Thus the prince, apprehending the cause of existence, felt that it was pain, and dimly comprehending how the king was bearing pain, and himself feeling the strenuousness of the effort of using the rays for which the frame of the inhabitants was unstrung, longed that existence itself might cease.

Yet all his life his deeds were noble, and he passed from tribe to tribe, bearing the burdens and calling forth the sleeping to activity.

CHAPTER V.

It is now the place in which to give a clear account of the king’s activity, and explain how he maintained the varied life of the valley.

And the best plan is to take a typical instance, and to adopt the Arabic method of description. By the Arabic method of description is meant the same method which the Arabs used for the description of numerical quantities. For instance, in the Arabic notation, if we are asked the number of days in the year, we answer first 300, which is a false answer, but gives the nearest approximation in hundreds; then we say sixty, which is a correction; last of all we say five, which makes the answer a correct one, namely, 365. In this simple case the description is given so quickly that we are hardly conscious of the nature of the system employed. But the same method when applied to more difficult subjects presents the following characteristics. Firstly, a certain statement is made about the subject to be described, and is impressed upon the reader as if it were true. Then, when that has been grasped, another statement is made, generally somewhat contradictory, and the first notion formed has to be corrected. But these two statements taken together are given as truth. Then when this idea has been formed in the mind of the reader, another statement is made which must likewise be received as a correction, and so on, until by successive statements and contradictions, or corrections, the idea produced corresponds to the facts, as the describer knows them.

Thus the activity of the king will be here described by a series of statements, and the truth will be obtained by the whole of the statements and the corrections which they successively bring in.

When the king wished to start a being on the train of activity he divided its apathy into pleasure and pain. The pleasure he connected with one act which we will call A. The pain he associated with another act which we will call B.

These two “acts,” A and B, which together form what we call an “action,” were of such a nature that the doing of A first and then of B was a process used in the organization of the life in the valley.

Thus the act A may be represented by moving the right foot, B by moving the left foot, then AB will be the action of taking a step. This however is but a superficial illustration, for the acts which we represent by A and B were fundamental acts, of which great numbers were combined together in any single outward act which could be observed or described.

Suppose for the present that there is only one creature in the valley. The king separates his apathy with regard to the action AB. Let us say he separates his apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain. Of the pleasure he lets the being experience the whole, of the pain he bears an amount which we will represent by 2. Thus the being has 1000 pleasure and 998 of pain, and the action is completed. His sensation is measured by the number 1000 in the first act, and by 998 in the second act.

But the king did not choose to make the fundamental actions of this limited and finishing kind. As the type of the fundamental activity, he chose an action, and made the being go through it again and again. Thus the being would go through the act A, then the act B. When the action AB was complete it would go through an act of the kind A again, then through an act of the kind B. Thus the creature would be engaged in a routine of this kind, AB, AB, AB, and so on.

And if the creature had been alone, and this had been the sole activity in which it was concerned, the king would have gone on bearing 2 of pain in each of these actions. The king would have kept the routine going on steadily, the creature bearing 1000 of pleasure in each A, and 998 of pain in each B.

At this point it may be asked that an example should be given of one of these elementary routines which the king set going. And this seems a reasonable request, and yet it is somewhat too peremptory. For in the world we may know of what nature the movements of the atoms are without being able to say exactly what the motion of any one is. In such a case a type is the only possible presentation. Again, take the example of a crystal. We know that a crystal has a definite law of shape, and however much we divide it we find that its parts present the same conformation. We cannot isolate the ultimate crystalline elements, but we infer that they must be such as to produce the crystal by their combination.

Now life on the valley was such in its main features as would be produced by a combination of routines of the kind explained. There were changes and abrupt transitions, but the general and prevailing plan of life was that of a routine of alternating acts of a pleasurable and a painful kind. It was just such as would be built up out of elementary routines, on which the king could count, and which, unless he modified their combinations, tended to produce rhythmic processes of a larger kind. And even the changes and abruptnesses had a recurrent nature about them, for if any routine in the valley altered suddenly, it was found that there were cases of other routines altering in like manner, when the conditions under which they came were similar. Thus the fundamental type of the action which the king instituted was that of a routine AB, AB, as described above. But there were two circumstances which caused a variation, so that this simple routine was modified.

Firstly, there was not one being only but many.

Secondly, the king wished to have some of his pain-bearing power set free from time to time. He did not wish to have to be continually spending it all in maintaining the routines he had started at first, and those immediately connected with them.

