CHAPTER VI.
The history of the events which took place in the valley in their due order and importance must be sought elsewhere. But let us return and look at the condition of the valley and its inhabitants. Let us see what has become of them after a great lapse of time.
It is a fair, a beautiful land. The greater part of it is cultivated. There is no war—even to the extremest confines of the valley there is peace. Passing from the remote confines where still dwell a barbarous race, we come, as we approach the metropolis, amongst a more and more polite and refined people. In the metropolis itself the buildings are numerous and of great size. The palace which the king saw rise under the old man’s music is there, but another ruler dwells in it. Near the palace are two vast buildings standing on each side of a wide open court. There is no other building near save one between them, a comparatively small edifice of brick. These buildings are the assembly halls of the two most important councils in the valley. In the one on the left-hand side of the palace met the most distinguished of the inhabitants who from a special inclination or fitness were entrusted with the regulations about the pleasure and pain of the inhabitants. They framed the rules according to which each inhabitant must conform in his pursuit of pleasure, and they made the regulations whereby the whole body of inhabitants were supposed to gain an increase in pleasure and to avoid pain.
In the building on the right hand of the palace met those of the inhabitants who had studied the nature of feeling most deeply, and who from temperament or for other reasons had in their course of study not paid so much attention to whether feelings were painful or pleasurable, but who had studied their amount and regularity of their recurrence. They were the thinkers from whom all the practical inhabitants derived their rules of business. They devised the means and manner of putting into execution what was decided on in the other assembly. They did not often propose any positive enactment themselves, but were always able to show how the proposals of the other council could be carried into effect.
Their power was derived in this manner. The king had connected the feelings of pleasure and pain with certain acts, and had given each being a routine. Now as he himself made use of this routine and combined the routines of different individuals to bring about the results he desired, so also did the rulers of the valley. The routines of the individuals were studied and classified, and if any work was required to be done, those individuals whose routines were appropriate were selected and brought to the required spot. Now to effect this a careful study of the different routines was necessary, and also a knowledge of what stage they were at. For it would be no use bringing an individual whose routine was almost at an end to a work which was just beginning. Hence the most delicate instruments and processes had been devised for measuring the amount of feeling experienced by any individual, whether of pleasure or of pain, and a careful classification had been made of all routines.
But it is best to study the constitution of the state in a regular order, and the questions of pleasure and pain considered as such were esteemed the most important.
The inhabitants knew that they sought pleasure and avoided pain, and the great object was to make their life more pleasurable. Two means were adopted, the banishing of the causes of pain, and the obtaining causes of pleasure.
By causes of pain and pleasure they meant those objects with which the king had associated the feelings of pleasure and pain in the equal and opposite moments into which he had divided their apathy.
But in this respect they were in error to a certain extent, for it was not so much in respect to things as in respect to actions that the king separated their apathy into pleasure and pain. For instance, there was a peculiar species of shell which was found in many parts of the valley, covered with strange and involved lines and marks. Now the king had struck the apathy of the inhabitants into two moments with regard to this shell, one of pain connected with tracing out the twistings and interweavings of the hues on the shell, one of pleasure in contemplating the shell when the twistings and interweavings had been deciphered. Now it was the custom of the inhabitants to call the shell in its undeciphered condition a painful object, in its deciphered condition a pleasant object. And whoever could, would get as many deciphered shells as possible and experience the wave of pleasure in looking at them.
Now in the earlier ages those who deciphered the shells, or did work of a similar kind, had been forced to do it; they were a kind of slaves dependent on the will of their masters, who took away all the pleasures of their life. But in these earlier ages a great danger arose, for when all the pleasure was taken away by their masters, great masses of these slaves sank into apathy, and it seemed as if the valley was sinking into deadness.
Now this was a great terror with the inhabitants whose life was pleasurable, and at length they determined that there should not be any more of these slaves. But each of the inhabitants when he worked for another had to have it made worth his while.
In this way a great diminution took place in the pleasure-giving power of the so-called pleasurable things. For if a man had had it made worth his while to decipher one of these shells, he had had a great deal or nearly all of the pain he spent in doing it counterbalanced by the pleasure given him to induce him to do it. Hence when the shell was handed over there was not much to enjoy in it; for by the law of the valley the pleasure and the pain were equal, and the decipherer, not having gone through so much pain on the whole, there was but little pleasure to be got.
In fact, at this time the fashion of filling the houses of the more powerful of the inhabitants with the so-called pleasurable things had somewhat gone out, and it had passed into a proverb, “It is better to decipher your own shells.”
Now it may be considered strange how it was that some of the inhabitants could get other of the inhabitants to decipher the shells for them at all, or, at any rate, to decipher them so that there was any balance of pleasure left with the shells at all. But this power on the part of some of the inhabitants depended on the general action of the king. For by bearing the difference of pain in innumerable respects in the life of each he made life a pleasure (on the whole) to each, and they strove each to preserve their own life which was a source of pleasure. And some of the more powerful inhabitants had the power of denying to the rest, unless they laboured for them, the means of continuing to exist. Consequently it was possible for things to be obtained by the more powerful which had a balance of pleasure in them.
But the authorities who had studied the life of the valley in relation to pleasure and pain, saw that there was a danger in this relation of the more powerful to the less powerful. For as the numbers of the inhabitants increased the power grew more and more concentrated in the hands of a few, and there was a tendency for the inhabitants in general to be compelled more and more to go through the painful part of actions, leaving the pleasurable parts for the more powerful. And every now and then, before the council of wise men regulated the matter, great masses of the inhabitants passed off in a state of apathy. So they had many laws to restrict the action of the more powerful of the inhabitants; and, indeed, the more powerful of the inhabitants were ready to frame these laws themselves, and were willing to obey them, for they did not like to see portions of the inhabitants going off into a state of apathy.
But not only in this respect, but also in every other, the wise men regulated the affairs of the valley so as to make life more pleasurable. They had severe laws against any one who deprived another of pleasure without his consent, by violence or deceit. They did all they could to ward off a state of apathy. But in one respect beyond all others they were full of care and precaution. And this was in guarding against such sources of trouble, anxiety, and pain which could be removed from the community as a whole. Anything tending to lower the standard of comfort as a whole was carefully removed. Irregularities were reduced as much as possible; and, in one respect, a great step had been taken. It had not been carried in the council of wise men without great opposition, but it had at length been passed into law.
Any child born in the valley which had any incurable disease, or any gross deformity, or which by its delicacy seemed likely to cause more pain than pleasure in the valley, was at once put out of existence. The gain to the inhabitants of the valley of this was in their eyes immense; for their sight was offended by no deformities, and the painful offices of attending to the sick had undergone a considerable diminution since this edict had been passed into law.
The important duty of deciding on the claims of every infant that was born to a painless extinction was confined to a band of inspectors, who stayed for a short time only in any one part of the valley, lest they should become biassed by personal acquaintance with the individuals for whose children their offices were called into requisition.