It is not possible to recount the stages by which the Fifth Men advanced
toward their greatest civilization and culture; for it is that fully
developed culture itself which concerns us. And even of their highest
achievement, which persisted for so many millions of years, I can say
but little, not merely because I must hasten to the end of my story, but
also because so much of that achievement lies wholly beyond the
comprehension of those for whom this book is intended. For I have at
last reached that period in the history of man when he first began to
reorganize his whole mentality to cope with matters whose very existence
had been hitherto almost completely hidden from him. The old aims
persist, and are progressively realized as never before; but also they
become increasingly subordinate to the requirements of new aims which
are more and more insistently forced upon him by his deepening
experience. Just as the interests and ideals of the First Men lie beyond
the grasp of their ape contemporaries, so the interests and ideals of
the Fifth Men in their full development lie beyond the grasp of the
First Men. On the other hand, just as, in the life of primitive man,
there is much which would be meaningful even to the ape, so in the life
of the Fifth Men much remains which is meaningful even to the First Men.
Conceive a world-society developed materially far beyond the wildest
dreams of America. Unlimited power, derived partly from the artificial
disintegration of atoms, partly from the actual annihilation of matter
through the union of electrons and protons to form radiation, completely
abolished the whole grotesque burden of drudgery which hitherto had
seemed the inescapable price of civilization, nay of life itself. The
vast economic routine of the world-community was carried on by the mere
touching of appropriate buttons. Transport, mining, manufacture, and
even agriculture, were performed in this manner. And indeed in most
cases the systematic coordination of these activities was itself the
work of self-regulating machinery. Thus, not only was there no longer
need for any human beings to spend their lives in unskilled monotonous
labour, but further, much that earlier races would have regarded as
highly skilled though stereotyped work was now carried on by machinery.
Only the pioneering of industry, the endless exhilarating research,
invention, design, and reorganization, which is incurred by an
ever-changing society, still engaged the minds of men and women. And
though this work was of course immense, it could not occupy the whole
attention of a great world-community. Thus very much of the energy of
the race was free to occupy itself with other no less difficult and
exacting matters, or to seek recreation in its many admirable sports and
arts. Materially every individual was a multi-millionaire, in that he
had at his beck and call a great diversity of powerful mechanisms; but
also he was a penniless friar, for he had no vestige of economic control
over any other human being. He could fly through the upper air to the
ends of the earth in an hour, or hang idle among the clouds all day
long. His flying machine was no cumbersome aeroplane, but either a
wingless aerial boat, or a mere suit of overalls in which he could
disport himself with the freedom of a bird. Not only in the air, but in
the sea also, he was free. He could stroll about the ocean bed, or
gambol with the deep-sea fishes. And for habitation he could make his
home, as he willed, either in a shack in the wilderness or in one of the
great pylons which dwarfed the architecture even of the American age. He
could possess this huge palace in loneliness and fill it with his
possessions, to be automatically cared for without human service; or he
could join with others and create a hive of social life. All these
amenities he took for granted as the savage takes for granted the air
which he breathes. And because they were as universally available as
air, no one craved them in excess, and no one grudged another the use of
them.
Yet the population of the earth was now very numerous. Some ten thousand
million persons had their homes in the snow-capped pylons which covered
the continents with an open forest of architecture. Between these great
obelisks lay corn-land, park, and wilderness. For there were very many
areas of hill-country and forest which were preserved as playgrounds.
And indeed one whole continent, stretching from the Tropical to the
Arctic, was kept as nearly as possible in its natural state. This region
was chosen mainly for its mountains; for since most of the Alpine tracts
had by now been worn into insignificance by water and frost, mountains
were much prized. Into this Wild Continent individuals of all ages
repaired to spend many years at a time in living the life of primitive
man without any aid whatever for civilization. For it was recognized
that a highly sophisticated race, devoted almost wholly to art and
science, must take special measures to preserve its contact with the
primitive. Thus in the Wild Continent was to be found at any time a
sparse population of ‘savages’, armed with flint and bone, or more
rarely with iron, which they or their friends had wrested from the
earth. These voluntary primitives were intent chiefly upon hunting and
simple agriculture. Their scanty leisure was devoted to art, and
meditation, and to savouring fully all the primeval human values. Indeed
it was a hard life and a dangerous one that these intellectuals
periodically imposed on themselves. And though of course they had zest
in it, they often dreaded its hardship and the uncertainty that they
would ever return from it. For the danger was very real. The Fifth Men
had compensated for the Fourth Men’s foolish destruction of the animals
by creating a whole system of new types, which they set at large in the
Wild Continent; and some of these creatures were extremely formidable
carnivora, which man himself, armed only with primitive weapons, had
very good reason to fear. In the Wild Continent there was inevitably a
high death-rate. Many promising lives were tragically cut short. But it
was recognized that from the point of view of the race this sacrifice
was worth while, for the spiritual effects of the institution of
periodic savagery were very real. Beings whose natural span was three
thousand years, given over almost wholly to civilized pursuits, were
greatly invigorated and enlightened by an occasional decade in the wild.
