strephon, and the Newly Born sit\ndown as before, but on contrary benches; so that Strephon and the Newly\nBorn now face the grove, and Ecrasia and Arjillax the temple. The\nAncients remain standing at the altar._\n\nECRASIA [_as she sits down_] Oh for a breeze from the hills!\n\nSTREPHON. Or the wind from the sea at the turn of the tide!\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I want some clean air.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. The air will be clean in a moment. This doll flesh that\nchildren make decomposes quickly at best; but when it is shaken by such\npassions as the creatures are capable of, it breaks up at once and\nbecomes horribly tainted.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Let it be a lesson to you all to be content with\nlifeless toys, and not attempt to make living ones. What would you think\nof us ancients if we made toys of you children?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_coaxingly_] Why do you not make toys of us? Then you\nwould play with us; and that would be very nice.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. It would not amuse us. When you play with one another\nyou play with your bodies, and that makes you supple and strong; but if\nwe played with you we should play with your minds, and perhaps deform\nthem.\n\nSTREPHON. You are a ghastly lot, you ancients. I shall kill myself when\nI am four years old. What do you live for?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. You will find out when you grow up. You will not kill\nyourself.\n\nSTREPHON. If you make me believe that, I shall kill myself now.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh no. I want you. I love you.\n\nSTREPHON. I love someone else. And she has gone old, old. Lost to me for\never.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. How old?\n\nSTREPHON. You saw her when you barged into us as we were dancing. She is\nfour.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. How I should have hated her twenty minutes ago! But I\nhave grown out of that now.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Good. That hatred is called jealousy, the worst of our\nchildish complaints.\n\n_Martellus, dusting his hands and puffing, returns from the grove._\n\nMARTELLUS. Ouf! [_He sits down next the Newly Born_] That job's\nfinished.\n\nARJILLAX. Ancients: I should like to make a few studies of you. Not\nportraits, of course: I shall idealize you a little. I have come to the\nconclusion that you ancients are the most interesting subjects after\nall.\n\nMARTELLUS. What! Have those two horrors, whose ashes I have just\ndeposited with peculiar pleasure in poor Pygmalion's dustbin, not cured\nyou of this silly image-making!\n\nARJILLAX. Why did you model them as young things, you fool? If Pygmalion\nhad come to me, I should have made ancients of them for him. Not that I\nshould have modelled them any better. I have always said that no one\ncan beat you at your best as far as handwork is concerned. But this job\nrequired brains. That is where I should have come in.\n\nMARTELLUS. Well, my brainy boy, you are welcome to try your hand. There\nare two of Pygmalion's pupils at the laboratory who helped him to\nmanufacture the bones and tissues and all the rest of it. They can turn\nout a couple of new automatons; and you can model them as ancients if\nthis venerable pair will sit for you.\n\nECRASIA [_decisively_] No. No more automata. They are too disgusting.\n\nACIS [_returning from the temple_] Well, thats done. Poor old Pyg!\n\nECRASIA. Only fancy, Acis! Arjillax wants to make more of those\nabominable things, and to destroy even their artistic character by\nmaking ancients of them.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. You wont sit for them, will you? Please dont.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Children, listen.\n\nACIS [_striding down the steps to the bench and seating himself next\nEcrasia_] What! Even the Ancient wants to make a speech! Give it mouth,\nO Sage.\n\nSTREPHON. For heaven's sake don't tell us that the earth was once\ninhabited by Ozymandiases and Cleopatras. Life is hard enough for us as\nit is.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take\ncourage: it can be delightful. What I wanted to tell you is that ever\nsince men existed, children have played with dolls.\n\nECRASIA. You keep using that word. What are dolls, pray?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. What you call works of art. Images. We call them dolls.\n\nARJILLAX. Just so. You have no sense of art; and you instinctively\ninsult it.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Children have been known to make dolls out of rags, and\nto caress them with the deepest fondness.