{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6424/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6424","id":"gutenberg_6424","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6424","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Utopias"],"text":"Produced by Andrew Sly\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA MODERN UTOPIA\n\nBY H. G. WELLS\n\n\n\nA NOTE TO THE READER\n\nThis book is in all probability the last of a series of writings,\nof which--disregarding certain earlier disconnected essays--my\nAnticipations was the beginning. Originally I intended Anticipations\nto be my sole digression from my art or trade (or what you will)\nof an imaginative writer. I wrote that book in order to clear up\nthe muddle in my own mind about innumerable social and political\nquestions, questions I could not keep out of my work, which it\ndistressed me to touch upon in a stupid haphazard way, and which\nno one, so far as I knew, had handled in a manner to satisfy my\nneeds. But Anticipations did not achieve its end. I have a slow\nconstructive hesitating sort of mind, and when I emerged from that\nundertaking I found I had still most of my questions to state and\nsolve. In Mankind in the Making, therefore, I tried to review\nthe social organisation in a different way, to consider it as an\neducational process instead of dealing with it as a thing with\na future history, and if I made this second book even less\nsatisfactory from a literary standpoint than the former (and this is\nmy opinion), I blundered, I think, more edifyingly--at least from\nthe point of view of my own instruction. I ventured upon several\nthemes with a greater frankness than I had used in Anticipations,\nand came out of that second effort guilty of much rash writing, but\nwith a considerable development of formed opinion. In many matters I\nhad shaped out at last a certain personal certitude, upon which I\nfeel I shall go for the rest of my days. In this present book I have\ntried to settle accounts with a number of issues left over or opened\nup by its two predecessors, to correct them in some particulars, and\nto give the general picture of a Utopia that has grown up in my mind\nduring the course of these speculations as a state of affairs at\nonce possible and more desirable than the world in which I live. But\nthis book has brought me back to imaginative writing again. In its\ntwo predecessors the treatment of social organisation had been\npurely objective; here my intention has been a little wider and\ndeeper, in that I have tried to present not simply an ideal, but an\nideal in reaction with two personalities. Moreover, since this may\nbe the last book of the kind I shall ever publish, I have written\ninto it as well as I can the heretical metaphysical scepticism upon\nwhich all my thinking rests, and I have inserted certain sections\nreflecting upon the established methods of sociological and economic\nscience....\n\nThe last four words will not attract the butterfly reader, I know.\nI have done my best to make the whole of this book as lucid and\nentertaining as its matter permits, because I want it read by as\nmany people as possible, but I do not promise anything but rage and\nconfusion to him who proposes to glance through my pages just to see\nif I agree with him, or to begin in the middle, or to read without\na constantly alert attention. If you are not already a little\ninterested and open-minded with regard to social and political\nquestions, and a little exercised in self-examination, you will find\nneither interest nor pleasure here. If your mind is \"made up\" upon\nsuch issues your time will be wasted on these pages. And even if you\nare a willing reader you may require a little patience for the\npeculiar method I have this time adopted.\n\nThat method assumes an air of haphazard, but it is not so careless\nas it seems. I believe it to be--even now that I am through with the\nbook--the best way to a sort of lucid vagueness which has always\nbeen my intention in this matter. I tried over several beginnings of\na Utopian book before I adopted this. I rejected from the outset the\nform of the argumentative essay, the form which appeals most readily\nto what is called the \"serious\" reader, the reader who is often no\nmore than the solemnly impatient parasite of great questions. He\nlikes everything in hard, heavy lines, black and white, yes and no,\nbecause he does not understand how much there is that cannot be\npresented at all in that way; wherever there is any effect of\nobliquity, of incommensurables, wherever there is any levity\nor humour or difficulty of multiplex presentation, he refuses\nattention. Mentally he seems to be built up upon an invincible\nassumption that the Spirit of Creation cannot count beyond two, he\ndeals only in alternatives. Such readers I have resolved not to\nattempt to please here. Even if I presented all my tri-clinic\ncrystals as systems of cubes----! Indeed I felt it would not be\nworth doing. But having rejected the \"serious\" essay as a form, I\nwas still greatly exercised, I spent some vacillating months, over\nthe scheme of this book. I tried first a recognised method of\nviewing questions from divergent points that has always attracted me\nand which I have never succeeded in using, the discussion novel,\nafter the fashion of Peacock's (and Mr. Mallock's) development of\nthe ancient dialogue; but this encumbered me with unnecessary\ncharacters and the inevitable complication of intrigue among them,\nand I abandoned it. After that I tried to cast the thing into a\nshape resembling a little the double personality of Boswell's\nJohnson, a sort of interplay between monologue and commentator; but\nthat too, although it got nearer to the quality I sought, finally\nfailed. Then I hesitated over what one might call \"hard narrative.\"\nIt will be evident to the experienced reader that by omitting\ncertain speculative and metaphysical elements and by elaborating\nincident, this book might have been reduced to a straightforward\nstory. But I did not want to omit as much on this occasion. I do not\nsee why I should always pander to the vulgar appetite for stark\nstories. And in short, I made it this. I explain all this in order\nto make it clear to the reader that, however queer this book\nappears at the first examination, it is the outcome of trial and\ndeliberation, it is intended to be as it is. I am aiming throughout\nat a sort of shot-silk texture between philosophical discussion on\nthe one hand and imaginative narrative on the other.\n\nH. G. WELLS.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  The Owner of the Voice\n  Chapter the First--Topographical\n  Chapter the Second--Concerning Freedoms\n  Chapter the Third--Utopian Economics\n  Chapter the Fourth--The Voice of Nature\n  Chapter the Fifth--Failure in a Modern Utopia\n  Chapter the Sixth--Women in a Modern Utopia\n  Chapter the Seventh--A Few Utopian Impressions\n  Chapter the Eighth--My Utopian Self\n  Chapter the Ninth--The Samurai\n  Chapter the Tenth--Race in Utopia\n  Chapter the Eleventh--The Bubble Bursts\n  Appendix--Scepticism of the Instrument\n\n\nA MODERN UTOPIA\n\n\nTHE OWNER OF THE VOICE\n\nThere are works, and this is one of them, that are best begun with a\nportrait of the author. And here, indeed, because of a very natural\nmisunderstanding this is the only course to take. Throughout these\npapers sounds a note, a distinctive and personal note, a note that\ntends at times towards stridency; and all that is not, as these\nwords are, in Italics, is in one Voice. Now, this Voice, and this is\nthe peculiarity of the matter, is not to be taken as the Voice of\nthe ostensible author who fathers these pages. You have to clear\nyour mind of any preconceptions in that respect. The Owner of the\nVoice you must figure to yourself as a whitish plump man, a little\nunder the middle size and age, with such blue eyes as many Irishmen\nhave, and agile in his movements and with a slight tonsorial\nbaldness--a penny might cover it--of the crown. His front is convex.\nHe droops at times like most of us, but for the greater part he\nbears himself as valiantly as a sparrow. Occasionally his hand flies\nout with a fluttering gesture of illustration. And his Voice (which\nis our medium henceforth) is an unattractive tenor that becomes at\ntimes aggressive. Him you must imagine as sitting at a table reading\na manuscript about Utopias, a manuscript he holds in two hands that\nare just a little fat at the wrist. The curtain rises upon him so.\nBut afterwards, if the devices of this declining art of literature\nprevail, you will go with him through curious and interesting\nexperiences. Yet, ever and again, you will find him back at that\nlittle table, the manuscript in his hand, and the expansion of\nhis ratiocinations about Utopia conscientiously resumed. The\nentertainment before you is neither the set drama of the work of\nfiction you are accustomed to read, nor the set lecturing of the\nessay you are accustomed to evade, but a hybrid of these two. If you\nfigure this owner of the Voice as sitting, a little nervously, a\nlittle modestly, on a stage, with table, glass of water and all\ncomplete, and myself as the intrusive chairman insisting with a\nbland ruthlessness upon his \"few words\" of introduction before he\nrecedes into the wings, and if furthermore you figure a sheet behind\nour friend on which moving pictures intermittently appear, and if\nfinally you suppose his subject to be the story of the adventure of\nhis soul among Utopian inquiries, you will be prepared for some at\nleast of the difficulties of this unworthy but unusual work.\n\nBut over against this writer here presented, there is also another\nearthly person in the book, who gathers himself together into a\ndistinct personality only after a preliminary complication with the\nreader. This person is spoken of as the botanist, and he is a\nleaner, rather taller, graver and much less garrulous man. His face\nis weakly handsome and done in tones of grey, he is fairish\nand grey-eyed, and you would suspect him of dyspepsia. It is a\njustifiable suspicion. Men of this type, the chairman remarks with\na sudden intrusion of exposition, are romantic with a shadow of\nmeanness, they seek at once to conceal and shape their sensuous\ncravings beneath egregious sentimentalities, they get into mighty\ntangles and troubles with women, and he has had his troubles. You\nwill hear of them, for that is the quality of his type. He gets no\npersonal expression in this book, the Voice is always that other's,\nbut you gather much of the matter and something of the manner of his\ninterpolations from the asides and the tenour of the Voice.\n\nSo much by way of portraiture is necessary to present the explorers\nof the Modern Utopia, which will unfold itself as a background\nto these two enquiring figures. The image of a cinematograph\nentertainment is the one to grasp. There will be an effect of these\ntwo people going to and fro in front of the circle of a rather\ndefective lantern, which sometimes jams and sometimes gets out of\nfocus, but which does occasionally succeed in displaying on a screen\na momentary moving picture of Utopian conditions. Occasionally the\npicture goes out altogether, the Voice argues and argues, and the\nfootlights return, and then you find yourself listening again to the\nrather too plump little man at his table laboriously enunciating\npropositions, upon whom the curtain rises now.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nTopographical\n\n\nSection 1\n\nThe Utopia of a modern dreamer must needs differ in one fundamental\naspect from the Nowheres and Utopias men planned before Darwin\nquickened the thought of the world. Those were all perfect and\nstatic States, a balance of happiness won for ever against the\nforces of unrest and disorder that inhere in things. One beheld a\nhealthy and simple generation enjoying the fruits of the earth in\nan atmosphere of virtue and happiness, to be followed by other\nvirtuous, happy, and entirely similar generations, until the Gods\ngrew weary. Change and development were dammed back by invincible\ndams for ever. But the Modern Utopia must be not static but kinetic,\nmust shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading\nto a long ascent of stages. Nowadays we do not resist and overcome\nthe great stream of things, but rather float upon it. We build now\nnot citadels, but ships of state. For one ordered arrangement of\ncitizens rejoicing in an equality of happiness safe and assured\nto them and their children for ever, we have to plan \"a flexible\ncommon compromise, in which a perpetually novel succession of\nindividualities may converge most effectually upon a comprehensive\nonward development.\" That is the first, most generalised difference\nbetween a Utopia based upon modern conceptions and all the Utopias\nthat were written in the former time.\n\nOur business here is to be Utopian, to make vivid and credible,\nif we can, first this facet and then that, of an imaginary whole\nand happy world. Our deliberate intention is to be not, indeed,\nimpossible, but most distinctly impracticable, by every scale that\nreaches only between to-day and to-morrow. We are to turn our backs\nfor a space upon the insistent examination of the thing that is,\nand face towards the freer air, the ampler spaces of the thing\nthat perhaps might be, to the projection of a State or city \"worth\nwhile,\" to designing upon the sheet of our imaginations the picture\nof a life conceivably possible, and yet better worth living than\nour own. That is our present enterprise. We are going to lay down\ncertain necessary starting propositions, and then we shall proceed\nto explore the sort of world these propositions give us....\n\nIt is no doubt an optimistic enterprise. But it is good for awhile\nto be free from the carping note that must needs be audible when\nwe discuss our present imperfections, to release ourselves from\npractical difficulties and the tangle of ways and means. It is good\nto stop by the track for a space, put aside the knapsack, wipe the\nbrows, and talk a little of the upper slopes of the mountain we\nthink we are climbing, would but the trees let us see it.\n\nThere is to be no inquiry here of policy and method. This is to be a\nholiday from politics and movements and methods. But for all that,\nwe must needs define certain limitations. Were we free to have our\nuntrammelled desire, I suppose we should follow Morris to his\nNowhere, we should change the nature of man and the nature of things\ntogether; we should make the whole race wise, tolerant, noble,\nperfect--wave our hands to a splendid anarchy, every man doing as\nit pleases him, and none pleased to do evil, in a world as good in\nits essential nature, as ripe and sunny, as the world before the\nFall. But that golden age, that perfect world, comes out into the\npossibilities of space and time. In space and time the pervading\nWill to Live sustains for evermore a perpetuity of aggressions. Our\nproposal here is upon a more practical plane at least than that.\nWe are to restrict ourselves first to the limitations of human\npossibility as we know them in the men and women of this world\nto-day, and then to all the inhumanity, all the insubordination of\nnature. We are to shape our state in a world of uncertain seasons,\nsudden catastrophes, antagonistic diseases, and inimical beasts and\nvermin, out of men and women with like passions, like uncertainties\nof mood and desire to our own. And, moreover, we are going to accept\nthis world of conflict, to adopt no attitude of renunciation towards\nit, to face it in no ascetic spirit, but in the mood of the Western\npeoples, whose purpose is to survive and overcome. So much we adopt\nin common with those who deal not in Utopias, but in the world of\nHere and Now.\n\nCertain liberties, however, following the best Utopian precedents,\nwe may take with existing fact. We assume that the tone of public\nthought may be entirely different from what it is in the present\nworld. We permit ourselves a free hand with the mental conflict of\nlife, within the possibilities of the human mind as we know it. We\npermit ourselves also a free hand with all the apparatus of\nexistence that man has, so to speak, made for himself, with houses,\nroads, clothing, canals, machinery, with laws, boundaries,\nconventions, and traditions, with schools, with literature and\nreligious organisation, with creeds and customs, with everything, in\nfact, that it lies within man's power to alter. That, indeed, is the\ncardinal assumption of all Utopian speculations old and new; the\nRepublic and Laws of Plato, and More's Utopia, Howells' implicit\nAltruria, and Bellamy's future Boston, Comte's great Western\nRepublic, Hertzka's Freeland, Cabet's Icaria, and Campanella's City\nof the Sun, are built, just as we shall build, upon that, upon the\nhypothesis of the complete emancipation of a community of men from\ntradition, from habits, from legal bonds, and that subtler servitude\npossessions entail. And much of the essential value of all such\nspeculations lies in this assumption of emancipation, lies in that\nregard towards human freedom, in the undying interest of the human\npower of self-escape, the power to resist the causation of the past,\nand to evade, initiate, endeavour, and overcome.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nThere are very definite artistic limitations also.\n\nThere must always be a certain effect of hardness and thinness about\nUtopian speculations. Their common fault is to be comprehensively\njejune. That which is the blood and warmth and reality of life is\nlargely absent; there are no individualities, but only generalised\npeople. In almost every Utopia--except, perhaps, Morris's \"News from\nNowhere\"--one sees handsome but characterless buildings, symmetrical\nand perfect cultivations, and a multitude of people, healthy, happy,\nbeautifully dressed, but without any personal distinction whatever.\nToo often the prospect resembles the key to one of those large\npictures of coronations, royal weddings, parliaments, conferences,\nand gatherings so popular in Victorian times, in which, instead of a\nface, each figure bears a neat oval with its index number legibly\ninscribed. This burthens us with an incurable effect of unreality,\nand I do not see how it is altogether to be escaped. It is a\ndisadvantage that has to be accepted. Whatever institution has\nexisted or exists, however irrational, however preposterous, has, by\nvirtue of its contact with individualities, an effect of realness\nand rightness no untried thing may share. It has ripened, it has\nbeen christened with blood, it has been stained and mellowed by\nhandling, it has been rounded and dented to the softened contours\nthat we associate with life; it has been salted, maybe, in a brine\nof tears. But the thing that is merely proposed, the thing that is\nmerely suggested, however rational, however necessary, seems strange\nand inhuman in its clear, hard, uncompromising lines, its\nunqualified angles and surfaces.\n\nThere is no help for it, there it is! The Master suffers with the\nlast and least of his successors. For all the humanity he wins to,\nthrough his dramatic device of dialogue, I doubt if anyone has ever\nbeen warmed to desire himself a citizen in the Republic of Plato; I\ndoubt if anyone could stand a month of the relentless publicity of\nvirtue planned by More.... No one wants to live in any community of\nintercourse really, save for the sake of the individualities he\nwould meet there. The fertilising conflict of individualities is the\nultimate meaning of the personal life, and all our Utopias no more\nthan schemes for bettering that interplay. At least, that is how\nlife shapes itself more and more to modern perceptions. Until you\nbring in individualities, nothing comes into being, and a Universe\nceases when you shiver the mirror of the least of individual\nminds.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nNo less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia.\nTime was when a mountain valley or an island seemed to promise\nsufficient isolation for a polity to maintain itself intact from\noutward force; the Republic of Plato stood armed ready for defensive\nwar, and the New Atlantis and the Utopia of More in theory, like\nChina and Japan through many centuries of effectual practice, held\nthemselves isolated from intruders. Such late instances as Butler's\nsatirical \"Erewhon,\" and Mr. Stead's queendom of inverted sexual\nconditions in Central Africa, found the Tibetan method of\nslaughtering the inquiring visitor a simple, sufficient rule. But\nthe whole trend of modern thought is against the permanence of any\nsuch enclosures. We are acutely aware nowadays that, however subtly\ncontrived a State may be, outside your boundary lines the epidemic,\nthe breeding barbarian or the economic power, will gather its\nstrength to overcome you. The swift march of invention is all for\nthe invader. Now, perhaps you might still guard a rocky coast or a\nnarrow pass; but what of that near to-morrow when the flying machine\nsoars overhead, free to descend at this point or that? A state\npowerful enough to keep isolated under modern conditions would be\npowerful enough to rule the world, would be, indeed, if not actively\nruling, yet passively acquiescent in all other human organisations,\nand so responsible for them altogether. World-state, therefore, it\nmust be.\n\nThat leaves no room for a modern Utopia in Central Africa, or in\nSouth America, or round about the pole, those last refuges of\nideality. The floating isle of La Cite Morellyste no longer avails.\nWe need a planet. Lord Erskine, the author of a Utopia (\"Armata\")\nthat might have been inspired by Mr. Hewins, was the first of all\nUtopists to perceive this--he joined his twin planets pole to pole\nby a sort of umbilical cord. But the modern imagination, obsessed\nby physics, must travel further than that.\n\nOut beyond Sirius, far in the deeps of space, beyond the flight of a\ncannon-ball flying for a billion years, beyond the range of unaided\nvision, blazes the star that is _our_ Utopia's sun. To those who\nknow where to look, with a good opera-glass aiding good eyes, it\nand three fellows that seem in a cluster with it--though they are\nincredible billions of miles nearer--make just the faintest speck\nof light. About it go planets, even as our planets, but weaving a\ndifferent fate, and in its place among them is Utopia, with its\nsister mate, the Moon. It is a planet like our planet, the same\ncontinents, the same islands, the same oceans and seas, another\nFuji-Yama is beautiful there dominating another Yokohama--and\nanother Matterhorn overlooks the icy disorder of another Theodule.\nIt is so like our planet that a terrestrial botanist might find his\nevery species there, even to the meanest pondweed or the remotest\nAlpine blossom....\n\nOnly when he had gathered that last and turned about to find his inn\nagain, perhaps he would not find his inn!\n\nSuppose now that two of us were actually to turn about in just that\nfashion. Two, I think, for to face a strange planet, even though it\nbe a wholly civilised one, without some other familiar backing,\ndashes the courage overmuch. Suppose that we were indeed so\ntranslated even as we stood. You figure us upon some high pass in\nthe Alps, and though I--being one easily made giddy by stooping--am\nno botanist myself, if my companion were to have a specimen tin\nunder his arm--so long as it is not painted that abominable popular\nSwiss apple green--I would make it no occasion for quarrel! We have\ntramped and botanised and come to a rest, and, sitting among rocks,\nwe have eaten our lunch and finished our bottle of Yvorne, and\nfallen into a talk of Utopias, and said such things as I have been\nsaying. I could figure it myself upon that little neck of the\nLucendro Pass, upon the shoulder of the Piz Lucendro, for there once\nI lunched and talked very pleasantly, and we are looking down upon\nthe Val Bedretto, and Villa and Fontana and Airolo try to hide from\nus under the mountain side--three-quarters of a mile they are\nvertically below. (Lantern.) With that absurd nearness of effect\none gets in the Alps, we see the little train a dozen miles away,\nrunning down the Biaschina to Italy, and the Lukmanier Pass beyond\nPiora left of us, and the San Giacomo right, mere footpaths under\nour feet....\n\nAnd behold! in the twinkling of an eye we are in that other\nworld!\n\nWe should scarcely note the change. Not a cloud would have gone from\nthe sky. It might be the remote town below would take a different\nair, and my companion the botanist, with his educated observation,\nmight almost see as much, and the train, perhaps, would be gone out\nof the picture, and the embanked straightness of the Ticino in the\nAmbri-Piotta meadows--that might be altered, but that would be all\nthe visible change. Yet I have an idea that in some obscure manner\nwe should come to feel at once a difference in things.\n\nThe botanist's glance would, under a subtle attraction, float back\nto Airolo. \"It's queer,\" he would say quite idly, \"but I never\nnoticed that building there to the right before.\"\n\n\"Which building?\"\n\n\"That to the right--with a queer sort of thing----\"\n\n\"I see now. Yes. Yes, it's certainly an odd-looking affair.... And\nbig, you know! Handsome! I wonder----\"\n\nThat would interrupt our Utopian speculations. We should both\ndiscover that the little towns below had changed--but how, we should\nnot have marked them well enough to know. It would be indefinable, a\nchange in the quality of their grouping, a change in the quality of\ntheir remote, small shapes.\n\nI should flick a few crumbs from my knee, perhaps. \"It's odd,\" I\nshould say, for the tenth or eleventh time, with a motion to rise,\nand we should get up and stretch ourselves, and, still a little\npuzzled, turn our faces towards the path that clambers down over\nthe tumbled rocks and runs round by the still clear lake and down\ntowards the Hospice of St. Gotthard--if perchance we could still\nfind that path.\n\nLong before we got to that, before even we got to the great high\nroad, we should have hints from the stone cabin in the nape of the\npass--it would be gone or wonderfully changed--from the very goats\nupon the rocks, from the little hut by the rough bridge of stone,\nthat a mighty difference had come to the world of men.\n\nAnd presently, amazed and amazing, we should happen on a man--no\nSwiss--dressed in unfamiliar clothing and speaking an unfamiliar\nspeech....\n\n\nSection 4\n\nBefore nightfall we should be drenched in wonders, but still we\nshould have wonder left for the thing my companion, with his\nscientific training, would no doubt be the first to see. He would\nglance up, with that proprietary eye of the man who knows his\nconstellations down to the little Greek letters. I imagine his\nexclamation. He would at first doubt his eyes. I should inquire the\ncause of his consternation, and it would be hard to explain. He\nwould ask me with a certain singularity of manner for \"Orion,\" and I\nshould not find him; for the Great Bear, and it would have vanished.\n\"Where?\" I should ask, and \"where?\" seeking among that scattered\nstarriness, and slowly I should acquire the wonder that possessed\nhim.\n\nThen, for the first time, perhaps, we should realise from\nthis unfamiliar heaven that not the world had changed, but\nourselves--that we had come into the uttermost deeps of space.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nWe need suppose no linguistic impediments to intercourse. The whole\nworld will surely have a common language, that is quite elementarily\nUtopian, and since we are free of the trammels of convincing\nstory-telling, we may suppose that language to be sufficiently our\nown to understand. Indeed, should we be in Utopia at all, if we\ncould not talk to everyone? That accursed bar of language, that\nhostile inscription in the foreigner's eyes, \"deaf and dumb to you,\nsir, and so--your enemy,\" is the very first of the defects and\ncomplications one has fled the earth to escape.\n\nBut what sort of language would we have the world speak, if we were\ntold the miracle of Babel was presently to be reversed?\n\nIf I may take a daring image, a mediaeval liberty, I would suppose\nthat in this lonely place the Spirit of Creation spoke to us on this\nmatter. \"You are wise men,\" that Spirit might say--and I, being a\nsuspicious, touchy, over-earnest man for all my predisposition to\nplumpness, would instantly scent the irony (while my companion, I\nfancy, might even plume himself), \"and to beget your wisdom is\nchiefly why the world was made. You are so good as to propose an\nacceleration of that tedious multitudinous evolution upon which I am\nengaged. I gather, a universal tongue would serve you there. While I\nsit here among these mountains--I have been filing away at them for\nthis last aeon or so, just to attract your hotels, you know--will\nyou be so kind----? A few hints----?\"\n\nThen the Spirit of Creation might transiently smile, a smile that\nwould be like the passing of a cloud. All the mountain wilderness\nabout us would be radiantly lit. (You know those swift moments, when\nwarmth and brightness drift by, in lonely and desolate places.)\n\nYet, after all, why should two men be smiled into apathy by the\nInfinite? Here we are, with our knobby little heads, our eyes and\nhands and feet and stout hearts, and if not us or ours, still the\nendless multitudes about us and in our loins are to come at last to\nthe World State and a greater fellowship and the universal tongue.\nLet us to the extent of our ability, if not answer that question, at\nany rate try to think ourselves within sight of the best thing\npossible. That, after all, is our purpose, to imagine our best and\nstrive for it, and it is a worse folly and a worse sin than\npresumption, to abandon striving because the best of all our bests\nlooks mean amidst the suns.\n\nNow you as a botanist would, I suppose, incline to something as\nthey say, \"scientific.\" You wince under that most offensive\nepithet--and I am able to give you my intelligent sympathy--though\n\"pseudo-scientific\" and \"quasi-scientific\" are worse by far for the\nskin. You would begin to talk of scientific languages, of Esperanto,\nLa Langue Bleue, New Latin, Volapuk, and Lord Lytton, of the\nphilosophical language of Archbishop Whateley, Lady Welby's work\nupon Significs and the like. You would tell me of the remarkable\nprecisions, the encyclopaedic quality of chemical terminology, and\nat the word terminology I should insinuate a comment on that eminent\nAmerican biologist, Professor Mark Baldwin, who has carried the\nlanguage biological to such heights of expressive clearness as to be\ntriumphantly and invincibly unreadable. (Which foreshadows the line\nof my defence.)\n\nYou make your ideal clear, a scientific language you demand, without\nambiguity, as precise as mathematical formulae, and with every term\nin relations of exact logical consistency with every other. It will\nbe a language with all the inflexions of verbs and nouns regular and\nall its constructions inevitable, each word clearly distinguishable\nfrom every other word in sound as well as spelling.\n\nThat, at any rate, is the sort of thing one hears demanded, and if\nonly because the demand rests upon implications that reach far\nbeyond the region of language, it is worth considering here. It\nimplies, indeed, almost everything that we are endeavouring to\nrepudiate in this particular work. It implies that the whole\nintellectual basis of mankind is established, that the rules of\nlogic, the systems of counting and measurement, the general\ncategories and schemes of resemblance and difference, are\nestablished for the human mind for ever--blank Comte-ism, in fact,\nof the blankest description. But, indeed, the science of logic and\nthe whole framework of philosophical thought men have kept since the\ndays of Plato and Aristotle, has no more essential permanence as\na final expression of the human mind, than the Scottish Longer\nCatechism. Amidst the welter of modern thought, a philosophy long\nlost to men rises again into being, like some blind and almost\nformless embryo, that must presently develop sight, and form, and\npower, a philosophy in which this assumption is denied. [Footnote:\nThe serious reader may refer at leisure to Sidgwick's Use of Words\nin Reasoning (particularly), and to Bosanquet's Essentials of Logic,\nBradley's Principles of Logic, and Sigwart's Logik; the lighter\nminded may read and mark the temper of Professor Case in the British\nEncyclopaedia, article Logic (Vol. XXX.). I have appended to his\nbook a rude sketch of a philosophy upon new lines, originally read\nby me to the Oxford Phil. Soc. in 1903.]\n\nAll through this Utopian excursion, I must warn you, you shall feel\nthe thrust and disturbance of that insurgent movement. In the\nreiterated use of \"Unique,\" you will, as it were, get the gleam of\nits integument; in the insistence upon individuality, and the\nindividual difference as the significance of life, you will feel the\ntexture of its shaping body. Nothing endures, nothing is precise and\ncertain (except the mind of a pedant), perfection is the mere\nrepudiation of that ineluctable marginal inexactitude which is the\nmysterious inmost quality of Being. Being, indeed!--there is no\nbeing, but a universal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned\nhis back on truth when he turned towards his museum of specific\nideals. Heraclitus, that lost and misinterpreted giant, may perhaps\nbe coming to his own....\n\nThere is no abiding thing in what we know. We change from weaker to\nstronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our hitherto\nopaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities below.\nWe can never foretell which of our seemingly assured fundamentals\nthe next change will not affect. What folly, then, to dream of\nmapping out our minds in however general terms, of providing for\nthe endless mysteries of the future a terminology and an idiom! We\nfollow the vein, we mine and accumulate our treasure, but who can\ntell which way the vein may trend? Language is the nourishment of\nthe thought of man, that serves only as it undergoes metabolism, and\nbecomes thought and lives, and in its very living passes away. You\nscientific people, with your fancy of a terrible exactitude in\nlanguage, of indestructible foundations built, as that Wordsworthian\ndoggerel on the title-page of Nature says, \"for aye,\" are\nmarvellously without imagination!\n\nThe language of Utopia will no doubt be one and indivisible; all\nmankind will, in the measure of their individual differences in\nquality, be brought into the same phase, into a common resonance of\nthought, but the language they will speak will still be a living\ntongue, an animated system of imperfections, which every individual\nman will infinitesimally modify. Through the universal freedom of\nexchange and movement, the developing change in its general spirit\nwill be a world-wide change; that is the quality of its\nuniversality. I fancy it will be a coalesced language, a synthesis\nof many. Such a language as English is a coalesced language; it is a\ncoalescence of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French and Scholar's Latin,\nwelded into one speech more ample and more powerful and beautiful\nthan either. The Utopian tongue might well present a more spacious\ncoalescence, and hold in the frame of such an uninflected or\nslightly inflected idiom as English already presents, a profuse\nvocabulary into which have been cast a dozen once separate tongues,\nsuperposed and then welded together through bilingual and trilingual\ncompromises. [Footnote: Vide an excellent article, La Langue\nFrancaise en l'an 2003, par Leon Bollack, in La Revue, 15 Juillet,\n1903.] In the past ingenious men have speculated on the inquiry,\n\"Which language will survive?\" The question was badly put. I think\nnow that this wedding and survival of several in a common offspring\nis a far more probable thing.\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThis talk of languages, however, is a digression. We were on our\nway along the faint path that runs round the rim of the Lake of\nLucendro, and we were just upon the point of coming upon our first\nUtopian man. He was, I said, no Swiss. Yet he would have been a\nSwiss on mother Earth, and here he would have the same face, with\nsome difference, maybe, in the expression; the same physique, though\na little better developed, perhaps--the same complexion. He would\nhave different habits, different traditions, different knowledge,\ndifferent ideas, different clothing, and different appliances, but,\nexcept for all that, he would be the same man. We very distinctly\nprovided at the outset that the modern Utopia must have people\ninherently the same as those in the world.\n\nThere is more, perhaps, in that than appears at the first\nsuggestion.\n\nThat proposition gives one characteristic difference between a\nmodern Utopia and almost all its predecessors. It is to be a world\nUtopia, we have agreed, no less; and so we must needs face the fact\nthat we are to have differences of race. Even the lower class of\nPlato's Republic was not specifically of different race. But this is\na Utopia as wide as Christian charity, and white and black, brown,\nred and yellow, all tints of skin, all types of body and character,\nwill be there. How we are to adjust their differences is a master\nquestion, and the matter is not even to be opened in this chapter.\nIt will need a whole chapter even to glance at its issues. But here\nwe underline that stipulation; every race of this planet earth is\nto be found in the strictest parallelism there, in numbers the\nsame--only, as I say, with an entirely different set of traditions,\nideals, ideas, and purposes, and so moving under those different\nskies to an altogether different destiny.\n\nThere follows a curious development of this to anyone clearly\nimpressed by the uniqueness and the unique significance of\nindividualities. Races are no hard and fast things, no crowd of\nidentically similar persons, but massed sub-races, and tribes\nand families, each after its kind unique, and these again are\nclusterings of still smaller uniques and so down to each several\nperson. So that our first convention works out to this, that not\nonly is every earthly mountain, river, plant, and beast in that\nparallel planet beyond Sirius also, but every man, woman, and child\nalive has a Utopian parallel. From now onward, of course, the fates\nof these two planets will diverge, men will die here whom wisdom\nwill save there, and perhaps conversely here we shall save men;\nchildren will be born to them and not to us, to us and not to them,\nbut this, this moment of reading, is the starting moment, and for\nthe first and last occasion the populations of our planets are\nabreast.\n\nWe must in these days make some such supposition. The alternative is\na Utopia of dolls in the likeness of angels--imaginary laws to fit\nincredible people, an unattractive undertaking.\n\nFor example, we must assume there is a man such as I might have\nbeen, better informed, better disciplined, better employed, thinner\nand more active--and I wonder what he is doing!--and you, Sir or\nMadam, are in duplicate also, and all the men and women that you\nknow and I. I doubt if we shall meet our doubles, or if it would be\npleasant for us to do so; but as we come down from these lonely\nmountains to the roads and houses and living places of the Utopian\nworld-state, we shall certainly find, here and there, faces that\nwill remind us singularly of those who have lived under our\neyes.\n\nThere are some you never wish to meet again, you say, and some, I\ngather, you do. \"And One----!\"\n\nIt is strange, but this figure of the botanist will not keep in\nplace. It sprang up between us, dear reader, as a passing\nillustrative invention. I do not know what put him into my head, and\nfor the moment, it fell in with my humour for a space to foist the\nman's personality upon you as yours and call you scientific--that\nmost abusive word. But here he is, indisputably, with me in Utopia,\nand lapsing from our high speculative theme into halting but\nintimate confidences. He declares he has not come to Utopia to meet\nagain with his sorrows.\n\nWhat sorrows?\n\nI protest, even warmly, that neither he nor his sorrows were in my\nintention.\n\nHe is a man, I should think, of thirty-nine, a man whose life has\nbeen neither tragedy nor a joyous adventure, a man with one of\nthose faces that have gained interest rather than force or nobility\nfrom their commerce with life. He is something refined, with\nsome knowledge, perhaps, of the minor pains and all the civil\nself-controls; he has read more than he has suffered, and suffered\nrather than done. He regards me with his blue-grey eye, from which\nall interest in this Utopia has faded.\n\n\"It is a trouble,\" he says, \"that has come into my life only for a\nmonth or so--at least acutely again. I thought it was all over.\nThere was someone----\"\n\nIt is an amazing story to hear upon a mountain crest in Utopia, this\nHampstead affair, this story of a Frognal heart. \"Frognal,\" he says,\nis the place where they met, and it summons to my memory the word\non a board at the corner of a flint-dressed new road, an estate\ndevelopment road, with a vista of villas up a hill. He had known\nher before he got his professorship, and neither her \"people\" nor\nhis--he speaks that detestable middle-class dialect in which aunts\nand things with money and the right of intervention are called\n\"people\"!--approved of the affair. \"She was, I think, rather easily\nswayed,\" he says. \"But that's not fair to her, perhaps. She thought\ntoo much of others. If they seemed distressed, or if they seemed to\nthink a course right----\" ...\n\nHave I come to Utopia to hear this sort of thing?\n\n\nSection 7\n\nIt is necessary to turn the botanist's thoughts into a worthier\nchannel. It is necessary to override these modest regrets, this\nintrusive, petty love story. Does he realise this is indeed Utopia?\nTurn your mind, I insist, to this Utopia of mine, and leave these\nearthly troubles to their proper planet. Do you realise just where\nthe propositions necessary to a modern Utopia are taking us?\nEveryone on earth will have to be here;--themselves, but with a\ndifference. Somewhere here in this world is, for example, Mr.\nChamberlain, and the King is here (no doubt incognito), and all the\nRoyal Academy, and Sandow, and Mr. Arnold White.\n\nBut these famous names do not appeal to him.\n\nMy mind goes from this prominent and typical personage to that, and\nfor a time I forget my companion. I am distracted by the curious\nside issues this general proposition trails after it. There will be\nso-and-so, and so-and-so. The name and figure of Mr. Roosevelt jerks\ninto focus, and obliterates an attempt to acclimatise the Emperor of\nthe Germans. What, for instance, will Utopia do with Mr. Roosevelt?\nThere drifts across my inner vision the image of a strenuous\nstruggle with Utopian constables, the voice that has thrilled\nterrestrial millions in eloquent protest. The writ of arrest,\ndrifting loose in the conflict, comes to my feet; I impale the scrap\nof paper, and read--but can it be?--\"attempted disorganisation? ...\nincitements to disarrange? ... the balance of population?\"\n\nThe trend of my logic for once has led us into a facetious alley.\nOne might indeed keep in this key, and write an agreeable little\nUtopia, that like the holy families of the mediaeval artists (or\nMichael Angelo's Last Judgement) should compliment one's friends in\nvarious degrees. Or one might embark upon a speculative treatment of\nthe entire Almanach de Gotha, something on the lines of Epistemon's\nvision of the damned great, when\n\n  \"Xerxes was a crier of mustard.\n   Romulus was a salter and a patcher of patterns....\"\n\nThat incomparable catalogue! That incomparable catalogue! Inspired\nby the Muse of Parody, we might go on to the pages of \"Who's Who,\"\nand even, with an eye to the obdurate republic, to \"Who's Who in\nAmerica,\" and make the most delightful and extensive arrangements.\nNow where shall we put this most excellent man? And this? ...\n\nBut, indeed, it is doubtful if we shall meet any of these doubles\nduring our Utopian journey, or know them when we meet them. I doubt\nif anyone will be making the best of both these worlds. The great\nmen in this still unexplored Utopia may be but village Hampdens in\nour own, and earthly goatherds and obscure illiterates sit here in\nthe seats of the mighty.\n\nThat again opens agreeable vistas left of us and right.\n\nBut my botanist obtrudes his personality again. His thoughts have\ntravelled by a different route.\n\n\"I know,\" he says, \"that she will be happier here, and that they\nwill value her better than she has been valued upon earth.\"\n\nHis interruption serves to turn me back from my momentary\ncontemplation of those popular effigies inflated by old newspapers\nand windy report, the earthly great. He sets me thinking of more\npersonal and intimate applications, of the human beings one knows\nwith a certain approximation to real knowledge, of the actual common\nsubstance of life. He turns me to the thought of rivalries and\ntendernesses, of differences and disappointments. I am suddenly\nbrought painfully against the things that might have been. What if\ninstead of that Utopia of vacant ovals we meet relinquished loves\nhere, and opportunities lost and faces as they might have looked to\nus?\n\nI turn to my botanist almost reprovingly. \"You know, she won't be\nquite the same lady here that you knew in Frognal,\" I say, and wrest\nmyself from a subject that is no longer agreeable by rising to my\nfeet.\n\n\"And besides,\" I say, standing above him, \"the chances against our\nmeeting her are a million to one.... And we loiter! This is not the\nbusiness we have come upon, but a mere incidental kink in our larger\nplan. The fact remains, these people we have come to see are people\nwith like infirmities to our own--and only the conditions are\nchanged. Let us pursue the tenour of our inquiry.\"\n\nWith that I lead the way round the edge of the Lake of Lucendro\ntowards our Utopian world.\n\n(You figure him doing it.)\n\nDown the mountain we shall go and down the passes, and as the\nvalleys open the world will open, Utopia, where men and women are\nhappy and laws are wise, and where all that is tangled and confused\nin human affairs has been unravelled and made right.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nConcerning Freedoms\n\n\nSection 1\n\nNow what sort of question would first occur to two men descending\nupon the planet of a Modern Utopia? Probably grave solicitude about\ntheir personal freedom. Towards the Stranger, as I have already\nremarked, the Utopias of the past displayed their least amiable\naspect. Would this new sort of Utopian State, spread to the\ndimensions of a world, be any less forbidding?\n\nWe should take comfort in the thought that universal Toleration is\ncertainly a modern idea, and it is upon modern ideas that this World\nState rests. But even suppose we are tolerated and admitted to this\nunavoidable citizenship, there will still remain a wide range of\npossibility.... I think we should try to work the problem out from\nan inquiry into first principles, and that we should follow the\ntrend of our time and kind by taking up the question as one of \"Man\nversus the State,\" and discussing the compromise of Liberty.\n\nThe idea of individual liberty is one that has grown in importance\nand grows with every development of modern thought. To the classical\nUtopists freedom was relatively trivial. Clearly they considered\nvirtue and happiness as entirely separable from liberty, and as\nbeing altogether more important things. But the modern view, with\nits deepening insistence upon individuality and upon the\nsignificance of its uniqueness, steadily intensifies the value of\nfreedom, until at last we begin to see liberty as the very substance\nof life, that indeed it is life, and that only the dead things, the\nchoiceless things, live in absolute obedience to law. To have free\nplay for one's individuality is, in the modern view, the subjective\ntriumph of existence, as survival in creative work and offspring is\nits objective triumph. But for all men, since man is a social\ncreature, the play of will must fall short of absolute freedom.\nPerfect human liberty is possible only to a despot who is absolutely\nand universally obeyed. Then to will would be to command and\nachieve, and within the limits of natural law we could at any moment\ndo exactly as it pleased us to do. All other liberty is a compromise\nbetween our own freedom of will and the wills of those with whom we\ncome in contact. In an organised state each one of us has a more or\nless elaborate code of what he may do to others and to himself, and\nwhat others may do to him. He limits others by his rights, and is\nlimited by the rights of others, and by considerations affecting the\nwelfare of the community as a whole.\n\nIndividual liberty in a community is not, as mathematicians would\nsay, always of the same sign. To ignore this is the essential\nfallacy of the cult called Individualism. But in truth, a general\nprohibition in a state may increase the sum of liberty, and a\ngeneral permission may diminish it. It does not follow, as these\npeople would have us believe, that a man is more free where there is\nleast law and more restricted where there is most law. A socialism\nor a communism is not necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom\nunder Anarchy. Consider how much liberty we gain by the loss of the\ncommon liberty to kill. Thereby one may go to and fro in all the\nordered parts of the earth, unencumbered by arms or armour, free of\nthe fear of playful poison, whimsical barbers, or hotel trap-doors.\nIndeed, it means freedom from a thousand fears and precautions.\nSuppose there existed even the limited freedom to kill in\nvendetta, and think what would happen in our suburbs. Consider the\ninconvenience of two households in a modern suburb estranged and\nprovided with modern weapons of precision, the inconvenience not\nonly to each other, but to the neutral pedestrian, the practical\nloss of freedoms all about them. The butcher, if he came at all,\nwould have to come round in an armoured cart....\n\nIt follows, therefore, in a modern Utopia, which finds the\nfinal hope of the world in the evolving interplay of unique\nindividualities, that the State will have effectually chipped away\njust all those spendthrift liberties that waste liberty, and not\none liberty more, and so have attained the maximum general freedom.\n\nThere are two distinct and contrasting methods of limiting liberty;\nthe first is Prohibition, \"thou shalt not,\" and the second Command,\n\"thou shalt.\" There is, however, a sort of prohibition that takes\nthe form of a conditional command, and this one needs to bear in\nmind. It says if you do so-and-so, you must also do so-and-so; if,\nfor example, you go to sea with men you employ, you must go in a\nseaworthy vessel. But the pure command is unconditional; it says,\nwhatever you have done or are doing or want to do, you are to\ndo this, as when the social system, working through the base\nnecessities of base parents and bad laws, sends a child of thirteen\ninto a factory. Prohibition takes one definite thing from the\nindefinite liberty of a man, but it still leaves him an unbounded\nchoice of actions. He remains free, and you have merely taken a\nbucketful from the sea of his freedom. But compulsion destroys\nfreedom altogether. In this Utopia of ours there may be many\nprohibitions, but no indirect compulsions--if one may so contrive\nit--and few or no commands. As far as I see it now, in this present\ndiscussion, I think, indeed, there should be no positive compulsions\nat all in Utopia, at any rate for the adult Utopian--unless they\nfall upon him as penalties incurred.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nWhat prohibitions should we be under, we two Uitlanders in this\nUtopian world? We should certainly not be free to kill, assault, or\nthreaten anyone we met, and in that we earth-trained men would not\nbe likely to offend. And until we knew more exactly the Utopian\nidea of property we should be very chary of touching anything that\nmight conceivably be appropriated. If it was not the property of\nindividuals it might be the property of the State. But beyond that\nwe might have our doubts. Are we right in wearing the strange\ncostumes we do, in choosing the path that pleases us athwart this\nrock and turf, in coming striding with unfumigated rucksacks and\nsnow-wet hobnails into what is conceivably an extremely neat and\norderly world? We have passed our first Utopian now, with an\nanswered vague gesture, and have noted, with secret satisfaction,\nthere is no access of dismay; we have rounded a bend, and down the\nvalley in the distance we get a glimpse of what appears to be a\nsingularly well-kept road....\n\nI submit that to the modern minded man it can be no sort of Utopia\nworth desiring that does not give the utmost freedom of going to and\nfro. Free movement is to many people one of the greatest of life's\nprivileges--to go wherever the spirit moves them, to wander and\nsee--and though they have every comfort, every security, every\nvirtuous discipline, they will still be unhappy if that is denied\nthem. Short of damage to things cherished and made, the Utopians\nwill surely have this right, so we may expect no unclimbable walls\nand fences, nor the discovery of any laws we may transgress in\ncoming down these mountain places.\n\nAnd yet, just as civil liberty itself is a compromise defended by\nprohibitions, so this particular sort of liberty must also have its\nqualifications. Carried to the absolute pitch the right of free\nmovement ceases to be distinguishable from the right of free\nintrusion. We have already, in a comment on More's Utopia, hinted at\nan agreement with Aristotle's argument against communism, that it\nflings people into an intolerable continuity of contact.\nSchopenhauer carried out Aristotle in the vein of his own bitterness\nand with the truest of images when he likened human society to\nhedgehogs clustering for warmth, and unhappy when either too closely\npacked or too widely separated. Empedocles found no significance in\nlife whatever except as an unsteady play of love and hate, of\nattraction and repulsion, of assimilation and the assertion of\ndifference. So long as we ignore difference, so long as we ignore\nindividuality, and that I hold has been the common sin of all\nUtopias hitherto, we can make absolute statements, prescribe\ncommunisms or individualisms, and all sorts of hard theoretic\narrangements. But in the world of reality, which--to modernise\nHeraclitus and Empedocles--is nothing more nor less than the world\nof individuality, there are no absolute rights and wrongs, there are\nno qualitative questions at all, but only quantitative adjustments.\nEqually strong in the normal civilised man is the desire for freedom\nof movement and the desire for a certain privacy, for a corner\ndefinitely his, and we have to consider where the line of\nreconciliation comes.\n\nThe desire for absolute personal privacy is perhaps never a very\nstrong or persistent craving. In the great majority of human beings,\nthe gregarious instinct is sufficiently powerful to render any but\nthe most temporary isolations not simply disagreeable, but painful.\nThe savage has all the privacy he needs within the compass of his\nskull; like dogs and timid women, he prefers ill-treatment to\ndesertion, and it is only a scarce and complex modern type that\nfinds comfort and refreshment in quite lonely places and quite\nsolitary occupations. Yet such there are, men who can neither sleep\nwell nor think well, nor attain to a full perception of beautiful\nobjects, who do not savour the best of existence until they are\nsecurely alone, and for the sake of these even it would be\nreasonable to draw some limits to the general right of free\nmovement. But their particular need is only a special and\nexceptional aspect of an almost universal claim to privacy among\nmodern people, not so much for the sake of isolation as for\ncongenial companionship. We want to go apart from the great crowd,\nnot so much to be alone as to be with those who appeal to us\nparticularly and to whom we particularly appeal; we want to form\nhouseholds and societies with them, to give our individualities play\nin intercourse with them, and in the appointments and furnishings\nof that intercourse. We want gardens and enclosures and exclusive\nfreedoms for our like and our choice, just as spacious as we can get\nthem--and it is only the multitudinous uncongenial, anxious also for\nsimilar developments in some opposite direction, that checks this\nexpansive movement of personal selection and necessitates a\ncompromise on privacy.\n\nGlancing back from our Utopian mountain side down which this\ndiscourse marches, to the confusions of old earth, we may remark\nthat the need and desire for privacies there is exceptionally great\nat the present time, that it was less in the past, that in the\nfuture it may be less again, and that under the Utopian conditions\nto which we shall come when presently we strike yonder road, it may\nbe reduced to quite manageable dimensions. But this is to be\neffected not by the suppression of individualities to some common\npattern, [Footnote: More's Utopia. \"Whoso will may go in, for there\nis nothing within the houses that is private or anie man's owne.\"]\nbut by the broadening of public charity and the general amelioration\nof mind and manners. It is not by assimilation, that is to say, but\nby understanding that the modern Utopia achieves itself. The ideal\ncommunity of man's past was one with a common belief, with common\ncustoms and common ceremonies, common manners and common formulae;\nmen of the same society dressed in the same fashion, each according\nto his defined and understood grade, behaved in the same fashion,\nloved, worshipped, and died in the same fashion. They did or felt\nlittle that did not find a sympathetic publicity. The natural\ndisposition of all peoples, white, black, or brown, a natural\ndisposition that education seeks to destroy, is to insist upon\nuniformity, to make publicity extremely unsympathetic to even the\nmost harmless departures from the code. To be dressed \"odd,\" to\nbehave \"oddly,\" to eat in a different manner or of different food,\nto commit, indeed, any breach of the established convention is to\ngive offence and to incur hostility among unsophisticated men. But\nthe disposition of the more original and enterprising minds at all\ntimes has been to make such innovations.\n\nThis is particularly in evidence in this present age. The almost\ncataclysmal development of new machinery, the discovery of new\nmaterials, and the appearance of new social possibilities through\nthe organised pursuit of material science, has given enormous and\nunprecedented facilities to the spirit of innovation. The old local\norder has been broken up or is now being broken up all over the\nearth, and everywhere societies deliquesce, everywhere men are\nafloat amidst the wreckage of their flooded conventions, and still\ntremendously unaware of the thing that has happened. The old local\northodoxies of behaviour, of precedence, the old accepted amusements\nand employments, the old ritual of conduct in the important small\nthings of the daily life and the old ritual of thought in the\nthings that make discussion, are smashed up and scattered and mixed\ndiscordantly together, one use with another, and no world-wide\nculture of toleration, no courteous admission of differences, no\nwider understanding has yet replaced them. And so publicity in the\nmodern earth has become confusedly unsympathetic for everyone.\nClasses are intolerable to classes and sets to sets, contact\nprovokes aggressions, comparisons, persecutions and discomforts,\nand the subtler people are excessively tormented by a sense of\nobservation, unsympathetic always and often hostile. To live without\nsome sort of segregation from the general mass is impossible in\nexact proportion to one's individual distinction.\n\nOf course things will be very different in Utopia. Utopia will\nbe saturated with consideration. To us, clad as we are in\nmountain-soiled tweeds and with no money but British bank-notes\nnegotiable only at a practically infinite distance, this must needs\nbe a reassuring induction. And Utopian manners will not only be\ntolerant, but almost universally tolerable. Endless things will be\nunderstood perfectly and universally that on earth are understood\nonly by a scattered few; baseness of bearing, grossness of manner,\nwill be the distinctive mark of no section of the community\nwhatever. The coarser reasons for privacy, therefore, will not exist\nhere. And that savage sort of shyness, too, that makes so many\nhalf-educated people on earth recluse and defensive, that too the\nUtopians will have escaped by their more liberal breeding. In the\ncultivated State we are assuming it will be ever so much easier for\npeople to eat in public, rest and amuse themselves in public, and\neven work in public. Our present need for privacy in many things\nmarks, indeed, a phase of transition from an ease in public in the\npast due to homogeneity, to an ease in public in the future due to\nintelligence and good breeding, and in Utopia that transition will\nbe complete. We must bear that in mind throughout the consideration\nof this question.\n\nYet, after this allowance has been made, there still remains a\nconsiderable claim for privacy in Utopia. The room, or apartments,\nor home, or mansion, whatever it may be a man or woman maintains,\nmust be private, and under his or her complete dominion; it seems\nharsh and intrusive to forbid a central garden plot or peristyle,\nsuch as one sees in Pompeii, within the house walls, and it is\nalmost as difficult to deny a little private territory beyond the\nhouse. Yet if we concede that, it is clear that without some further\nprovision we concede the possibility that the poorer townsman (if\nthere are to be rich and poor in the world) will be forced to walk\nthrough endless miles of high fenced villa gardens before he may\nexpand in his little scrap of reserved open country. Such is already\nthe poor Londoner's miserable fate.... Our Utopia will have, of\ncourse, faultless roads and beautifully arranged inter-urban\ncommunications, swift trains or motor services or what not, to\ndiffuse its population, and without some anticipatory provisions,\nthe prospect of the residential areas becoming a vast area of\ndefensively walled villa Edens is all too possible.\n\nThis is a quantitative question, be it remembered, and not to be\ndismissed by any statement of principle. Our Utopians will meet it,\nI presume, by detailed regulations, very probably varying locally\nwith local conditions. Privacy beyond the house might be made a\nprivilege to be paid for in proportion to the area occupied, and the\ntax on these licences of privacy might increase as the square of the\narea affected. A maximum fraction of private enclosure for each\nurban and suburban square mile could be fixed. A distinction could\nbe drawn between an absolutely private garden and a garden private\nand closed only for a day or a couple of days a week, and at other\ntimes open to the well-behaved public. Who, in a really civilised\ncommunity, would grudge that measure of invasion? Walls could be\ntaxed by height and length, and the enclosure of really natural\nbeauties, of rapids, cascades, gorges, viewpoints, and so forth\nmade impossible. So a reasonable compromise between the vital and\nconflicting claims of the freedom of movement and the freedom of\nseclusion might be attained....\n\nAnd as we argue thus we draw nearer and nearer to the road that goes\nup and over the Gotthard crest and down the Val Tremola towards\nItaly.\n\nWhat sort of road would that be?\n\n\nSection 3\n\nFreedom of movement in a Utopia planned under modern conditions must\ninvolve something more than unrestricted pedestrian wanderings, and\nthe very proposition of a world-state speaking one common tongue\ncarries with it the idea of a world population travelled and\ntravelling to an extent quite beyond anything our native earth has\nseen. It is now our terrestrial experience that whenever economic\nand political developments set a class free to travel, that class at\nonce begins to travel; in England, for example, above the five or\nsix hundred pounds a year level, it is hard to find anyone who is\nnot habitually migratory, who has not been frequently, as people\nsay, \"abroad.\" In the Modern Utopia travel must be in the common\ntexture of life. To go into fresh climates and fresh scenery, to\nmeet a different complexion of humanity and a different type of home\nand food and apparatus, to mark unfamiliar trees and plants and\nflowers and beasts, to climb mountains, to see the snowy night of\nthe North and the blaze of the tropical midday, to follow great\nrivers, to taste loneliness in desert places, to traverse the gloom\nof tropical forests and to cross the high seas, will be an essential\npart of the reward and adventure of life, even for the commonest\npeople.... This is a bright and pleasant particular in which a\nmodern Utopia must differ again, and differ diametrically, from its\npredecessors.\n\nWe may conclude from what has been done in places upon our earth\nthat the whole Utopian world will be open and accessible and as safe\nfor the wayfarer as France or England is to-day. The peace of the\nworld will be established for ever, and everywhere, except in remote\nand desolate places, there will be convenient inns, at least as\nconvenient and trustworthy as those of Switzerland to-day; the\ntouring clubs and hotel associations that have tariffed that country\nand France so effectually will have had their fine Utopian\nequivalents, and the whole world will be habituated to the coming\nand going of strangers. The greater part of the world will be as\nsecure and cheaply and easily accessible to everyone as is Zermatt\nor Lucerne to a Western European of the middle-class at the present\ntime.\n\nOn this account alone no places will be so congested as these two\nare now on earth. With freedom to go everywhere, with easy access\neverywhere, with no dread of difficulties about language, coinage,\ncustom, or law, why should everyone continue to go to just a few\nspecial places? Such congestions are merely the measure of the\ngeneral inaccessibility and insecurity and costliness of\ncontemporary life, an awkward transitory phase in the first\nbeginnings of the travel age of mankind.\n\nNo doubt the Utopian will travel in many ways. It is unlikely there\nwill be any smoke-disgorging steam railway trains in Utopia, they\nare already doomed on earth, already threatened with that\nobsolescence that will endear them to the Ruskins of to-morrow, but\na thin spider's web of inconspicuous special routes will cover the\nland of the world, pierce the mountain masses and tunnel under the\nseas. These may be double railways or monorails or what not--we are\nno engineers to judge between such devices--but by means of them the\nUtopian will travel about the earth from one chief point to another\nat a speed of two or three hundred miles or more an hour. That\nwill abolish the greater distances.... One figures these main\ncommunications as something after the manner of corridor trains,\nsmooth-running and roomy, open from end to end, with cars in which\none may sit and read, cars in which one may take refreshment, cars\ninto which the news of the day comes printing itself from the wires\nbeside the track; cars in which one may have privacy and sleep if\none is so disposed, bath-room cars, library cars; a train as\ncomfortable as a good club. There will be no distinctions of class\nin such a train, because in a civilised world there would be no\noffence between one kind of man and another, and for the good of the\nwhole world such travelling will be as cheap as it can be, and well\nwithin the reach of any but the almost criminally poor.