The history of the events which took place in the valley in their due
order and importance must be sought elsewhere. But let us return and
look at the condition of the valley and its inhabitants. Let us see what
has become of them after a great lapse of time.
It is a fair, a beautiful land. The greater part of it is cultivated.
There is no war—even to the extremest confines of the valley there is
peace. Passing from the remote confines where still dwell a barbarous
race, we come, as we approach the metropolis, amongst a more and more
polite and refined people. In the metropolis itself the buildings are
numerous and of great size. The palace which the king saw rise under the
old man’s music is there, but another ruler dwells in it. Near the
palace are two vast buildings standing on each side of a wide open
court. There is no other building near save one between them, a
comparatively small edifice of brick. These buildings are the assembly
halls of the two most important councils in the valley. In the one on
the left-hand side of the palace met the most distinguished of the
inhabitants who from a special inclination or fitness were entrusted
with the regulations about the pleasure and pain of the inhabitants.
They framed the rules according to which each inhabitant must conform in
his pursuit of pleasure, and they made the regulations whereby the whole
body of inhabitants were supposed to gain an increase in pleasure and to
avoid pain.
In the building on the right hand of the palace met those of the
inhabitants who had studied the nature of feeling most deeply, and who
from temperament or for other reasons had in their course of study not
paid so much attention to whether feelings were painful or pleasurable,
but who had studied their amount and regularity of their recurrence.
They were the thinkers from whom all the practical inhabitants derived
their rules of business. They devised the means and manner of putting
into execution what was decided on in the other assembly. They did not
often propose any positive enactment themselves, but were always able to
show how the proposals of the other council could be carried into
effect.
Their power was derived in this manner. The king had connected the
feelings of pleasure and pain with certain acts, and had given each
being a routine. Now as he himself made use of this routine and combined
the routines of different individuals to bring about the results he
desired, so also did the rulers of the valley. The routines of the
individuals were studied and classified, and if any work was required to
be done, those individuals whose routines were appropriate were selected
and brought to the required spot. Now to effect this a careful study of
the different routines was necessary, and also a knowledge of what stage
they were at. For it would be no use bringing an individual whose
routine was almost at an end to a work which was just beginning. Hence
the most delicate instruments and processes had been devised for
measuring the amount of feeling experienced by any individual, whether
of pleasure or of pain, and a careful classification had been made of
all routines.
But it is best to study the constitution of the state in a regular
order, and the questions of pleasure and pain considered as such were
esteemed the most important.
The inhabitants knew that they sought pleasure and avoided pain, and the
great object was to make their life more pleasurable. Two means were
adopted, the banishing of the causes of pain, and the obtaining causes
of pleasure.
By causes of pain and pleasure they meant those objects with which the
king had associated the feelings of pleasure and pain in the equal and
opposite moments into which he had divided their apathy.
But in this respect they were in error to a certain extent, for it was
not so much in respect to things as in respect to actions that the king
separated their apathy into pleasure and pain. For instance, there was a
peculiar species of shell which was found in many parts of the valley,
covered with strange and involved lines and marks. Now the king had
struck the apathy of the inhabitants into two moments with regard to
this shell, one of pain connected with tracing out the twistings and
interweavings of the hues on the shell, one of pleasure in contemplating
the shell when the twistings and interweavings had been deciphered. Now
it was the custom of the inhabitants to call the shell in its
undeciphered condition a painful object, in its deciphered condition a
pleasant object. And whoever could, would get as many deciphered shells
as possible and experience the wave of pleasure in looking at them.
Now in the earlier ages those who deciphered the shells, or did work of
a similar kind, had been forced to do it; they were a kind of slaves
dependent on the will of their masters, who took away all the pleasures
of their life. But in these earlier ages a great danger arose, for when
all the pleasure was taken away by their masters, great masses of these
slaves sank into apathy, and it seemed as if the valley was sinking into
deadness.
Now this was a great terror with the inhabitants whose life was
pleasurable, and at length they determined that there should not be any
more of these slaves. But each of the inhabitants when he worked for
another had to have it made worth his while.
In this way a great diminution took place in the pleasure-giving power
of the so-called pleasurable things. For if a man had had it made worth
his while to decipher one of these shells, he had had a great deal or
nearly all of the pain he spent in doing it counterbalanced by the
pleasure given him to induce him to do it. Hence when the shell was
handed over there was not much to enjoy in it; for by the law of the
valley the pleasure and the pain were equal, and the decipherer, not
having gone through so much pain on the whole, there was but little
pleasure to be got.
In fact, at this time the fashion of filling the houses of the more
powerful of the inhabitants with the so-called pleasurable things had
somewhat gone out, and it had passed into a proverb, “It is better to
decipher your own shells.”
Now it may be considered strange how it was that some of the inhabitants
could get other of the inhabitants to decipher the shells for them at
all, or, at any rate, to decipher them so that there was any balance of
pleasure left with the shells at all. But this power on the part of some
of the inhabitants depended on the general action of the king. For by
bearing the difference of pain in innumerable respects in the life of
each he made life a pleasure (on the whole) to each, and they strove
each to preserve their own life which was a source of pleasure. And some
of the more powerful inhabitants had the power of denying to the rest,
unless they laboured for them, the means of continuing to exist.
Consequently it was possible for things to be obtained by the more
powerful which had a balance of pleasure in them.
But the authorities who had studied the life of the valley in relation
to pleasure and pain, saw that there was a danger in this relation of
the more powerful to the less powerful. For as the numbers of the
inhabitants increased the power grew more and more concentrated in the
hands of a few, and there was a tendency for the inhabitants in general
to be compelled more and more to go through the painful part of actions,
leaving the pleasurable parts for the more powerful. And every now and
then, before the council of wise men regulated the matter, great masses
of the inhabitants passed off in a state of apathy. So they had many
laws to restrict the action of the more powerful of the inhabitants;
and, indeed, the more powerful of the inhabitants were ready to frame
these laws themselves, and were willing to obey them, for they did not
like to see portions of the inhabitants going off into a state of
apathy.
But not only in this respect, but also in every other, the wise men
regulated the affairs of the valley so as to make life more pleasurable.
They had severe laws against any one who deprived another of pleasure
without his consent, by violence or deceit. They did all they could to
ward off a state of apathy. But in one respect beyond all others they
were full of care and precaution. And this was in guarding against such
sources of trouble, anxiety, and pain which could be removed from the
community as a whole. Anything tending to lower the standard of comfort
as a whole was carefully removed. Irregularities were reduced as much as
possible; and, in one respect, a great step had been taken. It had not
been carried in the council of wise men without great opposition, but it
had at length been passed into law.
Any child born in the valley which had any incurable disease, or any
gross deformity, or which by its delicacy seemed likely to cause more
pain than pleasure in the valley, was at once put out of existence. The
gain to the inhabitants of the valley of this was in their eyes immense;
for their sight was offended by no deformities, and the painful offices
of attending to the sick had undergone a considerable diminution since
this edict had been passed into law.
The important duty of deciding on the claims of every infant that was
born to a painless extinction was confined to a band of inspectors, who
stayed for a short time only in any one part of the valley, lest they
should become biassed by personal acquaintance with the individuals for
whose children their offices were called into requisition.