The culture of the Fifth Men was influenced in many respects by their
‘telepathic’ communication with one another. The obvious advantages of
this capacity were now secured without its dangers. Each individual
could isolate himself at will from the radiation of his fellows, either
wholly or in respect of particular elements of his mental process; and
thus he was in no danger of losing his individuality. But, on the other
hand, he was immeasurably more able to participate in the experience of
others than were beings for whom the only possible communication was
symbolic. The result was that, though conflict of wills was still
possible, it was far more easily resolved by mutual understanding than
had ever been the case in earlier species. Thus there were no lasting
and no radical conflicts, either of thought or desire. It was
universally recognized that every discrepancy of opinion and of aim
could be abolished by telepathic discussion. Sometimes the process would
be easy and rapid; sometimes it could not be achieved without a patient
and detailed ‘laying of mind to mind’, so as to bring to light the point
where the difference originated.
One result of the general ‘telepathic’ facility of the species was that
speech was no longer necessary. It was still preserved and prized, but
only as a medium of art, not as a means of communication. Thinking, of
course, was still carried on largely by means of words; but in
communication there was no more need actually to speak the words than in
thinking in private. Written language remained essential for the
recording and storing of thought. Both language and the written
expression of it had become far more complex and accurate than they had
ever been, more faithful instruments for the expression and creation of
thought and emotion.
‘Telepathy’ combined with longevity and the extremely subtle
brain-structure of the species to afford each individual an immense
number of intimate friendships, and some slight acquaintance actually
with the whole race. This, I fear, must seem incredible to my readers,
unless they can be persuaded to regard it as a symptom of the high
mental development of the species. However that may be, it is a fact
that each person was aware of every other, at least as a face, or a
name, or the holder of a certain office. It is impossible to exaggerate
the effects of this facility of personal intercourse. It meant that the
species constituted at any moment, if not strictly a community of
friends, at least a vast club or college. Further, since each individual
saw his own mind reflected, as it were, in very many other minds, and
since there was great variety of psychological types, the upshot in each
individual was a very accurate self-consciousness.
In the Martians, ‘telepathic’ intercourse had resulted in a true
group-mind, a single psychical process embodied in the electro-magnetic
radiation of the whole race; but this group-mind was inferior in calibre
to the individual minds. All that was distinctive of an individual at
his best failed to contribute to the group-mind. But in the fifth human
species ‘telepathy’ was only a means of intercourse between individuals;
there was no true group-mind. On the other hand, telepathic intercourse
occurred even on the highest planes of experience. It was by
‘telepathic’ intercourse in respect of art, science, philosophy, and the
appreciation of personalities, that the public mind, or rather the
public culture, of the Fifth Men had being. With the Martians,
‘telepathic’ union took place chiefly by elimination of the differences
between individuals; with the Fifth Men ‘telepathic’ communication was,
as it were, a kind of spiritual multiplication of mental diversity, by
which each mind was enriched with the wealth of ten thousand million.
Consequently each individual was, in a very real sense, the cultured
mind of the species; but there were as many such minds as there were
individuals. There was no additional racial mind over and above the
minds of the individuals. Each individual himself was a conscious centre
which participated in, and contributed to, the experience of all other
centres.
This state of affairs would not have been possible had not the
world-community been able to direct so much of its interest and energy
into the higher mental activities. The whole structure of society was
fashioned in relation to its best culture. It is almost impossible to
give even an inkling of the nature and aims of this culture, and to make
it believable that a huge population should have spent scores of
millions of years not wholly, not even chiefly, on industrial
advancement, but almost entirely on art, science, and philosophy,
without ever repeating itself or falling into ennui I can only point out
that, the higher a mind’s development, the more it discovers in the
universe to occupy it.
