"A precious gift from Heaven."
"How rare is beauty!" was formerly a common exclamation in Montalluyah.
It _was_ rare indeed; for although children were generally handsome and
well formed, the adult too often became misshapen and ill-favoured.
Deformity was the rule, beauty the exception.
Even amongst those who were called handsome there were scarcely any who
fulfilled every condition of the beautiful. A critical observer would
have found defects in the beauty of the features, in the form, in the
foot, the leg, the arm, the hand, the fingers, the teeth, the neck, the
throat, the head, the hair, the complexion, the contour, the carriage.
One, and generally more, of the many essentials constituting the
perfection of beauty would be wanting.
Hence, when our great artists required an ideal of beauty in painting or
in sculpture, they would take several models, each supplying some
beautiful detail not to be found in the rest,--one model furnishing the
features, another the general outline, each a separate limb. So
difficult, if not impossible, was it then to find perfection of detail
in the same person. Nay, even this expedient did not ensure success; the
models differing from each other in size, complexion, and general
proportions, complete harmony was rarely obtained, and, judging from our
old painting and sculpture, I should say that no ideal was then produced
equal to that which in Montalluyah now exists in the living form.
Beauty, formerly the exception, now constitutes the rule, the ill
favoured and deformed being more rare than were the handsome in
preceding reigns.
To beauty is now added longevity; for, as I have before stated, the
duration of human life is extended to a period which formerly would have
been thought fabulous. This assertion will probably be received by you
with an incredulity, which will not be diminished when I add that,
notwithstanding the great increase in man's years, all his faculties are
preserved in a state scarcely less perfect than that of pristine
manhood. The eye is not dimmed, there is no deafness, the limbs are
strong and agile, the teeth remain free from decay, pleasing to the
sight, and valuable for the chief purposes for which they were given. In
a word, whatever can contribute to beauty and health in man and woman
remains all but intact to the last. Decadence in any particular, if so
it may be called, is scarcely less marked than is the almost
imperceptible decline by which man descends, or rather ascends,
peacefully to another state of existence.
The facts I state would appear less extraordinary, nay, they would be
regarded as the natural and inevitable result of an actual state of
things, if you knew all that is done and prevented in Montalluyah to
protect the health, strength, beauty, and intelligence of the child from
its birth, indeed prior to its birth; for with us the care of the mother
precedes that of the child. Nor is our care confined to infancy; it is
extended to later years, and does not cease until the limbs, both of
male and female youth, are developed, and their joints well knitted;
until their features and person have received the impress of beauty, and
their intelligence is matured to the healthful extent required by
nature.
You should also be conversant with the means that are taken to secure
the health of the city, the purity of the water and air, and the
wholesomeness of food, the extreme cleanliness, and the general
precautions taken for the prevention of disease, and of that prostration
and waste of vital force by which disease is preceded, accompanied, and
followed. You should realise, in thought at least, the blessed results
of the employment of all in congenial occupations, and the contentment
of each with his lot! You should also be able to realise the
ever-multiplying inventions and discoveries resulting from our system,
all tending to promote human perfectibility and happiness, every
successive step being assisted by the one preceding, as well as by
innumerable co-operations, all tending to one grand result.
You should also bear in mind that these inventions and their resulting
forces had originated with and were governed by none but natures prone
to good; powerful men from whose organization early education had
eliminated the germs of evil propensities.
You should also realise the advantages arising from the fact, that
whilst elevating knowledge, and rendering the rich happy in the
possession of their wealth, my laws protect those who formerly would
have been called poor. As there is no misery resulting from the neglect
of society, or from the selfishness or oppression of man, poverty in
your sense of the word does not exist. They, who are qualified for a
"poor" grade only, are nevertheless the objects of solicitude and care
to so great an extent that, whilst under my system the happiness and
enjoyments of the rich are greatly increased, the poor are far happier
and have keener enjoyments than the rich of former times, when the
acquisition of money or its indifferent expenditure was the dominant
thought in the minds of all.
You should also appreciate, in part at least, the effects of the
numberless sights of beauty everywhere in Montalluyah, within and
without, in the houses and the public thoroughfares, all by their
influence on the mother, the child, and the adult contributing towards
perfection of form, beauty, intelligence, and length of life.
