t degrees of revolution and projection, some
of them inconceivably far away, at a distance of thousands of millions of
parsecs, often forming whole "clouds" of tens of thousands of galaxies. The
biggest of the galaxies are anything from 20,000 to 50,000 parsecs in
diameter, like the stellar island or Galaxy NN 89105 + SB 23, in the old
days known as M 31, or the Andromeda Nebula. This little, faintly gleaming,
nebulous cloud could be seen from Earth with the naked eye. Long before this
people had discovered the secret of this cloud. The nebula proved to be a
gigantic, wheel-shaped stellar system one and a half times the size of our
huge Galaxy. The study of the Andromeda Nebula, despite the fact that it was
450,000 parsecs distant from terrestrial observers, did much to help gain
knowledge of our own Galaxy.
Mven Mass remembered from childhood the magnificent photographs of the
various galaxies that had been obtained by means of electron inverted
pictures or by radio telescopes such as the gigantic Pamir and Patagonia
installations, each of them almost 400 kilometres in diameter, that
penetrated even deeper into the Cosmos. The galaxies, monster clusters of
billions of celestial bodies separated by distances of millions of parsecs,
had always aroused in him an irrepressible desire to know the laws of their
constitution, the story of their origin and their further evolution. The
main thing that intrigued every inhabitant of Earth was the possibility of
there being life on the countless planetary systems in these islands of the
Universe, the question of the fires of thought and knowledge that burned
there, of human civilizations in those infinitely distant spaces of the
Cosmos.
Three stars appeared on the screen that the ancients had named
Alpheratz, Mirach and Almak, (a, ft, y Andro-medae), arranged in an
ascending straight line. On either side of this line were the two galaxies
close to each other, the Andromeda Nebula or M 31, and the beautiful spiral
of M 33 in the Triangnlum Constellation. Mven Mass changed the metal film.
He was now looking at the galaxy known in ancient days as M 51, in the
Canes Venatici, 800,000 parsecs away. This was one of the few galaxies that
we see "flat," our line of sight being perpendicular to the plane of the
"wheel." It has a very bright, dense core made up of countless millions of
stars from which two spiral arms stretch out, each of them with similarly
dense star clusters at the beginning. Their long ends seem to get fainter
and more nebulous until they disappear into the darkness of space,
stretching for tens of thousands of parsecs from each other in opposite
directions. Between the arms, or main branches, there are short streams of
stellar condensations and clouds of luminous gas alternating with black
"voids," accumulations of dark matter; the bright arms are all curved like
the blades of a turbine.
The huge galaxy NGK 4565 in the Coma Berenices Constellation was a very
beautiful one. At a distance of a million parsecs it was seen edgeways.
Leaning over to one side, like a soaring bird, the galaxy spread its thin
disc, apparently consisting of spiral branches, over a huge area; the
central core was a greatly oblate spheroid that burned brightly and had the
appearance of a solid gleaming mass. It could be clearly seen that the
islands of stars were so flat that the galaxy could be compared to a thin
wheel belonging to some clockwork mechanism. The edges of the wheel were
indistinct, they seemed to merge into the bottomless void. Our Sun is
located on just such an edge of a galaxy together with a tiny speck of dust
called Earth that, linked by the power of knowledge with many inhabited
worlds, is spreading the wings of human thought over the infinity of the
Cosmos!
Mven Mass then switched the projector over to the galaxy NGK 4594 in
the Virgo Constellation; this galaxy, also visible in its equatorial plane,
had always interested him. It stood at a distance of ten million parsecs
from Earth and resembled a thick lentil of burning stellar material wrapped
in a layer of luminescent gas. A thick black line, a condensation of dark
material, cut the lentil along its equator. The galaxy looked like a
mysterious lantern shining out of an enormous abyss.
What worlds were hidden there, in a galaxy whose total radiation was
brighter than that of other galaxies and averaged that of an F class star?
Were there any mighty inhabited planets there? Was thought there also
grappling with the mysteries of nature?
