been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards
comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as
its watchword, it had attained its hopes to come to this at last. Once,
life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich
had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his
life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no
unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet
had followed.
It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is
the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly
in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never
appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is
no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only
those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety
of needs and dangers.
So, as I see it, the Upperworld man had drifted towards his feeble
prettiness, and the Underworld to mere mechanical industry. But that
perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical
perfection absolute permanency. Apparently as time went on, the feeding
of an Underworld, however it was effected, had become disjointed.
Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few thousand years,
came back again, and she began below. The Underworld being in contact
with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought
outside habit, had probably retained perforce rather more initiative,
if less of every other human character, than the Upper. And when other
meat failed them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden.
So I say I saw it in my last view of the world of Eight Hundred and Two
Thousand Seven Hundred and One. It may be as wrong an explanation as
mortal wit could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and
as that I give it to you.
After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, and in
spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm
sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my
theorising passed into dozing. Catching myself at that, I took my own
hint, and spreading myself out upon the turf I had a long and
refreshing sleep.
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