When he first began to organize the life of the beings he did not consciously keep back any of his pain-bearing power, but threw it all in the activities which he started. Still from time to time he wished to start new activities quite unconnected with the old, and for this reason he withdrew some of his pain-bearing power, as will be shown afterwards.

There were many beings. The king chose that the type of activity in each should be a routine. In that way he could calculate on the activity, and hold it in his mind as a settled process on whose operation he could count. But as the routines of the beings proceeded they came into contact with one another, and made, even by their simple co-existence, something different from what a routine by itself was. They interwove in various ways. Then, in order to take advantage of the combinations of these routines, or to modify them, it was necessary to set going other routines.

In order to be able to originate these connected routines the king adopted the following plan.

In the first action AB he separated the creatures’ apathy into 1000 pleasure and 1000 pain, bearing 2 of the pain himself. The creature thus went through 1000 of pleasure and 998 of pain. In the next action AB he did not separate the beings’ apathy up into so much pleasure and pain. He separated it up into 980 pleasure and 980 pain, that is, each moment of feeling was 20 less in sensation than the moments of feeling were in the first action.

Now it is obvious that if the bearing 2 of pain will make it worth while for a being to go through 1000 pleasure and 998 pain, then the bearing on the king’s part of 1 of pain would make it worth while for the being to go through 500 pleasure and 499 of pain.

And a similar relation would hold for different amounts of pleasure and pain. Thus clearly for the being to go through 980 of pleasure and the corresponding amount of pain, it would not be necessary for the king to bear so much as when the being went through 1000 of pleasure and the corresponding amount of pain.

Consequently when the king divided the beings’ apathy into 980 pleasure and 980 pain, it would not be necessary for him to bear 2 of pain to make it worth the beings’ while to go through the action. The king would not bear so much as 2 of pain, and thus he would have some of his pain-bearing power set free. He would have exactly as much as would enable him to make it worth a being’s while to go through an action with the moments of 20 of pleasure and 20 of pain.

And this—with a correction which will come later—is what the king did. He employed the pain-bearing power thus set free in starting other routines. Thus in the routine AB, AB, AB there would be first of all the action AB. Then along with the second action AB, the king (with the pain-bearing power set free) started an action CD—the beginning of a routine CD, CD, CD. Thus as the first routine went on and came into connection with other routines, new and supplementary routines sprang up which regulated and took advantage of the combinations of the old routines.

The amount of the moments of pleasure in the routine CD, was (with a slight correction explained below) measured in sensation, equal to 20. Thus the moment of pleasure in the first A being 1000, the moment of pleasure in the second A was 980, the moment of pleasure in the first C was 20 (subject to the correction spoken of). Thus the total amount of sensation in the second A and the associated act C, taken together (but for a small correction) was equal to the sensation in the first A. Hence the three points which were characteristic of the activity of the beings in the valley are obvious enough.

1. There is as fundamental type a routine AB, AB, AB, the sensation involved in which goes on diminishing.

2. There are routines CD, CD, &c., connected with AB, AB, in which the sensation which disappears in the routine AB, AB seems to reappear.

3. In the action AB itself there is a disappearance of sensation. The sensation connected with A is 1000, that connected with B is 998. Thus 2 of sensation seems to have disappeared. This 2 of sensation is of course the pain which the king bore, and which was the means whereby the creature was induced to go through the action at all. But looked at from the point of view of sensation, it seems like a diminution of amount. This diminution of amount, owing to the correction spoken of above, was to be found regularly all through the routine.

And now, with the exception of the final correction, the theory of the king’s activity is complete. There are certain mathematical difficulties which render an exhaustive account somewhat obscure in expression. When we take a general survey of a theory we want to see roughly how it all hangs together; but if we mean to adopt it, the exactitude of the numerical relations becomes a matter of vital importance.

It must be added that the numbers taken above were taken simply for purposes of illustration. In reality the pain born by the king was less in proportion.

The exhaustive account which follows deals with small numerical quantities. It had better be omitted for the present, and turned to later on for reference.

EXHAUSTIVE ACCOUNT.

We keep for the time being to the numbers used above. When the king had enough pain-bearing power set free in the second action of the routine AB, AB to start another routine CD, of 20 pleasure 20 pain, he did not use it all. He only used enough of it to set a routine going the moments of pleasure and pain in which were 16 in sensation. The routine CD was made up of acts with 16 of pleasure and 16 of pain.