The fact that the huge clusters of stars did not answer made Mven Mass
clench his fists. He realized the terrific distances involved-light from the
galaxy he was looking at travelled thirty-two million years to reach Earth.
Sixty-four million years would be required to exchange information!
Mven Mass selected another reel and on the screen there appeared a big,
bright, round patch of light amongst dispersed, faint stars. An irregular
black strip cut the patch in two, making the brightly gleaming fiery masses
on either side of it still brighter by contrast and thickening towards its
ends and overshadowing an extensive field of the burning gas that formed a
ring round the bright patch. This was a picture of colliding galaxies in the
Cygnus Constellation that had been obtained by the most remarkably ingenious
technical set-ups. This collision of giant galaxies, each equal in size to
our Galaxy or to the Andromeda Nebula, had long been known as a source of
radio emanation, probably the most powerful in the part of the Universe that
we could probe. Rapidly moving gas streams of colossal size set up
electromagnetic fields of such inconceivable power that they sent out news
of the titanic catastrophe to all ends of the Universe. Matter itself sent
out this alarm signal from a radio station with a power of a quintillion
megawatts. So great was the distance to the galaxies, however, that the
picture on the screen showed its state millions of years before. The present
state of these two galaxies, passing one through the other, will be known on
Earth such a long time after that we cannot say whether terrestrial man will
continue to exist so unimaginably long.
Mven Mass jumped up and leaned on the table with both hands so hard
that the joints cracked.
Transmission periods of millions of years, covering tens of thousands
of human generations and which actually amount to that "never" that is
killing to scientific thought, could disappear at the wave of a magic
wand-Renn Bose's discovery and their joint experiment!
Inconceivably distant points of the Universe would be within reach!
Astronomers in ancient days believed the galaxies to be moving apart.
The light that reached terrestrial telescopes from distant stellar islands
had been changed, light oscillations had lengthened, turning to red waves.
This reddening of the light was taken as evidence that the galaxies were
receding from the observer. People in the past were accustomed to a direct,
one-sided conception of phenomena and they created the theory of a Universe
that was moving apart or exploding, not realizing that they saw only one
side of the magnificent process of destruction and creation. It was this one
aspect-dispersion and destruction, that is, the transition of energy to a
lower level in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics-that was
conceivable to us and was recorded by instruments constructed to sharpen our
senses. The other aspect-accumulation, concentration and creation-was
outside man's concepts because life acquired its strength from energy
diffused by the stars, the suns, and our conception of the surrounding
Universe took shape on the basis of this. Man's mighty brain, however,
penetrated even into the hidden processes of the creation of worlds and of
our Universe. But in those distant times it still seemed that the greater
the distance to a galaxy the greater the speed of its motion away from the
terrestrial observer. As man penetrated farther into outer space he found
galaxies with velocities close to that of light. The end of the visible
Universe was the point where galaxies seemed to have reached that velocity
although actually no light from them could have reached us and we should not
have seen them....
We now know why the light from these galaxies is red. As is usually the
case in science there proved to be more than one cause-it is not only due to
their recession from us. The only light that reaches us from distant stellar
islands is that radiated by their brightest centres. These huge masses of
matter are encircled by annular electromagnetic fields that strongly affect
light rays, not only by their intensity but also on account of the area they
cover; they gradually slow down the light waves until they become longer red
waves. In very ancient times astronomers knew that light from very dense
stars turns red, the spectral lines shifting towards the red end, so that
the star seems to be receding like, for example, the second component of
Sirius, the white dwarf Sirius B. The farther away the galaxy, the more
centralized is the radiation that reaches us and the stronger the
concentration at the red end of the spectrum.
During a very long journey through space light waves, on the other
hand, are "shaken up" and the light quanta lose part of their energy. This
phenomenon has now been studied-the red waves may also be fatigued "old"
waves of ordinary light. Even light waves that penetrate everywhere "grow
old" from their journey over tremendous distances. What hope had man of
overcoming such distances unless he attack gravitation itself by means of
its opposite, following Renn Bose's calculations?
