The Supreme Progress

by Brian Stableford

  The conversationalist duo is, in fact, incessantly divided between the various appreciations that continue to haunt the subject of first causes: Providence or Fatality; Hazard or Predestination; Incoherence or the Necessity of Causation, etc., etc. The Lady leans towards whichever theory flatters her imagination most agreeably. For his part, the Gentleman, guided solely by reason, nevertheless refrains from imposing it under the pretext of marital authority—but he becomes slightly confused when, in order to humor his spouse, he tries to establish an intermediate term between the aforementioned “contradictory” ideas, which is apparently difficult to specify exactly.

  He soon became almost irritated by an inconvenience of that sort, because the conversation, emerging from the abstract, had started to rotate around out defunct planet, the Earth, of whose history the Gentleman claimed to have a complete command, in spite of the infinity of centuries of forgetfulness that had accumulated since its complete vaporization.

  Without displaying an overt opposition to the renovatory arguments of her husband, the Lady could not hide a brief vibratory flutter, which would be roughly equivalent in the present feminine form to the gesture of stifling an involuntary laugh.

  HE: “You’re always laughing! That displeases me somewhat, for I never know whether your irony is directed at the things I say or at myself.”

  SHE: “It’s one or the other. It’s another one of those terms intermediate between two extremes, of which you continually make use. You’re retracing events that strike me as surprising, and I find your certainty as to their authenticity a trifle comical…”

  HE: “Will you never admit the surety of my investigative procedures, then? Of course not! That’s the problem! Do we not possess, to the last detail, an account of the modifications and alterations to which our previous humankind was subject? Are you not able, as I am, to perceive the images echoed by the planets and corroborate the details in question by exact synthetic calculation. Now, my dear, you are no longer unaware that at more-or-less lengthy intervals, from one incidence to another, the various worlds are reflected through luminous space.68

  “What does it matter, if you please, that some of these worlds are now molecularly dispersed, since the ancient reflections departed from their surfaces are still pursuing their eternal course, and since all matter subsists in its present attributes as long as contingences do not impose transformation upon it, and since, finally, these same superficial reflections are at the disposal of worlds that still gravitate, or which will be born in future into the parabola of clarity.69

  “Thus, our native globe once received, as scientists observed, the intense light of certain stars that were extinct or swallowed up long before our Earth made its appearance in the cosmogonic ensemble. Active planets also sent us their reverberations, but our ancestors—ignorant then, it is true, of the importance of those astral reactions—neglected their analysis and were unable to distinguish their particularities. Of course, they also lacked the privilege of being, like us, an integral part of the luminous principle and being in direct inherence with every one of its vibrations.

  “Let us, I beg you, leave your malicious skepticism there, and, in preference, turn our attention to the relatively recent satellite that is displayed down there, relatively close to us in the plains of infinity. It was only a few centuries ago that it began to refract the radiations of several qualities of the universe. I assume, my dear Madame, that you will not maintain that these radiations, in perfect accordance with those that previously passed over the surrounding stars, are mere chimeras? Examine, for example, that little transparent bubble rotating amid multitudes of other planetary effigies. That modest spheroid—don’t take offence—is our humble Terran abode of yore, and none other.”

  The Gentleman had expressed himself with a certain warmth, and even thought he knew perfectly well, as a rule, how to contain himself, his aerogenic density manifested a notable dilatation.

  It would have been dangerous to overexcite him further in that explosive state. The Lady reassembled her atmospherism in an exceedingly slender ellipse, perhaps sketching a pout in a hydrocarburated fashion, and then affected to support herself in a gracious semicircle upon her husband’s poles, in one of those very feminine attitudes in which the fear of fainting simulates a surfeit of attention

  The Gentleman had the good sense to note this last appearance and resumed his speech…

  Brief Interruption

  At this paragraph, the Thinker paused, doubtless in the hope of accentuating the impression of what he had just read. His physiognomy displayed, to some small degree, the solemnity attributed in the above pages to the male spirit.

  The Thinker’s wife, probably by a similar effort of mechanical imitation, struggled as the empyrean lady had against the encroachment of drowsiness.

  The gentleman clad in a fresh outbreak of black suit, and cravated like an ignition of white, advertised with a feverish gesture his keen desire to hear the continuation of the marvelous story—upon which the Thinker hastened to continue his reading in these terms:

  Continuation of the Story

  “I therefore permit myself,” said the Gentleman to the Lady, “to draw your entire attention to the phantasmagoria of terrestrial incidents that is unfolding in the mirror of the satellite in question. Thanks to their renewal, these reappearances have a particularly vivid clarity. Look at that! Let us not hurry. Let us run over this short period of a few tens of millions of centuries during which our little planet is, before our very eyes, solidifying out of its original chaos. For us, who no longer possess the sentiment of a delimitation of duration, is not the imaginative passage of accumulations of time in the continual recommencement of eternity—so to speak—a continually renewed pleasure?

