The level of discussion is correspondingly high and solemn. Lords, Financiers, Bishops, Politicians, K.C.S,25 Generals, Admirals, Newspaper Owners and Explorers (above all, Explorers)—all meet here to thrash out the problems of the day, in a rich haze of tobacco smoke, informality, and sophisticated, well-bred unanimity. There is nearly always someone ‘just down from the House’ with the latest news, and again, someone ‘just back’ from some remote corner of the earth, where he has most probably been engaged on a mission which is almost too dangerous and mysterious to be mentioned, save in a semi-furtive way, by the others. These last characters, described so perfectly by Nhoj Nahcub, are, perhaps, the most imposing characters of all in Moribundian clubs, with their ‘lean’ bodies, ‘tanned’ faces, ‘whipcord physique’ and reserved and steely demeanour. I myself was always slightly afraid of them, as they gave me the impression of knowing almost everything. I knew for a fact that they could speak innumerable foreign languages, including the different sub-dialects thereof (which they could imitate to perfection), and the quantity and quality of their contacts, both at home and abroad, were to me curiously terrifying—it being nothing for one of them to carry on negotiations at one and the same time with, say, ‘a little Jew tailor in Belgrade,’ ‘a deaf spectacle-maker in Lima,’ ‘an old woman in a Finnish hut,’ ‘a blind armature-winder in an Esthonian ghetto,’ ‘a consumptive professor of Oriental languages in a lesser-known French University,’ ‘a half-paralysed watch-mender in Glasgow,’ ‘a dumb porter in a Swedish brothel’ etc., etc. (I am, of course, substituting worldly place-names for the Moribundian.) I think the feeling of fright I had arose from the fact that this far-flung, yet microscopically accurate diversity of information was too closely akin to that possessed by God, who knows, we have been told, whenever the smallest sparrow falls from a tree. But I am digressing.
In speaking of these distinguished types I have made no mention of the Moribundian author as met with in the Moribundian club. Much less imposing to look at, in fact rather mean and repulsive in appearance, authors are yet allowed to hover around the talk of the big men, and occasionally to put in a word of their own. But as they are generally ‘feminists,’ or ‘pacifists,’ they are hardly acceptable in such manly company. Also they are nearly always known as ‘Little Binks’ or ‘Little Jinks,’ or ‘Little Spinks’—I don’t know why. Such is the atmosphere I now entered for the next two weeks, and a very comfortable, solid, well-fed atmosphere it was. I do not know to this day what exactly was made of me, but I had been introduced by a distinguished asterisk-ballooning soldier, and I presume that I was taken to be an Akkup Bihas.
I at once endeavoured, without being too pushing, to make every contact I could, and to enter into every sort of conversation—for here I was amongst the intelligent upper class, the people who did things and were in the know generally, and I was anxious to find out what were the great problems and conflicts of the day, and how they were being solved and fought out.
I had not been at this game long before I began to see I was getting nowhere. Instead of conflicts, debates, arguments, and the legitimate frictions caused by different interests and traditions, I found perfect unanimity existing everywhere on every subject and between every class of person. All the old conflicts, as we know them, such as those between the financial and landed interests, the community and the individual, the Church and the State, militarism and pacifism, politics and religion, science and religion, or, if you like, materialism and idealism, were simply non-existent.
I never met an admiral, for instance, or a general, who was not ‘deeply religious at heart’; I never, if it comes to that, met a financier, lawyer, or newspaper owner, who was not ‘deeply religious at heart’; while, on the other hand, I never met a bishop or a church dignitary of any kind who did not interest himself in the most lively manner in financial, economic, political, and even military matters, and reinforce his arguments with constant illustrations from such purely material sources. In fact, it would be true to say that the men of affairs occupied themselves almost exclusively with matters of the spirit, while the men of God were hardly interested in anything save material, practical concerns.
