Limanora the island of progress
advancing nations mere savages buried in filth, and enslaved to the
despotism of the seasons. But this people considered such superficially
embruted communities nearer to ultimate salvation than the highly
refined nations that exhibit a medley of wealth and starvation,
militarism and religion. The maximum of government, they held, implied
the minimum of progress; for the essentials of spiritual advance are
ignored by external administration.
A long experience of all types of body politic, and a minute
knowledge and study of the history of the world, had made this people
antagonistic to every form of great empire. In their own far past
they had known the ambition to incorporate other peoples, and extend
the bounds of their dominion over the world. But that was in periods
that were stagnant or retrogressive in the essentials of a noble
civilisation. Great empires are able to concentrate vast resources;
but they spend them all on pomp, administration, and war. Wherever the
world is parcelled out into huge nations, there is no chance of freeing
them from the slavery of omnivorous armaments. Each is a threat to
the freedom of the others, and none dares disarm, or spend her wealth
on the arts of peace, lest the others should take advantage of her
unwarlike attitude. The only progress continues to be in the size and
the equipment of the armies, and in the ingenuity of the instruments of
destruction. And, should two or three absorb the others, the military
vigilance has to be all the greater. Even if the impossible should
occur, and one great empire should absorb the world, the internal
militarism would be none the less; half of mankind would have to be
employed in keeping the other half from rebellion against the central
power. Huge empires, instead of being guaranties of peace, are direct
incentives to war, or at least to a permanent warlike attitude.
What has most obstructed human progress on its civilised levels is an
inevitable tendency at a certain stage to mass into large aggregates;
that is, when there has been considerable accumulation of wealth or an
exceptional development of commerce, and protection is needed by the
wealthy or the merchants. Then the military element gains the mastery
of all natural power, and whilst there occurs a rapid evolution of all
forms of aggression and defence and of all the virtues connected with
them, there is real retrogression; the spirit dwindles as the outer
integuments bloom. Militarism only perpetuates itself and protects
nothing but its own ambitions. It is in its last analysis a subtle
fusion of histrionicism and savagery; it attracts the same tastes
as the prize-ring and the theatre. Everything that encourages it or
develops it stands in the way of the true advance of the human race.
There is, they held, no hope for mankind in general, unless this
stage of imperial ambitions and aggregations can be overleaped. Back
must the world recede from vast empires if it would attain to any
nobleness of aim, or any development of the higher elements in man.
Its sole salvation lies in small communities covering its surface and
remaining free from the taint of imperial effort and militarism. Only
when the nation has complete command of the numbers within it through
the family, that is, when the nation is small, will patriotism become
commensurate with humanity, and the true goal of the human race be the
aim of the individual.
The family is the natural unit of administration in a community; and,
as long as the heads form the common council that watches the interests
and aim of all, it can never come into conflict with national unity
and progress. The house and its goods belonged to the household in
Limanora; and, although the members of it had equal rights to the
livelihood that was counted fullest and best by the community, the
individual, if mature, had freedom of action that would surprise a
Western freeman; he was the equal of all members of the state; within
the aim of the race and the path of its progress he had complete
personal initiative; his destiny, it is true, had been shaped for him
during his pupillage, but the fulfilment of it was his own; his aims
and desires had been implanted and developed and pruned whilst he was
passing through childhood and youth, so that he would not in full
manhood spontaneously change them, but when he became an independent
citizen his methods of fulfilling these were all his own. He had to
contribute to the family treasury what was needed to keep it level
with Limanoran affluence, and he was generally eager to give more; but
all the rest was at his own disposal. The family had many buildings
in common; but each full-grown member, whether male or female, had a
separate house to retire to. Originality in the family, one of the
chief methods in the race for encouraging progress, could never be
attained without cultivating originality in the individual. It had a
track laid out for it through the future, carefully related to the
march of the nation; but it might adopt what means it liked to make
that track sure, and it might explore on all sides of it for new ideas
and methods and resources. It was the same with the individual within
it; he was encouraged to find his own means, and to use his imagination
and his other faculties fully and independently, provided he kept his
eye on the goal of the family, which was involved in the goal of the
race.
