When I awoke, Acquilla was standing at the side of my couch. I rubbed
my eyes. The room through its glass walls was flooded with an agreeable
modified sunlight.
“I must have overslept,” I said.
“You’ve slept a whole day, but now you ought to feel splendidly,” she
replied eagerly.
“It’s true. I don’t remember when I’ve felt so alive and keen. And I
feel a wolfish appetite.”
“How fast your hair grows,” said Acquilla passing her hand over my
face, “and how wiry it is.”
“Don’t tell me that men don’t shave any more!”
“Oh, not for a long while here. In Southern races you occasionally
see curious throwbacks. How funny it feels,” she added, again taking
liberties with my chin. “You know I rather like it.”
“Acquilla,” I said solemnly, “I am beginning to be worried about my
fellow men. What have you done with your brothers?”
“I’m afraid you will be rather upset,” she said, smiling, “but you are
so different from the men of today. You are a reasoning creature and
will understand, I am sure.”
“I reserve judgment, but meantime I am exceedingly apprehensive.”
We breakfasted out of doors, in a charming little bower of fragrant
roses. A machinot waited on us with a dexterity that was little short
of uncanny. Twice during the meal Acquilla rose and went into the
house, probably to give the orders for the day. Each time true to the
precepts of an excellent training, I rose and waited until she resumed
her seat.
“Why do you get up so often?” said Acquilla the second time.
“A gentleman in my day always rose when a lady did,” I answered with a
touch of asperity. “It was a deference we paid the sex of our mothers.
We called it good manners.”
“What a strange idea. You placed women on an inferior scale and
flattered them by treating them as your superiors.”
I must confess that after a moment’s deliberation I found no reply
adequate.
“What inconceivable sentimentalists you men really were,” continued
Acquilla reflectively.
“It was an attitude, of course, that descended from the age of
chivalry--the service of the strong towards the weak.”
“All vanity. You preferred that attitude to acknowledging our equality.”
“Well, it seems now the situation is reversed. May I ask what is _your_
attitude to my unfortunate sex?”
This question evidently perplexed Acquilla for reasons I was to learn
later. Perhaps she regretted the indiscretion of her previous remarks.
But after a moment she replied.
“As a sex, yes, we consider the male inferior, though, of course, we
make exceptions in the case of outstanding merit. To a small element
who distinguish themselves in the arts and sciences we give modified
political rights--chiefly advisory.”
I sat up and stared at her.
“How long since you have taken away the vote from men?”
“Oh, men have been disfranchised for over a century,” said Acquilla
carelessly. “The age of reason could not have been achieved in any
other way.”
“And they submit to it--tamely?”
“Why not? They are quite happy, I assure you. There are a few radical
thinkers among us who have lately raised the cry of votes for men, but
this heresy is confined chiefly to the brunettes and the Histriones. It
will die out naturally.”
“But the men themselves,” I exclaimed indignantly. “After all, there is
the appeal to force.”
“What can they do? They are outnumbered twenty five to one. My dear
man, let me urge you to put aside your incurable sentimentality and
your traditional way of looking at things, and try to appreciate the
age of reason, in which you are now living. Soon, you will see how
your males are living and enjoying themselves--and afterwards tell me
candidly if we have not solved the sex problem.”
“One man to twenty five women!!” I cried, hearing nothing else. “But
then you must have deliberately suppressed, socially murdered--”
“All that was done long ago,” said Acquilla interrupting. “Don’t excite
yourself so, Bogardus. How like a man! Emotion should never precede
knowledge. How agitated you are before you have even investigated.”
“Is this true everywhere?”
“Naturally. When the male civilization collapsed in the sanguinary
World War it would have been a tragic futility to have returned man to
power again, wouldn’t it?”
“So it is an Amazon state that we have come to!”
“You have said it. But don’t forget that an Amazon civilization existed
three thousand years ago.”
I contained my wrath and asked with new curiosity:
“And this Amazon state, is it modelled on our communistic or despotic
theories?”
“You may call it a despotism, but it has certainly nothing to do with
communism or socialism.”
“Then democracy has survived?”
“How absurd! You will be quoting to me the sentimentalities of Rousseau
and your Declaration of Independence! ‘All men are created free and
equal.’”
“Well?”
“My dear Bogardus, that was a male egotism. All men created free and
equal! No woman ever really believed that!”
“There you have scored,” I cried laughing. “I must admit that women did
_not_ believe that.”
“Exactly, and that is true in our sex, too. Even with our scientific
methods of advanced eugenics, we create types but never equalities.”
“Just what then, is the basis of the modern state?”
“You can’t guess? And yet it was written on the walls of history for
anyone to recognize. Well, Bogardus, I’ll help you. But first, you had
a civilization based on the family. The fatherhead of course.”
“Then the tribal chief.”
