Investigations of the Future

by Brian Stableford

  “I’m beginning to hope,” he said to me, confidentially. “I think I’m on the right track, and I thank you for giving me confidence in that idea.”

  He shook my hand.

  The ice was broken. Passing from anxious reserve to confidence, the eminent engineer became charmingly loquacious. Deep down, like every researcher, he seemed delighted to meet a stranger to whom he could confide his hopes without having to fear indiscretions.

  “Perhaps you can understand me, given that you appear to have a few vague scientific notions and you belong to a country where an endeavor isn’t always judged on the immediate benefits it brings. Would you like to smoke a good cigar with me?”

  I accepted, as you can imagine, and he led me through a long glazed corridor into a sitting-room adjacent to his laboratory. I installed myself in a rocking-chair, while he chose from among his Havanas.

  “Bluffers will tell you that, after long study sand patient research, they succeeded in establishing their thesis. Personally, I confess that the idea came to me quite suddenly.”

  “A stroke of genius.”

  “Exactly.” He offered me a cigar. “Here—I can recommend this one.”

  Then he went to a table on which there was a collection of the glass receptacles that chemists call evaporating dishes. He examined them closely while talking.

  “I said to myself one day that, human effort being due to mental effort, just as the effort of our machines is due to electrical energy, that it might be possible to accumulate one as we accumulate the other. You can see the application right away: it’s sufficient for me to put a subject in contact with one of my accumulators to make him, immediately, a man of indomitable energy, a hero—just as it’s sufficient for me to establish a contact that makes this extinct lamp into a dazzling beacon.”

  As he spoke, John Eddy caused a flood of light to spring forth, which doubtless permitted him to discover a slightly ironic smile on my lips, for he continued: “Don’t laugh. Believe me, the similarity of the two energies is real. One can collect them, the one just like the other, and store them—that wasn’t my error.”

  “But for a long time,” I said, “in the Old World as in the New, we’ve possessed accumulated energy. Our Cognac and fortified wines, your gin and your whisky are nothing other than bottled energy; don’t physicians employ subcutaneous injection of energy-giving liquids with invalids?”

  “My dear sir, you’re talking about artificial energy, temporary overexcitation, not a continuous current. The source of mental energy is within us; it’s within us or other animals that it’s necessary to look for it.”

  John Eddy began pacing up and down from one side of the room to the other, interrupted by abrupt halts and sudden resumptions, launching utterances as they came to him, between puffs of smoke.

  “Some people develop a considerable sum of energy; on the other hand, others are almost completely deprived of it. What happens? The energetic people influence others and cause them to act. That influence can even be manifest without the energetic persons being invested with any authority whatsoever, and sometimes without their being aware of it. It emanates from them, and is, so to speak, a radiation. A few make use of these effluvia to make weak or sleeping subjects act according to their will. Others claim to collect its image on the sensitive plate of a photographic apparatus. I tell you that I have succeeded in storing that force, more fluid than electricity, the most subtle radiant matter that there is.”

  He stopped to measure the effect he had produced; I didn’t bat an eyelid. I was in luck, for he was about to enter into a minute description of his apparatus when he changed his mind.

  “No, in spite of your technical knowledge, you couldn’t follow me in such an arduous explanation, bristling with numbers. Simply know that with the aid of instruments of a extreme sensitivity, which I had constructed, I searched for the most abundant sources of vital energy in order to charge my apparatus.

  “I was able, thanks to my indicators, to realize that mental energy isn’t always in proportion to physical strength. I established that a small continuous effort expends much more energy than a considerable transient effort. Finally, I recognized that some subjects, in certain circumstances, lost all their energy, while others, who lacked it, suddenly developed it in prodigious quantities in the same circumstances. The greatest producers of vital energy are the instincts of self-preservation and reproduction, necessity, misery, self-interest, ambition, jealousy, pride, etc. etc. Either by utilizing those intermittent sources or making appeal to powerfully energetic people, I was able to charge the gelatine layers of my accumulators and conserve it without too much leakage. I had attained the objective that I had set myself.

