Scientific Romances (First Series)

by Charles Howard Hinton

The king being left thus with the children, applied himself to thought. He directed his rays to one of the children and caused it to stand up, and, following the counsel of the old man, he thought of an action. The action he thought of was that of walking, and he separated it into two acts; the one act moving the right foot, the other act moving the left foot. And he separated the apathy in which the child was into pleasure and pain; pleasure connected with the act of moving the right foot, pain connected with the act of moving the left foot. Immediately the child moved forward its right foot, but the left foot remained motionless. The child had taken the pleasure, but the pain was left; or, since the king had connected the pleasure and pain with two acts, it may be said, had done the pleasant act and left the painful act undone.

After waiting some time to see if the child would move, the king took the pain of moving the left foot; instantly the child moved it, and as soon as it had come to the ground again it moved the right foot, which was the pleasant act. But then it stopped. And by no amount of taking pains in the matter of the left foot could the king get the child into the routine of walking. As soon as he ceased to take the pain of moving the left foot, the child remained with the right foot forward. At last he removed his attention from the movement of the child, and it sunk back again torpor.

The rest of the day the king spent in reflection, and in making experiments with the children. But he did not succeed any better. Whatever action he thought of they went through the pleasant act, but made no sign of going through the painful act.

When darkness came the king perceived the faint luminousness of his rays: unless he had known of them he would hardly have perceived it.

And now he tried a new experiment. He took one of the rays, and, detaching it from the rest, he put it upon the body of one of the children, going out from its body and returning again to its body, so that it went forth from the child and returned to the child again. He then caused the child to stand up, and again tried it with the action of walking. His idea was this: the child required a power of bearing its own pain in order to go through a painful act, and as the rays enabled him to bear their pain, the ray proceeding from the child and coming back to it might enable it to bear its own pain. And now he separated the apathy into pleasure and pain as before. The child moved the right foot, and then when it had moved it, he saw that it actually began to move the left foot. But it did not move it a complete step, and after the next movement of the right foot the left foot did not stir.

Again and again the king tried the children, but his attempts came to nothing. One halting step of the left foot he could get them to go through, but no more.

He spent many hours. Suddenly the cause of his failure flashed upon him. “Of course,” he said to himself, “they don’t move, for I have forgotten to take part of the pain. If they went on moving their left feet they would have no balance of pleasure.”

And he tried one of them again. The child moved the right foot, then began to move the left foot. The king now by means of his rays took part of the pain of the movement of the left foot, and the child completed the step with it. Then of course it moved the right foot, for that was pleasant, and again the king took part of the pain of moving the left foot, and the child completed its second step. It walked.

The difficulty was surmounted. Soon both the children were moving hither and thither like shifting shadows in the night, and the king felt just a shade of pain.

The children would come up to him and talk with him, if he took the difference of pain which made it pleasant for them to do so. But they had no idea of his action on them, for by his taking the difference of pain they found an action pleasant, and felt a motive in themselves to do it, which they did not in the least connect with the being outside themselves to whom they spoke. They looked on him as some one more powerful than themselves, and friendly to them.