His anxiety was fading away! He was doing the right thing by carrying
out the unprecedented experiment!
Mven Mass, as usual, went out on the observatory veran-dah and began
walking swiftly up and down. The distant galaxies still shone in his tired
eyes, galaxies that sent waves of red light to Earth like signals calling
for help, like appeals to the all-conquering thought of man. Mven Mass
laughed softly and confidently. These red rays would become as familiar to
man as those at the Fete of the Flaming Bowls that had wrapped Chara Nandi's
body in the red light of life-Chara, who had appeared to him unexpectedly as
the copper daughter of Epsilon Tucanae, the girl of his impossible dreams.
And he would direct Renn Bose's vector precisely at Epsilon Tucanae,
not merely in the hope of seeing that wonderful world, but also in honour of
her, of its terrestrial representative!
CHAPTER NINE. A THIRD CYCLE SCHOOL
Third Cycle School No. 410 was situated in Southern Ireland. Broad
fields, vineyards and oak groves ran down the slopes of the green hills to
the very sea. Veda Kong and Evda Nahl arrived when the children were still
in class; they walked along a corridor running round class-
rooms on the perimeter of a circular building. The day was dull with a
drizzle of rain so that all classes were being held indoors instead of out
in the open as was more usual.
Veda Kong felt like a schoolgirl again as she crept up to listen at the
entrances to the classrooms which, as in the majority of schools, were
without doors and shut off by overlapping projecting walls. Evda Nahl joined
in the game and the two women peeped into class after class in an attempt to
find Evda's daughter and remain unnoticed themselves.
In the first classroom they saw a drawing in blue chalk covering the
whole length of one wall: it showed a vector that was encircled by a spiral
unfolding along it. Two sections of the spiral were encircled by transverse
ellipses in which a system of rectangular coordinates was inscribed.
"Bipolar mathematics!'' exclaimed Veda in mock horror.
"This is something more than that! Wait a minute!" said Evda.
"Now that we know something about the shadow functions of the cochlear,
or spiral progressive movement, that occurs along the vector,"-the elderly
teacher with deep-set, blazing eyes, thickened one of the lines with his
chalk -''we are close to understanding the repagular calculus. The name of
the calculus comes from the ancient Latin word 'repagulum,' a barrier or
obstacle, and it is the transition from one quality to another, seen in a
two-sided aspect." The teacher pointed to an extensive ellipse across the
spiral. "In other words, it is the mathematical analysis of mutually
transitional phenomena ...."
Veda Kong disappeared behind the outjutting wall, pulling her companion
after her.
"That's something new! It's from that branch of mathematics Renn Bose
was talking to us about down on the seashore."
"The school always gives its pupils the newest of everything and
discards whatever is outworn. If new generations repeat old conceptions how
can we expect to ensure rapid progress? As it is, a terrible amount of time
elapses before a child takes its place in the relay race of knowledge. It
takes dozens of years for a child to become fully educated and ready to
undertake gigantic tasks. This pulsation of the generations, where you take
one step forward and nine-tenths backward-backward while the next shift in
the relay is learning-is that most difficult of all biological laws for man,
the law of death and renascence. Much of what we learned in mathematics,
physics and biology is already out of date. Your history is different, it
grows old more slowly because it is very old itself."
, They glanced into another room. The schoolmistress, Standing with her
back to them, and the interested children, did not notice them. The
attentive faces of the pupils -they were young men and women seventeen years
of age, in the higher classes of the Third Cycle School-and their burning
cheeks told how thrilled they were with the lesson.
"We, the human race, have passed through many trials," the voice of the
teacher resounded with her excitement, "and the most important thing in your
school history is the study of the historic mistakes made by man and their
consequences. We have passed through the stage of the unbearable
complication of life and things used by man and have arrived at extreme
simplicity. The complication of life led dialectically to the simplification
of spiritual culture. There must not be any unnecessary thing to tie man up,
his experiences and perceptions are finer when he leads a simple life.
