6. Some Earthly Criticisms

by H.G. Wells

　　Section 1

　　At times during that memorable afternoon and evening it seemed toMr. Barnstaple that he was involved in nothing more remarkable thanan extraordinary dialogue about government and history, a dialoguethat had in some inexplicable way become spectacular; it was as ifall this was happening only in his mind; and then the absolutereality of his adventure would return to him with overwhelming powerand his intellectual interest fade to inattention in the astoundingstrangeness of his position. In these latter phases he would findhis gaze wandering from face to face of the Utopians who surroundedhim, resting for a time on some exquisite detail of the architectureof the building and then coming back to these divinely gracefulforms.

　　Then incredulously he would revert to his fellow Earthlings.

　　Not one of these Utopian faces but was as candid, earnest andbeautiful as the angelic faces of an Italian painting. One womanwas strangely like Michael Angelo's Delphic Sibyl. They sat in easyattitudes, men and women together, for the most part concentrated onthe discussion, but every now and then Mr. Barnstaple would meet thedirect scrutiny of a pair of friendly eyes or find some Utopian faceintent upon the costume of Lady Stella or the eye-glass of Mr. Mush.

　　Mr. Barnstaple's first impression of the Utopians had been that theywere all young people; now he perceived that many of these faces hada quality of vigorous maturity. None showed any of the distinctivemarks of age as this world notes them, but both Urthred and Lionhad lines of experience about eyes and lips and brow.

　　The effect of these people upon Mr. Barnstaple mingled stupefactionwith familiarity in the strangest way. He had a feeling that he hadalways known that such a race could exist and that this knowledgehad supplied the implicit standard of a thousand judgments uponhuman affairs, and at the same time he was astonished to the pitchof incredulity to find himself in the same world with them. Theywere at once normal and wonderful in comparison with himself andhis companions who were, on their part, at the same time queer andperfectly matter-of-fact.

　　And together with a strong desire to become friendly and intimatewith these fine and gracious persons, to give himself to them andto associate them with himself by service and reciprocal acts,there was an awe and fear of them that made him shrink from contactwith them and quiver at their touch. He desired their personalrecognition of himself as a fellow and companion so greatly thathis sense of his own ungraciousness and unworthiness overwhelmedhim. He wanted to bow down before them. Beneath all the light andloveliness of things about him lurked the intolerable premonitionof his ultimate rejection from this new world.

　　So great was the impression made by the Utopians upon Mr.Barnstaple, so entirely did he yield himself up to his joyfulacceptance of their grace and physical splendour, that for a time hehad no attention left over to note how different from his own werethe reactions of several of his Earthling companions. The aloofnessof the Utopians from the queerness, grotesqueness and cruelty ofnormal earthly life made him ready for the most uncritical approvalof their institutions and ways of life.

　　It was the behaviour of Father Amerton which first awakened himto the fact that it was possible to disapprove of these wonderfulpeople very highly and to display a very considerable hostility tothem. At first Father Amerton had kept a round-faced, round-eyedwonder above his round collar; he had shown a disposition to givethe lead to anyone who chose to take it, and he had said not a worduntil the naked beauty of dead Greenlake had surprised him into anexpression of unclerical appreciation. But during the journey to thelakeside and the meal and the opening arrangements of the conferencethere was a reaction, and this first naive and deferentialastonishment gave place to an attitude of resistance and hostility.It was as if this new world which had begun by being a spectacle hadtaken on the quality of a proposition which he felt he had either toaccept or confute. Perhaps it was that the habit of mind of a publiccensor was too strong for him and that he could not feel normalagain until he began to condemn. Perhaps he was really shocked anddistressed by the virtual nudity of these lovely bodies about him.But he began presently to make queer grunts and coughs, to mutterto himself, and to betray an increasing incapacity to keep still.

　　He broke out first into an interruption when the question ofpopulation was raised. For a little while his intelligence prevailedover this emotional stir when the prophet of the wheel wasdiscussed, but then his gathering preoccupations resumed their sway.

　　"I must speak out," Mr. Barnstaple heard him mutter. "I must speakout."

　　"Now suddenly he began to ask questions. There are some thingsI want to have clear," he said. "I want to know what moral statethis so-called Utopia is in. Excuse me!"

　　He got up. He stood with wavering hands, unable for a moment tobegin. Then he went to the end of the row of seats and placedhimself so that his hands could rest on the back of a seat. Hepassed his fingers through his hair and he seemed to be inhalingdeeply. An unwonted animation came into his face, which reddenedand began to shine. A horrible suspicion crossed the mind of Mr.Barnstaple that so it was he must stand when he began those weeklysermons of his, those fearless denunciations of almost everything,in the church of St. Barnabas in the West. The suspicion deepenedto a still more horrible certainty.

　　"Friends, Brothers of this new world--I have certain things tosay to you that I cannot delay saying. I want to ask you somesoul-searching questions. I want to deal plainly with you about someplain and simple but very fundamental matters. I want to put thingsto you frankly and as man to man, not being mealy-mouthed abouturgent if delicate things. Let me come without parley to what I haveto say. I want to ask you if, in this so-called state of Utopia, youstill have and respect and honour the most sacred thing in sociallife. Do you still respect the marriage bond?"

　　He paused, and in the pause the Utopian reply came through toMr. Barnstaple: "In Utopia there are no bonds."

