Passing on to the other great building, where the other wise men meet,
it is right to describe what may be called the intellectual
development—as the foregoing was the moral development of the valley.
The course which the opinions of the thinkers in the valley had gone
through was the following.
At first they had no clear ideas, but all manner of mere opinions and
fancies. At last they apprehended certain general tendencies—such as
that towards the centre of the valley, and they explained many
inclinations which had before been puzzling to them by this. And
stimulated by this great discovery they examined more and more closely.
And they found many special tendencies like that towards the centre of
the valley, which the king had called into existence, and which he let
go on as a general rule, unless he wished the contrary. And they also
succeeded in nearly isolating the simplest routines, and so practically
could observe the type of the king’s plan.
They saw that one act A was succeeded by another act B. And not taking
into account that one was pleasant the other painful, they measured the
amount of sensation present in the two acts. And then they took the next
pair of acts, namely, A and B over again, and measured the amount of
sensation present in them; and they found that the amount of sensation
gradually diminished. And at first they thought that sensation gradually
came to a stop; but afterwards they noticed that other actions were
started in the neighbourhood of the routine A B as that diminished in
point of feeling.
Now, of course, these other actions were started by the king with the
pain-bearing power set free from the routine A B, as above described.
But not knowing anything about this action on the part of the king, or
about the king at all, the conclusion arrived at was this: That
sensation transmits itself. If it does not continue in the routine A B,
that part which does not continue passes on to the other routines, C D,
E F, &c.
Then they measured very carefully; and they found, as nearly as they
could measure, the routines which sprang up as the routine A B died away
were equal in sensation to the loss in the routine A B, A B. And from
this they concluded that the amount of sensation or feeling was
constant. They called it living force, and said that it must transmit
itself and, wherever it appeared, be equal in its total amount to what
it was at first. But after a time, with more delicate measurements and
more patient thought, they found that some of the sensation was still
unaccounted for.
For consider any routine consisting of the acts A, B; A, B; A, B. In
order to make any pair of acts A, B worth while, the king bore a certain
amount of pain. Referring to the numbers which we took before, if there
were 1000 of pleasure in A there would only be 998 of pain in B. Thus
the sensation was not equal in the two acts A and B. Some of the
sensations had gone, and the portion of sensation we are now
considering—the portion by which B was less than A—had not gone in
starting other routines. This loss could not be accounted for as they
accounted for the difference in sensation between the first action A B
and the second action, consisting of the acts A and B in the routine.
There was a loss of sensation which was counterbalanced by the gain in
sensation in other routines.
But besides this there was a further loss. Some sensation went off, not
to be recovered in any routine they knew.
Now it was the bearing on the part of the king which produced the
appearance of the passing away of sensation altogether, so that the act
B was less in amount of sensation than the act A. But the inhabitants—at
least the wise ones—were firmly convinced that sensation could not be
annihilated or lessened. So they came to the conclusion that sensation
was passing off into a form from which it never reappeared, so that it
could affect them. They conceived it still to exist, but to be
irrecoverably gone from the life of the inhabitants of the valley.
Taking the numbers we have taken, and the simple instances we have
supposed, this course of reasoning appears straightforward enough. But
in reality so complicated was the state of things in the valley, and the
proportion of pain which the king bore in each single action so minute,
that to have arrived at this result implied powers of investigation of
no mean order.
It is interesting to mention the names which these investigators gave in
the valley. In the performance of the pleasant act A, they said that the
being acquired greater animation. In going through the painful act B,
they said that he passed into a position of advantage. They used the
term advantage because, having completed the painful act B, he was ready
to begin the pleasant part of the action A over again. And in this part
he manifested more animation.
And now although acts of greater animation and greater advantage
succeeded one another, and although the new total of the sensation in
the act of a being was very nearly equalled by that in a subsequent act,
still there was not—they had to confess there was not—a complete
equality. Some of the sensation had certainly gone from the sphere in
which the inhabitants could feel it.
We see that this sensation which was gone was in reality the
pain-bearing of the king, which set all their life going.
But they knew nothing of this, and formed a very different conclusion.
They said: “If some of the sensation is continually going and
disappearing from the life of the inhabitants of the valley—if this is
the case, although the sensation may not be destroyed, it is certainly
lost to us.”
And then they thought: “Surely the amount of sensation must be always
the same; if some of it continually goes off into a form in which we
cannot feel it, that portion which is left behind, and which we feel,
must be continually growing less.”
Hence they concluded that the sensation in the valley was gradually
running down. Less and less was being felt. After a time, which they
calculated with some show of precision, all feeling will have left the
inhabitants and gone off in some irrecoverable form. All the beings of
the valley will sink into apathy.
Thus coming in the course of their investigations upon the action of the
king, which was the continual cause of all life, they apprehended it as
the gradual annihilation of life.
The small building between the two council halls remains to be noticed.
Now when the king had connected pleasure and pain with different acts to
be performed by the inhabitants of the valley, he had of necessity to
let the pleasant one be the one that came first in the order of its
possible performance. And then by the device of the curved rays he had
brought it about that the inhabitants went through the painful act
consequent on the pleasurable one, the two together forming the complete
action which the king had designed. But this chain was not very secure.
The inhabitants had a tendency to go through the pleasurable act and
leave the painful act undone.
Now in things which necessarily concerned their life, the king would, by
repeatedly bearing the pain of the painful act, continually set the
beings going again; for when they had performed the pleasant act they
were landed in a state of torpor, until the pain of the painful act had
been borne by them or for them. Now if this act of which they took the
pleasant and left the painful part undone was in the main current of
their lives, the king would over and over again, by bearing the pain,
bring those who had shirked the painful part into a position of
advantage again, so that they could begin the routine afresh with
another pleasant act. And often when thus started again they would take
to the routine, and bear the pain in the painful act themselves. But
many, after assisting them again and again, the king was obliged to let
sink into apathy, such namely as always left the painful part of the
action undone.
Now the little building was the council hall or investigation chamber of
the searchers out of new pleasures. And by new pleasures they meant
something of the following kind. With the pleasant and painful acts
which made up the main routines of their life, it was not safe to take
the pleasant and leave the painful acts, for that gradually led to their
sinking into apathy. But there were many routines which the king had
instituted besides the main ones. And if the pleasant part of the action
constituting these secondary routines were taken, then there followed no
tendency to lethargy in the main current of their lives, but they simply
had a pleasure the more. Of course the pain of the painful act had to be
borne, but they not going through with it left it for the king to bear.
Long ago, through one of the inhabitants of the valley with whom he had
communicated, the king had sent a message, asking the inhabitants not to
take the pleasant part of an action without the connected painful part.
But now all memory of this message was lost, and the little building had
been built, as a council hall or investigation chamber for the searching
out of pleasurable acts. In it all possible novelties of action were
discussed. And the pleasant parts of them being described, exactly how
far they were pleasurable, and in what degree they were pleasurable, the
information was made public throughout the land.