\n\nSuch great tramways as this will be used when the Utopians wish to\ntravel fast and far; thereby you will glide all over the land\nsurface of the planet; and feeding them and distributing from them,\ninnumerable minor systems, clean little electric tramways I picture\nthem, will spread out over the land in finer reticulations, growing\nclose and dense in the urban regions and thinning as the population\nthins. And running beside these lighter railways, and spreading\nbeyond their range, will be the smooth minor high roads such as this\none we now approach, upon which independent vehicles, motor cars,\ncycles, and what not, will go. I doubt if we shall see any horses\nupon this fine, smooth, clean road; I doubt if there will be many\nhorses on the high roads of Utopia, and, indeed, if they will use\ndraught horses at all upon that planet. Why should they? Where the\nworld gives turf or sand, or along special tracts, the horse will\nperhaps be ridden for exercise and pleasure, but that will be all\nthe use for him; and as for the other beasts of burthen, on the\nremoter mountain tracks the mule will no doubt still be a\npicturesque survival, in the desert men will still find a use for\nthe camel, and the elephant may linger to play a part in the pageant\nof the East. But the burthen of the minor traffic, if not the whole\nof it, will certainly be mechanical. This is what we shall see even\nwhile the road is still remote, swift and shapely motor-cars going\npast, cyclists, and in these agreeable mountain regions there will\nalso be pedestrians upon their way. Cycle tracks will abound in\nUtopia, sometimes following beside the great high roads, but oftener\ntaking their own more agreeable line amidst woods and crops and\npastures; and there will be a rich variety of footpaths and minor\nways. There will be many footpaths in Utopia. There will be pleasant\nways over the scented needles of the mountain pinewoods,\nprimrose-strewn tracks amidst the budding thickets of the lower\ncountry, paths running beside rushing streams, paths across the wide\nspaces of the corn land, and, above all, paths through the flowery\ngarden spaces amidst which the houses in the towns will stand. And\neverywhere about the world, on road and path, by sea and land, the\nhappy holiday Utopians will go.\n\nThe population of Utopia will be a migratory population beyond any\nearthly precedent, not simply a travelling population, but\nmigratory. The old Utopias were all localised, as localised as a\nparish councillor; but it is manifest that nowadays even quite\nordinary people live over areas that would have made a kingdom in\nthose former days, would have filled the Athenian of the Laws with\nincredulous astonishment. Except for the habits of the very rich\nduring the Roman Empire, there was never the slightest precedent for\nthis modern detachment from place. It is nothing to us that we go\neighty or ninety miles from home to place of business, or take an\nhour's spin of fifty miles to our week-end golf; every summer it has\nbecome a fixed custom to travel wide and far. Only the clumsiness of\ncommunications limit us now, and every facilitation of locomotion\nwidens not only our potential, but our habitual range. Not only\nthis, but we change our habitations with a growing frequency and\nfacility; to Sir Thomas More we should seem a breed of nomads. That\nold fixity was of necessity and not of choice, it was a mere phase\nin the development of civilisation, a trick of rooting man learnt\nfor a time from his new-found friends, the corn and the vine and\nthe hearth; the untamed spirit of the young has turned for ever to\nwandering and the sea. The soul of man has never yet in any land\nbeen willingly adscript to the glebe. Even Mr. Belloc, who preaches\nthe happiness of a peasant proprietary, is so much wiser than his\nthoughts that he sails about the seas in a little yacht or goes\nafoot from Belgium to Rome. We are winning our freedom again once\nmore, a freedom renewed and enlarged, and there is now neither\nnecessity nor advantage in a permanent life servitude to this place\nor that. Men may settle down in our Modern Utopia for love and the\nfamily at last, but first and most abundantly they will see the\nworld.\n\nAnd with this loosening of the fetters of locality from the feet of\nmen, necessarily there will be all sorts of fresh distributions of\nthe factors of life. On our own poor haphazard earth, wherever men\nwork, wherever there are things to be grown, minerals to be won,\npower to be used, there, regardless of all the joys and decencies of\nlife, the households needs must cluster. But in Utopia there will be\nwide stretches of cheerless or unhealthy or toilsome or dangerous\nland with never a household; there will be regions of mining and\nsmelting, black with the smoke of furnaces and gashed and desolated\nby mines, with a sort of weird inhospitable grandeur of industrial\ndesolation, and the men will come thither and work for a spell and\nreturn to civilisation again, washing and changing their attire in\nthe swift gliding train. And by way of compensation there will be\nbeautiful regions of the earth specially set apart and favoured for\nchildren; in them the presence of children will remit taxation,\nwhile in other less wholesome places the presence of children will\nbe taxed; the lower passes and fore hills of these very Alps, for\nexample, will be populous with homes, serving the vast arable levels\nof Upper Italy.\n\nSo we shall see, as we come down by our little lake in the lap of\nLucendro, and even before we reach the road, the first scattered\nchalets and households in which these migrant people live, the upper\nsummer homes. With the coming of summer, as the snows on the high\nAlps recede, a tide of households and schools, teachers and doctors,\nand all such attendant services will flow up the mountain masses,\nand ebb again when the September snows return. It is essential to\nthe modern ideal of life that the period of education and growth\nshould be prolonged to as late a period as possible and puberty\ncorrespondingly retarded, and by wise regulation the statesmen of\nUtopia will constantly adjust and readjust regulations and taxation\nto diminish the proportion of children reared in hot and stimulating\nconditions. These high mountains will, in the bright sweet summer,\nbe populous with youth. Even up towards this high place where the\nsnow is scarce gone until July, these households will extend, and\nbelow, the whole long valley of Urseren will be a scattered summer\ntown.\n\nOne figures one of the more urban highways, one of those along which\nthe light railways of the second order run, such as that in the\nvalley of Urseren, into which we should presently come. I figure it\nas one would see it at night, a band a hundred yards perhaps in\nwidth, the footpath on either side shaded with high trees and lit\nsoftly with orange glowlights; while down the centre the tramway of\nthe road will go, with sometimes a nocturnal tram-car gliding, lit\nand gay but almost noiselessly, past. Lantern-lit cyclists will flit\nalong the track like fireflies, and ever and again some humming\nmotor-car will hurry by, to or from the Rhoneland or the Rhineland\nor Switzerland or Italy. Away on either side the lights of the\nlittle country homes up the mountain slopes will glow.\n\nI figure it at night, because so it is we should see it first.\n\nWe should come out from our mountain valley into the minor road that\nruns down the lonely rock wilderness of the San Gotthard Pass, we\nshould descend that nine miles of winding route, and so arrive\ntowards twilight among the clustering homes and upland unenclosed\ngardens of Realp and Hospenthal and Andermatt. Between Realp and\nAndermatt, and down the Schoellenen gorge, the greater road would\nrun. By the time we reached it, we should be in the way of\nunderstanding our adventure a little better. We should know already,\nwhen we saw those two familiar clusters of chalets and hotels\nreplaced by a great dispersed multitude of houses--we should see\ntheir window lights, but little else--that we were the victims of\nsome strange transition in space or time, and we should come down by\ndimly-seen buildings into the part that would answer to Hospenthal,\nwondering and perhaps a little afraid. We should come out into this\ngreat main roadway--this roadway like an urban avenue--and look up\nit and down, hesitating whether to go along the valley Furka-ward,\nor down by Andermatt through the gorge that leads to Goschenen....\n\nPeople would pass us in the twilight, and then more people; we\nshould see they walked well and wore a graceful, unfamiliar dress,\nbut more we should not distinguish.\n\n\"Good-night!\" they would say to us in clear, fine voices. Their dim\nfaces would turn with a passing scrutiny towards us.\n\nWe should answer out of our perplexity: \"Good-night!\"--for by the\nconventions established in the beginning of this book, we are given\nthe freedom of their tongue.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nWere this a story, I should tell at length how much we were helped\nby the good fortune of picking up a Utopian coin of gold, how at\nlast we adventured into the Utopian inn and found it all\nmarvellously easy. You see us the shyest and most watchful of\nguests; but of the food they put before us and the furnishings of\nthe house, and all our entertainment, it will be better to speak\nlater. We are in a migratory world, we know, one greatly accustomed\nto foreigners; our mountain clothes are not strange enough to\nattract acute attention, though ill-made and shabby, no doubt, by\nUtopian standards; we are dealt with as we might best wish to be\ndealt with, that is to say as rather untidy, inconspicuous men. We\nlook about us and watch for hints and examples, and, indeed, get\nthrough with the thing. And after our queer, yet not unpleasant,\ndinner, in which we remark no meat figures, we go out of the house\nfor a breath of air and for quiet counsel one with another, and\nthere it is we discover those strange constellations overhead. It\ncomes to us then, clear and full, that our imagination has realised\nitself; we dismiss quite finally a Rip-Van-Winkle fancy we have\nentertained, all the unfamiliarities of our descent from the\nmountain pass gather together into one fullness of conviction, and\nwe know, we know, we are in Utopia.\n\nWe wander under the trees by the main road, watching the dim\npassers-by as though they were the phantoms of a dream. We say\nlittle to one another. We turn aside into a little pathway and come\nto a bridge over the turbulent Reuss, hurrying down towards the\nDevil's Bridge in the gorge below. Far away over the Furka ridge a\npallid glow preludes the rising of the moon.\n\nTwo lovers pass us whispering, and we follow them with our eyes.\nThis Utopia has certainly preserved the fundamental freedom, to\nlove. And then a sweet-voiced bell from somewhere high up towards\nOberalp chimes two-and-twenty times.\n\nI break the silence. \"That might mean ten o'clock,\" I say.\n\nMy companion leans upon the bridge and looks down into the dim river\nbelow. I become aware of the keen edge of the moon like a needle of\nincandescent silver creeping over the crest, and suddenly the river\nis alive with flashes.\n\nHe speaks, and astonishes me with the hidden course his thoughts\nhave taken.\n\n\"We two were boy and girl lovers like that,\" he says, and jerks a\nhead at the receding Utopians. \"I loved her first, and I do not\nthink I have ever thought of loving anyone but her.\"\n\nIt is a curiously human thing, and, upon my honour, not one I had\ndesigned, that when at last I stand in the twilight in the midst of\na Utopian township, when my whole being should be taken up with\nspeculative wonder, this man should be standing by my side, and\nlugging my attention persistently towards himself, towards his\nlimited futile self. This thing perpetually happens to me, this\nintrusion of something small and irrelevant and alive, upon my great\nimpressions. The time I first saw the Matterhorn, that Queen among\nthe Alpine summits, I was distracted beyond appreciation by the tale\nof a man who could not eat sardines--always sardines did this with\nhim and that; and my first wanderings along the brown streets of\nPompeii, an experience I had anticipated with a strange intensity,\nwas shot with the most stupidly intelligent discourse on vehicular\ntariffs in the chief capitals of Europe that it is possible to\nimagine. And now this man, on my first night in Utopia, talks and\ntalks and talks of his poor little love affair.\n\nIt shapes itself as the most trite and feeble of tragedies, one of\nthose stories of effortless submission to chance and custom in which\nMr. Hardy or George Gissing might have found a theme. I do but half\nlisten at first--watching the black figures in the moonlit roadway\npacing to and fro. Yet--I cannot trace how he conveys the subtle\nconviction to my mind--the woman he loves is beautiful.\n\nThey were boy and girl together, and afterwards they met again as\nfellow students in a world of comfortable discretions. He seems to\nhave taken the decorums of life with a confiding good faith, to have\nbeen shy and innocent in a suppressed sort of way, and of a mental\ntype not made for worldly successes; but he must have dreamt about\nher and loved her well enough. How she felt for him I could never\ngather; it seemed to be all of that fleshless friendliness into\nwhich we train our girls. Then abruptly happened stresses. The man\nwho became her husband appeared, with a very evident passion. He was\na year or so older than either of them, and he had the habit and\nquality of achieving his ends; he was already successful, and with\nthe promise of wealth, and I, at least, perceived, from my\nbotanist's phrasing, that his desire was for her beauty.\n\nAs my botanist talked I seemed to see the whole little drama, rather\nclearer than his words gave it me, the actors all absurdly in\nHampstead middle-class raiment, meetings of a Sunday after church\n(the men in silk hats, frock coats, and tightly-rolled umbrellas),\nrare excursions into evening dress, the decorously vulgar fiction\nread in their homes, its ambling sentimentalities of thought, the\namiably worldly mothers, the respectable fathers, the aunts, the\n\"people\"--his \"people\" and her \"people\"--the piano music and the\nsong, and in this setting our friend, \"quite clever\" at botany and\n\"going in\" for it \"as a profession,\" and the girl, gratuitously\nbeautiful; so I figured the arranged and orderly environment into\nwhich this claw of an elemental force had thrust itself to grip.\n\nThe stranger who had come in got what he wanted; the girl considered\nthat she thought she had never loved the botanist, had had only\nfriendship for him--though little she knew of the meaning of those\nfine words--they parted a little incoherently and in tears, and it\nhad not occurred to the young man to imagine she was not going off\nto conventional life in some other of the endless Frognals he\nimagined as the cellular tissue of the world.\n\nBut she wasn't.\n\nHe had kept her photograph and her memory sweet, and if ever he had\nstrayed from the severest constancy, it seemed only in the end to\nstrengthen with the stuff of experience, to enhance by comparative\ndisappointment his imagination of what she might have meant to\nhim.... Then eight years afterwards they met again.\n\nBy the time he gets to this part of his story we have, at my\ninitiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian\nguest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls,\nand sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes.\n\"Good-night,\" two sweet-voiced Utopians cry to us in their\nuniversal tongue, and I answer them \"Good-night.\"\n\n\"You see,\" he persists, \"I saw her only a week ago. It was in\nLucerne, while I was waiting for you to come on from England. I\ntalked to her three or four times altogether. And her face--the\nchange in her! I can't get it out of my head--night or day. The\nmiserable waste of her....\"\n\nBefore us, through the tall pine stems, shine the lights of our\nUtopian inn.\n\nHe talks vaguely of ill-usage. \"The husband is vain, boastful,\ndishonest to the very confines of the law, and a drunkard. There\nare scenes and insults----\"\n\n\"She told you?\"\n\n\"Not much, but someone else did. He brings other women almost into\nher presence to spite her.\"\n\n\"And it's going on?\" I interrupt.\n\n\"Yes. _Now_.\"\n\n\"Need it go on?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Lady in trouble,\" I say. \"Knight at hand. Why not stop this dismal\ngrizzling and carry her off?\" (You figure the heroic sweep of the\narm that belongs to the Voice.) I positively forget for the moment\nthat we are in Utopia at all.\n\n\"You mean?\"\n\n\"Take her away from him! What's all this emotion of yours worth if\nit isn't equal to that!\"\n\nPositively he seems aghast at me.\n\n\"Do you mean elope with her?\"\n\n\"It seems a most suitable case.\"\n\nFor a space he is silent, and we go on through the trees. A Utopian\ntram-car passes and I see his face, poor bitted wretch! looking\npinched and scared in its trailing glow of light.\n\n\"That's all very well in a novel,\" he says. \"But how could I go back\nto my laboratory, mixed classes with young ladies, you know, after a\nthing like that? How could we live and where could we live? We might\nhave a house in London, but who would call upon us? ... Besides, you\ndon't know her. She is not the sort of woman.... Don't think I'm\ntimid or conventional. Don't think I don't feel.... Feel! _You_\ndon't know what it is to feel in a case of this sort....\"\n\nHe halts and then flies out viciously: \"Ugh! There are times when I\ncould strangle him with my hands.\"\n\nWhich is nonsense.\n\nHe flings out his lean botanising hands in an impotent gesture.\n\n\"My dear Man!\" I say, and say no more.\n\nFor a moment I forget we are in Utopia altogether.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nLet us come back to Utopia. We were speaking of travel.\n\nBesides roadways and railways and tramways, for those who go to and\nfro in the earth the Modern Utopians will have very many other ways\nof travelling. There will be rivers, for example, with a vast\nvariety of boats; canals with diverse sorts of haulage; there will\nbe lakes and lagoons; and when one comes at last to the borders of\nthe land, the pleasure craft will be there, coming and going, and\nthe swift great passenger vessels, very big and steady, doing thirty\nknots an hour or more, will trace long wakes as they go dwindling\nout athwart the restless vastness of the sea.\n\nThey will be just beginning to fly in Utopia. We owe much to M.\nSantos Dumont; the world is immeasurably more disposed to believe\nthis wonder is coming, and coming nearly, than it was five years\nago. But unless we are to suppose Utopian scientific knowledge far\nin advance of ours--and though that supposition was not proscribed\nin our initial undertaking, it would be inconvenient for us and not\nquite in the vein of the rest of our premises--they, too, will only\nbe in the same experimental stage as ourselves. In Utopia, however,\nthey will conduct research by the army corps while we conduct it--we\ndon't conduct it! We let it happen. Fools make researches and wise\nmen exploit them--that is our earthly way of dealing with the\nquestion, and we thank Heaven for an assumed abundance of\nfinancially impotent and sufficiently ingenious fools.\n\nIn Utopia, a great multitude of selected men, chosen volunteers,\nwill be collaborating upon this new step in man's struggle with the\nelements. Bacon's visionary House of Saloman [Footnote: In The New\nAtlantis.] will be a thing realised, and it will be humming with\nthis business. Every university in the world will be urgently\nworking for priority in this aspect of the problem or that. Reports\nof experiments, as full and as prompt as the telegraphic reports of\ncricket in our more sportive atmosphere, will go about the world.\nAll this will be passing, as it were, behind the act drop of our\nfirst experience, behind this first picture of the urbanised Urseren\nvalley. The literature of the subject will be growing and developing\nwith the easy swiftness of an eagle's swoop as we come down the\nhillside; unseen in that twilight, unthought of by us until this\nmoment, a thousand men at a thousand glowing desks, a busy\nspecialist press, will be perpetually sifting, criticising,\ncondensing, and clearing the ground for further speculation. Those\nwho are concerned with the problems of public locomotion will\nbe following these aeronautic investigations with a keen and\nenterprising interest, and so will the physiologist and the\nsociologist. That Utopian research will, I say, go like an eagle's\nswoop in comparison with the blind-man's fumbling of our terrestrial\nway. Even before our own brief Utopian journey is out, we may get a\nglimpse of the swift ripening of all this activity that will be in\nprogress at our coming. To-morrow, perhaps, or in a day or so,\nsome silent, distant thing will come gliding into view over the\nmountains, will turn and soar and pass again beyond our astonished\nsight....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nBut my friend and his great trouble turn my mind from these\nquestions of locomotion and the freedoms that cluster about them. In\nspite of myself I find myself framing his case. He is a lover, the\nmost conventional of Anglican lovers, with a heart that has had its\ntraining, I should think, in the clean but limited schoolroom of\nMrs. Henry Wood....\n\nIn Utopia I think they will fly with stronger pinions, it will not\nbe in the superficialities of life merely that movement will be wide\nand free, they will mount higher and swoop more steeply than he in\nhis cage can believe. What will their range be, their prohibitions?\nwhat jars to our preconceptions will he and I receive here?\n\nMy mind flows with the free, thin flow that it has at the end of an\neventful day, and as we walk along in silence towards our inn I rove\nfrom issue to issue, I find myself ranging amidst the fundamental\nthings of the individual life and all the perplexity of desires and\npassions. I turn my questionings to the most difficult of all sets\nof compromises, those mitigations of spontaneous freedom that\nconstitute the marriage laws, the mystery of balancing justice\nagainst the good of the future, amidst these violent and elusive\npassions. Where falls the balance of freedoms here? I pass for a\ntime from Utopianising altogether, to ask the question that, after\nall, Schopenhauer failed completely to answer, why sometimes in the\ncase of hurtful, pointless, and destructive things we want so\nvehemently....\n\nI come back from this unavailing glance into the deeps to the\ngeneral question of freedoms in this new relation. I find myself far\nadrift from the case of the Frognal botanist, and asking how far a\nmodern Utopia will deal with personal morals.\n\nAs Plato demonstrated long ago, the principles of the relation of\nState control to personal morals may be best discussed in the case\nof intoxication, the most isolated and least complicated of all this\ngroup of problems. But Plato's treatment of this issue as a question\nof who may or may not have the use of wine, though suitable enough\nin considering a small State in which everybody was the effectual\ninspector of everybody, is entirely beside the mark under modern\nconditions, in which we are to have an extraordinarily higher\nstandard of individual privacy and an amplitude and quantity of\nmigration inconceivable to the Academic imagination. We may accept\nhis principle and put this particular freedom (of the use of wine)\namong the distinctive privileges of maturity, and still find all\nthat a modern would think of as the Drink Question untouched.\n\nThat question in Utopia will differ perhaps in the proportion of its\nfactors, but in no other respect, from what it is upon earth. The\nsame desirable ends will be sought, the maintenance of public order\nand decency, the reduction of inducements to form this bad and\nwasteful habit to their lowest possible minimum, and the complete\nprotection of the immature. But the modern Utopians, having\nsystematised their sociology, will have given some attention to the\npsychology of minor officials, a matter altogether too much\nneglected by the social reformer on earth. They will not put into\nthe hands of a common policeman powers direct and indirect that\nwould be dangerous to the public in the hands of a judge. And they\nwill have avoided the immeasurable error of making their control of\nthe drink traffic a source of public revenue. Privacies they will\nnot invade, but they will certainly restrict the public consumption\nof intoxicants to specified licensed places and the sale of them to\nunmistakable adults, and they will make the temptation of the young\na grave offence. In so migratory a population as the Modern Utopian,\nthe licensing of inns and bars would be under the same control as\nthe railways and high roads. Inns exist for the stranger and not for\nthe locality, and we shall meet with nothing there to correspond\nwith our terrestrial absurdity of Local Option.\n\nThe Utopians will certainly control this trade, and as certainly\npunish personal excesses. Public drunkenness (as distinguished from\nthe mere elation that follows a generous but controlled use of wine)\nwill be an offence against public decency, and will be dealt with in\nsome very drastic manner. It will, of course, be an aggravation of,\nand not an excuse for, crime.\n\nBut I doubt whether the State will go beyond that. Whether an adult\nshall use wine or beer or spirits, or not, seems to me entirely a\nmatter for his doctor and his own private conscience. I doubt if we\nexplorers shall meet any drunken men, and I doubt not we shall meet\nmany who have never availed themselves of their adult freedom in\nthis respect. The conditions of physical happiness will be better\nunderstood in Utopia, it will be worth while to be well there, and\nthe intelligent citizen will watch himself closely. Half and more of\nthe drunkenness of earth is an attempt to lighten dull days and\nhopelessly sordid and disagreeable lives, and in Utopia they do not\nsuffer these things. Assuredly Utopia will be temperate, not only\ndrinking, but eating with the soundest discretion. Yet I do not\nthink wine and good ale will be altogether wanting there, nor good,\nmellow whisky, nor, upon occasion, the engaging various liqueur.\nI do not think so. My botanist, who abstains altogether, is of\nanother opinion. We differ here and leave the question to the\nearnest reader. I have the utmost respect for all Teetotalers,\nProhibitionists, and Haters and Persecutors of Innkeepers, their\nenergy of reform awakens responsive notes in me, and to their\nspecies I look for a large part of the urgent repair of our earth;\nyet for all that----\n\nThere is Burgundy, for example, a bottle of soft and kindly\nBurgundy, taken to make a sunshine on one's lunch when four\nstrenuous hours of toil have left one on the further side of\nappetite. Or ale, a foaming tankard of ale, ten miles of sturdy\ntramping in the sleet and slush as a prelude, and then good bread\nand good butter and a ripe hollow Stilton and celery and ale--ale\nwith a certain quantitative freedom. Or, again, where is the sin in\na glass of tawny port three or four times, or it may be five, a\nyear, when the walnuts come round in their season? If you drink no\nport, then what are walnuts for? Such things I hold for the reward\nof vast intervals of abstinence; they justify your wide, immaculate\nmargin, which is else a mere unmeaning blankness on the page of\npalate God has given you! I write of these things as a fleshly man,\nconfessedly and knowingly fleshly, and more than usually aware of my\nliability to err; I know myself for a gross creature more given to\nsedentary world-mending than to brisk activities, and not one-tenth\nas active as the dullest newspaper boy in London. Yet still I have\nmy uses, uses that vanish in monotony, and still I must ask why\nshould we bury the talent of these bright sensations altogether?\nUnder no circumstances can I think of my Utopians maintaining their\nfine order of life on ginger ale and lemonade and the ale that is\nKops'. Those terrible Temperance Drinks, solutions of qualified\nsugar mixed with vast volumes of gas, as, for example, soda,\nseltzer, lemonade, and fire-extincteurs hand grenades--minerals,\nthey call such stuff in England--fill a man with wind and\nself-righteousness. Indeed they do! Coffee destroys brain and\nkidney, a fact now universally recognised and advertised throughout\nAmerica; and tea, except for a kind of green tea best used with\ndiscretion in punch, tans the entrails and turns honest stomachs\ninto leather bags. Rather would I be Metchnikoffed [Footnote: See\nThe Nature of Man, by Professor Elie Metchnikoff.] at once and have\na clean, good stomach of German silver. No! If we are to have no ale\nin Utopia, give me the one clean temperance drink that is worthy to\nset beside wine, and that is simple water. Best it is when not quite\npure and with a trace of organic matter, for then it tastes and\nsparkles....\n\nMy botanist would still argue.\n\nThank Heaven this is my book, and that the ultimate decision rests\nwith me. It is open to him to write his own Utopia and arrange that\neverybody shall do nothing except by the consent of the savants of\nthe Republic, either in his eating, drinking, dressing or lodging,\neven as Cabet proposed. It is open to him to try a News from Nowhere\nUtopia with the wine left out. I have my short way with him here\nquite effectually. I turn in the entrance of our inn to the civil\nbut by no means obsequious landlord, and with a careful ambiguity of\nmanner for the thing may be considered an outrage, and I try to make\nit possible the idea is a jest--put my test demand....\n\n\"You see, my dear Teetotaler?--he sets before me tray and glass\nand...\" Here follows the necessary experiment and a deep sigh....\n\"Yes, a bottle of quite _excellent_ light beer! So there are also\ncakes and ale in Utopia! Let us in this saner and more beautiful\nworld drink perdition to all earthly excesses. Let us drink more\nparticularly to the coming of the day when men beyond there will\nlearn to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative questions,\nto temper good intentions with good intelligence, and righteousness\nwith wisdom. One of the darkest evils of our world is surely the\nunteachable wildness of the Good.\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\nSo presently to bed and to sleep, but not at once to sleep. At first\nmy brain, like a dog in unfamiliar quarters, must turn itself round\nfor a time or so before it lies down. This strange mystery of a\nworld of which I have seen so little as yet--a mountain slope, a\ntwilit road, a traffic of ambiguous vehicles and dim shapes, the\nwindow lights of many homes--fills me with curiosities. Figures and\nincidents come and go, the people we have passed, our landlord,\nquietly attentive and yet, I feel, with the keenest curiosity\npeeping from his eyes, the unfamiliar forms of the house parts and\nfurnishings, the unfamiliar courses of the meal. Outside this little\nbedroom is a world, a whole unimagined world. A thousand million\nthings lie outside in the darkness beyond this lit inn of ours,\nunthought-of possibilities, overlooked considerations, surprises,\nriddles, incommensurables, a whole monstrous intricate universe of\nconsequences that I have to do my best to unravel. I attempt\nimpossible recapitulations and mingle the weird quality of dream\nstuff with my thoughts.\n\nAthwart all this tumult of my memory goes this queer figure of my\nunanticipated companion, so obsessed by himself and his own\negotistical love that this sudden change to another world seems only\na change of scene for his gnawing, uninvigorating passion. It occurs\nto me that she also must have an equivalent in Utopia, and then that\nidea and all ideas grow thin and vague, and are dissolved at last in\nthe rising tide of sleep....\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD\n\nUtopian Economics\n\n\nSection 1\n\nThese modern Utopians with the universally diffused good manners,\nthe universal education, the fine freedoms we shall ascribe to them,\ntheir world unity, world language, world-wide travellings,\nworld-wide freedom of sale and purchase, will remain mere\ndreamstuff, incredible even by twilight, until we have shown that at\nthat level the community will still sustain itself. At any rate, the\ncommon liberty of the Utopians will not embrace the common liberty\nto be unserviceable, the most perfect economy of organisation still\nleaves the fact untouched that all order and security in a State\nrests on the certainty of getting work done. How will the work of\nthis planet be done? What will be the economics of a modern\nUtopia?\n\nNow in the first place, a state so vast and complex as this world\nUtopia, and with so migratory a people, will need some handy symbol\nto check the distribution of services and commodities. Almost\ncertainly they will need to have money. They will have money, and\nit is not inconceivable that, for all his sorrowful thoughts, our\nbotanist, with his trained observation, his habit of looking at\nlittle things upon the ground, would be the one to see and pick up\nthe coin that has fallen from some wayfarer's pocket. (This, in our\nfirst hour or so before we reach the inn in the Urseren Thal.) You\nfigure us upon the high Gotthard road, heads together over the\nlittle disk that contrives to tell us so much of this strange\nworld.\n\nIt is, I imagine, of gold, and it will be a convenient accident if\nit is sufficient to make us solvent for a day or so, until we are a\nlittle more informed of the economic system into which we have come.\nIt is, moreover, of a fair round size, and the inscription declares\nit one Lion, equal to \"twaindy\" bronze Crosses. Unless the ratio of\nmetals is very different here, this latter must be a token coin, and\ntherefore legal tender for but a small amount. (That would be pain\nand pleasure to Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe if he were to chance to\njoin us, for once he planned a Utopian coinage, [Footnote: A System\nof Measures, by Wordsworth Donisthorpe.] and the words Lion and\nCross are his. But a token coinage and \"legal tender\" he cannot\nabide. They make him argue.) And being in Utopia, that unfamiliar\n\"twaindy\" suggests at once we have come upon that most Utopian of\nall things, a duodecimal system of counting.\n\nMy author's privilege of details serves me here. This Lion is\ndistinctly a beautiful coin, admirably made, with its value in fine,\nclear letters circling the obverse side, and a head thereon--of\nNewton, as I live! One detects American influence here. Each\nyear, as we shall find, each denomination of coins celebrates a\ncentenary. The reverse shows the universal goddess of the Utopian\ncoinage--Peace, as a beautiful woman, reading with a child out of a\ngreat book, and behind them are stars, and an hour-glass, halfway\nrun. Very human these Utopians, after all, and not by any means\nabove the obvious in their symbolism!\n\nSo for the first time we learn definitely of the World State, and we\nget our first clear hint, too, that there is an end to Kings. But\nour coin raises other issues also. It would seem that this Utopia\nhas no simple community of goods, that there is, at any rate, a\nrestriction upon what one may take, a need for evidences of\nequivalent value, a limitation to human credit.\n\nIt dates--so much of this present Utopia of ours dates. Those former\nUtopists were bitterly against gold. You will recall the undignified\nuse Sir Thomas More would have us put it to, and how there was no\nmoney at all in the Republic of Plato, and in that later community\nfor which he wrote his Laws an iron coinage of austere appearance\nand doubtful efficacy.... It may be these great gentlemen were a\nlittle hasty with a complicated difficulty, and not a little unjust\nto a highly respectable element.\n\nGold is abused and made into vessels of dishonour, and abolished\nfrom ideal society as though it were the cause instead of the\ninstrument of human baseness; but, indeed, there is nothing bad in\ngold. Making gold into vessels of dishonour and banishing it from\nthe State is punishing the hatchet for the murderer's crime. Money,\ndid you but use it right, is a good thing in life, a necessary thing\nin civilised human life, as complicated, indeed, for its purposes,\nbut as natural a growth as the bones in a man's wrist, and I do not\nsee how one can imagine anything at all worthy of being called a\ncivilisation without it. It is the water of the body social, it\ndistributes and receives, and renders growth and assimilation and\nmovement and recovery possible. It is the reconciliation of human\ninterdependence with liberty. What other device will give a man so\ngreat a freedom with so strong an inducement to effort? The economic\nhistory of the world, where it is not the history of the theory of\nproperty, is very largely the record of the abuse, not so much of\nmoney as of credit devices to supplement money, to amplify the scope\nof this most precious invention; and no device of labour credits\n[Footnote: Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Ch. IX.] or free\ndemand of commodities from a central store [Footnote: More's Utopia\nand Cabet's Icaria.] or the like has ever been suggested that does\nnot give ten thousand times more scope for that inherent moral dross\nin man that must be reckoned with in any sane Utopia we may design\nand plan.... Heaven knows where progress may not end, but at any\nrate this developing State, into which we two men have fallen, this\nTwentieth Century Utopia, has still not passed beyond money and the\nuse of coins.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nNow if this Utopian world is to be in some degree parallel to\ncontemporary thought, it must have been concerned, it may be still\nconcerned, with many unsettled problems of currency, and with the\nproblems that centre about a standard of value. Gold is perhaps of\nall material substances the best adapted to the monetary purpose,\nbut even at that best it falls far short of an imaginable ideal. It\nundergoes spasmodic and irregular cheapening through new discoveries\nof gold, and at any time it may undergo very extensive and sudden\nand disastrous depreciation through the discovery of some way of\ntransmuting less valuable elements. The liability to such\ndepreciations introduces an undesirable speculative element into the\nrelations of debtor and creditor. When, on the one hand, there is\nfor a time a check in the increase of the available stores of gold,\nor an increase in the energy applied to social purposes, or a\nchecking of the public security that would impede the free exchange\nof credit and necessitate a more frequent production of gold in\nevidence, then there comes an undue appreciation of money as against\nthe general commodities of life, and an automatic impoverishment of\nthe citizens in general as against the creditor class. The common\npeople are mortgaged into the bondage of debt. And on the other\nhand an unexpected spate of gold production, the discovery of a\nsingle nugget as big as St. Paul's, let us say--a quite possible\nthing--would result in a sort of jail delivery of debtors and a\nfinancial earthquake.\n\nIt has been suggested by an ingenious thinker that it is possible\nto use as a standard of monetary value no substance whatever, but\ninstead, force, and that value might be measured in units of energy.\nAn excellent development this, in theory, at any rate, of the\ngeneral idea of the modern State as kinetic and not static; it\nthrows the old idea of the social order and the new into the\nsharpest antithesis. The old order is presented as a system of\ninstitutions and classes ruled by men of substance; the new, of\nenterprises and interests led by men of power.\n\nNow I glance at this matter in the most incidental manner, as a man\nmay skim through a specialist's exposition in a popular magazine.\nYou must figure me, therefore, finding from a casual periodical\npaper in our inn, with a certain surprise at not having anticipated\nas much, the Utopian self of that same ingenious person quite\nconspicuously a leader of thought, and engaged in organising the\ndiscussion of the currency changes Utopia has under consideration.\nThe article, as it presents itself to me, contains a complete\nand lucid, though occasionally rather technical, explanation of\nhis newest proposals. They have been published, it seems, for\ngeneral criticism, and one gathers that in the modern Utopia the\nadministration presents the most elaborately detailed schemes of any\nproposed alteration in law or custom, some time before any measure\nis taken to carry it into effect, and the possibilities of every\ndetail are acutely criticised, flaws anticipated, side issues\nraised, and the whole minutely tested and fined down by a planetful\nof critics, before the actual process of legislation begins.\n\nThe explanation of these proposals involves an anticipatory glance\nat the local administration of a Modern Utopia. To anyone who has\nwatched the development of technical science during the last decade\nor so, there will be no shock in the idea that a general\nconsolidation of a great number of common public services over areas\nof considerable size is now not only practicable, but very\ndesirable. In a little while heating and lighting and the supply of\npower for domestic and industrial purposes and for urban and\ninter-urban communications will all be managed electrically from\ncommon generating stations. And the trend of political and social\nspeculation points decidedly to the conclusion that so soon as it\npasses out of the experimental stage, the supply of electrical\nenergy, just like drainage and the supply of water, will fall to the\nlocal authority. Moreover, the local authority will be the universal\nlandowner. Upon that point so extreme an individualist as Herbert\nSpencer was in agreement with the Socialist. In Utopia we conclude\nthat, whatever other types of property may exist, all natural\nsources of force, and indeed all strictly natural products, coal,\nwater power, and the like, are inalienably vested in the local\nauthorities (which, in order to secure the maximum of convenience\nand administrative efficiency, will probably control areas as large\nsometimes as half England), they will generate electricity by water\npower, by combustion, by wind or tide or whatever other natural\nforce is available, and this electricity will be devoted, some of it\nto the authority's lighting and other public works, some of it, as\na subsidy, to the World-State authority which controls the high\nroads, the great railways, the inns and other apparatus of world\ncommunication, and the rest will pass on to private individuals\nor to distributing companies at a uniform fixed rate for private\nlighting and heating, for machinery and industrial applications of\nall sorts. Such an arrangement of affairs will necessarily involve a\nvast amount of book-keeping between the various authorities, the\nWorld-State government and the customers, and this book-keeping will\nnaturally be done most conveniently in units of physical energy.\n\nIt is not incredible that the assessment of the various local\nadministrations for the central world government would be already\ncalculated upon the estimated total of energy, periodically\navailable in each locality, and booked and spoken of in these\nphysical units. Accounts between central and local governments could\nbe kept in these terms. Moreover, one may imagine Utopian local\nauthorities making contracts in which payment would be no longer in\ncoinage upon the gold basis, but in notes good for so many thousands\nor millions of units of energy at one or other of the generating\nstations.\n\nNow the problems of economic theory will have undergone an enormous\nclarification if, instead of measuring in fluctuating money values,\nthe same scale of energy units can be extended to their discussion,\nif, in fact, the idea of trading could be entirely eliminated. In my\nUtopia, at any rate, this has been done, the production and\ndistribution of common commodities have been expressed as a problem\nin the conversion of energy, and the scheme that Utopia was now\ndiscussing was the application of this idea of energy as the\nstandard of value to the entire Utopian coinage. Every one of those\ngiant local authorities was to be free to issue energy notes against\nthe security of its surplus of saleable available energy, and to\nmake all its contracts for payment in those notes up to a certain\nmaximum defined by the amount of energy produced and disposed of in\nthat locality in the previous year. This power of issue was to be\nrenewed just as rapidly as the notes came in for redemption. In a\nworld without boundaries, with a population largely migratory and\nemancipated from locality, the price of the energy notes of these\nvarious local bodies would constantly tend to be uniform, because\nemployment would constantly shift into the areas where energy was\ncheap. Accordingly, the price of so many millions of units of energy\nat any particular moment in coins of the gold currency would be\napproximately the same throughout the world. It was proposed to\nselect some particular day when the economic atmosphere was\ndistinctly equable, and to declare a fixed ratio between the gold\ncoinage and the energy notes; each gold Lion and each Lion of credit\nrepresenting exactly the number of energy units it could buy on that\nday. The old gold coinage was at once to cease to be legal tender\nbeyond certain defined limits, except to the central government,\nwhich would not reissue it as it came in. It was, in fact, to become\na temporary token coinage, a token coinage of full value for the day\nof conversion at any rate, if not afterwards, under the new standard\nof energy, and to be replaceable by an ordinary token coinage as\ntime went on. The old computation by Lions and the values of the\nsmall change of daily life were therefore to suffer no disturbance\nwhatever.\n\nThe economists of Utopia, as I apprehended them, had a different\nmethod and a very different system of theories from those I have\nread on earth, and this makes my exposition considerably more\ndifficult. This article upon which I base my account floated before\nme in an unfamiliar, perplexing, and dream-like phraseology. Yet I\nbrought away an impression that here was a rightness that earthly\neconomists have failed to grasp. Few earthly economists have been\nable to disentangle themselves from patriotisms and politics, and\ntheir obsession has always been international trade. Here in Utopia\nthe World State cuts that away from beneath their feet; there are no\nimports but meteorites, and no exports at all. Trading is the\nearthly economists' initial notion, and they start from perplexing\nand insoluble riddles about exchange value, insoluble because all\ntrading finally involves individual preferences which are\nincalculable and unique. Nowhere do they seem to be handling really\ndefined standards, every economic dissertation and discussion\nreminds one more strongly than the last of the game of croquet Alice\nplayed in Wonderland, when the mallets were flamingoes and the balls\nwere hedgehogs and crawled away, and the hoops were soldiers and\nkept getting up and walking about. But economics in Utopia must be,\nit seems to me, not a theory of trading based on bad psychology, but\nphysics applied to problems in the theory of sociology. The general\nproblem of Utopian economics is to state the conditions of the most\nefficient application of the steadily increasing quantities of\nmaterial energy the progress of science makes available for human\nservice, to the general needs of mankind. Human labour and existing\nmaterial are dealt with in relation to that. Trading and relative\nwealth are merely episodical in such a scheme. The trend of the\narticle I read, as I understood it, was that a monetary system based\nupon a relatively small amount of gold, upon which the business of\nthe whole world had hitherto been done, fluctuated unreasonably and\nsupplied no real criterion of well-being, that the nominal values of\nthings and enterprises had no clear and simple relation to the real\nphysical prosperity of the community, that the nominal wealth of\na community in millions of pounds or dollars or Lions, measured\nnothing but the quantity of hope in the air, and an increase of\nconfidence meant an inflation of credit and a pessimistic phase a\ncollapse of this hallucination of possessions. The new standards,\nthis advocate reasoned, were to alter all that, and it seemed to me\nthey would.\n\nI have tried to indicate the drift of these remarkable proposals,\nbut about them clustered an elaborate mass of keen and temperate\ndiscussion. Into the details of that discussion I will not enter\nnow, nor am I sure I am qualified to render the multitudinous aspect\nof this complicated question at all precisely. I read the whole\nthing in the course of an hour or two of rest after lunch--it was\neither the second or third day of my stay in Utopia--and we were\nsitting in a little inn at the end of the Lake of Uri. We had\nloitered there, and I had fallen reading because of a shower of\nrain.... But certainly as I read it the proposition struck me as a\nsingularly simple and attractive one, and its exposition opened out\nto me for the first time clearly, in a comprehensive outline, the\ngeneral conception of the economic nature of the Utopian State.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nThe difference between the social and economic sciences as they\nexist in our world [Footnote: But see Gidding's Principles of\nSociology, a modern and richly suggestive American work, imperfectly\nappreciated by the British student. See also Walter Bagehot's\nEconomic Studies.] and in this Utopia deserves perhaps a word or\nso more. I write with the utmost diffidence, because upon earth\neconomic science has been raised to a very high level of tortuous\nabstraction by the industry of its professors, and I can claim\nneither a patient student's intimacy with their productions\nnor--what is more serious--anything but the most generalised\nknowledge of what their Utopian equivalents have achieved. The vital\nnature of economic issues to a Utopia necessitates, however, some\nattempt at interpretation between the two.\n\nIn Utopia there is no distinct and separate science of economics.\nMany problems that we should regard as economic come within the\nscope of Utopian psychology. My Utopians make two divisions of the\nscience of psychology, first, the general psychology of individuals,\na sort of mental physiology separated by no definite line from\nphysiology proper, and secondly, the psychology of relationship\nbetween individuals. This second is an exhaustive study of\nthe reaction of people upon each other and of all possible\nrelationships. It is a science of human aggregations, of all\npossible family groupings, of neighbours and neighbourhood, of\ncompanies, associations, unions, secret and public societies,\nreligious groupings, of common ends and intercourse, and of the\nmethods of intercourse and collective decision that hold human\ngroups together, and finally of government and the State. The\nelucidation of economic relationships, depending as it does on the\nnature of the hypothesis of human aggregation actually in operation\nat any time, is considered to be subordinate and subsequent to this\ngeneral science of Sociology. Political economy and economics, in\nour world now, consist of a hopeless muddle of social assumptions\nand preposterous psychology, and a few geographical and physical\ngeneralisations. Its ingredients will be classified out and widely\nseparated in Utopian thought. On the one hand there will be the\nstudy of physical economies, ending in the descriptive treatment of\nsociety as an organisation for the conversion of all the available\nenergy in nature to the material ends of mankind--a physical\nsociology which will be already at such a stage of practical\ndevelopment as to be giving the world this token coinage\nrepresenting energy--and on the other there will be the study of\neconomic problems as problems in the division of labour, having\nregard to a social organisation whose main ends are reproduction and\neducation in an atmosphere of personal freedom. Each of these\ninquiries, working unencumbered by the other, will be continually\ncontributing fresh valid conclusions for the use of the practical\nadministrator.\n\nIn no region of intellectual activity will our hypothesis of freedom\nfrom tradition be of more value in devising a Utopia than here. From\nits beginning the earthly study of economics has been infertile and\nunhelpful, because of the mass of unanalysed and scarcely suspected\nassumptions upon which it rested. The facts were ignored that trade\nis a bye-product and not an essential factor in social life, that\nproperty is a plastic and fluctuating convention, that value is\ncapable of impersonal treatment only in the case of the most\ngeneralised requirements. Wealth was measured by the standards of\nexchange. Society was regarded as a practically unlimited number of\navaricious adult units incapable of any other subordinate groupings\nthan business partnerships, and the sources of competition were\nassumed to be inexhaustible. Upon such quicksands rose an edifice\nthat aped the securities of material science, developed a technical\njargon and professed the discovery of \"laws.\" Our liberation from\nthese false presumptions through the rhetoric of Carlyle and Ruskin\nand the activities of the Socialists, is more apparent than real.\nThe old edifice oppresses us still, repaired and altered by\nindifferent builders, underpinned in places, and with a slight\nchange of name. \"Political Economy\" has been painted out, and\ninstead we read \"Economics--under entirely new management.\" Modern\nEconomics differs mainly from old Political Economy in having\nproduced no Adam Smith. The old \"Political Economy\" made certain\ngeneralisations, and they were mostly wrong; new Economics evades\ngeneralisations, and seems to lack the intellectual power to make\nthem. The science hangs like a gathering fog in a valley, a fog\nwhich begins nowhere and goes nowhere, an incidental, unmeaning\ninconvenience to passers-by. Its most typical exponents display a\ndisposition to disavow generalisations altogether, to claim\nconsideration as \"experts,\" and to make immediate political\napplication of that conceded claim. Now Newton, Darwin, Dalton,\nDavy, Joule, and Adam Smith did not affect this \"expert\"\nhankey-pankey, becoming enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable\nphysician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science. In\nthis state of impotent expertness, however, or in some equally\nunsound state, economics must struggle on--a science that is no\nscience, a floundering lore wallowing in a mud of statistics--until\neither the study of the material organisation of production on the\none hand as a development of physics and geography, or the study\nof social aggregation on the other, renders enduring foundations\npossible.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nThe older Utopias were all relatively small states; Plato's\nRepublic, for example, was to be smaller than the average English\nborough, and no distinction was made between the Family, the Local\nGovernment, and the State. Plato and Campanella--for all that the\nlatter was a Christian priest--carried communism to its final point\nand prescribed even a community of husbands and wives, an idea that\nwas brought at last to the test of effectual experiment in the\nOneida Community of New York State (1848-1879). This latter body did\nnot long survive its founder, at least as a veritable communism, by\nreason of the insurgent individualism of its vigorous sons. More,\ntoo, denied privacy and ruled an absolute community of goods, at\nany rate, and so, coming to the Victorian Utopias, did Cabet. But\nCabet's communism was one of the \"free store\" type, and the goods\nwere yours only after you had requisitioned them. That seems the\ncase in the \"Nowhere\" of Morris also. Compared with the older\nwriters Bellamy and Morris have a vivid sense of individual\nseparation, and their departure from the old homogeneity is\nsufficiently marked to justify a doubt whether there will be any\nmore thoroughly communistic Utopias for ever.\n\nA Utopia such as this present one, written in the opening of the\nTwentieth Century, and after the most exhaustive discussion--nearly\na century long--between Communistic and Socialistic ideas on the one\nhand, and Individualism on the other, emerges upon a sort of\neffectual conclusion to those controversies. The two parties have so\nchipped and amended each other's initial propositions that, indeed,\nexcept for the labels still flutteringly adhesive to the implicated\nmen, it is hard to choose between them. Each side established a good\nmany propositions, and we profit by them all. We of the succeeding\ngeneration can see quite clearly that for the most part the heat and\nzeal of these discussions arose in the confusion of a quantitative\nfor a qualitative question. To the onlooker, both Individualism and\nSocialism are, in the absolute, absurdities; the one would make men\nthe slaves of the violent or rich, the other the slaves of the State\nofficial, and the way of sanity runs, perhaps even sinuously, down\nthe intervening valley. Happily the dead past buries its dead, and\nit is not our function now to adjudicate the preponderance of\nvictory. In the very days when our political and economic order is\nbecoming steadily more Socialistic, our ideals of intercourse turn\nmore and more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality.\nThe State is to be progressive, it is no longer to be static, and\nthis alters the general condition of the Utopian problem profoundly;\nwe have to provide not only for food and clothing, for order and\nhealth, but for initiative. The factor that leads the World State\non from one phase of development to the next is the interplay of\nindividualities; to speak teleologically, the world exists for the\nsake of and through initiative, and individuality is the method\nof initiative. Each man and woman, to the extent that his or her\nindividuality is marked, breaks the law of precedent, transgresses\nthe general formula, and makes a new experiment for the direction of\nthe life force. It is impossible, therefore, for the State, which\nrepresents all and is preoccupied by the average, to make effectual\nexperiments and intelligent innovations, and so supply the essential\nsubstance of life. As against the individual the state represents\nthe species, in the case of the Utopian World State it absolutely\nrepresents the species. The individual emerges from the species,\nmakes his experiment, and either fails, dies, and comes to an end,\nor succeeds and impresses himself in offspring, in consequences and\nresults, intellectual, material and moral, upon the world.\n\nBiologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of\nall its successful individuals since the beginning, and the World\nState of the Modern Utopist will, in its economic aspect, be a\ncompendium of established economic experience, about which\nindividual enterprise will be continually experimenting, either to\nfail and pass, or to succeed and at last become incorporated with\nthe undying organism of the World State. This organism is the\nuniversal rule, the common restriction, the rising level platform\non which individualities stand.\n\nThe World State in this ideal presents itself as the sole landowner\nof the earth, with the great local governments I have adumbrated,\nthe local municipalities, holding, as it were, feudally under it as\nlandlords. The State or these subordinates holds all the sources of\nenergy, and either directly or through its tenants, farmers and\nagents, develops these sources, and renders the energy available for\nthe work of life. It or its tenants will produce food, and so human\nenergy, and the exploitation of coal and electric power, and the\npowers of wind and wave and water will be within its right. It will\npour out this energy by assignment and lease and acquiescence and\nwhat not upon its individual citizens. It will maintain order,\nmaintain roads, maintain a cheap and efficient administration of\njustice, maintain cheap and rapid locomotion and be the common\ncarrier of the planet, convey and distribute labour, control, let,\nor administer all natural productions, pay for and secure healthy\nbirths and a healthy and vigorous new generation, maintain the\npublic health, coin money and sustain standards of measurement,\nsubsidise research, and reward such commercially unprofitable\nundertakings as benefit the community as a whole; subsidise when\nneedful chairs of criticism and authors and publications, and\ncollect and distribute information. The energy developed and the\nemployment afforded by the State will descend like water that the\nsun has sucked out of the sea to fall upon a mountain range, and\nback to the sea again it will come at last, debouching in ground\nrent and royalty and license fees, in the fees of travellers and\nprofits upon carrying and coinage and the like, in death duty,\ntransfer tax, legacy and forfeiture, returning to the sea. Between\nthe clouds and the sea it will run, as a river system runs, down\nthrough a great region of individual enterprise and interplay, whose\nfreedom it will sustain. In that intermediate region between the\nkindred heights and deeps those beginnings and promises will arise\nthat are the essential significance, the essential substance, of\nlife. From our human point of view the mountains and sea are for\nthe habitable lands that lie between. So likewise the State is\nfor Individualities. The State is for Individuals, the law is for\nfreedoms, the world is for experiment, experience, and change: these\nare the fundamental beliefs upon which a modern Utopia must go.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nWithin this scheme, which makes the State the source of all energy,\nand the final legatee, what will be the nature of the property a man\nmay own? Under modern conditions--indeed, under any conditions--a\nman without some negotiable property is a man without freedom, and\nthe extent of his property is very largely the measure of his\nfreedom. Without any property, without even shelter or food, a man\nhas no choice but to set about getting these things; he is in\nservitude to his needs until he has secured property to satisfy\nthem. But with a certain small property a man is free to do many\nthings, to take a fortnight's holiday when he chooses, for example,\nand to try this new departure from his work or that; with so much\nmore, he may take a year of freedom and go to the ends of the earth;\nwith so much more, he may obtain elaborate apparatus and try\ncurious novelties, build himself houses and make gardens, establish\nbusinesses and make experiments at large. Very speedily, under\nterrestrial conditions, the property of a man may reach such\nproportions that his freedom oppresses the freedom of others. Here,\nagain, is a quantitative question, an adjustment of conflicting\nfreedoms, a quantitative question that too many people insist on\nmaking a qualitative one.\n\nThe object sought in the code of property laws that one would find\nin operation in Utopia would be the same object that pervades the\nwhole Utopian organisation, namely, a universal maximum of\nindividual freedom. Whatever far-reaching movements the State or\ngreat rich men or private corporations may make, the starvation by\nany complication of employment, the unwilling deportation, the\ndestruction of alternatives to servile submissions, must not\nensue. Beyond such qualifications, the object of Modern Utopian\nstatesmanship will be to secure to a man the freedom given by all\nhis legitimate property, that is to say, by all the values his toil\nor skill or foresight and courage have brought into being. Whatever\nhe has justly made he has a right to keep, that is obvious enough;\nbut he will also have a right to sell and exchange, and so this\nquestion of what may be property takes really the form of what may\na man buy in Utopia?\n\nA modern Utopian most assuredly must have a practically unqualified\nproperty in all those things that become, as it were, by possession,\nextensions and expressions of his personality; his clothing, his\njewels, the tools of his employment, his books, the objects of art\nhe may have bought or made, his personal weapons (if Utopia have\nneed of such things), insignia, and so forth. All such things that\nhe has bought with his money or acquired--provided he is not a\nprofessional or habitual dealer in such property--will be\ninalienably his, his to give or lend or keep, free even from\ntaxation. So intimate is this sort of property that I have no doubt\nUtopia will give a man posthumous rights over it--will permit him to\nassign it to a successor with at the utmost the payment of a small\nredemption. A horse, perhaps, in certain districts, or a bicycle, or\nany such mechanical conveyance personally used, the Utopians might\nfind it well to rank with these possessions. No doubt, too, a house\nand privacy owned and occupied by a man, and even a man's own\nhousehold furniture, might be held to stand as high or almost as\nhigh in the property scale, might be taxed as lightly and\ntransferred under only a slightly heavier redemption, provided he\nhad not let these things on hire, or otherwise alienated them from\nhis intimate self. A thorough-going, Democratic Socialist will no\ndoubt be inclined at first to object that if the Utopians make these\nthings a specially free sort of property in this way, men would\nspend much more upon them than they would otherwise do, but indeed\nthat will be an excellent thing. We are too much affected by the\nneedy atmosphere of our own mismanaged world. In Utopia no one will\nhave to hunger because some love to make and have made and own and\ncherish beautiful things. To give this much of property to\nindividuals will tend to make clothing, ornamentation, implements,\nbooks, and all the arts finer and more beautiful, because by buying\nsuch things a man will secure something inalienable--save in the\ncase of bankruptcy--for himself and for those who belong to him.\nMoreover, a man may in his lifetime set aside sums to ensure special\nadvantages of education and care for the immature children of\nhimself and others, and in this manner also exercise a posthumous\nright. [Footnote: But a Statute of Mortmain will set a distinct time\nlimit to the continuance of such benefactions. A periodic revision\nof endowments is a necessary feature in any modern Utopia.]\n\nFor all other property, the Utopians will have a scantier respect;\neven money unspent by a man, and debts to him that bear no interest,\nwill at his death stand upon a lower level than these things. What\nhe did not choose to gather and assimilate to himself, or assign for\nthe special education of his children, the State will share in the\nlion's proportion with heir and legatee.\n\nThis applies, for example, to the property that a man creates and\nacquires in business enterprises, which are presumably undertaken\nfor gain, and as a means of living rather than for themselves. All\nnew machinery, all new methods, all uncertain and variable and\nnon-universal undertakings, are no business for the State; they\ncommence always as experiments of unascertained value, and next\nafter the invention of money, there is no invention has so\nfacilitated freedom and progress as the invention of the limited\nliability company to do this work of trial and adventure. The\nabuses, the necessary reforms of company law on earth, are no\nconcern of ours here and now, suffice it that in a Modern Utopia\nsuch laws must be supposed to be as perfect as mortal laws can\npossibly be made. Caveat vendor will be a sound qualification of\nCaveat emptor in the beautifully codified Utopian law. Whether the\nUtopian company will be allowed to prefer this class of share to\nthat or to issue debentures, whether indeed usury, that is to say\nlending money at fixed rates of interest, will be permitted at all\nin Utopia, one may venture to doubt. But whatever the nature of the\nshares a man may hold, they will all be sold at his death, and\nwhatever he has not clearly assigned for special educational\npurposes will--with possibly some fractional concession to near\nsurvivors--lapse to the State. The \"safe investment,\" that\npermanent, undying claim upon the community, is just one of those\nthings Utopia will discourage; which indeed the developing security\nof civilisation quite automatically discourages through the fall in\nthe rate of interest. As we shall see at a later stage, the State\nwill insure the children of every citizen, and those legitimately\ndependent upon him, against the inconvenience of his death; it will\ncarry out all reasonable additional dispositions he may have made\nfor them in the same event; and it will insure him against old age\nand infirmity; and the object of Utopian economics will be to give a\nman every inducement to spend his surplus money in intensifying the\nquality of his surroundings, either by economic adventures and\nexperiments, which may yield either losses or large profits, or in\nincreasing the beauty, the pleasure, the abundance and promise of\nlife.