　　But Father Amerton was not asking questions with any desire foranswers; he was asking questions pulpit-fashion.

　　"I want to know," he was booming out, "if that holy union revealedto our first parents in the Garden of Eden holds good here, if thatsanctified life-long association of one man and one woman, in goodfortune and ill fortune, excluding every other sort of intimacy,is the rule of your lives. I want to know--"

　　"But he _doesn't_ want to know," came a Utopian intervention.

　　"--if that shielded and guarded dual purity--"

　　Mr. Burleigh raised a long white hand. "Father Amerton," heprotested, "_please_."

　　The hand of Mr. Burleigh was a potent hand that might still wavetowards preferment. Few things under heaven could stop FatherAmerton when he was once launched upon one of his soul storms, butthe hand of Mr. Burleigh was among such things.

　　"--has followed another still more precious gift and been cast asidehere and utterly rejected of men? What is it, Mr. Burleigh?"

　　"I wish you would not press this matter further just at present,Father Amerton. Until we have learnt a little more. Institutionsare, manifestly, very different here. Even the institution ofmarriage may be different."

　　The preacher's face lowered. "Mr. Burleigh," he said, "I _must_. Ifmy suspicions are right, I want to strip this world forthwith of itshectic pretence to a sort of health and virtue."

　　"Not much stripping required," said Mr. Burleigh's chauffeur, in avery audible aside.

　　A certain testiness became evident in Mr. Burleigh's voice.

　　"Then ask questions," he said. "Ask questions. Don't orate, please.They don't want us to orate."

　　"I've asked my question," said Father Amerton sulkily with arhetorical glare at Urthred, and remained standing.

　　The answer came clear and explicit. In Utopia there was nocompulsion for men and women to go about in indissoluble pairs. Formost Utopians that would be inconvenient. Very often men and women,whose work brought them closely together, were lovers and kept verymuch together, as Arden and Greenlake had done. But they were notobliged to do that.

　　There had not always been this freedom. In the old crowded days ofconflict, and especially among the agricultural workers and employedpeople of Utopia, men and women who had been lovers were boundtogether under severe penalties for life. They lived together in asmall home which the woman kept in order for the man, she was hisservant and bore him as many children as possible, while he got foodfor them. The children were desired because they were soon helpfulon the land or as wage-earners. But the necessities that hadsubjugated women to that sort of pairing had passed away.

　　People paired indeed with their chosen mates, but they did so by aninner necessity and not by any outward compulsion.

　　Father Amerton had listened with ill-concealed impatience. Now hejumped with: "Then I was right, and you have abolished the family?"His finger pointed at Urthred made it almost a personal accusation.

　　No. Utopia had not abolished the family. It had enlarged andglorified the family until it embraced the whole world. Long agothat prophet of the wheel, whom Father Amerton seemed to respect,had preached that very enlargement of the ancient narrowness ofhome. They had told him while he preached that his mother and hisbrethren stood without and claimed his attention. But he would notgo to them. He had turned to the crowd that listened to his words:"Behold my mother and my brethren!"

　　Father Amerton slapped the seat-back in front of him loudly andstartlingly. "A quibble," he cried, "a quibble! Satan too canquote the scriptures."

　　It was clear to Mr. Barnstaple that Father Amerton was not incomplete control of himself. He was frightened by what he was doingand yet impelled to do it. He was too excited to think clearly orcontrol his voice properly, so that he shouted and boomed in thewildest way. He was "letting himself go" and trusting to thehabits of the pulpit of St. Barnabas to bring him through.

　　"I perceive now how you stand. Only too well do I perceive how youstand. From the outset I guessed how things were with you. Iwaited--I waited to be perfectly sure, before I bore my testimony.But it speaks for itself--the shamelessness of your costume, thelicentious freedom of your manners! Young men and women, smiling,joining hands, near to caressing, when averted eyes, averted eyes,are the least tribute you could pay to modesty! And this viletalk--of lovers loving--without bonds or blessings, without rules orrestraint. What does it mean? Whither does it lead? Do not imaginebecause I am a priest, a man pure and virginal in spite of greattemptations, do not imagine that I do not understand! Have I novision of the secret places of the heart? Do not the woundedsinners, the broken potsherds, creep to me with their pitifulconfessions? And I will tell you plainly whither you go and how youstand? This so-called freedom of yours is nothing but licence. Yourso-called Utopia, I see plainly, is nothing but a hell of unbridledindulgence! Unbridled indulgence!"

　　Mr. Burleigh held up a protesting hand, but Father Amerton'seloquence soared over the obstruction.

　　He beat upon the back of the seat before him. "I will bear mywitness," he shouted. "I will bear my witness. I will make no bonesabout it. I refuse to mince matters I tell you. You are allliving--in promiscuity! That is the word for it. In animalpromiscuity! In _bestial_ promiscuity!"

　　Mr. Burleigh had sprung to his feet. He was holding up his two handsand motioning the London Boanerges to sit down. "No, no!" he cried."You must _stop_, Mr. Amerton. Really, you must stop. You are beinginsulting. You do not understand. Sit _down_, please. I insist."

　　"Sit down and hold your peace," said a very clear voice. "Or youwill be taken away."

