Those who sought to produce a super-brain embarked upon a great
enterprise of research and experiment in a remote corner of the planet.
It is unnecessary to tell in detail how they fared. Working first in
secret, they later strove to persuade the world to approve of their
scheme, but only succeeded in dividing mankind into two parties. The
body politic was torn asunder. There were religious wars. But after a
few centuries of intermittent bloodshed the two sects, those who sought
to produce communicants and those who sought the super-brain, settled
down in different regions to pursue their respective aims unmolested. In
time each developed into a kind of nation, united by a religious faith
and crusading spirit. There was little cultural intercourse between the
two.
Those who desired to produce the super-brain employed four methods,
namely selective breeding, manipulation of the hereditary factors in
germ cells (cultivated in the laboratory), manipulation of the
fertilized ovum (cultivated also in the laboratory), and manipulation of
the growing body. At first they produced innumerable tragic abortions.
These we need not observe. But at length, several thousand years after
the earliest experiments, something was produced which seemed to promise
success. A human ovum had been carefully selected, fertilized in the
laboratory, and largely reorganized by artificial means. By inhibiting
the growth of the embryo’s body, and the lower organs of the brain
itself, and at the same time greatly stimulating the growth of the
cerebral hemispheres, the dauntless experimenters succeeded at last in
creating an organism which consisted of a brain twelve feet across, and
a body most of which was reduced to a mere vestige upon the
under-surface of the brain. The only parts of the body which were
allowed to attain the natural size were the arms and hands. These sinewy
organs of manipulation were induced to key themselves at the shoulders
into the solid masonry which formed the creature’s house. Thus they were
able to get a purchase for their work. The hands were the normal
six-fingered hands of the Third Men, very greatly enlarged and improved.
The fantastic organism was generated and matured in a building designed
to house both it and the complicated machinery which was necessary to
keep it alive. A self-regulating pump, electrically driven, served it as
a heart. A chemical factory poured the necessary materials into its
blood and removed waste products, thus taking the place of digestive
organs and the normal battery of glands. Its lungs consisted of a great
room full of oxidizing tubes, through which a constant wind was driven
by an electric fan. The same fan forced air through the artificial
organs of speech. These organs were so constructed that the natural
nerve-fibres, issuing from the speech centres of the brain, could
stimulate appropriate electrical controls so as to produce sounds
identical with those which they would have produced from a living throat
and mouth. The sensory equipment of this trunkless brain was a blend of
the natural and the artificial. The optic nerves were induced to grow
out along two flexible probosces, five feet long, each of which bore a
huge eye at the end. But by a very ingenious alteration of the structure
of the eye, the natural lens could be moved aside at will, so that the
retina could be applied to any of a great diversity of optical
instruments. The ears also could be projected upon stalks, and were so
arranged that the actual nerve endings could be brought into contact
with artificial resonators of various kinds, or could listen directly to
the microscopic rhythms of the most minute organisms. Scent and taste
were developed as a chemical sense, which could distinguish almost all
compounds and elements by their flavour. Pressure, warmth, and cold were
detected only by the fingers, but there with great subtlety. Sensory
pain was to have been eliminated from the organism altogether; but this
end was not achieved.
The creature was successfully launched upon life, and was actually kept
alive for four years. But though at first all went well, in his second
year the unfortunate child, if such he may be called, began to suffer
severe pain, and to show symptoms of mental derangement. In spite of all
that his devoted foster-parents could do, he gradually sank into
insanity and died. He had succumbed to his own brain weight and to
certain failures in the chemical regulation of his blood.
We may overlook the next four hundred years, during which sundry vain
attempts were made to repeat the great experiment more successfully. Let
us pass on to the first true individual of the fourth human species. He
was produced in the same artificial manner as his forerunners, and was
designed upon the same general plan. His mechanical and chemical
machinery, however, was far more efficient; and his makers expected
that, owing to careful adjustments of the mechanisms of growth and
decay, he would prove to be immortal. His general plan, also, was
changed in one important respect. His makers built a large circular
‘brain turret’ which they divided with many partitions, radiating from a
central space, and covered everywhere with pigeon-holes. By a technique
which took centuries to develop, they induced the cells of the growing
embryonic brain to spread outwards, not as normal hemispheres of
convolutions, but into the pigeon-holes which had been prepared for
them. Thus the artificial ‘cranium’ had to be a roomy turret of
ferro-concrete some forty feet in diameter. A door and a passage led
from the outer world into the centre of the turret, and thence other
passages radiated between tiers of little cupboards. Innumerable tubes
of glass, metal, and a kind of vulcanite conveyed blood and chemicals
over the whole system. Electric radiators preserved an even warmth in
every cupboard, and throughout the innumerable carefully protected
channels of the nerve fibres. Thermometers, dials, pressure gauges,
indicators of all sorts, informed the attendants of every physical
change in this strange half-natural, half-artificial system, this
preposterous factory of mind.