\n\nBesides strictly personal possessions and shares in business\nadventures, Utopia will no doubt permit associations of its citizens\nto have a property in various sorts of contracts and concessions, in\nleases of agricultural and other land, for example; in houses they\nmay have built, factories and machinery they may have made, and\nthe like. And if a citizen prefer to adventure into business\nsingle-handed, he will have all the freedoms of enterprise enjoyed\nby a company; in business affairs he will be a company of one, and\nhis single share will be dealt with at his death like any other\nshares.... So much for the second kind of property. And these two\nkinds of property will probably exhaust the sorts of property a\nUtopian may possess.\n\nThe trend of modern thought is entirely against private property in\nland or natural objects or products, and in Utopia these things\nwill be the inalienable property of the World State. Subject to the\nrights of free locomotion, land will be leased out to companies\nor individuals, but--in view of the unknown necessities of the\nfuture--never for a longer period than, let us say, fifty years.\n\nThe property of a parent in his children, and of a husband in his\nwife, seems to be undergoing a steadily increasing qualification in\nthe world of to-day, but the discussion of the Utopian state of\naffairs in regard to such property may be better reserved until\nmarriage becomes our topic. Suffice it here to remark, that the\nincreasing control of a child's welfare and upbringing by the\ncommunity, and the growing disposition to limit and tax inheritance\nare complementary aspects of the general tendency to regard the\nwelfare and free intraplay of future generations no longer as the\nconcern of parents and altruistic individuals, but as the\npredominant issue of statesmanship, and the duty and moral meaning\nof the world community as a whole.\n\n\nSection 6\n\nFrom the conception of mechanical force as coming in from Nature to\nthe service of man, a conception the Utopian proposal of a coinage\nbased on energy units would emphasise, arise profound contrasts\nbetween the modern and the classical Utopias. Except for a meagre\nuse of water power for milling, and the wind for sailing--so meagre\nin the latter case that the classical world never contrived to do\nwithout the galley slave--and a certain restricted help from oxen in\nploughing, and from horses in locomotion, all the energy that\nsustained the old-fashioned State was derived from the muscular\nexertion of toiling men. They ran their world by hand. Continual\nbodily labour was a condition of social existence. It is only with\nthe coming of coal burning, of abundant iron and steel, and of\nscientific knowledge that this condition has been changed. To-day,\nI suppose, if it were possible to indicate, in units of energy,\nthe grand total of work upon which the social fabric of the\nUnited States or England rests, it would be found that a vastly\npreponderating moiety is derived from non-human sources, from coal\nand liquid fuel, and explosives and wind and water. There is every\nindication of a steady increase in this proportion of mechanical\nenergy, in this emancipation of men from the necessity of physical\nlabour. There appears no limit to the invasion of life by the\nmachine.\n\nNow it is only in the last three hundred years that any human being\nseems to have anticipated this. It stimulates the imagination to\nremark how entirely it was overlooked as a modifying cause in human\ndevelopment. [Footnote: It is interesting to note how little even\nBacon seems to see of this, in his New Atlantis.] Plato clearly had\nno ideas about machines at all as a force affecting social\norganisation. There was nothing in his world to suggest them to him.\nI suppose there arose no invention, no new mechanical appliance or\nmethod of the slightest social importance through all his length of\nyears. He never thought of a State that did not rely for its force\nupon human muscle, just as he never thought of a State that was not\nprimarily organised for warfare hand to hand. Political and moral\ninventions he saw enough of and to spare, and in that direction he\nstill stimulates the imagination. But in regard to all material\npossibilities he deadens rather than stimulates. [Footnote: The lost\nUtopia of Hippodamus provided rewards for inventors, but unless\nAristotle misunderstood him, and it is certainly the fate of all\nUtopias to be more or less misread, the inventions contemplated were\npolitical devices.] An infinitude of nonsense about the Greek mind\nwould never have been written if the distinctive intellectual and\nartistic quality of Plato's time, its extraordinarily clear\ndefinition of certain material conditions as absolutely permanent,\ncoupled with its politico-social instability, had been borne in\nmind. The food of the Greek imagination was the very antithesis of\nour own nourishment. We are educated by our circumstances to think\nno revolution in appliances and economic organisation incredible,\nour minds play freely about possibilities that would have struck the\nmen of the Academy as outrageous extravagance, and it is in regard\nto politico-social expedients that our imaginations fail. Sparta,\nfor all the evidence of history, is scarcely more credible to us\nthan a motor-car throbbing in the agora would have been to\nSocrates.\n\nBy sheer inadvertence, therefore, Plato commenced the tradition of\nUtopias without machinery, a tradition we find Morris still loyally\nfollowing, except for certain mechanical barges and such-like toys,\nin his News from Nowhere. There are some foreshadowings of\nmechanical possibilities in the New Atlantis, but it is only in the\nnineteenth century that Utopias appeared in which the fact is\nclearly recognised that the social fabric rests no longer upon human\nlabour. It was, I believe, Cabet [Footnote: Cabet, Voyage en Icarie,\n1848.] who first in a Utopian work insisted upon the escape of man\nfrom irksome labours through the use of machinery. He is the great\nprimitive of modern Utopias, and Bellamy is his American equivalent.\nHitherto, either slave labour (Phaleas), [Footnote: Aristotle's\nPolitics, Bk. II., Ch. VIII.] or at least class distinctions\ninvolving unavoidable labour in the lower class, have been\nassumed--as Plato does, and as Bacon in the New Atlantis probably\nintended to do (More gave his Utopians bondsmen sans phrase for\ntheir most disagreeable toil); or there is--as in Morris and the\noutright Return-to-Nature Utopians--a bold make-believe that all\ntoil may be made a joy, and with that a levelling down of all\nsociety to an equal participation in labour. But indeed this is\nagainst all the observed behaviour of mankind. It needed the\nOlympian unworldliness of an irresponsible rich man of the\nshareholding type, a Ruskin or a Morris playing at life, to imagine\nas much. Road-making under Mr. Ruskin's auspices was a joy at Oxford\nno doubt, and a distinction, and it still remains a distinction; it\nproved the least contagious of practices. And Hawthorne did not find\nbodily toil anything more than the curse the Bible says it is, at\nBrook Farm. [Footnote: The Blythedale Experiment, and see also his\nNotebook.]\n\nIf toil is a blessing, never was blessing so effectually disguised,\nand the very people who tell us that, hesitate to suggest more than\na beautiful ease in the endless day of Heaven. A certain amount of\nbodily or mental exercise, a considerable amount of doing things\nunder the direction of one's free imagination is quite another\nmatter. Artistic production, for example, when it is at its best,\nwhen a man is freely obeying himself, and not troubling to please\nothers, is really not toil at all. It is quite a different thing\ndigging potatoes, as boys say, \"for a lark,\" and digging them\nbecause otherwise you will starve, digging them day after day as a\ndull, unavoidable imperative. The essence of toil is that\nimperative, and the fact that the attention _must_ cramp itself to\nthe work in hand--that it excludes freedom, and not that it involves\nfatigue. So long as anything but a quasi-savage life depended upon\ntoil, so long was it hopeless to expect mankind to do anything but\nstruggle to confer just as much of this blessing as possible upon\none another. But now that the new conditions physical science is\nbringing about, not only dispense with man as a source of energy but\nsupply the hope that all routine work may be made automatic, it is\nbecoming conceivable that presently there may be no need for anyone\nto toil habitually at all; that a labouring class--that is to say,\na class of workers without personal initiative--will become\nunnecessary to the world of men.\n\nThe plain message physical science has for the world at large is\nthis, that were our political and social and moral devices only as\nwell contrived to their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic\noperating plant, or an electric tram-car, there need now at the\npresent moment be no appreciable toil in the world, and only the\nsmallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the anxiety that now\nmakes human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than enough\nfor everyone alive. Science stands, a too competent servant, behind\nher wrangling underbred masters, holding out resources, devices, and\nremedies they are too stupid to use. [Footnote: See that most\nsuggestive little book, Twentieth Century Inventions, by Mr. George\nSutherland.] And on its material side a modern Utopia must needs\npresent these gifts as taken, and show a world that is really\nabolishing the need of labour, abolishing the last base reason for\nanyone's servitude or inferiority.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nThe effectual abolition of a labouring and servile class will make\nitself felt in every detail of the inn that will shelter us, of the\nbedrooms we shall occupy. You conceive my awakening to all these\nthings on the morning after our arrival. I shall lie for a minute or\nso with my nose peeping over the coverlet, agreeably and gently\ncoming awake, and with some vague nightmare of sitting at a common\ntable with an unavoidable dustman in green and gold called Boffin,\n[Footnote: Vide William Morris's News from Nowhere.] fading out of\nmy mind. Then I should start up. You figure my apprehensive,\nstartled inspection of my chamber. \"Where am I?\" that classic\nphrase, recurs. Then I perceive quite clearly that I am in bed in\nUtopia.\n\nUtopia! The word is enough to bring anyone out of bed, to the\nnearest window, but thence I see no more than the great mountain\nmass behind the inn, a very terrestrial looking mountain mass. I\nreturn to the contrivances about me, and make my examination as I\ndress, pausing garment in hand to hover over first this thing of\ninterest and then that.\n\nThe room is, of course, very clear and clean and simple; not by any\nmeans cheaply equipped, but designed to economise the labour of\nredding and repair just as much as is possible. It is beautifully\nproportioned, and rather lower than most rooms I know on earth.\nThere is no fireplace, and I am perplexed by that until I find a\nthermometer beside six switches on the wall. Above this switch-board\nis a brief instruction: one switch warms the floor, which is not\ncarpeted, but covered by a substance like soft oilcloth; one warms\nthe mattress (which is of metal with resistance coils threaded to\nand fro in it); and the others warm the wall in various degrees,\neach directing current through a separate system of resistances. The\ncasement does not open, but above, flush with the ceiling, a\nnoiseless rapid fan pumps air out of the room. The air enters by a\nTobin shaft. There is a recess dressing-room, equipped with a bath\nand all that is necessary to one's toilette, and the water, one\nremarks, is warmed, if one desires it warm, by passing it through an\nelectrically heated spiral of tubing. A cake of soap drops out of a\nstore machine on the turn of a handle, and when you have done with\nit, you drop that and your soiled towels and so forth, which also\nare given you by machines, into a little box, through the bottom of\nwhich they drop at once, and sail down a smooth shaft. A little\nnotice tells you the price of your room, and you gather the price is\ndoubled if you do not leave the toilette as you found it. Beside the\nbed, and to be lit at night by a handy switch over the pillow, is a\nlittle clock, its face flush with the wall. The room has no corners\nto gather dirt, wall meets floor with a gentle curve, and the\napartment could be swept out effectually by a few strokes of a\nmechanical sweeper. The door frames and window frames are of metal,\nrounded and impervious to draught. You are politely requested to\nturn a handle at the foot of your bed before leaving the room, and\nforthwith the frame turns up into a vertical position, and the\nbedclothes hang airing. You stand at the doorway and realise that\nthere remains not a minute's work for anyone to do. Memories of the\nfoetid disorder of many an earthly bedroom after a night's use\nfloat across your mind.\n\nAnd you must not imagine this dustless, spotless, sweet apartment as\nanything but beautiful. Its appearance is a little unfamiliar of\ncourse, but all the muddle of dust-collecting hangings and witless\nornament that cover the earthly bedroom, the valances, the curtains\nto check the draught from the ill-fitting wood windows, the\nworthless irrelevant pictures, usually a little askew, the dusty\ncarpets, and all the paraphernalia about the dirty, black-leaded\nfireplace are gone. But the faintly tinted walls are framed with\njust one clear coloured line, as finely placed as the member of a\nGreek capital; the door handles and the lines of the panels of the\ndoor, the two chairs, the framework of the bed, the writing table,\nhave all that final simplicity, that exquisite finish of contour\nthat is begotten of sustained artistic effort. The graciously shaped\nwindows each frame a picture--since they are draughtless the window\nseats are no mere mockeries as are the window seats of earth--and on\nthe sill, the sole thing to need attention in the room, is one\nlittle bowl of blue Alpine flowers.\n\nThe same exquisite simplicity meets one downstairs.\n\nOur landlord sits down at table with us for a moment, and seeing we\ndo not understand the electrically heated coffee-pot before us,\nshows us what to do. Coffee and milk we have, in the Continental\nfashion, and some excellent rolls and butter.\n\nHe is a swarthy little man, our landlord, and overnight we saw him\npreoccupied with other guests. But we have risen either late or\nearly by Utopian standards, we know not which, and this morning he\nhas us to himself. His bearing is kindly and inoffensive, but he\ncannot conceal the curiosity that possesses him. His eye meets ours\nwith a mute inquiry, and then as we fall to, we catch him\nscrutinising our cuffs, our garments, our boots, our faces, our\ntable manners. He asks nothing at first, but says a word or so about\nour night's comfort and the day's weather, phrases that have an air\nof being customary. Then comes a silence that is interrogative.\n\n\"Excellent coffee,\" I say to fill the gap.\n\n\"And excellent rolls,\" says my botanist.\n\nOur landlord indicates his sense of our approval.\n\nA momentary diversion is caused by the entry of an elfin-tressed\nlittle girl, who stares at us half impudently, half shyly, with\nbright black eyes, hesitates at the botanist's clumsy smile and nod,\nand then goes and stands by her father and surveys us steadfastly.\n\n\"You have come far?\" ventures our landlord, patting his daughter's\nshoulder.\n\nI glance at the botanist. \"Yes,\" I say, \"we have.\"\n\nI expand. \"We have come so far that this country of yours seems very\nstrange indeed to us.\"\n\n\"The mountains?\"\n\n\"Not only the mountains.\"\n\n\"You came up out of the Ticino valley?\"\n\n\"No--not that way.\"\n\n\"By the Oberalp?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"The Furka?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not up from the lake?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe looks puzzled.\n\n\"We came,\" I say, \"from another world.\"\n\nHe seems trying to understand. Then a thought strikes him, and he\nsends away his little girl with a needless message to her\nmother.\n\n\"Ah!\" he says. \"Another world--eh? Meaning----?\"\n\n\"Another world--far in the deeps of space.\"\n\nThen at the expression of his face one realises that a Modern Utopia\nwill probably keep its more intelligent citizens for better work\nthan inn-tending. He is evidently inaccessible to the idea we think\nof putting before him. He stares at us a moment, and then remarks,\n\"There's the book to sign.\"\n\nWe find ourselves confronted with a book, a little after the fashion\nof the familiar hotel visitors' book of earth. He places this before\nus, and beside it puts pen and ink and a slab, upon which ink has\nbeen freshly smeared.\n\n\"Thumbmarks,\" says my scientific friend hastily in English.\n\n\"You show me how to do it,\" I say as quickly.\n\nHe signs first, and I look over his shoulder.\n\nHe is displaying more readiness than I should have expected. The\nbook is ruled in broad transverse lines, and has a space for a name,\nfor a number, and a thumbmark. He puts his thumb upon the slab and\nmakes the thumbmark first with the utmost deliberation. Meanwhile\nhe studies the other two entries. The \"numbers\" of the previous\nguests above are complex muddles of letters and figures. He writes\nhis name, then with a calm assurance writes down his number,\nA.M.a.1607.2.ab+. I am wrung with momentary admiration. I follow\nhis example, and fabricate an equally imposing signature. We think\nourselves very clever. The landlord proffers finger bowls for our\nthumbs, and his eye goes, just a little curiously, to our entries.\n\nI decide it is advisable to pay and go before any conversation about\nour formulae arises.\n\nAs we emerge into the corridor, and the morning sunlight of the\nUtopian world, I see the landlord bending over the book.\n\n\"Come on,\" I say. \"The most tiresome thing in the world is\nexplanations, and I perceive that if we do not get along, they will\nfall upon us now.\"\n\nI glance back to discover the landlord and a gracefully robed woman\nstanding outside the pretty simplicity of the Utopian inn, watching\nus doubtfully as we recede.\n\n\"Come on,\" I insist.\n\n\nSection 8\n\nWe should go towards the Schoellenen gorge, and as we went, our\nfresh morning senses would gather together a thousand factors for\nour impression of this more civilised world. A Modern Utopia will\nhave done with yapping about nationality, and so the ugly\nfortifications, the barracks and military defilements of the earthly\nvale of Urseren will be wanting. Instead there will be a great\nmultitude of gracious little houses clustering in college-like\ngroups, no doubt about their common kitchens and halls, down and\nabout the valley slopes. And there will be many more trees, and a\ngreat variety of trees--all the world will have been ransacked for\nwinter conifers. Despite the height of the valley there will be a\ndouble avenue along the road. This high road with its tramway would\nturn with us to descend the gorge, and we should hesitate upon the\nadventure of boarding the train. But now we should have the memory\nof our landlord's curious eye upon us, and we should decide at last\nto defer the risk of explanations such an enterprise might\nprecipitate.\n\nWe should go by the great road for a time, and note something of the\ndifference between Utopian and terrestrial engineering.\n\nThe tramway, the train road, the culverts, and bridges, the\nUrnerloch tunnel, into which the road plunges, will all be beautiful\nthings.\n\nThere is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and\nrailways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to\nbe ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection; a thing of human\nmaking is for the most part ugly in proportion to the poverty of its\nconstructive thought, to the failure of its producer fully to grasp\nthe purpose of its being. Everything to which men continue to give\nthought and attention, which they make and remake in the same\ndirection, and with a continuing desire to do as well as they can,\ngrows beautiful inevitably. Things made by mankind under modern\nconditions are ugly, primarily because our social organisation is\nugly, because we live in an atmosphere of snatch and uncertainty,\nand do everything in an underbred strenuous manner. This is the\nmisfortune of machinery, and not its fault. Art, like some beautiful\nplant, lives on its atmosphere, and when the atmosphere is good, it\nwill grow everywhere, and when it is bad nowhere. If we smashed and\nburied every machine, every furnace, every factory in the world, and\nwithout any further change set ourselves to home industries, hand\nlabour, spade husbandry, sheep-folding and pig minding, we should\nstill do things in the same haste, and achieve nothing but\ndirtiness, inconvenience, bad air, and another gaunt and gawky\nreflection of our intellectual and moral disorder. We should mend\nnothing.\n\nBut in Utopia a man who designs a tram road will be a cultivated\nman, an artist craftsman; he will strive, as a good writer, or a\npainter strives, to achieve the simplicity of perfection. He will\nmake his girders and rails and parts as gracious as that first\nengineer, Nature, has made the stems of her plants and the joints\nand gestures of her animals. To esteem him a sort of anti-artist, to\ncount every man who makes things with his unaided thumbs an artist,\nand every man who uses machinery as a brute, is merely a passing\nphase of human stupidity. This tram road beside us will be a triumph\nof design. The idea will be so unfamiliar to us that for a time it\nwill not occur to us that it is a system of beautiful objects at\nall. We shall admire its ingenious adaptation to the need of a\ndistrict that is buried half the year in snow, the hard bed below,\ncurved and guttered to do its own clearing, the great arched sleeper\nmasses, raising the rails a good two yards above the ground, the\neasy, simple standards and insulators. Then it will creep in upon\nour minds, \"But, by Jove! This is designed!\"\n\nIndeed the whole thing will be designed.\n\nLater on, perhaps, we may find students in an art school working in\ncompetition to design an electric tram, students who know something\nof modern metallurgy, and something of electrical engineering, and\nwe shall find people as keenly critical of a signal box or an iron\nbridge as they are on earth of----! Heavens! what _are_ they\ncritical about on earth?\n\nThe quality and condition of a dress tie!\n\nWe should make some unpatriotic comparisons with our own planet, no\ndoubt.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH\n\nThe Voice of Nature\n\n\nSection 1\n\nPresently we recognise the fellow of the earthly Devil's Bridge,\nstill intact as a footway, spanning the gorge, and old memories turn\nus off the road down the steep ruin of an ancient mule track towards\nit. It is our first reminder that Utopia too must have a history. We\ncross it and find the Reuss, for all that it has already lit and\nwarmed and ventilated and cleaned several thousands of houses in the\ndale above, and for all that it drives those easy trams in the\ngallery overhead, is yet capable of as fine a cascade as ever it\nflung on earth. So we come to a rocky path, wild as one could wish,\nand descend, discoursing how good and fair an ordered world may be,\nbut with a certain unformulated qualification in our minds about\nthose thumb marks we have left behind.\n\n\"Do you recall the Zermatt valley?\" says my friend, \"and how on\nearth it reeks and stinks with smoke?\"\n\n\"People make that an argument for obstructing change, instead of\nhelping it forward!\"\n\nAnd here perforce an episode intrudes. We are invaded by a talkative\nperson.\n\nHe overtakes us and begins talking forthwith in a fluty, but not\nunamiable, tenor. He is a great talker, this man, and a fairly\nrespectable gesticulator, and to him it is we make our first\nineffectual tentatives at explaining who indeed we are; but his flow\nof talk washes that all away again. He has a face of that rubicund,\nknobby type I have heard an indignant mineralogist speak of as\nbotryoidal, and about it waves a quantity of disorderly blond hair.\nHe is dressed in leather doublet and knee breeches, and he wears\nover these a streaming woollen cloak of faded crimson that give him\na fine dramatic outline as he comes down towards us over the rocks.\nHis feet, which are large and handsome, but bright pink with the\nkeen morning air, are bare, except for sandals of leather. (It was\nthe only time that we saw anyone in Utopia with bare feet.) He\nsalutes us with a scroll-like waving of his stick, and falls in with\nour slower paces.\n\n\"Climbers, I presume?\" he says, \"and you scorn these trams of\ntheirs? I like you. So do I! Why a man should consent to be dealt\nwith as a bale of goods holding an indistinctive ticket--when God\ngave him legs and a face--passes my understanding.\"\n\nAs he speaks, his staff indicates the great mechanical road that\nruns across the gorge and high overhead through a gallery in the\nrock, follows it along until it turns the corner, picks it up as a\nviaduct far below, traces it until it plunges into an arcade through\na jutting crag, and there dismisses it with a spiral whirl. \"_No_!\"\nhe says.\n\nHe seems sent by Providence, for just now we had been discussing how\nwe should broach our remarkable situation to these Utopians before\nour money is spent.\n\nOur eyes meet, and I gather from the botanist that I am to open our\ncase.\n\nI do my best.\n\n\"You came from the other side of space!\" says the man in the crimson\ncloak, interrupting me. \"Precisely! I like that--it's exactly my\nnote! So do I! And you find this world strange! Exactly my case! We\nare brothers! We shall be in sympathy. I am amazed, I have been\namazed as long as I can remember, and I shall die, most certainly,\nin a state of incredulous amazement, at this remarkable world.\nEh? ... You found yourselves suddenly upon a mountain top! Fortunate\nmen!\" He chuckled. \"For my part I found myself in the still stranger\nposition of infant to two parents of the most intractable\ndispositions!\"\n\n\"The fact remains,\" I protest.\n\n\"A position, I can assure you, demanding Tact of an altogether\nsuperhuman quality!\"\n\nWe desist for a space from the attempt to explain our remarkable\nselves, and for the rest of the time this picturesque and\nexceptional Utopian takes the talk entirely under his control....\n\n\nSection 2\n\nAn agreeable person, though a little distracting, he was, and he\ntalked, we recall, of many things. He impressed us, we found\nafterwards, as a poseur beyond question, a conscious Ishmaelite in\nthe world of wit, and in some subtly inexplicable way as a most\nconsummate ass. He talked first of the excellent and commodious\ntrams that came from over the passes, and ran down the long valley\ntowards middle Switzerland, and of all the growth of pleasant homes\nand chalets amidst the heights that made the opening gorge so\ndifferent from its earthly parallel, with a fine disrespect. \"But\nthey are beautiful,\" I protested. \"They are graciously proportioned,\nthey are placed in well-chosen positions; they give no offence to\nthe eye.\"\n\n\"What do we know of the beauty they replace? They are a mere rash.\nWhy should we men play the part of bacteria upon the face of our\nMother?\"\n\n\"All life is that!\"\n\n\"No! not natural life, not the plants and the gentle creatures that\nlive their wild shy lives in forest and jungle. That is a part of\nher. That is the natural bloom of her complexion. But these houses\nand tramways and things, all made from ore and stuff torn from her\nveins----! You can't better my image of the rash. It's a morbid\nbreaking out! I'd give it all for one--what is it?--free and natural\nchamois.\"\n\n\"You live at times in a house?\" I asked.\n\nHe ignored my question. For him, untroubled Nature was the best, he\nsaid, and, with a glance at his feet, the most beautiful. He\nprofessed himself a Nazarite, and shook back his Teutonic poet's\nshock of hair. So he came to himself, and for the rest of our walk\nhe kept to himself as the thread of his discourse, and went over\nhimself from top to toe, and strung thereon all topics under the sun\nby way of illustrating his splendours. But especially his foil was\nthe relative folly, the unnaturalness and want of logic in his\nfellow men. He held strong views about the extreme simplicity of\neverything, only that men, in their muddle-headedness, had\nconfounded it all. \"Hence, for example, these trams! They are always\nrunning up and down as though they were looking for the lost\nsimplicity of nature. 'We dropped it here!'\" He earned a living, we\ngathered, \"some considerable way above the minimum wage,\" which\nthrew a chance light on the labour problem--by perforating records\nfor automatic musical machines--no doubt of the Pianotist and\nPianola kind--and he spent all the leisure he could gain in going to\nand fro in the earth lecturing on \"The Need of a Return to Nature,\"\nand on \"Simple Foods and Simple Ways.\" He did it for the love of it.\nIt was very clear to us he had an inordinate impulse to lecture, and\nesteemed us fair game. He had been lecturing on these topics in\nItaly, and he was now going back through the mountains to lecture in\nSaxony, lecturing on the way, to perforate a lot more records,\nlecturing the while, and so start out lecturing again. He was\nundisguisedly glad to have us to lecture to by the way.\n\nHe called our attention to his costume at an early stage. It was the\nembodiment of his ideal of Nature-clothing, and it had been made\nespecially for him at very great cost. \"Simply because naturalness\nhas fled the earth, and has to be sought now, and washed out from\nyour crushed complexities like gold.\"\n\n\"I should have thought,\" said I, \"that any clothing whatever was\nsomething of a slight upon the natural man.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said he, \"not at all! You forget his natural\nvanity!\"\n\nHe was particularly severe on our artificial hoofs, as he called our\nboots, and our hats or hair destructors. \"Man is the real King of\nBeasts and should wear a mane. The lion only wears it by consent and\nin captivity.\" He tossed his head.\n\nSubsequently while we lunched and he waited for the specific natural\ndishes he ordered--they taxed the culinary resources of the inn to\nthe utmost--he broached a comprehensive generalisation. \"The animal\nkingdom and the vegetable kingdom are easily distinguished, and for\nthe life of me I see no reason for confusing them. It is, I hold, a\nsin against Nature. I keep them distinct in my mind and I keep them\ndistinct in my person. No animal substance inside, no vegetable\nwithout;--what could be simpler or more logical? Nothing upon me but\nleather and allwool garments, within, cereals, fruit, nuts, herbs,\nand the like. Classification--order--man's function. He is here to\nobserve and accentuate Nature's simplicity. These people\"--he swept\nan arm that tried not too personally to include us--\"are filled and\ncovered with confusion.\"\n\nHe ate great quantities of grapes and finished with a cigarette. He\ndemanded and drank a great horn of unfermented grape juice, and it\nseemed to suit him well.\n\nWe three sat about the board--it was in an agreeable little arbour\non a hill hard by the place where Wassen stands on earth, and it\nlooked down the valley to the Uri Rothstock, and ever and again we\nsought to turn his undeniable gift of exposition to the elucidation\nof our own difficulties.\n\nBut we seemed to get little, his style was so elusive. Afterwards,\nindeed, we found much information and many persuasions had soaked\ninto us, but at the time it seemed to us he told us nothing. He\nindicated things by dots and dashes, instead of by good hard\nassertive lines. He would not pause to see how little we knew.\nSometimes his wit rose so high that he would lose sight of it\nhimself, and then he would pause, purse his lips as if he whistled,\nand then till the bird came back to the lure, fill his void mouth\nwith grapes. He talked of the relations of the sexes, and love--a\npassion he held in great contempt as being in its essence complex\nand disingenuous--and afterwards we found we had learnt much of what\nthe marriage laws of Utopia allow and forbid.\n\n\"A simple natural freedom,\" he said, waving a grape in an\nillustrative manner, and so we gathered the Modern Utopia did not at\nany rate go to that. He spoke, too, of the regulation of unions, of\npeople who were not allowed to have children, of complicated rules\nand interventions. \"Man,\" he said, \"had ceased to be a natural\nproduct!\"\n\nWe tried to check him with questions at this most illuminating\npoint, but he drove on like a torrent, and carried his topic out of\nsight. The world, he held, was overmanaged, and that was the root of\nall evil. He talked of the overmanagement of the world, and among\nother things of the laws that would not let a poor simple idiot, a\n\"natural,\" go at large. And so we had our first glimpse of what\nUtopia did with the feeble and insane. \"We make all these\ndistinctions between man and man, we exalt this and favour that, and\ndegrade and seclude that; we make birth artificial, life artificial,\ndeath artificial.\"\n\n\"You say _We_,\" said I, with the first glimmering of a new idea,\n\"but _you_ don't participate?\"\n\n\"Not I! I'm not one of your samurai, your voluntary noblemen who\nhave taken the world in hand. I might be, of course, but I'm\nnot.\"\n\n\"Samurai!\" I repeated, \"voluntary noblemen!\" and for the moment\ncould not frame a question.\n\nHe whirled on to an attack on science, that stirred the botanist to\ncontroversy. He denounced with great bitterness all specialists\nwhatever, and particularly doctors and engineers.\n\n\"Voluntary noblemen!\" he said, \"voluntary Gods I fancy they think\nthemselves,\" and I was left behind for a space in the perplexed\nexamination of this parenthesis, while he and the botanist--who is\nsedulous to keep his digestion up to date with all the newest\ndevices--argued about the good of medicine men.\n\n\"The natural human constitution,\" said the blond-haired man, \"is\nperfectly simple, with one simple condition--you must leave it to\nNature. But if you mix up things so distinctly and essentially\nseparated as the animal and vegetable kingdoms for example, and ram\n_that_ in for it to digest, what can you expect?\n\n\"Ill health! There isn't such a thing--in the course of Nature. But\nyou shelter from Nature in houses, you protect yourselves by clothes\nthat are useful instead of being ornamental, you wash--with such\nabstersive chemicals as soap for example--and above all you consult\ndoctors.\" He approved himself with a chuckle. \"Have you ever found\nanyone seriously ill without doctors and medicine about? Never! You\nsay a lot of people would die without shelter and medical\nattendance! No doubt--but a natural death. A natural death is better\nthan an artificial life, surely? That's--to be frank with you--the\nvery citadel of my position.\"\n\nThat led him, and rather promptly, before the botanist could rally\nto reply, to a great tirade against the laws that forbade \"sleeping\nout.\" He denounced them with great vigour, and alleged that for his\nown part he broke that law whenever he could, found some corner of\nmoss, shaded from an excess of dew, and there sat up to sleep. He\nslept, he said, always in a sitting position, with his head on his\nwrists, and his wrists on his knees--the simple natural position for\nsleep in man.... He said it would be far better if all the world\nslept out, and all the houses were pulled down.\n\nYou will understand, perhaps, the subdued irritation I felt, as I\nsat and listened to the botanist entangling himself in the logical\nnet of this wild nonsense. It impressed me as being irrelevant. When\none comes to a Utopia one expects a Cicerone, one expects a person\nas precise and insistent and instructive as an American\nadvertisement--the advertisement of one of those land agents, for\nexample, who print their own engaging photographs to instil\nconfidence and begin, \"You want to buy real estate.\" One expects to\nfind all Utopians absolutely convinced of the perfection of their\nUtopia, and incapable of receiving a hint against its order. And\nhere was this purveyor of absurdities!\n\nAnd yet now that I come to think it over, is not this too one of the\nnecessary differences between a Modern Utopia and those finite\ncompact settlements of the older school of dreamers? It is not to be\na unanimous world any more, it is to have all and more of the mental\ncontrariety we find in the world of the real; it is no longer to be\nperfectly explicable, it is just our own vast mysterious welter,\nwith some of the blackest shadows gone, with a clearer illumination,\nand a more conscious and intelligent will. Irrelevance is not\nirrelevant to such a scheme, and our blond-haired friend is exactly\njust where he ought to be here.\n\nStill----\n\n\nSection 3\n\nI ceased to listen to the argumentation of my botanist with this\napostle of Nature. The botanist, in his scientific way, was, I\nbelieve, defending the learned professions. (He thinks and argues\nlike drawing on squared paper.) It struck me as transiently\nremarkable that a man who could not be induced to forget himself and\nhis personal troubles on coming into a whole new world, who could\nwaste our first evening in Utopia upon a paltry egotistical love\nstory, should presently become quite heated and impersonal in the\ndiscussion of scientific professionalism. He was--absorbed. I can't\nattempt to explain these vivid spots and blind spots in the\nimaginations of sane men; there they are!\n\n\"You say,\" said the botanist, with a prevalent index finger, and the\nresolute deliberation of a big siege gun being lugged into action\nover rough ground by a number of inexperienced men, \"you prefer a\nnatural death to an artificial life. But what is your _definition_\n(stress) of artificial? ...\"\n\nAnd after lunch too! I ceased to listen, flicked the end of my\ncigarette ash over the green trellis of the arbour, stretched my\nlegs with a fine restfulness, leant back, and gave my mind to the\nfields and houses that lay adown the valley.\n\nWhat I saw interwove with fragmentary things our garrulous friend\nhad said, and with the trend of my own speculations....\n\nThe high road, with its tramways and its avenues on either side, ran\nin a bold curve, and with one great loop of descent, down the\nopposite side of the valley, and below crossed again on a beautiful\nviaduct, and dipped into an arcade in the side of the Bristenstock.\nOur inn stood out boldly, high above the level this took. The houses\nclustered in their collegiate groups over by the high road, and near\nthe subordinate way that ran almost vertically below us and past us\nand up towards the valley of the Meien Reuss. There were one or two\nUtopians cutting and packing the flowery mountain grass in the\ncarefully levelled and irrigated meadows by means of swift, light\nmachines that ran on things like feet and seemed to devour the\nherbage, and there were many children and a woman or so, going to\nand fro among the houses near at hand. I guessed a central building\ntowards the high road must be the school from which these children\nwere coming. I noted the health and cleanliness of these young heirs\nof Utopia as they passed below.\n\nThe pervading quality of the whole scene was a sane order, the\ndeliberate solution of problems, a progressive intention steadily\nachieving itself, and the aspect that particularly occupied me was\nthe incongruity of this with our blond-haired friend.\n\nOn the one hand here was a state of affairs that implied a power of\nwill, an organising and controlling force, the co-operation of a\ngreat number of vigorous people to establish and sustain its\nprogress, and on the other this creature of pose and vanity, with\nhis restless wit, his perpetual giggle at his own cleverness, his\nmanifest incapacity for comprehensive co-operation.\n\nNow, had I come upon a hopeless incompatibility? Was this the\nreductio ad absurdum of my vision, and must it even as I sat there\nfade, dissolve, and vanish before my eyes?\n\nThere was no denying our blond friend. If this Utopia is indeed to\nparallel our earth, man for man--and I see no other reasonable\nchoice to that--there must be this sort of person and kindred sorts\nof persons in great abundance. The desire and gift to see life whole\nis not the lot of the great majority of men, the service of truth is\nthe privilege of the elect, and these clever fools who choke the\navenues of the world of thought, who stick at no inconsistency, who\noppose, obstruct, confuse, will find only the freer scope amidst\nUtopian freedoms.\n\n(They argued on, these two, as I worried my brains with riddles. It\nwas like a fight between a cock sparrow and a tortoise; they both\nwent on in their own way, regardless of each other's proceedings.\nThe encounter had an air of being extremely lively, and the moments\nof contact were few. \"But you mistake my point,\" the blond man was\nsaying, disordering his hair--which had become unruffled in the\npreoccupation of dispute--with a hasty movement of his hand, \"you\ndon't appreciate the position I take up.\")\n\n\"Ugh!\" said I privately, and lighted another cigarette and went away\ninto my own thoughts with that.\n\nThe position he takes up! That's the way of your intellectual fool,\nthe Universe over. He takes up a position, and he's going to be the\nmost brilliant, delightful, engaging and invincible of gay delicious\ncreatures defending that position you can possibly imagine. And even\nwhen the case is not so bad as that, there still remains the quality.\nWe \"take up our positions,\" silly little contentious creatures\nthat we are, we will not see the right in one another, we will not\npatiently state and restate, and honestly accommodate and plan, and\nso we remain at sixes and sevens. We've all a touch of Gladstone in\nus, and try to the last moment to deny we have made a turn. And so\nour poor broken-springed world jolts athwart its trackless destiny.\nTry to win into line with some fellow weakling, and see the little\nhost of suspicions, aggressions, misrepresentations, your approach\nwill stir--like summer flies on a high road--the way he will try to\nscore a point and claim you as a convert to what he has always said,\nhis fear lest the point should be scored to you.\n\nIt is not only such gross and palpable cases as our blond and\ntenoring friend. I could find the thing negligible were it only\nthat. But when one sees the same thread woven into men who are\nleaders, men who sway vast multitudes, who are indeed great and\npowerful men; when one sees how unfair they can be, how unteachable,\nthe great blind areas in their eyes also, their want of generosity,\nthen one's doubts gather like mists across this Utopian valley, its\nvistas pale, its people become unsubstantial phantoms, all its order\nand its happiness dim and recede....\n\nIf we are to have any Utopia at all, we must have a clear common\npurpose, and a great and steadfast movement of will to override all\nthese incurably egotistical dissentients. Something is needed wide\nand deep enough to float the worst of egotisms away. The world is\nnot to be made right by acclamation and in a day, and then for ever\nmore trusted to run alone. It is manifest this Utopia could not come\nabout by chance and anarchy, but by co-ordinated effort and a\ncommunity of design, and to tell of just land laws and wise\ngovernment, a wisely balanced economic system, and wise social\narrangements without telling how it was brought about, and how it is\nsustained against the vanity and self-indulgence, the moody\nfluctuations and uncertain imaginations, the heat and aptitude for\npartisanship that lurk, even when they do not flourish, in the\ntexture of every man alive, is to build a palace without either door\nor staircase.\n\nI had not this in mind when I began.\n\nSomewhere in the Modern Utopia there must be adequate men, men the\nvery antithesis of our friend, capable of self-devotion, of\nintentional courage, of honest thought, and steady endeavour. There\nmust be a literature to embody their common idea, of which this\nModern Utopia is merely the material form; there must be some\norganisation, however slight, to keep them in touch one with the\nother.\n\nWho will these men be? Will they be a caste? a race? an organisation\nin the nature of a Church? ... And there came into my mind the words\nof our acquaintance, that he was not one of these \"voluntary\nnoblemen.\"\n\nAt first that phrase struck me as being merely queer, and then I\nbegan to realise certain possibilities that were wrapped up in\nit.\n\nThe animus of our chance friend, at any rate, went to suggest that\nhere was his antithesis. Evidently what he is not, will be the class\nto contain what is needed here. Evidently.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nI was recalled from my meditations by the hand of the blond-haired\nman upon my arm.\n\nI looked up to discover the botanist had gone into the inn.\n\nThe blond-haired man was for a moment almost stripped of pose.\n\n\"I say,\" he said. \"Weren't you listening to me?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said bluntly.\n\nHis surprise was manifest. But by an effort he recalled what he had\nmeant to say.\n\n\"Your friend,\" he said, \"has been telling me, in spite of my\nsustained interruptions, a most incredible story.\"\n\nI wondered how the botanist managed to get it in. \"About that\nwoman?\" I said.\n\n\"About a man and a woman who hate each other and can't get away from\neach other.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I said.\n\n\"It sounds absurd.\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"Why can't they get away? What is there to keep them together? It's\nridiculous. I----\"\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"He _would_ tell it to me.\"\n\n\"It's his way.\"\n\n\"He interrupted me. And there's no point in it. Is he----\" he\nhesitated, \"mad?\"\n\n\"There's a whole world of people mad with him,\" I answered after a\npause.\n\nThe perplexed expression of the blond-haired man intensified. It is\nvain to deny that he enlarged the scope of his inquiry, visibly if\nnot verbally. \"Dear me!\" he said, and took up something he had\nnearly forgotten. \"And you found yourselves suddenly on a mountain\nside? ... I thought you were joking.\"\n\nI turned round upon him with a sudden access of earnestness. At\nleast I meant my manner to be earnest, but to him it may have seemed\nwild.\n\n\"You,\" I said, \"are an original sort of man. Do not be alarmed.\nPerhaps you will understand.... We were not joking.\"\n\n\"But, my dear fellow!\"\n\n\"I mean it! We come from an inferior world! Like this, but out of\norder.\"\n\n\"No world could be more out of order----\"\n\n\"You play at that and have your fun. But there's no limit to the\nextent to which a world of men may get out of gear. In our\nworld----\"\n\nHe nodded, but his eye had ceased to be friendly.\n\n\"Men die of starvation; people die by the hundred thousand\nneedlessly and painfully; men and women are lashed together to make\nhell for each other; children are born--abominably, and reared in\ncruelty and folly; there is a thing called war, a horror of blood\nand vileness. The whole thing seems to me at times a cruel and\nwasteful wilderness of muddle. You in this decent world have no\nmeans of understanding----\"\n\n\"No?\" he said, and would have begun, but I went on too quickly.\n\n\"No! When I see you dandering through this excellent and hopeful\nworld, objecting, obstructing, and breaking the law, displaying your\nwit on science and order, on the men who toil so ingloriously to\nswell and use the knowledge that is salvation, this salvation for\nwhich _our_ poor world cries to heaven----\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say,\" he said, \"that you really come from some\nother world where things are different and worse?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"And you want to talk to me about it instead of listening to\nme?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Oh, nonsense!\" he said abruptly. \"You can't do it--really. I can\nassure you this present world touches the nadir of imbecility. You\nand your friend, with his love for the lady who's so mysteriously\ntied--you're romancing! People could not possibly do such things.\nIt's--if you'll excuse me--ridiculous. _He_ began--he would begin.\nA most tiresome story--simply bore me down. We'd been talking very\nagreeably before that, or rather I had, about the absurdity of\nmarriage laws, the interference with a free and natural life, and so\non, and suddenly he burst like a dam. No!\" He paused. \"It's really\nimpossible. You behave perfectly well for a time, and then you begin\nto interrupt.... And such a childish story, too!\"\n\nHe spun round upon his chair, got up, glanced at me over his\nshoulder, and walked out of the arbour. He stepped aside hastily to\navoid too close an approach to the returning botanist. \"Impossible,\"\nI heard him say. He was evidently deeply aggrieved by us. I saw him\npresently a little way off in the garden, talking to the landlord of\nour inn, and looking towards us as he talked--they both looked\ntowards us--and after that, without the ceremony of a farewell, he\ndisappeared, and we saw him no more. We waited for him a little\nwhile, and then I expounded the situation to the botanist....\n\n\"We are going to have a very considerable amount of trouble\nexplaining ourselves,\" I said in conclusion. \"We are here by an\nact of the imagination, and that is just one of those metaphysical\noperations that are so difficult to make credible. We are, by the\nstandard of bearing and clothing I remark about us, unattractive in\ndress and deportment. We have nothing to produce to explain our\npresence here, no bit of a flying machine or a space travelling\nsphere or any of the apparatus customary on these occasions. We have\nno means beyond a dwindling amount of small change out of a gold\ncoin, upon which I suppose in ethics and the law some native Utopian\nhad a better claim. We may already have got ourselves into trouble\nwith the authorities with that confounded number of yours!\"\n\n\"You did one too!\"\n\n\"All the more bother, perhaps, when the thing is brought home to us.\nThere's no need for recriminations. The thing of moment is that we\nfind ourselves in the position--not to put too fine a point upon\nit--of tramps in this admirable world. The question of all others of\nimportance to us at present is what do they do with their tramps?\nBecause sooner or later, and the balance of probability seems to\nincline to sooner, whatever they do with their tramps that they will\ndo with us.\"\n\n\"Unless we can get some work.\"\n\n\"Exactly--unless we can get some work.\"\n\n\"Get work!\"\n\nThe botanist leant forward on his arms and looked out of the arbour\nwith an expression of despondent discovery. \"I say,\" he remarked;\n\"this is a strange world--quite strange and new. I'm only beginning\nto realise just what it means for us. The mountains there are the\nsame, the old Bristenstock and all the rest of it; but these houses,\nyou know, and that roadway, and the costumes, and that machine that\nis licking up the grass there--only....\"\n\nHe sought expression. \"Who knows what will come in sight round the\nbend of the valley there? Who knows what may happen to us anywhere?\nWe don't know who rules over us even ... we don't know that!\"\n\n\"No,\" I echoed, \"we don't know _that_.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH\n\nFailure in a Modern Utopia\n\n\nSection 1\n\nThe old Utopias--save for the breeding schemes of Plato and\nCampanella--ignored that reproductive competition among\nindividualities which is the substance of life, and dealt\nessentially with its incidentals. The endless variety of men, their\nendless gradation of quality, over which the hand of selection\nplays, and to which we owe the unmanageable complication of real\nlife, is tacitly set aside. The real world is a vast disorder of\naccidents and incalculable forces in which men survive or fail. A\nModern Utopia, unlike its predecessors, dare not pretend to change\nthe last condition; it may order and humanise the conflict, but men\nmust still survive or fail.\n\nMost Utopias present themselves as going concerns, as happiness in\nbeing; they make it an essential condition that a happy land can\nhave no history, and all the citizens one is permitted to see are\nwell looking and upright and mentally and morally in tune. But we\nare under the dominion of a logic that obliges us to take over the\nactual population of the world with only such moral and mental and\nphysical improvements as lie within their inherent possibilities,\nand it is our business to ask what Utopia will do with its\ncongenital invalids, its idiots and madmen, its drunkards and men of\nvicious mind, its cruel and furtive souls, its stupid people, too\nstupid to be of use to the community, its lumpish, unteachable and\nunimaginative people? And what will it do with the man who is \"poor\"\nall round, the rather spiritless, rather incompetent low-grade man\nwho on earth sits in the den of the sweater, tramps the streets\nunder the banner of the unemployed, or trembles--in another man's\ncast-off clothing, and with an infinity of hat-touching--on the\nverge of rural employment?\n\nThese people will have to be in the descendant phase, the species\nmust be engaged in eliminating them; there is no escape from that,\nand conversely the people of exceptional quality must be ascendant.\nThe better sort of people, so far as they can be distinguished,\nmust have the fullest freedom of public service, and the fullest\nopportunity of parentage. And it must be open to every man to\napprove himself worthy of ascendency.\n\nThe way of Nature in this process is to kill the weaker and the\nsillier, to crush them, to starve them, to overwhelm them, using the\nstronger and more cunning as her weapon. But man is the unnatural\nanimal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn\nhimself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him. He sees\nwith a growing resentment the multitude of suffering ineffectual\nlives over which his species tramples in its ascent. In the Modern\nUtopia he will have set himself to change the ancient law. No longer\nwill it be that failures must suffer and perish lest their breed\nincrease, but the breed of failure must not increase, lest they\nsuffer and perish, and the race with them.\n\nNow we need not argue here to prove that the resources of the world\nand the energy of mankind, were they organised sanely, are amply\nsufficient to supply every material need of every living human\nbeing. And if it can be so contrived that every human being shall\nlive in a state of reasonable physical and mental comfort, without\nthe reproduction of inferior types, there is no reason whatever why\nthat should not be secured. But there must be a competition in life\nof some sort to determine who are to be pushed to the edge, and who\nare to prevail and multiply. Whatever we do, man will remain a\ncompetitive creature, and though moral and intellectual training\nmay vary and enlarge his conception of success and fortify him\nwith refinements and consolations, no Utopia will ever save him\ncompletely from the emotional drama of struggle, from exultations\nand humiliations, from pride and prostration and shame. He lives in\nsuccess and failure just as inevitably as he lives in space and\ntime.\n\nBut we may do much to make the margin of failure endurable. On\nearth, for all the extravagance of charity, the struggle for the\nmass of men at the bottom resolves itself into a struggle, and often\na very foul and ugly struggle, for food, shelter, and clothing.\nDeaths outright from exposure and starvation are now perhaps\nuncommon, but for the multitude there are only miserable houses,\nuncomfortable clothes, and bad and insufficient food; fractional\nstarvation and exposure, that is to say. A Utopia planned upon\nmodern lines will certainly have put an end to that. It will insist\nupon every citizen being being properly housed, well nourished, and\nin good health, reasonably clean and clothed healthily, and upon\nthat insistence its labour laws will be founded. In a phrasing\nthat will be familiar to everyone interested in social reform,\nit will maintain a standard of life. Any house, unless it be a\npublic monument, that does not come up to its rising standard of\nhealthiness and convenience, the Utopian State will incontinently\npull down, and pile the material and charge the owner for the\nlabour; any house unduly crowded or dirty, it must in some effectual\nmanner, directly or indirectly, confiscate and clear and clean. And\nany citizen indecently dressed, or ragged and dirty, or publicly\nunhealthy, or sleeping abroad homeless, or in any way neglected or\nderelict, must come under its care. It will find him work if he can\nand will work, it will take him to it, it will register him and lend\nhim the money wherewith to lead a comely life until work can be\nfound or made for him, and it will give him credit and shelter him\nand strengthen him if he is ill. In default of private enterprises\nit will provide inns for him and food, and it will--by itself acting\nas the reserve employer--maintain a minimum wage which will cover\nthe cost of a decent life. The State will stand at the back of the\neconomic struggle as the reserve employer of labour. This most\nexcellent idea does, as a matter of fact, underlie the British\ninstitution of the workhouse, but it is jumbled up with the relief\nof old age and infirmity, it is administered parochially and on the\nsupposition that all population is static and localised whereas\nevery year it becomes more migratory; it is administered without\nany regard to the rising standards of comfort and self-respect in\na progressive civilisation, and it is administered grudgingly. The\nthing that is done is done as unwilling charity by administrators\nwho are often, in the rural districts at least, competing for\nlow-priced labour, and who regard want of employment as a crime. But\nif it were possible for any citizen in need of money to resort to a\nplace of public employment as a right, and there work for a week or\nmonth without degradation upon certain minimum terms, it seems\nfairly certain that no one would work, except as the victim of some\nquite exceptional and temporary accident, for less.\n\nThe work publicly provided would have to be toilsome, but not\ncruel or incapacitating. A choice of occupations would need to be\nafforded, occupations adapted to different types of training and\ncapacity, with some residual employment of a purely laborious and\nmechanical sort for those who were incapable of doing the things\nthat required intelligence. Necessarily this employment by the\nState would be a relief of economic pressure, but it would not be\nconsidered a charity done to the individual, but a public service.\nIt need not pay, any more than the police need pay, but it could\nprobably be done at a small margin of loss. There is a number of\ndurable things bound finally to be useful that could be made and\nstored whenever the tide of more highly paid employment ebbed and\nlabour sank to its minimum, bricks, iron from inferior ores, shaped\nand preserved timber, pins, nails, plain fabrics of cotton and\nlinen, paper, sheet glass, artificial fuel, and so on; new roads\ncould be made and public buildings reconstructed, inconveniences\nof all sorts removed, until under the stimulus of accumulating\nmaterial, accumulating investments or other circumstances, the tide\nof private enterprise flowed again.\n\nThe State would provide these things for its citizen as though it\nwas his right to require them; he would receive as a shareholder in\nthe common enterprise and not with any insult of charity. But on the\nother hand it will require that the citizen who renders the minimum\nof service for these concessions shall not become a parent until he\nis established in work at a rate above the minimum, and free of any\ndebt he may have incurred. The State will never press for its debt,\nnor put a limit to its accumulation so long as a man or woman\nremains childless; it will not even grudge them temporary spells of\ngood fortune when they may lift their earnings above the minimum\nwage. It will pension the age of everyone who cares to take a\npension, and it will maintain special guest homes for the very old\nto which they may come as paying guests, spending their pensions\nthere. By such obvious devices it will achieve the maximum\nelimination of its feeble and spiritless folk in every generation\nwith the minimum of suffering and public disorder.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nBut the mildly incompetent, the spiritless and dull, the poorer sort\nwho are ill, do not exhaust our Utopian problem. There remain idiots\nand lunatics, there remain perverse and incompetent persons, there\nare people of weak character who become drunkards, drug takers, and\nthe like. Then there are persons tainted with certain foul and\ntransmissible diseases. All these people spoil the world for others.\nThey may become parents, and with most of them there is manifestly\nnothing to be done but to seclude them from the great body of the\npopulation. You must resort to a kind of social surgery. You cannot\nhave social freedom in your public ways, your children cannot speak\nto whom they will, your girls and gentle women cannot go abroad\nwhile some sorts of people go free. And there are violent people,\nand those who will not respect the property of others, thieves and\ncheats, they, too, so soon as their nature is confirmed, must pass\nout of the free life of our ordered world. So soon as there can be\nno doubt of the disease or baseness of the individual, so soon as\nthe insanity or other disease is assured, or the crime repeated a\nthird time, or the drunkenness or misdemeanour past its seventh\noccasion (let us say), so soon must he or she pass out of the common\nways of men.\n\nThe dreadfulness of all such proposals as this lies in the\npossibility of their execution falling into the hands of hard, dull,\nand cruel administrators. But in the case of a Utopia one assumes\nthe best possible government, a government as merciful and\ndeliberate as it is powerful and decisive. You must not too hastily\nimagine these things being done--as they would be done on earth at\npresent--by a number of zealous half-educated people in a state of\npanic at a quite imaginary \"Rapid Multiplication of the Unfit.\"\n\nNo doubt for first offenders, and for all offenders under\nfive-and-twenty, the Modern Utopia will attempt cautionary and\nremedial treatment. There will be disciplinary schools and colleges\nfor the young, fair and happy places, but with less confidence and\nmore restraint than the schools and colleges of the ordinary world.\nIn remote and solitary regions these enclosures will lie, they will\nbe fenced in and forbidden to the common run of men, and there,\nremote from all temptation, the defective citizen will be schooled.\nThere will be no masking of the lesson; \"which do you value most,\nthe wide world of humanity, or this evil trend in you?\" From that\ndiscipline at last the prisoners will return.\n\nBut the others; what would a saner world do with them?\n\nOur world is still vindictive, but the all-reaching State of Utopia\nwill have the strength that begets mercy. Quietly the outcast will\ngo from among his fellow men. There will be no drumming of him out\nof the ranks, no tearing off of epaulettes, no smiting in the face.\nThe thing must be just public enough to obviate secret tyrannies,\nand that is all.\n\nThere would be no killing, no lethal chambers. No doubt Utopia will\nkill all deformed and monstrous and evilly diseased births, but for\nthe rest, the State will hold itself accountable for their being.\nThere is no justice in Nature perhaps, but the idea of justice\nmust be sacred in any good society. Lives that statesmanship has\npermitted, errors it has not foreseen and educated against, must\nnot be punished by death. If the State does not keep faith, no one\nwill keep faith. Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's\nfailure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community. Even\nfor murder Utopia will not, I think, kill.\n\nI doubt even if there will be jails. No men are quite wise enough,\ngood enough and cheap enough to staff jails as a jail ought to be\nstaffed. Perhaps islands will be chosen, islands lying apart from\nthe highways of the sea, and to these the State will send its\nexiles, most of them thanking Heaven, no doubt, to be quit of a\nworld of prigs. The State will, of course, secure itself against\nany children from these people, that is the primary object in their\nseclusion, and perhaps it may even be necessary to make these\nisland prisons a system of island monasteries and island nunneries.\nUpon that I am not competent to speak, but if I may believe the\nliterature of the subject--unhappily a not very well criticised\nliterature--it is not necessary to enforce this separation.\n[Footnote: See for example Dr. W. A. Chapple's The Fertility of\nthe Unfit.]\n\nAbout such islands patrol boats will go, there will be no freedoms\nof boat building, and it may be necessary to have armed guards at\nthe creeks and quays. Beyond that the State will give these\nsegregated failures just as full a liberty as they can have. If\nit interferes any further it will be simply to police the islands\nagainst the organisation of serious cruelty, to maintain the freedom\nof any of the detained who wish it to transfer themselves to other\nislands, and so to keep a check upon tyranny. The insane, of course,\nwill demand care and control, but there is no reason why the islands\nof the hopeless drunkard, for example, should not each have a\nvirtual autonomy, have at the most a Resident and a guard. I believe\nthat a community of drunkards might be capable of organising even\nits own bad habit to the pitch of tolerable existence. I do not\nsee why such an island should not build and order for itself and\nmanufacture and trade. \"Your ways are not our ways,\" the World State\nwill say; \"but here is freedom and a company of kindred souls. Elect\nyour jolly rulers, brew if you will, and distil; here are vine\ncuttings and barley fields; do as it pleases you to do. We will take\ncare of the knives, but for the rest--deal yourselves with God!\"\n\nAnd you see the big convict steamship standing in to the Island of\nIncurable Cheats. The crew are respectfully at their quarters,\nready to lend a hand overboard, but wide awake, and the captain is\nhospitably on the bridge to bid his guests good-bye and keep an eye\non the movables. The new citizens for this particular Alsatia, each\nno doubt with his personal belongings securely packed and at hand,\ncrowd the deck and study the nearing coast. Bright, keen faces would\nbe there, and we, were we by any chance to find ourselves beside the\ncaptain, might recognise the double of this great earthly magnate or\nthat, Petticoat Lane and Park Lane cheek by jowl. The landing part\nof the jetty is clear of people, only a government man or so stands\nthere to receive the boat and prevent a rush, but beyond the gates a\nnumber of engagingly smart-looking individuals loiter speculatively.