  “I then established my theory, thus arriving at a rational and scientific explanation of all the phenomena of physiopsychology: suggestion, telepathy, thought-transmission, second sight, spiritualism, magic, etc.—all the facts for which ignorance and superstition attempted to find a divine or satanic explanation. I explained genius—which, I can assure you, I have created! I had found the link between matter and mind, the source of life!

  “These results, which became public without my knowing it, made a certain noise in the world—as they must have done since you heard mention of them in France, the country where people know less about what is happening elsewhere. Also, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, the French imagine that they’ve discovered everything!”

  Slightly stung by this brutally-unleashed dart, I replied that we had, in fact, not discovered America, but that we knew about it, while his compatriots, especially those who had discovered bluffing, would never understand good old France.

  These words generated a certain chill, and I feared momentarily that I had gone too far. John Eddy searched for a reply that he obviously did not find. In the end, he threw himself down in a rocking-chair.

  “You’re great jokers,” he said, “and you’ve played the game well, since Joe is dead! But wait—I’ll have my revenge.”

  After having comforted himself thus, he continued his confidences—and I sensed that nothing could have prevented that solitary man from talking, having doubtless not had an opportunity for a long time to exchange so many words.

  “My first attempts at application, using black men, weren’t very encouraging. I decided to study the action of my accumulated energy on white men. I rendered the will of subjects absolutely passive, I gave strength to the weak, one person in despair recovered a zest for life and resumed the struggle—but the most conclusive results I obtained with Joe. You haven’t heard mention of Joe, our great cycling champion?”

  “What—that’s the Joe you mean? Not only have I heard mention of him, but I’ve seen him executing vertiginous circuits of the track after a six-day race. He was truly prodigious.”

  “Exactly. And when you know what that boy was before he met me, you’ll understand that the word is no exaggeration. Joe started out as a simple shoe-shiner; then he became a messenger-boy, and made use of a bicycle to carry out the commissions he was given. He was a weak and uneducated young fellow, with no drive, destined to live his entire life in the New York mud. One day, he came to my house to deliver some message or other, and I recognized him as a complete degenerate, and told myself that I’d never find a better experimental subject. If he was a good receiver of energy and I succeeded in transmitting enough into him to make a man of him, the proof would be convincing—and I could then launch myself with impunity into more grandiose applications, you understand.

  “The effect was, so to speak, a bolt from the blue. You need to know, now, that the energy received from my accumulators supplements the effort that the subject is making at that moment. Because Joe’s efforts consisted of transporting himself as rapidly as possible from one point to another, the mental energy he received increased the rapidity of his journeys a hundredfold. In a few days, he became the fastest and most indefatigable cyclist in the Union.. From then on, he devoted himself uniquely to that sport.
/>
  “In three months, he had beaten all his rivals, enriched his managers and accomplished implausible journeys without his extraordinary resistance ever being found wanting. I say extraordinary, for the effort produced far surpassed human strength, and is exploits were veritably superhuman.”

  “What could such a man not have accomplished,” I exclaimed, “if, instead of applying himself to make wheels turn, he had employed his…I beg your pardon, your energy…to some great endeavor?”

  “I’ve already had the honor of telling you that this was a first experiment, before permitting myself to undertake anything important.”

  “But since you’ve achieved that result, why are you waiting before endowing humankind with one of those geniuses who would be able to complete the conquest of the unknown?”

  “Because, once again, Joe is dead.”

  “Even if he is dead, the result was nevertheless attained; your theory remains intact; I can’t see the error.”