Eight years after its inception the organism had filled its brain room,
and attained the mentality of a new-born infant. His advance to maturity
seemed to his foster-parents dishearteningly slow. Not till almost at
the end of his fifth decade could he be said to have reached the mental
standard of a bright adolescent. But there was no real reason for
disappointment. Within another decade this pioneer of the Fourth Men had
learned all that the Third Men could teach him, and had also seen that a
great part of their wisdom was folly. In manual dexterity he could
already vie with the best; but though manipulation afforded him intense
delight, he used his hands almost wholly in service of his tireless
curiosity. In fact, it was evident that curiosity was his main
characteristic. He was a huge bump of curiosity equipped with most
cunning hands. A department of state had been created to look after his
nurture and education. An army of learned persons was kept in readiness
to answer his impatient questions and assist him in his own scientific
experiments. Now that he had attained maturity these unfortunate pundits
found themselves hopelessly outclassed, and reduced to mere clerks,
bottle-washers, and errand-boys. Hundreds of his servants were for ever
scurrying into every corner of the planet to seek information and
specimens; and the significance of their errands was by now often quite
beyond the range of their own intelligence. They were careful, however,
not to let their ignorance appear to the public. On the contrary, they
succeeded in gaining much prestige from the mere mysteriousness of their
errands.
The great brain was wholly lacking in all normal instinctive responses,
save curiosity and constructiveness. Instinctive fear he knew not,
though of course he was capable of cold caution in any circumstances
which threatened to damage him and hinder his passionate research. Anger
he knew not, but only an adamantine firmness in the face of opposition.
Normal hunger and thirst he knew not, but only an experience of
faintness when his blood was not properly supplied with nutriment. Sex
was wholly absent from his mentality. Instinctive tenderness and
instinctive group-feeling were not possible to him, for he was without
the bowels of mercy. The heroic devotion of his most intimate servants
called forth no gratitude, but only cold approval.
At first he interested himself not at all in the affairs of the society
which maintained him, served his every whim, and adored him. But in time
he began to take pleasure in suggesting brilliant solutions of all the
current problems of social organization. His advice was increasingly
sought and accepted. He became autocrat of the state. His own
intelligence and complete detachment combined with the people’s
superstitious reverence to establish him far more securely than any
ordinary tyrant. He cared nothing for the petty troubles of his people,
but he was determined to be served by a harmonious, healthy, and potent
race. And as relaxation from the more serious excitement of research in
physics and astronomy, the study of human nature was not without
attractions. It may seem strange that one so completely devoid of human
sympathy could have the tact to govern a race of the emotional Third
Men. But he had built up for himself a very accurate behaviouristic
psychology; and like the skilful master of animals, he knew unerringly
how much could be expected of his people, even though their emotions
were almost wholly foreign to him. Thus, for instance, while he
thoroughly despised their admiration of animals and plants, and their
religion of life, he soon learned not to seem hostile to these
obsessions, but rather to use them for his own ends. He himself was
interested in animals only as material for experiments. In this respect
his people readily helped him, partly because he assured them that his
goal was the further improvement of all types, partly because they were
fascinated by his complete disregard, in his experimentation, of the
common techniques for preventing pain. The orgy of vicarious suffering
awakened in his people the long-suppressed lust in cruelty which, in
spite of their intuitive insight into animal nature, was so strong a
factor in the third human species.
Little by little the great brain probed the material universe and the
universe of mentality. He mastered the principles of biological
evolution, and constructed for his own delight a detailed history of
life on earth. He learned, by marvellous archaeological technique, the
story of all the earlier human peoples, and of the Martian episode,
matters which had remained hidden from the Third Men. He discovered the
principles of relativity and the quantum theory, the nature of the atom
as a complex system of wave trains. He measured the cosmos; and with his
delicate instruments he counted the planetary systems in much of the
remote universe. He casually solved, to his own satisfaction at least,
the ancient problems of good and evil, of mind and its object, of the
one and the many, and of truth and error. He created many new
departments of state for the purpose of recording his discoveries in an
artificial language which he devised for the purpose. Each department
consisted of many colleges of carefully bred and educated specialists
who could understand the subject of their own department to some extent.
But the coordination of all, and true insight into each, lay with the
great brain alone.