\nOne figures a remarkable building labelled Custom House, an\ninteresting fiscal revival this population has made, and beyond,\ncrowding up the hill, the painted walls of a number of comfortable\ninns clamour loudly. One or two inhabitants in reduced circumstances\nwould act as hotel touts, there are several hotel omnibuses and a\nBureau de Change, certainly a Bureau de Change. And a small house\nwith a large board, aimed point-blank seaward, declares itself a\nGratis Information Office, and next to it rises the graceful dome of\na small Casino. Beyond, great hoardings proclaim the advantages of\nmany island specialities, a hustling commerce, and the opening of a\nPublic Lottery. There is a large cheap-looking barrack, the school\nof Commercial Science for gentlemen of inadequate training....\n\nAltogether a very go-ahead looking little port it would be, and\nthough this disembarkation would have none of the flow of hilarious\ngood fellowship that would throw a halo of genial noise about the\nIslands of Drink, it is doubtful if the new arrivals would feel\nanything very tragic in the moment. Here at last was scope for\nadventure after their hearts.\n\nThis sounds more fantastic than it is. But what else is there to do,\nunless you kill? You must seclude, but why should you torment? All\nmodern prisons are places of torture by restraint, and the habitual\ncriminal plays the part of a damaged mouse at the mercy of the cat\nof our law. He has his little painful run, and back he comes again\nto a state more horrible even than destitution. There are no\nAlsatias left in the world. For my own part I can think of no crime,\nunless it is reckless begetting or the wilful transmission of\ncontagious disease, for which the bleak terrors, the solitudes and\nignominies of the modern prison do not seem outrageously cruel. If\nyou want to go so far as that, then kill. Why, once you are rid of\nthem, should you pester criminals to respect an uncongenial standard\nof conduct? Into such islands of exile as this a modern Utopia will\nhave to purge itself. There is no alternative that I can\ncontrive.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nWill a Utopian be free to be idle?\n\nWork has to be done, every day humanity is sustained by its\ncollective effort, and without a constant recurrence of effort in\nthe single man as in the race as a whole, there is neither health\nnor happiness. The permanent idleness of a human being is not\nonly burthensome to the world, but his own secure misery. But\nunprofitable occupation is also intended by idleness, and it may be\nconsidered whether that freedom also will be open to the Utopian.\nConceivably it will, like privacy, locomotion, and almost all the\nfreedoms of life, and on the same terms--if he possess the money to\npay for it.\n\nThat last condition may produce a shock in minds accustomed to the\nproposition that money is the root of all evil, and to the idea that\nUtopia necessarily implies something rather oaken and hand-made and\nprimitive in all these relations. Of course, money is not the root\nof any evil in the world; the root of all evil in the world, and the\nroot of all good too, is the Will to Live, and money becomes harmful\nonly when by bad laws and bad economic organisation it is more\neasily attained by bad men than good. It is as reasonable to say\nfood is the root of all disease, because so many people suffer from\nexcessive and unwise eating. The sane economic ideal is to make the\npossession of money the clear indication of public serviceableness,\nand the more nearly that ideal is attained, the smaller is the\njustification of poverty and the less the hardship of being poor. In\nbarbaric and disorderly countries it is almost honourable to be\nindigent and unquestionably virtuous to give to a beggar, and even\nin the more or less civilised societies of earth, so many children\ncome into life hopelessly handicapped, that austerity to the poor\nis regarded as the meanest of mean virtues. But in Utopia everyone\nwill have had an education and a certain minimum of nutrition and\ntraining; everyone will be insured against ill-health and accidents;\nthere will be the most efficient organisation for balancing the\npressure of employment and the presence of disengaged labour, and so\nto be moneyless will be clear evidence of unworthiness. In Utopia,\nno one will dream of giving to a casual beggar, and no one will\ndream of begging.\n\nThere will need to be, in the place of the British casual wards,\nsimple but comfortable inns with a low tariff--controlled to a\ncertain extent no doubt, and even in some cases maintained, by the\nState. This tariff will have such a definite relation to the minimum\npermissible wage, that a man who has incurred no liabilities through\nmarriage or the like relationship, will be able to live in comfort\nand decency upon that minimum wage, pay his small insurance premium\nagainst disease, death, disablement, or ripening years, and have a\nmargin for clothing and other personal expenses. But he will get\nneither shelter nor food, except at the price of his freedom, unless\nhe can produce money.\n\nBut suppose a man without money in a district where employment is\nnot to be found for him; suppose the amount of employment to have\ndiminished in the district with such suddenness as to have stranded\nhim there. Or suppose he has quarrelled with the only possible\nemployer, or that he does not like his particular work. Then no\ndoubt the Utopian State, which wants everyone to be just as happy as\nthe future welfare of the race permits, will come to his assistance.\nOne imagines him resorting to a neat and business-like post-office,\nand stating his case to a civil and intelligent official. In any\nsane State the economic conditions of every quarter of the earth\nwill be watched as constantly as its meteorological phases, and a\ndaily map of the country within a radius of three or four hundred\nmiles showing all the places where labour is needed will hang upon\nthe post-office wall. To this his attention will be directed. The\nman out of work will decide to try his luck in this place or that,\nand the public servant, the official, will make a note of his name,\nverify his identity--the freedom of Utopia will not be incompatible\nwith the universal registration of thumb-marks--and issue passes for\ntravel and coupons for any necessary inn accommodation on his way to\nthe chosen destination. There he will seek a new employer.\n\nSuch a free change of locality once or twice a year from a region of\nrestricted employment to a region of labour shortage will be among\nthe general privileges of the Utopian citizen.\n\nBut suppose that in no district in the world is there work within\nthe capacity of this particular man?\n\nBefore we suppose that, we must take into consideration the general\nassumption one is permitted to make in all Utopian speculations. All\nUtopians will be reasonably well educated upon Utopian lines; there\nwill be no illiterates unless they are unteachable imbeciles, no\nrule-of-thumb toilers as inadaptable as trained beasts. The Utopian\nworker will be as versatile as any well-educated man is on earth\nto-day, and no Trade Union will impose a limit to his activities.\nThe world will be his Union. If the work he does best and likes best\nis not to be found, there is still the work he likes second best.\nLacking his proper employment, he will turn to some kindred\ntrade.\n\nBut even with that adaptability, it may be that sometimes he will\nnot find work. Such a disproportion between the work to be done and\nthe people to do it may arise as to present a surplus of labour\neverywhere. This disproportion may be due to two causes: to an\nincrease of population without a corresponding increase of\nenterprises, or to a diminution of employment throughout the world\ndue to the completion of great enterprises, to economies achieved,\nor to the operation of new and more efficient labour-saving\nappliances. Through either cause, a World State may find itself\ndoing well except for an excess of citizens of mediocre and lower\nquality.\n\nBut the first cause may be anticipated by wise marriage laws.... The\nfull discussion of these laws will come later, but here one may\ninsist that Utopia will control the increase of its population.\nWithout the determination and ability to limit that increase as well\nas to stimulate it whenever it is necessary, no Utopia is possible.\nThat was clearly demonstrated by Malthus for all time.\n\nThe second cause is not so easily anticipated, but then, though its\nimmediate result in glutting the labour market is similar, its final\nconsequences are entirely different from those of the first. The\nwhole trend of a scientific mechanical civilisation is continually\nto replace labour by machinery and to increase it in its\neffectiveness by organisation, and so quite independently of any\nincrease in population labour must either fall in value until it\ncan compete against and check the cheapening process, or if that\nis prevented, as it will be in Utopia, by a minimum wage, come out\nof employment. There is no apparent limit to this process. But a\nsurplus of efficient labour at the minimum wage is exactly the\ncondition that should stimulate new enterprises, and that in a State\nsaturated with science and prolific in invention will stimulate new\nenterprises. An increasing surplus of available labour without an\nabsolute increase of population, an increasing surplus of labour\ndue to increasing economy and not to proliferation, and which,\ntherefore, does not press on and disarrange the food supply, is\nsurely the ideal condition for a progressive civilisation. I am\ninclined to think that, since labour will be regarded as a\ndelocalised and fluid force, it will be the World State and not the\nbig municipalities ruling the force areas that will be the reserve\nemployer of labour. Very probably it will be convenient for the\nState to hand over the surplus labour for municipal purposes, but\nthat is another question. All over the world the labour exchanges\nwill be reporting the fluctuating pressure of economic demand and\ntransferring workers from this region of excess to that of scarcity;\nand whenever the excess is universal, the World State--failing an\nadequate development of private enterprise--will either reduce the\nworking day and so absorb the excess, or set on foot some permanent\nspecial works of its own, paying the minimum wage and allowing them\nto progress just as slowly or just as rapidly as the ebb and flow of\nlabour dictated. But with sane marriage and birth laws there is no\nreason to suppose such calls upon the resources and initiative of\nthe world more than temporary and exceptional occasions.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nThe existence of our blond bare-footed friend was evidence enough\nthat in a modern Utopia a man will be free to be just as idle or\nuselessly busy as it pleases him, after he has earned the minimum\nwage. He must do that, of course, to pay for his keep, to pay his\nassurance tax against ill-health or old age, and any charge or debt\npaternity may have brought upon him. The World State of the modern\nUtopist is no state of moral compulsions. If, for example, under the\nrestricted Utopian scheme of inheritance, a man inherited sufficient\nmoney to release him from the need to toil, he would be free to go\nwhere he pleased and do what he liked. A certain proportion of men\nat ease is good for the world; work as a moral obligation is the\nmorality of slaves, and so long as no one is overworked there is no\nneed to worry because some few are underworked. Utopia does not\nexist as a solace for envy. From leisure, in a good moral and\nintellectual atmosphere, come experiments, come philosophy and the\nnew departures.\n\nIn any modern Utopia there must be many leisurely people. We are all\ntoo obsessed in the real world by the strenuous ideal, by the idea\nthat the vehement incessant fool is the only righteous man. Nothing\ndone in a hurry, nothing done under strain, is really well done. A\nState where all are working hard, where none go to and fro, easily\nand freely, loses touch with the purpose of freedom.\n\nBut inherited independence will be the rarest and least permanent of\nUtopian facts, for the most part that wider freedom will have to be\nearned, and the inducements to men and women to raise their personal\nvalue far above the minimum wage will be very great indeed. Thereby\nwill come privacies, more space in which to live, liberty to go\neverywhere and do no end of things, the power and freedom to\ninitiate interesting enterprises and assist and co-operate with\ninteresting people, and indeed all the best things of life. The\nmodern Utopia will give a universal security indeed, and exercise\nthe minimum of compulsions to toil, but it will offer some acutely\ndesirable prizes. The aim of all these devices, the minimum wage,\nthe standard of life, provision for all the feeble and unemployed\nand so forth, is not to rob life of incentives but to change their\nnature, to make life not less energetic, but less panic-stricken and\nviolent and base, to shift the incidence of the struggle for\nexistence from our lower to our higher emotions, so to anticipate\nand neutralise the motives of the cowardly and bestial, that the\nambitious and energetic imagination which is man's finest quality\nmay become the incentive and determining factor in survival.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nAfter we have paid for our lunch in the little inn that corresponds\nto Wassen, the botanist and I would no doubt spend the rest of the\nforenoon in the discussion of various aspects and possibilities of\nUtopian labour laws. We should examine our remaining change, copper\ncoins of an appearance ornamental rather than reassuring, and we\nshould decide that after what we had gathered from the man with the\nblond hair, it would, on the whole, be advisable to come to the\npoint with the labour question forthwith. At last we should draw the\ndeep breath of resolution and arise and ask for the Public Office.\nWe should know by this time that the labour bureau sheltered with\nthe post-office and other public services in one building.\n\nThe public office of Utopia would of course contain a few surprises\nfor two men from terrestrial England. You imagine us entering, the\nbotanist lagging a little behind me, and my first attempts to be\noffhand and commonplace in a demand for work.\n\nThe office is in charge of a quick-eyed little woman of six and\nthirty perhaps, and she regards us with a certain keenness of\nscrutiny.\n\n\"Where are your papers?\" she asks.\n\nI think for a moment of the documents in my pocket, my passport\nchequered with visas and addressed in my commendation and in the\nname of her late Majesty by We, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne\nCecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Viscount Cranborne,\nBaron Cecil, and so forth, to all whom it may concern, my Carte\nd'Identite (useful on minor occasions) of the Touring Club de\nFrance, my green ticket to the Reading Room of the British Museum,\nand my Lettre d'Indication from the London and County Bank. A\nfoolish humour prompts me to unfold all these, hand them to her\nand take the consequences, but I resist.\n\n\"Lost,\" I say, briefly.\n\n\"Both lost?\" she asks, looking at my friend.\n\n\"Both,\" I answer.\n\n\"How?\"\n\nI astonish myself by the readiness of my answer.\n\n\"I fell down a snow slope and they came out of my pocket.\"\n\n\"And exactly the same thing happened to both of you?\"\n\n\"No. He'd given me his to put with my own.\" She raised her eyebrows.\n\"His pocket is defective,\" I add, a little hastily.\n\nHer manners are too Utopian for her to follow that up. She seems to\nreflect on procedure.\n\n\"What are your numbers?\" she asks, abruptly.\n\nA vision of that confounded visitors' book at the inn above comes\ninto my mind. \"Let me _see_,\" I say, and pat my forehead and\nreflect, refraining from the official eye before me. \"Let me\n_see_.\"\n\n\"What is yours?\" she asks the botanist.\n\n\"A. B.,\" he says, slowly, \"little a, nine four seven, I\n_think_----\"\n\n\"Don't you know?\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" says the botanist, very agreeably. \"No.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say neither of you know your own numbers?\" says the\nlittle post-mistress, with a rising note.\n\n\"Yes,\" I say, with an engaging smile and trying to keep up a good\nsocial tone. \"It's queer, isn't it? We've both forgotten.\"\n\n\"You're joking,\" she suggests.\n\n\"Well,\" I temporise.\n\n\"I suppose you've got your thumbs?\"\n\n\"The fact is----\" I say and hesitate. \"We've got our thumbs, of\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Then I shall have to send a thumb-print down to the office and get\nyour number from that. But are you sure you haven't your papers or\nnumbers? It's very queer.\"\n\nWe admit rather sheepishly that it's queer, and question one another\nsilently.\n\nShe turns thoughtfully for the thumb-marking slab, and as she does\nso, a man enters the office. At the sight of him she asks with a\nnote of relief, \"What am I to do, sir, here?\"\n\nHe looks from her to us gravely, and his eye lights to curiosity at\nour dress. \"What is the matter, madam?\" he asks, in a courteous\nvoice.\n\nShe explains.\n\nSo far the impression we have had of our Utopia is one of a quite\nunearthly sanity, of good management and comprehensive design in\nevery material thing, and it has seemed to us a little incongruous\nthat all the Utopians we have talked to, our host of last night,\nthe post-mistress and our garrulous tramp, have been of the most\ncommonplace type. But suddenly there looks out from this man's pose\nand regard a different quality, a quality altogether nearer that of\nthe beautiful tramway and of the gracious order of the mountain\nhouses. He is a well-built man of perhaps five and thirty, with the\neasy movement that comes with perfect physical condition, his face\nis clean shaven and shows the firm mouth of a disciplined man, and\nhis grey eyes are clear and steady. His legs are clad in some woven\nstuff deep-red in colour, and over this he wears a white shirt\nfitting pretty closely, and with a woven purple hem. His general\neffect reminds me somehow of the Knights Templars. On his head is a\ncap of thin leather and still thinner steel, and with the vestiges\nof ear-guards--rather like an attenuated version of the caps that\nwere worn by Cromwell's Ironsides.\n\nHe looks at us and we interpolate a word or so as she explains and\nfeel a good deal of embarrassment at the foolish position we have\nmade for ourselves. I determine to cut my way out of this\nentanglement before it complicates itself further.\n\n\"The fact is----\" I say.\n\n\"Yes?\" he says, with a faint smile.\n\n\"We've perhaps been disingenuous. Our position is so entirely\nexceptional, so difficult to explain----\"\n\n\"What have you been doing?\"\n\n\"No,\" I say, with decision; \"it can't be explained like that.\"\n\nHe looks down at his feet. \"Go on,\" he says.\n\nI try to give the thing a quiet, matter-of-fact air. \"You see,\" I\nsay, in the tone one adopts for really lucid explanations, \"we come\nfrom another world. Consequently, whatever thumb-mark registration\nor numbering you have in this planet doesn't apply to us, and we\ndon't know our numbers because we haven't got any. We are really,\nyou know, explorers, strangers----\"\n\n\"But what world do you mean?\"\n\n\"It's a different planet--a long way away. Practically at an\ninfinite distance.\"\n\nHe looks up in my face with the patient expression of a man who\nlistens to nonsense.\n\n\"I know it sounds impossible,\" I say, \"but here is the simple\nfact--we _appear_ in your world. We appeared suddenly upon the neck\nof Lucendro--the Passo Lucendro--yesterday afternoon, and I defy you\nto discover the faintest trace of us before that time. Down we\nmarched into the San Gotthard road and here we are! That's our fact.\nAnd as for papers----! Where in your world have you seen papers like\nthis?\"\n\nI produce my pocket-book, extract my passport, and present it to\nhim.\n\nHis expression has changed. He takes the document and examines it,\nturns it over, looks at me, and smiles that faint smile of his\nagain.\n\n\"Have some more,\" I say, and proffer the card of the T.C.F.\n\nI follow up that blow with my green British Museum ticket, as\ntattered as a flag in a knight's chapel.\n\n\"You'll get found out,\" he says, with my documents in his hand.\n\"You've got your thumbs. You'll be measured. They'll refer to the\ncentral registers, and there you'll be!\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" I say, \"we sha'n't be.\"\n\nHe reflects. \"It's a queer sort of joke for you two men to play,\" he\ndecides, handing me back my documents.\n\n\"It's no joke at all,\" I say, replacing them in my pocket-book.\n\nThe post-mistress intervenes. \"What would you advise me to do?\"\n\n\"No money?\" he asks.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe makes some suggestions. \"Frankly,\" he says, \"I think you have\nescaped from some island. How you got so far as here I can't\nimagine, or what you think you'll do.... But anyhow, there's the\nstuff for your thumbs.\"\n\nHe points to the thumb-marking apparatus and turns to attend to his\nown business.\n\nPresently we emerge from the office in a state between discomfiture\nand amusement, each with a tramway ticket for Lucerne in his hand\nand with sufficient money to pay our expenses until the morrow. We\nare to go to Lucerne because there there is a demand for\ncomparatively unskilled labour in carving wood, which seems to us a\nsort of work within our range and a sort that will not compel our\nseparation.\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThe old Utopias are sessile organisations; the new must square\nitself to the needs of a migratory population, to an endless coming\nand going, to a people as fluid and tidal as the sea. It does not\nenter into the scheme of earthly statesmanship, but indeed all local\nestablishments, all definitions of place, are even now melting under\nour eyes. Presently all the world will be awash with anonymous\nstranger men.\n\nNow the simple laws of custom, the homely methods of identification\nthat served in the little communities of the past when everyone knew\neveryone, fail in the face of this liquefaction. If the modern\nUtopia is indeed to be a world of responsible citizens, it must have\ndevised some scheme by which every person in the world can be\npromptly and certainly recognised, and by which anyone missing can\nbe traced and found.\n\nThis is by no means an impossible demand. The total population of\nthe world is, on the most generous estimate, not more than\n1,500,000,000, and the effectual indexing of this number of people,\nthe record of their movement hither and thither, the entry of\nvarious material facts, such as marriage, parentage, criminal\nconvictions and the like, the entry of the new-born and the\nelimination of the dead, colossal task though it would be, is still\nnot so great as to be immeasurably beyond comparison with the work\nof the post-offices in the world of to-day, or the cataloguing of\nsuch libraries as that of the British Museum, or such collections as\nthat of the insects in Cromwell Road. Such an index could be housed\nquite comfortably on one side of Northumberland Avenue, for example.\nIt is only a reasonable tribute to the distinctive lucidity of the\nFrench mind to suppose the central index housed in a vast series of\nbuildings at or near Paris. The index would be classified primarily\nby some unchanging physical characteristic, such as we are told\nthe thumb-mark and finger-mark afford, and to these would be\nadded any other physical traits that were of material value.\nThe classification of thumb-marks and of inalterable physical\ncharacteristics goes on steadily, and there is every reason for\nassuming it possible that each human being could be given a distinct\nformula, a number or \"scientific name,\" under which he or she could\nbe docketed. [Footnote: It is quite possible that the actual\nthumb-mark may play only a small part in the work of identification,\nbut it is an obvious convenience to our thread of story to assume\nthat it is the one sufficient feature.] About the buildings in which\nthis great main index would be gathered, would be a system of other\nindices with cross references to the main one, arranged under names,\nunder professional qualifications, under diseases, crimes and the\nlike.\n\nThese index cards might conceivably be transparent and so contrived\nas to give a photographic copy promptly whenever it was needed, and\nthey could have an attachment into which would slip a ticket bearing\nthe name of the locality in which the individual was last reported.\nA little army of attendants would be at work upon this index day and\nnight. From sub-stations constantly engaged in checking back\nthumb-marks and numbers, an incessant stream of information would\ncome, of births, of deaths, of arrivals at inns, of applications to\npost-offices for letters, of tickets taken for long journeys, of\ncriminal convictions, marriages, applications for public doles and\nthe like. A filter of offices would sort the stream, and all day and\nall night for ever a swarm of clerks would go to and fro correcting\nthis central register, and photographing copies of its entries for\ntransmission to the subordinate local stations, in response to their\ninquiries. So the inventory of the State would watch its every man\nand the wide world write its history as the fabric of its destiny\nflowed on. At last, when the citizen died, would come the last entry\nof all, his age and the cause of his death and the date and place of\nhis cremation, and his card would be taken out and passed on to the\nuniversal pedigree, to a place of greater quiet, to the ever-growing\ngalleries of the records of the dead.\n\nSuch a record is inevitable if a Modern Utopia is to be\nachieved.\n\nYet at this, too, our blond-haired friend would no doubt rebel. One\nof the many things to which some will make claim as a right, is that\nof going unrecognised and secret whither one will. But that, so far\nas one's fellow wayfarers were concerned, would still be possible.\nOnly the State would share the secret of one's little concealment.\nTo the eighteenth-century Liberal, to the old-fashioned\nnineteenth-century Liberal, that is to say to all professed\nLiberals, brought up to be against the Government on principle, this\norganised clairvoyance will be the most hateful of dreams. Perhaps,\ntoo, the Individualist would see it in that light. But these are\nonly the mental habits acquired in an evil time. The old Liberalism\nassumed bad government, the more powerful the government the worse\nit was, just as it assumed the natural righteousness of the free\nindividual. Darkness and secrecy were, indeed, the natural refuges\nof liberty when every government had in it the near possibility of\ntyranny, and the Englishman or American looked at the papers of a\nRussian or a German as one might look at the chains of a slave. You\nimagine that father of the old Liberalism, Rousseau, slinking off\nfrom his offspring at the door of the Foundling Hospital, and you\ncan understand what a crime against natural virtue this quiet eye of\nthe State would have seemed to him. But suppose we do not assume\nthat government is necessarily bad, and the individual necessarily\ngood--and the hypothesis upon which we are working practically\nabolishes either alternative--then we alter the case altogether. The\ngovernment of a modern Utopia will be no perfection of intentions\nignorantly ruling the world.... [Footnote: In the typical modern\nState of our own world, with its population of many millions, and\nits extreme facility of movement, undistinguished men who adopt an\nalias can make themselves untraceable with the utmost ease. The\ntemptation of the opportunities thus offered has developed a new\ntype of criminality, the Deeming or Crossman type, base men who\nsubsist and feed their heavy imaginations in the wooing, betrayal,\nill-treatment, and sometimes even the murder of undistinguished\nwomen. This is a large, a growing, and, what is gravest, a prolific\nclass, fostered by the practical anonymity of the common man. It is\nonly the murderers who attract much public attention, but the supply\nof low-class prostitutes is also largely due to these free\nadventures of the base. It is one of the bye products of State\nLiberalism, and at present it is very probably drawing ahead in the\nrace against the development of police organisation.]\n\nSuch is the eye of the State that is now slowly beginning to\napprehend our existence as two queer and inexplicable parties\ndisturbing the fine order of its field of vision, the eye that will\npresently be focussing itself upon us with a growing astonishment\nand interrogation. \"Who in the name of Galton and Bertillon,\" one\nfancies Utopia exclaiming, \"are _you_?\"\n\nI perceive I shall cut a queer figure in that focus. I shall affect\na certain spurious ease of carriage no doubt. \"The fact is, I shall\nbegin....\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\nAnd now see how an initial hypothesis may pursue and overtake its\nmaker. Our thumb-marks have been taken, they have travelled by\npneumatic tube to the central office of the municipality hard by\nLucerne, and have gone on thence to the headquarters of the index at\nParis. There, after a rough preliminary classification, I imagine\nthem photographed on glass, and flung by means of a lantern in\ncolossal images upon a screen, all finely squared, and the careful\nexperts marking and measuring their several convolutions. And then\noff goes a brisk clerk to the long galleries of the index\nbuilding.\n\nI have told them they will find no sign of us, but you see him going\nfrom gallery to gallery, from bay to bay, from drawer to drawer, and\nfrom card to card. \"Here he is!\" he mutters to himself, and he whips\nout a card and reads. \"But that is impossible!\" he says....\n\nYou figure us returning after a day or so of such Utopian\nexperiences as I must presently describe, to the central office in\nLucerne, even as we have been told to do.\n\nI make my way to the desk of the man who has dealt with us before.\n\"Well?\" I say, cheerfully, \"have you heard?\"\n\nHis expression dashes me a little. \"We've heard,\" he says, and adds,\n\"it's very peculiar.\"\n\n\"I told you you wouldn't find out about us,\" I say,\ntriumphantly.\n\n\"But we have,\" he says; \"but that makes your freak none the less\nremarkable.\"\n\n\"You've heard! You know who we are! Well--tell us! We had an idea,\nbut we're beginning to doubt.\"\n\n\"You,\" says the official, addressing the botanist, \"are----!\"\n\nAnd he breathes his name. Then he turns to me and gives me mine.\n\nFor a moment I am dumbfounded. Then I think of the entries we made\nat the inn in the Urserenthal, and then in a flash I have the truth.\nI rap the desk smartly with my finger-tips and shake my index-finger\nin my friend's face.\n\n\"By Jove!\" I say in English. \"They've got our doubles!\"\n\nThe botanist snaps his fingers. \"Of course! I didn't think of\nthat.\"\n\n\"Do you mind,\" I say to this official, \"telling us some more about\nourselves?\"\n\n\"I can't think why you keep it up,\" he remarks, and then almost\nwearily tells me the facts about my Utopian self. They are a little\ndifficult to understand. He says I am one of the samurai, which\nsounds Japanese, \"but you will be degraded,\" he says, with a gesture\nalmost of despair. He describes my position in this world in phrases\nthat convey very little.\n\n\"The queer thing,\" he remarks, \"is that you were in Norway only\nthree days ago.\"\n\n\"I am there still. At least----. I'm sorry to be so much trouble to\nyou, but do you mind following up that last clue and inquiring if\nthe person to whom the thumb-mark really belongs isn't in Norway\nstill?\"\n\nThe idea needs explanation. He says something incomprehensible about\na pilgrimage. \"Sooner or later,\" I say, \"you will have to believe\nthere are two of us with the same thumb-mark. I won't trouble you\nwith any apparent nonsense about other planets and so forth again.\nHere I am. If I was in Norway a few days ago, you ought to be able\nto trace my journey hither. And my friend?\"\n\n\"He was in India.\" The official is beginning to look perplexed.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" I say, \"that the difficulties in this case are\nonly just beginning. How did I get from Norway hither? Does my\nfriend look like hopping from India to the Saint Gotthard at one\nhop? The situation is a little more difficult than that----\"\n\n\"But here!\" says the official, and waves what are no doubt\nphotographic copies of the index cards.\n\n\"But we are not those individuals!\"\n\n\"You _are_ those individuals.\"\n\n\"You will see,\" I say.\n\nHe dabs his finger argumentatively upon the thumb-marks. \"I see\nnow,\" he says.\n\n\"There is a mistake,\" I maintain, \"an unprecedented mistake. There's\nthe difficulty. If you inquire you will find it begin to unravel.\nWhat reason is there for us to remain casual workmen here, when you\nallege we are men of position in the world, if there isn't something\nwrong? We shall stick to this wood-carving work you have found us\nhere, and meanwhile I think you ought to inquire again. That's how\nthe thing shapes to me.\"\n\n\"Your case will certainly have to be considered further,\" he says,\nwith the faintest of threatening notes in his tone. \"But at the same\ntime\"--hand out to those copies from the index again--\"there you\nare, you know!\"\n\n\nSection 8\n\nWhen my botanist and I have talked over and exhausted every\npossibility of our immediate position, we should turn, I think, to\nmore general questions.\n\nI should tell him the thing that was becoming more and more apparent\nin my own mind. Here, I should say, is a world, obviously on the\nface of it well organised. Compared with our world, it is like a\nwell-oiled engine beside a scrap-heap. It has even got this\nconfounded visual organ swivelling about in the most alert and\nlively fashion. But that's by the way.... You have only to look at\nall these houses below. (We should be sitting on a seat on the\nGutsch and looking down on the Lucerne of Utopia, a Lucerne that\nwould, I insist, quite arbitrarily, still keep the Wasserthurm and\nthe Kapellbrucke.) You have only to mark the beauty, the simple\ncleanliness and balance of this world, you have only to see the free\ncarriage, the unaffected graciousness of even the common people, to\nunderstand how fine and complete the arrangements of this world must\nbe. How are they made so? We of the twentieth century are not going\nto accept the sweetish, faintly nasty slops of Rousseauism that so\ngratified our great-great-grandparents in the eighteenth. We know\nthat order and justice do not come by Nature--\"if only the policeman\nwould go away.\" These things mean intention, will, carried to a\nscale that our poor vacillating, hot and cold earth has never known.\nWhat I am really seeing more and more clearly is the will beneath\nthis visible Utopia. Convenient houses, admirable engineering that\nis no offence amidst natural beauties, beautiful bodies, and a\nuniversally gracious carriage, these are only the outward and\nvisible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. Such an order means\ndiscipline. It means triumph over the petty egotisms and vanities\nthat keep men on our earth apart; it means devotion and a nobler\nhope; it cannot exist without a gigantic process of inquiry, trial,\nforethought and patience in an atmosphere of mutual trust and\nconcession. Such a world as this Utopia is not made by the chance\noccasional co-operations of self-indulgent men, by autocratic rulers\nor by the bawling wisdom of the democratic leader. And an\nunrestricted competition for gain, an enlightened selfishness, that\ntoo fails us....\n\nI have compared the system of indexing humanity we have come upon to\nan eye, an eye so sensitive and alert that two strangers cannot\nappear anywhere upon the planet without discovery. Now an eye does\nnot see without a brain, an eye does not turn round and look without\na will and purpose. A Utopia that deals only with appliances and\narrangements is a dream of superficialities; the essential problem\nhere, the body within these garments, is a moral and an intellectual\nproblem. Behind all this material order, these perfected\ncommunications, perfected public services and economic organisations,\nthere must be men and women willing these things. There must be a\nconsiderable number and a succession of these men and women of will.\nNo single person, no transitory group of people, could order and\nsustain this vast complexity. They must have a collective if not\na common width of aim, and that involves a spoken or written\nliterature, a living literature to sustain the harmony of their\ngeneral activity. In some way they must have put the more\nimmediate objects of desire into a secondary place, and that means\nrenunciation. They must be effectual in action and persistent in\nwill, and that means discipline. But in the modern world in which\nprogress advances without limits, it will be evident that whatever\ncommon creed or formula they have must be of the simplest sort;\nthat whatever organisation they have must be as mobile and flexible\nas a thing alive. All this follows inevitably from the general\npropositions of our Utopian dream. When we made those, we bound\nourselves helplessly to come to this....\n\nThe botanist would nod an abstracted assent.\n\nI should cease to talk. I should direct my mind to the confused mass\nof memories three days in Utopia will have given us. Besides the\npersonalities with whom we have come into actual contact, our\nvarious hosts, our foreman and work-fellows, the blond man, the\npublic officials and so on, there will be a great multitude of\nother impressions. There will be many bright snapshots of little\nchildren, for example, of girls and women and men, seen in shops and\noffices and streets, on quays, at windows and by the wayside, people\nriding hither and thither and walking to and fro. A very human crowd\nit has seemed to me. But among them were there any who might be\nthought of as having a wider interest than the others, who seemed in\nany way detached from the rest by a purpose that passed beyond the\nseen?\n\nThen suddenly I recall that clean-shaven man who talked with us for\na little while in the public office at Wassen, the man who reminded\nme of my boyish conception of a Knight Templar, and with him come\nmomentary impressions of other lithe and serious-looking people\ndressed after the same manner, words and phrases we have read in\nsuch scraps of Utopian reading as have come our way, and expressions\nthat fell from the loose mouth of the man with the blond\nhair....\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SIXTH\n\nWomen in a Modern Utopia\n\n\nSection 1\n\nBut though I have come to a point where the problem of a Utopia has\nresolved itself very simply into the problem of government and\ndirection, I find I have not brought the botanist with me. Frankly\nhe cannot think so steadily onward as I can. I feel to think, he\nthinks to feel. It is I and my kind that have the wider range,\nbecause we can be impersonal as well as personal. We can escape\nourselves. In general terms, at least, I understand him, but\nhe does not understand me in any way at all. He thinks me an\nincomprehensible brute because his obsession is merely one of my\nincidental interests, and wherever my reasoning ceases to be\nexplicit and full, the slightest ellipsis, the most transitory\ndigression, he evades me and is back at himself again. He may have a\npersonal liking for me, though I doubt it, but also he hates me\npretty distinctly, because of this bias he cannot understand. My\nphilosophical insistence that things shall be reasonable and hang\ntogether, that what can be explained shall be explained, and that\nwhat can be done by calculation and certain methods shall not be\nleft to chance, he loathes. He just wants adventurously to feel. He\nwants to feel the sunset, and he thinks that on the whole he would\nfeel it better if he had not been taught the sun was about\nninety-two million miles away. He wants to feel free and strong, and\nhe would rather feel so than be so. He does not want to accomplish\ngreat things, but to have dazzling things occur to him. He does not\nknow that there are feelings also up in the clear air of the\nphilosophic mountains, in the long ascents of effort and design. He\ndoes not know that thought itself is only a finer sort of feeling\nthan his--good hock to the mixed gin, porter and treacle of his\nemotions, a perception of similitudes and oppositions that carries\neven thrills. And naturally he broods on the source of all his most\ncopious feelings and emotions, women, and particularly upon the\nwoman who has most made him feel. He forces me also to that.\n\nOur position is unfortunate for me. Our return to the Utopian\nequivalent of Lucerne revives in him all the melancholy distresses\nthat so preoccupied him when first we were transferred to this\nbetter planet. One day, while we are still waiting there for the\npublic office to decide about us, he broaches the matter. It is\nearly evening, and we are walking beside the lake after our simple\ndinner. \"About here,\" he says, \"the quays would run and all those\nbig hotels would be along here, looking out on the lake. It's so\nstrange to have seen them so recently, and now not to see them at\nall.... Where have they gone?\"\n\n\"Vanished by hypothesis.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Oh! They're there still. It's we that have come hither.\"\n\n\"Of course. I forgot. But still---- You know, there was an avenue of\nlittle trees along this quay with seats, and she was sitting looking\nout upon the lake.... I hadn't seen her for ten years.\"\n\nHe looks about him still a little perplexed. \"Now we are here,\" he\nsays, \"it seems as though that meeting and the talk we had must have\nbeen a dream.\"\n\nHe falls musing.\n\nPresently he says: \"I knew her at once. I saw her in profile. But,\nyou know, I didn't speak to her directly. I walked past her seat and\non for a little way, trying to control myself.... Then I turned back\nand sat down beside her, very quietly. She looked up at me.\nEverything came back--everything. For a moment or so I felt I was\ngoing to cry....\"\n\nThat seems to give him a sort of satisfaction even in the\nreminiscence.\n\n\"We talked for a time just like casual acquaintances--about the view\nand the weather, and things like that.\"\n\nHe muses again.\n\n\"In Utopia everything would have been different,\" I say.\n\n\"I suppose it would.\"\n\nHe goes on before I can say anything more.\n\n\"Then, you know, there was a pause. I had a sort of intuition that\nthe moment was coming. So I think had she. You may scoff, of course,\nat these intuitions----\"\n\nI don't, as a matter of fact. Instead, I swear secretly. Always this\nsort of man keeps up the pretence of highly distinguished and\nremarkable mental processes, whereas--have not I, in my own\ncomposition, the whole diapason of emotional fool? Is not the\nsuppression of these notes my perpetual effort, my undying despair?\nAnd then, am I to be accused of poverty?\n\nBut to his story.\n\n\"She said, quite abruptly, 'I am not happy,' and I told her, 'I knew\nthat the instant I saw you.' Then, you know, she began to talk to me\nvery quietly, very frankly, about everything. It was only afterwards\nI began to feel just what it meant, her talking to me like that.\"\n\nI cannot listen to this!\n\n\"Don't you understand,\" I cry, \"that we are in Utopia. She may be\nbound unhappily upon earth and you may be bound, but not here. Here\nI think it will be different. Here the laws that control all these\nthings will be humane and just. So that all you said and did, over\nthere, does not signify here--does not signify here!\"\n\nHe looks up for a moment at my face, and then carelessly at my\nwonderful new world.\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, without interest, with something of the tone of an\nabstracted elder speaking to a child, \"I dare say it will be all\nvery fine here.\" And he lapses, thwarted from his confidences, into\nmusing.\n\nThere is something almost dignified in this withdrawal into himself.\nFor a moment I entertain an illusion that really I am unworthy to\nhear the impalpable inconclusiveness of what he said to her and of\nwhat she said to him.\n\nI am snubbed. I am also amazed to find myself snubbed. I become\nbreathless with indignation. We walk along side by side, but now\nprofoundly estranged.\n\nI regard the facade of the Utopian public offices of Lucerne--I had\nmeant to call his attention to some of the architectural features of\nthese--with a changed eye, with all the spirit gone out of my\nvision. I wish I had never brought this introspective carcass, this\nmental ingrate, with me.\n\nI incline to fatalistic submission. I suppose I had no power to\nleave him behind.... I wonder and I wonder. The old Utopists never\nhad to encumber themselves with this sort of man.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nHow would things be \"different\" in the Modern Utopia? After all it\nis time we faced the riddle of the problems of marriage and\nmotherhood....\n\nThe Modern Utopia is not only to be a sound and happy World State,\nbut it is to be one progressing from good to better. But as Malthus\n[Footnote: Essay on the Principles of Population.] demonstrated for\nall time, a State whose population continues to increase in\nobedience to unchecked instinct, can progress only from bad to\nworse. From the view of human comfort and happiness, the increase of\npopulation that occurs at each advance in human security is the\ngreatest evil of life. The way of Nature is for every species to\nincrease nearly to its possible maximum of numbers, and then to\nimprove through the pressure of that maximum against its limiting\nconditions by the crushing and killing of all the feebler\nindividuals. The way of Nature has also been the way of humanity so\nfar, and except when a temporary alleviation is obtained through an\nexpansion of the general stock of sustenance by invention or\ndiscovery, the amount of starvation and of the physical misery of\nprivation in the world, must vary almost exactly with the excess of\nthe actual birth-rate over that required to sustain population at a\nnumber compatible with a universal contentment. Neither has Nature\nevolved, nor has man so far put into operation, any device by which\npaying this price of progress, this misery of a multitude of starved\nand unsuccessful lives can be evaded. A mere indiscriminating\nrestriction of the birth-rate--an end practically attained in the\nhomely, old-fashioned civilisation of China by female infanticide,\ninvolves not only the cessation of distresses but stagnation, and\nthe minor good of a sort of comfort and social stability is won at\ntoo great a sacrifice. Progress depends essentially on competitive\nselection, and that we may not escape.\n\nBut it is a conceivable and possible thing that this margin of\nfutile struggling, pain and discomfort and death might be reduced to\nnearly nothing without checking physical and mental evolution, with\nindeed an acceleration of physical and mental evolution, by\npreventing the birth of those who would in the unrestricted\ninterplay of natural forces be born to suffer and fail. The method\nof Nature \"red in tooth and claw\" is to degrade, thwart, torture,\nand kill the weakest and least adapted members of every species in\nexistence in each generation, and so keep the specific average\nrising; the ideal of a scientific civilisation is to prevent those\nweaklings being born. There is no other way of evading Nature's\npunishment of sorrow. The struggle for life among the beasts and\nuncivilised men means misery and death for the inferior individuals,\nmisery and death in order that they may not increase and multiply;\nin the civilised State it is now clearly possible to make the\nconditions of life tolerable for every living creature, provided the\ninferiors can be prevented from increasing and multiplying. But this\nlatter condition must be respected. Instead of competing to escape\ndeath and wretchedness, we may compete to give birth and we may heap\nevery sort of consolation prize upon the losers in that competition.\nThe modern State tends to qualify inheritance, to insist upon\neducation and nurture for children, to come in more and more in the\ninterests of the future between father and child. It is taking over\nthe responsibility of the general welfare of the children more and\nmore, and as it does so, its right to decide which children it will\nshelter becomes more and more reasonable.\n\nHow far will such conditions be prescribed? how far can they be\nprescribed in a Modern Utopia?\n\nLet us set aside at once all nonsense of the sort one hears in\ncertain quarters about the human stud farm. [Footnote: See Mankind\nin the Making, Ch. II.] State breeding of the population was a\nreasonable proposal for Plato to make, in view of the biological\nknowledge of his time and the purely tentative nature of his\nmetaphysics; but from anyone in the days after Darwin, it is\npreposterous. Yet we have it given to us as the most brilliant of\nmodern discoveries by a certain school of sociological writers, who\nseem totally unable to grasp the modification of meaning \"species\"\nand \"individual\" have undergone in the last fifty years. They do not\nseem capable of the suspicion that the boundaries of species have\nvanished, and that individuality now carries with it the quality of\nthe unique! To them individuals are still defective copies of a\nPlatonic ideal of the species, and the purpose of breeding no more\nthan an approximation to that perfection. Individuality is indeed a\nnegligible difference to them, an impertinence, and the whole flow\nof modern biological ideas has washed over them in vain.\n\nBut to the modern thinker individuality is the significant fact of\nlife, and the idea of the State, which is necessarily concerned with\nthe average and general, selecting individualities in order to pair\nthem and improve the race, an absurdity. It is like fixing a crane\non the plain in order to raise the hill tops. In the initiative of\nthe individual above the average, lies the reality of the future,\nwhich the State, presenting the average, may subserve but cannot\ncontrol. And the natural centre of the emotional life, the cardinal\nwill, the supreme and significant expression of individuality,\nshould lie in the selection of a partner for procreation.\n\nBut compulsory pairing is one thing, and the maintenance of general\nlimiting conditions is another, and one well within the scope of\nState activity. The State is justified in saying, before you may add\nchildren to the community for the community to educate and in part\nto support, you must be above a certain minimum of personal\nefficiency, and this you must show by holding a position of solvency\nand independence in the world; you must be above a certain age, and\na certain minimum of physical development, and free of any\ntransmissible disease. You must not be a criminal unless you have\nexpiated your offence. Failing these simple qualifications, if you\nand some person conspire and add to the population of the State, we\nwill, for the sake of humanity, take over the innocent victim of\nyour passions, but we shall insist that you are under a debt to the\nState of a peculiarly urgent sort, and one you will certainly pay,\neven if it is necessary to use restraint to get the payment out of\nyou: it is a debt that has in the last resort your liberty as a\nsecurity, and, moreover, if this thing happens a second time, or if\nit is disease or imbecility you have multiplied, we will take an\nabsolutely effectual guarantee that neither you nor your partner\noffend again in this matter.\n\n\"Harsh!\" you say, and \"Poor Humanity!\"\n\nYou have the gentler alternative to study in your terrestrial slums\nand asylums.\n\nIt may be urged that to permit conspicuously inferior people to have\none or two children in this way would be to fail to attain the\ndesired end, but, indeed, this is not so. A suitably qualified\npermission, as every statesman knows, may produce the social effects\nwithout producing the irksome pressure of an absolute prohibition.\nAmidst bright and comfortable circumstances, and with an easy and\npracticable alternative, people will exercise foresight and\nself-restraint to escape even the possibilities of hardship and\ndiscomfort; and free life in Utopia is to be well worth this trouble\neven for inferior people. The growing comfort, self-respect, and\nintelligence of the English is shown, for example, in the fall in\nthe proportion of illegitimate births from 2.2 per 1,000 in 1846-50\nto 1.2 per 1,000 in 1890-1900, and this without any positive\npreventive laws whatever. This most desirable result is pretty\ncertainly not the consequence of any great exaltation of our moral\ntone, but simply of a rising standard of comfort and a livelier\nsense of consequences and responsibilities. If so marked a change is\npossible in response to such progress as England has achieved in the\npast fifty years, if discreet restraint can be so effectual as this,\nit seems reasonable to suppose that in the ampler knowledge and the\ncleaner, franker atmosphere of our Utopian planet the birth of a\nchild to diseased or inferior parents, and contrary to the sanctions\nof the State, will be the rarest of disasters.\n\nAnd the death of a child, too, that most tragic event, Utopia will\nrarely know. Children are not born to die in childhood. But in our\nworld, at present, through the defects of our medical science and\nnursing methods, through defects in our organisation, through\npoverty and carelessness, and through the birth of children that\nnever ought to have been born, one out of every five children born\ndies within five years. It may be the reader has witnessed this most\ndistressful of all human tragedies. It is sheer waste of suffering.\nThere is no reason why ninety-nine out of every hundred children\nborn should not live to a ripe age. Accordingly, in any Modern\nUtopia, it must be insisted they will.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nAll former Utopias have, by modern standards, erred on the side of\nover regulation in these matters. The amount of State interference\nwith the marriage and birth of the citizens of a modern Utopia\nwill be much less than in any terrestrial State. Here, just as in\nrelation to property and enterprise, the law will regulate only in\norder to secure the utmost freedom and initiative.\n\nUp to the beginning of this chapter, our Utopian speculations, like\nmany Acts of Parliament, have ignored the difference of sex. \"He\"\nindeed is to be read as \"He and She\" in all that goes before. But\nwe may now come to the sexual aspects of the modern ideal of\na constitution of society in which, for all purposes of the\nindividual, women are to be as free as men. This will certainly be\nrealised in the Modern Utopia, if it can be realised at all--not\nonly for woman's sake, but for man's.\n\nBut women may be free in theory and not in practice, and as long as\nthey suffer from their economic inferiority, from the inability to\nproduce as much value as a man for the same amount of work--and\nthere can be no doubt of this inferiority--so long will their legal\nand technical equality be a mockery. It is a fact that almost\nevery point in which a woman differs from a man is an economic\ndisadvantage to her, her incapacity for great stresses of exertion,\nher frequent liability to slight illnesses, her weaker initiative,\nher inferior invention and resourcefulness, her relative incapacity\nfor organisation and combination, and the possibilities of emotional\ncomplications whenever she is in economic dependence on men. So long\nas women are compared economically with men and boys they will be\ninferior in precisely the measure in which they differ from men. All\nthat constitutes this difference they are supposed not to trade upon\nexcept in one way, and that is by winning or luring a man to marry,\nselling themselves in an almost irrevocable bargain, and then\nfollowing and sharing his fortunes for \"better or worse.\"\n\nBut--do not let the proposition in its first crudity alarm\nyou--suppose the Modern Utopia equalises things between the sexes in\nthe only possible way, by insisting that motherhood is a service to\nthe State and a legitimate claim to a living; and that, since the\nState is to exercise the right of forbidding or sanctioning\nmotherhood, a woman who is, or is becoming, a mother, is as much\nentitled to wages above the minimum wage, to support, to freedom,\nand to respect and dignity as a policeman, a solicitor-general, a\nking, a bishop in the State Church, a Government professor, or\nanyone else the State sustains. Suppose the State secures to every\nwoman who is, under legitimate sanctions, becoming or likely to\nbecome a mother, that is to say who is duly married, a certain wage\nfrom her husband to secure her against the need of toil and anxiety,\nsuppose it pays her a certain gratuity upon the birth of a child,\nand continues to pay at regular intervals sums sufficient to keep\nher and her child in independent freedom, so long as the child\nkeeps up to the minimum standard of health and physical and mental\ndevelopment. Suppose it pays more upon the child when it rises\nmarkedly above certain minimum qualifications, physical or mental,\nand, in fact, does its best to make thoroughly efficient motherhood\na profession worth following. And suppose in correlation with this\nit forbids the industrial employment of married women and of mothers\nwho have children needing care, unless they are in a position to\nemploy qualified efficient substitutes to take care of their\noffspring. What differences from terrestrial conditions will\nensue?\n\nThis extent of intervention will at least abolish two or three\nsalient hardships and evils of the civilised life. It will abolish\nthe hardship of the majority of widows, who on earth are poor and\nencumbered exactly in proportion as they have discharged the chief\ndistinctive duty of a woman, and miserable, just in proportion as\ntheir standard of life and of education is high. It will abolish the\nhardship of those who do not now marry on account of poverty, or who\ndo not dare to have children. The fear that often turns a woman from\na beautiful to a mercenary marriage will vanish from life. In Utopia\na career of wholesome motherhood would be, under such conditions as\nI have suggested, the normal and remunerative calling for a woman,\nand a capable woman who has borne, bred, and begun the education\nof eight or nine well-built, intelligent, and successful sons and\ndaughters would be an extremely prosperous woman, quite irrespective\nof the economic fortunes of the man she has married. She would need\nto be an exceptional woman, and she would need to have chosen a man\nat least a little above the average as her partner in life. But his\ndeath, or misbehaviour, or misfortunes would not ruin her.\n\nNow such an arrangement is merely the completed induction from the\nstarting propositions that make some measure of education free and\ncompulsory for every child in the State. If you prevent people\nmaking profit out of their children--and every civilised State--even\nthat compendium of old-fashioned Individualism, the United States\nof America--is now disposed to admit the necessity of that\nprohibition--and if you provide for the aged instead of leaving them\nto their children's sense of duty, the practical inducements to\nparentage, except among very wealthy people, are greatly reduced.\nThe sentimental factor in the case rarely leads to more than a\nsolitary child or at most two to a marriage, and with a high and\nrising standard of comfort and circumspection it is unlikely that\nthe birth-rate will ever rise very greatly again. The Utopians will\nhold that if you keep the children from profitable employment for\nthe sake of the future, then, if you want any but the exceptionally\nrich, secure, pious, unselfish, or reckless to bear children freely,\nyou must be prepared to throw the cost of their maintenance upon the\ngeneral community.\n\nIn short, Utopia will hold that sound childbearing and rearing is a\nservice done, not to a particular man, but to the whole community,\nand all its legal arrangements for motherhood will be based on that\nconception.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nAnd after these preliminaries we must proceed to ask, first, what\nwill be the Utopian marriage law, and then what sort of customs and\nopinions are likely to be superadded to that law?\n\nThe trend of our reasoning has brought us to the conclusion that the\nUtopian State will feel justified in intervening between men and\nwomen on two accounts, first on account of paternity, and secondly\non account of the clash of freedoms that may otherwise arise. The\nUtopian State will effectually interfere with and prescribe\nconditions for all sorts of contract, and for this sort of contract\nin particular it will be in agreement with almost every earthly\nState, in defining in the completest fashion what things a man or\nwoman may be bound to do, and what they cannot be bound to do. From\nthe point of view of a statesman, marriage is the union of a man\nand woman in a manner so intimate as to involve the probability of\noffspring, and it is of primary importance to the State, first in\norder to secure good births, and secondly good home conditions, that\nthese unions should not be free, nor promiscuous, nor practically\nuniversal throughout the adult population.\n\nProlific marriage must be a profitable privilege. It must occur only\nunder certain obvious conditions, the contracting parties must be in\nhealth and condition, free from specific transmissible taints, above\na certain minimum age, and sufficiently intelligent and energetic\nto have acquired a minimum education. The man at least must be\nin receipt of a net income above the minimum wage, after any\noutstanding charges against him have been paid. All this much\nit is surely reasonable to insist upon before the State becomes\nresponsible for the prospective children. The age at which men and\nwomen may contract to marry is difficult to determine. But if we\nare, as far as possible, to put women on an equality with men, if we\nare to insist upon a universally educated population, and if we are\nseeking to reduce the infantile death-rate to zero, it must be much\nhigher than it is in any terrestrial State. The woman should be at\nleast one-and-twenty; the man twenty-six or twenty-seven.\n\nOne imagines the parties to a projected marriage first obtaining\nlicenses which will testify that these conditions are satisfied.\nFrom the point of view of the theoretical Utopian State, these\nlicenses are the feature of primary importance. Then, no doubt, that\nuniversal register at Paris would come into play. As a matter of\njustice, there must be no deception between the two people, and the\nState will ensure that in certain broad essentials this is so. They\nwould have to communicate their joint intention to a public office\nafter their personal licenses were granted, and each would be\nsupplied with a copy of the index card of the projected mate, on\nwhich would be recorded his or her age, previous marriages, legally\nimportant diseases, offspring, domiciles, public appointments,\ncriminal convictions, registered assignments of property, and so\nforth. Possibly it might be advisable to have a little ceremony for\neach party, for each in the absence of the other, in which this\nrecord could be read over in the presence of witnesses, together\nwith some prescribed form of address of counsel in the matter. There\nwould then be a reasonable interval for consideration and withdrawal\non the part of either spouse. In the event of the two people\npersisting in their resolution, they would after this minimum\ninterval signify as much to the local official and the necessary\nentry would be made in the registers. These formalities would be\nquite independent of any religious ceremonial the contracting\nparties might choose, for with religious belief and procedure the\nmodern State has no concern.\n\nSo much for the preliminary conditions of matrimony. For those men\nand women who chose to ignore these conditions and to achieve any\nsort of union they liked the State would have no concern, unless\noffspring were born illegitimately. In that case, as we have\nalready suggested, it would be only reasonable to make the parents\nchargeable with every duty, with maintenance, education, and so\nforth, that in the normal course of things would fall to the State.\nIt would be necessary to impose a life assurance payment upon these\nparents, and to exact effectual guarantees against every possible\nevasion of the responsibility they had incurred. But the further\ncontrol of private morality, beyond the protection of the immature\nfrom corruption and evil example, will be no concern of the State's.\nWhen a child comes in, the future of the species comes in; and\nthe State comes in as the guardian of interests wider than the\nindividual's; but the adult's private life is the entirely private\nlife into which the State may not intrude.\n\nNow what will be the nature of the Utopian contract of\nmatrimony?\n\nFrom the first of the two points of view named above, that of\nparentage, it is obvious that one unavoidable condition will be the\nchastity of the wife. Her infidelity being demonstrated, must at\nonce terminate the marriage and release both her husband and the\nState from any liability for the support of her illegitimate\noffspring. That, at any rate, is beyond controversy; a marriage\ncontract that does not involve that, is a triumph of metaphysics\nover common sense. It will be obvious that under Utopian conditions\nit is the State that will suffer injury by a wife's misconduct, and\nthat a husband who condones anything of the sort will participate in\nher offence. A woman, therefore, who is divorced on this account\nwill be divorced as a public offender, and not in the key of a\npersonal quarrel; not as one who has inflicted a private and\npersonal wrong. This, too, lies within the primary implications of\nmarriage.\n\nBeyond that, what conditions should a marriage contract in Utopia\ninvolve?\n\nA reciprocal restraint on the part of the husband is clearly of no\nimportance whatever, so far as the first end of matrimony goes, the\nprotection of the community from inferior births. It is no wrong to\nthe State. But it does carry with it a variable amount of emotional\noffence to the wife; it may wound her pride and cause her violent\nperturbations of jealousy; it may lead to her neglect, her solitude\nand unhappiness, and it may even work to her physical injury. There\nshould be an implication that it is not to occur. She has bound\nherself to the man for the good of the State, and clearly it is\nreasonable that she should look to the State for relief if it does\noccur. The extent of the offence given her is the exact measure\nof her injury; if she does not mind nobody minds, and if her\nself-respect does not suffer nothing whatever is lost to the world;\nand so it should rest with her to establish his misconduct, and, if\nshe thinks fit, to terminate the marriage.\n\nA failure on either side to perform the elementary duties of\ncompanionship, desertion, for example, should obviously give the\nother mate the right to relief, and clearly the development of any\ndisqualifying habit, drunkenness, or drug-taking, or the like, or\nany serious crime or acts of violence, should give grounds for a\nfinal release. Moreover, the modern Utopian State intervenes between\nthe sexes only because of the coming generation, and for it to\nsustain restrictions upon conduct in a continually fruitless\nmarriage is obviously to lapse into purely moral intervention. It\nseems reasonable, therefore, to set a term to a marriage that\nremains childless, to let it expire at the end of three or four or\nfive unfruitful years, but with no restriction upon the right of\nthe husband and wife to marry each other again.