Everything relating to everyday life is studied by the best brains as befits
important scientific problems. We have followed the general line of
development of the animal kingdom which was directed towards the liberation
of attention by making movements automatic and developing reflexes in the
work of the nervous system. The automation of the productive forces of
society created an analogous reflex system of control in production economy
and released many people for what is now man's chief occupation-scientific
research. Nature has provided us with a big brain capable of scientific
inquiry although at first it was only used to search for food and
investigate its edibility."
"Very good!" whispered Evda Nahl and at that moment noticed her
daughter. The girl did not suspect anything and sat staring in contemplation
at the corrugated glass that prevented the pupils from seeing what was going
on outside the classroom.
Veda Kong was curious to compare her with her mother. They had the same
long straight hair, the daughter's plaited with a blue thread and tied up in
two big loops. Both had the same oval face, narrow at the chin and somewhat
babyish from the too high forehead and the high cheekbones protruding below
the temples. A snow-white sweater of artificial wool stressed the dark
paleness of the girl's skin and the acute blackness of her eyes, eyebrows
and eyelashes. A necklace of red coral harmonized with the girl's
unquestionably original appearance.
Evda's daughter, like all other pupils, wore wide shorts, hers
differing only in a red fringe that was stitched into the seams.
"An American Indian ornament," whispered Evda Nahl in answer to her
friend's inquiring glance.
Evda and Veda just had time to step back into the corridor when the
teacher left the room followed by several pupils, Evda's daughter amongst
them. The girl stopped suddenly in her tracks as she noticed her mother, her
pride and an example to be followed. Although Evda did not know it, there
was a circle of her admirers in the school, youngsters who had decided to
take the same road in life as she had taken.
"Mother!" whispered the girl, casting a shy glance at her mother's
companion and clinging to Evda.
The teacher stopped and then came over to them, giving them a nod of
greeting.
"I must inform the school council," she said, disregarding Evda's
gesture of protest, "we must gain something from your visit."
"Better take advantage of her visit," said Evda as she introduced Veda
Kong.
The history teacher blushed deeply and looked like a young girl.
"That's fine!" she said, trying to keep her tone businesslike. "The
school is about to graduate the senior groups and a word from Evda Nahl to
send them on their way coupled with a review of the ancient cultures and
races from Veda Kong will be something for our youth to remember! Won't it,
Rhea?"
Evda's daughter clapped her hands. The teacher ran with the light gait
of a gymnast to the subsidiary premises, contained in a long straight
building.
"Rhea, can you cut out the polytechnics lesson today and come for a
walk?" Evda suggested to her daughter. "I shan't be able to see you again
before you have to choose your matriculation tasks. Last time we didn't come
to a decision."
Rhea did not answer but took her mother's hand. In each of the school
cycles the lessons were interspersed with polytechnics. At the moment they
were to have one of Rhea's favourite occupations, the grinding of optical
lenses, but what could be more interesting or more important than her
mother's arrival?
Veda went away to a little observatory that she could see in the
distance, leaving mother and daughter alone. Rhea, clasping her mother's
strong arm like a child, walked beside her wrapped in thought.
"Where's your little Kay?" asked Evda and the girl grew noticeably sad.
Kay had been a ward of hers-the older school-children paid regular visits to
first- and second cycle schools in their vicinity to help with the teaching
and upbringing of wards they had selected. Integrated help for the teachers
was absolutely essential to ensure thoroughness of education.
"Kay was promoted to the second cycle and has gone far away from here.
It's such a pity ... why do they move us from place to place every four
years, when we are promoted to the next cycle?"
'"The psyche is wearied and becomes sluggish where there is a
uniformity of impressions and perception becomes duller. The efficiency of
teaching and upbringing grows less year by year. That is why the twelve
years of schooling are divided into three four-year cycles and you move to
another school after every cycle, each time to a different part of the
planet. It is only the babies in the zero cycle, from one to four years,
that do not need any change of place and conditions of upbringing."
"And why does each cycle have separate schools and separate living
quarters?"
