"And perhaps the thing that struck me most was its
dilapidated look. The stained-glass windows, which displayed only a geometrical
pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains that hung across the
lower end were thick with dust. And it caught my eye that the corner of the
marble table near me was fractured.
Nevertheless, the general effect was
extremely rich and picturesque. There were, perhaps, a couple of hundred people
dining in the hall, and most of them, seated as near to me as they could come,
were watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over the fruit they
were eating. All were clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material.
"Fruit, by the by, was all their diet. These people of
the remote future were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in spite
of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also. Indeed, I found
afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus
into extinction. But the fruits were very delightful; one, in particular, that
seemed to be in season all the time I was there--a floury thing in a
three-sided husk was especially good, and I made it my staple. At first I was
puzzled by all these strange fruits, and by the strange flowers I saw, but
later I began to perceive their import.
"However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner in the
distant future now. So soon as my appetite was a little checked, I determined
to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine.
Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing to
begin upon, and holding one of these up I began a series of interrogative
sounds and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty in conveying my
meaning. At first my efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable
laughter, but presently a fair-haired little creature seemed to grasp my
intention and repeated a name. They had to chatter and explain the business at
great length to each other, and my first attempts to make the exquisite little
sounds of their language caused an immense amount of amusement. However, I felt
like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and presently I had a score
of noun substantives at least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative
pronouns, and even the verb "to eat." But it was slow work, and the
little people soon tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations, so I
determined, rather of necessity, to let them give their lessons in little doses
when they felt inclined. And very little doses I found they were before long,
for I never met people more indolent or more easily fatigued.
"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 realized 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 child-bearing 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
specialization 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
recognize, 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 realize 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 civilizing 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 to-day
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 organized, 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 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 leaped. 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 civilized
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!