  “You will pardon me that vain digression, will you not? Let us watch the indicative heavenly body.

  “At present, we are viewing the scene of terrestrial matter unfolding in the era when it is finally emerging from its atomic disorder, in order to set forth again according to the various affinities implicit within it, and to distribute its unique force in a multiplicity of effects that has been called Nature. It seems certain, therefore, that each of these originatory atoms—or, if you prefer, each of these molecules constitutive of substances—contains a germ of intelligence, since it is following a necessary and purposive direction. Ulterior facts have, moreover, proven that the most intelligent of the aforesaid atoms will forsake inert bodies to localize themselves in animate bodies, notably in humans, which lend them, until a new order arises, the best available instrument of expression and comprehension.

  “Now, it is precisely this dispersal of integral reason, this fragmentation of the intellectual principle, of which one is able to say: Tot capita, tot sensus;70 the interminable sequence of misfortunes suffered by our ancestors must result therefrom.

  “If I insist on this circumstance somewhat in anticipation”—he had, in fact, been insisting upon it for the better part of 2000 years—“it is to allow time for a few more thousands of centuries to unfold on our objective whose silhouettes offer nothing much of interest. That is merely the period when prehistoric humanity succeeds in extracting itself from its initial stagnation. But now, in the following epochs, man acquires the notion of his individual value and requires a social condition. It is worth the trouble, at present, of following the phases of that new mode of existence with the aid of the representations of our celestial reflector.

  “Among these reverberations, a few fixed, or scarcely-changing points stand out. They are the regions of plains and mountains, as well as the towns that our forefathers inhabited. The rest of the little luminous trace, by contrast, sparkles and palpitates with a continual iridescence. We thus observe the turbulence of an incalculable multitude of molecular extracts, in each one of which moves the ephemeral activity of a human specimen, or some individual of the animal order. Whence comes this perpetual wriggling? Why did our ancestors, as I think I have already said to you, indulg
e in this ceaseless confused and seemingly purposeless agitation?

  “Let us pause momentarily, my dear friend, on that incidental question, which is more serious than it seems. Its perfect solution gives rise, in fact, to important consequences, which might perhaps allow us, in due course, to determine the causalities of the entire system of the universe, almost in their entirety.

  “If it will not annoy you to submit to a brief demonstration in this regard”—it would, in fact, only last for six thousand years at the most—“do not forget the primordial fact that the organized beings on our planet, especially humans, only participated in the gift of intelligence to the extent of an infinitesimal mini-portion per individual. Remember too—this is a very important point—that this fractionation of intellectual resources was not merely the terrestrial rule. The same order was strictly observed in all cosmogonic regions, for all the active beings of the present and future plurality of worlds—the “world to come”, as it was so elegantly put at the time whose image is gliding over our satellite at this moment. Such an arrangement, however, as you will easily understand, could only be transitory. Otherwise, that bizarre disposition would be comparable to a vast and multiple analysis that could never become a synthesis.

  “Whatever the objectivities or appearances were that occasioned its thoughts, in fact, terrestrial reason could not remain satisfied indefinitely with its lot of partial truths; it tended incessantly toward absolute logic; it was subject to the secret aspiration of its faculties, provisionally divisionary, toward an integral intellectuality that would eventually embrace the spiritual contribution of other planets. And from that concentration of the universal idea would stem the entire, unique and divine science, the Word that revealed the true nature of things.

  “Now, this need for a synthetic ideality was the driving-mechanism of life in all its known milieux, and those yet to be known. If we restrict ourselves in this respect solely to the history of our ancestors, we shall see that every human being then traversing the fatality of existence felt incessantly overexcited by a desire for progress, the results of which remained enigmatic and unforeseeable, for lack of the superior comprehension by which those results could be calculated in advance.

  “Thus, dear friend, you may take it for granted that the preventive solutions admitted by those unfortunates were singularly inefficient, when they were not simply inept. Some attempted to satisfy their tendency to the exclusive well-being of their sensual structure. Others subordinated the repose of their consciousness to the observation and increasingly experimental manipulation of the matter of which they recognized themselves as an intrinsic part. Yet others, more inclined to hypothetical inventions, glimpsed the appeasement of their souls in the belief in a force exterior to directive impulsion or conclusive wisdom, which they named God, but to which he gave an anthropomorphic interpretation—by which I mean that they measured that pretended intelligence in proportion to the exceedingly minimal parcel of judgment that they personalized themselves, etc., etc. I am leaving aside here many intermediary nuances among these antique fashions of construing life, none of which carried the full conviction of those who professed them

  “It is sufficient, for the moment, to observe that each of these unfortunate petty nothings of temporary beings attempted, more out of pride than certainty, to make his own theories prevail to the detriment of adverse opinions. And of all those who dreamed of the ideal, the greatest and the least alike could imagine nothing better than putting himself in what he was able to conceive as the most flattering light, as if to make his own individuality stand out. From that followed obstinate rivalries between individuals, constant revolt of crowds, and endless duels between nations. Let us analyze once again the recent successions of epochal reflections on the gleam of our star; we find nothing therein but traces of war and vestigial ruins.”

