‘Then what of all these other Parliaments and Senates you have described?’
‘Not everyone agrees that the arrangements in this part of the Sphere are ideal,’ he said. ‘Is that not the essence of freedom? Not all of us are sufficiently interested in the mechanics of governance to wish to participate; and for some, the entrusting of power to another through representation – or even without any representation at all – is preferable. That is a valid choice.’
‘Fine. But what happens when such choices conflict?’
‘ We have room ,’ he said heavily. ‘You must not forget that fact; you are still dominated by planet-bound expectations. Any dissenter is free to depart, and to establish a rival system elsewhere …’
These ‘nations’ of the Morlocks were fluid things, with individuals joining and leaving as their preferences evolved. There was no fixed territory or possessions, nor even any fixed boundaries, as far as I could make out; the ‘nations’ were mere groupings of convenience, clusterings across the Sphere.
There was no war among the Morlocks.
It took me some time to believe this, but at last I was convinced. There were no causes for war. Thanks to the mechanisms of the Floor there was no shortage of provision, so no ‘nation’ could argue for goals of economic acquisition. The Sphere was so huge that the empty land available was almost unlimited, so that territorial conflicts were meaningless. And – most crucially – the Morlocks’ heads were free of the canker of religion , which has caused so much conflict through the centuries.
‘You have no God, then,’ I said to Nebogipfel, with something of a thrill: though I have some religious tendencies myself, I imagined shocking the clerics of my own day with an account of this conversation!
‘We have no need of a God,’ Nebogipfel retorted.
The Morlocks regarded a religious set of mind – as opposed to a rational state – as a hereditable trait , with no more intrinsic meaning than blue eyes or brown hair.
The more Nebogipfel outlined this notion, the more sense it made to me.
What notion of God has survived through all of Humanity’s mental evolution? Why, precisely the form it might suit man’s vanity to conjure up: a Godwith immense powers, and yet still absorbed in the petty affairs of man. Who could worship a chilling God, even if omnipotent, if He took no interest whatsoever in the flea-bite struggles of humans?
One might imagine that, in any conflict between rational humans and religious humans, the rational ought to win. After all, it is rationality that invented gunpowder! And yet – at least up to our nineteenth century – the religious tendency has generally won out, and natural selection operated, leaving us with a population of religiously-inclined sheep – it has sometimes seemed to me – capable of being deluded by any smooth-tongued preacher.
The paradox is explained because religion provides a goal for men to fight for. The religious man will soak some bit of ‘sacred’ land with his blood, sacrificing far more than the land’s intrinsic economic or other value.
‘But we have moved beyond this paradox,’ Nebogipfel said to me. ‘We have mastered our inheritance: we are no longer governed by the dictates of the past, either as regards our bodies or our minds …’
But I did not follow up this intriguing notion – the obvious question to ask was, ‘In the absence of a God, then, what is the purpose of all of your lives?’ – for I was entranced by the idea of how Mr Darwin, with all his modern critics in the Churches, would have loved to have witnessed this ultimate triumph of his ideas over the Religionists!
In fact – as it turned out – my understanding of the true purpose of the Morlocks’ civilization would not come until much later.
I was impressed, though, with all I saw of this artificial world of the Morlocks – I am not sure if my respectful awe has been reflected in my account
‘Not everyone agrees that the arrangements in this part of the Sphere are ideal,’ he said. ‘Is that not the essence of freedom? Not all of us are sufficiently interested in the mechanics of governance to wish to participate; and for some, the entrusting of power to another through representation – or even without any representation at all – is preferable. That is a valid choice.’
‘Fine. But what happens when such choices conflict?’
‘ We have room ,’ he said heavily. ‘You must not forget that fact; you are still dominated by planet-bound expectations. Any dissenter is free to depart, and to establish a rival system elsewhere …’
These ‘nations’ of the Morlocks were fluid things, with individuals joining and leaving as their preferences evolved. There was no fixed territory or possessions, nor even any fixed boundaries, as far as I could make out; the ‘nations’ were mere groupings of convenience, clusterings across the Sphere.
There was no war among the Morlocks.
It took me some time to believe this, but at last I was convinced. There were no causes for war. Thanks to the mechanisms of the Floor there was no shortage of provision, so no ‘nation’ could argue for goals of economic acquisition. The Sphere was so huge that the empty land available was almost unlimited, so that territorial conflicts were meaningless. And – most crucially – the Morlocks’ heads were free of the canker of religion , which has caused so much conflict through the centuries.
‘You have no God, then,’ I said to Nebogipfel, with something of a thrill: though I have some religious tendencies myself, I imagined shocking the clerics of my own day with an account of this conversation!
‘We have no need of a God,’ Nebogipfel retorted.
The Morlocks regarded a religious set of mind – as opposed to a rational state – as a hereditable trait , with no more intrinsic meaning than blue eyes or brown hair.
The more Nebogipfel outlined this notion, the more sense it made to me.
What notion of God has survived through all of Humanity’s mental evolution? Why, precisely the form it might suit man’s vanity to conjure up: a Godwith immense powers, and yet still absorbed in the petty affairs of man. Who could worship a chilling God, even if omnipotent, if He took no interest whatsoever in the flea-bite struggles of humans?
One might imagine that, in any conflict between rational humans and religious humans, the rational ought to win. After all, it is rationality that invented gunpowder! And yet – at least up to our nineteenth century – the religious tendency has generally won out, and natural selection operated, leaving us with a population of religiously-inclined sheep – it has sometimes seemed to me – capable of being deluded by any smooth-tongued preacher.
The paradox is explained because religion provides a goal for men to fight for. The religious man will soak some bit of ‘sacred’ land with his blood, sacrificing far more than the land’s intrinsic economic or other value.
‘But we have moved beyond this paradox,’ Nebogipfel said to me. ‘We have mastered our inheritance: we are no longer governed by the dictates of the past, either as regards our bodies or our minds …’
But I did not follow up this intriguing notion – the obvious question to ask was, ‘In the absence of a God, then, what is the purpose of all of your lives?’ – for I was entranced by the idea of how Mr Darwin, with all his modern critics in the Churches, would have loved to have witnessed this ultimate triumph of his ideas over the Religionists!
In fact – as it turned out – my understanding of the true purpose of the Morlocks’ civilization would not come until much later.
I was impressed, though, with all I saw of this artificial world of the Morlocks – I am not sure if my respectful awe has been reflected in my account
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