“I did not mean that it might not be necessary,” I replied, “but it is like a man who has to build a dyke against floods. It may be necessary, but if he could be sure that the floods would not come, he could devote his energies to something more profitable.”
Professor Slimey shook his head solemnly. “No, no,” he said, “that is another of the fallacies current among foreign peoples. We should sink to their level if our people had not ever before them the duty of serving God by upholding the power of Meccania, his chosen nation. Indeed, I often think what a dispensation of Providence it is that it involves so much labour. Imagine the state of the common people if they could maintain themselves by the aid of a few hours’ work a day!”
“Would there not be so much more scope for the spread of your Culture?” I said. “In fact, I had been given to understand that your Culture had reached such a high level that you could easily dispense with the discipline of long hours of labour.”
“Our Culture,” he replied, speaking with authority, “is not an individual culture at all. It must be understood as a unity. It includes this very discipline of which you seem to think so lightly. It includes the discipline of all classes. The monks of the Middle Ages knew that idleness would undermine even their ideal of life, for they knew that life is a discipline. Our National Culture is the nearest approach to the Christian ideal that any nation has ever put into practice.”
“I cannot, of course, speak with confidence upon such a question,” I replied, “but I thought the Christian ideal was the development of the individual soul, whereas the Meccanian ideal—I speak under correction—implies the elimination of the individual soul: everything must be sacrificed to the realisation of the glory of the Super-State.”
“The Super-State,” answered Slimey, “is itself the Great Soul of Meccania; it includes all the individual souls. What you call the sacrifice of the individual soul is no real sacrifice; it is merely a losing oneself to find oneself in the larger soul of Meccania. And just as the individual soul may inflict suffering on itself for the sake of higher self-realisation, so the Super-Soul of Meccania may inflict suffering on the individual souls within itself for the sake of the higher self-realisation. The soul of Meccania is as wonderful in the spiritual world as the material manifestation of Meccania is in the material world.”
“I am sure you are right,” I said, “although it never struck me in that light before. The soul of Meccania is the most wonderful phenomenon in the history of the world.”
“No,” replied Professor Slimey, with his solemn air, “it is not phenomenon: it is the thing in itself.” Here he paused to drink a liqueur. Then he went on, “It is purely spiritual. It has existed from eternity and has become clothed and manifest through the outward and inward development of the Super-State. You foreigners see only the outward forms, which are merely symbols. It is the Super-Soul of Meccania that is destined to absorb the world of spirit, as the Super-State is destined to conquer the material world.”
Professor Sikofantis-Sauer gazed with his fishy eyes, as if he had heard all this before. “Some day,” I said, “I should like to hear more of the Super-Soul, but while I have the privilege of talking to both of you I should like to learn some things which probably only a Professor of Economics can tell me. You, as Meccanians, will pardon me, I know, for seeking to acquire knowledge.” They nodded assent. “I know something of the economic ideas of other nations in Europe,” I said, “but your conditions are so different that I am quite at sea with regard to the economic doctrines of Meccania. What Economic Laws are there within the Super-State?”
“A very profound question,” answered Sauer, “and yet the answer is simple. What you have studied in other countries is merely the economics of free exchange, as carried on among peoples of a low culture. Our Economics have hardly anything in common. Some of the laws of large-scale production are similar, but beyond that, our science rests upon other principles. Our science is based upon Meccanian Ethics. The laws of demand have quite a different meaning with us. The State determines the whole character and volume of demand, and entirely upon ethical grounds.”