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Eight centuries ago, when I was a child, I made a rag\ndoll. The rag doll is the dearest of all.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_eagerly interested_] Oh! Have you got it still?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. I kept it a full week.\n\nECRASIA. Even in your childhood, then, you did not understand high art,\nand adored your own amateur crudities.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. How old are you?\n\nECRASIA. Eight months.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. When you have lived as long as I have--\n\nECRASIA [_interrupting rudely_] I shall worship rag dolls, perhaps.\nThank heaven I am still in my prime.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. You are still capable of thanking, though you do not\nknow what you thank. You are a thanking little animal, a blaming little\nanimal, a--\n\nACIS. A gushing little animal.\n\nARJILLAX. And, as she thinks, an artistic little animal.\n\nECRASIA [_nettled_] I am an animated being with a reasonable soul and\nhuman flesh subsisting. If your Automata had been properly animated,\nMartellus, they would have been more successful.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. That is where you are wrong, my child. If those two\nloathsome things had been rag dolls, they would have been amusing and\nlovable. The Newly Born here would have played with them; and you would\nall have laughed and played with them too until you had torn them to\npieces; and then you would have laughed more than ever.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Of course we should. Isnt that funny?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.\n\nSTREPHON. Yes; and take all the fun out of it.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Do not be so embittered because your sweetheart has\noutgrown her love for you. The Newly Born will make amends.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh yes: I will be more than she could ever have been.\n\nSTREPHON. Psha! Jealous!\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh no. I have grown out of that. I love her now because\nshe loved you, and because you love her.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. That is the next stage. You are getting on very nicely,\nmy child.\n\nMARTELLUS. Come! what is the truth that was hidden in the rag doll?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Well, consider why you are not content with the rag\ndoll, and must have something more closely resembling a real living\ncreature. As you grow up you make images and paint pictures. Those of\nyou who cannot do that make stories about imaginary dolls. Or you dress\nyourselves up as dolls and act plays about them.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. And, to deceive yourself the more completely, you take\nthem so very very seriously that Ecrasia here declares that the making\nof dolls is the holiest work of creation, and the words you put into\nthe mouths of dolls the sacredest of scriptures and the noblest of\nutterances.\n\nECRASIA. Tush!\n\nARJILLAX. Tosh!\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Yet the more beautiful they become the further they\nretreat from you. You cannot caress them as you caress the rag doll. You\ncannot cry for them when they are broken or lost, or when you pretend\nthey have been unkind to you, as you could when you played with rag\ndolls.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. At last, like Pygmalion, you demand from your dolls the\nfinal perfection of resemblance to life. They must move and speak.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. They must love and hate.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. They must think that they think.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. They must have soft flesh and warm, blood.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. And then, when you have achieved this as Pygmalion did;\nwhen the marble masterpiece is dethroned by the automaton and the homo\nby the homunculus; when the body and the brain, the reasonable soul and\nhuman flesh subsisting, as Ecrasia says, stand before you unmasked as\nmere machinery, and your impulses are shewn to be nothing but reflexes,\nyou are filled with horror and loathing, and would give worlds to be\nyoung enough to play with your rag doll again, since every step away\nfrom it has been a step away from love and happiness. Is it not true?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Speak, Martellus: you who have travelled the whole\npath.