All the families were equal in their relations to the state, whatever
their occupation or wealth or origin might be. This prevented the
family from passing into the rigidity of the caste. All work was alike
honoured, and personal worth was the test of the man and of the respect
paid him, irrespective of external symbols and representatives of
power. And to prevent the supersession of this by any other principle,
all the physical forms of toil that might at one time or other be
considered offensive, were gathered into the hands of the state, and
all men and women had to take their share of them. They were the duties
connected with the various public institutions, and especially with
the centre of force. It was recognised as a good thing that every man
and woman should have physical exercise every day in order to keep the
basis of the spirit in the best possible condition, by working off the
débris of the various organs and functions of the system. This fitted
in with the principle that all force should concentrate in the hands of
the government. The most severe physical toil was certain to be that
which collected, divided, and adapted the vast accumulation of energy
in Rimla. The duties in the centre of force were therefore portioned
out day by day and week by week; and every man and woman of the
community had to spend a certain portion of time each day in this vast
forge of energy. But the lighter work was given to the less muscular,
and the youthful had to bear the chief burden; whilst the older, as
their share, were occupied chiefly in superintending it. Besides this,
every citizen had to take daily part in the work of some one of the
public institutions that were not assigned to special families, or in
the mechanical and unskilled toil of one of those that were under the
care of special families. Thus two or three hours of every citizen’s
twenty-four were impounded by the state, much to his bodily and
spiritual advantage.
The only contribution in money or kind that the state made compulsory
was that which each family exchequer gave for the support of the
medical, architectural, and other public professional families. No
valid system could have estimated the value of their services either to
the state or to the individual; and it was considered impracticable to
valuate the benefits received by each family from their work. An amount
was fixed, which each had to contribute to every family that had the
care of a public institution, or the performance of a public duty. But
over and above this amount the voluntary gifts to them were very large.
The result was that the treasuries of public and professional families
were oftenest the fullest; and they were as ready and as able to give
as any. If there was any rivalry amongst the families and individuals
in Limanora, it was in the delight of giving.
CHAPTER X
THE MANORA AND THE IMANORA
WHAT would have been considered taxes in another state were looked on
by the people of this land as voluntary contributions. There had been
no formal resolution or written law fixing necessary imposts, but they
came rather from the heart of the people, and expressed themselves
in what would have been called in other nations public opinion. It
was opinion which needed no verbal communication and might be called
rather the public magnetism of the race, that unified its customs and
feelings, and made a body of written law superfluous.
One feature of their civilisation that puzzled me for many years was
the seeming immobility of their public relationships. When a man or
woman got into a certain family with its professional duties and
prospects, there was no means, it seemed to me, of changing. Once in
a certain groove, a Limanoran was in it for ever. His destiny was
irrevocable. It is true that the elders took every precaution to choose
his parents and ancestry for such a goal, and to mould his tissues and
educate his faculties to it. Yet some inspiration might reveal to him
a vista into a future better suited to his powers than that which had
been fixed for him. It is true that this feature gave great stability
and strength to the state. But a people that believed so firmly in
liberty, originality, and progress should surely have adopted some more
plastic system for their permanent relationships, some status less
rigid and immutable for the individual members. It seemed to me more
like the iron system of caste than the flexibility of an advancing
civilisation.
As usual I was mistaken in my criticism. I had not looked deeply
enough, or observed long enough to know the marvellous fabric of their
polity, a full knowledge of which meant an experience of several
centuries. The immutability was only in appearance and not in reality.
A few years after I had been admitted to some of the privileges of
mature citizenship, I began to feel that we were approaching an
exceptional time. There was evident a bustle of preparation, a rare
quickening of the pace of all work, and an expectancy that pointed
to some unusual event. The flight-exercises and the leisure-time
were somewhat curtailed, and as much work was put into four weeks as
was commonly put into five. Before the year was half over, I began
to understand what it meant. The word Manora occurred too often on
the lips and in the minds of my neighbours and friends to escape my
observation and on inquiry I found it meant the decennial review. Every
ten years, one quarter of the year was devoted to a census of the
civilisation of the period.
With all the other newly matured citizens, I had to be instructed
in the part I was to take in this census. Each day for months I had
to devote some hours to tracing out the progress I had made both in
character and in works, and in putting it into graphic and easily
observed form. I was taught to draw up comparative statistics of the
stages I had passed through from year to year for the decennial period,
though they considered this a poor and misleading mode of reviewing the
past. It was the mere skeleton of the census.
I was supplied from the valley of memory with irelium-strips, whereon
had been recorded automatically without my knowledge my thoughts and
feelings and words in the various important scenes in which I had taken
part. How surprised was I often to observe the mistakes my memory had