第 六 章 · VI. The Sunset of Mankind

. The Sunset of Mankind

“A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was

their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of

astonishment, like children, but, like children they would soon stop

examining me, and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my

conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost

all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how

speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through

the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was

satisfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future,

who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and,

having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my

own devices.

“The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the great

hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At

first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different

from the world I had known—even the flowers. The big building I had

left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames

had shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position. I resolved to

mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from

which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight

Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. For that, I should

explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded.

“As I walked I was watching for every impression that could possibly

help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I found the

world—for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for instance, was a

great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast

labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were

thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants—nettles possibly—but

wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of

stinging. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure,

to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was

destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience—the first

intimation of a still stranger discovery—but of that I will speak in

its proper place.

“Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested

for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen.

Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had

vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings,

but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features

of our own English landscape, had disappeared.

“‘Communism,’ said I to myself.

“And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the

half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I

perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless

visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem strange,

perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so

strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the

differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from

each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children

seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged

then that the children of that time were extremely precocious,

physically at least, and I found afterwards abundant verification of my

opinion.

“Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt

that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would

expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the

institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are

mere militant necessities of an age of physical force. Where population

is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than

a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring

are secure, there is less necessity—indeed there is no necessity—for an

efficient family, and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to

their children’s needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even

in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must

remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate

how far it fell short of the reality.

“While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a

pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I thought in a

transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed

the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings towards

the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently

miraculous, I was presently left alone for the first time. With a

strange sense of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the crest.

“There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognise,

corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half smothered in

soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance of

griffins’ heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our

old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and fair a

view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon

and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of

purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the

river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the

great palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins

and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure

in the waste garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp

vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs

of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the whole earth had

become a garden.

“So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I had

seen, and as it shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was

something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half

truth—or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.)

“It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The

ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first

time I began to realise an odd consequence of the social effort in

which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a

logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security

sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions

of life—the true civilising process that makes life more and more

secure—had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united

humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere

dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried

forward. And the harvest was what I saw!

“After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are still in

the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a

little department of the field of human disease, but, even so, it

spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture

and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate

perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number

to fight out a balance as they can. We improve our favourite plants and

animals—and how few they are—gradually by selective breeding; now a new

and better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger

flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them

gradually, because our ideals are vague and tentative, and our

knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our

clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organised, and still

better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The

whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating; things

will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the

end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and

vegetable life to suit our human needs.

“This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well; done

indeed for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had

leapt. The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi;

everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant

butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine

was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any

contagious diseases during all my stay. And I shall have to tell you

later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been

profoundly affected by these changes.

“Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind housed in

splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them

engaged in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor

economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that

commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was

natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a

social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met,

I guessed, and population had ceased to increase.

“But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the

change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the

cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom:

conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the

weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal

alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision.

And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein,

the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental

self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the

imminent dangers of the young. _Now_, where are these imminent dangers?

There is a sentiment arising, and it will grow, against connubial

jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts;

unnecessary things now, and things that make us uncomfortable, savage

survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life.

“I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of

intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my

belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes

Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had

used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it

lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.

“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that

restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even

in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to

survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the

love of battle, for instance, are no great help—may even be

hindrances—to a civilised man. And in a state of physical balance and

security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of

place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or

solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to

require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life,

what we should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong, are

indeed no longer weak. Better equipped indeed they are, for the strong

would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt

the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last

surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled

down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived—the

flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has

ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to

eroticism, and then come languor and decay.

“Even this artistic impetus would at last die away—had almost died in

the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in

the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more.

Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are

kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and it seemed to me

that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!

“As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple

explanation I had mastered the problem of the world—mastered the whole

secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised

for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their

numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account

for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible

enough—as most wrong theories are!

Ch