\n\nThese are the fairly easy primaries of this question. We now come to\nthe more difficult issues of the matter. The first of these is the\nquestion of the economic relationships of husband and wife, having\nregard to the fact that even in Utopia women, at least until they\nbecome mothers, are likely to be on the average poorer than men. The\nsecond is the question of the duration of a marriage. But the two\ninterlock, and are, perhaps, best treated together in one common\nsection. And they both ramify in the most complicated manner into\nthe consideration of the general morale of the community.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nThis question of marriage is the most complicated and difficult in\nthe whole range of Utopian problems. But it is happily not the most\nurgent necessity that it should be absolutely solved. The urgent and\nnecessary problem is the ruler. With rulers rightly contrived and a\nprovisional defective marriage law a Utopia may be conceived as\nexisting and studying to perfect itself, but without rulers a Utopia\nis impossible though the theory of its matrimony be complete. And\nthe difficulty in this question is not simply the difficulty of a\ncomplicated chess problem, for example, in which the whole tangle\nof considerations does at least lie in one plane, but a series of\nproblems upon different levels and containing incommensurable\nfactors.\n\nIt is very easy to repeat our initial propositions, to recall that\nwe are on another planet, and that all the customs and traditions of\nthe earth are set aside, but the faintest realisation of that\ndemands a feat of psychological insight. We have all grown up into\nan invincible mould of suggestion about sexual things; we regard\nthis with approval, that with horror, and this again with contempt,\nvery largely because the thing has always been put to us in this\nlight or that. The more emancipated we think ourselves the more\nsubtle are our bonds. The disentanglement of what is inherent in\nthese feelings from what is acquired is an extraordinary complex\nundertaking. Probably all men and women have a more or less powerful\ndisposition to jealousy, but what exactly they will be jealous about\nand what exactly they will suffer seems part of the superposed\nfactor. Probably all men and women are capable of ideal emotions and\nwishes beyond merely physical desires, but the shape these take are\nalmost entirely a reaction to external images. And you really cannot\nstrip the external off; you cannot get your stark natural man,\njealous, but not jealous about anything in particular, imaginative\nwithout any imaginings, proud at large. Emotional dispositions can\nno more exist without form than a man without air. Only a very\nobservant man who had lived all over the planet Earth, in all sorts\nof social strata, and with every race and tongue, and who was\nendowed with great imaginative insight, could hope to understand the\npossibilities and the limitations of human plasticity in this\nmatter, and say what any men and any women could be induced to do\nwillingly, and just exactly what no man and no woman could stand,\nprovided one had the training of them. Though very young men will\ntell you readily enough. The proceedings of other races and other\nages do not seem to carry conviction; what our ancestors did, or\nwhat the Greeks or Egyptians did, though it is the direct physical\ncause of the modern young man or the modern young lady, is apt to\nimpress these remarkable consequences merely as an arrangement of\nquaint, comical or repulsive proceedings.\n\nBut there emerges to the modern inquirer certain ideals and\ndesiderata that at least go some way towards completing and\nexpanding the crude primaries of a Utopian marriage law set out\nin section 4.\n\nThe sound birth being assured, does there exist any valid reason for\nthe persistence of the Utopian marriage union?\n\nThere are two lines of reasoning that go to establish a longer\nduration for marriage. The first of these rests upon the general\nnecessity for a home and for individual attention in the case of\nchildren. Children are the results of a choice between individuals;\nthey grow well, as a rule, only in relation to sympathetic and\nkindred individualities, and no wholesale character-ignoring method\nof dealing with them has ever had a shadow of the success of the\nindividualised home. Neither Plato nor Socrates, who repudiated the\nhome, seems ever to have had to do with anything younger than a\nyoung man. Procreation is only the beginning of parentage, and even\nwhere the mother is not the direct nurse and teacher of her child,\neven where she delegates these duties, her supervision is, in the\ncommon case, essential to its welfare. Moreover, though the Utopian\nState will pay the mother, and the mother only, for the being and\nwelfare of her legitimate children, there will be a clear advantage\nin fostering the natural disposition of the father to associate his\nchild's welfare with his individual egotism, and to dispense some of\nhis energies and earnings in supplementing the common provision of\nthe State. It is an absurd disregard of a natural economy to leave\nthe innate philoprogenitiveness of either sex uncultivated. Unless\nthe parents continue in close relationship, if each is passing\nthrough a series of marriages, the dangers of a conflict of rights,\nand of the frittering away of emotions, become very grave. The\nfamily will lose homogeneity, and its individuals will have for the\nmother varied and perhaps incompatible emotional associations. The\nbalance of social advantage is certainly on the side of much more\npermanent unions, on the side of an arrangement that, subject to\nample provisions for a formal divorce without disgrace in cases of\nincompatibility, would bind, or at least enforce ideals that would\ntend to bind, a man and woman together for the whole term of her\nmaternal activity, until, that is, the last born of her children was\nno longer in need of her help.\n\nThe second system of considerations arises out of the artificiality\nof woman's position. It is a less conclusive series than the first,\nand it opens a number of interesting side vistas.\n\nA great deal of nonsense is talked about the natural equality or\ninferiority of women to men. But it is only the same quality that\ncan be measured by degrees and ranged in ascending and descending\nseries, and the things that are essentially feminine are different\nqualitatively from and incommensurable with the distinctly masculine\nthings. The relationship is in the region of ideals and conventions,\nand a State is perfectly free to determine that men and women shall\ncome to intercourse on a footing of conventional equality or with\neither the man or woman treated as the predominating individual.\nAristotle's criticism of Plato in this matter, his insistence upon\nthe natural inferiority of slaves and women, is just the sort of\nconfusion between inherent and imposed qualities that was his most\ncharacteristic weakness. The spirit of the European people, of\nalmost all the peoples now in the ascendant, is towards a convention\nof equality; the spirit of the Mahometan world is towards the\nintensification of a convention that the man alone is a citizen and\nthat the woman is very largely his property. There can be no doubt\nthat the latter of these two convenient fictions is the more\nprimitive way of regarding this relationship. It is quite unfruitful\nto argue between these ideals as if there were a demonstrable\nconclusion, the adoption of either is an arbitrary act, and we shall\nsimply follow our age and time if we display a certain bias for the\nformer.\n\nIf one looks closely into the various practical expansions of these\nideas, we find their inherent falsity works itself out in a very\nnatural way so soon as reality is touched. Those who insist upon\nequality work in effect for assimilation, for a similar treatment of\nthe sexes. Plato's women of the governing class, for example, were\nto strip for gymnastics like men, to bear arms and go to war, and\nfollow most of the masculine occupations of their class. They were\nto have the same education and to be assimilated to men at every\ndoubtful point. The Aristotelian attitude, on the other hand,\ninsists upon specialisation. The men are to rule and fight and toil;\nthe women are to support motherhood in a state of natural\ninferiority. The trend of evolutionary forces through long centuries\nof human development has been on the whole in this second direction,\nhas been towards differentiation. [Footnote: See Havelock Ellis's\nMan and Woman.] An adult white woman differs far more from a white\nman than a negress or pigmy woman from her equivalent male. The\neducation, the mental disposition, of a white or Asiatic woman,\nreeks of sex; her modesty, her decorum is not to ignore sex but to\nrefine and put a point to it; her costume is clamorous with the\ndistinctive elements of her form. The white woman in the materially\nprosperous nations is more of a sexual specialist than her sister of\nthe poor and austere peoples, of the prosperous classes more so than\nthe peasant woman. The contemporary woman of fashion who sets the\ntone of occidental intercourse is a stimulant rather than a\ncompanion for a man. Too commonly she is an unwholesome stimulant\nturning a man from wisdom to appearance, from beauty to beautiful\npleasures, from form to colour, from persistent aims to belief and\nstirring triumphs. Arrayed in what she calls distinctly \"dress,\"\nscented, adorned, displayed, she achieves by artifice a sexual\ndifferentiation profounder than that of any other vertebrated\nanimal. She outshines the peacock's excess above his mate, one must\nprobe among the domestic secrets of the insects and crustacea to\nfind her living parallel. And it is a question by no means easy and\nyet of the utmost importance, to determine how far the wide and\nwidening differences between the human sexes is inherent and\ninevitable, and how far it is an accident of social development that\nmay be converted and reduced under a different social regimen. Are\nwe going to recognise and accentuate this difference and to arrange\nour Utopian organisation to play upon it, are we to have two primary\nclasses of human being, harmonising indeed and reacting, but\nfollowing essentially different lives, or are we going to minimise\nthis difference in every possible way?\n\nThe former alternative leads either to a romantic organisation of\nsociety in which men will live and fight and die for wonderful,\nbeautiful, exaggerated creatures, or it leads to the hareem. It\nwould probably lead through one phase to the other. Women would be\nenigmas and mysteries and maternal dignitaries that one would\napproach in a state of emotional excitement and seclude piously when\nserious work was in hand. A girl would blossom from the totally\nnegligible to the mystically desirable at adolescence, and boys\nwould be removed from their mother's educational influence at as\nearly an age as possible. Whenever men and women met together, the\nmen would be in a state of inflamed competition towards one another,\nand the women likewise, and the intercourse of ideas would be in\nsuspense. Under the latter alternative the sexual relation would be\nsubordinated to friendship and companionship; boys and girls would\nbe co-educated--very largely under maternal direction, and women,\ndisarmed of their distinctive barbaric adornments, the feathers,\nbeads, lace, and trimmings that enhance their clamorous claim to a\ndirectly personal attention would mingle, according to their\nquality, in the counsels and intellectual development of men. Such\nwomen would be fit to educate boys even up to adolescence. It is\nobvious that a marriage law embodying a decision between these two\nsets of ideas would be very different according to the alternative\nadopted. In the former case a man would be expected to earn and\nmaintain in an adequate manner the dear delight that had favoured\nhim. He would tell her beautiful lies about her wonderful moral\neffect upon him, and keep her sedulously from all responsibility and\nknowledge. And, since there is an undeniably greater imaginative\nappeal to men in the first bloom of a woman's youth, she would have\na distinct claim upon his energies for the rest of her life. In the\nlatter case a man would no more pay for and support his wife than\nshe would do so for him. They would be two friends, differing in\nkind no doubt but differing reciprocally, who had linked themselves\nin a matrimonial relationship. Our Utopian marriage so far as we\nhave discussed it, is indeterminate between these alternatives.\n\nWe have laid it down as a general principle that the private morals\nof an adult citizen are no concern for the State. But that involves\na decision to disregard certain types of bargain. A sanely contrived\nState will refuse to sustain bargains wherein there is no plausibly\nfair exchange, and if private morality is really to be outside the\nscope of the State then the affections and endearments most\ncertainly must not be regarded as negotiable commodities. The State,\ntherefore, will absolutely ignore the distribution of these favours\nunless children, or at least the possibility of children, is\ninvolved. It follows that it will refuse to recognise any debts or\ntransfers of property that are based on such considerations. It will\nbe only consistent, therefore, to refuse recognition in the marriage\ncontract to any financial obligation between husband and wife, or\nany settlements qualifying that contract, except when they are in\nthe nature of accessory provision for the prospective children.\n[Footnote: Unqualified gifts for love by solvent people will, of\ncourse, be quite possible and permissible, unsalaried services and\nthe like, provided the standard of life is maintained and the joint\nincome of the couple between whom the services hold does not sink\nbelow twice the minimum wage.] So far the Utopian State will throw\nits weight upon the side of those who advocate the independence of\nwomen and their conventional equality with men.\n\nBut to any further definition of the marriage relation the World\nState of Utopia will not commit itself. The wide range of\nrelationships that are left possible, within and without the\nmarriage code, are entirely a matter for the individual choice and\nimagination. Whether a man treat his wife in private as a goddess to\nbe propitiated, as a \"mystery\" to be adored, as an agreeable\nauxiliary, as a particularly intimate friend, or as the wholesome\nmother of his children, is entirely a matter for their private\nintercourse: whether he keep her in Oriental idleness or active\nco-operation, or leave her to live her independent life, rests with\nthe couple alone, and all the possible friendship and intimacies\noutside marriage also lie quite beyond the organisation of the\nmodern State. Religious teaching and literature may affect these;\ncustoms may arise; certain types of relationship may involve social\nisolation; the justice of the statesman is blind to such things. It\nmay be urged that according to Atkinson's illuminating analysis\n[Footnote: See Lang and Atkinson's Social Origins and Primal Law.]\nthe control of love-making was the very origin of the human\ncommunity. In Utopia, nevertheless, love-making is no concern of the\nState's beyond the province that the protection of children covers.\n[Footnote: It cannot be made too clear that though the control of\nmorality is outside the law the State must maintain a general\ndecorum, a systematic suppression of powerful and moving examples,\nand of incitations and temptations of the young and inexperienced,\nand to that extent it will, of course, in a sense, exercise a\ncontrol over morals. But this will be only part of a wider law to\nsafeguard the tender mind. For example, lying advertisements, and\nthe like, when they lean towards adolescent interests, will\nencounter a specially disagreeable disposition in the law, over and\nabove the treatment of their general dishonesty.] Change of function\nis one of the ruling facts in life, the sac that was in our remotest\nancestors a swimming bladder is now a lung, and the State which was\nonce, perhaps, no more than the jealous and tyrannous will of the\nstrongest male in the herd, the instrument of justice and equality.\nThe State intervenes now only where there is want of harmony between\nindividuals--individuals who exist or who may presently come into\nexistence.\n\n\nSection 6\n\nIt must be reiterated that our reasoning still leaves Utopian\nmarriage an institution with wide possibilities of variation. We\nhave tried to give effect to the ideal of a virtual equality, an\nequality of spirit between men and women, and in doing so we have\noverridden the accepted opinion of the great majority of mankind.\nProbably the first writer to do as much was Plato. His argument in\nsupport of this innovation upon natural human feeling was thin\nenough--a mere analogy to illustrate the spirit of his propositions;\nit was his creative instinct that determined him. In the atmosphere\nof such speculations as this, Plato looms very large indeed, and in\nview of what we owe to him, it seems reasonable that we should\nhesitate before dismissing as a thing prohibited and evil, a type of\nmarriage that he made almost the central feature in the organisation\nof the ruling class, at least, of his ideal State. He was persuaded\nthat the narrow monogamic family is apt to become illiberal and\nanti-social, to withdraw the imagination and energies of the citizen\nfrom the services of the community as a whole, and the Roman\nCatholic Church has so far endorsed and substantiated his opinion as\nto forbid family relations to its priests and significant servants.\nHe conceived of a poetic devotion to the public idea, a devotion of\nwhich the mind of Aristotle, as his criticisms of Plato show, was\nincapable, as a substitute for the warm and tender but illiberal\nemotions of the home. But while the Church made the alternative to\nfamily ties celibacy [Footnote: The warm imagination of Campanella,\nthat quaint Calabrian monastic, fired by Plato, reversed this aspect\nof the Church.] and participation in an organisation, Plato was far\nmore in accordance with modern ideas in perceiving the disadvantage\nthat would result from precluding the nobler types of character from\noffspring. He sought a way to achieve progeny, therefore, without\nthe narrow concentration of the sympathies about the home, and he\nfound it in a multiple marriage in which every member of the\ngoverning class was considered to be married to all the others. But\nthe detailed operation of this system he put tentatively and very\nobscurely. His suggestions have the experimental inconsistency of an\nenquiring man. He left many things altogether open, and it is unfair\nto him to adopt Aristotle's forensic method and deal with his\ndiscussion as though it was a fully-worked-out project. It is clear\nthat Plato intended every member of his governing class to be so\n\"changed at birth\" as to leave paternity untraceable; mothers were\nnot to know their children, nor children their parents, but there is\nnothing to forbid the supposition that he intended these people to\nselect and adhere to congenial mates within the great family.\nAristotle's assertion that the Platonic republic left no scope for\nthe virtue of continence shows that he had jumped to just the same\nconclusions a contemporary London errand boy, hovering a little\nshamefacedly over Jowett in a public library, might be expected to\nreach.\n\nAristotle obscures Plato's intention, it may be accidentally, by\nspeaking of his marriage institution as a community of wives. When\nreading Plato he could not or would not escape reading in his own\nconception of the natural ascendency of men, his idea of property in\nwomen and children. But as Plato intended women to be conventionally\nequal to men, this phrase belies him altogether; community of\nhusbands and wives would be truer to his proposal. Aristotle\ncondemns Plato as roundly as any commercial room would condemn him\nto-day, and in much the same spirit; he asserts rather than proves\nthat such a grouping is against the nature of man. He wanted to have\nwomen property just as he wanted to have slaves property, he did not\ncare to ask why, and it distressed his conception of convenience\nextremely to imagine any other arrangement. It is no doubt true that\nthe natural instinct of either sex is exclusive of participators in\nintimacy during a period of intimacy, but it was probably Aristotle\nwho gave Plato an offensive interpretation in this matter. No one\nwould freely submit to such a condition of affairs as multiple\nmarriage carried out, in the spirit of the Aristotelian\ninterpretation, to an obscene completeness, but that is all the more\nreason why the modern Utopia should not refuse a grouped marriage to\nthree or more freely consenting persons. There is no sense in\nprohibiting institutions which no sane people could ever want to\nabuse. It is claimed--though the full facts are difficult to\nascertain--that a group marriage of over two hundred persons was\nsuccessfully organised by John Humphrey Noyes at Oneida Creek.\n[Footnote: See John H. Noyes's History of American Socialisms and\nhis writings generally. The bare facts of this and the other\nAmerican experiments are given, together with more recent matter, by\nMorris Hillquirt, in The History of Socialism in the United States.]\nIt is fairly certain in the latter case that there was no\n\"promiscuity,\" and that the members mated for variable periods, and\noften for life, within the group. The documents are reasonably clear\nupon that point. This Oneida community was, in fact, a league of two\nhundred persons to regard their children as \"common.\" Choice and\npreference were not abolished in the community, though in some cases\nthey were set aside--just as they are by many parents under our\npresent conditions. There seems to have been a premature attempt at\n\"stirpiculture,\" at what Mr. Francis Galton now calls \"Eugenics,\" in\nthe mating of the members, and there was also a limitation of\noffspring. Beyond these points the inner secrets of the community do\nnot appear to be very profound; its atmosphere was almost\ncommonplace, it was made up of very ordinary people. There is no\ndoubt that it had a career of exceptional success throughout the\nwhole lifetime of its founder, and it broke down with the advent of\na new generation, with the onset of theological differences, and the\nloss of its guiding intelligence. The Anglo-Saxon spirit, it has\nbeen said by one of the ablest children of the experiment, is too\nindividualistic for communism. It is possible to regard the\ntemporary success of this complex family as a strange accident, as\nthe wonderful exploit of what was certainly a very exceptional man.\nIts final disintegration into frankly monogamic couples--it is still\na prosperous business association--may be taken as an experimental\nverification of Aristotle's common-sense psychology, and was\nprobably merely the public acknowledgment of conditions already\npractically established.\n\nOut of respect for Plato we cannot ignore this possibility of\nmultiple marriage altogether in our Utopian theorising, but even if\nwe leave this possibility open we are still bound to regard it as a\nthing so likely to be rare as not to come at all under our direct\nobservation during our Utopian journeyings. But in one sense, of\ncourse, in the sense that the State guarantees care and support for\nall properly born children, our entire Utopia is to be regarded as a\ncomprehensive marriage group. [Footnote: The Thelema of Rabelais,\nwith its principle of \"Fay ce que vouldras\" within the limits of the\norder, is probably intended to suggest a Platonic complex marriage\nafter the fashion of our interpretation.]\n\nIt must be remembered that a modern Utopia must differ from the\nUtopias of any preceding age in being world-wide; it is not,\ntherefore, to be the development of any special race or type of\nculture, as Plato's developed an Athenian-Spartan blend, or More,\nTudor England. The modern Utopia is to be, before all things,\nsynthetic. Politically and socially, as linguistically, we must\nsuppose it a synthesis; politically it will be a synthesis of once\nwidely different forms of government; socially and morally, a\nsynthesis of a great variety of domestic traditions and ethical\nhabits. Into the modern Utopia there must have entered the mental\ntendencies and origins that give our own world the polygamy of the\nZulus and of Utah, the polyandry of Tibet, the latitudes of\nexperiment permitted in the United States, and the divorceless\nwedlock of Comte. The tendency of all synthetic processes in matters\nof law and custom is to reduce and simplify the compulsory canon, to\nadmit alternatives and freedoms; what were laws before become\ntraditions of feeling and style, and in no matter will this be more\napparent than in questions affecting the relations of the sexes.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SEVENTH\n\nA Few Utopian Impressions\n\n\nSection 1\n\nBut now we are in a better position to describe the houses and ways\nof the Utopian townships about the Lake of Lucerne, and to glance a\nlittle more nearly at the people who pass. You figure us as\ncuriously settled down in Utopia, as working for a low wage at\nwood-carving, until the authorities at the central registry in Paris\ncan solve the perplexing problem we have set them. We stay in an inn\nlooking out upon the lake, and go to and fro for our five hours'\nwork a day, with a curious effect of having been born Utopians. The\nrest of our time is our own.\n\nOur inn is one of those inns and lodging houses which have a minimum\ntariff, inns which are partly regulated, and, in the default\nof private enterprise, maintained and controlled by the World\nState throughout the entire world. It is one of several such\nestablishments in Lucerne. It possesses many hundreds of practically\nself-cleaning little bedrooms, equipped very much after the fashion\nof the rooms we occupied in the similar but much smaller inn at\nHospenthal, differing only a little in the decoration. There is\nthe same dressing-room recess with its bath, the same graceful\nproportion in the succinct simplicity of its furniture. This\nparticular inn is a quadrangle after the fashion of an Oxford\ncollege; it is perhaps forty feet high, and with about five stories\nof bedrooms above its lower apartments; the windows of the rooms\nlook either outward or inward to the quadrangle, and the doors give\nupon artificially-lit passages with staircases passing up and down.\nThese passages are carpeted with a sort of cork carpet, but are\notherwise bare. The lower story is occupied by the equivalent of a\nLondon club, kitchens and other offices, dining-room, writing-room,\nsmoking and assembly rooms, a barber's shop, and a library. A\ncolonnade with seats runs about the quadrangle, and in the middle\nis a grass-plot. In the centre of this a bronze figure, a sleeping\nchild, reposes above a little basin and fountain, in which water\nlilies are growing. The place has been designed by an architect\nhappily free from the hampering traditions of Greek temple building,\nand of Roman and Italian palaces; it is simple, unaffected,\ngracious. The material is some artificial stone with the dull\nsurface and something of the tint of yellow ivory; the colour is a\nlittle irregular, and a partial confession of girders and pillars\nbreaks this front of tender colour with lines and mouldings of\ngreenish gray, that blend with the tones of the leaden gutters and\nrain pipes from the light red roof. At one point only does any\nexplicit effort towards artistic effect appear, and that is in the\ngreat arched gateway opposite my window. Two or three abundant\nyellow roses climb over the face of the building, and when I look\nout of my window in the early morning--for the usual Utopian working\nday commences within an hour of sunrise--I see Pilatus above this\noutlook, rosy in the morning sky.\n\nThis quadrangle type of building is the prevalent element in Utopian\nLucerne, and one may go from end to end of the town along corridors\nand covered colonnades without emerging by a gateway into the open\nroads at all. Small shops are found in these colonnades, but the\nlarger stores are usually housed in buildings specially adapted to\ntheir needs. The majority of the residential edifices are far finer\nand more substantial than our own modest shelter, though we gather\nfrom such chance glimpses as we get of their arrangements that the\nlabour-saving ideal runs through every grade of this servantless\nworld; and what we should consider a complete house in earthly\nEngland is hardly known here.\n\nThe autonomy of the household has been reduced far below terrestrial\nconditions by hotels and clubs, and all sorts of co-operative\nexpedients. People who do not live in hotels seem usually to live in\nclubs. The fairly prosperous Utopian belongs, in most cases, to one\nor two residential clubs of congenial men and women. These clubs\nusually possess in addition to furnished bedrooms more or less\nelaborate suites of apartments, and if a man prefers it one of these\nlatter can be taken and furnished according to his personal taste. A\npleasant boudoir, a private library and study, a private garden\nplot, are among the commonest of such luxuries. Devices to secure\nroof gardens, loggias, verandahs, and such-like open-air privacies\nto the more sumptuous of these apartments, give interest and variety\nto Utopian architecture. There are sometimes little cooking corners\nin these flats--as one would call them on earth--but the ordinary\nUtopian would no more think of a special private kitchen for his\ndinners than he would think of a private flour mill or dairy farm.\nBusiness, private work, and professional practice go on sometimes in\nthe house apartments, but often in special offices in the great\nwarren of the business quarter. A common garden, an infant school,\nplay rooms, and a playing garden for children, are universal\nfeatures of the club quadrangles.\n\nTwo or three main roads with their tramways, their cyclists' paths,\nand swift traffic paths, will converge on the urban centre, where\nthe public offices will stand in a group close to the two or three\ntheatres and the larger shops, and hither, too, in the case of\nLucerne, the head of the swift railway to Paris and England and\nScotland, and to the Rhineland and Germany will run. And as one\nwalks out from the town centre one will come to that mingling of\nhomesteads and open country which will be the common condition of\nall the more habitable parts of the globe.\n\nHere and there, no doubt, will stand quite solitary homesteads,\nhomesteads that will nevertheless be lit and warmed by cables from\nthe central force station, that will share the common water supply,\nwill have their perfected telephonic connection with the rest of\nthe world, with doctor, shop, and so forth, and may even have\na pneumatic tube for books and small parcels to the nearest\npost-office. But the solitary homestead, as a permanent residence,\nwill be something of a luxury--the resort of rather wealthy garden\nlovers; and most people with a bias for retirement will probably get\nas much residential solitude as they care for in the hire of a\nholiday chalet in a forest, by remote lagoons or high up the\nmountain side.\n\nThe solitary house may indeed prove to be very rare indeed in\nUtopia. The same forces, the same facilitation of communications\nthat will diffuse the towns will tend to little concentrations of\nthe agricultural population over the country side. The field workers\nwill probably take their food with them to their work during the\nday, and for the convenience of an interesting dinner and of\ncivilised intercourse after the working day is over, they will most\nprobably live in a college quadrangle with a common room and club. I\ndoubt if there will be any agricultural labourers drawing wages in\nUtopia. I am inclined to imagine farming done by tenant\nassociations, by little democratic unlimited liability companies\nworking under elected managers, and paying not a fixed rent but a\nshare of the produce to the State. Such companies could reconstruct\nannually to weed out indolent members. [Footnote: Schemes for the\nco-operative association of producers will be found in Dr. Hertzka's\nFreeland.] A minimum standard of efficiency in farming would be\ninsured by fixing a minimum beneath which the rent must not fall,\nand perhaps by inspection. The general laws respecting the standard\nof life would, of course, apply to such associations. This type of\nco-operation presents itself to me as socially the best arrangement\nfor productive agriculture and horticulture, but such enterprises\nas stock breeding, seed farming and the stocking and loan of\nagricultural implements are probably, and agricultural research and\nexperiment certainly, best handled directly by large companies or\nthe municipality or the State.\n\nBut I should do little to investigate this question; these are\npresented as quite incidental impressions. You must suppose that for\nthe most part our walks and observations keep us within the more\nurban quarters of Lucerne. From a number of beautifully printed\nplacards at the street corners, adorned with caricatures of\nconsiderable pungency, we discover an odd little election is in\nprogress. This is the selection, upon strictly democratic lines,\nwith a suffrage that includes every permanent resident in the\nLucerne ward over the age of fifteen, of the ugliest local building.\nThe old little urban and local governing bodies, we find, have long\nsince been superseded by great provincial municipalities for all the\nmore serious administrative purposes, but they still survive to\ndischarge a number of curious minor functions, and not the least\namong these is this sort of aesthetic ostracism. Every year every\nminor local governing body pulls down a building selected by local\nplebiscite, and the greater Government pays a slight compensation to\nthe owner, and resumes possession of the land it occupies. The idea\nwould strike us at first as simply whimsical, but in practice it\nappears to work as a cheap and practical device for the aesthetic\neducation of builders, engineers, business men, opulent persons, and\nthe general body of the public. But when we come to consider its\napplication to our own world we should perceive it was the most\nUtopian thing we had so far encountered.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nThe factory that employs us is something very different from the\nordinary earthly model. Our business is to finish making little\nwooden toys--bears, cattle men, and the like--for children. The\nthings are made in the rough by machinery, and then finished by\nhand, because the work of unskilful but interested men--and it\nreally is an extremely amusing employment--is found to give a\npersonality and interest to these objects no machine can ever\nattain.\n\nWe carvers--who are the riffraff of Utopia--work in a long shed\ntogether, nominally by time; we must keep at the job for the length\nof the spell, but we are expected to finish a certain number of toys\nfor each spell of work. The rules of the game as between employer\nand employed in this particular industry hang on the wall behind us;\nthey are drawn up by a conference of the Common Council of Wages\nWorkers with the employers, a common council which has resulted in\nUtopia from a synthesis of the old Trades Unions, and which has\nbecome a constitutional power; but any man who has skill or humour\nis presently making his own bargain with our employer more or less\nabove that datum line.\n\nOur employer is a quiet blue-eyed man with a humorous smile. He\ndresses wholly in an indigo blue, that later we come to consider a\nsort of voluntary uniform for Utopian artists. As he walks about\nthe workshop, stopping to laugh at this production or praise that,\none is reminded inevitably of an art school. Every now and then\nhe carves a little himself or makes a sketch or departs to the\nmachinery to order some change in the rough shapes it is turning\nout. Our work is by no means confined to animals. After a time I am\ntold to specialise in a comical little Roman-nosed pony; but several\nof the better paid carvers work up caricature images of eminent\nUtopians. Over these our employer is most disposed to meditate, and\nfrom them he darts off most frequently to improve the type.\n\nIt is high summer, and our shed lies open at either end. On one hand\nis a steep mountain side down which there comes, now bridging a\nchasm, now a mere straight groove across a meadow, now hidden among\ngreen branches, the water-slide that brings our trees from the\npurple forest overhead. Above us, but nearly hidden, hums the\nmachine shed, but we see a corner of the tank into which, with a\nmighty splash, the pine trees are delivered. Every now and then,\nbringing with him a gust of resinous smell, a white-clad machinist\nwill come in with a basketful of crude, unwrought little images, and\nwill turn them out upon the table from which we carvers select\nthem.\n\n(Whenever I think of Utopia that faint and fluctuating smell of\nresin returns to me, and whenever I smell resin, comes the memory of\nthe open end of the shed looking out upon the lake, the blue-green\nlake, the boats mirrored in the water, and far and high beyond\nfloats the atmospheric fairyland of the mountains of Glarus, twenty\nmiles away.)\n\nThe cessation of the second and last spell of work comes about\nmidday, and then we walk home, through this beautiful intricacy of a\ntown to our cheap hotel beside the lake.\n\nWe should go our way with a curious contentment, for all that we\nwere earning scarcely more than the minimum wage. We should have, of\ncourse, our uneasiness about the final decisions of that universal\neye which has turned upon us, we should have those ridiculous sham\nnumbers on our consciences; but that general restlessness, that\nbrooding stress that pursues the weekly worker on earth, that aching\nanxiety that drives him so often to stupid betting, stupid drinking,\nand violent and mean offences will have vanished out of mortal\nexperience.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nI should find myself contrasting my position with my preconceptions\nabout a Utopian visit. I had always imagined myself as standing\noutside the general machinery of the State--in the distinguished\nvisitors' gallery, as it were--and getting the new world in a series\nof comprehensive perspective views. But this Utopia, for all the\nsweeping floats of generalisation I do my best to maintain, is\nswallowing me up. I find myself going between my work and the room\nin which I sleep and the place in which I dine, very much as I went\nto and fro in that real world into which I fell five-and-forty years\nago. I find about me mountains and horizons that limit my view,\ninstitutions that vanish also without an explanation, beyond the\nlimit of sight, and a great complexity of things I do not understand\nand about which, to tell the truth, I do not formulate acute\ncuriosities. People, very unrepresentative people, people just as\ncasual as people in the real world, come into personal relations\nwith us, and little threads of private and immediate interest spin\nthemselves rapidly into a thickening grey veil across the general\nview. I lose the comprehensive interrogation of my first arrival; I\nfind myself interested in the grain of the wood I work, in birds\namong the tree branches, in little irrelevant things, and it is only\nnow and then that I get fairly back to the mood that takes all\nUtopia for its picture.\n\nWe spend our first surplus of Utopian money in the reorganisation\nof our wardrobes upon more Utopian lines; we develop acquaintance\nwith several of our fellow workers, and of those who share our\ntable at the inn. We pass insensibly into acquaintanceships and the\nbeginnings of friendships. The World Utopia, I say, seems for a time\nto be swallowing me up. At the thought of detail it looms too big\nfor me. The question of government, of its sustaining ideas, of\nrace, and the wider future, hang like the arch of the sky over these\ndaily incidents, very great indeed, but very remote. These people\nabout me are everyday people, people not so very far from the\nminimum wage, accustomed much as the everyday people of earth are\naccustomed to take their world as they find it. Such enquiries as\nI attempt are pretty obviously a bore to them, pass outside their\nrange as completely as Utopian speculation on earth outranges a\nstevedore or a member of Parliament or a working plumber. Even the\nlittle things of daily life interest them in a different way. So\nI get on with my facts and reasoning rather slowly. I find myself\nlooking among the pleasant multitudes of the streets for types that\npromise congenial conversation.\n\nMy sense of loneliness is increased during this interlude by the\nbetter social success of the botanist. I find him presently falling\ninto conversation with two women who are accustomed to sit at a\ntable near our own. They wear the loose, coloured robes of soft\nmaterial that are the usual wear of common adult Utopian women; they\nare both dark and sallow, and they affect amber and crimson in their\ngarments. Their faces strike me as a little unintelligent, and there\nis a faint touch of middle-aged coquetry in their bearing that I do\nnot like. Yet on earth we should consider them women of exceptional\nrefinement. But the botanist evidently sees in this direction scope\nfor the feelings that have wilted a little under my inattention, and\nhe begins that petty intercourse of a word, of a slight civility, of\nvague enquiries and comparisons that leads at last to associations\nand confidences. Such superficial confidences, that is to say, as he\nfinds satisfactory.\n\nThis throws me back upon my private observations.\n\nThe general effect of a Utopian population is vigour. Everyone one\nmeets seems to be not only in good health but in training; one\nrarely meets fat people, bald people, or bent or grey. People who\nwould be obese or bent and obviously aged on earth are here in\ngood repair, and as a consequence the whole effect of a crowd\nis livelier and more invigorating than on earth. The dress is\nvaried and graceful; that of the women reminds one most of the\nItalian fifteenth century; they have an abundance of soft and\nbeautifully-coloured stuffs, and the clothes, even of the poorest,\nfit admirably. Their hair is very simply but very carefully and\nbeautifully dressed, and except in very sunny weather they do not\nwear hats or bonnets. There is little difference in deportment\nbetween one class and another; they all are graceful and bear\nthemselves with quiet dignity, and among a group of them a European\nwoman of fashion in her lace and feathers, her hat and metal\nornaments, her mixed accumulations of \"trimmings,\" would look like a\nbarbarian tricked out with the miscellaneous plunder of a museum.\nBoys and girls wear much the same sort of costume--brown leather\nshoes, then a sort of combination of hose and close-fitting trousers\nthat reaches from toe to waist, and over this a beltless jacket\nfitting very well, or a belted tunic. Many slender women wear the\nsame sort of costume. We should see them in it very often in such\na place as Lucerne, as they returned from expeditions in the\nmountains. The older men would wear long robes very frequently, but\nthe greater proportion of the men would go in variations of much the\nsame costume as the children. There would certainly be hooded cloaks\nand umbrellas for rainy weather, high boots for mud and snow, and\ncloaks and coats and furry robes for the winter. There would be no\ndoubt a freer use of colour than terrestrial Europe sees in these\ndays, but the costume of the women at least would be soberer and\nmore practical, and (in harmony with our discussion in the previous\nchapter) less differentiated from the men's.\n\nBut these, of course, are generalisations. These are the mere\ntranslation of the social facts we have hypotheticated into the\nlanguage of costume. There will be a great variety of costume and\nno compulsions. The doubles of people who are naturally foppish on\nearth will be foppish in Utopia, and people who have no natural\ntaste on earth will have inartistic equivalents. Everyone will not\nbe quiet in tone, or harmonious, or beautiful. Occasionally, as I go\nthrough the streets to my work, I shall turn round to glance again\nat some robe shot with gold embroidery, some slashing of the\nsleeves, some eccentricity of cut, or some discord or untidiness.\nBut these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of\nharmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect\nof disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of\nridicule, that it has in the crudely competitive civilisations of\nearth.\n\nI shall have the seeker's attitude of mind during those few days at\nLucerne. I shall become a student of faces. I shall be, as it were,\nlooking for someone. I shall see heavy faces, dull faces, faces with\nan uncongenial animation, alien faces, and among these some with an\nimmediate quality of appeal. I should see desirable men approaching\nme, and I should think; \"Now, if I were to speak to _you_?\" Many of\nthese latter I should note wore the same clothing as the man who\nspoke to us at Wassen; I should begin to think of it as a sort of\nuniform....\n\nThen I should see grave-faced girls, girls of that budding age when\ntheir bearing becomes delusively wise, and the old deception of\nmy youth will recur to me; \"Could you and I but talk together?\"\nI should think. Women will pass me lightly, women with open and\ninviting faces, but they will not attract me, and there will come\nbeautiful women, women with that touch of claustral preoccupation\nwhich forbids the thought of any near approach. They are private and\nsecret, and I may not enter, I know, into their thoughts....\n\nI go as often as I can to the seat by the end of old Kapelbrucke,\nand watch the people passing over.\n\nI shall find a quality of dissatisfaction throughout all these days.\nI shall come to see this period more and more distinctly as a pause,\nas a waiting interlude, and the idea of an encounter with my double,\nwhich came at first as if it were a witticism, as something verbal\nand surprising, begins to take substance. The idea grows in my mind\nthat after all this is the \"someone\" I am seeking, this Utopian self\nof mine. I had at first an idea of a grotesque encounter, as of\nsomething happening in a looking glass, but presently it dawns on me\nthat my Utopian self must be a very different person from me. His\ntraining will be different, his mental content different. But\nbetween us there will be a strange link of essential identity, a\nsympathy, an understanding. I find the thing rising suddenly to a\npreponderance in my mind. I find the interest of details dwindling\nto the vanishing point. That I have come to Utopia is the lesser\nthing now; the greater is that I have come to meet myself.\n\nI spend hours trying to imagine the encounter, inventing little\ndialogues. I go alone to the Bureau to find if any news has come to\nhand from the Great Index in Paris, but I am told to wait another\ntwenty-four hours. I cease absolutely to be interested in anything\nelse, except so far as it leads towards intercourse with this being\nwho is to be at once so strangely alien and so totally mine.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nWrapped up in these preoccupations as I am, it will certainly be the\nbotanist who will notice the comparative absence of animals about\nus.\n\nHe will put it in the form of a temperate objection to the Utopian\nplanet.\n\nHe is a professed lover of dogs and there are none. We have seen no\nhorses and only one or two mules on the day of our arrival, and\nthere seems not a cat in the world. I bring my mind round to his\nsuggestion. \"This follows,\" I say.\n\nIt is only reluctantly that I allow myself to be drawn from my\nsecret musings into a discussion of Utopian pets.\n\nI try to explain that a phase in the world's development is\ninevitable when a systematic world-wide attempt will be made to\ndestroy for ever a great number of contagious and infectious\ndiseases, and that this will involve, for a time at any rate, a\nstringent suppression of the free movement of familiar animals.\nUtopian houses, streets and drains will be planned and built to make\nrats, mice, and such-like house parasites impossible; the race of\ncats and dogs--providing, as it does, living fastnesses to which\nsuch diseases as plague, influenza, catarrhs and the like, can\nretreat to sally forth again--must pass for a time out of freedom,\nand the filth made by horses and the other brutes of the highway\nvanish from the face of the earth. These things make an old story to\nme, and perhaps explicitness suffers through my brevity.\n\nMy botanist fails altogether to grasp what the disappearance of\ndiseases means. His mind has no imaginative organ of that compass.\nAs I talk his mind rests on one fixed image. This presents what the\nbotanist would probably call a \"dear old doggie\"--which the botanist\nwould make believe did not possess any sensible odour--and it has\nfaithful brown eyes and understands everything you say. The botanist\nwould make believe it understood him mystically, and I figure his\nlong white hand--which seems to me, in my more jaundiced moments, to\nexist entirely for picking things and holding a lens--patting its\nhead, while the brute looked things unspeakable....\n\nThe botanist shakes his head after my explanation and says quietly,\n\"I do not like your Utopia, if there are to be no dogs.\"\n\nPerhaps that makes me a little malicious. Indeed I do not hate dogs,\nbut I care ten thousand times more for a man than for all the brutes\non the earth, and I can see, what the botanist I think cannot, that\na life spent in the delightful atmosphere of many pet animals may\nhave too dear a price....\n\nI find myself back again at the comparison of the botanist and\nmyself. There is a profound difference in our imaginations, and I\nwonder whether it is the consequence of innate character or of\ntraining and whether he is really the human type or I. I am not\naltogether without imagination, but what imagination I have has the\nmost insistent disposition to square itself with every fact in the\nuniverse. It hypothesises very boldly, but on the other hand it will\nnot gravely make believe. Now the botanist's imagination is always\nbusy with the most impossible make-believe. That is the way with all\nchildren I know. But it seems to me one ought to pass out of it. It\nisn't as though the world was an untidy nursery; it is a place of\nsplendours indescribable for all who will lift its veils. It may be\nhe is essentially different from me, but I am much more inclined to\nthink he is simply more childish. Always it is make-believe. He\nbelieves that horses are beautiful creatures for example, dogs are\nbeautiful creatures, that some women are inexpressibly lovely, and\nhe makes believe that this is always so. Never a word of criticism\nof horse or dog or woman! Never a word of criticism of his\nimpeccable friends! Then there is his botany. He makes believe that\nall the vegetable kingdom is mystically perfect and exemplary, that\nall flowers smell deliciously and are exquisitely beautiful, that\nDrosera does not hurt flies very much, and that onions do not smell.\nMost of the universe does not interest this nature lover at all. But\nI know, and I am querulously incapable of understanding why everyone\nelse does not know, that a horse is beautiful in one way and quite\nugly in another, that everything has this shot-silk quality, and is\nall the finer for that. When people talk of a horse as an ugly\nanimal I think of its beautiful moments, but when I hear a flow of\nindiscriminate praise of its beauty I think of such an aspect as one\ngets for example from a dog-cart, the fiddle-shaped back, and that\ndistressing blade of the neck, the narrow clumsy place between the\nears, and the ugly glimpse of cheek. There is, indeed, no beauty\nwhatever save that transitory thing that comes and comes again; all\nbeauty is really the beauty of expression, is really kinetic and\nmomentary. That is true even of those triumphs of static endeavour\nachieved by Greece. The Greek temple, for example, is a barn with a\nface that at a certain angle of vision and in a certain light has a\ngreat calm beauty.\n\nBut where are we drifting? All such things, I hold, are cases of\nmore and less, and of the right moment and the right aspect, even\nthe things I most esteem. There is no perfection, there is no\nenduring treasure. This pet dog's beautiful affection, I say, or\nthis other sensuous or imaginative delight, is no doubt good, but it\ncan be put aside if it is incompatible with some other and wider\ngood. You cannot focus all good things together.\n\nAll right action and all wise action is surely sound judgment and\ncourageous abandonment in the matter of such incompatibilities. If\nI cannot imagine thoughts and feelings in a dog's brain that cannot\npossibly be there, at least I can imagine things in the future of\nmen that might be there had we the will to demand them....\n\n\"I don't like this Utopia,\" the botanist repeats. \"You don't\nunderstand about dogs. To me they're human beings--and more! There\nused to be such a jolly old dog at my aunt's at Frognal when I was\na boy----\"\n\nBut I do not heed his anecdote. Something--something of the nature\nof conscience--has suddenly jerked back the memory of that beer I\ndrank at Hospenthal, and puts an accusing finger on the memory.\n\nI never have had a pet animal, I confess, though I have been fairly\npopular with kittens. But with regard to a certain petting of\nmyself----?\n\nPerhaps I was premature about that beer. I have had no pet animals,\nbut I perceive if the Modern Utopia is going to demand the sacrifice\nof the love of animals, which is, in its way, a very fine thing\nindeed, so much the more readily may it demand the sacrifice of many\nother indulgences, some of which are not even fine in the lowest\ndegree.\n\nIt is curious this haunting insistence upon sacrifice and\ndiscipline!\n\nIt is slowly becoming my dominant thought that the sort of people\nwhose will this Utopia embodies must be people a little heedless of\nsmall pleasures. You cannot focus all good things at the same time.\nThat is my chief discovery in these meditations at Lucerne. Much of\nthe rest of this Utopia I had in a sort of way anticipated, but not\nthis. I wonder if I shall see my Utopian self for long and be able\nto talk to him freely....\n\nWe lie in the petal-strewn grass under some Judas trees beside the\nlake shore, as I meander among these thoughts, and each of us,\ndisregardful of his companion, follows his own associations.\n\n\"Very remarkable,\" I say, discovering that the botanist has come to\nan end with his story of that Frognal dog.\n\n\"You'd wonder how he knew,\" he says.\n\n\"You would.\"\n\nI nibble a green blade.\n\n\"Do you realise quite,\" I ask, \"that within a week we shall face our\nUtopian selves and measure something of what we might have\nbeen?\"\n\nThe botanist's face clouds. He rolls over, sits up abruptly and puts\nhis lean hands about his knees.\n\n\"I don't like to think about it,\" he says. \"What is the good of\nreckoning ... might have beens?\"\n\n\nSection 5\n\nIt is pleasant to think of one's puzzling the organised wisdom of\nso superior a planet as this Utopia, this moral monster State my\nFrankenstein of reasoning has made, and to that pitch we have come.\nWhen we are next in the presence of our Lucerne official, he has the\nbearing of a man who faces a mystification beyond his powers, an\nincredible disarrangement of the order of Nature. Here, for the\nfirst time in the records of Utopian science, are two cases--not\nsimply one but two, and these in each other's company!--of\nduplicated thumb-marks. This, coupled with a cock-and-bull story\nof an instantaneous transfer from some planet unknown to Utopian\nastronomy. That he and all his world exists only upon a hypothesis\nthat would explain everyone of these difficulties absolutely, is\nscarcely likely to occur to his obviously unphilosophic mind.\n\nThe official eye is more eloquent than the official lips and asks\nalmost urgently, \"What in this immeasurable universe have you\nmanaged to do to your thumbs? And why?\" But he is only a very\ninferior sort of official indeed, a mere clerk of the post, and he\nhas all the guarded reserve of your thoroughly unoriginal man. \"You\nare not the two persons I ascertained you were,\" he says, with the\nnote of one resigned to communion with unreason; \"because you\"--he\nindicates me--\"are evidently at your residence in London.\" I smile.\n\"That gentleman\"--he points a pen at the botanist in a manner that\nis intended to dismiss my smile once for all--\"will be in London\nnext week. He will be returning next Friday from a special mission\nto investigate the fungoid parasites that have been attacking the\ncinchona trees in Ceylon.\"\n\nThe botanist blesses his heart.\n\n\"Consequently\"--the official sighs at the burthen of such nonsense,\n\"you will have to go and consult with--the people you ought to\nbe.\"\n\nI betray a faint amusement.\n\n\"You will have to end by believing in our planet,\" I say.\n\nHe waggles a negation with his head. He would intimate his position\nis too responsible a one for jesting, and both of us in our several\nways enjoy the pleasure we poor humans have in meeting with\nintellectual inferiority. \"The Standing Committee of Identification,\"\nhe says, with an eye on a memorandum, \"has remitted your case to the\nResearch Professor of Anthropology in the University of London, and\nthey want you to go there, if you will, and talk to him.\"\n\n\"What else can we do?\" says the botanist.\n\n\"There's no positive compulsion,\" he remarks, \"but your work here\nwill probably cease. Here----\" he pushed the neat slips of paper\ntowards us--\"are your tickets for London, and a small but sufficient\nsupply of money,\"--he indicates two piles of coins and paper on\neither hand of him--\"for a day or so there.\" He proceeds in the\nsame dry manner to inform us we are invited to call at our earliest\nconvenience upon our doubles, and upon the Professor, who is to\ninvestigate our case.\n\n\"And then?\"\n\nHe pulls down the corners of his mouth in a wry deprecatory smile,\neyes us obliquely under a crumpled brow, shrugs his shoulders, and\nshows us the palms of his hands.\n\nOn earth, where there is nationality, this would have been a\nFrenchman--the inferior sort of Frenchman--the sort whose only\nhappiness is in the routine security of Government employment.\n\n\nSection 6\n\nLondon will be the first Utopian city centre we shall see.\n\nWe shall find ourselves there with not a little amazement. It will\nbe our first experience of the swift long distance travel of Utopia,\nand I have an idea--I know not why--that we should make the journey\nby night. Perhaps I think so because the ideal of long-distance\ntravel is surely a restful translation less suitable for the active\nhours.\n\nWe shall dine and gossip and drink coffee at the pretty little\ntables under the lantern-lit trees, we shall visit the theatre, and\ndecide to sup in the train, and so come at last to the station.\nThere we shall find pleasant rooms with seats and books--luggage\nall neatly elsewhere--and doors that we shall imagine give upon a\nplatform. Our cloaks and hats and such-like outdoor impedimenta will\nbe taken in the hall and neatly labelled for London, we shall\nexchange our shoes for slippers there, and we shall sit down like\nmen in a club. An officious little bell will presently call our\nattention to a label \"London\" on the doorway, and an excellent\nphonograph will enforce that notice with infinite civility. The\ndoors will open, and we shall walk through into an equally\ncomfortable gallery.\n\n\"Where is the train for London?\" we shall ask a uniformed fellow\nUtopian.\n\n\"This is the train for London,\" he will say.\n\nThere will be a shutting of doors, and the botanist and I, trying\nnot to feel too childish, will walk exploring through the capacious\ntrain.\n\nThe resemblance to a club will strike us both. \"A _good_ club,\" the\nbotanist will correct me.\n\nWhen one travels beyond a certain speed, there is nothing but\nfatigue in looking out of a window, and this corridor train, twice\nthe width of its poor terrestrial brother, will have no need of that\ndistraction. The simple device of abandoning any but a few windows,\nand those set high, gives the wall space of the long corridors to\nbooks; the middle part of the train is indeed a comfortable library\nwith abundant armchairs and couches, each with its green-shaded\nlight, and soft carpets upon the soundproof floor. Further on will\nbe a news-room, with a noiseless but busy tape at one corner,\nprinting off messages from the wires by the wayside, and further\nstill, rooms for gossip and smoking, a billiard room, and the dining\ncar. Behind we shall come to bedrooms, bathrooms, the hairdresser,\nand so forth.\n\n\"When shall we start?\" I ask presently, as we return, rather like\nbashful yokels, to the library, and the old gentleman reading the\nArabian Nights in the armchair in the corner glances up at me with a\nsudden curiosity.\n\nThe botanist touches my arm and nods towards a pretty little\nlead-paned window, through which we see a village sleeping under\ncloudy moonlight go flashing by. Then a skylit lake, and then a\nstring of swaying lights, gone with the leap of a camera\nshutter.\n\nTwo hundred miles an hour!\n\nWe resort to a dignified Chinese steward and secure our berths. It\nis perhaps terrestrial of us that we do not think of reading the\nUtopian literature that lines the middle part of the train. I\nfind a bed of the simple Utopian pattern, and lie for a time\nthinking--quite tranquilly--of this marvellous adventure.\n\nI wonder why it is that to lie securely in bed, with the light out,\nseems ever the same place, wherever in space one may chance to be?\nAnd asleep, there is no space for us at all. I become drowsy and\nincoherent and metaphysical....\n\nThe faint and fluctuating drone of the wheels below the car,\nre-echoed by the flying track, is more perceptible now, but it is\nnot unpleasantly loud, merely a faint tinting of the quiet....\n\nNo sea crossing breaks our journey; there is nothing to prevent a\nChannel tunnel in that other planet; and I wake in London.\n\nThe train has been in London some time when I awake, for these\nmarvellous Utopians have discovered that it is not necessary to\nbundle out passengers from a train in the small hours, simply\nbecause they have arrived. A Utopian train is just a peculiar kind\nof hotel corridor that flies about the earth while one sleeps.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nHow will a great city of Utopia strike us?\n\nTo answer that question well one must needs be artist and engineer,\nand I am neither. Moreover, one must employ words and phrases that\ndo not exist, for this world still does not dream of the things that\nmay be done with thought and steel, when the engineer is\nsufficiently educated to be an artist, and the artistic intelligence\nhas been quickened to the accomplishment of an engineer. How can one\nwrite of these things for a generation which rather admires that\ninconvenient and gawky muddle of ironwork and Flemish architecture,\nthe London Tower Bridge. When before this, temerarious anticipators\nhave written of the mighty buildings that might someday be, the\nillustrator has blended with the poor ineffectual splutter of the\nauthor's words, his powerful suggestion that it amounted simply to\nsomething bulbous, florid and fluent in the vein of the onion, and\nL'Art Nouveau. But here, it may be, the illustrator will not\nintervene.\n\nArt has scarcely begun in the world.\n\nThere have been a few forerunners and that is all. Leonardo, Michael\nAngelo; how they would have exulted in the liberties of steel! There\nare no more pathetic documents in the archives of art than\nLeonardo's memoranda. In these, one sees him again and again\nreaching out as it were, with empty desirous hands, towards the\nunborn possibilities of the engineer. And Durer, too, was a Modern,\nwith the same turn towards creative invention. In our times these\nmen would have wanted to make viaducts, to bridge wild and\ninaccessible places, to cut and straddle great railways athwart the\nmountain masses of the world. You can see, time after time, in\nDurer's work, as you can see in the imaginary architectural\nlandscape of the Pompeian walls, the dream of structures, lighter\nand bolder than stone or brick can yield.... These Utopian town\nbuildings will be the realisation of such dreams.\n\nHere will be one of the great meeting places of mankind. Here--I\nspeak of Utopian London--will be the traditional centre of one of\nthe great races in the commonalty of the World State--and here will\nbe its social and intellectual exchange. There will be a mighty\nUniversity here, with thousands of professors and tens of thousands\nof advanced students, and here great journals of thought and\nspeculation, mature and splendid books of philosophy and science,\nand a glorious fabric of literature will be woven and shaped, and\nwith a teeming leisureliness, put forth. Here will be stupendous\nlibraries, and a mighty organisation of museums. About these centres\nwill cluster a great swarm of people, and close at hand will be\nanother centre, for I who am an Englishman must needs stipulate that\nWestminster shall still be a seat of world Empire, one of several\nseats, if you will--where the ruling council of the world assembles.\nThen the arts will cluster round this city, as gold gathers about\nwisdom, and here Englishmen will weave into wonderful prose and\nbeautiful rhythms and subtly atmospheric forms, the intricate,\naustere and courageous imagination of our race.\n\nOne will come into this place as one comes into a noble mansion.\nThey will have flung great arches and domes of glass above the wider\nspaces of the town, the slender beauty of the perfect metal-work far\noverhead will be softened to a fairy-like unsubstantiality by the\nmild London air. It will be the London air we know, clear of filth\nand all impurity, the same air that gives our October days their\nunspeakable clarity and makes every London twilight mysteriously\nbeautiful. We shall go along avenues of architecture that will be\nemancipated from the last memories of the squat temple boxes of the\nGreek, the buxom curvatures of Rome; the Goth in us will have taken\nto steel and countless new materials as kindly as once he took to\nstone. The gay and swiftly moving platforms of the public ways will\ngo past on either hand, carrying sporadic groups of people, and very\nspeedily we shall find ourselves in a sort of central space, rich\nwith palms and flowering bushes and statuary. We shall look along an\navenue of trees, down a wide gorge between the cliffs of crowded\nhotels, the hotels that are still glowing with internal lights, to\nwhere the shining morning river streams dawnlit out to sea.\n\nGreat multitudes of people will pass softly to and fro in this\ncentral space, beautiful girls and youths going to the University\nclasses that are held in the stately palaces about us, grave and\ncapable men and women going to their businesses, children meandering\nalong to their schools, holiday makers, lovers, setting out\nupon a hundred quests; and here we shall ask for the two we more\nparticularly seek. A graceful little telephone kiosk will put us\nwithin reach of them, and with a queer sense of unreality I shall\nfind myself talking to my Utopian twin. He has heard of me, he wants\nto see me and he gives me clear directions how to come to him.\n\nI wonder if my own voice sounds like that.\n\n\"Yes,\" I say, \"then I will come as soon as we have been to our\nhotel.\"\n\nWe indulge in no eloquence upon this remarkable occasion. Yet I feel\nan unusual emotional stir. I tremble greatly, and the telephonic\nmouthpiece rattles as I replace it.