“The kinghead, of course. Then oligarchies, democracies, and
demagogueries. Now what were they based on? The army, the church or the
mob.”
“True,” I admitted, interested in spite of myself.
“But after all, what makes the difference between human beings, the
superior mind and the average?”
“Power.”
“In your days power became an artificial inheritance. In our days power
is knowledge.”
“Knowledge is power. I remember writing that as a child in a Spencerian
copy book, I think,” I said meditatively.
“Our state of course, is founded on the University, as any logical
civilization must be. Success is simply the process of elimination.
That is what the University accomplishes scientifically and
impartially.”
“But then,” I asked, remembering certain remarks, “you are organized
on a system of castes.”
“True. We have rejected your democratic sentimentalisms and have
returned to the first principle of nature, the survival of the fittest.
With that we have adopted Napoleon’s conception of an aristocracy of
achievement.”
“Very good,” I said, “and all you say interests me keenly. For
Acquilla, you must know that there were many solitary thinkers, even in
my day, who held with you. In fact, the British sought to reinvigorate
their own aristocracy by the generous introduction of strong new
personalities. But the weakness in all such systems is, of course, in
the decline in vigor and effort which comes with the generations that
inherit. How do you handle the second generation?”
“It is a pleasure to converse with you, Bogardus,” said Acquilla,
brightening up. “Truly, you have the mind of a woman. The answer is
simple. You have correctly pointed out the danger of all inherited
institutions. We have eliminated it.”
“How so?”
“There is no second generation.”
“You--you suppress the children of your aristocracy?” I cried, gazing
at her in horror.
“Not exactly. But we have suppressed the family which amounts to the
same thing. You see, as our great philosopher, Manfreda, has pointed
out in her epochal work which led to the final abolishment of your
archaic tribal institutions, not only did the family idea constitute a
rebellious element in society but--”
“One moment, I do not quite seize the implication.”
“Oh, you must read Manfreda, the greatest creative thinker of all
times. You didn’t understand? But what is the object of the family;
the strong must carry with them the weak. The moment a leader begins
to provide for his family, his loyalty is to his children and not to
the state. The parasitic second generation of which you speak retained
artificial power, only by inheritance. Is that plain?”
“As you state it, it’s made plausible.”
“Furthermore, Bogardus, was not the family in itself an institution
curiously contrary to the principle of the survival of the fittest?”
“In what way?”
“Was it not generally the weak that preyed upon the strong? In the
family as you knew it, how often was the strongest member sacrificed
for the incompetents?”
“The idea is a novel one--”
“Reflect.”
“I am reflecting--yes--and many incidents come to my mind that bear out
your statement. But--”
“Now you are going to talk morality.”
“I was.”
“Let us postpone morality for the present.”
“I am curious to know how you would define it.”
“Morality is order. Immorality disorder.”
“I like the definition.”
“There is no other possible. So you see until you are conversant with
our new institutions and manners, you cannot argue on morality in the
terms of the twentieth century, any more than you would have argued
then in the terms of the middle ages.”
“To go back a little,” I said, keenly interested, I must confess, “may
I ask some questions?”
“Do.”
“You have abolished marriage and the family, I perceive, but how do you
handle the question of the children?”
“The determination of sex was solved in the last century. Birth control
was in force all over the world long before that.”
“So you permit birth control?” I exclaimed.
“Permit? It is obligatory. As science has diminished the need of labor,
we have met the challenge of the machine by successively reducing the
population. Anything else would be unscientific. The production of
females and males is fixed for each country by the World Commission, of
which I am a member. Our decisions are immutable and never disobeyed.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Fundamental laws are reduced to the smallest number and any wilful
infraction is punishable by death. In the case of the resistance of a
community we would wipe out that community,” Acquilla concluded calmly.
“Acquilla, when you talk like that you make me shudder.”
“In your day,” replied Acquilla quickly, “you had thousands of laws and
expected them all to be broken.”
“But death--”
“The infraction of any law must be punishable by death if there is any
necessity for the law.”
“But an unjust law--”
“There are no unjust laws because there is no oppression of the
individual. As for the death penalty (which of course, is simply the
arrestation of life by means of the Frigidrome) you would be astonished
to see how it has simplified the observance.”
“I shall reserve my opinion to our discussion on morality,” I said
obstinately. “But to continue; what do you do with the children when
they are born?”
“They are removed to the state nurseries immediately and brought up in
community.”
“And you never see them?”
“Never.”
“But the children?”
“Science has demonstrated that children to be entirely normal, must be
removed from the dangers of the mother or father complex. But Freud and
Bertrand Russell, in your day, must have realized that.”
“The mother and father complex, it is true, were held responsible for
many things.”
“You see we have really broken up the home in the interest of the
children.”
I felt a dizziness in my head and took a long breath.
“What is wrong, dear?” said Acquilla solicitously.