  At this passage of the marital history, the Lady could not repress certain indescribable fidgetings of meteoric femininity, which could not be interpreted other than as a sign of slight impatience. “In truth,” she exclaimed, “speaking for myself, I cannot make out anything very precise in these stellar projections on which you are basing such strong arguments. All that we perceive therein seems singularly vague and vaporous to me.”

  “I must confess,” the Gentleman replied, without any external emotion, “that they are mere patches scarcely distinct within their tissues of light. The mirages in question need to be understood as a sort of hieroglyphic writing, each sign of which symbolizes a series of identical incidents that are produced in similar milieux, the luminous transmission of which confuses the details.

  “Look, among others, at this figure, or rather, this schema—I am still only talking about a minimal segment of the reflection occupied by the terrestrial phantom—which is irregularly inscribed down there, becoming the emblem of war, which, save for a few unimportant variations in armaments and strategy, constantly recommences in a similar fashion. We thus possess sufficient means of deduction. The taut filaments that twist and become entangled over the major part of our instrument of observation summarize, as I have already said, the frightful multiplicity of labors that humans inflict upon one another in what they call ‘the struggle for existence.’ Here and there within that swarm, one encounters a few streaks standing out against the background. They are the juxtaposed photoscopies71 of a sequence of individuals who, during these fallacious periods of societarism, strive for success in some art, science, criticism or prophecy, or succeeded one another in illusory vocations of perfectionist propaganda. Their efforts must have been curiously indefatigable and tenacious persevering for an approximative wake of their undivided spectrality still to be manifest in this astronomical fog…”

  Here, the Lady deigned to give evidence of a brief revival of interest. “And what, I pray,” she enquired, “were the names that these brave men bore, or by which they were designated?”

  “That’s marvelous, dear friend,” the Gentleman replied. “Your question demonstrates a notable aptitude for reconstituting long-gone things. Can one imagine, in fact, such pride in such ephemeral inanity? Did not each of these imperceptible globules of thinking matter assume a special appellation, each going so far as to advertise his or her respective sex, and take pride in being a distinct ‘someone’? I do not even exaggerate in suggesting that every one of them, doubtless believing himself to represent the genius of the species, dared to cultivate the illusion of transmitting his personal memory to us!”

  SHE (complacently): “That seems perfectly risible.”

  HE (but with a hint of melancholy): “Led astray by the frenzy of individualism, our ancestors radically misunderstood the necessity of centralizing the intellectual force of which each one of them only possessed the most infinitesimal quota. Thus, they continually delayed the instauration of God in humankind—which is to say, the cohesion of the unlimited totality of comprehension that was assigned, within the hierarchy of the universes, to terrestrial intelligence. For it would be absurd and contradictory to recognize in God any other attribute than being the most philosophical expression of the ensemble of causes and effects.

  “At any rate, humans maintained themselves in the emulation of a continual advancement toward the amelioration of their condition—but each one, as I have said, limited those ameliorations to the scale of his irreducible molecule, in proportion to the insufficiency of reason. The antagonism of vanities thus continued, and civilization, in the final analysis, was no more than an impasse. While incoherence reigned, the human elite divided itself into two opposed categories, one of which, as you already know, flattered itself by trying cheapen physiological laws by means of some dream or other of the free materialization of mind, while the other was ambitious to attach itself to the incessant evolution of substance. Between these two extremes the bewildered masses became irresolute, not knowing what to think about the faith of overly subtle dialecticians, nor how or why they should support the excess of industrialization and exploitations wit
h which the positivism of scientists oppressed them.

  “It was, nevertheless, the latter mode of, so to speak, economico-passive socialization that seemed to be bound eventually to get the upper hand. As regards metaphysics, it was judged sufficient to establish the relationship of the mental power of humans with their mode of activity. Ultraterrestrial explanations of any sort whatsoever fell into the deepest discredit. The entire domain of the possibilities of the unknown was limited in advance to the knowable. The complete utilization of matter was decreed by rigorously determining that goal. The human organism was now reduced to the role of a simple cog in a dynamic and mechanical arrangement of natural forces. The problem of discovering whether or not the aforesaid arrangement proceeded in accordance with some preliminary law was abandoned as forever insoluble. Soon, in fact—and I invite you, my dear, to admit that the phases of existence that the star continues to rememorize graphically are interesting—soon…”

  A Parenthesis

  Here, replacing the volume on the table, the Thinker interrupted his reading momentarily and made the observation that the author of these pages was about to devote himself to the exposure of a series of facts that were to unfold in times inexpressibly ulterior to ours, and which, although reported in the verbal past tense, had to be considered as absolutely defunct in relation to a futurity so distant that it defies any equation with the sum of the future susceptible to calculation in our own day.