Since I have mentioned religion, I should now explain that in Moribundia Religion and Science have been utterly, permanently, serenely, beautifully, touchingly reconciled. We have often been told that this reconciliation has taken place in our own world, but we are always seeing the argument break out in new places; in Moribundia the thing has happened for good and all: there is not even any more talk about it. I should even say that the matter has gone further than mere reconciliation: there is something more than identity of outlook: the two have practically changed places. Just as two lovers, having had a quarrel which they have made up, sedulously compete with each other in casting the blame upon themselves, and so begin a sort of charming new quarrel on a higher plane, so these ertswhile combatants—Science and Religion—in luxurious Moribundian embrace, each vie with the other in avowing the point of view which had once been spurned, and disclaiming the point of view which had once been assumed. Thus it happens that while the churchman’s appeal to Moribundia is made purely from the standpoint of Science, from considerations of mathematics, biology, eugenics, psychology, economics, chemistry, astronomy and, above all, physics—the scientist—on the other hand—is almost exclusively concerned with the process of unravelling and discussing the moral order and causation underlying the Universe. While the dreamy scientist gazes fervently on God, the harsh clergyman looks sternly to facts. Seemingly there is the same conflict as before. It will be noticed, however, that it is not Religion which is the loser under this complicated new arrangement.
To understand how this has come about, it is necessary to understand the nature of Science in Moribundia, and the course it has recently taken. This is closely allied to the question of Moribundian Change, discussed earlier, and therefore deserves serious consideration.
To begin with, it must be understood that in Moribundia Science is ‘finished.’ By ‘finished’ I do not mean emaciated, done up or worn out; I mean finished in the same sense in which one would use the word in speaking of a schoolboy who has finished simple equations, or French irregular verbs. He is said to ‘know’ these preliminaries and is going on to something else. In the same way the Moribundians have finished Science.
They were not always in this position—there being two stages in the process—the stage of ‘old-fashioned’ Science (or ‘worn-out theories’) and the stage of ‘Modern Science’ (or ‘up-to-date’ knowledge). So soon as the Moribundian scientist reached the second stage, he had no higher to climb, he gazed at the world in the plenitude of absolute wisdom—he ‘knew’ Science.
Religious people in our own world will at once say that there is something irreverent in this—that only God can know everything. But then have I not made it clear that in Moribundia all that claims the scientist’s interest is God—that all that he professes to ‘know’ is God? And what can there be irreverent in knowing God? It is the unique privilege of saints, which is exactly what the really learned Moribundian scientist may be called. This is merely another manifestation of the authentic and logical reconciliation between Science and Religion.
I took great pains to discover at what period this transformation had taken place, when the leap had been made from the old-fashioned to modern science. I was unable to get any exact information, but as far as I could find out, the moment of completion or fruition had happened quite recently, in fact about nine or ten years ago. Otherwise, presumably, it would not have been called modern science but just ‘science.’
I had therefore appeared on the scene only a little while, comparatively, after a period of tremendous historical moment—the period in which modern science ‘did away’ with ‘outworn conceptions,’ ‘relegated to the dustbin’ all ‘old-fashioned modes of thought’ and established the kingdom of absolute knowledge on Moribundia.
Now all this is so different from the sort of
thing which happens in our world, that the reader will probably find it hard to understand. Down here on earth we are decidedly sceptical of science—most of all modern science. We are aware that what science can give, it can also take away. In its progress and development it renders a certain set of opinions out of date and replaces these with up-to-date ones: but we have no guarantee that its further development will not render these up-to-date opinions out of date, and bring us back to the point where the erstwhile out-of-date opinions are once again up to date. In fact, this is what is invariably happening. When, therefore, we hear of modern scientists to-day speaking of having done away with ‘old-fashioned notions of matter’ or ‘outworn conceptions of time and space,’ we smile cynically and wait for the next move.
