Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

by Captain Adam Seaborn

I could not refrain from expressing my admiration of a system so wisely calculated to give the state the benefit of all the talents, information, and tried integrity of the nation. Surui asked me with apparent surprise, if we the Externals did not select men to fill the places of honour, power, and trust, with the same scrupulous attention to their character, purity of life, usefulness in society, and goodness of heart. I was ashamed to acknowledge the truth, and gave him a specimen of the veracity of an External by replying, “yes, much the same, at least in the State of New-York, where I am best acquainted.”

I inquired whether the order of Worthies was a numerous body, and was informed that it embraced a majority of the men of mature age; all of whom were called in turn according to the order of their admission, to fill a place in the ordinary council of the Best Man. This council consists of one hundred; fifty-five of whom must be of the Good, forty of the Useful, and five of the Wise. Such persons, however, as had failed to maintain the character which obtained their admission to the order, might be excluded from a participation in the government; and the Best Man had the power to pass their names when summoning his ordinary council, provided he did not at any time pass more than one-tenth of the names on the list: for that proportion was deemed the utmost that could possibly deviate from the paths of rectitude.

It appeared to me to be a very troublesome form of government, which required the assemblage once in four years of more than half the men of the nation. But I found this to be a great mistake. Surui assumed me, that the labour necessary to procure all the essential comforts and rational embellishments of life, in this fruitful country, and with the temperate habits of the people, required but a small proportion of the labour which could be performed; that there was abundant leisure for an annual assemblage of all the people, without any detriment to the business of society; and that every member of it enjoyed an abundance of the comforts of life, without excessive or constant labour. So far was the quadrennial assembly of the worthies from being regarded as an evil, that the arrival of the time of its occurrence was hailed as a season of great enjoyment, instruction, and usefulness.

The numerous inlets of the sea, which intersected this beautiful country in every direction, rendered travelling very easy and expeditious; so that not only the Worthies, but also such of their families as were of sufficient age to mingle with society, repaired to the district of the assembly, in which none but the Good, the Wise, and the Useful, were permitted to reside.—In the vessels in which they are conveyed, they take a sufficient quantity of substantial provisions for their own consumption, or to exchange for such as they may prefer during their visit. They also carry tents, in which such as cannot be accommodated in the houses of their friends reside, during their stay.

None but Worthies are permitted to enter the district of the assembly during the sitting. The first month, of the assembly is passed in devotional exercises, and the interchange of visits and civilities, all vieing with one another in endeavours to advance the happiness of those about them, and in conversing on matters important or useful to the commonweal. After comparing ideas with one another for a month, they appoint a committee from their number to sit in grand council one month, and no longer. All but the committee then return home, unless business, or a desire to offer their advice on some subject to the particular notice of the committee, induces them to remain.

Surui described the enjoyments of the season of the grand assemblage with the most enthusiastic expressions of delight.—None but the Good, the Wise, the Useful, none but the virtuous and benevolent, are then within the circuit of the district. The rarest gratifications of which the human mind is susceptible in intellectual intercourse, were then enjoyed without a sense of evil.

To me, who had been accustomed to see a great proportion of mankind constantly devoted to hard labour, or incessantly applying to business, to obtain a precarious subsistence; to see them, not content with the efforts which might be made by day, wearing out their health and lives in toil by the midnight lamp, and scarcely obtaining what are considered the necessaries of life,—it was difficult to comprehend how a great proportion of this people could leave their business and their homes, to pass months in a non-productive state, without oppressing the remainder of the people with intolerable burdens. But I was told that the Worthies received nothing for their services, and were able to provide without difficulty for themselves: all the revenue of the country was devoted to the maintenance of the Efficients, (who were paid for the time actually devoted to public affairs,) and to works of public utility.