\n\nMARTELLUS. It is true. With fierce joy I turned a temperature of a\nmillion degrees on those two things I had modelled, and saw them vanish\nin an instant into inoffensive dust.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Speak, Arjillax: you who have advanced from imitating\nthe lightly living child to the intensely living ancient. Is it true, so\nfar?\n\nARJILLAX. It is partly true: I cannot pretend to be satisfied now with\nmodelling pretty children.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. And you, Ecrasia: you cling to your highly artistic\ndolls as the noblest projections of the Life Force, do you not?\n\nECRASIA. Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world\nunbearable.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_anticipating the She-Ancient, who is evidently going\nto challenge her_] Now you are coming to me, because I am the latest\narrival. But I don't understand your art and your dolls at all. I want\nto caress my darling Strephon, not to play with dolls.\n\nACIS. I am in my fourth year; and I have got on very well without your\ndolls. I had rather walk up a mountain and down again than look at all\nthe statues Martellus and Arjillax ever made. You prefer a statue to an\nautomaton, and a rag doll to a statue. So do I; but I prefer a man to a\nrag doll. Give me friends, not dolls.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Yet I have seen you walking over the mountains alone.\nHave you not found your best friend in yourself?\n\nACIS. What are you driving at, old one? What does all this lead to?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. It leads, young man, to the truth that you can create\nnothing but yourself.\n\nACIS [_musing_] I can create nothing but myself. Ecrasia: you are\nclever. Do you understand it? I don't.\n\nECRASIA. It is as easy to understand as any other ignorant error. What\nartist is as great as his own works? He can create masterpieces; but he\ncannot improve the shape of his own nose.\n\nACIS. There! What have you to say to that, old one?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. He can alter the shape of his own soul. He could alter\nthe shape of his nose if the difference between a turned-up nose and a\nturned-down one were worth the effort. One does not face the throes of\ncreation for trifles.\n\nACIS. What have you to say to that, Ecrasia?\n\nECRASIA. I say that if the ancients had thoroughly grasped the theory of\nfine art they would understand that the difference between a beautiful\nnose and an ugly one is of supreme importance: that it is indeed the\nonly thing that matters.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. That is, they would understand something they could not\nbelieve, and that you do not believe.\n\nACIS. Just so, mam. Art is not honest: that is why I never could stand\nmuch of it. It is all make-believe. Ecrasia never really says things:\nshe only rattles her teeth in her mouth.\n\nECRASIA. Acis: you are rude.\n\nACIS. You mean that I wont play the game of make-believe. Well, I don't\nask you to play it with me; so why should you expect me to play it with\nyou?\n\nECRASIA. You have no right to say that I am not sincere. I have found a\nhappiness in art that real life has never given me. I am intensely in\nearnest about art. There is a magic and mystery in art that you know\nnothing of.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Yes, child: art is the magic mirror you make to reflect\nyour invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see\nyour face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older\nuse neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of\nlife. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues,\nyour toys and your dolls.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Yet we too have our toys and our dolls. That is the\ntrouble of the ancients.\n\nARJILLAX. What! The ancients have their troubles! It is the first time I\never heard one of them confess it.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Look at us. Look at me. This is my body, my blood,\nmy brain; but it is not me. I am the eternal life, the perpetual\nresurrection; but [_striking his body_] this structure, this organism,\nthis makeshift, can be made by a boy in a laboratory, and is held back\nfrom dissolution only by my use of it. Worse still, it can be broken by\na slip of the foot, drowned by a cramp in the stomach, destroyed by a\nflash from the clouds. Sooner or later, its destruction is certain.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Yes: this body is the last doll to be discarded. When I\nwas a child, Ecrasia, I, too, was an artist, like your sculptor friends\nthere, striving to create perfection in things outside myself. I made\nstatues: I painted pictures: I tried to worship them.