Not so in Moribundia. There they have at last achieved the miracle of reaching a final point; there, when a scientist speaks of ‘outworn conceptions’ he is believed: they are outworn. In the same way, if he says ‘modern science has proved’ so-and-so, he is not regarded as a fool. In other words, he has found ultimates: which is another way of saying he has found the ideal, the absolute, God. We come round to the same point again.
The reader will now see the connection between the unchangeable nature of Science and the unchangeable nature of the social structure. He will begin to perceive what I was beginning to perceive, that this entire ideal world was based on what I may call ‘Unchange’: it was ideal because it could not change: it could not change because it was ideal.
I may say that even in the scientific field the Tsixram still lurks in the corner, playing his more than ever Satanic role. According to him there is no ultimate knowledge and so no ultimate set of scientific opinions; scientific knowledge is incessantly progressing, and yet also incessantly going back upon itself, or rather turning up as its old self on a higher plane. Such ideas are promulgated in a definite system of philosophy known as Scitcelaid,26 and it is easy to imagine the horror with which they would be greeted, if they were not hilariously laughed at, in this sane and happy land.
It will have been gathered from what I have said that this perfect reconciliation between Science and Religion took place simultaneously with, and was dependent upon, the victory of modern science over the old-fashioned sort. This, of course, is the case. Who, then, was primarily responsible for this reconciliation? There are, of course, many names. Undoubtedly the two outstanding exponents of ‘modern’ science in Moribundia, however, are Ris Semaj Snaej and Ris Ruhtra Notgnidde27 who, under the new dispensation, and for reasons explained above, may really be called saints rather than scientists. Moribundia has not been slow to realize the service they have done (the word ‘Ris’ itself signifies a title of honour), and their works are practically best sellers. That such a thing should have happened in the case of purely scientific works will be easily understood when one remembers the enormous and far-reaching social implications these works bear.
The scientifically-minded reader may now be saying to himself that although in Moribundia the scientist has changed places and become the saint, the man of God, yet he is still superficially a scientist, and must have put forth specific scientific theories in which he (the reader) is interested.
This is true. But, unfortunately, I had neither scientific training nor sufficient time at my disposal to bring back with me any detailed analysis of the latest (and of course last) discoveries of Moribundian ‘modern science.’ I can only say that they very closely resemble our own discoveries, but have taken matters considerably further in all directions.
In the realm of physics, for instance (and this I studied principally, for it is in this branch of science that the most spectacular service has been done in the union of Science and Religion), a much profounder understanding of phenomena has been reached by the followers of Snaej and Notgnidde.
We are quite accustomed nowadays, for instance, in our own world, to the notion that ‘matter has broken down into energy.’ Such an idea would be regarded as true enough, but as naïve in the extreme up there. In Moribundia matter has not only broken down into energy; it has broken down into morals. With regard to the atom, such amazing advances have been made in the problem of its ‘self-determination’ that to speak of energy plainly would no longer suffice.
The atom, in fact, began to show such extraordinary variety and nicety of individual choice that it became necessary to think of it in purely human terms. It was even found that it obeyed certain laws of periodic behaviour almost exactly similar to our own—that is to say, it did something very closely akin to ‘waking up’ in what might quite legitimately be called the atomic equivalent of a ‘morning’: it performed an act peculiarly resembling the act of ‘dressing,’ proceeded to absorb fresh sustenance in an atomic ritual which we might, without any too great stretch of the imagination, call ‘having breakfast,’ and was then found to move in a certain direction in which its energies increased and it became more actively engaged with its fellow atoms—in short, it had gone to the equivalent of the City. Later, it is found to ‘return along a fixed line to the point from which it had started’ (to take a train home, in fact), absorb further sustenance, and, after a period of ‘etheric receptivity’ (listening in to the wireless, undoubtedly), it ‘sinks into a phase of immobility and quiescence’—or to put it in unscientific language, it goes to bed and to sleep. This incredible duplication of the familiar diurnal routine is also submerged in a larger scheme as we know it. According to the latest Moribundian scientists the atom undoubtedly goes through the equivalent, over a period of time, of the process of growing up and getting larger: shows very definite electrical preferences for other atoms, and after going through a ceremony of being ‘linked’ by a third atom, settles down to having the equivalent of children. These are brought up in a variety of ways, and enter—with full personal choice—upon many different careers. Some (militrons) go to the equivalent of Sandhurst or Woolwich; others (nautrons) are trained for the equivalent of the Navy and defend the Molecule which may be thought of as the atom’s Empire. Others again (scribitrons) are content to stay at home and work in banks, look after machinery (mechanitrons) or, as mercatrons, engage in the free competition of the open market. I did not actually come across any scientific work in which it was stated that the average middle-class atom wore the equivalent of moustache, bowler hat, and umbrella, but have no doubt that evidence could be found to this effect.
