CHAPTER VII.
Passing on to the other great building, where the other wise men meet, it is right to describe what may be called the intellectual development—as the foregoing was the moral development of the valley. The course which the opinions of the thinkers in the valley had gone through was the following.
At first they had no clear ideas, but all manner of mere opinions and fancies. At last they apprehended certain general tendencies—such as that towards the centre of the valley, and they explained many inclinations which had before been puzzling to them by this. And stimulated by this great discovery they examined more and more closely. And they found many special tendencies like that towards the centre of the valley, which the king had called into existence, and which he let go on as a general rule, unless he wished the contrary. And they also succeeded in nearly isolating the simplest routines, and so practically could observe the type of the king’s plan.
They saw that one act A was succeeded by another act B. And not taking into account that one was pleasant the other painful, they measured the amount of sensation present in the two acts. And then they took the next pair of acts, namely, A and B over again, and measured the amount of sensation present in them; and they found that the amount of sensation gradually diminished. And at first they thought that sensation gradually came to a stop; but afterwards they noticed that other actions were started in the neighbourhood of the routine A B as that diminished in point of feeling.
Now, of course, these other actions were started by the king with the pain-bearing power set free from the routine A B, as above described. But not knowing anything about this action on the part of the king, or about the king at all, the conclusion arrived at was this: That sensation transmits itself. If it does not continue in the routine A B, that part which does not continue passes on to the other routines, C D, E F, &c.
Then they measured very carefully; and they found, as nearly as they could measure, the routines which sprang up as the routine A B died away were equal in sensation to the loss in the routine A B, A B. And from this they concluded that the amount of sensation or feeling was constant. They called it living force, and said that it must transmit itself and, wherever it appeared, be equal in its total amount to what it was at first. But after a time, with more delicate measurements and more patient thought, they found that some of the sensation was still unaccounted for.
For consider any routine consisting of the acts A, B; A, B; A, B. In order to make any pair of acts A, B worth while, the king bore a certain amount of pain. Referring to the numbers which we took before, if there were 1000 of pleasure in A there would only be 998 of pain in B. Thus the sensation was not equal in the two acts A and B. Some of the sensations had gone, and the portion of sensation we are now considering—the portion by which B was less than A—had not gone in starting other routines. This loss could not be accounted for as they accounted for the difference in sensation between the first action A B and the second action, consisting of the acts A and B in the routine. There was a loss of sensation which was counterbalanced by the gain in sensation in other routines.
But besides this there was a further loss. Some sensation went off, not to be recovered in any routine they knew.
Now it was the bearing on the part of the king which produced the appearance of the passing away of sensation altogether, so that the act B was less in amount of sensation than the act A. But the inhabitants—at least the wise ones—were firmly convinced that sensation could not be annihilated or lessened. So they came to the conclusion that sensation was passing off into a form from which it never reappeared, so that it could affect them. They conceived it still to exist, but to be irrecoverably gone from the life of the inhabitants of the valley.
Taking the numbers we have taken, and the simple instances we have supposed, this course of reasoning appears straightforward enough. But in reality so complicated was the state of things in the valley, and the proportion of pain which the king bore in each single action so minute, that to have arrived at this result implied powers of investigation of no mean order.
It is interesting to mention the names which these investigators gave in the valley. In the performance of the pleasant act A, they said that the being acquired greater animation. In going through the painful act B, they said that he passed into a position of advantage. They used the term advantage because, having completed the painful act B, he was ready to begin the pleasant part of the action A over again. And in this part he manifested more animation.
And now although acts of greater animation and greater advantage succeeded one another, and although the new total of the sensation in the act of a being was very nearly equalled by that in a subsequent act, still there was not—they had to confess there was not—a complete equality. Some of the sensation had certainly gone from the sphere in which the inhabitants could feel it.
We see that this sensation which was gone was in reality the pain-bearing of the king, which set all their life going.
But they knew nothing of this, and formed a very different conclusion. They said: “If some of the sensation is continually going and disappearing from the life of the inhabitants of the valley—if this is the case, although the sensation may not be destroyed, it is certainly lost to us.”
And then they thought: “Surely the amount of sensation must be always the same; if some of it continually goes off into a form in which we cannot feel it, that portion which is left behind, and which we feel, must be continually growing less.”
Hence they concluded that the sensation in the valley was gradually running down. Less and less was being felt. After a time, which they calculated with some show of precision, all feeling will have left the inhabitants and gone off in some irrecoverable form. All the beings of the valley will sink into apathy.
Thus coming in the course of their investigations upon the action of the king, which was the continual cause of all life, they apprehended it as the gradual annihilation of life.
The small building between the two council halls remains to be noticed.
Now when the king had connected pleasure and pain with different acts to be performed by the inhabitants of the valley, he had of necessity to let the pleasant one be the one that came first in the order of its possible performance. And then by the device of the curved rays he had brought it about that the inhabitants went through the painful act consequent on the pleasurable one, the two together forming the complete action which the king had designed. But this chain was not very secure. The inhabitants had a tendency to go through the pleasurable act and leave the painful act undone.
Now in things which necessarily concerned their life, the king would, by repeatedly bearing the pain of the painful act, continually set the beings going again; for when they had performed the pleasant act they were landed in a state of torpor, until the pain of the painful act had been borne by them or for them. Now if this act of which they took the pleasant and left the painful part undone was in the main current of their lives, the king would over and over again, by bearing the pain, bring those who had shirked the painful part into a position of advantage again, so that they could begin the routine afresh with another pleasant act. And often when thus started again they would take to the routine, and bear the pain in the painful act themselves. But many, after assisting them again and again, the king was obliged to let sink into apathy, such namely as always left the painful part of the action undone.
Now the little building was the council hall or investigation chamber of the searchers out of new pleasures. And by new pleasures they meant something of the following kind. With the pleasant and painful acts which made up the main routines of their life, it was not safe to take the pleasant and leave the painful acts, for that gradually led to their sinking into apathy. But there were many routines which the king had instituted besides the main ones. And if the pleasant part of the action constituting these secondary routines were taken, then there followed no tendency to lethargy in the main current of their lives, but they simply had a pleasure the more. Of course the pain of the painful act had to be borne, but they not going through with it left it for the king to bear.
Long ago, through one of the inhabitants of the valley with whom he had communicated, the king had sent a message, asking the inhabitants not to take the pleasant part of an action without the connected painful part. But now all memory of this message was lost, and the little building had been built, as a council hall or investigation chamber for the searching out of pleasurable acts. In it all possible novelties of action were discussed. And the pleasant parts of them being described, exactly how far they were pleasurable, and in what degree they were pleasurable, the information was made public throughout the land.