　　Something made Father Amerton aware of a still figure at his elbow.He met the eyes of a lithe young man who was scrutinizing his buildas a portrait painter might scrutinize a new sitter. There was nothreat in his bearing, he stood quite still, and yet his appearancethrew an extraordinary quality of evanescence about Father Amerton.The great preacher's voice died in his throat.

　　Mr. Burleigh's bland voice was lifted to avert a conflict. "Mr.Serpentine, Sir, I appeal to you and apologize. He is not fullyresponsible. We others regret the interruption--the incident. I prayyou, please do not take him away, whatever taking away may mean. Iwill answer personally for his good behaviour.... _Do_ sit down,Mr. Amerton, _please_; _now_; or I shall wash my hands of the wholebusiness."

　　Father Amerton hesitated.

　　"My time will come," he said and looked the young man in the eyesfor a moment and then went back to his seat.

　　Urthred spoke quietly and clearly. "You Earthlings are difficultguests to entertain. This is not all.... Manifestly this man's mindis very unclean. His sexual imagination is evidently inflamed anddiseased. He is angry and anxious to insult and wound. And hisnoises are terrific. To-morrow he must be examined and dealt with."

　　"How?" said Father Amerton, his round face suddenly grey. "How doyou mean--_dealt_ with?"

　　"_Please_ do not talk," said Mr. Burleigh. "_Please_ do not talk anymore. You have done quite enough mischief...."

　　For the time the incident seemed at an end, but it had left a queerlittle twinge of fear in Mr. Barnstaple's heart. These Utopianswere very gentle-mannered and gracious people indeed, but just fora moment the hand of power had seemed to hover over the Earthlingparty. Sunlight and beauty were all about the visitors, neverthelessthey were strangers and quite helpless strangers in an unknownworld. The Utopian faces were kindly and their eyes curious and ina manner friendly, but much more observant than friendly. It was asif they looked across some impassable gulf of difference.

　　And then Mr. Barnstaple in the midst of his distress met the browneyes of Lychnis, and they were kindlier than the eyes of the otherUtopians. She, at least, understood the fear that had come to him,he felt, and she was willing to reassure him and be his friend. Mr.Barnstaple looked at her, feeling for the moment much as a straydog might do who approaches a doubtfully amiable group and gets afriendly glance and a greeting.

　　Section 2

　　Another mind that was also in active resistance to Utopia was thatof Mr. Freddy Mush. He had no quarrel indeed with the religionor morals or social organization of Utopia. He had long sincelearnt that no gentleman of serious aesthetic pretensions betraysany interest whatever in such matters. His perceptions were byhypothesis too fine for them. But presently he made it clear thatthere had been something very ancient and beautiful called the"Balance of Nature" which the scientific methods of Utopia haddestroyed. What this Balance of Nature of his was, and how it workedon earth, neither the Utopians nor Mr. Barnstaple were able tounderstand very clearly. Under cross-examination Mr. Mush grew pinkand restive and his eye-glass flashed defensively. "I hold by theswallows," he repeated. "If you can't see my point about thatI don't know what else I can say."

　　He began with the fact and reverted to the fact that there were noswallows to be seen in Utopia, and there were no swallows to be seenin Utopia because there were no gnats nor midges. There had been anenormous deliberate reduction of insect life in Utopia, and thathad seriously affected every sort of creature that was directly orindirectly dependent upon insect life. So soon as the new state ofaffairs was securely established in Utopia and the educational stateworking, the attention of the Utopian community had been given tothe long-cherished idea of a systematic extermination of tiresomeand mischievous species. A careful inquiry was made into theharmfulness and the possibility of eliminating the house-fly forexample, wasps and hornets, various species of mice and rats,rabbits, stinging nettles. Ten thousand species, from disease-germto rhinoceros and hyena, were put upon their trial. Every speciesfound was given an advocate. Of each it was asked: What good is it?What harm does it do? How can it be extirpated? What else may gowith it if it goes? Is it worth while wiping it out of existence?Or can it be mitigated and retained? And even when the verdictwas death final and complete, Utopia set about the business ofextermination with great caution. A reserve would be kept and wasin many cases still being kept, in some secure isolation, of everyspecies condemned.

　　Most infectious and contagious fevers had been completely stampedout; some had gone very easily; some had only been driven out ofhuman life by proclaiming a war and subjecting the whole populationto discipline. Many internal and external parasites of man andanimals had also been got rid of completely. And further, there hadbeen a great cleansing of the world from noxious insects, from weedsand vermin and hostile beasts. The mosquito had gone, the house-fly,the blow-fly, and indeed a great multitude of flies had gone; theyhad been driven out of life by campaigns involving an immense effortand extending over many generations. It had been infinitely moreeasy to get rid of such big annoyances as the hyena and the wolfthan to abolish these smaller pests. The attack upon the flies hadinvolved the virtual rebuilding of a large proportion of Utopianhouses and a minute cleansing of them all throughout the planet.

　　The question of what else would go if a certain species went was oneof the most subtle that Utopia had to face. Certain insects, forexample, were destructive and offensive grubs in the opening stageof their lives, were evil as caterpillar or pupa and then becameeither beautiful in themselves or necessary to the fertilization ofsome useful or exquisite flowers. Others offensive in themselveswere a necessary irreplaceable food to pleasant and desirablecreatures. It was not true that swallows had gone from Utopia, butthey had become extremely rare; and rare too were a number of littleinsectivorous birds, the fly-catcher for example, that harlequin ofthe air. But they had not died out altogether; the extermination ofinsects had not gone to that length; sufficient species had remainedto make some districts still habitable for these delightful birds.