  “Wait—I’m getting there. Joe knew all triumphs and earned colossal sums. Acclaimed everywhere, and fêted, men fought for the honor of shaking his hand and ladies turned the most troubling gazes toward him. Joe seemed not to hear or see anything. One evening, however, one young woman more enthusiastic than the rest flung her arms around his neck. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the two dark eyes staring into his. He shivered all over when he felt the young woman’s lips on his cheek, and held her, in bewilderment, pressed against his bosom, stammering words of love.”

  “The thunderbolt!”

  “You couldn’t put it better. It was, indeed, a thunderbolt, which shattered his energy. From that precise moment on, I felt him grow weak, and he, the unbeatable champion, knew defeat!”

  “Did he at least know the sweetness of shared love?”

  “Certainly.”

  “That explains everything, then!”

  “Not at all; his condition remained the same before and after his marriage. I doubled and tripled the charges in my accumulators without obtaining the slightest modification.”

  “Listen, then—I can understand well enough that, sated with what we call glory, he was content to spend happy days with a beloved wife.”

  “If he spent happy days, they were of short duration. The lady disappeared one morning with a boxer, the victor in a sensational match.”

  “She loved sports too much.”

  “Joe was plunged into despair.”

  “That, if ever, was the moment to give him a strong dose of energy.”

  “I didn’t fail to do so, but my accumulators emptied and the mental weakness was still getting worse. Soon, the distress was supreme, and the man, undoubtedly the most energetic that had ever existed, was so stupid and cowardly as to put a bullet in his brain.”

  “Damn! The failure of energy…of your energy.”

  “Right!”

  John Eddy resumed pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back and his head bowed.

  “What haven’t you experimented on another subject?” I asked.

  “So that a passing woman can destroy my work with a smile? No, there was something better to do, and I’ve done it. My error came from assuming that feminine energy is identical to masculine energy—and it’s not. The error was unforgivable; after all, the debilitating effect of womanhood isn’t a recent observation. Don’t we all know that Delilah abolished Samson’s energy, and that antiquity symbolized the phenomenon by making Hercules fall at the feet of Omphale? Firstly, therefore, it was necessary to study feminine radiation, and then to seek to combat its detestable influence.”

  “Don’t regret your error too much, illustrious master; it won’t be a trivial discovery if you succeeded in neutralizing the influence of women, rendering us insensitive to the temptations and seductions of beauty, youth and grace, to coquetry, smiles, murderous winks, intoxicating words—in a word, to love! You’ll certainly be able to boast of having delivered humankind from the most terrible of its afflictions, and I don’t doubt that you’ll obtain a resounding success, on this side of the Atlantic as on the other.”

  John Eddy shrugged his shoulders and continued.

  “On this farm, as you’ve perhaps noticed, I only employ women. By physical effort, or efforts of intelligence and will, I oblige them to develop their energy, which I collect in certain accumulators. Now, listen to me: whereas negative electricity combines with positive electricity, male radiant matter, according to my numerous observations, brought into contact with female radiant matter, is immediately absorbed by the latter. That explains the death of my poor Joe.”

  “But don’t you fear,” I said, “surrounded as you are by young and vigorous women, seeing your own energy absorbed and ending up as miserably as your subject?”

  “No,” he said, smiling, “and this is why. The Mormons here and the pashas in the Orient, although living in the midst of numerous wives, nevertheless retain complete mastery of themselves. Do you know why? It’s because—nothing is easier to demonstrate with the aid of my apparatus—the absorbent feminine radiations neutralize one another! So, I can continue my work among these women with impunity.”

  “Just now, you explained scientifically the antinomy that exists between men and women, now you’re providing a scientific reason for jealousy between women, their systematic and reciprocal denigrations. You’re demonstrating experimentally the philosophical aphorism: woman’s worst enemy is woman. You’re a profound psychologist.”

  “No, my dear sir, I’m an engineer. Draw speculative conclusions if you wish; personally, I never emerge from my laboratory. All that I can tell you with certainty, at the present stage of my research, is that all that is needed to prevent the absorption of feminine radiation is that same radiation.”