Needless to say, the Fifth Men had early mastered all those paradoxes of
physical science which had so perplexed the First Men. Needless to say,
they had a very complete knowledge of the geography of the cosmos and of
the atom. But again and again the very foundations of their science were
shattered by some new discovery, so that they had patiently to
reconstruct the whole upon an entirely new plan. At length, however,
with the clear formulation of the principles of psycho-physics, in which
the older psychology and the older physics were held, so to speak, in
chemical combination, they seemed to have built upon the rock. In this
science, the fundamental concepts of psychology were given a physical
meaning, and the fundamental concepts of physics were stated in a
psychological manner. Further, the most fundamental relations of the
physical universe were found to be of the same nature as the fundamental
principles of art. But, and herein lay mystery and horror even for the
Fifth Men, there was no shred of evidence that this aesthetically
admirable cosmos was the work of a conscious artist, nor yet that any
mind would ever develop so greatly as to be able to appreciate the Whole
in all its detail and unity.
Since art seemed to the Fifth Men to be in some sense basic to the
cosmos, they were naturally very much preoccupied with artistic
creation. Consequently, all those who were not social or economic
organizers, or scientific researchers, or pure philosophers, were by
profession creative artists or handicraftsmen. That is to say, they were
engaged on the production of material objects of various kinds, whose
form should be aesthetically significant to the receiver. In some cases
the material object was a pattern of spoken words, in others pure music,
in others moving coloured shapes, in others a complex of steel cubes and
bars, in others some translation of the human figure into a particular
medium, and so on. But also the aesthetic impulse expressed itself in
the production, by hand, of innumerable common utensils, indulging
sometimes in lavish decoration, trusting at other times to the beauty of
function. Every medium of art that had ever been employed was employed
by the Fifth Men, and innumerable new vehicles were also used. They
prized on the whole more highly those kinds of art which were not
static, but involved time as well as space, for as a race they were
peculiarly fascinated by time.
These innumerable artists held that they were doing something of great
importance. The cosmos was to be regarded as an aesthetic unity in four
dimensions, and of inconceivable complexity. Human works of pure art
were thought of as instruments through which man might behold and admire
some aspect of the cosmic beauty. They were said to focus together
features of the cosmos too vast and elusive for man otherwise to
apprehend their form. The work of art was sometimes likened to a
compendious mathematical formula expressive of some immense and
apparently chaotic field of facts. But in the case of art, it was said,
the unity which the artistic object elicited was one in which factors of
vital nature and of mind itself were essential members.
The race thus deemed itself to be engaged upon a great enterprise both
of discovery and creation in which each individual was both an
originator of some unique contribution, and an appraiser of all.
Now, as the years advanced in millions and in decades of millions, it
began to be noticed that the movement of world-culture was in a manner
spiral. There would be an age during which the interest of the race was
directed almost wholly upon certain tracts or aspects of existence; and
then, after perhaps a hundred thousand years, these would seem to have
been fully cultivated, and would be left fallow. During the next epoch
attention would be in the main directed to other spheres, and then
afterwards to yet others, and again others. But at length a return would
be made to the fields that had been deserted, and it would be discovered
that they could now miraculously bear a millionfold the former crop.
Thus, in both science and art man kept recurring again and again to the
ancient themes, to work over them once more in meticulous detail and
strike from them new truth and new beauty, such as, in the earlier
epoch, he could never have conceived. Thus it was that, though science
gathered to itself unfalteringly an ever wider and more detailed view of
existence, it periodically discovered some revolutionary general
principle in terms of which its whole content had to be given a new
significance. And in art there would appear in one age works
superficially almost identical with works of another age, yet to the
discerning eye incomparably more significant. Similarly, in respect of
human personality itself, those men and women who lived at the close of
the aeon of the Fifth Men could often discover in the remote beginning
of their own race beings curiously like themselves, yet, as it were,
expressed in fewer dimensions than their own many-dimensional natures.
As a map is like the mountainous land, or the picture like the
landscape, or indeed as the point and the circle are like the sphere,
so, and only so, the earlier Fifth Men resembled the flower of the
species.
Such statements would be in a manner true of any period of steady
cultural progress. But in the present instance they have a peculiar
significance which I must now somehow contrive to suggest.