The sensation in the first A was 1000, in the first B it was 998, giving a disappearance of 2. In the second A it was 980, and in C, which starts concurrently with the second A, it was not 20 as might have been expected, but 16, giving a loss of 4. The second A is less than the first A by 20. Searching for that 20 we find 16 in C. But there has been a disappearance of 4.

Looking now at the successive acts in the series we have in A 1000 sensation, in B 998 sensation, in A and C together 996 sensation.

The cause of the loss between A and B has already been explained. That between B and the second A with C remains to be accounted for.

It has been already said that the king withdrew some of his pain-bearing power from the routine AB and all routines connected with it, thus he was enabled to start activities altogether unconnected with those which he had originated, and was with regard to the products of his own activity as he had been at first, with regard to the beings in the valley before he started them on the path of life. And it was in consequence of his withdrawal of his pain-bearing power that the amount of sensation in C was not 20 but was less. This loss of 4 of sensation to the being corresponded to a setting free of a certain portion of pain-bearing power on the part of the king. And thus as the process went on, a portion of his power was continually being returned to him.

In the table below the first line of figures contains the amount of sensation in the actions AB, AB. The second line of figures contains the amount of sensation in the actions CD, CD. The third line of figures relates to another connected routine EF, EF, which originates in a manner similar to CD. The fourth line of figures represents the amount of pain borne by the king, the fifth line represents his pain-bearing power set free.

If the total amount of sensation which is experienced by the being in the original routine and the connected routines in the consecutive stages be summed up, it will be found to be

and so on.

Finally, the proportion of pain borne by the king was so small compared with the sensation experienced by the being, that A and B were apparently equal in sensation. Thus the sensation in the second A and in C together becomes apparently equal to that in B. And instead of the sensation diminishing quickly as shown above, it was only after a great many acts of the primary and connected routines had been gone through that any diminution of sensation in the form which the being could experience it was to be detected. Thus, as before stated, there was:

1. A routine of continually diminishing sensation.

2. Connected routines the sensation in which was apparently equal to that lost in A.

3. There was a continuous disappearance of sensation from the experience of the beings accompanying every step of the routine. The sensation which they could experience was less in every subsequent step and connected steps than in any one in which it was measured.

CHAPTER VI.

The history of the events which took place in the valley in their due order and importance must be sought elsewhere. But let us return and look at the condition of the valley and its inhabitants. Let us see what has become of them after a great lapse of time.

It is a fair, a beautiful land. The greater part of it is cultivated. There is no war—even to the extremest confines of the valley there is peace. Passing from the remote confines where still dwell a barbarous race, we come, as we approach the metropolis, amongst a more and more polite and refined people. In the metropolis itself the buildings are numerous and of great size. The palace which the king saw rise under the old man’s music is there, but another ruler dwells in it. Near the palace are two vast buildings standing on each side of a wide open court. There is no other building near save one between them, a comparatively small edifice of brick. These buildings are the assembly halls of the two most important councils in the valley. In the one on the left-hand side of the palace met the most distinguished of the inhabitants who from a special inclination or fitness were entrusted with the regulations about the pleasure and pain of the inhabitants. They framed the rules according to which each inhabitant must conform in his pursuit of pleasure, and they made the regulations whereby the whole body of inhabitants were supposed to gain an increase in pleasure and to avoid pain.

In the building on the right hand of the palace met those of the inhabitants who had studied the nature of feeling most deeply, and who from temperament or for other reasons had in their course of study not paid so much attention to whether feelings were painful or pleasurable, but who had studied their amount and regularity of their recurrence. They were the thinkers from whom all the practical inhabitants derived their rules of business. They devised the means and manner of putting into execution what was decided on in the other assembly. They did not often propose any positive enactment themselves, but were always able to show how the proposals of the other council could be carried into effect.

Their power was derived in this manner. The king had connected the feelings of pleasure and pain with certain acts, and had given each being a routine. Now as he himself made use of this routine and combined the routines of different individuals to bring about the results he desired, so also did the rulers of the valley. The routines of the individuals were studied and classified, and if any work was required to be done, those individuals whose routines were appropriate were selected and brought to the required spot. Now to effect this a careful study of the different routines was necessary, and also a knowledge of what stage they were at. For it would be no use bringing an individual whose routine was almost at an end to a work which was just beginning. Hence the most delicate instruments and processes had been devised for measuring the amount of feeling experienced by any individual, whether of pleasure or of pain, and a careful classification had been made of all routines.