\n\nAnd thence the botanist and I walk on to the apartments that have\nbeen set aside for us, and into which the poor little rolls of the\nproperty that has accumulated about us in Utopia, our earthly\nraiment, and a change of linen and the like, have already been\ndelivered. As we go I find I have little to say to my companion,\nuntil presently I am struck by a transitory wonder that he should\nhave so little to say to me.\n\n\"I can still hardly realise,\" I say, \"that I am going to see\nmyself--as I might have been.\"\n\n\"No,\" he says, and relapses at once into his own preoccupation.\n\nFor a moment my wonder as to what he should be thinking about brings\nme near to a double self-forgetfulness.\n\nI realise we are at the entrance of our hotel before I can formulate\nany further remark.\n\n\"This is the place,\" I say.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE EIGHTH\n\nMy Utopian Self\n\n\nSection 1\n\nIt falls to few of us to interview our better selves. My Utopian self\nis, of course, my better self--according to my best endeavours--and\nI must confess myself fully alive to the difficulties of the\nsituation. When I came to this Utopia I had no thought of any such\nintimate self-examination.\n\nThe whole fabric of that other universe sways for a moment as I come\ninto his room, into his clear and ordered work-room. I am trembling.\nA figure rather taller than myself stands against the light.\n\nHe comes towards me, and I, as I advance to meet him, stumble\nagainst a chair. Then, still without a word, we are clasping\nhands.\n\nI stand now so that the light falls upon him, and I can see his face\nbetter. He is a little taller than I, younger looking and sounder\nlooking; he has missed an illness or so, and there is no scar over\nhis eye. His training has been subtly finer than mine; he has made\nhimself a better face than mine.... These things I might have\ncounted upon. I can fancy he winces with a twinge of sympathetic\nunderstanding at my manifest inferiority. Indeed, I come, trailing\nclouds of earthly confusion and weakness; I bear upon me all the\ndefects of my world. He wears, I see, that white tunic with the\npurple band that I have already begun to consider the proper Utopian\nclothing for grave men, and his face is clean shaven. We forget to\nspeak at first in the intensity of our mutual inspection. When at\nlast I do gain my voice it is to say something quite different from\nthe fine, significant openings of my premeditated dialogues.\n\n\"You have a pleasant room,\" I remark, and look about a little\ndisconcerted because there is no fireplace for me to put my back\nagainst, or hearthrug to stand upon. He pushes me a chair, into\nwhich I plump, and we hang over an immensity of conversational\npossibilities.\n\n\"I say,\" I plunge, \"what do you think of me? You don't think I'm an\nimpostor?\"\n\n\"Not now that I have seen you. No.\"\n\n\"Am I so like you?\"\n\n\"Like me and your story--exactly.\"\n\n\"You haven't any doubt left?\" I ask.\n\n\"Not in the least, since I saw you enter. You come from the world\nbeyond Sirius, twin to this. Eh?\"\n\n\"And you don't want to know how I got here?\"\n\n\"I've ceased even to wonder how I got here,\" he says, with a laugh\nthat echoes mine.\n\nHe leans back in his chair, and I in mine, and the absurd parody of\nour attitude strikes us both.\n\n\"Well?\" we say, simultaneously, and laugh together.\n\nI will confess this meeting is more difficult even than I\nanticipated.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nOur conversation at that first encounter would do very little to\ndevelop the Modern Utopia in my mind. Inevitably, it would be\npersonal and emotional. He would tell me how he stood in his world,\nand I how I stood in mine. I should have to tell him things, I\nshould have to explain things----.\n\nNo, the conversation would contribute nothing to a modern\nUtopia.\n\nAnd so I leave it out.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nBut I should go back to my botanist in a state of emotional\nrelaxation. At first I should not heed the fact that he, too, had\nbeen in some manner stirred. \"I have seen him,\" I should say,\nneedlessly, and seem to be on the verge of telling the untellable.\nThen I should fade off into: \"It's the strangest thing.\"\n\nHe would interrupt me with his own preoccupation. \"You know,\" he\nwould say, \"I've seen someone.\"\n\nI should pause and look at him.\n\n\"She is in this world,\" he says.\n\n\"Who is in this world?\"\n\n\"Mary!\"\n\nI have not heard her name before, but I understand, of course, at\nonce.\n\n\"I saw her,\" he explains.\n\n\"Saw her?\"\n\n\"I'm certain it was her. Certain. She was far away across those\ngardens near here--and before I had recovered from my amazement she\nhad gone! But it was Mary.\"\n\nHe takes my arm. \"You know I did not understand this,\" he says. \"I\ndid not really understand that when you said Utopia, you meant I was\nto meet her--in happiness.\"\n\n\"I didn't.\"\n\n\"It works out at that.\"\n\n\"You haven't met her yet.\"\n\n\"I shall. It makes everything different. To tell you the truth I've\nrather hated this Utopia of yours at times. You mustn't mind my\nsaying it, but there's something of the Gradgrind----\"\n\nProbably I should swear at that.\n\n\"What?\" he says.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"But you spoke?\"\n\n\"I was purring. I'm a Gradgrind--it's quite right--anything you can\nsay about Herbert Spencer, vivisectors, materialistic Science or\nAtheists, applies without correction to me. Begbie away! But now you\nthink better of a modern Utopia? Was the lady looking well?\"\n\n\"It was her real self. Yes. Not the broken woman I met--in the real\nworld.\"\n\n\"And as though she was pining for you.\"\n\nHe looks puzzled.\n\n\"Look there!\" I say.\n\nHe looks.\n\nWe are standing high above the ground in the loggia into which our\napartments open, and I point across the soft haze of the public\ngardens to a tall white mass of University buildings that rises with\na free and fearless gesture, to lift saluting pinnacles against the\nclear evening sky. \"Don't you think that rather more beautiful\nthan--say--our National Gallery?\"\n\nHe looks at it critically. \"There's a lot of metal in it,\" he\nobjects. \"What?\"\n\nI purred. \"But, anyhow, whatever you can't see in that, you can, I\nsuppose, see that it is different from anything in your world--it\nlacks the kindly humanity of a red-brick Queen Anne villa residence,\nwith its gables and bulges, and bow windows, and its stained\nglass fanlight, and so forth. It lacks the self-complacent\nunreasonableness of Board of Works classicism. There's something in\nits proportions--as though someone with brains had taken a lot of\ncare to get it quite right, someone who not only knew what metal can\ndo, but what a University ought to be, somebody who had found the\nGothic spirit enchanted, petrified, in a cathedral, and had set it\nfree.\"\n\n\"But what has this,\" he asks, \"to do with her?\"\n\n\"Very much,\" I say. \"This is not the same world. If she is here, she\nwill be younger in spirit and wiser. She will be in many ways more\nrefined----\"\n\n\"No one----\" he begins, with a note of indignation.\n\n\"No, no! She couldn't be. I was wrong there. But she will be\ndifferent. Grant that at any rate. When you go forward to speak to\nher, she may not remember--very many things _you_ may remember.\nThings that happened at Frognal--dear romantic walks through the\nSunday summer evenings, practically you two alone, you in your\nadolescent silk hat and your nice gentlemanly gloves.... Perhaps\nthat did not happen here! And she may have other memories--of\nthings--that down there haven't happened. You noted her costume. She\nwasn't by any chance one of the samurai?\"\n\nHe answers, with a note of satisfaction, \"No! She wore a womanly\ndress of greyish green.\"\n\n\"Probably under the Lesser Rule.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by the Lesser Rule. She wasn't one of\nthe samurai.\"\n\n\"And, after all, you know--I keep on reminding you, and you keep on\nlosing touch with the fact, that this world contains your\ndouble.\"\n\nHe pales, and his countenance is disturbed. Thank Heaven, I've\ntouched him at last!\n\n\"This world contains your double. But, conceivably, everything may\nbe different here. The whole romantic story may have run a different\ncourse. It was as it was in our world, by the accidents of custom\nand proximity. Adolescence is a defenceless plastic period. You are\na man to form great affections,--noble, great affections. You might\nhave met anyone almost at that season and formed the same\nattachment.\"\n\nFor a time he is perplexed and troubled by this suggestion.\n\n\"No,\" he says, a little doubtfully. \"No. It was herself.\" ... Then,\nemphatically, \"No!\"\n\n\nSection 4\n\nFor a time we say no more, and I fall musing about my strange\nencounter with my Utopian double. I think of the confessions I have\njust made to him, the strange admissions both to him and myself. I\nhave stirred up the stagnations of my own emotional life, the pride\nthat has slumbered, the hopes and disappointments that have not\ntroubled me for years. There are things that happened to me in my\nadolescence that no discipline of reason will ever bring to a just\nproportion for me, the first humiliations I was made to suffer, the\nwaste of all the fine irrecoverable loyalties and passions of my\nyouth. The dull base caste of my little personal tragi-comedy--I\nhave ostensibly forgiven, I have for the most part forgotten--and\nyet when I recall them I hate each actor still. Whenever it comes\ninto my mind--I do my best to prevent it--there it is, and these\ndetestable people blot out the stars for me.\n\nI have told all that story to my double, and he has listened with\nunderstanding eyes. But for a little while those squalid memories\nwill not sink back into the deeps.\n\nWe lean, side by side, over our balcony, lost in such egotistical\nabsorptions, quite heedless of the great palace of noble dreams to\nwhich our first enterprise has brought us.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nI can understand the botanist this afternoon; for once we are in the\nsame key. My own mental temper has gone for the day, and I know what\nit means to be untempered. Here is a world and a glorious world, and\nit is for me to take hold of it, to have to do with it, here and\nnow, and behold! I can only think that I am burnt and scarred, and\nthere rankles that wretched piece of business, the mean\nunimaginative triumph of my antagonist----\n\nI wonder how many men have any real freedom of mind, are, in truth,\nunhampered by such associations, to whom all that is great and noble\nin life does not, at times at least, if not always, seem secondary\nto obscure rivalries and considerations, to the petty hates that are\nlike germs in the blood, to the lust for self-assertion, to dwarfish\npride, to affections they gave in pledge even before they were\nmen.\n\nThe botanist beside me dreams, I know, of vindications for that\nwoman.\n\nAll this world before us, and its order and liberty, are no more\nthan a painted scene before which he is to meet Her at last, freed\nfrom \"that scoundrel.\"\n\nHe expects \"that scoundrel\" really to be present and, as it were,\nwrithing under their feet....\n\nI wonder if that man _was_ a scoundrel. He has gone wrong on earth,\nno doubt, has failed and degenerated, but what was it sent him\nwrong? Was his failure inherent, or did some net of cross purposes\ntangle about his feet? Suppose he is not a failure in Utopia!...\n\nI wonder that this has never entered the botanist's head.\n\nHe, with his vaguer mind, can overlook--spite of my ruthless\nreminders--all that would mar his vague anticipations. That, too, if\nI suggested it, he would overcome and disregard. He has the most\namazing power of resistance to uncongenial ideas; amazing that is,\nto me. He hates the idea of meeting his double, and consequently so\nsoon as I cease to speak of that, with scarcely an effort of his\nwill, it fades again from his mind.\n\nDown below in the gardens two children pursue one another, and one,\nnear caught, screams aloud and rouses me from my reverie.\n\nI follow their little butterfly antics until they vanish beyond a\nthicket of flowering rhododendra, and then my eyes go back to the\ngreat facade of the University buildings.\n\nBut I am in no mood to criticise architecture.\n\nWhy should a modern Utopia insist upon slipping out of the hands of\nits creator and becoming the background of a personal drama--of such\na silly little drama?\n\nThe botanist will not see Utopia in any other way. He tests it\nentirely by its reaction upon the individual persons and things he\nknows; he dislikes it because he suspects it of wanting to lethal\nchamber his aunt's \"dear old doggie,\" and now he is reconciled to it\nbecause a certain \"Mary\" looks much younger and better here than she\ndid on earth. And here am I, near fallen into the same way of\ndealing!\n\nWe agreed to purge this State and all the people in it of\ntraditions, associations, bias, laws, and artificial entanglements,\nand begin anew; but we have no power to liberate ourselves. Our\npast, even its accidents, its accidents above all, and ourselves,\nare one.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE NINTH\n\nThe Samurai\n\n\nSection 1\n\nNeither my Utopian double nor I love emotion sufficiently to\ncultivate it, and my feelings are in a state of seemly subordination\nwhen we meet again. He is now in possession of some clear, general\nideas about my own world, and I can broach almost at once the\nthoughts that have been growing and accumulating since my arrival\nin this planet of my dreams. We find our interest in a humanised\nstate-craft, makes us, in spite of our vast difference in training\nand habits, curiously akin.\n\nI put it to him that I came to Utopia with but very vague ideas of\nthe method of government, biassed, perhaps, a little in favour of\ncertain electoral devices, but for the rest indeterminate, and\nthat I have come to perceive more and more clearly that the large\nintricacy of Utopian organisation demands more powerful and\nefficient method of control than electoral methods can give. I have\ncome to distinguish among the varied costumes and the innumerable\ntypes of personality Utopia presents, certain men and women of a\ndistinctive costume and bearing, and I know now that these people\nconstitute an order, the samurai, the \"voluntary nobility,\" which\nis essential in the scheme of the Utopian State. I know that this\norder is open to every physically and mentally healthy adult in\nthe Utopian State who will observe its prescribed austere rule of\nliving, that much of the responsible work of the State is reserved\nfor it, and I am inclined now at the first onset of realisation to\nregard it as far more significant than it really is in the Utopian\nscheme, as being, indeed, in itself and completely the Utopian\nscheme. My predominant curiosity concerns the organisation of this\norder. As it has developed in my mind, it has reminded me more and\nmore closely of that strange class of guardians which constitutes\nthe essential substance of Plato's Republic, and it is with an\nimplicit reference to Plato's profound intuitions that I and my\ndouble discuss this question.\n\nTo clarify our comparison he tells me something of the history of\nUtopia, and incidentally it becomes necessary to make a correction\nin the assumptions upon which I have based my enterprise. We are\nassuming a world identical in every respect with the real planet\nEarth, except for the profoundest differences in the mental\ncontent of life. This implies a different literature, a different\nphilosophy, and a different history, and so soon as I come to\ntalk to him I find that though it remains unavoidable that we\nshould assume the correspondence of the two populations, man for\nman--unless we would face unthinkable complications--we must assume\nalso that a great succession of persons of extraordinary character\nand mental gifts, who on earth died in childhood or at birth, or\nwho never learnt to read, or who lived and died amidst savage or\nbrutalising surroundings that gave their gifts no scope, did in\nUtopia encounter happier chances, and take up the development and\napplication of social theory--from the time of the first Utopists in\na steady onward progress down to the present hour. [Footnote: One\nmight assume as an alternative to this that amidst the four-fifths\nof the Greek literature now lost to the world, there perished,\nneglected, some book of elementary significance, some earlier\nNovum Organum, that in Utopia survived to achieve the profoundest\nconsequences.] The differences of condition, therefore, had widened\nwith each successive year. Jesus Christ had been born into a liberal\nand progressive Roman Empire that spread from the Arctic Ocean\nto the Bight of Benin, and was to know no Decline and Fall,\nand Mahomet, instead of embodying the dense prejudices of Arab\nignorance, opened his eyes upon an intellectual horizon already\nnearly as wide as the world.\n\nAnd through this empire the flow of thought, the flow of intention,\npoured always more abundantly. There were wars, but they were\nconclusive wars that established new and more permanent relations,\nthat swept aside obstructions, and abolished centres of decay; there\nwere prejudices tempered to an ordered criticism, and hatreds that\nmerged at last in tolerant reactions. It was several hundred years\nago that the great organisation of the samurai came into its present\nform. And it was this organisation's widely sustained activities\nthat had shaped and established the World State in Utopia.\n\nThis organisation of the samurai was a quite deliberate invention.\nIt arose in the course of social and political troubles and\ncomplications, analogous to those of our own time on earth, and was,\nindeed, the last of a number of political and religious experiments\ndating back to the first dawn of philosophical state-craft in\nGreece. That hasty despair of specialisation for government that\ngave our poor world individualism, democratic liberalism, and\nanarchism, and that curious disregard of the fund of enthusiasm and\nself-sacrifice in men, which is the fundamental weakness of worldly\neconomics, do not appear in the history of Utopian thought. All\nthat history is pervaded with the recognition of the fact\nthat self-seeking is no more the whole of human life than the\nsatisfaction of hunger; that it is an essential of a man's existence\nno doubt, and that under stress of evil circumstances it may as\nentirely obsess him as would the food hunt during famine, but that\nlife may pass beyond to an illimitable world of emotions and effort.\nEvery sane person consists of possibilities beyond the unavoidable\nneeds, is capable of disinterested feeling, even if it amounts only\nto enthusiasm for a sport or an industrial employment well done,\nfor an art, or for a locality or class. In our world now, as in\nthe Utopian past, this impersonal energy of a man goes out into\nreligious emotion and work, into patriotic effort, into artistic\nenthusiasms, into games and amateur employments, and an enormous\nproportion of the whole world's fund of effort wastes itself in\nreligious and political misunderstandings and conflicts, and in\nunsatisfying amusements and unproductive occupations. In a modern\nUtopia there will, indeed, be no perfection; in Utopia there\nmust also be friction, conflicts and waste, but the waste will\nbe enormously less than in our world. And the co-ordination of\nactivities this relatively smaller waste will measure, will be the\nachieved end for which the order of the samurai was first devised.\n\nInevitably such an order must have first arisen among a clash of\nsocial forces and political systems as a revolutionary organisation.\nIt must have set before itself the attainment of some such Utopian\nideal as this modern Utopia does, in the key of mortal imperfection,\nrealise. At first it may have directed itself to research and\ndiscussion, to the elaboration of its ideal, to the discussion of a\nplan of campaign, but at some stage it must have assumed a more\nmilitant organisation, and have prevailed against and assimilated\nthe pre-existing political organisations, and to all intents and\npurposes have become this present synthesised World State. Traces of\nthat militancy would, therefore, pervade it still, and a campaigning\nquality--no longer against specific disorders, but against universal\nhuman weaknesses, and the inanimate forces that trouble man--still\nremain as its essential quality.\n\n\"Something of this kind,\" I should tell my double, \"had arisen in\nour thought\"--I jerk my head back to indicate an infinitely distant\nplanet--\"just before I came upon these explorations. The idea had\nreached me, for example, of something to be called a New Republic,\nwhich was to be in fact an organisation for revolution something\nafter the fashion of your samurai, as I understand them--only most\nof the organisation and the rule of life still remained to be\ninvented. All sorts of people were thinking of something in that way\nabout the time of my coming. The idea, as it reached me, was pretty\ncrude in several respects. It ignored the high possibility of a\nsynthesis of languages in the future; it came from a literary man,\nwho wrote only English, and, as I read him--he was a little vague in\nhis proposals--it was to be a purely English-speaking movement. And\nhis ideas were coloured too much by the peculiar opportunism of his\ntime; he seemed to have more than half an eye for a prince or a\nmillionaire of genius; he seemed looking here and there for support\nand the structural elements of a party. Still, the idea of a\ncomprehensive movement of disillusioned and illuminated men behind\nthe shams and patriotisms, the spites and personalities of the\nostensible world was there.\"\n\nI added some particulars.\n\n\"Our movement had something of that spirit in the beginning,\" said\nmy Utopian double. \"But while your men seem to be thinking\ndisconnectedly, and upon a very narrow and fragmentary basis of\naccumulated conclusions, ours had a fairly comprehensive science of\nhuman association, and a very careful analysis of the failures of\npreceding beginnings to draw upon. After all, your world must be as\nfull as ours was of the wreckage and decay of previous attempts;\nchurches, aristocracies, orders, cults....\"\n\n\"Only at present we seem to have lost heart altogether, and now\nthere are no new religions, no new orders, no new cults--no\nbeginnings any more.\"\n\n\"But that's only a resting phase, perhaps. You were saying----\"\n\n\"Oh!--let that distressful planet alone for a time! Tell me how you\nmanage in Utopia.\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nThe social theorists of Utopia, my double explained, did not base\ntheir schemes upon the classification of men into labour and\ncapital, the landed interest, the liquor trade, and the like. They\nesteemed these as accidental categories, indefinitely amenable to\nstatesmanship, and they looked for some practical and real\nclassification upon which to base organisation. [Footnote: In that\nthey seem to have profited by a more searching criticism of early\nsocial and political speculations than our earth has yet undertaken.\nThe social speculations of the Greeks, for example, had just the\nsame primary defect as the economic speculations of the eighteenth\ncentury--they began with the assumption that the general conditions\nof the prevalent state of affairs were permanent.] But, on the other\nhand, the assumption that men are unclassifiable, because\npractically homogeneous, which underlies modern democratic methods\nand all the fallacies of our equal justice, is even more alien to\nthe Utopian mind. Throughout Utopia there is, of course, no other\nthan provisional classifications, since every being is regarded as\nfinally unique, but for political and social purposes things have\nlong rested upon a classification of temperaments, which attends\nmainly to differences in the range and quality and character of the\nindividual imagination.\n\nThis Utopian classification was a rough one, but it served its\npurpose to determine the broad lines of political organisation; it\nwas so far unscientific that many individuals fall between or within\ntwo or even three of its classes. But that was met by giving the\ncorrelated organisation a compensatory looseness of play. Four main\nclasses of mind were distinguished, called, respectively, the\nPoietic, the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base. The former two are\nsupposed to constitute the living tissue of the State; the latter\nare the fulcra and resistances, the bone and cover of its body. They\nare not hereditary classes, nor is there any attempt to develop any\nclass by special breeding, simply because the intricate interplay\nof heredity is untraceable and incalculable. They are classes to\nwhich people drift of their own accord. Education is uniform until\ndifferentiation becomes unmistakable, and each man (and woman) must\nestablish his position with regard to the lines of this abstract\nclassification by his own quality, choice, and development....\n\nThe Poietic or creative class of mental individuality embraces a\nwide range of types, but they agree in possessing imaginations that\nrange beyond the known and accepted, and that involve the desire to\nbring the discoveries made in such excursions, into knowledge and\nrecognition. The scope and direction of the imaginative excursion\nmay vary very greatly. It may be the invention of something new or\nthe discovery of something hitherto unperceived. When the invention\nor discovery is primarily beauty then we have the artistic type of\nPoietic mind; when it is not so, we have the true scientific man.\nThe range of discovery may be narrowed as it is in the art of\nWhistler or the science of a cytologist, or it may embrace a wide\nextent of relevance, until at last both artist or scientific\ninquirer merge in the universal reference of the true philosopher.\nTo the accumulated activities of the Poietic type, reacted upon by\ncircumstances, are due almost all the forms assumed by human thought\nand feeling. All religious ideas, all ideas of what is good or\nbeautiful, entered life through the poietic inspirations of man.\nExcept for processes of decay, the forms of the human future must\ncome also through men of this same type, and it is a primary\nessential to our modern idea of an abundant secular progress that\nthese activities should be unhampered and stimulated.\n\nThe Kinetic class consists of types, various, of course, and merging\ninsensibly along the boundary into the less representative\nconstituents of the Poietic group, but distinguished by a more\nrestricted range of imagination. Their imaginations do not range\nbeyond the known, experienced, and accepted, though within these\nlimits they may imagine as vividly or more vividly than members of\nthe former group. They are often very clever and capable people, but\nthey do not do, and they do not desire to do, new things. The more\nvigorous individuals of this class are the most teachable people in\nthe world, and they are generally more moral and more trustworthy\nthan the Poietic types. They live,--while the Poietics are always\nsomething of experimentalists with life. The characteristics of\neither of these two classes may be associated with a good or bad\nphysique, with excessive or defective energy, with exceptional\nkeenness of the senses in some determinate direction or such-like\n\"bent,\" and the Kinetic type, just as the Poietic type, may display\nan imagination of restricted or of the most universal range. But a\nfairly energetic Kinetic is probably the nearest thing to that ideal\nour earthly anthropologists have in mind when they speak of the\n\"Normal\" human being. The very definition of the Poietic class\ninvolves a certain abnormality.\n\nThe Utopians distinguished two extremes of this Kinetic class\naccording to the quality of their imaginative preferences, the Dan\nand Beersheba, as it were, of this division. At one end is the\nmainly intellectual, unoriginal type, which, with energy of\npersonality, makes an admirable judge or administrator and without\nit an uninventive, laborious, common mathematician, or common\nscholar, or common scientific man; while at the other end is the\nmainly emotional, unoriginal man, the type to which--at a low level\nof personal energy--my botanist inclines. The second type includes,\namidst its energetic forms, great actors, and popular politicians\nand preachers. Between these extremes is a long and wide region of\nvarieties, into which one would put most of the people who form the\nreputable workmen, the men of substance, the trustworthy men and\nwomen, the pillars of society on earth.\n\nBelow these two classes in the Utopian scheme of things, and merging\ninsensibly into them, come the Dull. The Dull are persons of\naltogether inadequate imagination, the people who never seem to\nlearn thoroughly, or hear distinctly, or think clearly. (I believe\nif everyone is to be carefully educated they would be considerably\nin the minority in the world, but it is quite possible that will not\nbe the reader's opinion. It is clearly a matter of an arbitrary\nline.) They are the stupid people, the incompetent people, the\nformal, imitative people, the people who, in any properly organised\nState, should, as a class, gravitate towards and below the minimum\nwage that qualifies for marriage. The laws of heredity are far too\nmysterious for such offspring as they do produce to be excluded from\na fair chance in the world, but for themselves, they count neither\nfor work nor direction in the State.\n\nFinally, with a bold disregard of the logician's classificatory\nrules, these Utopian statesmen who devised the World State, hewed\nout in theory a class of the Base. The Base may, indeed, be either\npoietic, kinetic, or dull, though most commonly they are the last,\nand their definition concerns not so much the quality of their\nimagination as a certain bias in it, that to a statesman makes it a\nmatter for special attention. The Base have a narrower and more\npersistent egoistic reference than the common run of humanity; they\nmay boast, but they have no frankness; they have relatively great\npowers of concealment, and they are capable of, and sometimes have\nan aptitude and inclination towards, cruelty. In the queer phrasing\nof earthly psychology with its clumsy avoidance of analysis, they\nhave no \"moral sense.\" They count as an antagonism to the State\norganisation.\n\nObviously, this is the rudest of classifications, and no Utopian has\never supposed it to be a classification for individual application,\na classification so precise that one can say, this man is \"poietic,\"\nand that man is \"base.\" In actual experience these qualities mingle\nand vary in every possible way. It is not a classification for\nTruth, but a classification to an end. Taking humanity as a\nmultitude of unique individuals in mass, one may, for practical\npurposes, deal with it far more conveniently by disregarding its\nuniquenesses and its mixed cases altogether, and supposing it to be\nan assembly of poietic, kinetic, dull, and base people. In many\nrespects it behaves as if it were that. The State, dealing as it\ndoes only with non-individualised affairs, is not only justified in\ndisregarding, but is bound to disregard, a man's special\ndistinction, and to provide for him on the strength of his prevalent\naspect as being on the whole poietic, kinetic, or what not. In a\nworld of hasty judgments and carping criticism, it cannot be\nrepeated too often that the fundamental ideas of a modern Utopia\nimply everywhere and in everything, margins and elasticities, a\ncertain universal compensatory looseness of play.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nNow these Utopian statesmen who founded the World State put the\nproblem of social organisation in the following fashion:--To\ncontrive a revolutionary movement that shall absorb all existing\ngovernments and fuse them with itself, and that must be rapidly\nprogressive and adaptable, and yet coherent, persistent, powerful,\nand efficient.\n\nThe problem of combining progress with political stability had never\nbeen accomplished in Utopia before that time, any more than it has\nbeen accomplished on earth. Just as on earth, Utopian history was a\nsuccession of powers rising and falling in an alternation of\nefficient conservative with unstable liberal States. Just as on\nearth, so in Utopia, the kinetic type of men had displayed a more or\nless unintentional antagonism to the poietic. The general\nlife-history of a State had been the same on either planet. First,\nthrough poietic activities, the idea of a community has developed,\nand the State has shaped itself; poietic men have arisen first in\nthis department of national life, and then that, and have given\nplace to kinetic men of a high type--for it seems to be in their\nnature that poietic men should be mutually repulsive, and not\nsucceed and develop one another consecutively--and a period of\nexpansion and vigour has set in. The general poietic activity has\ndeclined with the development of an efficient and settled social and\npolitical organisation; the statesman has given way to the\npolitician who has incorporated the wisdom of the statesman with his\nown energy, the original genius in arts, letters, science, and every\ndepartment of activity to the cultivated and scholarly man. The\nkinetic man of wide range, who has assimilated his poietic\npredecessor, succeeds with far more readiness than his poietic\ncontemporary in almost every human activity. The latter is by his\nvery nature undisciplined and experimental, and is positively\nhampered by precedents and good order. With this substitution of the\nefficient for the creative type, the State ceases to grow, first in\nthis department of activity, and then in that, and so long as its\nconditions remain the same it remains orderly and efficient. But it\nhas lost its power of initiative and change; its power of adaptation\nis gone, and with that secular change of conditions which is the law\nof life, stresses must arise within and without, and bring at last\neither through revolution or through defeat the release of fresh\npoietic power. The process, of course, is not in its entirety\nsimple; it may be masked by the fact that one department of activity\nmay be in its poietic stage, while another is in a phase of\nrealisation. In the United States of America, for example, during\nthe nineteenth century, there was great poietic activity in\nindustrial organisation, and none whatever in political philosophy;\nbut a careful analysis of the history of any period will show the\nrhythm almost invariably present, and the initial problem before the\nUtopian philosopher, therefore, was whether this was an inevitable\nalternation, whether human progress was necessarily a series of\ndevelopments, collapses, and fresh beginnings, after an interval of\ndisorder, unrest, and often great unhappiness, or whether it was\npossible to maintain a secure, happy, and progressive State beside\nan unbroken flow of poietic activity.\n\nClearly they decided upon the second alternative. If, indeed, I am\nlistening to my Utopian self, then they not only decided the problem\ncould be solved, but they solved it.\n\nHe tells me how they solved it.\n\nA modern Utopia differs from all the older Utopias in its\nrecognition of the need of poietic activities--one sees this new\nconsideration creeping into thought for the first time in the\nphrasing of Comte's insistence that \"spiritual\" must precede\npolitical reconstruction, and in his admission of the necessity of\nrecurrent books and poems about Utopias--and at first this\nrecognition appears to admit only an added complication to a problem\nalready unmanageably complex. Comte's separation of the activities\nof a State into the spiritual and material does, to a certain\nextent, anticipate this opposition of poietic and kinetic, but the\nintimate texture of his mind was dull and hard, the conception\nslipped from him again, and his suppression of literary activities,\nand his imposition of a rule of life upon the poietic types, who are\nleast able to sustain it, mark how deeply he went under. To a large\nextent he followed the older Utopists in assuming that the\nphilosophical and constructive problem could be done once for all,\nand he worked the results out simply under an organised kinetic\ngovernment. But what seems to be merely an addition to the\ndifficulty may in the end turn out to be a simplification, just as\nthe introduction of a fresh term to an intricate irreducible\nmathematical expression will at times bring it to unity.\n\nNow philosophers after my Utopian pattern, who find the ultimate\nsignificance in life in individuality, novelty and the undefined,\nwould not only regard the poietic element as the most important in\nhuman society, but would perceive quite clearly the impossibility of\nits organisation. This, indeed, is simply the application to the\nmoral and intellectual fabric of the principles already applied in\ndiscussing the State control of reproduction (in Chapter the Sixth,\nsection 2). But just as in the case of births it was possible for\nthe State to frame limiting conditions within which individuality\nplays more freely than in the void, so the founders of this modern\nUtopia believed it possible to define conditions under which every\nindividual born with poietic gifts should be enabled and encouraged\nto give them a full development, in art, philosophy, invention,\nor discovery. Certain general conditions presented themselves as\nobviously reasonable:--to give every citizen as good an education\nas he or she could acquire, for example; to so frame it that the\ndirected educational process would never at any period occupy the\nwhole available time of the learner, but would provide throughout\na marginal free leisure with opportunities for developing\nidiosyncrasies, and to ensure by the expedient of a minimum wage\nfor a specified amount of work, that leisure and opportunity did\nnot cease throughout life.\n\nBut, in addition to thus making poietic activities universally\npossible, the founders of this modern Utopia sought to supply\nincentives, which was an altogether more difficult research, a\nproblem in its nature irresolvably complex, and admitting of no\nsystematic solution. But my double told me of a great variety of\ndevices by which poietic men and women were given honour and\nenlarged freedoms, so soon as they produced an earnest of their\nquality, and he explained to me how great an ambition they might\nentertain.\n\nThere were great systems of laboratories attached to every municipal\nforce station at which research could be conducted under the most\nfavourable conditions, and every mine, and, indeed, almost every\ngreat industrial establishment, was saddled under its lease with\nsimilar obligations. So much for poietic ability and research in\nphysical science. The World State tried the claims of every living\ncontributor to any materially valuable invention, and paid or\ncharged a royalty on its use that went partly to him personally, and\npartly to the research institution that had produced him. In the\nmatter of literature and the philosophical and sociological\nsciences, every higher educational establishment carried its\nstudentships, its fellowships, its occasional lectureships, and to\nproduce a poem, a novel, a speculative work of force or merit, was\nto become the object of a generous competition between rival\nUniversities. In Utopia, any author has the option either of\npublishing his works through the public bookseller as a private\nspeculation, or, if he is of sufficient merit, of accepting a\nUniversity endowment and conceding his copyright to the University\npress. All sorts of grants in the hands of committees of the most\nvaried constitution, supplemented these academic resources, and\nensured that no possible contributor to the wide flow of the Utopian\nmind slipped into neglect. Apart from those who engaged mainly in\nteaching and administration, my double told me that the world-wide\nHouse of Saloman [Footnote: The New Atlantis.] thus created\nsustained over a million men. For all the rarity of large fortunes,\ntherefore, no original man with the desire and capacity for material\nor mental experiments went long without resources and the stimulus\nof attention, criticism, and rivalry.\n\n\"And finally,\" said my double, \"our Rules ensure a considerable\nunderstanding of the importance of poietic activities in the\nmajority of the samurai, in whose hands as a class all the real\npower of the world resides.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said I, \"and now we come to the thing that interests me most.\nFor it is quite clear, in my mind, that these samurai form the real\nbody of the State. All this time that I have spent going to and fro\nin this planet, it has been growing upon me that this order of men\nand women, wearing such a uniform as you wear, and with faces\nstrengthened by discipline and touched with devotion, is the\nUtopian reality; but that for them, the whole fabric of these fair\nappearances would crumble and tarnish, shrink and shrivel, until at\nlast, back I should be amidst the grime and disorders of the life\nof earth. Tell me about these samurai, who remind me of Plato's\nguardians, who look like Knights Templars, who bear a name that\nrecalls the swordsmen of Japan ... and whose uniform you yourself are\nwearing. What are they? Are they an hereditary caste, a specially\neducated order, an elected class? For, certainly, this world turns\nupon them as a door upon its hinges.\"\n\n\nSection 4\n\n\"I follow the Common Rule, as many men do,\" said my double,\nanswering my allusion to his uniform almost apologetically. \"But my\nown work is, in its nature, poietic; there is much dissatisfaction\nwith our isolation of criminals upon islands, and I am analysing the\npsychology of prison officials and criminals in general with a view\nto some better scheme. I am supposed to be ingenious with expedients\nin this direction. Typically, the samurai are engaged in\nadministrative work. Practically the whole of the responsible rule\nof the world is in their hands; all our head teachers and\ndisciplinary heads of colleges, our judges, barristers, employers of\nlabour beyond a certain limit, practising medical men, legislators,\nmust be samurai, and all the executive committees, and so forth,\nthat play so large a part in our affairs are drawn by lot\nexclusively from them. The order is not hereditary--we know just\nenough of biology and the uncertainties of inheritance to know how\nsilly that would be--and it does not require an early consecration\nor novitiate or ceremonies and initiations of that sort. The samurai\nare, in fact, volunteers. Any intelligent adult in a reasonably\nhealthy and efficient state may, at any age after five-and-twenty,\nbecome one of the samurai, and take a hand in the universal\ncontrol.\"\n\n\"Provided he follows the Rule.\"\n\n\"Precisely--provided he follows the Rule.\"\n\n\"I have heard the phrase, 'voluntary nobility.'\"\n\n\"That was the idea of our Founders. They made a noble and privileged\norder--open to the whole world. No one could complain of an unjust\nexclusion, for the only thing that could exclude from the order was\nunwillingness or inability to follow the Rule.\"\n\n\"But the Rule might easily have been made exclusive of special\nlineages and races.\"\n\n\"That wasn't their intention. The Rule was planned to exclude the\ndull, to be unattractive to the base, and to direct and co-ordinate\nall sound citizens of good intent.\"\n\n\"And it has succeeded?\"\n\n\"As well as anything finite can. Life is still imperfect, still a\nthick felt of dissatisfactions and perplexing problems, but most\ncertainly the quality of all its problems has been raised, and there\nhas been no war, no grinding poverty, not half the disease, and an\nenormous increase of the order, beauty, and resources of life since\nthe samurai, who began as a private aggressive cult, won their way\nto the rule of the world.\"\n\n\"I would like to have that history,\" I said. \"I expect there was\nfighting?\" He nodded. \"But first--tell me about the Rule.\"\n\n\"The Rule aims to exclude the dull and base altogether, to\ndiscipline the impulses and emotions, to develop a moral habit and\nsustain a man in periods of stress, fatigue, and temptation, to\nproduce the maximum co-operation of all men of good intent, and, in\nfact, to keep all the samurai in a state of moral and bodily health\nand efficiency. It does as much of this as well as it can, but, of\ncourse, like all general propositions, it does not do it in any case\nwith absolute precision. On the whole, it is so good that most men\nwho, like myself, are doing poietic work, and who would be just as\nwell off without obedience, find a satisfaction in adhesion. At\nfirst, in the militant days, it was a trifle hard and uncompromising;\nit had rather too strong an appeal to the moral prig and harshly\nrighteous man, but it has undergone, and still undergoes, revision\nand expansion, and every year it becomes a little better adapted to\nthe need of a general rule of life that all men may try to follow.\nWe have now a whole literature, with many very fine things in it,\nwritten about the Rule.\"\n\nHe glanced at a little book on his desk, took it up as if to show it\nme, then put it down again.\n\n\"The Rule consists of three parts; there is the list of things that\nqualify, the list of things that must not be done, and the list of\nthings that must be done. Qualification exacts a little exertion, as\nevidence of good faith, and it is designed to weed out the duller\ndull and many of the base. Our schooling period ends now about\nfourteen, and a small number of boys and girls--about three per\ncent.--are set aside then as unteachable, as, in fact, nearly\nidiotic; the rest go on to a college or upper school.\"\n\n\"All your population?\"\n\n\"With that exception.\"\n\n\"Free?\"\n\n\"Of course. And they pass out of college at eighteen. There are\nseveral different college courses, but one or other must be followed\nand a satisfactory examination passed at the end--perhaps ten per\ncent. fail--and the Rule requires that the candidate for the samurai\nmust have passed.\"\n\n\"But a very good man is sometimes an idle schoolboy.\"\n\n\"We admit that. And so anyone who has failed to pass the college\nleaving examination may at any time in later life sit for it\nagain--and again and again. Certain carefully specified things\nexcuse it altogether.\"\n\n\"That makes it fair. But aren't there people who cannot pass\nexaminations?\"\n\n\"People of nervous instability----\"\n\n\"But they may be people of great though irregular poietic\ngifts.\"\n\n\"Exactly. That is quite possible. But we don't want that sort of\npeople among our samurai. Passing an examination is a proof of a\ncertain steadiness of purpose, a certain self-control and\nsubmission----\"\n\n\"Of a certain 'ordinariness.'\"\n\n\"Exactly what is wanted.\"\n\n\"Of course, those others can follow other careers.\"\n\n\"Yes. That's what we want them to do. And, besides these two\neducational qualifications, there are two others of a similar kind\nof more debateable value. One is practically not in operation now.\nOur Founders put it that a candidate for the samurai must possess\nwhat they called a Technique, and, as it operated in the beginning,\nhe had to hold the qualification for a doctor, for a lawyer, for a\nmilitary officer, or an engineer, or teacher, or have painted\nacceptable pictures, or written a book, or something of the sort. He\nhad, in fact, as people say, to 'be something,' or to have 'done\nsomething.' It was a regulation of vague intention even in the\nbeginning, and it became catholic to the pitch of absurdity. To play\na violin skilfully has been accepted as sufficient for this\nqualification. There may have been a reason in the past for this\nprovision; in those days there were many daughters of prosperous\nparents--and even some sons--who did nothing whatever but idle\nuninterestingly in the world, and the organisation might have\nsuffered by their invasion, but that reason has gone now, and the\nrequirement remains a merely ceremonial requirement. But, on the\nother hand, another has developed. Our Founders made a collection of\nseveral volumes, which they called, collectively, the Book of the\nSamurai, a compilation of articles and extracts, poems and prose\npieces, which were supposed to embody the idea of the order. It was\nto play the part for the samurai that the Bible did for the ancient\nHebrews. To tell you the truth, the stuff was of very unequal merit;\nthere was a lot of very second-rate rhetoric, and some nearly\nnamby-pamby verse. There was also included some very obscure verse\nand prose that had the trick of seeming wise. But for all such\ndefects, much of the Book, from the very beginning, was splendid and\ninspiring matter. From that time to this, the Book of the Samurai\nhas been under revision, much has been added, much rejected, and\nsome deliberately rewritten. Now, there is hardly anything in it\nthat is not beautiful and perfect in form. The whole range of noble\nemotions finds expression there, and all the guiding ideas of our\nModern State. We have recently admitted some terse criticism of its\ncontents by a man named Henley.\"\n\n\"Old Henley!\"\n\n\"A man who died a little time ago.\"\n\n\"I knew that man on earth. And he was in Utopia, too! He was a great\nred-faced man, with fiery hair, a noisy, intolerant maker of\nenemies, with a tender heart--and he was one of the samurai?\"\n\n\"He defied the Rules.\"\n\n\"He was a great man with wine. He wrote like wine; in our world he\nwrote wine; red wine with the light shining through.\"\n\n\"He was on the Committee that revised our Canon. For the revising\nand bracing of our Canon is work for poietic as well as kinetic men.\nYou knew him in your world?\"\n\n\"I wish I had. But I have seen him. On earth he wrote a thing ... it\nwould run--\n\n  \"Out of the night that covers me,\n     Black as the pit from pole to pole,\n   I thank whatever Gods may be,\n     For my unconquerable soul....\"\n\n\"We have that here. All good earthly things are in Utopia also. We\nput that in the Canon almost as soon as he died,\" said my\ndouble.\n\n\nSection 5\n\n\"We have now a double Canon, a very fine First Canon, and a Second\nCanon of work by living men and work of inferior quality, and a\nsatisfactory knowledge of both of these is the fourth intellectual\nqualification for the samurai.\"\n\n\"It must keep a sort of uniformity in your tone of thought.\"\n\n\"The Canon pervades our whole world. As a matter of fact, very much\nof it is read and learnt in the schools.... Next to the intellectual\nqualification comes the physical, the man must be in sound health,\nfree from certain foul, avoidable, and demoralising diseases, and in\ngood training. We reject men who are fat, or thin and flabby, or\nwhose nerves are shaky--we refer them back to training. And finally\nthe man or woman must be fully adult.\"\n\n\"Twenty-one? But you said twenty-five!\"\n\n\"The age has varied. At first it was twenty-five or over; then the\nminimum became twenty-five for men and twenty-one for women. Now\nthere is a feeling that it ought to be raised. We don't want to take\nadvantage of mere boy and girl emotions--men of my way of thinking,\nat any rate, don't--we want to get our samurai with experiences,\nwith a settled mature conviction. Our hygiene and regimen are\nrapidly pushing back old age and death, and keeping men hale and\nhearty to eighty and more. There's no need to hurry the young. Let\nthem have a chance of wine, love, and song; let them feel the bite\nof full-bodied desire, and know what devils they have to reckon\nwith.\"\n\n\"But there is a certain fine sort of youth that knows the\ndesirability of the better things at nineteen.\"\n\n\"They may keep the Rule at any time--without its privileges. But a\nman who breaks the Rule after his adult adhesion at five-and-twenty\nis no more in the samurai for ever. Before that age he is free to\nbreak it and repent.\"\n\n\"And now, what is forbidden?\"\n\n\"We forbid a good deal. Many small pleasures do no great harm, but\nwe think it well to forbid them, none the less, so that we can weed\nout the self-indulgent. We think that a constant resistance to\nlittle seductions is good for a man's quality. At any rate, it shows\nthat a man is prepared to pay something for his honour and\nprivileges. We prescribe a regimen of food, forbid tobacco, wine, or\nany alcoholic drink, all narcotic drugs----\"\n\n\"Meat?\"\n\n\"In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to\nbe. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in\na population that is all educated, and at about the same level of\nphysical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who\nwill hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of\nmeat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still\nremember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last\nslaughter-house.\"\n\n\"You eat fish.\"\n\n\"It isn't a matter of logic. In our barbaric past horrible flayed\ncarcases of brutes dripping blood, were hung for sale in the public\nstreets.\" He shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"They do that still in London--in _my_ world,\" I said.\n\nHe looked again at my laxer, coarser face, and did not say whatever\nthought had passed across his mind.\n\n\"Originally the samurai were forbidden usury, that is to say the\nlending of money at fixed rates of interest. They are still under\nthat interdiction, but since our commercial code practically\nprevents usury altogether, and our law will not recognise contracts\nfor interest upon private accommodation loans to unprosperous\nborrowers, it is now scarcely necessary. The idea of a man growing\nricher by mere inaction and at the expense of an impoverishing\ndebtor, is profoundly distasteful to Utopian ideas, and our State\ninsists pretty effectually now upon the participation of the lender\nin the borrower's risks. This, however, is only one part of a series\nof limitations of the same character. It is felt that to buy simply\nin order to sell again brings out many unsocial human qualities; it\nmakes a man seek to enhance profits and falsify values, and so the\nsamurai are forbidden to buy to sell on their own account or for any\nemployer save the State, unless some process of manufacture changes\nthe nature of the commodity (a mere change in bulk or packing does\nnot suffice), and they are forbidden salesmanship and all its arts.\nConsequently they cannot be hotel-keepers, or hotel proprietors, or\nhotel shareholders, and a doctor--all practising doctors must be\nsamurai--cannot sell drugs except as a public servant of the\nmunicipality or the State.\"\n\n\"That, of course, runs counter to all our current terrestrial\nideas,\" I said. \"We are obsessed by the power of money. These rules\nwill work out as a vow of moderate poverty, and if your samurai are\nan order of poor men----\"\n\n\"They need not be. Samurai who have invented, organised, and\ndeveloped new industries, have become rich men, and many men who\nhave grown rich by brilliant and original trading have subsequently\nbecome samurai.\"\n\n\"But these are exceptional cases. The bulk of your money-making\nbusiness must be confined to men who are not samurai. You must have\na class of rich, powerful outsiders----\"\n\n\"_Have_ we?\"\n\n\"I don't see the evidences of them.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, we have such people! There are rich traders,\nmen who have made discoveries in the economy of distribution, or who\nhave called attention by intelligent, truthful advertisement to the\npossibilities of neglected commodities, for example.\"\n\n\"But aren't they a power?\"\n\n\"Why should they be?\"\n\n\"Wealth _is_ power.\"\n\nI had to explain that phrase.\n\nHe protested. \"Wealth,\" he said, \"is no sort of power at all unless\nyou make it one. If it is so in your world it is so by inadvertency.\nWealth is a State-made thing, a convention, the most artificial of\npowers. You can, by subtle statesmanship, contrive what it shall buy\nand what it shall not. In your world it would seem you have made\nleisure, movement, any sort of freedom, life itself, _purchaseable_.\nThe more fools you! A poor working man with you is a man in\ndiscomfort and fear. No wonder your rich have power. But here a\nreasonable leisure, a decent life, is to be had by every man on\neasier terms than by selling himself to the rich. And rich as men\nare here, there is no private fortune in the whole world that is\nmore than a little thing beside the wealth of the State. The samurai\ncontrol the State and the wealth of the State, and by their vows\nthey may not avail themselves of any of the coarser pleasures wealth\ncan still buy. Where, then, is the power of your wealthy man?\"\n\n\"But, then--where is the incentive----?\"\n\n\"Oh! a man gets things for himself with wealth--no end of things.\nBut little or no power over his fellows--unless they are\nexceptionally weak or self-indulgent persons.\"\n\nI reflected. \"What else may not the samurai do?\"\n\n\"Acting, singing, or reciting are forbidden them, though they may\nlecture authoritatively or debate. But professional mimicry is not\nonly held to be undignified in a man or woman, but to weaken and\ncorrupt the soul; the mind becomes foolishly dependent on applause,\nover-skilful in producing tawdry and momentary illusions of\nexcellence; it is our experience that actors and actresses as a\nclass are loud, ignoble, and insincere. If they have not such\nflamboyant qualities then they are tepid and ineffectual players.\nNor may the samurai do personal services, except in the matter of\nmedicine or surgery; they may not be barbers, for example, nor inn\nwaiters, nor boot cleaners. But, nowadays, we have scarcely any\nbarbers or boot cleaners; men do these things for themselves. Nor\nmay a man under the Rule be any man's servant, pledged to do\nwhatever he is told. He may neither be a servant nor keep one; he\nmust shave and dress and serve himself, carry his own food from the\nhelper's place to the table, redd his sleeping room, and leave it\nclean....\"\n\n\"That is all easy enough in a world as ordered as yours. I suppose\nno samurai may bet?\"\n\n\"Absolutely not. He may insure his life and his old age for the\nbetter equipment of his children, or for certain other specified\nends, but that is all his dealings with chance. And he is also\nforbidden to play games in public or to watch them being played.\nCertain dangerous and hardy sports and exercises are prescribed for\nhim, but not competitive sports between man and man or side and\nside. That lesson was learnt long ago before the coming of the\nsamurai. Gentlemen of honour, according to the old standards, rode\nhorses, raced chariots, fought, and played competitive games of\nskill, and the dull, cowardly and base came in thousands to admire,\nand howl, and bet. The gentlemen of honour degenerated fast enough\ninto a sort of athletic prostitute, with all the defects, all the\nvanity, trickery, and self-assertion of the common actor, and with\neven less intelligence. Our Founders made no peace with this\norganisation of public sports. They did not spend their lives to\nsecure for all men and women on the earth freedom, health, and\nleisure, in order that they might waste lives in such folly.\"\n\n\"We have those abuses,\" I said, \"but some of our earthly games have\na fine side. There is a game called cricket. It is a fine, generous\ngame.\"\n\n\"Our boys play that, and men too. But it is thought rather puerile\nto give very much time to it; men should have graver interests. It\nwas undignified and unpleasant for the samurai to play conspicuously\nill, and impossible for them to play so constantly as to keep hand\nand eye in training against the man who was fool enough and cheap\nenough to become an expert. Cricket, tennis, fives, billiards----.\nYou will find clubs and a class of men to play all these things in\nUtopia, but not the samurai. And they must play their games as\ngames, not as displays; the price of a privacy for playing cricket,\nso that they could charge for admission, would be overwhelmingly\nhigh.... Negroes are often very clever at cricket. For a time, most\nof the samurai had their sword-play, but few do those exercises now,\nand until about fifty years ago they went out for military training,\na fortnight in every year, marching long distances, sleeping in the\nopen, carrying provisions, and sham fighting over unfamiliar ground\ndotted with disappearing targets. There was a curious inability in\nour world to realise that war was really over for good and all.\"\n\n\"And now,\" I said, \"haven't we got very nearly to the end of your\nprohibitions? You have forbidden alcohol, drugs, smoking, betting,\nand usury, games, trade, servants. But isn't there a vow of\nChastity?\"\n\n\"That is the Rule for your earthly orders?\"\n\n\"Yes--except, if I remember rightly, for Plato's Guardians.\"\n\n\"There is a Rule of Chastity here--but not of Celibacy. We know\nquite clearly that civilisation is an artificial arrangement, and\nthat all the physical and emotional instincts of man are too strong,\nand his natural instinct of restraint too weak, for him to live\neasily in the civilised State. Civilisation has developed far more\nrapidly than man has modified. Under the unnatural perfection of\nsecurity, liberty and abundance our civilisation has attained, the\nnormal untrained human being is disposed to excess in almost every\ndirection; he tends to eat too much and too elaborately, to drink\ntoo much, to become lazy faster than his work can be reduced, to\nwaste his interest upon displays, and to make love too much and too\nelaborately. He gets out of training, and concentrates upon egoistic\nor erotic broodings. The past history of our race is very largely a\nhistory of social collapses due to demoralisation by indulgences\nfollowing security and abundance. In the time of our Founders the\nsigns of a world-wide epoch of prosperity and relaxation were\nplentiful. Both sexes drifted towards sexual excesses, the men\ntowards sentimental extravagances, imbecile devotions, and the\ncomplication and refinement of physical indulgences; the women\ntowards those expansions and differentiations of feeling that find\nexpression in music and costly and distinguished dress. Both sexes\nbecame unstable and promiscuous. The whole world seemed disposed to\ndo exactly the same thing with its sexual interest as it had done\nwith its appetite for food and drink--make the most of it.\"\n\nHe paused.\n\n\"Satiety came to help you,\" I said.\n\n\"Destruction may come before satiety. Our Founders organised motives\nfrom all sorts of sources, but I think the chief force to give men\nself-control is Pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing in the\nsoul, but it is the best King there, for all that. They looked to it\nto keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all\nmatters of natural desire, they held no appetite must be glutted, no\nappetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no\nappetite should be starved. A man must come from the table\nsatisfied, but not replete. And, in the matter of love, a straight\nand clean desire for a clean and straight fellow-creature was our\nFounders' ideal. They enjoined marriage between equals as the\nsamurai's duty to the race, and they framed directions of the\nprecisest sort to prevent that uxorious inseparableness, that\nconnubiality which will reduce a couple of people to something\njointly less than either. That Canon is too long to tell you now. A\nman under the Rule who loves a woman who does not follow it, must\neither leave the samurai to marry her, or induce her to accept what\nis called the Woman's Rule, which, while it excepts her from the\nseverer qualifications and disciplines, brings her regimen of life\ninto a working harmony with his.\"\n\n\"Suppose she breaks the Rule afterwards?\"\n\n\"He must leave either her or the order.\"\n\n\"There is matter for a novel or so in that.\"\n\n\"There has been matter for hundreds.\"\n\n\"Is the Woman's Rule a sumptuary law as well as a regimen? I\nmean--may she dress as she pleases?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it,\" said my double. \"Every woman who could command\nmoney used it, we found, to make underbred aggressions on other\nwomen. As men emerged to civilisation, women seemed going back\nto savagery--to paint and feathers. But the samurai, both men\nand women, and the women under the Lesser Rule also, all have a\nparticular dress. No difference is made between women under either\nthe Great or the Lesser Rule. You have seen the men's dress--always\nlike this I wear. The women may wear the same, either with the hair\ncut short or plaited behind them, or they may have a high-waisted\ndress of very fine, soft woollen material, with their hair coiled up\nbehind.\"\n\n\"I have seen it,\" I said. Indeed, nearly all the women had seemed to\nbe wearing variants of that simple formula. \"It seems to me a very\nbeautiful dress. The other--I'm not used to. But I like it on girls\nand slender women.\"\n\nI had a thought, and added, \"Don't they sometimes, well--take a good\ndeal of care, dressing their hair?\"\n\nMy double laughed in my eyes. \"They do,\" he said.\n\n\"And the Rule?\"\n\n\"The Rule is never fussy,\" said my double, still smiling.\n\n\"We don't want women to cease to be beautiful, and consciously\nbeautiful, if you like,\" he added. \"The more real beauty of form and\nface we have, the finer our world. But costly sexualised\ntrappings----\"\n\n\"I should have thought,\" I said, \"a class of women who traded on\ntheir sex would have arisen, women, I mean, who found an interest\nand an advantage in emphasising their individual womanly beauty.\nThere is no law to prevent it. Surely they would tend to counteract\nthe severity of costume the Rule dictates.\"\n\n\"There are such women. But for all that the Rule sets the key of\neveryday dress. If a woman is possessed by the passion for gorgeous\nraiment she usually satisfies it in her own private circle, or with\nrare occasional onslaughts upon the public eye. Her everyday mood\nand the disposition of most people is against being conspicuous\nabroad. And I should say there are little liberties under the Lesser\nRule; a discreet use of fine needlework and embroidery, a wider\nchoice of materials.\"\n\n\"You have no changing fashions?\"\n\n\"None. For all that, are not our dresses as beautiful as yours?\"\n\n\"Our women's dresses are not beautiful at all,\" I said, forced for a\ntime towards the mysterious philosophy of dress. \"Beauty? That isn't\ntheir concern.\"\n\n\"Then what are they after?\"\n\n\"My dear man! What is all my world after?\"\n\n\nSection 6\n\nI should come to our third talk with a great curiosity to hear of\nthe last portion of the Rule, of the things that the samurai are\nobliged to do.\n\nThere would be many precise directions regarding his health, and\nrules that would aim at once at health and that constant exercise of\nwill that makes life good. Save in specified exceptional\ncircumstances, the samurai must bathe in cold water, and the men\nmust shave every day; they have the precisest directions in such\nmatters; the body must be in health, the skin and muscles and nerves\nin perfect tone, or the samurai must go to the doctors of the order,\nand give implicit obedience to the regimen prescribed. They must\nsleep alone at least four nights in five; and they must eat with and\ntalk to anyone in their fellowship who cares for their conversation\nfor an hour, at least, at the nearest club-house of the samurai once\non three chosen days in every week. Moreover, they must read aloud\nfrom the Book of the Samurai for at least ten minutes every day.\nEvery month they must buy and read faithfully through at least one\nbook that has been published during the past five years, and the\nonly intervention with private choice in that matter is the\nprescription of a certain minimum of length for the monthly book or\nbooks. But the full Rule in these minor compulsory matters is\nvoluminous and detailed, and it abounds with alternatives. Its aim\nis rather to keep before the samurai by a number of sample duties,\nas it were, the need of, and some of the chief methods towards\nhealth of body and mind, rather than to provide a comprehensive\nrule, and to ensure the maintenance of a community of feeling and\ninterests among the samurai through habit, intercourse, and a living\ncontemporary literature. These minor obligations do not earmark more\nthan an hour in the day. Yet they serve to break down isolations of\nsympathy, all sorts of physical and intellectual sluggishness and\nthe development of unsocial preoccupations of many sorts.