  “But that’s a rehabilitation of polygamy! And husbands who deceive their wives simply become individuals who don’t want to allow themselves to be absorbed.”

  “I’m not concerned with sociology. In possession of these facts, I undertook a new series of experiments, in order to discover whether any kind of animal energy could resist the absorption. First, I employed that of the horse—several horses; hundreds of horses—without achieving any result. After that, I tried various carnivores—ferocious beasts, big cats—but they gave me nothing more. Are you following me? This couldn’t be more serious?

  “Finally, I had the idea of collecting the energy of reptiles; this time I’m undoubtedly on the right track. I am, moreover, in accord with the Bible. When it informs us that, of all the animals in Paradise, only the serpent succeeded in tempting Eve, the first woman, it is indicating to us quite clearly that only the energy of the serpent can neutralize that of a woman.”

  Having said that, the scientist took me to the table on which I had seen, as I came in, evaporating dishes lined up, half-full of variously colored gelatinous substances. They were his accumulators. With the aid of violin strings, he put a male accumulator in communication with a female accumulator; then, when the energy of the former had absorbed that of the latter, he introduced a reptile current—and the absorption ceased!

  “You see; it’s convincing—and now I can try it on living subjects.”

  John Eddy took me by the am then, amicably, and led me to the box of Havanas. Then he offered me various drinks, congratulated me on having come to the Far West, blessed the hazard that had cause me to stop under his roof, and thanked me effusively for the encouragement I had given him. Then he asked me, point blank, whether I wouldn’t be proud to be the first person immunized by the reptilian current against feminine radiation? The experiment would be all the more conclusive since I belonged to a vice-ridden, degenerate and, so to speak, finished race.

  After assuring myself that the celebrated engineer was not a deadpan humorist who, as we say in familiar terms, wanted to get a rise out of me, I begged him to excuse me if I refused. We were so low on the scale of beings that it was scarcely worth the trouble of attempting a regeneration, and also so backward that we would much
prefer to die of love, like Joe, than be deprived of it. In addition, exhausted by fatigue and only possessing a relative energy, I asked his permission to retire to my bedroom.

  “All right,” he replied, dryly.

  Before going out, I heard him murmur between his teeth: “How stupid these Frenchmen are!”

  VI. The Humanitarian

  The Universal Informer published the following article under my signature.

  The questions of mutual aid and solidarity are much discussed at present. The reconstruction of the Parisian hospitals has just been decided, and the creation of new asylums; it is therefore not impolitic to cast a glance on the innovations introduced abroad in the matter of social assistance. Among the innumerable supportive institutions of more or less original design, I shall permit myself to draw the attention of interested parties to Psuquet House in Denver, Colorado, on the functioning of which the specialist journals of the United States have not spared their eulogies.

  It is to the initiative of one of our compatriots, Victor Psuquet, that we owe the foundation of that asylum, which is truly unique in the world. Born in a small shoemaker’s shop in the Rue de Verrerie, Victor did not seem to be destined for a life of adventure, but, having launched himself body and soul into the great conflict of ’71, without being excessively troubled, he nevertheless left the country.56 He thought that on the other side of the Atlantic he might be able to realize his dream and live freely in the midst of a free people. I will not astonish anyone by declaring that his disappointment was as complete as possible. The only liberty he encountered in America was that of dying there of starvation. He found it large and empty, devoid of a friendly hand reaching out to help him, disinterested advice to comfort him or a compassionate gaze turned toward him.

  That isolation, combined with bad luck, aggravated by domestic troubles, led to Psuquet to a profound discouragement. He wandered from town to town, trying to get to the new lands of the West, where he hoped that fate might be kinder to him. On the contrary, the further he went, the harsher the struggle for disappointing existence became. Neither fatigue nor physical suffering defeated him; his health was robust and he had good arms, moved by solid muscles; but his moral strength weakened from day to day, and ended up abandoning him completely.