them and the rude violence of the poor is already leading to the
closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of
the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country
is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening gulf which is due
to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the
increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the
part of the rich will make that exchange between class and class, that
promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of
our species along lines of social stratification, less and less
frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves,
pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the
Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of
their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay
rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and
if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such
of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would
die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would
become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as
happy in their way, as the Overworld people were to theirs. As it
seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed
naturally enough.
The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape
in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general
co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy,
armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the
industrial system of today. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph
over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must
warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in
the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely
wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this
supposition the balanced civilisation that was at last attained must
have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay.
The too-perfect security of the Overworlders had led them to a slow
movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and
intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had
happened to the Undergrounders I did not yet suspect; but, from what I
had seen of the Morlocks that, by the bye, was the name by which these
creatures were called I could imagine that the modification of the
human type was even far more profound than among the Eloi, the
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