But it is best to study the constitution of the state in a regular order, and the questions of pleasure and pain considered as such were esteemed the most important.

The inhabitants knew that they sought pleasure and avoided pain, and the great object was to make their life more pleasurable. Two means were adopted, the banishing of the causes of pain, and the obtaining causes of pleasure.

By causes of pain and pleasure they meant those objects with which the king had associated the feelings of pleasure and pain in the equal and opposite moments into which he had divided their apathy.

But in this respect they were in error to a certain extent, for it was not so much in respect to things as in respect to actions that the king separated their apathy into pleasure and pain. For instance, there was a peculiar species of shell which was found in many parts of the valley, covered with strange and involved lines and marks. Now the king had struck the apathy of the inhabitants into two moments with regard to this shell, one of pain connected with tracing out the twistings and interweavings of the hues on the shell, one of pleasure in contemplating the shell when the twistings and interweavings had been deciphered. Now it was the custom of the inhabitants to call the shell in its undeciphered condition a painful object, in its deciphered condition a pleasant object. And whoever could, would get as many deciphered shells as possible and experience the wave of pleasure in looking at them.

Now in the earlier ages those who deciphered the shells, or did work of a similar kind, had been forced to do it; they were a kind of slaves dependent on the will of their masters, who took away all the pleasures of their life. But in these earlier ages a great danger arose, for when all the pleasure was taken away by their masters, great masses of these slaves sank into apathy, and it seemed as if the valley was sinking into deadness.

Now this was a great terror with the inhabitants whose life was pleasurable, and at length they determined that there should not be any more of these slaves. But each of the inhabitants when he worked for another had to have it made worth his while.

In this way a great diminution took place in the pleasure-giving power of the so-called pleasurable things. For if a man had had it made worth his while to decipher one of these shells, he had had a great deal or nearly all of the pain he spent in doing it counterbalanced by the pleasure given him to induce him to do it. Hence when the shell was handed over there was not much to enjoy in it; for by the law of the valley the pleasure and the pain were equal, and the decipherer, not having gone through so much pain on the whole, there was but little pleasure to be got.

In fact, at this time the fashion of filling the houses of the more powerful of the inhabitants with the so-called pleasurable things had somewhat gone out, and it had passed into a proverb, “It is better to decipher your own shells.”

Now it may be considered strange how it was that some of the inhabitants could get other of the inhabitants to decipher the shells for them at all, or, at any rate, to decipher them so that there was any balance of pleasure left with the shells at all. But this power on the part of some of the inhabitants depended on the general action of the king. For by bearing the difference of pain in innumerable respects in the life of each he made life a pleasure (on the whole) to each, and they strove each to preserve their own life which was a source of pleasure. And some of the more powerful inhabitants had the power of denying to the rest, unless they laboured for them, the means of continuing to exist. Consequently it was possible for things to be obtained by the more powerful which had a balance of pleasure in them.

But the authorities who had studied the life of the valley in relation to pleasure and pain, saw that there was a danger in this relation of the more powerful to the less powerful. For as the numbers of the inhabitants increased the power grew more and more concentrated in the hands of a few, and there was a tendency for the inhabitants in general to be compelled more and more to go through the painful part of actions, leaving the pleasurable parts for the more powerful. And every now and then, before the council of wise men regulated the matter, great masses of the inhabitants passed off in a state of apathy. So they had many laws to restrict the action of the more powerful of the inhabitants; and, indeed, the more powerful of the inhabitants were ready to frame these laws themselves, and were willing to obey them, for they did not like to see portions of the inhabitants going off into a state of apathy.

But not only in this respect, but also in every other, the wise men regulated the affairs of the valley so as to make life more pleasurable. They had severe laws against any one who deprived another of pleasure without his consent, by violence or deceit. They did all they could to ward off a state of apathy. But in one respect beyond all others they were full of care and precaution. And this was in guarding against such sources of trouble, anxiety, and pain which could be removed from the community as a whole. Anything tending to lower the standard of comfort as a whole was carefully removed. Irregularities were reduced as much as possible; and, in one respect, a great step had been taken. It had not been carried in the council of wise men without great opposition, but it had at length been passed into law.

Any child born in the valley which had any incurable disease, or any gross deformity, or which by its delicacy seemed likely to cause more pain than pleasure in the valley, was at once put out of existence. The gain to the inhabitants of the valley of this was in their eyes immense; for their sight was offended by no deformities, and the painful offices of attending to the sick had undergone a considerable diminution since this edict had been passed into law.