''As you little people grow up and are trained you become qualitatively
different beings. If different age groups live together it makes their
training more difficult and is annoying to the youngsters themselves. We
have reduced the differences to a minimum by dividing the children into
three age groups, but this is still not a perfect system.
The first cycle, for example, obviously needs splitting into two
groups, and that will soon be done. But let us talk first about your affairs
and your dreams for the future. I shall have to deliver a lecture to all of
you and may be able to answer your questions."
Rhea began to confide her innermost thoughts to her mother with the
frankness of a child of the Great Circle Era who had never experienced
hurtful ridicule or misunderstanding. The girl was the incarnation of youth
that as yet knew nothing of life but was full of contemplative anticipation.
At the age of seventeen the girl was finishing school and starting her
three-year period of matriculation tasks, working amongst adults. After the
tasks her interests and abilities would be clearly defined. A two-year
higher education would follow that would give her the right to independent
work in the chosen field. In the course of a long life a man or woman had
time to take higher educational courses in five or six different fields,
changing work from time to time, but a great deal depended on the choice of
the first difficult tasks-the Labours of Hercules, or matriculation tasks.
They were chosen after long contemplation and always following the advice of
older people.
"Have you passed the graduation psychological tests yet?" asked Evda.
"Yes. I got 20 and 24 in the first eight groups, 18 and 19 in the tenth
and thirteenth and even 17 in the seventeenth!" exclaimed Rhea proudly.
"That's wonderful!" said Evda in pleased tones. "Everything is open to
you. Have you stuck to the choice you made for the first task?"
"Yes, I'm going to be a nurse on the Island of Oblivion, and then all
our circle are going to work at the Jutland Psychological Hospital."
Rhea told her mother about the circle of her "followers." Evda had
plenty of good-natured jokes to make about these zealous psychologists but
nevertheless Rhea persuaded her mother to be mentor for the members of the
group who were also at the time selecting their tasks.
"I shall have to live here until the end of my holiday," laughed Evda,
"and what will Veda Kong do?"
The girl suddenly remembered her mother's companion.
"She's very nice," said Rhea, seriously, "and almost as beautiful as
you are!"
"She's much more beautiful!"
"No, I know ... and it's not because you're my mother," said the girl,
bashfully. "Perhaps she's better at first glance but you have a spiritual
tabernacle within you that Veda Kong hasn't yet got. I don't say she won't
have, it's just that she hasn't built it yet... but she'll build it and
then...."
"Then she'll outshine your mother like a moon outshines the stars."
Rhea shook her head.
"And are you going to stand still? You'll go farther than she!"
Evda passed her hand over the girl's smooth hair and looked down into
her upturned face.
"Isn't that enough eulogy, daughter? We're wasting time!"
Veda Kong walked slowly down an avenue that led her deeper into a grove
of broad-leaved maples, whose heavy moist foliage rustled dully. The first
wraiths of the evening mist were making an effort to rise from a nearby
meadow but they were instantly dispersed by the wind. Veda Kong was
pondering over the mobile tranquillity of nature and thinking that the sites
for the schools were always so well chosen. The development of a keen
perception of nature and a sensitive communion with nature were an important
part of the child's training. Dulled interest in nature is, in actual fact,
an impediment to man's development, for one who has forgotten how to observe
will soon lose the ability to generalize. Veda thought about the ability to
teach, the most important of all competencies in the age when they had at
last learned that upbringing was more important than education and was the
only way to prepare the child for the difficult job of being a real man. The
basis, of course, is provided by inherent abilities but they might easily be
left undeveloped, without that chiselling of the human spirit that is done
by the pedagogue.
Veda's mind turned back to those distant days when she had been a third
cycle schoolgirl, a mass of contradictions, burning with the desire to
sacrifice herself and at the same time judging the world by herself alone,
with all the egocentrism of healthy youth. How much the teachers did for her
in those days-in truth there is no loftier profession in this world of ours
than that of teacher!
