Limanora the island of progress
proparents were able to bring the youths into the very presence of the
loathed deceit without submitting them to the chance of contagion.
They turned the object-tubes of the wonderful instrument upon Aleofane
and its society; and through them they saw and heard and felt men like
insects mimic and like stinging worms crawl and diplomatise, lie and
cheat, still with the worship of reality and sincerity and truth upon
their lips. There they noted the growth of the most offensive form of
the vice. The weak learned it for protection, flattering the great and
grovelling in the dust before them whilst they cursed them in their
hearts, and all in order that some favour might perhaps be flung
like a bone to a dog. Having learned the vicious art in this cringing
fashion, the feeble were seen to march off with the proud gait and
the conceit of adepts and use it like brigands on the still feebler.
This combination of incompetence and unscrupulousness was the final
curse of a civilisation that had taken deceit to its bosom. The whole
of the energy of the race was spent in simulation and dissimulation.
Every vice simulated its antagonistic virtue; even virtue simulated
the vigour and arrogance of vice. The Limanoran youth needed no more
teaching on the evils of hypocrisy. They rose from the idrovamolan
with an intense loathing for all forms of deceit, so impressive was
the drama they saw enacted in Aleofane. Even what seemed innocent
mimicry they shrank from, seeing it universally employed as the means
of cheating in that island of liars; mimicry they were encouraged to
eschew; for as surely as the art was mastered, it was used for mean
or foul purposes at some time or other, either for envy and jealousy
and scorn, or in order to lay traps, sometimes for the strong, but
chiefly for the weak. Even in art all mimicry was avoided, for there it
betrayed feebleness or lack of individuality. The existence of mimicry
in the animal world was the mark of degeneracy upon terrestrial life.
It argued the wide domain of feebleness and rapacity, and the dominance
of the passion for mere existence. Wherever it was wide-spread, it
meant the abeyance of progress and of eagerness for progress. Mimicry
is the sterilising process of faculty and power. Origination is the
principle of fertility, of stimulus to progress.
Whatsoever dallied with an outgrown principle or element was immoral.
Mere copying of what had been already attained and was about to be left
behind or used as a stepping-stone to something better was neighbour
to evil. Morality is the effort to adapt conduct and ideals to the new
vistas opened up into the future by an advance already achieved; and it
is ever being bribed or throttled by what is outworn. Evil is the past
which has become so obsolete and is yet so living as to be obstructive.
What has been outgrown has ever its allies among living elements, and
its advocates in every mixed and unpurified race. Especially is this
the case where there are fixed codes or creeds, and along with them
professions organised to preserve and continue their sway. The world
is constantly seeing the spectacle of a nation or race or species
coming to a standstill after centuries of brilliant progress, and
getting fossilised in a certain stage of its advance; there it remains
for generation after generation as if alive, yet practically dead for
all purposes of development, like a fly in amber. This dead stop is
due to the dominance of some code or creed that seemed to embody the
spirit of its greatest success; the nation or race sought to secure
for ever to itself the advantages of the ethical or spiritual methods
that had achieved for it its most brilliant results, by fixing them
unalterably for all time, with their official guardians to protect them
from change; so that which had given such vigorous life and development
for a time became a prison-house and grave. Only the most tremendous
revolution and cataclysm could burst the walls of the tomb, tear off
its grave-clothes, and release its spirit for new conquests. Sometimes
a nation seems to fossilise the creed or polity that first gave energy
to its life, yet at the same time grows and develops spasmodically.
It has only made pretence of having fixed this code for all time,
whilst the living spirit of it escapes and follows its own course in
freedom; it has periodically to return to its pretended prison and
tomb, and to reconcile by jesuitry and in makeshift way the two methods
of life which have come to differ so widely. Then it flees again into
the struggle of existence and gradually ignores even the new versions
of the old code, till the divorce becomes too obtrusive to escape
attention, and the process of reinterpretation of the antiquated creed
begins again. This has been a common enough mode of advance in the
history of the world. But it is fraught with incalculable risks. It
induces a habit of self-deceit and hypocrisy, and the nation or race
ultimately makes a tomb and prison-house for its spirit out of its own
falsities and self-delusions.