The important duty of deciding on the claims of every infant that was born to a painless extinction was confined to a band of inspectors, who stayed for a short time only in any one part of the valley, lest they should become biassed by personal acquaintance with the individuals for whose children their offices were called into requisition.

CHAPTER VII.

Passing on to the other great building, where the other wise men meet, it is right to describe what may be called the intellectual development—as the foregoing was the moral development of the valley. The course which the opinions of the thinkers in the valley had gone through was the following.

At first they had no clear ideas, but all manner of mere opinions and fancies. At last they apprehended certain general tendencies—such as that towards the centre of the valley, and they explained many inclinations which had before been puzzling to them by this. And stimulated by this great discovery they examined more and more closely. And they found many special tendencies like that towards the centre of the valley, which the king had called into existence, and which he let go on as a general rule, unless he wished the contrary. And they also succeeded in nearly isolating the simplest routines, and so practically could observe the type of the king’s plan.

They saw that one act A was succeeded by another act B. And not taking into account that one was pleasant the other painful, they measured the amount of sensation present in the two acts. And then they took the next pair of acts, namely, A and B over again, and measured the amount of sensation present in them; and they found that the amount of sensation gradually diminished. And at first they thought that sensation gradually came to a stop; but afterwards they noticed that other actions were started in the neighbourhood of the routine A B as that diminished in point of feeling.

Now, of course, these other actions were started by the king with the pain-bearing power set free from the routine A B, as above described. But not knowing anything about this action on the part of the king, or about the king at all, the conclusion arrived at was this: That sensation transmits itself. If it does not continue in the routine A B, that part which does not continue passes on to the other routines, C D, E F, &c.

Then they measured very carefully; and they found, as nearly as they could measure, the routines which sprang up as the routine A B died away were equal in sensation to the loss in the routine A B, A B. And from this they concluded that the amount of sensation or feeling was constant. They called it living force, and said that it must transmit itself and, wherever it appeared, be equal in its total amount to what it was at first. But after a time, with more delicate measurements and more patient thought, they found that some of the sensation was still unaccounted for.

For consider any routine consisting of the acts A, B; A, B; A, B. In order to make any pair of acts A, B worth while, the king bore a certain amount of pain. Referring to the numbers which we took before, if there were 1000 of pleasure in A there would only be 998 of pain in B. Thus the sensation was not equal in the two acts A and B. Some of the sensations had gone, and the portion of sensation we are now considering—the portion by which B was less than A—had not gone in starting other routines. This loss could not be accounted for as they accounted for the difference in sensation between the first action A B and the second action, consisting of the acts A and B in the routine. There was a loss of sensation which was counterbalanced by the gain in sensation in other routines.

But besides this there was a further loss. Some sensation went off, not to be recovered in any routine they knew.

Now it was the bearing on the part of the king which produced the appearance of the passing away of sensation altogether, so that the act B was less in amount of sensation than the act A. But the inhabitants—at least the wise ones—were firmly convinced that sensation could not be annihilated or lessened. So they came to the conclusion that sensation was passing off into a form from which it never reappeared, so that it could affect them. They conceived it still to exist, but to be irrecoverably gone from the life of the inhabitants of the valley.

Taking the numbers we have taken, and the simple instances we have supposed, this course of reasoning appears straightforward enough. But in reality so complicated was the state of things in the valley, and the proportion of pain which the king bore in each single action so minute, that to have arrived at this result implied powers of investigation of no mean order.

It is interesting to mention the names which these investigators gave in the valley. In the performance of the pleasant act A, they said that the being acquired greater animation. In going through the painful act B, they said that he passed into a position of advantage. They used the term advantage because, having completed the painful act B, he was ready to begin the pleasant part of the action A over again. And in this part he manifested more animation.

And now although acts of greater animation and greater advantage succeeded one another, and although the new total of the sensation in the act of a being was very nearly equalled by that in a subsequent act, still there was not—they had to confess there was not—a complete equality. Some of the sensation had certainly gone from the sphere in which the inhabitants could feel it.

We see that this sensation which was gone was in reality the pain-bearing of the king, which set all their life going.

But they knew nothing of this, and formed a very different conclusion. They said: “If some of the sensation is continually going and disappearing from the life of the inhabitants of the valley—if this is the case, although the sensation may not be destroyed, it is certainly lost to us.”