The future of mankind is in the hands of the teacher for it is only by
his efforts that man rises ever higher and becomes more and more powerful,
coping with the most arduous of all tasks, that of overcoming himself, his
greedy self-love and his unbridled desires.
Veda Kong turned towards a small bay surrounded by pines where she
could hear the sounds of youthful voices; soon she came upon a dozen boys in
plastic aprons busily trimming an oak beam with axes, instruments that had
been invented as far back as the stone age. The young builders greeted the
historian respectfully and explained to her that they wanted to build a
vessel without the aid of automatic saws and other machinery, in the same
way as the heroes of ancient days had done. The ship, when built, was to
take them to the ruins of Carthage, a trip they wanted to make during their
vacation, accompanied by the teachers of geography, history and
polytechnics.
Veda wished them success and intended to continue on her way. A tall,
thin lad with absolutely yellow hair stepped forward.
"You came here with Evda Nahl, didn't you? Then may I ask you a couple
of questions?"
Veda laughingly consented.
"Evda Nahl works at the Academy of Sorrow and Joy. We have studied the
social organization of our planet and of several other worlds, but we have
not been told the significance of that Academy."
Veda told them of the great census conducted by the Academy to compute
sorrow and happiness in the lives of individuals and investigate sorrow by
age groups. It was followed by an analysis of sorrow and joy for all the
stages of the historical development of mankind. No matter what qualitative
differences there may have been in emotions, the sum totals, investigated by
big number stochastic 24 methods, showed some important
regularities. The Councils that directed the further development of society
did their utmost to correct any worsening and ensure improvement. Only when
joy predominated, or at least counterbalanced sorrow, was it considered that
society was developing successfully.
"And so the Academy of Sorrow and Joy is the most important?" asked
another boy, one with bold eyes. The others smiled and the boy who had first
spoken to Veda Kong explained what they were laughing at.
"Oil is always looking for what is most important. He dreams about the
great leaders of the past...."
"That's a dangerous thing to do," smiled Veda. "As an historian I can
tell you that the great leaders were people who were themselves tied hand
and foot and very dependent."
"Tied up by the conventionalism of their actions?" asked the
yellow-haired boy.
"Exactly. But you must remember that that was in the unevenly and
spontaneously developing ancient societies of the Era of Disunity or even
earlier. Today, leadership [a invested in each of the Councils and is
expressed by the fact that the action of all the others is impossible
without it."
"What about the Economic Council? Without that Council nobody can
undertake anything big," Oil objected cautiously, somewhat abashed but still
not confused.
"That's true because economics are the only real basis of our
existence. But it seems to me that you don't have quite the right idea of
what constitutes leadership. Have you studied the cytoarchitectonics
25 of the human brain?"
The boys said that they had.
Veda took a stick from one of them and in the sand drew circles to
represent the administrative bodies.
"Here in the centre is the Economic Council. We will draw direct links
from it to the consultative bodies: the ASJ, the Academy of Sorrow and Joy,
the APF, the Academy of Productive Forces, the ASP the Academy of
Stochastics and Prognostication, the APL, the Academy of the
Psychophysiology of Labour. There is lateral connection with the
Astronautical Council, a body that functions independently. From the latter
there is direct communication with the ADR, the Academy of Directed
Radiation, and the Outer Stations of the Great Circle. Further...."
Veda drew an intricate diagram in the sand and continued.
"Isn't that just like the human brain? The research and registration
centres are the sensory nerve centres. The Councils are the associative
centres. You know that all life consists of the dialectics of attraction and
repulsion, the rhythm of dispersal and accumulation, excitation and
inhibition. The chief inhibition centre is the Economic Council that
translates everything into the actual possibilities of the social organism
and its objective laws. Our brain and our society, both of which are
persistently advancing, have this dialectic interplay of opposing forces
brought into harmonic action. There was a time, long ago, when this was
incorrectly termed cybernetics, or the science of control, in an attempt to
reduce the most intricate interplay of inhibitions to the relatively simple
functioning of a machine. That attempt, however, was due to ignorance; the
greater the knowledge we acquired the more complicated we found the
phenomena and laws of thermodynamics, biology, and economics, and simplified
conceptions of nature or the processes of social development disappeared for
ever."