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. I had no such skill; but I, like Acis, sought perfection\nin friends, in lovers, in nature, in things outside myself. Alas! I\ncould not create if. I could only imagine it.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. I, like Arjillax, found out that my statues of bodily\nbeauty were no longer even beautiful to me; and I pressed on and made\nstatues and pictures of men and women of genius, like those in the old\nfable of Michael Angelo. Like Martellus, I smashed them when I saw that\nthere was no life in them: that they were so dead that they would not\neven dissolve as a dead body does.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. And I, like Acis, ceased to walk over the mountains with\nmy friends, and walked alone; for I found that I had creative power\nover myself but none over my friends. And then I ceased to walk on the\nmountains; for I saw that the mountains were dead.\n\nACIS [_protesting vehemently_] No. I grant you about the friends\nperhaps; but the mountains are still the mountains, each with its name,\nits individuality, its upstanding strength and majesty, its beauty--\n\nECRASIA. What! Acis among the rhapsodists!\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Mere metaphor, my poor boy: the mountains are corpses.\n\nALL THE YOUNG [_repelled_] Oh!\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Yes. In the hardpressed heart of the earth, where the\ninconceivable heat of the sun still glows, the stone lives in fierce\natomic convulsion, as we live in our slower way. When it is cast out to\nthe surface it dies like deep-sea fish: what you see is only its cold\ndead body. We have tapped that central heat as prehistoric man tapped\nwater springs; but nothing has come up alive from those flaming depths:\nyour landscapes, your mountains, are only the world's cast skins and\ndecaying teeth on which we live like microbes.\n\nECRASIA. Ancient: you blaspheme against Nature and against Man.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Child, child, how much enthusiasm will you have for man\nwhen you have endured eight centuries of him, as I have, and seen him\nperish by an empty mischance that is yet a certainty? When I discarded\nmy dolls as he discarded his friends and his mountains, it was to myself\nI turned as to the final reality. Here, and here alone, I could shape\nand create. When my arm was weak and I willed it to be strong, I could\ncreate a roll of muscle on it; and when I understood that, I understood\nthat I could without any greater miracle give myself ten arms and three\nheads.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. I also came to understand such miracles. For fifty years\nI sat contemplating this power in myself and concentrating my will.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. So did I; and for five more years I made myself into\nall sorts of fantastic monsters. I walked upon a dozen legs: I worked\nwith twenty hands and a hundred fingers: I looked to the four quarters\nof the compass with eight eyes out of four heads. Children fled in\namazement from me until I had to hide myself from them; and the\nancients, who had forgotten how to laugh, smiled grimly when they\npassed.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. We have all committed these follies. You will all commit\nthem.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh, do grow a lot of arms and legs and heads for us. It\nwould be so funny.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. My child: I am just as well as I am. I would not lift my\nfinger now to have a thousand heads.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. But what would I not give to have no head at all?\n\nALL THE YOUNG. Whats that? No head at all? Why? How?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Can you not understand?\n\nALL THE YOUNG [_shaking their heads_] No.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. One day, when I was tired of learning to walk forward\nwith some of my feet and backwards with others and sideways with the\nrest all at once, I sat on a rock with my four chins resting on four\nof my palms, and four or my elbows resting on four of my knees. And\nsuddenly it came into my mind that this monstrous machinery of heads and\nlimbs was no more me than my statues had been me, and that it was only\nan automaton that I had enslaved.\n\nMARTELLUS. Enslaved? What does that mean?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. A thing that must do what you command it is a slave;\nand its commander is its master. These are words you will learn when\nyour turn comes.