It is significant to compare the mood of Europe at this time with that whichfollowed the European War. Formerly, though there had been a real effort towardunity, hate and suspicion continued to find expression in national policies.There was much wrangling about indemnities, reparations, securities; and thedivision of the whole continent into two hostile camps persisted, though bythen it was purely artificial and sentimental. But after the Anglo-French war,a very different mood prevailed. There was no mention of reparations, nopossibility of seeking security by alliances. Patriotism simply faded out, forthe time, under the influence of extreme disaster. The two enemy peoplesco-operated with the League in the work of reconstructing not only each oneitself, but each one the other. This change of heart was due partly to thetemporary collapse of the whole national organization, partly to the speedydominance of each nation by pacifist and anti-nationalist Labour, partly to thefact that the League was powerful enough to inquire into and publish the wholestory of the origins of the war, and expose each combatant to itself and to theworld in a sorry light.
Pure Saturday Utopia Rar
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But in truth this culture, which the common people so venerated in theirsuperiors and mimicked in their own lives, was scarcely less superficial thanthe cult of power against which it was pitted. For it was almost wholly a cultof social rectitude and textual learning; not so much of the merely literarylearning which had obsessed ancient China, as of the vast corpus ofcontemporary scientific dogma, and above all of pure mathematics. In old daysthe candidate for office had to show minute but uncritical knowledge ofclassical writers; now he had to give proof of a no less barren agility indescribing the established formula of physics, biology, psychology, and moreparticularly of economics and social theory. And though never encouraged topuzzle over the philosophical basis of mathematics, he was expected to befamiliar with the intricacy of at least one branch of that vast game of skill.So great was the mass of information forced upon the student, that he had notime to think of the mutual implications of the various branches of hisknowledge.
Save for the governments, the whole human race now earnestly desired peace;but opinion in America was balanced between the will merely to effect aneconomic and political unification of the world, and a fanatical craving toimpose American culture on the East. In China also there was a balance of thepurely commercial readiness to sacrifice ideals for the sake of peace andprosperity, and the will to preserve Chinese culture. The two individuals whowere to meet in secret for the negotiation of peace were typical of theirrespective races; in both of them the commercial and cultural motives werepresent, though the commercial was by now most often dominant.
Science now held a position of unique honour among the First Men. This wasnot so much because it was in this field that the race long ago during its highnoon had thought most rigorously, nor because it was through science that menhad gained some insight into the nature of the physical world, but ratherbecause the application of scientific principles had revolutionized theirmaterial circumstances. The once fluid doctrines of science had by now begun tocrystallize into a fixed and intricate dogma; but inventive scientificintelligence still exercised itself brilliantly in improving the technique ofindustry, and thus completely dominated the imagination of a race in which thepure intellectual curiosity had waned. The scientist was regarded as anembodiment, not merely of knowledge, but of power; and no legends of thepotency of science seemed too fantastic to be believed.
In the days of the nations, the descendants of emancipated African slaves inNorth America had greatly influenced the artistic and religious life of thewhite population, and had inspired a cult of negroid dancing which survivedtill the end of the First Men. This was partly due to the sexual and primitivecharacter of Negro dancing, sorely needed in a nation ridden by sexual taboos.But it had also a deeper source. The American nation had acquired its slaves bycapture, and had long continued to spurn their descendants. Later itunconsciously compensated for its guilt by a cult of the Negro spirit. Thuswhen American culture dominated the planet, the pure Negroes became a sacredcaste. Forbidden many of the rights of citizenship, they were regarded as theprivate servants of Gordelpus. They were both sacred and outcast. This dualrole was epitomized in an extravagant ritual which took place once a year ineach of the great national parks. A white woman and a Negro, both chosen fortheir prowess in dance, performed a long and symbolical ballet, whichculminated in a ritual act of sexual violation, performed in full view of themaddened spectators. This over, the Negro knifed his victim, and fled throughthe forest pursued by an exultant mob. If he reached sanctuary, he became apeculiarly sacred object for the rest of his life. But if he was caught, he wastorn to pieces or drenched with inflammable spirit and burned. Such was thesuperstition of the First Men at this time that the participants in thisceremony were seldom reluctant; for it was firmly believed that both wereassured of eternal life in Gordelpus. In America this Sacred Lynching was themost popular of all festivals; for it was both sexual and bloody, and affordeda fierce joy to the masses whose sex-life was restricted and secret. In Indiaand Africa the violator was always an "Englishman," when such a rare creaturecould be found. In China the whole character of the ceremony was altered; forthe violation became a kiss, and the murder a touch with a fan.