　　Many otherwise obnoxious plants were a convenient source ofchemically complex substances that were still costly or tedious tomake synthetically, and so had kept a restricted place in life.Plants and flowers, always simpler and more plastic in the hands ofthe breeder and hybridizer than animals, had been enormously changedin Utopia. Our Earthlings were to find a hundred sorts of foliageand of graceful and scented blossoms that were altogether strange tothem. Plants, Mr. Barnstaple learnt, had been trained and bred tomake new and unprecedented secretions, waxes, gums, essential oilsand the like, of the most desirable quality.

　　There had been much befriending and taming of big animals; thelarger carnivora, combed and cleaned, reduced to a milk dietary,emasculated in spirit and altogether be-catted, were pets andornaments in Utopia. The almost extinct elephant had increased againand Utopia had saved her giraffes. The brown bear had always beendisposed to sweets and vegetarianism and had greatly improved inintelligence. The dog had given up barking and was comparativelyrare. Sporting dogs were not used nor small pet animals.

　　Horses Mr. Barnstaple did not see, but as he was a very modern urbantype he did not miss them very much and he did not ask any questionsabout them while he was actually in Utopia. He never found outwhether they had or had not become extinct.

　　As he heard on his first afternoon in that world of this revisionand editing, this weeding and cultivation of the kingdoms of natureby mankind, it seemed to him to be the most natural and necessaryphase in human history. "After all," he said to himself, "it was agood invention to say that man was created a gardener."

　　And now man was weeding and cultivating his own strain....

　　The Utopians told of eugenic beginnings, of a new and surer decisionin the choice of parents, of an increasing certainty in the scienceof heredity; and as Mr. Barnstaple contrasted the firm clear beautyof face and limb that every Utopian displayed with the carelesslyassembled features and bodily disproportions of his earthlyassociates, he realized that already, with but three thousand yearsor so of advantage, these Utopians were passing beyond man towardsa nobler humanity. They were becoming different in kind.

　　Section 3

　　They were different in kind.

　　As the questions and explanations and exchanges of that afternoonwent on, it became more and more evident to Mr. Barnstaple thatthe difference of their bodies was as nothing to the differencesof their minds. Innately better to begin with, the minds of thesechildren of light had grown up uninjured by any such tremendousfrictions, concealments, ambiguities and ignorances as cripple thegrowing mind of an Earthling. They were clear and frank and direct.They had never developed that defensive suspicion of the teacher,that resistance to instruction, which is the natural response toteaching that is half aggression. They were beautifully unwary intheir communications. The ironies, concealments, insincerities,vanities and pretensions of earthly conversation seemed unknown tothem. Mr. Barnstaple found this mental nakedness of theirs as sweetand refreshing as the mountain air he was breathing. It amazed himthat they could be so patient and lucid with beings so underbred.

　　Underbred was the word he used in his mind. Himself, he felt themost underbred of all; he was afraid of these Utopians; snobbishand abject before them, he was like a mannerless earthy lout in adrawing-room, and he was bitterly ashamed of his own abjection. Allthe other Earthlings except Mr. Burleigh and Lady Stella betrayedthe defensive spite of consciously inferior creatures strugglingagainst that consciousness.

　　Like Father Amerton, Mr. Burleigh's chauffeur was evidently greatlyshocked and disturbed by the unclothed condition of the Utopians;his feelings expressed themselves by gestures, grimaces and anoccasional sarcastic comment such as "I _don't_ think!" or "What O!"These he addressed for the most part to Mr. Barnstaple, for whom, asthe owner of a very little old car, he evidently mingled feelingsof profound contempt and social fellowship. He would also directMr. Barnstaple's attention to anything that he considered remarkablein bearing or gesture, by means of a peculiar stare and grimacecombined with raised eyebrows. He had a way of pointing with hismouth and nose that Mr. Barnstaple under more normal circumstancesmight have found entertaining.

　　Lady Stella, who had impressed Mr. Barnstaple at first as a verygreat lady of the modern type, he was now beginning to feel was onher defence and becoming rather too ladylike. Mr. Burleigh howeverretained a certain aristocratic sublimity. He had been a great manon earth for all his life and it was evident that he saw no reasonwhy he should not be accepted as a great man in Utopia. On earthhe had done little and had been intelligently receptive with thehappiest results. That alert, questioning mind of his, free of allpersuasions, convictions or revolutionary desires, fell with theutmost ease into the pose of a distinguished person inspecting, ina sympathetic but entirely non-committal manner, the institutionsof an alien state. "Tell me," that engaging phrase, laced hisconversation.

　　The evening was drawing on; the clear Utopian sky was glowing withthe gold of sunset and a towering mass of cloud above the lake wasfading from pink to a dark purple, when Mr. Rupert Catskill imposedhimself upon Mr. Barnstaple's attention. He was fretting in hisplace. "I have something to say," he said. "I have something tosay."

　　Presently he jumped up and walked to the centre of the semicirclefrom which Mr. Burleigh had spoken earlier in the afternoon. "Mr.Serpentine," he said. "Mr. Burleigh. There are a few things I shouldbe glad to say--if you can give me this opportunity of saying them."