\n\nWomen samurai who are married, my double told me, must bear\nchildren--if they are to remain married as well as in the\norder--before the second period for terminating a childless marriage\nis exhausted. I failed to ask for the precise figures from my double\nat the time, but I think it is beyond doubt that it is from samurai\nmothers of the Greater or Lesser Rule that a very large proportion\nof the future population of Utopia will be derived. There is one\nliberty accorded to women samurai which is refused to men, and that\nis to marry outside the Rule, and women married to men not under the\nRule are also free to become samurai. Here, too, it will be manifest\nthere is scope for novels and the drama of life. In practice, it\nseems that it is only men of great poietic distinction outside the\nRule, or great commercial leaders, who have wives under it. The\ntendency of such unions is either to bring the husband under the\nRule, or take the wife out of it. There can be no doubt that these\nmarriage limitations tend to make the samurai something of an\nhereditary class. Their children, as a rule, become samurai. But it\nis not an exclusive caste; subject to the most reasonable\nqualifications, anyone who sees fit can enter it at any time, and\nso, unlike all other privileged castes the world has seen, it\nincreases relatively to the total population, and may indeed at last\nassimilate almost the whole population of the earth.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nSo much my double told me readily.\n\nBut now he came to the heart of all his explanations, to the will\nand motives at the centre that made men and women ready to undergo\ndiscipline, to renounce the richness and elaboration of the sensuous\nlife, to master emotions and control impulses, to keep in the key of\neffort while they had abundance about them to rouse and satisfy all\ndesires, and his exposition was more difficult.\n\nHe tried to make his religion clear to me.\n\nThe leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of\nthe doctrine of original sin; the Utopians hold that man, on the\nwhole, is good. That is their cardinal belief. Man has pride and\nconscience, they hold, that you may refine by training as you refine\nhis eye and ear; he has remorse and sorrow in his being, coming on\nthe heels of all inconsequent enjoyments. How can one think of him\nas bad? He is religious; religion is as natural to him as lust and\nanger, less intense, indeed, but coming with a wide-sweeping\ninevitableness as peace comes after all tumults and noises. And in\nUtopia they understand this, or, at least, the samurai do, clearly.\nThey accept Religion as they accept Thirst, as something inseparably\nin the mysterious rhythms of life. And just as thirst and pride and\nall desires may be perverted in an age of abundant opportunities,\nand men may be degraded and wasted by intemperance in drinking, by\ndisplay, or by ambition, so too the nobler complex of desires that\nconstitutes religion may be turned to evil by the dull, the base,\nand the careless. Slovenly indulgence in religious inclinations, a\nfailure to think hard and discriminate as fairly as possible in\nreligious matters, is just as alien to the men under the Rule as it\nwould be to drink deeply because they were thirsty, eat until\nglutted, evade a bath because the day was chilly, or make love to\nany bright-eyed girl who chanced to look pretty in the dusk. Utopia,\nwhich is to have every type of character that one finds on earth,\nwill have its temples and its priests, just as it will have its\nactresses and wine, but the samurai will be forbidden the religion\nof dramatically lit altars, organ music, and incense, as distinctly\nas they are forbidden the love of painted women, or the consolations\nof brandy. And to all the things that are less than religion and\nthat seek to comprehend it, to cosmogonies and philosophies, to\ncreeds and formulae, to catechisms and easy explanations, the\nattitude of the samurai, the note of the Book of Samurai, will be\ndistrust. These things, the samurai will say, are part of the\nindulgences that should come before a man submits himself to the\nRule; they are like the early gratifications of young men,\nexperiences to establish renunciation. The samurai will have emerged\nabove these things.\n\nThe theology of the Utopian rulers will be saturated with that same\nphilosophy of uniqueness, that repudiation of anything beyond\nsimilarities and practical parallelisms, that saturates all their\ninstitutions. They will have analysed exhaustively those fallacies\nand assumptions that arise between the One and the Many, that have\ntroubled philosophy since philosophy began. Just as they will have\nescaped that delusive unification of every species under its\nspecific definition that has dominated earthly reasoning, so they\nwill have escaped the delusive simplification of God that vitiates\nall terrestrial theology. They will hold God to be complex and of an\nendless variety of aspects, to be expressed by no universal formula\nnor approved in any uniform manner. Just as the language of Utopia\nwill be a synthesis, even so will its God be. The aspect of God is\ndifferent in the measure of every man's individuality, and the\nintimate thing of religion must, therefore, exist in human solitude,\nbetween man and God alone. Religion in its quintessence is a\nrelation between God and man; it is perversion to make it a relation\nbetween man and man, and a man may no more reach God through a\npriest than love his wife through a priest. But just as a man in\nlove may refine the interpretation of his feelings and borrow\nexpression from the poems and music of poietic men, so an individual\nman may at his discretion read books of devotion and hear music that\nis in harmony with his inchoate feelings. Many of the samurai,\ntherefore, will set themselves private regimens that will help their\nsecret religious life, will pray habitually, and read books of\ndevotion, but with these things the Rule of the order will have\nnothing to do.\n\nClearly the God of the samurai is a transcendental and mystical God.\nSo far as the samurai have a purpose in common in maintaining the\nState, and the order and progress of the world, so far, by their\ndiscipline and denial, by their public work and effort, they worship\nGod together. But the fount of motives lies in the individual life,\nit lies in silent and deliberate reflections, and at this, the most\nstriking of all the rules of the samurai aims. For seven consecutive\ndays in the year, at least, each man or woman under the Rule must go\nright out of all the life of man into some wild and solitary place,\nmust speak to no man or woman, and have no sort of intercourse with\nmankind. They must go bookless and weaponless, without pen or paper,\nor money. Provisions must be taken for the period of the journey, a\nrug or sleeping sack--for they must sleep under the open sky--but\nno means of making a fire. They may study maps beforehand to guide\nthem, showing any difficulties and dangers in the journey, but\nthey may not carry such helps. They must not go by beaten ways or\nwherever there are inhabited houses, but into the bare, quiet places\nof the globe--the regions set apart for them.\n\nThis discipline, my double said, was invented to secure a certain\nstoutness of heart and body in the members of the order, which\notherwise might have lain open to too many timorous, merely\nabstemious, men and women. Many things had been suggested, swordplay\nand tests that verged on torture, climbing in giddy places and the\nlike, before this was chosen. Partly, it is to ensure good training\nand sturdiness of body and mind, but partly, also, it is to draw\ntheir minds for a space from the insistent details of life, from the\nintricate arguments and the fretting effort to work, from personal\nquarrels and personal affections, and the things of the heated room.\nOut they must go, clean out of the world.\n\nCertain great areas are set apart for these yearly pilgrimages\nbeyond the securities of the State. There are thousands of square\nmiles of sandy desert in Africa and Asia set apart; much of the\nArctic and Antarctic circles; vast areas of mountain land and frozen\nmarsh; secluded reserves of forest, and innumerable unfrequented\nlines upon the sea. Some are dangerous and laborious routes; some\nmerely desolate; and there are even some sea journeys that one may\ntake in the halcyon days as one drifts through a dream. Upon the\nseas one must go in a little undecked sailing boat, that may be\nrowed in a calm; all the other journeys one must do afoot, none\naiding. There are, about all these desert regions and along most\ncoasts, little offices at which the samurai says good-bye to the\nworld of men, and at which they arrive after their minimum time of\nsilence is overpast. For the intervening days they must be alone\nwith Nature, necessity, and their own thoughts.\n\n\"It is good?\" I said.\n\n\"It is good,\" my double answered. \"We civilised men go back to the\nstark Mother that so many of us would have forgotten were it not for\nthis Rule. And one thinks.... Only two weeks ago I did my journey\nfor the year. I went with my gear by sea to Tromso, and then inland\nto a starting-place, and took my ice-axe and rucksack, and said\ngood-bye to the world. I crossed over four glaciers; I climbed three\nhigh mountain passes, and slept on moss in desolate valleys. I saw\nno human being for seven days. Then I came down through pine woods\nto the head of a road that runs to the Baltic shore. Altogether it\nwas thirteen days before I reported myself again, and had speech\nwith fellow creatures.\"\n\n\"And the women do this?\"\n\n\"The women who are truly samurai--yes. Equally with the men. Unless\nthe coming of children intervenes.\"\n\nI asked him how it had seemed to him, and what he thought about\nduring the journey.\n\n\"There is always a sense of effort for me,\" he said, \"when I leave\nthe world at the outset of the journey. I turn back again and again,\nand look at the little office as I go up my mountain side. The first\nday and night I'm a little disposed to shirk the job--every year\nit's the same--a little disposed, for example, to sling my pack from\nmy back, and sit down, and go through its contents, and make sure\nI've got all my equipment.\"\n\n\"There's no chance of anyone overtaking you?\"\n\n\"Two men mustn't start from the same office on the same route within\nsix hours of each other. If they come within sight of each other,\nthey must shun an encounter, and make no sign--unless life is in\ndanger. All that is arranged beforehand.\"\n\n\"It would be, of course. Go on telling me of your journey.\"\n\n\"I dread the night. I dread discomfort and bad weather. I only begin\nto brace up after the second day.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry about losing your way?\"\n\n\"No. There are cairns and skyline signs. If it wasn't for that, of\ncourse we should be worrying with maps the whole time. But I'm only\nsure of being a man after the second night, and sure of my power to\ngo through.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Then one begins to get into it. The first two days one is apt to\nhave the events of one's journey, little incidents of travel, and\nthoughts of one's work and affairs, rising and fading and coming\nagain; but then the perspectives begin. I don't sleep much at nights\non these journeys; I lie awake and stare at the stars. About dawn,\nperhaps, and in the morning sunshine, I sleep! The nights this last\ntime were very short, never more than twilight, and I saw the glow\nof the sun always, just over the edge of the world. But I had chosen\nthe days of the new moon, so that I could have a glimpse of the\nstars.... Years ago, I went from the Nile across the Libyan Desert\neast, and then the stars--the stars in the later days of that\njourney--brought me near weeping.... You begin to feel alone on the\nthird day, when you find yourself out on some shining snowfield, and\nnothing of mankind visible in the whole world save one landmark, one\nremote thin red triangle of iron, perhaps, in the saddle of the\nridge against the sky. All this busy world that has done so much and\nso marvellously, and is still so little--you see it little as it\nis--and far off. All day long you go and the night comes, and it\nmight be another planet. Then, in the quiet, waking hours, one\nthinks of one's self and the great external things, of space and\neternity, and what one means by God.\"\n\nHe mused.\n\n\"You think of death?\"\n\n\"Not of my own. But when I go among snows and desolations--and\nusually I take my pilgrimage in mountains or the north--I think very\nmuch of the Night of this World--the time when our sun will be red\nand dull, and air and water will lie frozen together in a common\nsnowfield where now the forests of the tropics are steaming.... I\nthink very much of that, and whether it is indeed God's purpose that\nour kind should end, and the cities we have built, the books we have\nwritten, all that we have given substance and a form, should lie\ndead beneath the snows.\"\n\n\"You don't believe that?\"\n\n\"No. But if it is not so----. I went threading my way among gorges\nand precipices, with my poor brain dreaming of what the alternative\nshould be, with my imagination straining and failing. Yet, in those\nhigh airs and in such solitude, a kind of exaltation comes to\nmen.... I remember that one night I sat up and told the rascal stars\nvery earnestly how they should not escape us in the end.\"\n\nHe glanced at me for a moment as though he doubted I should\nunderstand.\n\n\"One becomes a personification up there,\" he said. \"One becomes the\nambassador of mankind to the outer world.\n\n\"There is time to think over a lot of things. One puts one's self\nand one's ambition in a new pair of scales....\n\n\"Then there are hours when one is just exploring the wilderness like\na child. Sometimes perhaps one gets a glimpse from some precipice\nedge of the plains far away, and houses and roadways, and remembers\nthere is still a busy world of men. And at last one turns one's feet\ndown some slope, some gorge that leads back. You come down, perhaps,\ninto a pine forest, and hear that queer clatter reindeer make--and\nthen, it may be, see a herdsman very far away, watching you. You\nwear your pilgrim's badge, and he makes no sign of seeing\nyou....\n\n\"You know, after these solitudes, I feel just the same queer\ndisinclination to go back to the world of men that I feel when I\nhave to leave it. I think of dusty roads and hot valleys, and being\nlooked at by many people. I think of the trouble of working with\ncolleagues and opponents. This last journey I outstayed my time,\ncamping in the pine woods for six days. Then my thoughts came round\nto my proper work again. I got keen to go on with it, and so I came\nback into the world. You come back physically clean--as though you\nhad had your arteries and veins washed out. And your brain has been\ncleaned, too.... I shall stick to the mountains now until I am old,\nand then I shall sail a boat in Polynesia. That is what so many old\nmen do. Only last year one of the great leaders of the samurai--a\nwhite-haired man, who followed the Rule in spite of his one hundred\nand eleven years--was found dead in his boat far away from any land,\nfar to the south, lying like a child asleep....\"\n\n\"That's better than a tumbled bed,\" said I, \"and some boy of a\ndoctor jabbing you with injections, and distressful people hovering\nabout you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my double; \"in Utopia we who are samurai die better than\nthat.... Is that how your great men die?\"\n\nIt came to me suddenly as very strange that, even as we sat and\ntalked, across deserted seas, on burning sands, through the still\naisles of forests, and in all the high and lonely places of the\nworld, beyond the margin where the ways and houses go, solitary men\nand women sailed alone or marched alone, or clambered--quiet,\nresolute exiles; they stood alone amidst wildernesses of ice, on the\nprecipitous banks of roaring torrents, in monstrous caverns, or\nsteering a tossing boat in the little circle of the horizon amidst\nthe tumbled, incessant sea, all in their several ways communing with\nthe emptiness, the enigmatic spaces and silences, the winds and\ntorrents and soulless forces that lie about the lit and ordered life\nof men.\n\nI saw more clearly now something I had seen dimly already, in the\nbearing and the faces of this Utopian chivalry, a faint persistent\ntinge of detachment from the immediate heats and hurries, the little\ngraces and delights, the tensions and stimulations of the daily\nworld. It pleased me strangely to think of this steadfast yearly\npilgrimage of solitude, and how near men might come then to the high\ndistances of God.\n\n\nSection 8\n\nAfter that I remember we fell talking of the discipline of the Rule,\nof the Courts that try breaches of it, and interpret doubtful\ncases--for, though a man may resign with due notice and be free\nafter a certain time to rejoin again, one deliberate breach may\nexclude a man for ever--of the system of law that has grown up about\nsuch trials, and of the triennial council that revises and alters\nthe Rule. From that we passed to the discussion of the general\nconstitution of this World State. Practically all political power\nvests in the samurai. Not only are they the only administrators,\nlawyers, practising doctors, and public officials of almost all\nkinds, but they are the only voters. Yet, by a curious exception,\nthe supreme legislative assembly must have one-tenth, and may have\none-half of its members outside the order, because, it is alleged,\nthere is a sort of wisdom that comes of sin and laxness, which is\nnecessary to the perfect ruling of life. My double quoted me a verse\nfrom the Canon on this matter that my unfortunate verbal memory did\nnot retain, but it was in the nature of a prayer to save the world\nfrom \"unfermented men.\" It would seem that Aristotle's idea of a\nrotation of rulers, an idea that crops up again in Harrington's\nOceana, that first Utopia of \"the sovereign people\" (a Utopia that,\nthrough Danton's readings in English, played a disastrous part in\nthe French Revolution), gets a little respect in Utopia. The\ntendency is to give a practically permanent tenure to good men.\nEvery ruler and official, it is true, is put on his trial every\nthree years before a jury drawn by lot, according to the range of\nhis activities, either from the samurai of his municipal area or\nfrom the general catalogue of the samurai, but the business of this\njury is merely to decide whether to continue him in office or order\na new election. In the majority of cases the verdict is\ncontinuation. Even if it is not so the official may still appear as\na candidate before the second and separate jury which fills the\nvacant post....\n\nMy double mentioned a few scattered details of the electoral\nmethods, but as at that time I believed we were to have a number of\nfurther conversations, I did not exhaust my curiosities upon this\nsubject. Indeed, I was more than a little preoccupied and\ninattentive. The religion of the samurai was after my heart, and it\nhad taken hold of me very strongly.... But presently I fell\nquestioning him upon the complications that arise in the Modern\nUtopia through the differences between the races of men, and found\nmy attention returning. But the matter of that discussion I shall\nput apart into a separate chapter. In the end we came back to the\nparticulars of this great Rule of Life that any man desiring of\njoining the samurai must follow.\n\nI remember how, after our third bout of talking, I walked back\nthrough the streets of Utopian London to rejoin the botanist at our\nhotel.\n\nMy double lived in an apartment in a great building--I should judge\nabout where, in our London, the Tate Gallery squats, and, as the day\nwas fine, and I had no reason for hurry, I went not by the covered\nmechanical way, but on foot along the broad, tree-set terraces that\nfollow the river on either side.\n\nIt was afternoon, and the mellow Thames Valley sunlight, warm and\ngentle, lit a clean and gracious world. There were many people\nabroad, going to and fro, unhurrying, but not aimless, and I watched\nthem so attentively that were you to ask me for the most elementary\ndetails of the buildings and terraces that lay back on either bank,\nor of the pinnacles and towers and parapets that laced the sky, I\ncould not tell you them. But of the people I could tell a great\ndeal.\n\nNo Utopians wear black, and for all the frequency of the samurai\nuniform along the London ways the general effect is of a\ngaily-coloured population. You never see anyone noticeably ragged or\ndirty; the police, who answer questions and keep order (and are\nquite distinct from the organisation for the pursuit of criminals)\nsee to that; and shabby people are very infrequent. People who want\nto save money for other purposes, or who do not want much bother\nwith their clothing, seem to wear costumes of rough woven cloth,\ndyed an unobtrusive brown or green, over fine woollen underclothing,\nand so achieve a decent comfort in its simplest form. Others outside\nthe Rule of the samurai range the spectrum for colour, and have\nevery variety of texture; the colours attained by the Utopian dyers\nseem to me to be fuller and purer than the common range of stuffs on\nearth; and the subtle folding of the woollen materials witness that\nUtopian Bradford is no whit behind her earthly sister. White is\nextraordinarily frequent; white woollen tunics and robes into which\nare woven bands of brilliant colour, abound. Often these ape the cut\nand purple edge that distinguishes the samurai. In Utopian London\nthe air is as clear and less dusty than it is among high mountains;\nthe roads are made of unbroken surfaces, and not of friable earth;\nall heating is done by electricity, and no coal ever enters the\ntown; there are no horses or dogs, and so there is not a suspicion\nof smoke and scarcely a particle of any sort of dirt to render white\nimpossible.\n\nThe radiated influence of the uniform of the samurai has been to\nkeep costume simple, and this, perhaps, emphasises the general\neffect of vigorous health, of shapely bodies. Everyone is well grown\nand well nourished; everyone seems in good condition; everyone walks\nwell, and has that clearness of eye that comes with cleanness of\nblood. In London I am apt to consider myself of a passable size and\ncarriage; here I feel small and mean-looking. The faint suspicions\nof spinal curvatures, skew feet, unequal legs, and ill-grown bones,\nthat haunt one in a London crowd, the plain intimations--in yellow\nfaces, puffy faces, spotted and irregular complexions, in nervous\nmovements and coughs and colds--of bad habits and an incompetent or\ndisregarded medical profession, do not appear here. I notice few old\npeople, but there seems to be a greater proportion of men and women\nat or near the prime of life.\n\nI hang upon that. I have seen one or two fat people here--they are\nall the more noticeable because they are rare. But wrinkled age?\nHave I yet in Utopia set eyes on a bald head?\n\nThe Utopians have brought a sounder physiological science than ours\nto bear upon regimen. People know better what to do and what to\navoid, how to foresee and forestall coming trouble, and how to evade\nand suppress the subtle poisons that blunt the edge of sensation.\nThey have put off the years of decay. They keep their teeth, they\nkeep their digestions, they ward off gout and rheumatism, neuralgia\nand influenza and all those cognate decays that bend and wrinkle men\nand women in the middle years of existence. They have extended the\nlevel years far into the seventies, and age, when it comes, comes\nswiftly and easily. The feverish hurry of our earth, the decay that\nbegins before growth has ceased, is replaced by a ripe prolonged\nmaturity. This modern Utopia is an adult world. The flushed romance,\nthe predominant eroticisms, the adventurous uncertainty of a world\nin which youth prevails, gives place here to a grave deliberation,\nto a fuller and more powerful emotion, to a broader handling of\nlife.\n\nYet youth is here.\n\nAmidst the men whose faces have been made fine by thought and\nsteadfast living, among the serene-eyed women, comes youth,\ngaily-coloured, buoyantly healthy, with challenging eyes, with fresh\nand eager face....\n\nFor everyone in Utopia who is sane enough to benefit, study and\ntraining last until twenty; then comes the travel year, and many are\nstill students until twenty-four or twenty-five. Most are still, in\na sense, students throughout life, but it is thought that, unless\nresponsible action is begun in some form in the early twenties, will\nundergoes a partial atrophy. But the full swing of adult life is\nhardly attained until thirty is reached. Men marry before the middle\nthirties, and the women rather earlier, few are mothers before\nfive-and-twenty. The majority of those who become samurai do so\nbetween twenty-seven and thirty-five. And, between seventeen and\nthirty, the Utopians have their dealings with love, and the play and\nexcitement of love is a chief interest in life. Much freedom of act\nis allowed them so that their wills may grow freely. For the most\npart they end mated, and love gives place to some special and more\nenduring interest, though, indeed, there is love between older men\nand fresh girls, and between youths and maturer women. It is in\nthese most graceful and beautiful years of life that such freedoms\nof dress as the atmosphere of Utopia permits are to be seen, and the\ncrude bright will and imagination of youth peeps out in ornament and\ncolour.\n\nFigures come into my sight and possess me for a moment and pass, and\ngive place to others; there comes a dusky little Jewess, red-lipped\nand amber-clad, with a deep crimson flower--I know not whether real\nor sham--in the dull black of her hair. She passes me with an\nunconscious disdain; and then I am looking at a brightly-smiling,\nblue-eyed girl, tall, ruddy, and freckled warmly, clad like a stage\nRosalind, and talking gaily to a fair young man, a novice under the\nRule. A red-haired mother under the Lesser Rule goes by, green-gowned,\nwith dark green straps crossing between her breasts, and her two\nshock-headed children, bare-legged and lightly shod, tug at her\nhands on either side. Then a grave man in a long, fur-trimmed robe,\na merchant, maybe, debates some serious matter with a white-tunicked\nclerk. And the clerk's face----? I turn to mark the straight,\nblue-black hair. The man must be Chinese....\n\nThen come two short-bearded men in careless indigo blue raiment,\nboth of them convulsed with laughter--men outside the Rule, who\npractise, perhaps, some art--and then one of the samurai, in\ncheerful altercation with a blue-robed girl of eight. \"But you\n_could_ have come back yesterday, Dadda,\" she persists. He is deeply\nsunburnt, and suddenly there passes before my mind the picture of a\nsnowy mountain waste at night-fall and a solitary small figure under\nthe stars....\n\nWhen I come back to the present thing again, my eye is caught\nat once by a young negro, carrying books in his hand, a\nprosperous-looking, self-respecting young negro, in a trimly-cut\ncoat of purple-blue and silver.\n\nI am reminded of what my double said to me of race.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE TENTH\n\nRace in Utopia\n\n\nSection 1\n\nAbove the sphere of the elemental cravings and necessities, the soul\nof man is in a perpetual vacillation between two conflicting\nimpulses: the desire to assert his individual differences, the\ndesire for distinction, and his terror of isolation. He wants to\nstand out, but not too far out, and, on the contrary, he wants\nto merge himself with a group, with some larger body, but not\naltogether. Through all the things of life runs this tortuous\ncompromise, men follow the fashions but resent ready-made uniforms\non every plane of their being. The disposition to form aggregations\nand to imagine aggregations is part of the incurable nature of man;\nit is one of the great natural forces the statesman must utilise,\nand against which he must construct effectual defences. The study of\nthe aggregations and of the ideals of aggregations about which men's\nsympathies will twine, and upon which they will base a large\nproportion of their conduct and personal policy, is the legitimate\ndefinition of sociology.\n\nNow the sort of aggregation to which men and women will refer\nthemselves is determined partly by the strength and idiosyncrasy of\nthe individual imagination, and partly by the reek of ideas that\nchances to be in the air at the time. Men and women may vary greatly\nboth in their innate and their acquired disposition towards this\nsort of larger body or that, to which their social reference can be\nmade. The \"natural\" social reference of a man is probably to some\nrather vaguely conceived tribe, as the \"natural\" social reference of\na dog is to a pack. But just as the social reference of a dog may be\neducated until the reference to a pack is completely replaced by a\nreference to an owner, so on his higher plane of educability the\nsocial reference of the civilised man undergoes the most remarkable\ntransformations. But the power and scope of his imagination and the\nneed he has of response sets limits to this process. A highly\nintellectualised mature mind may refer for its data very\nconsistently to ideas of a higher being so remote and indefinable as\nGod, so comprehensive as humanity, so far-reaching as the purpose in\nthings. I write \"may,\" but I doubt if this exaltation of reference\nis ever permanently sustained. Comte, in his Positive Polity,\nexposes his soul with great freedom, and the curious may trace how,\nwhile he professes and quite honestly intends to refer himself\nalways to his \"Greater Being\" Humanity, he narrows constantly to his\nprojected \"Western Republic\" of civilised men, and quite frequently\nto the minute indefinite body of Positivist subscribers. And the\nhistory of the Christian Church, with its development of orders and\ncults, sects and dissents, the history of fashionable society with\nits cliques and sets and every political history with its cabals and\ninner cabinets, witness to the struggle that goes on in the minds of\nmen to adjust themselves to a body larger indeed than themselves,\nbut which still does not strain and escape their imaginative\ngrasp.\n\nThe statesman, both for himself and others, must recognise this\ninadequacy of grasp, and the necessity for real and imaginary\naggregations to sustain men in their practical service of the order\nof the world. He must be a sociologist; he must study the whole\nscience of aggregations in relation to that World State to which his\nreason and his maturest thought direct him. He must lend himself to\nthe development of aggregatory ideas that favour the civilising\nprocess, and he must do his best to promote the disintegration of\naggregations and the effacement of aggregatory ideas, that keep men\nnarrow and unreasonably prejudiced one against another.\n\nHe will, of course, know that few men are even rudely consistent in\nsuch matters, that the same man in different moods and on different\noccasions, is capable of referring himself in perfect good faith,\nnot only to different, but to contradictory larger beings, and that\nthe more important thing about an aggregatory idea from the State\nmaker's point of view is not so much what it explicitly involves as\nwhat it implicitly repudiates. The natural man does not feel he is\naggregating at all, unless he aggregates _against something. He\nrefers himself to the tribe; he is loyal to the tribe, and quite\ninseparably he fears or dislikes those others outside the tribe. The\ntribe is always at least defensively hostile and usually actively\nhostile to humanity beyond the aggregation. The Anti-idea, it would\nseem, is inseparable from the aggregatory idea; it is a necessity of\nthe human mind. When we think of the class A as desirable, we think\nof Not-A as undesirable. The two things are as inevitably connected\nas the tendons of our hands, so that when we flatten down our little\nfingers on our palms, the fourth digit, whether we want it or not,\ncomes down halfway. All real working gods, one may remark, all gods\nthat are worshipped emotionally, are tribal gods, and every attempt\nto universalise the idea of God trails dualism and the devil after\nit as a moral necessity.\n\nWhen we inquire, as well as the unformed condition of terrestrial\nsociology permits, into the aggregatory ideas that seem to satisfy\nmen, we find a remarkable complex, a disorderly complex, in the\nminds of nearly all our civilised contemporaries. For example, all\nsorts of aggregatory ideas come and go across the chameleon surfaces\nof my botanist's mind. He has a strong feeling for systematic\nbotanists as against plant physiologists, whom he regards as lewd\nand evil scoundrels in this relation, but he has a strong feeling\nfor all botanists, and, indeed, all biologists, as against\nphysicists, and those who profess the exact sciences, all of whom he\nregards as dull, mechanical, ugly-minded scoundrels in this\nrelation; but he has a strong feeling for all who profess what is\ncalled Science as against psychologists, sociologists, philosophers,\nand literary men, whom he regards as wild, foolish, immoral\nscoundrels in this relation; but he has a strong feeling for all\neducated men as against the working man, whom he regards as a\ncheating, lying, loafing, drunken, thievish, dirty scoundrel in this\nrelation; but so soon as the working man is comprehended together\nwith those others, as Englishmen--which includes, in this case, I\nmay remark, the Scottish and Welsh--he holds them superior to all\nother sorts of European, whom he regards, &c....\n\nNow one perceives in all these aggregatory ideas and rearrangements\nof the sympathies one of the chief vices of human thought, due to\nits obsession by classificatory suggestions. [Footnote: See Chapter\nthe First, section 5, and the Appendix.] The necessity for marking\nour classes has brought with it a bias for false and excessive\ncontrast, and we never invent a term but we are at once cramming it\nwith implications beyond its legitimate content. There is no feat of\nirrelevance that people will not perform quite easily in this way;\nthere is no class, however accidental, to which they will not at\nonce ascribe deeply distinctive qualities. The seventh sons of\nseventh sons have remarkable powers of insight; people with a\ncertain sort of ear commit crimes of violence; people with red hair\nhave souls of fire; all democratic socialists are trustworthy\npersons; all people born in Ireland have vivid imaginations and all\nEnglishmen are clods; all Hindoos are cowardly liars; all\ncurly-haired people are good-natured; all hunch-backs are energetic\nand wicked, and all Frenchmen eat frogs. Such stupid generalisations\nhave been believed with the utmost readiness, and acted upon by\ngreat numbers of sane, respectable people. And when the class is\none's own class, when it expresses one of the aggregations to which\none refers one's own activities, then the disposition to divide all\nqualities between this class and its converse, and to cram one's own\nclass with every desirable distinction, becomes overwhelming.\n\nIt is part of the training of the philosopher to regard all such\ngeneralisations with suspicion; it is part of the training of the\nUtopist and statesman, and all good statesmen are Utopists, to\nmingle something very like animosity with that suspicion. For crude\nclassifications and false generalisations are the curse of all\norganised human life.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nDisregarding classes, cliques, sets, castes, and the like minor\naggregations, concerned for the most part with details and minor\naspects of life, one finds among the civilised peoples of the world\ncertain broad types of aggregatory idea. There are, firstly, the\nnational ideas, ideas which, in their perfection, require a\nuniformity of physical and mental type, a common idiom, a common\nreligion, a distinctive style of costume, decoration, and thought,\nand a compact organisation acting with complete external unity. Like\nthe Gothic cathedral, the national idea is never found complete with\nall its parts; but one has in Russia, with her insistence on\npolitical and religious orthodoxy, something approaching it pretty\nclosely, and again in the inland and typical provinces of China,\nwhere even a strange pattern of hat arouses hostility. We had it in\nvigorous struggle to exist in England under the earlier Georges in\nthe minds of those who supported the Established Church. The idea of\nthe fundamental nature of nationality is so ingrained in thought,\nwith all the usual exaggeration of implication, that no one laughs\nat talk about Swedish painting or American literature. And I will\nconfess and point out that my own detachment from these delusions is\nso imperfect and discontinuous that in another passage I have\ncommitted myself to a short assertion of the exceptionally noble\nquality of the English imagination. [Footnote: Chapter the Seventh,\nsection 6.] I am constantly gratified by flattering untruths about\nEnglish superiority which I should reject indignantly were the\napplication bluntly personal, and I am ever ready to believe the\nscenery of England, the poetry of England, even the decoration and\nmusic of England, in some mystic and impregnable way, the best. This\nhabit of intensifying all class definitions, and particularly those\nin which one has a personal interest, is in the very constitution of\nman's mind. It is part of the defect of that instrument. We may\nwatch against it and prevent it doing any great injustices, or\nleading us into follies, but to eradicate it is an altogether\ndifferent matter. There it is, to be reckoned with, like the coccyx,\nthe pineal eye, and the vermiform appendix. And a too consistent\nattack on it may lead simply to its inversion, to a vindictively\npro-foreigner attitude that is equally unwise.\n\nThe second sort of aggregatory ideas, running very often across the\nboundaries of national ideas and in conflict with them, are\nreligious ideas. In Western Europe true national ideas only emerged\nto their present hectic vigour after the shock of the Reformation\nhad liberated men from the great tradition of a Latin-speaking\nChristendom, a tradition the Roman Catholic Church has sustained as\nits modification of the old Latin-speaking Imperialism in the rule\nof the pontifex maximus. There was, and there remains to this day, a\nprofound disregard of local dialect and race in the Roman Catholic\ntradition, which has made that Church a persistently disintegrating\ninfluence in national life. Equally spacious and equally regardless\nof tongues and peoples is the great Arabic-speaking religion of\nMahomet. Both Christendom and Islam are indeed on their secular\nsides imperfect realisations of a Utopian World State. But the\nsecular side was the weaker side of these cults; they produced no\nsufficiently great statesmen to realise their spiritual forces, and\nit is not in Rome under pontifical rule, nor in Munster under the\nAnabaptists, but rather in Thomas a Kempis and Saint Augustin's City\nof God that we must seek for the Utopias of Christianity.\n\nIn the last hundred years a novel development of material forces,\nand especially of means of communication, has done very much to\nbreak up the isolations in which nationality perfected its\nprejudices and so to render possible the extension and consolidation\nof such a world-wide culture as mediaeval Christendom and Islam\nforeshadowed. The first onset of these expansive developments has\nbeen marked in the world of mind by an expansion of political\nideals--Comte's \"Western Republic\" (1848) was the first Utopia that\ninvolved the synthesis of numerous States--by the development of\n\"Imperialisms\" in the place of national policies, and by the search\nfor a basis for wider political unions in racial traditions and\nlinguistic affinities. Anglo-Saxonism, Pan-Germanism, and the like\nare such synthetic ideas. Until the eighties, the general tendency\nof progressive thought was at one with the older Christian tradition\nwhich ignored \"race,\" and the aim of the expansive liberalism\nmovement, so far as it had a clear aim, was to Europeanise the\nworld, to extend the franchise to negroes, put Polynesians into\ntrousers, and train the teeming myriads of India to appreciate the\nexquisite lilt of The Lady of the Lake. There is always some\nabsurdity mixed with human greatness, and we must not let the fact\nthat the middle Victorians counted Scott, the suffrage and\npantaloons among the supreme blessings of life, conceal from us the\nvery real nobility of their dream of England's mission to the\nworld....\n\nWe of this generation have seen a flood of reaction against such\nuniversalism. The great intellectual developments that centre upon\nthe work of Darwin have exacerbated the realisation that life is a\nconflict between superior and inferior types, it has underlined the\nidea that specific survival rates are of primary significance in the\nworld's development, and a swarm of inferior intelligences has\napplied to human problems elaborated and exaggerated versions of\nthese generalisations. These social and political followers of\nDarwin have fallen into an obvious confusion between race and\nnationality, and into the natural trap of patriotic conceit. The\ndissent of the Indian and Colonial governing class to the first\ncrude applications of liberal propositions in India has found a\nvoice of unparalleled penetration in Mr. Kipling, whose want of\nintellectual deliberation is only equalled by his poietic power. The\nsearch for a basis for a new political synthesis in adaptable\nsympathies based on linguistic affinities, was greatly influenced by\nMax Muller's unaccountable assumption that language indicated\nkindred, and led straight to wildly speculative ethnology, to the\ndiscovery that there was a Keltic race, a Teutonic race, an\nIndo-European race, and so forth. A book that has had enormous\ninfluence in this matter, because of its use in teaching, is J. R.\nGreen's Short History of the English People, with its grotesque\ninsistence upon Anglo-Saxonism. And just now, the world is in a sort\nof delirium about race and the racial struggle. The Briton\nforgetting his Defoe, [Footnote: The True-born Englishman.] the Jew\nforgetting the very word proselyte, the German forgetting his\nanthropometric variations, and the Italian forgetting everything,\nare obsessed by the singular purity of their blood, and the danger\nof contamination the mere continuance of other races involves. True\nto the law that all human aggregation involves the development of a\nspirit of opposition to whatever is external to the aggregation,\nextraordinary intensifications of racial definition are going on;\nthe vileness, the inhumanity, the incompatibility of alien races is\nbeing steadily exaggerated. The natural tendency of every human\nbeing towards a stupid conceit in himself and his kind, a stupid\ndepreciation of all unlikeness, is traded upon by this bastard\nscience. With the weakening of national references, and with the\npause before reconstruction in religious belief, these new arbitrary\nand unsubstantial race prejudices become daily more formidable. They\nare shaping policies and modifying laws, and they will certainly be\nresponsible for a large proportion of the wars, hardships, and\ncruelties the immediate future holds in store for our earth.\n\nNo generalisations about race are too extravagant for the inflamed\ncredulity of the present time. No attempt is ever made to\ndistinguish differences in inherent quality--the true racial\ndifferences--from artificial differences due to culture. No lesson\nseems ever to be drawn from history of the fluctuating incidence of\nthe civilising process first upon this race and then upon that. The\npolitically ascendant peoples of the present phase are understood to\nbe the superior races, including such types as the Sussex farm\nlabourer, the Bowery tough, the London hooligan, and the Paris\napache; the races not at present prospering politically, such as the\nEgyptians, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Moors, the Chinese, the\nHindoos, the Peruvians, and all uncivilised people are represented\nas the inferior races, unfit to associate with the former on terms\nof equality, unfit to intermarry with them on any terms, unfit for\nany decisive voice in human affairs. In the popular imagination of\nWestern Europe, the Chinese are becoming bright gamboge in colour,\nand unspeakably abominable in every respect; the people who are\nblack--the people who have fuzzy hair and flattish noses, and no\ncalves to speak of--are no longer held to be within the pale of\nhumanity. These superstitions work out along the obvious lines of\nthe popular logic. The depopulation of the Congo Free State by the\nBelgians, the horrible massacres of Chinese by European soldiery\nduring the Pekin expedition, are condoned as a painful but necessary\npart of the civilising process of the world. The world-wide\nrepudiation of slavery in the nineteenth century was done against a\nvast sullen force of ignorant pride, which, reinvigorated by the\nnew delusions, swings back again to power.\n\n\"Science\" is supposed to lend its sanction to race mania, but it is\nonly \"science\" as it is understood by very illiterate people that\ndoes anything of the sort--\"scientists'\" science, in fact. What\nscience has to tell about \"The Races of Man\" will be found compactly\nset forth by Doctor J. Deinker, in the book published under that\ntitle. [Footnote: See also an excellent paper in the American\nJournal of Sociology for March, 1904, The Psychology of Race\nPrejudice, by W. I. Thomas.] From that book one may learn the\nbeginnings of race charity. Save for a few isolated pools of savage\nhumanity, there is probably no pure race in the whole world. The\ngreat continental populations are all complex mixtures of numerous\nand fluctuating types. Even the Jews present every kind of skull\nthat is supposed to be racially distinctive, a vast range of\ncomplexion--from blackness in Goa, to extreme fairness in\nHolland--and a vast mental and physical diversity. Were the Jews\nto discontinue all intermarriage with \"other races\" henceforth\nfor ever, it would depend upon quite unknown laws of fecundity,\nprepotency, and variability, what their final type would be, or,\nindeed, whether any particular type would ever prevail over\ndiversity. And, without going beyond the natives of the British\nIsles, one can discover an enormous range of types, tall and short,\nstraight-haired and curly, fair and dark, supremely intelligent and\nunteachably stupid, straightforward, disingenuous, and what not. The\nnatural tendency is to forget all this range directly \"race\" comes\nunder discussion, to take either an average or some quite arbitrary\nideal as the type, and think only of that. The more difficult thing\nto do, but the thing that must be done if we are to get just results\nin this discussion, is to do one's best to bear the range in\nmind.\n\nLet us admit that the average Chinaman is probably different in\ncomplexion, and, indeed, in all his physical and psychical\nproportions, from the average Englishman. Does that render their\nassociation upon terms of equality in a World State impossible? What\nthe average Chinaman or Englishman may be, is of no importance\nwhatever to our plan of a World State. It is not averages that\nexist, but individuals. The average Chinaman will never meet the\naverage Englishman anywhere; only individual Chinamen will meet\nindividual Englishmen. Now among Chinamen will be found a range of\nvariety as extensive as among Englishmen, and there is no single\ntrait presented by all Chinamen and no Englishman, or vice versa.\nEven the oblique eye is not universal in China, and there are\nprobably many Chinamen who might have been \"changed at birth,\" taken\naway and educated into quite passable Englishmen. Even after we have\nseparated out and allowed for the differences in carriage, physique,\nmoral prepossessions, and so forth, due to their entirely divergent\ncultures, there remains, no doubt, a very great difference between\nthe average Chinaman and the average Englishman; but would that\namount to a wider difference than is to be found between extreme\ntypes of Englishmen?\n\nFor my own part I do not think that it would. But it is evident that\nany precise answer can be made only when anthropology has adopted\nmuch more exact and exhaustive methods of inquiry, and a far more\nprecise analysis than its present resources permit.\n\nBe it remembered how doubtful and tainted is the bulk of our\nevidence in these matters. These are extraordinarily subtle\ninquiries, from which few men succeed in disentangling the threads\nof their personal associations--the curiously interwoven strands of\nself-love and self-interest that affect their inquiries. One might\nalmost say that instinct fights against such investigations, as it\ndoes undoubtedly against many necessary medical researches. But\nwhile a long special training, a high tradition and the possibility\nof reward and distinction, enable the medical student to face many\ntasks that are at once undignified and physically repulsive, the\npeople from whom we get our anthropological information are rarely\nmen of more than average intelligence, and of no mental training at\nall. And the problems are far more elusive. It surely needs at least\nthe gifts and training of a first-class novelist, combined with a\nsedulous patience that probably cannot be hoped for in combination\nwith these, to gauge the all-round differences between man and man.\nEven where there are no barriers of language and colour,\nunderstanding may be nearly impossible. How few educated people seem\nto understand the servant class in England, or the working men!\nExcept for Mr. Bart Kennedy's A Man Adrift, I know of scarcely any\nbook that shows a really sympathetic and living understanding of the\nnavvy, the longshore sailor man, the rough chap of our own race.\nCaricatures, luridly tragic or gaily comic, in which the\nmisconceptions of the author blend with the preconceptions of the\nreader and achieve success, are, of course, common enough. And then\nconsider the sort of people who pronounce judgments on the moral and\nintellectual capacity of the negro, the Malay, or the Chinaman. You\nhave missionaries, native schoolmasters, employers of coolies,\ntraders, simple downright men, who scarcely suspect the existence\nof any sources of error in their verdicts, who are incapable of\nunderstanding the difference between what is innate and what is\nacquired, much less of distinguishing them in their interplay. Now\nand then one seems to have a glimpse of something really living--in\nMary Kingsley's buoyant work, for instance--and even that may be no\nmore than my illusion.\n\nFor my own part I am disposed to discount all adverse judgments and\nall statements of insurmountable differences between race and race.\nI talk upon racial qualities to all men who have had opportunities\nof close observation, and I find that their insistence upon these\ndifferences is usually in inverse proportion to their intelligence.\nIt may be the chance of my encounters, but that is my clear\nimpression. Common sailors will generalise in the profoundest way\nabout Irishmen, and Scotchmen, and Yankees, and Nova Scotians, and\n\"Dutchies,\" until one might think one talked of different species of\nanimal, but the educated explorer flings clear of all these\ndelusions. To him men present themselves individualised, and if they\nclassify it is by some skin-deep accident of tint, some trick of the\ntongue, or habit of gesture, or such-like superficiality. And after\nall there exists to-day available one kind at least of unbiassed\nanthropological evidence. There are photographs. Let the reader turn\nover the pages of some such copiously illustrated work as The Living\nRaces of Mankind, [Footnote: The Living Races of Mankind, by H. N.\nHutchinson, J. W. Gregory, and R. Lydekker. (Hutchinson.)] and look\ninto the eyes of one alien face after another. Are they not very\nlike the people one knows? For the most part, one finds it hard to\nbelieve that, with a common language and common social traditions,\none would not get on very well with these people. Here or there is\na brutish or evil face, but you can find as brutish and evil in\nthe Strand on any afternoon. There are differences no doubt, but\nfundamental incompatibilities--no! And very many of them send out\na ray of special resemblance and remind one more strongly of this\nfriend or that, than they do of their own kind. One notes with\nsurprise that one's good friend and neighbour X and an anonymous\nnaked Gold Coast negro belong to one type, as distinguished from\none's dear friend Y and a beaming individual from Somaliland, who\nas certainly belong to another.\n\nIn one matter the careless and prejudiced nature of accepted racial\ngeneralisations is particularly marked. A great and increasing\nnumber of people are persuaded that \"half-breeds\" are peculiarly\nevil creatures--as hunchbacks and bastards were supposed to be in\nthe middle ages. The full legend of the wickedness of the half-breed\nis best to be learnt from a drunken mean white from Virginia or the\nCape. The half-breed, one hears, combines all the vices of either\nparent, he is wretchedly poor in health and spirit, but vindictive,\npowerful, and dangerous to an extreme degree, his morals--the mean\nwhite has high and exacting standards--are indescribable even in\nwhispers in a saloon, and so on, and so on. There is really not an\natom of evidence an unprejudiced mind would accept to sustain any\nbelief of the sort. There is nothing to show that the children of\nracial admixture are, as a class, inherently either better or worse\nin any respect than either parent. There is an equally baseless\ntheory that they are better, a theory displayed to a fine degree of\nfoolishness in the article on Shakespeare in the Encyclopaedia\nBritannica. Both theories belong to the vast edifice of sham science\nthat smothers the realities of modern knowledge. It may be that most\n\"half-breeds\" are failures in life, but that proves nothing. They\nare, in an enormous number of cases, illegitimate and outcast from\nthe normal education of either race; they are brought up in homes\nthat are the battle-grounds of conflicting cultures; they labour\nunder a heavy premium of disadvantage. There is, of course, a\npassing suggestion of Darwin's to account for atavism that might go\nto support the theory of the vileness of half-breeds, if it had ever\nbeen proved. But, then, it never has been proved. There is no proof\nin the matter at all.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nSuppose, now, there is such a thing as an all-round inferior race.\nIs that any reason why we should propose to preserve it for ever in\na condition of tutelage? Whether there is a race so inferior I do\nnot know, but certainly there is no race so superior as to be\ntrusted with human charges. The true answer to Aristotle's plea for\nslavery, that there are \"natural slaves,\" lies in the fact that\nthere are no \"natural\" masters. Power is no more to be committed to\nmen without discipline and restriction than alcohol. The true\nobjection to slavery is not that it is unjust to the inferior but\nthat it corrupts the superior. There is only one sane and logical\nthing to be done with a really inferior race, and that is to\nexterminate it.\n\nNow there are various ways of exterminating a race, and most of them\nare cruel. You may end it with fire and sword after the old Hebrew\nfashion; you may enslave it and work it to death, as the Spaniards\ndid the Caribs; you may set it boundaries and then poison it slowly\nwith deleterious commodities, as the Americans do with most of their\nIndians; you may incite it to wear clothing to which it is not\naccustomed and to live under new and strange conditions that will\nexpose it to infectious diseases to which you yourselves are immune,\nas the missionaries do the Polynesians; you may resort to honest\nsimple murder, as we English did with the Tasmanians; or you can\nmaintain such conditions as conduce to \"race suicide,\" as the\nBritish administration does in Fiji. Suppose, then, for a moment,\nthat there is an all-round inferior race; a Modern Utopia is under\nthe hard logic of life, and it would have to exterminate such a race\nas quickly as it could. On the whole, the Fijian device seems the\nleast cruel. But Utopia would do that without any clumsiness of race\ndistinction, in exactly the same manner, and by the same machinery,\nas it exterminates all its own defective and inferior strains; that\nis to say, as we have already discussed in Chapter the Fifth,\nsection 1, by its marriage laws, and by the laws of the minimum\nwage. That extinction need never be discriminatory. If any of the\nrace did, after all, prove to be fit to survive, they would\nsurvive--they would be picked out with a sure and automatic justice\nfrom the over-ready condemnation of all their kind.\n\nIs there, however, an all-round inferior race in the world? Even the\nAustralian black-fellow is, perhaps, not quite so entirely eligible\nfor extinction as a good, wholesome, horse-racing, sheep-farming\nAustralian white may think. These queer little races, the\nblack-fellows, the Pigmies, the Bushmen, may have their little\ngifts, a greater keenness, a greater fineness of this sense or that,\na quaintness of the imagination or what not, that may serve as their\nlittle unique addition to the totality of our Utopian civilisation.\nWe are supposing that every individual alive on earth is alive in\nUtopia, and so all the surviving \"black-fellows\" are there. Every\none of them in Utopia has had what none have had on earth, a fair\neducation and fair treatment, justice, and opportunity. Suppose that\nthe common idea is right about the general inferiority of these\npeople, then it would follow that in Utopia most of them are\nchildless, and working at or about the minimum wage, and some will\nhave passed out of all possibility of offspring under the hand of\nthe offended law; but still--cannot we imagine some few of these\nlittle people--whom you must suppose neither naked nor clothed in\nthe European style, but robed in the Utopian fashion--may have found\nsome delicate art to practise, some peculiar sort of carving, for\nexample, that justifies God in creating them? Utopia has sound\nsanitary laws, sound social laws, sound economic laws; what harm are\nthese people going to do?\n\nSome may be even prosperous and admired, may have married women of\ntheir own or some other race, and so may be transmitting that\ndistinctive thin thread of excellence, to take its due place in the\ngreat synthesis of the future.\n\nAnd, indeed, coming along that terrace in Utopia, I see a little\nfigure, a little bright-eyed, bearded man, inky black, frizzy\nhaired, and clad in a white tunic and black hose, and with a mantle\nof lemon yellow wrapped about his shoulders. He walks, as most\nUtopians walk, as though he had reason to be proud of something, as\nthough he had no reason to be afraid of anything in the world. He\ncarries a portfolio in his hand. It is that, I suppose, as much as\nhis hair, that recalls the Quartier Latin to my mind.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nI had already discussed the question of race with the botanist at\nLucerne.\n\n\"But you would not like,\" he cried in horror, \"your daughter to\nmarry a Chinaman or a negro?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said I, \"when you say Chinaman, you think of a creature\nwith a pigtail, long nails, and insanitary habits, and when you say\nnegro you think of a filthy-headed, black creature in an old hat.\nYou do this because your imagination is too feeble to disentangle\nthe inherent qualities of a thing from its habitual associations.\"\n\n\"Insult isn't argument,\" said the botanist.\n\n\"Neither is unsound implication. You make a question of race into a\nquestion of unequal cultures. You would not like your daughter to\nmarry the sort of negro who steals hens, but then you would also not\nlike your daughter to marry a pure English hunchback with a squint,\nor a drunken cab tout of Norman blood. As a matter of fact, very few\nwell-bred English girls do commit that sort of indiscretion. But you\ndon't think it necessary to generalise against men of your own race\nbecause there are drunken cab touts, and why should you generalise\nagainst negroes? Because the proportion of undesirables is higher\namong negroes, that does not justify a sweeping condemnation. You\nmay have to condemn most, but why _all_? There may be--neither of us\nknows enough to deny--negroes who are handsome, capable,\ncourageous.\"\n\n\"Ugh!\" said the botanist.\n\n\"How detestable you must find Othello!\"\n\nIt is my Utopia, and for a moment I could almost find it in my heart\nto spite the botanist by creating a modern Desdemona and her lover\nsooty black to the lips, there before our eyes. But I am not so sure\nof my case as that, and for the moment there shall come nothing more\nthan a swart-faced, dusky Burmese woman in the dress of the Greater\nRule, with her tall Englishman (as he might be on earth) at her\nside. That, however, is a digression from my conversation with the\nbotanist.\n\n\"And the Chinaman?\" said the botanist.\n\n\"I think we shall have all the buff and yellow peoples intermingling\npretty freely.\"\n\n\"Chinamen and white women, for example.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"you've got to swallow that, anyhow; you _shall_\nswallow that.\"\n\nHe finds the idea too revolting for comment.\n\nI try and make the thing seem easier for him. \"Do try,\" I said, \"to\ngrasp a Modern Utopian's conditions. The Chinaman will speak the\nsame language as his wife--whatever her race may be--he will wear\ncostume of the common civilised fashion, he will have much the same\neducation as his European rival, read the same literature, bow to\nthe same traditions. And you must remember a wife in Utopia is\nsingularly not subject to her husband....\"\n\nThe botanist proclaims his invincible conclusion: \"Everyone would\ncut her!\"\n\n\"This is Utopia,\" I said, and then sought once more to tranquillise\nhis mind. \"No doubt among the vulgar, coarse-minded people outside\nthe Rule there may be something of the sort. Every earthly moral\nblockhead, a little educated, perhaps, is to be found in Utopia. You\nwill, no doubt, find the 'cut' and the 'boycott,' and all those nice\nlittle devices by which dull people get a keen edge on life, in\ntheir place here, and their place here is somewhere----\"\n\nI turned a thumb earthward. \"There!\"\n\nThe botanist did not answer for a little while. Then he said, with\nsome temper and great emphasis: \"Well, I'm jolly glad anyhow that\nI'm not to be a permanent resident in this Utopia, if our daughters\nare to be married to Hottentots by regulation. I'm jolly glad.\"\n\nHe turned his back on me.\n\nNow did I say anything of the sort? ...\n\nI had to bring him, I suppose; there's no getting away from him in\nthis life. But, as I have already observed, the happy ancients went\nto their Utopias without this sort of company.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nWhat gives the botanist so great an advantage in all his\nAnti-Utopian utterances is his unconsciousness of his own\nlimitations. He thinks in little pieces that lie about loose, and\nnothing has any necessary link with anything else in his mind. So\nthat I cannot retort upon him by asking him, if he objects to this\nsynthesis of all nations, tongues and peoples in a World State, what\nalternative ideal he proposes.\n\nPeople of this sort do not even feel the need of alternatives.\nBeyond the scope of a few personal projects, meeting Her again, and\nthings like that, they do not feel that there is a future. They are\nunencumbered by any baggage of convictions whatever, in relation to\nthat. That, at least, is the only way in which I can explain our\nfriend's high intellectual mobility. Attempts to correlate\nstatesmanship, which they regard with interest as a dramatic\ninterplay of personalities, with any secular movement of humanity,\nthey class with the differential calculus and Darwinism, as things\nfar too difficult to be anything but finally and subtly wrong.\n\nSo the argument must pass into a direct address to the reader.\n\nIf you are not prepared to regard a world-wide synthesis of all\ncultures and polities and races into one World State as the\ndesirable end upon which all civilising efforts converge, what do\nyou regard as the desirable end? Synthesis, one may remark in\npassing, does not necessarily mean fusion, nor does it mean\nuniformity.\n\nThe alternatives fall roughly under three headings. The first is to\nassume there is a best race, to define as well as one can that best\nrace, and to regard all other races as material for extermination.\nThis has a fine, modern, biological air (\"Survival of the Fittest\").\nIf you are one of those queer German professors who write insanity\nabout Welt-Politik, you assume the best race is the \"Teutonic\";\nCecil Rhodes affected that triumph of creative imagination, the\n\"Anglo-Saxon race\"; my friend, Moses Cohen, thinks there is much to\nbe said for the Jew. On its premises, this is a perfectly sound and\nreasonable policy, and it opens out a brilliant prospect for the\nscientific inventor for what one might call Welt-Apparat in the\nfuture, for national harrowing and reaping machines, and\nrace-destroying fumigations. The great plain of China (\"Yellow\nPeril\") lends itself particularly to some striking wholesale\nundertaking; it might, for example, be flooded for a few days, and\nthen disinfected with volcanic chlorine. Whether, when all the\ninferior races have been stamped out, the superior race would not\nproceed at once, or after a brief millennial period of social\nharmony, to divide itself into sub-classes, and begin the business\nover again at a higher level, is an interesting residual question\ninto which we need not now penetrate.\n\nThat complete development of a scientific Welt-Politik is not,\nhowever, very widely advocated at present, no doubt from a want of\nconfidence in the public imagination. We have, however, a very\naudible and influential school, the Modern Imperialist school, which\ndistinguishes its own race--there is a German, a British, and an\nAnglo-Saxon section in the school, and a wider teaching which\nembraces the whole \"white race\" in one remarkable tolerance--as the\nsuperior race, as one, indeed, superior enough to own slaves,\ncollectively, if not individually; and the exponents of this\ndoctrine look with a resolute, truculent, but slightly indistinct\neye to a future in which all the rest of the world will be in\nsubjection to these elect. The ideals of this type are set forth\npretty clearly in Mr. Kidd's Control of the Tropics. The whole world\nis to be administered by the \"white\" Powers--Mr. Kidd did not\nanticipate Japan--who will see to it that their subjects do not\n\"prevent the utilisation of the immense natural resources which they\nhave in charge.\" Those other races are to be regarded as children,\nrecalcitrant children at times, and without any of the tender\nemotions of paternity. It is a little doubtful whether the races\nlacking \"in the elementary qualities of social efficiency\" are\nexpected to acquire them under the chastening hands of those races\nwhich, through \"strength and energy of character, humanity, probity,\nand integrity, and a single-minded devotion to conceptions of duty,\"\nare developing \"the resources of the richest regions of the earth\"\nover their heads, or whether this is the ultimate ideal.\n\nNext comes the rather incoherent alternative that one associates in\nEngland with official Liberalism.