The boys listened to Veda spellbound.
"What is the chief thing in such a social structure?" she asked the
lover of "chiefs" and "leaders." He was so put out that he could not think
of an answer and the first boy came to his rescue.
"Its forward movement!" he answered, boldly.
"A prize for such an excellent answer!" exclaimed Veda admiringly; she
looked at herself and then took an enamel brooch, depicting an albatross
over the blue sea, from her left shoulder. She offered it to the lad on the
palm of her hand. He was shyly hesitant.
"As a reminder of today's talk and... of forward movement!" Veda
insisted and the lad took the albatross.
Holding up the blouse that was slipping from her shoulder Veda made her
way back through the park. The brooch had been a present from Erg Noor and
her sudden urge to give it away meant o lot-amongst other things it meant a
strange desire to get rid of the past as quickly as possible, to get rid of
what had been or was being left behind....
The entire population of the school-town gathered in the round hall in
the centre of the school building. Evda Nahl, in a black dress, stood on the
central dais, illuminated from above, calmly studying the rows of people in
the audience. The people maintained perfect silence, listening to her clear
but not loud voice. Screaming loudspeakers were used only for safety
precautions and large halls had ceased to be necessary since the
stereoscopic televisophone (TVP) had come into general use.
"Seventeen is the turning point in life. Soon you will pronounce the
traditional words at a meeting of the Irish Educational Division:
"You, my elders, who have called me to a life of endeavour, accept my
ability and my desire, accept my labour and teach me by day and by night.
Hold out to me the hand of help, for the road is a hard one, and I will
follow you.'
"A very great deal is understood between the lines of this ancient
formula and that is what I am going to talk about today.
"From childhood you have been taught the philosophy of dialectics that
long ago, in the secret books of the ancients, was called the Secret of
Duality. It was believed that its power could only be achieved by the
initiated-mentally and morally lofty and strong individuals. From childhood
you have looked upon the world through the laws of dialectics and its mighty
strength is now at everybody's service. You have been born into a
well-ordered society created by countless generations of unknown toilers and
those who struggled for a better life in the dark ages of cruelty and
tyranny. Five hundred generations have passed since the formation of the
first society with a division of labour. In the course of that time the
various races and nations of the globe have mingled. Every one of us has
drops of blood, or, as we should say today, the mechanics of heredity, in
him from each of those peoples. A tremendous amount of work has been done to
purge heredity of the consequences of the incautious handling of radioactive
materials and from the diseases that were formerly widespread and interfered
with it.
"The upbringing of the new man is an elaborate task involving personal
analysis and a very cautious approach to each individual. The time has gone
beyond recall when society could be satisfied with people who had been
brought up casually, whose insufficiencies were excused by heredity or by
man's inherent nature. Every badly brought up person is today a reproach to
the whole community, a grave mistake made by a large number of people.
"You, who have not yet freed yourselves of the egocentrism of youth or
of an overestimation of your own ego must get a clear understanding of how
much depends on your own selves, to how great an extent you are the creators
of your own freedom and of an interest in life. Many roads are open to each
of you and this freedom of choice carries with it full responsibility for
that choice.
Gone for all time are the back-to-nature dreams of the uncultured,
dreams of the freedom of primitive society and primitive relations.
Humanity, a union of gigantic masses of people, was faced with the final
choice-either submit to social discipline, lengthy teaching and training, or
perish; there was no other way to live on our planet, generous as her nature
is. The puny philosophers who dreamed of nature did not understand her or
love her as she should be loved-if they had they would have known her
merciless cruelty.
"The man of the new society was inevitably faced with the necessity of
disciplining his desires, will and thoughts. The struggle against the
personal, against the 'I' that is man's most dangerous enemy, is essential
for the good of society and for the maximum expansion of his own intellect.
