History of a World of Immortals without a God / Translated from an unpublished manuscript in the library of a continental university

by Unknown

Of the great social changes which resulted from the discovery of the Indestructibility of Life.

When this period of the acquaintance of everyone with everyone else had been reached, very little time intervened before a completely socialistic system was established all over the world. In fact it soon became obvious to all that private property had now become a clumsy incumbrance. The substitution of socialism was greatly facilitated by the extreme ease with which all the necessaries, and most of the luxuries, of life were procurable. This was partly due to the favourable climatic and other conditions of the planet, and partly to the extraordinary progress which had been made in the physical sciences in general, and in chemistry in particular. The universal abundance of vegetable life has been already noticed, and also the absence of all noxious and destructive types of the animal kingdom. Food, in the shape of esculent fruits, grew everywhere and in superfluous abundance; and, for all who tired of these, a perfect equivalent for the flesh of animals was readily available.

Hesperian chemists had, long before this, completely solved the problem, which still baffles their terrestrial brethren, of the artificial formation of organic compounds from their ultimate elements. For instance, the seeming roast-beef with which I was regaled on my first morning in Lucetta, had just before been manufactured from some carbon, azote, and water, with a very small admixture of fluorine and potassium, without interfering with and inconveniencing any animal whatever. All the purveyors of provisions were good chemists. It is true that, some thousands of years earlier, the Hesperians were in the habit of using animal food, but the practice has been for ages abandoned, and is now regarded with abhorrence. Milk and butter and eggs are also manufactured with equal ease, and of singular excellence, out of similar materials.

So much for the supply of food. As for their clothing, it is exceedingly simple, and is made exclusively from vegetable products. It is worn, indeed, merely as a protection from heat or cold; for the notion of there being anything indecorous in appearing in a state of nudity has no existence in the Hesperian mind. Thus, the two great leading wants being easily supplied, the population being all personally known to each other, and a due consideration for the wishes of their neighbours being universally recognized as a ground of moral obligation—engrained as this had been into the disposition of each through ages of exercise—the establishment of a perfect socialistic system was easily accomplished.

The state of society which, at the time of my visit, prevailed over the whole planet, was one which could not have existed under less favourable conditions of life. It was not based on the chimerical theory that everybody is supposed to sacrifice himself for everybody else; and thus unite in each person the incongruous characters of a greedy baby and a self-denying saint—selfishly and unscrupulously taking from others the fruits of their labour, while unselfishly yielding up whatever he has earned by his own hard work. Far from it: the Hesperian system was founded on the fair and rational doctrine of give and take, honestly carried out. No one was afflicted with an inscrutable desire of thrusting a ‘happiness’ on his neighbour which he, for himself, repudiated with scorn. The gifts of nature were so very liberal that a small amount of daily labour on the part of each person sufficed to discharge his debt to the society; and this amount was, by everyone, regarded as a rigorous debt of honour, never to be shirked or evaded in any way.

In the appointment of this prescribed quantity, it was a recognized maxim in practice that, whenever it was possible, the inclination of the labourer should be consulted. Special commissioners entrusted with this task were from time to time appointed in each town and district. The work proceeded with great smoothness. Everyone was anxious to do his share honestly. There were none of those idle scamps whose only object is to loaf around in idleness at the expense of their neighbours, and whose existence elsewhere renders every form of socialism an impossibility, except under a system of espionage so rigorous as to render life an intolerable burden. Everyone, by this time, being quite competent for the work of every skilled trade or calling, exchanges of allotted tasks were easily effected. The more irksome the labour, the shorter was the time required from the labourer. Sometimes it would happen that a man or woman would prefer, instead of working for a short time each day, to execute a long task by continuous labour, so as to have leisure afterwards for some special pursuit; this also was a matter easily arranged.

This organization of labour was not nearly so complicated a business as such a task would be if attempted on the earth, even if we were to assume that the average terrestrial character was as well-conditioned as that of the Hesperians. For it is plain that, under the Hesperian conditions of life, the number of separate callings and professions is comparatively small. A world where there are no children has no need for the vast machinery of education; the great army of schoolmasters, tutors, and professors is non-existent. The absence of death leaves no place for the undertaker and his ghastly satellites. There are no clergy, for there is no known God.

Medical science is, as has been already noticed, in a very strange condition, or rather is non-existent. Dissection of the vital parts of the body being impossible, the physician is indebted to the analogy of the lower animals for his hypotheses as to the structure of the rational being. Fortunately, diseases are unknown.

As for surgery, a singular revolution in its practice was an immediate result of the discovery of the real nature of evanescence. In the earlier ages, before the weariness of life had set in to any great extent, the occurrence of any grave bodily lesion, which, though not fatal, was sufficient to involve a serious mutilation, or the entire loss of organs of perception, was a calamity so great that the inhabitants of the earth, confined as they are to one short bodily life, would find it hard, even in imagination, to realize its severity. In spite of all precautions such accidents sometimes took place, and the unhappy sufferers, reluctant to surrender their whole existence, would often consent to undergo operations which had the effect of leaving them to abide for ever as helpless, mutilated trunks. So the Hesperian surgeons were skilful amputators of limbs, and they could, and often did, perform other serious operations for the purpose of preserving the patient from evanescence. Still their success was but small, for the wretched condition of the sufferer usually led to the extinction of his life under the metronomic law of Adverse Balance—evanescence, in fact, was only postponed.

But, as the world-weariness gained ground, few were found who were willing to purchase life at so heavy a price. And finally, when the true nature of evanescence was understood, all operations except those of the most trifling character ceased at once. Whenever a serious accident takes place, an anæsthetic sufficiently powerful to destroy life is administered, and the patient awakes immediately, with his organism restored, at the South Pole.