One other race, the Jews, were treated with a similar combination of honourand contempt, but for very different reasons. In ancient days their generalintelligence, and in particular their financial talent, had co-operated withtheir homelessness to make them outcasts; and now, in the decline of the FirstMen, they retained the fiction, if not strictly the fact, of racial integrity.They were still outcasts, though indispensable and powerful. Almost the onlykind of intelligent activity which the First Men could still respect wasfinancial operation, whether private or cosmopolitan. The Jews had madethemselves invaluable in the financial organization of the world state, havingfar outstripped the other races because they alone had preserved a furtiverespect for pure intelligence. And so, long after intelligence had come to beregarded as disreputable in ordinary men and women, it was expected of theJews. In them it was called satanic cunning, and they were held to beembodiments of the powers of evil, harnessed in the service of Gordelpus. Thusin time the Jews had made something like "a corner" in intelligence. Thisprecious commodity they used largely for their own purposes; for two thousandyears of persecution had long ago rendered them permanently tribalistic,subconsciously if not consciously. Thus when they had gained control of the fewremaining operations which demanded originality rather than routine, they usedthis advantage chiefly to strengthen their own position in the world. For,though relatively bright, they had suffered much of the general coarsening andlimitation which had beset the whole world. Though capable to some extent ofcriticizing the practical means by which ends should be realized, they were bynow wholly incapable of criticizing the major ends which had dominated theirrace for thousands of years. In them intelligence had become utterlysubservient to tribalism. There was thus some excuse for the universal hate andeven physical repulsion with which they were regarded; for they alone hadfailed to make the one great advance, from tribalism to a cosmopolitanism whichin other races was no longer merely theoretical. There was good reason also forthe respect which they received, since they retained and used somewhatruthlessly a certain degree of the most distinctively human attribute,intelligence.
But the revival was not permanent. The descendants of the prophet pridedthemselves too much on violent living. Physically, sexually, mentally, theyover-reached themselves and became enfeebled. Moreover, little by little thepotent strain was diluted and overwhelmed by intercourse with the greatervolume of the innately "senile;" so that, after a few centuries, the racereturned to its middle-aged mood. At the same time the vision of the Divine Boywas gradually distorted. At first it had been youth's ideal of what youthshould be, a pattern woven of fanatical loyalty, irresponsible gaiety,comradeship, physical gusto, and not a little pure devilry. But insensibly itbecame a pattern of that which was expected of youth by sad maturity. Theviolent young hero was sentimentalized into the senior's vision of childhood,naïve and docile. All that had been violent was forgotten; and what wasleft became a whimsical and appealing stimulus to the parental impulses. At thesame time this phantom was credited with all the sobriety and caution which areso easily appreciated by the middle-aged.
The party found it possible to grow maize and even rice from seed broughtfrom a ruined store in Norway. But the great heat, frequent torrential rain,and lack of sunlight, made agriculture laborious and precarious. Moreover, theatmosphere had become seriously impure, and the human organism had not yetsucceeded in adapting itself. Consequently the party were permanently tired andliable to disease.
During this period many changes took place. The atmosphere became clearer,purer and less turbulent. With the fall of temperature, frost and snow appearedoccasionally in the Arctic regions, and in due course the Polar caps wereformed again. Meanwhile, ordinary geological processes, augmented by thestrains to which the planet was subjected by increased internal pressure, beganto change the continents. South America mostly collapsed into the hollowsblasted beneath it, but a new land rose to join Brazil with West Africa. TheEast Indies and Australia became a continuous continent. The huge mass ofThibet sank deeply into its disturbed foundations, lunged West, and buckledAfghanistan into a range of peaks nearly forty thousand feet above the sea.Europe sank under the Atlantic. Rivers writhed shiftingly hither and thitherupon the continents, like tortured worms. New alluvial areas were formed. Newstrata were laid upon one another under new oceans. New animals and plantsdeveloped from the few surviving Arctic species, and spread south through Asiaand America. In the new forests and grass-lands appeared various specializeddescendants of the reindeer, and swarms of rodents. Upon these preyed the largeand small descendants of the Arctic fox, of which one species, a giganticwolflike creature, rapidly became the "King of Beasts" in the new order, andremained so, until it was ousted by the more slowly modified offspring of thepolar bears. A certain genus of seals, reverting to the ancient terrestrialhabit, had developed a slender snake-like body and an almost swift, and veryserpentine, mode of locomotion among the coastal sand-dunes. There it was wontto stalk its rodent prey, and even follow them into their burrows. Everywherethere were birds. Many of the places left vacant by the destruction of theancient fauna were now filled by birds which had discarded flight and developedpedestrian habits. Insects, almost exterminated by the great conflagration, hadafterwards increased so rapidly, and had refashioned their types with suchversatility, that they soon reached almost to their ancient profusion. Evenmore rapid was the establishment of the new micro-organisms. In general, amongall the beasts and plants of the earth there was a great change of habit, and aconsequent overlaying of old body-forms with new forms adapted to a new way oflife. 2ff7e9595c