　　Section 4

　　He took off his grey top hat, went back and placed it on his seatand returned to the centre of the apse. He put back his coat tails,rested his hands on his hips, thrust his head forward, regarded hisaudience for a moment with an expression half cunning, half defiant,muttered something inaudible and began.

　　His opening was not prepossessing. There was some slight impedimentin his speech, the little brother of a lisp, against which his voicebeat gutturally. His first few sentences had an effect of beingjerked out by unsteady efforts. Then it became evident to Mr.Barnstaple that Mr. Catskill was expressing a very definite point ofview, he was offering a reasoned and intelligible view of Utopia.Mr. Barnstaple disagreed with that criticism, indeed he disagreedwith it violently, but he had to recognize that it expressed anunderstandable attitude of mind.

　　Mr. Catskill began with a sweeping admission of the beauty and orderof Utopia. He praised the "glowing health" he saw "on every cheek,"the wealth, tranquillity and comfort of Utopian life. They had"tamed the forces of nature and subjugated them altogether to onesole end, to the material comfort of the race."

　　"But Arden and Greenlake?" murmured Mr. Barnstaple.

　　Mr. Catskill did not hear or heed the interruption. "The firsteffect, Mr. Speaker--Mr. Serpentine, I _should_ say--the first effectupon an earthly mind is overwhelming. Is it any wonder"--he glancedat Mr. Burleigh and Mr. Barnstaple--"is it any wonder that admirationhas carried some of us off our feet? Is it any wonder that for atime your almost magic beauty has charmed us into forgetting muchthat is in our own natures--into forgetting deep and mysteriousimpulses, cravings, necessities, so that we have been ready tosay, 'Here at last is Lotus Land. Here let us abide, let us adaptourselves to this planned and ordered splendour and live our livesout here and die.' I, too, Mr.--Mr. Serpentine, succumbed to thatmagic for a time. But only for a time. Already, Sir, I find myselffull of questionings."...

　　His bright, headlong mind had seized upon the fact that every phasein the weeding and cleansing of Utopia from pests and parasitesand diseases had been accompanied by the possibility of collaterallimitations and losses; or perhaps it would be juster to say thatthat fact had seized upon his mind. He ignored the deliberationand precautions that had accompanied every step in the process ofmaking a world securely healthy and wholesome for human activity.He assumed there had been losses with every gain, he went on toexaggerate these losses and ran on glibly to the inevitable metaphorof throwing away the baby with its bath--inevitable, that is, fora British parliamentarian. The Utopians, he declared, were livinglives of extraordinary ease, safety and "may I say so--indulgence"("They work," said Mr. Barnstaple), but with a thousand annoyancesand disagreeables gone had not something else greater and moreprecious gone also? Life on earth was, he admitted, insecure, fullof pains and anxieties, full indeed of miseries and distresses andanguish, but also, and indeed by reason of these very things, it hadmoments of intensity, hopes, joyful surprises, escapes, attainments,such as the ordered life of Utopia could not possibly afford. "Youhave been getting away from conflicts and distresses. Have you notalso been getting away from the living and quivering realities oflife?"

　　He launched out upon a eulogy of earthly life. He extolled thevitality of life upon earth as though there were no signs ofvitality in the high splendour about him. He spoke of the "thunderof our crowded cities," of the "urge of our teeming millions," ofthe "broad tides of commerce and industrial effort and warfare,"that "swayed and came and went in the hives and harbours of ourrace."

　　He had the knack of the plausible phrase and that imaginativetouch which makes for eloquence. Mr. Barnstaple forgot that slightimpediment and the thickness of the voice that said these things.Mr. Catskill boldly admitted all the earthly evils and dangers thatMr. Burleigh had retailed. Everything that Mr. Burleigh had saidwas true. All that he had said fell indeed far short of the truth.Famine we knew, and pestilence. We suffered from a thousand diseasesthat Utopia had eliminated. We were afflicted by a thousandafflictions that were known to Utopia now only by ancient tradition."The rats gnaw and the summer flies persecute and madden. At timeslife reeks and stinks. I admit it, Sir, I admit it. We go down farbelow your extremest experiences into discomforts and miseries,anxieties and anguish of soul and body, into bitterness, terror anddespair. Yea. But do we not also go higher? I challenge you withthat. What can you know in this immense safety of the intensity,the frantic, terror-driven intensity, of many of our efforts? Whatcan you know of reprieves and interludes and escapes? Think ofour many happinesses beyond your ken! What do you know here ofthe sweet early days of convalescence? Of going for a holiday outof disagreeable surroundings? Of taking some great risk to body orfortune and bringing it off? Of winning a bet against enormous odds?Of coming out of prison? And, Sir, it has been said that there arethose in our world who have found a fascination even in pain itself.Because our life is dreadfuller, Sir, it has, and it must have,moments that are infinitely brighter than yours. It is titanic, Sir,where this is merely tidy. And we are inured to it and hardened byit. We are tempered to a finer edge. That is the point to which I amcoming. Ask us to give up our earthly disorder, our miseries anddistresses, our high death-rates and our hideous diseases, and atthe first question every man and woman in the world would say, 'Yes!Willingly, Yes!' At the first question, Sir!"

　　Mr. Catskill held his audience for a moment on his extended finger.