This method of training mind and will is today obligatory for every one of
us as is the training of the body. The study of the laws of nature and of
society with its economics has replaced desire by definite knowledge. When
we say 'I want to' we mean 'I know that it can be done.'
"There is one other enemy amongst you, an enemy against whom we fight
from the time the child makes its first steps on earth; that is, a crudeness
of perception that sometimes seems to be primitive naturalness. Crudeness
means that the key to measure and understanding has been lost and,
consequently the key to love, since a measure of understanding is a degree
of love. Thousands of years ago the Hellenes said, metron ariston, the mean
is the most lofty. Today we still say that the basis of culture is an
understanding of moderation in all things.
"As the cultural level improved the striving for the crude pleasures of
property grew weaker and there was less craving for a quantitative increase
in the amount of property owned, which once acquired, soon began to pall and
leave the owner still unsatisfied.
"We have taught you the greater pleasure of austerity, the pleasure of
helping one another, the genuine joy of work that sets the heart on fire. We
have helped you liberate yourselves from the power of petty strivings and
petty things and carry your joys and disappointments to a higher sphere, the
sphere of creative activity.
"Good physical training, the clean, regular lives of dozens of
generations have rid you of the third enemy of the human psyche,
indifference, the empty and indolent spirit that arises out of a morbid
insufficiency of energy in the body. You are going out in the world to work
charged with the necessary energy, with a balanced, healthy psyche which, by
virtue of the natural ratio of emotions, possesses more good than evil. The
better you are, the better and more elevated society will be-the two
conceptions are interrelated. You will create a high spiritual milieu as an
integral part of society and society will elevate you. The social milieu is
the most important factor in the training and teaching of the individual.
Man today is training and learning his whole life long, so that society is
constantly progressing."
Evda Nahl stopped and smoothed her hair with her hand, using exactly
the same gesture as Rhea who sat there in front, never once taking her eyes
off her mother.
"At one time people called their urge to comprehend reality a mere
dream," she continued. "You will dream in that way all your lives and will
know joy in knowledge, in movement, in struggle and in labour. Never pay any
attention to the falls that follow flights of the spirit because they are
the regular turns of the spiral of motion that we find in all matter. The
reality of liberty is stern but you have been prepared for it by the
discipline of your schooling and upbringing; you, therefore, are permitted
all the changes of activity that constitute happiness because you are
conscious of your responsibility. The dream of tranquil inactivity has not
been justified by history because it is against the nature of man the
fighter. There always have been and still are specific difficulties in every
epoch, but a regular and rapid ascent to the heights of knowledge and
emotion, science and art has become the good fortune of all mankind!"
Evda Nahl finished her lecture and went down to the front row of seats
where Veda Kong greeted her as they had done Chara at the fete. All those
present stood up and repeated the gesture, in this way expressing their
admiration for an incomparable art.
CHAPTER TEN. TIBETAN EXPERIMENT
The Corr Yule installation on the flat top of a high -I mountain was no
more than a thousand metres from the Astronautical Council's Tibetan
Observatory. It stood at a height of nearly 4,000 metres where the only
trees that would grow were a dark-green leafless variety with branches
bending inwards towards the top brought from Mars. Although the light-yellow
grass in the valleys waved in the wind these rigid iron-limbed strangers
from another world stood motionless. The slopes were covered with streams of
stones, the remnants of eroded rocks. The fields, patches and strips of snow
gleamed with that special whiteness that belongs to mountain snow under a
clear sky.
A tower built of steel tubes supporting two latticed arches stood
behind crumbling diorite walls belonging to a ruined monastery that had been
built with astounding audacity at that great height. On the arches lay an
inclined parabolic spiral of beryllium bronze dotted with the gleaming white
spots of rhenium contacts and open to the sky. Close beside it lay a second
spiral with the open end turned to the ground to form a cover over eight
huge cones made of the greenish borason amalgam. Energy was brought to the
installation by branches of the main pipe, six metres in diameter. The
valley was crossed by a line of pylons with directing ring