And then they thought: “Surely the amount of sensation must be always the same; if some of it continually goes off into a form in which we cannot feel it, that portion which is left behind, and which we feel, must be continually growing less.”

Hence they concluded that the sensation in the valley was gradually running down. Less and less was being felt. After a time, which they calculated with some show of precision, all feeling will have left the inhabitants and gone off in some irrecoverable form. All the beings of the valley will sink into apathy.

Thus coming in the course of their investigations upon the action of the king, which was the continual cause of all life, they apprehended it as the gradual annihilation of life.

The small building between the two council halls remains to be noticed.

Now when the king had connected pleasure and pain with different acts to be performed by the inhabitants of the valley, he had of necessity to let the pleasant one be the one that came first in the order of its possible performance. And then by the device of the curved rays he had brought it about that the inhabitants went through the painful act consequent on the pleasurable one, the two together forming the complete action which the king had designed. But this chain was not very secure. The inhabitants had a tendency to go through the pleasurable act and leave the painful act undone.

Now in things which necessarily concerned their life, the king would, by repeatedly bearing the pain of the painful act, continually set the beings going again; for when they had performed the pleasant act they were landed in a state of torpor, until the pain of the painful act had been borne by them or for them. Now if this act of which they took the pleasant and left the painful part undone was in the main current of their lives, the king would over and over again, by bearing the pain, bring those who had shirked the painful part into a position of advantage again, so that they could begin the routine afresh with another pleasant act. And often when thus started again they would take to the routine, and bear the pain in the painful act themselves. But many, after assisting them again and again, the king was obliged to let sink into apathy, such namely as always left the painful part of the action undone.

Now the little building was the council hall or investigation chamber of the searchers out of new pleasures. And by new pleasures they meant something of the following kind. With the pleasant and painful acts which made up the main routines of their life, it was not safe to take the pleasant and leave the painful acts, for that gradually led to their sinking into apathy. But there were many routines which the king had instituted besides the main ones. And if the pleasant part of the action constituting these secondary routines were taken, then there followed no tendency to lethargy in the main current of their lives, but they simply had a pleasure the more. Of course the pain of the painful act had to be borne, but they not going through with it left it for the king to bear.

Long ago, through one of the inhabitants of the valley with whom he had communicated, the king had sent a message, asking the inhabitants not to take the pleasant part of an action without the connected painful part. But now all memory of this message was lost, and the little building had been built, as a council hall or investigation chamber for the searching out of pleasurable acts. In it all possible novelties of action were discussed. And the pleasant parts of them being described, exactly how far they were pleasurable, and in what degree they were pleasurable, the information was made public throughout the land.

CHAPTER VIII.

Besides these two principal buildings in the metropolis, there were other public buildings devoted to various purposes. And some of the most important were colleges devoted to the education of the young inhabitants.

Now there was in the college of applied sensations a student who, though outwardly as proficient as the average of his companions, was in reality the most backward of all. He learned by a kind of rote all the doctrines they understood, and he could explain apparently how one feeling caused another. But in himself he had no particle of understanding. He seemed deficient in the sense of cause and effect which the others had. Of this the following instance will suffice to show the nature.

The king had, in order to prevent the inhabitants from straying too far from the metropolis, kept a constant watchfulness over their movements, and had uniformly taken somewhat of the pain from any effort which they made to move towards the metropolis, and had not taken any of the pain in efforts whose tendency was to remove them to a distance from the metropolis. If there was any purpose to be served in going away from the metropolis, he took enough pain from these movements to make it worth the beings’ while to go away from the metropolis. But when other things were equal, it was a pleasurable thing to go towards the metropolis. The king made this general inclination, because if it had not been so, beings lying out of the way of his immediate attention might have drifted away and gone to the confines of the valley, away from where the busy life he was calling out was manifested, and so have been lost to others and themselves. As it was by imparting this general pleasurableness of moving towards the metropolis he held all the inhabitants together, and knew the direction in which each would tend, unless for any special reason he had made it more pleasurable for the person to move away from the metropolis.

Now, as has been mentioned above, this general tendency had been observed by the inhabitants; and they knew quite well that every individual tended towards the metropolis, and was only prevented from coming into it by strong local interests, or by all available positions in it or near it being already occupied. If any situation was vacant in the metropolis, it was easily filled up by those from the surrounding country, for they all felt this tendency to press in.

Now, the learned men in the valley had long recognized this as one of the most important laws of the valley. And the students in the college of applied sensations felt this law to be true law, and anything which followed from it they felt to be self-evident. But the student of whom we speak had not this happy, settled feeling with regard to this law. He could not feel as if it were necessarily true.