\n\nLiberalism in England is not quite the same thing as Liberalism in\nthe rest of the world; it is woven of two strands. There is\nWhiggism, the powerful tradition of seventeenth-century Protestant\nand republican England, with its great debt to republican Rome, its\nstrong constructive and disciplinary bias, its broad and originally\nvery living and intelligent outlook; and interwoven with this there\nis the sentimental and logical Liberalism that sprang from the\nstresses of the eighteenth century, that finds its early scarce\ndifferentiated expression in Harrington's Oceana, and after fresh\ndraughts of the tradition of Brutus and Cato and some elegant\ntrifling with noble savages, budded in La Cite Morellyste, flowered\nin the emotional democratic naturalism of Rousseau, and bore\nabundant fruit in the French Revolution. These are two very distinct\nstrands. Directly they were freed in America from the grip of\nconflict with British Toryism, they came apart as the Republican and\nDemocratic parties respectively. Their continued union in Great\nBritain is a political accident. Because of this mixture, the whole\ncareer of English-speaking Liberalism, though it has gone to one\nunbroken strain of eloquence, has never produced a clear statement\nof policy in relation to other peoples politically less fortunate.\nIt has developed no definite ideas at all about the future of\nmankind. The Whig disposition, which once had some play in India,\nwas certainly to attempt to anglicise the \"native,\" to assimilate\nhis culture, and then to assimilate his political status with that\nof his temporary ruler. But interwoven with this anglicising\ntendency, which was also, by the bye, a Christianising tendency, was\na strong disposition, derived from the Rousseau strand, to leave\nother peoples alone, to facilitate even the separation and autonomy\nof detached portions of our own peoples, to disintegrate finally\ninto perfect, because lawless, individuals. The official exposition\nof British \"Liberalism\" to-day still wriggles unstably because of\nthese conflicting constituents, but on the whole the Whig strand now\nseems the weaker. The contemporary Liberal politician offers cogent\ncriticism upon the brutality and conceit of modern imperialisms, but\nthat seems to be the limit of his service. Taking what they do not\nsay and do not propose as an indication of Liberal intentions, it\nwould seem that the ideal of the British Liberals and of the\nAmerican Democrats is to favour the existence of just as many petty,\nloosely allied, or quite independent nationalities as possible, just\nas many languages as possible, to deprecate armies and all controls,\nand to trust to the innate goodness of disorder and the powers of an\nardent sentimentality to keep the world clean and sweet. The\nLiberals will not face the plain consequence that such a state of\naffairs is hopelessly unstable, that it involves the maximum risk of\nwar with the minimum of permanent benefit and public order. They\nwill not reflect that the stars in their courses rule inexorably\nagainst it. It is a vague, impossible ideal, with a rude sort of\nunworldly moral beauty, like the gospel of the Doukhobors. Besides\nthat charm it has this most seductive quality to an official British\nLiberal, that it does not exact intellectual activity nor indeed\nactivity of any sort whatever. It is, by virtue of that alone, a far\nless mischievous doctrine than the crude and violent Imperialism of\nthe popular Press.\n\nNeither of these two schools of policy, neither the international\nlaisser faire of the Liberals, nor \"hustle to the top\" Imperialism,\npromise any reality of permanent progress for the world of men. They\nare the resort, the moral reference, of those who will not think\nfrankly and exhaustively over the whole field of this question. Do\nthat, insist upon solutions of more than accidental applicability,\nand you emerge with one or other of two contrasted solutions, as the\nconsciousness of kind or the consciousness of individuality prevails\nin your mind. In the former case you will adopt aggressive\nImperialism, but you will carry it out to its \"thorough\" degree of\nextermination. You will seek to develop the culture and power of\nyour kind of men and women to the utmost in order to shoulder all\nother kinds from the earth. If on the other hand you appreciate the\nunique, you will aim at such a synthesis as this Utopia displays, a\nsynthesis far more credible and possible than any other\nWelt-Politik. In spite of all the pageant of modern war, synthesis\nis in the trend of the world. To aid and develop it, could be made\nthe open and secure policy of any great modern empire now. Modern\nwar, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only\nthrough the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and\nintellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind.\nWere the will of the mass of men lit and conscious, I am firmly\nconvinced it would now burn steadily for synthesis and peace.\n\nIt would be so easy to bring about a world peace within a few\ndecades, was there but the will for it among men! The great empires\nthat exist need but a little speech and frankness one with another.\nWithin, the riddles of social order are already half solved in books\nand thought, there are the common people and the subject peoples to\nbe educated and drilled, to be led to a common speech and a common\nliterature, to be assimilated and made citizens; without, there is\nthe possibility of treaties. Why, for example, should Britain and\nFrance, or either and the United States, or Sweden and Norway, or\nHolland, or Denmark, or Italy, fight any more for ever? And if there\nis no reason, how foolish and dangerous it is still to sustain\nlinguistic differences and custom houses, and all sorts of foolish\nand irritating distinctions between their various citizens! Why\nshould not all these peoples agree to teach some common language,\nFrench, for example, in their common schools, or to teach each\nother's languages reciprocally? Why should they not aim at a common\nliterature, and bring their various common laws, their marriage\nlaws, and so on, into uniformity? Why should they not work for a\nuniform minimum of labour conditions through all their communities?\nWhy, then, should they not--except in the interests of a few rascal\nplutocrats--trade freely and exchange their citizenship freely\nthroughout their common boundaries? No doubt there are difficulties\nto be found, but they are quite finite difficulties. What is there\nto prevent a parallel movement of all the civilised Powers in the\nworld towards a common ideal and assimilation?\n\nStupidity--nothing but stupidity, a stupid brute jealousy, aimless\nand unjustifiable.\n\nThe coarser conceptions of aggregation are at hand, the hostile,\njealous patriotisms, the blare of trumpets and the pride of fools;\nthey serve the daily need though they lead towards disaster. The\nreal and the immediate has us in its grip, the accidental personal\nthing. The little effort of thought, the brief sustained effort of\nwill, is too much for the contemporary mind. Such treaties, such\nsympathetic international movements, are but dream stuff yet on\nearth, though Utopia has realised them long since and already passed\nthem by.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE ELEVENTH\n\nThe Bubble Bursts\n\n\nSection 1\n\nAs I walk back along the river terrace to the hotel where the\nbotanist awaits me, and observe the Utopians I encounter, I have no\nthought that my tenure of Utopia becomes every moment more\nprecarious. There float in my mind vague anticipations of more talks\nwith my double and still more, of a steady elaboration of detail, of\ninteresting journeys of exploration. I forget that a Utopia is a\nthing of the imagination that becomes more fragile with every added\ncircumstance, that, like a soap-bubble, it is most brilliantly and\nvariously coloured at the very instant of its dissolution. This\nUtopia is nearly done. All the broad lines of its social\norganisation are completed now, the discussion of all its general\ndifficulties and problems. Utopian individuals pass me by, fine\nbuildings tower on either hand; it does not occur to me that I may\nlook too closely. To find the people assuming the concrete and\nindividual, is not, as I fondly imagine, the last triumph of\nrealisation, but the swimming moment of opacity before the film\ngives way. To come to individual emotional cases, is to return to\nthe earth.\n\nI find the botanist sitting at a table in the hotel courtyard.\n\n\"Well?\" I say, standing before him.\n\n\"I've been in the gardens on the river terrace,\" he answers, \"hoping\nI might see her again.\"\n\n\"Nothing better to do?\"\n\n\"Nothing in the world.\"\n\n\"You'll have your double back from India to-morrow. Then you'll have\nconversation.\"\n\n\"I don't want it,\" he replies, compactly.\n\nI shrug my shoulders, and he adds, \"At least with him.\"\n\nI let myself down into a seat beside him.\n\nFor a time I sit restfully enjoying his companionable silence, and\nthinking fragmentarily of those samurai and their Rules. I entertain\nsomething of the satisfaction of a man who has finished building a\nbridge; I feel that I have joined together things that I had never\njoined before. My Utopia seems real to me, very real, I can believe\nin it, until the metal chair-back gives to my shoulder blades, and\nUtopian sparrows twitter and hop before my feet. I have a pleasant\nmoment of unhesitating self-satisfaction; I feel a shameless\nexultation to be there. For a moment I forget the consideration the\nbotanist demands; the mere pleasure of completeness, of holding and\ncontrolling all the threads possesses me.\n\n\"You _will_ persist in believing,\" I say, with an aggressive\nexpository note, \"that if you meet this lady she will be a person\nwith the memories and sentiments of her double on earth. You think\nshe will understand and pity, and perhaps love you. Nothing of the\nsort is the case.\" I repeat with confident rudeness, \"Nothing of the\nsort is the case. Things are different altogether here; you can\nhardly tell even now how different are----\"\n\nI discover he is not listening to me.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" I ask abruptly.\n\nHe makes no answer, but his expression startles me.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" and then I follow his eyes.\n\nA woman and a man are coming through the great archway--and\ninstantly I guess what has happened. She it is arrests my attention\nfirst--long ago I knew she was a sweetly beautiful woman. She is\nfair, with frank blue eyes, that look with a sort of tender\nreceptivity into her companion's face. For a moment or so they\nremain, greyish figures in the cool shadow, against the sunlit\ngreenery of the gardens beyond.\n\n\"It is Mary,\" the botanist whispers with white lips, but he stares\nat the form of the man. His face whitens, it becomes so transfigured\nwith emotion that for a moment it does not look weak. Then I see\nthat his thin hand is clenched.\n\nI realise how little I understand his emotions.\n\nA sudden fear of what he will do takes hold of me. He sits white and\ntense as the two come into the clearer light of the courtyard. The\nman, I see, is one of the samurai, a dark, strong-faced man, a man I\nhave never seen before, and she is wearing the robe that shows her a\nfollower of the Lesser Rule.\n\nSome glimmering of the botanist's feelings strikes through to my\nslow sympathies. Of course--a strange man! I put out a restraining\nhand towards his arm. \"I told you,\" I say, \"that very probably, most\nprobably, she would have met some other. I tried to prepare\nyou.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" he whispers, without looking at me. \"It isn't that.\nIt's--that scoundrel----\"\n\nHe has an impulse to rise. \"That scoundrel,\" he repeats.\n\n\"He isn't a scoundrel,\" I say. \"How do you know? Keep still! Why are\nyou standing up?\"\n\nHe and I stand up quickly, I as soon as he. But now the full meaning\nof the group has reached me. I grip his arm. \"Be sensible,\" I say,\nspeaking very quickly, and with my back to the approaching couple.\n\"He's not a scoundrel here. This world is different from that. It's\ncaught his pride somehow and made a man of him. Whatever troubled\nthem there----\"\n\nHe turns a face of white wrath on me, of accusation, and for the\nmoment of unexpected force. \"This is _your_ doing,\" he says. \"You\nhave done this to mock me. He--of all men!\" For a moment speech\nfails him, then; \"You--you have done this to mock me.\"\n\nI try to explain very quickly. My tone is almost propitiatory.\n\n\"I never thought of it until now. But he's---- How did I know he was\nthe sort of man a disciplined world has a use for?\"\n\nHe makes no answer, but he looks at me with eyes that are positively\nbaleful, and in the instant I read his mute but mulish resolve that\nUtopia must end.\n\n\"Don't let that old quarrel poison all this,\" I say almost\nentreatingly. \"It happened all differently here--everything is\ndifferent here. Your double will be back to-morrow. Wait for him.\nPerhaps then you will understand----\"\n\nHe shakes his head, and then bursts out with, \"What do I want with a\ndouble? Double! What do I care if things have been different here?\nThis----\"\n\nHe thrusts me weakly back with his long, white hand. \"My God!\" he\nsays almost forcibly, \"what nonsense all this is! All these dreams!\nAll Utopias! There she is----! Oh, but I have dreamt of her! And\nnow----\"\n\nA sob catches him. I am really frightened by this time. I still try\nto keep between him and these Utopians, and to hide his gestures\nfrom them.\n\n\"It's different here,\" I persist. \"It's different here. The emotion\nyou feel has no place in it. It's a scar from the earth--the sore\nscar of your past----\"\n\n\"And what are we all but scars? What is life but a scarring? It's\n_you_--you who don't understand! Of course we are covered with\nscars, we live to be scarred, we are scars! We are the scars of the\npast! These _dreams_, these childish dreams----!\"\n\nHe does not need to finish his sentence, he waves an unteachable\ndestructive arm.\n\nMy Utopia rocks about me.\n\nFor a moment the vision of that great courtyard hangs real. There\nthe Utopians live real about me, going to and fro, and the great\narchway blazes with sunlight from the green gardens by the\nriverside. The man who is one of the samurai, and his lady, whom the\nbotanist loved on earth, pass out of sight behind the marble\nflower-set Triton that spouts coolness in the middle of the place.\nFor a moment I see two working men in green tunics sitting on a\nmarble seat in the shadow of the colonnade, and a sweet little\nsilver-haired old lady, clad all in violet, and carrying a book,\ncomes towards us, and lifts a curious eye at the botanist's\ngestures. And then----\n\n\"Scars of the past! Scars of the past! These fanciful, useless\ndreams!\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nThere is no jerk, no sound, no hint of material shock. We are in\nLondon, and clothed in the fashion of the town. The sullen roar of\nLondon fills our ears....\n\nI see that I am standing beside an iron seat of poor design in that\ngrey and gawky waste of asphalte--Trafalgar Square, and the\nbotanist, with perplexity in his face, stares from me to a poor,\nshrivelled, dirt-lined old woman--my God! what a neglected thing she\nis!--who proffers a box of matches....\n\nHe buys almost mechanically, and turns back to me.\n\n\"I was saying,\" he says, \"the past rules us absolutely. These\ndreams----\"\n\nHis sentence does not complete itself. He looks nervous and\nirritated.\n\n\"You have a trick at times,\" he says instead, \"of making your\nsuggestions so vivid----\"\n\nHe takes a plunge. \"If you don't mind,\" he says in a sort of\nquavering ultimatum, \"we won't discuss that aspect of the\nquestion--the lady, I mean--further.\"\n\nHe pauses, and there still hangs a faint perplexity between us.\n\n\"But----\" I begin.\n\nFor a moment we stand there, and my dream of Utopia runs off me like\nwater from an oiled slab. Of course--we lunched at our club. We came\nback from Switzerland by no dream train but by the ordinary Bale\nexpress. We have been talking of that Lucerne woman he harps upon,\nand I have made some novel comment on his story. I have touched\ncertain possibilities.\n\n\"You can't conceivably understand,\" he says.\n\n\"The fact remains,\" he goes on, taking up the thread of his argument\nagain with an air of having defined our field, \"we are the scars of\nthe past. That's a thing one can discuss--without personalities.\"\n\n\"No,\" I say rather stupidly, \"no.\"\n\n\"You are always talking as though you could kick the past to pieces;\nas though one could get right out from oneself and begin afresh. It\nis your weakness--if you don't mind my being frank--it makes you\nseem harsh and dogmatic. Life has gone easily for you; you have\nnever been badly tried. You have been lucky--you do not understand\nthe other way about. You are--hard.\"\n\nI answer nothing.\n\nHe pants for breath. I perceive that in our discussion of his case I\nmust have gone too far, and that he has rebelled. Clearly I must\nhave said something wounding about that ineffectual love story of\nhis.\n\n\"You don't allow for my position,\" he says, and it occurs to me to\nsay, \"I'm obliged to look at the thing from my own point of\nview....\"\n\nOne or other of us makes a move. What a lot of filthy, torn paper is\nscattered about the world! We walk slowly side by side towards the\ndirt-littered basin of the fountain, and stand regarding two grimy\ntramps who sit and argue on a further seat. One holds a horrible old\nboot in his hand, and gesticulates with it, while his other hand\ncaresses his rag-wrapped foot. \"Wot does Cham'lain _si_?\" his words\ndrift to us. \"W'y, 'e says, wot's the good of 'nvesting your kepital\nwhere these 'ere Americans may dump it flat any time they\nlike....\"\n\n(Were there not two men in green sitting on a marble seat?)\n\n\nSection 3\n\nWe walk on, our talk suspended, past a ruthlessly clumsy hoarding,\ntowards where men and women and children are struggling about a\nstring of omnibuses. A newsvendor at the corner spreads a newspaper\nplacard upon the wood pavement, pins the corners down with stones,\nand we glimpse something about:--\n\n\nMASSACRE IN ODESSA.\n\nDISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINS AT CHERTSEY.\n\nSHOCKING LYNCHING OUTRAGE IN NEW YORK STATE.\n\nGERMAN INTRIGUES GET A SET-BACK.\n\nTHE BIRTHDAY HONOURS.--FULL LIST.\n\n\nDear old familiar world!\n\nAn angry parent in conversation with a sympathetic friend jostles\nagainst us. \"I'll knock his blooming young 'ed orf if 'e cheeks me\nagain. It's these 'ere brasted Board Schools----\"\n\nAn omnibus passes, bearing on a board beneath an incorrectly drawn\nUnion Jack an exhortation to the true patriot to \"Buy Bumper's\nBritish-Boiled Jam.\" ...\n\nI am stunned beyond the possibility of discussion for a space. In\nthis very place it must have been that the high terrace ran with the\ngardens below it, along which I came from my double to our hotel. I\nam going back, but now through reality, along the path I passed so\nhappily in my dream. And the people I saw then are the people I am\nlooking at now--with a difference.\n\nThe botanist walks beside me, white and nervously jerky in his\nmovements, his ultimatum delivered.\n\nWe start to cross the road. An open carriage drives by, and we see a\njaded, red-haired woman, smeared with paint, dressed in furs, and\npetulantly discontented. Her face is familiar to me, her face, with\na difference.\n\nWhy do I think of her as dressed in green?\n\nOf course!--she it was I saw leading her children by the hand!\n\nComes a crash to our left, and a running of people to see a\ncab-horse down on the slippery, slanting pavement outside St.\nMartin's Church.\n\nWe go on up the street.\n\nA heavy-eyed young Jewess, a draggled prostitute--no crimson flower\nfor her hair, poor girl!--regards us with a momentary speculation,\nand we get a whiff of foul language from two newsboys on the\nkerb.\n\n\"We can't go on talking,\" the botanist begins, and ducks aside just\nin time to save his eye from the ferule of a stupidly held umbrella.\nHe is going to treat our little tiff about that lady as closed. He\nhas the air of picking up our conversation again at some earlier\npoint.\n\nHe steps into the gutter, walks round outside a negro hawker, just\nescapes the wheel of a hansom, and comes to my side again.\n\n\"We can't go on talking of your Utopia,\" he says, \"in a noise and\ncrowd like this.\"\n\nWe are separated by a portly man going in the opposite direction,\nand join again. \"We can't go on talking of Utopia,\" he repeats, \"in\nLondon.... Up in the mountains--and holiday-time--it was all right.\nWe let ourselves go!\"\n\n\"I've been living in Utopia,\" I answer, tacitly adopting his tacit\nproposal to drop the lady out of the question.\n\n\"At times,\" he says, with a queer laugh, \"you've almost made me live\nthere too.\"\n\nHe reflects. \"It doesn't do, you know. _No_! And I don't know\nwhether, after all, I want----\"\n\nWe are separated again by half-a-dozen lifted flagstones, a burning\nbrazier, and two engineers concerned with some underground business\nor other--in the busiest hour of the day's traffic.\n\n\"Why shouldn't it do?\" I ask.\n\n\"It spoils the world of everyday to let your mind run on impossible\nperfections.\"\n\n\"I wish,\" I shout against the traffic, \"I could _smash_ the world of\neveryday.\"\n\nMy note becomes quarrelsome. \"You may accept _this_ as the world of\nreality, _you_ may consent to be one scar in an ill-dressed compound\nwound, but so--not I! This is a dream too--this world. _Your_ dream,\nand you bring me back to it--out of Utopia----\"\n\nThe crossing of Bow Street gives me pause again.\n\nThe face of a girl who is passing westward, a student girl, rather\ncarelessly dressed, her books in a carrying-strap, comes across my\nfield of vision. The westward sun of London glows upon her face. She\nhas eyes that dream, surely no sensuous nor personal dream.\n\nAfter all, after all, dispersed, hidden, disorganised, undiscovered,\nunsuspected even by themselves, the samurai of Utopia are in this\nworld, the motives that are developed and organised there stir\ndumbly here and stifle in ten thousand futile hearts....\n\nI overtake the botanist, who got ahead at the crossing by the\nadvantage of a dust-cart.\n\n\"You think this is real because you can't wake out of it,\" I say.\n\"It's all a dream, and there are people--I'm just one of the first\nof a multitude--between sleeping and waking--who will presently be\nrubbing it out of their eyes.\"\n\nA pinched and dirty little girl, with sores upon her face, stretches\nout a bunch of wilting violets, in a pitifully thin little fist, and\ninterrupts my speech. \"Bunch o' vi'lets--on'y a penny.\"\n\n\"No!\" I say curtly, hardening my heart.\n\nA ragged and filthy nursing mother, with her last addition to our\nImperial People on her arm, comes out of a drinkshop, and stands a\nlittle unsteadily, and wipes mouth and nose comprehensively with the\nback of a red chapped hand....\n\n\nSection 4\n\n\"Isn't _that_ reality?\" says the botanist, almost triumphantly, and\nleaves me aghast at his triumph.\n\n\"_That_!\" I say belatedly. \"It's a thing in a nightmare!\"\n\nHe shakes his head and smiles--exasperatingly.\n\nI perceive quite abruptly that the botanist and I have reached the\nlimits of our intercourse.\n\n\"The world dreams things like that,\" I say, \"because it suffers from\nan indigestion of such people as you.\"\n\nHis low-toned self-complacency, like the faded banner of an\nobstinate fort, still flies unconquered. And you know, he's not even\na happy man with it all!\n\nFor ten seconds or more I am furiously seeking in my mind for a\nword, for a term of abuse, for one compendious verbal missile that\nshall smash this man for ever. It has to express total inadequacy of\nimagination and will, spiritual anaemia, dull respectability, gross\nsentimentality, a cultivated pettiness of heart....\n\nThat word will not come. But no other word will do. Indeed the word\ndoes not exist. There is nothing with sufficient vituperative\nconcentration for this moral and intellectual stupidity of educated\npeople....\n\n\"Er----\" he begins.\n\nNo! I can't endure him.\n\nWith a passionate rapidity of movement, I leave his side, dart\nbetween a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse,\nand board a 'bus going westward somewhere--but anyhow, going in\nexactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the\nsteps and thread my swaying way to the seat immediately behind the\ndriver.\n\n\"There!\" I say, as I whack myself down on the seat and pant.\n\nWhen I look round the botanist is out of sight.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nBut I am back in the world for all that, and my Utopia is done.\n\nIt is good discipline for the Utopist to visit this world\noccasionally.\n\nBut from the front seat on the top of an omnibus on a sunny\nSeptember afternoon, the Strand, and Charing Cross corner, and\nWhitehall, and the great multitude of people, the great uproar of\nvehicles, streaming in all directions, is apt to look a world\naltogether too formidable. It has a glare, it has a tumult and\nvigour that shouts one down. It shouts one down, if shouting is to\ncarry it. What good was it to trot along the pavement through this\nnoise and tumult of life, pleading Utopia to that botanist? What\ngood would it be to recommend Utopia in this driver's preoccupied\near?\n\nThere are moments in the life of every philosopher and dreamer when\nhe feels himself the flimsiest of absurdities, when the Thing in\nBeing has its way with him, its triumphant way, when it asks in a\nroar, unanswerably, with a fine solid use of the current vernacular,\n\"What Good is all this--Rot about Utopias?\"\n\nOne inspects the Thing in Being with something of the diffident\nspeculation of primitive man, peering from behind a tree at an angry\nelephant.\n\n(There is an omen in that image. On how many occasions must that\nancestor of ours have had just the Utopist's feeling of ambitious\nunreality, have decided that on the whole it was wiser to go very\nquietly home again, and leave the big beast alone? But, in the end,\nmen rode upon the elephant's head, and guided him this way or\nthat.... The Thing in Being that roars so tremendously about Charing\nCross corner seems a bigger antagonist than an elephant, but then we\nhave better weapons than chipped flint blades....)\n\nAfter all, in a very little time everything that impresses me so\nmightily this September afternoon will have changed or passed away\nfor ever, everything. These omnibuses, these great, stalwart,\ncrowded, many-coloured things that jostle one another, and make so\nhandsome a clatter-clamour, will all have gone; they and their\nhorses and drivers and organisation; you will come here and you will\nnot find them. Something else will be here, some different sort of\nvehicle, that is now perhaps the mere germ of an idea in some\nengineer student's brain. And this road and pavement will have\nchanged, and these impressive great buildings; other buildings will\nbe here, buildings that are as yet more impalpable than this page\nyou read, more formless and flimsy by far than anything that is\nreasoned here. Little plans sketched on paper, strokes of a pen or\nof a brush, will be the first materialisations of what will at last\nobliterate every detail and atom of these re-echoing actualities\nthat overwhelm us now. And the clothing and gestures of these\ninnumerable people, the character of their faces and bearing, these\ntoo will be recast in the spirit of what are now obscure and\nimpalpable beginnings.\n\nThe new things will be indeed of the substance of the thing that is,\nbut differing just in the measure of the will and imagination that\ngoes to make them. They will be strong and fair as the will is\nsturdy and organised and the imagination comprehensive and bold;\nthey will be ugly and smeared with wretchedness as the will is\nfluctuating and the imagination timid and mean.\n\nIndeed Will is stronger than Fact, it can mould and overcome Fact.\nBut this world has still to discover its will, it is a world that\nslumbers inertly, and all this roar and pulsation of life is no more\nthan its heavy breathing.... My mind runs on to the thought of an\nawakening.\n\nAs my omnibus goes lumbering up Cockspur Street through the clatter\nrattle of the cabs and carriages, there comes another fancy in my\nmind.... Could one but realise an apocalyptic image and suppose an\nangel, such as was given to each of the seven churches of Asia,\ngiven for a space to the service of the Greater Rule. I see him as a\ntowering figure of flame and colour, standing between earth and sky,\nwith a trumpet in his hands, over there above the Haymarket, against\nthe October glow; and when he sounds, all the samurai, all who are\nsamurai in Utopia, will know themselves and one another....\n\n(Whup! says a motor brougham, and a policeman stays the traffic with\nhis hand.)\n\nAll of us who partake of the samurai would know ourselves and one\nanother!\n\nFor a moment I have a vision of this resurrection of the living, of\na vague, magnificent answer, of countless myriads at attention, of\nall that is fine in humanity at attention, round the compass of the\nearth.\n\nThen that philosophy of individual uniqueness resumes its sway over\nmy thoughts, and my dream of a world's awakening fades.\n\nI had forgotten....\n\nThings do not happen like that. God is not simple, God is not\ntheatrical, the summons comes to each man in its due time for him,\nwith an infinite subtlety of variety....\n\nIf that is so, what of my Utopia?\n\nThis infinite world must needs be flattened to get it on one\nretina. The picture of a solid thing, although it is flattened and\nsimplified, is not necessarily a lie. Surely, surely, in the end, by\ndegrees, and steps, something of this sort, some such understanding,\nas this Utopia must come. First here, then there, single men and\nthen groups of men will fall into line--not indeed with my poor\nfaulty hesitating suggestions--but with a great and comprehensive\nplan wrought out by many minds and in many tongues. It is just\nbecause my plan is faulty, because it mis-states so much, and omits\nso much, that they do not now fall in. It will not be like _my_\ndream, the world that is coming. My dream is just my own poor dream,\nthe thing sufficient for me. We fail in comprehension, we fail so\nvariously and abundantly. We see as much as it is serviceable for us\nto see, and we see no further. But the fresh undaunted generations\ncome to take on our work beyond our utmost effort, beyond the range\nof our ideas. They will learn with certainty things that to us are\nguesses and riddles....\n\nThere will be many Utopias. Each generation will have its new\nversion of Utopia, a little more certain and complete and real, with\nits problems lying closer and closer to the problems of the Thing\nin Being. Until at last from dreams Utopias will have come to be\nworking drawings, and the whole world will be shaping the final\nWorld State, the fair and great and fruitful World State, that will\nonly not be a Utopia because it will be this world. So surely it\nmust be----\n\n\nThe policeman drops his hand. \"Come up,\" says the 'bus driver, and\nthe horses strain; \"Clitter, clatter, cluck, clak,\" the line of\nhurrying hansoms overtakes the omnibus going west. A dexterous lad\non a bicycle with a bale of newspapers on his back dodges nimbly\nacross the head of the column and vanishes up a side street.\n\nThe omnibus sways forward. Rapt and prophetic, his plump hands\nclasped round the handle of his umbrella, his billycock hat a trifle\naskew, this irascible little man of the Voice, this impatient\ndreamer, this scolding Optimist, who has argued so rudely and\ndogmatically about economics and philosophy and decoration, and\nindeed about everything under the sun, who has been so hard on the\nbotanist and fashionable women, and so reluctant in the matter of\nbeer, is carried onward, dreaming dreams, dreams that with all the\ninevitable ironies of difference, may be realities when you and I\nare dreams.\n\nHe passes, and for a little space we are left with his egoisms and\nidiosyncrasies more or less in suspense.\n\nBut why was he intruded? you ask. Why could not a modern Utopia be\ndiscussed without this impersonation--impersonally? It has confused\nthe book, you say, made the argument hard to follow, and thrown\na quality of insincerity over the whole. Are we but mocking at\nUtopias, you demand, using all these noble and generalised hopes\nas the backcloth against which two bickering personalities jar and\nsquabble? Do I mean we are never to view the promised land again\nexcept through a foreground of fellow-travellers? There is a common\nnotion that the reading of a Utopia should end with a swelling heart\nand clear resolves, with lists of names, formation of committees,\nand even the commencement of subscriptions. But this Utopia began\nupon a philosophy of fragmentation, and ends, confusedly, amidst a\ngross tumult of immediate realities, in dust and doubt, with, at the\nbest, one individual's aspiration. Utopias were once in good faith,\nprojects for a fresh creation of the world and of a most unworldly\ncompleteness; this so-called Modern Utopia is a mere story of\npersonal adventures among Utopian philosophies.\n\nIndeed, that came about without the writer's intention. So it was\nthe summoned vision came. For I see about me a great multitude of\nlittle souls and groups of souls as darkened, as derivative as my\nown; with the passage of years I understand more and more clearly\nthe quality of the motives that urge me and urge them to do whatever\nwe do.... Yet that is not all I see, and I am not altogether bounded\nby my littleness. Ever and again, contrasting with this immediate\nvision, come glimpses of a comprehensive scheme, in which these\npersonalities float, the scheme of a synthetic wider being, the\ngreat State, mankind, in which we all move and go, like blood\ncorpuscles, like nerve cells, it may be at times like brain cells,\nin the body of a man. But the two visions are not seen consistently\ntogether, at least by me, and I do not surely know that they exist\nconsistently together. The motives needed for those wider issues\ncome not into the interplay of my vanities and wishes. That greater\nscheme lies about the men and women I know, as I have tried to make\nthe vistas and spaces, the mountains, cities, laws, and order of\nUtopia lie about my talking couple, too great for their sustained\ncomprehension. When one focuses upon these two that wide landscape\nbecomes indistinct and distant, and when one regards that then the\nreal persons one knows grow vague and unreal. Nevertheless, I cannot\nseparate these two aspects of human life, each commenting on the\nother. In that incongruity between great and individual inheres the\nincompatibility I could not resolve, and which, therefore, I have\nhad to present in this conflicting form. At times that great scheme\ndoes seem to me to enter certain men's lives as a passion, as a real\nand living motive; there are those who know it almost as if it was a\nthing of desire; even for me, upon occasion, the little lures of the\nimmediate life are seen small and vain, and the soul goes out to\nthat mighty Being, to apprehend it and serve it and possess. But\nthis is an illumination that passes as it comes, a rare transitory\nlucidity, leaving the soul's desire suddenly turned to presumption\nand hypocrisy upon the lips. One grasps at the Universe and\nattains--Bathos. The hungers, the jealousies, the prejudices and\nhabits have us again, and we are forced back to think that it is so,\nand not otherwise, that we are meant to serve the mysteries; that in\nthese blinkers it is we are driven to an end we cannot understand.\nAnd then, for measured moments in the night watches or as one walks\nalone or while one sits in thought and speech with a friend, the\nwider aspirations glow again with a sincere emotion, with the\ncolours of attainable desire....\n\nThat is my all about Utopia, and about the desire and need for\nUtopia, and how that planet lies to this planet that bears the daily\nlives of men.\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nSCEPTICISM OF THE INSTRUMENT\n\n\nA Portion of a Paper read to the Oxford Philosophical Society,\nNovember 8, 1903, and reprinted, with some Revision, from the\nVersion given in Mind, vol. xiii. (N.S.), No. 51.\n\n(See also Chapter I., Section 6, and Chapter X., Sections 1 and 2.)\n\nIt seems to me that I may most propitiously attempt to interest you\nthis evening by describing very briefly the particular metaphysical\nand philosophical system in which I do my thinking, and more\nparticularly by setting out for your consideration one or two points\nin which I seem to myself to differ most widely from current\naccepted philosophy.\n\nYou must be prepared for things that will strike you as crude, for a\ncertain difference of accent and dialect that you may not like, and\nyou must be prepared too to hear what may strike you as the clumsy\nstatement of my ignorant rediscovery of things already beautifully\nthought out and said. But in the end you may incline to forgive me\nsome of this first offence.... It is quite unavoidable that, in\nsetting out these intellectual foundations of mine, I should lapse\nfor a moment or so towards autobiography.\n\nA convergence of circumstances led to my having my knowledge of\nconcrete things quite extensively developed before I came to\nphilosophical examination at all. I have heard someone say that a\nsavage or an animal is mentally a purely objective being, and in\nthat respect I was like a savage or an animal until I was well over\ntwenty. I was extremely unaware of the subjective or introverted\nelement in my being. I was a Positivist without knowing it. My early\neducation was a feeble one; it was one in which my private\nobservation, inquiry and experiment were far more important factors\nthan any instruction, or rather perhaps the instruction I received\nwas less even than what I learnt for myself, and it terminated at\nthirteen. I had come into pretty intimate contact with the harder\nrealities of life, with hunger in various forms, and many base and\ndisagreeable necessities, before I was fifteen. About that age,\nfollowing the indication of certain theological and speculative\ncuriosities, I began to learn something of what I will call\ndeliberately and justly, Elementary Science--stuff I got out of\nCassell's Popular Educator and cheap text-books--and then, through\naccidents and ambitions that do not matter in the least to us now, I\ncame to three years of illuminating and good scientific work. The\ncentral fact of those three years was Huxley's course in Comparative\nAnatomy at the school in Exhibition Road. About that as a nucleus I\narranged a spacious digest of facts. At the end of that time I had\nacquired what I still think to be a fairly clear, and complete and\nordered view of the ostensibly real universe. Let me try to give you\nthe chief things I had. I had man definitely placed in the great\nscheme of space and time. I knew him incurably for what he was,\nfinite and not final, a being of compromises and adaptations. I had\ntraced his lungs, for example, from a swimming bladder, step by\nstep, with scalpel and probe, through a dozen types or more, I had\nseen the ancestral caecum shrink to that disease nest, the appendix\nof to-day, I had watched the gill slit patched slowly to the\npurposes of the ear and the reptile jaw suspension utilised to eke\nout the needs of a sense organ taken from its native and natural\nwater. I had worked out the development of those extraordinarily\nunsatisfactory and untrustworthy instruments, man's teeth, from the\nskin scutes of the shark to their present function as a basis for\ngold stoppings, and followed the slow unfolding of the complex and\npainful process of gestation through which man comes into the world.\nI had followed all these things and many kindred things by\ndissection and in embryology--I had checked the whole theory of\ndevelopment again in a year's course of palaeontology, and I had\ntaken the dimensions of the whole process, by the scale of the\nstars, in a course of astronomical physics. And all that amount of\nobjective elucidation came before I had reached the beginnings of\nany philosophical or metaphysical inquiry, any inquiry as to why I\nbelieved, how I believed, what I believed, or what the fundamental\nstuff of things was.\n\nNow following hard upon this interlude with knowledge, came a time\nwhen I had to give myself to teaching, and it became advisable to\nacquire one of those Teaching Diplomas that are so widely and so\nfoolishly despised, and that enterprise set me to a superficial, but\nsuggestive study of educational method, of educational theory, of\nlogic, of psychology, and so at last, when the little affair with\nthe diploma was settled, to philosophy. Now to come to logic over\nthe bracing uplands of comparative anatomy is to come to logic with\na lot of very natural preconceptions blown clean out of one's mind.\nIt is, I submit, a way of taking logic in the flank. When you have\nrealised to the marrow, that all the physical organs of man and all\nhis physical structure are what they are through a series of\nadaptations and approximations, and that they are kept up to a level\nof practical efficiency only by the elimination of death, and that\nthis is true also of his brain and of his instincts and of many of\nhis mental predispositions, you are not going to take his thinking\napparatus unquestioningly as being in any way mysteriously different\nand better. And I had read only a little logic before I became aware\nof implications that I could not agree with, and assumptions that\nseemed to me to be altogether at variance with the general scheme of\nobjective fact established in my mind.\n\nI came to an examination of logical processes and of language with\nthe expectation that they would share the profoundly provisional\ncharacter, the character of irregular limitation and adaptation that\npervades the whole physical and animal being of man. And I found the\nthing I had expected. And as a consequence I found a sort of\nintellectual hardihood about the assumptions of logic, that at first\nconfused me and then roused all the latent scepticism in my\nmind.\n\nMy first quarrel with the accepted logic I developed long ago in a\nlittle paper that was printed in the Fortnightly Review in July\n1891. It was called the \"Rediscovery of the Unique,\" and re-reading\nit I perceive not only how bad and even annoying it was in manner--a\nthing I have long known--but also how remarkably bad it was in\nexpression. I have good reason for doubting whether my powers of\nexpression in these uses have very perceptibly improved, but at any\nrate I am doing my best now with that previous failure before\nme.\n\nThat unfortunate paper, among other oversights I can no longer\nregard as trivial, disregarded quite completely the fact that a\nwhole literature upon the antagonism of the one and the many, of the\nspecific ideal and the individual reality, was already in existence.\nIt defined no relations to other thought or thinkers. I understand\nnow, what I did not understand then, why it was totally ignored. But\nthe idea underlying that paper I cling to to-day. I consider it an\nidea that will ultimately be regarded as one of primary importance\nto human thought, and I will try and present the substance of that\nearly paper again now very briefly, as the best opening of my\ngeneral case. My opening scepticism is essentially a doubt of the\nobjective reality of classification. I have no hesitation in saying\nthat is the first and primary proposition of my philosophy.\n\nI have it in my mind that classification is a necessary condition of\nthe working of the mental implement, but that it is a departure from\nthe objective truth of things, that classification is very\nserviceable for the practical purposes of life but a very doubtful\npreliminary to those fine penetrations the philosophical purpose, in\nits more arrogant moods, demands. All the peculiarities of my way of\nthinking derive from that.\n\nA mind nourished upon anatomical study is of course permeated with\nthe suggestion of the vagueness and instability of biological\nspecies. A biological species is quite obviously a great number of\nunique individuals which is separable from other biological species\nonly by the fact that an enormous number of other linking\nindividuals are inaccessible in time--are in other words dead and\ngone--and each new individual in that species does, in the\ndistinction of its own individuality, break away in however\ninfinitesimal degree from the previous average properties of the\nspecies. There is no property of any species, even the properties\nthat constitute the specific definition, that is not a matter of\nmore or less. If, for example, a species be distinguished by a\nsingle large red spot on the back, you will find if you go over a\ngreat number of specimens that red spot shrinking here to nothing,\nexpanding there to a more general redness, weakening to pink,\ndeepening to russet and brown, shading into crimson, and so on, and\nso on. And this is true not only of biological species. It is true\nof the mineral specimens constituting a mineral species, and I\nremember as a constant refrain in the lectures of Prof. Judd upon\nrock classification, the words \"they pass into one another by\ninsensible gradations.\" That is true, I hold, of all things.\n\nYou will think perhaps of atoms of the elements as instances of\nidentically similar things, but these are things not of experience\nbut of theory, and there is not a phenomenon in chemistry that is\nnot equally well explained on the supposition that it is merely the\nimmense quantities of atoms necessarily taken in any experiment that\nmask by the operation of the law of averages the fact that each atom\nalso has its unique quality, its special individual difference. This\nidea of uniqueness in all individuals is not only true of the\nclassifications of material science; it is true, and still more\nevidently true, of the species of common thought, it is true of\ncommon terms. Take the word chair. When one says chair, one thinks\nvaguely of an average chair. But collect individual instances, think\nof armchairs and reading chairs, and dining-room chairs and kitchen\nchairs, chairs that pass into benches, chairs that cross the\nboundary and become settees, dentists' chairs, thrones, opera\nstalls, seats of all sorts, those miraculous fungoid growths that\ncumber the floor of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition, and you will\nperceive what a lax bundle in fact is this simple straightforward\nterm. In co-operation with an intelligent joiner I would undertake\nto defeat any definition of chair or chairishness that you gave me.\nChairs just as much as individual organisms, just as much as mineral\nand rock specimens, are unique things--if you know them well enough\nyou will find an individual difference even in a set of machine-made\nchairs--and it is only because we do not possess minds of unlimited\ncapacity, because our brain has only a limited number of\npigeon-holes for our correspondence with an unlimited universe of\nobjective uniques, that we have to delude ourselves into the belief\nthat there is a chairishness in this species common to and\ndistinctive of all chairs.\n\nLet me repeat; this is of the very smallest importance in all the\npractical affairs of life, or indeed in relation to anything but\nphilosophy and wide generalisations. But in philosophy it matters\nprofoundly. If I order two new-laid eggs for breakfast, up come two\nunhatched but still unique avian individuals, and the chances are\nthey serve my rude physiological purpose. I can afford to ignore the\nhens' eggs of the past that were not quite so nearly this sort of\nthing, and the hens' eggs of the future that will accumulate\nmodification age by age; I can venture to ignore the rare chance of\nan abnormality in chemical composition and of any startling\naberration in my physiological reaction; I can, with a confidence\nthat is practically perfect, say with unqualified simplicity \"two\neggs,\" but not if my concern is not my morning's breakfast but the\nutmost possible truth.\n\nNow let me go on to point out whither this idea of uniqueness tends.\nI submit to you that syllogism is based on classification, that\nall hard logical reasoning tends to imply and is apt to imply a\nconfidence in the objective reality of classification. Consequently\nin denying that I deny the absolute validity of logic. Classification\nand number, which in truth ignore the fine differences of objective\nrealities, have in the past of human thought been imposed upon\nthings. Let me for clearness' sake take a liberty here--commit, as\nyou may perhaps think, an unpardonable insolence. Hindoo thought\nand Greek thought alike impress me as being overmuch obsessed by\nan objective treatment of certain necessary preliminary conditions\nof human thought--number and definition and class and abstract\nform. But these things, number, definition, class and abstract\nform, I hold, are merely unavoidable conditions of mental\nactivity--regrettable conditions rather than essential facts. The\nforceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a\nlittle in taking hold of it.\n\nIt was about this difficulty that the mind of Plato played a little\ninconclusively all his life. For the most part he tended to regard\nthe _idea_ as the something behind reality, whereas it seems to me\nthat the idea is the more proximate and less perfect thing, the\nthing by which the mind, by ignoring individual differences,\nattempts to comprehend an otherwise unmanageable number of unique\nrealities.\n\nLet me give you a rough figure of what I am trying to convey in this\nfirst attack upon the philosophical validity of general terms. You\nhave seen the results of those various methods of black and white\nreproduction that involve the use of a rectangular net. You know the\nsort of process picture I mean--it used to be employed very\nfrequently in reproducing photographs. At a little distance you\nreally seem to have a faithful reproduction of the original picture,\nbut when you peer closely you find not the unique form and masses of\nthe original, but a multitude of little rectangles, uniform in shape\nand size. The more earnestly you go into the thing, the closer you\nlook, the more the picture is lost in reticulations. I submit the\nworld of reasoned inquiry has a very similar relation to the world I\ncall objectively real. For the rough purposes of every day the\nnet-work picture will do, but the finer your purpose the less it\nwill serve, and for an ideally fine purpose, for absolute and\ngeneral knowledge that will be as true for a man at a distance with\na telescope as for a man with a microscope it will not serve at\nall.\n\nIt is true you can make your net of logical interpretation finer and\nfiner, you can fine your classification more and more--up to a\ncertain limit. But essentially you are working in limits, and as you\ncome closer, as you look at finer and subtler things, as you leave\nthe practical purpose for which the method exists, the element of\nerror increases. Every species is vague, every term goes cloudy at\nits edges, and so in my way of thinking, relentless logic is only\nanother phrase for a stupidity,--for a sort of intellectual\npigheadedness. If you push a philosophical or metaphysical inquiry\nthrough a series of valid syllogisms--never committing any generally\nrecognised fallacy--you nevertheless leave a certain rubbing and\nmarginal loss of objective truth and you get deflections that are\ndifficult to trace, at each phase in the process. Every species\nwaggles about in its definition, every tool is a little loose in its\nhandle, every scale has its individual error. So long as you are\nreasoning for practical purposes about the finite things of\nexperience, you can every now and then check your process, and\ncorrect your adjustments. But not when you make what are called\nphilosophical and theological inquiries, when you turn your\nimplement towards the final absolute truth of things. Doing that is\nlike firing at an inaccessible, unmarkable and indestructible target\nat an unknown distance, with a defective rifle and variable\ncartridges. Even if by chance you hit, you cannot know that you hit,\nand so it will matter nothing at all.\n\nThis assertion of the necessary untrustworthiness of all reasoning\nprocesses arising out of the fallacy of classification in what is\nquite conceivably a universe of uniques, forms only one introductory\naspect of my general scepticism of the Instrument of Thought.\n\nI have now to tell you of another aspect of this scepticism of the\ninstrument which concerns negative terms.\n\nClasses in logic are not only represented by circles with a hard\nfirm outline, whereas they have no such definite limits, but also\nthere is a constant disposition to think of negative terms as if\nthey represented positive classes. With words just as with numbers\nand abstract forms there are definite phases of human development.\nThere is, you know, with regard to number, the phase when man can\nbarely count at all, or counts in perfect good faith and sanity upon\nhis fingers. Then there is the phase when he is struggling with the\ndevelopment of number, when he begins to elaborate all sorts of\nideas about numbers, until at last he develops complex superstitions\nabout perfect numbers and imperfect numbers, about threes and sevens\nand the like. The same is the case with abstracted forms, and even\nto-day we are scarcely more than heads out of the vast subtle muddle\nof thinking about spheres and ideally perfect forms and so on, that\nwas the price of this little necessary step to clear thinking. You\nknow better than I do how large a part numerical and geometrical\nmagic, numerical and geometrical philosophy has played in the\nhistory of the mind. And the whole apparatus of language and mental\ncommunication is beset with like dangers. The language of the savage\nis, I suppose, purely positive; the thing has a name, the name has a\nthing. This indeed is the tradition of language, and to-day even,\nwe, when we hear a name, are predisposed--and sometimes it is a very\nvicious disposition--to imagine forthwith something answering to the\nname. We are disposed, as an incurable mental vice, to accumulate\nintension in terms. If I say to you Wodget or Crump, you find\nyourself passing over the fact that these are nothings, these are,\nso to speak, mere blankety blanks, and trying to think what sort of\nthing a Wodget or a Crump may be. And where this disposition has\ncome in, in its most alluring guise, is in the case of negative\nterms. Our instrument of knowledge persists in handling even such\nopenly negative terms as the Absolute, the Infinite, as though they\nwere real existences, and when the negative element is ever so\nlittle disguised, as it is in such a word as Omniscience, then the\nillusion of positive reality may be complete.\n\nPlease remember that I am trying to tell you my philosophy, and not\narguing about yours. Let me try and express how in my mind this\nmatter of negative terms has shaped itself. I think of something\nwhich I may perhaps best describe as being off the stage or out of\ncourt, or as the Void without Implications, or as Nothingness or as\nOuter Darkness. This is a sort of hypothetical Beyond to the visible\nworld of human thought, and thither I think all negative terms reach\nat last, and merge and become nothing. Whatever positive class you\nmake, whatever boundary you draw, straight away from that boundary\nbegins the corresponding negative class and passes into the\nillimitable horizon of nothingness. You talk of pink things, you\nignore, if you are a trained logician, the more elusive shades of\npink, and draw your line. Beyond is the not pink, known and\nknowable, and still in the not pink region one comes to the Outer\nDarkness. Not blue, not happy, not iron, all the not classes meet in\nthat Outer Darkness. That same Outer Darkness and nothingness is\ninfinite space, and infinite time, and any being of infinite\nqualities, and all that region I rule out of court in my philosophy\naltogether. I will neither affirm nor deny if I can help it about\nany not things. I will not deal with not things at all, except by\naccident and inadvertence. If I use the word 'infinite' I use it as\none often uses 'countless,' \"the countless hosts of the enemy\"--or\n'immeasurable'--\"immeasurable cliffs\"--that is to say as the limit\nof measurement rather than as the limit of imaginary measurability,\nas a convenient equivalent to as many times this cloth yard as you\ncan, and as many again and so on and so on. Now a great number of\napparently positive terms are, or have become, practically negative\nterms and are under the same ban with me. A considerable number of\nterms that have played a great part in the world of thought, seem to\nme to be invalidated by this same defect, to have no content or an\nundefined content or an unjustifiable content. For example, that\nword Omniscient, as implying infinite knowledge, impresses me as\nbeing a word with a delusive air of being solid and full, when it is\nreally hollow with no content whatever. I am persuaded that knowing\nis the relation of a conscious being to something not itself, that\nthe thing known is defined as a system of parts and aspects and\nrelationships, that knowledge is comprehension, and so that only\nfinite things can know or be known. When you talk of a being of\ninfinite extension and infinite duration, omniscient and omnipotent\nand Perfect, you seem to me to be talking in negatives of nothing\nwhatever. When you speak of the Absolute you speak to me of nothing.\nIf however you talk of a great yet finite and thinkable being, a\nbeing not myself, extending beyond my imagination in time and space,\nknowing all that I can think of as known and capable of doing all\nthat I can think of as done, you come into the sphere of my mental\noperations, and into the scheme of my philosophy....\n\nThese then are my first two charges against our Instrument of\nKnowledge, firstly, that it can work only by disregarding\nindividuality and treating uniques as identically similar objects in\nthis respect or that, so as to group them under one term, and that\nonce it has done so it tends automatically to intensify the\nsignificance of that term, and secondly, that it can only deal\nfreely with negative terms by treating them as though they were\npositive. But I have a further objection to the Instrument of Human\nThought, that is not correlated to these former objections and that\nis also rather more difficult to convey.\n\nEssentially this idea is to present a sort of stratification in\nhuman ideas. I have it very much in mind that various terms in our\nreasoning lie, as it were, at different levels and in different\nplanes, and that we accomplish a large amount of error and confusion\nby reasoning terms together that do not lie or nearly lie in the\nsame plane.\n\nLet me endeavour to make myself a little less obscure by a most\nflagrant instance from physical things. Suppose some one began to\ntalk seriously of a man seeing an atom through a microscope, or\nbetter perhaps of cutting one in half with a knife. There are a\nnumber of non-analytical people who would be quite prepared to\nbelieve that an atom could be visible to the eye or cut in this\nmanner. But any one at all conversant with physical conceptions\nwould almost as soon think of killing the square root of 2 with a\nrook rifle as of cutting an atom in half with a knife. Our\nconception of an atom is reached through a process of hypothesis and\nanalysis, and in the world of atoms there are no knives and no\nmen to cut. If you have thought with a strong consistent mental\nmovement, then when you have thought of your atom under the knife\nblade, your knife blade has itself become a cloud of swinging\ngrouped atoms, and your microscope lens a little universe of\noscillatory and vibratory molecules. If you think of the universe,\nthinking at the level of atoms, there is neither knife to cut, scale\nto weigh nor eye to see. The universe at that plane to which the\nmind of the molecular physicist descends has none of the shapes or\nforms of our common life whatever. This hand with which I write is\nin the universe of molecular physics a cloud of warring atoms and\nmolecules, combining and recombining, colliding, rotating, flying\nhither and thither in the universal atmosphere of ether.\n\nYou see, I hope, what I mean, when I say that the universe of\nmolecular physics is at a different level from the universe of\ncommon experience;--what we call stable and solid is in that world a\nfreely moving system of interlacing centres of force, what we call\ncolour and sound is there no more than this length of vibration or\nthat. We have reached to a conception of that universe of molecular\nphysics by a great enterprise of organised analysis, and our\nuniverse of daily experiences stands in relation to that elemental\nworld as if it were a synthesis of those elemental things.\n\nI would suggest to you that this is only a very extreme instance of\nthe general state of affairs, that there may be finer and subtler\ndifferences of level between one term and another, and that terms\nmay very well be thought of as lying obliquely and as being twisted\nthrough different levels.\n\nIt will perhaps give a clearer idea of what I am seeking to convey\nif I suggest a concrete image for the whole world of a man's thought\nand knowledge. Imagine a large clear jelly, in which at all angles\nand in all states of simplicity or contortion his ideas are\nimbedded. They are all valid and possible ideas as they lie, none in\nreality incompatible with any. If you imagine the direction of up or\ndown in this clear jelly being as it were the direction in which one\nmoves by analysis or by synthesis, if you go down for example from\nmatter to atoms and centres of force and up to men and states and\ncountries--if you will imagine the ideas lying in that manner--you\nwill get the beginning of my intention. But our Instrument, our\nprocess of thinking, like a drawing before the discovery of\nperspective, appears to have difficulties with the third dimension,\nappears capable only of dealing with or reasoning about ideas by\nprojecting them upon the same plane. It will be obvious that a great\nmultitude of things may very well exist together in a solid jelly,\nwhich would be overlapping and incompatible and mutually\ndestructive, when projected together upon one plane. Through the\nbias in our Instrument to do this, through reasoning between terms\nnot in the same plane, an enormous amount of confusion, perplexity\nand mental deadlocking occurs.\n\nThe old theological deadlock between predestination and free-will\nserves admirably as an example of the sort of deadlock I mean. Take\nlife at the level of common sensation and common experience and\nthere is no more indisputable fact than man's freedom of will,\nunless it is his complete moral responsibility. But make only the\nleast penetrating of analyses and you perceive a world of inevitable\nconsequences, a rigid succession of cause and effect. Insist upon a\nflat agreement between the two, and there you are! The Instrument\nfails.\n\nIt is upon these three objections, and upon an extreme suspicion of\nabstract terms which arises materially out of my first and second\nobjections, that I chiefly rest my case for a profound scepticism of\nthe remoter possibilities of the Instrument of Thought. It is a\nthing no more perfect than the human eye or the human ear, though\nlike those other instruments it may have undefined possibilities of\nevolution towards increased range, and increased power.\n\nSo much for my main contention. But before I conclude I may--since I\nam here--say a little more in the autobiographical vein, and with\na view to your discussion to show how I reconcile this fundamental\nscepticism with the very positive beliefs about world-wide issues I\npossess, and the very definite distinction I make between right and\nwrong.\n\nI reconcile these things by simply pointing out to you that if there\nis any validity in my image of that three dimensional jelly in which\nour ideas are suspended, such a reconciliation as you demand in\nlogic, such a projection of the things as in accordance upon one\nplane, is totally unnecessary and impossible.\n\nThis insistence upon the element of uniqueness in being, this\nsubordination of the class to the individual difference, not only\ndestroys the universal claim of philosophy, but the universal claim\nof ethical imperatives, the universal claim of any religious\nteaching. If you press me back upon my fundamental position I must\nconfess I put faith and standards and rules of conduct upon exactly\nthe same level as I put my belief of what is right in art, and what\nI consider right practice in art. I have arrived at a certain sort\nof self-knowledge and there are, I find, very distinct imperatives\nfor me, but I am quite prepared to admit there is no proving them\nimperative on any one else. One's political proceedings, one's moral\nacts are, I hold, just as much self-expression as one's poetry or\npainting or music. But since life has for its primordial elements\nassimilation and aggression, I try not only to obey my imperatives,\nbut to put them persuasively and convincingly into other minds, to\nbring about _my_ good and to resist and overcome _my_ evil as though\nthey were the universal Good and the universal Evil in which\nunthinking men believe. And it is obviously in no way contradictory\nto this philosophy, for me, if I find others responding\nsympathetically to any notes of mine or if I find myself responding\nsympathetically to notes sounding about me, to give that common\nresemblance between myself and others a name, to refer these others\nand myself in common to this thing as if it were externalised and\nspanned us all.\n\nScepticism of the Instrument is for example not incompatible with\nreligious association and with organisation upon the basis of a\ncommon faith. It is possible to regard God as a Being synthetic in\nrelation to men and societies, just as the idea of a universe of\natoms and molecules and inorganic relationships is analytical in\nrelation to human life.\n\nThe repudiation of demonstration in any but immediate and verifiable\ncases that this Scepticism of the Instrument amounts to, the\nabandonment of any universal validity for moral and religious\npropositions, brings ethical, social and religious teaching into the\nprovince of poetry, and does something to correct the estrangement\nbetween knowledge and beauty that is a feature of so much mental\nexistence at this time. All these things are self-expression. Such\nan opinion sets a new and greater value on that penetrating and\nilluminating quality of mind we call insight, insight which when it\nfaces towards the contradictions that arise out of the imperfections\nof the mental instrument is called humour. In these innate,\nunteachable qualities I hold--in humour and the sense of\nbeauty--lies such hope of intellectual salvation from the original\nsin of our intellectual instrument as we may entertain in this\nuncertain and fluctuating world of unique appearances....\n\nSo frankly I spread my little equipment of fundamental assumptions\nbefore you, heartily glad of the opportunity you have given me of\ntaking them out, of looking at them with the particularity the\npresence of hearers ensures, and of hearing the impression they make\nupon you. Of course, such a sketch must have an inevitable crudity\nof effect. The time I had for it--I mean the time I was able to give\nin preparation--was altogether too limited for any exhaustive finish\nof presentation; but I think on the whole I have got the main lines\nof this sketch map of my mental basis true. Whether I have made\nmyself comprehensible is a different question altogether. It is for\nyou rather than me to say how this sketch map of mine lies with\nregard to your own more systematic cartography....\n\nHere followed certain comments upon Personal Idealism, and Mr. F. C.\nS. Schiller's Humanism, of no particular value.","title":"A Modern Utopia","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":92828}