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. You will also learn that when the master has come to do\neverything through the slave, the slave becomes his master, since he\ncannot live without him.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. And so I perceived that I had made myself the slave of\na slave.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. When we discovered that, we shed our superfluous heads\nand legs and arms until we had our old shapes again, and no longer\nstartled the children.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. But still I am the slave of this slave, my body. How am\nI to be delivered from it?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. That, children, is the trouble of the ancients. For\nwhilst we are tied to this tyrannous body we are subject to its death,\nand our destiny is not achieved.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is your destiny?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. To be immortal.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. The day will come when there will be no people, only\nthought.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. And that will be life eternal.\n\nECRASIA. I trust I shall meet my fatal accident before that day dawns.\n\nARJILLAX. For once, Ecrasia, I agree with you. A world in which there\nwere nothing plastic would be an utterly miserable one.\n\nECRASIA. No limbs, no contours, no exquisite lines and elegant shapes,\nno worship of beautiful bodies, no poetic embraces in which cultivated\nlovers pretend that their caressing hands are wandering over celestial\nhills and enchanted valleys, no--\n\nACIS [_interrupting her disgustedly_] What an inhuman mind you have,\nEcrasia!\n\nECRASIA. Inhuman!\n\nACIS. Yes: inhuman. Why don't you fall in love with someone?\n\nECRASIA. I! I have been in love all my life. I burned with it even in\nthe egg.\n\nACIS. Not a bit of it. You and Arjillax are just as hard as two stones.\n\nECRASIA. You did not always think so, Acis.\n\nACIS. Oh, I know. I offered you my love once, and asked for yours.\n\nECRASIA. And did I deny it to you, Acis?\n\nACIS. You didn't even know what love was.\n\nECRASIA. Oh! I adored you, you stupid oaf, until I found that you were a\nmere animal.\n\nACIS. And I made no end of a fool of myself about you until I discovered\nthat you were a mere artist. You appreciated my contours! I was plastic,\nas Arjillax says. I wasn't a man to you: I was a masterpiece appealing\nto your tastes and your senses. Your tastes and senses had overlaid the\ndirect impulse of life in you. And because I cared only for our life,\nand went straight to it, and was bored by your calling my limbs fancy\nnames and mapping me into mountains and valleys and all the rest of it,\nyou called me an animal. Well, I am an animal, if you call a live man an\nanimal.\n\nECRASIA. You need not explain. You refused to be refined. I did my\nbest to lift your prehistoric impulses on to the plane of beauty, of\nimagination, of romance, of poetry, of art, of--\n\nACIS. These things are all very well in their way and in their proper\nplaces. But they are not love. They are an unnatural adulteration of\nlove. Love is a simple thing and a deep thing: it is an act of life and\nnot an illusion. Art is an illusion.\n\nARJILLAX. That is false. The statue comes to life always. The statues of\ntoday are the men and women of the next incubation. I hold up the marble\nfigure before the mother and say, 'This is the model you must copy.' We\nproduce what we see. Let no man dare to create in art a thing that he\nwould not have exist in life.\n\nMARTELLUS. Yes: I have been through all that. But you yourself are\nmaking statues of ancients instead of beautiful nymphs and swains. And\nEcrasia is right about the ancients being inartistic. They are damnably\ninartistic.\n\nECRASIA [_triumphant_] Ah! Our greatest artist vindicates me. Thanks,\nMartellus.\n\nMARTELLUS. The body always ends by being a bore. Nothing remains\nbeautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the\nlife. Which is just what this old gentleman and this old lady seem to\nthink too.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Quite so.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Precisely.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_to the He-Ancient_] But you cant be nothing. What do\nyou want to be?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. A vortex.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. A what?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. A vortex. I began as a vortex: why should I not end as\none?\n\nECRASIA. Oh! That is what you old people are, Vorticists.\n\nACIS. But if life is thought, can you live without a head?