Advance like this, the Limanorans held, was no true advance. They
would have no part or lot in fixity of methods or codes, for whatever
became fixed grew thereby evil and obstructed development and advance
to higher points of view. They had only to look into their history to
see how every new step antiquated some universally accepted belief
or maxim. Not so many ages ago a crudely philanthropic spirit was
considered one of the surest signs of advancing virtue, in fact one
of the noblest of the virtues. Now it was considered distinctly
immoral to philanthropise without taking care to foresee the results
of the philanthropy. Limanorans used to go out into the archipelagos
and try to convert the barbarians to the special code or creed then
in vogue. Instead of helping on the human race, it actually stopped
the development of a section of it; for the adoption of a creed and
its symbols and rites and phrases far in advance of any possible
civilisation they could reach only made the savages--whose virtues had
hitherto been at least genuine--conventional, false, and hypocritical;
whilst the apostles left thousands of their own countrymen at home
stagnant or retrogressive. It soon came to be acknowledged that
intercourse with inferior civilisations, even for the purpose of
raising them, lowered the moral standard of the missionaries, whilst
failing in its original motive. Much of the philanthropy that began
at home was found to be no less obstructive and immoral. It fed and
clothed the poor and improvident, and thus helped to slay and bury
the only habit that could save them out of their slough, the habit
of measuring every step they took, and seeing whither it led; and it
helped to perpetuate the evil; for the ready yet limited supplies
combined with the improvidence to make them breed like the lower
animals, and the race of paupers and unprogressive was inordinately
multiplied. The same feeble and immoral philanthropy opposed all
attempts to stop the multiplication of the diseased and semi-criminal,
and had to increase the armies of doctors and guardians of the peace
every generation. It did well to nurse the feeble in mind and body, and
to reduce the penalties under which heredity had placed them; but it
failed to see that it was doing endless evil by letting them penalise
an increasing posterity with their own punishment. Not till it was
branded as the worst of immoralities was such philanthropy ended. This
had been a distinct advance and a true virtue, when it had taken the
place of cruelty and neglect, and when there was unmeasured space on
the earth for the expansion of population; but, once this stage had
been passed, and the purgation crusade was proceeding, it became a real
plague and vice.
Another immorality that had once been a virtue was the pursuit of
beauty for its own sake. Men gave up their lives to the production
of beautiful things which served no other purpose than their own
glory and the entertainment of idle and leisured people. Others made
fortunes and devoted them to the purchase of such works of art, in
order that crowds might collect and admire them, and for a time
there was something of truth in the assertion that it educated the
taste of the people. But this was only when the bulk of the race was
unenlightened and unprogressive, and anything that softened their
barbarity, anything that drew their thoughts away for even a brief time
from sordid cares or cruel projects or mechanical and conventional
habits, implied progress or a chance of progress. When the race had
been purified, and every eye was bent on the future, and every nerve
strained toward some advance in human civilisation, beautiful things
became the commonest features and necessities of life, and beauty
ceased to be noticed as anything remarkable. Then to spend energies on
producing what was artistic and beautiful without serving any other
purpose than pleasing was reckless extravagance, and by wasting what
should have been expended upon the progress of the race was condemned
as immoral. There was no virtue in doing what everyone did by instinct.
There was positive vice in making it the sole and deliberate purpose of
expenditure of energy.
Another instance of a former virtue having become a vice was
statesmanship and political patriotism. At one time half the
conspicuous talent of the race went in this direction, so greatly was
it admired. And, when there were other races and nations to diplomatise
or struggle with, and one half of the race had to provide for or keep
watch on the other half, it is no strange thing that to enter into the
domain of politics was considered the noblest thing a man could do, and
love of the welfare of the country was considered the noblest sentiment
a man could entertain. The most difficult problems, involving, some of
them, the very continuance of the race, occupied the attention of the
statesman and politician; what to do with the vast pauper class and
the still vaster fringe of the poverty-stricken and improvident, how
to deal with the criminally inclined, how to educate the half-savage
denizens of hovels in cities and even in the open country, how to
prevent the deadlocks in industry, how to regulate the labour market
and how to check the recurrent plagues and famines, were questions
that tasked the finest intellectual energies of the nation. What
complicated the answer was the fact that the themes of the discussions,
the pauper, the criminal, the improvident, the employer, the labourer,
the plague-stricken, and the starving had all a share in the government
of the country, and had to be persuaded that any scheme proposed was
to their individual interests. The virtue of political patriotism was
streaked with loquacity, conceit, self-seeking, hypocrisy, corruption,
and intrigue, long before it came to be recognised as a vice. The
statesman and politician had to make his principles as interchangeable
as his coats, had to be a master in the art of making the worse appear
the better reason, had to be skilful in lying without seeming to lie,
had to rob whilst putting on the guise of self-sacrifice, had to
cringe and fawn, bully and overbear, by turns, had to be an artist in
bribing men and in taking bribes, in short had to be the most expert
of the criminal classes. By the time the end came, none in the list of
virtues had become so like a vice as patriotism. The great purgations
swept out all occasions for politics and patriots in exiling all the
subjects of statesmanship. Where there were no paupers or criminals,
no masters or servants, no uneducated or savage except young children,
and no chance of plague or famine, the occupation of the statesman and