Amongst other things, one result of the labours of the Character-divers
must not be forgotten. The mobile countenances of our people are easily
impressed with the marks of their emotions, and formerly nothing was
more plainly furrowed on the countenance than signs indicating bad
passions and evil propensities, the eradication of which with the
development of good qualities (one of the principal duties of the
Character-divers) has had a remarkable effect in adding to loveliness of
expression, in improving the features, and even in increasing the
elegance and gracefulness of the form and bearing.
Had I been content with a mere ordinary increase of beneficial results,
any one or more of the numerous precautions taken would have done much
good; but my object was to establish my laws on so broad a foundation
that no adverse gale could shake the edifice,--that the laws should be
strengthened one by the other, that every one should be interested in
observing and supporting institutions under which he enjoyed the largest
amount of happiness, and that, strange and visionary as it may seem to
you, the necessity for punishment might be diminished, and eventually
removed.
I should have as little thought of erecting the tall and graceful but
huge Mountain Supporter without a broad and solid foundation as of
establishing my laws, all tending as they did to the perfectibility and
happiness of the people, without spreading their base in all directions,
and taking care that the human instrument through which the soul acts
was fortified and prepared to respond to its noble ends.
I had early perceived that to obtain the desired end, every particular
must be studied and provided for, so that all elements of enduring
success should be united, and all obstructive elements removed. I felt
that no effort, care, or thought would be too great if it would only
produce the desired results, by securing health, beauty, intelligence,
and long life in man, to the utmost extent that nature permitted.
I felt that the boon of long life would greatly lose its value, even if
it could have been otherwise obtained, unless man's forces were
economized, and the senses and faculties preserved in health and vigour
to the last; that without these the happiness of man in every stage, and
even his obedience to my laws, and my power to dispense with
punishments, would be greatly impaired. For I had observed that the
sufferings and degeneracy of the man would make him discontented,
restless, and miserable, notwithstanding the blessings with which
Providence had surrounded him.
Discontented men--and discontent and wickedness are not far apart--would
have used the new powers for their own wicked purposes, just as formerly
they rent the veil that concealed from the uninitiated the secrets of
powers in nature; having been admitted under the guise, or rather while
in temporary possession of all the great qualities of will, undaunted
courage, energy, and perseverance.
Had I not reflected on this danger, I should only have allowed numbers
of persons to receive an education which, neglecting the paramount
principle of eradicating the faults of men of talent, would have laid
them open to the promptings of evil spirits, by whom, perhaps, under the
guise of beneficence, they would have been led to use the powers of good
for purposes of evil. Our very progress would have given strength to
powerful bad men, and my system, in spite of improvements, would have
carried within it the cause for its own eventual destruction.
Many beautiful systems had been tried in Montalluyah, but, from
inattention to small details, they had perished. The men who used for
evil purpose powers given them for good, have unknowingly laboured to
their own destruction and that of the highly civilized communities where
they dwelt; which have thus been swept from the face of the earth.
They had tasted the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge before they had been
thoroughly disciplined in the powers of resistance and of self-denial.
Hence the wholesome food was changed to poison; the sweet waters were
made bitter; the stream, which in its fullness bore fertility and
refreshment, burst its banks, and carried destruction everywhere.
So was it even with the priests of one of our ancient religions, who had
the custody of great secrets intended for good. During a time extending
over some generations, they practised the virtues they inculcated, and
used their power for a beneficial end. They increased their power by
their virtue and goodness; but their successors, from whose natures the
minute germs of physical and mental perversity had not been removed,
used their increased might for evil purposes, enervating to the
governing will, and to the directing powers necessary to guide an
irresistible force.
It is known that the results of every act, whether good or evil, will be
felt for all time. The result of evil was likened in Montalluyah to a
virulent disease, which had its beginning in a minute germ; a good act
to an ear of nourishing corn, that goes on propagating till it has
supplied nations with food.
It was not enough that my laws worked with the beauty, regularity, and
unity of a well-balanced machine, the parts of which assisted each other
in attaining the immediate object of its construction. The political and
social machine possessed also the faculty of acquiring at every movement
increased powers of production.
I had satisfied myself that amongst the numerous precautions to be taken
to secure the highest degree of beauty, power, and intelligence in
adults, on which so much depended, was the care of the infant, and that
this should commence from the earliest period, before the features,
form, and organization had received the first approaches of enduring
outline, since then all would be in a malleable or plastic state, ready
to take any impressions caused by accident or design, whether tending to
good or evil, to beauty or deformity.