This state of things appeared to me at first to be beyond the limits of possibility in the external world. My mind was for some time occupied by reflecting upon the extraordinary difference in the natural condition of the internals and externals; and I commenced a comparison of the varieties and objects of industry in the two worlds, and of those necessities and habits which demanded the products of labour. This brought me to a clear view of the matter. I perceived that the greater part of the labour of the externals was devoted to the production of things useless or pernicious; and that of the things produced or acquired, the distribution, through defects in our social organization, was so unequal, that some few destroyed, without any increase of happiness to themselves, the products of the toil of multitudes. Instead of devoting our time to useful purposes, and living temperately on the wholesome gifts of Providence, like the blest internals, so as to preserve our health and strengthen our minds, thousands of us are employed in producing inebriating liquors, by the destruction of wholesome articles of food, to poison the bodies, enervate the minds, and corrupt the hearts, of our fellow beings. Other thousands waste their strength to procure stimulating weeds and narcotic substances from the extreme parts of the earth, for the purpose of exciting diseased appetites, whereby, in the case of those who possess good things, the ability to enjoy them is destroyed. Still greater numbers give their industry and their lives to the acquisition of mere matters of ornament, for the gratification of pride, an insatiable passion, which is only stimulated to increase its demands by every new indulgence. I saw that the internals owed their happiness to their rationality, to a conformity with the laws of nature and religion; and that the externals were miserable, from the indulgence of inordinate passions, and subjection to vicious propensities.

I inquired of Surui how I should know the distinguished orders? what badge or outward sign was worn by them? To which he replied, “They are known by their undeviating rectitude of conduct: the good by their benevolence, the wise by their knowledge, the useful by their works.” In answer to my inquiries as to the condition of those who were not of the order of Worthies, I was informed that it was very various, according to their conduct. Most of the people, seeing the happy condition of the Worthies, and being extremely desirous to partake of the refined enjoyments of the grand assemblage, strove earnestly to become deserving of a place among them; but some, giving way to their carnal appetites and passions, fell into intemperate indulgences, whereby they produced disease to their bodies, and a necessity for much labour to supply their unreasonable consumption, and at the same time an aversion to the performance of the labour which is necessary to the preservation of health; that the constant exhortations and efforts of the Worthy were found insufficient to restrain some of the youth from forming such pernicious habits, so that before they were sufficiently taught by experience and the examples before them, that to be good is to be happy, they degenerated into vice. This too often led to crime. To support their wastefulness, they infringed the rights of others. When such men became, in the opinions of the select worthies, incorrigible and dangerous to society, they were transported to a land far distant to the north, the extreme limit of the world, where a part of the year the heat is intense. There they continue in their vicious course, pursuing the gratification of their sensual appetites, and are punished with diseases of body which enervate their faculties, inordinate passions which torture their minds, and fierce desires which are incapable of being satisfied.—The influence of their gross appetites and of the climate, causes them to lose their fairness of complexion and beauty of form and feature. They become dark coloured, ill favoured, and mis-shapen men, not much superior to the brute creation. They retain, indeed, said Surui, some of the customs and manners of Symzonia; and the ceremony of pulling the nose in salutation by those who had strayed to the “icy hoop,” and were seen by Captain Ross, of whom I had spoken, was no doubt a corruption of the graceful mode of salutation practised where I then was. On my first appearance, they had apprehended that I was of that outcast race; for it had been observed by those who had conveyed delinquents to the place of exile, that the descendants of the outcasts were enlarged in stature and size, owing to the grossness of their habits, and at the same time that they had lost their strength and activity. One of the pure race, it was believed, was able to lift three times as much as any one of the degenerates, or to leap three times as high. Their suspicions of my being of the outcast tribe, were allayed by the testimony of reverence to the Supreme Being which I had given, by falling on my knees, and imploring the aid of heaven in my embarrassed situation; whereby they knew that I could not be unworthy of their regard.

I felt not a little humbled by this account of the origin of the northern internal people, and cautiously avoided any observation that might discover, to my intelligent conductor, the suspicion which darted through my mind, that we the externals were indeed descendants of this exiled race; some of whom, penetrating the “icy hoop” near the continent of Asia or America, might have peopled the external world. The gross sensuality, intemperate passions, and beastly habits of the externals, all testified against us.