　　"And then we should begin to take thought. We should ask, as you sayyour naturalists asked about your flies and suchlike offensive smallgame, we should ask, 'What goes with it? What is the price?' And whenwe learnt that the price was to surrender that intensity of life,that tormented energy, that pickled and experienced toughness, thatrat-like, wolf-like toughness our perpetual struggle engenders, weshould hesitate. We should hesitate. In the end, Sir, I believe, Ihope and believe, indeed I pray and believe, we should say, 'No!'We should say, 'No!'"

　　Mr. Catskill was now in a state of great cerebral exaltation. Hewas making short thrusting gestures with his clenched fist. Hisvoice rose and fell and boomed; he swayed and turned about, glancedfor the approval of his fellow Earthlings, flung stray smiles atMr. Burleigh.

　　This idea that our poor wrangling, nerveless, chance-driven worldwas really a fierce and close-knit system of powerful reactions incontrast with the evening serenities of a made and finished Utopia,had taken complete possession of his mind. "Never before, Sir, haveI realized, as I realize now, the high, the terrible and adventurousdestinies of our earthly race. I look upon this Golden Lotus Land ofyours, this divine perfected land from which all conflict has beenbanished--"

　　Mr. Barnstaple caught a faint smile on the face of the woman who hadreminded him of the Delphic Sibyl.

　　"--and I admit and admire its order and beauty as some dusty andresolute pilgrim might pause, on his exalted and mysterious quest,and admit and admire the order and beauty of the pleasant gardensof some prosperous Sybarite. And like that pilgrim I may beg leave,Sir, to question the wisdom of your way of living. For I take it,Sir, that it is now a proven thing that life and all the energyand beauty of life are begotten by struggle and competition andconflict; we were moulded and wrought in hardship, and so, Sir,were you. And yet you dream here that you have eliminated conflictfor ever. Your economic state, I gather, is some form of socialism;you have abolished competition in all the businesses of peace. Yourpolitical state is one universal unity; you have altogether cut outthe bracing and ennobling threat and the purging and terrifyingexperience of war. Everything is ordered and provided for.Everything is secure. Everything is secure, Sir, except for onething....

　　"I grieve to trouble your tranquillity, Sir, but I must breathe thename of that one forgotten thing--_degeneration_! What is there hereto prevent degeneration? Are you preventing degeneration?

　　"What penalties are there any longer for indolence? What rewardsfor exceptional energy and effort? What is there to keep menindustrious, what watchful, when there is no personal danger andno personal loss but only some remote danger or injury to thecommunity? For a time by a sort of inertia you may keep going. Youmay seem to be making a success of things. I admit it, you do seemto be making a success of things. Autumnal glory! Sunset splendour!While about you in universes parallel to yours, parallel races stilltoil, still suffer, still compete and eliminate and gather strengthand energy!"

　　Mr. Catskill flourished his hand at the Utopians in rhetoricaltriumph.

　　"I would not have you think, Sir, that these criticisms of yourworld are offered in a hostile spirit. They are offered in the mostamiable and helpful spirit. I am the skeleton, but the most friendlyand apologetic skeleton, at your feast. I ask my searching anddisagreeable question because I must. Is it indeed the wise way thatyou have chosen? You have sweetness and light--and leisure. Granted.But if there is all this multitude of Universes, of which you havetold us, Mr. Serpentine, so clearly and illuminatingly, and if onemay suddenly open into another as ours has done into yours, I wouldask you most earnestly how safe is your sweetness, your light andyour leisure? We talk here, separated by we know not how flimsy apartition from innumerable worlds. And at that thought, Sir, itseems to me that as I stand here in the great golden calm of thisplace I can almost hear the trampling of hungry myriads as fierceand persistent as rats or wolves, the snarling voices of racesinured to every pain and cruelty, the threat of terrible heroismsand pitiless aggressions...."

　　He brought his discourse to an abrupt end. He smiled faintly; itseemed to Mr. Barnstaple that he triumphed over Utopia. He stoodwith hands on his hips and, as if he bent his body by that method,bowed stiffly. "Sir," he said with that ghost of a lisp of his,his eye on Mr. Burleigh, "I have said my say."

　　He turned about and regarded Mr. Barnstaple for a moment with hisface screwed up almost to the appearance of a wink. He nodded hishead, as if he tapped a nail with a hammer, jerked himself intoactivity, and returned to his proper place.

　　Section 5

　　Urthred did not so much answer Mr. Catskill as sit, elbow on kneeand chin on hand, thinking audibly about him.

　　"The gnawing vigour of the rat," he mused, "the craving pursuit ofthe wolf, the mechanical persistence of wasp and fly and diseasegerm, have gone out of our world. That is true. We have obliteratedthat much of life's devouring forces. And lost nothing worth having.Pain, filth, indignity for ourselves--or any creatures; they havegone or they go. But it is not true that competition has gone fromour world. Why does he say it has? Everyone here works to his orher utmost--for service and distinction. None may cheat himself outof toil or duty as men did in the Age of Confusion, when the meanand acquisitive lived and bred in luxury upon the heedlessness ofmore generous types. Why does he say we degenerate? He has been toldbetter already. The indolent and inferior do not procreate here. Andwhy should he threaten us with fancies of irruptions from other,fiercer, more barbaric worlds? It is we who can open the doors intosuch other universes or close them as we choose. Because we know. Wecan go to them--when we know enough we shall--but they cannot cometo us. There is no way but knowledge out of the cages of life....What is the matter with the mind of this man?