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. Not now perhaps. But prehistoric men thought they could\nnot live without tails. I can live without a tail. Why should I not live\nwithout a head?\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is a tail?\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT A habit of which your ancestors managed to pure\nthemselves.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. None of us now believe that all this machinery of flesh\nand blood is necessary. It dies.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. It imprisons us on this petty planet and forbids us to\nrange through the stars.\n\nACIS. But even a vortex is a vortex in something. You cant have a\nwhirlpool without water; and you cant have a vortex without gas, or\nmolecules or atoms or ions or electrons or something, not nothing.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. No: the vortex is not the water nor the gas nor the\natoms: it is a power over these things.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. The body was the slave of the vortex; but the slave has\nbecome the master; and we must free ourselves from that tyranny. It is\nthis stuff [_indicating her body_], this flesh and blood and bone and\nall the rest of it, that is intolerable. Even prehistoric man dreamed of\nwhat he called an astral body, and asked who would deliver him from the\nbody of this death.\n\nACIS [_evidently out of his depth_] I shouldn't think too much about it\nif I were you. You have to keep sane, you know.\n\n_The two Ancients look at one another; shrug their shoulders; and\naddress themselves to their departure._\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. We are staying too long with you, children. We must go.\n\n_All the young people rise rather eagerly._\n\nARJILLAX. Dont mention it.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. It is tiresome for us, too. You see, children, we have\nto put things very crudely to you to make ourselves intelligible.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. And I am afraid we do not quite succeed.\n\nSTREPHON. Very kind of you to come at all and talk to us, I'm sure.\n\nECRASIA. Why do the other ancients never come and give us a turn?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. It is difficult for them. They have forgotten how\nto speak; how to read; even how to think in your fashion. We do not\ncommunicate with one another in that way or apprehend the world as you\ndo.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. I find it more and more difficult to keep up your\nlanguage. Another century or two and it will be impossible. I shall have\nto be relieved by a younger shepherd.\n\nACIS. Of course we are always delighted to see you; but still, if it\ntries you very severely, we could manage pretty well by ourselves, you\nknow.\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. Tell me, Acis: do you ever think of yourself as having\nto live perhaps for thousands of years?\n\nACIS. Oh, don't talk about it. Why, I know very well that I have only\nfour years of what any reasonable person would call living; and three\nand a half of them are already gone.\n\nECRASIA. You must not mind our saying so; but really you cannot call\nbeing an ancient living.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_almost in tears_] Oh, this dreadful shortness of our\nlives! I cannot bear it.\n\nSTREPHON. I made up my mind on that subject long ago. When I am three\nyears and fifty weeks old, I shall have my fatal accident. And it will\nnot be an accident.\n\nTHE HE-ANCIENT. We are very tired of this subject. I must leave you.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is being tired?\n\nTHE SHE-ANCIENT. The penalty of attending to children. Farewell.\n\n_The two Ancients go away severally, she into the grove, he up to the\nhills behind the temple._\n\nALL. Ouf! [_A great sigh of relief_].\n\nECRASIA. Dreadful people!\n\nSTREPHON. Bores!\n\nMARTELLUS. Yet one would like to follow them; to enter into their life;\nto grasp their thought; to comprehend the universe as they must.\n\nARJILLAX. Getting old, Martellus?\n\nMARTELLUS. Well, I have finished with the dolls; and I am no longer\njealous of you. That looks like the end. Two hours sleep is enough for\nme. I am afraid I am beginning to find you all rather silly.\n\nSTREPHON. I know. My girl went off this morning. She hadnt slept for\nweeks. And she found mathematics more interesting than me.\n\nMARTELLUS. There is a prehistoric saying that has come down to us from a\nfamous woman teacher. She said: 'Leave women; and study mathematics.'