It is easy enough to see what follows from these discoveries—that if these atoms did not behave themselves in a proper and orderly way, if they rebelled against their own established system, if anything threatened their unanimity and moral cohesion—the physical Universe would fly apart. The Universe is, therefore, revealed to be founded upon moral law and order in a new and tremendous sense.
Under these circumstances the question of ‘splitting the atom,’ so far as I can see, takes on a new significance. To ‘split the atom’ would be just this—to tear asunder this unanimity and cohesion. This, presumably, is what a Tsixram atom would hellishly attempt to do, if there were such a thing and it was able to do so. It would blow up Moribundia in smoke.
Notes
23. Anoop: Poona — a commercial city, 80 miles south-east of Bombay, India, and an important colonial military and administrative centre for the British Raj from 1818 onwards.
24. Nhoj Nahcub: John Buchan (1875–1940), amongst many other activities, a prolific author whose most famous novels — and the ones Hamilton has in mind here — are fast-moving adventure stories like Prester John (1910) and the counter-espionage thrillers featuring his hero, Richard Hanney: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), Greenmantle (1916) and The Three Hostages (1924). (See Note 38.)
Trebreh Egroeg Sllew: H[erbert]. G[eorge]. Wells (1866–1946), even more prolific novelist (including early science fiction — see Introduction, polemicist about contemporary issues and popular historian. It is difficult to identify precisely which of Wells’s novels Hamilton is alluding to here, but the most likely are his First World War ones,
Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916) and Joan and Peter (1918). Hamilton has another dig at Wells in Chapter 16.
25. K.C.s: King’s Counsellors (barristers).
26. Scitcelaid: dialectics: in philosophical discourse, bringing together and attempting to resolve opposites or apparent contradictions. Hamilton is certainly thinking here of ‘dialectical materialism’, the Marxist theory that matter exists independently of thought and develops by successive oppositions or negations. Cf. the first epigraph to the novel and Notes 2, 18 and 27.
27. Ris Semaj Snaej: Sir James Jeans (1877–1946), English physicist, astronomer and writer, best known for his popular expositions of scientific theories and their philosophical implications: The Universe Around Us (1929), The Mysterious Universe (1930) — from which the first epigraph to the novel is taken, The New Background of Science (1933) and Through Space and Time (1934). His work is characterised by the kind of deistic-scientific attitudes which Hamilton is satirising here and elsewhere in Impromptu (see Notes 18, 20 and 26).
Ris Ruhtra Notgnidde: Sir Arthur Eddington (1882–1944), English astronomer, and a second scientific populariser whose work helped to explain Einstein’s theories to a wider public: Space, Time and Gravitation (1920), Mathematical Theory of Relativity (1923), Stars and Atoms (1927), The Nature of the Physical World (1928) and The Expanding Universe (1933). His anthropomorphic explanations of atomic physics, for example, are made fun of in the following pages here (see especially the militrons, nautrons, scribitrons, mechanitrons and mercatrons — for once not inversions, but humanized neutrons, protons, etc.).
Impromptu in Moribundia Page 11