　　"These Earthlings are only in the beginnings of science. They arestill for all practical ends in that phase of fear and taboosthat came also in the development of Utopia before confidence andunderstanding. Out of which phase our own world struggled during theLast Age of Confusion. The minds of these Earthlings are full offears and prohibitions, and though it has dawned upon them that theymay possibly control their universe, the thought is too terrible yetfor them to face. They avert their minds from it. They still want togo on thinking, as their fathers did before them, that the universeis being managed for them better than they can control it forthemselves. Because if that is so, they are free to obey their ownviolent little individual motives. Leave things to God, they cry,or leave them to Competition."

　　"Evolution was our blessed word," said Mr. Barnstaple, deeplyinterested.

　　"It is all the same thing--God, or Evolution, or what you will--solong as you mean a Power beyond your own which excuses you from yourduty. Utopia says, 'Do not leave things at all. Take hold.' But theseEarthlings still lack the habit of looking at reality--undraped. Thisman with the white linen fetter round his neck is afraid even tolook upon men and women as they are. He is disgustingly excited bythe common human body. This man with the glass lens before hisleft eye struggles to believe that there is a wise old MotherNature behind the appearances of things, keeping a Balance. It wasfantastic to hear about his Balance of Nature. Cannot he with twoeyes and a lens see better than that? This last man who spoke soimpressively, thinks that this old Beldame Nature is a limitlesssource of will and energy if only we submit to her freaks andcruelties and imitate her most savage moods, if only we sufficientlythrust and kill and rob and ravish one another.... He too preachesthe old fatalism and believes it is the teaching of science....

　　"These Earthlings do not yet dare to see what our Mother Nature is.At the back of their minds is still the desire to abandon themselvesto her. They do not see that except for our eyes and wills, she ispurposeless and blind. She is not awful, she is horrible. She takesno heed to our standards, nor to any standards of excellence. Shemade us by accident; all her children are bastards--undesired; shewill cherish or expose them, pet or starve or torment without rhymeor reason. She does not heed, she does not care. She will lift usup to power and intelligence, or debase us to the mean feeblenessof the rabbit or the slimy white filthiness of a thousand of herparasitic inventions. There must be good in her because she madeall that is good in us--but also there is endless evil. Do not youEarthlings see the dirt of her, the cruelty, the insane indignity ofmuch of her work?"

　　"Phew! Worse than 'Nature red in tooth and claw,'" murmured Mr.Freddy Mush.

　　"These things are plain," mused Urthred. "If they dared to see.

　　"Half the species of life in our planet also, half and more thanhalf of all the things alive, were ugly or obnoxious, inane,miserable, wretched, with elaborate diseases, helplesslyill-adjusted to Nature's continually fluctuating conditions, whenfirst we took this old Hag, our Mother, in hand. We have, aftercenturies of struggle, suppressed her nastier fancies, and washedher and combed her and taught her to respect and heed the last childof her wantonings--Man. With Man came Logos, the Word and the Willinto our universe, to watch it and fear it, to learn it and ceaseto fear it, to know it and comprehend it and master it. So that weof Utopia are no longer the beaten and starved children of Nature,but her free and adolescent sons. We have taken over the Old Lady'sEstate. Every day we learn a little better how to master thislittle planet. Every day our thoughts go out more surely to ourinheritance, the stars. And the deeps beyond and beneath the stars."

　　"You have reached the stars?" cried Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"Not yet. Not even the other planets. But very plainly the timedraws near when those great distances will cease to restrain us...."

　　He paused. "Many of us will have to go out into the deeps of space....And never return.... Giving their lives....

　　"And into these new spaces--countless brave men...."

　　Urthred turned towards Mr. Catskill. "We find your frankly expressedthoughts particularly interesting to-day. You help us to understandthe past of our own world. You help us to deal with an urgentproblem that we will presently explain to you. There are thoughtsand ideas like yours in our ancient literature of two or threethousand years ago, the same preaching of selfish violence as thoughit was a virtue. Even then intelligent men knew better, and youyourself might know better if you were not wilfully set in wrongopinions. But it is plain to see from your manner and bearing thatyou are very wilful indeed in your opinions.

　　"You are not, you must realize, a very beautiful person, andprobably you are not very beautiful in your pleasures andproceedings. But you have superabundant energy, and so it is naturalfor you to turn to the excitements of risk and escape, to think thatthe best thing in life is the sensation of conflict and winning.Also in the economic confusion of such a world as yours there is anintolerable amount of toil that must be done, toil so disagreeablethat it makes everyone of spirit anxious to thrust away as muchof it as possible and to claim exemption from it on account ofnobility, gallantry or good fortune. People in your world no doubtpersuade themselves very easily that they are justifiably exempted,and you are under that persuasion. You live in a world of classes.Your badly trained mind has been under no necessity to invent itsown excuses; the class into which you were born had all its excusesready for you. So it is you take the best of everything withoutscruple and you adventure with life, chiefly at the expense of otherpeople, with a mind trained by all its circumstances to resist theidea that there is any possible way of human living that can besteadfast and disciplined and at the same time vigorous and happy.You have argued against that persuasion all your life as though itwere your personal enemy. It is your personal enemy; it condemns yourway of life altogether, it damns you utterly for your adventures.