\nIt is the only remaining fragment of a lost scripture called The\nConfessions of St Augustin, the English Opium Eater. That primitive\nsavage must have been a great woman, to say a thing that still lives\nafter three hundred centuries. I too will leave women and study\nmathematics, which I have neglected too long. Farewell, children, my old\nplaymates. I almost wish I could feel sentimental about parting from\nyou; but the cold truth is that you bore me. Do not be angry with me:\nyour turn will come. [_He passes away gravely into the grove_].\n\nARJILLAX. There goes a great spirit. What a sculptor he was! And now,\nnothing! It is as if he had cut off his hands.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Oh, will you all leave me as he has left you?\n\nECRASIA. Never. We have sworn it.\n\nSTREPHON. What is the use of swearing? She swore. He swore. You have\nsworn. They have sworn.\n\nECRASIA. You speak like a grammar.\n\nSTREPHON. That is how one ought to speak, isnt it? We shall all be\nforsworn.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Do not talk like that. You are saddening us; and you are\nchasing the light away. It is growing dark.\n\nACIS. Night is falling. The light will come back tomorrow.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. What is tomorrow?\n\nACIS. The day that never comes. [_He turns towards the temple_].\n\n_All begin trooping into the temple._\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_holding Acis back_] That is no answer. What--\n\nARJILLAX. Silence. Little children should be seen and not heard.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_putting out her tongue at him_]!\n\nECRASIA. Ungraceful. You must not do that.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. I will do what I like. But there is something the matter\nwith me. I want to lie down. I cannot keep my eyes open.\n\nECRASIA. You are falling asleep. You will wake up again.\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN [_drowsily_] What is sleep?\n\nACIS. Ask no questions; and you will be told no lies. [_He takes her by\nthe ear, and leads her firmly towards the temple_].\n\nTHE NEWLY BORN. Ai! oi! ai! Dont. I want to be carried. [_She reels into\nthe arms of Acts, who carries her into the temple_].\n\nECRASIA. Come, Arjillax: you at least are still an artist. I adore you.\n\nARJILLAX. Do you? Unfortunately for you, I am not still a child. I have\ngrown out of cuddling. I can only appreciate your figure. Does that\nsatisfy you?\n\nECRASIA. At what distance?\n\nARJILLAX. Arm's length or more.\n\nECRASIA. Thank you: not for me. [_She turns away from him_].\n\nARJILLAX. Ha! ha! [_He strides off into the temple_].\n\nECRASIA [_calling to Strephon, who is on the threshold of the temple,\ngoing in_] Strephon.\n\nSTREPHON. No. My heart is broken. [_He goes into the temple_].\n\nECRASIA. Must I pass the night alone? [_She looks round, seeking another\npartner; but they have all gone_]. After all, I can imagine a lover\nnobler than any of you. [_She goes into the temple_].\n\n_It is now quite dark. A vague radiance appears near the temple and\nshapes itself into the ghost of Adam._\n\nA WOMAN'S VOICE [_in the grove_] Who is that?\n\nADAM. The ghost of Adam, the first father of mankind. Who are you?\n\nTHE VOICE. The ghost of Eve, the first mother of mankind.\n\nADAM. Come forth, wife; and shew yourself to me.\n\nEVE [_appearing near the grove_] Here I am, husband. You are very old.\n\nA VOICE [_in the hills_] Ha! ha! ha!\n\nADAM. Who laughs? Who dares laugh at Adam?\n\nEVE. Who has the heart to laugh at Eve?\n\nTHE VOICE. The ghost of Cain, the first child, and the first murderer.\n[_He appears between them; and as he does so there is a prolonged\nhiss_]. Who dares hiss at Cain, the lord of death?\n\nA VOICE. The ghost of the serpent, that lived before Adam and before\nEve, and taught them how to bring forth Cain. [_She becomes visible,\ncoiled in the trees_].\n\nA VOICE. There is one that came before the serpent.\n\nTHE SERPENT. That is the voice of Lilith, in whom the father and mother\nwere one. Hail, Lilith!\n\n_Lilith becomes visible between Cain and Adam._\n\nLILITH. I suffered unspeakably; I tore myself asunder; I lost my life,\nto make of my one flesh these twain, man and woman. And this is what has\ncome of it. What do you make of it, Adam, my son?\n\nADAM. I made the earth bring forth by my labor, and the woman bring\nforth by my love. And this is what has come of it. What do you make of\nit, Eve, my wife?\n\nEVE. I nourished the egg in my body and fed it with my blood. And now\nthey let it fall as the birds did, and suffer not at all. What do you\nmake of it, Cain, my first-born?\n\nCAIN. I invented killing and conquest and mastery and the winnowing out\nof the weak by the strong. And now the strong have slain one another;\nand the weak live for ever; and their deeds do nothing for the doer more\nthan for another. What do you make of it, snake?