One day the head of the college was talking to the foremost students—those who had nearly finished their course and who would take their places in the valley shortly—and he said incidentally in the course of his remarks, that those who were moving away from the metropolis were as much attracted to it as those who were moving towards it.

“Why do they move away, then?” asked the backward student, who had by great diligence, after a long time, plodded his way by force of remembering by heart into the top class. He forgot his usual caution and his acquired habit of only asking questions he had heard asked before in order to refresh his memory with the answers he had heard given before.

The professor frowned at the stupid question. “The supposed being,” he answered, “while he is attracted to the metropolis in accordance with the general law, may yet have some stronger inducement at the time to move away from the metropolis. That he does move away shows of course that his temporary inducement to move away is stronger than his permanent attraction towards the metropolis.”

The student said that he was obliged for the explanation. “But——”

“Well?” said the professor.

“The only reason you have for supposing that the being is attracted towards the metropolis is that he does move towards the metropolis. I don’t see why you should say it was pleasant for him to move towards the metropolis when he does not do so.”

“But we know,” said the professor.

“No,” said the student, “you only suppose; because you find it so on a great many occasions, you suppose it is so always. You are like a savage who attacks the house of a civilized man. And he tries the window, the civilized man meets him there; so he tries the door, the civilized man meets him there; so he goes back to the window, and is met there again. And he concludes there are two men in the house; and after a time he concludes there are as many men in the house as there are ways by which he tries to get in.”

The student had forgotten himself in speaking like this; and the comparison to a savage, though made in haste and in good part as an illustration, offended the professor, so he said:

“You do not believe that the law of attraction towards the metropolis is universal, and affects all the inhabitants?”

“I cannot,” said the student.

“Then you shall go to a place where you will feel it,” said the professor. “You will go to-morrow to the extreme confines of the valley, and stop there until you are of a different mind.”

He said this in a superior and gentle manner. But it was a terrible blow to the prospects of any student to be thus exiled. And yet the professor was within his strict legal right, and the student knew it. He had avoided this danger all through his college course, and now it came with crushing effect on him. For just as long ago in the valley they had had doctrines about the king, and had punished any one who did not feel them as true, and who was found out, so now when all the ideas about the king had been disproved, they had severe regulations about the belief in the laws. The learned class was a sect of priests, and whoever threatened to bring confusion and trouble by denying any of the known laws, and to lead the ignorant people to disregard them and deny them, was subject to severe punishments. In the case of this student, the error did not so much matter, because he had committed his offence in the presence of well-instructed people, who would only smile at his folly. But he had in his presumption insulted the head of the college, and his punishment was universally considered to be mild and just. And yet he was not altogether in the wrong. For it was not as though the king (when he wanted a being to move away from the metropolis) took as usual a portion of his effort in going there; and at the same time counterbalanced this by taking a still larger portion of the pain involved in his moving away from the metropolis. By no means. When the king willed a man to move away from the metropolis, he let him start afresh, as it were, according to the conditions which every being was subject to in the valley—that it was just as pleasant as painful to move in any way, and he took a portion of the pain involved in moving away from the city.

Now the student, when he was sent away, tried earnestly to see wherein he had been wrong. The place where he was exiled was on the confines of the valley, where a peaceable race of savages lived, engaged in agriculture. In the quiet, monotonous life of the place he thought over his whole course of life, but could not obtain any different feeling. And while thus buried in thought, he fell into the way of going about with the savages and doing as they did. Much to his surprise, when his preoccupation of mind passed away, he found himself singularly at home with them. Their tastes seemed to agree with his. And he came to the conclusion that he was in reality a savage who by some mistake had been admitted to the college. Having formed this conclusion, he threw himself into the life around him heartily. In course of time he won the confidence of the rude, uncultivated people, and they talked to him unreservedly.

Many curious traditions were handed down amongst them. There were some which proceeded from the time when the king had walked and talked with the children he called into activity. There were others proceeding from times when there had appeared amongst them one to whom the king had given some of his rays, so that that person had the power of making the pain less in actions for others, and of giving them motives to act, and of rousing them thus to an active state. And all these traditions they told to the exiled student.