　　"Confronted now with an ordered and achieved beauty of living youstill resist; you resist to escape dismay; you argue that this worldof ours is unromantic, wanting in intensity, decadent, feeble.Now--in the matter of physical strength, grip hands with that youngman who sits beside you."

　　Mr. Catskill glanced at the extended hand and shook his headknowingly. "You go on talking," he said.

　　"Yet when I tell you that neither our wills nor our bodies are asfeeble as yours, your mind resists obstinately. You will not believeit. If for a moment your mind admits it, afterwards it recoils tothe system of persuasions that protect your self-esteem. Only one ofyou accepts our world at all, and he does so rather because he isweary of yours than willing for ours. So I suppose it has to be.Yours are Age of Confusion minds, trained to conflict, trained toinsecurity and secret self-seeking. In that fashion Nature and yourstate have taught you to live and so you must needs live untilyou die. Such lessons are to be unlearnt only in ten thousandgenerations, by the slow education of three thousand years.

　　"And we are puzzled by the question, what are we to do with you? Wewill try our utmost to deal fairly and friendly with you if you willrespect our laws and ways.

　　"But it will be very difficult, we know, for you. You do not realizeyet how difficult your habits and preconceptions will make it foryou. Your party so far has behaved very reasonably and properly,in act if not in thought. But we have had another experience ofEarthling ways to-day of a much more tragic kind. Your talk offiercer, barbaric worlds breaking in upon us has had its grotesqueparallel in reality to-day. It is true; there is something fierceand ratlike and dangerous about Earthly men. You are not the onlyEarthlings who came into Utopia through this gate that swung openfor a moment to-day. There are others--"

　　"Of course!" said Mr. Barnstaple. "I should have guessed it! Thatthird lot!"

　　"There is yet another of these queer locomotive machines of yoursin Utopia."

　　"The grey car!" said Mr. Barnstaple to Mr. Burleigh. "It wasn't ahundred yards ahead of you."

　　"Raced us from Hounslow," said Mr. Burleigh's driver. "Real hotstuff."

　　Mr. Burleigh turned to Mr. Freddy Mush. "I think you said yourecognized someone?"

　　"Lord Barralonga, Sir, almost to a certainty, and I _think_ MissGreeta Grey."

　　"There were two other men," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"They will complicate things," said Mr. Burleigh.

　　"They do complicate things," said Urthred. "They have killed a man."

　　"A Utopian?"

　　"These other people--there are five of them--whose names you seem toknow, came into Utopia just in front of your two vehicles. Insteadof stopping as you did when they found themselves on a new strangeroad, they seem to have quickened their pace very considerably.They passed some men and women and they made extraordinary gesturesto them and abominable noises produced by an instrument speciallydesigned for that purpose. Further on they encountered a silvercheetah and charged at it and ran right over it, breaking its back.They do not seem to have paused to see what became of it. A youngman named Gold came out into the road to ask them to stop. Buttheir machine is made in the most fantastic way, very complex andvery foolish. It is quite unable to stop short suddenly. It is notdriven by a single engine that is completely controlled. It has acomplicated internal conflict. It has a sort of engine that drivesit forward by a complex cogged gear on the axle of the hind wheelsand it has various clumsy stopping contrivances by means of frictionat certain points. You can apparently drive the engine at the utmostspeed and at the same time jam the wheels to prevent them goinground. When this young man stepped forward in front of them, theywere quite unable to stop. They may have tried to do so. They saythey did. Their machine swerved dangerously and struck him with itsside."

　　"And killed him?"

　　"And killed him instantly. His body was horribly injured.... Butthey did not stop even for that. They slowed down and had a hastyconsultation, and then seeing that people were coming they set theirmachine in motion again and made off. They seem to have been seizedwith a panic fear of restraint and punishment. Their motives arevery difficult to understand. At any rate they went on. They rode onand on into our country for some hours. An aeroplane was presentlyset to follow them and another to clear the road in front of them.It was very difficult to clear the road because neither our peoplenor our animals understand such vehicles as theirs--nor suchbehaviour. In the afternoon they got among mountains and evidentlyfound our roads much too smooth and difficult for their machine. Itmade extraordinary noises as though it was gritting its teeth, andemitted a blue vapour with an offensive smell. At one corner whereit should have stopped short, it skated about and slid suddenlysideways and rolled over a cliff and fell for perhaps twice theheight of a man into a torrent."

　　"And they were killed?" asked Mr. Burleigh, with, as it seemed toMr. Barnstaple, a touch of eagerness in his voice.

　　"Not one of them."

　　"Oh!" said Mr. Burleigh, "then what happened?"

　　"One of them has a broken arm and another is badly cut about theface. The other two men and the woman are uninjured except forfright and shock. When our people came up to them the four men heldtheir hands above their heads. Apparently they feared they would bekilled at once and did this as an appeal for mercy."

　　"And what are you doing with them?"

　　"We are bringing them here. It is better, we think, to keep all youEarthlings together. At present we cannot imagine what must be doneto you. We want to learn from you and we want to be friendly withyou if it is possible. It has been suggested that you should bereturned to your world. In the end that may be the best thing to do.But at present we do not know enough to do this certainly. Arden andGreenlake, when they made the attempt to rotate a part of our matterthrough the F dimension, believed that they would rotate it in emptyspace in that dimension. The fact that you were there and werecaught into our universe, is the most unexpected thing that hashappened in Utopia for a thousand years."