“I am trying to acquire your modern point of view,” I answered feebly.
“One thing occurs to me; why go through the torture of childbirth at
all?”
“In the first place childbearing has now no discomforts. In the
second place it is a duty imposed by the state and finally it has been
established that it is a process of nature that is essential to the
complete health and mental vigor of a woman.”
“Then all children are treated alike?”
“No, but the children of each caste, yes. For, Bogardus, it would be
absurd to say that a child of mine has no greater equipment than the
child of a servant.”
“Naturally.”
“Eugenics has taught us to develop inherited characteristics. We breed
not only for physical form but for developed tendencies. A great
scientist or a philosopher in her offspring, with the proper mating,
produces a finer brain, naturally. Nothing more complex in that than
breeding for speed in horses or scent in dogs.”
“What then, Acquilla, is the arrangement of castes?”
“The highest caste is called the Minervenes. This comprises the highest
types of mind, the scientists, the philosophers, the teachers, the
doctors and the governors or administrators.”
“What has become of the lawyers?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean by lawyers. What were lawyers?
Do you mean law makers?”
“On the contrary.” I hesitated before an obvious witticism before
replying. “Lawyers interpreted the laws. In my day there were so many
laws and so often in conflict that no one ever contemplated any step
without recourse to a lawyer.”
“Laws that have to be interpreted. How strange!”
“But how can you leave property without a lawyer to draw up the will?”
“There is no one to leave property to. Everything returns to the state,
and the state fixes the income of each according to merit.”
“But surely there are such things as income taxes?”
Acquilla shook her head.
“But in your life don’t you buy or sell?”
“Certainly, but all this is arranged through government agencies.”
“Then there were the corporation lawyers who found the way to
accomplish results that were seemingly forbidden by laws.”
“There are no privately owned corporations.”
“But the criminal lawyers--surely there must be someone to represent
the individual who is accused of breaking your laws?”
“Why?”
“Well, manifestly someone with the knowledge of the law must advise
the accused and plead his case before the jury.”
“My dear Bogardus, criminology is an exact science, as you will see. We
have judges but no juries.”
“But the laws of testimony?”
“Confusion, mystification. We simply bring the accused before the judge
and ask him one question.”
“What question?”
“Why--‘Are you guilty?’ of course! Who knows better than the accused?”
“Very simple; if all women have forgotten how to lie.”
“But a lie is impossible. We apply the scientific test, the
detecto-vibrator, that records the truth or falsity of the answer by
the nervous reaction. That principle surely was known in your day.”
“True, but not in use. Manifestly then, there is no need of lawyers.
This, I admit cheerfully, is a great progress. Please continue.”
“The Minervenes are, of course, the supreme directing body in the
state. Then there are the Histriones who compose all the liberal
professions, the writers, musicians, actors, artists and architects.
Socially they rank with the Minervenes, but politically they have
nothing to do with the direction of the government, except as they may
indirectly influence ideas.”
“And they submit to this inferiority?”
“Submit? Inferiority? They claim it as their right to be exempt from
any such burden. Why should anyone with a creative gift wish to have
her valuable time diverted to the dry routine of government?”
I bowed.
“You have an answer to everything.”
“The third caste is the Vulcates, our great mechanics and engineers.
The fourth the Æsthetes, the arbiters of fashions, the decorators, the
great culinary artists, all those who study the greatest enjoyment
to be had out of life. The fifth are the Cerenes, the agricultural
producers, farmers, cattlewomen, dairywomen, wine makers. The sixth
caste, the Mercurenes, the artisans and manufacturers, and finally the
seventh caste, the Domesticates, the servants, the clerks, and the
police.”
“And are these castes rigid? Is there no hope of rising from one caste
to another?”
“There is nothing rigid about any of them, Bogardus, because there
is no inheritance. A woman’s caste is determined by her education.
Opportunity is open to everyone according to their merits. You will see
how this works out.
“We are going to visit the University?”
“Now,” said Acquilla, pointing to the open lawn at the bottom of the
park, where an aeromat was descending at this moment. “But I have a
busy day in Europa and will have to leave you to another guide.”
“Dulcina?” I said with simulated eagerness.
“You are attracted by her. Admit it!”
“I thought her interesting, more so than Carrilla or Dianne, who
are amusing but like all artists interested only in themselves,” I
replied adroitly. Again I was conscious of a translated personality in
the domineering presence of the Minervene, as though the sexes were
reversed and I was resorting to the artifices of the weaker.
“Dulcina is even more vain and egotistical,” said Acquilla
peremptorily, “and knows nothing outside her own talent.”
“Then it is not Dulcina?”
“Certainly not!”
“Carrilla?”
“It is not Carrilla!”
Before I could venture another guess, my lovely Dianne stepped out of
the aeromat and said, “Doctrina has an important meeting and asked me
to take her place.”