Now their own belief was this. They thought that there was a power over them, and in this they recognized the king; but how it was that this power prompted them they did not know. Yet they connected him in some way with pleasure and pain. They thought it pained him when they had pleasure, but not in the way in which was really the case. They thought simply that it was pain to him to see them taking pleasure. They thought, moreover, that he would, if they displeased him much, take away all their pleasure and leave them nothing but pain.

Now the student saw clearly some errors, some contradictions in their belief. For instance, he knew that beings only followed pleasure, and directly pleasure was equalled by pain, sank into apathy, and then gradually vanished away. Hence he knew there need be no apprehension of the power’s acting as they thought. But the thing they said, that their taking pleasure pained this power, struck him. He did not approve the results in their life, for it was in consequence very gloomily framed, though with a good deal of unconscious cheeriness. But he knew as a scientific fact that there was a constant diminution of feeling; and since he also knew that beings in the valley did nothing except it was more pleasant, he concluded that although pleasure and pain might both be disappearing, still pain must be disappearing to a greater extent. Now since the feeling did not become nothing, but passed away out of the perception of the inhabitants, it followed that it must pass to some being. It did not disappear as feeling, but passed away from the sensation of the inhabitants. Is there a being, then, he asked himself—the power of whom these simple folks tell—who bears the difference of pain, and so makes existence pleasant to us? And is that the meaning of what they say that our pleasure pains him? Is it just the truth read backwards—the truth, namely, that by his taking pain we have pleasures, which they have had handed down to them as this—that our taking pleasure pains him.

When he had thought thus far he remembered one of his books in which the ancient beliefs of the valley were discussed. It happened to be one of the books which he had brought into his exile with him. He took it down, and in the evening set himself to search through it. And in a footnote towards the end of the book he read:

“The existence of a power shaping the valley for the good of the beings in it is clearly disproved. First, by the amount of suffering there is in the valley. Secondly, by the fewness of the types of life, and the constant modification of one plan to secure different results—which would be much better achieved by the use of radically different types and means. Thirdly, by the absence of any indication of such a power, except in the traditions of uncultivated tribes.”

When the student had read this he rose up and paced his chamber. For he saw clearly that if it was in bearing part of the pain that the power of the being lay, the first of these arguments fell to the ground. The presence of the pain in the valley would prove that this power took only some of the pain and not all. As to the second argument, all it would come to was that the being who, bearing pain, gave existence to the inhabitants, used economy in his actions—he chose to effect his objects with the least possible expenditure of means.

Reflecting thus he went out.

Now it may be considered surprising that the king did not communicate in some way with the student, for by means of his rays he was in possession of all that had gone on in his mind. But the king had found over and over again that if he manifested himself to any one of the inhabitants of the valley, the effect, though good at the immediate time, was most disastrous for the following time. For the ends he was working towards, and leading the inhabitants towards, were much greater than any one of them could grasp or conceive. And the inhabitants, as soon as they had communication with him, at once thought they knew his final will. And they were a set most peculiarly stiff in their notions, and with the kind of sanction which communication with him gave them, even the most absurd ideas if once conceived took a very long time to eradicate.

So when the student went out into the open air he saw nothing except the stars, and heard nothing except the wind. The way was so well known to him, however, that he walked on quickly without stumbling in the darkness. He had not gone far when he saw a kind of luminousness. Is it the moon beginning to rise? he thought. But he found he had passed the light and was leaving it behind. He could not have passed the moon thus. He went towards the light, and when he had reached it, it seemed like a slender staff of light. He touched it with his hand, and although he did not feel anything, yet he could take hold of it, and he walked on with the slender beam in his hand.

He had not gone very far when in his walk he touched on something lying in the path. Bending down and touching it with his hand he found that it was the form of a fellow creature. “He is overcome with fatigue; can I help him along?” he thought. He rose up to look round, and let the beam of light which he held in his hand touch the prostrate form. “I wish he could get up by himself,” he thought. No sooner had he felt this wish than he had a sensation of pain in his limbs, and the figure rose up.

“I could not move,” it said, “until you came, with all my reasons to get along; the pain was as much as the pleasure.”

“Who are you?”

“I am a wanderer, and am trying to reach the place where I was born; they will help me there.”

Now in the valley there was a certain set of people called wanderers, who had proved themselves unfit for any real work. These, if inoffensive, were allowed to roam about subsisting on charity. The student walked alongside this wanderer; and every step the wanderer made he felt a sensation of pain in his limbs. But the two walked quickly on till they came to the dwelling he had left so shortly before. The student led him in and let him rest in his chamber. And then he himself left the dwelling again, taking with him a few necessaries.