\n\nTHE SERPENT. I am justified. For I chose wisdom and the knowledge of\ngood and evil; and now there is no evil; and wisdom and good are one. It\nis enough. [_She vanishes_].\n\nCAIN. There is no place for me on earth any longer. You cannot deny\nthat mine was a splendid game while it lasted. But now! Out, out, brief\ncandle! [_He vanishes_].\n\nEVE. The clever ones were always my favorites. The diggers and the\nfighters have dug themselves in with the worms. My clever ones have\ninherited the earth. All's well. [_She fades away_].\n\nADAM. I can make nothing of it, neither head nor tail. What is it all\nfor? Why? Whither? Whence? We were well enough in the garden. And now\nthe fools have killed all the animals; and they are dissatisfied because\nthey cannot be bothered with their bodies! Foolishness, I call it. [_He\ndisappears_].\n\nLILITH. They have accepted the burden of eternal life. They have taken\nthe agony from birth; and their life does not fail them even in the hour\nof their destruction. Their breasts are without milk: their bowels are\ngone: the very shapes of them are only ornaments for their children to\nadmire and caress without understanding. Is this enough; or shall I\nlabor again? Shall I bring forth something that will sweep them away and\nmake an end of them as they have swept away the beasts of the garden,\nand made an end of the crawling things and the flying things and of all\nthem that refuse to live for ever? I had patience with them for many\nages: they tried me very sorely. They did terrible things: they embraced\ndeath, and said that eternal life was a fable. I stood amazed at the\nmalice and destructiveness of the things I had made: Mars blushed as he\nlooked down on the shame of his sister planet: cruelty and hypocrisy\nbecame so hideous that the face of the earth was pitted with the graves\nof little children among which living skeletons crawled in search of\nhorrible food. The pangs of another birth were already upon me when one\nman repented and lived three hundred years; and I waited to see what\nwould come of that. And so much came of it that the horrors of that time\nseem now but an evil dream. They have redeemed themselves from their\nvileness, and turned away from their sins. Best of all, they are still\nnot satisfied: the impulse I gave them in that day when I sundered\nmyself in twain and launched Man and Woman on the earth still urges\nthem: after passing a million goals they press on to the goal of\nredemption from the flesh, to the vortex freed from matter, to the\nwhirlpool in pure intelligence that, when the world began, was a\nwhirlpool in pure force. And though all that they have done seems\nbut the first hour of the infinite work of creation, yet I will not\nsupersede them until they have forded this last stream that lies between\nflesh and spirit, and disentangled their life from the matter that has\nalways mocked it. I can wait: waiting and patience mean nothing to the\neternal. I gave the woman the greatest of gifts: curiosity. By that her\nseed has been saved from my wrath; for I also am curious; and I have\nwaited always to see what they will do tomorrow. Let them feed that\nappetite well for me. I say, let them dread, of all things, stagnation;\nfor from the moment I, Lilith, lose hope and faith in them, they are\ndoomed. In that hope and faith I have let them live for a moment; and in\nthat moment I have spared them many times. But mightier creatures than\nthey have killed hope and faith, and perished from the earth; and I may\nnot spare them for ever. I am Lilith: I brought life into the whirlpool\nof force, and compelled my enemy, Matter, to obey a living soul. But in\nenslaving Life's enemy I made him Life's master; for that is the end\nof all slavery; and now I shall see the slave set free and the enemy\nreconciled, the whirlpool become all life and no matter. And because\nthese infants that call themselves ancients are reaching out towards\nthat, I will have patience with them still; though I know well that\nwhen they attain it they shall become one with me and supersede me, and\nLilith will be only a legend and a lay that has lost its meaning. Of\nLife only is there no end; and though of its million starry mansions\nmany are empty and many still unbuilt, and though its vast domain is\nas yet unbearably desert, my seed shall one day fill it and master\nits matter to its uttermost confines. And for what may be beyond, the\neyesight of Lilith is too short. It is enough that there is a beyond.\n[_She vanishes_].","title":"Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":112553}